Enjoy The Hunt
Dorothy Fantana spent eighteen years trying desperately not to worry about her son, Alex. When Alex was a toddler, she worried he would become a serial killer because he would chase other kids around the playground and bite them. She was told by the other moms that it was just a phase, but he really seemed to enjoy the hunt. She was sure he would eventually get run over by a bus, as he seemed magnetically drawn towards dangerous roads and parking lots everywhere they went, and he never looked both ways before crossing. To Dorothy, these were the sort of concerns all parents must have.
You worry they will develop a heart condition because it seems they will never eat anything aside from chicken nuggets. You issue warnings of tooth decay and diabetes because they had both cake and candy at Olivia’s birthday party. Their proclivity for the taste of Children’s Motrin gives you nightmares about them falling victim to the opioid epidemic. The world, it seems, is nothing more than a test of survival.
Dorothy tracked the progress Alex made growing up and felt markedly less anxious. Despite repeatedly demanding food without the use of good manners in his youth, Alex does not seem destined to be a convicted felon. He has enjoyed a few innocent and healthy romantic relationships, though he once showed his penis to a classmate in the preschool bathroom like a future sexual deviant. He used to insist that school sucks, yet he has become a fine student with no expectations of living in Dorothy’s basement into adulthood. In fact, Dorothy recently returned home to find a note from Alex indicating that he had moved to Ithaca.
The move wasn’t entirely unexpected to Dorothy, as Alex was scheduled to begin college there in the fall, but the note explained that he had decided to move earlier than planned. It went on to suggest that he would not be returning. Furthermore, Alex cited some of Dorothy’s past behavior as the cause for his early and permanent departure.
He complained of being secretly taught to drive by friends when he was already seventeen. Dorothy, he reminded her, was sure he would end up running over a family of five on the way home from a sporting event. He implied some lingering bitterness over the embarrassing circumstances that led to the loss of his first girlfriend. Alex maintains it was inappropriate for Dorothy to have handed his girlfriend a pamphlet for the treatment and prevention of venereal diseases each time she came to their house. The associated lectures, Alex insisted, were also abnormal. The last straw, Alex explained, was Dorothy’s reaction to his request to go to Cancun this summer with Doug and the other guys from his youth group. She listed human trafficking, gang violence, the Zika virus, and even tainted tequila among her reasons the youth pastor was “insane” to be taking anyone one a mission’s trip to Mexico.
Alex was gentle in his note, but clearly explained he needed time away from Dorothy to find his independence as an adult. Dorothy, overcome with worry, grabbed her pre-packed emergency bag and her dog, Buster, and left in a frenzy to go find Alex in Ithaca. It was getting dark when she left, and she was driving faster than she had in years. In truth, she had not driven more than fifty miles since Alex was born, but she felt a desperate need to get to Alex immediately.
With over two hundred miles to go, Dorothy began to feel tired and her mind began to wander as she imagined the trouble that Alex might already find himself in. She decided to call him again. As she sped along the winding country road, the hum of the asphalt and gravel whistling through the night air, she reached across to the passenger’s seat for her cell phone, but it fell to the floor. Prisms of passing headlights shone through Dorothy’s windows as she reached down to quickly retrieve the phone. Buster shifted uneasily in his seat, whimpering to her. As she reared back to re-focus on the road, she passed an oncoming church bus full of howling children.
She began to think of Alex and the special trips to camp she used to take to let him visit his friends for the day. Dorothy rolled the windows down and began to cry. She tightened Buster’s seat belt and considered turning around.
- Written for “Unreasonable Concerns”