CHILDHOOD ANGST

I'm not a bad person, I am not. All I did was go into their house when they were not home. No one was hurt. It's not as if mom and dad ever bought me a video game player. All I did, really, was fall asleep in their living room - the game was still on the TV. I'd not taken anything. I'm not bad!

And if they didn't want me to go into their house, why did they show me where they hid the door-key?

I'm not bad, I'm not.

Paige thinks I am, but I'm not. She gets everything. Just because she's older, she can get away with stuff. They still think I'm a baby. Mom and dad, they think of me that way, Paige tries to baby me the times that mom and dad are out working. I mean, she's never once let me get ready for school by myself. She doesn't think I know where the cereal for breakfast is. She always has it out before I'm up. Paige even did my laundry once - but not like mom. That was before the lock was changed. Mom knows how to fold things. Paige doesn't. Paige made me go to the laundry room and take my clothes to my bedroom by myself, unfolded.

I won't call her the 'b'-word, because I am a good person. But don't forget, she actually is a 'b'. There, I said it.

Matthew's dad, across the street - Mr. Beeman is cool. Not like dad. Dad has a stupid job. The other guys' dads at school, they have cool jobs. I guess dad and mom do all the travel that they do, as practise for the people who they buy tickets for.

Matthew's dad? He's FBI. How cool is that? Works against spies, keeps America safe. He carries a gun, but he won't let me see it. I bet he's killed people. Next year in social studies, we're going to do a project on people with cool jobs, people we admire. Me, I've already decided - I'll ask Matthew if he minds if I do my project on his dad. If I do, I will be cooler about the 'gun-thing'. I don't want anyone thinking that that is my true goal - to get Mr. Beeman - Special Agent Stanley Beeman, sorry - to take me to the FBI firing range and let me obliterate some of those outlines of bad-guys.

What now? Well, mom and dad are taking a vacation. No, they're not going to the beach or anything, they say that they're taking a vacation from each other. That's just mental. Parents do that, then they ruin their kids. All the burnouts at school, their parents are weird.

Dad's at a motel, Paige and I go to watch TV there with him. He gives us some coins for the soda-machine, and the candy-bar machine. Places like that are not so bad, I guess. Many more visits and I'll have cavities in my teeth. God, I hate the needle. But it would be better to have him home.

Mom, she just gets grumpy - with him, with me and Paige. All of a sudden she's like a warden demanding we do our homework. Paige, she's really mental about homework. I mean, who cares? Neither mom nor dad know much about me - mom keeps after me about homework that I don't have to do. Really, I don't. I have a system. When I get home I want to hack around, not sit with a lead-butt in a chair like Paige.

Mom's never once asked me about math or arithmetic. Or science. When the other kids are hacking around in class, I finish off the assignment for the next day. I get it done at school(!), but I get no credit. Two things are true:

- Neither mom nor dad have noticed that I am good at math, I don't think they're even interested

- my teacher, the one with the bazooms, she says I have a gift. Please don't say that to the other guys, it's embarrassing. They'll think I'm bragging. No one wants to be tarred with that brush.

I just reread what I wrote above. Yes, the guys'll think I'm a bad person, and the hassling will start. Paige will be the only one who'll care about that.

I caught mom smoking. She's giving herself cancer. Normally I'm not allowed in either the laundry room, or the garage, especially when the door is locked. Picking the lock to the laundry room, that was easy. All you needed was a hairpin. The look mom gave me as she exhaled one of her puffs. I thought she was going to kill me. Mom can be scary like that. Not often. She usually hides it.

Next day, a regular house-lock on the laundry door. But Paige's and my house keys did not open it. Mom and dad must have gold down there, I mean who locks away smelly socks? Either that or they have dead bodies - travel agents who have bored themselves to death. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Stan Beeman, he talks to me like I'm an actual adult. He asks me about things, about life. I even told him about having a 'thing' for my math teacher. He was not shocked, did not think of me as 'bad', just was jealous that 'in his day', he'd not had teachers like that. That night I got out Mrs. Beeman's picture from my stash, and I burned it.

He even told me what had gone wrong with his marriage. 'We met, fell in love, we got married, we had Matthew, then we got divorced.' I guess he's not that choked up about it. After all, he is FBI - he's a lot tougher than travel agents who balance their books and get people to the airport with no lost luggage. You wouldn't believe what worries dad (and mom) when the phone rings at night, and they race out at all hours.

GROWING UP

Everyone thinks I have the hots for Chris. It's not like that! Chris and Rich, they come over to play video games. Rich is a 'gamer', Chris is far more complex. She can really mix it up with the boys.

She already goes to St Edwards, she tells me I'd fit right in. Dad and mom, they are hot and cold about it. Me, I don't know what else to do. The math teacher at school already told them that public school in Virginia, that it cannot challenge me, and he teaches here!

Chris and I made dinner for all of the Jennings, but Chris couldn't stay. She was just visiting from her new digs in New Hampshire, the residence at St. Edwards. It's wild knowing a girl my age out on her own. She seems so relaxed, and quite frankly, so mature. A more calm version of Paige. Chris told my parents that I would be a natural at St. Edwards, that her father could help get me in.

After living in this house my whole life, it was nice to have someone on my side.

Paige is quitting church. Wow, I never thought that that would happen. I've heard mom and dad yelling at her about church - screaming at her, in fact. Then mom and dad are all smiles when Pastor Tim comes around, mom even goes on Sunday mornings. A buddy of mine at school, he goes to one of those 'Jesus only' churches, not the 'peace, love and chain yourself to fences' churches like Reed Street Church - he says they are all aged hippies at those sorts of churches.

I told my buddy that my parents were hypocrites for going to church, when it was obvious they hated the whole idea. What did my buddy say? "If your parents are hypocrites, send them to us, we could always use two more…." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Okay, dad just yelled at me. Badly. He told me that I wasn't going to St. Edwards. That he would not pay for it, and that that was final.

They're going to be paying for Paige next year at George Washington! Okay, I get it. Mom and dad's work downtown, Dupont Circle Travel…. they're in an expansion. It's strange, because now it's mom who does 'the travel'. Especially late at night or for the whole week, like she's always done. Except dad is no longer doing it - he now almost lives at his office.

But they're hypocrites. What else is new?

And they're not going to pay for St. Edwards. Well, I'll show them. Chris's dad showed me how to apply for scholarships, fellowships, and bursaries, whatever those are. My teacher at school, he'd vouch for my marks.

Stan? He tries to stay out of it - after all, he and dad are best friends. God, I don't see that. What would Stan see in my dad? Maybe Stan is so busy chasing spies that he's burned out - wants an ordinary middle-class friend.

Me, I'm getting to know Renee - Mrs. Beeman. She's so friendly, always asking about my family. I told her about how dad was now against St. Edwards, after agreeing to it. Like Stan, she doesn't want to get involved. She said she knew the type of life my mom and dad lived. Maybe that was her business life before meeting Stan.

DAVID SATO AND WANDA CHU

I didn't think they would find out so quickly. These people at St. Edwards actually do know what they're doing.

Okay, I lied. I lied to mom and dad, I lied to Chris - but I had to lie to her or she and her parents wouldn't have driven me up to St. Edwards from Falls Church.

Paige, she was also starting her 'freedom from the looney bin' days, as she called it, never in front of mom or dad. This was September 1985 and I simply was not going to continue at Falls Church High School, as much as they wanted me to continue there. That's how dad had found out that I was no longer enrolled. The math teacher there had phoned Dupont Circle Travel directly, saying, 'we were looking forward to Henry graduating here!'

Through some process unknown, when I arrived with Chris, the Academic Advisor, Ms. Chu, came out to say that there must have been a mistake. I set my bags down in the main foyer of the main building, she took me to see the money guy, Mr. Sato. Mr. Sato said that, yes, there'd been a deposit for me - but that had been for last year, September 1984.

"I'd tried to call your folks," Mr. Sato said, "that a year ago you'd not arrived. You just never showed up. They never got back to me. I wanted to tell them that all deposits were non-refundable." He told me to sit tight, that Ms. Chu would make sure I got a dorm assignment, and that he'd just apply last year's deposit to this year.

"All you needed to do, son," Mr. Sato said, "was tell us. Otherwise, settle in. You're just in time for orientation week. Ms. Chu will assign you a senior partner - things can be fairly strange for students unused to residential education like this."

As I was collecting my stuff, I met Vance - Ms. Chu had rustled him up to be my buddy, a senior to show me the ropes. On seeing my ice skates, he asked - "when you're settled in the dorm, I'll take you by the rink, you can meet the coaches. Some guys are already practising. Are you thinking of trying out for the varsity team?"

I told him I was. It was wild to have ice hockey as part of the school curriculum. I told Vance, a defenceman on the team, it was wild to see Gretzky last May almost single-handedly take apart the Flyers. I told him, "everyone in Falls Church, they'd been Flyers' fans."

I met the head coach, who'd (apparently) heard about me. "So you're Henry Jennings! A little scrawnier than I would have thought, but these days size isn't everything." The coach told me that his varsity team was filled with grinders, he looked straight at me and said, "we need nimble kids, Jennings, kids who can play like Russians. Does that sound like you?"

Then I heard my name on the school P.A. system. "Henry Jennings, please report to Mr. Sato's office." It was repeated.

When I got there, Mr. Sato's phone was off the hook, the receiver lying on it's side opposite him. That was quick. Like Mrs. Beeman said, 'lies catch up with you'.

He said, "Mr. Jennings, this is for you. It's your dad, calling from downtown D.C., and he sounds none too friendly."

I stood there looking at the telephone. I wanted my dad to know that I was not a bad person for doing this.