Deer Sneezes

I think every son starts out wanting to please his father. We want our fathers to see us as their equals, their peers, someone to be trusted and confident in. We measure ourselves with them as a yardstick; how they dress, how they act, how they talk, all have an effect on us as boys and even into manhood. I’ve always loved my father; always admired him for his character and integrity and there is no doubt I’ve always wanted to be like him. Even now when I see people they tell me they want to be like my dad. Imagine the burden of being the son of a saint. It’s easier being the son of other things – less to live up to. But my dad, I mean wow, there’s no one like him, certainly not me.

So growing up I really did want to be like him. My identity was tied directly to my father; in a lot of ways it still is. Even now, I’m a grown man with children of my own and I still look to him as my comparison, to know how I’m doing. So as a kid I wanted desperately to be like him. I did everything I could to be like him. I followed him everywhere and I even tried to like the things he liked. When he went deer hunting, I went hunting. When he went pheasant hunting, I went pheasant hunting. When he went hiking and camping I went hiking and camping. I learned to love the outdoors from my dad. I learned to love hiking and camping and being in the outdoors from him. I have a deep reverence for the wilderness now. I’m not sure I could be a whole person without the wilderness. I still want to be like my dad; he still inspires me to be a better person, to respect everyone and to keep my opinion to myself unless asked.

Unfortunately, even as a small child, I knew I was different from my dad. I don’t think I consciously knew. I tried as hard as I could whenever I was with him. And I was always disappointed when I didn’t feel like I measured up. It’s important that you understand my dad never judged me – not to my face and not by any action he did or didn’t do.

That was part of the problem. I wanted him to be angry with me. I wanted him to sigh deeply and shake his head. I wanted him to sit me down, and finally end the charade. “Son.” I imagined him saying, “I appreciate the years you’ve tried hard to be my son. But your mom and I feel like it’s time you understood something important.” At this point he would look me in the eye and with a bit of relief and a smile creeping in at the corners of his mouth at finally getting rid of me he would continue, “You see, when you were a small boy. Well, you were never really small, but young. When you were young, your mother and I came upon a troupe of traveling chubby performers. People who talked a lot but didn’t like to move and walk much and who were prone to severe grass, shrub and animal allergies. We helped them find food and facial tissues, and they gave us you in appreciation of our efforts. So you see son, you don’t need to try anymore. Your doughy and lethargic nature comes by you naturally. You don’t need to come hunting or hiking with me any more.” And then with that they would equip me with two dozen doughnuts, some cheese and sausages and a roll of extra soft bathroom tissue and send me out into the cold world to find my real mom and dad. At least, that’s the way I thought it might go. Because you see, I really wasn’t much like my dad.

One early morning my dad and I got up and driven out to the mountain to go deer hunting. He was teaching me to love the outdoors and to move silently through a world of animals and plants; to love nature and to respect it. He was like an Indian in those old movies. He was completely silent and in tune with Mother Nature, slipping in and out of the shadows and pine needles like a smoke over water. I, on the other hand, could hardly walk through a wooded area without tripping, falling and leaving a considerable trail of blood. I was not stealthy nor was I equipped for prolonged walks of more than thirty or forty steps. After that I would become winded and weary. And so I always wanted to go with my dad, but I was always fearful that I wouldn’t be able to make it and disappoint him; or worse yet that he might leave me somewhere on the mountain and tell my mom that I had died out there amongst the poison oak and ragweed in a fit of snot-filled sneezes.

I remember finally making it to our spot. It was perfect. It was a secluded stand of trees, just off a well used game trail. We found a comfortable spot, on the top of the mountain and waited. I tried desperately to calm my ragged lungs; my dad tutored me in stealthy breathing, but it seemed of little use. My overly plump frame was unused to that kind of strain and I was breathing heavily, in and out, in and out, taking deep gulps of air in order to live. Unfortunately for my dad, who I was so desperately trying to please, my over sensitive nose picked up on whatever windborne pollen was in the air and I began to sniffle. Then I began to snuffle. Then I started to sneeze. I tried hard to keep them in, but the resulting trumpet blast that came out my overly sealed lips would only have been appropriate had we been hunting wild pachyderms.

It wasn’t long before my saint of a father had finally reached the end of his patience. With a long sigh and a shake of his head my dad said I should go. At first I thought my worst fears had been realized. He was asking me to leave for good. And then I realized that he was asking me to go away from him. He needed to hunt and no deer would come to him with Snow Whites most pathetic buddy by his side. So he told me to go down the mountain, way over that way, he pointed to the north. Then when you’re in the very bottom of the valley come back up toward me. If there is anything in the valley you’ll drive the deer right up to me.

I was vindicated. I could actually prove myself. I could sneeze and stumble my way to success. If I followed his instructions I would trip my way down the mountain, sneezing and gasping as I went, find the bottom of the valley and using the skills learned from my dad, climb back up the mountain and be the cause, rather than the failure, of him getting his deer. And so enlivened by the prospect of finally becoming a good son, I got up, crawled out of our hideout and began my way down the mountain.

Once I was out in the open, hopping and tripping my way down the slope, my sneezing began in earnest. My short legs, chubby belly and uncoordinated gate kicked up a fair amount of whatever it was that was causing my nasal passages to be inflamed and they began to go into overdrive. My sneezing, eye watering and runny nose took on monumental proportions. Being in the suburbs as a child was bad enough when springtime allergies took hold, but pushing and beating my way down a pollen laden mountainside was tantamount to Fatman and Little Boy rather than a homemade pipe bomb. And my nose was exploding.

I stumbled my way down the mountain, sneezing, coughing, snuffing and snorting all the way down. I wasn’t worried about making any noise. I just was careful to watch where I was going, marked where my dad was, and worked my way down into the valley. Once I hit bottom, both figuratively and literally and tried to quiet my breathing as best I could. I knew that if I could get as close as possible to whatever was in the bottom of this valley, I would have a better chance driving it up the small wash to where my dad waited for a son who couldn’t even breath quietly to do something right. Once I was in position I slowly started working my way across the valley floor, through a dense set of trees, and came face to face with my fathers dream – an entire herd of deer, many of them large antlered bucks. I smiled, sneezed and worked my way toward the now, completely spooked, herd of deer. Within moments they lost that deer in the snot-light look and bolted, up the mountain, away from me and toward my dad. Perfect, I thought. I’ve done it.

I never saw them again; I knew they were headed toward my dad and that he would see them and know what to do. But I kept my bearings, watched where I was, where I’d been and where I was going. I kept my dad’s spot in sight and I slowly made my way back there, confident he wouldn’t be there because he had killed the big one. Finally, out of breath, sneezing ferociously, I stumbled out of the bush and into my father, still sitting in the same spot I had left him in hours before. I searched his face for a sign, anything, that he had seen what I saw. When he didn’t say anything, I asked, “Did you see them?”

“What?” he said, still not comprehending the lack of my failure.
I was young then, and guileless. I didn’t know that sometimes lies are okay, that sometimes it’s allowable to omit things that may hurt feelings. But I was clueless and beyond any real thought since there was no air in my lungs and the brains that I had were quickly draining out my nose. “The deer.” I gasped, “There was a whole herd of them. Big bucks.” My voice trailed off because I realized, much, much too late what was happening.

My fathers face fell. He shook his head, probably wishing he had left me in the valley when he had the chance, and said simply, “No. I didn’t see anything.” He looked over his overly husky son then, my raspy breath and pink face making a spectacle, and maybe for the first time he saw me realizing what he had, and said, “Come on. Let’s get lunch.” And so we went to lunch, my dad and me. Together. We ate and talked and laughed together. My allergies, once we weren’t hunting, cleared up miraculously. Still to this day I’m a bit on the chubby side and my allergies still give me grief sometimes. I look at myself and wonder what it would have been like to have turned out more like my dad. I wonder if he wonders. I wonder if he wishes for something different; does he wish I had been in better shape, or a better hunter? Sometimes I wish it. If for nothing else to be more like my dad.