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<\/a><\/p>\nI dropped out of college thirty-eight years ago at the age of nineteen. 1969. My fear of being drafted and sent to Vietnam was erased overnight by a blessed medical deferment for rheumatoid arthritis. My parents were crushed by my decision to leave school. My father was a doctor, my mother a lawyer. They had expected me to follow in one or the other of their footsteps, or at the very least become a college professor.<\/span><\/p>\n I began my career as a writer in the first grade. Whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up\u2014and people of my parents\u2019 generation were always asking children that question\u2014I would answer, \u201cA writer and a baseball player.\u201d When my spinal condition forced me to abandon baseball in high school and I took up acting, my answer became, \u201cA playwright actor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n When I dropped out of college and announced my intention to pursue a literary career, my parents reacted as if I\u2019d lost my mind. My mother quickly came to the conclusion I had chosen the wrong college and that my cure lay in starting anew at another university. My father diagnosed my condition as depression to be treated with psychotherapy and anti-depressants. And I soon realized that if I was ever going to find my own way in life, I\u2019d better get out of Dodge. <\/span><\/p>\n So I loaded my backpack and hit the road.<\/span><\/p>\n &<\/span><\/p>\n 1971. September. Dusk. Rain about to fall. I was hiking along the road that traced the border between Vermont and New Hampshire\u2014my destination Canada. I chose this road because I liked what it did on the map, sewing, as it were, the two states together.<\/span><\/p>\n I hadn\u2019t spoken to my parents in almost a year. I was planning to call them a few weeks hence from a tavern in Montreal on my twenty-first birthday\u2014drinking my first beer as an official American adult.<\/span><\/p>\n This road through dense forest\u2014most of the leaves just beginning their change from green to burgundy\u2014was not much traveled by anyone inclined to pick up a scruffy young guy with a battered backpack. And so at day\u2019s end, I found myself fourteen miles from the nearest village and seven miles from the nearest campground.<\/span><\/p>\n When I left college and stepped away from the financial support of my parents, it never occurred to me that roaming would become my way of life. I assumed I would settle in a hospitable town, find a job, make friends, and get down to writing. But whenever I endeavored to do that, I would\u2014in fulfillment of my father\u2019s diagnosis\u2014become depressed and lose all hope of finding my own way. Only when I took to the road again did my despair give way to happiness, and after two years of vagabonding\u2014making my living as a laborer on farms, a dishwasher in towns\u2014I was content to keep on roaming.<\/span><\/p>\n The rain began to fall, so I declared aloud that if I didn\u2019t get a ride in the next ten minutes, I would step off the highway into the woods, find a relatively level space to pitch my tent, and hunker down for the rainy night. I had a bag of nuts and raisins, an apple, an orange, and a good hunk of cheese. I had a little propane stove on which to boil water, a brass teakettle, bags of black tea, and a flask of peach brandy to transform my tea into a sleepy time dessert.<\/span><\/p>\n Suddenly a car appeared\u2014a big new car\u2014with a middle-aged woman in the passenger seat frowning out at me as they rolled on by.<\/span><\/p>\n I watched the car disappear.<\/span><\/p>\n The trees surrendered their nascent colors to the dying light.<\/span><\/p>\n I was about to leave the road and enter the woods, when the big new car returned and stopped beside me\u2014the driver\u2019s window sinking down to reveal a deeply worried man.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d he asked, choking on his words.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTo the campground,\u201d I said, bringing forth a map from my hip pocket. \u201cLittle Woods, I think it\u2019s called.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d said the man, glancing at the woman beside him. \u201cLittle Woods. I\u2019ll turn around. We\u2019ll take you there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n They were obviously uncomfortable about giving me a ride\u2014both of them rigid with fear\u2014and as I settled into their plush backseat, I wondered why they had stopped for me. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThank you so much,\u201d I said, glad to be out of the rain. \u201cNot much traffic on this road.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d said the woman.<\/span><\/p>\n The rain gathered force and drummed hard on the car.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI chose this road,\u201d I said, hoping to break the ice by revealing my whimsy, \u201cbecause I like the way it crosses back and forth so many times between New Hampshire and Vermont. You don\u2019t find many roads like this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur son\u2026\u201d the woman began.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d said the man, cutting her off. \u201cPlease don\u2019t, Agnes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d she asked, beginning to weep. \u201cMaybe he\u2019s seen him. Maybe\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t be ridiculous. It\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A flash of lightning.<\/span><\/p>\n Their son, I imagined, was a runaway\u2014a young man who left home rather than be crushed by the weight of propriety\u2014the gravity of should.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI want to tell him, John,\u201d said Agnes, beseeching him. \u201cIt\u2019s important to me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy him?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s\u2026Jeffrey is probably hitchhiking, too. He\u2019ll understand what Jeff\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOh for God\u2019s sake,\u201d said John, gritting his teeth. \u201cJust get it over with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And this is what Agnes told me as we rolled along the country road in their new car\u2014the last of day giving way to the first of night.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur son left home eleven months ago. He\u2019s eighteen now. Jeffrey. Jeffrey Adams. He\u2019s about your height and he wasn\u2019t so skinny as you are, but I suppose now he might be. He has blond hair and he wears glasses, black frames. His grades were going down and we thought he might be smoking marijuana. He\u2019d always gotten straight A\u2019s and suddenly he got a B in Chemistry and a C in Math, and he started staying out later than he was supposed to and hanging out with\u2026with hippy kids. So we grounded him. We explained he needed to keep his grades up so he could get into college or otherwise he\u2019d get drafted and go to Vietnam, and he said if that happened he would just go to Canada. As if that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Just go to Canada and never come home. So we took him to a psychologist, but it didn\u2019t help. He said he wasn\u2019t smoking marijuana, but his grades kept going down. So John told him if he didn\u2019t make more of an effort we would send him to a military academy and when John said that\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEnough,\u201d said John, striking the dashboard with his fist. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLet me finish,\u201d cried Agnes. \u201cWhy won\u2019t you ever let me finish?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI hit him,\u201d said John, glaring at me in the rearview mirror. \u201cOkay? I slapped his face and told him he was a quitter and a coward and a cop out. Because he is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A moment later, we came to the Little Woods campground\u2014a half-dozen picnic tables scattered here and there in sparse woods. John parked beside the dilapidated outhouse and kept the engine running.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThanks again,\u201d I said, opening the door. \u201cIf I run into Jeffrey, I\u2019ll tell him you were looking for him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m<\/em><\/span> not looking for him,\u201d said John, gripping the steering wheel. \u201cCoward. Traitor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Agnes got out of the car, opened an umbrella, and followed me to my campsite. She held my flashlight for me while I put on my rain poncho and set up my tent.<\/span><\/p>\n When I had my backpack stowed inside my tent, she said, \u201cWe\u2026I want to give you some money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n John beeped his horn. Agnes flinched.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThank you,\u201d I said, trying to think of something to say that might help her. \u201cYou\u2019re very kind. I was down to my last dollar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She handed me an envelope containing a twenty-dollar bill she\u2019d been saving for someone who reminded her of her son.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe loves you,\u201d I said as her hand touched mine. \u201cBut the system has gone wrong. The bad guys have taken over. Jeffrey doesn\u2019t want to be part of the killing machine. That\u2019s why he left. Not because he doesn\u2019t love you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Agnes nodded solemnly. The rain came down. John beeped his horn again and again and again.<\/span><\/p>\n She said, \u201cHe\u2019ll hit me for doing this, but I don\u2019t care. I had to do something for our child.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I dropped out of college thirty-eight years ago at the age of nineteen. 1969. My fear of being drafted and sent to Vietnam was erased overnight by a blessed medical deferment for rheumatoid arthritis. My parents were crushed by my decision to leave school. My father was a doctor, my mother a lawyer. They had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}