Early Decision (8 page)

When my parents take my brother and I to a site of extreme need, they are showing us ways that we can be good citizens of the world and give back to people in need. They never tell us what to do (except of course if we need to be shown how to help on a special site, for example in a flood where the boards are in special places or in a conflict zone where you can't leave the path because of landmines.) I realize that my mom and dad are leading by example and not by direction. They give us alot of freedom, every day to make our choices; for example to do my homework or not or to exercise or not; and they trust us to make the best choices for ourselves. By giving us that freedom, they are letting us grow into our own selves.

All this freedom means that I have alot of choice. I don't know yet what profession I would like to have as an adult. When I look ahead to college and my life, I want to always be giving back to the world because I have been given so much. I'm not sure yet what I want to major in, but I believe that when I feel my heart is touched by working to serve, I'm in the right place and that my path will open to me.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Anne,

I've had a few more ideas for the last paragraph of my main essay. (I saw some of this absurd ANWR debate on C-SPAN.) I copied/pasted it below. I have that other thing you asked for, but it's only in my notebook so I guess I'll have to type it up or you can just read it here sometime. Thanks.

William

I think it is easy for people to feel sentimental about animals, trees, and the natural world, and forget that human beings are the biggest part of the natural world, and that our needs must come first. Who would deny the children of Alaska health care and education in order to increase numbers of caribou? Only someone who was able to get carried away on a holiday and not visit the actual people living there to learn of their actual needs. I use this as just one example of how federal law can run roughshod over the needs of the states and local communities. As my generation steps up to make decisions concerning the use of natural resources, I consider it critical that our voices advocate responsible use of all the tools available to us to enhance our communities. Therefore I intend to major in either economics or politics as preparation for law school, where I believe I will lay the best groundwork for a career in responsible public policy.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Hi Anne

Here's that Montana thing, see you Wednesday.

Thanks,

Hunter

Did you ever lay back and see so many stars overhead that they blurred together like snow? Well I have. And it was amazing to think that I spent every night of my life until that day in Montana looking up and not knowing what was really there. Light from the nearby city of Chicago makes it impossible to see the stars, except for the Big Dipper and a few others, and mostly the sky is sort of pink. I had no idea what the sky was
supposed
to look like. You can't even see the constellations where I live. Now when I see horoscopes it makes me mad because I think, How are you supposed to know what all of these are if you can't even make out the stars? Why would you care, anyway?

Did you ever stand in a braided river? Or watch a moose try to get a piece of sawgrass off it's antler? Or a beaver go back and forth making it's damn? Or spot mountain lion tracks and wonder how far away it was? Well, I have. These are the things I did during the day, when at night we had the incredible stars, in Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. I admit that mostly I was wishing my girlfriend (Nicole) was there, too because I tried to describe the stars but you can't tell someone about something like that, you just have to see it. And I guess maybe it's better sometimes if you don't try to describe things, because the words aren't the same as what you see in your mind, and then you read what you wrote and it's totally this sad little version of the pictures you want to remember, and sometimes the words can kind of blur the pictures. I guess it's true that I thought for a moment that I would keep all of the Montana stuff to myself, like a secret. But I tried to share it, because otherwise you just think about it alone. I think it's better to try.

Anyway, probably the coolest thing about my school trip to Montana (which was totally cooler than I thought it would be since the English teachers went on it with us, but they were super mellow and not at all like normal) are the wild horses, or mustangs. They were completely wild. They had never had to take the bit (that metal part that horses have stuffed in their mouths all day) and when we went horseback riding along the trails and saw them in the fields way out, I swear it's like the horse I was on felt that he wanted to live that way, like he was jealous, and I wanted to get down and take all the tact off of him and just let him free. I guess I think it's like seeing the stars in Montana. You don't know about how it's supposed to be until you get out of your own prison, and my prison is Winnetka, Illinois, and like the horse I wish I could run free.

Actually, now that I think about it, there was this one time when I was a kid when my dad and I went outside in a blizzard, and the sky was pink like I said but you could see the snow, it looked grey, falling as it came down and it was all swirling around, and when I was watching the stars in Montana it was like that, just so much you thought you'd close your eyes and it would go away, but you did and it didn't.

 

T
HE
S
EPTEMBER GRASS
in the Pfaffs' backyard was thick and soft, edged with slate where the flower beds bloomed. In a distant corner a sprinkler
chick-chicked
. Overhead the enormous oak trees were still green; only the smaller maples, nouveau specimens, were tinged with yellow. Hunter kicked out his enormous sneakers and leaned back on his elbows, his ever-present cap low on his brow, and pretended not to notice the printout of his essay in Anne's hands. Beside him was a half-gallon Styrofoam tankard with a length of ribbed tubing for a straw. “Thirsty from practice,” he explained. He chewed and sucked at the straw constantly, aggressively, trailing threads of spit when he looked up to respond. It was quite disgusting, actually; there was Anne, hoping to find an essay in his several paragraphs of lovely imagery and real feeling, and the kid was slobbering away like a dog. To her initial reactions—he feels trapped and angry; he's clearly in love, probably for the first time; he's nostalgic for his childhood and missing his father—she added: he'd rather repel me than risk my affection. Also: he needs some manners.

“Hunter, it's sure as hell not a college essay, but there's some great stuff in here,” she opened.

“You told me not to worry about the essay part.”

“I did. Which may be one reason why you were able to write so clearly about what matters to you from this summer.”

“Why, because you think I'm not trying?”

“Because I think you're not trying to please anybody else.”

He closed his fish mouth over the straw.

“Hunter, are you still thirsty, or could you set that down for a sec?”

“Why, it bothering you?”

“Yes. It's gross. I'm seeing your spit.”

He laughed. “Nice.”

If she ever had children, Anne would remember never to talk to them about manners. Just tell them how they looked, and let them choose. She noticed that Hunter's huge sneakers were not actually black, but white sneakers that had been scribbled over in black ink.

“Nice shoes, too, man,” she added.

“I hate new shoes,” he explained. “It's so obvious your mom did the back-to-school thing.”

“You're an athlete. You need new shoes for the season.”

“You sound like Mom.”

Anne gazed at the back of the house: broad screened porch opening onto the flagstone patio; twin wings of rooms fronted with French doors; gabled windows across the second and third floors. White clapboard, blue shutters. There were actual butterflies frisking the tall buddleias on either side of the porch. Lovely. What was this boy so angry about?

“Is she home?” Anne asked him.

“No. No idea where she's at. Maybe shopping.”

“Dad?”

“He's at work.”

That put one suspicion to rest: no divorce in the works. “So it's just you.”

“Just me.”

So, no older siblings lurking either. She knew Hunter was his mother's only child, but there might have been halves from his father's side lying about over the summer, riling things up.

Hunter continued, “And Nicole would be over, but you're here.”

“Ah,” she sighed dramatically. “Sorry to hold you up. In that case, let me tell you a few things that really interested me in your piece.”

“Fine.”

“First, how profound it can be to feel insignificant in the face of Nature—to feel both irrelevant and deeply accompanied. Make sense?”

“Sort of,” he said. Anne appreciated that Hunter's first experience of the sublime appeared essentially contemporaneous with what most likely was his first experience of sexual intercourse. Nicole the Sophomore Now was performing a valuable service to Hunter's college applications, though Anne cringed to think of someone so young performing such acts at all.

“Second,” she continued, “the desire to share one's feelings but the difficulty of putting them into words. Wanting to keep things private but thinking they'd be even more special if you could share them. Yes?”

“Yeah.” He was brightening a bit.

“Third, feeling like the world has been hidden from you, like you've not been able to see things as they really are. Yes?”

“Oh, totally.”

“Fourth, wanting to just be free to go see that world.”

“Exactly.”

“Fifth, feeling guilty about that. Remembering being a kid, and your dad, maybe, and wondering why it was all okay then if it feels so crappy now.”

“Eh. Maybe.” He bowed over the cup again and sucked.

“So, look. These things—the stars you can't see from this backyard right here; the horses you wanted to set free to roam—these are very real things. I know you saw them this summer. But they're also metaphors. Do you see that?”

“Things that refer to other things, you mean.”

“Yes, or to other feelings. This is what's so interesting about this writing. You've got metaphors in there without even trying.”

“Cool,” said Hunter.

“Very cool. But I want to use them to understand what's most important to you. Does anything of what I've said strike a chord with you?”

“Maybe the horses part. I think the stars bit is kind of lame, now. And I shouldn't have left that stuff about the blizzard. I could care less.”

On the contrary, thought Anne. She had to find a way to meet Mr. Pfaff so she could understand.

“Okay, let's take the mustangs, then,” she said. “Could you sit up? It's kind of hard when you're lying down.”

“I'm awake,” he muttered.

“Hunter!”

He rustled up, gathered in his legs, and slapped his knees. He seemed to fold uneasily, tightly and at wrong angles, like a broken ladder. “Sorry. I'm up. What was it you asked?”

“Hunter,” she repeated. “Look. I've been to college. I don't need to apply again. But I understand you may want to apply early decision to Amherst, is that right?”

“Looks like it,” he replied.

“Which means, if you get in, that you'll go there. You'll pull your application to every other school. Is that what you want?”

“Looks like it,” he repeated.

She laughed, though his point was serious. “Hunter, I can't do this for you. Whether it's Amherst or somewhere else, you need to choose. We need a
great
essay. And you've got some good stuff to work with here. I'm trying to help you, but I'm not going to write it for you.”

“Okay,” he said.

Anne waited. The sprinkler had finished. She wanted to scan the yard for a gardener or other silent staff, but Hunter needed her attention.

“The mustangs,” she prompted. “I'm wondering what it is that you wish you could run free of. What's the bit in your mouth, if that makes sense?”

“I don't know,” he told her. “School. My parents. Everything.”

Anne gestured toward the expanse of house. “I don't know, this doesn't look all that bad,” she said.

He dug his fingers into the lawn, tightened his hands, and tore up two handfuls of grass. He let them fall.

“So you just don't like school? Having to work?”

“No, it's not that. I don't mind, like—I get my stuff done.”

“I know you do. And I see there's other things. Tennis. You worked on photography for a time, didn't you? And guitar?”

“I don't really do those anymore,” he said.

“Why not?”

Hunter shrugged. He had commenced violently shredding grass between his fingernails. “Look,” he said angrily. “It's not like I can write a college essay about horses. So this is stupid.”

“Of course you can write a college essay about horses. But you're going to be smart about it. You're going to let the admissions people know that you know exactly what you're doing. It'll be a hell of a lot more interesting than all those essays about what people want to major in or what community service they just did or what their grandmother said right before she croaked.”

This earned a slight smile. She was still in the game.

Hunter brushed off his palms and took the sheet of paper from Anne. “I just think there's a way you can do things, you know, for yourself, or you can feel like you have to do them for other people.”

“Yep,” Anne said, excited. “So the saddle is other people's ambitions, maybe? Does that seem right?”