Very Far Away from Anywhere Else Read Online Free

you didn't want the car, you might have told me."
    "You never asked me if I wanted a car."
    His face got tighter, like a clenched fist. He said, "It's been driven very little. I suppose the dealer might take it back. Not for the full cost, of course. They couldn't resell it as new."
    "Oh rubbish, what a notion," my mother said. "How is Owen to get back and forth from State every day next year without a car of his own? It would take him an hour each way on the bus. For goodness sakes, Jim, don't expect him to start living in the car right off! If you want to drive it to the office, do. But it'll get plenty of use next year!"

    That was fine. My mother is a highly intelligent person. She had just given my father his first practical reason for giving me a car—his excuse, his justification. State University is clear on the other edge of our city, about ten miles from where we live. I would certainly need a car to get to classes there next year. The only trouble was that State was not where I wanted to go to college.
    But if I brought that up, if I said, "What if I go away to college?" I'd have blown it again. We'd have had two quarrels going instead of one. Because it was my mother who was dead set on my going to State. And I do mean dead set. Shed gone there, she met dad there, she quit as a junior to get married. Beverley, her best friend, was a sorority sister. She knew State. It was safe. The places I wanted to go weren't safe. They were far away, and she didn't understand what went on at them; they were full of communists and radicals and intellectuals.

    I had applied to MIT, Cal Tech, and Princeton, as well as State. My father had filled out the scholarship applications and paid the application fees. The forms were incredible, all in quadruplicate, but being a CPA, he rather enjoyed filling them out clearly and honestly, and he didn't mind the fees because I think he took some pride in my shooting for the moon. I expect he mentioned to his friends at the office that his son was applying to Princeton. That was something to be proud of, especially if I didn't actually go there. But he said nothing about it to my mother, as far as I know, and she said nothing about it to either of us. If we wanted to throw away ninety dollars on fees, all right. But her son was going to State.

    And she had a practical reason. A very sound one. They could afford to send me there.
    I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My jaws locked. I couldn't swallow the piece of pot roast I'd been working on, either. It just lay there in my mouth, a fibrous sort of lump. I couldn't chew it. I worked it over to one side, and drank some milk around it, and after a long time I managed to chew it some and swallow it. After a longer time dinner was over. I went up to do homework.
    It was no good. Why should I study? What for? I could get to State without studying. I could probably get clear through State without studying. I could probably go on and become an accountant or a tax auditor or a math teacher and be respectable and successful and get married and have a family and buy a house and get old and die without ever studying, without ever thinking at all. Why not? A lot of other people did. You think you're so special, Griffiths.

    I couldn't stand the sight of any of the books in my room; I hated them. I went downstairs and said, "Going out for a drive," around the ghost of that piece of beef, which still seemed to be in my mouth; and I went out and got into the new car. I had left the keys in it, Sunday. Even Dad hadn't noticed. It could have been stolen any time during the last two days. If only it had been. I started it up and drove very slowly down the street. Breaking it in.
    At the end of the second block I passed the Fields'house.
    OK, now I know I was sick—really sick, a little past the breaking point—that night, because of what I did. I did what any normal car-loving American teen-ager would do if he'd met a girl he liked. I stopped and