The Trip by Dillon Cranston

I walk in; he’s watching Andrei Rublev walk through a shoddy doorway into the rain and disrobe.

“That’s an oldie,” I say. “Are you finding it any good?”

“Hmm,” My son hems. “It’s a lotta doorways. And he’s not very nuanced.” Done thinking, his face flashes. “Don’t spoil anything if you’ve seen it.” Still hung up on the Citizen Kane snafu…

“I’m going to the store,” I change the subject. “Want me to bring you anything?”

“It’s fine.” He slaps his laptop shut and scoots to the edge of the bed. His boxers snag on the covers, and for the briefest second I can see his ballsack––“I’ll come with you.”

In the car, I remind him to button his seatbelt. I am wondering which Daniel I will get today. Sometimes he is curious, asking how me and mom met, while other days he is biting, as though everyone has done something against him.

Today, he is taciturn, tapping sporadically at his phone with nail-bitten fingers. He pauses to watch our town blur by.

“Did you finish your homework?” I ask, hoping he will not take my curiosity as rebuke.

“Mhm,” he answers, scratching back his hair.

The ground seems sturdy enough for a follow-up. “Are you worried about any of your finals?”

Back to his phone, texting a friend whose name I probably couldn’t fix to their face. “Calc is confusing,” he says. “My test is on Wednesday. Can we go over some stuff tomorrow and Tuesday?”

“Let me check my schedule,” I jest. He is too busy crafting a reply to give me a pity-chuckle. It must be a girl he is texting.

At the store, he follows me through the aisles, selecting only a small can of cold brew for himself––asking me if he can get it, before placing it in the cart. He thanks me at the register, then again as he cracks it open in the car.

I do not pretend to know what is best for him anymore. It is 5 p.m. and he is drinking black coffee, with a sunrise soccer pickup tomorrow before school.

But what do I know. I am only his father.

Early morning, when it is still dark out, I prepare scrambled eggs and eggo waffles. He snoozes his alarm two times too many, and then falls asleep in the shower––which happens about once every week.

“You’ve got to stop lying down in there,” I warn him, racing down empty roads to school.

“I can’t help it,” he yawns, his hair in a pile atop his head. “S’just so cozy.”

I toss him the waffles he did not eat––wrapped in damp paper towels––as he starts jogging across the parking lot, his gym bag bouncing against his back.

On the drive home, the pearlish morning light in my rearview, I notice he left his cleats in the car. Every day it is something.

Seven hours and two pots of coffee later, my phone buzzes angrily against my desk.

WHERE R U ???

By the time I pull into the parking lot, I cannot see him through the cloud of hornets enveloping his person.

“You’re late,” he says, slamming his bookbag against the backseats. “I don’t get it; I’m out at the same exact time every day, so how come you keep making me wait?”

Halfway home, he has more to say: “It’s like, I’m at school for seven hours straight. I’m tired, I’m hungry, my back hurts––the last thing I want is to wait an extra half-hour because you forgot me again.”

At home, he blows into his room and slams the door. I pick up his shoes where he kicked them off by the bannister––that poor pair of Vans, dark green with dried grass.

Past dark, I knock on his door until he is awake. One long shower later, he meets me at the dinner table dressed in his soccer uniform, setting his schoolbag on the open chair.

He blinks over his plate of spaghetti for a full minute. For the first time in a long time, I can tell what he is thinking: watch the gears turn into perfect place.

He looks at the clock, then at my face, grinning with expectation. The dam breaks, and we laugh like Spring has come and the ice has all melted.

I coach him through limits and derivatives the rest of the night, and we graph functions throughout the next. By Friday, his school year is over. I cannot help but be giddy on his behalf.

I receive a text, halfway through his last day of school: “Can u pick me up at Rocco’s later.”

“When?” I reply.

Four hours later, I get a response…

            Where R U ?

Two of his friends linger by his side, when I pull up to the pizza parlor. There’s Sam, a boy I recognize from soccer practices going back to grade school. I don’t know who the other boy is, but he looks rather meager, standing next to my son.

“Big man,” I congratulate him, driving down home. “How’s it feel to be a senior?”

He smiles sheepishly. “I don’t think I’m a senior yet…I don’t know what I am.”

“Let me take you for an ice cream.”

He laughs like I jangled a pair of car keys in front of his face. “That’s okay, Dad. I’ve gotta pack tonight, anyways.”

“Okay,” I say.

“But tomorrow?”

I smile. “Let me check my schedule.”

He spends the evening tossing his wardrobe into a suitcase and asking ridiculous questions. “Is Boston cold in summer? What did you do with my red trackpants? Do you have my other passport?”

Finally done bouncing around the house, he settles down for the last ten minutes of Law and Order.

“Who’s that?” He asks.

“That is Olivia Benson,” I say. “The main character.” 

“Oh,” he says. A minute later, his face flashes white from his phone. He smiles, then frowns, biting the ragged skin of his thumb.

Sometimes, I am struck dumb by the youth of him. It is like I am sitting with the seventeen-year-old version of myself, fresh-faced, and new to this world. I want to shake him by the shoulders: You are going to meet so many beautiful people! You are going to want to weep and rip your hair out! You are going to Live, for crying out loud!

But my child is not me. It is like someone said, they are From you, not Of you. And I am eager for him. For him: I cannot wait. He is going places I have never been before, and to do there what I could never dream.

His phone starts to ring. “Gotta take this,” he says, dashing down the hall, around the corner: back into his room.

Friday is the day of his leaving. He is all nervous energy, and if I so much as ask about his toothbrush, he might simply evaporate: like a pot of boiling water into the freezing cold.

And it is cold, for the first day of summer. As we walk into LAX, the sky is overcast. Three of the clouds form a smiling face.

And there is our solar system inscribed on the floor of departures. He steps on Neptune through Jupiter. Mercury is where I send him off.

“Are you excited?” I ask, transferring his suitcase from my hand to his. “Nervous?”

He nods; a smile jitters across his lips then disappears just as quickly.

“Yes,” he says.

“Good,” I tell him. “You should be.”

We shake each other’s hands. I watch him slip in front of a couple into the line for security. He waves at me, once, before passing through the gates.

Outside, I cross the parking lot. One of the clouds looks like a racehorse speeding out. I have left the protection of my son to the airport, taxi driver, and whatever counselors he meets. And I have given my responsibility to him, most of all: to get where he needs to be going.

I close the door, settling into my seat; noticing something on the passenger side. I reach over and pick up his wallet, rip the velcro open. I thumb through whatever movie tickets and scraps of dollars he has inside, then pick out his driver’s permit, featuring his face smiling out through the black-and-white picture.

I do not turn on the car. I’m not yet ready to do anything but sit in the empty lot, holding onto his wallet, with the airplanes roaring overhead.  

Dillon Cranston

Image: Departure gate sign – Yellow on a blue background from Pixabay.com