The Tank Man's Son (7 page)

I turned and saw that Dad was already halfway across the field. He must have seen me hit the ground right after the shot was fired and assumed the worst. He was in a full-out sprint, his arms swinging up near his head and his thighs pumping like pistons with every stride. I’d never seen him move so fast. He skidded to a stop at my side, sliding to
one knee and putting one hand down for balance. He took one look at me, then scooped me into his arms. “Let’s go,” he said.

Then we were speed walking back across the field. I could hear every breath exploding out of his mouth. From below, Dad’s face was foreign. I couldn’t remember him ever carrying me before. I could see the lump in his throat bobbing, see up his nostrils. I could see his eyelashes. His smell was the same as always, sour and ripe. When we reached the bottom of the hill below the house, Dad began to run, straight up the hill with me in his grip.

At the car, Dad balanced me with one arm and one raised knee while he opened the rear door with his other hand. He leaned forward and laid me across the backseat, headfirst. From my back, I raised my chin to my chest and watched him pull off my shoe. I saw blood slosh out of it. Dad held the shoe at arm’s length away from the car and turned the shoe over, like he was pouring out the dregs from a thermos. The sight of my own blood poured out in the sand made my stomach clench, and I gritted my teeth against the bile I could taste in the back of my throat. Dad reached back into the car, set my shoe on the floor, and unrolled my sock. Then he disappeared. I could see Jerry, who had been standing just behind Dad outside the car. He was still calmly cradling his right arm, and the blood that had leaked out over his fingers was drying and darkening. Dad returned with an old towel and told Jerry to get in the front. Then Dad leaned over me again and, as if he were tying my shoelace, knotted the towel around my ankle. The door slammed, Dad hopped into the front seat, and then the engine roared to life and we were bouncing down the driveway.

I expected Dad’s furious lecture to begin at any moment, but the fifteen-minute drive passed in complete silence. My ankle felt like an ocean was raging inside it, with waves of pain crashing loudly enough that I could feel them in my ears. I watched upside-down trees whip past the window
 
—
flick flick flick
 
—and I tried to see how many I could count between blinks.

Dad screeched to a stop in front of Doc Kramer’s clinic. He yanked open the car door and lifted me out, carrying me down the outside stairs to the basement entrance. Jerry opened it and stood back, and Dad marched in. Doc Kramer didn’t have a receptionist, but from Dad’s arms I could see four other patients waiting in the room. There was an old woman with gray hair and large glasses, and beside her were two middle-aged women, frozen in midconversation. An elderly man nearly fumbled the magazine he’d been reading. I saw them at a crazy angle, my head resting in the crook of Dad’s arm. I wondered why they had all come. Arthritis? A sore throat? I wondered if any of them had ever been shot.

Then I was inside the examination room. Doc Kramer looked as tall and tired as he always did. The sight of two young boys with bleeding wounds didn’t faze him
 
—or at least not when they were the Bouman boys.

“Put him on that table,” he said to my father. Then he stepped out of the room for a minute, and from where I lay on the table I could hear him apologizing to his other patients. Jerry sat nearby on another table. When Doc Kramer came back, he ignored Jerry and me, walking to stand nose to nose with my father. “What happened?” he asked, peering over his wire-rim glasses.

“Well, the boys were tending targets . . .” His speech was hesitant, sheepish. I’d never heard him speak that way. Doc didn’t blink, and Dad was forced to continue. “And they . . . got a little too close.” Dad closed his mouth and floated to the edge of the room, where he stood alone with his arms crossed.

Doc Kramer didn’t say anything at the close of Dad’s explanation
 
—just shook his head as if Dad had invented a whole new type of stupid. “Get me a sewing kit, please,” Doc Kramer said quietly to his nurse, and the two of them moved over to my brother. The nurse laid out the kit on a tray, and Doc went to work on Jerry’s arm. When he lifted the flapped skin to see what had caused the damage, he found several pieces of metal, silver atop the pink of Jerry’s bicep muscle.

“Well, look at that,” he said, and with a large pair of tweezers he
removed the shards, dropping them one by one onto a metal tray.
Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.
Jerry barely blinked.

“And I told the boys to stay behind the berm, but . . .” Dad’s voice trailed off as quickly as it had started.

Doc Kramer pulled the largest piece from Jerry’s arm. It was twisted, and red blood coated it. He looked at my brother. “I want to make sure I get all the pieces,” he said, and Jerry nodded. As Doc probed the wound, Jerry observed stoically, as if he were watching Mom clean a spot of dirt from his sleeve.

“I’m done with you,” Doc Kramer said as he finished stitching. “Now let’s take a look at your brother’s ankle.” Doc Kramer leaned over me and frowned, then reached up and pulled the overhead light closer, inspecting my ankle under the bright glare. Lying on my back, I couldn’t see my leg. Instead, I watched his face go in and out of focus as it moved back and forth in the bright glare. When I could see it, his eyebrows were even lower than usual. His lips pinched into a thin line and he shook his head. Then he flicked off the light and straightened.

“I’m afraid I’ll do more damage than good if I try to remove that shrapnel
 
—too many nerves in that part of your ankle. I don’t want to dig around in there and tear it up worse. Let’s just leave it and see what happens. Who knows
 
—it might eventually work its way out on its own.”

That didn’t sound comforting, but the thought of Doc Kramer digging around in my ankle
 
—whatever that meant
 
—was even worse. I shuddered. Doc bandaged my ankle, all the while giving Dad a lecture on how the wound needed to be cared for.

“Now see if you can sit up,” he told me, taking my hand and pulling me up. He crossed the room to a cupboard and then returned with a pair of crutches. “You’ll figure out how to use these real quick
 
—but they’re not toys, so bring ’em back when you’re done.”

Doc walked toward the sink, pausing to look back across his shoulder at my father and say, “I’m finished.”

Dad left without a word. Jerry helped me to the floor and made sure
I had each crutch snug under my armpits. It took me several minutes to navigate the doors and reach the top of the stairs. Dad was already in the car, engine running.
What’s Mom going to think?
I wondered as we drove.
I’m not even ten years old, and I have a shrapnel wound
.

Just after we parked in front of the house, I found out exactly what Mom thought.

The tips of my crutches sank into the sand, slowing me down, so Jerry entered the house first. I saw him displaying his bandaged arm as if he were a war hero returning from the front lines.

“What happened?” I heard Mom ask.

Dad arrived at the door, and I was right behind him. “Just had a little accident,” he answered, “on the gun range.”

That’s when I came into the house, banging my crutches on the door as I negotiated the narrow entryway. Not to be outdone by my brother, I piped up. “And
I
got hit in the foot!”

Mom took a second look at Jerry, a first look at me, and then rounded on Dad. “
Hit?
Have you lost your mind? Don’t you know
anythin
g
?”

Jerry and I gaped at each other. We’d never seen Mom so mad. She was raging.

“They’re all right,” Dad said, trying to calm things down. “They just got a little too close.”

“Too
close
?” Spittle was flying out of Mom’s mouth now. “You’re their
father
, for crying out loud! Why didn’t you say something? It’s a wonder you didn’t kill them!”

From the way Dad backed down, we guessed even he had never seen Mom like that. “Okay, okay. I should have paid more attention to where they were standing.”

As he talked, Jerry and I headed to our room. Our curiosity to see the fight was overpowered by our desire to stay out of it. So far neither of us had gotten in any trouble over the incident, and we wanted to keep it that way. We closed the door behind us. Jerry sat down at our desk, and I lay on my bunk. We could still hear Mom yelling at Dad in the other room.

The fight tapered off a minute later, and as soon as it did, Mom opened our door and came in.

“Are you two all right?”

“Yeah, it was just a couple of small pieces,” Jerry answered.

“And are you all right?” she asked, coming to kneel beside me.

“I’m okay. Doc didn’t take any of the metal out
 
—said it would be better to leave it in and let it heal.”

Mom frowned, then shook her head. She seemed to stand up slow, like she was lifting something. “You boys need to be careful,” she said, and then she left us alone.

D
URING THE YEAR
that Boumar Custom Gun Company was going gangbusters, Dad found himself with more and more admirers of a certain sort: men who viewed Dad as a hero and father figure and commander and cool kid all rolled into one.

One night, when I should have already been in bed, there was a sharp rap at the front door. When Dad opened it, a man I’d never seen before stood in the frame. Younger than Dad, the man wore a black beret, dark green military fatigues, and black leather boots that nearly reached his knees. Dad nodded, and the man stepped forward, taking off his hat and folding it into his hand. Then another man entered, dressed like the first, followed by another, and soon there were six men standing in a loose line in front of Dad, hats in hand. One of the men held a long tube of white paper, rolled up like a telescope. Dad looked them up and down, nodded again, and said, “Let’s get to work.”

Dad strode to the kitchen and the men followed. I could no longer
see them from the living room, so I padded into the kitchen and ducked below the counter. I could hear wooden chairs being dragged out and then scraped back in, paper being spread out and smoothed on the table, and the thunk of metal objects being set down
 
—knives or lighters, I guessed
 
—to keep the rolled paper in place.

“Here it is,” Dad said, and I could hear his finger tapping on the table. “Our proving ground. Eleven acres just
made
for this kind of thing.”

“Oh
hell
yes,” said one voice.

Another asked, “So, how do you figure it?”

Dad’s answer and the subsequent discussion lasted the better part of an hour and included a lot of things I didn’t fully understand. They talked about trenching techniques, reinforcements, firepower, booby traps, and command and control. They grunted agreement, asked questions, slapped backs, and finally
 
—my legs were cramped after my long crouch
 
—stood up, their wooden chairs again scraping the linoleum.

“Saturday, then, oh-eight-hundred,” Dad said by way of dismissal. “Don’t be late.”

Everyone filed back to the door, with me trailing behind, and one by one the men left.

“What are you planning now?” Mom snapped as soon as the door closed.

“We’re moving our war games over here,” Dad said dismissively.

“Don’t you think you should have asked me first? And what will the neighbors think
 
—you should ask them, too!”

“It’ll be at night, and the Dietzes sure won’t care.”

“Then what about all the shooting?” Mom continued, unwilling to give up the issue. “We already had someone call the sheriff on us because of bullets flying over their house.”

“That was from the anti
tank
gun
 
—and we’re not using
that
gun for the war games.” Dad was getting annoyed, and he let it show. His voice took on the lecturing tone he usually saved for the idiots and numskulls of the world. “Besides, we’ll be shooting
blanks
.”

Mom shook her head and left the room. Dad flopped down on the couch and began picking his nails with a knife.

Early Saturday morning, Jerry and I woke to the noise of idling engines and slamming car doors, followed by the rough, shouting voices of men. Since none of the shouting seemed directed at us, we pulled our blankets over our heads and went back to sleep.

Several hours later, I walked into the kitchen to find breakfast. Mom stood at the table, and what looked like several loaves of bread were spread across it, along with a jar of mayonnaise, two packages of Velveeta cheese, and a stack of bologna. I blinked in surprise at the assembly line as Mom ignored me and worked. It was more food than we usually had in our house, and it was all spread out at once. Whenever she finished with two of the sandwiches
 
—dip, spread, slap, slap, stack
 
—she’d take them in one hand and set them inside a large paper bag. She touched the ingredients with quick, almost disdainful fingers, like the task was hurting her.

When she’d filled one paper bag and started on a second, there came a knock at the door. Leaving the current sandwich open and without cheese, Mom rolled the top of the paper bag closed and carried it to the door, which she opened. One of the strange men was standing there, his face streaked with dirt and sweat. He stared at the ground and started to say something, but before he could, Mom shoved the bag of sandwiches at his chest. He caught it, cleared his throat, and then left. As Mom turned back to the kitchen, she kicked the door closed with her heel.

“Mom, who was that?”

“One of the men helping your dad.”

“Helping Dad with war games?”

“It’s just something your father is doing.”

“Mom?”

“
What
, Mark?”

“Can I have breakfast now?”

Mom handed me one of the sandwiches and turned back to the assembly line. Taking a bite, I jogged out the door to look for the man.

I caught up with him near the gun range. He had just tossed the paper bag full of sandwiches down into some sort of hole in the ground
 
—and before I could figure out what that meant, a small geyser of sand briefly spouted up from what I assumed was the same hole. What on earth was happening? A minute later I stood with my hands on my knees, panting
 
—eating a sandwich while running really took the wind out of me
 
—and the picture of what Dad was doing came into focus.

In the sand in front of me was a hole the size of a house. And in the house-sized hole were a dozen men in a flurry of activity. Shovels, sweat stains, wood being braced against the walls, bright sand flying every which way
 
—it was like the earth had erupted. The men looked like they were working under strict orders, and even when the bag of sandwiches arrived, no one took a break. Unable to comprehend what exactly I was seeing, I pulled my eyes away from the project and looked for Dad. I found him, dressed in blue work pants and a filthy T-shirt, standing at one edge of the pit, his arms crossed.

“Dad, Dad,” I called, running to his side, “what in the world is everyone
doin
g
?”

Silence. I didn’t exist
 
—not when he had an army to command.

After a few minutes of listening to Dad bark orders to the men, I wandered around to the other side of the pit. One of the men had just scrambled out of it, and I recognized him as Dad’s friend Dale. Dad called him the “ammo man” sometimes, and they liked to go to swap meets together. I asked him what was happening. He glanced at my father, who wasn’t looking, and said, “Underground command center for next week.”

That explained everything, and also nothing.

From down in the hole, a shout that was nearly a scream jolted me. One of the men was rocking back and forth on his heels, his hands pressed to the side of his head. At his feet was a bucket full of dirt that
must have fallen back onto him. Bright blood was leaking down his face and across his bare chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off the contrast of red on white, even as other hands lowered the man bodily to the ground and began to fashion a sling out of shirts and rope. Once the man was rolled onto the sling and lifted back to ground level, my father barked orders.

“You, you, and you
 
—help him outta here! The rest of you, take a break. Food’s here.”

Two of the men who had helped with the sling jumped back into the pit, while one stayed to help the wounded man back toward the house. I followed.

When they knocked on the door, Mom answered with another paper bag in her arms, presumably full of bologna sandwiches. When she saw the wounded man, however, she set the bag on the sand outside the door and nodded toward her car, then disappeared back inside. The men waited in the backseat. Mom reappeared carrying her purse and climbed into the driver’s seat, firing up the engine without even glancing at me. The car bounced down the driveway, no doubt on the way to Doc Kramer’s.

Alone again, I wandered back toward the wooded hills, hoping to discover more about the war games.

The next Saturday evening, men seemed to materialize out of nowhere, like clouds. Cars parked helter-skelter across the driveway and the surrounding sand, wherever there was an empty piece of ground, and when the men climbed out, they drifted together toward a point behind the shed. The uniforms and black berets were familiar by now, and all were carrying guns, along with pistols strapped to their hips and homemade hand grenades slung from harnesses worn across their chests.

At the center of the storm of activity stood Dad. An air of excitement and anticipation crackled around him. He wore his scuffed work boots
and plain camouflage, so faded and stained it looked as if it had come from the Salvation Army. His trusty 8mm Mauser, the standard rifle of the German army in World War II, rested in the crook of his arm, and a .45 pistol was strapped to his side with a simple holster. He stood out among the younger men, all of whom were dressed in expensive and painstakingly customized uniforms, complete with insignia and patches and loops for extra gear. Most of them had cropped their hair in military fashion, while Dad was almost bald on top. But there was no mistaking who was in charge.

Jerry and I watched from the sidelines, awestruck, as the impressive array of hardware and men marched past. We sidled closer and closer to Dad, but no matter how close we stood, he chose not to acknowledge our presence. No one else did either. We were two skinny boys drowning in an ocean of men, guns, and egos. Each new arrival strutted, displaying his weapons, looking for approval from those already gathered.

The sun set behind the ridge on the other side of the road, and the oaks faded from dark green to gray to black. All at once, a serious mood descended on the group. The men sorted themselves into two teams
 
—red and blue
 
—and passed around armbands. Dad, standing at the front of the blue team, seemed to notice us for the first time.

“You boys stay out of the way.”

With that we were dismissed. It was time for the men to get on with their serious business.

“Come on, Mark,” Jerry said. “Dad doesn’t want us out here. Let’s get back.”

But I had no intention of going inside. Over the previous few days, we had found bunkers, trenches, and traps scattered everywhere, and now they were actually going to be used for battle. I’d discovered one that had been almost completely hidden, carved into the side of a hill.

“Check this
ou
t
!” I’d hollered to Jerry. “This thing is huge!” The
opening was so small, we’d been forced to crawl through it, but the main room of the bunker opened up so we could stand upright.

“And check
this
out,” Jerry had said, extending his arms as if holding a rifle. “You can shoot through this opening without being seen!”

The inside walls had even been lined with sections cut from felled trees to guard against collapse. There was no going back to green plastic army men and sand castles. This was the big time, and it was all ours. Or at least it would be when Dad and his buddies weren’t using it. The bunker was one of half a dozen the men had carved out. Our minds boggled at the possibilities. And the night of the battle was when I’d first see all of these preparations actually used.

As if sensing my thoughts, Mom called from the house. “Mar-ark!
Mar
-ark!” Her voice stretched like taffy, calling me back for dinner and bed. She had warned me to stay inside during the war games, but that wasn’t something I was prepared to do. I needed to see what happened that night
 
—to see what all the fuss was about.

“Let’s go watch TV,” Jerry said.

I shook my head. “You go back. I’ve gotta see this, and see it up close.”

The gunfire began at dark. The first shot startled me
 
—even though I
knew
they were firing specially made blanks
 
—and I immediately cursed myself for being a coward. As the pace of firing picked up
 
—three shots here, five shots there
 
—I crept toward the bunker I’d seen the men working on, hoping it would be part of the main battle. In the black of night, everything looked different to me. I’d spent countless hours outside around the house, of course, but never had I tried to remain unseen and safe in quite the same way. Familiar shapes felt otherworldly, changed somehow, even though my mind still recognized them. Just as I neared my target, the noise of what seemed like a hundred shots exploded up ahead.
Pop! Poppoppop! Poppoppop!
I could see orange flames leaping from the ends of rifle barrels, seemingly on every side of me.