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Old Man
Old Man
David A. Poulsen
Dedication
For my children and their children
and for Glen Huser.
Author’s Note
This book is not for everyone. It is, in part, about war and the savagery that is a product of countries sending their citizens into battle against one another. The results are often horrific, frequently tragic beyond our imaginations. For that reason the book is hard-hitting with scenes of violence and coarse language. Those scenes are not intended to shock readers or to celebrate what, in some cases, may be seen as the less admirable human behaviours, nor is the coarse language gratuitous. The author realizes there will be those who will be concerned about those elements of this work, particularly since Old Man is a novel for young readers. I understand those concerns and offer this advisory for that reason.
Old man, look at my life, I’m a lot like you were.
–“Old Man” by Neil Young
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
–Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Last Month of School
1
My old man ran off with a college student who was studying to be a dental hygienist. He was fifty-two. She was nineteen. I was five.
I never called him “Dad” again.
2
There were three days left. Three days to summer holidays. Three days to two months of freedom. And a summer vacation that was to be like no other. At least not one I’d ever had. Two months of getting important stuff done.
I’d even written out all the things I planned to accomplish. Had them recorded in one of my school folders. I’d be like this totally new me in just sixty days.
Maybe some people wouldn’t have found my list all that impressive, but I was pretty pumped about it. This summer wasn’t going to be wasted on hanging out at the 7-Eleven, practising skateboard moves, spewing one-liners like a comedy volcano, getting acne from eating fast food and looking at every girl with a nice chest that passed by, wishing that once, just once, I could get my hands on them … uh … her.
Those had been my last two summer holidays. And at the time they didn’t seem that bad — especially the girls with nice chests part. I was sixteen, and I could do some pretty awesome skateboard stuff; I knew where to get the best fries, the best cheeseburgers and the best Dr Pepper slurpees; and I got off a ton of one-liners that had every 7-Eleven kid thinking I was one hilarious guy.
I also got horny. Pretty much every day. Tried out some of the really funny lines on girls as they went in and out of the store. Unfortunately I also perfected the art of the opposite sex strikeout. I went 0 for July and August. Two years in a row. Apparently people who didn’t hang out at the 7-Eleven didn’t think I was nearly as funny as the ones who did. Actually, a couple of the girls that I treated to some of my Huffmanian humour had a few lines of their own. Not real funny. Not funny at all really, but they definitely let a guy know what they were thinking. And, of course, we all laughed like it was all killer-funny. That way it looks like they’re laughing with you not at you. Except these girls weren’t laughing with me.
By the way, how does a guy get all the way through grade ten without ever having placed a hand on a lovely lady bump? Not one freaking time. Which is a fact known to no one. All of my guy friends think I’m a fondling machine. Because that’s what I’ve told them.
Anyway, this time was going to be different. I’d even given it a name. I called it The Summer of the Huffman. A summer with a name. Okay, so here’s the list:
1 Win the War against Acne. Wash face twice a day and apply the cream. (I’d bought a bunch of products and had them all lined up on my dresser in my room.)
2 Gain five pounds of muscle. (This is a two-parter.) a) drink a milkshake every day and b) actually use the weights that have been rotting (does metal rot?) in the basement since about four days after I talked my mom into buying them at a garage sale two streets over. The reason for this one is football — I got cut last year because I was too light. I’m five pounds heavier since then, and I figure another five should turn me into the Defensive Back from Hell.
3 Read two novels, good ones, one each month. I figured I’d start with Catch-22. (My ninth grade English teacher, who also happened to be my best teacher, said it was one of his top ten novels of the twentieth century). It’s about some crazy guys in the war … or maybe it’s about how war is crazy, I’m not sure. Guess I’ll find out. Decide on the second novel a little closer to August.
4 Work three nights a week at the grocery plaza. Maybe Saturdays too if I can stand my boss, Helen “Bitch” Boyes, that many times in a seven-day period.
5 This is the big one. Take out Jen Wertz. This has been a goal since the first term of ninth grade when I sat across the aisle from her in social. All of the first four points on the list are tied to Point #5. Get rid of the acne, get bigger for football, get smarter, get richer and bingo — get Jen.
So there it is. The carefully crafted plan for one amazing summer. End result — the new improved Nate Huffman. Oh, and that was new too. No more Nathan, skinny kid with pimples who hasn’t read anything that wasn’t a graphic novel in two maybe three years. Soon it would be the clear-complexioned, almost brainy, football stud with money — Nate Huffman.
And the plan might have actually worked too. But we’ll never know. Because three days before the start of summer holidays — The Summer of the Huffman … my old man phoned.
3
When most people refer to their old man, they’re talking about their dad. I’m talking about my old man. Larry Huffman is sixty-two years old. Which means he was forty-seven when I was born and forty-six when he, you know, got me started. That seems ridiculously old to me, but, to be honest, I figure everyone over about forty should be settling back in a rocking chair with their own monogrammed clicker and staying the hell out of the way of younger people — the segment of society that really makes stuff happen. My segment.
So my mom was twenty-seven at the time she got pregnant — which seems a little more normal for that whole making-babies thing. The nineteen-year difference between her age and my old man’s — hard to figure that one. But I guess it made more sense than the thing with the teeth-babe.
And now he’s sixty-two. Sixty-two years old is something that I don’t get — like sines, cosines, and tangents. What the hell do you do when you’re sixty-two? Your kids are out working and having families, you’re about to retire from whatever it is you’ve been doing for the last forty years, you hurt all over, and you can’t find your glasses. Memo to self — die before sixty-two.
The other thing about my old man is that since he left — eleven years ago — he’s never been back. I hear from him about three times a year: Christmas — you’d expect that, Father’s Day, (I don’t get that at all, it would make more sense if I phoned him that day, which I wouldn’t since the guy sucks at being a dad) … and my birthday. I guess phoning is cheaper than sending a gift … so, a phone call. Except that he doesn’t very often phone right on my birthday, he’s usually three or four days or even a week late. And a couple of times he missed the phone call altogether — which was actually a bonus since a) I didn’t have to talk to him and b) I did get a gift, even though it was a couple of weeks later after I’d pretty much forgotten I’d even had a birthday.
Never