A week after I left home, my parents put the word out 
they had taken the spare house key from its usual spot. They had fastened all the windows. They had secured all points of entry.
It was an absurd stance to take, especially given I knew of at least three alternate ways to access the house, and none of them required a key. As a child, I was often reprimanded for slipping the clasp on our front window, then reaching through to unfasten the front door. I never had a house key. I never needed one.
To that end I had a close friend drive me over to my parents’ house one mid-May morning – a morning when I knew my mother, my father and my younger sister would be out. I requested that this friend park his car around the corner, allowing me to make my approach across back fences. I used a pocket knife to slip the lock on our back door, then shuffled upstairs to my bedroom, where I found two stacks of laundry folded neatly on my bureau.
I remember streaks of daylight breaking through the pastel curtains. I remember awkward silence mixed with pangs of guilt. I remember bagging clothes, then running out the basement door. I remember how that door slammed shut, then locked itself behind me. I remember my father intercepting me a few days later on a crosstown walk from Ridley Park to Springfield. I remember he was driving south along 420 when I noticed him pass by. He broke full-bore into a U-turn, swerving round to block my path.
“Get in,” my father said. He pushed the passenger-side door open.
“No,” I said back.
“Get in,” my father said, looking everywhere but at me. “I just want to talk, that’s all.”
“Well, then talk,” I said. “But I’m not getting in that car.”
My father considered this for a moment. “What if I pull into that vacant lot?” he suggested, gesturing with his chin. “That way I can turn off the car, and you can get out whenever you want.”
“OK,” I said. “Pull around. I’ll meet you there.”
And so for the ensuing four minutes, my father and I sat in a vacant parking lot along a shady patch of Route 420, both of us staring forward at reflections on the dash. He offered me no quarter, and I offered him none back. We just sat. And stared. And then we sat and stared some more.
Eventually, my father insisted that I come back to the house. I, in turn, insisted there was nothing left to say. I looked out the window, asked my father to let my mother know I was getting by OK. Then I opened the side door, and – for the first time in my life – I turned my back upon my father. For the first time in his life, he simply let me go.
***
Come Memorial Day weekend, I made the full-time move to Wildwood, New Jersey. My parents, meanwhile, had taken to contacting as many of my friends’ parents as possible, desperate for any update on my whereabouts. Their general plea was for my safety, my father maintaining he had reason to believe I’d gotten mixed up in drugs. When none of my friends stepped forward to volunteer information, my parents cast a wider net, placing calls to several people I hadn’t spoken to since high school. They called my friend Michelle. They called some dude I used to drink with. They even called some girl I’d shared a tryst with during Senior Week.
Fearful that my choices had begun impacting others, I called my parents from a pay phone and arranged for them to come visit me in Wildwood. The afternoon they arrived, I hurried down from a 2nd-floor apartment I had been living in and met them on the street. There were several people inside the apartment on that afternoon – drunks and cokeheads. I was doing my best to keep my parents from wandering in upon that scene.
My parents bought me lunch around the corner. Our conversation was awkward. My parents made it clear they disagreed with what I was doing, and I made it clear that their opinion held no sway. Once lunch was over, the three of us wandered back to my apartment. Out front, I introduced my parents to one of my drunk roommates, who kept repeating the phrase, “So you two are Bob’s parents,” over and over and over again.
Before my mother left that afternoon, she handed me a piece of paper with a phone number written on it. The number belonged to my cousin Dave, who was staying at a nearby house in Sea Isle, New Jersey. Dave was four years older than me, and he occupied the big-brother function in my life that my real-life big brother had not filled. Dave was intelligent, non-judgmental. Back in high school, he introduced me to Tolkien and Vonnegut; JIm Morrison and Roger Waters. Dave took me to see my first concert, and then, a year later, he took me to see my second. He taught me how to play pinball and poker, checkers and chess. He was the only one of my relatives who did not approach me like a chore.
I called my cousin from a pay phone a few days later.
One ring. Two ring. Three ring. Four.
“Hello,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“Dave?”
“No, no. This is Kevin. Who’s this?”
“Kevin, it’s Bud.” a family nickname.
“Buuuuuuuuuuuuuud,” Kevin said. “What’s up, man?”
“Not much. I’m actually calling from a pay phone over in Wildwood right now, so I was wondering if my cousin Dave might be around.”
“Yeah, man. He’s right here. Hold on.”
“Hello,” my cousin Dave said.
“Hey, man. What’s up? It’s Bud.”
“What’s up?” my cousin Dave said. “Nothing’s up. What’s up with you?”
“Me? Well, nothing, actually.”
“Uh-huh,” Dave said. “So what are you calling me for?”
“Well, my mom gave me this number,” I said, “and she told me that you wanted me to call.”
“I said that?” Dave said.
“Well, yeah,” I told Dave. “I mean, that’s what she told me.”
“I don’t think so,” Dave said.
“Oh. Well, maybe she just figured since the two of us were both down the shore for the sum — ”
“No,” my cousin Dave said.
“No what?” I said. I was confused. “Is there something wrong here?”
“Something wrong with me?” my cousin Dave said.
“I don’t know, something.”
“There might be something wrong with you,” my cousin Dave said, “but there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Something wrong with me like what?” I said.
“Something like 10 pounds’ worth of potatoes inside a 5-lb sack,” my cousin Dave said.
“Huh?” I said back.
“You heard me. Nothing more than 10 pounds’ worth of potatoes inside a 5-lb sack.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking abou — ”
What followed was the sound of change dropping. The phone had swallowed my deposit. I gathered another handful of quarters, redialed the same number.
“Hello,” my cousin Dave said.
“Hey, man. I think we must’ve gotten disconnected.”
“We didn’t get disconnected,” my cousin Dave said. “I hung up on you.”
And then again, as if to demonstrate his point, my cousin disconnected the call, leaving me alone at the corner of Glenwood and Pacific, staring at my reflection in the keypad.
“Ten pounds worth of potatoes inside a 5-lb sack,” I murmured.
Nothing more than 10 pounds worth of potatoes inside a 5-lb sack.
Day 99
(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)
