Old Man

by David A. Poulsen

  Jen stood up. “I’m leaving.”

  I took her hand, pulled her back down into her chair. “Okay, listen, I’m sorry. I guess I’ve never been dumped before. Mostly because I’ve never had a girlfriend before. And I definitely have never had a girlfriend who already had a boyfriend before.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “You’ll have lots of girlfriends, Nate.” If that was her attempt at making me feel better, it didn’t work.

  “What I said before …” Jen looked at me. “That night was my fault. I shouldn’t have led you on. And I shouldn’t have —”

  I held up a hand to stop her. “It doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like we were going to see each other. Probably in a few weeks we wouldn’t have even kept texting. Or sending emails.”

  “Probably.”

  “Anyway, eat your burger. I promise I won’t be a jerk anymore.”

  We ate our burgers — actually, she ate hers, I only had a couple of bites of mine. We talked about what we’d do when we got home; I made a joke about Aussie Rules Football. I can’t remember it, but I don’t think it was that funny, and that was it. We went outside, had a friends hug (totally boring), and then we walked off in opposite directions.

  After I’d gone a little ways, I turned back and yelled, “Give my best to Roger,” but I think she was too far away to hear me. If she did, she didn’t turn around.

  I took quite a while getting to the Rex. I walked slowly and took a long route back. I went up to the room. The old man wasn’t there, but he’d left a note that he was up on the roof. I decided that it wouldn’t be a bad way to spend my last night in Saigon.

  When I got up there, he was sitting with a drink in his hand staring out at the sunset.

  “Hi,” I said as I sat down.

  “Hey, how did it go? I didn’t think I’d see you until late.”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked back at the sunset, and I watched too for a few minutes.

  “You want something to eat?”

  I thought about it. “I want a steak, and I want a beer.”

  He looked at me. “You’re either celebrating, or she dumped you. That isn’t the face of a man who is celebrating.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend. Roger.”

  “Roger.”

  “That’s what I said when I heard it too.”

  He waved to the waiter who started toward our table. “How do you like your steak?”

  “I don’t know. Sort of well-done, I guess.”

  When the waiter got there, the old man ordered a steak, medium well, another of whatever it was he was drinking, and a beer. No questions asked. By him or the waiter.

  We sat with our drinks looking at the sunset. My steak came, and I worked away at it. I wasn’t used to going to restaurants for steak, but if this was what it was like, I could do it a lot more.

  Neither of us said much for a while. I was almost finished eating when he turned to me and said, “Whoever it was who said ‘all’s fair in love and war’ was full of crap on both counts.”

  The sun dropped lower in the sky to the west. I set my knife and fork down. “Can I ask you something?”

  The old man turned to look at me. “Sure.”

  “What if you’d never been in the war? I mean there were lots of guys who weren’t. Some of them even went to Canada, so they wouldn’t have to fight. And you were already in Canada and went anyway.”

  “Yeah, that’s about how it was.”

  “Do you ever wish you’d never been in the war? I mean it’s not like World War Two, where the whole world had to stop the Nazis or it was all over. I mean in this war … you said yourself you didn’t really know what you were fighting for … and you guys lost.”

  He set his drink down and seemed to think about what I’d asked him.

  “Nate, Vietnam was a bad deal. It shouldn’t have happened. Like a lot of wars shouldn’t happen. But one thing I learned. Once you’re in a firefight or on a search and destroy or getting the shit kicked out of you on a hill with a number for a name, you aren’t fighting for your country or to make the world a better place. You fight for the guys around you. You ever hear that expression about the guys in the trenches?”

  I nodded.

  “When you’re in those trenches, the only people who matter to you are the people beside you. They’re trying to stay alive; you’re trying to stay alive. And you’re trying to keep each other alive. That’s what I was doing in Vietnam. I didn’t know that’s the way it would be when I enlisted. I thought I’d be fighting for my country and my family and my officers and my uniform — stuff like that. But that isn’t how it turned out.”

  I thought about that. Took a sip of beer. “Yeah, I can see how that would be what matters.”

  “Nate, I went to war and did the best I could. It wasn’t good enough, but I couldn’t do more than that.”

  I looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was still staring up at the night sky. He moved his shoulders up and down. “You asked me what if I hadn’t come here to fight. I don’t know. Maybe I’d have been an accountant or taught school. Or gone ranching sooner than I did.

  “I know this. I’d be a different person than the one I am. I know things about me that I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been a soldier in Vietnam. I know that no matter how scared I am, I can still fight. I know that the men next to me on the battlefield can count on me. I know I can see death coming and fight like a son of a bitch to keep it away. That’s going to be kind of important for the next while.”

  We sat for quite a long time. The sun had almost disappeared.

  “And if I hadn’t come here the first time, I wouldn’t be sitting here now with my kid in a restaurant in Saigon, having a drink and a conversation. I told you, it’s like a buddy movie.”

  I smiled for the first time at the joke. This wasn’t a buddy movie, and we both knew it, but it was okay to think about it in that way.

  “Yeah, buddy,” I said. “Do me one favour. Tell me we don’t have to get up at oh-six-hundred hours tomorrow.”

  “That is affirmative. Tomorrow it’s feet on the floor at oh-five-hundred hours.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  5

  The next morning we flew home from Vietnam

  September

  1

  There isn’t much more to tell. When I got home some of the kids asked about where I’d been and what I’d been doing so far that summer. I kind of dodged around it, didn’t really tell them much.

  You’re probably wondering about the five point plan I started the summer with, remember The Summer of the Huffman? In case you’ve forgotten, here they are again:

  Win the War against Acne.

  Gain five pounds of muscle.

  Read two novels, good ones, one each month. I figured I’d start with Catch-22, then decide on the second novel a little closer to August.

  Work three nights a week at the Grocery Plaza. Maybe Saturdays too if I can stand my boss Helen “Bitch” Boyes that many times a week.

  This is the big one. Take out Jen Wertz.

  I’m doing pretty good with the acne. I don’t know if it’s all those products I use or the noodles diet in southeast Asia, but my skin is better than it’s been in the last couple of years. And I haven’t had a headache since I got back. I’m not sure why that is, but I’m not complaining.

  I have gained the five pounds, actually six, which is weird because when I got home from Vietnam, I’d actually lost a couple of pounds.

  I’m reading Catch-22. I didn’t like it at first, but I’m into it now. It’s pretty funny, but I haven’t decided yet who’s crazy and who isn’t.

  I decided against the job at the Grocery Plaza. I don’t know if they’d have hired me anyway after I missed some of the summer. Anyway, I’m not missing Helen “Bitch” Boyes. I got a job at a florist shop. Four hours, four mornings a week loading the truck that makes deliveries to the other stores and some indiv
idual buyers too. I start work at 8.00 a.m., which means that Monday through Thursday I have to get up at oh-seven-hundred hours.

  Jen Wertz has a boyfriend. The bad news is it isn’t me. The good news is his name’s not Roger. I haven’t taken anybody out since I got back, but I’m not as worried about it as I used to be.

  2

  The old man phoned me a few times after we got back. It felt like the conversations were more normal, not like before when they seemed like duty calls. We just talked about … stuff. Sports, music, movies, girls … sometimes Mom. I never asked him how he was feeling. I didn’t think he’d want me to do that.

  Then the phone calls stopped. I thought about phoning him, even dialled the number on my cellphone once. But I didn’t hit send.

  A few weeks after I got home, an envelope came to the house addressed to Mom and me. In it was a deed to the old man’s ranch in Arizona. The deed had my name on it. The old man also sent along a note that said he had sold thirty acres of the Cactus West Land and Cattle Company and set the proceeds of the sale aside to pay for Colleen Huffman to pursue her nursing education and for Nate Huffman to go to university. The note also said that he had given 160 acres to Gilbert Ruiz in return for his agreeing to look after the ranch until his retirement — and to send Nate Huffman an annual report of the ranch operations along with fifty percent of the proceeds from the yearly sale of longhorn calves and quarter horse foals.

  Mom is enjoying those nursing classes. Well, I think she is. It’s a lot of work and she keeps saying how hard it is to study and stuff when you’ve been out of school as long as she has. I told her I have trouble with that whole studying thing too, and I’ve never not been in school

  Some nights we sit at the kitchen table together and do homework. At first I thought that would feel weird, but actually it’s pretty cool. And quite often we finish off the study session with a bowl of popcorn or a dish of ice cream. Not bad.

  A couple of times I’ve told her I’m too sick to go to school, and she should practise her nursing skills on me that day. So far she hasn’t bought it. Last time I tried it, she said not to let the door hit me in the ass on my way out. Terrible bedside manner if you ask me.

  I haven’t been to the 7-Eleven store even once. That’s not true. I’ve been a few times to buy stuff but not to hang out. I guess Vietnam made me different too. Or something did.

  You want to know something weird. There’s this Vietnamese restaurant a few blocks from our house. I go there every once in a while, just by myself. The strange part is that most of the time I have the noodle bowl.

  November 27

  I got a package in the mail. It was from Tal Ledbetter. There was a letter with the package. It was handwritten but very neat. It read:

  Dear Nathan Huffman,

  Your daddy died on November 21. We had a very fine day that day. It was real warm for November so we sat outside in the morning and looked out over my moat. We watched those two cows of mine. We ate some toast and honey. Your daddy wasn’t eating much at the end but he seemed to enjoy the toast and honey that day. We talked about some things and he said he thought you were a fine young man. I told him I thought so too. After a while he said he’d like to go in and lie down. I took him inside and put him on top of his bed. He said he didn’t want to be covered up so I left him like that for a while. He asked me if I’d read to him a bit. I don’t have much to read around the place but I read to him from a Popular Mechanics magazine. It was an article about a new BMW motorcycle called the Motorrad. We both thought it was a very cool bike. I read some more and then when I looked up he had passed away. Real peaceful.

  I spread some of his ashes around this place but I know he wanted me to send some to you. I guess you’ll have an idea what to do with them.

  Your daddy was a good son of a bitch.

  Tal Ledbetter

  There was a small urn in the package. I didn’t know what to do at first. I told Mom that the old man had died, and she cried some that night and was really quiet for the next couple of days.

  I decided what I wanted to do. There’s a place just outside of town that rents horses. I went there one day and rented a horse and rode out over these hills that look back on the town.

  I got out there a ways and got down off my horse. I took the urn and as I walked along, leading my horse with one hand, I spread the old man’s ashes out into the wind. They settled on a real nice hillside with grass and a stand of poplar trees near the top.

  As near as I can remember, this is what I said as I spread the ashes, even though no one was there to hear me: “In Dalat you said you wished you’d really been a dad for me. I just want you to know I’m not mad anymore that you weren’t. I would have liked to have a dad who was around more, but I’m doing okay. I’m real glad we had some time last summer to do stuff. Dads make their kids laugh. You made me laugh. Dads do stuff with their kids. You rode elephants with me and took me to a crazy house and walked through the jungle with me. I guess some dads even give their kids condoms. I’ve still got mine, by the way. And dads teach their kids stuff. You taught me a lot in Vietnam. I won’t forget that. And I won’t forget you … Dad.”

  Acknowledgements

  A number of people helped make this book possible. I am indebted to Glen Huser and Susan Juby, both wonderful writers, for their support and insights. I am grateful to all of my Japanese and Korean friends for their hospitality and especially to Mary, Yoshi, Harumi, and Yuko at St. Mary’s International School in Tokyo for their help with my research and for their encouragement. My agent, Arnold Gosewich, and editor, Sylvia McConnell, have again been wonderful to work with. Most of all, I have been fortunate to have Barb as (what Stephen King calls) my Ideal Reader. And finally, to all of those, on both sides, who sacrificed so much in the Vietnam War, you were very much in my thoughts as I wrote this book.

  Copyright © David A. Poulsen, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Editor: Sylvia McConnell

  Design: Laura Boyle

  Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Poulsen, David A., 1946-

  Old man [electronic resource] / David A. Poulsen.

  Electronic monograph.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-0549-4

  I. Title.

  PS8581.O848O54 2012 jC813’.54 C2012-903216-6

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

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  Also by David A. Poulsen

  Billy and the Bearman

  978-0929141480

  $7.95

  A dramatic turn of events unites twelve-year-old Billy Gavin and seventeen-year-old John “Bearman” Redell, two boys from seemingly different backgrounds who discover that they in fact have a great deal in common — they are both runaways. Together, alone against nature in the rugged Alberta wilderness, they begin to deal with the demons of their pasts. When the news of a downed plane and a missing rodeo cowboy in the woods and mountains ne
arby reaches them, Bearman, an expert tracker who knows the woods like the back of his hand, becomes obsessed with the thought of finding the lost man. The boys find themselves faced with the greatest challenge of their lives. Do they have the courage to find the missing man? More importantly, will this adventure give them the self-confidence they need both to outrun the past and to embrace the future?

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  Definingcanada.ca

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