Confessional

"My name is Clive McClure, and for the last twenty-seven years, I've lied to you and everyone else," he said.

I sat across the room and tried to contain my shock. The man I'd known as Dad, the guy who'd been Dan Edmonson to his coworkers and fishing buddies as long as I'd been alive; the grandfather who'd held my daughter on his lap more times than I can count and played 'Patty Cake' with and taken to Royals games as she got older.

In the last month, he'd been given a diagnosis that would likely take him out of our world before Christmas, and he was already looking thinner, and not in a good way. He'd called earlier and said he needed to talk, that there was something urgent, something that had nothing to do with the cancer. He'd needed to get it off his chest before... well, you get the gist. And now I was on the edge of my seat in his modest Overland Park living room, listening to his confession, for lack of a better word. I did not expect it to be this.

I swallowed. "Dad.. are you my dad?"

He nodded while never moving his gaze from my eyes. "Yes."

"What the hell are you talking about, Dad? Does Mom know?" I asked.

"Your mother... suspected... something. But no, she never knew for sure as far as I know," he said. "I did something very bad in my twenties, and I knew, if I ever had a hope in hell of any kind of a future, I'd have to change everything. My identity, my location, everything."

Beads of cold sweat fell into my eyes. I was bracing myself for news that my father - my sweet, kind father - might have been a serial killer or escaped convict.

He could see the color fading from my cheeks, and continued. "It was a long time ago. I was young and afraid." He looked at the ground and then back to face me. "I killed a man." His tone was deadpan. He paused to sip the whiskey glass in his hand. "It was in a bar in Phoenix."

And there it was. At least one dead. I tried to steady myself. "Dad, what are you talking about? Killed a man? What did... why?"

"Because I was drunk. Drunk and stupid. And drunk stupidity makes you do terrible things," he said.

I shook my head. Unbelievable, this was just fucking unbelievable. I was quiet for what seemed like an eternity. I just didn't know what to say to that. "Who was it? Why? And don't just say because you were drunk and stupid! You need to tell me the truth, Dad.. God, I can't even really call you my father!"

"Stop that. Of course I'm your father!"

"No! My father is Daniel Edmondson, who... doesn't exist, apparently. I don't know who you are." I said.

The man sitting across from me - Clive, or whatever the fuck his name is - nodded in understanding. He wasn't crying, but he looked sad. He placed the glass on the side table next to him and folded his hands in his lap. For a long while he said nothing. Just before I could tell him to forget about it and leave the room, he broke the silence.

"I had just gotten back from the Desert Storm. I'd put in my required years of service to the Air Force, and I'd seen a lot of shit. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they call it. I'd say we love to label everything in this world and then call it a mental health problem. But, PTSD is fucking real, kid. I'd gotten back and the nightmares started. Still have them, by the way. The nightmares..." he took a deep breath, then poured another double shot of whiskey. Before he put the cap back on the bottle, he held it out to me. I took the bottle and drank from it directly, winced, then handed it back.

He sipped and continued talking. "Anyway, I had a coworker who flew the jet I was assigned to maintain. There weren't as many women in the Air Force as there are today. Not as many in the whole military for that matter. I was sweet on her. Dana Armstrong. She was engaged so I stayed out of it, but I still had a hell of a crush on her. She knew it, but she was still friendly with me." He paused to sip from his glass. He gazed at the glass in his hand while he continued. "It was my first day back after a weekend off. The other mechanics and I were back in the hangar, and there was no jet. She hadn't come back. That afternoon, I learned she had been shot down over Bagdad." He paused again and held the glass against his forehead. I think I might have seen a tear on his cheek, but maybe that's just what I was supposed to think I saw.

"I was devastated," he continued, then took the remaining sip from the glass. He opened the cap on the bottle and poured another glass before offering it to me. Again, I took it and sipped directly from the bottle. He talked again. "It wasn't a month later I got discharged and sent back stateside. And on that fateful Wednesday night, I'd been at this bar in Scottsdale, the Tipsy Elephant, and I had downed a little too much of this stuff, and there were these assholes gathered around a pool table, just drunk and acting like everything was funny. I knew they were full of shit, and they were loud. And then they started in on women in the military. Women and gays, actually. This was before 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' And as I listened, I could feel my blood boiling. I was completely wasted by this time, but I can still remember how mad I got."

A chill ran through my body and I shivered for a moment. I was speechless. I realized after a few seconds that my mouth must have been gaped open for several minutes.

He continued, "These guys kept jarring on about Feminazis and queers destroying the world. Now, keep in mind this is ninety-one. And I was a soldier. Most of us were the furthest thing on the planet from what you call 'woke.' But this just brought out... a monster... in me." He shook his head and closed his eyes. "I walked over and said something like, 'Why don't you asshats stop talking about shit you don't know anything about?'

"A couple of the guys told me to fuck off, but this one guy threw a punch at me. The next thing I know, I have my hand wrapped around his head, and I drove his head onto the pool table. It cracked the table. He started throwing his fists but he couldn't get his head away from my grip. So I slam it down again. And again. Now he's lying on the table, and I am punching him repeatedly in the face. The bartender has called the cops by this point and a bunch of guys pulled me off of the guy. And this guy," he looked me in the eye and said softly, "he wasn't going anywhere. And I knew as it dawned on me that he wasn't moving. I knew I had just beaten him to death."

At last I spoke with a tremble. "My god, Dad..."

He shrugged his shoulders, then sipped from his glass. "I panicked. I ran out the door and into an alley. Like a fucking coward."

I searched my brain for something - anything - to say. There was nothing.

At last, he stood, took one final swig from his whiskey glass, set it on the table. He looked down at the floor. "I've told my story, and I'm out of conversation." He looked at me. "Whatever you need to do with that,..." he shrugged his shoulders again, "is up to you. I've had my life, my family, my years. If you should decide to turn me in, I'll understand. But for now I'm going to walk out that door."

He nodded once, then walked toward the front door of the house. He looked back at me and said, "You're a good kid." And then he was gone.

I looked at the half-drank bottle of whiskey on the table. The rest of the story, as he had just said, would be up to me.