Behold the Dreamers(32)
“Become a lawyer? Who said anything about me becoming a lawyer?”
Jende did not respond. He thought he was mistaken; maybe law school wasn’t only for people who wanted to become lawyers.
“This is my last semester at law school,” Vince said. “I won’t be returning in the fall.”
“You’re not going to finish school?”
“I’m moving to India.”
“You are moving to India!”
“I’d rather you don’t tell my parents any of this just yet.”
“No, I would never—”
“I’m only telling you this because I enjoy talking to you. And maybe as a parent you can advise me on how I can tell my parents.”
Jende nodded and for a brief stretch of time said nothing. The highway was mostly empty and quiet, except for the siren of an ambulance far in the distance. On the side of the westbound lane, billboards displayed advertisements for hotels and hospitals with pictures of good-looking people, the people at the hospitals looking as healthy and happy as the ones at the hotels.
“I just do not know what to say, Vince,” Jende finally said. “I only think that you should please finish school and become a lawyer. Then maybe you could visit India for vacation.”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer. I’ve never wanted to be a lawyer.”
“But why?”
“A lot of lawyers are miserable,” Vince said. “I don’t want to be miserable.”
“My cousin is a lawyer.”
“Is he happy?”
“Sometimes he’s happy, sometimes he’s not. Is there anybody who is happy all the time? A man can be unhappy doing any kind of work.”
“Sure.”
“Then why can you not just think you will be a happy man no matter what kind of work you do?”
“I can’t even stand law school right now. I look at my classmates and I feel terrible—just saddens me to see them spending all those precious hours of their lives being indoctrinated with lies so they can go into the world and perpetuate the lies. They don’t know they’re about to become pieces of a ruthless machine that specializes in ripping out the innards of innocents. The whole system is a joke! People going around living meaningless lives, because it’s what they’ve been conditioned to think is good for them. Walking around completely mindless of the fact that they’re living in a society ruled by a cold-blooded cabal. How long are we going to remain in this bondage? I mean, really, how long?”
Jende shook his head. Vince’s rant made no sense to him, but from the manner in which the young man’s voice was rising and his tone hardening, he could tell Vince truly hated law school and anything to do with lawyers. And he could tell this wasn’t even about law school or lawyers or America; it was more about Vince wanting to leave his world and everything his parents wanted for him; Vince wanting to become a whole new person.
“I am so sorry, Vince,” he said.
“You don’t have to be sorry for me. I’m living my Truth.”
“No, I am sorry … I am not sorry for you … I am just sorry for how you feel.”
Vince chuckled.
“I am not going to lie to you,” Jende said. “If my son tells me that he is going to leave law school and move to India, I swear I will bring out my molongo and whip his buttocks well.”
“What’s a molongo?”
“The stick our parents use to beat us back home when we behave like bad children. I have one for my son, but he is lucky—I cannot use it here; I don’t want any trouble whatsoever.”
Vince chuckled again.
“I can’t do anything besides shout at him—”
“And in your country you’d beat him even when he’s my age?”
“No, man,” Jende said, laughing. “I was just joking with you there. Our parents stop whipping our buttocks when we are like nineteen.”
“Nineteen!”
“Or twenty, sometimes. But the thing I am trying to say is that if your father and mother are angry when you tell them this news, I hope you will understand.”
Vince did not respond, and for a minute he was quiet, staring out the window. “I know it won’t be easy for them to understand,” he said, “considering I’m nothing like them. Then again, all the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent at Dalton and summer camps and NYU and Columbia was for me to be what they want me to be. So my mom can tell her friends about her son’s new job as a clerk with Judge So-and-So. Total bullshit.”
“Oh, Vince,” Jende said. “Someday when you have children, you will not talk like this.”
“It amazes me, you’re so different, and yet you’re so like my parents in many ways.”
“Maybe that’s why me and your father get along very well. In fact, I think that if you could just take it easy on your father, maybe you will see him from another angle and see that he is a very nice man.”
“Yeah, well, maybe someday I’ll see this super-niceness that you see,” Vince said. “We’ve never been a close family, so I’ve never been able to see him as much more than an absent provider who’s going through the motions for the sake of his family.”
“It’s not easy,” Jende said, shaking his head as he turned onto Elm Street, where the dentist’s office was located.