A Song for Julia

Neither of us wanted to fight in front of him.
    “Yeah. But don’t think it’s over. I know you have your band and all, but I want to see you do something with your life.”
    Sean interrupted. “Your show wasn’t on the news. I watched CNN, and all they talked about was a sniper. Killing people. Did you know some rifles can shoot more than a mile? It’s because of the high velocity of the bullet.”
    I shook my head, more than a little disturbed by the direction of the conversation. “I didn’t know that.”
    “That’s all they’ve been talking about on the news for days,” Dad said. “Some crazy bastard going around shooting people in Washington.”
    “The most popular sniper rifles use seven point six two ammunition,” Sean said. “But the longest range confirmed kill was Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock during the Vietnam War, using a M2 Browning fifty caliber machine gun instead of a sniper rifle.”
    I sighed, staring at Sean. He’d always grabbed onto topics and learned … a lot of obscure facts. But this—it was disturbing.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Dad whispered, “but it’s unavoidable in the news right now.”
    I shrugged. “This will pass.”
    He grunted and sat down at the table. “Eat!” he shouted. “You’re too frickin’ thin, Dougal. And you drink like a fish. What woman is ever going to want to stay with you if you’re like this?”
    Normally a comment like that, I’d have been pissed. But I just looked down, stabbed my fork into a potato and started eating. Sean’s plate had the same food as mine, but Dad had peeled the potatoes, as always, making sure there wasn’t a speck of brown left. Sean took a bite and started humming. It was one of my songs.
    I took another bite and my dad said, “What?”
    “Nothing, Dad.”
    “Don’t ‘nothing’ me! As soon as I mentioned girls, you clammed up. Did you get one of those groupies pregnant?”
    “Dad! No!”
    “Well, something’s been eating you since you walked in the door.”
    “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Yeah, you never want to talk about nothin’, kid. There’s a big shock.”
    Irritated, I shook my head. Sean started to hum a little louder.
    “Dad, maybe I don’t want to get interrogated every time I come over. Maybe I don’t want to get yelled at every time I see you, okay? Can’t we just have dinner and enjoy it?”
    My dad sighed, seeming to shrink in on himself a little. His face looked angry, and he started to shovel away his dinner. After a few bites, he looked up and met my eyes. “Look, I know we’ve not gotten along all that great. But you’re still my son. I still care about you.”
    I winced. “Sorry, Dad …”
    “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
    I shook my head. “I met a girl this weekend, that’s all.”
    My dad blinked and then asked at his usual shout, “So what’s new about that?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know. It was different.” I didn’t want to get into it. It was different. But that was partly because I was different. Sometimes I just got tired of the same old crap. No one I could spend time with, laugh with—no one that mattered. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great being able to pick up girls. But maybe I needed something a little bit more.
    “Huh,” he said, then didn’t make any further comment. Sean flipped through the pages of his medical book, pausing maybe fifteen seconds per page. Pause … read … flip. Pause … read … flip. He was a hell of a reader and sucked back information like crazy, but this was too fast even for him.
    “Anyway, there was something different about her.”
    “You gonna bring her around?” My dad took a swig of his beer after he asked this.
    I shook my head. “No … she doesn’t want to see me again.”
    “Ah, crap. What’d you do, try to grope her?”
    I sat back in my chair, rolling my eyes. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
    “Well?”
    “No, that’s not it. She’s … Harvard girl. I’m outclassed.”
    “Not hard for a Harvard girl to outclass a high school dropout. But you were always wicked smart, kiddo. Too much for your own good, sometimes.”
    I shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it.”
    “You can always go back to school.”
    I closed my eyes. “Don’t start, okay? Not tonight.”
    “All right, all right. I won’t. But I will say one thing … if you want to come back, ever, and live here and go to school … I’ve got plenty of room.”
    I didn’t know