911 dispatchers didn’t make a lot of money, but they had to “keep their heads,” as Deb always said. That she could stay calm on the phone while people were bleeding to death and clutching their chests and pleading with her to help amazed Robert. Particularly when she was freaking out about the dishes not being done and the trash overflowing in pungent heaps, or screaming at him to slow down and focus. Think about what he was doing, for Christ’s sake.
Robert imagined her talking to Officer Holt, giving him directions to the bank robbery or the four-alarm blaze. Ten-four, he’d say. Over and out, Robert’s mom would reply.
The operators shared their strangest calls, and Deb came home with plenty of warnings.
“I ever catch you fooling with a BB gun, I’ll break it in half,” she’d say. Or, “Don’t let any idiot kid talk you into a stupid stunt like cannonballing off a roof into somebody’s pool.”
She didn’t seem to realize she was giving him ideas.
Two Sundays a month his mother worked a second job, mucking out stables and exercising a wealthy couple’s horse. His mother was a horse person. She didn’t do the job for the money, which was menial, but for the chance to ride. She had some friends who were horse people, too, and Robert noticed that a lot of horse lovers resembled their prized animals in some way: the prominent teeth, the knobby limbs. His mother’s blond ponytail. As if they wanted to be horses.
If Robert could be any animal, he’d be lazy, happy, tail-wagging Hulk.
Or a bird.
Those Sundays Deb would try to get Robert’s father to come by and watch him. Robert Senior almost always said no, and Deb would slam the door behind her. In that case, Deb just left him with Hulk.
Robert had only met his dad seven times. The first three times, they played checkers and ate potato chips at the trailer while Deb mucked the stables. The fourth time, Robert Senior took his son to the Pine Tavern and let him wing darts at the black-and-red board. The fifth time was only for a few minutes, until Deb kicked Robert Senior out of the trailer, screaming and red-faced for reasons Robert didn’t know. During the sixth visit, Robert discovered his father was a war hero.
“Operation Desert Storm! Stormin’ Norman!” his dad crowed. “You ever hear of him?”
Robert shook his head. They were ensconced in the elder Robert’s pickup, slurping down thick milkshakes and munching on salty Arby’s fries, staring into a night sky that skimmed the beach like a drawn stage curtain. Deb had slammed through the front door earlier that evening and been confronted with a pile of Hulk’s shit curling on the carpet. She had noticed the mess in time not to step in it, but instead had mashed a tender foot onto one of the five hundred or so Legos Robert had dumped out of his plastic tub to build the world’s tallest tower. She had hobbled to the phone and demanded Robert Senior come get his son right this goddamn minute. And surprisingly his truck had rattled up, and he’d hoisted Robert onto the front seat.
“Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf,” his dad repeated, nodding his head reverentially. “Shoulda run for president.”
Robert still didn’t know who Schwarzkopf was, so he pictured Shaquille O’Neal. Robert Senior was just about as big and could lift Robert Junior over his head with one hand, his tree-trunk arms bulging. He’d drop his son back on the ground, the boy red-faced and out of breath.
“I’ve never told you about Desert Storm?”
Robert shook his head. He didn’t think so, but sometimes, even when he thought he was listening, he didn’t remember what teachers or his mom said. A forgotten homework assignment, a skipped chore, a missing shoe or key or pencil: each lapse ambushed him anew. Maybe his dad had told him about Desert Storm and he just didn’t remember.
Robert Senior gulped his milkshake, his cheeks ruddy beneath the brim of his camouflage cap. “I was fresh out of basic, rarin’ to go. Head shaved! Still in my twenties! Can you picture that?”
Robert grinned and shook his head. He got his own head buzzed every June, but his dad always had a mess of shaggy blond hair.
“I got sent right to Kuwait. You know where Kuwait is?”
Robert looked out the window. White tents dotted the beach. Someone must have been having a party. Must be rich people. At every party Robert had gone to, they just ate brownies the kid’s mom made from a mix and chased each other around the yard. Or played video games, if the kid had them. Robert shook his head again.
“You know where Egypt is?”
Robert nodded, even though he didn’t.
“You’re so quiet! Whose boy are you?” Robert Senior elbowed him in the ribs. “Say ‘Yes, sir.’”
His side smarted. “Yes, sir.”
“Anyway, the USA gets there and we’re prepped for a long fight, but the Kuwaitis treated us like heroes,” Robert Senior continued. “Miles of desert and surrendering Kuwaitis. They’d give their guns right over, smilin’ away. You’d bring some lollipops and pencils for the kids. They’d hug your legs.” He slurped his milkshake. “So the Iraqis had gotten a prisoner. Daniel McQuaid. Sweet-lookin’ kid with a wife and a baby, and while the Iraqis are getting their asses handed to them, they’re broadcasting video of Danny McQuaid, saying America is the great devil and praise to Allah and all that garbage. You can tell looking at the tapes that Danny McQuaid hasn’t had a wink of sleep in weeks. He’s got two shiners and they’ve probably got electrodes hooked up to his balls.”
Robert Senior used the end of his straw to shovel the thickest parts of his shake, so Robert Junior did, too.
“One day we’re sailing through the desert, waving to the Kuwaitis, when we come upon this cave. And lo and behold! It’s Danny McQuaid,” Robert Senior said. “He’s surrounded by Iraqis, but me and my guys open fire. McQuaid was so weak I swung him over my shoulder and carried him, like I used to carry you to bed. Guns were blazin’ behind me. We get out of the cave and there’s sand blowin’ in my eyes. Can’t see anything, but I get old Danny to the chopper and back to the USA.”
Robert couldn’t recall his father ever tucking him in, but that must have been because he’d been too young to remember.
“They don’t release the soldiers’ identities in cases like that. Some people don’t want all the press. I know I didn’t. McQuaid got all the attention. After the war I just wanted to come home and live with your mom, but you know how that turned out.” Robert Senior shrugged. Robert had only ever seen his parents argue. They’d gone to high school together, but the trailer was so definitively Deb’s—her sweaters and jeans strewn about, her boots slouched by the door, her Bud and Diet Coke cans littering the kitchen, her Marlboro Menthols and fluorescent pink lighter stashed with her keys on the windowsill over the sink, her horse wall calendar, her grandmother’s hand-crocheted afghans slung over the secondhand sofa, Oprah and Law & Order blaring on the television. Robert couldn’t imagine his dad ever living there.
“I did meet the president, though. George Bush. Shook my hand, thanked me for serving my country with such bravery.” Robert Senior nudged his son. “That’s what you should do. Enlist.”
Robert’s milkshake was just about gone, a melting mound of chocolate. “I want to be a policeman.”
Robert Senior laughed and shook his head. “A cop? Uh-uh. Not you.”
Why not? Robert didn’t ask. Maybe his dad just didn’t like cops.
When he was a bit older, Robert realized that was the longest conversation he and his father had ever had.
Then came that seventh time. The last time.