Dad's Maybe Book

by Tim O'Brien

  46

  Practical Magic

  After one of our living room magic shows, as I tucked Tad into bed, he said to me, “You should do something useful with your magic.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like make spinach disappear. And bedtime.”

  47

  An Immodest and Altogether Earnest Proposal

  In furtherance of transparency, to which a great many politicians have lately pledged their allegiance if not always their behavior, I propose we eliminate the word “war” from our vocabulary and substitute the words “killing people, including children.”

  Wordy, to be sure, and maybe a trifle difficult to push off the tongue. But imagine the frank, openhearted transparency that will ensue if we dispense with declarations of war—already quaintly outdated—in favor of more refreshing congressional resolves to kill people, including children. When we revisit Cervantes, imagine how poetic it will be to read: “All’s fair in love and killing people, including children.” Monuments will be renamed, statues will be rededicated. Instead of Sergeant York the war hero, we will honor Sergeant York the killing-people hero. Instead of Woodrow Wilson’s war to end all wars, we will have Woodrow Wilson’s killing people (including children) to end all killing people. It is true, of course, that we may have to resign ourselves to some unfortunate linguistic constructions, as when we retranslate the title of Tolstoy’s masterpiece to Killing People, Including Children, and Not Killing People, Including Children. Musicality may suffer with the redesigned jacket cover of H. G. Wells’s The Killing People, Including Children, of the Worlds. Occasionally, as a means of avoiding the most painful tongue twisters, we may find it helpful to reverse a word order here and there: “people-killing” instead of “killing people.” Thereby, in classrooms across our great republic, children will study the People-Killing of the Roses and the First World People-Killing and the Second World People-Killing and the Korean People-Killing and the Vietnam People-Killing and the People-Killing on Terror. With practice, taking care to lubricate our tongues, we shall surely conquer the oxymoronic mouthful of the American Civil People-Killing.

  Yes, a certain klutziness of expression may be our fate, yet who but an effete fuddy-duddy will not celebrate the salutary effects of my proposal?

  Forthrightness as never before.

  Straight shooting as never before.

  Since we are plainly without shame in our people-killing, including children, why not square our shoulders and also without shame call people-killing people-killing? What is there to fear? A few extra syllables? A few startled English teachers? Instantly, and with invigorating transparency, a hurricane of fresh sea air will blow through our musty old dictionaries—war brides becoming people-killing brides, war horses becoming people-killing horses, war crimes becoming (perhaps a tad redundantly) people-killing crimes. Moreover, as a purely personal matter, I will no longer be compelled to complain about being called a war writer. Henceforth I will be known as a people-killing writer, or, at the very least, as an ordinary writer-writer writing about people-killing and people-killers. My war buddies will be people-killing buddies; my war medals will be people-killing medals; my war stories will be (suspiciously embittered) people-killing stories.

  For our admirals and generals, who understand the importance of blunt, no-nonsense language, it will undoubtedly come as a welcome relief to call a spade a spade and a war a people-killing. Theaters of war will become theaters of people-killing, including children; the US Army War College will gratefully and with soldierly pride rename its flagship course The Theory of People-Killing, Including Children, and Strategies for Doing So. “The Marines’ Hymn,” a title missing from most Baptist hymnals, will henceforth go for the jugular, just as Marines have been trained to do over the centuries. Hymn, be damned. It may only be a song, but it’s a Semper Fi song, and the Corps will jubilantly dispense with the song’s gooey, bloodless words “fight” and “fought” and “serve” and “guard,” replacing them with a reverent “Hoo-rah! Kill people! Children, too!” (Marines are groomed to kill people, not gazelles and ladybugs.) In the same spirit of transparent clarity, the collected correspondence of Grant, Sherman, Patton, Pershing, MacArthur, Rommel, Bradley, and LeMay will require exhaustive vetting. “War is hell” may be fine for ostriches, but “People-killing is hell” zooms up the food chain to embrace our own advanced species, which includes both people-killers and those clumsy enough to get themselves people-killed. Also, after some precision sandblasting, the amended words of General Robert E. Lee will blaze for eons on monuments from Atlanta to Richmond: “It is well that people-killing is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” (Fondness, in this instance, may be partly a function of a good pair of binoculars and a distance of just over half a mile. But fun is still fun.)

  As a corollary to my proposal, the Defense Department—soon to be rechristened the People-Killing Department—will assign new and completely transparent military ranks to its personnel. A lowly private, for example, will become an apprentice people-killer. A first lieutenant will enjoy the rank, pay grade, and perks of a midlevel people-killer, and, in the role of head people-killing honcho, a general of the army will from this point onward be known as a super-duper-expert people-killer. Or something equally deserved.

  * * *

  And let us not ignore the venerable ancients—the Joshuas and Mark Antonys and Charlemagnes of our people-killing history. They too will be among the beneficiaries of my proposal. Pericles’s Funeral Oration will vibrate with greater chutzpah, greater brilliance, as he declaims, “Our city is equally admirable in peace and in people-killing,” for what else could resound through the ages with more evident virtue than killing people? Likewise, the wisdom of Plato suffers not a whit from some immodest substitutive updating. “Only the dead have seen the end of people-killing” loses nothing of the original and gains a nice lurid zing of modernity. Same with Aquinas. Same with Aristotle. Same with Sophocles. Why keep the slaughter secret? After all, we are not killing Muppets. We are killing people, are we not? And therefore let us heed the bipartisan call of Paul Ryan and Hillary Clinton—transparency!

  Imagine how much more forcefully the DEA will wage the People-Killing on Drugs.

  Imagine, too, a People-Killing on Poverty that solves the problem of lazy idleness once and for all.

  And—admit it—the heart gladdens to envision Carl von Clausewitz’s ponderous prose suddenly selling in the millions after it is juiced up with the title On Killing People, Including Children. Fill the book with grisly photographs, lose the Teutonic lingo, and behold a coffee table masterpiece.

  Granted, a few ivory-tower purists may rebel at my proposed overhaul of William Shakespeare’s collected works. The Bard’s spineless and tragically euphemistic cop-outs are too numerous to mention, but here, for the purposes of illustration, are a few revamped outtakes: “the dogs of people-killing,” “the fire-eyed maid of smoky people-killing,” “once more unto the people-killing (including children) breach, dear people-killers, once more.”

  What we lose in Shakespearian beats-per-line we salvage in dying-beats-per-human-heart. If we do not mean what we say, why say it? And conversely, if we must cloak our people-killing in the guise of prettifying simile, and if we must bury people-killing in a grave of weak-willed lyricism, why bother to kill people at all? There is no reason to be bashful. Let each of us, the blushing Bard included, strip away pretense and stand naked before those who would subvert meat-and-potatoes people-killing.

  In addition to refurbishing the discredited plays of Shakespeare, my proposal would require that other canonized works of drama, history, philosophy, religion, fiction, poetry, and film be transported immediately to the offices of a competent linguistic surgeon. Without dwelling on details, the obvious list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  The Story of Civilization (all eleven volumes)

  Encyclopædia Britannica

  Webster’s Third New Internationa
l Dictionary

  TheBhagavad Gita

  The Iliad and parts of the Odyssey

  Beowulf

  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(unabridged, but thoroughly expurgated)

  The Old Testament and much of the New

  Saving Private Ryan

  The Collected Speeches of Joseph Goebbels

  Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars: A Concise Dictionary

  A Tale of Two Cities

  On the Town

  Anchors Aweigh

  and so on.

  * * *

  Once these cultural mainstays have undergone a good attic-to-basement scrubbing, my proposal will pay dividends of the most forthright, uninhibited, and brilliantly transparent sort. From sea to sea, pastors and priests, rabbis and imams, will find it a relief to be rid of the bland, abstract, and colorless euphemism “war.” Now, liberated by my proposal, the clergy will declaim from the pulpit our stirring retranslation of Ecclesiastes: “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for killing people, including children, and a time for not killing people, including children.” Why pull divine punches? Why kowtow to squeamish congregations? Did not the Lord himself command Saul to attack the Amalekites, to “put to death men and women, children and infants”? If God Almighty can go children-killing berserk, why not accept His example as a helpful guide to Presbyterians and Lutherans and, of course, to be fair, discontented Sunni Muslims? Would not Numbers 31:3 ring with considerably more poetic charm if it were to read: “from all the tribes of Israel you shall send to people-killing, including children”? If my proposal takes its anticipated course—and why should it not?—a modern-day People’s Crusade might soon be led by the evangelical inheritors of Peter the Hermit, a determined flock of people-killers, people-killing their way through the holy lands and then well beyond, people-killing their way north to Kabul, south to Sudan, east to the ill-named Pacific, and west to the thatched cottages of Stratford-upon-Avon, where all the wishy-washy euphemisms rose to their pathetic zenith.

  And—delight of delights—how can we overlook the hallelujahs of those fire-eyed literalists among us?

  Who more than they will raise their voices in praise of the strict, word-for-word literalism of “killing people, including children”? No metaphors here! No figurative evasions! If literal means literal, and if literalism is more than a selective convenience, Liberty University will soon break ground for its $8.3 million Center for the Study and Advancement of Killing People, Including Children.

  Immodestly, perhaps, yet with the confidence of blazing, people-killing rectitude, I expect to be on hand for the center’s inaugural dispersal of honorary doctorates.

  To be sure, certain minor but essential linguistic revisions will be needed to fine-tune my proposal. For instance, “battlefield” must be banished in favor of “people-killing field.” A “battle cry” will become a “people-killing cry.” On July Fourth we will gather on the town square to sing that celebrative tearjerker “The People-Killing Hymn of the Republic.” Most such repairs can be completed in an instant. A few will require the exercise of a censor’s bluest blue pencil. A case in point is the Gettysburg Address, a piece of prose that, despite its economical genius, could profit from some extended and uneconomical tinkering. After all, brevity is not everything—not when the stakes are high. With some judicious editing, our nation’s collective pulse will still quicken at the phrase “Now we are engaged in a great civil people-killing,” and at the words “We are met on a great people-killing field of that people-killing,” and at the rhetorically soul-thumping crescendo: “The brave people-killers, living and dead, who people-killed here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”

  The author’s marble statuary, like our hearts, will melt in appreciation. Abraham Lincoln was nothing if he was not Honest Abe.

  Similarly, the word “service” demands our attention. Rather than receiving still another heartfelt “Thank you for your service,” veterans will now pridefully blush at the phrase “Thank you for killing people.” Or at the very minimum, “Thank you for trying to kill people.” Furthermore, in the spirit of linguistic consistency, it goes without saying that the term “serviceman” must be replaced by the more precise “people-killing man” (or woman). And why not? Are we so terrified of the dentist as to call his (or her) office a “tooth spa”? Of course not. Therefore, why shoot our vocabulary full of Novocain when it comes to age-old, time-tested people-killing? Are we afraid we may not visit the office quite as often? Are we afraid of the explicit? Are we ashamed? Exactly the reverse. We people-kill for freedom, we people-kill for honor, we people-kill for democracy, we people-kill for our way of life and for a better and richer and happier and more prosperous tomorrow. Let us summon a backbone! Why stoop to the nitpicking, hairsplitting language of diplomats and negotiators and other such enfeebled and cowardly non-people-killers?

  Along almost identical lines, the term “soldier” cries out for lexical refreshment. Already, the US armed forces and the Veterans Administration are well on the road to that end, substituting the word “warriors” for “soldiers,” as in the recent adoption of the sobriquet “wounded warriors.” However, on the patriotic downside, this glowing honorific may cause problems in the long run, since our famed American fairness might compel us to dignify the injured troops of ISIS and al-Qaida with the same rhetorical sympathy. That would never do. Only a terrorist-traitor would feel at home calling a bearded jihadist a wounded warrior. May I therefore suggest the more descriptively accurate use of “people-killers” when referring to troops of any variety. Thus, back in church again, we will lustily sing “Onward, Christian People-Killers.” Peter, Paul and Mary will sing “Gone for people-killers every one.” (Again, the purpose of people-killing is to kill people, not goldfish.) Along the same lines, my proposal would incorporate slight improvements to the word “fight,” with the inspiring and emboldening result that Winston Churchill’s famous speech will now read: “We shall kill people on the beaches, we shall kill people on the landing grounds, we shall kill people in the fields and in the streets, we shall kill people, including children, in the hills; we shall never surrender.” How could even the dullest, most apathetic citizen fail to take up arms?

  Arms—still another sanitizing term in desperate need of modernization.

  Also: force, struggle, contest, combat, incursion, intervention, hostilities, military means, conflict, and police action.

  With the speedy adoption of my proposal, the Spokane Police Department, among others, will be much indebted to me for having removed its burdensome and expensive worldwide policing obligations. Newscasters will no longer fritter away precious hours in search of heartwarming euphemisms for other heartwarming euphemisms. Down at the American Legion hall, old fogies will no longer swap war stories, or hostilities stories, or intervention stories, or incursion stories. They will spin people-killing yarns. The roll will be called, the flag will be raised, and eyes will moisten as ex-people-killers salute their fallen comrades-in-people-killing. In the nation’s capital, steely-eyed Presidents will lay wreathes at the Tomb of the Unknown People-Killer. In the Cayman Islands, seersucker-suited arms dealers—now people-killing dealers—will do people-killing business with a fresh new slate. In boardrooms from California to Delaware, Fortune 500 arms manufacturers—now people-killing manufacturers—will pop the cork in celebration of steady, upward-trending people-killing revenues. Granted, with all its variants, the term “arms” will take time to eradicate—armed forces, armies, armor, armory, armament—but who except a contentiously ungrateful Norman Mailer could object to a reissue of The People-Killers of the Night? Who but the Hemingway Society would dare deny that A Farewell to People-Killing, Including Children comes melodiously—even bitingly—off the tongue? Can anyone of sound mind doubt that the United States People-Killing Academy will attract a more stalwart pool of applicants after its grand people-killing reopening? Hats will soar skyward; parents will beam; a golden age
of people-killing candor will swiftly and surely dawn.

  All in all, despite pockets of resistance, only the embattled (uh-oh) few will fail to recognize the value of linguistic transparency in a world of head-in-the-sand, avoid-the-obvious opacity. A few tipsy members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars will probably call into question the motives that underlie my proposal, yet even they will soon grow fond of their paper napkins imprinted with a brand-new and attractively symmetrical logo: Ex-People-Killers of Foreign People-Killings. In any event, for now, I look forward to delivering the keynote at the EPKFPK’s annual convention in Tuscaloosa. My people-killing attire—formerly called a Class A uniform—has been dry-cleaned, pressed, and encased in plastic. The standing ovation, I immodestly anticipate, will be thunderous.

  48

  The Golden Viking

  It is March 12, 2017, and I have awakened from lunacy. Almost a month ago, I was diagnosed with influenza, which evolved into undiagnosed pneumonia, which soon carried me away into a hallucinatory dreamscape that even now seems as real as last night’s pot roast. I had been instructed to take fluids and to sleep. I did so for many days, sleeping virtually nonstop, and on a Saturday afternoon in mid-February I seemed to slither into half-wakefulness when I heard Meredith and Timmy and Tad return home from a middle school basketball game.

  As Timmy passed by my sick-couch in the living room, I asked if the food had arrived.