“You can’t be sleeping in the daytime,” he’d said. “You need to sleep at night like the rest of us.”
“Dad, I would love to,” Perry said. “But I can’t.”
“There are plenty of mornings when I don’t feel like getting up and going to work. But you know what? I get up and do it. If you just make yourself do it, one day, you’ll be so tired at night you’ll go to sleep. And then you’re on a normal schedule again.”
“With all due respect, that’s easier said than done.”
“You’re very bright, and I’m sorry if you’re not challenged enough at school. But part of growing up is learning to be disciplined. All I ever see is you reading a book or messing around with your art supplies. You should be outside, tiring yourself out. I wonder if you should join an intramural softball team.”
Perry stared at him with insolent incredulity. Russ tried to contain his irritation.
“You need to do something,” he said. “Starting this summer, I want to see you working. That’s the rule in this family: we work. I want you to set a goal of earning fifty dollars a week.”
“Becky didn’t have to work in tenth grade.”
“Becky was involved in cheerleading, and she’s working now.”
“She hates that job.”
“Well, that’s what self-discipline is. You may not like it, but you work anyway. I’m not trying to punish you, Perry. I’m doing this for your own good. I want you to start looking for work tomorrow. That way, you’ll have it lined up when summer comes.”
To Russ’s disgust, Perry began to weep.
“Frankly,” Russ said, “I’m letting you off very lightly. I should be taking away all your privileges for what you did.”
“This is punishment.”
“Stop crying. You’re too old to be crying. This is not punishment. You can always mow lawns if you can’t find anything else. If mowing lawns was good enough for Clem, it’s good enough for you. I guarantee you’ll sleep at night if you’ve been mowing grass all day.”
Marion had complained to Russ, in her mild but stubborn way, that mowing lawns was a senseless waste of Perry’s talents, a painful assault on his sensitivities, but Russ had been vindicated by the ensuing improvement in Perry’s habits. In the summer, Perry had slept from midnight to late morning, normal for a teenager, and in September, on his own initiative, he’d joined Crossroads. Aligning himself with Rick Ambrose was probably his idea of revenge for having been forced to mow lawns, and Russ had refused him the satisfaction of disapproving. The truth was that he’d felt increasingly repelled by Perry, vaguely nauseated by his adolescent body. The afterschool hours that Perry spent in Crossroads, the entire weekend he was away on a Crossroads retreat, had been a relief from the corporeal affront of him.
But now Russ wondered if what had repelled him was simply Perry’s bad character, his smug enjoyment of the secret of his drug use. It was all the goddamned fault of Marion. She wouldn’t hear a word against her precious son, and Perry had exploited her trust in him, and now, in the eyes of Frances, who’d become the source of delight in Russ’s life, Perry had reduced him to an unsuspecting square whose son had lured her Larry into drugs. God damn Marion. He could already taste the cruel pleasure of informing her that Perry was a drug user, of rubbing her nose in what her coddling had wrought: of making her pay for the humiliation of his learning it from Frances. He would make Perry pay, too.
But if Perry turned around and made insinuations? If he asked Russ, in Marion’s presence, where he’d been going with Mrs. Cottrell and a car full of boxes? Russ, God help him, had felt compelled to lie to Marion at breakfast—to tell her that he was delivering the food and toys with Kitty Reynolds.
“Don’t you want to take the turn here?” Frances said.
Skidding a little, rattling toys in the rear cargo area, he veered across two slushy lanes to make the turn onto Ogden Avenue. Horns blared behind him.
“You shouldn’t feel bad,” she said. “Rick Ambrose says a lot of other parents are dealing with the same thing.”
Street-credible Rick Ambrose, his finger on the pulse of contemporary youth.
“You were talking to Rick about Larry?” Russ managed to say.
“Yeah, but don’t worry—I didn’t nark out Perry. I mean, I just did, to you. But not to Rick. I only wanted a little guidance on how to think about fifteen-year-olds smoking pot. Rick said the one thing I don’t have to worry about is Crossroads. Apparently they have very strict rules against drugs and drinking on Crossroads time. Against sex, too. Although, poor Larry, I don’t think I have to worry about that one yet. I’ve never even seen him look at a girl. The person he has a crush on is Perry.”