The Tank Man's Son (5 page)

We stared, stunned. It was brighter than the sun
 
—the brightest thing I had seen in my life. The beam of light was like a solid thing, like a bridge of brightness you might be able to walk on wherever it pointed. No object was too far away for Dad to touch: the bottom of the driveway, the stop sign down Blakely Drive, the radio tower on the far hill.

“Don’t get in front of it,” he warned. “You
will
get burned.”

He spun a small wheel with a handle attached to it, and the eye of the searchlight narrowed to a small hole. Then he spun the wheel the other way, and the light expanded.

“Amazing,” I sighed, pulling the word out across the seconds while I followed the beam.

I heard Mom snort behind me, and then I heard the door open and close. Dad knew he still had an audience, however, and he pointed the searchlight at the ground, then suddenly flicked it up toward the sky. The beam lanced through the night, up and up until it lit the underside of a cloud.

A
cloud
. I could scarcely understand what I was seeing.

That night, as I curled beneath my blanket in bed, I remembered what I’d seen. The searchlight seemed part of my father, as if he were really the one illuminating the distant trees. Tall and proud
 
—taller than nearly every other man I knew
 
—Dad could force the world to bend with his bare hands and wide shoulders.

That was how time passed. Week in, week out, month in, month out. We panted through the summers and shivered through the winters. When the weather was bad enough, we drew or played board games or stared at the fireplace, and we always did whatever chores Dad assigned us: taking out the garbage, watering whichever plants were currently surviving near the house, sweeping, washing and drying dishes, washing and folding laundry, and shoveling ruts in the driveway. He assigned jobs that even we, inexperienced schoolkids, could tell were baloney. More than once he looked at Jerry and me and growled, “Get outside, and whatever’s out of place, put it back!” Since almost everything outside was either broken, messy, or out of place, and nothing we did could change that, we interpreted his instructions to mean that we should look busy until he stopped noticing us. Dad noticing us wasn’t something we particularly wanted. Better for him to do his stuff and for us to do ours.

We bused to school and bused home, too, caring very little about what happened between the two trips. But apart from those minor interruptions, we wandered wild and free
 
—with an emphasis on
free
. Mom
was always working at home or trying to work in town. She talked about making ends meet and scraping by. Dad seemed like he was always playing with guns and old vehicles at home, or working in town and then staying in town to play by himself. Almost none of the Bouman family’s meager resources of time and money trickled down to us kids.

We lived hour by hour, not thinking about what might come next, doing as we liked and liking a decent amount of what we did. Somehow whole seasons passed that way, and I had little inkling that folks lived other ways, or that my own way of life was soon to change.

O
NCE THEY CLEARED
the hurdle of raising three responsible, school-age kids, Mom and Dad began to leave us home alone more often. Mom would set out three bowls of food on the table
 
—usually plain oatmeal
 
—and tell us we needed to be good while they were gone. She’d say that she and Dad were going out to eat dinner in town or see a movie or play cards. Mom would always leave us with the same advice.

“We’re going to be out late, so be sure to get everything just the way your father likes it before we get home.”

The first few times it felt fun to stay home alone at night, but we soon changed our tune. There wasn’t really anything to do that couldn’t be done during the day, and at night we had the unwanted responsibility of predicting what counted as “perfect” in Dad’s mind. We might do nothing to clean up while Dad was away, only to have him come home and go straight to bed without a word, while other times Jerry might force Sheri and me to clean and straighten for more than an hour, only
to have Dad notice the smallest little thing out of place, like a single sock on the laundry room floor. Once Dad woke me up to yell about a plastic army man I’d left on the table in the living room, and he stood hulking over me in my bed, looking daggers, until it finally occurred to me to go clean it up.

Another time, we woke in the morning and went into the kitchen to eat breakfast before school, only to find Dad cleaning a disassembled pistol on the table, glaring at us. He waited until Jerry opened the cupboard to grab the container of oatmeal, and then, quick as a snake, Dad reached out and slammed the door closed.

“You kids left food out on the counter last night, so it looks like your food will be staying
in
the cupboard this morning.”

We trudged back to our bedrooms, put on our school clothes, and went to wait for the bus, earlier and hungrier than usual. What was there to say? We were learning that when Dad said and did things like that, they weren’t up for discussion. Certainly not with him. He’d glare or shout or clench his fists, letting us know with certainty that his significant weight advantage gave him the final word. Not with Mom, either, who kindly and gently told us not to question our father. And not even with each other. None of us had any answers, so we didn’t waste time asking questions. Life happened the way life happened. Most days were okay, but when you ran into a bad one, the best thing to do was keep your head down and wait for the next one. At least that morning there were fish sticks to look forward to in the cafeteria.

Staying home alone forced us to act older than our ages. With so much freedom and such sporadic supervision, we Bouman kids tended to get hurt quite a bit. Fortunately for us, there was a man named Doc Kramer who ran a clinic in the basement of his nearby home. He looked like a real-life version of Herman Munster, and we were on a first-name basis with him. Between all the junk around the yard and the condition of the house, Jerry and I already had a serious scar collection. Sheri hadn’t escaped the carnage either. Besides getting special shoes from
Doc Kramer that helped her walk more like a regular kid, she’d had a tetanus shot after puncturing her foot on a rusty nail, a burned leg from when she bumped into a hot motorcycle muffler, and stitches for a gash that opened her palm nearly clean through. While Jerry and I deserved our wounds
 
—because we liked to do things like jump out of trees and scramble around inside the carcass of an old steam engine
 
—Sheri usually didn’t.

The time she sliced her palm open, she was simply opening her dresser, and the ancient glass handle shattered in her grip. Mom and Dad were both in town, separately, and Jerry was off by himself outside.

“Mark. Mark.
Mark
!
”

I dashed from the living room to Sheri’s room, yanking open her door to find her clutching her hand and whimpering in pain. I could tell it was serious with a glance: blood was spurting from between her clenched fingers, covering her hands and dripping
pit-pit-pat
onto the floor. She was staring at the blood and shivering.

“It . . . it . . . it hurts.”

“Hang on!” I said, swallowing bile in my throat. “I’m going for a Band-Aid!”

I raced to the bathroom and banged around in the cupboard, eventually locating a Band-Aid. I could hear Sheri in her room, pleading for me to hurry. Back in her room, I told her to hold out her hand.

“Hold still, hold still!” I begged. “Lemme get it on!”

I opened the Band-Aid and pressed it down on her palm, crosswise to the cut. A fresh wave of blood pumped out of the cut, completely covering the Band-Aid. Sheri was left holding a palm full of her own blood, and it
pit-pit-patted
over the brim and onto the floor.

“Call Mom!”

“I don’t have her number,” I managed. “We’ve got to go somewhere. The Dietzes’!”

I returned to the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel. I wrapped it around Sheri’s palm and told her to hold it tight with her other hand.
Sheri whimpered the whole way to the Dietzes’, and because both of her hands were occupied, streaks of tears and snot ran unchecked across her lips and down her chin. When we neared our neighbors’ house, I sprinted ahead and banged on their front door.

“Anybody home? Please! Who’s home?”

Emmy opened the door.

“Sheri cut herself bad and no one’s home and it’s still bleeding and I don’t know what to do!” My sister arrived behind me, still whimpering.

Emmy stepped over to her and unwrapped the towel with a quick motion, then just as quickly rewrapped it.

“Yep, Doc Kramer’s it is,” she said. “Judy! I need a clean hand towel, sweetie!”

Emmy brought Sheri up to the entryway. While Judy placed a clean towel around Sheri’s hand, Emmy picked up her purse and fished out her keys.

“Come on, Sheri. Let’s get you fixed up. Ride with us, Judy.”

And then they were gone, leaving me alone inside the Dietzes’ house. I heard the car doors close outside, then the sound of the car pulling away. Not knowing what to do, I walked home, went inside, and sat on the couch, staring at the wall.

It seemed like hours later when I heard the knock on our front door. I found Judy there, with Sheri in tow. I managed to thank Judy, who turned away with a swirl of her ponytail, and then I found myself helping Sheri to her room. She could barely walk, and she leaned her weight against me as we shuffled down the hall.

“Twelve stitches,” she mumbled, then lay down in her bed.

I went back to sitting on the couch.

Mom returned from town a few hours later. When I told her what had happened, she didn’t say anything. She simply disappeared into Sheri’s room and didn’t come out.

Dad returned from town a few hours after that. Mom heard his truck rumble up, and she was waiting for him at the front door.

“What are we having for
 
—” was all he managed before Mom read him his marching orders. He went right back out the door, returning a minute later with his toolbox. Sheri’s jagged dresser handle was soon replaced by a jerry-rigged bolt, and nothing more was said about the accident.

Mom began to cook dinner while Dad read a book on the couch. I wondered what had happened to our hand towel
 
—the blood-soaked one we’d left at the Dietzes’
 
—and hoped its loss wouldn’t be counted against me.

Dad wanted everything in the house to be shipshape, all the time, but shipshape wasn’t easy for three young kids to pull off, no matter how hard we tried. It could be a messy table, a light left burning, or a doll forgotten on the couch. Dad almost always found something if he looked hard enough.

One night, after being left alone again, Jerry and I were woken by the noise of Mom and Dad’s return. This wasn’t the kind of noise we could ignore, either, like the noise they made in their bedroom many nights, after they’d sat on the couch, listening to records and whispering with their heads close together. This was the noise of screams, and those could have consequences. Jerry was in the bunk above me. Both of us were lying motionless, waiting, hoping we wouldn’t hear Dad’s footsteps coming toward our door. I pulled my covers over my head and tried not to breathe. Out in the living room the argument stalled. Then a long silence. Maybe everything was over.

Suddenly our bedroom door flung open. I saw the overhead light flash on through my blanket.

“You kids get out of bed!” Dad barked. “Didn’t I tell you to clean up the house? Why didn’t you wipe the counter off?”

I leaped out of bed. My brother swung from the top bunk and landed on the floor beside me. Both of us stood at attention in our underwear. “We did!” both of us said together. It was true. We had taken Mom’s
parting instruction to heart and spent an hour putting things away, sweeping, and doing dishes before bed.

“Like hell you did! Why are there crumbs all over the counter?”

Dad stared us down, menacing and powerful. His shoulders bulged beneath his white T-shirt. “Get in there and look. Now!”

Jerry and I padded to the kitchen, still wearing only our underwear. We squinted in the bright light. The kitchen looked clean, but sure enough, over by the toaster, we could see a small collection of crumbs. We had made toast for ourselves that night after we cleaned up. At least there weren’t many crumbs, and we could be back to bed in a few minutes.

But Dad no longer cared about the crumbs. They had been bait, and he was after a bigger catch.

“And which one of you did the dishes?” he demanded.

“We all did,” Jerry replied.

Dad walked to the nearest cupboard, crouched down, and opened it. He reached inside and pulled out a dinner plate. He held it up to the light at arm’s length. Most of our plates were made of clear blue glass
 
—even a fingerprint was visible on them if you held the plate at a certain angle. Dad looked through the plate at the light, then back at Jerry and me.

“This isn’t good enough. These plates are dirty.” He stared at us for a moment longer. “Go get your sister.”

I walked down the hall to Sheri’s room to wake her up. I could hear Jerry and Dad in the kitchen, Jerry still fending off Dad’s accusations. It wouldn’t make any difference. I shook Sheri awake. I didn’t tell her anything, and she didn’t ask any questions. All we could do was see what Dad had planned for us.

Back in the kitchen, we stood in a line, shoulder to shoulder, facing our father. It was hard not to shiver as he looked us up and down. “I want you to get dressed and come back here. And then you will wash every single dish in this house. Go through the cupboards and take out every dish and wash them
perfectly
.”

Jerry couldn’t help speaking what we were all thinking. “Now?”

“Yes,
now
!
” Dad glared at Jerry and then said, with perfect calm, “I don’t care if it takes you the entire f
 
—ing night.” With that he left the room.

It was past midnight when we began our task. Our cupboards contained a lot more than stacks of blue dishes, and we took everything out and made piles on the counters and the table. There were mismatched coffee mugs, drinking glasses, bowls, silverware, and a collection of pots and pans that were scarred and charred black from years of use.

“I’ll wash,” Jerry said. “You and Sheri can dry.”

He filled the sink with hot water, set a shaker of Comet on the edge of the sink, and began to wash. It was impossible for soap bubbles to form in the hard water, so the water simply turned a sickly blue color.

“This is going to take forever,” Sheri whispered.

“I know,” I agreed.

We pulled every spoon, knife, and fork, every pot and pan, every plate and cup and bowl from the cupboards and drawers, one by one, as quietly as we could. We piled, Jerry washed. We dried, Jerry washed. And we did that over and over.

“Mark,” my sister whispered, “do you have a new towel? This one’s getting too wet!”

“Keep using it,” I implored her. “If we don’t use it until it’s soaked, we’ll run out of towels and have to do laundry, too!”

“Mark,” my brother whispered, “do you think this is clean enough?”

He held up a pan and I frowned. It was caked with what looked like years of blackness.

“Try scraping it with a knife?”

Jerry tried, his scritch-scratching drowning out the soft squeak of our towel drying. He gave up ten minutes later.

“It won’t come off!” My brother’s voice was thin and desperate. “It just won’t get any better!”

I sighed. “We should just throw some of these dishes on the trash heap.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen some of them,” Jerry agreed, “and now we have to wash them
all
.”

Sheri moaned softly.

We had been working like that for what seemed like hours, getting through almost everything we owned, when Dad strolled into the kitchen. Without a word, he walked to the cupboard and took out a glass plate. He held it up to the light, just as he’d done earlier, and he detected some of Sheri’s fresh fingerprints. She’d put the dish back without cradling it in a towel.