Stare

We were sitting in the cafeteria of a VA hospital. My dad needed psychiatric care. He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress—his year in Vietnam. I hated being there.

I was twenty-two. I was trying to be his son. I desperately wanted to know my father. He heard helicopters on the horizon, always, he told me. He wept whenever we were there.

I went with him every week. We ate lunch between his therapy sessions. He was always frazzled. He used to sit in silence and stare.

Disabled veterans swarmed all around us: with missing hands, without a leg, and one whose face was bleached pure white—some horrible chemical warfare. I saw him. This is how it happened:

My father was saying I should never support war. I could never, I spouted proudly. Then the bleach-faced man was there. He looked like a vampire: perfect white skin and clumpy bleached white hair. He had no lips, they were burned away—no eyelids, a whole eyeball stare. I was frozen. I stared. I just could help it.

He caught me. Our eyes locked. I don’t know how to write this. His face seemed to cry:

“Oh God! I’m so sorry. I know I’m a freak. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

And I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just… Oh please, please forgive me. I’m so very sorry.

The man walked out. I sobbed pure guilt. I felt such bottomless despair. My father rubbed the back of my head to console me. He said I should never support war. I believed him.

“I will never. I promise. I swear.”

And I haven’t.