The Tank Man's Son by Mark Bouman Read Free Book Online Page B

and go straight to bed without a word, while other times Jerry might force Sheri and me to clean and straighten for more than an hour, onlyto have Dad notice the smallest little thing out of place, like a single sock on the laundry room floor. Once Dad woke me up to yell about a plastic army man I’d left on the table in the living room, and he stood hulking over me in my bed, looking daggers, until it finally occurred to me to go clean it up.
    Another time, we woke in the morning and went into the kitchen to eat breakfast before school, only to find Dad cleaning a disassembled pistol on the table, glaring at us. He waited until Jerry opened the cupboard to grab the container of oatmeal, and then, quick as a snake, Dad reached out and slammed the door closed.
    “You kids left food out on the counter last night, so it looks like your food will be staying in the cupboard this morning.”
    We trudged back to our bedrooms, put on our school clothes, and went to wait for the bus, earlier and hungrier than usual. What was there to say? We were learning that when Dad said and did things like that, they weren’t up for discussion. Certainly not with him. He’d glare or shout or clench his fists, letting us know with certainty that his significant weight advantage gave him the final word. Not with Mom, either, who kindly and gently told us not to question our father. And not even with each other. None of us had any answers, so we didn’t waste time asking questions. Life happened the way life happened. Most days were okay, but when you ran into a bad one, the best thing to do was keep your head down and wait for the next one. At least that morning there were fish sticks to look forward to in the cafeteria.
    Staying home alone forced us to act older than our ages. With so much freedom and such sporadic supervision, we Bouman kids tended to get hurt quite a bit. Fortunately for us, there was a man named Doc Kramer who ran a clinic in the basement of his nearby home. He looked like a real-life version of Herman Munster, and we were on a first-name basis with him. Between all the junk around the yard and the condition of the house, Jerry and I already had a serious scar collection. Sheri hadn’t escaped the carnage either. Besides getting special shoes fromDoc Kramer that helped her walk more like a regular kid, she’d had a tetanus shot after puncturing her foot on a rusty nail, a burned leg from when she bumped into a hot motorcycle muffler, and stitches for a gash that opened her palm nearly clean through. While Jerry and I deserved our wounds   —because we liked to do things like jump out of trees and scramble around inside the carcass of an old steam engine   —Sheri usually didn’t.
    The time she sliced her palm open, she was simply opening her dresser, and the ancient glass handle shattered in her grip. Mom and Dad were both in town, separately, and Jerry was off by himself outside.
    “Mark. Mark. Mark ! ”
    I dashed from the living room to Sheri’s room, yanking open her door to find her clutching her hand and whimpering in pain. I could tell it was serious with a glance: blood was spurting from between her clenched fingers, covering her hands and dripping pit-pit-pat onto the floor. She was staring at the blood and shivering.
    “It . . . it . . . it hurts.”
    “Hang on!” I said, swallowing bile in my throat. “I’m going for a Band-Aid!”
    I raced to the bathroom and banged around in the cupboard, eventually locating a Band-Aid. I could hear Sheri in her room, pleading for me to hurry. Back in her room, I told her to hold out her hand.
    “Hold still, hold still!” I begged. “Lemme get it on!”
    I opened the Band-Aid and pressed it down on her palm, crosswise to the cut. A fresh wave of blood pumped out of the cut, completely covering the Band-Aid. Sheri was left holding a palm full of her own blood, and it pit-pit-patted over the brim and onto the floor.
    “Call Mom!”
    “I don’t have her