The Friday I Drove Dad to Rolla

The Phone Call With Dad

I called Dad that evening, after supper, while it was still light out. I waited until I figured Bonita would be watching her program in the front room.

“Hello, son.” He always sounds glad to hear from me, even when he is not glad about anything else.

“Dad, I talked to Virgil Stamper today.”

There was a long quiet on the line. I could hear the garage radio, the farm report, the same station he has listened to my whole life.

“He shouldn’t have bothered you,” Dad said. “You work.”

“He didn’t bother me. I’m taking you to Rolla. I already have the Friday off. Be ready at seven thirty and wear your good shoes.”

“Son, Bonita doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I know what Bonita thinks. She doesn’t have to ride along. I’m driving my truck and I’m buying the gas. All you have to do is get in.”

He was quiet again, longer this time. When he talked, his voice had gone thick, and I pretended not to notice, the way he always pretended not to notice when I cried as a boy.

“I’d like that, Reuben. I’d like that a whole lot.”

I told my wife about it that night. She said she would pack us a cooler, and she did, with ham sandwiches and two apples and a thermos, which made me laugh, given what Bonita had said.

I want to say something here about Bonita, because I have thought about it a lot since.

I do not think she was simply cheap. Sixty dollars was not going to break them. Dad has his county pension and his Social Security.

I think she hated that reunion because it was the part of Dad’s life that came before her, the part she did not get to be in. Those men knew him at twenty-four. She never would.

That is a reason a person can understand. It is not an excuse.

You do not keep an old soldier home from the last few times he will see the men he served with, not for sixty dollars and not for any reason at all.

Friday Morning

The first Friday in October came up clear and cold, with frost on the grass in the low places and the sky going from pink to blue while I drove the eleven miles to Dad’s place.

He was sitting on the porch step when I pulled in, with his tan windbreaker zipped up and his dark blue Army veteran cap on his head.

The cap had one small round brass pin on it, and he touched it once before he got in the truck.

He stood up before I had the truck in park. He had shaved so close there was a nick on his chin with a little piece of tissue stuck to it.

I reached over and took it off for him, and he let me.

Bonita did not come out. I saw her shape behind the kitchen curtain.

Dad turned at the bottom of the steps and waved at the window anyway, and then he climbed in, slow, one hand on the grab handle.

“She’ll come around,” he said, buckling in.

“Sure, Dad.”