Other Light
Anthony Varallo What kind of fifteen-year-old would be out here tonight, a Sunday, a school night, knocking on neighbors’ doors? You, for one. Because tomorrow is Monday, the marching band fundraising deadline, and you have yet to sell one Total-Glo holiday candle, this year’s sad and regrettable merchandise, nowhere near as desirable as last year’s Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit gift boxes. You have been instructed—threatened, you would like to say—that you are to have a minimum of five sales by tomorrow. Or else no trip to Toronto, Canada, for you. This, the site of next year’s marching band competition and the fantasy of the upperclassmen, who have already researched the bars most likely to serve underage drinkers. But you are a lowly sophomore, so this means little to you. Who can blame you then, for putting things off ? Plus with everything that’s been going on at home lately—but you do not wish to think about what’s been going on at home lately. No. So you do not think about it. Not thinking about things you don’t want to think about is something you are good at, unlike sales. Now, you stand on the Levinsons’ doorstep, a place not entirely unfamiliar to you. Years ago, you forged a friendship with Nathan Levinson, two grades younger than you, but this friendship did not survive the summer that inspired it. Chief among the reasons for failure being Nathan’s realization that, although video games were fun, and although hanging out with someone with whom you had little in common was an effective enough cure for boredom, winning the admiration of attractive girls at the community pool