cut classes and smoke and was suspended for fighting on three occasions.
I gave up sports, too. I’d played football and basketball and run track until I was a sophomore, and though my dad sometimes asked how I did when I got home, he seemed uncomfortable if I went into detail, since it was obvious he didn’t know a thing about sports. He’d never been on a team in his life. He showed up for a single basketball game during my sophomore year. He sat in the stands, an odd balding guy wearing a worn sport jacket and socks that didn’t match. Though he wasn’t obese, his pants nipped at the waist, making him look as if he were three months pregnant, and I knew I wanted nothing to do with him. I was embarrassed by the sight of him, and after the game, I avoided him. I’m not proud of myself for that, but that’s who I was.
Things got worse. During my senior year, my rebellion reached a high point. My grades had been slipping for two years, more from laziness and lack of care than intelligence (I like to think), and more than once my dad caught me sneaking in late at night with booze on my breath. I was escorted home by the police after being found at a party where drugs and drinking were evident, and when my dad grounded me, I stayed at a friend’s house for a couple of weeks after raging at him to mind his own business. He said nothing upon my return; instead, scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon were on the table in the mornings as usual. I barely passed my classes, and I suspect the school let me graduate simply because it wanted me out of there. I know my dad was worried, and he would sometimes, in his own shy way, broach the subject of college, but by then I’d made up my mind not to go. I wanted a job, I wanted a car, I wanted those material things I’d lived eighteen years without.
I said nothing to him about it one way or the other until the summer after graduation, but when he realized I hadn’t even applied to junior college, he locked himself in his den for the rest of the night and said nothing to me over our eggs and bacon the next morning. Later that evening, he tried to engage me in another discussion about coins, as if grasping for the companionship that had somehow been lost between us.
“Do you remember when we went to Atlanta and you were the one who found that buffalo head nickel we’d been looking for for years?” he started. “The one where we had our picture taken? I’ll never forget how excited you were. It reminded me of my father and me.”
I shook my head, all the frustration of life with my dad coming to the surface. “I’m sick and tired of hearing about coins!” I shouted at him. “I never want to hear about them again! You should sell the damn collection and do something else. Anything else.”
My dad said nothing, but to this day I’ll never forget his pained expression when at last he turned and trudged back to his den. I’d hurt him, and though I told myself I hadn’t wanted to, deep down I knew I was lying to myself. From then on my dad rarely brought up the subject of coins again. Nor did I. It became a yawning gulf between us, and it left us with nothing to say to each other. A few days later, I realized that the only photograph of us was gone as well, as if he believed that even the slightest reminder of coins would offend me. At the time, it probably would have, and even though I assumed that he’d thrown it away, the realization didn’t bother me at all.
Growing up, I’d never considered entering the military. Despite the fact that eastern North Carolina is one of the most militarily dense areas of the country—there are seven bases within a few hours’ driving time from Wilmington—I used to think that military life was for losers. Who wanted to spend his life getting ordered around by a bunch of crew-cut flunkies? Not me, and aside from the ROTC guys, not many people in my high school, either. Instead, most of the kids who’d been good students headed off to the University of North Carolina or North Carolina State, while