The Man Who Built His House Upon a Rock Ch 8 pt 1

Ch. 8

Stepping Stones

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One morning Simon awoke from a very restless night’s sleep. He had dreamt about long tunnels with countless side doors and passages. No matter which way he turned there were more and more ways to go and none of them seemed particularly pleasant. Every choice he made only led to more danger, despite the crude map, drawn in crayon, which claimed to lead him to his heart’s desire. Getting there however, meant leaving behind the faintly lit corridors and plunging headlong into complete darkness.

It didn’t take a shrink or psychic to understand what his brain was trying to say. Simon knew that he hadn’t been the best kid in the world. All that goofing around wasn’t leading him anywhere. People didn’t laugh with him anymore and his mother was apologizing a lot too. The old desire to play jokes on people had, if not completely disappeared, settled into glowing embers which kept his funny bone warm. Nowadays the thought of some amazing prank was usually enough to satisfy him.

Young Mister Peters was growing-up just in time. School counselors and teachers were repeatedly warning the junior class that, “Now is the moment to make decisions about your future.” He would graduate high school in a year and a half and if he wanted to be accepted into a decent university there would have to be some serious changes.

He walked rather gloomily into the kitchen and poured a large bowl of his preferred breakfast: Mountain Dew over Capt’n Crunch cereal. His mother ambled in and looked with disgust at the yellow mush he was happily slurping into his mouth.

“Simon, how many times do I have to tell you ‘Eat a good breakfast’? That stuff is going to ruin your teeth and probably give you diabetes.”

He humphed loudly, spraying a sticky coating on the kitchen table. “I doon fink yuuuu cnn git diabee’ees yike yaht.”

Her hand was swift and accurate. He choked as she smacked him on the back of the head. “And don’t speak with your mouth full! If your grandmother were here she would thump you good.”

Gertrude had died of a stroke the year before. It was shocking to everyone who knew her as a very spry and young 76 year old. They had just attended an anniversary showing of Blazing Saddles down at the Roanoke Cineplex. Vinton boy Dave Huddleston played Mayor Olson Johnson and so the movie was put on the big screen once every five years. They always went because Granny attended a dance once with the ruggedly handsome actor while they were teens. She never let anyone forget that she had dated a movie star.

As they drove home that night Granny complained of a bad headache. Moments later she slumped against the passenger window. Grace skidded the car sideways onto the shoulder and frantically checked her mother’s pulse but it was too late. The right side of her face was sagging heavily and from her slack mouth came a few words about the sudden mist which had arisen. In his panic, Simon had tried furiously to convince her that the night was clear and beautiful. Somehow it was important to him, as if everything would be fine if she could just understand that fact.

They raced to the hospital but Granny was gone.

The funeral was a small and quiet affair. Most of her friends had already passed on. Grandpa Callaway died just a month after she had come to help out with Grace and Simon and they had all agreed it would be better if she were to remain with them. Grace chose a small cemetery in Washington D.C. for her mother’s final resting place. Trudy had never wanted to be parted from her husband in life or death and it was as close as they could get to Arlington where Grandpa was buried with honors for his service in Korea.

With Trudy gone, the small house seemed huge. Simon got his room back and didn’t know what to do with the privacy. Impossible as it seemed, the two of them often lost each other, calling-out in semi-panic whenever their paths had not crossed for too long a time.

Simon and his mother both aged a lot that year. Grace looked ten years older than her fifty-three years should have allowed. Simon decided that his raucous behavior had driven Granny to a grave of shame. When he talked to his mother about it she could only tell him, “That’s a heavy burden for a boy to carry.” But she didn’t say he was wrong.

Grace moved uncertainly around the kitchen as her son cleaned the gooey mess from around his bowl.

“Simon, I want to talk about what college you plan on applying to.”

“Right now Ma? I have to catch the bus in ten minutes and this cereal isn’t going to eat itself.”

She turned to look squarely in his face. Obviously she had been dying to have this conversation and wasn’t going to miss this opportunity.

“I think you should go to Virginia Western. I know it is just a community college but you’ll save a lot of money from your college fund. You can live here and ride the bus every morning like now.” She didn’t add that keeping an eye on him was also high on her priority list.

 “Ma, VW is a fine school and all but…”

“But what, Simon? Isn’t it good enough for you? All your friends are going there.”

“I know that Ma but,” he looked out the window at a brilliant orange sunset, “I can do better. Besides, they don’t have the classes I want to study.”

“And what would that be?” she asked a bit condescendingly. Although she loved her son, Grace had never thought him to be the academic sort. As a high school teacher she had seen all kinds of boys and hers was not so very exceptional. She expected him to muddle through some college, quit and become a mechanic or work in the mill like his father.

“I want to be a physicist.”

“A what?” Her confusion and shock were evident in the way the question burst out of her mouth.

“I want to study physics ma, ya know, how the elements work together to become…stuff. We learned all about it last year in science class and Mr. Rappleye said I was a natural.”

“I know what a physicist is Simon. But isn’t that a little advanced? You need top grades at math and science. I am not sure that your stellar B- average is going to cut it.”

He glared at her. Mom had always supported him before. To knock him down now, just when he finally discovered what it was he wanted to do with his life.

“Ma, I already talked to Mr. Rappleye about that. He said if I worked extra hard, brought my grades up and took extra study with him, that he knew someone at the University of Virginia in their science department. He would put in a good word for me. They’re always looking for kids who have a gift for physics.”

Grace pondered on this unexpected change in her boy.  She could not deny that he was really good at science, despite what his grades said. Just last month he had won the county science fair with a fully functional body scanner. Granted, it exposed the subject to ten times the acceptable amount of radiation AND left nothing to the imagination, in color. But if Brad Rappleye thought he was good enough to make a personal recommendation, well, that was good enough for her.

Not to be deterred though, she offered a compromise, “How about you get the basic courses done at VW and then transfer to UVA? The advanced classes wouldn’t start until your junior year anyway.”

He couldn’t think of any counter arguments at the moment, so he agreed to consider what she said. College was still many months away.

They say time flies when you are having fun. For Simon, the last year of High School proved that axiom wrong. It was not very enjoyable and yet there never seemed enough hours in the day to get everything done. His new focus on school work meant very little time was available to think-up devilment. The classes were harder and required far more visits to the library. His old poster of the Washington Redskins cheerleaders (cleverly mounted underneath an ad for The Matrix) came down, replaced by the Periodic Table, Einstein and the standard formulae of physics.

His mother was speechless at how much effort he put into studies. It took six months but she finally accepted that he really wanted to become a scientist. After that she gave him perhaps the best present possible: “You don’t make any messes,” she said, “and I’ll take care of all the cleaning.” Simon beamed for a second and then ran into her arms for the kind of intense hug usually reserved for long absent loved-ones or five-year-olds. She knew he was preparing to become his own man but for the briefest instant she had her little boy back.

Very few things interrupted his routine now. Most of his friends lived in Roanoke anyway so loafing with them wasn’t possible. The girls in Vinton had all grown weary of his gags and showed no interest in Simon, despite his well-built frame and ever-present grin. With no distractions around he was able to make prodigious leaps forward. His grades climbed quickly to the astonishment of all the teachers. Indeed, the first couple months brought numerous accusations of cheating because no one believed him capable of such good work. The only person to fully support him was the man who had gone out on a limb for the boy.

Mr. Rappleye, the physics teacher, was good as his word. He arranged for Simon to take an extra elective class with him. They worked intensively on ever more advanced science and by the middle of his senior year they were discussing theoretical physics as equals rather than teacher and student. Simon’s knack for science was turning out to be a real gift at mental improvement in general. The more he learned the better he became at learning. Soon he was top of his class in most subjects and, to the great chagrin of the dean, became the first student voted “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Most Likely to Serve Time in Prison”.