Weave the Web

It had been a difficult year.  We had fought, my mother and I, which was something new to us both.  We screamed at each other from across the room and broke things.  We slammed doors and sat shaking with rage in the silence that always follows a sharp clap of thunder.  It was a struggle for power.  I was an 18 year old son, trying to show my mother that I was independent.  She was simply doing what she had been doing for over 20 years:  being a mom.  The college application process, however, was mine.  It was my grades and my writing, and she was not allowed to interfere in any way.  It was to be the proof that I no longer needed her.  I could make do without her guidance, without her looking over my shoulder and holding my hand.  I could go it alone, and succeed.

 

The letter lying in wait on my desk seemed larger than life to me.  It was to put the question of my abilities to rest once and for all.  The beauty of it was that getting into Berkeley was a long shot, and mom let me know it every time the subject came up.  “It is really only 4.0 students who get into Cal, Arthur.  The state system here is really terrific thought,” she said again and again.  “Sign up for two years at a junior college, and then you can transfer into the UC system as a junior.”  To her, it was a conservative play to protect her middle son from the inevitable heartbreak of failing to achieve his goals.  To me, though, it was like striving for mediocrity.  Like being satisfied with being average.  Like admitting to her that I was only what she expected, instead of being more than even more she could tell.

 

“NO!,” I would say, “I am not going to spend two years at a J.C.  I know that I can make it to Ca.  Why can’t you just trust me?  Why can’t you just have a little faith in me?”

 

“At least apply to somewhere other than just Berkeley,” she pleaded.  And here was the crowning touch.  I had bet it all on Cal.  It was either total victory or nothing at all.  She hated this last point most of all.

 

I looked again over at my desk.  Why was it that I could not bring myself to open that envelope?  I had painted myself into a corner, and if this letter did not open the only door left at my back I was stuck.  My pride had overcome my common sense.  My need to show how in control I was had only left me helpless.

 

Lifting it slowly, the letter seemed to weigh 5 pounds in my fingers.  Carefully, I tore a think strip off the edge and shook the single piece of paper out into my hand.

 

“First,” began the news, “let me thank you for your interest in the University of California at Berkeley.  After reviewing your application for admissions, w find that we are unable to offer you a place in the incoming class of 1990-’91.  Every year we are forced to turn away many exceptional and qualified students…”  I kept waiting for the punchline, the joke saying, “We’re just pulling your leg.  Welcome to Cal!”  I read frantically.  The section on statistics came, so many thousand applicants for only X number of slots.  Then came the morale booster.  “Congratulations on your academic achievements so far…”  Then, finally, came the options I now faced.  And there, written into this letter, that had promised to be so much more than it was woven into this news as if on purpose, were the two words that I least wanted to see:  “junior college.”  Then laid out in black and white like a final, savage, twist of the knife, was my mother’s plan.

 

It hit me like a concrete block.  She was right, and had been all along. The thought sent me reeling.  Try to imagine how it would feel when two words expose your identity to be nothin nut a wall built of lies and fabrications.  There was a sensation of falling, of the world spinning out of control, my vision was twisting, and when I shut my eyes, my head continued turning.  There was no point of reference, no place to focus my eyes and establish up from down.  I was turning and the room was spinning too, but not in the same direction.  I could not slow either one down.  The more I tried to stop them, the aster they would spin, and the sicker I felt.  All I wanted to do was reestablish order and find familiar ground, and all I could find was chaos, and the endless, black sea stretching out in all directions.

 

SLAM! the front door propelled by a light tap and a heavy wind brought reality back to me with a sudden jolt, like a movie changing scenes.  My mother was home.

 

One minute later, the letter was folded and tucked between two science fiction novels on my bookcase, and I was out the door and waling towards the park at the end of our street.  There was no reference made to the letter that day, or for the four days following.  I was adopting my standard defensive technique of ignoring the situation until I no longer could, or until it went away.

 

Four days after the latter arrived, I was on the phone to the admissions at Cal.  I don’t know why I called.  I didn’t want to talk to them, except maybe to say, “Thanks for nothing!”

 

“You received a what?” he said in surprise.  “Hold on a minute, let me check on this.”  There was silence for a long while, and my heart was in my ears.  “Arthur?  Sorry about that, there was some kind of screw up down the hall.  Acceptance letters were mailed out a few days ago, and you should receive yours any day now.  Welcome to Cal.”

 

“You scared the hell out of me, Bruce,” was all that I could say as I hung up the phone and headed downstairs to tell my mom the good news.