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CHAPTER 1
The Falcon Dreamer
MY DAD WAS one of those people with so much charisma and such a gift as a storyteller that everywhere he went people seemed to gather around him and hang on his every word. That's how my mother got hooked. It was during World War II, and she was volunteering at a dinner for servicemen on leave from the war. She saw my dad dressed in his Royal Navy uniform, surrounded by a group of Boy Scouts sitting in rapt attention, listening to his tales of great sea battles with colossal explosions and sinking ships and dying men — the best and the worst of the human experience.
Dad really knew how to spin a story, drawing his listeners slowly in, painting vivid images with his words, providing harrowing details of the most trying events imaginable. Then his blue eyes would glisten and he'd flash the most engaging smile, launching into a self-deprecating side story, relieving the tension of the moment as everyone burst out laughing. Then he'd start again on another incredible story plucked from his wartime naval experience. And to look at his face as he spoke, there was no question of his honesty and authority — everyone knew in their hearts that everything he said was true.
At the age of twenty-four, he was already a veteran of so many all-out naval battles, he didn't have to tell tall tales; the truth was enough. He was at the servicemen's dinner only because his ship had just been sunk, and he had been given a two-week survivor's leave. It's funny to think that the only reason my sisters and I are here is because his ship went down. And this was not the only time this happened to him. During the course of the war, he was sunk three times, twice through enemy action and once because the ship's engine exploded.
My mother was drawn in as she was walking past, carrying some plates of food, and she paused to listen. My dad caught sight of her and said, "I'll see you after," then went back to his storytelling. They got together at the end of the evening. He spent the rest of his leave with her, and they were married soon after. Everything happened fast during the war. And my mother was particularly vulnerable to his charms. She had already lost her father — who had been a wartime reserve policeman, taking on the job so younger policemen could enter the military and fight, and who had been killed in a Luftwaffe bombing raid — and her eldest brother, Frank, a sailor who was missing in action after his ship was sunk by a German U-boat.
But Dad had problems. I guess he would have been diagnosed as manic-depressive or bipolar — if he had ever gone to a psychiatrist. Or maybe he was suffering from some kind of battle stress. What those fighting men of his generation went through is barely imaginable. We talk about the psychological problems faced by men who served a few months in Vietnam or, more recently, in Iraq. But for my father and the other Royal Navy sailors, the war began in September 1939 and lasted all the way to V.E. Day in 1945. And they were always on the frontlines — strafed by Luftwaffe planes as they were running convoys through the frigid northern seas to supply Leningrad, or blockading Axis ports for months in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean — always in the thick of it, always surrounded by imminent death and destruction.
My father had run away and joined the Royal Navy when he was fifteen years old, in the mid-1930s. Of course, the timing of his enlistment couldn't have been worse. The Royal Navy was on the frontlines immediately when war was declared in 1939, long before the Royal Air Force got into the fray in the Battle of Britain. Really the only reason the Germans needed to launch an air war against England was because the Royal Navy was such a formidable obstacle to invasion. So the ships my dad served on were rushed here and there, wherever a convoy needed protection, wherever a port needed to be blockaded. One time he was manning a naval artillery piece when a German plane came in low across the sea, heading straight for him firing its guns. Bullets ricocheted all around him, making flaming sparks as they slammed into the armor plating. Miraculously, he was untouched — but dead sailors lay all around him, including his best friend who sat beside him at the same gun, a bullet hole in his forehead and a serene smile on his face: an image my father would carry for the rest of his life. Dad had been at Omaha Beach on D-day, ferrying American troops ashore under the raking fire of German artillery, offering each man a sip of rum, then saying, "Let's go, Yank," and sending them wading into the living hell onshore. He was struck in the back by shrapnel that day.
So perhaps my father's psychological problems were understandable, but it didn't make it any easier to live with him. Dad was the kind of person who for weeks or even months on end could be so bright and optimistic and full of energy, it seemed he could do anything. And then his mood would change as quickly as a cloud passing over the sun, and he'd become dark and brutal. My sisters and I learned to read his face instantly, even at a distance, and to avoid him when the pendulum of his spirit swung downward. But sometimes there was no escape; sometimes his mood became so black he would turn to his navy fix-all, a bottle of rum or whiskey or gin — it didn't matter which — and he would obliterate his mind. At that point, he might do anything. Turn into a raging beast, throwing the television through the window; pulling over the refrigerator so it landed on the kitchen floor in a great clatter of broken ketchup bottles, spilt milk, and shattered eggs; smashing, ripping, or cutting clothing, furniture, pictures on the walls, or anything in sight; slapping my mother across the face and breaking her eyeglasses; or staggering around the living room holding a huge butcher knife against his chest and threatening to kill himself as my sisters and I lay huddled and trembling in a corner.
After one of these episodes, we often found ourselves moving — to another house, to another city, sometimes to another country — to get some new neighbors, to get a new job, to start a new life. And after the boil was lanced, after his fury was spent, Dad was all contrition. Let's forgive and forget. Let's start anew. Life will be great. We can do anything. And the cycle would begin again. Sometimes his explosions were so horrendous that the family broke up for a time. But then he'd throw on a charm offensive and before long we'd be back together again.
It is perhaps telling that one of my earliest memories of my father was when I was three or four years old and was living with my mother and my older sister Maureen at my grandmother's house in England. This was apparently one of those times when my parents were separated. My dad came over sullen and unshaven, probably drunk. I remember he was wearing a long tan overcoat, and he and my mother were arguing loudly in front of the house. My grandmother, who was in her seventies, tried to intervene, and he shoved her so hard she fell to the ground. Then we all yelled at him to go — even me — and he strode off down the street.
The next we heard, my father had moved to Canada. This was in the mid-1950s, when Canada was eagerly courting potential immigrants. He began writing to my mother saying how great things were going to be. He had a good job and an apartment in Toronto. Things were starting to boom in Canada; opportunities abounded. He would soon be able to afford a house. Why not come with the kids and join him?
After leaving the navy he had worked in a variety of sales jobs, and he excelled at them. With his charm and his gift for gab he could sell anything to anyone. And even working for straight commission, he usually made a good salary.
It wasn't long before Maureen and I found ourselves on a train one night with our mother headed for Southampton, where we would board a ship bound for Montreal. My mother was cutting herself off with three thousand miles of ocean from anyone who could help us if my father blew up again. And it was inevitable that it would happen again ... and again.
My younger sister, Janet, was born in Ajax, a small town in Ontario, less than a year after we rejoined my father. We lived there somewhat peacefully for a few years. I really liked it there. We lived near the woods, and my friends and I would spend hours running wild, climbing trees, searching for unusual animals, and exploring new places. But after a couple of scuffles that cost him the respect of his coworkers and neighbors, my dad wanted to move again — this time either to San Diego or Mexico City. He had visited San Diego as a young sailor before the war, and it had seemed like paradise to him. I'm not sure what the attraction was with Mexico City, but after the U.S. Immigration Service gave us the nod a few months later, we headed for California, all of us — two adults and three children — packed into a tiny Renault Dauphine with a roof rack strapped to the top piled high with our belongings.
But my dad's mental condition only got worse: he was drinking more than ever and becoming ever more abusive. We left him for a couple of weeks one time when we lived in San Diego. My mother had been working part time in an office, and the family of one of her friends there, who knew about my father, let us stay with them. But it didn't last long. And when we went back with my father, he made my mother quit her job. A short time later, we left San Diego entirely, moving north to the Long Beach area.
My parents broke up a couple of more times there. On one of the times we were apart, my father invited my mother to his apartment and then brandished a loaded rifle in her face, saying he was going to kill her. It was a World War II Italian carbine, exactly like the one Lee Harvey Oswald later supposedly used to assassinate John F. Kennedy. She told him to go ahead and shoot her, which he ultimately decided not to do. After he moved back in with us, he kept the rifle and a pack of ammunition in the bedroom closet.
One night a couple of years later as he was on another rampage, I quietly got the gun and took it to my room. My plan was to shoot him fatally and then turn the gun on myself, ridding my family of this terrible burden. But I wasn't sure I could go through with it cold, so I brought the gun to my room to practice.
As my father walked drunkenly around the house, cursing and throwing dishes at the wall and breaking furniture, I was working the bolt action on the unloaded rifle, releasing the safety catch, holding the barrel to my forehead, and pulling the trigger. I repeated the whole process again and again and again — just to get used to the idea of it, just to somehow get myself on autopilot so I could go through with it.
By the time I felt ready, it was well past midnight, and I could still hear my dad laughing wildly and muttering to himself, though he wasn't breaking things anymore. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I put a clip with five cartridges into the rifle and worked the bolt action once, shoving a cartridge firmly into the chamber. I pushed against the safety catch with my thumb. It was a spring-loaded safety catch on the side of the bolt, and it always took all my might to budge it, pushing hard against the knurled metal, but this time it was harder than ever. I felt so weak — so detached from everything in life and yet also so determined. I finally got it to move to the off position.
I could feel my heart pounding in my brain and my ears were ringing. I closed my eyes and took two more deep breaths then stood up and walked out of my room. Nothing could stop me now.
As I walked into the living room, my father was slumped in an easy chair, muttering to himself and laughing, holding a whiskey bottle in his hand. He didn't see me as I stood there five feet in front of him. I raised the rifle to my shoulder and sighted down the barrel at his forehead. He still didn't see me. Then he chuckled for an instant and passed out, his head slumping to the side. The bottle crashed loudly to the floor, breaking my trance, and I felt all the energy, all the resolve, drain instantly from me. I could barely hold the rifle. I walked slowly back to my room and slid the gun under my bed. I was drenched in a cold sweat with my teeth chattering as I crawled under the covers and fell into a nightmarish sleep.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This would happen later, at the ripe age of thirteen. I'm so glad I didn't go through with it — not just for my own sake but because I know it would have destroyed my family, not saved it, as I had hoped. It all seems like a distant dream now. I wish it were a dream.
*
IN SIXTH GRADE, my friend Roger and I were obsessed with pigeons. Although we lived in an apartment block in Lakewood, near Long Beach, we secretly built a pigeon coop on top of the building. We would climb on top of the second-floor railing of the apartment, grab onto the edge of the roof, and haul ourselves up. Getting back down safely was even harder. We got several young pigeons from Roger's friends in North Long Beach, where Roger used to live. When the birds got older, we would swap them with his friends for birds that they had raised. Because pigeons always return to the loft where they were raised, we were able to send messages to his friends, and they could reply using the pigeons we raised. But after several months of this, the apartment superintendent discovered the pigeon coop and tore it down. Our birds kept returning to the spot where it had stood and would hang around the top of the building. They seemed lost. We kept feeding them, but we were never able to build a loft again; the superintendent was watching too closely.
Roger and I would walk miles on most Saturdays to get to the Dominguez Hills, which, at that time, seemed spectacularly remote and wild, with rabbits, foxes, birds, and other wildlife. It wasn't quite as good as the area where I had lived near San Diego — and nowhere near as good as my old woods in Canada — but a nice place for a pair of budding young naturalists to hang out.
Roger had a brother who was a couple of years older and couldn't have been more different. While Roger spent all his time communing with nature or playing with his pets, Gary hung around with a crowd of young toughs, cruising through the bad parts of town in a lowered Chevy sedan, drinking, popping pills, and picking fights. Roger's hair was dark, unruly, and rarely combed. Gary's was light brown and slicked back, except for the front, which rose up in a pompadour.
I don't know what Roger's father did for a living: maybe nothing. He was always hanging around like Ozzie Nelson gone to seed — a gray presence with a pencil-thin mustache and red capillaries showing in his face from years of hard drinking. He usually wore an old fedora and a gray suit, and he seemed like someone from a faded black-and-white 1940s movie.
Roger's mother was a hard worker. She waited tables six days a week at a restaurant at the edge of Lakewood Plaza and still found time to cook meals, clean house, and take care of everyone. I liked her. She was just like Roger, with the same dark hair, brown eyes, and amiable nature. She was one of the nicest parents I knew. But sometimes I noticed she had a busted lip or a bruise on her face. No one ever mentioned it.
Roger was my best friend — maybe one of the best friends I've ever had. We were inseparable. But my family moved to Orange County, about twenty miles away, shortly after I started seventh grade. My dad still worked selling appliances at a department store in Lakewood Plaza, so on Saturdays I would hitch a ride with him so I could get together with Roger. He and I would go to the restaurant where his mother worked and get ice cream or a coke. Sometimes we'd go to a movie. This went on for two or three months, until one day Roger didn't show up where I was supposed to meet him. His mother wasn't at the restaurant that day, so I walked the mile or so to his apartment. I knocked on the door for several minutes and then tried to look through the window. I couldn't see anything; the Venetian blinds were closed. I was just about to go when the door opened a few inches and Roger's dad called out. "What is it? What do you want?"
"I was supposed to meet Roger today," I said.
"Well, he's not here," he said, slamming the door.
It was dark inside. Roger's dad looked like he hadn't shaved or gotten dressed in days. I didn't want to say anything to my dad about it, so I started walking to kill time. I have no idea how far I walked, but at least eight hours had passed by the time I met my dad and went home.
I came back the following Saturday, pretending that nothing had happened and I was going to meet Roger again. I stopped at the restaurant, but the manager told me Roger's mother didn't work there anymore. When I went to his apartment, the door was unlocked, so I peeked inside. All the furniture was gone. I never saw Roger again.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Falcon Fever"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Tim Gallagher.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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