To Be Like Father

Alison

**•**Nick's POV**•**

Rural Indiana. So different from New York lights and streets. When we got off the plane in Indianapolis I still felt somewhat at home, but then Father drove us out of the city and things changed, but first Dad just had to stop by the building he would be renting out to start his business. That took ten minutes too long (as usual). Then we exited city limits and entered the outskirts of Weston.

I won't describe the town in detail because I'm just not one to expand on that kind of thing. I will tell you this: asphalt roads, cornfields, and yet more cornfields with a sprinkling of houses, and that's just the farming community. The town of Weston is old, like It-Will-Be-Celebrating-It's-200-Year-Birthday next year. The streets are freshly paved and the downtown area (which is just one street) is paved with bricks and goes one way. No skyscrapers or flashing lights. No street performers or homeless people begging for money. Just a few businesses and one or two passerby every few minutes.

We would be living in town (thank God I wouldn't have to become a farm boy) just three blocks from the school. It was a small house, just big enough for three men. It was made of brick and Dad said it had been built just five years before by the previous owner. Small cement steps led up to the front screen door. That door opened to another wood door which opened up to the house's interior.

Inside, boxes were stacked in each room just as Dad had instructed the moving men to do. Each one labeled with what was inside and where in the rooms they would go. He even had our clothes boxes labeled with the number of pairs of underpants and socks that were in them! I tell ya, Dad was and is always prepared.

We moved in early July, I would start school in early September. I had almost two months of summer left in this strange place.

I never went out. Dad was always at his business prepping everything and conducting interviews for his employees and Father was constantly listening to music and selecting possible songs for the choir and glee club to sing. I was perfectly content in my room, guitar in hand, words in my mouth, and a voice to give the words life. I also had a gaming chair in my room and a drawer I used exclusively for smuggling snacks from the kitchen into my room. Just the environment perfect for me.

Ten days into August I was alone at home with Father. He was working on the car engine that had suddenly decided to stop working and I was.... you guessed it, in my room practicing a new set of chords on my guitar.

At 2 p.m. a knock came on my door. "Come in." I mumbled as I continued to try and reach my fingers in the right places on the fretboard.

The door opened and a dark headed figure stood in the doorway. "Nick?"

I stopped playing. "What, Father." I began playing again, hoping he'd leave me to my peace. Nope.

My father came towards me and sat on the foot of my twin sized bed. This was the usual sign that we needed to talk about something man to man, so I put down the guitar in my lap, the new chord progression still strumming through my mind. "You need to get out more." Father said after a long silence.

I stared at him. "And why should I do that?" I asked.

Father rubbed his oil-blackened palms together. "For a month you have been a holed up hermit. It's time you went out. Meet new friends! Get to know the neighborhood!" He smiled at me in encouragement.

"Maybe I want to be anti-social." I remarked to my lap.

I heard Father sigh. "Nick, I know it's been hard for you to move, but you have to get used to it. Weston isn't New York City. The culture will be different and so will the people. The school will be smaller and less diverse. Here most kids will be farmer's children, not city slickers like you."