The Stardust Lounge by Deborah Digges Page B

Breaking all the doors. He really has a thing about doors.”
    “Try joining him.”
    “Huh?”
    “You've got a thing about doors yourself.”
    “What?”
    “Come on. You've got a bit of an attitude yourself, Digges. I bet you've kicked a few doors yourself.” Eduardo laughed.
    “That was a long time ago.”
    “Too long. Look, this strict controlling parent thing you've been attempting is all wrong for you. Your heart's not in it. It's not what you do best as far as your parenting goes. Steve knows it. He thinks you're being phony.”
    “He's right.”
    “Let go of it, then. Join Steve. Join him in his anger at life. Join
him
when his teachers call him on the carpet for being late to school. Don't
educate
about what he should have done. Let him figure it out.
    “And don't try to
protect
him from the consequences. Get out of his way. Hug him when the cops bring him home, hug him, and then shut up. Listen to what he's got to say. He
has
remorse, but when you jump in with questions and accusations, he turns it against you. Let him own it.”
    “But he can't be on the phone all night,” I argued another day in a session with both Ed and with Stephen.
    “If Stephen thinks he can be on the phone all nightand still get up for school,
and
pay his own phone bill, it's fair to say he should be able to do so,” Ed had countered. “Right, Steve? Isn't that fair?”
    “Sure,” said Stephen.
    “But what if he
can't
get up for school? Or pay the bill?” I said.
    “Well,” Ed considered. “What would happen to you, for instance, if you couldn't get up for work or pay your phone bills?”
    “I'd lose my job,” I said. “And they'd turn my phone off.”
    “Right.”
    “But school is different,” I said.
    “Well, not really. I mean for a kid, school is like a job. If Steve misses school, he gets fired, sort of. Then he can either try again or drop out for a while, then go back. Or maybe he won't ever go back. Right, Steve?”
    “Right!”
    “And were he to flunk out of school, it would be unfair of him to expect you to support him. Nope,” Ed spoke casually, “that would be unfair, and we've agreed, haven't we Steve, that it's important to be fair. No, it wouldn't be fair for you to support Steve, any more than it would be fair for him to have to support you if you lost your job. Steve wants to be independent, right, Steve?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “You want to be able to do what you want, when you want to. Right?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Good man. Of course. We all do. We all want to be independent.So Steve would need to find his own place to live, get a job to support himself. In fact, look here, Steve. I saved the want-ads section of the paper for you. And here is a list of apartments.”
    Ed opened the paper and began reading descriptions of apartments aloud. “Here's one: ‘one bedroom apartment in North Amherst.’ Whoops,” he interrupted himself. “If you live in North Amherst you'd need a car … can you get a car?”
    “My license is suspended.”
    “Who needs a license? Weren't you by yourself when you were driving Ray's car the other night? You know, the night they picked you up …”
    “Ya, but…”
    “But you got caught, huh. Well. Maybe you couldn't depend on Ray's car every day. Or if you got caught again driving alone—what'd they say?”
    “They said if it happened again, I go to juvie …”
    “Bummer,” Ed replied. “Geez! Those Amherst cops are rough. Wait! Here's one. It says, Apartment on bus route …’ “

The concept of fairness is the method by which Stephen and I decided to adopt Buster the bulldog.
    “I think he's going to need a lot of care,” I'd said when I hung up the phone with the woman in New Hampshire.
    “Like what?” Stephen asked.
    “Well, she said medicate him every morning at seven. And he takes some other kind of medicine on his food, so he has to eat then, too. And we can't just feed him and not the other dogs. G.Q. and Rufus will have to eat then. Some