The Other Life
I hadn’t seen Victor since his wedding. I had a lot of acquaintances in college, but I really had only three friends- Jeff, Dave and Victor. Vic and I lived together in the dorms for the first half of college and in an apartment for the second half. He came from a poor El Paso family and had never known a white person before college. He was quiet and religious and decorated his room with weird posters of Bugs Bunny playing basketball. After sharing a million beers together, though, perhaps anyone can become friends.
Work brought me to San Antonio, where Vic had settled down. I called him up and we decided to make it a million and three. He picked me up from my hotel and we stopped by his home to meet the kids before going out. We drove to a four bedroom house in a gated community with a minivan parked in the driveway. Inside was littered with toys, strollers and other remnants of his three children. Strikingly, with bare walls, minimal pictures and no book shelf, there were few other signs of life.
I met Jacob, his autistic 5-year-old son, who didn’t speak a word, but quickly realized that my height would allow him access to out-of-reach boxes. There was 3-year-old Lillianna, whose bashful euphoria had her constantly running, hiding and explosively laughing. And there was the 2-month-old Rosalina who looked exhausted and alien as all young ones seem to.
And in this suburban home, next to Vic, I felt like a boy. And despite his hardships with Jacob and long hours in the office and the fact he has never really had a vacation, I felt a little jealous. He had that other life. The one that I have been putting off. The one that makes parents happy and ninety percent of the world dreams of. It’s the life that has caused every girlfriend I have had frustration that I am moving too slowly or too quickly towards.
We got Mexican food and tried to talk over the sound of a Mariachi band. I tried to tell him about how I was going to Panama and then Afghanistan and then Jordan. He wasn’t too interested so we talked about where people were. I told him about how Connie was an urban planner in LA and Mikey was a doctor in Brooklyn. As it often did a decade ago, our conversation meandered toward politics and religion where I attempted to defend my agnosticism and liberalism.
“Wow,” Vic said, “I haven’t debated like this and laughed this hard since Chicago.”
Of course, I hadn’t debated like that or laughed that hard since…yesterday. I didn’t know if it was sad that I hadn’t grown up or that he had grown old. But, it was clear that neither of us regretted how we spent the last decade.
Work brought me to San Antonio, where Vic had settled down. I called him up and we decided to make it a million and three. He picked me up from my hotel and we stopped by his home to meet the kids before going out. We drove to a four bedroom house in a gated community with a minivan parked in the driveway. Inside was littered with toys, strollers and other remnants of his three children. Strikingly, with bare walls, minimal pictures and no book shelf, there were few other signs of life.
I met Jacob, his autistic 5-year-old son, who didn’t speak a word, but quickly realized that my height would allow him access to out-of-reach boxes. There was 3-year-old Lillianna, whose bashful euphoria had her constantly running, hiding and explosively laughing. And there was the 2-month-old Rosalina who looked exhausted and alien as all young ones seem to.
And in this suburban home, next to Vic, I felt like a boy. And despite his hardships with Jacob and long hours in the office and the fact he has never really had a vacation, I felt a little jealous. He had that other life. The one that I have been putting off. The one that makes parents happy and ninety percent of the world dreams of. It’s the life that has caused every girlfriend I have had frustration that I am moving too slowly or too quickly towards.
We got Mexican food and tried to talk over the sound of a Mariachi band. I tried to tell him about how I was going to Panama and then Afghanistan and then Jordan. He wasn’t too interested so we talked about where people were. I told him about how Connie was an urban planner in LA and Mikey was a doctor in Brooklyn. As it often did a decade ago, our conversation meandered toward politics and religion where I attempted to defend my agnosticism and liberalism.
“Wow,” Vic said, “I haven’t debated like this and laughed this hard since Chicago.”
Of course, I hadn’t debated like that or laughed that hard since…yesterday. I didn’t know if it was sad that I hadn’t grown up or that he had grown old. But, it was clear that neither of us regretted how we spent the last decade.
posted by American Dilettante at
9:52 AM
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