The Fence Read Online Free Page B

assigned to a triple. His roommates had set up the room to their liking. “I got the top bunk, whatever cabinets were empty—the leftover stuff.” Mike’s sister, surveying the situation, made it clear she didn’t like that her brother got the short end. “She’s like making faces, saying, ‘Oh, I can see you got the worst of this.’” Mike just wanted them to leave. His sister and mother shuffled between the car and the second-floor room. “I’m embarrassed. I got this teenage thing going on, you know, with a mother and sister running around and saying things to other kids. I’m like, ‘Oh, God, please, these people don’t even know me. Just leave.’ And my dad is so sick he never got out of the car.”
    Escorting them to the parking lot, Mike made his farewells—as quickly as he possibly could. His father was in his seat, frail and shrunken. “He didn’t say a lot—study hard, stay out of trouble, that kind of thing. I love you.” Like his father, Mike had little to say in return. He gave his father a quick hug and said, “See you later, Dad.”
    It was the last time Mike saw his father alive. The fall semester began and Mike became quick friends with one of his roommates, a boy from New Jersey named Tim Fornero. Mike played football and adjusted well academically—nothing at all like Milton Academy. But Mike didn’t like being away from Boston. “The school was fine, the people were fine, but my mind, you know, was not at that school.” The major distraction was his dad’s health. Mike called home most weekends and talked to his mother. But when he asked for his father, he was told his father was too sick to come to the phone.
    “I didn’t really understand it,” Mike said. He was never given specifics about his father’s condition. Then just before Thanksgiving break he was called into the administration offices, where one of the school officials broke the news: His father was dead. Mike went blank.
    It took a few days—after he’d gone home early for the holiday break for the funeral—for the shock to transform into anger. He learned his father died at home. Except for an older brother living in Michigan, everyone else was at his bedside. “I was totally out ofthe loop.” Mike was incredulous that his mother had not told him his father was dying and summoned him home. In response, Mike went deeper into his shell. He was angry at his family and at the world. He mostly kept to himself during the holidays, and when January came around and it was time to go back to Wooster, he refused.
    The rebellion was uncharacteristic, and his mother would have none of it. She drove him to Connecticut, and, back at school, Mike shut down. “I don’t want to be there.” Friends and teachers tried being supportive, but Mike rebuffed them. He would say he was leaving after sophomore year, so why bother? “I wasn’t mean or hostile, I was just like, I’m not going to be here.” That summer his mother had a different idea, and, again, she prevailed. Mike did return for his junior year.
    Mike continued to smolder, a potent mix of anger and grief. In a show of protest, he did not play wide receiver on the football team, and instead played goalie for the soccer team. With winter approaching, he told people he was not going to play basketball—his favorite sport—and was going out for wrestling instead. But then Mike felt something give way. “Somewhere around then I got over—whatever, some of those issues.” The sky cleared. “I realized I have a lot of friends, and I’m actually kind of happy, because I really didn’t have a beef with anyone and the people were very nice.”
    The notion of not playing basketball suddenly seemed crazy. “I loved basketball.” Mike and a teammate named Vincent Johnson became the dominant players for the talented Wooster basketball squad. They had become close friends through the sport, often staying after practice to play one-on-one against each other. Vince was