Tim O'Brien: The Nuclear Age

“Flashes,” he grunted. “Never heard of such crap.”

I took a breath and tried to hold it. Given our history, I figured tact was the best policy, and so, quietly, I tried to explain that the flashes were just minuscule things, barely worth mentioning, and that my mother and father tended to worry too much.

“Actually,” I said, “if you want the truth, they might not be flashes at all.”

“No?”

“Well, sure, what I mean is, I mean, it always happens late at night, you know, real late, so maybe I’m just dreaming or something. Just dreams. Or else—”

“Crap,” he snapped.

A doctor, for God’s sake.

I couldn’t help it. Instantly, before I could stop myself, I was blabbering away about the flashes, elaborating, adding little flourishes here and there—how it always started with a high-pitched sizzling sound, like hot grease, like bacon on a skillet, and how my ears would start buzzing, and how I’d sometimes see an enormous silver-colored cloud spreading out for miles and miles. Weird rainbows, I told him. And a spectacular purple glow in the sky. Looking back on it, I’m not quite sure why I rambled on like that. To get sympathy, maybe. To give the story some credibility, to make him believe me. Or maybe, in some roundabout way, I was trying to clue him in on the real problem—real bombs, real danger. In any case, it went right over the old man’s head.

“Well, well,” he finally said.

Then he stared right at me.

I knew what was coming.

He started out by telling me that the flash stuff was total garbage, that I should be ashamed of myself for throwing a scare into my parents.

“Next time you hanker for a vacation,” he said, “just go play yourself some honest hooky. No more flash crap. Understood?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Understood?”

I nodded.

But he was dead wrong. I hadn’t tried to scare my mom and dad. Exactly the opposite: I wanted to make them feel better, give them something to focus on. They couldn’t understand the real issue—nuclear war and sirens and red alerts—and so I had to concoct the flashes as a kind of handle on things, something they could latch on to.

It was compassion.

But you couldn’t tell Crenshaw that. You couldn’t tell him anything.

When he was finished preaching at me, he packed up his equipment, went to the door, stopped, turned around, and looked at me for a few seconds.

Finally he smiled.

“By the way, young man,” he said. “How’s your penis?”

Then he cackled and limped away.

Murder, that’s all I could think. For a while I sat there slugging my pillow, but it didn’t help much, so I got out of bed and crept over to the doorway and listened in while he told my parents what a faker I was. I couldn’t hear much, just laughter, but then my father said something about the Ping-Pong table, and a few minutes later they trooped down to the basement.

Barefoot, I moved to the top of the stairs. And that’s when I heard my dad explaining to Crenshaw about the fallout shelter. Except he wasn’t explaining it. He was mocking it. Mocking me.

“Note the briquettes,” he said. “And the mattress. Safety cushion, right?”

Crenshaw laughed like hell, and so did my dad, and both of them kept making zippy little wisecracks. “Keep it down,” my mother said, but then she joined the fun.

“Piss,” I said.

I didn’t understand it.

The shelter was no professional job—I knew that—but wasn’t it better than nothing? Better than twiddling your thumbs?

“Right,” I said. “So piss on it.”

All that laughter, it hurt me. Partly embarrassment, partly anger. It hurt quite a lot, in fact.

The way I was feeling, I couldn’t face my parents right then. I couldn’t stop saying “Piss!” So very calmly, even though I wasn’t calm, I got dressed and hopped on my bike and pedaled hard until I reached Main Street. For a time I just sat on one of the green benches out in front of the county library. I kept hearing my mother’s giggle, Crenshaw’s high cackle. It didn’t make sense. What about the facts? The countdowns and silos—a question of simple jeopardy. Wasn’t my father always telling me to be careful crossing the street? Safety first, he always said. It baffled me. I wanted to scream; I didn’t know what I wanted.

Finally, to pass some time, I dragged myself into the library and moped around for half an hour, thumbing through back issues of Time and U.S. News , studying photographs of bona fide, real-life fallout shelters. They were made of steel and concrete and asbestos, very strong and sleek, and by comparison my Ping-Pong table seemed a little pitiful.

And that made me feel even worse. Miserable, in fact. I’m not sure, but I must’ve sighed, or maybe groaned, because the librarian began shooting edgy glances at me. Eventually the woman wandered over and stared down at my pile of magazines.

She made a soft breathy sound.

“Ah,” she said. “Civil defense.”

I shrugged and turned away, but she leaned in for a closer look at the photographs. A nice-looking woman. Smooth skin and greenish eyes and a thick tangle of black hair. As she bent down, one of her breasts accidentally pushed in against my neck.

She frowned and said, “Frightening business, isn’t it? We tend to forget. I suppose we want to forget.”

“Sure,” I said.

“If you ask me, we should—”

The woman hesitated. I could almost feel her heartbeat.

“But anyway,” she said, “I’m always pleased to see youngsters taking an interest in these problems. It’s a rare thing. Very, very rare.”

“I guess.”

“War and peace. The issues of the day, it’s important. You enjoy politics?”

“Sort of, maybe. There’s other stuff I like better.”

The woman laughed. It was a husky laugh, like a cow’s moo, deep and throaty.

“No apologies,” she said, “I’m impressed.” She paused, straightening up, and I could feel that breast wobbling like water as it moved off my neck. “So then, here you are. No school today?”

It wasn’t an accusation, just a question, and I had the answer. I told her I’d been excused to do some special research. “Civil defense,” I said.

“Crucial topic.”

“It is?”

“A top priority,” she said, and nodded. “On my list it’s number one. The future. Everything. Crucial isn’t the word.”

I was starting to like the woman.

No giggles, no jokes, and that soft chest. For a few seconds it seemed she was getting ready to sit down for a long talk—I hoped she would—but then she reached out and tapped my knee and said, “Good luck with the research. And if you need help, just pipe up. I’m always here.”

Help, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. Instead I watched her move back to the circulation desk, all hips and breasts and brains.

For another twenty minutes I skimmed through more magazines, wasting time, wondering if maybe I should head for school. It hardly seemed worth the effort. Besides, I didn’t know if I could take it. There was a queasy feeling in my stomach, and my head hurt—not enough oxygen or something—and when I closed my eyes, things seemed to press in on me. My ears hummed. It wasn’t really a sound, just a dense heaviness as if I were sinking deep under water, a pressurized silence, and then, in the empty center of that silence, I heard somebody whimper.

I nearly laughed, but I didn’t, because I was sobbing.

I didn’t actually cry. But the whimpering sound got louder, and I kept telling myself to shut the hell up, kept trying to swallow, and then I felt something break open inside me, like a water balloon, and then I was sniveling and carrying on like a baby, like a little kid.