Ense et Aratro

MICHAEL:

May 8, 2001

I got this paper due tomorrow. It's final project in Casey's class, counts for a way big chunk of the points, and...

I am like so completely blocked, it's not funny.

The fact that it's 2:13 a.m. may have something to do with it. So it's not really due tomorrow.

It's due today, dammit. In five hours and 47 minutes, to be exact.

All this and I'm supposed to sleep, too?

Forget it. Not gonna happen tonight. About the only thing that's keeping me moving is knowing that Kelly's got a bio final tomorrow, and she's gonna be pulling an all-nighter as well.

I'd have started this sucker sooner, but it's like, when do I get the time? I keep up, and I do good, but goddammit, I have no fucking time.

Thank God I'm only taking one class in summer session, and I don't tutor so many hours. I think I'm gonna work about 8 hours there each week, that's it. Not so many students in the summertime.

I can't wait. I hand in this fucking paper, it's over. For two weeks, anyway. Then I start summer class, but at least it's a lighter schedule.

Thank God.

I'm so tired. I had a calc final today, and calc's easy for me, but it was a long exam. I aced it. But man, I figured, okay, we got four hours to do the exam, I finish it in 90 minutes easy.

Took me 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Losing my touch here.

Plus I got this rotten cold, and I feel like shit. I got no desire to do anything but lie on the sofa and fall asleep watching Sailor Moon. Even Josie and the Pussycats would do it for me. They're more Dad's generation, but they are pretty hot cartoon babes.

Course, I'd feel a hell of a lot better if Kelly was there with me. She'd rub my face and make my sinuses stop hurting and then I'd fall asleep with my head in her lap and I'd dream good dreams...God, I could be so there.

But I gotta get this fucking paper done. I've gotten rave reviews in class all semester. I'd like to keep up my winning streak, only because I really like it when I get respect. It's still kind of a new experience for me, but I'm getting used to it. And I like it.

I could stand more of it.

I mean, it's not like when I was first here in Virginia. Nobody respected me at all. Not even a little. Not even my dad.

Thank God that's changing. But Christ, what I have to do to get it around here.

This crowd doesn't give anything for free, that's for certain. Especially not Dad.

Course, they tell you you did good, you can believe them. Because they don't do it unless you did REAL good. As a crowd, the TMB staff's a little light in the praise department and a bit chunky with the criticism.

But I guess it's fair, because nobody will expect more from you than they would from themselves.

The scary part is, all of us expect a lot from ourselves and from each other. So it's a lot to live up to.

My eyes are starting to burn. I need to get my lenses out, switch to my glasses.

I see the light on in the living room. Papa Bear is still wide awake in America. Probably checking the latest in dirty downloads. I'm not supposed to know about this, but he was on the phone with Mulder tonight, and he said something about the entire squad of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, dressed in real short skirts and nothing else at all. Mulder doesn't do that much anymore, but he seems to keep up on his resources.

Course, I was Dr. Scully, I'd probably be cutting him off all the time.

I think he's hiding from her. She's been saying sentences to him that include the word 'vasectomy,' and you should see his face when she does. Like major terror.

Not that I blame him. I mean, I'm a guy, I sympathize. But then again, it's like, they had two kids in less than two years, and he's talking about MORE.

Yeah, we guys can talk like that, 'cause we're not the ones walking around like we swallowed a beach ball. And we don't have to pop it out, either. Kelly says from what they say in her anatomy class, picture trying to shove a basketball out a baseball-sized opening.

Oh God. Glad I'd never have to do it. It's gotta hurt.

Sort of like trying to give birth to this paper. It's kind of the same idea.

I hate to bug Dad, but I could really use some help...it's getting near what the prof and Ally and Mulder call 'de pilo pendet.' Which they say translates literally into 'hanging by a hair,' but the idea is, okay people, we've reached the critical stage.

Where are the three fucking scholars when I need them? Home, sleeping.

Lucky bastards. And even luckier, they all have somebody to sleep next to, unless, of course, Mulder's in trouble with Dr. Scully again. Which wouldn't surprise anybody.

Dad doesn't like to be disturbed late at night, but tough. This is due in a few hours and it's not getting any earlier. So I open my door and call out to him.

"What're you still doing up?" He doesn't sound annoyed, really, but surprised.

"I'm writing a paper. I'm sorta stuck."

"I'll be there in a minute."

Meaning, let me get rid of this picture, cool myself off, and get presentable.

The paper's got to be on an historical event in the 20th century, and it's got to be a specific event. Something that you can pin a timeline to.

I chose the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Tet is real important. It seriously shifted how the American public felt about the war, and I'm trying to show how. I've got a lot of historical stuff-I mean, lots has been written on it, and there're a lot of accounts of people who were there all over the Web, you can pick up on that.

It's missing something.

Jo says my dad was there. He says that's true, but he's never said anything else about it.

Reading the accounts I have of it, I'm not surprised. It was horrible and very, very bloody.

Tet's the Vietnamese New Year. This was 1968, January.

That would make my dad...23. He was born in '44, but his birthday's October, so he would only have been 23.

Which means he was even younger than me when he was there. Goddamn.

I can't even imagine. I mean, this just boggles the mind. And there were guys even younger than Dad doing this.

God, there would be no way. Not for me. I mean, I'm sorry, I know I don't have those kind of balls.

"So what're you working on?" Dad asks, picking up the laptop, which hasn't got enough real estate for all the windows I got opened up.

"Well..." maybe this wasn't such a great idea.

He scrolls through the text with amazing speed-Dad reads REAL fast.

Not fast enough to keep from turning like this horrible shade of whitish gray, though.

Oh man. Shouldn't have done this.

I don't think too clear when I haven't had any sleep.

"I was at Khe Sahn," he starts real quiet.

Site of the worst fighting during Tet.

"Just prior to the battle, I was on a three-day leave. I'd been in Bangkok with some buddies, having a time drinking and carousing and taking in some of the...local color."

He looks a little embarrassed. Bangkok is like noted for its prostitutes. I wonder if that had anything to do with it.

"I came back to the front. My job was communications, to take down instructions, pass them along to our unit leader.

"Of course, I'd had no sleep in Bangkok, and I'd imbibed in a great deal of alcohol and...illegal substances."

Whoa, Dad a doper. This is like SO weird.

"We were to attack on January 30, which was the actual New Year. I was in no shape to be dealing with my responsibilities, but this was not a concern for our unit leader. And it was the way it was. If he had to remove everybody who was in no shape to fight and carry out orders, nobody'd ever have been there."

"Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad," I muse. I mean, there was this phrase in the 60s, suppose they gave a war and nobody came?

Seems like it'd be pretty hard to carry out.

"And I was ill, and exhausted, and most of all, careless. To this day, I'm not certain I passed along the correct instructions."

Oh man.

He thinks he was responsible for the way things went.

Doesn't matter if he was or not. He's my dad. He'll think that. And he's been thinking that for over 30 years now.

"So now you know."

He looks totally humiliated.

He shouldn't be. No way. Far as I'm concerned, he was in a crazy situation, I mean, for Christ's sake, the fucking generals didn't have a clue from what I read!

And my dad blames himself?!

War really does make you crazy.

All these years, my dad's been losing sleep because he thinks he did something wrong. He probably thinks everybody's blood is all over him.

Maybe he did fuck up. But I don't care. He was there. He did his job. He didn't back off.

And he admits to me he might have fucked up. For my dad, this is like major.

He's got the most balls of any human I know.

I hug him. He just looks like desolation in a railway station at 3 o'clock in the morning, to quote an old jazz piece Miranda played one time. He doesn't respond.

He's not mad. He's fucking embarrassed. To the bones.

And he shouldn't be.

"Dad, know something? You got way more balls than most people ever would."

He's like he doesn't believe me. But I hug him harder, and pretty soon, he just leans against me, and I feel like there's something damp on my shoulder.

Oh man. What it had to cost him to tell me this.

If I had a son, and he wanted to know about something like this, could I tell him?

Maybe I could, but only because I had someone before me who could.

He might not believe it, but he's my hero.
 

Now I know what's wrong with this paper.

And it might be 3:00 in the morning, but I don't give a fuck. Now I know what I'm gonna write. And Casey's gonna be blown away.

Only one thing, though. I want it back. I'm gonna give it to my dad.

Sorry, Casey. You don't get this one for your collection.
 

FROHIKE:

Now my son knows. I've avoided confession all these years, and how odd it is that I would confess this to my child, who was born after the fall of Saigon, for Christ's sake.

In his eyes, where I expected horror and disbelief, I find only admiration and acceptance.

This, in some ways, is harder to take than if he laughed at me or became angry or told me I was a fool.

But he doesn't.

What is it in him that does not make him judge me? Surely not blindness. He is not blind to my faults-on the contrary, he uses me for verbal target practice sometimes when I'm getting to be too paternal or overbearing, in his opinion.

Why does he tolerate me? I've done so much wrong in my life.

It's almost as if, when he becomes sarcastic and antagonistic, I can be comfortable with that, simply because I feel as if I deserve it.

But I never feel as if I deserve his affection.

Why?

He's my son. My flesh and blood. My heir. My legacy. Shouldn't children love their parents?

Not unless they earn that love and respect.

What have I ever done to earn what he has given me?

All I have done is given him a roof over his head, and I didn't even do that when he first came to Alexandria. I allowed the Langlys to extend their hospitality beyond what I should ask any friends to do.

I was gone for 17 years of his life-17 very important years, when I should have been there. I left him to grope in the dark, just as I left my squadron vulnerable.

This seems to be a pattern in my life. I am trying desperately to break it. But for someone as set in their ways as I am, this may be an impossible task.

I hear the faint click of computer keys in the bedroom; I left the door ajar when I walked out of his room.

His room. In my home. So many years, he should have had a room in my home, and he didn't.

It's his home, too. He seems to be comfortable here. His room could be that of any young college person-clothes strewn everywhere, CDs on his nighttable, horrible posters on the walls, photos of him and Kelly at the shore. A bed that never gets made.

Not so different from my own room. Minus the horrible posters, of course.

If he was having difficulty before, it's not evident now. I can hear rapid typing, rhythmic, as though whatever was inhibited before has been released with a vengeance.

It's nearly 5 a.m. when I hear the typing stop. I have not slept yet.

He appears out of his room, cradling the laptop, looking a bit like death warmed over, but he also wears the distinct glimmer of satisfaction one gets from a job accomplished.

"You wanna read it?" He asks me eagerly.

I don't. But I'm drawn to do so.

Normally, I read very rapidly, but this time, I take it slowly.

"I sorta changed my thesis," he explains, shrugging.

He's rewritten the whole goddamn paper.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so hasty to discourage my son's interest in journalism.

This paper isn't a school paper. It's poetry, pure and simple.

I am blown away by how much he was able to capture from the admittedly minimal synopsis I gave him. And more so by how dead on he is.

Reading this, I now know that I need not fear telling my son. He understands.

At least he understands me. What this experience was to me.

I am weeping by the time I reach his conclusion. He looks at me quizzically.

"Y'know, I can change it if you want, if it's wrong," he offers.

"No. This is almost perfect." I don't like to be extravagant in my praise of his tasks, but this one is deserving, and should be given. "But Michael?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Don't forget to spellcheck!" He laughs as he says this. Michael's inability to spell is legendary at the offices and it provides the three of us with many chuckles.   He can be quite creative in some of his gaffes.

He's definitely a beneficiary of modern technology in that regard.

Of course, I think he should still check the dictionary.

Call me old-fashioned. I take it as a compliment.
 

It's 7:30. Neither one of us has slept. We've spent the last two hours offering sacred libations and paying homage to the caffeine gods.

My son looks like hell.

He asks me if it's okay if he comes home and sleeps today after he hands in his assignment and checks his calc grade, which is supposed to be posted this morning.

We have tons of work to do at TMB, but he's got another cold, and he's been grinding away.

I suspect it would do him good to be home sleeping today.

I may just do the same.
 

MICHAEL:

I'm exhausted after writing that paper. I mean, I'd be tired anyway, but it was like, once I talked to Dad, it was like it just started rushing out.

It was scary. It was like all the stuff he felt then, it came over me, and I was living it, and man, I don't wanna do that again if I can help it.

Then again, it's the best damn piece I ever wrote, and I know it. Casey's gonna be blown out of the water by it.

Got to remember to e-mail her and tell her I want it back. I mean, I got a copy in the laptop. Jesus, I do back up my work. I didn't used to be so good about it, but a few disasters got me to change my ways.

Because this is the original. And I want my dad to have it.

I mean, it's really not my paper. It's his. He should have it.

And now for the most challenging part of the day.

Finding a goddamn parking space somewhere within twenty miles of campus.
 

FROHIKE:

He's home a little while later. I've been dozing, but I never seem to be able to fall fully asleep until I know he's safe at home.

Which is utterly absurd. I realized again that when I was at Khe Sanh, I was younger than he is now.

Perhaps this is exactly why I feel the way I do.

Did my mother ever sleep when I was in country? I don't know, and I can't ask her. She is long gone.

He says he's going to take a shower, down some Robitussin, and head for bed.

We should have stock in AH Robins for all of the Robitussin consumption that kid has had. I think he has singlehandedly made them profitable.

"Michael." I call to him, not even thinking about it.

"Yeah?" He sounds so tired and small. I should just let him go to bed.

In a minute.

"I love you very much."

"Love you too."

I don't deserve it, but I am grateful for it.

Today when I sleep, there will be no demons visiting upon me.

END OF PART 3