(i) --
There's a saying in the Russ family, passed down from generation to generation. "It doesn't matter what the first impression you make is, all that matters is the last." Sure, there's wisdom for the mind in those words, but to the heart they're terrifying. Especially for someone like me.
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life" is a famous one too. My dad loves pulling that one out wherever he can. The breakfast table, the lunch table, the dinner table, the backgammon table. Anytime he's standing next to a piece of furniture, out it comes, like a radio ad you don't listen to but then find yourself humming in the shower. And yes, we have a backgammon table.
My father isn't a hard man, he's more an idealist than anything. He's always been more content to parent us through slogans and quotes than by actual discipline. It's an approach that succeeded with my sister Laurie, failed with my brother Caplan, and now falls to me, the youngest. I can admire a solid family tradition, but these slogans compound my already growing sense of dread. It feeds the evidence that things are only going to get harder, not easier.
It's not that I write this to bemoan my circumstances, oh definitely no. I write now, at this pivotal moment of my young life, so that I may look back from the future and better understand what I did and why. I'll try my best to keep my accounts of things as factual as possible, but my thoughts and opinions will surely break through more often than not. Which I guess is fine, for I'm sure the future Steckland Russ will be equally interested by my perspective as my decisions.
Today, however, is neither past or future. It is that tangible we call the present, where the past is blind and the future deaf. On my bed is a stack of newly bought clothes, folded in a precise state they will never know again. On my floor are my other clothes, a pile of organized chaos calling the new arrivals of the bed to join them. On my desk are school supplies. Pens, pencils, paper, binders, a stencil, and a compass even. My brother Caplan left me his gym shorts before he left, and trying them on a moment ago I found they're about four sizes too big. They also smell like rotten sandwiches and alcohol, which knowing my brother is not surprising. On my wrist is a brand new watch, a much belated birthday gift from my sister Laurie. She'd mailed it to me months ago, but the postal service gets a little iffy once they have to cross an ocean. Engraved on the band is "SWR", my initials, with the word "Opportunity" cursively below. It arrived in the mail only yesterday, and has upgraded my mood from "frozen with terror" to just "horribly anxious". A fine late birthday gift.
The future Steckland Russ will look back at this day through these scribblings and laugh to himself. He might say, while sitting in his soft leather chair by a roaring fireplace, a glass of fourty year old scotch in one hand and a gorgeous supermodel wife in the other: 'All this worry over a first day of school? Of Grade Twelve? Bah hah hah hah!' At least, that's my hope.
'Wake up! It's eight-twenty!' yells my father.
'I'm awake already!' I shout back.
'Well up and at 'em! Early bird gets the worm.' he hums to himself.
I've been up for hours. I don't think I even slept an hour. It's always like this the night before the first day of school. Not fear but a restlessness, an uncertainty. I've been fully dressed since five. I stuff all my school supplies into my trusty old knapsack, showing the stains of two full school seasons and a bicycle without a fender. Slowly I walk out of my room. I even take my time going down the stairs, relishing every step.
'Oh, so you were awake.' says my father, sitting at the breakfast table.
I nod in acknowledgement and sit in a chair across from him. This is the first ever school morning where it has just been the two of us. The room is chilly and empty.
'Your mother wants to meet you for lunch. I told her you're a big boy now, you probably wouldn't want to do that. Trying to look cool for your friends and all.'
He was right. I wouldn't want to meet her for lunch, because I am trying to look cool. Still though, that's my father in a peanut shell. Thinking he knows best, and making decisions for you without asking.
'Maybe later in the week.' I say non-committingly.
My father lets loose a loud, disgusting snort, and resumes reading the newspaper. He has a rather short, stocky build, a physique once solid but now ravaged by the dogs of inactivity and age. His hair recedes back to the very top of his head, thin and greying, the rubble of a prosperous civilization many years ago. His eyes squint to read the articles on the paper. In his stubbornness he refuses reading glasses, claiming he does not need them. He does not want to admit, to himself or the world, that he is not young, and he certainly does not want to look old.
The steam of morning coffee dances around his nostrils as he takes a sip, while his attention remains monopolized by the newspaper. My father has never taken a specially active interest in my schoolwork, an attitude I used to my advantage to sneak by some awful Grade Nine report cards without severe punishment. Then of course, this neutrality has also been a blank insight towards when I've actually needed help. I've never been able to tell whether my father is incredibly confident in my abilities or incredibly apathetic, for he is a hard man to read. A hard man to understand, behind his steaming coffee and perfectly crisp newspaper.
I turn to one of the empty chairs at the table to see Jack Burbon. He is as he appears in his films from the 1950's; a stylish fedora completes the leather jacket and jeans look for which he was known. His perfect black hair looks sculpted behind his ears, and a youthful expression on his face shows capability of both compassion and fire. He glares at me, his finely symmetrical jaw pretending to chew gum, and then he speaks.
'Somthin' on yer mind, kid?' he asks in his familiar mumbling tone.
'Yeah. Nothing you'd be interested in.' I reply.
'C'mon. Try me.'
I fidget in my seat. Our breakfast table chairs have always been uncomfortable.
'Jack, how old were you when you knew you wanted to be an actor?' I ask.
'I dunno, kid.' he replies, adjusting his fedora in an incredibly cool manner. 'Guess it was one o' them things I was always pulled towards. If I hadn't been an actor, I've always thought I'd've become a con man who wound up in jail.'
He chuckles and leans back further. 'But I've always seen it like this, kid. Some professions are ones you choose. Others are professions that choose you.'
'But how does someone know which way or the other? And how long does it take?'
Jack Burbon doesn't respond. Instead he eyes a bowl of tortilla chips set in the middle of the breakfast table.
'Hey kid, you mind if I have a couple o' those?'
I shrug, and he grabs a handful. I stare at him, waiting for an answer to my question, while he munches away.
'You're a smart kid, right?' he mumbles through a mouthful.
'Yeah, I guess. I like to think so.'
'You've got a good head on your shoulders. So it's confidence, kid. If you're confident, these answers find ya.' says he, grabbing more chips.
'But what if I...'
'Steckland! It's almost eight-fourty! Get going!' barks my father from behind his newspaper.
It is just the two of us at the table again, my father and I. The tacky clock beside the fridge verifies the time, so I snatch the knapsack from my feet and rise quickly from my chair. As I reach the front door I turn around for some kind of encouraging look from my father, but see only a preoccupied newspaper and an empty bowl of tortilla crumbs on the breakfast table.
(i) -- The Twelfth Escapade of Steckland Russ
No comments:
Post a Comment