by Trent Reedy
“I’m here,” Andrews said. “Your father wanted you to know what you needed to know when you were old enough to handle it. He wanted you to get to know him on his terms before any of us talked to you.”
“But he told me to talk to Sergeant Ortiz.”
“He meant after you’d read the letters. And Ortiz didn’t make it.”
“I know he didn’t make it,” I said. “So now I have no idea who is sending me the letters or how many more are coming or how and why my father died, and nobody will tell me anything! It’s not fair!” I felt like a whiny little kid saying it, but it was the truth.
“I know it’s not fair. Believe me, I know. But we all promised your father it would be like this, the way he wanted. I’ll tell you this. I wouldn’t be alive if not for your dad. He was a great man. Best team leader I ever had. As for the rest, you’ll have to figure that out when your father and the man sending the letters want you to figure it out.”
“Is there anyone else who could …” My throat caught.
“Everyone who knows what you want to know promised your father that we’d let you get through all his messages first, and we promised to let the man sending the letters do this his own way. In the Army, we keep promises. We just have to.”
He sounded so final. I would have to wait and hope Dad would explain everything. Hope the sender or someone else would answer my questions someday. “Thanks.” I sort of choked the word out. “Thanks for your time.”
“Tell you what, buddy. After you get the last message from your father, if you still have questions, feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to talk to you then, okay?”
I nodded like an idiot until I remembered I was on the phone. “Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”
I hung up the phone, closer to answers than I’d ever been before and yet totally shut down. I could forget tracking down any other soldiers Dad served with, and asking around town about MacDonald wouldn’t do any good either. Even if they knew him and he was the one I was looking for, I couldn’t just ambush him and demand answers. I was stuck waiting, and as frustrating as that might be, that’s the way it was. I went to my attic, reread Dad’s letters, and wondered.
Mom had complained a little about the Falcon when she noticed it Sunday afternoon, saying the truck looked unsafe, it cost too much money, I should have asked her about such a big purchase, I was too inexperienced, blah blah blah. I pointed out that I always wore my seat belt, and I would be much safer driving to work in my truck instead of riding my bike, especially at night. Mary weaseled her way in, saying I could drive her to school and to the upcoming junior high skating party. I promised I’d work more hours to pay for the extra insurance, gas, and maintenance, and I threw in the offer to take the truck to Arnath Auto for a full safety inspection.
Mom rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “It’ll be another expense, but if you get it checked out and can handle the responsibility and the costs, you can keep it.”
So on Monday, I grinned as I sat behind the wheel on my very first drive to school. Even Mary riding along couldn’t ruin the morning. I’d tucked Dad’s Army bag and hard drive safely into my backpack, so that in fifth-hour study hall, I could at last watch the video letters.
“I’m sorry I didn’t bring my computer today,” Isma said when we met in our usual corner in the library, after I told her what was going on. “Why don’t you ask Mrs. Potter if you can hook that thing up to one of the school computers?”
“I don’t want to watch them right out in the middle of the library,” I said.
She squeezed my hand. “She has a computer in her office. Maybe she’d let you use that.”
“You want to come watch them with me?”
Isma smiled and leaned against me. “Oh, no. These are between you and your father. I don’t want to intrude.”
I looked into her dark eyes. “You could never be an intrusion.”
“Maybe some other time,” she said. “For now, go ask Mrs. Potter. You’re wasting viewing time.”
“Is there something I can help you with?” Mrs. Potter said with a smile as I approached the circulation desk.
I pulled the hard drive from my backpack. “I need to use a computer to watch some videos I have on here.”
“What kind of videos?” she asked.
I could have made up some story, but Mrs. Potter was one of the coolest teachers in the school. Besides, I had the feeling that the truth would work a lot better to get what I wanted. “I think these are videos my father made for me while he was in the war,” I said. Then I added (idiotically), “Before he died.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Potter became quite serious. “Well, you can use the computer in my office.” She pointed to a door behind her circulation desk. “The computer should be on. If the catalog program is up, just minimize it. Do you know how to hook that thing up?” I nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Stacks of old books crowded Mrs. Potter’s office, and READ posters showing old athletes, authors, and movie stars reading or holding books covered the walls. On her cluttered desk sat a white plastic teardrop-shaped eMac, old but still functional, like most of the computers at Riverside High.
Once I’d set the hard drive up, I booted it, and in a few seconds an icon labeled Mark Wilson’s Videos for Michael Wilson popped up on-screen. I double-clicked the icon and a folder opened up, showing four files, labeled Video 1, Video 2, and so on. Only four videos. Why couldn’t Dad have made more? I had hoped for a video clip or at least a text file from the Mystery Mailer, but I should have known better. I knew how lucky I was to have any letters or videos at all.
I double-clicked Video 1 and a QuickTime player popped up with an image frozen in it.
“Oh,” I whispered. “Hi, Dad.”
Although my father sat in a dark room, I could see him there in the little video window, just like I remembered him. He was wearing his tan desert-camouflage army uniform. He looked right at me, waiting to talk to me as if he were alive again.
I found the play button at the bottom of the window. All I had to do was click that little triangle, and I could hear my father’s voice.
I moved the cursor over the play button and stopped.
In the file window, this first video had a “date modified” date of December 25, 2004. Date modified? Did that mean Dad changed the video file on that date, or was that when he filmed it? The second video was modified on May 1, 2005. The one after that was dated July 22. The date of the last video was August 28, 2005, the day my father died. This was it, then. There would be no more videos or letters.
Could I just watch all of these in a row and learn everything? The answers to all the questions I would have liked to ask my father? Would these videos give me any clues about how he died, or why he had to die?
No. That was stupid. How could he make a video after he died to explain how it happened? Unless maybe he’d been wounded and made the final video on his deathbed. But would I want to see him like that, all shot up, or cut from blast shrapnel?
I clenched my fists, breathing out through my nose. The one person who might have the answers I needed, the guy who had sent all this stuff, refused to come forward and talk to me.
There on-screen, Dad stared at me with this pleading look in his eyes, almost like the ghost of Hamlet’s father calling to his son. It was as if he wanted to be heard, as if he had been waiting for this moment for the last seven years.
I clicked the play button.
Dad leaned forward out of the shadows so that I could see him more clearly in what must have been moonlight shining in through the windows. He flashed a quick nervous grin. “Merry Christmas, Michael,” he said. “It’s Christmas Eve night.” He pressed a button on his watch and brought it up so he could see it, casting his face in a dim, sickly green light. “Zero one forty-five hours. I guess that makes it Christmas Day. Hey, one less day to be stuck in the war. I have a hundred and fifty-five days left in this place. One fifty-five sounds
better than one fifty-six, doesn’t it?”
He ran his hand back over his buzzed short hair. “Sorry. I know I already wrote about this in a letter, but it is so weird for me to talk to my son in his future, knowing it means I don’t have a future. It’s not like I intend to die. But obviously I did, or I will, if you are watching this video now.”
Dad unbuttoned a pocket on his chest and pulled out a small, narrow cigar. Then he flicked a lighter and puffed the cigar to life. “Son,” he said as he exhaled a blue-white plume, “don’t smoke. It’s stupid.” He coughed and laughed. “And if you do smoke, choose something better than these horrible cheap cigars. A guy in my team, PFC Gardner, wrote to the company to order more of these rotten things through the mail. He told them he needed the smokes to stay awake on guard duty. Instead of selling him a few packs, the company sent six dozen. He said he would die if he smoked all of them, so now we have plenty.” He stopped and took a drag on the cigar.
I couldn’t believe Dad was smoking. I’d never even tried it because Mom lectured me against it so much. She said some of the people at the nursing home where she worked would spend the rest of their lives hooked up to oxygen machines because of emphysema. The cigar company supported the troops by sending them a product that could kill them. If they survived the war, that is.
“Sorry,” Dad continued. “Smoking is the last thing that’s on your mind right now, I hope. I don’t have a lot of practice at making death videos, I guess.”
When he leaned back in his chair, he melted into the shadows, and I could see him even less. He was quiet so long that I had to move the pointer on the screen over the bottom of the video window to make sure it was still playing.
“We had church service tonight. Chaplain Carmichael, our task-force chaplain, was supposed to fly out to spend Christmas here in Farah, but his flight got scrubbed. First squad was out by the landing pad for hours in Humvees, providing security for a flight that didn’t show up. Worse, our mail was supposed to be on that Chinook. We haven’t had mail in several weeks. A lot of guys were expecting a few Christmas presents in that shipment.”
The sound of a sigh came out of the dark. “So we had worship like we usually do, by ourselves on the nice Afghan furniture in the CMOC. Our interpreter, Shiaraqa, joined us. His father had invited us to supper one night during Ramadan, so we thought we’d show him a little bit of Christmas. Turns out the birth of Jesus is in the Koran. Some of their ideas are different, like there’s no manger or bright star or anything, and it’s just Mary without her Joseph in their version, but we just set all that aside and worshipped God. The same God. I wish the world could stop fighting and we could all get along as easily.”
He leaned forward, back into the light. “I want you to know that’s why I’m over here in this war. We’re going to beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda so that kids like you and Mary can grow up in a country where you won’t have to live in fear of terrorist attacks. I mentioned PFC Gardner. He’s a soldier, but he’s as young as an American can be and still be in the war. He’s like eighteen or nineteen, I can’t remember. My point is he’s a kid, just two or three years older than you are right now. He wants to be in college learning to be a writer or a reporter or something. Instead he’s stuck in this war.
“I’m over here, Michael, because I want you and Mary to live in an America that’s at peace. No more kids like Gardner spending Christmas away from their families. No more kids back home missing parents and siblings who are in the war.”
There was a blur in the viewer window. I looked closer. The screen showed the desert at night, lit up by the moon and stars.
“The last letter I wrote you was months ago. I think I talked then about the Army giving you time to notice nature. Beauty. I don’t know if this camera is picking it up right, but out there tonight is a bright full moon and more stars than I’ve ever seen back home.”
There was a very long pause, and the view flipped back to him in the dark. “I used my satellite phone time to talk to your mom and you and Mary tonight. We normally get five minutes per week, but they gave us each ten for Christmas. Do you remember talking to me? You were so excited about Santa Claus. I had to explain to you that Santa couldn’t bring me home for Christmas.” He sighed. “Your mom was upset. Crying. Sad about me being gone for the holiday. Mad at me for reenlisting in the first place to get stuck in this war. I don’t know. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I guess I was wrong. If you’re watching this video, that means the last Christmas I ever had with you was last year. You were just seven years old.” He didn’t say anything for a long time. There was a sniffle, and when he spoke again, his voice was shaky. “Guess this is my last Christmas.”
A pop and static sound came from somewhere, then I heard a different voice sounding just a bit flat — probably coming over a radio. “All towers, all towers, this is your corporal of the guard. I’d like to wish all you guys a merry Christmas. I know everybody’d rather be back home now, and I know it gets lonely on the overnight guard shift, but I figure that thousands of years ago, and not nearly as far away as it usually is, Jesus Christ was born in a place a lot like this, maybe on a night just like tonight.”
“That’s Corporal Andrews,” my dad said. “He’s not supposed to be on the radio that long. The radios are supposed to be business only.” He shook his head. “Staff Sergeant Pratt will probably throw a fit about this. I should make Andrews do push-ups or something as punishment, but I figure it’s Christmas, and I’m kind of tired of being a team leader right now.”
Corporal Andrews went on. “So, here’s a present for you all.” He began to sing in a low, beautiful voice.
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant, so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
“There you go, boys,” said the corporal. “Merry Christmas.”
The radio squawked. “C-O-G, this is position two. That’s a good copy, position two out.”
“Roger that, C-O-G,” another voice said. “Position nine out.”
“Merry Christmas, Michael.” Dad’s voice was a wavering whisper from off camera.
The video stopped. I bit my lip and blinked to clear my eyes. The bell would ring soon. I guess that was enough videos for today.
That day at lunch, Hamilton and Cody joined Gabe, Ethan, and me at our table. They used to sit with Rhodes, and I enjoyed his angry look as he walked past my full table to sit at a much emptier one with Clint and Adam.
The guys were still talking about Friday’s game against Traer. “I thought there was no way I could catch up with him,” Hamilton said. “But I couldn’t just let him score, so I found some way to run faster, and I took him down.”
“Seriously, though. Stopping that touchdown was so important,” Ethan said with his corn dog in one hand.
Monty snatched the food from him as he sat down. “You going to eat this or play with it?” He tossed it back on Ethan’s tray while everyone laughed.
“The best was Wilson, though,” Cody said. “Jumping up in the air. Bam! Catching it like an NFL star or something.”
I shook my head. I’d never realized how much time the football guys dedicated to talking over the games. They all said similar things about how great some play had been, how they worried that we wouldn’t have pulled off the win if we’d gone to overtime. Usually, I loved being part of it all. But today my thoughts kept being pulled back to Dad and how sad he’d been in his video.
After lunch, the composition class had come to the library to use all the computers in the main lab, with one extra student being forced to use Mrs. Potter’s office computer. When Isma and I went to our corner, we found Denny Dinsler there, facing the back wall with note cards in his hand, speaking quietly.
“Denny?” Isma said.
He looked surprised when he spun around. “Sorry,” he said. “I �
� I know this is kind of y-your spot, but I couldn’t … find a better place to p-practice.”
“What are you working on?” I asked.
“I know it s-sounds crazy.” The guy was clearly fighting against his stutter. “But I’m practicing for … speech contest.”
“That’s great,” Isma said.
“What’s your speech about?” I asked.
Denny shrugged. “About how I’m g-going to beat my stutter.” He smiled. “Believe it or … not, I’m getting better. But I’ll get out of your way.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’ll go somewhere else. Good luck, man.”
* * *
The next day, Mrs. Potter needed to use her computer, so I couldn’t watch the rest of the videos then either. Instead, I headed back to the library after football practice. About a dozen women were holding their book club meeting in the padded chairs near the magazines.
Mrs. Potter spotted me and joined me by the doors. She frowned and whispered, “Is there anything I can help you with?”
I pulled the hard drive from my backpack. “I was wondering if I could watch more of my father’s videos.”
“Oh,” she said. “Of course.” She motioned toward her office.
I hooked up the hard drive and clicked play on the next video.
Dad sat in a blue plastic chair in front of a white wall — in the guard tower again, but this time bright sunlight filled the room. He slowly ran his hands down over his face. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “It’s May first, 2005. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written a letter or made a video, but I’ve been really busy with missions and with keeping the guys in my team in line. I swear I never stop playing the ‘what stupid thing will Fast Freddy do today’ game.”
He pulled a cigar from his pocket, flicked a lighter, held the flame to the end, and puffed the cigar to life. “So, we’re supposed to have twenty-eight days left in Afghanistan. ‘One year, boots on the ground,’ they told us. Okay. I can do that. I’ve been counting down the days even way back in the months of training in Texas. Every morning, the first thing I do is cross one day off the little homemade calendar I keep in a notebook in my pocket.”