My Crazy American Father's Life Story

Tobias 1714 November 1, 2046

“So that’s where I left that one,” My father says as he takes off his jacket. Water drips from his suit and hat as he takes off his jacket. “Though I’d lost that one a while ago.” he hangs up his coat and removes his shoes before walking into the living room. “So are you gonna sit there, or are you gonna get a broom and help me clean this up?” he asks.

“What?” I ask, stunned. He acts like nothing’s happened like this is just an average day.

“The broom to clean up the shattered vase, duh. We’d better clean this up and blame it on Pearl before your mother gets home… Or just hope she doesn’t notice.” Is he serious? Did he not see the ambulance? Did he not see Sora and me fighting? Does he not see me beat up?

“How can you just act like nothing’s happened? Did you not see anything?” I ask, exasperated.

“What? Do you mean Sara being loaded into an ambulance or Sora kicking your ass? Yeah, I saw it. Saw you storm into the house too, decided I’d follow you and let you blow off a bit of steam before I came in.” He says as he grabs the broom and dustpan. “You seem shocked like I don’t notice things.”

“I am shocked. I’d expect you to get mad or act disappointed or something. Not just act like this is an everyday event.” I respond.

“Oh, it definitely is quite abnormal, but that’s no reason for me to blow my top. What part of ‘someone has to keep their head’ did you not understand?” he says, sweeping up the shards. “Are you gonna move so I can do this or what?” he asks, reaching out a hand to me. I take it, and he continues sweeping around the floor. I just watch him utterly stunned. I watch as he calmly sweeps up the shards and collects them in the garbage can. “So you wanna tell me what happened?” He asks halfway through the pile. I remain silent. Why should I tell him about it? I think. He remained silent for a moment before speaking again. “Well, if you don’t want to talk about it, then maybe I’ll tell you what I think happened. It seems to me, the casual outside observer, that you and your sister got into a big fight. Maybe the biggest you’ll ever get in. Because of that, either Sara hurt herself, or you hurt Sara. I’m leaning more towards the former, and then Sora hurt you. Am I in the ballpark?”

“She’s not my sister,” I state coldly.

“Oh boy, it must be a doozy of a fight for you to say that. What’d she do?” I stop and think if I should tell him. What’s the harm? I figure.

“She ruined my confession to Niǎo-san.”

“No, she was there sneaking her into the bench for you, wasn’t she? And wasn’t the whole ‘confess after winning the baseball game’ plan her idea in the first palace?”

“That’s how she ruined it. She knew that Niǎo-san would reject me if we did something big like that. She knew the plan would fail from the start.”

“Didn’t that happen like two weeks ago? Why would you be fighting about that now?”

“Because she… she….” I say hesitantly. Why am I hesitating? If I tell him, he can only support me.

“She what?” he implores.

“She… confessed… to me,” I say softly. My father abruptly stops sweeping mid-stroke. He looks up at me in astonishment.

“She finally did it?” he asks, equal parts excited and surprised.

“What do you mean finally?”

“Well, it’s been a long time coming. She’s had a crush on you since… middle school, at least if I remember correctly. Here I’d thought she’d given up when she was helping you with your confession to Niǎo-san.”

“Wait, you knew?” I demand. She’s liked me for that long? Why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t Sora say anything? He had to have known.

“Well, it’s not like she was particularly good at hiding it. It actually seems that the only ones who didn’t notice were you and Sora.” He finishes scooping the last of the shards into the garbage can, and I just keep staring at him.

“ It’s all your fault.” My words make him freeze in his tracks. He turns and looks at me with fire, seeming to flash with fire.

“What did you say?” he asks in an agitated tone.

“It’s all your fault. You could’ve told me, but you didn’t, and now Sara is hurt or worse, and it’s all your fault.”I say solemnly.

“No, it’s not my fault,” he says without a drop of doubt in his voice.

“But you could’ve told me… You could’ve told me and then-”

“And then what?” he asks, interrupting me. “If you’d known, would that of stopped you from falling for Niǎo-san? When should I’ve told you? In middle school, when you’d just realized she was a girl? Or earlier this year when she was dropping hints like planes over Dresden? When Tobias? When should I’ve told you?”

“SHUT UP!” I yell, cutting him off. “I DON’T KNOW, OKAY! I don’t know.” I stand there, unsure of what to say next. My father just looks at me. “I don’t know what you should’ve told me… I just wish you did. You always know how to fix things. So tell me what I have to do? How do we make it all go back to the way it was?” He looks at me somberly before moving to the couch and crossing his hands.

“I can’t tell you that,” he says.

“You can’t, or you won’t?” I ask irately.

“Son, I’m trying to help you here.”

“You never tell me anything unless it’s convenient to you. You told me stuff when we went to Guam but only there.”

“You want me to start telling you everything then?”

“Who knows, maybe if you did, I’d have acted differently. I certainly would’ve if I knew about Sara’s feelings.”

“Okay, then what do you want to know?

“I don’t know, how about why you always do crazy things all the time, how come everyone seems to know you, or hey why not start big and ask how the hell you and mom meet because it’s not like you, dodge, that one every time me, or Yukki ask.” I keep going. I don’t give him a moment to answer. “So tell me, dad, how did it happen? How did an American doctor meet an African and move to Japan? Or will you hide that from me too? Are you-”

“BY STEALING HER AWAY FROM HER FAMILY!” he shouts, cutting me off. I stand in stunned silence. Stole her away?

“What do you mean you stole her away?” My father signs before looking at his watch.

“Long story and not enough time to tell it. Sit down,” he says. I follow his instructions and sit on the couch across from him.“So… Do you remember when we went to see Oscar and Jaques that one night?”

“Yeah.”

“And that I went down in a helicopter crash?”

‘Yeah.”

“Well, after that, I was picked up by the enemy. I was an officer, so they took me alive, thinking I had some information they could use. Unfortunately for them, I didn’t have any, but unfortunately for me, they didn’t believe me. It got worse and worse till they decided to kill me. I usually had a pretty good idea of what was going on because they didn’t know I spoke French. When I heard that they were under attack, I thought I was finally being rescued, so I eagerly waited. But it wasn’t NATO forces that broke into my cell. It was a local militia group. Things started very tensely at first, but they eventually agreed to bring me to their village. It was small, cut off, and had almost no contact with the outside world. That’s when I meet your grandfather, Asong al-Asad. He’d once been a member of Boko Haram but left years earlier. He’d become the leader of the militia despite being the only Muslim family in a Christian village fighting against a Muslim group. He was indeed a pillar of his community.

I convinced him to help me get back to NATO lines, but they didn’t have a radio. I spent months there training them, practicing medicine, and fighting with them. That’s where I met your mother. She was only about 14 or 15 at the time, but she and her mother would help me at the make-shift hospital. When we finally got our hands on a radio, I called for support. I was picked up but promised to come back as soon as I could.” He stopped there and paid for a moment. I stared at him, more confused now than when he’d started.

“That doesn’t explain how you got married or came to Japan.”

“That wasn’t until years later. After I got back to NATO, they sent me to Japan, where I met Asato-san. We were assigned to the same hospital and spent the rest of the war together. Once it ended, I decided to head back to Africa. Asato-san came with me, and together we helped the people there. It took a while, but I managed to find the family that helped me get home. Unfortunately, your grandmother had died not long after I left. Your uncle Mohommed who’d been the same one who’d found me in that cell brought me back to his family. I spent another few months there with them before it happened.”

“What happened?”

“Well, son, you know how Christianity has different denominations? Catholic, protestant, orthodox, etc.?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there’s a similar thing in Islam. Your grandfather practiced a sect known as Wahhabism. Very strict and pure. He’d toned down in the years I’d known him, but he was still very strict on sharia law. Your uncle Mohammed, who’d studied at one of the western colleges built since the war, was less devoted to sharia, and that was our saving grace. You see, while I was there, I became a bit of a preacher to the Christian population, and your mother and Mohammed would occasionally come to see me preach. Your grandfather didn’t like it, but Mohammed managed to convince him that since Islam was a refined version of Christianity, learning about christ would benefit her development in Islam. Well, it had the exact opposite effect, and she comes to me terrified because she wants to accept Christ and convert, but that’s a crime punishable by death in sharia law.

“Wait, they kill you for leaving the faith?”

“Yes happens all the time.”

“So they were just gonna kill her?”

“Your grandfather would have if he found out. Instead, Mohomed and I worked together with Asato-san to try and get her out of the country. If it weren’t for Asdato-san and his family’s connections, we’d never have made it. The only problem was getting her into Japan. See, during the war, many American G.I.'s fell in love with the locals, so Japan had made it pretty easy for Americans to emigrate. So It was easy enough for me to get in… But as for your mother… The only way she’d be able to come is if she were related to a U.S. citizen….”

“So you…”

“Yeah, that’s how your mother and I got married as a way to get her into Japan and away from your grandfather who’d of killed her. Even worse is we had to show proof that it wasn’t just a paper marriage… And then nine months later, you were born,” he says. I sit in stunned silence. The man I’d always looked up to seemed smaller now.

His shoulders were slumped, and he took up less space than usual. “So there. Now you know how I met your mother and came to Japan.”

“Why… why didn’t you ever tell me?” I ask.

“Because I was deathly afraid that if you found out, you’d think we didn’t want you. And nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been awarded many titles in my life, major, doctor, soldier, friend, but the two that I’m the proudest of are, father and husband.” He looks down at his feet and almost seems to weep. “I was so unsure if I made the right choice in bringing your mother to Japan. I might as well have brought her to a different planet. She had to learn a whole new language, customs that were alien to her, deal with February cold, and a pregnancy all at the same time.” He sniffles before whipping his eye. “I thought I’d ruined her life. I thought it would’ve been better for her to die in her homeland than deal with this, but that all changed the day you were born. I remember coming into the room after the delivery, and I saw her holding you in her arms and looking out onto the early November snow. She looked so calm, and when I nestled next to her, and you grabbed my finger for the first time, I knew I was right where I needed to be. So no, Tobias, I don't have all the answers. Believe it or not, I’m just rushing from one life punch to the next life everybody else. Sure I manage to keep a smile on my face and spring in my step, but I’ve no more control than anyone else. So no, I don't know what you should do next. All I can do is be there to help you through it.”