My Vegas lounge ring tone starts riffing. It’s him. It’s one hour later there and, Oh shit, here it comes. The news isn’t supposed to arrive until the following morning, but here it comes. We’d been waiting with held breath these last forever months: me, him, mom, who’s now in the background. She’s usually asleep at this time. It’s not seconds into our conversation to know what he’s going to say.
“He didn’t get it,” I tell my homie the next morning.
I sad face emoji another homie.
“Their loss.”
“Son of a . . .”
I think about it throughout the day of course. I’m like the astronaut floating around in his capsule, but like in an emotional sense. Up. Sorta up. Malaise. Upside down. Repeat. I’m stuck in fucking Alaska, so burger and ice cream and a shoulder to cry on are out of the question. We text. We have to. I can gauge, only sorta, how he is. He has a good poker voice. Better than his poker face. Geezus, if I’m an astronaut flipping every which way, what’s he? How’s my son doing? He wanted this one, bad. I lean on a homie some more. “Go to college, get your dick wet, learn to deal with a multitude of personalities and figure it from there,” he texts.
I text him back: “he does need to figure some shit out, for sure. Who his friends are. Directions to a clit. What gets his goat intellectually. All of it.”
I’m better for the moment. I tell myself over and over it’s all part of the master plan.
For the last year, I have taken a sincere and active interest in my son’s college pursuit. Given him some prompts for, and watched over, his personal essays. I warned him a few times, “Write your own shit. Ask AI to do it, turd, and I’ll know it, so don’t even. AI’s junior league in this house. Ima whoop your ass you even try.”
Talked with counselors. Financial aid officers in colleges. FAFSA this and Pell that, and what’s a subsidized loan again (versus unsubsidized)?
I’m sad to see it end. Him sitting at the table, leaving before my eyes. He’s that much closer out the door. I’m already a basket case. Stuck in Alaska all this summer is not helping. I might have to get a dog when he finally is out the door. Get a cat a homie tells me. I hate cats.
No shit. He and I had practically identical GPAs in high school. That’s if he stays on his current course and doesn’t slide this last quarter. I tried to get in. He tried to get in. Both our SAT scores blew. I can’t make this shit up.
I don’t give a shit, I’m still proud. Even after last night’s news I’m proud. He’s taken some real licks in high school. A lot more than a kid asks for. This would have been good for that. Popped his ass tall. Puffed his chest out. He’d have been saluted after graduation. But the phone riffed.
“Hi Dad.”
I knew.
“I didn’t get in,” he says.
I know.
A selfish part of me is relieved if I’m being totally honest. Go to a military academy and you don’t come home in the summers. You deploy. You train. You’re. Gone.
“We knew it could happen, Dawg. Academy’s no joke.” It’s not. Last I checked the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT is the toughest of any to get into. “But I couldn’t be prouder of you. Mom too.” I hear her in the background. It’s the only time she and I are at peace, when our boy is in pain. It’s something I guess. “You did this family solid, Sir, head up.”
I mean, shit, free tuition would have been nice. Guess now I’m really stuck in Alaska.
Happily.
-tmc
Things Men Carry 