Yankee-Zulu

A young man reflects on his past, sexuality and family bonds. I tried to explore the themes of gender, familial expectation and other social issues.

"Charlie-Fourteen! This is Charlie-Fourteen! Over!" A gruff voice crackles over the radio, which is sitting atop a mess of scattered papers. I quickly reach over a cup of cold coffee and grab the mouthpiece. Holding the button on the piece, I am greeted with a quick beep.

"This is Foxtrot-Two responding. Please advise. Over!"

"Charlie-Fourteen here. I have checked on the code 417 at 870 Poplar Place. Everything checked out fine and all is secure. False alarm."

I sort through a stack of papers and snatch one out. Grabbing a pen, I over the information and make some quick notes. "Okay, file's updated! Thanks Charlie-Fourteen."

"Thanks! Have a good night, Zulu!"

I let out a low growl from between clenched teeth and tighten my grip on my pen until my fingers turn white. Apparently, my father has told another member my nickname. That's fine. It just really grates my nerves that he can't shut up. They only use it as another way to mock me. It's a family thing…family understands.

"Some people just piss me right the f**k off!" I mutter angrily, tossing the radio transceiver to the back of the desk.

My mother looks out from behind her monitor across the room. "Always so bitter!" She laughs. "You take things so personally, Zulu. Just relax. Maybe they want to get to know you so you could go play some hockeyball with them!"

I look up from my paperwork and smirk at the inside joke. She has always been able to make me smile. "Oh yes! And I'm sure I'd be fabulous at putting the…what is it? The…um…the…" I pause for a second, faking a thought. "Oh yes! The birdie into the hoop to score a touchdown!"

My mother shakes her head and laughs. "Yeah. Something like that." My father calls her X-Ray. I never quite understood why. The phonetic alphabet for X. My theory is that it's due to her overwhelming ability to see through anybody and any situation.

"Aw c'mon mom! It's not as if you don't hate 'em once in a while too! The people, I mean. At times, you just want to gouge out their eyes will dull rusty plastic spoons!"

My mother takes a second to take in this sudden exclamation and then bursts out laughing, her eyes squinting shut as they always do whenever she laughs too hard. She finally gasps for air and gains her composure, looking up at me with mischief in her eyes. "Oh, hunny! Of course I want to kill them! Maybe not in such a creative way…Maybe just with a gun." She pauses for a second and looks me over. "But I know that you don't really mean it really. You love the attention too much!"

I quickly roll my eyes and snicker, turning back to my filing and attempt to make a start. She was right, of course…I did love attention. God…I hate filing! The organization, the perfection, the rigidity. I never could stand stuff like that. So stuff is a little bit messy and fits outside the box�"whatever! Grudgingly, I pick up a file and begin. AG. Year '05. Coloured label after coloured label. It's enough to make anyone crazy. But my entire family had been with the force, and I guess it's only fitting that I should continue the legacy. Granted, my father had wanted me to be an actual officer, but I couldn't pass the physical exams. Well, that's what I told him anyways. I just wasn't interested in being an officer or working with the police period. But mom had talked me into it. Why go to school if you don't know what you want to do?, she was known to say. I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't have the guts to tell my parents, or to take the risk. So, instead, I chose to file. After all, it pays the bills and gives me plenty of disposable income to blow on shoes and fantastic jeans.

"I wonder what Yankee is up to back at home?" My mother muses. She is, of course, referring to my father.

I shrug as I place a folder up on a shelf. "Who knows?" I answer. My father has only started to accept my life and my choices. "Probably drinking beer, with his a*s parked in front of the TV."

My father and I have not always gotten along. In fact, we always seemed to be at odds with one another. He ruled with an iron fist and lived by the adage "Be a man!" Growing up, I hated that phrase so much, and to be honest, I still do.

That was my problem growing up. I could never be a man. I hated sports and cars. Instead, I played with dolls and hosted tea parties, much to my father's chagrin.

When I was younger, probably around kindergarten, my father finally convinced me to join the hockey club, after much pleading, bribery and heaps upon heaps of threats. I remember the first time he brought it up, in vivid detail. I was holding a tea party in my room with Cheer Bear and Mr. Winky, the first grungy teddy bear I ever got that was missing an eye. He came bursting into my room, full of energy like a roman candle. I glared up from my tea, disgruntled that he would crash my wonderful tea party�"I mean, after all, grandma had supplied the fine china. She said it was her wedding present from the Queen of England, and I snatched it up, just like that. Of course, I know how she was lying, but somehow, she always knew what I liked to hear.

He looked at me, glee etched upon his face and threw out his grimy hands before me, clutching a few brightly coloured papers.

"Look!" He said to me, excitement quivering in his voice. "They have a few good hockey teams here in the city! For younger kids, like you. Wouldn't that be so much fun!? To go out skating and play a game?"

I stared at him, slightly fearful. Anything he was ever excited about could only spell disaster for me. "Hockey?" I stared at him blankly, I'd never even heard of the game until that day. "It's a game? How do you play it? Is it like…figure skating?"

His jaw set tightly when I said that and his eyes flashed dangerously. "No. It's not like figure skating. Only goddamn f**s play…no…not play…prance around on f*****g skates like that. Real men play hockey, d****t." His took in a deep breath and looked down at me. Trembling, I looked up into his hate-filled face and counted each individual droplet of sweat that clung to his forehead. "And so will you!" He bellowed.

The next day, I was down at the local sports store, looking at all sorts of different pads, helmets, skates and cups. That was awkward. My dad thought the cup was the greatest invention. Designed to protect a man's most important asset. I was too young at the time to understand what he even meant, or to catch his innuendos. The sales associates who were forcing skates onto my feet and trapping me within various different sets of pads laughed like hell though. I just sat on that bench, staring out the window at the toy store across the street, longing to go look at the newest Barbie toy. It was a bubble-gum pink Cadillac. Battery-operated. Convertible. The ultimate dream machine. With that, Barbie and Ken truly could live the American dream. Sadly…I never did get the car.

They made me stand up in the hockey outfit and walk clumsily around the room. I felt ridiculous. I could hardly walk due to the weight and length of the pads on my legs. I could not bend my knees and ended up walking up and down the aisles, stiff-kneed and bowl-legged. I had never been so embarrassed in my life. My dad and the sales associates watched my hobble throughout the store and just laughed at me. I felt my facing burning with blood as my face turned redder than the Calgary jerseys which were hung carelessly on one of the clothing racks.

"Well, I'm sure he'll make an excellent player!" The sales associate quipped as he released me from the prison of sports gear. I gasped for air when they yanked the bulky helmet off me and stretched my legs out the second that they had the thick pads on my legs untied.

"I know that he will," my father replied, tussling my hair and handing his Visa over the sales counter. I pressed my teeth tightly together and glared at him, trying to ignite his clothing. I had never hated anyone more up until that moment. These ideas of his always ended in disaster.

He loaded up the bags and dragged them out to the truck, throwing them into the back, with the hunting tents and firewood. I shivered in the cold and put my mitted hands between my legs, hoping to warm them up. He saw me in my attempts to keep warm and chuckled at me, joking that I'd better get used to the cold because I was going to be out in the cold a lot. I frowned and waited for him to open the doors, and when he did, I clambered into the seat beside him.

"Dad?"

"Yeah kid?"

"I don't think I'm gonna like hockey. It seems scary. Can't I do something else?" I replied weakly, ready for the explosion.

He turned his head to the side. I thought he looked like a robot when he did it, but looking back on it, it may have been more like a demon. He stared blankly at me with dark, wide eyes and an emotionless face. "No. You're going to play hockey. And you're going to like it."

"But…I don't think I'll like it. I'm scared to play. Daddy, please!?"

He took in a deep breath and kept staring at me, eerily calm. He kept his hands steady on the steering wheel and turned his head back to the road. "I told you no. And never call me daddy again. You're a hockey player now. Hockey players aren't p*****s."

I settled back into my seat and stared out the side window, etching designs in the frost with my fingernails as saline tears welled up in my eyes.

I was woken early the next morning, shaken out of my slumber by a rough hand.

"Tony! Wake up! It's practice time!"

I turned to the side and looked at the alarm clock beside my bed. It flashed at me 6:07. 

"What practice? Huh?" I groaned sleepily.

"Hockey practice! It starts today. I registered you late yesterday, now get up!" My father lifted me out of bed and set me down on the floor. "Get ready and come downstairs, the truck is already running." He turned and darted out of the room, like a firework bursting from its casing. Grudgingly, I dressed myself and headed out into the freezing cold.

The rest of the morning was a blur. That was until we arrived on the ice. I was okay on my skates. A little bit better than some of the other kids, even. This seemed to please my father, who was urging me to keep up to the others. But I couldn't. My pads were too thick and bulky. Most of the other kids were wearing other pads, not as square or thick as mine. To me, they looked a lot easier to move around in, and I hated my father even more for buying me these bulky things. Undoubtedly, he was scared that I would hurt myself so he got me the biggest pads ever made.

I was, of course, wrong. Much to my displeasure, I discovered that my father had decided I was going to be a goalkeeper. He told me about it as if he was handing me the sweetest candy that anyone could ever get. I, of course, didn't know any better at the time, and feigned excitement, to keep him happy. When he started to describe what I had to do, I wanted to hand the poison candy back to him. Clearly, he was trying to get me killed. This became more apparent as practice started.

They put me down at the end of the ice, in front of a net. And told me to stop thick rubber pucks flying towards the net with my body. I thought they were insane, it seemed like reverse dodge-ball. Doesn't it make sense to try to get out of the way of something that's trying to hurt you? Apparently not to these psychopaths. And they had chosen me to be their meatshield.

They lined everyone up at this red line and I stared at them through my cage. One of them handed me a big stick. Oh good, I thought, sarcastically, an extra measure of defense. A large stick. I wanted to beat them with it. And then…it began.

The first puck missed me, luckily, and got caught in the net behind me. My father yelled at me to try harder. I remember looking at him and seeing the disappointment in his face, but I didn't care. Right now, I had to survive. I had to stop these little pucks from hitting me. And if they missed me and went into the net behind me, all the better.

The second puck hit the pad on my right leg. It stung a bit, but I was too worried about what was happening next to think about it. One of the coaches stepped up to the line and was talking to the other boys, showing them something. And then…he did it. He pulled back the stick and smashed it against the puck. It sailed clear through the air and towards me. I let out a loud screech as it sped towards me and I dropped to the ice, but I was too late. It connected with my helmet and echoed off the Plexiglas and steel girders of the arena. Pain exploded throughout my skull and I crumpled to the ice, my vision going black.

I woke up in the hospital, with my mother and father arguing at the end of the bed. I remember my mom saying something about never playing hockey again. And my father saying that things happened sometimes. They stood there, squared off, voices raised, for what seemed like hours as I pretended to sleep. After it was all said and done, I think my mom won. She saw that I had woken up, and came to my side, cooing over my aching body and promising I would never have to play the horrible thing called hockey ever again. She kept that promise.

Not admitting defeat so easily, however, my father bought me a tool kit as a birthday present when I turned twelve. He was hoping to inspire the masculine within me. Oh…He inspired it all right, and much to his pleasure, I spent hours secretly with the tools. I'm sure that he thought that I was busy constructing some wondrous cabinet or table or something. After all those hours spent in secret, however, I finally unveiled, much to my father's disappointment, the most glamorous dollhouse our home had ever seen! The fact our home had never seen a dollhouse was beyond the point.

Ah yes…The infamous doll house incident. I think that's what finally made my father snap. He gathered up all my dolls and their wonderful new home and tossed them into a raging bonfire in the backyard. He dragged me out there by the arm and forced me to watch, standing there with his strong, calloused hands digging hard into my shoulders. Tears streamed down my face as flames danced along my beautiful masterpiece and the dolls' plastic faces melted into a flesh-coloured puddle.

Yes…I'm Zulu…Not quite X-Ray. Not quite Yankee.

"Hey mom. Do you remember my doll house?"

She poked her cheerful face out from behind her monitor and grinned. "Of course! Me and your dad had a huge fight about what he did to you. He screamed about how he didn't want no nancy-boy f*g in this family and he was going to put a stop to your love of dolls for good. We all know how well those tactics worked." I looked up at her, and we exchanged a look, laughter dancing in our eyes. It was just a joke between us. My final act of defiance�"Coming out. "But…He still loves you. In his own way. He might be quiet about it, but he's still proud of you. You know how it is. He can't tell his buddies about it. He just runs away from the truth, he can't bear the reality of it." She pauses for a second and purses her lips. I've seen this look before�"she's debating telling me something. Finally, she looks at me with a twinkle in her eye. "You know what I wish your father would do?"

I twitch my mouth to the side, confused as to what to say. "Um…No. I've no idea." I smirked and ventured a foolish guess. "Do the housework once in a while?"

She looks at me and giggles. "No silly!" She twitters. Suddenly, her face grows serious and she leans forward in her chair. I move towards her to listen carefully to her words, it's not often that she gets like this. "Be a man."

I freeze and look at her in shock, as the filing in my hand falls to the floor. My laughter echoes off the filing cabinets, followed shortly by hers.