When I first saw him, when I saw him last, Adam Krauss was a slave to the American dream. He was about as apple pie as they come and one of his few noteworthy goals was to become even more so. He wanted it all: the big job, the beautiful wife, the adorable child, the big house, the station wagon, the freshly painted white picket fense, the cute puppy dog. Maybe his need for these things came from his own family history which, though it only barely managed to stay this side of dysfunctional, was close-knit, warm and comfortable. However, I don't think the distinct lack of such a family history had anything to do with my not wanting any of these things. I simply wasn't interested in them. I wanted something more, something bigger. Something a little more selfish even. This, of course, was where our relationship fell apart in the end.
He did get what he wanted eventually, though. In fact, not even a year after our relationship shattered so spectacularly, he found someone who was not only interested in having the things that he wanted, but was willing to share them with him. So he ended up with the big job that only got bigger as time went by, the beautiful wife (Laura), the adorable child (Jacob), the big house with the freshly painted white picket fense, and the cute puppy dog (Max). I'm pretty sure he even traded in his fancy sports care for a time to have the station wagon. All of this became his life for so long. But not forever.
Unfortunate but true that such a dream as Adam's couldn't have lasted for long. The big job, which eventually got huge and out of hand, kept him way from his beautiful wife who could have tolerated his insane schedule (as well as her own) for only so long. When she divorced him three years into what appeared to be a happy, loving marriage, the American dream slapped Adam in the face, punched in him in the guts and kicked him in the balls.
It showed, too. It was two years after the divorce became final that I saw him at a party, glass of wine in hand, practically plastered to the wall. He smiled pleasantly enough at anyone who acknowledged his presence but he clung to that wall as a small child might cling to his mother's skirts. Disillusion had weighed down his shoulders and darkened his eyes. It also put his hair into a permanent state of "just rolled out of bed" spiky-ness which was both cool and wrong at the same time. The stubble on his face spoke of a man who had stayed up late at night, trying to figure out what had happened to his faith. What had happened to that American dream that had seemed so perfect when he was in his mid-twenties but in hindsight was nothing more than a bad joke on a man who didn't quite know how to take a joke of any kind? As I watched him, he sighed like he didn't know. He just didn't know. I didn't know either.
And when his eyes met mine and he moved away from the wall for the first time to approach me, I knew he had chosen me to help him find out anyway.
To dream the impossible dream...
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