All you want is for your kids to be safe

On Monday, the weather was muggy, but not hot, and as I drove along Silver Avenue, the clouds gathered dark.

Thurgood Marshall High School is on top of a hill near Highway 101, and as I got out of the Kipcap, I heard a distant rumble, which, had I still lived on the East Coast, I would have thought to be a coming storm.

This was Zane’s first month as a freshman. It’s been rough. First week, someone took money out of his backpack. Second week a sophomore warned him never to wear blue again. Third week he got roughed up by a junior. Apparently special education only goes as far as the door to the classroom. The cafeteria, the gym, the hallway, he’s on his own. They call Brian and me helicopter parents, but really, when a son has special needs, he needs a little hovering just to stay safe.

I walked in and looked around. An afternoon volunteer said, “I think Zane’s in the schoolyard.”

There are many ways in which I’m not qualified to be Zane’s dad. Way back in 1975, at Archbishop Molloy in Queens, N.Y., I was the captain of the math team and president of the drama club. Translation: high school nerd. I missed out on all of that drinking Boone’s Farm at the subway station.

But even I figured out that something was up when all the boys scattered as I walked onto the yard.

Zane blinked once, twice. I asked, “I thought you had basketball today?”

He shrugged his shoulders and walked away. And kept walking. Then climbed a fence and was gone.

The sky grew darker and the wind picked up. There were no other parents at the school, just me, and I walked from block to block looking for him. Forty-five of the longest minutes of my life later, as I took my phone out with the intent of calling the police, it rang. Caller unknown. “Hey, if this is Zane’s dad, I’m dropping him off at your house.”

Jumped in the car, tore across town. The rain started, a tumult, and as I pulled up to the blue bungalow, Zane stood on the stoop, his sweatshirt soaked. As he saw me, he started crying, and I just held him.

Lightning. In San Francisco. “Dad, this guy, he handed me this tube with yellow stuff smoking in it. He called it ‘a vape.’ And he told me to inhale. And then things got fuzzy. When I saw you, I freaked out.”

We’re both getting pretty wet by now, but I stood there. There are days for warm and dry, and there are days for the hard talk.

“So let me get this right. A guy hands you an unknown substance, and without asking any questions, you just breathe in.”

“I wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to be the boy in the loser class anymore. Are you mad?” Thunder, low and rumbling, somewhere in the outer, outer Excelsior.

There’s like. There’s love. There’s in love. There are times that you just get through.

“Yes, I am mad. A little bit at you. A lot at the school. I love you, but that doesn’t mean I like everything you do. The Fisher-Paulsons don’t always fit in, oval pegs in a city of triangular holes. But you’ve got us: me, Papa, Aidan, the dogs. Even if we’re not always the ones you want to fit in with.”

There are things that can be fixed. There are things that can never be fixed. I took him inside, fed the boys dinner. We talked about drugs, again, and how they were both at risk of getting addicted. “You mean like Papa with cigarettes?” This was from Aidan, always quick to point out someone else’s flaws.

“Yes, and it took him 30 years to quit.” The rain pattered against the kitchen window.

“Hear that? That drop was part of a big cloud, then part of the rain. And after it fell, that drop becomes part of the river, heads for the ocean. But for just one moment, it makes its own tympani and the three of us are the only ones who’ve heard it. That’s what you got to do, Zane. Make your own drumbeat.”

The rain let up, but not the lightning. Hours later, as I climbed into bed, I still heard the thunder, a little farther out. One by one, Buddyboy, then Krypto, then Bandit insisted on being lifted onto the pillows. Then Aidan came in. Zane shrugged, then lay down at the very foot. By the time Brian retired at about 3 in the morning, the bed was pretty crowded. But safe. And we all fit in. For now.

“The FisherPaulsons don’t always fit in. But you’ve got us: me, Papa, Aidan, the dogs. Even if we’re not always the ones you want to fit in with.”