Todd Strasser: Fallout

“What does that mean?” asks Mrs. Shaw.

“Anything over fifty roentgens will cause radiation sickness. Anyone who goes out there will be sick within hours and dead within days.”

When Dad came back into the bedroom, he was still wearing his suit and wasn’t carrying the paddle. “We’re going to the Lewandowskis’.”

“Noooo!” I wailed, instantly filled with a different sort of dread; the only thing worse than physical pain was the pain of embarrassment. Now I knew where he’d gone when he left the room — to call Mrs. Lewandowski.

“Yes,” Dad said firmly. “I want you to apologize.”

“Can’t I call?”

“In person.” Dad’s tone invited no more arguing.

This was the worst, most humiliating thing ever. Not only because I’d have to apologize to Mrs. Lewandowski, but because Linda was pretty and blond… and I had a crush on her that was so secret even Russian torturers wouldn’t have been able to beat it out of me. Just being near her made me nervous and tongue-tied. The thought of going over there to apologize was unbearable.

“How about you just spank me?” I begged.

Dad’s mouth fell open. “Are… you serious?”

I nodded. A spanking would hurt more, but once it was over, you forgot about it. But I saw Linda every day in school. If I did what Dad wanted me to do, I was doomed to a lifetime of embarrassment.

Dad takes a radio from the shelf and sits down with Sparky and me. He turns the dials. Between gaps of nothing come static and noises like sound bending. He goes back to the static and fiddles around, but all he gets is crackling, scratchy noise.

“What about the Civil Defense channel?” Mr. McGovern asks.

“Tried it.” Dad turns the dial. There’s nothing. How can this be a war? No explosions. No shots being fired. Not a sound from above.

After he snaps the radio off, it’s silent except for Paula’s sniffs. It feels like a long time has passed, but it can’t be more than an hour or two since Dad picked up Sparky and carried him down the hall to the playroom. Sparky yawns and rubs his eyes. I can’t believe he’s actually sleepy. Maybe he’s too young to really understand what’s happened.

So far Ronnie and I have avoided looking at each other. Last night, just a few hours before Dad shook me awake, Ronnie and I had the first fistfight of our lives. It happened on the way back from having birthday cake at Why Can’t You Be Like Johnny?’s house, and now I don’t know whether to still be angry at him or just try to forget. It seems crazy to be mad at each other now that World War III has started, but I can’t help feeling a little sore at him, and I wonder if Ronnie feels sore at me, too.

Sitting with his parents just a few feet away, Ronnie shakes his head as if he’s trying to fight drowsiness. Like me, he’s probably afraid that something bad may happen while he’s asleep.

Sparky yawns again, then lays his head down on Dad’s lap. His yawn makes me want to yawn, too, but I cover my mouth and try to fight it.

“Maybe you should get some sleep, Scott,” Dad says.

“I don’t want to.”

“I think you do. It’s okay. You need to rest.”

Dad slides his arms under Sparky and lifts him to the bunk above Mom’s. Then he turns to me. “There’s room for both of you.”

I climb the bunk ladder, and when my face is level with Dad’s, I whisper, “You sure you’ll be all right?”

Dad smiles weakly. “Yes.”

When I’m on the bunk bed with Sparky, Dad covers us with the scratchy army blanket. He kisses me on the forehead, then tells Ronnie he can use the other upper bunk if he wants and Paula can have the one below it. But Paula doesn’t want to leave her dad. Ronnie climbs up to the bunk catty-corner to the one Sparky and I are on. Our eyes meet when he lies down. His mom covers him with a blanket.

The bunk has a small pillow, and I lay my head on it and close my eyes but only pretend to sleep. After a while, I open one eye a tiny bit. Dad must have covered the flashlight with something because it’s dimmer in the shelter but not completely dark. The Shaws and McGoverns are sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall. Janet sits by herself.

In the shadows, Dad stands in the middle of the shelter with his ear close to the water tank and taps lightly with his knuckles. A faint, hollow echo comes from inside. Then he lowers his head and looks down… I think toward Mom. He kneels and disappears from view.

Quietly I inch to the edge of the bunk and look over. Dad is sitting beside Mom, holding her limp hand in one of his. His other hand covers his eyes. His shoulders tremble, and I know he’s hiding tears.

Like a prisoner, I was marched through the kitchen where Sparky and Mom had started eating dinner. Sparky stopped in mid-chew and watched as we passed. I could tell he knew where Dad and I were going.

Outside, the air was cool, the moon big and round in the dark sky.

“What am I supposed to say?” I asked.

“What do you think you should say?”

“I’m sorry?”

“And that you promise never to take anything that isn’t yours again.”

When Dad rang the Lewandowskis’ doorbell, the door opened so quickly that I knew Mrs. Lewandowski had been waiting for us. Behind her stood Linda and three of her four brothers and sisters, all watching curiously. Linda’s and my eyes met, and I felt my insides twist into a knot while my face grew hot with shame and remorse.

I apologized to Linda’s mother and promised I would never take anything that wasn’t mine again. Mrs. Lewandowski said she appreciated it. Then she and Dad nodded at each other as if they’d completed a deal, and my eyes met Linda’s for a second time. When she looked away, I knew I was doomed.

As Dad and I walked home through the dark, I couldn’t help thinking that even though all my hopes and dreams regarding Linda had been dashed, apologizing wasn’t as horrible as I’d imagined it would be.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Dad asked.

I almost agreed but then caught myself. If I sounded too happy about apologizing, he might think it wasn’t punishment enough and decide to spank me anyway. So I tried to sound unhappy. “It wasn’t great. How come you didn’t just spank me?”

“Don’t you think you’re a little too old to get spanked?”

His answer caught me by surprise. I’d never realized there was an age limit for spankings. This was the best news I’d heard in a long time.

Back home, Sparky was taking a bath. While Mom served Dad and me a slightly cold dinner, she asked how it had gone and Dad said fine, and then she left to make sure Sparky washed behind his ears.

My brother went to bed at eight, but I was allowed to stay up until eight thirty. A small reading lamp on my night table provided just enough light to read MAD magazine or its inferior imitator, Cracked. After I was in bed, Mom and then Dad would come in and kiss me good night.

That night when Dad came in, I whispered, “What’ll happen if the Russians drop the bomb?”

He thought for a moment, and the wrinkles near his eyes deepened. “It’ll be the end, I’m afraid.”

“Of everything?”

He seemed to hesitate, then nodded. It made me wonder if he thought that since I was now old enough not to be spanked, I was also old enough to hear the truth.