A Canticle for Hope (658 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by LisaCat (View user info) at 2004-01-15 14:53:55 EST
"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."
-Martin Luther King
"Son, let's go out to diner tonight. Just you and me," Craig enthusiastically asked his son Tyler.
"Won't mom be upset?" was his earnest reply.
"I thought she was shopping? In any event, by the time we get home, we should have time to quickly change and then run out for a bite."
"Ok." Tyler's reluctance shined through as he admitted to the fact that this was something unavoidable. His father would not rest on the subject, and whenever that happened, there was no changing his mind.
Tyler spent all of his life in Midwest Suburbia, USA. Throughout his younger years, his blonde hair characterized perfectly his bright attitudes towards life and people in general. Of course he had a few slip ups during his grade school years, but he still managed to graduate High School with honors and strove to please his parents. The only limitations he faced were self-inflicted. Tyler was a well of potential from day one. 21 years later, he is not even a shadow of his former self.
Craig, his father, was a product of different times. Being brought up just before Vietnam by a blue collar father saw many nights in which his father would come home briefly before running off to his second or third job. Money was scarce in his family largely due to the five other mouths' to feed, and bills were often stamped with bright red ink reading "Overdue." Fearing the draft, he enlisted and was posted in Germany as an assistant to a high-ranking officer.
"So where should we go?" the father asked his son with a glinting in his eye.
"I don't care," came the honest response.
"Why don't we try that village tavern down the road?"
There was no response but a motion towards the car by the both of them.
The car ride to the tavern was silent, as is often the case when Tyler was alone with his father. Tyler was at the wheel and seemed oblivious to the world around him. They both were stuck in their different trains of thought, never bothering to speak. To say that their relationship lacked communication would be misunderstanding the nature of their relationship. Whenever they talked, Tyler often lied and Craig was a 'no bullshit' kind of guy. To avoid a state of perpetual fighting, the conversations they had were either of no consequence or kept extremely simple.
"You can park right there," Craig said pointing to a spot in third row of cars.
"Or I could also park right up there, where that car is backing out," was Tyler's response as he was passing the open spot in the third row.
They both walked into the restaurant and were quickly seated in the non-smoking section of the tavern. The restaurant was teeming with life as there were families left and right and many conversations about children returning to school and getting back to the normal life. It seemed there wasn't an empty seat in the place, but that didn't stop Craig and his son from being seated at a large round table for six.
"I'm sorry, but this is all we have," the hostess explained as she passed out the menus. "Your waitress will be with you shortly."
Craig smiled and said, "Thank you," while Tyler simply picked up the menu and began looking for something to eat. Craig eagerly dove into his menu after a nervous glance at the distance separating himself from his son. It almost seemed ironic that they were seated at one of the largest sized tables in the entire restaurant on this particular night.
"Hello, my name is Jesse, and I'll be your waitress tonight. Could I start you out with any drinks?" a buxom brunette asked.
Craig ordered a beer and Tyler ordered water. The waitress walked away with the orders and was just out of earshot when their conversation began.
"You know you could order a drink, right? It's all right. I'll cover the bar tab," Craig asked.
"I'm fine with water," was the response as Tyler continued to finger his way through the menu.
"You know, the Buffalo Chicken sandwich sounds pretty good. It's even a 'Chef's specialty,' though I don't know how hard it would be to prepare a sandwich and some fries," Craig offered to break the ice. He was never good at getting Tyler to talk. There were times in which Tyler would talk, and there were times in which he would just listen.
Silence was Tyler's only response until the waitress returned with their drinks, ready to take orders. Father and son both ordered the same thing, the buffalo chicken sandwich, and the waitress was again off.
"You know son, your mother and I are somewhat worried that you don't know what you want to do, career wise." Craig began. "So, I invited you out to dinner to hopefully get some sort of a clue as to where your interests lie."
Tyler no longer had the menu to keep his attention away from his father, so he instead chose to stare down at the table and occasionally towards his drink. Unbeknownst to Tyler, Craig wasn't searching for his gaze, instead speaking down towards the table while he nervously spun his MBA graduation ring on his finger.
"I mean, is there anything you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life?" Craig's eyes finally looked up to see if anything he said was getting through, but this was met with mixed results. Tyler did indeed look up for a moment, but quickly looked back towards his drink as he sipped his water. Craig sighed inwardly and took a long swig of his beer.
There was nothing but the endless white noise of background conversations. It's the kind of noise that one can only pick out words they wanted to hear. In this case, both father and son found the words 'family,' 'school,' and 'work' inexplicably mentioned constantly from every corner of the room. The room was permeated with the words that they both wanted to avoid.
Tyler recently failed out of a local community college. This was not the first time Tyler and school didn't agree, as he had previously failed out of a prestigious four-year university. The community college was supposed to be a step in the right direction, or so the psychologists said, but it only turned out to be two steps back. Tyler lied to his parents about both instances, instead choosing to wait until the last moments to relay his failure to his parents before the damning grade reports were received. Tyler's parents understood the results for what they were and didn't punish Tyler for his actions, but instead felt as if their trust was misplaced and abused.
"You know, about what happened this past semester - Why did you feel you had to lie about it again?" Craig asked, honestly hoping for an answer.
Tyler's response was a disparaging "I don't know," followed by the unwrapping of his silverware from its napkin.
"Is it something we've done? Did we raise you wrong? Were we too lenient- I mean, what made this happen again?" Craig was desperate to make some sort of contact with his son precisely as the food arrived.
Ignoring his father's questions, Tyler immediately poured some blue cheese dressing onto his sandwich and began eating. Craig disappointedly did the same.
"You know, Shaq still can't make a free-throw to save his life," Tyler finally spoke out.
"What?"
"He still can't make a shot to save his life. Here it is in the fourth quarter, the Lakers are down, and he's missing simple free throws," Tyler explained.
Another long pause ensued while they both ate and drank. Tyler finished his food much quicker than his father, and had nothing to do but wait and watch his father eat slowly. It was a tactic that worked better in negotiation, but Craig was desperate to do anything to break through to his son.
In between bites Craig put down his sandwich and simply stated, "Maybe we started off the wrong way. What is it that I can do to help you succeed?"
Tyler's response was more of the same uninterested array of glances and shifting in his seat.
"I mean, is there something I can do for you? What can I do as your father and your friend," he quickly added, "that could possibly help you get out of this rut?"
The word 'rut' seemed to catch Tyler's attention for a brief moment, but he was still resigned to his "I don't know," response.
Seeing that there was no conversation at all, Craig returned to eating at a snails pace. It wasn't uncommon for him to dip a fry in ketchup, appear to start saying something, then finally biting into the fry again, as if he had nothing to say in the first place. It was as if he were trying to formulate some pattern to attack the impenetrable wall of doubt in front of him.
"You know what it was like when I was growing up? I watched my father twice a month - He'd come home and just line up all of his bills on his desk. He'd pick up one bill, look at it for a few moments, and then put it back in line. Sometimes he would find a bill and write out a check for it, but most of the bills were just put back down," Craig spoke deliberately. "That scared the hell out of me. To see a man that worked three jobs and STILL couldn't pay his bills. He did it all for us, I know that, but I was determined never to let that happen to me. So now, when it comes time for me to pay my bills, I just sit down - you've seen me - and I pay them all out one by one," he made a simple gesture of notarizing checks and sending them away in the mail. "It feels so good to be able to do that, you know?"
Tyler's reaction was the same bored look he's given after every retelling of the story. "You know, I think the Laker's are going to lose," was his reply.
"Tyler, you know your mother and I care for you very much and we aren't going to be here forever. You know that it hurts to us when you lie to us..." his gaze was met by nothing more than a casual glance from his son. "All we want for you is the best. We want you to be happy, and get on with your life. We want..."
"You know why I failed those classes dad?" Tyler said looking his father in the eyes for the first time that night.
His father simply shook his head from side to side.
"I failed those classes not because I couldn't learn the material, not because I was too drunk the night before to go to class. I didn't fail because I spent the previous night up until all hours of the morning playing games. I failed those classes because I lost the motivation to do well. I evaluated my situation at school and said 'what's the point?' I realize that the school requires me to prove to them that I belong there by taking bullshit courses, but I couldn't even prove to myself that I belonged there."
Craig was set back by what he heard and chose his next words very carefully, twirling his ring on his finger once again, "Well what do you want to do now that you're not in school? What are your priorities?"
"My priorities are to get back to school as soon as possible?" Tyler shot back quickly.
"Well if that's the case you've got to go back there with a vengeance, because this shit has got to stop." Craig added, "I saw on the news this morning about a proud parent who was helping her recently killed daughter through school so she could pursue her dreams of being an engineer from when she was in fourth grade. I look back on the years and realize that I can't remember what you wanted to be when you were in fourth grade..." his voice trailed off as if he'd just come to the same realization Tyler had.
Craig was an honest and caring father, but he had never been there for his son. Tyler looked visibly hurt and murmured our, "I always wanted to be a fighter pilot dad."
"You can still do that Tyler," he offered as an afterthought to his previous hurting statement. "It's just going to take hard work and dedication. You just have to take things one day at a time."
"I know dad."
"I can help you with that," his father replied.
"I know," Tyler said as he closed his eyes while he tried to forget his own personal shame.
"I'll do whatever it takes, even if we have to go out to dinner once a week or take an hour out of each day searching for ways to do it. I'll be there for you."
Tyler fought to keep control of his emotions while his father finally folded up his napkin and tossed it on the remaining food on his plate. After the table had been cleared they both looked at each other, smiled briefly, and Tyler paid for the meal. On the way out they both commented on everything from how the Laker's blew the game due to Shaq missing too many free-throws to the cute waitress that served them.
When they finally reached the car, Craig asked his son, "So you do think you want to go home and set down a list of goals?"
Tyler's response was a resounding "Hell no," followed by both of them laughing.
The following morning Tyler returned to work and started thinking, one step at a time, on how to make his dreams come true.
User Reviews
Submitted by xLisaCatx (user info) at 2004-01-16 10:06:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I just recently heard from one of my college friends I left behind was recently expelled due to failing grades in the middle of his fourth year. (I think he had Junior status with around 90-100 credit hours)
I dedicate this to him.
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2004-01-15 19:21:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
good... reminds me of... um... a friend, hehehe...
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2004-01-15 18:19:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I like LisaCat stuff.
I bet you'd be fun to sit around with over coffee.
and I don't drink coffee.
Submitted by fell-8-me (user info) at 2004-01-15 16:12:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I was first attracted to the title because it reminded me of "cunt-sicle", then I opened it and thought "wtf i'm not reading all that", then I read it and really enjoyed it.
Submitted by MadJesterVince (user info) at 2004-01-15 15:26:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
An excellent story, and one I can easily relate to. I had a heart to heart with my dad a couple years back and changed my major because of it. Not all main characters need to be strong and decisive, I think you have shown that very well.
Submitted by JinkyWilliams (user info) at 2004-01-15 15:25:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. What's the inspiration for such a detailed illustration?
Stay orange.
--JW
Submitted by I_Have_a_Kristen_Fetish (user info) at 2004-01-15 15:02:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"I evaluated my situation at school and said 'what's the point?" My feelings about school exactly, in one sentence. Amazing.