“Hey!” My fifth grade teacher called, his voice bright and enthusiastic against the sharp autumn air. His jogging feet had kicked up the decaying leaves plastered flat against each other to the trail, disturbing my bubble of silence. The rest of the class was only a few yards ahead, but I had decided to stay behind, walking slowly to savor the cool morning. It was just after 8:40, and we were taking a hike in Oaks Bottom, the wetlands closest to our school.
“Hey!” My teacher repeated again, going for an over-enthusiastic fist bump, but punching me good-naturedly in the shoulder instead. “How are you?” he said, his fingers clinging to my raincoat sleeve. “Gwen, isn’t it?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Smith.” I said. (As an introvert, I have never liked being touched, and teachers who like to prattle about souls and climbing metaphoric mountains are no exception.)
“Oh, good. You’re lagging behind, though, and you’re awfully quiet.” he said.
“I was just enjoying the morning,” I replied. “I don’t get out here much.” The trail was mainly quiet, excluding my class, who were chattering loudly, tossing neon orange corn chips at one another, and managing to ignore all wildlife. The birds, I noticed, had stopped their constant twittering, except for the occasional alarm call.
“Why?” Mr. Smith asked. “Doesn’t your family hike?”
“Oh, not really,” I said, staring off into the forest beyond the trail, burying my hands in my raincoat pockets.
“Why not?” Mr. Smith asked, as I began to walk again, attempting to mirror my brisk pace.
“My dad has a leg injury,” I said flatly. Would the rest of my school year be spent catering to this appetite?
“Oh really?” Mr. Smith replied. “Where’d he get that? Does he play sports?”
“No.” I said, “It’s a work thing.” Mr. Smith was really starting to get on my nerves, and this hadn’t been a conversation topic that I was originally comfortable with.
My father is a police officer, and back then had been nearing his fourteenth year of working for the Police Depatment. When I was younger, and foolish enough to tell everyone my dad’s occupation, people used to tell me how ‘cool’ it was that my father was a policeman. They found it awesome, like a superhero’s quest, full of dashing glory and epic car chases. Sometimes, people still tell me that. It must be nice for them, to live in the fantasy.
When I was little over a year old, my father was shot in an accident just before his next shift. The gun in his belt had gone off during a struggle, burying a metal bullet in his left thigh. That was in 2001. The entry wound still hurts him today, some eleven years later, especially when the weather pressure is changing.
In second grade, one cold November Friday, as my mother was walking me home from an after-school science activity, she told me that Dad had contracted viral pneumonia. He was out of the hospital, she said, but it wasn’t likely he’d be returning to work anytime soon. After an eight-week absence, my father returned to work, still with lingering strains of the cold.
Unaware of the grim series of memories currently playing themselves through my mind, Mr. Smith continued, pressing a bit further. “Oh?” he asked. “What does he work as?”
“He works for the city.” I said, choosing a well-worn lie.
“What part of the city?”
“Does it matter?” I snapped.
We walked in silence for several minutes, twigs and damp foliage crunching under my orange rain boots and his impractical biking shoes. Maybe I’ve finally lost him, I thought, feeling slightly guilty. I‘ve only had him for a scant three weeks. I probably should’ve been more lenient, and not been quite so snappy.
“So,” Mr. Smith said, letting the words hang in the air, probably editing a few more in his mind. “Does your dad have a desk job now, then?”
My guilt evaporated. “No.” I said.
“Really? Then why does he-”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “I’d actually rather not be talking about this right now, and quite frankly I don’t believe it’s any of your business.”
“I’m only trying to get to know my students.” Mr. Smith said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. I’d made him angry. Good.
“Then go talk to someone else about their father’s work occupation,” I snapped. “I bet some of them have some very interesting stories.”
Mr. Smith sighed, managing to look personally aggrieved as he slowly walked past, inserting himself into the center of the chattering class.
I glared at the back of his cheap plastic raincoat for a moment, noting the way its khaki tone imitated, not the color of the brush, as it was undoubtedly meant to, but the color of the swamp mud congealing in the ditches.
Go away, I thought. The party of a police officer’s family is not one you want to join.
Little did I know, but I was predicting the tone of the next school year. Throughout the next nine months, I struggled socially with my teacher, everything beginning at this one topic: my father’s work. Occasionally, Mr. Smith would say odd quips about the police, or law enforcement in Oregon. If anything, these comments strengthened as the year went on.
Part of that pressure wasn’t actually from him, though. Later that year, as my dad was working late on a call, he got bitten by a pit bull, a street dog owned by one of Oregon’s countless homeless people. The dog’s teeth pierced through the leather of his work boots, settling in his ankle, doing a lot of unwanted damage. A few months later, well after the immediate rounds of surgery and cleaning, my family discovered that my father had developed a hernia, a tear in the muscle lining of his stomach. In short, it wasn’t the best year ever.
So far, this year and last year, nothing bad has happened as far as the police force is concerned. We get the occasional story, of good people and criminals, tales of tragedy and working in the rain, and occasional bursts of hilarity, but it all usually boils down to the basic facts of life. Not everyone is good, and life isn’t fair, and that’s just what happens. My dad is pretty settled into the police life, and even writes a blog about his experiences. The rest of my family and I are used to it too, or at least, we pretend to be.
