Hardcore Life

The military command decided. A hole where a house once stood. George watched his daughter eat her cereal. In a world so intense, he thought. In a world so full of death and dying. The photograph on the front of the newspaper showed the crater from the blast. A 500 pound bomb directed by lasers down the chimney of a house. Boom. Hole. His daughter wanted to know, "Did they kill the bad man?" Who could say? Whatever had been there once was gone. DNA experts were en route, but he wouldn't tell her that. The day before she'd asked, "When you were young, was there a war?" No, there hadn't been. "When your Gran and Grampa were kids, there was," he'd answered.

He said, "The war frightens her."

Silence? No. His daughter asked questions. He tried to answer them.

"We ask them what they've seen. We ask them what they know," the teacher said. "We ask them about their feelings."

"They say a bad man was doing bad things and needed to be stopped. They know a war is happening. People are dying. They are uncertain, anxious, fearful."

"Daddy!" she called in the middle of the night.

"I dreamed they were bombing our house. I dreamed there was an airplane over our house dropping bombs."

"It's only a dream," he said.

"A bad dream is still only a dream. I'm here now. Go back to sleep."

He sat on her bed, stroking her forehead and wondering about the nights she was with his ex-wife. Did she call out for her mother? She probably did. Tara, his ex-wife, had never mentioned it. Nor had he told Tara, either, about their daughter's night screams.

He asked her, "Is it your anniversary?"

"For our daughter's sake," he'd said once, "I'm not giving in on this."

Tara's roses reminded him that he, too, had once showered her in romance. That he'd once thought they were building something together, something worth protecting and celebrating. That he'd once pushed himself to his outer limits to create with her an A-plus-plus life. And it had actually been A-plus-plus wonderful. Sometimes. Like the summer before they got married. The summer before he proposed. They spent two weeks at her parents' cottage. He later told friends their marriage began then. They spent two weeks wearing little more than their underwear, often less. They discovered the special sex of the spin cycle, sex in the laundry room, sex on the washing machine. The future seemed full of beginnings. The week after Labour Day, they discovered the consequences.

"Why?"

"What?"

"Tell me now."

He agreed to come over right after work. She called back ten minutes later. She couldn't wait. She was pregnant.

"Have the child. Adoption. Abortion."

"I can't imagine giving it up," he said.

He said, "I love you, whatever the result."

Tara said, "I never want to do that again."

"Never," she said. "Never, never."

Boom. Hole.

He never thought he'd yearn for the days of ICBMs. Cold War. Megatonnes. White heat. The Reagan presidency. Simpler times. He wanted to know: What did his daughter think about 500 pound bombs? Could she make sense of the pictures in the newspapers? Did she experience anything more than a cloud of fear? He knew she wanted him to reassure her. All he did was confirm her anxiety. Fear was good. Fear saved lives. We stand for what we have always stood for, except we have changed. We are on the side of right, and we are making a mess of things. Truth is always conflicted, never extreme. To tell a story is to distort. To have an opinion is to create a fiction.

"We try to make life as normal as possible for them."

Q: Mr. President, the war goes poorly. What are you going to do about it?

Q: Mr. President, my daughter can't sleep at night. What are you going to do about it?

Q: Mr. President, I'm falling in love with my ex-wife. What are you going to do about it?

It was a world as old as time itself. A world of suffering. Inspiration. Conflict. A world unsafe for children.

He tried to change her mind. "Look at the way all of the different parts come together," he said. "You've got to stand back and look at the whole thing." He spread his arms as if to say, Here. My garden. My creation. It's good.

Innocence wasn't something he knew how to shelter, though he'd watched his daughter play with her dolls. Had sat down with them sometimes, sipped air out of tiny plastic cups and proclaimed it marvelous tea.

"Not today or tomorrow," she said. "Maybe early next week."

He wore a tie and a jacket.

Two hours later, she said, "I need to go. I have stuff to do. What was it you wanted to talk about anyway? Didn't you have something you wanted to discuss?"

Talk like they used to, is what he didn't say.

But she didn't kiss him or hug him or shake his hand, though he saw her smile a little. Turn back to look at him lingering over his coffee and smile a little. Something he'd seen before, but not in a long, long time.

His mother baked cookies with his daughter and told her stories he hadn't heard in thirty years.

"I don't want to disrupt your relationship with Greg," he almost said to her. But he did want to disrupt it. So he said nothing at all.

Planes into buildings. Anything can happen.

Tara called the day the towers fell.

Their daughter had retreated to her bed and wouldn't come out from under the covers.

"Can I join you under there?"

They stayed in her bed for two hours, her head nestled against his shoulder. Until she had to go to the bathroom.

Anything can happen.

"I'm not."

"No."

"I know."

"Yes. I think so."

What Tara didn't know was, he did have a girlfriend. A woman named Gina. Gina worked at the cosmetic counter five floors below where he sold furniture. Gina helped women paint their faces. She had a philosophy: Reality is the surface of facts seen, felt, heard, experienced through the senses. Yes, it was different for everyone, but it had a solid core.

Gina warned him, "She'll push you away when she's done with you, when she needs to be on her own."

Gina was five-foot-two. She was the shortest woman he'd ever kissed. She wore scarves and trim outfits. She wore makeup you couldn't see.

"I'm a good furniture salesman."

"I'm not pushy. I let people make up their own minds."

"But I still close the deal. That's the hardest part. I close the deal without people knowing it's even happening."

"I almost think I love you," she said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"

Michael Bryson is the author of two books for short fiction, ਀㰀攀洀㸀吀栀椀爀琀攀攀渀 匀栀愀搀攀猀 漀昀 䈀氀愀挀欀 愀渀搀 圀栀椀琀攀㰀⼀攀洀㸀 ⠀吀甀爀渀猀琀漀渀攀 倀爀攀猀猀Ⰰ ㄀㤀㤀㤀⤀ 愀渀搀 㰀攀洀㸀伀渀氀礀 䄀 䰀漀眀攀爀 倀愀爀愀搀椀猀攀㰀⼀攀洀㸀  (Boheme Press, 2000). His story "Six Million Million Miles" appeared in 05: Best Canadian Stories (Oberon, 2005). ਀䠀攀 椀猀 琀栀攀 攀搀椀琀漀爀 漀昀 琀栀攀 漀渀氀椀渀攀 氀椀琀洀愀最 㰀䄀 栀爀攀昀㴀∀栀琀琀瀀㨀⼀⼀眀眀眀⸀搀愀渀昀漀爀琀栀爀攀瘀椀攀眀⸀挀漀洀∀㸀 吀栀攀 䐀愀渀昀漀爀琀栀 刀攀瘀椀攀眀㰀⼀愀㸀⸀ 㰀⼀瀀㸀 ਀㰀戀爀 ⼀㸀
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