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"I Know Which Road I Will Choose"

by

Bill Keenan

"One can't make the bed and save the sheet," quoted Charlie's mother as
she yanked the blue and white patterned bedspread up over the neatly plumped
pillows.

"What?" demanded the skinny boy who had draped his legs over the arm of
the overstuffed chair. He looked languid and disinterested, but, in fact, he
was listening acutely to her soft voice.

"I said, one can't make the bed and save the sheet," she repeated with
emphasis.

"Whaz 'at supposed to mean?" he asked. "Gosh, Mom, do ya hafta speak in
riddles when I'm tryin' to get your advice?"

"It's not a riddle," replied his mother, "it's a proverb - American or
English, I think. Actually, it may be Chinese. They're big on that kind of
common sense wisdom."

"Okay, Okay," said Charlie straightening his body in the chair. "I guess
you're telling me I can't have it both ways. I have to let go of something,
and then I will hafta bear the burden of my choice." Charlie paused, and a
long, cool silence fell between them. Charlie searched her face for some sign
of her feelings about his dilemma. But, she remained non-committal as she
gathered up the dirty sheets and headed down the hall.

Alone in his room, Charlie looked around. The sun which suddenly came
through the window made everything in the room distinct and too bright to
look at for long. Charlie laid his head back against the chair's pillow and
closed his eyes. He saw a road that wound endlessly up hill and then
disappeared into the distant horizon. That was one path. There was another
road that forked off to the right, but it was shrouded in green darkness. The
pine trees which lined that path obscured his vision of the road. It appeared
cold and forbidding, but at the same time beckoning. However, in his present
state of mind, he almost felt an affinity for its foreboding. He was worn out
from his indecision.

"The man is best who considers everything for himself," another one of
his parents favorite sayings, drifted to the surface of his mind. He angrily
brushed a non-existing strand of hair from his closed eyes. "But I have
considered everything," he said, rising to his feet and kicking his open
hockey bag which obstructed his path. I've considered everything up one side
and down the other. He threw himself face down on his freshly made bed.
Grabbing a pillow and hugging it to his chest he rolled onto his back and
stared at the ceiling. The myriad, razor-thin lines, caused by the ceiling's
cracking paint, looked like a thousand forks in a thousand roads. Like a
lifetime, he thought. Like the choices that make up a lifetime, and each
choice is the sum of all the choices that have gone before. And each cold
choice between two options requires courage; the kind of courage which is
born out of the act of letting go. But beyond the choice itself is the
question of what you base your moral, aesthetic, and yes, even athletic
decisions on. Many reasonable people to whom teenagers owe deference adhere
to the standard of the status quo. These are the people who think Dennis
Rodman an anathema because he behaves in ways that are outside the norm, ways
that are impolite, and maybe even crude; ways that would land you in
detention or possibly even result in expulsion from school. In fact, these
people who pass judgment on others are the most boring and least creative
people of all. They live safely in their ivory towers feeling above it all
and untouchable. They never dared to take the different path, the one whose
sign is a question mark. They never even considered trying on the shoes of a
person who wears a different point of view. And, therefore, they commit
themselves to preserving the status quo with its concerns for good manners,
neatness, decorum, and most of all, muteness in the face of enormous desire.

These views are held by people who are numb to what really goes on in the
hearts and minds of teenagers - teenagers who maybe have not lived long
enough to be afraid of taking the unknown road.

The boy turned his head and looked out the window. The sun's slanting
rays had been defused into a rainbow of color that stretched from one end of
his room to the other. It had no distinct beginning or definite end. It was
just suddenly there. That is the road I will take, he thought. The road that
is sparked by the light that was ignited by a difference of opinion. In his
head he heard voices like a memory; some saying, "He took the wrong turn."

Others saying, "It was right."

He stood up with resolve. This was an opportunity he was not going to
miss. It was yesterday's dream, and it would be tomorrow's memory. He wanted
that memory. He turned, and in one stroke zipped his hockey bag from end to
end, and throwing it up over his shoulder, he swung out of his room.