Dating : Behind Closed Doors

“I won’t wear it!”

Mark works through the knot of his St. John’s School tie, but it won’t come undone. He instead pulls the loop over his head, stretching the skin on his face as he does so, until the tie releases its grip and Mark escapes. He slams it to the floor.

He and his dad Adrian had almost made it out of the house. Sure, the pants were “too scratchy!”, the shoes “hurt too much!” and the shirt was “too tight!” But despite the fighting to get there, they had reached the last piece of Mark’s school uniform for the first day of seventh grade. Victory was theirs.

Then there was the tie.

“Please give it a try, Mark, we need to get to school.”

“I won’t! I don’t want to go to that school!”

St. John’s was Adrian’s last hope for Mark. They had tired public school, but the teachers couldn’t handle Mark’s special needs. Adrian wasn’t even sure what those needs were: the best the psychologists and psychiatrists could say — the ones who hadn’t given up or made excuses about their practice limiting patients— was that Mark was “complex.” St. John’s, said Adrian’s sister Amy, is designed for kids like Adrian.

Adrian walks over to Mark and picks up the tie. He undoes the knot, lifts the collar of Mark’s shirt, strings the tie around his son’s neck, and tries again. He ties it like his dad before had done. It’s one of those traditions that fathers have been handing down to their sons for generations, one of those moments Adrian had longed for when he heard the news he would be a dad.

Mark reaches up, rips the tie out of Adrian’s hand, and throws it back to the ground.

“Get if off me!”

Adrian takes a step back. Anger swells inside him from years of frustration: special foods, special classes, special clothes, special needs.

“I have to get to work, Mark! How do you think we live in this house? Where do you think we get the money to go to this school?”

Adrian’s face burns with rage.

“I’m so sick of this. I barely sleep at night wondering what to do with you or what will happen to you when you grow up.”

He picks up the tie and throws it at Mark.

“For once, stop being this way and just put on the goddamn tie!”

They stand in silence, the quiet broken only by the faint sounds of cars streaming along during rush hour and the laughter of kids on the sidewalk on their way to school.

The normal kids, thinks Adrian.

Mark’s head is down, staring at the tie, striped green and white for St. John’s school colors. He picks it up and loops it around his neck, trying to make it look just like the tie his father is wearing, but he has no idea how. He looks at Adrian.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

Then the tears start, a deluge that stream down Mark’s face. Adrian turns away; he can’t bear it. He catches himself in a hallway mirror.

A monster, he thinks. I’ve become a monster.

He turns back to his son.

“Oh, Mark. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean mean it. I love you.”

Adrian does love Mark, that part is true. But he did mean it and he hates himself for it.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, as much to himself as to Mark.

Adrian walks over and wraps his arms around his son. He holds him tight. Mark’s tears leave a widening circle on his dad’s suit jacket. The convulsions from his crying slowly fade, but the scars will remain.

“We’ll figure it out.”