Posted: Jun 29, 08 2:03pm
Jake deposited his tray on his favorite table, which was nestled in a recessed area next to the entrance to the Union bowling alley. Pleased with his good fortune, Jake dropped his book bag onto the unoccupied chair and pulled out Contracts, 1st Edition, hoisting it onto the edge of the table with a *whomp!* "I’ll be lucky if this sucker doesn’t give me a hernia by the end of the semester," he thought.
As he arranged his plate, plasticware, and soda cup on the table so they could peacefully coexist with the thick brown book, Jake’s attention began to wander, as it usually did these days when studying beckoned. Eventually his gaze settled onto the limestone portico looming incongruously over the plate-glass doors that led to the brightly lit bowling alley on the other side. His wayward mind then ambled back to that day 20 years earlier when his mother brought him and his older brother Eddie to this very spot to vie for some of the Christmas booty being dangled before the kids of the adult students. Jake had only a vague understanding of the circumstances behind the scene – something about the University providing a proper Christmas for the children of the struggling G.I. Bill students – but the particulars were etched to a razor-sharp fineness in his mind…
Jake hovered with his mother and brother in the rearguard of a horde of mothers and kids scuffling their way toward the door – plate-glass even then. The cafeteria was dark and subdued, which put the brilliance of the fluorescent lights from the bowling alley in even greater relief. The thick rays of light practically shimmered in the distance, promising pleasures indescribable to Jake as he tried to push forward from the huddled-masses zone. Suddenly, Jake saw the beaming face of a boy about his age moving back through the crowd in the opposite direction, cradling in his hands a white cowboy hat with a bright red band and a dangling red-and-white-striped drawstring. It seemed to Jake as if the boy were trying to say something but was so overcome with joy that his voice caught in his throat. "Mom! Mom!" cried Jake. "Look what he’s got! I want one too!" But his mother only scowled and forged resolutely ahead.
As they managed to push closer to the door, Jake suddenly caught a glimpse of the festive scene within: the Man himself, Santa Claus, holding court by the ball racks, continually dipping his red-gloved paw into a huge bag and magically removing hat after hat after hat, some white with red bands, some black with white bands, some brown with cow-print bands. Jake instantly wished he could dredge up some latent superpowers and vault over the crowd that stood between him and this end-all-and-be-all of his brief existence. Instead, he could only entreat his mother: "There he is! Mom, get me a hat!"
Suddenly his mother turned and said, “Jake! You and your brother wait here!” And she was off through the doors.
Normally Jake would have panicked at the seeming abandonment, but he understood that his mother was on a mission on his behalf. Although whether her intent was to satisfy his longing or to escape his bleating, Jake couldn't be sure.
The wait seemed interminable to Jake. What color will she get? I should have told her – the white one, the white one! Aw, but she knows that. Despite his attempts to reassure himself, though, Jake’s heart quickly began to sink as he imagined the prospect of life with one of the black hats – I don’t wanna be a bad guy! – and descended into the shivery zone of anxiety as he realized that she might even come back with a pink one!
Finally, Jake saw his mother emerge from the light, empty-handed.
“I’m sorry, guys,” she said wearily. “They ran out of hats just as I got there. But here –“ She reached into her coat pocket and produced their present:
A coupon for two free boxes of Animal Crackers.
As he thought about that night 20 years ago, Jake reflected on the lesson he took away: That life was about deprivation, about wanting something so badly you could taste it but not being able to attain it, for it to always be just out of reach. And as he continued slogging through the tortuous threads of legal language contained in Contracts, 1st Edition – five pages of which he had just flipped through without reading a single word – Jake wondered if he would be revisiting this place 20 years on, still searching for that hat.
