WHEN DOES A BOY BECOME A MAN?A Story by Elise Anton Thoughts about my son turning 18 today... My oldest son turns 18
today. He is still asleep, having stayed up until I woke at two, to take
over the night-time caring of my father. A couple of days ago, on the way home from visiting my mother who is in hospital at the moment, he took our shared mobile phone out and Googled, "What can I do when I turn eighteen?" He then rattled off his
findings: "I can drink, I can gamble, I can apply for loans, I can be
tried as an adult, I can..." He stopped. "What else hon?" "Nothing?" "What do you mean?" "These are all legal things. Like I'm suddenly overnight given permission to do all this stuff." "Yeah. It means you're an adult then. A man, I guess." "But I won't feel any different in two days' time. I won't suddenly wake up on the 11th and feel like an adult. This is bullshit." "I guess there has to be an age set?" "Yes, but did you notice how all these things I can suddenly do come with consequences? Like I can do this, but... I can drink this but... It's all just a bunch of rules." I knew what he was struggling to convey but I wanted him to further discuss the issue. He'd been playfully using the "I'm too young" excuse for some time now, but I'd sensed the inner turmoil behind his humorous excuses. "What if I don't want to be an adult? What if I'm already an adult? See, the number is a legal thing, and I have to now act differently and have all this responsibility just because I am 18. Other people will treat me differently too. Why can't I just continue to be me?" We'd been spending a lot of time together the past weeks. He'd never rebelled as a teen, never displayed the typical behaviours of his peers. Instead, I was now witnessing his rebelling against the notion of his impending legal status.
It got me thinking... When does a boy become a man? Legalities aside, is there a defining moment when the passing over takes place? He'd gradually assumed the role of 'Head of our household'
but this too had been forced upon him through unintended circumstances:
His father out of the picture, his grandfather needing increasing
support, his brother younger and preferring less responsibility; he had
had no choice but to assume the role. I heard the words "mature beyond his years," and "he's such a responsible young man," and "you are lucky, to have been blessed with him". Statements offered by my parents, other parents and friends who witnessed his politeness, his willingness to help, his respect of elders... He grew up in a household where his grandparents were ever-present; my father's catastrophic stroke occurring two years after his birth and necessitating his and my mother's living with us. The three of us have therefore never lived as a separate unit; all of our living has taken place within this shared household. He will always be my boy, no matter the age. I have witnessed many occasions one would call signs of 'manhood'. Times when he's taken charge of situations, times when he's stepped in, alleviating the many pressures engulfing me. Even moments when he's assumed greater maturity, stopping me from potential verbal disasters, since I am prone to rebelling against any and every encroaching authority. I am awed by his intelligence, humbled by his generosity of spirit and comforted by the notion that he is indeed an achievement, something I have done right in the midst of so many wrongs. If I were compelled to choose a defining moment, it would be through the telling of yet another story: THE LAST TRAIN TO SALVATION... This past New Year's Eve, having moved back to the city, my boys wanted to go into town, to see the fireworks. By train as well, since we now lived so close to the station. Despite my tiredness and back-pain and suspecting in advance what we'd be in for, I agreed. (New Year's Eve attracts over a million people to the city centre every year, we'd seen it on the news.) Rattling in to town wasn't too bad, we stood the whole way but it was still two hours till the year kicked over so our carriage was only a little overcrowded. We walked out of the train station and... straight into a version of some futuristic nightmare. Several hundred thousand bodies moving or rather shuffling en masse as loudspeakers on an infinite loop repeated: "Keep moving forward. You cannot stop on the bridge. You cannot turn around. Keep moving forward. You cannot stop on the bridge. You cannot turn around. Keep moving forward. You cannot..."
So we shuffled. Three lemmings in a vast school of lemmings. An image from an old sci-fi film popped into my head; a sea of people, all dressed in grey moving so slowly they appeared to be standing still; I guess I was also fighting claustrophobia the entire time - the uncomfortable proximity of others, many, many others; poking, jostling, swaying, brushing... Pushing! Touching! We made it to the
river's edge with half an hour to spare. We stood around and watched the
parade of inebriated happy folk, then some stupid drunks deciding it
would be fun to climb the high wall on the side of the smaller bridge
spanning the river, resulting in one of them tumbling down and a hundred
phones either recording or taking photos of his battered and bloodied
face. The fireworks were great as promised. The entire city precinct was one well-orchestrated display of color light and sound, as fireworks bloomed and sizzled from the tops of most tall buildings. We oohhd and aahhd; craning our necks this way and that, along with everyone else. The boys too young to
drift into a bar and have a few drinks afterwards,(sigh) we thought we'd
be clever and 'rush' straight for the station, ahead of the slowly
dispersing crowd. Right. We didn't factor in the same thought occurring
simultaneously to everyone else that either had under-aged kids or
didn't drink. The lemming thing again; only a slower, more tortuous shuffle this time since all the clever lemmings were now on the move, in the same direction. The loudspeaker was still doing its thing: "Keep moving forward. You cannot stop on the bridge. You cannot turn around. Keep moving forward. You cannot stop on the bridge. You cannot turn around. Keep moving forward. You cannot..." Our station was on the
Pakenham line; it clattered through places such as Clayton, Noble Park
and Dandenong, hubs of Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Chinese and more
recently, African communities. Of migrant descent ourselves, and I
having had arough time of it in my childhood, we held no prejudice
towards our newer arrivals. Most of our friends were migrants one way or
another. The problem however was
one of perception. Rather, differing opinions as to what constituted
politeness, courtesy and personal space. The platform was full when we
eventually ended our shuffling. Once those carriage doors opened, it was
as though we were boarding the last train to salvation. Can you squeeze
two hundred people and assorted belongings through a two-metre-wide
space in less than thirty seconds? Sure you can. The boys and I were separated and jostled, elbowed, pushed and pulled. I glanced back terrified at one point and saw similar fear in their eyes. This wasn't like those images of modern Tokyo where crowds are efficiently packed in; this was downtown Delhi, prams, cooler-bags and small children carried overhead, each to their own in the mad crush for this one train. I expected to hear the frantic clucking of chickens and bleating of goats. I think maybe I did hear it! Someone's elbow jabbed the middle of my back, right on my injured nerve and that was me out of the game. I yelled to the boys to grab some space near the doors on the far side; thinking doors opening and closing would attract a smaller crowd right? Seriously? They managed it but it made little difference. Watching the ever-shrinking space in our carriage, the thought did surface: this train is overcrowded; surely they won'tallow it to trundle off?
The doors wouldn't shut, no matter which way groups inside rearranged themselves. They gaped open, prompting more and more inmates into what had by now become anasylu m of incomprehensible babbling and drunken merriment, served with copious sweat from the humidity, the odd barf, beer burp and spicy dinner fart... After half an hour of odorous stagnation, a frantic employee - in this instance an overweight and very red-faced woman - ran up and down the again overcrowded platform, yelling, "Get off! Get off! This train isn't going anywhere!" None of us believed her of course and I did curse my earlier premonition. We'd all fought way too hard to secure a place on this
train; we weren't going to give it up on the say-so of some screaming
woman! Everyone stayed put, including us. Ten minutes later though, we
heard the dreaded speakers: "Pakenham train on Platform Six has malfunctioned. All passengers must disembark and move to platform Five. I repeat: Pakenham train on Platform Six has malfunctioned. All passengers must disembark and move to platform Five. I repeat..." It repeated...and
repeated. The boys and I looked across at platform Five where a
substantial crowd was already in place. I mentally added our lot to
that. We were in hell, I was sure of it. Yeah. We did it all over again, the shoving, the pushing, the stepping over random feet; no mercy, no allowances for pregnant women, elderly folk and young children. Waiting for the next one or the one after was not an option; the long escalator and the stairs depositing more and more revelers by the second. The doors finally closed on this new train and we'd managed to get a spot near the far doors again. It departed a full hour and a half after we'd arrived at the platform and the first waiting one. The asylum was on the move, passing first through affluent suburbs such as South Yarra, Hawksburn, Toorak, and Malvern. Of course no one got off at these, most inmates destined for the outer suburbs. The driver was no help either, constantly cracking jokes: "How are my sardines doing tonight?" and, "I hope you are enjoying each other's company and making close friends!" and "Time for a shuffle folks, we're listing to one side!" My eldest son kept a protective barrier between my now excruciating nerve and a group of inebriated Sri Lankans who thought gesticulating wildly in a packed train was just part of the fun. They'd nudged me on the back several times, until I'd turned and glared at them. They then tried to joke about my lack of 'sportsmanship' and moved even closer, if that was even possible. My boy reared up and shuffled a step closer to them, an angry gleam in his eyes. My youngest followed, standing hesistantly by his brother. The inebriated group surprisingly backed off - despite their greater number and difference in age by at least two decades - creating some few blessed inches of space. I didn't care about space any more though. I forgot all about the pain, the shouting, the entire asylum thing. A single thought filled my mind: My boy was a man! This being the first time he'd had to come to my defence. I marveled at him, I did! I wanted to scream my pride until it overrode every other sound and reverberated throughout the carriage. I wanted everyone to admire this magnificent man... © 2016 Elise AntonFeatured Review
Reviews
|
StatsAuthor
Elise AntonAustraliaAboutHello from downunder! I am one of those people who can just sit and write. It's like breathing for me. I've never shared and never published. It was my thing, my escape, my therapy... I have two so.. more..Writing
Related WritingPeople who liked this story also liked..
|
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
