The Tank Man's Son (13 page)

“W
HO.
B
ROKE.
T
HIS.”

The menace in Dad’s voice would have made any of his favorite Gestapo officers proud. The house was so small and Dad’s voice was so large that pretending not to hear him was never an option. Nor were our preferences: whatever we had been doing at the time, Dad’s commands took absolute priority. We left the living room and lined up in the kitchen, ready to project just the right attitude toward Dad. We had to be instantly obedient
 
—that was nonnegotiable
 
—but obedience wasn’t the only thing he required. We had to appear beaten but not completely broken, because that would only invite more punishment. We needed to be silent most of the time so that he could deliver a speech if he wanted to, but we also needed to provide the right answer at the right time. Not necessarily the
true
answer, but the answer he wanted to hear.

Dad was holding a ceramic coffee cup in one hand and its broken handle in the other. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if
he couldn’t believe his children were forcing him to live through such a personally painful experience. “Which one of you kids broke this?”

All three of us spoke at the same time. “Not me!”

“One of you broke it.” Dad knew that beyond doubt. Mom wasn’t part of the conversation. When she broke something, she’d find or buy a replacement
 
—or sometimes start a fight with Dad about how she had no money to buy new things. And since Dad wasn’t into punishing himself, it was down to the three of us kids. Dad surveyed us, and he took his sweet time doing it. Then he settled on me as his first target.

“Was it you, Mark?” He took a step toward me, and inside that small kitchen it felt like he was ten feet taller than me, his wide shoulders and angry face blocking out the domed ceiling light and the dead bugs that polka-dotted its inside.

“No,” I tried to say, but it mostly came out as a shake of my head and a squeak.

It was true, though. I hadn’t broken that cup. I’d broken plenty of things around the house, not all of which Dad had discovered, but we weren’t talking about those other things. I couldn’t stop staring at the cup and broken handle. Without the handle, Dad’s hand swallowed the cup. The handle reminded me of a giant’s fingernail clipping. Dad clipped his fingernails all over the house and left crescent moons lying wherever they fell. Behind Dad, both on the counter and in the open cupboard, I could see half a dozen identical and intact cups. Why was Dad making such a big deal about this one cup?

Dad was still talking. I needed to focus in case there was an answer expected of me, or in case I needed to grovel or cry.

“. . . why I’m so tired of spending good money on things, just to have you kids go and break them all!” He was shouting now. I could see directly into his mouth. I could smell the sourness of each word. “When are you kids going to learn!”

He shook his head from side to side like a bear I’d seen on
Mutual of
Omaha’s Wild Kingdom
. This was never a question from Dad, but always a declaration. He knew we
wouldn’t
learn, despite his best efforts.

Jerry dared to speak. I don’t believe he thought Dad would listen, but I also believe Jerry needed to speak all the same. Jerry was an honest brother, and if he knew that something was true, he wanted others to know as well. “We didn’t break it.”

Dad’s scream nearly snapped Jerry’s head back. “Like
hell
you didn’t break it!”

Then came an instant calm. It sent a shiver down my back because Dad seemed so pleased all of a sudden, despite not having his question answered, despite having good-for-nothing kids who broke everything he spent good money on.

“
Somebody
broke it,” Dad nearly smiled, “because it didn’t break
itsel
f
.”

That seemed true. I’d never heard of a cup breaking itself. But the three of us kept staring at Dad, our faces as blank as possible. What could we say? The cup didn’t break itself, and we’d already insisted that we didn’t break it. We were stuck. Mom would comfort us after the punishment, but she couldn’t stop it from happening. Nothing could. Dad settled his hands on his hips and stared at us. Jerry swallowed. From the corner of my eye I could see his hands twitching at his sides. Sheri hugged herself and almost imperceptibly shook her head from side to side. Dad frowned at Sheri, looking like he might step toward her, but then he seemed to change his mind and his right hand drifted toward his belly. “Do I need to get out my belt?”

I knew that getting slapped in the face or punched in the ear was like the explosion of fireworks: an instant of bright agony, followed by moments of shining pain, and then a dark numbness. The belt was different
 
—a slower buildup, a steadier pace, and impossible to forget. I nearly wet myself.

“That’s it, then,” Dad said calmly, and in a fluid motion he loosened the buckle with his right hand and drew the belt out through each loop with his left,
snick snick snick
, until it dangled from his hand like a slowly spinning snake. “I’m going to punish
all
of you kids until someone confesses. Follow me.”

There was nothing more to be said. Now Dad’s belt would do the talking. Tallest to smallest, we shuffled behind him. I walked as slowly as possible, desperate to postpone my punishment without adding to it. My heart was beating in my temples and the back of my throat. My hands looked like they were having a seizure. Not knowing exactly what was coming made the approaching cliff seem even higher.

“I did it.” Jerry froze us in the hall. “I broke it when I put another cup on top of it,” Jerry continued. He was staring at the floor, his voice barely above a whisper.

Dad paused in the middle of a step. Then he gave a faint shrug and kept walking. Jerry followed, and they disappeared into the bedroom.

Sheri and I remained behind, trapped in the hallway. We hadn’t been ordered into the bedroom with Jerry, but we hadn’t been dismissed, either, so we stood and waited. A storm had been building in Dad, and a moment later the clouds burst and he rained down suffering upon his son.

Jerry screamed. And screamed and screamed and screamed.

Here and there, like a flash of lightning, came a word or two from Jerry, pleading for mercy, but each word was lost beneath the ongoing downpour of Dad’s belt. Then quick as it started, the storm ceased. Dad walked out of the bedroom, panting as he rethreaded his belt. His forehead was wet, and there were dark circles beneath the armpits of his white T-shirt. Sheri and I froze. Dad had been satisfied. He walked past us to the door and disappeared outside.

Sheri, her eyes glued to the ground, walked back to her room and softly closed the door. I went to see Jerry. He was choking back most of his screams so they came out as agonized whimpers, his body fetal and his pants still around his ankles. One arm was curled around his knees, and with the other hand he was trying to scrape the snot and tears from his face.

I knelt on the floor beside him. “What happened, Jerry? You really broke that cup?”

His answer arrived in shuddered breaths.

“No. Just didn’t. Want Dad. To whip. You or Sheri.”

W
E BECAME PAINFULLY
familiar with the phrase “You kids go outside and play.”

When Mom said that, she meant we should go far enough away that we wouldn’t hear her and Dad fighting. The sounds of their combat were simple
 
—curse words, slammed doors, hands striking skin
 
—but it seemed impossible to escape them. Eleven acres wasn’t nearly enough. I’d seen their fights from start to finish inside the house, and thereafter I could imagine the fights, even if I went outside.

Jerry and Sheri and I had been trying to play a board game, but then one of Mom and Dad’s arguments spun out of control.

“Those guns of yours are just a hole we’re pouring money into!”

“I’m going to
make
money with ’em!”

“That’ll be the day. You just keep buying junk. Everything we own is junk!”

“I’ve just about had enough from you!”

“What are you going to do, hit me?”

That was when Dad grabbed Mom by the hair and began to pull her toward the bedroom. Mom flailed wildly, screaming and trying to plant her feet, but she couldn’t go limp because of the hold Dad had on her hair.

“Shut
up
!” he screamed, and he began to slap her face with his free hand. He was relentless. Like a fisherman, he reeled her in, closer and closer to the bedroom, and her fighting only made him fight harder.

And then the bedroom door slammed and locked.

“Dad’s going to kill Mom!” said Sheri.

Jerry and I were speechless. Maybe he was. This was as bad as anything we’d seen. Dad certainly had the brute power to kill someone. We stared at the bedroom door, listening to the muffled shouts and the periodic crack of Dad’s hand against Mom’s skin. Sheri burst into tears.

After several minutes, it grew quiet. “Let’s go,” Jerry whispered. “We don’t want to be here when Dad comes out.”

We crept back to the living room only moments before Dad stormed out of the bedroom, grabbed his jacket, and headed out the door. His truck roared to life outside, then the noise faded as he raced down the driveway and up the road.

“Where’s Dad going?” I asked.

“Is Mom okay?” Sheri asked.

“Just wait,” Jerry said.

When Mom came out of the bedroom a few minutes later, the raised welts on the side of her face were clearly visible, even from across the room.

“Mom,” Jerry asked, “are you okay?”

She looked at him but didn’t answer. The skin around one of her eyes was purpling. Dad didn’t come home that night, but the next day he was back, acting like nothing had happened.

In a way he was right, though. What had happened was becoming more and more common. Being attacked was a part of our lives, like the water that turned everything yellow or the sandburs that covered our
shoes and clothing. It wasn’t something we liked, but it was something we had to live with.

Mom did her best to protect us. After we’d been told to go outside, we knew exactly what it meant when Mom came running out of the house, one side of her face red, yelling at us to get in the car as fast as we could. It meant we kids were going to Grandma and Grandpa Russell’s house until things settled at home. Mom never stayed with us at her parents’ house. She’d drop us off and then drive away, leaving us to guess that things couldn’t settle back at home without her, and they couldn’t settle with us there.

Once, after yet another fight, Mom was already behind the wheel, motor running, and we were piled into the backseat, when suddenly Dad appeared outside the car and yanked open the driver’s door.

Mom screamed. She tried to cling to the steering wheel, but Dad silently wrapped his large hand around her upper arm and began to pull. He was relentless. I watched her knuckles go white, her fingers slip one by one from the wheel, and then she was gone. Dad dragged her back up the driveway and into the house.

Jerry and Sheri and I stayed in the car, shoulder to shoulder in the backseat, crying and waiting for Mom to come back. In the car there were rules to obey, like stay in your seat, don’t ask how long it will take, and never open the doors. Finally Mom came back to the car and opened the back door without looking at us. Her hair was tangled and her shirt was messed up and untucked from her slacks.

“Come back into the house, kids.”

“We aren’t going to Grandma and Grandpa’s?”

“Not this time.”

Mom dragged herself up the driveway to the house, and we followed. We’d see Grandma and Grandpa Russell again soon enough.

One visit at Grandpa and Grandma Russell’s was the same as any of the dozens we spent there. None of us said a word during the half-hour drive. Mom cried most of the way, keeping both hands on the wheel while her shoulders shook in fits and starts. When we pulled up to their house, it was already dark.

“You kids wait here,” she monotoned.

Minutes later, Mom emerged from the house and motioned us inside, holding open the screen door. Without a word we trooped through the dim kitchen and up the stairs to a bedroom with walls that slanted and windows that poked outward and formed little benches. There were three single beds, a lamp, and a box filled with old wooden toys that we’d lost interest in years before. Mom turned and went back down the dark stairs, leaving us alone. We knew Grandma and Grandpa Russell wouldn’t come upstairs, and we knew there was nothing we could say to each other that would help. We’d just wait it out until Mom came back for us.

“G’night,” Jerry said.

“Night, Jer,” Sheri and I answered. Then we burrowed into our beds and waited for sleep.

In the morning, I stopped to use the bathroom on my way to the kitchen. I looked at the counter and saw the water glass where Grandma and Grandpa kept their teeth at night. It was empty, but many times I’d seen the two sets of teeth in the middle of the night, floating and foaming in the glow of the night-light. Grandma’s were easy to tell because one of her teeth had a wire that stuck out of it, which anyone could see when Grandma pronounced words with lots of
e
’s in them. Beside the glass was the plastic razor that Grandma and Grandpa shared, since they both had to shave
 
—Grandpa his whole face and Grandma just her chin.

Jerry and Sheri were already at the pink dining table, starting in on their bowls of oatmeal, and morning sunlight was slicing through the
windows over the sink and shining off the metal band around the table and its metal legs. Oatmeal was one of the seven things Grandma and Grandpa Russell shopped for
 
—along with milk, butter, eggs, bread, sliced Velveeta, and loaves of bologna
 
—and everything else came from their garden or from bartering.

Grandma pointed me toward the oatmeal on the stove with her cigarette hand. “Get a bowl, Mark
 
—I was just telling a story.”

She was perched in her usual seat, back to the wall. Grandma could tell the same story fifty times and it never got old
 
—just familiar and comfortable, like a favorite episode of
Gilligan’s Island
. The pink kitchen table was her stage. Her stories usually started with her giggling to herself, silently wrinkling her bulbous nose, her wire-rim glasses moving in sync, and then she’d let the rest of us in on what was so funny. An ashtray lived on her side of the table, within easy reach when she pivoted her left elbow, and while her left hand always balanced a Virginia Slim, her right hand always cradled a mug of coffee. She kept a yellow sponge under her coffee elbow so that it wouldn’t become sore from resting on the table for too long.

“So I remember the time during the war when I worked on Liberty ships.”

“What’s a Liberty ship?” Jerry asked. He knew his lines as well as Grandma knew hers.

Before answering, she leaned back with her cup of coffee and took a slow sip.

“They were called Liberty ships because they helped the war effort. Everyone had to help. I was a welder.”

“A welder?” we all echoed.

“Yep, way down deep in the bottom of the ship.”

“Was it hard?” Sheri asked.

“It
was
hard.” Another sip of coffee, then a pull on the cigarette. “Cramped, and I had to bend over all day. Plus, I had to breathe in all those
fumes
.” Her nose turned upward with the memory.

“And I had this supervisor once who came by and told me to ‘get back to work’ when I was sticking my head up for some fresh air.” Her supervisor voice was low and bossy. “He didn’t know anything about how difficult it was in that cramped, fumy space . . . so I
showed
him.”

“How?” we asked together.

“I told him to take a look at my work. He crawled into that small space to take a look-see, and I stood right up against the opening so he couldn’t get out! Well, he started to push and cough, trying to get out of there quick as he could, and the smoke was getting thick.”

We stared at her, waiting for the punch line.

“And when I finally moved out of the way, he came out of there so fast, he just about fell over!”

We burst into satisfied laughter, and Grandma giggled as she finished her tale. “I told him now he knew why I needed air
 
—and after that, he never bothered me again!”

After breakfast, Grandma told Jerry and me to go find Grandpa, while Sheri had to stay inside with her. The womenfolk were going to organize what Grandma called the “savin’ bins,” where she kept nearly everything: old bread bags, rubber bands, hairpins, pennies, buttons, and all manner of bits and pieces that could be useful but, as far as I knew, had never left the bins. Grandma even saved the old curls and scraps of soap bars in a large glass jar.

Grandpa was outside in the garden doing man’s work. At least half his work consisted of sitting in a fraying lawn chair, listening to gospel music on his radio, and smoking an endless supply of plastic-tipped cigars that came in a box with an old-fashioned American guy wearing a curly white wig. Grandpa’s skin was dark red and wrinkled from all the time he spent in the sun, and he pulled his hair straight back across his skull in thin white lines. He had been a carpenter until he got hurt on the job and shattered his hip, and now he and Grandma lived on Social Security and his homegrown vegetables.

“Mornin’, boys. Been waitin’. Got some weedin’ for us today.”

Grandpa was typically a man of few words but many chores. Jerry and I sighed but dutifully wandered into the garden to look for weeds. The garden covered more than an acre, and Grandpa could be counted on to find endless chores in it for Jerry and me. It was strange, working so hard in a place where Dad never showed his face, but Grandpa had a set of lungs on him, too, and I got my share of tongue-lashings. Grandpa had turned the color of one of his prized beets the time Jerry accidentally shredded a row of flowers with the riding lawn mower. As long as we did our chores correctly, though, things were dull. And dull was a nice change sometimes.

I was weeding alone in one of the back rows when I found one of Grandpa’s cigar tips. I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I mimed taking a pull, mimed Grandpa’s contented face, mimed blowing a thin line of smoke into the humid air and letting the rest trickle out my nostrils. Grown-ups could do whatever they wanted. They could leave a place. They could never come back if they didn’t want to. They could decide something and that thing would happen.

But Grandpa’s cigar tip smelled awful, and I tasted dirt and sawdust, so I spit it back onto the ground.

The next morning when I woke up, the amount of light in the room told me I’d missed TV church. Grandpa got up early Sunday mornings, dressed in his only suit, and sat in his recliner to watch Reverend Falwell preach on a tiny television set. He expected us to sit on the green couch and watch too, although it was hard to get excited by a show that was just a guy talking
 
—and people sitting in rows watching the guy talking
 
—along with a bunch of people in robes singing. Still, Grandpa was very clear that the three of us kids were to watch if we were there on a Sunday.

Much better were the shows we’d watched the night before with Grandma while Grandpa stayed outside with his lawn chair and his Tiparillos. Grandma loved the
Lawrence Welk Show
, and I loved
Cannon
, a show about a fat cop with a snub-nosed .38 who, even though he could barely run, still managed to catch the bad guys every time.