I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

to close the matter at his leisure. Once his father had exhausted himself, Boone lit out for the wilderness.
    Semiliterate, Boone could hold a long rifle in one hand and take the head off a nail from distance. He won renown for his marksmanship, as well as his ability to track game like an Indian. He cared little for himself and took ill-advised risks. In so doing, he bungled into history. He served as George Washington’s teamster during a campaign that saw the future president twice shot off his horse. Boone ignored every warning and became the first to chance an unauthorized American settlement west of the Appalachians, getting one of his sons killed by Indians in the process. Another he would bury in a mass grave following the 1782 Battle of Blue Licks, and this after reproving him, “I did not hear your name when they were beating up for volunteers.… I am sorry to think I have raised a timid son.”
    Boone was a frontiersman, which is a latter-day euphemism for “unrelenting opportunist.” He tramped around the nativeelement looking for unclaimed resources, things to exploit before moving on. He bushwhacked, schemed, and hustled—mapping land, running a tavern, harvesting ginseng—but really he was something of a loser. By middle age, he was a bankrupt deadbeat on the run from the law.
    The one thing he was truly good at was pushing farther into the woods to kill for flesh and fur. Boone spent almost all of his borrowed time doing this, hunting peregrine. It kept his family decent while simultaneously keeping
him
away from
them
for months at a time. There was something salvific in it: the separation, the descent into a more primitive state, the regeneration through violence. He was still hunting and trapping well into his seventies.
    If you read the few primary sources, you start to get why. Boone feared something. It’s the same something feared by any ass-kicker who finds himself in medias res, hacking through the thick of it, knee-deep in the dead. He feared that, were he ever to stop, the mind he needed to keep trained on a target might instead turn on him. So, Boone came and went on his hunting trips. His shirt and shoes were always blood-soaked, and he’d have a nice present for the kiddies upon his return. But he never did stay for long.
    I took a break from journalizing to use the in-flight Internet to confab with Lauren. As always, she is oracular. Our middle-sibling keystone.
    Lauren: jesus, dad’s insane
    me: what’d he do
    Sent at 11:28 PM on Wednesday
    Lauren: just reflecting
    me: yeah
    Sent at 11:30 PM on Wednesday
    me: what made you think of that this time?
    Lauren: just like
    how there are no fucking answers?
    like a lot of shit happened we know nothing about?
    Sent at 11:31 PM on Wednesday
    Lauren: for instance
    remember how he told us that fucking BODIES
    would come up from the GROUND
    if it rained too hard
    me: yeah
    Lauren: and i remember sort of uncritically accepting that as fact
    me: no doubt
    Sent at 11:34 PM on Wednesday
    me: how long do you think that lasted
    dad-programming
    Lauren: what do you mean
    me: like, the way dad programmed us so that
    for instance
    when the afternoon thunderstorm rolled in, our minds ran the conditional
    IF (SIT BY WINDOW) THEN (STRUCK BY LIGHTNING)
    IF (TAKE A SHOWER) THEN (STRUCK BY LIGHTNING)
    IF (PICK UP PHONE) THEN (STRUCK BY LIGHTNING)
    Sent at 11:36 PM on Wednesday
    me: i actually don’t know which if any of those is untrue
    Sent at 11:37 PM on Wednesday
    me: i’m saying, when do you think you stopped taking him at his word?
    Lauren: mmm unclear in high school, maybe
    Sent at 11:38 PM on Wednesday
    Lauren: but i think thats normal adolescent stuff
    like i dont think its dad-specific
    i think once you’re able to not be totally dependent on your parents
    you start to receive them a little more critically
    me: well, sure
    Lauren: once you realize no one knows really what the fuck they’re doing
    me: but by then you’re also not under the command