Life, law & order
“What do you want to do with your life?”
I chewed the inside of my lip. His question dangled in profound quiet. The silence becomes your answer after long enough.
He followed up, “if you do what you love, Garrett—”
“You’ll never work a day in your life.”
I could finish his sentence by now.
“I know, dad.”
He nodded approvingly.
It was the essential question to him.
He would return to it with persistent frequency. Every night from the 7th grade on, he called me to his room across the hall. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit played in the background as we pondered the all-important question during commercial breaks.
“I don’t know what I want to do.”
It felt like a lot for a young kid to know.
Honestly, it still does.
“You don’t have to know right now,” he said, “but it’s something you should be thinking about every day until you do, okay?”
He was looking at me.
I nodded, “okay.”
“But, Garrett, once you have it figured out,” he had a way of culminating a thought with a type of magnitude and intensity. “You don’t let a single fucking thing keep you from doing it.”
The television faded to black; a title card appeared. The abstract, albeit distinctive, *THUN THUN* reverberated through the bedroom. Our conversation wasn’t over, but it would have to wait.
Ice-T’s got a lead for Detective Benson.
