Thalo Blue by Jason McIntyre Page B

with that girl, you’d have easily gotten a full scholarship to the school of your choice and I wouldn’t have had to forego retirement investments for another three years. Again.
    In the end, or perhaps in the beginning, Zeb lost out on that battle. Though he viewed it as important and he fought the man tooth and nail over it, his father was more forceful and the reality of the situation was that Zeb couldn’t afford Europe anyway. York it would be, expensive, boring and lengthy. But York it would be.
    At his father’s advice, or perhaps it was at his insistence, he enrolled himself in the Faculty of Commerce at York University. There was Jackie-O, at his side, always the comedian, always the auspicious sidekick who could get pot and girls at a moment’s notice.
    Even thier genuine lack of interest to actually study Commerce didn’t stop the fall. They both rode the wave, feeling that they were pushed into cold waters without any real consent, but stayed in them because they weren’t too cold. Mums and Dads, The kings and queens of cheese, were paying for this swell. And, in a sense, both Jackson and Zeb understood that they were still young enough to diverge at any moment, should the overwhelming desire arise. They swallowed whole what was handed them—almost because it seemed easier to wash it down now and keep intact the notion of dining on something else. Plus, and in brute honesty, they didn’t take any of it seriously. Not for one moment.
    The two were on a collision course for their future. Falling down a mountain? Yes, Sebastion felt like he was doing just that every single day. It was a painful coaster descent on elderly tracks and the bruises and cuts would begin to show any day now. And, worst of all, the colors were beginning to fade.
     
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    Two years. The whipping winds that come careening along that rickety track—one which may spill you over the edge at any turn—well, they can dull the senses. That wind isn’t felt after a while; it just becomes filtered out along the way. It disappears. Like smoke.
    The wind in his ears, the up and down roller coaster movement and all that went with it, made Zeb finally and completely exhausted. First year was a set of overindulgences, of casual quests for ladies’ underthings in off-campus dorms and in the back rooms of downtown clubs. He was still riding a high point on his life’s social circle, but the curve was beginning a downward turn again. By spring of his second year, he had managed to score another set of A’s across the board. But he was tired. And his new perspectives on the inner workings of things made him even more tired.
    The supper table was an endless set of debates about foreign and fiscal policy. Investment opportunities were the only discussions that Oliver ever brought up. He handed the business section of the paper to his foggy-eyed son each day across a bowl of peas or corn or potatoes and there wasn’t even a look of expectancy in his face. There wasn’t a look at all. The expectations were just understood. What’s this all for? Zeb thought, blearily. Can’t we just make it stop? he sometimes wanted to say, but never did. He simply accepted the folded stack of newsprint and paged through it when his father handed it to him. It was resignation, weak-kneed and without argument.
    There was something behind everything, Zeb knew. There was something that couldn’t be seen but still made all the wheels turn, still made all the bars bend. Jackson could see it even before Zeb could—long before he could—it was there in every look he gave things. It was a once-over when he arrived in a room that said he knew there was something else there, lurking under tables and behind curtains. And there was something there, behind it all, something that no one talked about, maybe because none of them could see it. The idea was intangible, it was slippery, and it did not fit into a neat description space in a scrapbook. He didn’t know