Father and Son
WD February Flash Fiction Challenge — Day 9
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Mr. Hendricks turned away, his arms crossed, his jaw set.
His son, Adrian, stood his ground, his stubborn streak inherited from his father. It was a simple request — one year sabbatical from school, one year before jumping into an engineering degree at Texas A&M. It wasn’t unheard of!
He needed some space to clear his head and determine who he was and what he wanted. But maybe that’s exactly what his father was afraid of, Adrian coming up with a future of his own.
He turned back towards his father.
“Come on, Dad! Be reasonable! Jeff Danner’s doing it and so is Stokely. It’s so much a thing that they’ve got a name for it, a gap year.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass who’s doing it or what they call it. This has already been discussed and planned and you’re going to school in the fall and that’s final!”
“Who discussed it? Who planned it? You and Mom? Cause it certainly wasn’t with me. I don’t appear to have a say in how I live my life!”
“Not as long as I’m paying for it you don’t! And don’t imagine that you’ll be able to pay for it yourself. It cost a fortune for four years of college these days, believe you me.
“You’ve got to prepare for life. You can go chase your dreams. I’m not telling you not to. Only, take the engineering degree and you will always have that. If things don’t go the way you hope, you can always fall back on engineering. And you can hardly do better than that, just look at your uncle Howard.”
His father wanted him to be an engineer, like his uncle Howard. Dad was a plumber. He’d foregone college, but his brother, who excelled at math, had gone on to earn two bachelors and a masters degree, back when college was rather inexpensive. He and his wife now lives in a big house and drives two Tesla’s. His father had always worked for someone else, and he’d never had the courage to launch out on his own. But, determined that his son would do better, he’d socked away money for Adrian’s college, and come hell or high water, Adrian was going to go.
And that was okay with Adrian. He never planned to do anything else. Only he needed a breather. He couldn’t care less about engineering. Yes, he was good at math, but his love was art, especially digital art, and that was something his father could never understand. To him, it sounded like playing. How could he get him to understand?
He couldn’t. Or he didn’t know how. So, once again, like so many times before, they both stood intransigent, neither willing to yield to the other.
His father sounded like a broken record. How many times had he said to him, “You go to college. You get a sensible degree, and engineering is as sensible as they come. Then after that, do what you want to do. Get a job, don’t get a job. I don’t care, just get the degree. You’ve got to get the degree.”
So many words had been spoken at this point. They hung in the silence that grew between them, like a dark cloud that obscured one from the other. They no longer saw one another for what they really were — two men, cut from the same cloth, a father and a son, both wanting the same thing — a good life for Adrian. All they saw, through the thickening atmosphere, was anger and disrespect.
So many word had been left unspoken. They were nowhere to be seen or heard, but only as small, lonely utterances, hidden in their hearts. The ‘I love you’ and the ‘you’re important to me’, the ‘I care’ and ‘I support you’ unformed, kept from their tongues by the need to control, a need driven by fear.
Everything bad comes from fear — hate, anger, jealousy, envy. They are all born of fear, and this was no different. Mr. Hendricks feared that after all his hard work, all his scraping and saving, that Adrian would end up just like him, living in regret, wishing he’d made a different choice when he’d had the chance. And Adrian feared that he would lose himself in his father’s dreams for him, or that he’d never know who he truly was or what he could become, given the chance.
Maybe one day they will find the way through all the fire and smoke. Maybe one day they will calm their fears, give into love, grasp hold of hope and faith, believe in one another, and speak the unspoken words, the words that heal.
Maybe one day, but not today.
Today, Adrian stomped from the room, slamming his bedroom door. Mr. Hendricks, thinking first to storm after him and correct him for the door slam, instead, did some slamming of his own, as he left the house for work.
There would be no reconciliation, no compromise. That will have to wait for another day.
This is my Day Nine entry to the Writer’s Digest February Flash Fiction Challenge. The prompt is to “write about two people who can’t compromise.” I wrote this on the 14th.
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