Dad was reading the Stars and
Stripes on the blue recliner while Mom got breakfast ready. She always made
him a full breakfast every morning, even on Saturdays and Sundays. It smelled
like bacon. I knew Dad didn’t like being disturbed before he read the paper and
had his first cup of coffee, so I sat patiently on the blue couch. I could see
the main headline on the front page: “Patty Hearst Found Guilty in San
Francisco Bank Robbery.”
He
harumphed. I saw that as an opening.
“Is
Patty Hearst a terrorist?” I asked.
“Small
potatoes,” my dad said. “She’s just a rich girl who got caught up in something
after they kidnapped her. The real terrorists are right here in West Germany.
The Baader-Meinhof Gang. The Red Brigade. The Communists. We have most of them
in prison now, but they are still terrorizing the whole continent. They have to
be stopped.”
“Dad?”
He
didn’t respond. He was still reading the paper.
“Dad?”
“What?”
He sounded irritated.
“Never
mind, we can talk about it later.”
He put
the paper down. If anyone wanted to portray the word “exasperation” without
saying the word, they should have taken a Polaroid of Dad’s face at that
moment. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to me.
“It’s
OK,” I said. “Go back to your paper.”
“What is
it?” he asked.
Mom
walked into the adjoining dining room with two plates in her hand.
“Breakfast
is ready,” she said.
“Rudi
has a question first,” Dad said. The unsaid portion of his statement would have
included the phrase “and it better be good.”
“It’s
not important,” I said, and jumped off the couch toward the dining room table.
Dad put his newspaper down on his chair and followed me. Mom went back into the
kitchen to retrieve her plate. She always served herself last.
I took
my seat to Dad’s right and waited for him to say the blessing. He was still
staring at me as Mom took her seat. The eggs and bacon smelled great.
“Dear
Lord,” Dad said, “Thank you for the blessing of this food, and thank you for
sending us a son who will now tell me what he wants to say. Amen.”
“Amen,”
Mom and I replied.
I
started eating the eggs. They were scrambled. Like normal people eat them.
“You
want us to buy you something, don’t you?” he asked.
I shook
my head. “Nope.”
“Well
then what is it?”
I put my
fork down and looked him in the eye. It seemed like such a crazy question; I
was afraid to ask it.
“WHAT?”
he said. His irritation made the question plop right out of my mouth.
“Are you
a spy?”
Dad
burst out laughing. “That’s what you wanted to ask me?”
“David
told me that you were in military intelligence,” I said.
“Do you
know what military intelligence is?” Dad asked, not waiting for my reply. “It’s
an oxymoron, that’s what.”
I
noticed that he didn’t answer my question.
“But are
you?”
“I told
you,” He said, “I’m an engineer. I build dams, bridges, and tunnels. Right now
I’m heading up the project to build an American Junior High School in
Heidelberg. That’s why I’ve been gone so much lately.”
“But
that’s not a dam, bridge or tunnel,” I pointed out.
Dad
sighed. “It’s also not being a spy. Am I spying on junior high kids?”
It was
clear he wanted this conversation to end, but I wasn’t ready to end it.
“Why is
a guy who works with you, David’s dad, in military intelligence?” I asked.
“Who
told you that?”
“David.”
“Oh he
did, did he?”
“Uh huh.”
Dad looked me right in the eye. “Colonel Schatz, the lead engineer in my
office, is secretly a spy? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Uh huh.”
“If that’s true, then isn’t telling his son
about it breaking some sort of a spy code?”
Ooh.
That’s a good point. What spy would tell his son he’s a spy? On the other hand,
maybe that’s why Dad can’t tell me that he’s a spy.
Dad
sighed. “Do I look like a spy to you?”
I didn’t
know what to say. True, he didn’t wear a top hat like the spy in Stratego, but
I’m pretty sure spies don’t look like that in real life.
“Look at
me. I’m 44 years old. I’m out of shape.” He patted his not-insignificant beer
belly. “I’m a family man. I’m an engineer. Who would hire a
44-year-old-out-of-shape-family-man-engineer to be a spy?”
“Military
intelligence?”
He
guffawed.
“Good one.”
I wasn’t totally satisfied, but on the other hand, Dad laughed at my joke. Dad never laughs at my jokes.
Here's a bonus piece from the archives: My brush with William Shatner. I wrote it in this week in 2007 (on Shatner's 76th birthday), but the meeting with Shatner occurred in the late 80s.
