Beautiful Boy

Nic appears to be settling in well to his new high school that resembles “a small liberal arts college” (85), and the “school year sails along smoothly” (85). However, one afternoon, Sheff receives a call from the freshman dean, calling him in “for a meeting to discuss Nic’s suspension for buying marijuana on campus” (85). Sheff reveals that “Nic had not told us” (86). 

Sheff immediately begins “rationalizing,” telling himself that Nic “is experimenting again […] and many kids experiment” (86). He tells himself that “Nic isn’t a typical druggie, not like the boys who hang out on the main street of town […] Nic is not like those children. Nic is open and loving and diligent” (86). He recalls how, like many children of his generation, he “encountered not only copious marijuana but a range of drugs unknown to any previous generation” (86) and how he “dismissed what we viewed as hysterical ‘speed kills’ warnings and many other antidrug, public-service announcements” (87). He recalls taking LSD and how his “persistent feelings of anxiety and alienation vanished,” leaving him with “a sense that everything would be—was—exactly right” (88). 

The dean and counselor explain that the school takes “what they hope is a more progressive and helpful approach” and that “‘Nic will have a second chance’” if he attends “‘an afternoon of drug and alcohol counseling’” (89). They assign him an advisor, a science teacher named Don who is also a surfer. Nic says the counseling “was a waste of time” (90) but that Don is “‘amazing’” (91). They go surfing together and Don manages to persuade him to join the swim team and the water-polo team. 

Nic excels at school the following year, especially in creative writing and as a member of the school newspaper. He wins first place in the Ernest Hemingway Writing Award for high school journalists and has a piece published in Newsweek, discussing how joint custody means he is “always missing someone” (94). However, his taste in authors changes to “an assortment of misanthropes, addicts, drunks, depressives, and suicides” (95), and Sheff admits that “it worries me that these writers, particularly when they glamorize drugs and debauchery, are so compelling to Nic” (95). 

Having learned French from Karen, Nic attends a summer program in Paris to improve his command of the language. When Sheff meets him at the airport afterward, Nic “looks terrible […] His hair is shaggy and unkempt. There are black circles under his eyes. Somehow he is grayer” (96). Alarmed by his “simmering sullenness,” Sheff asks, “‘Did something happen in Paris?’” but is met by “a flare of anger” (96). A few days later, Nic “complains of stomach pain” and is diagnosed with an ulcer, causing Sheff to wonder, “What child has an ulcer at seventeen?” (96).

After high school, Sheff attended the University of Arizona. His roommate, Charles, was rich and had lost both his parents to alcohol and drugs. Charles himself “drank alcohol and took drugs […] with what at the time I found to be impressive determination” (98). Along with Charles, Sheff took a wide range of different drugs, often embarking on dangerous road trips and binges. Sheff reflects that “[d]rug stories are sinister. Like some war stories, they focus on adventure and escape […] But usually the storytellers omit the slow degeneration, psychic trauma, and, finally, the casualties” (100). Sheff witnessed this aspect with Charles, “whose drinking and drugging escalated in a way that, all these years later, makes me worry about Nic” (101). 

Although Nic’s ulcer heals, “he is different” (101). He quits the swim team, the water-polo team, and the school newspaper and “begins cutting classes, insisting that he knows exactly what he can and cannot get away with” (101). Sheff feels as if “Nic is being pulled by two countervailing forces” (102) and although he is accepted by most of the colleges he applied to, he also breaks “a school record for most missed classes of any senior” (102). He spends his time “with a crowd of boys who are obvious stoners” but denies taking drugs and is “getting better at covering his tracks” (102). 

Eventually, he admits that he smokes marijuana occasionally, “like everyone,” and insists, “‘It’s no big deal. It’s harmless’” (102). Sheff realizes that “I am losing Nic, but I still rationalize it: it’s typical for adolescents to drift away from their parents—to become surly and distant” (103). One day, Nic “matter-of-factly asks if I want to smoke some pot” (103). Sheff is unsure if he is “testing me, asserting his independence, or trying to reach out—to connect” (103). Sheff shares a joint with Nic, “thinking—rationalizing—that it’s not unlike a father in a previous generation sharing a beer with his seventeen-year-old son, a harmless, bonding moment” (104). He later reflects that he should not have smoked with Nic and that “I’m desperate—way too desperate—to connect with him. It’s not a very good excuse” (104). 

That summer, “there is no more pretense of restraint on Nic’s part” and it is soon “obvious by his erratic behavior and mood swings that he is often high and that marijuana is being supplemented by other drugs” (105). He becomes “increasingly furtive, argumentative, and reckless” (105) and nothing Sheff does is able to change this. He is offered a great deal of “contradictory advice: kick him out, don’t let him out of your sight” (107) but nothing works. Shortly before Nic’s eighteenth birthday, Sheff realizes that he “has robbed the house of cash, food, and a case of wine” (107). 

Nic’s therapist insists that he is “appropriately ‘exercising’ his independence’” and that, if “his rebellion is extreme, it is because I have made it difficult to have anything to rebel against” (107). Sheff considers that “[f]inally someone has said it: so it is my fault that Nic has been increasingly sullen and shadowy and taking drugs and is now lying and stealing. I was too lenient” (107). It is two days before Nic calls to report that his friends are in Death Valley. When Sheff insists, he returns home and is grounded. Nic insists that “his ‘modest’ partying […] is a prelude to the hard work of college” (108). Sheff “still want[s] to believe him” and reflects that “I don’t think it’s simply because I’m gullible, but I cannot fathom the implications of his behavior” (108). A fortnight later, police officers arrive at their home, arrest Nic, and drive away.

It turns out the arrest “is the result of Nic’s failure to appear in court after being cited for marijuana possession, an infraction he forgot to tell me about” (110). Sheff bails him out but is “confident that the arrest will teach him a lesson” (110). Afterward, “Nic is moody, but he holds down a job” and “dotes on Jasper and Daisy as much as ever” (110). 

Nic decides on “the University of California at Berkeley” (111). He is enthusiastic at first about his course, but his phone calls become more dispirited, and “then he stops regularly returning my calls” (113). Sometime later, Sheff receives a call from one of Nic’s roommates “telling me that they are worried because Nic hasn’t shown up for a few days” (113). Two days later, Nic calls and admits that “college isn’t working” (113). Sheff suggests that they “need to talk about rehab” but Nic insists that “‘he isn’t using anything much’” but simply “‘wasn’t ready for college’” and needs to work on himself as he has been “‘feeling pretty depressed’” (113).

Sheff believes that “Nic sounds level-headed and it makes some sense to me” (113). He also finds depression “easier to accept than a drug problem” because it “is reassuring to imagine that drugs are a symptom and not the cause of Nic’s difficulties” (115). Nic returns home, promising “to follow the rules we establish” (115), and applies to some smaller liberal arts schools. It appears that “Nic is on track again on the inevitable (in my view) path that will lead back to college” (116). However, when Nic misses his curfew, Sheff is worried. He calls Nic’s friends but they have not seen him, and “[t]his horror last four days” (118). 

Finally, Nic calls and admits that “‘I blew it.’ A guttural sigh. ‘I’m in trouble’” (118). Sheff drives to pick him up, meeting him in an alleyway. He notes that “[m]y son, the svelte and muscular swimmer, water-polo player, and surfer with an ebullient smile, is bruised, sallow, skin and bone, and his eyes are vacant black holes” (118). In the car, Sheff insists that Nic needs to go to rehab and Nic agrees. However, after he “spends the next three days shivering as if feverish, curled up in bed, whimpering and crying,” Nic insists, “‘I don’t need rehab’” (119). He tells Sheff, “‘I messed up. That’s all’” and that “‘I learned my lesson. I learned how dangerous meth is’” (119). Sheff is “horrified that Nic has used meth” and reports that “I had an experience with that drug, too, and I will never forget it” (119).