you to the hospital to get that chin stitched up.
I begged him not to.
He told me that my father would understand. I knew that he wouldn’t.
All grim and businesslike, my father thanked Officer Drury for bringing me home. My mother took me inside and looked at my chin under the bright kitchen light. Then, as I waited for my father to appear, I heard a strange sound. After a minute of strained listening, I realized to my horror that my father was sobbing in the hallway. That sound was the worst thing about the whole night, perhaps my whole life.
I was devastated, naturally. Until you’ve made your father cry, you do not know the disappointment a child can bring to a parent. But I was also angry. I was furious. I knew suddenly that I got caught because my father was the kind of father who would cry in the hallway when his son was brought home by the police. I also knew I was destined to be the kind of kid who didn’t have the grace and moxie to escape trouble, who lacked ease or competence in a crisis, because my father cried. My father was devastated by my failure. And I was devastated by his.
None of the other boys, as far as I know, were picked up. My parents, in the stern quiet of morning, decided I would apologize to Paul’s parents and to Paul. But they let it slide. I felt sick to my stomach all weekend waiting to be told to walk down the street and explain myself. But the order never came. As a result, I escaped further public shame, and I was able to play off the events lightly with my friends. I kept vague about my own path to freedom, dismissed the eight stitches on my chin as only a flesh wound, and laughed all the harder at Chris’s ordeal. The swim had not been such a brilliant idea. His clothes got soaked and he lost a shoe. He hobbled home, half naked and freezing, hiding occasionally behind hedges and parked cars, too exhausted to think clearly. Chris carried his own buffoonery off effortlessly and made it seem cool. The others of us, who’d been relatively unscathed by the experience, felt gypped in comparison. At least that’s the disappointment I projected. Inside, I was terrified of the consequences still to come. I waited for Officer Drury to visit each of my friends’ houses in turn, to round them up based on my information. When that didn’t happen, I began to doubt my own sanity. I came down with a fever because of thestress, unable to think about anything else. Had I been picked up at all? Had I sat in Drury’s car and answered his questions? The only proof, even to me, was the scar on my chin and the shame of my father crying.
When I fled Halifax and travelled Southeast Asia, the other book that I carried with me was
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad. In retrospect, it’s easy to understand why I was attracted to it.
Lord Jim
is also a meditation on lightness and weight, in this case, on the alluring lightness of youthful fantasy for a life of adventure, and on the naive but understandable desire to be tested by the worst this world can throw at you, followed by the sodden weight of shame you bear when you find yourself wanting. Lugging my backpack, contemplating the freedom and lightness of travellers in general, a participant-observer in the subculture of do whatever the fuck you want with or to whomever you want, I saw myself as another Jim. I was an exile in the same tropical ports. I had acquired a similar ease with my surroundings, the kind you get when you’ve travelled a long time and seen many strange things and have no particular plans or limits. Moreover, I was not readily knowable by the backpackers I met, and had a mysterious air. The reason was simple. In contrast to most others, I rarely talked about myself and the places I’d been and seemed, as a result, to possess dark secrets, maybe even a dark past. This was appealing to women as well as to men, and I’m sure it was not entirely surprising when, after any long and partially revelatory conversations over the course of an
I begged him not to.
He told me that my father would understand. I knew that he wouldn’t.
All grim and businesslike, my father thanked Officer Drury for bringing me home. My mother took me inside and looked at my chin under the bright kitchen light. Then, as I waited for my father to appear, I heard a strange sound. After a minute of strained listening, I realized to my horror that my father was sobbing in the hallway. That sound was the worst thing about the whole night, perhaps my whole life.
I was devastated, naturally. Until you’ve made your father cry, you do not know the disappointment a child can bring to a parent. But I was also angry. I was furious. I knew suddenly that I got caught because my father was the kind of father who would cry in the hallway when his son was brought home by the police. I also knew I was destined to be the kind of kid who didn’t have the grace and moxie to escape trouble, who lacked ease or competence in a crisis, because my father cried. My father was devastated by my failure. And I was devastated by his.
None of the other boys, as far as I know, were picked up. My parents, in the stern quiet of morning, decided I would apologize to Paul’s parents and to Paul. But they let it slide. I felt sick to my stomach all weekend waiting to be told to walk down the street and explain myself. But the order never came. As a result, I escaped further public shame, and I was able to play off the events lightly with my friends. I kept vague about my own path to freedom, dismissed the eight stitches on my chin as only a flesh wound, and laughed all the harder at Chris’s ordeal. The swim had not been such a brilliant idea. His clothes got soaked and he lost a shoe. He hobbled home, half naked and freezing, hiding occasionally behind hedges and parked cars, too exhausted to think clearly. Chris carried his own buffoonery off effortlessly and made it seem cool. The others of us, who’d been relatively unscathed by the experience, felt gypped in comparison. At least that’s the disappointment I projected. Inside, I was terrified of the consequences still to come. I waited for Officer Drury to visit each of my friends’ houses in turn, to round them up based on my information. When that didn’t happen, I began to doubt my own sanity. I came down with a fever because of thestress, unable to think about anything else. Had I been picked up at all? Had I sat in Drury’s car and answered his questions? The only proof, even to me, was the scar on my chin and the shame of my father crying.
When I fled Halifax and travelled Southeast Asia, the other book that I carried with me was
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad. In retrospect, it’s easy to understand why I was attracted to it.
Lord Jim
is also a meditation on lightness and weight, in this case, on the alluring lightness of youthful fantasy for a life of adventure, and on the naive but understandable desire to be tested by the worst this world can throw at you, followed by the sodden weight of shame you bear when you find yourself wanting. Lugging my backpack, contemplating the freedom and lightness of travellers in general, a participant-observer in the subculture of do whatever the fuck you want with or to whomever you want, I saw myself as another Jim. I was an exile in the same tropical ports. I had acquired a similar ease with my surroundings, the kind you get when you’ve travelled a long time and seen many strange things and have no particular plans or limits. Moreover, I was not readily knowable by the backpackers I met, and had a mysterious air. The reason was simple. In contrast to most others, I rarely talked about myself and the places I’d been and seemed, as a result, to possess dark secrets, maybe even a dark past. This was appealing to women as well as to men, and I’m sure it was not entirely surprising when, after any long and partially revelatory conversations over the course of an
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