Listen, I didn’t want to talk about poinsettias in the first place. But if I recite a fact, it is the fact talking, not me. A fact is like a shield. You can hide behind it. Then you can make a run for it if you need to. Or make someone laugh so that they aren’t laughing at you. Or distract your mom if she is sad.
From fourth grade on, I made myself absorb facts the way a sponge absorbs water.
So when I tell you that I really didn’t want to talk about poinsettias in front of my uncle right before he deployed for the third time last September, I’m telling you the truth. But a fact had to fill the uncomfortable space. He was staring into his cheeseburger like it was a movie screen. I didn’t know what to do.
So I said to my uncle, “Did you know the red poinsettia originated in Mexico and is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States minister to Mexico? That’s lucky, because what if his last name was Frankenbucket? Then at Christmas everyone would have to say, Here, I brought you this Frankenbuckettia.”
He smiled. Uncle Reed was my mom’s brother and an army soldier. When he came home, I never really knew what to say to him.
“No, I didn’t know that about poinsettias, Wayne,” Uncle Reed said. “I bet your brain can fire at will with random facts.”
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he meant that as a compliment.
I hoped he meant it as a compliment.
“I meant that as a compliment,” he finally said. “So, did you want to talk about poinsettias?”
No, I didn’t want to talk about poinsettias.
But I’d had to find a new topic. Another truth? Inserting a quick fact will change the subject. You can go from uncomfortable to learning something new in 5.6 seconds.
Uncle Reed had been talking about Iraq. He said it was hard to come back home to Texas. “I need to be with my buddies. When I’m home, I feel like I should be there. Helping.”
I couldn’t work out why he didn’t prefer being at home.
Uncle Reed got a far-off look in his eyes. “I get a different feeling about myself when I’m there. A useful feeling. A real sense of purpose.” That part of what Uncle Reed said made sense. Being useful is important in our family.
I swirled a french fry in my ketchup. “I don’t even understand why soldiers still have to keep going back to Iraq,” I said. “Why is it taking so long?”
“Your problem, Wayne, is that you always ask why. Some questions can’t be answered.”
“Why?”
He looked down. “The question why will plague you for your entire life.”
I definitely didn’t want to be plagued for my entire life. The past month was plaguing enough. Why did Sandy Showalter really go with me to the fall social? Why was my mom suddenly encouraging me to spend more time with my dad?
“I have more questions than answers,” I said. “I hate that.”
“Join the club,” he said, laughing. “One more piece of advice: Never eat at any place ending in the words corral or barn. The food at those establishments is all beige.”
He took a drink from his iced tea. The silence hung over us like a rotten smell. So I’d searched my brain for a new topic. Why poinsettias? Because Beatty Middle School’s orchestra was in the middle of a fund-raiser. (Pre-order your holiday poinsettia now and help the Beatty Bears get to Colorado for spring break!) Sandy Showalter was in the Beatty Bears orchestra. I ordered four poinsettias.
Uncle Reed drummed his fingers on the table. He didn’t look so happy. He didn’t want to talk about poinsettias. His mind was someplace else. Maybe with his friends in Iraq. I tried a new topic.
“So your friend Schmidt is pretty brave, then? Four deployments in, right?”
He slapped his hand on the tabletop. “Brave as the first man who ate an oyster.”
“Grandpa always says that,” I said. “It’s lame.”
“Well, where do you think I heard it first? Plus, I mean, a slimy oyster. Think about it. That’s some brave eating.” He was smiling now.
“I bet some eighth grader probably dared him to do it,” I said. That made Uncle Reed laugh like crazy.
“Middle school doesn’t last forever, Wayne,” he said. “You’ll make it. You’ll be a good soldier one day.” He looked at me straight on then. I had to look away.
I couldn’t see myself as a soldier. You had to be brave, have courage in your blood. Grandpa said that, too. All Daltons have courage in their blood!
Well, my name is Wayne Kovok. I am half Dalton, half Kovok. Maybe I had only half the courage. The way Grandpa looked at me sometimes made me wonder if he was thinking the same thing. Probably.
“Are you going to eat all your fries?” Uncle Reed asked. “Because I do miss fries. A lot.”
“Take them.” I pushed my basket of fries across the table.
“Thank you,” he said. “In exchange for these delicious fries, I will give you a story. A true story, because I know my nephew likes those best.”
It was true. I liked a good true story.
This is what he told me.
In 2010, a guy boarded a twenty-seat prop plane in the Congo with a crocodile hidden in a duffel bag.
The crocodile escaped. The passengers panicked. Nineteen of them rushed toward the cockpit, sending the plane off balance. The sudden weight imbalance caused the pilot to lose control. The plane cartwheeled in the air and then crashed into an empty house.
Nineteen passengers and the pilot died.
There were two survivors. One passenger and the crocodile.
“Wait, what? The crocodile survived?” I asked. This didn’t seem like a true story.
“I’m not lying. It really happened. The crocodile survived. Probably because it didn’t panic.”
“A crocodile doesn’t know enough to be panicked.” I’d spoken as if this were a fact. I would look it up later to verify. My knowledge of panic and animals was limited.
“Exactly,” Reed said. “Panic leads to disaster.”
“You do realize you’re getting on a plane tomorrow, right?” Sure, I liked a weird story, but even I wouldn’t talk about a plane crash before boarding an actual plane. My fact-spewing weirdness has a few boundaries.
“I know, but it reminds me that I have no control over life. Life doesn’t care if you’re a soldier or a seventh grader or an aquatic reptile. Things happen. Are you going to finish your burger?”
Uncle Reed finished my burger. I think he must have missed burgers when he was far from home, too.
“I sure miss burgers when I’m away from home,” he said.
I sat there thinking about the crocodile, the plane cartwheeling in the air, the crash. The whole story was so strange. What would it feel like to be in a plane, falling toward the ground? Would stuff be tossed around inside the fuselage? Would people scream? What did passengers think about right before impact?
I had so many questions. I mean, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t be curious about what it’s like inside a doomed plane?
Now you can get the answers by looking them up. That’s the easy way. I personally recommend that method. I do not recommend gathering the data by being an actual plane-crash survivor.
That’s the hard way. That’s the way I did it. I became like the plane-crash-surviving crocodile.
How?
Well, after Uncle Reed went on his next deployment, I went on the biggest trip of my life. I went to sleep in my native land of BEFORE, where I’d lived all twelve and a half years of my life. And then I woke up with no left eyebrow, with stitches down my face, wearing only socks and a backless gown in a country called AFTER. And in this new country, I couldn’t talk.
True story.
Do you know how awkward it is to be a plane-crash-surviving, fact-collecting seventh grader with no voice to use as a shield?
Pretty awkward.