“There's a nice little institution up the
River that might just be a good fit.” My Headmaster suggested as we sat in his
office reviewing a pathetically short list of secondary schools he thought I
might have a shot at being accepted to. The two or three schools he'd coughed
up for me were notable for their obscurity - third tier academies I'd barely
heard of that bore the whiff of misery and stain of failure in their names
alone. Schools, for the most part, that had the reputation for taking boys
unfortunate enough to be rejected at the sexier places everyone I knew talked
about constantly in the halls and locker room that autumn of my eighth grade
year. Mom and Dad smiled at Dr. Westgate; they looked at me expectantly. I knew
what they were thinking, what all three of us had thought the moment the words
had past his lips; my father made a stab at levity. “Would that be Sing Sing?”
The pressure to get in to one of these
prestigious schools had completely overwhelmed most of us that fall and the
fact that I cared so much about my own prospects while secretly wanting nothing
more than to stay in the City and live at home was a conflict that dominated
and drove nearly every facet of my life. There may have been other boys who
felt this way as well, but none of us would have admitted it, blustering about
instead with cocky assurance that we were off to Choate or Deerfield or Andover
or Groton. I wanted to go to The High School of Art and Design – a magical
place I'd heard about from my art teacher – but stifled that guilty ambition
under the onslaught of peer pressure. And so we left Dr. Westgate's office that
day armed with the names of three apparently “B-List” schools, one of which was
located in North Andover, Massachusetts, which I figured was close enough to
Andover to put on my list.
My father and I had set out from Manhattan
at dawn; before we'd crossed into Connecticut the sun was up and struggling to
soften the dark, foreboding sky that seemed to swell and deepen with every
passing mile. We were heading first for Choate, a school I'd put at the top of
my list primarily because most of my classmates wanted to go there. I had a
cousin there at the time who I knew would help me out, but JFK had been a
Choate man and I didn't really harbor any hope of getting in. Icy winds
buffeted the Wagoneer as we drove through the massive gates and pulled up
before the ivy-covered office of admissions. The boy who greeted us wore a name
tag on his brass-buttoned blazer and so did all the other boys milling about
the quadrangle. We must have had a tour; I must have had an interview, but all
for naught as I'd determined in that instant that I'd never go to a school
where I'd be so anonymous as to be forced to wear a name-tag.
Back in the car, Dad lit a Benson &
Hedges, tuned the radio to 1010 WINS and, perhaps sensing my anxiety, kept his
own council as we left Wallingford and headed north for Deerfield. I didn't
want to go to Deerfield either, having selected it only because I'd had a
friend whose family had moved there. We ate club sandwiches at the HoJo's
before getting on the Mass Pike and driving through a series of ugly snow
squalls. I turned the dial, hoping to find “Eight Miles High” or “Born To Be
Wild”. Dad found more news out of Hartford and we listened to some blather
about LBJ, Nixon's recent victory and plans for a march on Washington I knew I
wasn't going to be able to attend. Snow changed to sleet as we exited the Pike;
I gazed out at the dead, russet landscape of central Massachusetts through a
nicotine haze and wondered what on Earth I'd gotten myself into. The sandwich
commenced to rise, the fries congealed into an oily knot and began to sink.
Deerfield was a marble mausoleum that smelled of urinal puck and reminded me of
a men's room I'd visited in Saratoga as a child. As with Choate, the whole
thing was over before it began and I think we were both relieved to put the
place behind us and head out for the highway. This time my father cracked the
windows as if to better rid our nostrils of the scent of polished marble.
By the time we'd reached Brooks, Dr.
Westgate's selection, it was well past dark on that cold and bitter, November
afternoon. I can't recall our mood, but given my father's volatile nature and
the fact that we'd been together in the Jeep for nearly eleven hours fighting
over the radio, it couldn't have been good. Far from the brick and marble we'd
grown used to, this building was a modest white cape that seemed too much like
a private home to be an office. After knocking and waiting to no avail, Dad
opened the door and we cautiously moved through the vestibule towards a cozy,
paneled parlor where a large man dozed in a cracked and battered leather club
chair before a roaring fire. An equally portly yellow lab lay farting at his
feet and when my father cleared his throat they both awoke with a start; the
man reaching out a hand to Dad, the Lab oozing up and over to snarfle at my
hand and crotch.
Perhaps that fat and flatulent dog had made
the choice for me, but after some hot cider, Pilot crackers with sharp cheddar
and a long delayed trip to the toilet I felt my anxiety begin to melt away. If
I was really going to do this thing, I thought as we got back into the car for
the long drive home, I might as well do it here.
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