That I Would Be Good

Chapter Eighteen

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.” ― Robert Frost

      He ran away from home because he wasn’t happy.  He might have been the guy in high school with a smile on his face all the time the first to laugh at a joke, the one who could be friends with anyone.  But that was at school, at home he was miserable.  He had parents like my own, who worked and were happy together and who had the story book type life.  Ferris didn’t though.  He always felt like he was disappointing them for one thing or another and when he couldn’t give them what they really wanted, he left.  He left so they wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.  So they wouldn’t feel any more sense of disappointment or anguish. 

      His tale might not have been as devastating as my own, or maybe it was.  But we had something in common.  We were both unhappy with our home lives and left to find something better, or that’s what we told ourselves.

      The thing Ferris wouldn’t give to his parents wasn’t going to college like my own, it was his time and future.  They wanted him to run the family business and he didn’t.  He wanted to run off to New York and pursue his dreams of being an editor, but they wouldn’t hear of it.  So he left.  The day after they had the discussion he left and didn’t look back.  He wasn’t even sure if they looked for him at all.

       Ferris was an only child so obviously his parents were expecting him to run the family business when they became too old.  But that didn’t mean anything to him or the dream he wanted to pursue.  Who could blame him?  Something parents sometimes tend to forget:  Children have dreams and there is only one time in their lives to pursue them; when the dream is more demanding than the reality of the situation.

       When he ran away his dream was more demanding than the reality.  He knew the chances of him actually getting a job as an editor in New York was a one to a million chance, but the chance of being that one kept that little bit of hope alive.  So he left.

      I couldn’t say I blamed him.  From what he was telling me it was annoying having parents hanging over your shoulder telling you what your future was.  Heck, I experienced that when I lived at home being told I had to go to State.  It just wasn’t happening. 

      The rest of our boat ride was made in small talk.  We didn’t talk about our pasts anymore, because neither of us seemed to like discussing what used to be.  What used to be is something you can never change, unlike the future.  So we talked about that; the future.

      He was hoping to be promoted to assistant editor instead of just the assistant of Harold.  Being his assistant was like being a secretary as he put it.  He took the calls, made his schedule, drove with him to the big parties, picked up his dry-cleaning.  He did it all.  He was like I was for Dolores.  We had more in common than we thought.

     Discussing work was boring though, and soon we had to return the boat back to the dock.  The entire paddle back we discussed the plays we’d taken time to see.  We’d seen completely different ones.  I was more into the serious non-musical types, while Ferris loved the musicals.  He’d seen Wicked at least four times he’d said.  While I hadn’t even seen it once.

     

     After returning the boat we headed to a small diner and had breakfast for dinner.  Ferris insisted breakfast tasted better for dinner than when it was for breakfast, and it did.  It was a little taste of rebellion, maybe that’s why it tasted better, who knows.

     Dinner –or breakfast—was nice.  It was nice to talk with someone other than Dolores, if you could call talking with Dolores an actual conversation.  It was more of an insult competition.