Time to Grow Up

My days of playing war outside come to an end.

When I Was German is now FREE at Smashwords: 
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         I was in high school. I was growing up. Suddenly I was as big as my old man.
And sadly, my days of playing war in the woods came to an end.

          It was winter and Andrew was Fencing. Mike had a job after school at the
library. Colin was away for his first year of college. I was completely alone.
I played a lot of war outside that winter. The snow was deep and I loved to fall
and die in its snug white embrace. And fighting in the snow was fighting in Russia;
struggling in the bitter freeze, shivering in a faded Wehrmacht trench coat.

        One gray afternoon I lay behind a fallen tree. My rifle lay across the trunk, the
barrel pointed towards the Russian positions. The woods were silent; had the Russians
spotted us, or had we stolen upon them unseen? I was pondering a covered route of
approach when the dry brush line behind me crashed open. I spun around and four kids
almost stepped on me.

         Sorry, man.

         It was Jack, one of the kids from Elder Drive. He was a year younger than me.
He was a burnout, a kid who smoked dope. He was with three other burnouts I didn’t
recognize. They smelled like pot. They stopped and stared down at me and my rifle.
One kid smiled like he thought he should laugh but then his glazed eyes drifted off,
beyond me, further into the mist of gray fog and black tree trunks.

        Without saying anything else the four continued deeper into the woods, toward
the Russian positions. I watched them fade into the gray confused depth. Were those
tree trunks moving from side to side, or was it the burnouts?

       I felt the difference between them and me. It was the feeling I felt in school, like I
always had, of being outside. Of being weird.

       I was fifteen years old and I was playing war by myself. The burnouts were
younger than me, but they were already doing cool things, hanging out, going to parties,
growing up.

       Sex made me see this more clearly. I knew that I would never get any girls
playing war in the woods like a little freak. I would only get girls if I had friends and
went to parties. If I did cool things, like collecting rock albums, going to the mall,
drinking beer or smoking reefer.

      There was an empty spot inside me, and it ached. That ache was pushing me,
driving me toward something.

      I stood up and hurried home in the opposite direction of the burnouts. I was lucky
they were so stoned or they would have laughed at me. Maybe even beaten me up for
being a freak.

      I played war outside a few more times. Always looking over my shoulder for
somebody. It wasn’t very fun that way. I couldn’t lose myself in the action.
One day I raced around a corner in the trail, shouting for the platoon to follow
me, and there were people there. It was a guy and a girl, holding hands. They were
heading up the trail, straight into my battlefield. They looked at me, surprised. And
annoyed. They were holding each other very close and carrying a blanket. They were
looking for a place to make out. I was embarrassed and flushed hot and wanted to run
away. I tried to act like nothing was wrong; I headed off the trail, away from them
towards the creek gully and escape. The girl watched me and giggled. The guy pulled
her away, and they were gone.

      I plunged into the gully. I couldn’t do this anymore. It was over. My war play
was finished. I was too old to be caught playing kid games. I didn’t want to be the class
freak, I didn’t want to be Ooofy again. I couldn’t help it. I wanted girls and I couldn’t
get them if I was a war nut.

      I limped home, hiding my rifle, hiding it in shame for the first time ever, under
my trench coat. I knew I still had my tanks. I had board games too, wargames on maps,
sophisticated, realistic games far beyond simple games like Risk and Stratego. I could
still play war, I consoled myself. I just had to hide it.

      But I wanted to cry anyway. No tears came. My old man said, you’re in early,
too cold for you? I ignored him. I didn’t want a fight. I wanted my woods back, I
wanted to play there but all that had slipped away. Now I was slipping myself, so fast
my face burned from the wind, toward new things I wanted and feared at the same time.
My rifle was assigned an undeserved fate. A betrayal, really, considering how
faithful it had been to me. I stood it in the back of the coat closet and left it there forever.

     I laid out a force of model tanks on the dining room table and tried to forget.