The Freshman Copyright 2005 by EC Chapter 24 - Jason's Christmas Vacation Jason spent what he hoped would be his final Christmas vacation separated from Cecilia. As he rode with his father across the open lands of southern Wisconsin to their final destination in his wealthy neighborhood, he was able to reflect on how his first college semester had changed him. He thought about how much he was moving away from the rest of his family in his values, ambitions, and what he wanted from his life. He knew that most certainly he had no desire to follow in his father's footsteps nor in any way associate himself with the world his father was a part of. His life would have to follow a different path, but still needed to determine what that path would be. Once he found out Jason's final grades for the semester, Mr. Schmidt had very little to say to his son. Jason's performance in college spoke for itself. He had passed one of the most difficult freshman classes on the first try with a "B", which removed a major obstacle blocking his continued progress. He now could take several classes that had Burnside's Theory of Economics as a prerequisite and had decided on a rather ambitious spring semester. It was quite clear to Mr. Schmidt that Jason had no intention of wasting time in college. He had performed much better than anyone in his family could have anticipated, assuring that he would be returning for a second semester in school. The silence in the car on the journey northward was fortunate, because Jason needed the time to reflect on his relationship with Cecilia. Already he missed her tremendously. Three weeks without her would seem like an eternity, because the truth was that he needed her to be in charge of his daily life. However intimidated he might be of her strong character and temper, she had saved him by giving his life a purpose and a sense of direction. In her absence, even for a few weeks, he felt adrift and unfocused. His thoughts wandered to questioning why Cecilia's role in his life was so crucial for his success. Why did he need her? Not just want her; but actually need her? He fully understood that it was not college that had changed him, but Cecilia. He now realized what would have happened to him that first semester, had he not met her. He would have taken a few easy classes, put forth a minimal effort to pass, and probably would have barely managed to stay enrolled for the spring. He had no ambitions, nothing he planned to pursue, other than living from day to day with as little effort as possible. He had entered college with a fatalistic attitude, simply taking for granted that he was a failure as a human being, and thus could not expect much from his time in college. To Cecilia, living like that was unacceptable. As soon as she became interested in him, she ensured that Jason's lack of direction and his subconscious desire to drift into obscurity came to an abrupt stop. She had absolutely no qualms about imposing what she wanted into Jason's life and mercilessly controlling him and his activities. However, not once had she ever been wrong about something she wanted him to do. Even the blow-up over the tattoo…yes, even about that she had been right. Did he really need to permanently mark up his body just because it was fashionable at the time to do so? Wouldn't it be better to save himself for the future and stand his ground against the whims of the moment? Jason's musings wandered to the next question: why did she need him so badly? As the semester drew to a close he came to realize that she needed him every bit as much as he needed her. He came to understand that what Cecilia needed was a partner she could both control and trust, because in reality she was extremely vulnerable. As tough and bossy as she seemed on the outside, he knew that she actually was quite scared of her secret weaknesses, every bit as much as he was scared of his own. Jason remembered the Eastern concept of Yin and Yang from one of his high school classes, the idea of the two parts that made a full circle. They fit together, neither able to exist without the other. Yin and Yang each left a gap that the other had to fill. Perhaps that concept explained his life with Cecilia. Jason's soul was only partially formed and had pieces missing. However, Cecilia's soul also was only partially formed and had pieces missing. If that were true, then perhaps there was the answer to Jason's question. Together he and Cecilia complimented each other to make a whole, but each of them, separated from the other, was incomplete. ---------- Mr. Schmidt and his son returned to their over-sized house and their empty neighborhood. There was a slight whiff of carpet cleaning solution and insecticide in the residence; a sign that true to her word, Mrs. Schmidt had the place fumigated after Cecilia left the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Jason's mother was in the kitchen working on a holiday cooking project and issuing commands to the two maids. As always, a wall of hostility poisoned the atmosphere as soon as Jason's parents found themselves in the same room. As always, Mrs. Schmidt vented her hostility, not at the man who paid her bills, but at another convenient target. "So, where's the little gang-banger, Jason? Slinging crack back in the 'Hood?" Jason walked up to his mother, slapped his grade sheet on the countertop, and walked toward the kitchen door. "Hey, I'm talking to you…I asked you a question! Where's your little gang-banger?" Jason kept walking, desperate to avoid exploding at his mother. "Jason!" "Mom, she's staying to watch over Huntington Hall, if you really gotta know. That's where she is." "Well I hope they fumigate before the students…" With that comment, Jason snapped, less than a minute being back in his family's house. He might have held his tongue had she accused his girlfriend of anything else, but the hypocrisy of that comment pushed him over the edge. How dare she, a woman who never did a moment of cleaning in her life, say such a thing? "Mom, the only thing that needs to be fumigated is your fucking mouth! Cecilia's a better woman than you'll ever be, and you know why? Because she doesn't play fucking tennis! She's got a hell of a lot better things to do than play friggin' tennis all day and bitch about everyone else!" The kitchen exploded into a savage shouting match between Jason and his parents. He caught them off-guard, because never had he stood up to them. The only time he even hinted at standing up for himself was at Thanksgiving when he snapped at his mother to "just let it go" when she was about to lay into Cecilia. This, however, was different because not only had he yelled at his mother, he had sworn at her. As much as he hated his wife, there was no way Mr. Schmidt would allow one of his children go as far as swearing at her. He snarled at Jason to apologize, but Jason retorted that she needed to apologize for her treatment of Cecilia and the fumigation comments. To that Mrs. Schmidt snarled: "I did have to have this place fumigated Jason, and I don't appreciate the inconvenience…" Jason snapped again, repeating his line that it was Mrs. Schmidt's mouth that needed to be fumigated. Mr. Schmidt again jumped into the fray, falling back on reminding Jason about his own worthlessness and how it resulted in the deaths of three people the year before. "Maybe it's true that your mother's worthless, but at least she never got anyone killed, not like some worthless people in this room." Mrs. Schmidt did not take kindly to being called worthless by her husband. "Well, at least I'm not screwing a bunch of diseased wetbacks and coffee shop whores like you two." "Of course not, 'cause you're too busy banging those god-damned fag tennis instructors instead!" Jason's mother went white, the blood draining from her face. It was obvious her husband knew more about her life than she had realized. She gave him a hostile, frightened look, then, not knowing what else to do, picked up a pot and slammed it into the expensive set of copper pans hanging above the stove. There was a loud clatter as several of the metal utensils fell onto the stove and then onto the floor. The maids backed away in fright, never having seen their bosses raise their voices at each other before. For the first time in quite a while, the sullen silence between Jason's parents had broken into open hostility. However, instead of continuing to battle, the three members of the Schmidt family quickly withdrew from the kitchen to nurse their grudges alone. The Schmidts were not used to openly fighting, so once the explosion took place they really did not know how to continue. The behavior of Jason's parents contrasted with the behavior of Cecilia's family during fights. No one in the Sanchez household ever walked away from a confrontation. The family frequently remained in the kitchen screaming at each other all night until they became exhausted or ran out of things to say. They fought, but then, the next day continued on with their lives as though nothing had happened. The difference was significant, because in Cecilia's family the constant fights didn't lead to any worsening of the over-all relationship between her relatives. The Sanchez's did not really like or get along with each other, but things in the household never got any worse regardless of whatever unpleasantness there might be at any given moment. An open fight among Jason's family was a much less frequent matter, but much more serious in its consequences. When the Schmidts had an open fight there was tense silence for weeks afterwards. When they finally did start speaking again, the emotional residue from the confrontation never disappeared. Every open fight was an event for Jason's family, a milestone in the slow but steady decay of the relationship each family member had with the others. The Schmidts stored their grievances, ready to use in the future for the constant digs and quiet insults that characterized their comments towards each other. Jason retreated to the pool and tore off his clothes. It was the first time he would go skinny-dipping while his parents were in the house and not asleep; but he thought to himself, screw them. I'm going to swim, and I'm going to swim the way I want. If they don't like it, then they can just stay out of the pool area until I'm done. For a very long time he did laps: back and forth…back and forth…trying to swim himself into exhaustion. Much later that night he got dressed and picked up his grade slip from the kitchen countertop, right where he had left it. What he had accomplished that semester in his studies meant nothing to his mother. That much was obvious because she had not even bothered to look at his grades. ---------- The next day Jason decided to go to his grandmother's condo to get a sane perspective on the ugly homecoming he had endured the night before. He stayed in bed until his father went to work and his mother departed to the country club, then called the elder Mrs. Schmidt to see if her boyfriend could come over to pick him up. Oddly enough, Jason's grandmother seemed to know ahead of time that he would be calling her and would need to get out of the house. He wondered how she could have known that, because immediately after he hung up the phone his grandmother's friend was on his way to retrieve him. Jason spent the trip back to his grandmother's house talking to the older man about his semester. It struck him as very odd that a person who was not a blood relative took more interest in his life than did his own parents. When he entered his grandmother's residence she had several interesting items of news for him. She was not at all surprised about the blow-up in the kitchen the night before. Apparently things were not going well at all between Jason's parents, because their excesses were beginning to catch up with them. His father was spending ever more time with his job and his mistresses, and working on some sinister project related to Mega- Town Associates. Cassie was running wild and smoking pot. Meanwhile, Jason's mother was relieving her stress by having affairs with various staff members at the country club. Although she had been conducting her affairs for several years, her recent behavior had become much less discreet. In fact, her activities had become a source of gossip and already had cost her the trust of several of her friends. She had been involved a couple of scandals, including getting at least one physical instructor fired. "If she doesn't watch herself she's going to get expelled from that club, because she's a bit of a headache for the management. God help us all when she gets kicked out and winds up sitting at home…God help us when that happens. She'll go crazy and take everyone down with her." He learned his father had faced a sexual harassment suit from a waitress during the fall and decided to settle out of court. Unfortunately Jason's mother learned about the suit and its result, which encouraged her to pursue her own affairs at the club and become more abusive to the maids. "I'm very worried about your parents, Jason. I can see what's going to happen and there's nothing I can do to stop it. They're killing themselves, and if you and Cassie don't watch yourselves, you're going to go down with them." Jason wasn't sure how to respond, so his grandmother continued. "Actually, on that, I'm a lot more worried about Cassie than about you. I think you're going to come out OK, but I don't know about Cassie. Your mom has her so tightly wound up in all that country club nonsense that I don't know if she can handle losing all that." "But what do you think is going to happen? Do you think Dad's gonna lose his job?" "No, not the job. It'd be a blessing if he did, because I'm not proud of what he's become or what he's doing. I wish he'd lose his job, because it's that job that's destroying him. And now he's about to destroy everyone else around him. He's already destroyed your mother." "Don't you think you're being a bit hard on him? Do you really think he's that bad?" "I'm not being hard on him at all. I always wanted him to be happy, and he's not. He refuses to be. He's the most miserable person I know, and he can't figure out why. I think I do know why. He's so consumed with himself that he can't experience any joy out of life, and if you can't experience any joy, you're already dead. Already dead. That's how I see your parents, both of them. No joy and no love, just greed and selfishness, so what do they have to live for?" "But what makes you so stressed out about them now? They really haven't changed." "They've changed. It's just you haven't noticed it because you're too close to them to see what's going on. I can sit back, and watch them from a distance. I've been watching them for 22 years, so I think I can put their lives into perspective. They're sinking, and it won't be much longer…" "Much longer?" "They don't have much longer. I just have…this feeling. I can sense it, but I can't explain it. I can tell you that something very bad is going to happen to them. When it does, you'll need to be as far away from here as you can. Later, I'll need you to come back, to help your sister. It's going to be a lot harder on her than it will be on you. I think you'll be OK. Her, I don't know about." "But…what is it? What do you think's gonna happen?" "That's what I don't know, but I can sense it. All I can tell you is that your parents are going to destroy themselves. It's too late for me to do anything for them. All I can do is try to be here for you and Cassie." ---------- The topic of conversation changed, and the two talked at length about Mr. Schmidt as a child. Then Jason's grandmother talked about her own childhood. She went even further back in time as she talked about their distant relatives. Jason spent the next several hours listening to his grandmother's detailed account of the Schmidt family history. For the first time in his life he was ready to look back into the past and assess where he had come from, following the family story clear back to the 1840's, when several ancestors passed through New York and settled on the frontier. He spent a very long time looking through old photo albums and trying to understand what had made the Schmidts the way they were. That afternoon he learned another interesting fact. When his parents decided to replace the old family furniture with the expensive items currently decorating their house, his grandmother secretly rented a storage unit to keep the heirlooms his father had planned to throw out. Mr. Schmidt was unaware that the old family furniture had not been hauled to the dump, but instead was safely sitting in storage, waiting for Jason or Cassie to retrieve at some point in the distant future. Jason had never really thought about the old family furniture before, but suddenly realized he was enormously relieved to know it had not been thrown out after all. It had been saved for him, the family's past, which was being kept to be part of his own future. He did indeed have a future, one in which he would salvage whatever was left over from the disaster that was being predicted by his grandmother, and one in which he and Cecilia would continue to share. Once again he realized how much he missed her and how glad he would be to see her in January. Somehow Jason's grandmother perceived that her grandson's thoughts had drifted to his girlfriend. She decided to find out a bit more about the fiery little Dominican, which in turn gave Jason the chance to express his most recent thoughts about the relationship. He confided that it had been Cecilia who had pushed him to do his coursework and pass his classes, although he decided to leave out the detail that she had been disciplining him. He talked about her obsession that everyone on her floor do well and the fact that she had enlisted Jason and his friends to help several other floor residents with their studies at the end of the semester. He talked about his recent wardrobe changes, and then mentioned Cecilia's aversion to tattoos. He admitted that she had been the reason he had not gotten one like almost everyone else on his floor that semester. Knowing that Jason's girlfriend had stood between her grandson and a tattoo boosted the older woman's already high opinion of her. Jason went on to discuss his thoughts about the possibility of their personalities being incomplete and thus complementing each other. His grandmother responded with the following observation: "I think I know what's going on with that. Her problem is that she had to mature too quickly. When she was 15 she was thinking like an adult, and maybe, deep down, she wasn't ready. She matured too fast, and some things got left out. And you…since we're being honest here, never really had the chance to mature at all. You were never really challenged with life in school, and then it hit you all at once, last year with the accident. But I don't think the accident matured you, all it did was make you hate yourself and get everyone to point their fingers at you. So I think you're right. You and Cecilia do complement each other. She had to grow up too fast, and you didn't grow up fast enough, so each of you has something the other is missing." Finally Jason sat down to dinner with his grandmother and her boyfriend, dreading the thought of returning to his parents' house as soon as the meal was over. He was hugely relieved when she mentioned that the living room sofa was a sleeper-sofa that folded out, and…would he like to spend the night instead of going home? He gladly accepted the offer. He slept soundly in the living room, happy to be in a household free from tension and hostility. ---------- The next day Jason returned with his grandmother to his father's house. Cassie was in the back with a couple of her bitchy friends, the three of them hanging out in the pool area in rather revealing swimsuits. Jason's aunt on his mother's side also was present, along with her very over-weight son who was sitting in the family room playing video games. Looking at the collection of people in his house, Jason was able to step back and see his family for the dysfunctional group they truly were. He thought about Cassie, figuring that she was the one detail his grandmother had wrong about his future. How on earth could he ever do anything for her? She was as lost as his mother, wrapped up in a dead-end social life with a clique of very shallow princesses and a pot-head boyfriend. The other two girls got dressed and departed, giving Jason dismissive glances as they walked out the front door. The underlying tension between Jason and his parents, between Mr. Schmidt and his wife, between Cassie and everyone else, and between Jason's mother and grandmother, seemed to permeate the house when everyone gathered for dinner. On top of the tension between the members of Jason's immediate family was the total contempt Mr. Schmidt directed towards his wife's fat nephew. It was true that his son was a pathetic wimp, but at least he was in good physical shape, unlike that gross blob with the video console. At dinner Mr. Schmidt just couldn't resist digging at that ugly kid, which made him stare sullenly at his plate and elicited furious glances from Jason's aunt. Mr. Schmidt sat smugly at the head of the table, hoping his sister-in-law would say something so he could get some good sarcastic digs in on her as well. Jason's aunt couldn't say anything however. She was a guest, and knew that her sister would never stand up to her husband on behalf of someone else. As the women sat quietly, Jason's father continued to command the table and the evening, talking loudly and heaping subtle indignities on everyone present. Losers, he thought to himself. They're all a bunch of pathetic, useless losers. Jason managed to detach himself emotionally from the scene, since for once he was not the target of his father's unpleasantness. He had no desire to rush to his mother's aid, given her venomous treatment of Cecilia, so he just sat watching. Every so often he exchanged glances with his grandmother. Yes, indeed, things in the household could not continue this way much longer. His grandmother was right: something bad was about to happen to his parents. ---------- After the dinner, Jason's grandmother retreated from the house. She called her boyfriend, who showed up within a very short time to extract her in his old restored Chevy. He showed up so quickly that Jason suspected he had been waiting somewhere close by instead of coming all the way from the condo development that was a half an hour away. They were gone, very quickly, and Jason was sorry to see her go. His aunt and cousin also left very quickly, both in a very sour mood as he waddled after her with his hands full of game paraphernalia. Jason had mixed emotions about his father's treatment of his cousin, because unfortunately, as far as the kid's obesity was concerned, he was right. There was no way that kid should be in that physical state and no way his mother should have allowed it to happen. Jason knew that his cousin lived in a world of video games because his weight made his life on the outside very unpleasant. And, yet, precisely because of his constant effort to escape reality by sitting with his game console, the kid looked the way he did. It was obvious; however, that Mr. Schmidt's critique his wife's nephew had nothing to do with genuine concern over the boy. Instead he simply was taking advantage of an easy target to make the evening as uncomfortable as possible for his wife and his sister-in-law. Mrs. Schmidt and Cassie retreated to their rooms while the maids cleaned up in the kitchen and talked to each other in Spanish in their usual quiet, secretive manner. Mr. Schmidt went into the room he used as a home office, shut the door, and got on both the Internet and the phone. The family had broken up for the night, with absolutely no cheer or holiday spirit. ---------- Jason decided to put on his coat and step outside, in spite of the bitterly cold weather. It was a clear night with the full Moon casting its light on the recently fallen snow, so Jason had plenty of light as he made his way over the frozen landscape of the empty neighborhood. He walked into a park and up a small hill that overlooked his street, turning back to contemplate his family's house from a distance. He suspected the house and its contents soon would disappear from his life, if his grandmother's prediction about his parents came true. The house would be gone, and he would not miss it in the least. Knowing that he didn't care about the impending loss of that monstrosity gave him a real feeling of liberation, knowing he was not attached to that horrible property like his mother and his sister. Whenever the foreclosure sign was posted in front, he would just walk away. He would leave this neighborhood and never come back, not even for his high school reunions. Cecilia had told him that under no circumstances did she want to live in a house like the one Jason's parents had bought. Instead she wanted something smaller and more common sense, just a typical ranch-style house in a typical middle class neighborhood. She had a very clear idea of what daily life in that modest house would be like. She was adamant that there would be no maids and no gardeners; no strangers paid to wander around her property. Whatever work needed to be done to keep the place clean, she and Jason would do themselves and keep their living space private. And her house would be clean; there was no doubt about it. When it came to her living space, Cecilia was immaculate to a fault. She couldn't stand dust, dirt, trash, or any disorder in any area she occupied. She vacuumed the floor of her dorm room and washed her sheets no less than once every three days. She would never even think about wearing an article of clothing more than once without washing it. Any dorm resident caught leaving a mess in the women's bathroom could expect a nasty lecture from the RA and an order to clean up. Jason's dorm room had to be every bit as immaculate as her own, because she expected him to conform to her craving for order and neatness. Once she assumed control of an entire house she would become even more obsessive about cleaning up. She had insinuated that if they got married she and Jason would evenly divide the work related to their home. They would not exactly share their work, but instead each would have specific responsibilities. She would take care of the inside of the house and he would take care of the outside. He already knew how she would handle the yard work issue. She would tell him what she wanted done and he would do it to her specifications. She then would come out to inspect and tell him what she wanted corrected. However, as he complied with her orders to keep up the yard and the exterior, he knew she would be diligently working on the inside, keeping the interior spotless. Even more than cleanliness, what Cecilia wanted was peace in her household. After growing up in her noise and conflict infested housing project she wanted a place where she could shut the doors and listen to the silence. It made sense, what she wanted. He realized that she was right. Apart from the swimming pool, was there really anything in that huge house of his parents that brought any pleasure to his life? Was life really any easier with strangers doing all the housework? As he stood quietly in the cold, Jason caught a glimpse his own future. The vision of the foreclosure sign in front of his father's house returned to his mind, as clearly as if it already had been posted. It was as though someone had handed him a snapshot from the future, but with no explanation of when the picture was taken or what it meant. He wondered how it would happen, what mistake his father would make that would force the family off that property. There were signs all over of the impending crisis, which really could come from any direction. The possibility that his father could be taken down by a business rival was a constant reality, but Jason suspected it was not a rival who was going to destroy him. Mr. Schmidt would self- destruct from something that he did to himself, not something that someone else would do to him. Another scenario played out in Jason's mind, the possibility of his mother's increasingly erratic behavior creating a crisis. What if she did get kicked out of the country club? Yes, that indeed would be a disaster, having her sitting at home, day in and day out, going crazy from boredom. Even Cassie's behavior could bring about a crisis, because she reminded Jason of...she reminded him of Heather Jones. Yes, she was a lot like Heather Jones with both her personality and her social group. He wondered if she already had tried ecstasy. If she hadn't, she would soon enough. ---------- Christmas dinner seemed like it would bring a temporary truce to the household. Jason's parents had said their piece about Cecilia, he had struck back, and there was nothing more to be said about her. Jason had done well academically and had not put on any weight, so there was nothing left for his parents to criticize. The elder Schmidts were not speaking to each other, but that was not particularly unusual. Jason's aunt had decided not to come over for Christmas dinner and would eat with her son alone. Jason's grandmother was the only other relative coming over. Cassie decided to have her boyfriend over, because she had a vague idea of irritating her parents by forcing them to have dinner with someone they clearly disliked. That was fortunate for Jason, but would be very unfortunate for her. Whatever deficiencies Jason might have, between his accident, his ecstasy use, his nude swimming, and his psychotic criminal girlfriend, tonight was not a night he would feel the brunt of his father's hostility. It was Cassie, or rather her unsavory partner, who was destined to get the full treatment from Mr. Schmidt. When he sat down with Cassie, the normally arrogant guy seemed a bit out of it, probably from having smoked a joint or two before coming over. He certainly smelled like he had been smoking, a detail not lost on anyone else sitting at the table. That night Mr. Schmidt finally decided he had enough of smelling and looking at the stupid pot-head. As a Christmas present to himself, he would do something about it. He by began telling jokes and stories about stupid marijuana smokers. When Cassie and her boyfriend didn't laugh, he commented: "Come-on, what's wrong with you two? That was a funny joke. It's not as though you're smoking, right?" As the two teenagers shifted uncomfortably in their seats, her father talked about his days on the high school football team and how he and his friends used to beat up "pot-heads" and "fags". "Of course, all the fags were smoking pot, 'cause I guess that's what ass-men like to do. Yeah, we busted them up pretty good. Those pretty boys weren't so pretty when we got done with them." Both Jason's mother and grandmother signaled his father to shut up, but that was not about to happen. The sight and smell of his daughter's pot-head partner, along with the corrupting influence he was having on her, put him in a belligerent mood. He wanted to pick a fight with his daughter's wasted boyfriend. He would have been perfectly happy to pound that obnoxious punk into a bloody pulp, but he wanted his target to throw the first punch. "Funny thing, how pot can do something like that, make you into a fag, make you into one of those bitches that runs around with their pants down and their underwear sticking out. You know, in jail that's what the prison bitches do, run around with their pants down, 'cause they’re letting everyone know they're waiting for some good dick up their ass." Cassie snapped. "Dad, shut the fuck up! The only fag in here is you!" "Aw, come-on, Cassie. What's wrong with a little high school reminiscing? I had fun in high school, and I thought you'd want to hear about it. I mean, it's not like anyone in here is smoking pot, is it? So what's there to get so upset about? Why get so offended?" Mr. Schmidt had backed Cassie and her boyfriend into a corner. To continue arguing would force her to admit she was smoking marijuana. For her boyfriend to say anything would be to acknowledge Mr. Schmidt's comments were being directed at him. Then he would have to get into a fight with an ex-linebacker that he was sure to lose, continue taking the older man's verbal abuse, or suffer the indignity of having to flee the house. Mr. Schmidt smiled to himself. He had everyone right where he wanted them. He had all night to bring this to a head. He would get rid of this drug addict, one way or another, and teach Cassie never to try to use a boyfriend as a means to rebel against him. He told several more stories about how he and his teammates beat up pot-heads and fags, insinuating that one group was indistinguishable from the other. He jeered at the fashion trends of the moment, while Cassie's boyfriend shifted in his seat trying to get his pants pulled up. That gesture signaled to Mr. Schmidt that the young punk was not going to stand up for himself. Good. He pushed ahead with even more offensive comments to humiliate him as much as possible. As rotten a person as Mr. Schmidt might have been, on the issue of Cassie's boyfriend no one in the family was going to argue with him. No one liked the teenager nor approved of the influence he was having on Jason’s sister. The guest was on his own, pushed into an impossible situation by his girlfriend's father. The muscles bulging under Mr. Schmidt's sweatshirt and his host's aggressive posture made him realize he was in actual physical danger. He began sweating, and then, still somewhat incoherent from his most recent joint, panicked. With a jolt that surprised his hosts, he simply jumped up and ran out the front door without saying a word. He jumped in his car and gunned the engine, as Cassie ran out the door after him. It was too late. He drove off, fishtailed on the frozen street, sideswiped the neighbor's parked SUV, swerved around the corner, and disappeared. Cassie ran upstairs to her room, and slammed the door. She was crying, first alone and later on the phone to one of her friends. Mr. Schmidt had nothing more to say to the three members of his family still sitting at the table. He simply took his plate to the TV, sat down, and turned on the sports channel to watch a preview of the next day's football games. Cassie had learned her lesson, so he was done for the day. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing he needed to discuss with the others. Jason's mother quietly got up and went upstairs to her room, carrying a bottle of wine with her. His grandmother got up as well, and grabbed the phone in the kitchen. She dialed her boyfriend. "Come get me. I need you to get me out of here, right now." A short while later she left, and with that Christmas at the Schmidts' house drew to a close. Jason put on his coat and stepped outside, to walk alone in the bitter cold of a clear Wisconsin winter night. He glanced at the huge dent in the side of his neighbor’s vehicle, and kept on walking. Every open fight was an event for Jason's family, a milestone in the slow but steady decay of the relationship each family member had with the others. That night the family had passed yet another milestone.