The Fools We Are

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A year before the day I had lost my most cherished possession to date, a pen with an everlasting ink, I had met with my mother and the last thing she had said to me, then, was, “Zach, try not to get on your dad’s nerves.” I had tried to express the denial of my consent, non-verbally, with the best possible use of my face; the frown and the eye brows and shrug of the shoulders. That to me was enough of a signal for my birth mother to pick up on and realize my intentions.

So, a year later, as I found myself reading her text on my phone: ‘I asked you to do one thing- Zach. Please don’t make it any harder than it already is.’ I felt like I’ve been severely mislead, under the natural assumption that mothers generally know what to expect from their children. Thus, it is unfair to hold her commandment against me, at least directly.

Yet, guilty or not, I must endure the harsh consequence of disobedience, resulting in the loss of my precious pen. If only it were that easy to deter a child from nagging a parent, we’d all still have many of the things we love.

I remember being particularly low spirited that day, and for more reasons than what might seem obvious. For one, we had been on the road constantly for 16 hours, and a boy of 15 can only take so much comfort straining against the leather clad seats and barely enough leg space.

The dashboard was left with hardly any space that wasn’t effusively engraved with random scrawling of my name, heroes and emblems I admired. The radio struggled to capture any station for more than a few minutes, as it went in and out of tune throughout the day, and the batteries for my music player had already been drained before the first quarter of our journey ended.

You simply couldn’t rely on technology to be your trusted companion over long periods of time.

To battle the grueling boredom of simply observing the trees and signs whizzing past our car, one after the other, with no end in sight or change in scenery on the winding narrow roads, I devised a little distraction for myself. Making the best use of the empty soda cans littered around my feet, I would crush them with my hands and wait for any passing dumpster. They were hard to come by as mostly appeared only when driving towards or away from a patch of population. I would spot one at a distance and position myself before hand, and as we drove past it I would hurl the crushed tin can towards the dumpster hoping to make a clean shot.

I have no qualms in admitting that I was doing little to no good to my pride by this practice as I had already missed twice, though not by a long shot, but each time earning the ever abundant disapproval of my father. And since it was of little concern to me, I braced myself once for the approaching dumpster, dull yellow in color and slowly getting bigger, I lowered the car window and angled myself towards the road side, the tin can clutched in my hand as I carefully raised my arm to take my position. This is it, I thought, 5 seconds to target. 4...3...2...1

Almost in slow motion I saw it sail away from me, and after what seemed like eternity...

I Missed!

Several bright colored profanities echoed within my head, and as much as I wanted to smack my hand on the car’s dashboard, I refrained from doing so. It is essential to appear calm and show no emotion to try to negate the loss of one’s honor. In my case now, I guess, there was very little left to be saved.

I felt the car slowing down towards the side of the road, as was expected. From the corner of my eyes, without really turning my head I tried to gauge the expression of the man sitting on the driver’s seat, my father. It wasn’t so much about not having the courage to face him; just that I knew he will not acknowledge me or my actions at all. And that kind of nonexistent reaction can burn a hole in anybody’s soul. In my case it was a well earned indifference.