Chapter 12: Doctor Reaper

Spring 2019 to May 2022

Saturday morning things started getting silly. I was home when it started, sacked out while Kelly got up to tend to the offspring, when she came in and said, “You’d better get up.”

“What’s up?”

“The President is complaining about you again.”

I looked at her curiously. “Trump?” She nodded. “What’s wrong now? Jack tweeting again?”

“I don’t know, but something set him off. He’s tweeting that the Army needs to yank your medals again,” she replied.

I rolled my eyes and levered myself upright. I might be about to get court-martialed, but I should have enough time to grab a shave and a shower before the firing squad showed up. I stumbled into the bathroom and took care of business, then came back out and dressed in shorts and a sport shirt. I needed some breakfast.

“Daddy! You’re home!” squealed Riley.

“Hey, Pumpkin, how you doing?” I asked. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

“Yuck!” announced Seamus. I guess boys don’t get kisses.

I gave his mother a dry look and then picked him up and turned him upside down. “Here. I’ll hold him, and you tickle him!” Seamus protested and squirmed, but Kelly gave him a good tickling. Then I flipped him around and set him down. “Next time it’ll be two kisses!”

“Double yuck!” He scooted away from me and ran down the hallway.

Next on the agenda was Boxie, who came up to me for some neck and ear scratching. No way could I lift him upside down - he weighed more than the kids! Satisfied, he wandered down the hallway in search of Seamus.

“Breakfast?” asked Kelly.

I nodded and grabbed a box of Grape-Nuts from the pantry. Kelly put a bowl and the carton of milk in front of me, and then found me a spoon. She poured me some OJ and then poured both of us some coffee. “Thank you. Now, what were you saying about the President?”

“He’s off the rails again. It seems that last night somebody over at Fox was talking about you and the new book, and how heroic you were, and somebody else on the show reminded everybody how you saluted two years ago during the football game. Anyway, Trump was watching Fox...”

“It’s the only thing he watches,” I commented.

Kelly nodded and shrugged and continued, “ ... and he started tweeting about how you weren’t a hero but were a self-promoting Never-Trumper and a secret Democrat and how you were wearing your medals illegally since he had ordered them all revoked.”

“Jesus Christ!” I muttered.

“Oh, yeah. He’s been tweeting up a storm since last night, rescinding your medals and ordering the Army to court martial you. He even threatened the Secretary of the Army if it wasn’t done!”

“Send an immediate text to everybody in the family telling them not to respond. I need this like I need more holes in my head,” I told her.

“Already done. I told Teresa to take away Jack’s phone!”

I snorted and nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. Trump’s got the attention span of a puppy. He’ll be bothering somebody else tomorrow.”

“I wonder whether they should impeach him,” she responded. “What’s worse, an insane President Trump or a sane President Pence? He’s nutty, too, just in a different way.”

I shrugged and shook my head. Kelly was even more liberal than Jack. Way above my pay grade. In any case, I didn’t have the time to worry about it. It was Memorial Day weekend and I had three days at home. I needed to prepare the fleet for deep water operations. That meant scrubbing the dock and pontoon boat and getting everything ready. At some point my father would put his boat in the water and bring Mom up. Barbecues and fishing were planned.

As I expected, this blew over by Tuesday morning. A couple of guys over at the academy wanted to know if I had tweeted anything back, but I just told them I didn’t have either a Twitter or a Facebook account. The students were different. Most of them didn’t know anything about me other than the facts that I used a cane and was crazy from PTSD. I never spoke about my combat tours or the Medal. By Tuesday morning, the ones who hadn’t seen me on Colbert had seen the show on YouTube or some other online channel. Some of the vets saluted me when I arrived. I shut that down quickly.

I didn’t have any summer classes at UGA. There just weren’t any classes or seminars for grad students. That didn’t mean I could take the summer off. Summer was when a lot of professors worked on their next papers or books, and doctoral candidates worked on their dissertations. That was my work in the afternoons, researching my dissertation and developing my background material. A lot of it I stored as pdf files on my laptop and in my Dropbox. Some I began cross-referencing and working up specific sections in my dissertation. My adviser, Professor Munson, believed my dissertation, properly organized and rewritten, would be publishable as a book. That would occur after I passed my orals and received my doctorate. I was going to have to give that some thought.

In any case, it was back to work for me. Tolley and Chris did their book tour and we started getting word from the publishing company that initial sales were better than expected. The book was ‘trending’, whatever the fuck that meant, and was rising in Amazon’s online nonfiction rankings. It also got a positive review in the New York Times book review. Whether that meant any of us would see any money was much more questionable. We had been told going into the project that the zeros on the checks were a lot smaller on nonfiction than on fiction. I wondered if Chris Balvin wouldn’t make more money than the rest of us combined.

That was old news, though. Although I did a few phone interviews, it was not something I concentrated on any longer. For me it was back to work, mornings teaching at the academy and afternoons researching at UGA. That changed in August when the fall semester started, and I began taking classes again. I was signed up for a colloquium on medieval Middle Eastern history and a seminar on a topic of our choice on Middle Period American History. That was defined as the Civil War and Reconstruction and included a requirement to generate a term paper that could be published. That was a pain in the tail, but I figured I could write something related to the use of southern police forces to suppress freed slaves during Reconstruction and afterwards. I had enough data already collected on the history of police forces in America that some of it had to be usable.

I also tried to get home on weekends to be a father and husband. The kids adapted better than their mother did. Even with the help of our families, it was still on her to raise the kids. I wasn’t there to drive Riley to dance class or run errands or even to watch them while shopping. She also informed me that I wasn’t there to perform another important task, scratching her itch. She bluntly told me that battery operated boyfriends weren’t sufficient. She was ‘paddling the pink canoe’ too often (she had to explain that to me; it was apparently an old term) and she needed me to provide the oar! That was more of a description than I had been looking for, but I made sure to offer my services whenever possible. She managed to dump the kids on our mothers every three or four weeks for Mommy-only trips to Athens. Kelly even found me a list of vitamins and dietary supplements that were supposed to increase a man’s stamina for when I made it home on weekends. I asked her if any of them had been tested on humans and she tried to keep a straight face but broke down when Seamus asked what vitamins were. I just put my hands on my hips and gave her a look, which earned more laughter.

I continued working as an adjunct by the academy. Aside from the lectures I would give on PTSD, use of force, and history of policing, I also did the normal teaching chores like assisting during pistol qualification and demonstrating approved and unapproved restraint techniques. Approved techniques might include pressure points, unapproved might be a choke hold. Either way, always remember somebody is watching, either with a cell phone or through a security camera. The trick is not in subduing or restraining somebody. The real trick is not getting nervous about all the watchers. You just had to remember to do it correctly, because if you do it correctly, your chances of getting in trouble drop drastically. Sometimes I would give a demonstration, sometimes I would be the one being demonstrated on. It could get pretty funny when you ended up turning the tables and restrained the trainee.

I talked to Rich Dunlop, and he expressed interest in my continuing as an adjunct into 2020. He wanted me to teach full time at some point in the future, but he also knew that wasn’t realistic. If I got my doctorate, I was heading home to do something with consulting. Even if I didn’t finish the doctorate, I wasn’t going to pick up and move my family to Athens to teach at the academy. I would probably be able to be talked into coming back to give the occasional lecture, but that was it.

My paper on southern police forces during Reconstruction was deemed good enough to be submitted to a couple of history journals. The Journal of American History passed on the paper, but it was published in The Journal of American Studies. Kelly was ecstatic, telling me that this was just the first step on becoming a professional historian. I would probably be able to publish at least one more paper before finishing the big one, my dissertation, which would also be published. After that she’d have to quit her job as a mathematician so she could follow me around the world. At that I gave her a smack on the butt, which made Seamus and Riley laugh.

Spring semester I signed up for another two classes, a seminar on European history from the mid-14^th century through the mid-19 ^th century, and a colloquium on comparative history. Lots more reading, lots more writing. I debated quitting eating and just hooking up IVs in the study rooms.

I tried to make sure I got home for the kid’s birthdays, but that didn’t work in 2019. Riley’s birthday was February 19, which was a Tuesday, and Seamus’ was May 8, which was a Wednesday. 2020 looked to be better, at least for Seamus, since his birthday was a Friday, and I could get home in time for dinner. Kelly and I were born six days apart on the calendar, though I was a year older, and we usually shared a birthday party with the kids somewhere in between. On our anniversary, June 21, I made sure to give her a small pink canoe which I found on Etsy. That earned me a punch to the arm, which completely mystified our children.

About a week after my thirty-fifth birthday, I was dragged into an amusing conversation with my eldest. I was sitting at home in my recliner contemplating an early nap when I heard Riley ask Kelly something. I wasn’t quite sure what, but my eyes were mostly closed, and I was starting to fade out.

Kelly answered, “Well, your father is right there. Go ask him.”

“He’s sleeping,” my daughter replied.

“He’s faking. Just go poke him awake.”

I was going to have to find a way to thank my wife for that. Riley came over and poked my arm lightly. I just grumbled a touch and faked snoring. Riley stopped and I heard her say, “Mom?”

“Poke him harder! Try to tickle him. That’ll wake him up.”

Riley came over and poked me some more, so I cracked an eye and grumbled out, “This better be good, or you’re going in the lake.”

She giggled and jumped back. Kelly saved her by saying, “You have to help Riley. She has questions for you.”

“You’re going to be doing a barnacle inspection, too.”

“Wake up, you faker.”

I stretched and scratched and asked, “So, what’s so important the two of you need to disturb my contemplation time and chance getting thrown in the lake?”

“Riley has a project for school and needs your help.”

I turned my head towards Riley and tried to give her a Death Stare, but it just slid off her. She smiled and I asked, “What’s up, Pumpkin?”

“We have to do a report for social studies about our families. Grandpa once told me our names come from old people in the family and I need to know who we were named after. Mom says you’re a historian and can help me.”

I nodded in understanding. “Okay, I can probably help. You need the names of everybody or just us?”

“Huh?”

I asked, “Do you need the names and history of just your mom and me and you and Seamus, or do you need your grandparents, too?”

Riley nodded. “Oh. Just us.”

“Okay. Got a pencil and some paper?” She went scampering off to her bedroom. I looked at my wife, who was smirking at me. “I was really looking forward to that nap.”

She glanced down the hallway to see if the kids were in earshot, and then replied, “I remember when you used to say sleep was for pussies.”

“And I remember what you used to say sleep was for.” I waggled my eyes at her, and she blushed.

Riley came back down the hall and Kelly said, “We can talk about that later. Help your daughter first.”

I had Riley draw our family tree on a piece of paper. Then I pointed to me and said, “So, my name is Graham Wendell Reaper. Write that down.”

Riley wrote it down and asked, “How’d you get your name?”

“Well, it’s a family tradition. We tend to reuse older family names.”

“Huh?”

“My grandfather, your Grampy, is named John Graham Reaper, and your Grandma’s father was named Everett Wendell Simmons, so Grandma and Grandpa gave me their middle names. I became Graham Wendell.”

“Okay.” Riley wrote some of this down on her paper. Then she looked up and asked, “What about Mom’s name?”

“Well, your mother’s name is Kelly Bridget...”

“Is that why my middle name is Bridget?”

I nodded and Kelly said, “That’s right. It’s more than that. Pop-Pop’s mother was named Bridget, too, so you were also named after her.”

“Cool! What about your first name?”

That mystified both of us. Kelly said, “Not sure. We’ll call Nana later. Maybe she can tell you.”