and my father might have been a selfish alcoholic with a megalomaniacal streak in him as wide as the path of the boston marathon , but when you discover that you do n't even have a car to sleep in after a screaming match where you stand up for yourself , and you come to see that your friends ' parents are the only thing keeping you from living on the streets-that sense of freedom and responsibility loses its expansiveness and takes on the feeling of a stone around your neck .