The Nuclear Age

by Tim O'Brien

  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.

  There was a hand on my neck. Her hand, the librarian’s.

  “Say, there,” she said. “You all right?”

  “Of course I am,” I told her, and I tried to laugh, and then it hit me.

  A funny experience. Way down inside, I didn’t feel all that terrible. I could hear myself sobbing, I could feel the thump in my chest, but I didn’t have that crying urge.

  The librarian hustled me into her office and sat me down and went straight for the telephone. She must’ve known my parents, because she didn’t ask questions, she just dialed. Eyes closed, I listened as she told my mother the whole sorry tale. Dumbo, I thought. Sad and stupid. I could picture my mother’s face, and my father’s, and how their eyes would meet very briefly in panic, then separate, then slowly come together again.

  I bawled until the librarian hung up, and then, like magic, it stopped. Just like that, it stopped. I was fine.

  Stupidly, I wiped my forehead and then stared at the floor.

  “There now,” said the librarian. “Better?”

  She brought over a glass of water, but she didn’t make me drink, she simply sat there with the glass in one hand, the other hand lightly on my knee, and in that deep mooing voice of hers, cool and steady, she told me that things were under control, no problem. And she was right. Now and then I made a weak little moan, but not because I had to, not because I was feeling bad. I did it for her. So she’d know I wasn’t wasting her time. So she wouldn’t take that hand from my knee.

  “There,” she kept saying, “just relax.”

  When my parents showed up, they weren’t laughing anymore. They weren’t even smiling.

  My mother kissed me, straight on the lips, and my dad took the librarian aside for a secret conference. I only heard one word: “sensitive.” A while later he came over and clomped me on the back and said we’d better get home.

  “I’m okay now,” I told him.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he said, “I know you’re okay.” He locked his hands together, swaying back and forth on his heels. “Who says you’re not? Who? Up and at ’em—toss your bike in the trunk, we’ll give you a lift. Play her safe, right?”

  He winked at the librarian.

  It was one of those confidential, between-us-grown-ups winks, but, to her credit, the woman didn’t wink back at him. In fact she frowned, then almost scowled. I loved her for that. I wanted to crawl into her lap and curl up for a long sleep, just the two of us, cuddling, that gentle hand on my knee. All I did, though, was sigh and take a last fond look at her chest, then I headed for the door.

  The ride home was tense. Every so often my father fired quick glances at me in the rearview mirror, jittery and unsure, almost shy, and my mother wouldn’t stop talking about how we really had to do something about that rattle in the car’s engine. She went on and on about it.

  Then a crazy thing happened.

  Quickly, without warning, my father offered to buy me a chemistry set. It popped right out of the blue. At first I wasn’t sure I understood him.

  He was smiling.

  “You know,” he said, “one of those elaborate jobbies. Beakers and bottles and everything. A chemistry set. A
good one.”

  I stared down at my fingernails.

  Fathers, I thought.

  His intention, I suppose, was to cheer me up, to get my mind off bombs and missiles, but even so it was hard to believe. I despised chemistry sets. I despised kids who played with them. Several years earlier, back in fourth grade, one of my ex-buddies used to own one, a chemistry set fanatic, and whenever you went over to his house you had to sit around and go gaga while he performed the dumbest experiments you ever saw—testing nails to see if they really contained iron. The guy was a turd. In fact, as far as I could tell, chemistry sets were originally invented for turds. Toy companies must’ve hired people to sit around and dream up ideas for goofballs like my ex-buddy—weirdos and losers and poor chumps who couldn’t play baseball.

  But my father was enthusiastic about the idea, and all the way home he kept talking it up. It was obvious he had his heart set on it. “First-class,” he said. “A regular laboratory.”

  “Can’t wait,” I told him.

  I couldn’t hurt his feelings. By then I was mature enough, or wise enough, to understand that when your parents think you want something, they get upset when they find out you don’t.

  My father was smart, though.

  “Look,” he finally said, “what do you really want? Just name it.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything, cowboy. Say the word.”

  There was a short silence.

  “A chemistry set,” I said.

  I probably choked, because my dad’s eyes jerked up. He looked at me hard in the mirror.

  “William,” he said.

  “Well,” I admitted, “I could use a Geiger counter, too.”

  Immediately I knew it was the wrong thing to say. My father blinked and squinted into the mirror. He wasn’t even watching the road.

  The silence must’ve lasted thirty seconds.

  “William,” he said, “we need to talk.”

  I put it off as long as I could. For a while I holed up in the bathroom, which was the only place in the house where you could find any privacy. I locked myself in. I brushed my teeth and washed up and then sat on the can and read The Saturday Evening Post all the way through. Finally, though, I had to eat dinner.

  Right away my parents started in.

  “Here’s what disturbs us,” my father began. “It’s this. It’s the way you’ve been brooding. The Ping-Pong table, that episode at the library today. It’s not healthy, William, and that’s what we care about—your health.”

  “Fallout,” I said. “I suppose that’s healthy?”

  My father released a long, terribly patient sigh. “Of course not. Dangerous, I know. Scary as hell. And we understand—we’re on your side, got it? In fact … Hey, now, look at me … Your mother and I, we should’ve been paying closer attention to this—whatever you call it—this whole nuclear thing. Bombs and radiation, it’s enough to scare anybody. I mean anybody. So like I say, we should’ve noticed. I’m sorry we didn’t. Our mistake.”

  He looked across the table at my mother, who nodded.

  “But here’s the point,” he went on, soft and serious. “You can’t let these things get the best of you. You can’t stew in the bad juices. Can’t dwell on all the problems and dangers in this world. When it comes down to it, we all have to keep the faith, just hang in there, because otherwise you end up—”

  “I’m not crazy!” I said.

  My mother’s head snapped up.

  “Darling,” she said quickly, “we know you’re not … disturbed. We worry, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’m worried too,” I told her. “I worry about getting roasted. Thermal burns and shock waves and who knows what all. That junk gives me the willies.”

  “Sweetheart—”

  “And you guys act like I’m bonkers. Like I’m loony or something.”

  My father clicked his spoon against the chicken platter.

  “Easy does it,” he said.

  “It’s true! Laughing at me, telling stupid jokes. I heard you.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  “William,” my father said gently. He closed his eyes, then opened them. “We weren’t laughing at you. We weren’t.”

  “Sure.”

  “We were amused,” he said. “Fair enough? The Ping-Pong table, the charcoal. Just amusing.” His eyes fastened on me. He didn’t blink. “Think about it. Amusing, isn’t it?”

  “Ha-ha,” I said.

  “Come on, now. See the humor? A Ping-Pong table versus the bomb?”

  “Right,” I said, “except I fixed it up. The bricks and pencils and stuff. I’m not stupid.”

  My father almost smiled. I could tell he was trying not to.

  “No,” he said carefully, “you’re not stupid. A bright boy, I’d say.” He paused, absently tapping a spoon against his plate. He cleared his throat. “One thing, though—one thing I’m curious about. The pencils. What are all those pencils for?”

  “Lead,” I told him.

  His eyelids fluttered. I could tell he didn’t get it.

  “Lead, it stops radioactivity. I bet you didn’t even know that.”

  Again, my father tried to stop from smiling, but this time he didn’t quite make it.

  “Ah, yes,” he said softly, “I see.” He made a funny whistling sound through his teeth. “A smart, smart cookie.”

  I grinned at him. For an instant it seemed that I’d wrested an important admission from my father, almost an apology.

  He gazed at me for a long time.

  “Just one tiny problem,” he said.

  “Such as?”

  “Nothing much. Tiny.”

  He looked at my mother. Something odd passed between them, a kind of warning. My mother got up and moved to the stove.

  “Forget it,” said my father.

  “No, let’s hear it. Like what?”

  “Well,” he said. His shoulders were rigid. His hands whitened against the tablecloth. “I hate to break the news, kiddo, but pencils don’t contain real lead. They call it lead, but in fact it’s graphite or something.”

  “Graphite?”

  “Afraid so.”

  I took a bite of chicken and chewed and swallowed. It was the driest, most tasteless chicken I’d ever eaten.

  “Well, sure,” I mumbled, “I knew that all along.”

  “Of course.”

  “I did.”

  Down inside, though, I felt like strangling myself. Graphite, I thought. Parents could be absolutely merciless. They just kept coming at you, wearing you down, grinding away until you finally crumbled.

  “Graphite,” I said. “I knew that.”

  My dad nodded.

  He was a decent man—an ideal father—but for an instant I felt killing rage, the same venom I felt for Crenshaw. That stone-hard face of his. And those eyes, so smart and unyielding. I loved him, but I also hated him. I hated the whole grown-up world with its secret codes and secret meanings. As if for the sport of it, adults were always keeping important information up their sleeves, and then, bang, when you least expected it, they’d zap you right between the eyes: “Hey, dumbo,” they’d say, “didn’t you know that lead pencils are made out of graphite?” It was cruel and senseless. Why not come straight out with things? Bombs, for instance. Were they dangerous or not? Was the planet in jeopardy? Could the atom be split? Why wasn’t anyone afraid? Why not clue me in? The truth, that’s all I wanted. The blunt facts.

  My father’s hands came apart. Only the fingertips were touching. His lips curled: a smile or a smirk? How could you be sure?

  “Anyway,” he said.

  It was bewildering and sad. Sitting there at the kitchen table, I suddenly didn’t give a damn about fallout or nukes or civil defense. All I wanted was to get back to normal. The way things were going, I was afraid I might end up like that ex-buddy of mine, a chemistry set bozo, testing nails for their iron content.

  “Graphite,” I said. “Piss on it.”

  A
fter supper I stayed away from the basement. I helped my mother with the dishes, knocked off some homework, watched the last ten minutes of You Bet Your Life, then went to bed.

  Except I couldn’t sleep.

  I was afraid. For myself, for my prospects as an ordinary human being. It was like getting on a tightrope. You start tiptoeing across, very slowly, feeling your way, but you know you can’t make it, you know you’re going to fall, and it’s only a question of which way you’ll go, left or right. I could either end up like my ex-buddy, a screwball, or like my dad, a regular guy. No other options.

  And the nuclear stuff. I was afraid of that, too.

  Lying in bed, pillow tucked up against my belly, I couldn’t push the terror away. I wasn’t nuts. I wasn’t seeing ghosts. Somewhere out there, just beyond the range of normal vision, there was a bomb with my name on it.

  I tossed around in bed, curling up, uncurling, trying out different sleep positions.

  Perhaps I did sleep. Not for long. A Soviet SS-4 whizzed right over the house. I almost died. There was a rumble, then a whine, then a shrill sucking sound. Far off, the earth’s crust trembled; continental plates shifted in the night. The mountains above town, so solid and ancient, began to groan like the very deepest summer thunder. I held my breath. In the distance, a mile away, a trillion miles, I could hear the sizzle of a lighted fuse. I could smell hot bacon. Then suddenly the sky was full of pigeons, millions, every pigeon on earth—screeches and wings and glowing eyes. I jerked up in bed. I was stunned. I just watched. Against the far window a single fly buzzed and hissed. The planet tilted. Kansas was burning. Hot lava flowed down the streets of Chicago. It was all there, each detail: Manhattan sank into the sea, New Mexico flared up and vanished. All across the country, washing machines kicked into their spin cycles, radios blared, oceans bubbled, jets scrambled, vending machines emptied themselves, the Everglades went bone dry. Oddly, I felt no fear. Not at first. It was a kind of paralysis, the curiosity of a tourist. There were dinosaurs. The graveyards opened. Marble churches burned like kindling. New species evolved and perished in split seconds. Every egg on the planet hatched.