2025-09-24, 05:11 PM
"Happy birthday, dear Kyle... Happy birthday to you too!" I was truly happy. Finally eleven—not a teenager yet, but old enough that people were starting to listen to me instead of treating me like a little kid. Everyone was singing while Dad brought out a big sheet cake with eleven candles on it. We were all sitting in our swimsuits around a patio table next to our fenced-in pool. How cool to have a pool party in December!
My birthday cake was decorated with a vinyl record with a tonearm resting on either side and visible sheet music. Ironically, I was about as anti-vinyl as an audiophile could be, but nothing embodied music better than the image of an old-fashioned record player, and that's exactly what was on my birthday cake.
I wasn't satisfied with most digital music either. Not by a long shot. The songs were okay, but 99.999% of today's music is mastered for streaming, which I consider a war crime. While vinyl is phenomenally better than CDs, which are far better than Spotify or Apple Music, it's fragile, and even the best vinyl deteriorates over time. So Neil Young made it his life's work to save music by digitizing the original multi-track recordings in high resolution, saving them in a format that preserved the music's full dynamic range and would last forever. I had a huge collection of high-resolution music on my computer, and nothing—not even vinyl—could compare to it.
Not many eleven-year-olds I knew were as passionate about music as I was, and then again, not many eleven-year-olds I knew were in their senior year at Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City's elite high schools. Not many eleven-year-olds I knew were open and proud of their music, either, and they didn't have a friend like Freck. Freck was another child prodigy, but a few years older than me. In a few weeks, it was his birthday, and he would be turning thirteen. Freck was about to become a teenager.
After I blew out all the candles, my cousin Jason from California and my friend Asher White broke into a rendition of the Beatles' "Birthday Song." Jason, who was thirteen and had won national competitions with the jazz band he started at nine, played the keyboard, while the two boys sang along. Asher, fifteen, was a soloist with the Stuyvesant Men's Chorus and had a great voice. After singing "Birthday Song," Jason started banging on the keys, and he and Asher moved on to "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John, followed by "Pinball Wizard" by Stevie Wonder of The Who, "Sir Duke" by Carole King, "Every Breath You Take" by David Bowie, "I Feel the Earth Move" by The Police, "Let's Dance" by Billy Joel, and finally "Piano Man." To be honest, I liked all kinds of music, including classical, jazz, country, and even hip hop, but my all-time favorite was classic rock. The sixties, seventies and early eighties were a special time when music recording reached its peak before the digital revolution came and destroyed everything.
My baby and I danced until we couldn't anymore. Only then did I realize I hadn't eaten my own birthday cake yet. Even though I had drastically reduced my caffeine intake, I still loved the taste of coffee and never missed an opportunity to eat something coffee-flavored. Dad had been searching for a long time for a baker who could make a real Kahlua-flavored birthday cake, and boy, was the cake incredible. Served with Häagen-Dazs coffee, it was perfect.
We finally got to open the presents. I had a Sony PlayStation, and some of the gifts were new games for it, but I wasn't a hardcore gamer. I enjoyed playing for fun now and then, but not enough to be competitive, so I never got into online gaming. I got a few Kindle books, including the latest Orson Scott Card book, which I was dying to read. I got a Blu-ray version of the latest season of Star Trek Discovery, and even though I wasn't a hardcore Trekkie like Asher or Seth, I knew I'd enjoy all the extras that weren't available on streaming CBS All Access.
Freck gave me two premiere tickets for the new Star Wars film as part of a package that included limited-edition Star Wars 3D glasses, a limited-edition signed movie poster, and a soon-to-be-released steelbook set with a 4K HDR Blu-ray of all eleven films. I had to chuckle at the thought of receiving a collection of eleven films for my eleventh birthday. My boyfriend, a die-hard Star Wars fan, would be even happier than I am. It would definitely be great to see the latest Star Wars film on the big screen with him on premiere day.
Because my birthday was so close to Hanukkah, my family only gave me one present each year for both of my birthdays. This was pretty unfortunate because my gifts combined were never worth as much as the two gifts my brother Roger received each year. However, I had a feeling this year might be different, as it would be my last birthday living at home. I was wondering what kind of present I would get this year when my dad handed me a sealed envelope. Last year, I had gotten my portable music player from A&K, which cost $1,800. I already had one of the latest iPhones and would probably get a new laptop for graduation. I was way too young for a car, but a new bike would come in handy if I got accepted to MIT.
I took the envelope from Dad, opened it, and began reading. The MIT letterhead immediately piqued my interest, but what followed was completely unprepared. "Dear Mr. Goldstein, we are pleased to offer you a position as a graduate student in the program..." I couldn't read any further because my eyes filled with tears. Finally, I turned to Dad and asked, "How did you get the letter? Acceptance letters won't be sent out for a few months."
"Let's just say it helps to know a Nobel Prize winner in physics," Dad replied. Dad meant Dr. Jeff Franklin, a foundation professor at the American Museum of Natural History and partner of my friend Seth's grandfather. But then a critical thought occurred to me and I asked, "But what about Freck?"
"If you read the rest of your acceptance letter," Dad replied, "you'll see that they approved your request to share a dorm room with your 'friend,' François San Angelo. Speaking of which, consider this an early birthday present," Dad added, handing Freck a similar envelope.
Moments later, Freck let out a cheer and repeatedly said, "I'm in. I'm in!"
“The joint program in architecture and civil engineering?” I asked my friend.
"Absolutely!" he replied. He practically jumped up and down next to me, but then he got a confused look on his face and asked, "Not that I'm not grateful for the news, but how can this be a birthday present?"
"Are you kidding?" Dad replied. "You and Kyle, the combined tuition costs over a hundred thousand dollars a year, not to mention room and board."
"But my parents will pay my share," Freck countered, "and you'd be paying Kyle's tuition anyway, so you still owe him a birthday present."
"Indeed," Dad replied, handing me another envelope. I opened it and immediately noticed the logo of the American Museum of Natural History. I'd looked at several summer internships at top labs around the world, but of the few that accepted participants under 18, none were for people as young as me. I hadn't read anything about an internship at the AMNH—not one open to high school students, let alone those under 18 or even 16. And yet here I was reading an acceptance letter for such a program. How was that possible?
Before I could even ask the question, Dad replied, "The museum doesn't even offer summer internships for students. Of course, there are always learning programs, but these are more geared toward a basic STEM curriculum. There are a limited number of positions associated with specific research projects and exhibitions, most of them for graduate students. Undergraduate internships are rare, and high school internships are unknown. But there has never been a Nobel laureate holding an endowed chair who has made such a request."
"Internship?" Freck asked.
"Yes, you both have internships there this summer," Dad continued, handing Freck a letter. "Of course, there couldn't be any compensation for the internships. Aside from being open to high school graduates regardless of age, the only requirements were that one required fluency in five or more languages other than English, and the other required completion of advanced courses in vector calculus and complex number theory."
"Man, I wonder where they find applicants who are still in high school and meet these requirements?" I asked.
"Believe it or not, there were several applications for both positions," Dad said, "even though they weren't advertised directly. They're not the only exceptional kids out there, you know."
“That’s a scary thought,” Roger interjected, making all our friends laugh.
“I hope you understand that these internships are truly a gift, even though they didn’t cost me any money,” Dad added.
“Of course I understand,” I replied and Freck nodded.
I literally spent days preparing, including petitioning the governor and our two senators. There's hardly any precedent for allowing eleven- and thirteen-year-olds to participate in advanced internships. Seth's grandfather, however, is a case in point. He was only thirteen when he participated in a University of Iowa summer program for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. Therefore, Dr. Franklin insisted there was no minimum age requirement and that age would not be a factor in selecting applicants. Nevertheless, we had to obtain waivers from state and federal regulations in each case.
"So you'll both be busy this summer, and even though your internships will both be at AMNH, you'll be doing completely different things and may not see each other all day. In many ways, it will be similar to MIT."
The thought that Freck and I would be going our separate ways during the day hit me hard. I'd always known things would be different in college, but I hadn't really thought about what that would entail. At Stuyvesant, I was way ahead of Freck in math, but he was much further ahead in languages. Still, we had many classes together and ate lunch with our friends every day. I didn't see my baby for more than an hour or two, but otherwise, we were always together.
MIT would be different. Not only would we be at different levels in math, science, and humanities, but we'd also have completely different curricula that might not overlap at all. We might take a creative writing or history class together, but that would mean spending a few hours a week together at most, nothing more. If we were lucky, we might take a computer science class together, since programming skills are central to both fields. Otherwise, we'd only see each other for breakfast and dinner, and if we made an effort, lunch too. At the very least, we'd spend our evenings together.
But when I thought about it, wouldn't our lives be the same from now on? Each of us would have our own profession and spend our days separately. Freck, being an architect, would probably be away for weeks at a time, working on his projects on-site. And wouldn't that also apply to me in my field? Particle accelerators don't exactly grow on trees, and the most powerful ones aren't even in the US. I myself would be away for maybe several weeks at a time, collecting data from my experiments. It would be an enormous effort for Freck and me to even have a life together. And as much as I would love to start a family, what kind of life would our children have if their fathers were constantly on the road?
I guess I was getting a little gloomy when Freck took me aside and said, "My office can be anywhere in the world, Ky. Find yourself a top academic position—maybe even an endowed chair at one of the best physics universities. Wherever you go, I'll go with you, and when we have kids, we'll hire a nanny. It wasn't being raised by a nanny that broke me, Ky. It was being treated like a poster child by parents who never loved me. That will never happen to our children," he concluded, pulling me into a hug and squeezing me tightly. How did he know what was bothering me?
"It won't be easy, Freck," I replied. "Governments are no longer investing in particle accelerators, which means we have to make do with upgrades to existing ones and improvise a lot for our experiments. Today it's the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Tomorrow it could be Fermilab in Illinois. Particle physicists can't choose their country, let alone their lab."
"Maybe this is a sign that the field is overcrowded," Freck said. What a welcome thought! "Maybe this is a sign that you should keep your eyes open for the next big thing," he continued.
"Particles are the building blocks of the universe," I explained. "When there are major discoveries, they are made by particle physicists."
"If that's the case, what particles does dark matter consist of?" asked Freck. "What happens to the quarks in a black hole? Which particles triggered the Big Bang?"
"You know there are no answers to these questions," I replied. "There were no particles, but what does that have to do with anything?" In the so-called Big Bang
"Is it because the answers have not yet been found or because we are not asking the right questions?" Freck countered. "Why is it still not compatible with the theory of relativity?" can we use quantum theory
I was about to respond with the obvious answer when I realized it wasn't so obvious. Maybe Freck was right. I had to stop, open-mouthed, as he continued: "The answer isn't so obvious, is it?"
"You see, we've just reached the point where we can measure gravitational waves. Not so long ago, there wasn't even evidence of their existence. Not so long ago, we only knew of the existence of nine planets in the universe, regardless of Pluto's status. Today, we have mapped the existence of thousands of planets, some of them Earth-like.
I don't have your mathematical knowledge—at least not yet—but it seems to me that today's greatest discoveries aren't coming from particle accelerators. Chris Nolan made a movie called Interstellar. His depiction of what a black hole looks like was based on the latest theories, and guess what we saw when we actually glimpsed a real black hole for the first time? The astrophysicists nailed it, and not a single particle was destroyed in the making of the film. It's a damn awesome, exciting time.
"Discover the true nature of gravity and unlock the secrets of the universe. Find out why mass and momentum are conserved and unravel the mystery of interstellar space travel. And we just happen to be spending the entire summer with two of the world's greatest astrophysicists."
It was like an epiphany. I had been so focused on the big discoveries underlying books when I first became interested in science—discoveries of the late 20th century—that I had ignored the big discoveries made in my lifetime. Freck was absolutely right—if I could unlock the true nature of gravity, mass, and momentum, I could free humanity from the shackles of Newton's First Law. As Chris Nolan put it in Interstellar: Humanity has never figured out a way to go anywhere without leaving something behind. Maybe I could change that, and what better place to learn astrophysics than one of the world's greatest astrophysics labs?
I was so excited that I grabbed my sweetheart and kissed him passionately, which caused all our friends to cheer and shout.
<> <> <>
Although we celebrated my birthday on Sunday, today was actually my eleventh birthday, but it was a Monday and a school day. My friend Freck, on the other hand, always had his birthday off because it was the day after Christmas, a time when no one thought about something as mundane as birthdays. Even at our house, we usually celebrate a traditional Jewish Christmas. By that, I mean going to the movies and having dinner at a Chinese restaurant. In our case, we usually went to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster and had dinner at one of the best restaurants in Chinatown.
This was the first year Freck spent Christmas with our family, which presented us with a dilemma. Although he was one-quarter Jewish, he had been raised Roman Catholic. His parents were not religious at all, but always celebrated a traditional Roman Catholic Christmas together as a family, and it showed. As honored guests of the Archdiocese of New York, they celebrated Midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral to express their gratitude for their generous donations to the church.
On Christmas morning, there was a formal gift exchange, always attended by special customers. Freck's gift was meant to be a combined Christmas and birthday present, but the day after Christmas, Freck's actual birthday, there was nothing—not even a birthday cake.
Well, this year would certainly be different. Freck's birthday would not be forgotten. But what would we do for Christmas? Freck had resolved to study Judaism, and he and I were even preparing for a joint Bar Mitzvah service the following year. He was looking forward to an authentic Hanukkah with us, but I hated that he was neglecting his Christian upbringing. I actually knew that Judaism leaves no room for belief in Christ as the Messiah, and Freck considered himself an agnostic. But with so many mixed-faith children celebrating both faiths, why shouldn't Freck celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah?
The two holidays happened to coincide this year, so there was still time to make a plan, but not much time. Christmas was just over two weeks away. And the next day, he would turn thirteen. Not only was it his first birthday with my family, but it was also a very special birthday, as Freck was just becoming a teenager. As his friend, I had to make sure we made it extra special. But what should I get him? Freck already had everything a boy could want.
Finding time to discuss plans with the fathers proved nearly impossible. With their busy schedules and on-call duties, it was simply impossible to find the two of them together when Freck wasn't there. But even finding one of them alone was difficult. I knew they wanted to accommodate Freck, but their workload at the hospital always increased around the holidays, and this year was no different. My older brother, Roger, always had an inexhaustible wealth of ideas, most of them completely impractical. My best friends were Asher and Seth, but they were two years younger than me in school, and I only saw them at lunch—with Freck.
The only opportunity to talk to someone was after school at basketball practice. Our good friend Carl was one of the top scorers on the varsity team, and his friend Clarke always sat in the stands at practice and most games. Since Freck was on the swim team and had to train himself, he missed most of the basketball games and practices. So on Tuesday afternoon, the day after my eleventh birthday, I sat next to Clarke at basketball practice.
“Clarke,” I began the conversation, “you come from a wealthy family and you’ve always gotten what you wanted, haven’t you?”
Clarke laughed heartily and replied, "Oh yes, I come from a wealthy family. My father went to college but began his career as a garbage collector and worked his way up in the union. Although we were never poor, we lived in a much more modest neighborhood when I was growing up. It was a single-family home, but in reality it was a row house with about a foot of space between the houses—just enough for me to tend to what passed for grass. The entire backyard was taken up by a pool—an above-ground pool on a wooden deck that was too shallow for diving and too narrow for swimming. It wasn't until my father endorsed an outside candidate for mayor, and the jerk actually won, that we were able to move into our current apartment. And then it was more likely kickbacks, bribes, and embezzlement that made it all possible.
"Now we have a beautiful house, but it's on Staten Island—not in Riverdale. I think you know what it's like to grow up in a wealthy family, Kyle."
"Gee, I'm sorry, Clarke," I replied, feeling a little embarrassed to bring it up. "I just thought you'd always lived in that mansion you're in now. Our house is really small compared to all the condemned houses around us. It's what they call a split-level. I never really thought of us as wealthy or anything. I mean, people think all doctors are rich, but my dad's still paying off his medical school debt, and he only finished his residency around the time I was born..."
"How much did that fancy music player you always carry around cost?" Clarke interrupted. "And isn't your swimming pool indoors?"
"Technically, it's under a deck that was added after the house was built," I replied, "so it's an outdoor pool that was later covered and heated, but yeah, I guess we'll be okay. It's just that Freck grew up in a damn penthouse apartment in the shadow of the World Trade Center, with billionaire parents, all the toys a boy could want, and season tickets to the Met..."
"And by eleven, he was already a stoner," Clarke interrupted, "and he tried to kill himself. He was filthy rich, but bankrupt in love. I know what that's like. My father beat me up all the time and then donated so generously to the church that the nuns looked the other way. Even when I got to Stuyvesant, he made me realize how worthless I was. That's why I became a bully, because my father taught me that the only way to earn respect was to scare others. How shitty was that?"
“Yes, but you really turned your life around after you met Carl,” I remarked.
"Without a doubt, that kid saved my life," Clarke admitted, looking down at his sweaty tank-top-clad friend sinking one three-pointer after another. "Seems to me you also saved Freck's life, literally," he added.
Shaking my head, I countered: "He had a serious relapse the summer we were in Paris. A silly little argument about Parisian architecture was enough. He thought he knew better than the Parisians, and when I stood up for them, he took it as rejection and ran away. It took us three days, 25,000 euros, and a dedicated investigator to find him, but that was the least of our problems. The worst part was when we had to go to the morgue to identify something the police thought was his body."
"Shit," Clarke replied. "I couldn't bear to see something like that happen to Carl." Then he looked directly at me and continued, "I guess the real difference for me is that I've found closure with my parents' time in prison. My wounds were mostly physical, and those wounds have healed. Now that my brother has moved back home and my boyfriend and his mom have moved in with us, I have more than enough people to love me and show me that I'm not a worthless faggot."
"Freck's wounds are all internal," Clarke continued, "and even though he now has you and your fathers, he still doesn't feel safe. There's no easy solution to this, either. It will take time for him to feel worthy of your love."
"We're both in therapy," I replied. "He sees a therapist once a week, and we also have family counseling every week. We'll continue doing that until we go to MIT in the fall."
"Maybe going straight from Stuyvesant to MIT isn't the best thing for either of you," Clarke suggested. "You're both academically ready, but the pressure to live up to adult expectations might be too much. I mean, Freck will be thirteen and you'll only be eleven, and you'll be around kids who are mostly eighteen. Freck may look like a teenager, and his voice has changed, but he'll still be a good six inches shorter than many of his peers. It'll be even worse for you, but I think Freck is more fragile, and what you dismiss could hurt him deeply."
It was like a flash of lightning. I'd been worrying about what to get Freck for his thirteenth birthday, although that was nothing compared to the stress that lay ahead for both of us the following fall. We were just months away from graduating from one of America's top high schools, would be interning at one of the world's leading astrophysics labs that summer, and then would be freshmen at MIT. We'd already gotten into college in our desired subjects and our career paths were set, but we were still kids, both legally and emotionally. Freck was barely out of his teens, and I was still a teenager who didn't even need to use deodorant yet. How could we expect anyone to take us seriously?
But what other choice did we have if we didn't go to MIT next fall? Living at home would make it easier, but the stress of navigating the adult world wouldn't be any less at Columbia. But if we postponed starting college for a year, what else would an eleven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old do in the meantime? It wasn't as if I'd never heard of a gap year, but we were nowhere near old enough to work, and we couldn't travel the world on our own. I simply didn't see any alternative to our plans to study at MIT.
"Yes, I think you should seriously consider staying in high school for another year or two, or maybe even doing something else entirely," Clarke continued. "I know it's not uncommon for some students to take five years to graduate. There are even schools that offer five-year programs for students with special needs, and it's not because they're stupid. I don't think you have to graduate if you have enough credits. So maybe you can postpone graduation and study for another year. At City University, you can take dual-credit courses and earn credits that can transfer to MIT. You might even have enough pre-med and college credits to start there in your sophomore or even junior year."
Clarke's idea was a revelation. I had thought the only alternative to MIT the following year would be to study somewhere else, but that wouldn't change anything. By extending our time at Stuyvesant, we could take most of our freshman year courses at City University Community College, which was right across the street from Stuyvesant and where the students were accustomed to having Stuyvesant students around. And we would have another year of Stuyvesant's support, including all our friends, our dads, and Roger. Freck could even spend another year on the swim team if he wanted. It would be a chance for us to be kids for one more year. It would be another year for Freck to heal and deepen our love.
My worries about finding the perfect gift for Freck's thirteenth birthday were quickly forgotten. No matter what I gave him, Freck would probably be happy because it was from me, but that was irrelevant. The opportunity to spend another year at home with our fathers and another year with all our friends would be priceless.
My birthday cake was decorated with a vinyl record with a tonearm resting on either side and visible sheet music. Ironically, I was about as anti-vinyl as an audiophile could be, but nothing embodied music better than the image of an old-fashioned record player, and that's exactly what was on my birthday cake.
I wasn't satisfied with most digital music either. Not by a long shot. The songs were okay, but 99.999% of today's music is mastered for streaming, which I consider a war crime. While vinyl is phenomenally better than CDs, which are far better than Spotify or Apple Music, it's fragile, and even the best vinyl deteriorates over time. So Neil Young made it his life's work to save music by digitizing the original multi-track recordings in high resolution, saving them in a format that preserved the music's full dynamic range and would last forever. I had a huge collection of high-resolution music on my computer, and nothing—not even vinyl—could compare to it.
Not many eleven-year-olds I knew were as passionate about music as I was, and then again, not many eleven-year-olds I knew were in their senior year at Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City's elite high schools. Not many eleven-year-olds I knew were open and proud of their music, either, and they didn't have a friend like Freck. Freck was another child prodigy, but a few years older than me. In a few weeks, it was his birthday, and he would be turning thirteen. Freck was about to become a teenager.
After I blew out all the candles, my cousin Jason from California and my friend Asher White broke into a rendition of the Beatles' "Birthday Song." Jason, who was thirteen and had won national competitions with the jazz band he started at nine, played the keyboard, while the two boys sang along. Asher, fifteen, was a soloist with the Stuyvesant Men's Chorus and had a great voice. After singing "Birthday Song," Jason started banging on the keys, and he and Asher moved on to "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John, followed by "Pinball Wizard" by Stevie Wonder of The Who, "Sir Duke" by Carole King, "Every Breath You Take" by David Bowie, "I Feel the Earth Move" by The Police, "Let's Dance" by Billy Joel, and finally "Piano Man." To be honest, I liked all kinds of music, including classical, jazz, country, and even hip hop, but my all-time favorite was classic rock. The sixties, seventies and early eighties were a special time when music recording reached its peak before the digital revolution came and destroyed everything.
My baby and I danced until we couldn't anymore. Only then did I realize I hadn't eaten my own birthday cake yet. Even though I had drastically reduced my caffeine intake, I still loved the taste of coffee and never missed an opportunity to eat something coffee-flavored. Dad had been searching for a long time for a baker who could make a real Kahlua-flavored birthday cake, and boy, was the cake incredible. Served with Häagen-Dazs coffee, it was perfect.
We finally got to open the presents. I had a Sony PlayStation, and some of the gifts were new games for it, but I wasn't a hardcore gamer. I enjoyed playing for fun now and then, but not enough to be competitive, so I never got into online gaming. I got a few Kindle books, including the latest Orson Scott Card book, which I was dying to read. I got a Blu-ray version of the latest season of Star Trek Discovery, and even though I wasn't a hardcore Trekkie like Asher or Seth, I knew I'd enjoy all the extras that weren't available on streaming CBS All Access.
Freck gave me two premiere tickets for the new Star Wars film as part of a package that included limited-edition Star Wars 3D glasses, a limited-edition signed movie poster, and a soon-to-be-released steelbook set with a 4K HDR Blu-ray of all eleven films. I had to chuckle at the thought of receiving a collection of eleven films for my eleventh birthday. My boyfriend, a die-hard Star Wars fan, would be even happier than I am. It would definitely be great to see the latest Star Wars film on the big screen with him on premiere day.
Because my birthday was so close to Hanukkah, my family only gave me one present each year for both of my birthdays. This was pretty unfortunate because my gifts combined were never worth as much as the two gifts my brother Roger received each year. However, I had a feeling this year might be different, as it would be my last birthday living at home. I was wondering what kind of present I would get this year when my dad handed me a sealed envelope. Last year, I had gotten my portable music player from A&K, which cost $1,800. I already had one of the latest iPhones and would probably get a new laptop for graduation. I was way too young for a car, but a new bike would come in handy if I got accepted to MIT.
I took the envelope from Dad, opened it, and began reading. The MIT letterhead immediately piqued my interest, but what followed was completely unprepared. "Dear Mr. Goldstein, we are pleased to offer you a position as a graduate student in the program..." I couldn't read any further because my eyes filled with tears. Finally, I turned to Dad and asked, "How did you get the letter? Acceptance letters won't be sent out for a few months."
"Let's just say it helps to know a Nobel Prize winner in physics," Dad replied. Dad meant Dr. Jeff Franklin, a foundation professor at the American Museum of Natural History and partner of my friend Seth's grandfather. But then a critical thought occurred to me and I asked, "But what about Freck?"
"If you read the rest of your acceptance letter," Dad replied, "you'll see that they approved your request to share a dorm room with your 'friend,' François San Angelo. Speaking of which, consider this an early birthday present," Dad added, handing Freck a similar envelope.
Moments later, Freck let out a cheer and repeatedly said, "I'm in. I'm in!"
“The joint program in architecture and civil engineering?” I asked my friend.
"Absolutely!" he replied. He practically jumped up and down next to me, but then he got a confused look on his face and asked, "Not that I'm not grateful for the news, but how can this be a birthday present?"
"Are you kidding?" Dad replied. "You and Kyle, the combined tuition costs over a hundred thousand dollars a year, not to mention room and board."
"But my parents will pay my share," Freck countered, "and you'd be paying Kyle's tuition anyway, so you still owe him a birthday present."
"Indeed," Dad replied, handing me another envelope. I opened it and immediately noticed the logo of the American Museum of Natural History. I'd looked at several summer internships at top labs around the world, but of the few that accepted participants under 18, none were for people as young as me. I hadn't read anything about an internship at the AMNH—not one open to high school students, let alone those under 18 or even 16. And yet here I was reading an acceptance letter for such a program. How was that possible?
Before I could even ask the question, Dad replied, "The museum doesn't even offer summer internships for students. Of course, there are always learning programs, but these are more geared toward a basic STEM curriculum. There are a limited number of positions associated with specific research projects and exhibitions, most of them for graduate students. Undergraduate internships are rare, and high school internships are unknown. But there has never been a Nobel laureate holding an endowed chair who has made such a request."
"Internship?" Freck asked.
"Yes, you both have internships there this summer," Dad continued, handing Freck a letter. "Of course, there couldn't be any compensation for the internships. Aside from being open to high school graduates regardless of age, the only requirements were that one required fluency in five or more languages other than English, and the other required completion of advanced courses in vector calculus and complex number theory."
"Man, I wonder where they find applicants who are still in high school and meet these requirements?" I asked.
"Believe it or not, there were several applications for both positions," Dad said, "even though they weren't advertised directly. They're not the only exceptional kids out there, you know."
“That’s a scary thought,” Roger interjected, making all our friends laugh.
“I hope you understand that these internships are truly a gift, even though they didn’t cost me any money,” Dad added.
“Of course I understand,” I replied and Freck nodded.
I literally spent days preparing, including petitioning the governor and our two senators. There's hardly any precedent for allowing eleven- and thirteen-year-olds to participate in advanced internships. Seth's grandfather, however, is a case in point. He was only thirteen when he participated in a University of Iowa summer program for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. Therefore, Dr. Franklin insisted there was no minimum age requirement and that age would not be a factor in selecting applicants. Nevertheless, we had to obtain waivers from state and federal regulations in each case.
"So you'll both be busy this summer, and even though your internships will both be at AMNH, you'll be doing completely different things and may not see each other all day. In many ways, it will be similar to MIT."
The thought that Freck and I would be going our separate ways during the day hit me hard. I'd always known things would be different in college, but I hadn't really thought about what that would entail. At Stuyvesant, I was way ahead of Freck in math, but he was much further ahead in languages. Still, we had many classes together and ate lunch with our friends every day. I didn't see my baby for more than an hour or two, but otherwise, we were always together.
MIT would be different. Not only would we be at different levels in math, science, and humanities, but we'd also have completely different curricula that might not overlap at all. We might take a creative writing or history class together, but that would mean spending a few hours a week together at most, nothing more. If we were lucky, we might take a computer science class together, since programming skills are central to both fields. Otherwise, we'd only see each other for breakfast and dinner, and if we made an effort, lunch too. At the very least, we'd spend our evenings together.
But when I thought about it, wouldn't our lives be the same from now on? Each of us would have our own profession and spend our days separately. Freck, being an architect, would probably be away for weeks at a time, working on his projects on-site. And wouldn't that also apply to me in my field? Particle accelerators don't exactly grow on trees, and the most powerful ones aren't even in the US. I myself would be away for maybe several weeks at a time, collecting data from my experiments. It would be an enormous effort for Freck and me to even have a life together. And as much as I would love to start a family, what kind of life would our children have if their fathers were constantly on the road?
I guess I was getting a little gloomy when Freck took me aside and said, "My office can be anywhere in the world, Ky. Find yourself a top academic position—maybe even an endowed chair at one of the best physics universities. Wherever you go, I'll go with you, and when we have kids, we'll hire a nanny. It wasn't being raised by a nanny that broke me, Ky. It was being treated like a poster child by parents who never loved me. That will never happen to our children," he concluded, pulling me into a hug and squeezing me tightly. How did he know what was bothering me?
"It won't be easy, Freck," I replied. "Governments are no longer investing in particle accelerators, which means we have to make do with upgrades to existing ones and improvise a lot for our experiments. Today it's the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Tomorrow it could be Fermilab in Illinois. Particle physicists can't choose their country, let alone their lab."
"Maybe this is a sign that the field is overcrowded," Freck said. What a welcome thought! "Maybe this is a sign that you should keep your eyes open for the next big thing," he continued.
"Particles are the building blocks of the universe," I explained. "When there are major discoveries, they are made by particle physicists."
"If that's the case, what particles does dark matter consist of?" asked Freck. "What happens to the quarks in a black hole? Which particles triggered the Big Bang?"
"You know there are no answers to these questions," I replied. "There were no particles, but what does that have to do with anything?" In the so-called Big Bang
"Is it because the answers have not yet been found or because we are not asking the right questions?" Freck countered. "Why is it still not compatible with the theory of relativity?" can we use quantum theory
I was about to respond with the obvious answer when I realized it wasn't so obvious. Maybe Freck was right. I had to stop, open-mouthed, as he continued: "The answer isn't so obvious, is it?"
"You see, we've just reached the point where we can measure gravitational waves. Not so long ago, there wasn't even evidence of their existence. Not so long ago, we only knew of the existence of nine planets in the universe, regardless of Pluto's status. Today, we have mapped the existence of thousands of planets, some of them Earth-like.
I don't have your mathematical knowledge—at least not yet—but it seems to me that today's greatest discoveries aren't coming from particle accelerators. Chris Nolan made a movie called Interstellar. His depiction of what a black hole looks like was based on the latest theories, and guess what we saw when we actually glimpsed a real black hole for the first time? The astrophysicists nailed it, and not a single particle was destroyed in the making of the film. It's a damn awesome, exciting time.
"Discover the true nature of gravity and unlock the secrets of the universe. Find out why mass and momentum are conserved and unravel the mystery of interstellar space travel. And we just happen to be spending the entire summer with two of the world's greatest astrophysicists."
It was like an epiphany. I had been so focused on the big discoveries underlying books when I first became interested in science—discoveries of the late 20th century—that I had ignored the big discoveries made in my lifetime. Freck was absolutely right—if I could unlock the true nature of gravity, mass, and momentum, I could free humanity from the shackles of Newton's First Law. As Chris Nolan put it in Interstellar: Humanity has never figured out a way to go anywhere without leaving something behind. Maybe I could change that, and what better place to learn astrophysics than one of the world's greatest astrophysics labs?
I was so excited that I grabbed my sweetheart and kissed him passionately, which caused all our friends to cheer and shout.
<> <> <>
Although we celebrated my birthday on Sunday, today was actually my eleventh birthday, but it was a Monday and a school day. My friend Freck, on the other hand, always had his birthday off because it was the day after Christmas, a time when no one thought about something as mundane as birthdays. Even at our house, we usually celebrate a traditional Jewish Christmas. By that, I mean going to the movies and having dinner at a Chinese restaurant. In our case, we usually went to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster and had dinner at one of the best restaurants in Chinatown.
This was the first year Freck spent Christmas with our family, which presented us with a dilemma. Although he was one-quarter Jewish, he had been raised Roman Catholic. His parents were not religious at all, but always celebrated a traditional Roman Catholic Christmas together as a family, and it showed. As honored guests of the Archdiocese of New York, they celebrated Midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral to express their gratitude for their generous donations to the church.
On Christmas morning, there was a formal gift exchange, always attended by special customers. Freck's gift was meant to be a combined Christmas and birthday present, but the day after Christmas, Freck's actual birthday, there was nothing—not even a birthday cake.
Well, this year would certainly be different. Freck's birthday would not be forgotten. But what would we do for Christmas? Freck had resolved to study Judaism, and he and I were even preparing for a joint Bar Mitzvah service the following year. He was looking forward to an authentic Hanukkah with us, but I hated that he was neglecting his Christian upbringing. I actually knew that Judaism leaves no room for belief in Christ as the Messiah, and Freck considered himself an agnostic. But with so many mixed-faith children celebrating both faiths, why shouldn't Freck celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah?
The two holidays happened to coincide this year, so there was still time to make a plan, but not much time. Christmas was just over two weeks away. And the next day, he would turn thirteen. Not only was it his first birthday with my family, but it was also a very special birthday, as Freck was just becoming a teenager. As his friend, I had to make sure we made it extra special. But what should I get him? Freck already had everything a boy could want.
Finding time to discuss plans with the fathers proved nearly impossible. With their busy schedules and on-call duties, it was simply impossible to find the two of them together when Freck wasn't there. But even finding one of them alone was difficult. I knew they wanted to accommodate Freck, but their workload at the hospital always increased around the holidays, and this year was no different. My older brother, Roger, always had an inexhaustible wealth of ideas, most of them completely impractical. My best friends were Asher and Seth, but they were two years younger than me in school, and I only saw them at lunch—with Freck.
The only opportunity to talk to someone was after school at basketball practice. Our good friend Carl was one of the top scorers on the varsity team, and his friend Clarke always sat in the stands at practice and most games. Since Freck was on the swim team and had to train himself, he missed most of the basketball games and practices. So on Tuesday afternoon, the day after my eleventh birthday, I sat next to Clarke at basketball practice.
“Clarke,” I began the conversation, “you come from a wealthy family and you’ve always gotten what you wanted, haven’t you?”
Clarke laughed heartily and replied, "Oh yes, I come from a wealthy family. My father went to college but began his career as a garbage collector and worked his way up in the union. Although we were never poor, we lived in a much more modest neighborhood when I was growing up. It was a single-family home, but in reality it was a row house with about a foot of space between the houses—just enough for me to tend to what passed for grass. The entire backyard was taken up by a pool—an above-ground pool on a wooden deck that was too shallow for diving and too narrow for swimming. It wasn't until my father endorsed an outside candidate for mayor, and the jerk actually won, that we were able to move into our current apartment. And then it was more likely kickbacks, bribes, and embezzlement that made it all possible.
"Now we have a beautiful house, but it's on Staten Island—not in Riverdale. I think you know what it's like to grow up in a wealthy family, Kyle."
"Gee, I'm sorry, Clarke," I replied, feeling a little embarrassed to bring it up. "I just thought you'd always lived in that mansion you're in now. Our house is really small compared to all the condemned houses around us. It's what they call a split-level. I never really thought of us as wealthy or anything. I mean, people think all doctors are rich, but my dad's still paying off his medical school debt, and he only finished his residency around the time I was born..."
"How much did that fancy music player you always carry around cost?" Clarke interrupted. "And isn't your swimming pool indoors?"
"Technically, it's under a deck that was added after the house was built," I replied, "so it's an outdoor pool that was later covered and heated, but yeah, I guess we'll be okay. It's just that Freck grew up in a damn penthouse apartment in the shadow of the World Trade Center, with billionaire parents, all the toys a boy could want, and season tickets to the Met..."
"And by eleven, he was already a stoner," Clarke interrupted, "and he tried to kill himself. He was filthy rich, but bankrupt in love. I know what that's like. My father beat me up all the time and then donated so generously to the church that the nuns looked the other way. Even when I got to Stuyvesant, he made me realize how worthless I was. That's why I became a bully, because my father taught me that the only way to earn respect was to scare others. How shitty was that?"
“Yes, but you really turned your life around after you met Carl,” I remarked.
"Without a doubt, that kid saved my life," Clarke admitted, looking down at his sweaty tank-top-clad friend sinking one three-pointer after another. "Seems to me you also saved Freck's life, literally," he added.
Shaking my head, I countered: "He had a serious relapse the summer we were in Paris. A silly little argument about Parisian architecture was enough. He thought he knew better than the Parisians, and when I stood up for them, he took it as rejection and ran away. It took us three days, 25,000 euros, and a dedicated investigator to find him, but that was the least of our problems. The worst part was when we had to go to the morgue to identify something the police thought was his body."
"Shit," Clarke replied. "I couldn't bear to see something like that happen to Carl." Then he looked directly at me and continued, "I guess the real difference for me is that I've found closure with my parents' time in prison. My wounds were mostly physical, and those wounds have healed. Now that my brother has moved back home and my boyfriend and his mom have moved in with us, I have more than enough people to love me and show me that I'm not a worthless faggot."
"Freck's wounds are all internal," Clarke continued, "and even though he now has you and your fathers, he still doesn't feel safe. There's no easy solution to this, either. It will take time for him to feel worthy of your love."
"We're both in therapy," I replied. "He sees a therapist once a week, and we also have family counseling every week. We'll continue doing that until we go to MIT in the fall."
"Maybe going straight from Stuyvesant to MIT isn't the best thing for either of you," Clarke suggested. "You're both academically ready, but the pressure to live up to adult expectations might be too much. I mean, Freck will be thirteen and you'll only be eleven, and you'll be around kids who are mostly eighteen. Freck may look like a teenager, and his voice has changed, but he'll still be a good six inches shorter than many of his peers. It'll be even worse for you, but I think Freck is more fragile, and what you dismiss could hurt him deeply."
It was like a flash of lightning. I'd been worrying about what to get Freck for his thirteenth birthday, although that was nothing compared to the stress that lay ahead for both of us the following fall. We were just months away from graduating from one of America's top high schools, would be interning at one of the world's leading astrophysics labs that summer, and then would be freshmen at MIT. We'd already gotten into college in our desired subjects and our career paths were set, but we were still kids, both legally and emotionally. Freck was barely out of his teens, and I was still a teenager who didn't even need to use deodorant yet. How could we expect anyone to take us seriously?
But what other choice did we have if we didn't go to MIT next fall? Living at home would make it easier, but the stress of navigating the adult world wouldn't be any less at Columbia. But if we postponed starting college for a year, what else would an eleven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old do in the meantime? It wasn't as if I'd never heard of a gap year, but we were nowhere near old enough to work, and we couldn't travel the world on our own. I simply didn't see any alternative to our plans to study at MIT.
"Yes, I think you should seriously consider staying in high school for another year or two, or maybe even doing something else entirely," Clarke continued. "I know it's not uncommon for some students to take five years to graduate. There are even schools that offer five-year programs for students with special needs, and it's not because they're stupid. I don't think you have to graduate if you have enough credits. So maybe you can postpone graduation and study for another year. At City University, you can take dual-credit courses and earn credits that can transfer to MIT. You might even have enough pre-med and college credits to start there in your sophomore or even junior year."
Clarke's idea was a revelation. I had thought the only alternative to MIT the following year would be to study somewhere else, but that wouldn't change anything. By extending our time at Stuyvesant, we could take most of our freshman year courses at City University Community College, which was right across the street from Stuyvesant and where the students were accustomed to having Stuyvesant students around. And we would have another year of Stuyvesant's support, including all our friends, our dads, and Roger. Freck could even spend another year on the swim team if he wanted. It would be a chance for us to be kids for one more year. It would be another year for Freck to heal and deepen our love.
My worries about finding the perfect gift for Freck's thirteenth birthday were quickly forgotten. No matter what I gave him, Freck would probably be happy because it was from me, but that was irrelevant. The opportunity to spend another year at home with our fathers and another year with all our friends would be priceless.