"Stephen, what do you want me to tell your father when he finds out why you were hurt? Or why you needed fifty dollars to pay some stranger who drove you back home, hm? You know he's been asking a lot about what's going on at that Berkeley campus. Now Mississippi? Where and when will this end? I thought you went to college to become smarter, not to make…stupid decisions like that. Look at you! You're travelling all over the place for this…this foolish pursuit, when you should be in class. You know well enough that your father doesn't want you to hang around these SLATE people, do you understand that? He's going to be furious when he finds out what happened."
He could see the disappointment in his mother's face as she glanced down at the release paperwork from the urgent care clinic scattered on the kitchen table. Still under the weather from the two-day trip and the involuntary tumble through a glass-walled bus stop during a peace protest a few days prior, he was too tired to argue.
"I will pay it back as soon as I get back up to Berkeley. I can even put in extra hours at the book store so that I can pay you back with interest. Happy now?"
Claire Keller's face had taken on an unhealthy shade of red, as the kitchen conversation continued on without either party reaching a compromise.
"Happy? Are you kidding me, Stephen? I am spending my days in fear that the police hating propaganda will put my husband in undue danger, that he…he might get shot in his cruiser just minding his own business, for no other reason than the fact that he wears a badge. And now I have to worry about some bitter cops gone rogue down in Mississippi, trying to kill my only son. And you have the nerve to talk to me like that?"
Unable to refute the argument, Steve stoically stared at the white kitchen cabinet, the ornately decorated glass doors that contained some of his mother's favorite china, a gift from Grandma Annie. The spacious room had turned into the centerpiece of the mid-sized house on the main drag of Modesto; a place for informal city meetings and exchanges of the latest neighborhood gossip alike.
In the backyard, a small pool had replaced much of the immaculate lawn, cutting down on some of the seasonal maintenance for his father, and added some benny points to his social status within the local government.
Steve had grown to hate the games early on, spending those afternoons in his room engrossed in old stamp albums or even walking the streets, doing everything in his power to stay isolated from the politics. He hated how his father sucked up to the Mayor, attempting to portray the image of the perfect American Family, when hours earlier he'd yelled at his mother to wash the floors and iron his uniform, and at Steve for being in the way, for being too skinny, for being too quiet, or for being alive for that matter.
Marty Keller had a vicious streak in him, well hidden beneath the false layer of professionalism he displayed when the Mayor or council members stopped by for a piece of pie.
And perhaps he felt he needed it on the job.
As the Staff Sergeant of Modesto PD, he had put in his time out on the streets, all the while laying the groundwork for new procedures to grow the department, receiving statewide honor by doing so, and still getting into the occasional fight with the unruly crowd down at Simson's Bar.
At just under six-foot, Marty weighed a stout two-hundred pounds, two-thirds of it muscle mixed with cocky, cleanshaven Modesto-style attitude; that much Steve knew for fact.
Built like a middle-weight champion boxer, he'd always had a hard time leaving the policework behind when going home for the day. Early on, Steve learned to tell what kind of mood his father was in by the way he opened the front door and took off his shoes.
During the good days, he'd avoid him by going downstairs or read books by the pool, on the bad days, he'd stay in his room, too fearful of being on the receiving end of his father's wrath.
Marty never laid a hand on him; he knew better than that.
But the tirades were colorful regardless.
His father wasn't happy with him, this much Steve learned at a very early age. He didn't measure up to the image of the all-pro, sinewy, like-minded son Marty had hoped for.
Instead, he was scrawny at best, failed at football practice but exceeded in track, snuck out of class early to watch the trains roll by, not to hang around with the girls. He had a vested interest in archaeology and despised the idea of shooting guns and learning about law enforcement, something that bothered Marty tremendously.
And on the real bad days, Steve, along with half of the neighborhood, got to hear about his failures to meet all the expectations that had been set for him since the day he was born.
After he was through berating his son, Marty would work on his mother next, nit-picking the food, complaining about dust on the furniture and question the integrity of her part-time job as an interior decorator, especially when it had been a slow month.
In his own way, Marty Keller had been the cause for the separation of his family early on, being the driving force in the continental drift that was pushing the polar opposites farther and farther apart, until father and son couldn't see eye to eye even when it came to the simplest of things.
It seemed that the older Steve got, the more volatile their arguments became. And the more Marty picked him apart piece by piece, the more he swore to become the antithesis of his father's preaching.
Berkeley and its student movements hadn't been the reason he broke contact with them, it was merely a subsequent evolution of the problem. And there was no single catalyst that made him choose to walk away from the hostile environment eventually.
Maybe it was simply because his soul could no longer take the insults and was aching for some much-needed peace.
And at first, the distance had been painful.
He missed his mom dearly, and a small part of him even missed his dad. But the older he got and the more real life he experienced, the easier it was for Steve to cut those ties along the difficult journey of finding himself.
As the Free Speech Movement and the Anti-War protests gained momentum, he felt a flame ignite within. Beyond his selfish desire to disobey his father, Steve had finally found something he could profoundly believe in. Protecting the sanctity of human life and protesting the senseless bloodshed happening across the globe.
And with each march, his rebellion against the establishment and everything it stood for grew fiercer.
That was, until Mississippi happened.
He hadn't heard from Joe Choplin since the fateful protest that made more than just his head spin. Fourteen stitches in his lower back from getting tossed through the vestibule of a bus stop told the story of increasing police violence, of the law gone rogue, of the sides having turned on them, heck, on the country itself. The value of a human life was decreasing by the day, as the protests continued on and the government stood by to watch Rome burn ever so complacently.
And as he was laying on the ground that afternoon, watching a pool of his own blood form around his waist, unsure whether he'd been fatally injured, Steve began to evaluate his life goals.
Countless months of fierce protests had taken up most of his free time. He'd spent the rest bouncing from one major to the next back at Berkeley, hoping to find enough enthusiasm to pursue a single career goal. But how could anybody know what they wanted to do with their life, if they had barely lived it?
That day, when he saw Joe get dragged away by police for doing what any decent human being would have done, protect his friend from deputies gone rogue, Steve swore to himself that he would force change within the department…even if it meant becoming a cop himself.
"I had to be there…to protest for the right of free speech, politically and academically.", he told his weary-eyed mother after a long pause.
Wiping the long blonde hair out of her face in manic fury, Claire grunted disapprovingly.
And thus, he managed to throw more gasoline onto an already out of control fire.
"Stephen, I thought we talked about this. Your father was pretty clear about not wanting you to partake in any of this hippie nonsense."
"Hippie Nonsense? We're talking about human beings here…having the opportunity to openly discuss their political views without fear of retribution! We're talking about a war happening overseas that we have no goddamn business being in to begin with. We're talking about innocent young men being slaughtered every single day, on either side of the fence, because of power-hungry politicians. And that's nonsense?"
Claire stepped back and shook her head, taking several seconds to calm down, as she opened the fridge in an attempt to look for dinner items to gather.
"You are twenty-three years old, Stephen.", she growled and tossed two bell peppers onto the kitchen counter, followed by an overripe tomato, never looking back at him, "What life experience have you got to base these wild ideas on? If anything, running around campus with these…these hippies, whining about laws that upset you only makes you look immature. Do you think your father would be proud knowing that you're acting just like a spoiled brat?! Do you have any idea what people have been saying about you around here?"
"Since when is an open dialogue about political topics like war or voter registration childish?! These topics need to be addressed.", he countered, completely bypassing the local water-cooler-argument.
"Stephen! Stop this! Please!"
Claire almost screamed, when they both heard his father's old patrol car pull into the garage, the brakes squeaking in protest.
"I can't hear this anymore. All we wanted was for you to get an education. Why do you have to be so difficult? What is wrong with you? Why can't you be like your father?"
It had been sitting on the tip of his tongue back then, telling his mother about his plans to take some criminology classes at Berkeley and then switch over to the police academy. How he was about to show his father that the old ideologies of the force, the ideas of what cops stood for, were about to get seriously challenged by him, in the most practical way he could envision- by being the change he wanted to see.
But then again, he knew well enough that he'd only get ridiculed for that also.
Instead, Steve slowly got up from the chair, biting his lip at the pain, and headed toward the front door just in time to see his father enter.
"Like I said, mom…you'll get the money back with interest."
Refusing to acknowledge the confused and condescending glance coming from his father, Steve squeeze past the older man's broad chest and out the door, knowing well enough that returning home was no longer an option.