It’s the discipline after chaos that sets you like a weathervane into adulthood. Both of us teeter between falling on this side of the fence or hopelessly beyond; there’s no middle. There is no curfew, there’s simply home or the road. For an all too brief moment when I’m 17 I have a girlfriend, and I’m happy. I have to let it go. When she calls, I answer, giddy, but after saying our hellos, he yells to get off the phone. His phone. His bill. I can’t look at him, in the eyes, actually question that authority. We’ve been down this road before. I hang up on her.
For a while I walk my sister’s side of the fence. I crawl through the midnight window and into my car. I know it must be hard for him, to see me on the precipice of physical freedom. It’s even harder to see myself on the same ledge of emotional release.
There’s a gas station a couple miles up the road. We live at the top of the hill, and it’s so easy, coasting in neutral, turning the ignition out of ear’s reach. The cold plastic phone under the buzz of the vibrating lights, tethered by a heavy, steel cord. She’s so quiet when she answers. It’s so quiet outside.
Fear overruns every turn. The window creak betrays, the engine starts too soon, my boots on the dry leaves towards her back door, every noise an accusation. But for awhile, anyway, she meets me. She’s tiny and pale, but not nervous like I am. Her mom lets her do this. I can see the bob of her perm weaving back and forth through the kitchen light, washing dishes, lighting a cigarette, pouring a drink.
“God. You’re pretty! You’re pretty like a girl,” she tells me and laughs.
I have no experience with something like this. I don’t have friends, but I still hear the guys talk, after practice, before I’m to head home. I’m behind on all of it. Years lost with my nose in books, my gaze on the paved path ahead. I’m too excited for her, too eager, too unsure. Her mouth impossibly soft, the whites of her eyes far too unforgiving.
Phone calls from the gas station go unanswered. Gentle raps on her bedroom window unheeded. I start to find my balance back upon the fence. I give up on following my sister down the road. I return to my books, to the quietness of my room, to the steady security of weathering the vane.