Beautiful Boy

by David Sheff

  Well, you're drunk in the alley, baby

  With your clothes all torn

  And your late night friends

  Leave you in the cold grey dawn

  Just seemed too many flies on you

  I just can't brush them off.

  On a drug-fueled whim, Charles and I decided one night to drive to California to see the sunrise, and so, after packing up an arsenal of drugs, we barreled west to San Diego. It was still dark when we arrived at the beach. Sitting on the sand, blankets over our shoulders, staring out to the horizon, we awaited the sunrise. We smoked joints and talked. After a long while, one of us noticed that it was light. We turned around. It must have been ten or so. The sun had risen hours earlier.

  "Oh," Charles said with striking insight. "The sun rises in the east."

  Another time, while driving to Tucson after visiting my parents in Scottsdale, we offered a ride to a hitchhiker. When we arrived at her destination, a skydiving school in the middle-of-nowhere desert town of Casa Grande, our rider convinced us to try her favorite sport. The instructional session took place in front of a wall on which someone had painted, "Everything you do on the ground is irrelevant." Our lecturer said, "Your most important job is to enjoy the ride." When he arrived at the finale of his speech, he burst into a cackle and said, "Fuck it. Let's fly."

  My parachute didn't open. I was saved at the last possible second when my reserve chute slowed me down. I hit hard but was all right. Charles came running up to me. "Far-fucking out!"

  Drug stories are sinister. Like some war stories, they focus on adventure and escape. In the tradition of a long line of famous and infamous carousers and their chroniclers, even hangovers and near-death experiences and visits to the emergency room can be made to seem glamorous. But often the storytellers omit the slow degeneration, psychic trauma, and, finally, the casualties.

  One night, after Charles returned from a two-day bender, I became worried because he was in the bathroom for so long. When he didn't respond to my calls, I broke the lock and pushed open the door. He had passed out, cracking his skull on the tile floor, which was smeared with blood. I called an ambulance. At the hospital, the doctor warned Charles about his drinking, and he promised to stop, but of course he didn't.

  Later in the year, another of our Hunter Thompson-inspired road trips brought us to San Francisco, where we arrived on a pristine early evening. I had never been there before. We stopped the car atop the city's highest hill. The invigorating wind blew. After a childhood in Arizona, I felt as if I could breathe for the first time in my life.

  I applied for a transfer to the University of California at Berkeley. I hadn't yet damaged my transcript and so I was accepted, enrolling for the fall. It was a time when it was not unusual for a student at the university to construct an individual social science field major. My focus was death and human consciousness.

  I embraced my studies at Berkeley, but drugs were plentiful there, too. Cocaine and pot were the mainstays of many of our weekends. A friend's father, a doctor, prescribed bottles of Quaaludes because he didn't want his son taking street drugs. I did many drugs, but no more than most of those around me. Somehow we have evolved so that higher education and drunkenness and drugs are, for many students, inextricably tied.

  I kept in touch with Charles, whose drinking and drugging escalated in a way that, all these years later, makes me worry about Nic. My drug use was excessive, but I was never like Charles. At one or two in the morning, I would call it a night because I had to get up for class. Charles would look at me as if I were out of my mind. He was just getting started.

  After his summer in France, Nic is back in school. The ulcer has healed, but he is different. He still does well in most of his classes, maintaining a high grade-point average, as if that makes his descent more tragic than if he had become a fuckup. However, he quits the swimming and water-polo teams and, eventually, the newspaper. He begins cutting classes, insisting that he knows exactly what he can and cannot get away with. He comes home late, pushing the limits of his curfew. Our concern mounting, Karen and I meet with the school counselor, who says, "Nic's candor, unusual especially in boys, is a good sign. Keep talking it out with him and he'll get through this."

  I will try.

  It is as if Nic is being pulled by two countervailing forces. Nic's teachers and counselors—and his parents—work to hold him up and keep him from succumbing to another force, one inside him.

  After twenty-five years at this school, Don accepts a position elsewhere. No one has the kind of influence he had on Nic, not that Don—or anyone—could do anything to affect the course Nic is on. Some teachers are still impressed by Nic's acumen and writing and painting talent, including a piece for a student art exhibition, gouache on the inside of a Clue Jr. game, depicting a screaming boy with writing over his face. But other teachers are concerned. A former history teacher Nic adored calls to say, "He's just not interested in talking about whatever is going on." Senioritis is common, but one day his class dean tells me that Nic has broken a school record for most missed classes of any senior—even as we hear from the colleges to which Nic applied. He has been accepted to most of them.

  Nic spends as much time as possible away from home. He hangs out with a crowd of local boys who are obvious stoners. I confront Nic, but he denies that he is using anything. He is smart enough to justify some outrageous behavior with convincing lies, and he is getting better at covering his tracks. When I discover his dishonesty, I'm confounded because I still think that we are close—closer than most fathers and their sons. Eventually he admits that he is using some drugs "like everyone," "just pot," and only "once in a while." He promises that he never gets into a car with anyone who is high. My advice, pleading, and anger fall on deaf—stoned—ears. He continues to reassure me: "It's no big deal. It's harmless. Don't worry."

  "It's not always harmless," I say, repeating a well-worn lecture. "It can become a problem. For some people. I know people who started smoking a little but became potheads and..."

  Nic rolls his eyes.

  "It's true," I continue. "Their ambition was drained because of decades of marijuana smoking." I tell him about another ex-friend, one who was never able to hold down a job and never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month or two. "He once told me, 'I've lived in a cloud of smoke and television since I was thirteen, so maybe it's not surprising that things haven't turned out better for me.' "

  "You smoked tons of pot," Nic says. "You're a great one to talk."

  "I wish I hadn't," I say.

  "You worry too much," he replies dismissively.

  On a visit to my parents' for a family party in Arizona, Nic and I go for a walk around the block. Since I lived here, the palm trees have grown thin and absurdly tall, like giraffes with preposterously long necks. A few of the homes have been remodeled with second stories. Otherwise, our street appears the same. I remember when Nic and I took this identical route when he was two or three. I led him with a rope tied to a small plastic car with Nic in the driver's seat. We went to Chaparral Park, where he pulled on the imaginary handbrake, opened the door, and carefully shut it, before running toward the shore of the man-made lake. There he fed pieces of bread to ducks and geese. A ratty old goose bit his finger and Nic wailed.

  I know that I am losing Nic, but I still rationalize it: it's typical of adolescents to drift away from their parents—to become surly and distant. "You've got to wonder what Jesus was like at seventeen," Anne Lamott wrote. "They don't even talk about it in the Bible, he was apparently so awful." Still, I try to break through, to get Nic to talk, but he doesn't have much to say.

  Finally he turns to me and matter-of-factly asks if I want to smoke some pot. I eye him. Is he testing me, asserting his independence, or trying to reach out—to connect? Maybe all those things.

  He pulls out a joint, lights it, and passes it to me. I stare a minute. I still smoke pot, albeit rarely. I may go to a party or a friend's house where pot is sm
oked as casually as wine is served with dinner. On such occasions, I take a hit. Or two.

  But this is different. And yet I accept the joint, thinking—rationalizing—that it's not unlike a father in a previous generation sharing a beer with his seventeen-year-old son, a harmless, bonding moment. I inhale, smoking with him as we walk through my old neighborhood. We talk and laugh and the tension between us melts away.

  But it returns. That evening we're right back where we were. Nic is the belligerent, annoyed teenager, miffed at having been dragged to Arizona. I'm the overwrought, worried, and in many ways inept parent. Should I have smoked with him? Of course not. I'm desperate—way too desperate—to connect with him. It's not a very good excuse.

  Nic agrees to see a new therapist, one recommended to us as a genius when it comes to working with adolescent boys. Even as we arrive for Nic's appointment, he is filled with unease and a tinge of disgust at the prospect of meeting another shrink. The therapist is tall with a slight stoop, heavyset, and has intense blue eyes. He and Nic shake hands and they disappear together.

  An hour later, Nic emerges with a smile and color in his cheeks and a spring in his step for the first time in a while. "That was amazing," he says. "He's different from the others."

  Nic begins weekly after-school sessions, though he misses some. Karen and I meet with the therapist, too. In one session, he maintains that college will straighten Nic out. It's a laughable notion—when has the freshman year of college straightened anyone out? And yet I can only hope he's right.

  On a sunny late spring afternoon, Vicki comes up and she, Karen, Daisy, Jasper, and I attend Nic's high school graduation. The ceremony is held on the athletic field. Nic has been upset since his class elected to wear caps and gowns. Karen and I will be disappointed, but not surprised, if he doesn't show up. But he does. With his hair freshly buzzed, in cap and gown, Nic marches forward and accepts his diploma from the school head, kissing her cheek. He seems jubilant. I leap on each small sign that he might be all right. I think, Maybe. Maybe everything will be fine after all.

  Following the ceremony, we invite his friends over for a barbecue. A long table is set underneath a dogwood in full pink flower. In the middle of dinner, during the passing of platters of food, Nic and his friends are up and down and inside and out. Then they say goodbye and leave for the "Safe and Sober" grad-night bash being held at a local recreation center. His friends drop him home late that night—Nic, my high school graduate, who, when I ask about the party, beelines past me into his bedroom, muttering, "I'm exhausted. Good night."

  In summer, there is no more pretense of restraint on Nic's part. It is obvious by his erratic behavior and mood swings that he is often high and that marijuana is being supplemented by other drugs. My threats, punishments, and threats of more severe punishments are useless. Nic occasionally reacts with concern and remorse, but more often with disgust. I have become inconsequential. I don't see what more I can do other than warn him, negotiate and enforce curfews, deny him the use of the car, and continue to drag him to the therapist, even as he becomes increasingly furtive, argumentative, and reckless.

  We still go to Nancy and Don's for Wednesday night dinners. The adults gather in the kitchen while the grandchildren are usually downstairs in a basement crowded with stored furniture and hanging kayaks and a Folbot, playing Ping-Pong. Or they are swinging in the living room. Nancy and Don's is the only house I have ever seen with a swing inside. It has thick ropes hanging from a rafter beam and a canvas seat. Sometimes the kids use the swing set as a launching pad in a bowling game. First they stack multicolored cardboard bricks into elaborate towers. Then they aim Daisy, sitting on the swing and holding onto the ropes, and let her fly.

  A great wooden island with a six-burner range is the main feature in Nancy's kitchen. There's usually something cooking on it, and the room exudes delicious and exotic and occasionally burned odors of whatever recipe Nancy found in the newspaper, the latest Peggy Knickerbocker cookbook, or Gourmet. One night yellow chicken curry is served with white jasmine rice, raita made with yogurt and cucumbers, mango chutney, and Indian flatbread flavored with cardamom. Another menu includes a bubbling Mexican casserole with green chilies and cheese. Or roast pork stewed with lemons and prunes, crispy potatoes, and Brussels sprouts fried with pancetta. When it's time to eat, the kids choose their favorite ceramic plates, each with a different animal on it. Jasper always chooses the whale. Daisy and their cousin fight over the dog until Daisy relents, settling on the donkey.

  Nic still seems to enjoy these festive evenings. But tonight he is acting strangely. He's in the kitchen, uttering a series of non sequiturs. "Why shouldn't people have sex with whoever they want when they want? Monogamy is an archaic convention," he lectures Nancy, who listens as she stirs a boiling pot on the stove. "Dr. Seuss is a genius." He goes on for a while about his latest, frenzied, incoherent philosophies of the type I imagine him spouting late into the night with his friends.

  Later, however, it dawns on me that Nic must have been on something. In the morning, I ask him. He denies it. I once again threaten him, but my threats are meaningless. I forbid him to use drugs, but this, too, is useless. When we consult his therapist, he advises me against barring drugs from our house, saying, "If you forbid them, he'll just sneak it. His drug use will go underground, and you will have lost him. It's safer to have him home."

  Friends and friends of friends offer contradictory advice: Kick him out, don't let him out of your sight. I think: Kick him out? What chance will he have then? Don't let him out of my sight? You try corralling a seventeen-year-old on drugs.

  It is a tranquil midsummer evening, just before his eighteenth birthday. I arrive home and sense that something is amiss. Slowly I realize that Nic is gone, and he has robbed the house of cash, food, and a case of wine. He was selective. He took only very good wine. I am in a panic. I call his therapist, who in spite of this episode reassures me that Nic will be all right, that he is appropriately "exercising his independence." If his rebellion is extreme, it is because I have made it difficult for Nic to have anything to rebel against.

  Finally someone has said it: so it is my fault that Nic has been increasingly sullen and shadowy and taking drugs and is now lying and stealing. I was too lenient. I am ready to bear this judgment, to accept that I have blown it, though I do wonder about the children in trouble whose parents were overly strict and those who were far more lenient than me and yet whose children appear to be fine.

  Nic is gone two days before he calls. Apparently, he and his friends are in Death Valley, on a Kerouacian odyssey fueled by drugs and liquor. I demand that he return home. He does, and I ground him. We make an arrangement whereby he will work to pay me back for the thievery. (I do not hold my breath.)

  "You're always trying to control me!" Nic shrieks one evening when I tell him he can't go out during the period he is grounded. He is dressed in baggy green pants held up with a cloth army belt and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

  "I've given you ample freedom. You abused it."

  "Fuck you." He repeats it with venom. "Fuck you." He storms off to his bedroom, slamming the door.

  Karen and I have a session with Nic in the therapist's office, a small and comfortable room with a pair of cushioned chairs. Nic sits morosely opposite us, flopped on a couch. The therapist does his best to orchestrate a civil conversation, but Nic is irascible and defensive, minimizing my concerns as stupid and overprotective. He once again lashes out at us for trying to control him.

  Afterward, but only afterward, I conclude once again that Nic must have been high. When I call to ask the therapist for his opinion, he says, "Maybe, but adolescent hostility is normal. It's good that he has permission to get it out with you. It's healthy."

  We agree to a follow-up session, which is more civil. Nic apologizes and says that he had been angry. He goes so far as to assure us that his partying—he admits to "modest" partying—is a prelude to the hard work of college. "I feel as if I
deserve it," he says. "I worked hard in high school."

  "You never worked that hard."

  "Well, I'll be working hard when I start college. I understand what a great opportunity it is. I won't blow it."

  Of course I still want to believe him. I don't think it's simply that I am gullible, but I cannot fathom the implications of his behavior. When change takes place gradually, it's difficult to comprehend its meaning.

  It is a fortnight later, on Sunday afternoon, and Karen plans to take all three kids to the beach. I am on deadline, so I'm staying home to write.

  The fog has lifted, and I am with them in the driveway, helping pack the car. Our friends who are joining them pull up in their car. Next, two county sheriff's patrol cars pull up. When a pair of uniformed officers approach, I think they need directions, but they walk past me and head for Nic. They handcuff his wrists behind his back, push him into the backseat of one of the squad cars, and drive away.

  Jasper, who is six, is the only one of us who responds appropriately. He wails, inconsolable for an hour.

  8

  The arrest is the result of Nic's failure to appear in court after being cited for marijuana possession, an infraction he forgot to tell me about. Still, I bail him out. "This is the only time," I say. I am confident that the arrest will teach him a lesson.

  Nic is moody, but he holds down a job as a barista, pulling espressos and steaming milk in a coffee store in Mill Valley. We go in sometimes—Karen, Jasper, Daisy, and I. Nic stands behind the counter, greeting us with a big smile. He introduces the kids to the rest of the crew and then whips up tall cups of hot chocolate with downy peaks of whipped cream for them.

  Nic regales us with workplace stories. He has come to know many regular customers, who fall into one of several categories. "Smarges" order small coffees in large cups. As he explains it, smarges know that the baristas fill up the large cup, so they get extra coffee for free, saving a quarter. "Why bothers" want cappuccinos made with decaffeinated espresso and fat-free milk. "Quads" are maniacs who order quadruple espressos. Unpleasant customers pay dearly for their rudeness. Nic and his coworkers avenge themselves by intentionally mixing up orders, so any particularly nasty customer who specifies decaf gets double shots of leaded espresso, while ones who order regular coffee receive decaf.