“Your ticket to what?” the elder Bennett asked with a sneer.
“The real world.”
His father laughed, and spit out a mouthful of beer as he choked. When he regained his composure, he glared at his son with contempt. For just a few seconds, Justin saw his old father, the one who slapped and beat him regularly and who kept him living in fear. His heart beat a little faster, but he struggled to match his father’s stare and stretched his shoulders backward to stand taller and stronger.
“If you think that’s the real world”—his father sneered as he looked away from Justin—“then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. This is the real world, Justin.” He waved his arm drunkenly around the living room.
Justin followed his father’s arm and looked at the room around him. Two of the bulbs in the three-way lamp were burned out, but it still provided enough light to take in the filth around him. A dirty bathrobe and an even dirtier pair of jeans lay tossed across the tattered sofa. There were two empty TV dinner trays strewn across the glass coffee tabletop with the crack that ran across the entire length, and a third still had the vegetables in their compartment, dried and browning even as he looked at them. Two cereal bowls serving as ashtrays overflowed and spilled onto the stained carpet. The 19-inch television was powered by a set of rabbit ear antennae wrapped in aluminum foil, and rested on a compressed wood shelf atop several cinder blocks that had been spray painted red and black to match the Spanish design on the cheap sofa and matching recliner in which his father now sat.
“Not mine,” Justin said quietly.
“What the hell did you say?” his father asked, and leaned forward in his chair as he tried to look as if he weren’t intentionally flexing his biceps.
It was another of the moves that had been designed to manipulate and frighten him into submitting to every will and whim of his father, and that had worked quite well up until that very moment.
“I said”—Justin raised his voice and took a step forward—“it’s not my reality.” He noticed his father flinch and hunch backward slightly. As much as he wanted to revel in the delight of seeing his father back down and frightened of him, he couldn’t. A part of him still expected the old man to stand up and deck him, as he’d done so many times in the past. A part of him was still afraid. But he couldn’t show that part. “This is my ticket out of this hell, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”
He slapped his father across the face with the envelope before he could stop himself. His heart beat fast and his knees threatened to give out on him. When they didn’t, he backed away from his father and never took his eyes off of the old man. When he reached the stairs, he turned around and walked up them quickly and directly to his room.
“Dude, what the fuck happened?”
Justin looked at his best friend and prayed he wouldn’t break out in tears. “Just drive,” he said. He looked behind him and saw the shadow of his father behind the curtains, walking toward the door. “Now. Just go!”
Dusty gunned the accelerator and grinned as the tires squealed just before jetting the Camaro forward.
Justin kept looking out the back window until his best friend made a quick left turn and then a right and another left a couple blocks away. When he was certain his father was not following them, he turned around and stared straight out the passenger window.
“You okay, man?” Dusty asked as he slowed the car down and took a deep breath. “What’s goin’ on?”
“I don’t know what came over me, dude,” Justin said. He continued to stare out the window, and turned the envelope over and over in his hands. “I told him that this was my ticket out of this hellhole of a town and that I wasn’t gonna waste my chance.”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“I slapped the old man across the face with the envelope.”
“It’s not like the bastard didn’t deserve it. It couldn’t have hurt more than his ego.”
Justin turned and looked at his friend. “I haven’t opened it yet.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t do it, man. I have no idea what it says.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
“What if you didn’t get in, Justin? It was a really slim shot to begin with, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Dude, you played your trump card with the slap. If you didn’t get in, you’re fucked. You can’t go back to that asshole and continue living with him.”
“I know that, Dusty. Fuck! You’re not helping anything here, you know.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry, man.” Dusty pulled into the parking lot of their favorite bar. “You gotta read it, Justin. You have to know what to expect.”
“I can’t. You should feel my heart, dude. It’s about to fuckin’ explode in my chest.”
“Then I’ll read it. But we both need a beer to deal with this shit. Let’s go.”
The two friends ordered their beers, and sat at the bar. It wasn’t until their fourth Michelob that Justin finally pushed the envelope toward his friend.
“You sure, man?” Dusty asked as he opened the envelope.
“No. But I have to know sooner or later. Just read it.”
Dusty pulled the letter from the envelope and read it to himself. Justin watched him carefully, trying to read his expression, but couldn’t get a clue. Finally, Dusty folded the letter slowly, and slid it back into the envelope.
“Fuck, dude,” he said as he took another big swig of his beer. “I don’t know what you’re going to do…”
Justin took a deep breath and lowered his head.
“…without me. Because I’m gonna be slaving away in Philly while you’re living the high life in Los Angeles.”
“What?”
“You’re in, man. They’re offering you a half scholarship for the first two years. After that, if you prove yourself on the field and keep your grades decent, they’ll pick up the other half of your first two years, and then sail you through on a full scholarship for the rest of your time at UCLA. Fuck, dude!!”
Justin looked up just in time to catch his friend as Dusty flung himself into his arms.
“You made it, Justin. You’re outta here!”
Justin held his breath and hugged his friend as he struggled to remain on the barstool. After a couple of minutes, he helped Dusty back into his own seat, and accepted a round on the house from the female bartender that Dusty had been trying to lay for the past year. When he finished his fifth bottle, Justin excused himself and stumbled to the restroom.
The door barely closed behind him before he felt the tears building up behind his sinuses. He’d taken such a risk with standing up to his father like he had earlier. What if the letter had begun with, “The Board of Regents regrets to inform you,” instead of, “is happy to inform you”? What if his father had been drunk enough to stand up to him? Would he have had the guts to hold his ground, and if so, would that have resulted in one of them being seriously hurt? What if his dream of a better life was flushed down the toilet with the opening of that one little letter?
Justin walked to the urinal, pulled his cock out, and leaned against the wall in front of him as he pissed. Before he knew it was coming, he began to cry. It started as a silent sob, but within a few second, he was crying openly, and struggled to keep his piss stream inside the urinal.
“Dude, are