Crossroads

Steven Rekstad

ENGL 050-005

Ms. Grollmus

The Nonfiction Essay

February 14, 2012

Crossroads

“FUCK YEAH!” I shout as I leap up from my chair in the Industrial Arts department of Council Rock High School South.  “Happy Valley here I come!”  Flashing across my screen was a virtual acceptance letter to Penn State, the school of my dreams.

It is four-o-clock and school has been out for over an hour, I linger for band practice, one of the banes of my teenage existence.  If my musical talent wasn’t a royal flush dealt to me in the poker game that is life, I would curse it.  In high school my ability to toot my own horn brought me nothing but misery and sorrow.  My mom forced me to join marching band my freshman year and my new inner circle of friends kept me in the music department’s clutches for the next seven semesters.

                After I my feet return to terra firma I turn to face to startled glances of the Technology Club.  I let out a boisterous chuckle, knowing full well they are only in their silly club to pad their college applications and to sugar coat their 2.3 GPAs.  After my booming chortle finishes resonating throughout the building, I turn on my heel and exit purposefully and jovially.

                I searched out my best friend and partner in crime, Tim, who had received his letter days before me.  Zooming up from his blind side I launch myself into the air like a Velociraptor from The Lost World: Jurassic Park in a field of tall grass.  Crushed under the momentum of my charge, he enters a defensive state, curling up like an porcupine in combat with a honey badger.  Recovering, we grab arms to form a circle and jump for joy like little girls who received an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas, unaware they reinforced gender-based stereotypes of which their predecessors fought so hard to shed.

                Onlookers shot quizzical glances in our direction, shocked to see two large blonde fellows acting like school children on a major holiday.  Those who knew us better didn’t even glance twice; it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for us to celebrate raucously.  The words “Fuck band, we’re going to get cheesesteaks” crossed Tim’s lips just as it crossed my mind.

Hypnotized, we pulled up to the Holland Shopping Center; our arrival snapped us out of our daze.  It was an all too familiar drive and our minds were occupied with thoughts of tailgating, the Lion Shrine, and the big man himself, Joe Paterno. 

                We walk into Ultimate Pizza to find a boisterous Philly accent shouting, “Ah CR South boys!  Cheesesteak with pepperonis I presume?”  Our two year tenure on the track team, (a tenure we took very lightly) throwing shot-put and javelin allowed us plenty of time to cut warm-ups and fill our bellies with as much oily, bulk-bought meat as possible.  Over the years we had become regulars, dropping a large portion of our summer’s earnings into the greasy hands of the ever-changing owners of the shady joint.  (We later found out it was a front for a cocaine ring, who knew?) 

                Upon our boisterous return to the school auditorium, we were met with a room half full of glares, half of muffled snickers.  The director’s eyes burned with a familiar fury, her jaw slack with surprise.  We had a concert on the morrow and the majority of the band consisted of young inexperienced players.  In other words, they sucked. 

Our director spoke, “You know full well we have our last concert of the season tomorrow and yet you skip another practice?”

“To be fair, we only missed scales and warm-up”, Tim remarked.

“You never see a lion warming up before he takes down a gazelle, do you?” I quipped.

We could see the look of hatred on her face but it only coaxed us to push the limits of her patience.  “Go fuck yourself”, we thought, or rather whispered on the brink of her hearing capabilities. 

A week later I enrolled in summer session, and Tim set out on a road trip, hopping from school to school to see if Penn State is right or him.  One visit to the shithole that is known as Ohio State shed him of his indecision.  He enrolled to the Motherland a few weeks later.

Tim had always achieved better grades than I had and the university deemed him worthy of a normal fall admission, meaning the inseparable duo would spend the summer apart.  We showed no concern of the separation.  Our friend Matt expressed interest in visiting during Arts Fest, offering to help Tim make his inaugural unsupervised pilgrimage to State College.  We wouldn’t be separated for long.

The weeks passed and senior year came to a close in a blaze of glory at Ocean City, New Jersey.  Casualties were avoided, if only just.  The events of that week, cut short by disaster, cast to shards many friendships.  Our bond, reborn from the ashes, was built up as strong as ever, though there are soft spots still in the healing process. 

Days from the end of Senior Week, I found myself a newly minted freshman, molding the blank slate that was my side of 505 Hartranft Hall.  Bonded in the novelty of parental freedom, my floor mates and I quickly found common ground in the ease and simplicity that is summer session.  With only two classes as distractions and ten idle hours during the day, friendship came effortlessly and swiftly.  Joey, Will, Nick, Greg, Alan, Frank, Mike and Matt became my new inner circle, united in the common objective of taking every advantage of Penn State’s lackadaisical afternoons and vigorous nightlife. 

Weekday and weekend were filled with the same overindulgence that marred the end of senior year, though stretched thinner and thus safer.  With only our hangovers as punishment and our absent-minded resident advisor as a parent, we thrived as a family, pushing the limits of our own bodies and minds.  No fraternity house or apartment was left unturned by our whirlwind of revelry.  I wrote home to Tim of such nights, hoping to lure him westward to University Park.  Answered by promises of his presence, my mind was settled.

                More weeks passed and I had not seen hide nor hair of my curly haired counterpart.  I wished to show him State College how it should be enjoyed, to give him a tour of the downtown area I had come to know and love.  I wished to get to him before another influence, our devilish friend, had the chance. 

His parents, knowing of the new habits he had acquired over the past year which started with my seventeenth birthday party and “the wine incident”, had come to decide they wouldn’t allow their son out of their reach and guidance.   With this new disappointment my correspondence with Tim faded with the hopes of our reunion.  Sure, I updated him on my doings and he did the same but the conversations never again grew beyond small talk until the few days between Summer Finals and Fall Orientation, where we had the chance to sit around our respective backyard fire pits and hold council. 

It was a short period of reprieve from the “stresses” of school.  I hadn’t seen vacation since the previous summer and even then I had to work in the slums and coal mines known as Sesame Place.  Behind the family-friendly visage of Elmo lies a great darkness characterized by burning sun, limited shade and quagmires of piss-water.  The gap was a welcome reprieve, a period of detoxification before I ventured back to the city of endless brothels and taverns.

With Tim in tow I made my glorious return, leaving behind the cushion of parental support I had only just become accustomed to.   We had longed for the opportunity to join the Rowing team, an opportunity which was granted a few weeks into the semester.  We started training like dogs right off the bat, running a campus circuit every day of the week, lifting like crazy and conditioning on the indoor rowing machines, known as ergometers or ‘ergs’.  We were brothers in our pursuit of collegiate glory, stopping at no end to make our bodies and minds hard and sharp.  Weekends were sacrificed, as were classes.  Starting the day at 4:30am takes a toll on one’s desire to attend 9:05am chemistry lectures.  As soon as our dedication had risen, mine had fallen.  My evenings were occupied by pledge activities and study, hoping to regain my lost grades.  A breaking point came during Homecoming.  A sleepless night of gluing bunches of tissue paper to chicken-wire led to my appearance at practice wearing jeans and a t-shirt, as far from rowing attire as possible.  I practiced in my skivvies much to the giggles of the girl’s team and the jests of the men.  It was a grueling affair, pushing us to our limits.  Devoid of slumber, I took every reprieve we were granted to rest my eyes, alternating between passing out and pulling the oar with all my strength.  It was then that I knew I could not carry on. 

Three choices lay before me: Schoolwork, Rowing and Pi Lam.  I knew I had to drop one for fear of losing all three.  My schoolwork was the most obvious choice to keep, it was my purpose as a Penn State student, and my key to unlock the many doors life would offer me.  Both Rowing and pledging offered reward through hardship.  I took a long look down the crossroads, eyeing my two potentials.  On one hand, I had the opportunity to become a varsity athlete, to represent the school I had always dreamt of attending as a child.  This path offered physical turmoil, hours toiling on the ‘erg’, striving to push the limits of my body.  On the other hand, I had Pi Lambda Phi, a brotherhood I so longed to become a part of.  The philanthropy, friendship and enjoyment I found among the residents of 321 Fraternity Row could not be found anywhere else.  I saw myself blossoming from a reserved boy, stuttering in the face of authority and women, to something more.  I was becoming a man, bonded for life with my pledge brothers.  A chance like that is hard to pass up.  I knew right then, in a boat in the middle of Bald Eagle State Park that I had come to terms with myself.

 Upon docking I pulled my coach aside, “Jason, I can’t do it anymore.  You saw me today, I can’t handle this anymore, I have to quit.”  He put on a guise of understanding but I knew he was upset, of the 20-30 novice rowers that joined, more than half had quit.  I was told the next day at practice he cursed me out, which I figured he would do.  He gave the same treatment to the throngs of deserters before me.

Now that I was back on a normal sleeping schedule, I rejoiced at the thought of starting my morning routine at 8am, three and a half hours past my norm.  I felt like a king hopping out of bed to greet the sun, a pleasure I hadn’t been blessed with for a month.  Tim on the other hand carried on as usual, proving to the both of us he held great dedication and commitment to the person he had since become. 

We ate many dinners together, complaining of our respective trials.  He looked forward to the honor of the races while I looked forward to my promotion to brother.  As our tasks became more difficult, so did finding time to meet and break bread.  I felt that once again our friendship was slipping through our fingers.  My attempts to slow our falling-out were futile, I brought him to my fraternity house, introduced him to my new friends, hoping he would take the same interest in Greek life that I had.  Alas, he was comfortable where he was and we had both found our niches within the hordes of the PSU student body.  Separated by circadian rhythm and the half mile from South Halls to West Halls, we grew apart one more.

I realize now when I stood at that crossroads, I didn’t stand alone.  In the summer I had talked myself into thinking distance was the only gauntlet our friendship faced, when in reality the friend who I regarded as my twin, born of another mother, had taken the other road.