I don’t see my son much. At 15, Austin is somewhat lost to me, a mysterious entity hidden beyond the bedroom door, indulging in his In My Room phase.
His sister Delaney calls the bedroom his lair, which makes sense since there is a wild animal quality about him. When I slip a new Rolling Stone or Mad beneath his door, the magazine is yanked from view before it’s halfway through, like a raw steak pulled by paw through the cage of a lion, and I’ll hear a grunt.
The problem with his In My Room phase is it occurs In My House, which means I periodically must clean his kingdom. I am not a super-parent like those who instill within their children personal responsibility when it comes to perpetually picking up after one’s self. I lack the magic to turn my son into something akin to an algae eater. I’ve tried. I’ve asked. I’ve cajoled. I’ve yelled. I clean his room —periodically.
A few Sundays ago, with trash bag in hand, when he was not home, I opened Austin’s door to take stock of his sanctuary of sloth. What can I say? — the room was a trash heap. “I’m going to need a bigger bag,” I thought, immediately wishing that instead of an Adopt-A-Highway program, there was an Adopt-A-Bedroom program to depend on.
I crawled through rubble, this teenage wasteland. Magazines were scattered about, including MADs dating back to June 2006. It’s possible he stopped leaving his room once his first MAD arrived. I have renewed MAD thrice — and Rolling Stone. We both read each cover to cover. We are bonded by magazines, the mess reminded me.
I uncovered dozens of CDs. Some were mine that he borrowed and presumably lost. He gets just as excited turning me on to a “new” band as I get turning him on to an “old” band. Music binds us, the mess reminded me.
I found his lost wallet. Inside was a lost library card. I found two lost remote controls. I found a lost, nearly-full container of Stridex beneath his bed. I found three dollars’ worth of lost change. I found his lost Chapstick. I found a lost book report. This is not a bedroom; this is a Lost and Found, I thought angrily.
I rescued many books from his messy floor. My son’s love of books tells me that I have done something right as a parent. Books bind us, the mess reminded me.
I found crumbled A&W cans, broken pencils, an empty Gatorade bottle, an obsolete keyboard, DVDs and wrappers galore: Pop Tarts, Air Heads, Chewy Dipps, Laffy Taffy, Combos, Twix. I found a fossilized, half-eaten muffin and a lemon pie box.
I found balled-up T-shirts that he promised to hang. I found a wadded sheet he promised to put on his mattress. I found dirty coffee cups he promised to return to the sink. I grew angrier over this room of broken promises.
I found popcorn kernels, B.Bs and Pop Rocks in the carpet. Would the vacuum cleaner explode if I sucked up the Pop Rocks and B.Bs together? I found a Delete key, a tack, Halls wrappers, a Big Mac container, a cocklebur and broken sunglasses. I found dried cranberries with fuzz.
It bothered me that each item, each piece of scrap, linked to something I purchased. There is a fine line between spend and spoil.
I found loose photographs. One showed a Florida beach scene, my son wearing a spring break smile, telling me that maybe I wasn’t a fully ineffectual father since I had provided the trip that provided this smile. The last photograph found was from grade school. He was 8, I think. He looked happy and docile. His ears stuck out farther from his head then, which I had used to my advantage when picking him out from the crowd at the city pool. He even wore a button shirt for the photo, a dressy style shunned not long after. I had forgotten this earlier Austin. It was a wonderful moment. My eyes burned and grew wet. I was no longer angry.
My intent was to simply clean the room of a boy I had in some way lost to time; but, in so doing, I had somehow unearthed him from the clutter, each scattering a clue to his existence. I found him, too, in the simplicity of an old school photo. My two hours in his room helped me connect the tame boy before the mess to the boy-beast who made the mess. They’re the same boy — my boy. I love them both. It was a pleasant reminder.
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