couple of his handy friends. Taking one more sip of beer, he set the cold bottle down and opened the notebook.
“Aiden, your handwriting is atrocious.”
“Atrocious? That’s how everyone writes, Dad.”
“You just scribbled this mess out.” He turned the page and perused it. “And I don’t care what everyone else is doing. You’re supposed to be your own person. Stop followin’ the crowd.” The boy twiddled his thumbs as he dropped his head. “All right, so, says here that your English assignment was on Helen Keller… reading comprehension…”
“Yeah…”
Aries crossed his ankles and leaned forward, reading each and every word.
“You did all right, but you didn’t answer one of the questions.” He pointed to the notebook. “On this worksheet, it was asking about the Perkins Institute for the Blind. You didn’t say where it was located. It was in Boston, by the way, and you didn’t mention her meeting with Alexander Graham Bell in the next sentence.”
“How’d you know that?” The boy frowned, his expression suspicious. “You didn’t even read the whole article. You couldn’t have that fast.”
“What do you mean how’d I know that? I know a lot of shit.” Aries chuckled. “I know you think I’m some idiot, but—”
“But Dad, I never see you read or crack open any books.” The boy shrugged. “You’re always in the shop or here at home watchin’ TV. Or maybe working on building or fixing something, or asleep. You must’ve known that from going to grade school since you never went to college.”
“You think in order to have a working brain, to understand reading comprehension, a person has to go to college? That’s not true. I have no idea where you got that idea.”
“You think college is overrated?” The boy smiled, looking a bit hopeful.
“I’m not against college; in fact, I want you to go. It can open doors that won’t open without that degree, but not everything is for everyone. Regardless of where you get it, you need an education, Aiden. It could be an apprenticeship, for instance. I told you that I went to a trade school after high school, so that is a kind of college in a way, if you think about it. I learned how to fix motorcycles though I already knew a lot beforehand. Self-taught. See, but most folks don’t want people working on their bikes without the credentials, some sort of form saying so and so knows what he’s doing, and if they go for that sort of thing, then they usually want bargain basement prices and I’m not in the charity business. I have a mortgage, bills, and a son to take care of so I did what I needed to do, make no mistake about it. Not everyone needs to have their nose rammed in a book to be smart, Aiden.”
“But Dad, you tell me I need to read more. You’re being hippo-critical.” He smiled at how the boy sounded out the word as he pronounced it real slow. “You tell me if I spent more time studying and less time playing video games that I might be the next Bill Gates, even though you said Bill Gates sucks and is a sneaky son of uh—”
“All right! All right!” He stifled a bout of laughter. Aiden looked so serious at that moment. “That’s you, and this is me. I did my share of reading back in school, but I do read every now and again, just usually not for pleasure. I happen to like learning new things, but I am what I guess you would call a hands-on type of guy, a visual learner.” Aiden nodded in understanding. “Show me something instead of shoving a book in my face. Sit down and show me what is going on, the principles of the matter and how to apply it, and I’ll learn it just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Don’t take my lack of reading to mean me not being interested in education, because that isn’t true. Anyway, make these corrections like I told you.”
“Okay.” The boy grumbled as he gathered the notebook and plopped his behind on one of the barstools.
He handed his son an ink pen and climbed up the steps to the master bedroom. After sitting on the edge of the California-king bed for a while, he pulled Mr. Smith’s folder from his nightstand drawer.
A feeling of heaviness overcame him, making him feel smaller than he ever had before. He flipped slowly through the folder, turning page after page, reading the information