InDigest
By: Samuel Osterhout
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At 15, my fake ID said I was 27 and since I was without titties, sorry, I needed a beard. I had let my facial hair grow the entire time I was in Seattle, visiting my dad—6 weeks. I may not have looked 27, but I looked pretty sweet. I also purchased a mustard-colored hooded sweatshirt in Seattle, very grunge, which made me look like a man who made his own decisions.
My dad had moved out of the house and had left the state of Kansas—which I called the state of misery—the fall of my freshman year. I got back from my visit with him exactly one week before the first day of my sophomore year. My dad and I look exactly the same—black hair, dark eyes, we laugh a lot and we’re both hirsute, and I hadn’t seen him since he’d gone, so my six weeks out there were pretty good. His apartment was poorly lit and he didn’t have any furniture, but we got to eat pizza every night, which was sweet. Also, while he was at work during the day, he let me wander around Seattle by myself. That’s how I got my fake ID—in a little gift shop near Pike Place Market. I filled out an application form and under date of birth I lied. But I didn’t want to make myself 21 because that would have been too obvious. So I made myself 27. The Chinese guy who took the application said, “Most kids just want to buy booze—looks like you want to rent cars.” I was like, “What do you mean? I’m totally 27.” And he was like, “Okey Doky,” and he took my picture.
I tried to look pissed off in the picture, like I was a 27-year-old who had seen hard times. I wanted to look cynical.
It wasn’t hard. By that time I had been in Seattle for 5 weeks and I hadn’t gotten a letter from Molly in 3 weeks. Molly was the only girl I’d ever loved and she smelled like Pantene. Her boobs, which I had seen and kissed many times, also smelled like Pantene, but also like something I couldn’t place—like the coat closet in the house of a stranger. Glorious. But she had apparently decided to stop writing me letters and so I decided to be a cynical 27-year-old with a beard and a mustard-colored sweatshirt.
By the time I got home from Seattle, I still hadn’t heard from her. And, anyhow, I had changed. Not only did I have my sweet beard, I had used mass transit. How could I explain mass transit to the hayseeds in Hutchinson, Kansas? I had lived alone, as well, with my dad in his dark apartment
When I got home, the day I got home, I decided to try out my ID at the liquor store.
Tyler Hall, my closest confidant, was hairy like me. Maybe even more so. Not only was he able to grow five o’clock shadows, he had a receding hairline. And nothing makes 15-year-old female hearts go pitter-patter like a receding hairline. The girls loved Tyler Hall and I loved him, too. His dad, Lincoln Hall, was a sophisticate who flew jets for private businessmen and who had a woman in every port. He also had an old issue of Playboy signed by Hugh Hefner, himself, and a stereo with the biggest remote control I’d ever seen.
When you’re 15, you need more than just a fake ID to buy alcohol. You need a friend with a receding hairline and good upbringing. So Tyler and I went to the liquor store together. I wore my mustard-colored hooded sweatshirt and he wore boat shoes, khaki-slacks, a button up shirt, and blazer with a crest on the lapel. When we walked into the store, he put a pipe in his mouth.
My dad wasn’t like Lincoln Hall—he didn’t even have a remote control, big or small. He had a mattress that sat on the floor and a suitcase and a beanbag chair. He had a mailbox in the lobby of his complex and I watched it closely everyday I was in Seattle, but for a full month, nothing came. I felt abandoned. My father had come all this way just to be alone. Me too. Maybe he felt abandoned, too. Maybe my mom never sent him letters. My mom said he and I were exactly alike, and before that summer I thought she meant we were both hairy and cute. But now I thought maybe she meant we were both prone to abandonment.
Tyler Hall and I decided to enter the liquor store as if we owned the place. We also decided to pay for our booze with a check because what 15-year-old would do that?
It was bright in there. I had always imagined liquor stores to be dark and cluttered, but this was bright and neat and well ordered, and, with Tyler and his parentage and the bright lights, I felt safe.
There was an older woman behind the counter who looked a little perturbed even before she saw us. Tyler, pipe clutched tightly in his teeth, walked directly up to her and said, “Well, hello, young lady! Aren’t we looking lovely this evening!” This is the point I felt most certain that I would be arrested. But the woman’s stodgy demeanor shifted suddenly, and she giggled. She giggled! Tyler leaned up against the counter and said, “I’ve got some questions for you. My wife and I and my old college chum here are throwing a bit of a fete this evening, and my wife sent me to purchase the wine. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a philistine when it comes to wine and food pairings. Can you point me to something that will go with salmon in a light tarragon demi-glaze?”
My pits were all sweaty and I think I loved Tyler at that moment more than I loved anyone or anything on earth, including Molly’s glorious Pantene-boobs. Tyler winked at me and I felt myself twitter like the old lady.
“Oh my!” she said to him, “I don’t know. Let me see…” she led us to wrack of wine and made a few suggestions. Tyler listened and nodded.
The night before was my last night in Seattle with my dad. He and I went to this pizza place down the street from his apartment. We had $16 to spend on dinner, $7 of which was mine. The place was brightly lit, like the liquor store, but different. Despite being half-empty, everyone who walked past walked past quickly. We stood quietly inside the doors and waited for someone to seat us, but people who came after us kept being seated ahead of us. We were invisible, my dad and me. Forgotten. We stood there, so still and so quiet, for a half-hour while waiters buzzed to their tables with water and butter and bread and salads and other families came and were seated. We finally just sort of found our own place to sit. When the waiter came at last we ordered a medium cheese pizza because it was only $14 and we talked about how good it was to have spent the past six weeks together. And whenever my dad spoke, no matter what he said, the words sounded to me like loneliness. Maybe it was the way he looked down at the table.
The very next day, there I was, with Tyler in a quiet liquor store with an old woman and I felt good and safe.
“So this will pair nicely with the new potatoes, eh?” he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. All this is still a little foreign to me. I’m going to send my wife back for the wine. I think I’ll just go ahead and get six cases of Natural Light for now.” The woman giggled a little—it was odd to see such a woman giggle—and she said, “Right away, sir.” Tyler wrote a check, like we had planned, and we took the beer back to my house, where we found Molly waiting for me in my gravel driveway.
The sun was down and she looked so happy and so stupid, like one looks at 15.
I’m just like my dad. My mom will tell you that. I don’t just look like him, either.
Molly grabbed me and hugged me and held me and I smelled her and she smelled like Pantene.
When you’re 15 and you’re invisible, you need more than just a mustard-colored hooded sweatshirt and a sweet beard. Tyler, who I wanted to become but couldn’t become, disappeared into my house with the beer and Molly held on and on and on and on and wouldn’t let me pull away, even though I tried as best I could.
When you’re 15 and you’re prone to abandonment, what you need is a picture of yourself 12 years in the future, looking pissed off and cynical. Or, better yet, what you need is a picture of yourself 30 years in the future, taken with your 15-year-old son at a pizza place in Seattle. You’re the one looking down at the table, whose voice sounds like loneliness.
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