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token remnant of my father’s Ukrainian heritage?
    Surprise, surprise, the vandals were my ex–best friends. What had I done to alienate my only allies? I never found out. I wanted them dead. My mother declined to press charges.
    Overnight, I went from cocksure to persecuted. Before, we had been outnumbered. Now I was alone. My mom tried to throw me a surprise birthday party at the Kingston House of Pizza a couple of months later, in the depths of winter. Two large pizzas, one cheese and one pepperoni. We waited there for an hour together before packing them up and bringing them home.

    A bulk mailing came one day, addressed to me. I turned it over. “Attend college early!” it said. I tore open the slim pamphlet and read with mounting interest. Simon’s Rock College was an accredited university in Massachusetts that accepted students after just two years of high school. Their specific focus was teaching a college curriculum to “bright, motivated adolescents.” “Bright” was a word often tossed my way. “Motivated” wasn’t. But if escaping both high school and my parents two years early couldn’t motivate me, nothing could. I walked into the house and said, “Hey, Mom, can I borrow twenty-three thousand dollars?”
    My parents talked it over when my dad got home from his latest business trip. There was no way they’d be able to afford it in the same year they were footing the bill for Tatyana’s out-of-state tuition to the University of Colorado . . . but what was the harm in getting a little more information?
    It was decided that I would be allowed to send away for an application. My mom made it clear that the B-minuses I had been pulling down in everything except weight training wouldn’t impress anyone. Overnight, I dug in at school.
    The application required what amounted to extra homework. Such bullshit! But the faraway school seemed to shimmer with possibility. Simon’s Rock didn’t just promise escape. It made me reconsider all the lectures I’d gotten about the potential I was wasting.
    That thin booklet had sought me out for a reason. I was supposed to do Some Great Thing.
    I tackled the application with immediate and sustained effort. For the first time I could remember, I gave an essay my full attention, writing it not with the minimum amount of effort necessary but with everything I had. This work counted for something.
    When my next report card came, it was straight As.
    After I sent off my application with my latest report card, I began checking the mailbox every day. Finally, I got an envelope with the seal and return address of Simon’s Rock. Without bothering to close the mailbox, I tore the envelope open. I hadn’t just gotten in—they had given me a big scholarship.
    Every cell in my body felt alive. My entire life was about to change. The sky seemed to open. I would not drop out and get a job driving a forklift. I could do anything. I would do everything. I sat down on the grass in the summer sun to treasure the moment for a minute. Then I ran in to tell my mom.

    Somehow my parents found a way to cover college tuition for not one but two kids in the same year. There had been many heated discussions, and it was made clear that all of us would have to make sacrifices in order for this to happen. The school had strict rules. Two infractions for drugs or alcohol, and you were out. One fight, and you were out. And no refunds. Even as an infant, I had recognized the duality of my nature. Like the nursery rhyme, when I was good, I was very, very good, but when I was bad, I was rotten. Could I control myself? I would have to.
    The tiny school of Simon’s Rock was tucked away behind the small town of Great Barrington in western Massachusetts. The other kids . . . it was like every high school across the country had sent its weirdest, smartest, funniest kids there for quarantine. My roommate, James, had blue hair