Tietam Brown
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Lay down instead and heard the man who usually bounded up the stairs crawl and paw his way up. Lay down while the man who made his bedsprings bounce and his headboard bang simply lay down with a groan. Lay down while my father paid the price for his love.
Love. A word not usually meant for deadbeat dads. But what else could it be? What could it possibly be, if not love?
Like a sleepless child who counts his sheep, I chronicled the labored gasps and groans of Tietam Brown’s breathing, but found no rest. Just a whole lot of questions and a great deal of concern. The concern hadn’t waned, and the questions were alive and well, when the sun warmed my face with its first rays of morning.
My dad, I could hear, was sleeping, his loud snores a welcome relief from the sounds of anguish that had earlier seeped through my walls. I entered his room with great caution.
His face was so bad as if to seem somehow fake, as if a Holly-wood makeup artist had splashed black-and-blue latex on top of his features. His nose was splattered to the right, the blood that had run out having formed a congealed mass that clung to his chin. His eyes were grotesque in their swelling, the twin softball-like lumps giving him the appearance of some strange insect or alien life-form. Swelling that put mine to shame. Swelling that caused me to fear for his sight, for his brain, not to mention his pride, which may well have been the most serious casualty of all. He lay tangled in his sheets, the same sheets that only hours earlier had been lifted to reveal Mrs. Baskin’s body to me. Sheets that were now a canvas to a gruesome smattering of splatters, drips, and stains. A canvas that served to only partially obscure a series of body bruises that made every breath a task.
Antietam Brown IV, I knew, was in this shape because of me. Because of some bizarre sense of honor he felt toward a son he barely knew. But maybe my dad had seen a bigger picture. Maybe the name of all the Browns had been dishonored with Hanrahan’s blow. As if the coach had been among the boars tearing my ancestor’s dead body to pieces on that Maryland field so many years ago.
I stared again at the carnage and had a sudden flash. A vision, I guess. A vision of Tietam Brown standing toe-to-toe with the monstrous Hanrahan, slugging it out, giving as good as he got. I looked at his hands and realized that my vision was not one of the truth. Tietam Brown lay battered almost literally from head to toe. Almost. But his hands, I saw, were without a scratch. My father had gone down to defeat without landing a blow.
November 7, 1985
I was no longer just the kid with the one ear at Conestoga High. Nor was I just the guy who had a girlfriend that was three leagues out of his ballpark. No, on November 7, 1985, I was now the guy who had been beaten up by Coach Hanrahan. Or, as word spread that day in school, “the guy who got what he deserved.”
That at least was the feeling of the Conestoga Togas football team, whose fate in the coming sectional championship lay in the coach’s student-beating hands. But to a large group of students, a silent majority, I guess, word spread about the kid who had stood up to Mr. Hanrahan. Who had actually called him a jerk, took a beating for it, but still managed to make it to school that very next day.
Hanrahan’s threats of the previous day hadn’t left a whole lot of room for interpretation, but I went on with my schedule nonetheless, waiting for the principal, or Hanrahan, or maybe the police to forcibly escort me from the premises.
But the day was flying by without a hitch, and I was enjoying my newfound status as a quasi-celebrity on campus, as well as my status as first-time kisser and first-time breast-toucher. Terri showed up at my locker after second period looking better than ever, and in good spirits until hearing of my father’s disastrous dance with vengeance.
By lunchtime, students were taking bets as to whether I was brave enough, or stupid enough, to show up for history. Most bet against me. They lost.
I’m not saying I showed up with any degree of confidence, but at least I did show. I was sweating, but I was there. A history-loving son of a gun, just ready to absorb some learning from Coach Hanrahan, a master of the subject.
I never heard him coming. Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t sneak up on me and continue his assault, as that sentence might lead you to believe. I just mean that his entrance came without fanfare, without the exaggerated clicking of cowboy boots from way down the hall or his self-led chants of “Togas, Togas, Togas” that usually heralded his arrival. No, in this case, it was just Mr. Hanrahan, his mullet and his muscles, closing the door quietly and saying, “Hello there . . . class.”
The football team, of course, cheered their hero, his rep as a badass having been further sealed by his one-punch knockout of a 150-pound kid. A punch that, apparently, Hanrahan had enjoyed talking about a great deal at the afternoon’s practice.
As they cheered, I looked closely for a sign. A sign of struggle. A split lip, a bruise of any kind. Just some kind of a sign that a fight had actually taken place at 272 Quaker Path, instead of a one-sided debacle.
I saw my sign! A bruise, or more accurately a series of bruises, on Mr. Hanrahan. Unfortunately, those bruises were all on his knuckles, which apparently had been injured when my dad hit him repeatedly with his face. Hanrahan’s face, however, was without damage. None. Whatsoever. So much for my dad being a boxer.
“Okay, class, let’s begin,” Hanrahan said. “Today we’re going to talk about Abraham Lincoln’s Army of the Potomac, and some of the key battles that they won, including Gettysburg and Antietam.”
The football team laughed, seizing their cue, ready to pounce on Hanrahan’s already wounded prey.
He continued, “Andy, I thought that maybe you could help us today, seeing as one of your ancestors fought there.”
I tried to detect the sarcasm, but found none. Tried to detect some type of a trap, but came up with nothing. Above all else, I tried to figure out why in the hell he had picked this day, of all days, to call me Andy.
I looked back at Terri, who gave me a shrug. Looked back at Hanrahan, who addressed me again. “Andy, I had a chance to look over your paper last night, and I think that maybe I was a little too tough on you.”
Actually, a C minus is “a little tough.” A punch in the face goes a little above and beyond.
He continued, “You see, class, in history, there is sometimes more than one side to the story. I hadn’t considered another side to the Emancipation Proclamation, but Andy Brown’s paper made me think. I thought that Andy might like to speak to the class about his feelings on Gettysburg or Antietam.”
I suddenly knew how the Grinch felt when he puzzled until his puzzler got sore, because when it came to what Hanrahan could possibly be thinking—I was puzzled.
So I puzzled and puzzled, till my puzzler got sore, then said “Okay” and gave the teaching profession a whirl.
“Now I’m not really an expert on the battle of Antietam,” I began, “but I do know that what could have been the North’s greatest victory . . . was hurt a lot by General McClellan, who was on the North, by his uh tendency to overestimate the odds against him.”
And for the next several minutes, my presentation continued that way, a stumbling, mumbling collection of facts, put together in an unprofessional but not completely unenjoyable fashion. Sure Clem Baskin shot a few spitballs at me, which prompted a Hanrahan admonishment of “Clem, stop it now” and “Andy’s trying to talk,” but to tell you the truth, I enjoyed being the center of attention. Enjoyed the laughter after a horrible joke. Enjoyed being seen as more than just “the guy with the one ear,” or “the guy with the hot girlfriend.” But most of all, I enjoyed looking at Terri looking at me, her smile as warm as a pup by the fire.
“Thank you, Andy,” Hanrahan said. “Let’s give him a big round of applause for telling us a little bit about a big battle.”
As the class applauded, and for the next few minutes, too, I watched Hanrahan. Examined him. His mullet—longer than ever. His muscles—bigger than ever. His face—not a scratch on it. Nonetheless, something had changed. I didn’t know what,
but something had changed.
Friday, November 13, 1985
My dad lay in bed for most of the next week, ignoring my suggestions of seeing a doctor. By the third day, he was showing some signs of being his normal self, and by Friday he was as good as new—his swollen discolored eyes and Silly Putty of a nose notwithstanding.
“Andy,” he said, with more enthusiasm than he had any right to be feeling, “have I ever told you how much I love football?”
“No,” I said, “not one time, as a matter of fact you’ve told me a few times that you hated it.”
“Oh come on now, kid, hate’s a strong word. Football is a very valuable part of our culture, and we’ve gotta start enjoying it together.”
“Dad, we don’t even have a television set,” I told him, while wondering if one of the haymakers Hanrahan had tagged him with had altered his thought patterns. In a way, I longed to hear another of his next-door sex operas, just to check on his body’s other functions. He had now gone a full week without a visitor in his room— almost six days longer than usual.
Tietam just laughed. “I’m not talking about watching a game on a damned ol’ television, kid, I’m talking about you and me, father and son, supporting our very own Conestoga Togas, tomorrow in their quest for the championship.”
Surely my father had to be kidding. Just show up as father and son to support the Conestoga Togas? We’d look ridiculous, with our matching shiners, supporting a team whose coach had beaten us both up on the same day.
But he was not to be swayed. “Hey Andy, if not for the team, let’s do it for your girlfriend. It’s the big game, I’m sure she’s gonna be cheering her little boobies off.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or laugh at how obviously disingenuous my dad was being. So I laughed and got offended at the same time, and said, “First off, Dad, Terri quit the squad, and second, her boobies aren’t little.”
“Well hell, kid, let’s bring her too,” Tietam said. “Unless you’re embarrassed of ol’ Tietam.”
“No, Dad, I’m not embarrassed, I just didn’t think that you’d want her to see you, like, uh . . . you know, like this.”
Tietam looked down at his boxers, the cow having poked its head out of the barn, and said, “Hey, hey she’s not going to see me like this. I’ll be dressed to kill when I support my team.”
“No, Dad, I meant, see you like this . . . beaten up.”
“Oh that,” my dad said. “Yeah, I guess you do have a point, but hey, it’s not like we got our asses handed to us by just any Tom, Dick, or Harry. No sir, it was Henry Hanrahan who got us. Two-time all-American, NFL star, winningest football coach in section history. No shame in that, son. No shame in that at all.”
He paused to give a big cheesy smile, and a genuine, honest-to-goodness Arthur Fonzarelli thumbs-up, then gave me a pensive stare. “Andy,” he asked, “why did your girl quit the cheerleading team? I thought she was the captain.”
“Yeah, she was, Dad, she was, but she quit because of me, because of what the coach did to me.”
The pensive look disappeared, and the other guy was back. The guy with the Fonz’s thumb. “Hey loyalty—that’s good, that’s good. I like a girl who’s loyal to my boy. Come on now, Andy, give her a call.”
So I did. Called her and invited her on a date with me . . . and my dad, to the championship game. She questioned my sanity but told me that any time with me was a good time, and then asked if my Dad would show up naked. I told her I couldn’t guarantee anything when it came to my father.
“Oh Andy,” she said, “I was wondering about one other thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked.
“Did you think about my diary at all these last few days, about what it said?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been thinking about it.”
“And?”
“And, I uh . . . think I figured it out.”
“And?”
“And, um what?” I said, trying to sound casual. Actually, I was excited as hell, but my dad was listening and I was trying to be as vague as possible.
Terri interrupted my train of thought by saying, “What do you think about doing it, Andy, about really doing it?”
My heart officially stopped and restarted twice during that sentence, but I swallowed hard and said, “Terri, I think it’s going to be the best feeling ever!”
I may have spoken a little louder than I intended, because Tietam Brown turned around and with a voice that sounded as if he had a wiretap on my conscience, said, “The best feeling ever? Whatever might you mean, Andy?”
“Dad, stop it,” I said, in brilliant whining fashion.
Terri laughed. “What is he, psychic or something?” Then, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Pick me up around twelve.”
Saturday, November 14, 1985 / Noon
I emerged from my house on Elston Court with perhaps the cleanest penis in the continental United States. Hell, maybe the whole world.
Sure, I’d had to handle my father’s ribbing, but I paid little heed because I was confident. Confident that if practice does indeed make perfect, I would be pretty damn close to it when the big day was upon me.
I spent the short trip to Terri’s house watching my father sing his heart out to “Copacabana” and hoping that by sheer force of will I could make those fuzzy dice disappear.
“Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa . . . they fell in love.”
“Dad, who sings this?” I asked.
“Come on, kid, this is classic Manilow.”
“Can we keep it that way?”
“Oh ho,” he laughed, “you got me there . . . Actually I wanted Village People, but it’s not here. Nothin’ like a little People before a big date.”
“Dad, you’re going to a football game—I’m going on a date . . . and please don’t embarrass me.”
Just showing up at the game in our condition was going to be embarrassing enough; a father-son team of human punching bags. I didn’t need Tietam Brown’s unique brand of crude humor making matters worse.
He did his best to assure me. “Kid, believe me, my attention is going to be completely centered on the game. I have reason to believe it’s going to be very . . . interesting. The last thing I would do on a day like this is tease you in front of your girl . . . or talk about the four showers you took last night!”
“DAAAAD!”
“Lifting weights in there, Andy? The old clean-and-jerk?”
Mercifully, the car came to a stop in Terri’s drive.
“Nice house,” my father said. “Preaching must pay well.”
Hard to argue with that. I hopped out of the car and slowly made my way up the walk, admiring the shrubbery as I went and hoping for the best on a day that had all the trappings of a disaster. I rang the bell.
“Well hello, you must be Andy,” a beautiful woman said. A beautiful woman, early forties, with a face as carefully manicured as the Johnson yard.
“Yes ma’am, I am,” I said.
“Well come on in, Terri will be down shortly,” she said. “Well I’ll be, that is quite a shiner you have. Terri said you were in a little scrape at school.”
“Yes ma’am, a little one. Did she say with who?”
“No, Andy, she just said that boys will be boys.”
“Oh.”
“So you’re going to the big game, huh?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“We’ve got to pull for our Togas, don’t we?”
“I’ll be pulling, ma’am.”
“I do wish that Terri was still cheering. What a shame, pulling up lame with only one game to go.”
“Yes ma’am, it is a shame,” I said. Actually, I was a little surprised. Honesty, I figured out, did not seem to be the best policy in this particular house, especially as it pertained to Terri’s boyfriend getting the crap beaten out of him by the beloved coach.
She smiled and said, “That Coach Hanrahan sure has done a nice job with his boys, hasn’t he?”
Mrs. Johnson then offered me a cup of tea.
“No thank you, Mrs. Johnson. My dad’s probably getting pretty anxious in the car about now. He’s really looking forward to the game.”
“Your father!” she exclaimed. “Well isn’t that sweet, a father and son going to the big game. Well I’d like to meet him.”
My heart momentarily froze. Although my powers of telepathy had failed to make the dice disappear, I called on them once again to make Terri herself appear in front of me so I could spare Mrs. Johnson the pleasure of making ol’ Tietam’s acquaintance. And I have to admit, I did momentarily, just momentarily, picture this beautiful, demure woman licking my father’s ass. She was definitely his type; rich, attractive and . . . married.
Unfortunately, my mental powers were a bit off on that day, as I was unable to make Terri appear before me, but I was able to summon her voice from upstairs. A voice that said, “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
I went out to get my dad.
“Dad, please don’t embarrass me,” I said. “And don’t hit on Terri’s mother.”
Tietam smiled as we walked toward the door. He said, “Andy, I told you I wouldn’t embarrass you, didn’t I? But as far as the mother, hey I can’t guarantee nothin’. Wow they’ve got quite a few pumpkins here.”
Mrs. Johnson met us at the door with a forced smile that did little to hide her shock and, I thought, disgust. She opened the door and said, “Well hello, you must be Andy’s father.”
“I sure am, ma’am, I’m Tietam Brown,” he said, and leaned in and gave Mrs. Johnson a firm kiss on the cheek.
“Well, Mr. Brown, that was nice of you, although to tell the truth, I think a handshake would have sufficed.”
“Yeah well, myself, personally, I try not to shake hands too much, you know, for sanitary reasons. People can be a little gross, right? Like say I was out in the car adjusting my sac and then shook your hand. Well, I’d pretty much be slapping my sac in your hand, wouldn’t I?”