hotwired

The city of Tulsa has never burned down from the summer heat, but every year, I am convinced that it will happen. Every year, I am convinced that the world will stop, the sky will fall, the cities will burn to nothing but fragmented dust, a reminder of what we've lost all throughout time.

Every year, I am convinced - maybe by the media, maybe by my mother - that the Vietnam War will end. I am convinced that I will finally get to see my father through eyes that can scan his face, create an Etch-and-Sketch of our similarities inside of my mind, and bury it in my memory for the rest of my life. Through eyes that can hold a gaze for longer than a few seconds before falling closed.

I try not to hold out for that moment anymore. I try not to see how I'm an exact copy of him when I look at the picture of our family on the wall. I try not to feel like a constant reminder to my Mom; a reminder of who is overseas, who risks his life for ours, who could easily come home in a casket just as my brother Vixen could walk through the front door with a scraped knee.

Everyone admires me for being a soldier's son. I know he exists, and I know he knows that Vixen and I exist. We're aware of each other, but I've never woke up to the kind smile, the glorious eyes, or the terrible cooking skills that Mom has always known. I know he's held both of us to him like a father should, full of protection and admiration. I know he's sang us lullabies and soothed our cries and kept Mom from ripping her hair out.

But I've never experienced it. And if this war doesn't fucking end, maybe I never will.

I see the way my classmates stare at me as I walk down the halls. To my horror, their sadness, their pity, is starting to get to Vixen. He's starting to ask Mom questions about when Dad left for war, how long it took for him to get back the first time, and why he was shipped out again. Though my baby brother wasn't born to see our father leave him in a courtyard, clinging to his mother's hip and sobbing into her dress, I admire his curiosity.

Dad's been gone for another three years now, not to add on the first six years of my life that he was away, too. He missed Vixen being born when I was four and a half. Uncle Pony had announced that Aunt Ella had gotten pregnant a few months before Dad had to ship out, and that same morning, Mom had told him he was gonna be a father again. I guess they'd had two miscarriages between Vixen and me, so this was a big deal. I was about to turn four, and I had no clue how emotions worked, so I'll never know how Dad felt in those few months. He missed me turning eight, then ten, and now fourteen.

Think about that: I've been alive for fourteen years, and I've really, truly, known my father for three. I've only seen him smiling at a boy, not a baby, for three years. I've only felt his arms around me in that fatherly protection for three years.

Vixen would agree with me when I say that Uncle Darry and Uncle Pony raised us. Helped out Mom when we were colicky, slept too little, or slept a little too long. They've kept us in line for our entire lives...

...and Dad can't say a goddamn thing.

There's so much I want to say to him. I want to know why he left. Why he felt the need to leave knowing that Mom may never see him again. If he even cared about leaving her, and then all three of us, behind, never knowing if he would come home. I want to know what was so interesting, so enticing, about a fucking war that made him abandon his family for dust clouds and gunfire.

When Mom sat us down to say that Dad was coming home again, I think she was surprised at how I reacted. Vixen had been leaping in the air, screaming at the top of his lungs, while I just sat there. Ever since that day, Mom has watched me interact with him, and I know she's wondering why I'm so hostile, so apprehensive. This is the guy who made me; who married my Mom; who gave me my brother. This is the guy that has fought for my entire life to save us.

This guy is my father. But he's a stranger nonetheless.

The front door to Uncle Darry's house opens and shuts with a resounding click, and I don't need to turn around to know who it is. I know Gracie's presence, and I know her worrisome self is bursting at the seams. Though our age gap tells us I shouldn't even be talking to her, let alone admitting I'm related to her, we've always been close.

"Spill it." Her voice is oddly authoritative. I feel her arm loop through mine, her elbow pushing my side as she says it again.

I dig through my back pocket and rejoice at the sight of a cigarette. I never, ever light them; I just have 'em to look cool. I put it in my mouth and, hoping my voice is muffled enough, tell her, "'S 'mothin'." The air around her changes from worry, to annoyance, and then back to worrying.

"Aren't you happy he's home?"

I scoff. Even roll my eyes. "Of course I am."

Now it's her turn to scoff. She turns us back towards the house and I know that she'll try like hell to get me to go back inside. Her soft-skinned hand tightens on my arm for a split second. "For being Sodapop Curtis's kid, you suck at lying."

I bite my tongue. Gracie came along shortly before Vixen, and from the minute I found Dad standing with both of my uncles, peering down at a baby Gracie, I knew Dad couldn't stand that he was about to have two boys. I bet ten bucks that he wishes Vixen was a girl. But Mom has always said to keep our mouths shut about that kinda stuff around the rest of the family, so we do.

There's laughter billowing from the front door. I look to my right, expecting to see air, but Gracie remains in place, her eyes still storming. I think I've imagined the front door opening, but then it softly shuts, and Uncle Pony's voice echos in the soft Tulsa wind. "C'mon, Gracie girl. Time to go."

"Can't I stay?" At that question, I feel Aunt Ella give Uncle Pony a cold glare, as if the prospect of their daughter staying here with a bunch of hoodlums any longer is the worst thing in the world.

Aunt Ella walks between Gracie and I, separating us like we've done something wrong. "Come on, Gracie," she says, her voice barely containing annoyance, "Let's go. I need to get your clothes to the cleaner's as soon as possible."

Gracie huffs and looks at her Dad. Uncle Pony shrugs and puts Gracie's coat around her shoulders before clambering down the front steps. He stops at the back driver's seat door and leans against their car patiently. Gracie's arm brushes mine as she contemplates saying anything to me, but it's like she can't move without doing so. Her temple is warm on my shoulder as she leans against me for a few moments.

I know everyone in that house would be ill at the sight of us. I've never let my guard down since Dad left right before Gracie was born, but she may as well be my sister; Aunt Ella and Uncle Pony may as well be my parents. I'd be happier with them. I'd be better off with them. To be the son of a journalist is something to be proud of.

Being the son of soldier is something I've always been ashamed of.

Gracie's green eyes stand before me. "Talk soon?"

I feel a smirk cross my face. "We're cousins, Gracie. 'Course we will."

Her body heat collides with mine as she embraces me. "Bye, Ridgey." Satisfied, she leaps off of the steps and bolts for their car. Uncle Pony smiles and opens the door for her. When he turns around, he has such a proud look in his eyes I feel like I'll burst.

"Can I come in?"

Dad's voice is muffled by the door. I throw a pillow against it, but I doubt Dad flinched, given all that he's seen. The doorknob jiggles as he attempts to enter, and his voice grows more intense when he asks the question again.

At the sound of his knocking turning more aggressive, I climb out of my bed and whip the door open. His dark brown gaze is lit with annoyance, but that light dies as he heavily sits on my bed and peers at me from the corner of his eye. "What's with you?"

I shake my head. Dad grabs my hands in his own and pulls me towards him, holding me in place. "Look at me."

Our gazes lock at his order. He worriedly scans my face, brushing hair away from my eyes.

I shrug him off, forcing my gaze to focus on my chest so that I can't see the confusion, the pity, in his own. "Nothing's wrong." But I know he sees through this. I know he sees through this mask, gets right to the core of me. I know he senses that he's the problem, and he is, but I have my role in this shit show.

"I'm your Dad. I know when something's off about you."

'I'm fine."

He sighs exasperatedly and falls into silence. We're looking at each other every now and then, and I think we both know that the longer we watch each other, the harder it becomes to not let my guard down. The longer he looks at me with that concerned, loving, fatherly gaze, the more likely I am to melt into his hands. I feel something fall onto cheek, and then another, and I realize with horror that I'm crying. And I sit here, waiting to be reprimanded, waiting for Dad to say I've upset him or disappointed him by showing emotions -

- but all he does is wipe my tears from my skin.

"Tell me now," I whisper, and my voice is surprisingly stable. "Do you know if you're going back?"

Dad's body language changes, and he sinks further into my bed. He takes me with him as he rests against the mattress, and his heartbeat pounds through my body as I lay against his chest. "I don't make that call, kiddo."

"So I should just plan to graduate high school without a Dad, right?"

Dad's voice is taut as he says, "Never."

"Do you want to go back?"

"Who wants to go back to war, Ridge?"

"When you're over there, do you miss Vixen?"

"Of course."

"Do you miss Mom?"

Dad's heart seems to stop on that question. "Every second."

"Do you miss me?"

I feel his hand come to the side of my face, squishing my face closer to his chest. "You have no idea, Ridge. You have no idea." His thumb strokes my forehead, and I remember Mom saying something about Dad doing this same thing when she was going through some postpartum depression after I was born. So rather than fight it, rather than try to act tough and leave the situation, I allow myself to revel in my father's presence, his adoration, his concern, his love.

And we let the weight of those questions and answers swarm my bedroom like a fire that blazes with cold nights and battle cries.

what did you think? i know the end section was rough, so i apologize.

this is a little out of my comfort zone, so even thought i hate this piece, i thought to myself "what if your readers liked it?"