We all have one moment when we decide our life’s course. Most of us don’t recognize our moment until we’ve driven past it, but it is there, the touch of the dominoes that sets the whole thing off.
Homecoming was my moment. How could it not be? Quarterback and sure-fire homecoming king. One push. It’s all it takes. One push, and the world falls. One push, and you give up control.
The transmission to my ‘Vette sat in pieces in the garage, waiting for my old man to sober up. I walked the tracks towards Fairfax, one of those little towns that pop up around the railroads all throughout the Midwest. There are a million of them, all the same, but I proclaimed myself king of this one.
Derek walked with his head down, looking at his shuffling feet through his Coke-bottle thick glasses. The tape still wrapped the frame from when I broke them two weeks prior. Derek’s family didn’t have the money to replace them. His ankles peeked out pale beneath high-water jeans. Derek wiped his nose with the sleeve of his hand-me-down flannel. He didn’t see me. He couldn’t have seen me, or he wouldn’t have come that way. (more…)