2. Echo of the Supernova

A school drop-off and cup of coffee

But let’s not fool ourselves, because Robert Grady is polar opposite from every other dad that brings his children to Eagle Lake Primary Center.

For starters, none of the fathers, let alone any of the mothers, dare wear stretch skinny-leg jeans, especially this early in the morning.

Robert is also the only dad to sport a pair of sunglasses, and Gucci at that. The designer shades are just one detail not lost on any of the other mothers in this tony suburb.

Robert is also the only parent openly violating the school’s smoking ban. ‘No Smoking’ signs are clearly visible to warn visitors that smoking is not permitted within 100 yards of any school building in Illinois. But Robert takes long, lung-filling drags, all the way up to the red front doors of the building, and in clear sight of the school’s top administrator, principal John H. Williams, whose wizened look indicates he knows when to pick his battles, and challenging Robert Grady to put out a cigarette is not one of them.

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Read the first section of Echo of the Supernova here:

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After two kisses on each cheek for Jack, and one long, loud and obnoxious smooch for Pepper, Robert and I head back to the minivan. The Eagle Lake parents, from what I can tell, have quickly grown accustomed to living with a rock star parent amidst their suburban presence each morning. None of them even bother to look twice at Robert as he coolly strolls by them. None of them scoff at, or whisper to one another behind their cuffed mouths about Robert as he struts by them.

It seems Robert Grady finally fits in. Although you can’t find one person who would ever have guessed it would be at Eagle Lake Primary Center in Schaumburg, Illinois.

“Do you drink coffee?” he asks, as we settle back into our warmed seats of the minivan.

“I do.”

“Good. I need a fresh cup,” he says, swirling what remains in the bottom of his Thermos, and then downing it like a shot.

“I like your cup.”

“Thanks,” he says. “Birthday gift from my wife. She loves to rub it in.”

“Loves to rub what in? The fact that you’re 40?”

“Exactly.”

“And how old is she?”

“28.”

The number stops me in my tracks.

Robert’s wife, the woman married to this aging, yet still very sexy rock star, with the two beautiful kids, and the million dollar home in the exclusive neighborhood, is just one year older than me. The contrast in her lifestyle, and mine, although only a year apart in age, causes pangs of nauseous anxiety to swell up in the pit of my stomach.

Robert produces and lights another Marlboro from a pack stashed in the center console. He is very attentive to his cigarette, pulling off a long drag, holding in the smoke and then letting it billow out of his mouth. Some of the smoke is drawn out of the window, while what remains sits like a rain cloud between us.

“How much do you smoke a day?”

“Constantly,” he says. “I pretty much smoke the whole day long. I’d say it’s got to be at least two packs a day.”

My chest hurts to even think about it. I smoke on occasions, and it is a choice I always regret. Smoking is never worth the perceived sophistication or the implied elegance, especially when I wake up the next morning in a coughing fit and the feeling of a thousand rubber bands wrapped tightly and lodged in a ball in the center of my chest.

“Do you smoke?” he asks. He raises an eyebrow, as if he already knows the answer.

“Once in a while,” I admit, straightening the pleat in the leg of my new black slacks. “When I’m out with my friends I’ll have one or two. I guess you could say I’m a social smoker.”

“I order all my smokes through a website now,” he says. “I think they come from Canada. Or maybe it’s the Netherlands, I’m not really sure. But they’re cheaper than buying them here, plus I don’t have to run out to the store every time I need some.”

“It’s all about convenience.”

“It sure is,” he says, a smile appearing on his face.

We pull into the parking lot of a strip mall. All the retailers the financial analysts care about, with their big block-letter signs and bright and bold colored entrances, dominate the surrounding landscape. In between all of the massive stores sits the tiny storefront of a coffee shop. Robert pulls up to a parking spot right in front of the doors, it’s such a good spot I whip my ahead around expecting to see handicapped parking signs, and puts the minivan in park.

“We can talk here,” he says. “It’ll be quiet.”

I’m relieved he’s remembered the reason why I’m here, which is for an in-depth interview, including access to his new home recording studio. It has already been close to an hour I’ve been waiting to sit down and talk to him.

Robert orders a large coffee, with skim milk, and two Sweet n’ Low packets. I order a medium coffee with cream and sugar. Robert pays for us both with a five-dollar bill.

“Gratis,” I say, inspired by all of the Italian decor inside of the shop.

“De nada,” he says, in a heavily Americanized Spanish accent. “Let’s head outside,” he says, stuffing napkins into his jean pockets. “They don’t let you smoke in here anymore.”

Outside of the coffee shop, in front of the large picture window is a small patio with four tables and chairs made of wrought iron, all of which are unoccupied.

“Where would you like to sit?” he asks, waving his arm in a grand gesture at all of the empty tables.

“Right here is fine,” I say, and pull out the chair closest to me, which makes a hair-raising sound as it drags across the cement.

The sky is cloudy and the air is cool. The sun is struggling to muscle its way past the tough Midwestern clouds. After being inside the coffee shop, wrapped inside its warmth and comforting coffee smells, a noticeable chill enters my bones.

“So, shall we get started?” I ask Robert, who is already back on the attack with another cigarette.

“Sure,” he says. “But first, tell me a little bit about yourself. I like to know who I’m at least talking to.”

I agree and get into the few personal details I wish to share with him. I start by telling him my name is Karen Kelly and that I grew up in the Green Ridge section of Scranton, Pennsylvania. I tell him that I am a graduate of the University of Scranton and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. I tell him about my freelance writing career and the work I’ve done up to now for a number of daily newspapers and national magazines. I tell him how frustrated I am with my current career path, if you can really call it that. And since I’m talking, I let him in on a little secret that not even my mother knows, and tell him that I’ve applied to eight different Master of Fine Arts programs and that next fall I will hopefully pack up and move out to Iowa or Austin, or maybe as a last resort, out west to California, someplace like Berkeley.

I also mention to Robert that I’ve been a huge fan of his since I was thirteen, and an eighth grader at St. Paul’s. I admit to once owning the well-known poster, a shot of him, in one various stage of undress, covered in a glistening sweat, megaphone in hand, screaming out toward a stadium full of thousands of adoring fans. I can finally admit that this profile, of Robert Grady, is the dream assignment I’ve been wanting the most in my short career. He may even be the reason I became a writer.

“Well, I guess I feel a little safer now,” he says. “I mean you’re not some stalker at least.”

I make a failed attempt to give Robert a demonic face while he makes a small nervous giggling sound. I quickly regret making the face, which I have a habit of doing in situations like this.

“Alright then,” I say, looking to move on before this moment gets totally awkward and the interview dies. “Now tell me about where you are right now?”

“Well, I’m in Schaumburg, Illinois, sitting outside a coffee shop, having a sip with a beautiful young lady.”

“I’m flattered,” I say, unable to stop a smile from stretching across my face. Robert smiles too. He lifts up his recycled, post-consumer

cardboard coffee cup and we toast each other.

“So how do you like being a dad?”

“I love it,” he says. “I think it’s the coolest title anybody could ever have. It’s better than rock star. It’s better than Senior Executive Vice President of Whatever Type of Bullshit.”

He ashes his cigarette on the ground before continuing.

“It’s wild to think I’m responsible for these little people. Not just the diapers and the bottles, although they don’t need any of that anymore, but forming them into people, expanding their mind, the way they think. They model your behavior.”

“So let me ask, are you a role model?”

“I’m a role model…yeah.” He answers without even thinking. “I might not be a good one. But I know that there are those, especially kids, who probably try to emulate me, or want to be me. Just like I wanted to be Jim Morrison.”

He takes a slug from his coffee. All the muscles in his neck work in tandem to bring the liquid from the cup down to his throat. He follows the sip with a drag off his cigarette, and then blows the smoke up in the air above our little round table. Sitting this close to Robert, I notice the skin on his face is white and pasty, like a geisha’s.

“I notice you smoke in front of the kids.” This is not a question, but rather a statement. However, Robert is ready with an explanation, more than an answer.

“Those kids have seen me do some stupid shit. A lot worse things,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief as he recalls the memories in his mind. “Smoking in front of them is the least of my problems when it comes to those kids,” he says, still shaking his head.

“What types of things have they seen you do?”

“Oh, let’s see,” he says, and tilts his head to the side thoughtfully. “I’ve been strung out on dope. Drunk, numerous times. Been in arguments with their mother,” he says, ticking off each point on the narrow fingers of his left hand. “I’m just hoping they were too young to really remember any of it.”

“The arguments with your wife, were they verbal arguments or did they ever get physical?”

“Both,” he says. “We’re constantly arguing, you know? Yelling and screaming and stuff, but she’s always the first one to throw a punch. She starts all the hitting.”

I don’t feel there is ever a time when a man striking a woman is justified, but to look at Robert, a thin, willowy shadow of his former thick, muscled shell, I can picture a situation where he might have to defend himself, even against an average-sized woman.

“You’re drug use in the past has been well documented. Are you clean and sober now?”

Robert tilts back on the legs of his chair and then leans back in toward me. Our faces are so close I can smell the smoke on his breath. He stares me right in the eyes.

He doesn’t blink.

I don’t blink either.