Beautiful Boy (11 page)

My parents never found out about my drug use. Even today they will tell you that I am making it up or at least exaggerating it. I'm not. In high school, I earned money for pot from my small allowance and a newspaper route. I was like many children who grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s who encountered not only copious marijuana but a range of drugs unknown to any previous generation. Before us, kids sneaked alcohol, but drug users were exotic opium smokers in Chinese dens or heroin-addicted jazz musicians. In our middle-America neighborhood, where the television had three channels and telephones had dials, one of our neighbors grew marijuana under grow lights in his attic and another neighbor sold LSD. People from many crowds at school, not only stoners but jocks and bookish girls, including one I lusted after for most of my time in high school, seemed always to have pot and a variety of pills.

In the evenings, with my new friends, united by marijuana and rock and roll, I got stoned and hung out on the street, or we went to someone's house. Usually we slipped in undetected, but sometimes we were cornered and forced to eat dinner with our parents. One time my mother said, "You two are in an awfully good mood tonight, aren't you?"

After dinner, we went to my black-lighted bedroom, a poster of Jefferson Airplane on my wall, and listened to music on my stereo. The Beatles, solo Lennon, the Kinks, and Dylan: "Although the masters make the rules, for the wise men and the fools, I got nothing, Ma, to live up to."

Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Keith Moon—rock stars we revered—died. These tragedies did not slow down our drug use a bit. Their deaths didn't seem to apply to us, maybe because their deaths, like their lives, were exercises in
excess. In some ways they were simply living out the music. "I'm wasted," sang the Who. "I hope I die before I get old." And "Why don't you all just f-f-f-f-fade away."

We dismissed what we viewed as hysterical "speed kills" warnings and many other antidrug public-service announcements. "They"—the government, parents—were trying to scare us. Why? On drugs we saw through them and we were no longer afraid of them. But they could not control us.

My parents were relatively hip. They listened to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. They had occasional Saturday night parties with their friends, a mod assemblage of amateur musicians who gathered in our living room for cheese fondue and jam sessions. My father played like Al Hirt on a banged-up trumpet, and my mother, who wore miniskirts and, for a brief period in the late 1960s, orange and purple paisley paper dresses, pumped a wheezy accordion, playing "The Girl from Ipanema" and the theme from
A Man and a Woman.
But my parents' modishness stopped at drug use. Indeed, their parties didn't even include alcohol. Beverage choices ranged from Fresca to Sanka.

Arizona summers were so hot that a reporter famously fried an egg on the hood of his car. Whenever we opened the front door, my dad would yell: "In or out, in or out. What are you trying to do, air-condition the desert?"

In the evenings, I rode my bike with a friend, a tanned kid with a regular boy's haircut, past homes like ours, trying to escape the claustrophobia of our grid, down to the Indian reservation and endless desert.

One stifling summer night, we rode like always to the reservation and, ignoring the
NO TRESPASSING
and
DANGER
signs, climbed up onto the side of one of the cement canals that cut through the desert floor. As we leaned back on our elbows, watching the stars, my friend pulled out a small piece of aluminum foil. He unwrapped it and handed me a tiny square of paper stamped with a lion's face.

"It's LSD," he said.

Nervously, I placed the lion on my tongue, where I felt it dissolve.

I was nauseated and immobile at first, but soon pleasurable waves began to pulse through my body. With a sudden rush of
energy, I stood up. The nighttime seemed brighter. A cloudburst blew through the desert, washing everything. I was astonished that I could see so well at night. The three-quarters moon was why, but I attributed it to the drug. A jackrabbit racing by stopped and stared. My persistent feelings of anxiety and alienation vanished. I felt an almost overwhelming sense of well-being, a sense that everything would be—
was
—exactly right.

I had to be home by ten, and so I rode back, pedaling without effort. I parked my bike in the garage and entered the house as quietly as possible.

I retreated to my bedroom but was stopped en route. I joined my parents in the kitchen. "Did you bowl a good game?" They didn't have a clue that as I sat with them watching
You Only Live Twice,
the movie of the week, I was tripping my brains out.

On the sunny May afternoon, Karen and I are silent as we drive to Nic's school. Students hanging out by the flagpole at the entrance to the campus direct us to the correct office in the lower floor of the science building. We are met by the freshman dean, who wears a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers. He asks us to sit down, indicating a pair of plastic chairs that face a desk covered with science magazines. Another man, boyish with dark flyaway hair, wearing an open-collared shirt, joins us. He is introduced as the school counselor.

Outside the windows, boys, including some of Nic's friends, are whacking one another with lacrosse sticks on the green athletic field.

The dean and counselor ask how we are holding up.

"We've been better," I say.

They nod. Without making light of Nic's infraction, they take pains to reassure us, explaining that many schools have zero-tolerance policies, but this one has what they hope is a more progressive and helpful approach, taking into account the reality of children's lives these days.

"Nic will have a second chance," says the dean, leaning forward on his desk. "He will be on probation, and if there's another violation he will be out. We also require that he attend an afternoon of drug and alcohol counseling."

"What exactly happened?" I ask.

"Outside the cafeteria after lunch, a teacher caught Nic buying marijuana. The school's policy is that anyone selling drugs is kicked out. The boy who sold Nic the pot has been expelled."

The counselor, his hands folded on his lap, says, "The way we view this is that Nic made a bad choice. We want to help him make better choices in the future. We view this as a mistake and an opportunity."

It sounds reasonable and hopeful. Karen and I feel thankful not only that Nic has another chance, but that we aren't alone in trying to sort this out. The dean, counselor, and other teachers deal with this sort of thing all the time.

During the hour-long conversation, I mention my concern that Nic loves surfing and might be exposed to drugs at the beach. It's a strange paradox that for many kids the high of riding formidable Pacific waves isn't enough. I've seen the surfers on the shore, in wetsuits, passing around joints before heading into the water.

They glance at each other. "We have just the advisor for Nic," says the dean.

He tells us about one of the school's science teachers who is also a surfer.

"We'll call Don."

"He's amazing. Maybe he could be Nic's advisor."

Next they give us details about a center that offers drug and alcohol counseling.

At home, we immediately call and make an appointment for the next day. The three of us meet a counselor, and then Karen and I leave Nic with him for a two-hour session that includes an interview and drug counseling. When we pick him up, Nic says that it was a waste of time.

Don, the teacher, is a compact man with sandy-bronze hair and sea-blue eyes. His face is at once soft and rugged. From what we hear, he is rarely effusive, but guides children with a steady and patient hand and an infectious enthusiasm for the subjects and the students he teaches. He is one of those teachers who quietly change lives. Along with teaching science, he is the school's swimming and water-polo coach. In addition, he has a group of advisees. Nic be
comes his newest charge, which we learn a few days after the meeting, when Nic is back in school after his suspension.

"This guy!" Nic says as he runs into the house, throwing down his backpack and heading for the refrigerator. "This teacher..." Nic pours cereal into a bowl and begins cutting up a banana on top. "He sat with me at lunch. He's amazing." He pours on milk. "He's a really good surfer. He has surfed his entire life." He grabs a slice of bread. "I went to his office. It's covered with pictures of breaks around the world." He slathers peanut butter on the bread, then grabs the jam from the refrigerator and spreads some on top. "He asked if I wanted to surf with him sometime."

In a few weeks, the two of them go surfing together. When Nic returns, he is elated. Don regularly checks in with Nic at school and he telephones the house. As the school year is about to end, he begins a campaign to sign Nic up for the swim team, which will start again in fall. Nic is obdurate. No way. But Don ignores Nic's rebuffs. Throughout the summer, he frequently phones Nic in Los Angeles, checking in to see how he is faring. He continues to ask Nic about the swim team. After a late-summer surf session back in northern California, he proposes a deal. Come fall, if Nic will attend one swim-team practice, he will stop harassing him about joining.

Nic agrees.

Nic is fifteen, a new sophomore, and as promised he shows up at the initial swim-team practice, then the next, then the one after that. With his fit, lanky body and arms muscular from plowing through thick waves on a surfboard, Nic is already a strong swimmer, and he improves rapidly under Don's coaching. He enjoys the camaraderie of the team. Mostly, he is inspired by Don. "I just want to please him," Nic tells Karen one day after a meet.

The swimming season ends around Christmas break. By then Don has successfully recruited Nic for the water-polo team, too. Nic is elected cocaptain. Karen, Jasper, Daisy, and I are regulars at his games—Karen and I sitting with the other parents, Jasper and Daisy climbing up and down the metal grandstand and chiming in at random moments, "Go, Nicky!"

Nic also shows promise as an actor. One night Karen, an assort
ment of our relatives and friends, and I are astounded by a student-directed performance of
Spring's Awakening,
the 1891 play, often banned or at least censored (but not in this production), by Frank Wedekind. It is a story that faces with frankness the sexual awakening of a group of adolescents unable to turn to the adults in their lives for help. A girl who takes an abortion pill dies; another character commits suicide.

Don encourages Nic's interest in marine biology. As Nic's sophomore year winds down, he tells him about a summer program at the University of California at San Diego devoted to the subject. One day Nic comes home waving a brochure and application printed out from the program's Web site, asking if he can go. Once his mother and I confer, Nic applies.

On a morning in late June, the view out the jet's window is gorgeous. The sky is pink and the Pacific Ocean, where it abruptly meets the coastline, sparkles dreamy blue, as optimistic as Southern California could possibly be. Upon landing in San Diego, we get our suitcases and pick up a rental car. We drive north until we reach the turnoff for the small beach town of La Jolla. Exiting the freeway, we drive Nic to the UC campus and check him in. Nic is a bit nervous, but these kids seem welcoming. Like him, a few have brought along surfboards, a comforting sight.

We say our goodbyes. Daisy grabs Nic around the neck with her tiny arms.

"It's okay, bonky," he says. "I'll see you soon."

Nic checks in frequently by phone. He is having a blast. "I may want to be a marine biologist," he says one day. He tells us about the kids in the program and how he and the other surfers get up early before classes to walk down the steep trail to Black's Beach. He says that he has decided to go through the camp's certification program for scuba diving. On a night dive near Catalina Island, he swims with a pod of dolphins.

When the program ends, Vicki picks him up and he spends the rest of the summer in LA. It goes by quicker than usual, and soon he is home again, preparing for his junior year.

It is Nic's strongest year in school yet. He has a close-knit group of friends with whom he seems engaged and with whom he shares
impassioned concerns about politics and the environment and social issues. Together they protest an execution at San Quentin. A friend of ours who is also there sees Nic sitting on the sidewalk. Tears stream down his cheeks. Nic loves his classes. Writing remains one of his strongest subjects. Along with his creative writing for an English teacher who inspires him to write short stories and poems, he joins the staff of the school newspaper as an editor and columnist. He pens heartfelt personal and political columns about affirmative action, the Littleton, Colorado, shootings, and the war in Kosovo. He attends editorial meetings and stays late into the evenings to help proofread the paper. His columns are increasingly bold. One examines the time he sold out his most highly held ideals. It is about some of our dearest friends, the couple who became Nic's unofficial godparents. One of them is HIV positive. He gave Nic an AIDS bracelet, "one with the same AIDS ribbon that you see all those idiotic celebrities wearing, the one that is handed out at the door as they enter the Oscars," as Nic writes. "To many of those people, that ribbon is probably nothing more than fashionable, but on the bracelet from my friend, it symbolized hope. I was told that the money for it went to finding a cure for the disease."

Nic wrote that he wore the bracelet every day, "but then I got older. Though my feelings about my godparents never changed, I worried what other people would think. I began hearing people at my high school say horrible things about gays...[and] I began feeling uncomfortable about wearing the bracelet ... Finally, I stopped wearing it." Then, Nic continued, he lost it. "I'm sorry I lost the bracelet," he concluded, "but maybe its absence symbolizes more than its presence would. It symbolizes that I didn't have the strength to stand up for my friend."