Running the Bulls Read Free

and saw that it was a quarter of five. John’s station wagon was dozing in the drive, its ass pointed toward the street, its eyes shut tight, thanks to those automatic lids. Howard pulled up behind it and cut the Ford’s engine. He wanted to go up to the door instantly and ring the bell. He was reminded of all those middle-of-the-night nosebleeds when the faucet between John’s eyes had spewed red until the early hours of morning, while he, Howard, had stood holding a cloth to his son’s face, holding the boy’s tilted head, and muttering to himself, “Clot, dammit, clot, clot, clot.” Surely, if he knocked on the door now, John the adult would understand. “It’s payback time, buddy,” Howard would tell him.
    But Howard couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he sat staring at the bicycle that he and Ellen had dipped into their retirement money to buy for Eliot, their only grandson. It leaned against the front steps of the house, the paint turning from deep burgundy to apple red as the sun rose over Bixley and life began to stir, to rekindle itself inside bathrooms and kitchens up and down the street. Inside John’s own house, Howard saw light finally burst forth, a tiny supernova in the bathroom. Then, one in the kitchen, as the window turned a warm yellow. Still, Howard waited.
    Finally, just before seven o’clock, John opened the front door and stepped out. Howard heard him and looked up, away from that morning’s USA Today. He had read all about how Alabama was returning its worse prisoners to chain gangs; how Massachusetts needed to clean up the pollution around Cape Cod; how Americans spend over $293 million a year trying to eradicate cockroaches; how some guy in Los Angeles was planning to run the bulls in Pamplona, carrying a huge banner as a statement against animal cruelty; and how the White House was still holding its own against the Whitewater allegations. Howard folded the paper back into its original creases. John obviously hadn’t seen him there, parked behind the station wagon as if he were part of a sad wagon train headed for divorce instead of the Oregon Trail. Howard watched as John searched the front porch and then began scanning the walkway, looking for something.
    Howard whirred his window down. “You looking for this?” he asked, and waved the morning paper at John, who glanced up, startled to hear a voice. When he realized it was Howard, he appeared even more startled.
    â€œDad?” he said. “What the hell’s going on?” He was wearing only pajama bottoms, and as he came down the walk, Howard couldn’t help but feel a fatherly pride at his son’s physique, the well-muscled arms, the kind of washboard stomach that most men work out hours a day in the hopes of attaining. This was his son, John, the one who had flown that F-15 fighter, while back home all Howard and Ellen could do was sit on the edge of their sofa and watch the bombing on television. “It looks like Fourth of July fireworks,” Ellen had said, as Bernie Shaw’s voice transmitted news from a hotel room in Baghdad. Howie and Ellen had been pulled into a world they knew nothing about when John volunteered for Desert Storm, a world of precision-guided missiles, night vision, infrared navigation and target designation systems, laser and electro-optic guided bombs, target sensors, all devices that would allow for round-the-clock bombing. Back then, Howard had thought it the most terrible thing that could happen to him as a human being, having his son at war. And in his role as father, it still was.
    Howard got out of the car and then leaned back against it, the paper tucked up under his right arm.
    â€œIt was delivered about five thirty,” he said. He handed the paper to John, who took it. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
    â€œYou been sitting out here since five thirty?” John asked. Then, a look swept over his