A boy with a thirst for learning and a difficult upbringing made an indelible impression on novelist Patrick O'Keeffe during a summer school programme
On the way back to Kentucky from watching Carmen at the Cincinnati Opera House, I sat in a window seat close to the back of the bus; it was suggested that a few of the staff always sit there, knowing what teenagers might get up to at the back of buses. This was a summer's evening, in 1995; I was 32 years old, studying for a degree at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and working for the summer in the Upward Bound Programme, at Berea College.
Upward Bound was conceived in the 1960s by President Johnson as part of his "War on Poverty". It provides support to students from low-income families in their preparation for college entrance. Its goal is to increase the rates at which these students enrol in and graduate from college. I taught three classes a day, and stayed on campus with the high-school students, who were from counties in south central Kentucky.
A student who sat next to me clutched a stuffed dog he had won in a mall outside Cincinnati, where we had eaten after the opera. I had become close with him over the summer; he was enrolled in two of my classes - a very serious, intelligent 14-year old. He said he was naming the dog after me, and I said I was honoured. We began to talk about how cool it was to be in a city and how cool the opera was, which somehow led us to talking about family. He said he had not seen his father in years, and he then told me, in detail, a shocking incident that revealed his father's violent nature. I wondered how anyone could survive it; but there were a few stories like his, and some were worse.
Then he asked what I studied, and I said I studied English. He said he was certainly going to college, and I said that college was the most interesting thing I had ever done, whether or not it led to success. We stopped talking then because I turned to the window. It had become dark, and I stared down at the dark road, which certain flashing lights on the base of the bus illuminated every few seconds.
What he had told me pestered me, so I tried to think of Carmen, to hear again the music I felt more than I understood, but then I saw myself, kicking fallen leaves in October, on my way to the loathsome mathematics class I was taking for the third time, and I thought about the five nights a week I would work in the restaurant, those eight-hour weekend shifts when football season began, and then the will it took to study on Sundays, when all I wanted to do was drink myself stupid, laugh and listen to music with friends in a Lexington bar.
I turned to tell him that life was often surprising in good ways, too, but he had turned his face away and was sound asleep. I was glad, though, I didn't have to say anything, because there and then it felt pointless. The bus speeded up; it seemed to float slightly above the road. I stared at the road and the flashing lights; the thrill of the opera had faded, and too soon the summer would end, and we'd all cry on the last day, when the buses came to take them back home. We would exchange addresses and telephone numbers, promising each other to keep in touch, but so few of us ever did.
It looked as if everyone on the bus had fallen asleep except for me and the driver, who had switched the inside lights off, apart from the low glow of light strips that ran high up on both sides. The air conditioner made the air so cold that I quietly slipped a jumper on. When I bent over to pick it up, I got a whiff of dirty feet, which I hoped were not my own, though sneakers and socks lay scattered along the aisle: that smell lingered with the scent of cheap men's cologne and ladies' perfume. I watched signs for Corinth, Sadieville, ads for Denny's Restaurant, McDonald's, Taco Bell, gas stations, and motels. But the light they created was nothing, really, against the darkness.
The boy who had been sleeping next to me tapped me on the shoulder. "Where are we?" he asked. I could not see his face, but I heard him yawn. "Nearly in Lexington," I said, which I knew because we had just passed the Georgetown exit. "Today was the best day of my life so far," he said. Then, "How long more?" "We're nearly home," was all I could say.
Patrick O'Keeffe is the author of The Hill Road (Bloomsbury, £15.99 in UK)