A year on East Center St. was obviously enough for me. After leaving 6D East and losing my job at “Tinkler’s” and the mess Melvin left of our cool apartment (with his failed experimental floor decoration) I was not only ready to move to a new apartment, I was ready to get the hell outta of Roachville!

——————————————–

The above is from the beginning of a post titled Anywhere But Here which is the first post in the story (I just finished) about the time immediately after the story I will begin now and…

Here ya go.

——

It all started with me and Melvin and Mark, getting an apartment together. A place of our own. A cool party pad. We were fresh out of high school and ready to start living free.

No… wait a minute! It actually all started (for me anyway) when my Dad saw me lounging on the couch in the den downstairs in the middle of the afternoon. On a weekday. It was just a few weeks after graduation and I’d gotten out of bed a little before noon, made myself a fried egg sandwich and (beer in hand) settled down to watch old reruns of Star Trek. 

This had become a bit of a routine for me. I’d gotten used to it while Dad and his teacher buddies were on their yearly fishing trip in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area). This time though, I was planning on cutting my vegging out time on the TV so I could take a case of beer to Buck Anderson’s place down in King’s Park and get him to look at my car.

But now Dad was back, and he was just getting started planning his summer work schedule. Seeing me like this kinda set him off a bit.

“Ok Brian.” His voice took on that fake gruff tone Dad was so bad at. “I don’t know what your plans are but this right here… what I’m looking at right now, this is not what the rest of the summer is going to look like. You can be sure of that.”

I took a pull off my beer and snickered a bit. “Oh really… old man?” I was pushing it for sure. “Pray tell me what YOU think it should look like?”

Yup, I’d gone too far. Dad then got actually angry. Since getting back from his trip, I’m thinking he’d been watching me do this post graduation, teenage laziness routine and hoping I’d shake myself out of it on my own and come to him for advice on what to do next with my life. I was his “good boy” after all but…

No such luck on his part so…

So now I was forcing him into the authoritarian parent role he just wasn’t used to. After all… he still saw himself as part of that brand new and modern cadre of educators at John Adams Jr. High School (despite their recent “failure” experimenting with modular scheduling) who were breaking that old chain of teaching through fear. Pushing him as I now was, I think took him back to the old, “Ok I’m now laying down the law. My house, my rules” thing from HIS childhood. I imagine every parent must eventually deal with this.

“Ok Brian” he said through clenched teeth. I immediately felt the shift in his demeanor to one of total seriousness. My eyes reflexively began tearing up, very subtly, but enough for me to feel it. “Here’s what you are going to do. From TODAY!… you will either be paying me rent, preparing for college, or the military or… ” Dad paused. I don’t think he intended it to be for dramatic effect, so that was exactly what resulted.

“Or start looking for another place to live.”

Well… that was actually kind of a relief. I’d been wondering when and how I’d be able broach this subject with my Dad and now it had been done for me. I’d been planning to move out and into town for a while now. I had already started full time at 6-D East (see the stories about that job starting with this one) and Mark and Melvin were on board with being my roommates. We just needed to find the apartment. I had been waiting though, until I had it all lined up before I was going to bring the plan to my Dad but now…

Now I had to tell him so I did.

He wasn’t happy but what could he do? I’d chosen the one option he really didn’t want me to take but he had included it as an option so…

I’m sure that one reason I’d been waiting to bring it up was that I knew he’d have tried to talk me out of it and since I really was his good boy (now looking to become a good man) he may have been able to. If I didn’t have this benefit of hearing him say that it was an option, I may have caved. But Dad’s anger may even have also given me some leverage by putting him on the defensive now. Now, he might have even felt like my going in this direction with my life (that he really didn’t want me to) was his fault.

I don’t know. I was not thinking like that at all. I was just relieved that the drama of the confrontation was over and I was now free to continue my plan. My plan to gather my little gang of friends, find the perfect cool party pad and let the good times roll!

Oh yea!

And now to continue with that story when this will again have to be…

To be continued…