My father was smiling as he loaded their suitcases into the car. “Charlie’s a tough guy,” he said proudly. “It’s not everyone who can get through boot camp.”
On the day of the ceremony, as I heard later, they waited in the auditorium, holding their programs, eager to see Charlie graduate into his new life, desperate to put the whole ordeal behind them. But when the Marines finally filed in, clean and spiffed up in their blue uniforms and broad-brimmed Marine hats, my parents noticed that Charlie was not among them. Confused, my father walked up the aisle to look into the hallway. There was Charlie, stiff with fear in his uniform, handcuffed and surrounded by several federal agents.
My father went back into the auditorium and took my mother out by the arm. Charlie was gone. Done for, they drove back to La Jolla, my mother in tears, my father shocked and humiliated, both of them determined to conceal from their hosts what had happened. Their worst nightmare was unfolding: Charlie’s drug dealing would surely make it into the papers now, especially if he ended up in prison. Everyone in Grosse Pointe would know—everyone everywhere.
My parents hired a Marine criminal attorney and brought Charlie home on bail. He’d been arrested, it turned out, for crimes he’d committed before entering the military; in the Marines he’d managed to stay clean. His officer wrote a glowing letter to the judge about Charlie’s achievements in boot camp and about his changed life.
In the court hearing, taped recordings of our family’s phone conversations were played out loud in the courtroom. The Feds, it turned out, had bugged our phone line for eight months the previous year. My parents sat next to Charlie’s attorney, listening to recordings of me gossiping about boys and parties with my middle school pals. Then came the recorded drug transactions—scores of them.
Ollie admitted to my parents that she had noticed Charlie handing off packages to cars that came up our driveway. My father made inquiries and discovered that the son of some people he knew in Grosse Pointe—another college coke dealer—had reduced his own sentence by tipping off the Feds to Charlie.
After a protracted trial, Charlie got off with a large fine and probation. No prison sentence. As for the media coverage that my parents had feared, it never materialized. The Marines, it seemed, had done the trick. And Charlie still had his four-year tour of service ahead of him.
I sealed my last application inside the envelope along with my finished essay. Everyone else in the family had gone to the airport to pick up Charlie, even my father. My brother was on leave for the Christmas holiday from Camp Pendleton, where he’d been stationed after boot camp.
Outside, I walked in the dark down the winding, snow-covered driveway toward our mailbox, the four envelopes snug in my gloved hands—envelopes addressed to Choate, Groton, Taft, and Brooks. The sky was blacker than I’d ever seen it, and I crunched along the tire tracks in the snow until I came out into the street, where the mailbox stood. As I pulled it open, I imagined myself throwing open the gates of my life. A great wave of hope swelled within my chest. Soon my story would be out in the world. I imagined its debut as a loud, crashing sound, like the aftermath of a bomb. I wondered if anyone else would notice the explosion.
FRANCES STROH, 1982
(by Eric Stroh)
Carrying my trunk and an Oriental rug, my mother and I climbed the cement stairs of the dormitory to the second floor and found my room, a tiny cell with flimsy metal-framed bunk beds, two dressers, and two desks. Old lead-paned windows looked out onto the green rolling hills of western Connecticut, punctuated by clusters of oak trees and, beyond them, the school’s perfectly groomed athletic fields.
We unrolled the rug across the gray cement floor, instantly brightening the room.
“Cool rug,” said a narrow-faced girl wearing a man’s felt hat. She’d come in and sat down on my trunk unannounced. “I’m Jen.”
“Jennifer Victoria Fairchild?” I said, shaking her hand. I’d gotten the school letter with my roommate’s name the week before.
“That’s me,” she giggled. She went over to the bottom bunk and unrolled a poster: Bob Marley smoking a cigar-size joint. “Where should we hang this?” she asked.
My mother shook her head with resignation, pushed my trunk into a corner, and gathered her purse.