I nodded.

"Well, I took the liberty of recommending you to my alma mater. It's called Elliot College. It's a very small school back East, but I think you might like it a great deal."

"Wow, Dr. Montgomery. Thank you so much!" I was shocked. An actual doctor? I'd never even thought to ask for help. I didn't think that a person like her would ever consider helping a high school kid worth her time. Dr. Montgomery had really gone out of her way for me. "I'm gonna need all the help I can get. I really appreciate it."

Dr. Montgomery ran a hand through her bright red hair. "Of course, Dieter. I don't want to see your talents wasted." Her smile weakened. "There are so few of us left."

I looked at her in confusion. Sure, the state of American academics was pretty dire, but it wasn't like medical doctors were going extinct or anything...

"Oh, listen to me and my blabbering." She shook out her curly hair and rubbed her face. "Things have been so busy around here that I haven't been getting enough sleep." She checked her watch. "Speaking of which, I better finish my rounds. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

I nodded. Yep, Dr. M. had a strange vibe all right. Nice-but definitely strange. I rubbed my tender face. My facial wounds had all closed up, but the bruises were still in full bloom. I glanced at myself in the mirror. My mussed up hair had built itself into a veritable tower of bed-head. A scraggly brown beard partially hid my sallow cheeks. Basically, I looked as bad as I felt. I needed to get out of this hospital and clear my head. This week had been seriously f.u.c.ked up. I was starting to get loopy.

I was okayed for discharge the very next day. A nurse brought up some street clothes and gave me a free shave. I had my fill of hospital gowns and bed sheets. The jeans might be a bit long, but the opportunity to put on street clothes was like a gift from the G.o.ds. I was pulling up my boxers when the woman walked in.

"Dear me," she said shaking her head. "You're gonna make me miss high school."

My face turning bright red, I scrambled to b.u.t.ton up the jeans. I went to slip the black t-shirt over my head but winced in pain. My shoulder was still swollen like a watermelon.

"Here, let me help," she said guiding my hands into the shirt. As the shirt popped over my neck, I finally got a look at her. The woman wore a tight cut pair of dress slacks and a no-nonsense short sleeve b.u.t.ton down. She wore her long auburn hair up high in a bun.

Fl.u.s.tered, I asked, "Excuse me, but who are you?"

"Lauren Curray of The Globe." I looked down and noticed she was holding a notepad. She spoke with an easy confidence. She had no problem meeting my eyes. "You must be Dieter Resnick, survivalist extraordinaire."

"You're right on that count. What brings you to my humble abode?"

"Oh, just a few questions."

I examined my bare toes. I was suddenly feeling warm.

"Uh...?"

"If you don't mind."

A reporter? I had only met one reporter before. It was after the science fair last year. He wrote down my name and took my photo. Never actually published it, mind you, but it was kinda exciting at the time. I perked up. I was going to be interviewed. Maybe I would actually make it into the paper this time...And then I remembered. Despite what the press thought, I had sorta just killed someone. I looked at the razor-sharp pencil she was tapping gingerly on her pad. This was probably the worst scenario imaginable.

I swallowed.

"Um, sure. Ms. Curray wasn't it? Fire away."

She smiled. "It's good you can already joke about it. At this stage, most victims are still traumatized."

"I didn't mean it that way," I said, frowning.

"Oh, of course not," she said, jotting something down on her little notepad. "Tell me, Dieter, what were you and Mr. Nelson doing behind the school at the time of the explosion?"

"Well, um, there was a pretty big brawl going on, and neither of us wanted to get between the cops and the Splotches." I struggled to remember the story, but it's so much harder to lie when you're put on the spot. "You see, there was a big riot two months ago and a bunch of people got hurt, so-"

"That's funny," Ms. Curray said shaking her head. "After talking to some of the students, I'd gotten the impression that Mr. Nelson was an important member of this 'Splotches' gang-maybe even its leader. And the Splotches are well known to the student body, aren't they? They're the sole supplier of illicit drugs, no?"

Ms. Curray placed a hand on her skinny waist and tilted her head expectantly. I did my best to maintain bladder control. What the h.e.l.l had just happened? What manner of word-kung-fu was this? I grabbed the socks and slipped them on. I needed to buy some time and calm down. She had been asking the right questions, and for some reason the students Ted Binion High School had talked to her instead of slashing her tires.

"I don't know. I try to keep my head down. I want to go to college next year, and I spend most of my time working with Dr. Leeche. He's our chemistry teacher. Last year I published some findings with him. I'm hoping to get a scholarship, and he thinks this is a sure fire way to earn one. All that work doesn't give me much time to socialize-let alone learn the gangs' hierarchies."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Leeche," she said. "So you haven't heard?"

"Sorry?" I asked. "Heard what?"

"That he was fired."

"Excuse me?" I asked, flabbergasted. "Dr. Leeche? He's the best teacher in our entire our school."

"Best? Hardly. He failed to check the gas nozzles or lock the lab before leaving work that afternoon. He's partially responsible for Mr. Nelson's death-and your injuries."

"But it wasn't his fault!" I shouted.

Ms. Curray's eyes brightened.

"Then whose fault was it, Dieter?"

I flinched. She hadn't even been baiting me, and I'd already managed to trip over myself. This had just been a fishing expedition, but now Ms. Curray was wondering if I was holding something back. Super.

"I don't know," I said, biting my cheek. "I don't know whose fault it was. Maybe...Maybe no one's to blame." Dr. Leeche was a good man, and now he was getting hung out to dry. My mind raced. This was all my fault. If I had just not gotten into it with Tyrone, if I had just minded my own business, none of this would have happened. But what could I do now? How could I get Dr. Leeche out of this mess?

Tell the truth, my conscience answered.

I bit my lip until it hurt. No. Even if I wanted to take the blame, even if I confessed, what exactly was my explanation going to be? I destroyed Tyrone Nelson with my mind? I mean, come on. I decided on a half-truth instead.

"Ms. Curray, I hit my head. The doctors said I suffered a concussion. I can't recall everything that happened. To be honest, I'm just parroting back what they told me. I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm going to be of much use to you."

She strummed her notebook with her tightly cropped fingernails.

I busied myself tying my shoes. I needed this conversation to stop before I slipped up again. Lying wasn't easy for me-especially when I feel guilty. My thoughts kept turning to poor Dr. Leeche. He didn't deserve to get fired. He was getting close to retirement. I wondered about his pension. Would he lose it? What would he do if he did?

Ms. Curray reached down into her leather bag and pulled out a folder. Without a word, she strode over to my bed and placed three large pictures on top of it.

"What do these photos mean to you?" She asked.

I was about to tell the intrepid reporter lady to leave me the h.e.l.l alone, but she wasn't wearing the expression I'd expected. There was tiredness in her eyes. She looked burnt-out...At least that's what I thought. I was never good at reading people-especially women-but either way, she had won me over. I took a look like she asked.

The first was a shot of three men facedown in a puddle. Each was wearing a DEA windbreaker. The Drug Enforcement Agency? And the bodies lay crumpled...as if they had simply dropped to the ground. Intrigued, I looked closer. The plastic of their jackets was all melty...like some serious voltage had run through them. Odd...The second photo showed a man tied to a chair. It wasn't in color, but I was pretty certain that the beads of fluid coating his shirt and face were much too dark to be sweat. And then there was the third photo. That was the hook. My heart dropped through the floor when I set my eyes on it. A man and woman lay in a pile of debris. Both their heads had been popped like pimples. There was blood and guts everywhere.

I swallowed. They looked exactly like Tyrone.

I turned away from the photos and looked out the window. The image was drawing me back to a place I didn't want to go. I was getting dizzy just thinking about it.

Ms. Curray noted my reaction and nodded.

"These are pictures from three incidents that occurred over the past month in the Las Vegas Valley. In this one, three agents from the DEA entered a warehouse on a drug bust. The official report says that they stepped into this puddle and got electrocuted. It was cla.s.sified as an accident. Note the lack of wires of any kind." She shook her head. "Do you have any idea how much electricty is required to cause those kinds of burns? We are talking on the order of a lightning strike here.

"The next one is of a Gustavo Avilar, a well-known local drug lord. Apparently he got rather hot, because the report states that he sweat out over three liters of his own blood."

I swallowed. "It's a condition called hematidrosis. It's known to occur under conditions of tremendous stress. But it's super-rare, unheard of, really."

Ms. Curray looked at me questioningly.

"What can I say? I'm an epic nerd. We know these things."

"The last is of two members of the LVPD vice squad. They were also conducting a drug bust. Neighbors reported hearing a rain of gunfire and then an explosion. The result was this b.l.o.o.d.y mess." She smacked the photo. "The fire department is calling it a freak accident, the result of a gas line explosion." She shook her head. "One problem with that story, Dieter. The perps the police were there to bust were nowhere to be found. Explain this one for me: The crime scene report said both cops unloaded their rounds in tight patterns, but no blood was found besides their own."

She tapped her pad.

"Two highly trained police officers, clearly aiming at something right in front of them, and they only hit air? And if they were firing when the explosion occurred, why were the perps not killed by the explosion as well?" Ms. Curray paced over to the window. "But that's not the interesting part. In each case, it looked like the evidence was pointing in one direction, and then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere the authorities started calling them freak accidents. And just like that, the investigations stopped. Does that sound familiar to you, Dieter?"

Sure did. And it offered up a whole can of worms. If there were similar occurrences, I might be able to find an explanation to what happened behind the schoolhouse. It was tempting, but that would require me getting involved. I glanced down at Gustavo Avilar's b.l.o.o.d.y torso. The dude had been notorious with a capital N. Untouchable. Getting some answers was tempting, but not that tempting. Poking around in this stuff seemed like an awesome way to reduce one's life expectancy. I wanted to get out of Vegas. You didn't do that from inside a pine box.

"Listen, Ms. Curray," I said. "I agree that all this stuff doesn't add up, but I really don't get what all this has to do with me. I'm here because of an explosion in a chem lab, not some drug deal gone sour. Besides, I already told you that I took a hit to the head. I can barely remember anything about that day, let alone how the explosion happened."

Ms. Curray sighed. It looked like this wasn't the first time she'd gotten that sort of response.

"Fine. But if you do remember anything, here's my card. And Dieter, my condolences for the loss of your friend, it's a shame he had to die like that."

I glanced at the photos once last time. Explosions. Electrocutions. Bloodlettings. Whatever the h.e.l.l was going on, I didn't want any part of it. I made my decision there and then. I just didn't want to know. Once I walked out of this room, I was moving on. My dad and I agreed on one thing: If you let it, the world would eat you for breakfast. I wasn't going to risk my future fishing around for answers.

Chapter 3.

OUTWARD BOUND.

I returned to school expecting trouble. I thought the Splotches would be ready to get their revenge. Instead, I discovered the entire gang had dissolved. Their leader gone, the Splotches had crumbled. Some Splotches had quit school. Others joined different gangs. If you had transferred into Ted Binion after the explosion, you wouldn't have known the Splotches even existed.

Free from reprisals, I busied myself with school and work. I had missed over two weeks and had a ton of catching up to do. Having one less cla.s.s helped. Chemistry had been cancelled. The school was out one instructor and one laboratory, and they certainly didn't have the budget to replace them. Every time I walked past the boarded up lab, I was reminded of Dr. Leeche. It was like my daily penance. I kept telling myself there was nothing I could do, but as the months went by, I felt worse and worse about it. My solution was to add on even more work. I took on more tutoring jobs and started working later at Newmar's. It's amazing how fast time can pa.s.s when you make sure you're too busy to think. Before I even knew it, the fall had pa.s.sed into winter, and the semester was coming to an end.

With winter came the dreaded application season. Based on the school counselor's advice, I hit all the big names: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Cornell and the like-eleven in all. I liked my chances. Washington University in St. Louis even sent me a letter inviting me to apply. Right before Christmas, I was celebrating mailing off the final one when a thick envelope arrived in the mail. It was from a school I only vaguely recalled: Elliot College. The return address listed a spot just outside of New Haven, Connecticut.

I scratched my head. Elliot was one of those small elite schools-a place where the super wealthy sent their progeny to ensure their blood was sufficiently blue. It was a school for demiG.o.ds, the children of the multinationals. Lesser mortals were never considered for entry. Elliot wasn't one of those huge research schools that could exploit my talents to their hearts content. They probably didn't even do federally funded research at Elliot. Intrigued, I opened up the envelope. Inside was a bunch of info about the school, and a single letter printed on that kind of paper that feels like cloth. It was short and to the point: Dear Mr. Resnick, Your academic achievements to date have caught the attention of one of our alumni, Dr. Anna Montgomery. We believe the talents you have demonstrated could best be sculpted through the rigorous yet rewarding training our program affords. We strongly encourage you to apply for admission in our upcoming fall cla.s.s. And please, do not concern yourself with cost. Every year we offer many full-ride scholarships to students of extraordinary merit.

As you apply to universities this year, please consider Elliot College.

Sincerely, Dean Joseph Albright, III This Albright guy had me at "full-ride". I set the letter down on my desk. I had forgotten that Dr. Montgomery wrote me a letter of recommendation. I had a.s.sumed she was being nice at the time and then forgot. Pulling out my college guide, I decided to look them up: Elliot College is one of the oldest universities in the United States. A small school of less than 300 total students, it is famous for its fixed 2-year curriculum, which all students are required to complete. After the initial two years of study, students are able to attend cla.s.ses at numerous international inst.i.tutions for intensive instruction in their disciplines of interest. Some Elliot students have complained that the rigor of cla.s.ses is too great and that the pressure placed on students is excessive. Others rave about the wonderful opportunity to study at some of the world's finest schools after completing the 2-year core. Judging by the placement of Elliot students into top graduate programs across the country, the small school's quirky system yields impressive results. The entrance procedures for Elliot College are also unusual. Every year, Elliot sends out letters to students identified by alumni as "good fits" for their unique and rigorous program. Elliot College does accept unsolicited applications, but most of its student body is actively recruited through these formal invitations. Applications are due by December 31st.

I cringed at the description. It sounded like h.e.l.l on earth. Why would I want to spend college locked up on a small campus in the woods? Didn't bears live in the woods? But the words "full-ride" kept ringing in my ears. I leaned back in my chair, and the old frame groaned in protest. I shrugged. How long would filling the application take? Three hours? What was the harm? It felt kinda cool getting an invitation to apply. Like I had gotten a golden ticket. Perhaps I should have broken out into song. I grabbed a cup of coffee instead and settled down to fill out the form.

Simple stuff first: Name, date, address, parents' names and occupations. As usual, I had to fill out a lot of the blanks with 'unknown.' I was penning in a 'no' to the question: "Did either of your parents attend Elliot College?" when I remembered that I had no idea whether my mother even went to college, let alone at Elliot. I knew so little about my mother. Not even her name. She had vanished while I was still a toddler. No note. No reason. Left my father to raise me alone. Nor could I ask him anything about her. It was the best way I knew of setting him off. I rubbed my cheek and filled in the blank with another 'unknown.'

Finished with the cover form, I flipped through the three essay questions: 1. Imagine you are sitting in the park, reading. You hear a rustling in the leaves beside you. Putting your book down, you observe two glowing-red eyes peering out at you through the brush. After a moment of quiet tension, the eyes recede back into the forest. You are alone. You have no cell phone or any other means of contacting aid. You have very little on hand, only the key to your domicile, a piece of chalk, and the book you were reading. What do you do? (Limit, 1000 words.) 2. A friend comes to you in confidence. You have known her for years. You believe her to be of sound mind and body. She tells you that beginning last week she started hearing voices when she knows she is alone. The voices are telling her to do things, dangerous things. Your friend is frightened, but she insists she is not crazy. She pleads for you to tell not a soul. Instead, she wants you to help her sort it out. What do you do? (Limit, 1000 words.) 3. What do you want? (Limit, 50 words.) "Wha..." I muttered.

I put my pen down and stared at the page.

I had filled out eleven applications so far. Their essay questions were about as interesting as "Please list the ingredients on the back of a box of Fruit Loops." They were dull sorts of questions that admissions people think are going to give them some incredible insight into an applicant's character. It was all nonsense, a cheap way of convincing everyone that they had done their job. (Seriously, have you ever heard of a business that hires their employees based on a bunch of essays?) But these questions...What was the deal with them? Red-eyed monsters? Friends hearing voices? And that last one...Only fifty words? I use more words to describe the specials at Newmar's.

Perturbed, I slid back from my desk. It was eight o'clock, and my dad was at his job dealing cards. He worked swing, meaning he started at 4PM and got off around midnight. Of course, he rarely just headed home. No, he would usually hit the bars first, and then stumble in around 3AM. On extra-special-bonus-days, dad would come back bloodied up from one brawl or another. Those days were great. I got to spend the next morning picking up bloodied gauze and wiping down the bathroom. To his credit, my dad could take a beating like a champ. He was always up and about by the next evening, ready for work. I guess drinking that much makes you kinda numb to the pain.

I downed the rest of my coffee and put on my running shoes. Dr. Montgomery had urged me to stick to walking until Christmas. She wanted my punctured lung to have time to heal. So instead of my usual runs, I had settled into doing evening walks. I used to love running at night. During summer, it was the only time you could do it without bursting into flames. Walking wasn't the same as running, but it got me out of the house.

The air outside was chill and the gusty desert winds were howling. Next door, a set of multicolored Christmas lights lay shattered to pieces on the gravel. I shook my head. Those neighbors had just moved in this fall. You had to make sure to tape the lights to the trees or the regular evening winds would yank them right off. I walked down the cement sidewalk of our cruddy neighborhood. Cheap grey-brown stucco homes lined both sides of our street. The water department had banned sod last year, so Las Vegans had been forced to get inventive. Colored gravel replaced gra.s.s. Pokey little bushes that may or may not have been alive subst.i.tuted for the once healthy trees and shrubs.

At the end of our development, I jumped the fence and landed with a crunch in the open desert. A gust of wind buffeted me as I slid down into the nearby wash. These shallow gouges in the desert covered the Vegas Valley. They ran full of water during each year's rains, but otherwise they were dry. The life that called the desert home loved the nooks and crannies the washes provided. There they could find the precious shade and water that made living possible. I made my way out across the Mohave following the path that the water had carved. Even though the sun set hours ago, I didn't need a light. The city pumped out so many lumens that every night was full moon bright-or so I was told, I hadn't been outside the city since I was a little boy. I got to visit Disneyland once, but besides that, I had lived the past ten years within the borders of this cruddy valley. My dad didn't like to get out much. He said Vegas was predictable. He liked predictable.

Forty-minutes later, I reached the small crest that I'd been visiting since I was a child. I dug out the blanket I'd stashed and bundled up against the wind. This was my favorite place in the valley. You could see everything from here. In the distance, a squadron of F-18's lined up to land at Nellis Air Force Base. One at a time, their flickering lights drooped down to kiss the valley floor.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what flying was like. I was only a boy then. I remembered the funny smelling seats, getting served a little cup of c.o.ke with ice, and how it didn't feel like you were flying through the air at all. I had looked out the window over and over again just to make sure.

I wanted to fly again one day. I wanted to put my own money on the counter and say, "One ticket to Prague, please." How cool would that be?

Americans used to fly all the time. We used to globe-hop like it was no big deal. It was great. The problem was the rest of the world agreed. Countries across the globe invested in airports and fleets of pa.s.senger planes. That was well and good, except for one teensy weensy problem: The supply of the black stuff was running out fast. Big oil was digging deeper and deeper and finding less and less. Economists kept repeating the word "unsustainable," but the citizens of the world loved their grandmas. They all wanted to visit them, and as fuel prices rose, they decided to start competing for the privilege. It was only then that the United States realized it was way out of shape. Our bloated government, overreached military, and embarra.s.sing lack of exports had turned the Mighty Dollar into a third-rate currency. Our checks started to bounce. Less oil made it to our sh.o.r.es. Two car families dwindled. The two-dollar coin was unveiled. Quarters replaced pennies. The Mexican government collapsed. The Saudis cut a deal with China, and the Great Slump settled in for the long haul.

No normal person traveled by plane anymore. The rich still did, but those folks were immune to everything. The floundering economy, the stagnant job market, the collapsing infrastructure-none of our suffering fazed them. The rich had the skills that the multinationals were willing to pay for. They were hooked into the "global economy." Waiting tables didn't pay the rent anymore. You either got yourself a degree or ate donuts for dinner-and I hated donuts.

"What do you want?" I asked myself.

I shifted in my blanket and spat out what came to mind.

"I don't want to be the sole of the shoe anymore. I'm tired of can't. I'm tired of impossible. I want a life that matters. I want to walk the world, chart my own path, and take control of my own destiny. I want to define who I am." It sounded funny coming out of my mouth, but it was the truth, wasn't it?

I counted it out: 49 words.

I would start hearing back from schools in the middle of March. My anxiety was spiking through the roof, so I tried my best to keep busy. I took more weekend shifts at Newmar's. I added more hours of tutoring. This time it was AP biology and chemistry. December slid into January. January slid into February. The word 'evolution' became the bane of my existence, but the pay was good enough. My dad and I needed the cash, too. Another airline went out of business over the holidays, choking off the supply of tourists. The casinos reeled from the heavy losses. They cut 20% of their dealers' shifts. Our family budget took a beating, and my father-frustrated beyond belief-started drinking even more. His new schedule gave him three days off in a row. He spent most of his time in daylong benders. He got into more fights too. He was coming home with split lips and black eyes on a regular basis. And it wasn't just my father. The economy was making people plain mean; the sirens never stopped after sunset. Poor men and free time-always a bad combination. Still, I was furious. We needed to be picking through the lint, and instead dad was p.i.s.sing money away at the pub. We got in an argument about it and redecorated the kitchen. I think my head made a dent in the counter. After that I stopped putting money in the pot. He could buy his booze with his own cash. I took over paying for the utilities and groceries.

Even though he wouldn't say it, I knew my dad was ashamed, but to have him blowing our money every night was just too much. To make matters worse, I wasn't sleeping well. I could keep myself busy during the day, but I was having nightmares almost every single night. Tyrone just wouldn't go away. Everyone else had moved on-everyone except for Dr. Leeche. I visited him once. He'd found work at a nearby private school that wasn't fool enough to pa.s.s up one of the only PhD's in the valley, but the new job didn't improve his mood. He truly believed he was responsible for Tyrone's death. The pain of that knowledge hung around him like a cloud. The bounce in his step was gone, and he barely managed a smile the entire time. It killed me to see him like that. I didn't visit again. Still, no matter how hard I tried to move on, the nightmares kept coming. At least two times a week, I would wake up screaming, fists clutched, having pummeled Tyrone's face into the ground yet again.

And then my waking hours started going to h.e.l.l as well.

As March 15th came around, I started a daily ritual: Every hour, on the hour, I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom only to run to the computer lab instead. The weeks were crawling on without a single response from the colleges. As March swung into April, I developed a set of hives and matching ulcers. My friends had all gotten responses; some were even planning out their new wardrobes. I started calling colleges to check my status. They gave me the rote "your application is still in process" nonsense and told me to be more patient. Then on April 7th, the first rejection message arrived from Harvard. Rejections from Yale and Northwestern followed the very next week.

"Why is this happening?" I would moan. The guidance counselor had approved all my choices. She said I was going to be a shoe-in. People started asking where I was going next year. I would wave them off saying I had some tough choices to make or that I was still deciding. In reality, I was a mess. When rejections from Stanford and Berkeley came in on the same day, I puked blood. f.u.c.king ulcers. The school nurse sent me home with a prescription for extra strength antacids. She ordered me to bed, but bed was the last place I wanted to be. My world was collapsing. My dreams were crumbling. By the end of the month only Washington University was left on my list, and St. Louis, Missouri was sounding like a fine resort destination. Again and again, my mind drifted to a single thought: I was going to be stuck in Vegas working minimum wage for the rest of my life.

A week later (and ten pounds lighter) I stumbled into the computer lab for perhaps the thousandth time. The proctor placed her oversized gla.s.ses on her desk and frowned. She was friends with the school nurse. She was probably worried she'd have to call an ambulance.

I plopped down in a chair and typed in my pa.s.sword. My bleary eyes shot wide-open when I saw two emails waiting in the inbox. The subjects were t.i.tled: "Congratulations" and "Aid Package". I clicked "Congratulations" first. It was from Washington University. I let out a gasp. I had been accepted into something called the Fontbonne Academy for Naturally Gifted Students. Cool! Then my eye tracked to the second paragraph: Unfortunately, given the current state of the economy, our ability to provide scholarship monies has been severely curtailed. We sincerely apologize, but given your family's current income, we can only hope to cover half of your tuition. The remainder can be made up in loans through our office of financial...

I sank into my chair. I had already run the numbers. There was no way I would be able to qualify for any loans. Lenders were too wary to give that sort of money to college students unless their parents offered up some serious collateral in return. My father had already refused. "No way they're getting their hands on the house. It's all we got," he had said. "Life's not fair, son. I can't carry you through it. Besides, this whole college thing is a giant scam. Your job at Newmar's is fine. Be grateful for it."