The Freshman
Copyright 2005 by EC

Chapter 24 - Jason's Christmas Vacation

Jason spent what he hoped would be his final Christmas vacation 
separated from Cecilia. 

As he rode with his father across the open lands of southern 
Wisconsin to their final destination in his wealthy neighborhood, 
he was able to reflect on how his first college semester had 
changed him. He thought about how much he was moving away from 
the rest of his family in his values, ambitions, and what he 
wanted from his life. He knew that most certainly he had no 
desire to follow in his father's footsteps nor in any way 
associate himself with the world his father was a part of. His 
life would have to follow a different path, but still needed to 
determine what that path would be.

Once he found out Jason's final grades for the semester, Mr. 
Schmidt had very little to say to his son. Jason's performance in 
college spoke for itself. He had passed one of the most difficult 
freshman classes on the first try with a "B", which removed a 
major obstacle blocking his continued progress. He now could take 
several classes that had Burnside's Theory of Economics as a 
prerequisite and had decided on a rather ambitious spring 
semester. It was quite clear to Mr. Schmidt that Jason had no 
intention of wasting time in college. He had performed much 
better than anyone in his family could have anticipated, assuring 
that he would be returning for a second semester in school. 

The silence in the car on the journey northward was fortunate, 
because Jason needed the time to reflect on his relationship with 
Cecilia. Already he missed her tremendously. Three weeks without 
her would seem like an eternity, because the truth was that he 
needed her to be in charge of his daily life. However intimidated 
he might be of her strong character and temper, she had saved him 
by giving his life a purpose and a sense of direction. In her 
absence, even for a few weeks, he felt adrift and unfocused. 

His thoughts wandered to questioning why Cecilia's role in his 
life was so crucial for his success. Why did he need her? Not 
just want her; but actually need her? He fully understood that it 
was not college that had changed him, but Cecilia. He now 
realized what would have happened to him that first semester, had 
he not met her. He would have taken a few easy classes, put forth 
a minimal effort to pass, and probably would have barely managed 
to stay enrolled for the spring. He had no ambitions, nothing he 
planned to pursue, other than living from day to day with as 
little effort as possible. He had entered college with a 
fatalistic attitude, simply taking for granted that he was a 
failure as a human being, and thus could not expect much from his 
time in college. 

To Cecilia, living like that was unacceptable. As soon as she 
became interested in him, she ensured that Jason's lack of 
direction and his subconscious desire to drift into obscurity 
came to an abrupt stop. She had absolutely no qualms about 
imposing what she wanted into Jason's life and mercilessly 
controlling him and his activities. However, not once had she 
ever been wrong about something she wanted him to do. Even the 
blow-up over the tattoo…yes, even about that she had been right. 
Did he really need to permanently mark up his body just because 
it was fashionable at the time to do so? Wouldn't it be better to 
save himself for the future and stand his ground against the 
whims of the moment?

Jason's musings wandered to the next question: why did she need 
him so badly? As the semester drew to a close he came to realize 
that she needed him every bit as much as he needed her. He came 
to understand that what Cecilia needed was a partner she could 
both control and trust, because in reality she was extremely 
vulnerable. As tough and bossy as she seemed on the outside, he 
knew that she actually was quite scared of her secret weaknesses, 
every bit as much as he was scared of his own.

Jason remembered the Eastern concept of Yin and Yang from one of 
his high school classes, the idea of the two parts that made a 
full circle. They fit together, neither able to exist without the 
other. Yin and Yang each left a gap that the other had to fill. 
Perhaps that concept explained his life with Cecilia. Jason's 
soul was only partially formed and had pieces missing. However, 
Cecilia's soul also was only partially formed and had pieces 
missing. If that were true, then perhaps there was the answer to 
Jason's question. Together he and Cecilia complimented each other 
to make a whole, but each of them, separated from the other, was 
incomplete.

----------

Mr. Schmidt and his son returned to their over-sized house and 
their empty neighborhood. There was a slight whiff of carpet 
cleaning solution and insecticide in the residence; a sign that 
true to her word, Mrs. Schmidt had the place fumigated after 
Cecilia left the Saturday following Thanksgiving.

Jason's mother was in the kitchen working on a holiday cooking 
project and issuing commands to the two maids. As always, a wall 
of hostility poisoned the atmosphere as soon as Jason's parents 
found themselves in the same room. As always, Mrs. Schmidt vented 
her hostility, not at the man who paid her bills, but at another 
convenient target.

"So, where's the little gang-banger, Jason? Slinging crack back 
in the 'Hood?"

Jason walked up to his mother, slapped his grade sheet on the 
countertop, and walked toward the kitchen door.

"Hey, I'm talking to you…I asked you a question! Where's your 
little gang-banger?"

Jason kept walking, desperate to avoid exploding at his mother.

"Jason!"

"Mom, she's staying to watch over Huntington Hall, if you really 
gotta know. That's where she is."

"Well I hope they fumigate before the students…"

With that comment, Jason snapped, less than a minute being back 
in his family's house. He might have held his tongue had she 
accused his girlfriend of anything else, but the hypocrisy of 
that comment pushed him over the edge. How dare she, a woman who 
never did a moment of cleaning in her life, say such a thing? 

"Mom, the only thing that needs to be fumigated is your fucking 
mouth! Cecilia's a better woman than you'll ever be, and you know 
why? Because she doesn't play fucking tennis! She's got a hell of 
a lot better things to do than play friggin' tennis all day and 
bitch about everyone else!"

The kitchen exploded into a savage shouting match between Jason 
and his parents. He caught them off-guard, because never had he 
stood up to them. The only time he even hinted at standing up for 
himself was at Thanksgiving when he snapped at his mother to 
"just let it go" when she was about to lay into Cecilia. This, 
however, was different because not only had he yelled at his 
mother, he had sworn at her. As much as he hated his wife, there 
was no way Mr. Schmidt would allow one of his children go as far 
as swearing at her. He snarled at Jason to apologize, but Jason 
retorted that she needed to apologize for her treatment of 
Cecilia and the fumigation comments. 

To that Mrs. Schmidt snarled: "I did have to have this place 
fumigated Jason, and I don't appreciate the inconvenience…"

Jason snapped again, repeating his line that it was Mrs. 
Schmidt's mouth that needed to be fumigated. Mr. Schmidt again 
jumped into the fray, falling back on reminding Jason about his 
own worthlessness and how it resulted in the deaths of three 
people the year before. 

"Maybe it's true that your mother's worthless, but at least she 
never got anyone killed, not like some worthless people in this 
room."

Mrs. Schmidt did not take kindly to being called worthless by her 
husband. "Well, at least I'm not screwing a bunch of diseased 
wetbacks and coffee shop whores like you two."

"Of course not, 'cause you're too busy banging those god-damned 
fag tennis instructors instead!"

Jason's mother went white, the blood draining from her face. It 
was obvious her husband knew more about her life than she had 
realized. She gave him a hostile, frightened look, then, not 
knowing what else to do, picked up a pot and slammed it into the 
expensive set of copper pans hanging above the stove. There was a 
loud clatter as several of the metal utensils fell onto the stove 
and then onto the floor. The maids backed away in fright, never 
having seen their bosses raise their voices at each other before. 

For the first time in quite a while, the sullen silence between 
Jason's parents had broken into open hostility. However, instead 
of continuing to battle, the three members of the Schmidt family 
quickly withdrew from the kitchen to nurse their grudges alone. 
The Schmidts were not used to openly fighting, so once the 
explosion took place they really did not know how to continue.

The behavior of Jason's parents contrasted with the behavior of 
Cecilia's family during fights. No one in the Sanchez household 
ever walked away from a confrontation. The family frequently 
remained in the kitchen screaming at each other all night until 
they became exhausted or ran out of things to say. They fought, 
but then, the next day continued on with their lives as though 
nothing had happened. The difference was significant, because in 
Cecilia's family the constant fights didn't lead to any worsening 
of the over-all relationship between her relatives. The Sanchez's 
did not really like or get along with each other, but things in 
the household never got any worse regardless of whatever 
unpleasantness there might be at any given moment. 

An open fight among Jason's family was a much less frequent 
matter, but much more serious in its consequences. When the 
Schmidts had an open fight there was tense silence for weeks 
afterwards. When they finally did start speaking again, the 
emotional residue from the confrontation never disappeared. Every 
open fight was an event for Jason's family, a milestone in the 
slow but steady decay of the relationship each family member had 
with the others. The Schmidts stored their grievances, ready to 
use in the future for the constant digs and quiet insults that 
characterized their comments towards each other.

Jason retreated to the pool and tore off his clothes. It was the 
first time he would go skinny-dipping while his parents were in 
the house and not asleep; but he thought to himself, screw them. 
I'm going to swim, and I'm going to swim the way I want. If they 
don't like it, then they can just stay out of the pool area until 
I'm done. For a very long time he did laps: back and forth…back 
and forth…trying to swim himself into exhaustion.

Much later that night he got dressed and picked up his grade slip 
from the kitchen countertop, right where he had left it. What he 
had accomplished that semester in his studies meant nothing to 
his mother. That much was obvious because she had not even 
bothered to look at his grades.

----------

The next day Jason decided to go to his grandmother's condo to 
get a sane perspective on the ugly homecoming he had endured the 
night before. He stayed in bed until his father went to work and 
his mother departed to the country club, then called the elder 
Mrs. Schmidt to see if her boyfriend could come over to pick him 
up. Oddly enough, Jason's grandmother seemed to know ahead of 
time that he would be calling her and would need to get out of 
the house. He wondered how she could have known that, because 
immediately after he hung up the phone his grandmother's friend 
was on his way to retrieve him.

Jason spent the trip back to his grandmother's house talking to 
the older man about his semester. It struck him as very odd that 
a person who was not a blood relative took more interest in his 
life than did his own parents. 

When he entered his grandmother's residence she had several 
interesting items of news for him. She was not at all surprised 
about the blow-up in the kitchen the night before. Apparently 
things were not going well at all between Jason's parents, 
because their excesses were beginning to catch up with them.

His father was spending ever more time with his job and his 
mistresses, and working on some sinister project related to Mega-
Town Associates. Cassie was running wild and smoking pot. 
Meanwhile, Jason's mother was relieving her stress by having 
affairs with various staff members at the country club. Although 
she had been conducting her affairs for several years, her recent 
behavior had become much less discreet. In fact, her activities 
had become a source of gossip and already had cost her the trust 
of several of her friends. She had been involved a couple of 
scandals, including getting at least one physical instructor 
fired.

"If she doesn't watch herself she's going to get expelled from 
that club, because she's a bit of a headache for the management. 
God help us all when she gets kicked out and winds up sitting at 
home…God help us when that happens. She'll go crazy and take 
everyone down with her."

He learned his father had faced a sexual harassment suit from a 
waitress during the fall and decided to settle out of court. 
Unfortunately Jason's mother learned about the suit and its 
result, which encouraged her to pursue her own affairs at the 
club and become more abusive to the maids. 

"I'm very worried about your parents, Jason. I can see what's 
going to happen and there's nothing I can do to stop it. They're 
killing themselves, and if you and Cassie don't watch yourselves, 
you're going to go down with them." 

Jason wasn't sure how to respond, so his grandmother continued.

"Actually, on that, I'm a lot more worried about Cassie than 
about you. I think you're going to come out OK, but I don't know 
about Cassie. Your mom has her so tightly wound up in all that 
country club nonsense that I don't know if she can handle losing 
all that."

"But what do you think is going to happen? Do you think Dad's 
gonna lose his job?"

"No, not the job. It'd be a blessing if he did, because I'm not 
proud of what he's become or what he's doing. I wish he'd lose 
his job, because it's that job that's destroying him. And now 
he's about to destroy everyone else around him. He's already 
destroyed your mother."

"Don't you think you're being a bit hard on him? Do you really 
think he's that bad?"

"I'm not being hard on him at all. I always wanted him to be 
happy, and he's not. He refuses to be. He's the most miserable 
person I know, and he can't figure out why. I think I do know 
why. He's so consumed with himself that he can't experience any 
joy out of life, and if you can't experience any joy, you're 
already dead. Already dead. That's how I see your parents, both 
of them. No joy and no love, just greed and selfishness, so what 
do they have to live for?"

"But what makes you so stressed out about them now? They really 
haven't changed."

"They've changed. It's just you haven't noticed it because you're 
too close to them to see what's going on. I can sit back, and 
watch them from a distance. I've been watching them for 22 years, 
so I think I can put their lives into perspective. They're 
sinking, and it won't be much longer…"

"Much longer?"

"They don't have much longer. I just have…this feeling. I can 
sense it, but I can't explain it. I can tell you that something 
very bad is going to happen to them. When it does, you'll need to 
be as far away from here as you can. Later, I'll need you to come 
back, to help your sister. It's going to be a lot harder on her 
than it will be on you. I think you'll be OK. Her, I don't know 
about."

"But…what is it? What do you think's gonna happen?"

"That's what I don't know, but I can sense it. All I can tell you 
is that your parents are going to destroy themselves. It's too 
late for me to do anything for them. All I can do is try to be 
here for you and Cassie." 

----------

The topic of conversation changed, and the two talked at length 
about Mr. Schmidt as a child. Then Jason's grandmother talked 
about her own childhood. She went even further back in time as 
she talked about their distant relatives. Jason spent the next 
several hours listening to his grandmother's detailed account of 
the Schmidt family history. For the first time in his life he was 
ready to look back into the past and assess where he had come 
from, following the family story clear back to the 1840's, when 
several ancestors passed through New York and settled on the 
frontier. He spent a very long time looking through old photo 
albums and trying to understand what had made the Schmidts the 
way they were. 

That afternoon he learned another interesting fact. When his 
parents decided to replace the old family furniture with the 
expensive items currently decorating their house, his grandmother 
secretly rented a storage unit to keep the heirlooms his father 
had planned to throw out. Mr. Schmidt was unaware that the old 
family furniture had not been hauled to the dump, but instead was 
safely sitting in storage, waiting for Jason or Cassie to 
retrieve at some point in the distant future.

Jason had never really thought about the old family furniture 
before, but suddenly realized he was enormously relieved to know 
it had not been thrown out after all. It had been saved for him, 
the family's past, which was being kept to be part of his own 
future. He did indeed have a future, one in which he would 
salvage whatever was left over from the disaster that was being 
predicted by his grandmother, and one in which he and Cecilia 
would continue to share. Once again he realized how much he 
missed her and how glad he would be to see her in January.

Somehow Jason's grandmother perceived that her grandson's 
thoughts had drifted to his girlfriend. She decided to find out a 
bit more about the fiery little Dominican, which in turn gave 
Jason the chance to express his most recent thoughts about the 
relationship. He confided that it had been Cecilia who had pushed 
him to do his coursework and pass his classes, although he 
decided to leave out the detail that she had been disciplining 
him. He talked about her obsession that everyone on her floor do 
well and the fact that she had enlisted Jason and his friends to 
help several other floor residents with their studies at the end 
of the semester.

He talked about his recent wardrobe changes, and then mentioned 
Cecilia's aversion to tattoos. He admitted that she had been the 
reason he had not gotten one like almost everyone else on his 
floor that semester. Knowing that Jason's girlfriend had stood 
between her grandson and a tattoo boosted the older woman's 
already high opinion of her. 

Jason went on to discuss his thoughts about the possibility of 
their personalities being incomplete and thus complementing each 
other. His grandmother responded with the following observation:

"I think I know what's going on with that. Her problem is that 
she had to mature too quickly. When she was 15 she was thinking 
like an adult, and maybe, deep down, she wasn't ready. She 
matured too fast, and some things got left out. And you…since 
we're being honest here, never really had the chance to mature at 
all. You were never really challenged with life in school, and 
then it hit you all at once, last year with the accident. But I 
don't think the accident matured you, all it did was make you 
hate yourself and get everyone to point their fingers at you. So 
I think you're right. You and Cecilia do complement each other. 
She had to grow up too fast, and you didn't grow up fast enough, 
so each of you has something the other is missing."

Finally Jason sat down to dinner with his grandmother and her 
boyfriend, dreading the thought of returning to his parents' 
house as soon as the meal was over. He was hugely relieved when 
she mentioned that the living room sofa was a sleeper-sofa that 
folded out, and…would he like to spend the night instead of going 
home?

He gladly accepted the offer. He slept soundly in the living 
room, happy to be in a household free from tension and hostility.

----------

The next day Jason returned with his grandmother to his father's 
house. Cassie was in the back with a couple of her bitchy 
friends, the three of them hanging out in the pool area in rather 
revealing swimsuits. Jason's aunt on his mother's side also was 
present, along with her very over-weight son who was sitting in 
the family room playing video games. 

Looking at the collection of people in his house, Jason was able 
to step back and see his family for the dysfunctional group they 
truly were. He thought about Cassie, figuring that she was the 
one detail his grandmother had wrong about his future. How on 
earth could he ever do anything for her? She was as lost as his 
mother, wrapped up in a dead-end social life with a clique of 
very shallow princesses and a pot-head boyfriend. The other two 
girls got dressed and departed, giving Jason dismissive glances 
as they walked out the front door.

The underlying tension between Jason and his parents, between Mr. 
Schmidt and his wife, between Cassie and everyone else, and 
between Jason's mother and grandmother, seemed to permeate the 
house when everyone gathered for dinner. On top of the tension 
between the members of Jason's immediate family was the total 
contempt Mr. Schmidt directed towards his wife's fat nephew. It 
was true that his son was a pathetic wimp, but at least he was in 
good physical shape, unlike that gross blob with the video 
console. At dinner Mr. Schmidt just couldn't resist digging at 
that ugly kid, which made him stare sullenly at his plate and 
elicited furious glances from Jason's aunt. 

Mr. Schmidt sat smugly at the head of the table, hoping his 
sister-in-law would say something so he could get some good 
sarcastic digs in on her as well. Jason's aunt couldn't say 
anything however. She was a guest, and knew that her sister would 
never stand up to her husband on behalf of someone else. As the 
women sat quietly, Jason's father continued to command the table 
and the evening, talking loudly and heaping subtle indignities on 
everyone present. Losers, he thought to himself. They're all a 
bunch of pathetic, useless losers.

Jason managed to detach himself emotionally from the scene, since 
for once he was not the target of his father's unpleasantness. He 
had no desire to rush to his mother's aid, given her venomous 
treatment of Cecilia, so he just sat watching. Every so often he 
exchanged glances with his grandmother. Yes, indeed, things in 
the household could not continue this way much longer. His 
grandmother was right: something bad was about to happen to his 
parents.

----------

After the dinner, Jason's grandmother retreated from the house. 
She called her boyfriend, who showed up within a very short time 
to extract her in his old restored Chevy. He showed up so quickly 
that Jason suspected he had been waiting somewhere close by 
instead of coming all the way from the condo development that was 
a half an hour away. They were gone, very quickly, and Jason was 
sorry to see her go.

His aunt and cousin also left very quickly, both in a very sour 
mood as he waddled after her with his hands full of game 
paraphernalia. Jason had mixed emotions about his father's 
treatment of his cousin, because unfortunately, as far as the 
kid's obesity was concerned, he was right. There was no way that 
kid should be in that physical state and no way his mother should 
have allowed it to happen. Jason knew that his cousin lived in a 
world of video games because his weight made his life on the 
outside very unpleasant. And, yet, precisely because of his 
constant effort to escape reality by sitting with his game 
console, the kid looked the way he did. It was obvious; however, 
that Mr. Schmidt's critique his wife's nephew had nothing to do 
with genuine concern over the boy. Instead he simply was taking 
advantage of an easy target to make the evening as uncomfortable 
as possible for his wife and his sister-in-law.

Mrs. Schmidt and Cassie retreated to their rooms while the maids 
cleaned up in the kitchen and talked to each other in Spanish in 
their usual quiet, secretive manner. Mr. Schmidt went into the 
room he used as a home office, shut the door, and got on both the 
Internet and the phone. The family had broken up for the night, 
with absolutely no cheer or holiday spirit.

----------

Jason decided to put on his coat and step outside, in spite of 
the bitterly cold weather. It was a clear night with the full 
Moon casting its light on the recently fallen snow, so Jason had 
plenty of light as he made his way over the frozen landscape of 
the empty neighborhood. He walked into a park and up a small hill 
that overlooked his street, turning back to contemplate his 
family's house from a distance. 

He suspected the house and its contents soon would disappear from 
his life, if his grandmother's prediction about his parents came 
true. The house would be gone, and he would not miss it in the 
least. Knowing that he didn't care about the impending loss of 
that monstrosity gave him a real feeling of liberation, knowing 
he was not attached to that horrible property like his mother and 
his sister. Whenever the foreclosure sign was posted in front, he 
would just walk away. He would leave this neighborhood and never 
come back, not even for his high school reunions.

Cecilia had told him that under no circumstances did she want to 
live in a house like the one Jason's parents had bought. Instead 
she wanted something smaller and more common sense, just a 
typical ranch-style house in a typical middle class neighborhood.  
She had a very clear idea of what daily life in that modest house 
would be like. She was adamant that there would be no maids and 
no gardeners; no strangers paid to wander around her property. 
Whatever work needed to be done to keep the place clean, she and 
Jason would do themselves and keep their living space private. 
And her house would be clean; there was no doubt about it. When 
it came to her living space, Cecilia was immaculate to a fault. 
She couldn't stand dust, dirt, trash, or any disorder in any area 
she occupied. She vacuumed the floor of her dorm room and washed 
her sheets no less than once every three days. She would never 
even think about wearing an article of clothing more than once 
without washing it. Any dorm resident caught leaving a mess in 
the women's bathroom could expect a nasty lecture from the RA and 
an order to clean up. Jason's dorm room had to be every bit as 
immaculate as her own, because she expected him to conform to her 
craving for order and neatness. 

Once she assumed control of an entire house she would become even 
more obsessive about cleaning up. She had insinuated that if they 
got married she and Jason would evenly divide the work related to 
their home. They would not exactly share their work, but instead 
each would have specific responsibilities. She would take care of 
the inside of the house and he would take care of the outside. He 
already knew how she would handle the yard work issue. She would 
tell him what she wanted done and he would do it to her 
specifications. She then would come out to inspect and tell him 
what she wanted corrected. However, as he complied with her 
orders to keep up the yard and the exterior, he knew she would be 
diligently working on the inside, keeping the interior spotless.

Even more than cleanliness, what Cecilia wanted was peace in her 
household. After growing up in her noise and conflict infested 
housing project she wanted a place where she could shut the doors 
and listen to the silence. It made sense, what she wanted. He 
realized that she was right. Apart from the swimming pool, was 
there really anything in that huge house of his parents that 
brought any pleasure to his life? Was life really any easier with 
strangers doing all the housework?

As he stood quietly in the cold, Jason caught a glimpse his own 
future. The vision of the foreclosure sign in front of his 
father's house returned to his mind, as clearly as if it already 
had been posted. It was as though someone had handed him a 
snapshot from the future, but with no explanation of when the 
picture was taken or what it meant. He wondered how it would 
happen, what mistake his father would make that would force the 
family off that property. There were signs all over of the 
impending crisis, which really could come from any direction. The 
possibility that his father could be taken down by a business 
rival was a constant reality, but Jason suspected it was not a 
rival who was going to destroy him. Mr. Schmidt would self-
destruct from something that he did to himself, not something 
that someone else would do to him. Another scenario played out in 
Jason's mind, the possibility of his mother's increasingly 
erratic behavior creating a crisis. What if she did get kicked 
out of the country club? Yes, that indeed would be a disaster, 
having her sitting at home, day in and day out, going crazy from 
boredom. Even Cassie's behavior could bring about a crisis, 
because she reminded Jason of...she reminded him of Heather 
Jones. Yes, she was a lot like Heather Jones with both her 
personality and her social group. He wondered if she already had 
tried ecstasy. If she hadn't, she would soon enough.

----------

Christmas dinner seemed like it would bring a temporary truce to 
the household. Jason's parents had said their piece about 
Cecilia, he had struck back, and there was nothing more to be 
said about her. Jason had done well academically and had not put 
on any weight, so there was nothing left for his parents to 
criticize. The elder Schmidts were not speaking to each other, 
but that was not particularly unusual. Jason's aunt had decided 
not to come over for Christmas dinner and would eat with her son 
alone. Jason's grandmother was the only other relative coming 
over.

Cassie decided to have her boyfriend over, because she had a 
vague idea of irritating her parents by forcing them to have 
dinner with someone they clearly disliked. That was fortunate for 
Jason, but would be very unfortunate for her. Whatever 
deficiencies Jason might have, between his accident, his ecstasy 
use, his nude swimming, and his psychotic criminal girlfriend, 
tonight was not a night he would feel the brunt of his father's 
hostility. It was Cassie, or rather her unsavory partner, who was 
destined to get the full treatment from Mr. Schmidt.

When he sat down with Cassie, the normally arrogant guy seemed a 
bit out of it, probably from having smoked a joint or two before 
coming over. He certainly smelled like he had been smoking, a 
detail not lost on anyone else sitting at the table. That night 
Mr. Schmidt finally decided he had enough of smelling and looking 
at the stupid pot-head. As a Christmas present to himself, he 
would do something about it. He by began telling jokes and 
stories about stupid marijuana smokers. When Cassie and her 
boyfriend didn't laugh, he commented:

"Come-on, what's wrong with you two? That was a funny joke. It's 
not as though you're smoking, right?"

As the two teenagers shifted uncomfortably in their seats, her 
father talked about his days on the high school football team and 
how he and his friends used to beat up "pot-heads" and "fags".

"Of course, all the fags were smoking pot, 'cause I guess that's 
what ass-men like to do. Yeah, we busted them up pretty good. 
Those pretty boys weren't so pretty when we got done with them."

Both Jason's mother and grandmother signaled his father to shut 
up, but that was not about to happen. The sight and smell of his 
daughter's pot-head partner, along with the corrupting influence 
he was having on her, put him in a belligerent mood. He wanted to 
pick a fight with his daughter's wasted boyfriend. He would have 
been perfectly happy to pound that obnoxious punk into a bloody 
pulp, but he wanted his target to throw the first punch.

"Funny thing, how pot can do something like that, make you into a 
fag, make you into one of those bitches that runs around with 
their pants down and their underwear sticking out. You know, in 
jail that's what the prison bitches do, run around with their 
pants down, 'cause they’re letting everyone know they're waiting 
for some good dick up their ass."

Cassie snapped. "Dad, shut the fuck up! The only fag in here is 
you!"

"Aw, come-on, Cassie. What's wrong with a little high school 
reminiscing? I had fun in high school, and I thought you'd want 
to hear about it. I mean, it's not like anyone in here is smoking 
pot, is it? So what's there to get so upset about? Why get so 
offended?"

Mr. Schmidt had backed Cassie and her boyfriend into a corner. To 
continue arguing would force her to admit she was smoking 
marijuana. For her boyfriend to say anything would be to 
acknowledge Mr. Schmidt's comments were being directed at him. 
Then he would have to get into a fight with an ex-linebacker that 
he was sure to lose, continue taking the older man's verbal 
abuse, or suffer the indignity of having to flee the house. 

Mr. Schmidt smiled to himself. He had everyone right where he 
wanted them. He had all night to bring this to a head. He would 
get rid of this drug addict, one way or another, and teach Cassie 
never to try to use a boyfriend as a means to rebel against him. 
He told several more stories about how he and his teammates beat 
up pot-heads and fags, insinuating that one group was 
indistinguishable from the other. He jeered at the fashion trends 
of the moment, while Cassie's boyfriend shifted in his seat 
trying to get his pants pulled up. That gesture signaled to Mr. 
Schmidt that the young punk was not going to stand up for 
himself. Good. He pushed ahead with even more offensive comments 
to humiliate him as much as possible.

As rotten a person as Mr. Schmidt might have been, on the issue 
of Cassie's boyfriend no one in the family was going to argue 
with him. No one liked the teenager nor approved of the influence 
he was having on Jason’s sister. The guest was on his own, pushed 
into an impossible situation by his girlfriend's father. The 
muscles bulging under Mr. Schmidt's sweatshirt and his host's 
aggressive posture made him realize he was in actual physical 
danger. 

He began sweating, and then, still somewhat incoherent from his 
most recent joint, panicked. With a jolt that surprised his 
hosts, he simply jumped up and ran out the front door without 
saying a word. He jumped in his car and gunned the engine, as 
Cassie ran out the door after him. It was too late. He drove off, 
fishtailed on the frozen street, sideswiped the neighbor's parked 
SUV, swerved around the corner, and disappeared.

Cassie ran upstairs to her room, and slammed the door. She was 
crying, first alone and later on the phone to one of her friends. 

Mr. Schmidt had nothing more to say to the three members of his 
family still sitting at the table. He simply took his plate to 
the TV, sat down, and turned on the sports channel to watch a 
preview of the next day's football games. Cassie had learned her 
lesson, so he was done for the day. As far as he was concerned, 
there was nothing he needed to discuss with the others.

Jason's mother quietly got up and went upstairs to her room, 
carrying a bottle of wine with her. 

His grandmother got up as well, and grabbed the phone in the 
kitchen. She dialed her boyfriend. "Come get me. I need you to 
get me out of here, right now." 

A short while later she left, and with that Christmas at the 
Schmidts' house drew to a close.

Jason put on his coat and stepped outside, to walk alone in the 
bitter cold of a clear Wisconsin winter night. He glanced at the 
huge dent in the side of his neighbor’s vehicle, and kept on 
walking.

Every open fight was an event for Jason's family, a milestone in 
the slow but steady decay of the relationship each family member 
had with the others. That night the family had passed yet another 
milestone.
