May, 1988

I grew up understanding, at least intellectually, the finitude of childhood. That the time would come when all of the decisions that I made, and all the consequences of those decisions, would be entirely my own. But I had become so conditioned to thinking of adulthood as impossibly far away, continuously receding into the distance with my every advance, that I could not truly imagine that the day would ever really arrive.

At eighteen they started calling me an adult — and for electoral, military and prosecutorial purposes, I was — but in truth, I was still a child. A child who, granted, got to do adult-like things: I drank alcohol, I drove a car, I got laid — and on one memorable night, did all three at the same time (although I'm not quite sure how) — but everything was all done in a state of dependency on my parents, who were paying for my education, who still had the power of a veto, and whose house I still referred to as home.

On the morning of May 23, 1988, that all changed forever. Because that was the day that Tom and I got into my car and drove west, leaving everything and everyone we knew behind. And even though I had been preparing for this moment for my entire life, it came as a complete surprise.

I remember standing in the back yard, looking at the places I used to play. The tetherball court, the rocks I used to climb, the tree fort that had fallen into disrepair. And I found myself thinking, My childhood is over.

Just then, my mother called out, "Aaron, don't forget to use the bathroom before you leave!" and I found myself thinking, My childhood is almost over.

Three days earlier, on a Friday, I graduated from college, my diploma already pointless by the time it was handed to me. The final two years had been a breeze. Knowing that my future was completely disconnected from anything that was happening at Ellison was tremendously liberating. I studied less, skipped classes more, drank a ton. Mysteriously, my grades improved.

My academic advisor in the Psychology department envisioned big things for me. "So what do you plan to pursue?" he asked me at the beginning of my Senior year, rubbing his hands together. I was one of his favorite students, based, I think, on my thoroughly entertaining theories of human behavior. "Research or clinical?" Before I could say anything, he answered his own question. "Clinical! Obviously!" He rolled his eyes at himself. "Duh!"

"Actually, I'm going to write sitcoms."

His smile stayed frozen on his lips, but abandoned his eyes. "Well. That sounds fun."

What actually mattered were the breaks, when I returned home and wrote scripts with Tom. And we worked very diligently. When Tom remembered to show up on time. Or at all. Tom had a lot of good qualities but it had become apparent that time management wasn't one of them. The result was that I was forced into the role of nagging parent, incessantly reminding Tom about the schedule, lecturing him about responsibility when he forgot. And this became a pattern. Tom would slack off and I'd look a the jerk for getting us back on track.

I would, to be fair, look like a jerk for a lot of other reasons, too. Ask anybody.

That all said, we did make progress. We wrote three more scripts for our college show, which, in a flash of inspiration, we had named College. Granted, we continued to have no idea what we were doing. We still didn't understand the format and we never bothered to outline either, winging each scene and hoping it would somehow add up to an actual story, which it only sort of did.

But we were getting better. Or maybe we weren't. We had no real way of knowing.

Now, it was Monday, and Tom's mother pulled up in her dented moss-colored Buick and dropped her son off at my parents' house. It was a gorgeous spring morning — a warm sun and a gentle breeze under a cloudless sapphire sky — a meteorological vote of confidence that we were doing the right thing.

"So I guess we're doing this," I said matter-of-factly as I helped Tom transfer his stuff from his mother's car to mine. To finance the move to California, he had sold his crappy car and beloved comic book collection, which for the rest of his life would vex him with its skyrocketing value.

"Looks that way," Tom agreed with a shrug of indifference. We had made a habit, in times of great stress, of feigning nonchalance. When we rode roller coasters at Hersheypark we would, instead of screaming like everyone else, engage in a calm discussion about some utterly banal subject — the tax code or the electoral college or the process of making cheese — all the while being buffeted by forces that we couldn't control.

A metaphor!

Everything we owned was stuffed in the cavernous hatchback of my Saab, and it only fit because my father was a packing savant, arranging the contents with a level of efficiency we knew we'd never be able to duplicate. When he was done, everything was interlocked like he had played a real-life game of Tetris with our worldly belongings. If we had needed to get the spare tire, we would have had to abandon half of our personal possessions on the side of the interstate.

My mother made sure we had enough cash. Tom's mother made sure we had enough sandwiches. Tom's sister made sure everyone was uncomfortable, as she stood off to the side, glaring, with arms folded, chewing on her hair.

The reality of what was happening didn't fully register until my dog, a whip-smart Australian Shepherd named Starr, leapt into the passenger seat of my car. My parents called to her, slapping their thighs with their hands, to get her to come, but she refused to budge.

In the moment, it felt like she was saying, I don't want you to leave me behind! When, of course, what she was really saying was, I like cars! Ultimately, I had to lift her up and carry her out while she tried to squirm out of my arms.

I set Starr down next to my mother, who held her by the collar. Starr strained to get out of her grasp, to run back to me. I blinked away the tears, refusing to let myself cry, because Tom was there and, well, guys don't cry in front of other guys.

For the record, I was sad about leaving my Mom and Dad, too. But it is only now, having seen the tail lights of my own child's car disappear down the street on a thousand-mile journey of her own that I came to understand what my parents were experiencing. The excruciating combination of pride, fear, hope and heartache. The two of them were standing and waving, with an arm around each other, smiling, and praying that I'd reach the other side of the continent safely.

I tried to look back at them in the rearview mirror, but the hatchback was packed so high that I couldn't see anything behind me. All I saw was the road ahead.

Another metaphor! God damn, this is some literary shit!

(Continued...)