The father tousled his son’s blonde hair and softly said, “Love you, buddy.” His son smiled shyly and said, “Love you too, Papa,” and then entered his classroom.
He walked through the chilly hallways of the elementary school with his hands in his pockets, smiling and nodding to kids, parents, and teachers alike. He swiftly exited the building, walked down the rickety wooden stairs behind the school, crossed the sandy soccer field which was still hardened from the previous evening’s late-Autumn chill, ascended the cracked concrete stairs, and with his thoughts on a second cup of coffee he crossed the uneven parking lot and marched up the last steep hill to his home.
“Everything ok?” His wife asked as she indicated the steaming cup of coffee waiting for him on the kitchen table.
“Of course,” he removed his boots, tip-toed into his slippers, and hung up his coat, muffler, and hat. “He was telling me all about the Soyuz rockets he saw in his videos last night.”
“He’s 7, and he probably knows more about rocketry than anyone involved in the first moon landing,” she laughed and smiled as her husband nodded and chuckled, and then joined her at the table.
“What time do you start today?” he asked this question every morning, even though he already knew.
“9,” she sighed. “I have to leave in a minute. You?”
“I’m off today,” he smiled and leaned back. “I’ll read a bit, write a bit, and then go pick him up from school.”
“Ok,” she drained her cup and placed it in the sink. “Have fun…” she sighed again and left the house.
The father sat back and smiled in contentment. His coffee mug was in his hand, his mind began to stray to the last pages in the book he was currently reading, and the thin apartment walls muffled everything from the outside world until everything blended into a low hum.
He set his cup down and crossed the room to retrieve his e-reader from the table next to the couch. As he drew near, however, he stopped suddenly and gasped, as the sight of a small white cylinder on a tiny chain stopped him short.
His son’s proximity beeper sat on the table beside his e-reader, partially hidden beneath a paper he had been looking over the night before. He pulled out his mobile phone and searched for the text that was supposed to be sent to him each day when his son crossed the invisible electronic threshold around the school grounds. Of course it wasn’t sent because in his trembling hand lay the beeper that was supposed to be attached to his son’s belt. And there in his hand the beeper would be, quiet and useless if his son was to wander out of the schoolyard, or worse.
He began to tap out a text to his wife quickly, but then thought better of it and stopped. And then started again. And stopped. And finally, he sent a text to her asking if he should take the beeper to the school.
No, he’ll be fine, came the reply.
“It’ll be fine,” he said aloud to himself. We laughed when they first sent the beeper home with him, along with their theatrical letter telling us that the world is dangerous and that he should always wear the beeper. We laughed as we read about their proclamations concerning their interest and diligence in keeping our children safe. We laughed. Then he sat down and turned on his e-reader and looked at the beeper and quickly looked away again.
He pressed the picture of a book with the number 127 displayed next to it, and he looked at the beeper and pursed his lips and looked away.
The e-reader flashed to his page, and he tried to refresh his memory as to where he was in the story, but he looked back at the beeper and bit his upper lip, and in his mind flashed an image of his smiling but all-too-trusting and forward son.
He began to read, but his thoughts remained in a whirling worry-storm centered on his son’s open and inquisitive nature, and his eyes kept the beeper in their periphery. The words began to flash by more and more quickly, but he retained no meaning, and it was more like a stream of black nonsense drifting across a murky bed of darkening possibilities.
He set the e-reader down without saving his place, stood up more quickly than he had intended, and began to walk away towards another room to search for something to occupy his mind. After a few steps, he suddenly stopped and turned and picked up the beeper.
In his hand, the plastic felt warm and alive, almost as if it were pulsing, as if the electricity from the small battery were rushing out in a great torrent through some unseen, open wound. The small chain was cold though as if it was just inside a freezer, and this coldness he wrapped around his smallest finger. The pulsing beeper he squeezed in his hand, which was raised to his heart until sweat began to trickle down his wrist.
Through the room he paced, from the window next to the couch where his e-reader laid forgotten, to the kitchen table where his half-finished coffee grew chill. He walked and walked in a small elliptical pattern with his mind always moving a little faster, a little ahead, a little beyond. His eyes kept watching the clock, and he tried to force himself to not look for longer and longer periods of time, but the longest he was able to look away was 10 minutes.
Although the school was only a 5-minute walk from his apartment, he left an hour before the end of the school day. He put his boots on in a hurry, forgot to wear his hat, and he nearly jogged down the hill, tripping slightly in the uneven parking lot, and practically fell down the concrete stairs. His eyes were looking beyond the sandy soccer field towards the wooden stairs, and so he trod in nearly every puddle and slipped on several patches of mud as the sun was high and the partial-freeze had quickly thawed. Up the wooden stairs he flew, falling once when he slid on an icy patch hidden in shadow. And into the school he tramped, not even aware enough to try and hide the frantic energy that creased his brow.
At the window of his son’s classroom he paused, his breathing like a rasping torrent in his ears, steaming the glass in front of him. He bit his lower lip, and then slowly looked around the corner and into the classroom where he saw his son answering a question put to him by his young teacher.
The father breathed deeply again, nearly swore out loud, and then pulled himself back around the corner.
He waited there in the hallway outside his son’s classroom and greeted his boy with a smile and a wave when the class was over. His son began to tell him about all that had happened at school that day, and the father listened and tried to appear relaxed and happy.
Together, father and son walked through the hallways of the school and out the back door. They made their way towards the wooden stairs, and just when the father reached the first step, he felt a strange vibration in his coat pocket. He removed the phone with his right hand and saw a text informing him that his son had just left the school grounds.
He unclenched his left hand and looked in confounded remembrance at the beeper he was still clutching, covered in sweat.
