next year at State, and the next year and the next and so on. I could hack it. I was actually much stronger than I'd thought. Too strong. Man of steel. Pulled practically undamaged from a totally wrecked car. I could see no particular reason for going on and finishing school and going to State and getting a job and living fifty more years, but that seemed to be the program. A man of steel does what he is programmed to do.
I'm not describing this well at all. What I keep leaving out, what I don't know how to say, what I don't even want to think about, is that it was horrible. The whole time, for weeks, every morning when I woke up, every night in bed, I wanted to cry, because I couldn't stand it. Only I could stand it, and I couldn't cry. There wasn't anything to cry about.
And there wasn't anything to do. I'd tried, twice. Once with Natalie. Once with the car. And neither try had worked. There was no way to change things. I wouldn't get bit again. If I couldn't make a friend, OK, I'd get along without. If I couldn't absentmindedly drive off a cliff and kill myself, OK, I'd stay alive. One attempt had been just as stupid as the other.
I knew my mother was worried about me, but it didn't bother me much. What she wanted for me was to be (I) alive, (2) normal. I was alive, and I was doing pretty much everything she wanted me to do. If it didn't produce normality, it ought to at least produce a pretty good fifty-year imitation of it. She also wanted me to be (3) happy, but that rabbit I could not produce out of the hat for her. I didn't do any crazy things, or sulk, or quarrel, or go on drugs, or refuse to eat her cookies and pies, or join the American Communist Party, or anything. I just stayed in my own room a lot and kept to myself, and I'd always pretty much done that. So she figured I couldn't be too unhappy; it was just a mood. I know she knew it had something to do with Natalie Field. As I said, my mother is a highly intelligent person. But all that could be labelled, after all, as puppy love, growing pains, perfectly normal.
My father, who didn't really know what he wanted for me, was more worried about me than she was, though I don't know if he knew it. I knew it from the way he talked to me. Sort of formal and uncertain. He didn't know what to say to me anymore. And I didn't know what to say to him. And neither of us could do anything about it. But what did it really matter anyhow?
One thing I did was take a lot of showers. You can be really alone in the shower with the water running loud and a lot of steam and fog. I also went to a lot of movies with Mike and Jason. Sometimes I borrowed dad's car for going to the movies. We had both figured it was important that I drive again as soon as possible, so that I wouldn't get uptight. It wasn't easyâfor him or meâthe first couple of times, but it worked out fine (maybe this is one purpose of selective amnesia), and it was a sort of ray of hope for him. Maybe Owen wasn't a total loss. After all, a lot of teen-age boys wreck cars. It's almost a virile kind of thing to have done.
One thing I couldn't do, though, was homework. It was just too pointless. I'd always been able to get by when I was bored with a course by just sort of throwing words around and dazzling the teachers; but now I was bored even with the math course I had, and you can't get by in math by throwing words around. I just stopped doing the assignments, and I cut the tests. Advanced math courses are small, and the teacher noticed right away and tried to say something about it to me; but I just said, "Yeah," and mumbled. There's nothing a teacher can do, really. In my other courses, they were so used to me being good that they didn't notice I wasn't being good anymore; so long as I showed up in class they assumed I was the same as always. And I didn't cut much. I would have, because school drove me crazy, not so much the classes as the halls full of people all talking to each other, and the way
I'm not describing this well at all. What I keep leaving out, what I don't know how to say, what I don't even want to think about, is that it was horrible. The whole time, for weeks, every morning when I woke up, every night in bed, I wanted to cry, because I couldn't stand it. Only I could stand it, and I couldn't cry. There wasn't anything to cry about.
And there wasn't anything to do. I'd tried, twice. Once with Natalie. Once with the car. And neither try had worked. There was no way to change things. I wouldn't get bit again. If I couldn't make a friend, OK, I'd get along without. If I couldn't absentmindedly drive off a cliff and kill myself, OK, I'd stay alive. One attempt had been just as stupid as the other.
I knew my mother was worried about me, but it didn't bother me much. What she wanted for me was to be (I) alive, (2) normal. I was alive, and I was doing pretty much everything she wanted me to do. If it didn't produce normality, it ought to at least produce a pretty good fifty-year imitation of it. She also wanted me to be (3) happy, but that rabbit I could not produce out of the hat for her. I didn't do any crazy things, or sulk, or quarrel, or go on drugs, or refuse to eat her cookies and pies, or join the American Communist Party, or anything. I just stayed in my own room a lot and kept to myself, and I'd always pretty much done that. So she figured I couldn't be too unhappy; it was just a mood. I know she knew it had something to do with Natalie Field. As I said, my mother is a highly intelligent person. But all that could be labelled, after all, as puppy love, growing pains, perfectly normal.
My father, who didn't really know what he wanted for me, was more worried about me than she was, though I don't know if he knew it. I knew it from the way he talked to me. Sort of formal and uncertain. He didn't know what to say to me anymore. And I didn't know what to say to him. And neither of us could do anything about it. But what did it really matter anyhow?
One thing I did was take a lot of showers. You can be really alone in the shower with the water running loud and a lot of steam and fog. I also went to a lot of movies with Mike and Jason. Sometimes I borrowed dad's car for going to the movies. We had both figured it was important that I drive again as soon as possible, so that I wouldn't get uptight. It wasn't easyâfor him or meâthe first couple of times, but it worked out fine (maybe this is one purpose of selective amnesia), and it was a sort of ray of hope for him. Maybe Owen wasn't a total loss. After all, a lot of teen-age boys wreck cars. It's almost a virile kind of thing to have done.
One thing I couldn't do, though, was homework. It was just too pointless. I'd always been able to get by when I was bored with a course by just sort of throwing words around and dazzling the teachers; but now I was bored even with the math course I had, and you can't get by in math by throwing words around. I just stopped doing the assignments, and I cut the tests. Advanced math courses are small, and the teacher noticed right away and tried to say something about it to me; but I just said, "Yeah," and mumbled. There's nothing a teacher can do, really. In my other courses, they were so used to me being good that they didn't notice I wasn't being good anymore; so long as I showed up in class they assumed I was the same as always. And I didn't cut much. I would have, because school drove me crazy, not so much the classes as the halls full of people all talking to each other, and the way
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