subject.
After that he stopped trying. He spent more and more time away from the house, avoided his stepfather when they crossed paths, tried for dinner alone with his mom at least once a week, even when she didn’t seem that interested. His stepfather seemed amused by his self-imposed exile, which only made it easier to stay away. And so it went. Rob kept his distance and his mom and stepfather danced their ugly little dance.
So began Rob’s campaign of subversive disruption. A near fire in the school science lab, a result of fucking around with the Bunsen burner. A spray-painted caricature of his headmaster, both accurate and cruel, on the school’s tennis court. Missed classes and a bad attitude. After a while, Rob needed to up the stakes. He got more aggressive. A fight in the boys’ bathroom left a kid with a broken jaw, and Rob was expelled. He was lectured and grounded and then his stepfather paved the way (paid the way) for Rob to attend another elite private school.
There he met Spencer. The two of them together were a conflagration just waiting for a spark. Spencer was the son of a local career politician. He had spent his childhood “smiling for the camera” and now turned that smile into a snarl. The two teens drank, smoked pot and cigarettes. They abused Spencer’s Adderall and raided Rob’s mother’s supply of Vicodin; her prescriptions were plentiful and she never noticed.
They pretended they were thugs, listening to rap music and letting their pants slink low on their hips; everything was “yo” this and “bitch” that, as they shaped their hands into gang signs and rolled fat blunts. They had no idea how pathetic they really were: two rich, privileged white boys pretending to be street.
They had big dreams. They were going to New York together and they were going to own that town. Supermodels and Cristal and Ferraris and yachts.
When they were driving wasted one icy night, toasting their future with a case of beer and a couple of bumps of Adderall, Spencer’s brand-new BMW, his sixteenth-birthday present from his parents, spun out on the ice as Spencer took a sharp curve way too fast.
The BMW drifted across the median in a lazy 360-degree spin, once, twice—before broadsiding a 1996 Chevy Impala. The driver, a retired electrician, was in the hospital for three weeks. Broken leg. Punctured lung. A lot of talk about what a miracle it was he wasn’t killed.
Rob’s stepfather and Spencer’s dad settled with the electrician, who was persuaded to take the more-than-generous sum offered. And sign an NDA.
The criminal charges were also dropped, a relatively simple call to a friend. A favor owed. Or paid. Currency was fluid in these circles.
His stepfather now acted as if he owned Rob; he had cleaned up the boys’ shit and Rob had to pay the price. The violence inflicted on Rob’s mother became even more casual. Sometimes the bastard just liked making her flinch. A raised hand, the sudden bark of an order, a slammed door. Then he would laugh as she cringed, and try his hardest to goad Rob into doing something about it. Call him a pussy when Rob fled the room, jaw frozen, fists balled.
Rob, seething with rage and impotence, became more reckless. He was caught dealing drugs at school, suspended again. When he was caught a second time, he was threatened with another expulsion. His stepfather came into the headmaster’s office, slid a check across the desk.
The headmaster’s eyes widened. The next thing Rob knew, his stepfather seized Rob by the scruff of his neck, hoisted him to his feet. The powerful man in the two-thousand-dollar suit locked eyes with the headmaster, who nodded meekly once before looking away—and then did not raise his eyes as Rob was hauled out of there, his kicking, protesting feet flailing against the marble floors, his one cry of “Stop” silenced by the sharp crack of a backhand that split Rob’s lip.
Rob’s mother was waiting in the car. Silent. Angry.
After that he stopped trying. He spent more and more time away from the house, avoided his stepfather when they crossed paths, tried for dinner alone with his mom at least once a week, even when she didn’t seem that interested. His stepfather seemed amused by his self-imposed exile, which only made it easier to stay away. And so it went. Rob kept his distance and his mom and stepfather danced their ugly little dance.
So began Rob’s campaign of subversive disruption. A near fire in the school science lab, a result of fucking around with the Bunsen burner. A spray-painted caricature of his headmaster, both accurate and cruel, on the school’s tennis court. Missed classes and a bad attitude. After a while, Rob needed to up the stakes. He got more aggressive. A fight in the boys’ bathroom left a kid with a broken jaw, and Rob was expelled. He was lectured and grounded and then his stepfather paved the way (paid the way) for Rob to attend another elite private school.
There he met Spencer. The two of them together were a conflagration just waiting for a spark. Spencer was the son of a local career politician. He had spent his childhood “smiling for the camera” and now turned that smile into a snarl. The two teens drank, smoked pot and cigarettes. They abused Spencer’s Adderall and raided Rob’s mother’s supply of Vicodin; her prescriptions were plentiful and she never noticed.
They pretended they were thugs, listening to rap music and letting their pants slink low on their hips; everything was “yo” this and “bitch” that, as they shaped their hands into gang signs and rolled fat blunts. They had no idea how pathetic they really were: two rich, privileged white boys pretending to be street.
They had big dreams. They were going to New York together and they were going to own that town. Supermodels and Cristal and Ferraris and yachts.
When they were driving wasted one icy night, toasting their future with a case of beer and a couple of bumps of Adderall, Spencer’s brand-new BMW, his sixteenth-birthday present from his parents, spun out on the ice as Spencer took a sharp curve way too fast.
The BMW drifted across the median in a lazy 360-degree spin, once, twice—before broadsiding a 1996 Chevy Impala. The driver, a retired electrician, was in the hospital for three weeks. Broken leg. Punctured lung. A lot of talk about what a miracle it was he wasn’t killed.
Rob’s stepfather and Spencer’s dad settled with the electrician, who was persuaded to take the more-than-generous sum offered. And sign an NDA.
The criminal charges were also dropped, a relatively simple call to a friend. A favor owed. Or paid. Currency was fluid in these circles.
His stepfather now acted as if he owned Rob; he had cleaned up the boys’ shit and Rob had to pay the price. The violence inflicted on Rob’s mother became even more casual. Sometimes the bastard just liked making her flinch. A raised hand, the sudden bark of an order, a slammed door. Then he would laugh as she cringed, and try his hardest to goad Rob into doing something about it. Call him a pussy when Rob fled the room, jaw frozen, fists balled.
Rob, seething with rage and impotence, became more reckless. He was caught dealing drugs at school, suspended again. When he was caught a second time, he was threatened with another expulsion. His stepfather came into the headmaster’s office, slid a check across the desk.
The headmaster’s eyes widened. The next thing Rob knew, his stepfather seized Rob by the scruff of his neck, hoisted him to his feet. The powerful man in the two-thousand-dollar suit locked eyes with the headmaster, who nodded meekly once before looking away—and then did not raise his eyes as Rob was hauled out of there, his kicking, protesting feet flailing against the marble floors, his one cry of “Stop” silenced by the sharp crack of a backhand that split Rob’s lip.
Rob’s mother was waiting in the car. Silent. Angry.
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