Rebel at Spruce High

“Your son’s been quiet,” the mayor notes suddenly, eyeing me the way a cheery grandpa eyes his grandson he’s about to tickle.

My father smiles warmly my way. “Oh, he’s just a bit intro—”

“Let your dang boy talk on his own,” Raymond cuts him off with a laugh. “He’s got a mouth, right?” He faces me. “What’s your name, again? Donnie, was it? Same as my brother’s name, that is.”

I wipe my hands off on my napkin, then turn my attention to him. “Donovan.”

“But you go by Donnie, right? ‘Bout time,” he says when the server brings him a plate with no less than five pats of butter on it. He digs right into one, slathering the rest of his dinner roll in it. “Your father here’s told me a lot about you. You’re an actor, huh?”

“For now.”

The mayor, who was apparently expecting a longer answer than that, lets a moment of silence pass as he continues jabbing butter into a dinner roll with his knife. Then he eyes my dad. “Not a big talker, huh?” He chomps off a bite.

My dad chuckles. “He’s been cast as the lead in the play at his school. He’s also an artist. He won an award for an illustration he—”

“I heard about that play,” clips Raymond. He shakes his head. “Delilah Joy always presses my buttons every year with her tastes in so-called Theatre. Nothing against the gays, I love them, I wish I had ten gay sons, but is all that romantic nonsense really the best choice for a high school production? These are teenagers!”

The smile my father keeps pasted on his face grows tighter by the second. “It’s certainly a mature choice!”

“Mature.” Raymond scoffs at that, then drops his bread to go for another snow crab leg with his greasy, buttery fingers, digging for it on his plate next to the carcass that remains of his lobster. “I think she should’ve stuck with Wizard Of Oz, or Our Town, or a play that gives more parts to all her kids. I like a show I can bring my family to. I didn’t hear anyone complaining about the Theatre Arts program at the last city council meeting. Why’d she go and change things up with this weird lovebird show?”

My father opens his mouth to cheerily reply.

But I’m faster: “I think Ms. Joy is acknowledging that teens see and feel a lot more than they’re given credit for. We have issues. We have opinions. We have libidos. We aren’t a bunch of puppets made to just entertain crowds of simpleminded people like you.”

Everyone’s eyes at the table turn to me, stunned. Including my father’s. Including my mother’s. Including the mayor’s wife’s.

The mayor himself, however, gives me one long, testing look. Then, as sudden as a firework, he explodes with riotous laughter. “Your son! HA!” He drops his crab leg onto his plate with a crash, then shakes his head at my father. “He’s got a lip on him! I like this one! Simpleminded, he said?” Another explosion of laughter rips out of his big belly so potently, his wife can only join in, giggling as loud as she can, though her eyes carry a hint of worry in them.

My father seems deeply relieved at the mayor’s response, and he quickly grabs the reins of the conversation and steers it away from all mention of me. I sit back in my chair, appetite gone, and wait for this stupid dinner to end. Would it have been so bad if the mayor actually took what I said seriously instead of just laughing it off? He practically proved my point in doing so. Teenagers are not empty-minded, innocent children—not in the way people like Mayor Raymond think. We have problems just as real as theirs. We have problems that go unheard and ignored, too—and get worse.

And the longer I think on it, the more I fume.

In the car ride back to Spruce, the atmosphere is drastically different than it was on the way to the restaurant. My dad is tired and sullen as he drives, likely exhausted from all of the socializing. My mom is oddly pensive, not altogether upset, but seeming to be mulling over something curious in her mind as she gazes out at the road. Not a word is uttered by any of us, despite my expecting at least a tiny scolding from Mom about speaking to the mayor that way. Is it crazy to wonder if a part of her liked my jab at him?

When we’re back in Spruce, my dad stops by the corner store because he needs to pick something up. After my dad hops out, my mom and I are left in the car next to a gas pump, waiting in our usual stiff silence, the minutes ticking by.

Then my mom asks, “What did you mean during dinner?”