by Mark Bouman
I climbed down the steps and hopped to the ground. Dad motioned for me to get in the other hatch. By then I’d had enough experience with the tank that clambering up the tread, across the deck, and into the gunner’s hatch was second nature. Once I was inside, Dad punched it. The sight of a bus full of astounded kids, their faces plastered to the windows, was the last thing I saw as we drove up the hill toward home.
Later that same school year, there was an overnight ice storm that coated absolutely everything in crystal. Each tree looked like it was made from glass, and even the sandburs had a certain kind of beauty. As we waited for the bus at the end of our driveway, the few cars that passed by sounded different—quieter and more hesitant. I plunged my hands to the bottom of my pockets. My breath came in regular puffs of white that hung in the air before drifting away. When the bus finally arrived at my stop, it didn’t actually stop. Instead, wheels locked, it tried to stop but slid right off the road and into the ditch, the whole thing happening in slow motion.
I knew there was no way that bus was getting out of the icy ditch. I heard Emma give it gas, and the tires spun like the dickens, but she knew as well as I did that her vehicle wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I saw her pick up her radio handset, probably to call for help, and when she did, my brother and sister and I shrugged at each other and started back up the driveway.
The ice made it hard to get back up the hill. I had to keep my hands out of my pockets, and by the time I reached the front door, I couldn’t feel the knob when I opened it. For some reason, I yelled for my father—probably because the situation involved a large vehicle. Dad threw on his jacket and went outside, and I followed him. Looking down the hill toward the road, we could see the bus still resting at an odd angle.
“Huh,” Dad said.
He stepped off the porch and climbed into the tank. The engine fired right up, belching clouds of exhaust into the frigid air, and before he drove off, I scrambled up beside him. We rode down the driveway together, the tank paying about as much attention to the ice as a windshield to a fly.
Dad pulled the tank in front of the bus, hopped out, and walked to the bus door, which Emma levered open.
“Want me to pull you out?”
Emma paused before answering. Normally nothing rattled her, but maybe the prospect of hooking her bus up to a tank was simply too much. At last she shrugged and stammered an answer.
“I . . . ah . . . well—I guess so?”
“Then stay behind the wheel,” ordered Dad, “and steer the bus so it comes out of the ditch gradually. I don’t want to pull it out at too much of an angle, or it might tip over.”
“Okay, but—” Emma still sounded worried.
“It’ll be fine.”
I climbed out to watch the proceedings. From the road, I could tell Emma wasn’t at all convinced that adding a tank to the equation was going to help. She was wearing her believe-it-when-I-see-it expression: one eyebrow raised, lips tight. My father’s tank was big, sure, but nothing close to the size of a school bus. But Emma must have figured she didn’t have anything to lose. If it didn’t work, she’d still be stuck in the same ditch, no worse off than before—and able to blame that crazy Tank Man if anything went south.
“Get the chain from the bin!” Dad yelled over to me, and with numb hands I pulled several dozen feet of chain out of a locker on the tank. Dad maneuvered the tank so it was on the road directly in front of the bus, pointing the same direction, then positioned the chain onto the road between the two vehicles. Working quickly, Dad attached the ends of the chain to the bus’s axle hooks and lifted the middle of the chain up and over a steel clamp on the body of the tank, directly between the treads. Then he climbed back into the driver’s hatch and gave Emma a thumbs-up. She just stared. From where I stood, only her gray, permed hair was visible above the wide steering wheel.
Dad gunned his engine, then put the tank in gear and shoved the drive sticks forward. The bus jerked, and Emma disappeared for a second before sitting back up and adjusting her glasses. The bus shuddered, and Emma spun the wheel to keep the bus from sliding farther into the ditch. The tank was powerful, but the bus was huge, and nothing further happened beyond the morning quiet—and the icy surface of the road—being torn to shreds by the increasing roar of the tank’s treads. Dad was kicking up a miniblizzard of ice crystals and frozen gravel, his tank actually sliding a bit from side to side as it grappled with the mass of County Bus No. 32.
Then, just when I thought the whole operation would be a bust, the tank’s treads dug into the gravel beneath the ice. Once they did, Dad had plenty of traction, and the bus began to move, at first by inches and then by feet. All at once it came sliding out of the ditch, its wheels still locked and skidding across the ice. Dad continued to pull forward until the bus was squarely in the middle of the road. And there it sat, looking like a school bus was supposed to look, like it had never been in the ditch.
Yes! I thought. We did it! Dad motioned to me to unhook the length of chain, and Emma leaned out her window.
“I was worried for a minute,” she yelled, “but thanks, Mr. Bouman! Now I don’t need the tow truck.”
Dad nodded, then spun the tank and drove it back up the hill toward the house. Suddenly it occurred to me: I still had to go to school! Not that I would have anything particularly fun to do at home. With everything outside iced over, I would probably spend the day inside, watching television if Dad wasn’t and doing nothing in my room if he was. I sighed, fogging the air in front of me with a larger-than-normal cloud.
Just then Emma popped open her window and hollered down at me. “School’s closed on account of the ice. Just heard it.”
With that she revved the engine and began to ease cautiously down the road. I watched the bus disappear around the bend until I was alone on the road. I looked toward the house and picked out the shape of Dad’s tank crunching its way up the driveway. He’d left without me. With both vehicles gone, I could hear my breathing. I could hear the occasional crack of a branch breaking under the weight of ice. I started up the driveway, hands out, carefully picking my way up the slick slope. The easiest route was to follow the tracks of my father’s tank.
Dad’s buddy Dale, the ammo man, was a big fan of the tank, and he was the fastest and most accurate reloader, which made him valuable to Dad. One crisp, sunny afternoon, Dale decided to be a good boy and ignore his guns, instead taking his mother for a drive. He’d just purchased a new Toyota sedan, and there wasn’t a single blemish on its pearly white surface. After the drive he came over to our place so his mother, Vera, could chat with Mom—and, of course, he knew there was a good chance he could sneak in some time on the gun range.
Jerry and I were playing outside, and I watched Dale drive past the house, parking his car in an open, sandy area away from anything else. As he and his mother walked toward the house, I heard her asking him why he had parked so far away. Dale said something about keeping it cherry, but Vera was having none of it.
“You’ve been warned not to park away from the house, Dale,” she chided. “I mean, at the Bouman place you never know—”
“It’s fine, Mom,” Dale interrupted. “Just head inside. I’m going to see if we can take the tank for a spin.”
Dad was way ahead of Dale. He already had the tank warmed up and was motoring across the field toward the house. “Ready to go for a ride? Hop in!” he shouted. Dale jogged down the driveway, jumped onto the tank, and lowered himself into the other hatch.
“I’m going inside, Mark,” Jerry said.
“I guess I’ll just stay and watch the tank,” I told my brother. I knew I couldn’t ride in it, but I didn’t want to go inside with the ladies, either. I knew Dad had the throttle levers jammed all the way forward by the pitch of the engine. Whenever he turned, the treads tossed dirt into the air. The ground they drove across looked a lot like a war zone: every scrap of vegetation, from the tallest tree to the smallest blade of grass, had been torn down, twisted up, or ot
herwise mangled into oblivion. The ruts in the ground were deep enough to lie down inside.
Before long, the tank began to head straight up the hill toward the spot where Dad usually parked it, behind the house. He always positioned the tank there so it could be seen in silhouette from the road, with the tank’s twin 40mm guns pointed outward to intimidate anyone driving by. It was cold enough outside that the men had probably decided to head inside and take over the couch, sending the women into the kitchen.
Dad powered up the hill and across the crown, then swung around in a smooth, tight spin. He had done it so many times that the top of the hill, as well as the back slope of it, had a sort of natural road embedded in it, free of all trees and bushes.
Which is why Dale had chosen that spot to park his brand-new, scratch-free car half an hour earlier. Dale must have realized the path Dad was taking, because I heard the growl of the engines drop suddenly, as if Dale had shouted a warning. But twenty tons of moving steel can’t stop on a dime. Dale’s car was a trapped lamb with a wolf bearing down on it.
I heard the impact even over the noise of the tank. When Dad killed the engine, everything was silent for a moment. The next noise was Dale’s voice screaming, “No, no, no! Not my car!” as he clambered out of the hatch and jumped down onto the ground.
“Mark, what happened?” Jerry yelled from behind me. He’d heard the noise and sprinted out of the house.
“Dad hit Dale’s car! Come on!”
Dad was still sitting at the controls, and Dale motioned frantically with his arms. “Back it up! Back it up!”
We stared in awe as Dad reversed the tank, ever so slowly, and Dale’s car began to move backward with it. Part of the tank was embedded in the softer metal of the car, and for a moment it looked like they couldn’t be separated. Then, with a sickening noise of metal ripping metal, the tank broke free, leaving Dale’s car rocking softly on its shocks.
Dad killed the tank’s engine as Dale raced to inspect the damage. The front of the tank had slammed squarely into the trunk, flattening it onto the chassis with the power of a hydraulic press. Amazingly, the rear window of the car was intact, but from there the trunk sloped steeply until it was only several inches thick at the rear bumper.
Dale threw himself onto the ground, face first, and pounded his fists into the dirt. “My car, my car!” he sobbed over and over.
“It’s not too bad, actually,” Jerry remarked, trying to be helpful. We’d seen Dad do some serious damage with the tank. Considering what could have happened, the small white car had gotten off easy.
Dale disagreed, and wailed all the louder. Mom, Vera, and Sheri arrived then, discovering a damaged car and a grown man who was groveling in the dirt, tears streaking his face.
“What hap—” Sheri started to ask.
“Shush,” Mom interrupted, putting her finger to her lips and frowning.
For a minute the only sounds came from Dale, who was curled into a whimpering heap, and the only action was the six of us watching him. It was strange to see a grown man flopped like that, his black hair waving back and forth as he shook his head like a dog.
Finally Vera broke the silence, embarrassment fighting anger in her voice.
“Dale. Get up. Get up.”
He reluctantly climbed to his feet and stood with his head down. His pants and hands and even his face were streaked with dirt. Then he spun and kicked the tank as hard as he could, producing a dull clang.
Then Dale just stood there, the mirror of a little kid who has just had his favorite toy taken away, from the pouting lower lip to the heaves that still shook his shoulders. Mom had made it clear that we kids weren’t to speak, but she hadn’t told us we had to leave, so we hung around to see what would happen.
Dad spoke up at last. “Sorry, Dale. I didn’t know your car was there.” Then he added, “And . . . I have told you not to park there. So . . .”
With that parting shot, Dad climbed back into the tank, fired it up, and backed away from Dale’s car. Then he parked in his usual spot nearby, climbed out, and strolled down the hill. Dale got into his car and slammed the door.
Mom glared at us to ensure we wouldn’t blurt anything in front of Vera, and then Mom, Vera, and we kids walked back toward the house.
Probably no one was more surprised than Vera when, partway to the house, Dale drove up next to us. From the rear doors forward his car still looked brand new, and the engine was humming along quietly. Without saying good-bye to Mom, Vera opened the passenger door and climbed in.
Mom, Jerry, Sheri, and I watched the car bounce down our driveway, turn onto the road, and disappear.
Dale was never able to convince the repair shop that the damage had been caused by a tank, but his insurance company eventually believed him, and that was all that mattered. His car soon looked like new again, and he didn’t hold a grudge against Dad. After all, Dad still had the best private gun range in a hundred miles—plus a tank that Dale still wanted to ride in.
And Dale’s car wasn’t the only victim of Dad’s tank. A few weeks later, a rainstorm turned the ground into a morass. The next night, plummeting temperatures turned the wet ground rock solid. In the morning, Dad climbed into his tank and fired it up, planning to take a short drive around the property. He threw the tank into reverse, not realizing that one of the treads was trapped tight by the frozen mud. One tread immediately began to roll while the other held fast, and rather than backing up in a straight line, the tank pivoted. He hadn’t expected that but figured the best way to break the tank free was to keep going.
By the time he saw the hood of his pickup protruding from under one side of the tank, it was already far too late. The truck was a complete loss. As was our septic tank, which Dad accidentally ran over a week later.
10
AFTER THE INCIDENT WITH DALE—a guy Dad would have said was one of his best friends—Mom said something that caught my attention.
“Your father values things and uses people.”
Mom was right, once I thought about it. Dad did value things. His guns and tank and books and knives and records meant a lot to him. And it wasn’t only the valuable stuff he cared about either. He cared about everything that was his, because it was his. It didn’t matter if it was his drugstore watch or his Sears catalog shoes: ownership meant worth.
He was forever telling us to be careful with his stuff, despite his lack of concern for anyone else’s stuff. He might decide to use one of Mom’s baking pans to catch oil during an engine rebuild and shrug off her anger, yet woe to the one who broke anything of his. He ruined countless things that belonged to others—Mom’s towels and sheets and pots and pans, a sled that belonged to us kids—yet demanded that nothing of his be damaged.
These demands began to be enforced with violence.
“Did you break this hinge off the shed door?”
“Dad, it was an accident. I—”
Smack.
“Did you bend the antenna on my truck?”
“Dad, we were playing, and—”
Smack. He was unstoppable. One blow from his hand—nearly always openhanded and directed at our left cheeks and ears—could knock any of us down. The explosion of pain and heat and noise often caused me to drop like a sack of potatoes. Even Jerry, who was taller and stronger than me, usually crumbled. Even Mom. And the slaps and smacks were landing with greater frequency.
Not on Sheri, though. It seemed like Dad never hit her, for reasons we couldn’t fathom.
So it didn’t take long for the tank to lose its appeal—to become just another thing Dad did at home, like shooting his guns and learning German and always keeping ice cream in the freezer. Cool at first, then something he cared about and we had to be careful with. Luckily for us, the chances of hurting his tank were next to nil.
The ice cream was another story. Dad began keeping the freezer stocked with it, and he forced Jerry and me to fetch him bowls when he was reading on the couch.
“Go get me some ice cream,�
� he’d growl without looking up. The trouble was that our freezer kept the ice cream rock hard, and we couldn’t scoop it out without letting it thaw. The first time I was sent to get him some, he cursed me from the other room.
“What the hell is taking so long?”
Jerry had to fetch it the next night, and like me, he found the ice cream nearly impossible to scoop. Dad stood and waited for him to deliver the bowl to the couch. Once the dessert was safe in Dad’s left hand, he lashed out with his right, slapping Jerry on the side of the head so hard that Jerry’s glasses flew across the room and clattered off the wall. While Jerry crawled over to recover them, Dad sat back down and calmly ate the ice cream. Jerry and I learned to use a thick kitchen knife to hack out the ice cream faster.
All of which proved Mom’s point: Dad was using Jerry and me to get his ice cream, and it seemed like he cared more about his dessert than us.
It wasn’t like Dad was a monster, though. There were bad moments, but there were good moments as well. For instance, the more weapons I fired, the happier Dad seemed.
Dad and I would climb the gun tower and blast away at targets on the hill, and he’d keep feeding me more ammunition or a different gun. Sometimes we’d just go out back and wander around, blasting things.
“Here, Mark. Try the Luger.”
The pistol pulled my hand down as I took it. “Wow, it’s heavy!”
“It’s a German officer’s gun. Now try hitting that old milk can.”
I held the gun up and fired off a round. It felt like someone had punched my wrist and shoulder.
“It’s got some kick. Now keep going at that can—I filled it with water.”
I took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself for the recoil. Boom. Boom boom boom. I kicked up dirt behind and beside the can. Dad watched, his arms folded.
Boom. The can exploded, spraying water in all directions.
