In His Footsteps

[Contains strong language, violence, and substance abuse]

A month before my eleventh birthday was when daddy would go to war for the first time. I understood why he was doing it, to a degree. But I didn’t understand why it had to be my dad, of all the dads out there—the man who had taught me to piss standing up, to shoot a bee-bee gun at a trash can, to shift gears in a manual transmission truck.

Daddy and I had made a tradition of going to Andy’s Burger Spot in Briar. He would get me a banana milkshake and a box full of fries smothered in cheese, and we would sit in the parking lot imagining we were at a drive-in theater, pretending to watch superheroes and wizards battling it out on an invisible projection screen before us. We hadn’t done it for some time since I’d turned ten—money was tight and rent was the priority, my parents told me—but daddy made an exception on the eve of his deployment.

It was on that night at Andy’s when I first told daddy about Trey Ranson and Devin Carmichael. “Who are they?” he asked me.

“Kids in my class,” I replied. “They call me names like pussy and shit eater.”

“They ever hurt you?”

“Not yet.”

Daddy chewed on his burger, thinking. When he was done, he crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it out the window. “Anyone ever calls you that again, Noah,” he told me, “you punch ’em in the fucking teeth. Don’t hold back. Make ’em bleed.”

I didn’t want to tell daddy that the idea of punching someone scared me. I just told him, “They’re a lot bigger than me.”

“Go for the balls, then,” he said. Daddy appeared pensive, staring straight ahead. After a moment, he said, “Bullies and bad guys aren’t to be negotiated with. You have to do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t fuck with you. It doesn’t matter who starts the fight. You just make sure you’re the one to finish it, you hear?”

I nodded.

We sat in silence for a minute as I finished my cheesy fries. “Is that what you’re going to do in the war?” I asked. “Fight the bullies?”

“Damn right,” daddy said. “Me and my friends are going to make sure the bad guys never have a chance to hurt us again. It’s a fight we’re going to win, Noah. You can mark my words on that.”

All of a sudden, I began to cry. I got to thinking about my father going away, and neither of us knowing how long it would be before he came home again.

“No crying, boy,” daddy told me. “No crying while I’m gone, especially in front of your mother. You man up and take care of her now, you understand?”

I nodded again and forced myself to dry my tears.

We went home and I climbed into my bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Two hours after the lights went out in the living room and the drone of the TV ceased, I went out to the backyard and stood in the middle of a patch of wispy dead weeds and looked up at the stars. I felt so minuscule, so insignificant compared to them. I tried thinking that maybe one of them would blink at me, that God—if he was real—would flash all of the stars at once in a big light show, and give me a sign that my daddy would come home in one piece. But the stars were calm tonight, and the unrelenting fear in my gut wouldn’t abate.

My family wasn’t the praying type, but I said into the open air, “God, if you’re out there, please let my daddy stay home. I don’t want him to go. But if he has to go, please let him come back soon. Amen.”

The next day, daddy put on his uniform and shipped out to Iraq.

***

I watched a lot of news in his absence. I thought I might see daddy in an interview or in footage of soldiers capturing bad guys overseas, and that would give me the reassurance I needed to know he was okay, but I never saw him.

My grades started to slip, and momma noticed. My teacher Mrs. Harlan had assigned a big school project where we had to present information about our heroes in front of the class, and once momma found out about it, she told me, “This project counts for a third of your grade, Noah. You have to do it. Tonight. You’re not doing anything else until it’s finished, understand?”

I didn’t have the will to argue.

Momma took me to get poster board for my presentation. At home, I pasted pictures of my father on the inner flaps, with the name DANIEL CONKLIN printed at the top. I didn’t have any additional displays, which meant I would get docked a few points, but if I could scrape by with a C then momma wouldn’t pitch a fit.

On my eleventh birthday, I hauled the folded poster board into the classroom and waited to be called to the front. Trey Ranson, a hulking son of a bitch who had flunked fifth grade twice, talked about Hugh Jackman being his hero because he really liked Wolverine. Meanwhile, Devin Carmichael—as fat and ugly as they come—said his hero was Natalie Portman because she was “smoking hot.” It got a good laugh from the class, and Trey and Devin would ultimately get C-minuses.

When it was my turn, I propped my display on Mrs. Harlan’s desk and turned around to face my classmates.

“My hero is my dad,” I said, pointing to his name. “He, uh… He left to go to war last month. He’s fighting terrorists. He met my mom Laura back in ’86, and they got married the year before they had me. He’s my hero because he’s keeping us safe. He says he’ll die to make sure that we can keep our liberties in this country. I want to be like him one day, to know what it’s like to walk in his footsteps. That’s why he’s my hero.”

My gut trembled, and I felt a tear slip down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away, hoping no one saw it—but, of course, Trey Ranson and Devin Carmichael noticed, and I heard them snickering. Mrs. Harlan took sympathy on me and said, “Well, the assignment was to present for at least five minutes, but I can see this is an emotional situation you’re going through, Noah. Well done. You’re welcome to take your seat.”

I gathered the poster board and sat with my head down on the desk for the rest of class.

On the playground after lunch, I sat alone feeling sorry for myself. Tears started falling from my eyes, and I knew what daddy would tell me if he were here. But I was alone, and it seemed like the safest time for me to cry.

To my left, someone kicked a mound of sand onto my sneakers. “Hey, shit eater,” said Trey Ranson. “You still crying over your old man?”

Devin Carmichael chuckled and said, “Look at him, he is crying. Fucking pussy.”

I didn’t look at either of them. My hands were limp between my legs as my elbows rested on my thighs.

Trey knelt down to look me in the eye. “He’s going to die over there, you know. Ain’t no way our boys are coming back from this one. That’s what my grandpa says. It’s the end of the world, and your daddy is stuck on the front lines.”

“He’ll be one of the first to go,” Devin chimed in, still chuckling.

Trey’s expression hardened as he said, “He’s probably already gone. You just don’t know it yet.”

He dropped a wad of spit at my feet. Then he stood up, and he and Devin walked away.

My hands were balled into fists and I was vibrating all over. The sadness was slowly dissipating, replaced by a hateful anger I hadn’t known existed in me.

I got up. I stormed up behind Trey and Devin and said, “Hey.” Trey turned around and I socked him in the nose with a solid whap. His hands flew up to cover the blood that had already started dripping down his mouth. When he’d regained himself, he lunged at me. I ducked his blow and, with my fist still tightly bound, hit him in the balls with all of my strength, just like daddy told me.

Trey fell to his knees, clutching his groin and whimpering. Devin held up his hands in surrender, started blubbering about Hey-Man-We-Were-Just-Joking-Around. I was about to punch the bastard in his fat face when I heard a whistle blow, and a playground aid came to break up the commotion.

I was escorted to the principal’s office and suspended, and momma had to leave work early to pick me up. She hollered at me all the way home, asking me why in God’s name I would hurt another kid. I didn’t feel like explaining. I went home, crawled into bed, and finished the crying session that Trey and Devin had interrupted.

***

Trey and Devin stopped bothering me after that. Pretty much everyone did. I had no friends; if other kids thought I was weird before, now they thought I was weird and dangerous.

I did what I had to at school to keep my grades up—all B’s and C’s, but it was good enough, and momma didn’t get on my case about it.

Day after day I watched the news, but never saw my old man. He didn’t write home; I figured he was just busy fighting the good fight. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s without him, and we watched the winter cold give way to spring’s warmth.

By the end of March, while I was staring lazily up at my ceiling fan, momma came into my room. “Your daddy’s coming home,” she said with a smile.

I sat upright in bed. “When?”

“One week,” she said. She had tears in her eyes when she came over to hug me.

I didn’t cry. I remembered what daddy told me about crying around momma.

The week passed slowly. I got paranoid that something bad would happen to daddy before he could make it home—encountering an IED on his last mission, getting in a plane crash, maybe even wrecking the rental car on his way here.

But on the seventh day after momma relayed the news to me, daddy came home with a bundle of roses for momma and a box of chocolate-covered cherries for me. We shared a long family hug, and daddy sighed deeply as momma cried into his shoulder. “It’s good to be home,” he whispered.

At long last, it felt like God had answered my prayers after all.

Daddy took me up to Briar for dinner at Andy’s Burger Spot that night, just the two of us. We pretended to watch Lord of the Rings on the windshield, talking about all of the mischief the hobbits were getting into. I’d missed hearing my father’s laugh. Aside from his slick black hair and goatee, momma joked that his laugh had been the reason she’d married him.

“You remember those bullies from my class?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”

“I got them to leave me alone.”

Daddy smirked. “What’d you do?”

“Just what you told me.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“I got suspended, and momma grounded me for a week.”

He turned to look at me. “Don’t ever feel ashamed for defending yourself. You take care of business, and don’t let anyone trample over you, you hear?”

“Yes.”

He ruffled my hair playfully, and we finished our meal. He told me he would need to go back and fight some more, probably soon.

“How soon?” I asked.

“A month, maybe two,” he replied. “I can’t stay away for too long. There’s a lot of work to be done still.”

I leaned over and hugged him tightly, wishing I could tell him that I didn’t want him to go—but I didn’t think it would change his mind, so I kept my mouth shut.

***

Daddy had started smoking cigarettes overseas—something momma wasn’t too happy to learn about. She told him he needed to do it outside. Daddy would tell her, “This is my house, I can smoke inside if I want to.” After a few arguments, momma won that fight, but daddy made sure she felt bad about it. He also started making regular trips to the liquor store, coming home with thirty-packs of Miller that he would down in an evening. Momma wasn’t too thrilled about that either, but I think she wanted to avoid more fighting, so she left it alone.

Daddy didn’t talk much about the war. What he did say came in single-sentence reflections like, “A lot of my buddies died” and “I saw things no one should ever have to see.” I didn’t get it, but I don’t think he wanted me to.

We made a point of going to Andy’s Burger Spot a couple of times a week together after school. Gradually, daddy stopped pretending with me, and our imagined movie time dwindled until we ended up eating in silence. Daddy stopped laughing, too—that contagious laugh that momma had fallen in love with. He would finish his food and puff on his cigarette as he stared out into the parking lot, not seeing the world as it was but instead seeing Iraq the way it had been.

Once, while I was in my room, I heard momma and daddy fighting in the other room. I couldn’t hear everything they said, but between daddy’s shouting, momma kept saying, “Daniel, please, calm down.” Then there was a loud banging noise, followed by the sound of the front door slamming and momma crying. I lay paralyzed in my bed, my hands clutching the bed sheets. Momma’s bedroom door closed shortly after, her cries muffled for several minutes until eventually they stopped.

Daddy would disappear until the next morning. When he came home, he would smell of beer and whiskey and cigarettes. Sometimes momma would tell me to go to my room so they could talk in private.

“Noah’s a big boy. Let him hear what you have to say, if it’s so goddamned important,” daddy would argue.

“I’ll just go to my room, daddy,” I said. “It’s okay.”

He turned to face me. “Nothing’s okay, boy, don’t you get that?”

I shook my head, uncomprehending.

Daddy snorted. “Nevermind. Doesn’t matter.” Then he dug through the beer box in the pantry and chugged two beers and took one outside while he smoked.

“Is he alright?” I asked momma.

She didn’t answer, but looked like she might cry.

***

For a month straight, momma and daddy’s arguing started in haste as soon as the sun went down and I was in my room. Daddy started shouting about how momma didn’t know what had happened to him out there, that she couldn’t understand. Momma tried to tell him that she wanted to understand so she could help him, but daddy would always end up leaving and not come back until morning.

A week before his second deployment, daddy started shouting at momma after she brought up his drinking. She said something about him needing help—and suddenly daddy was screaming. “You just want to control me! That’s all you’ve ever wanted! You don’t give a fuck about what I want, you just care about what you can get out of me!”

She only managed to say, “Daniel, please—” before there was a loud whap, as loud as when I socked Trey Ranson in the teeth. Then momma was sobbing hysterically, and the front door slammed, and I was trembling like I’d just listened to a murder.

Ten minutes later, momma came into my room with a bright red spot on her cheek, her eyes an even deeper shade of red from crying. “We need to go,” she said.

“Where?”

“To grandpa and grandma’s house.”

“For how long?”

“Just come on.”

She packed me a suitcase of clothes and I took my school bag with me, and we both piled into the car. I looked back at the empty house as we drove away, thinking about how daddy would react when he got home and we weren’t there. I wondered if I would get to see him again before he went back to war.

I stared up at the dark sky through the passenger window, gazing at the stars. While I listened to momma crying next to me, I closed my eyes and prayed to God that things would go back to the way they used to be—that daddy and I could go to Andy’s Burger Spot every week and there would be no war, and my parents would find a way to love each other again. For the second time that year, I asked the Man Upstairs to light up the stars and reassure me that everything would be alright.

When I opened my eyes to look, the stars seemed dimmer than usual.