The 3/4 Man

A family of four eat dinner in a forest cabin. They scrape plates with forks, exchanging looks quietly after each bite. The father, home from war, enjoys his wife’s cooking for the first time in a year. The mother, his wife, wonders if the steak is cooked correctly and if her husband is still her husband. Their twelve-year-old son, ignorantly digging in, avoids the green beans. Their nine-year-old daughter hasn’t eaten a thing. She can’t stop staring at her father. 
“Dad?” asks the daughter. 
“Yes?” he replies, with a mouthful of steak. He takes his time to swallow before noticing his daughter’s troubled face. “What is it, sweetheart?”
“Where’s the rest of your head?”

A fourth of the father’s head is missing. 

Specifically, the second quadrant of his head is nonexistent. His right eye is gone. His right ear is gone. Half his brain is gone. Where all of those things should be, there is nothing but air. Imagine an apple, cut into four equal slices. Sergeant Brooks has a slice missing.

The vacant area is lined by two walls of flesh; flattened, perpendicular surfaces of skin. On the skin, there is no stitching, no marks, nothing indicative of injury or even a procedure. The rest of his face is fine; his left eye, left ear, nose, and carefree smile are all intact. 

Perhaps what is most bizarre is what hasn’t been lost—Sgt. Brooks himself. He functions as well as any full-headed human. The doctors reported no significant behavioral change and he seems to suffer no side-effects. He has lost no memories. Aside from the gap, Sgt. Brooks is as good as new.

His daughter, however, is distraught. When he arrived at the airport, with his arms outstretched for a hug, she ran the other way. The son was similarly reluctant, but seemed to accept the situation far more quickly. The father had called his wife the night before he arrived to warn her about his condition, but nothing can really cushion news like this. This is the first dinner the daughter has spent with her father since he returned; otherwise she has been avoiding him. Now, as she sits opposite to him, the daughter has become convicted of a certain something.  She sees through her father—straight to the white wall behind him.

Sgt. Brooks puts his fork down, delicately. He bows his head while he drafts a response. The man looks up and smiles at his daughter.
“Well, sweetheart,” he says. “It fell off!” Sgt. Brooks laughs heartily at his own joke. He nudges his son, who glances up for the first time that entire meal. He hadn’t been paying attention. The mother forces a laugh in response. The daughter furrows her brow. She doesn’t buy it. 
“How can a part of your head fall off?” 
“I don’t know, but it did. These things happen in war.”
“So, if it fell off, wouldn’t you have heard it drop on the ground? You could have picked it up and put it back on.” 
“Well, I would have heard it, but my ear just fell off!” 
“But your other ear’s still there!” the daughter screeches, nearly standing on her chair. 
“Joan! Sit down,” the mother demands. Joan Brook’s face is red with rage.
“But mom! He’s lying!” 
“Joan! You had better…” 
“Ruth,” mumbles the man. “It’s alright.” Ruth Brooks looks over at him, exasperated. She has to be a mother, but the wife wants to screech, too. Sgt. Brooks leaves his seat, turns left, and slowly walks around his wife’s chair towards his daughter. He bends down to her level. 
“Joan,” he says. “Listen to me.” Joan looks up at her father. Her glance glistens with hope. 

“Dad is fine. Dad is happy. Dad is the same as before. Dad just wants to continue his normal life. Dad still loves you, sweetheart, and that’s how you know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him.”

Sgt. Brooks smiles at his daughter. Leaning forwards, Ruth peeks through the gap in her husband’s head and at her daughter. Joan is crestfallen. When Sgt. Brooks returns to his seat, she crosses her arms and refuses to look at him the rest of the night. The war is over, so the son goes back to eating his meal.

*********

Outside the cozy cabin are cold currents of air. The evergreen trees appear black during the night. The dark talks to anyone who will listen. 

The family finishes their meal and cleans their plates in the kitchen.
“Glad to be back, kids. See you two tomorrow,” says Sgt. Brooks. 
“Hon, would you mind staying for a moment?” she asks, pursing her lips. The man pauses, wondering if there’s anything wrong. 
“Of course, ‘course,” he wipes his bottom lip. The two kids head upstairs to their room for the night. 
“Let’s go to the living room.”
“Sure.” 

Ruth Brooks walks into the living room. She hears the sink faucet running, so she has a moment alone before her husband arrives from the kitchen. Ruth takes a deep breath in. Sgt. Brooks turns the corner. He faces her and smiles, unaware of any problem.
“Noah.” She has her hands on her hips. 
“Ruth.” 
“Ok,” she replies, irked. The gentle way wasn’t going to work. “We have to talk.”
“About?” 
“Your head.”
“What’s there to talk about? I’m completely fine.”
“I want to know what happened.”
“I told you, it fell off.”
“You know that lie didn’t work on your daughter,” she replies. “What makes you think it’ll work on me?” 
“I don’t know what you want from me. No one can do anything about it.”
“Noah, listen to me. I’m not forcing you to talk about the war or whatever happened. But moving forward I need assurance that you are alright. Tell me that things aren’t going to be different. You owe me that, at the very least.”  
“Do I seem any different to you? Any different than before?”
“No. Somehow, no.”
“So what’s the big deal?”
“What do I tell people? The same thing as you’re telling me? That half of your head is mysteriously missing and that there was no injury?”
“Ohhhh, so you’re complaining because you’re worried about what other people are going to think of me.”
“Come on, we can’t just lie to them!”
“Right, right. ‘Cause you’re so embarrassed to be married to three fourths of a guy. Got it.”
“No! I want my husband—I want my children’s father to be safe. What if you start acting differently? What if you lose memories? What if you collapse? Tell me right now, to my face, tell me you won’t have some unforeseen side effect.”
“Look: the doctors examined me, they did x-rays, they ran tests, and guess what? Nothing! So what’s there to talk about?”
“You’re right, I’m no doctor. But we are all kidding ourselves if we continue to do nothing about it.”
“The only problem is that I look different. I mean, this is akin to complaining about a bad haircut.”
“A bad haircut! A bad haircut?”
“Yep.”
“You are so goddamn ridiculous!”
“Oh, here we go…”
“What the hell is wrong with you? You are such a…”

And then it descends into pointless bickering, so Joan Brooks gets bored of eavesdropping. She pulls her ear away from the top of the staircase and tiptoes back into her room. On the top bunk of the bed, her older brother plays videogames on his Nintendo DS. Joan climbs the bunk bed ladder and peeks her eyes at him. He pays her no mind.
“Elliot…”
“What?”
“What do you think happened to Dad?” 
“I dunno.”
“No one knows. I’m asking what you think.” 
“Nah, I just dunno.”
“Ugh. Do you even care?”
“I care about this videogame.”
“No! About dad.”
“Not really.”
“What?!” she shouts.
“Shush!” Elliot turns to his sister for the first time in the conversation. “You’re gonna get me in trouble, again.” Joan’s expression softens.
“What do you mean you don’t care about dad?” she whispers.
“He’s the same, get over it. And you’re the one yelling at him,” he scoffs, turning back to his DS. “Ugh, you made me fail the level.” Elliot then covers himself with his blanket. 

Joan steps back down the ladder. She sits on her bed, huffs, and crosses her arms. She lies down. She tosses and turns. She can’t find a comfortable position. She can hear the muffled music of Elliot’s videogame. Joan folds her pink pillow against her ears. When she closes her eyes, she sees her father’s face. Wondering if she will ever sleep again, Joan cries into her pillow. 

Shortly after hearing her weep, Elliot, grudgingly, pauses his game and pushes the blanket out of his face.
“I don’t think Dad wants to talk about it,” Elliot whispers. 
“You don’t know that,” Joan argues. Elliot is irritated; he’d gone so far out of his way to be kind to her.
“Well you asked me what I think, so…” he grumbles. “Besides, whatever happened to Dad, I don’t want to know about it.” Elliot goes right back to playing his game. 

*********

Besides only opening one eye, Sgt. Brooks wakes up the same as any other man. He rubs his left eye, stretches, pushes away the covers, and walks to the bathroom. He grabs a towel, washcloth, starts running the water, and steps into the shower. When the water falls on his flattened skin, it tickles. The area feels firm, like cartilage but not bone. He washes the area gently with soap. Cleaning the crevice between both walls of flesh is his new challenge. Sgt. Brooks finishes his shower and dries himself off in the mirror. There’s water in his left ear, but he can’t smack the opposite side of his head to knock it out. His hearing is limited now. Only when he turns to the door does he hear his phone ringing in the bedroom to his right. He carefully reaches for the door handle. Sgt. Brooks’ movements are more calculated than before; his depth perception and peripheral vision are not what they used to be. Any strong contact or fall might have disastrous effects, particularly on his brain. Sgt. Brooks’ life is full of small inconveniences and threats to his mortality, yet he pushes through. “Remember, Noah, you save on shampoo,” he often thinks. 

Sgt. Brooks enjoys hunting. The next day, he’d arranged a time for him and Elliot to go together. Sgt. Brooks figured the experience might be good for his son. That and some bonding time might be good. Elliot groaned as his father woke him up early that morning, but eventually the boy obliged.

In the basement, Sgt. Brooks keeps weapons stored in secure safes. In the first, which is a tall, upright locker, he owns a Remington 700 bolt action rifle. Next to it hangs a Mossberg 500, a pump action shotgun. There is a third gun, but in a smaller safe. It is a dark box opened by a single key and it stores Sgt. Brook’s handgun: a Glock 19. The black barrel is square and the handle is small enough for anyone to hold. Sgt. Brooks opens the locker and takes the Remington 700 rifle with him on the hunt. He carefully closes and locks the container, takes all the keys with him, and heads outside.

*********

“How come Dad and Elliot go hunting without me?” Joan complains, glued to the window. She kneels on the couch wondering how far away they are. 
“You’re still a bit too young. Besides, it’s more of a boy thing, you know?” Ruth sighs, paging through a book. Joan turns to her mother and scoffs.
“Why is it a ‘boy thing,’ then?” she insists. Ruth drops the book into her lap, thinks for a moment, and replies:
“You don’t even want to go hunting, do you?”
“No…” Joan admits. “But they should at least ask me.” The girl drops down onto the couch, crossing her arms. Ruth returns to her reading. 

Joan lets herself, for a moment, sink into the comfort of the couch cushion. Instead it pricks her skin. That said, she prefers these pins and needles as opposed to soft, sweet ignorance. Joan Brooks hates the dark; she hates being in the dark. Now, her father locks the truth away, in a safe she can’t open.

So she’d been considering alternatives. She had wondered if the missing quarter of his head might grow back, like the arms of those starfish she’d read about. Or if some generous soul might have a quarter a head that her dad could borrow. She had the intellect of an adult but the sentiment of a child (who doesn’t have the second one, deep down?) Joan just wanted her life to go back to normal. But her father’s face wouldn’t fix itself. 
“Mom?”
“Yes, Joan?” 
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” 
Ruth puts down her book. She didn’t mind the interruptions—the book’s marriage and relationship advice wasn’t helping her anyway. 
“Aw, honey…” Ruth sits next to her daughter. “Well, there is something we can do.” Joan’s eyes light up at the words. “We can be strong for him.” Joan recrosses her arms. 
“That just means nothing,” she mutters.
“Joan. No it does not,” Ruth replies, adjusting herself towards her daughter. “Listen, your father made sacrifices for us. For our country. He didn’t want to be away from us.”
“Then why did he have to go?” Ruth pauses for a moment, pushing down the truth before it leaves her mouth.
“To protect us. The U.S. military needed him to fight the bad guys. If he didn’t, we might not be safe.”
“It feels like they stole him, took some of him, and then gave us what was left.”
“They did not take your dad, understand? Your dad is here, your dad is safe, we’re all home together now.”
“Well I want my dad back—all of him back.” Ruth responds with a sigh. She does, too. 

Ruth Brooks feels obligated to defend her husband, but it has been tearing her apart. Why was it her job to defend the country that had taken him from her? Why was it her job to defend the atrocities of war? And why should she have to corroborate her husband’s story? She believes he’s lying, too. Having to tailor every response and tinker every word slows anyone down and, consequently, her daughter’s wits were becoming too much to keep up with.
“Hey, you know how I say I’m crazy about you kids? That’s how your father is, too. Even if you don’t understand why he does what he does, even if it seems crazy, your father loves you. So us—me, you, Elliot—we just have to love him back.” Ruth fakes a smile that Joan pays no attention to. The girl glares at the living room floor.
“If he’s so ‘crazy’ about us, how come he doesn’t tell us the truth?” Ruth, accepting defeat, retreats for now.
“Joan. You are too smart for your age. But you’re only thinking about yourself,” she states, as she starts to stand up. “Imagine what it’s like to be him.” 

Ruth walks away while Joan stays put. Unsatisfied yet pacified, the girl’s mind lingers on her mother’s words. Joan shuts her right eye. 

*********

Sgt. Brooks and his son walk through the forest, probing for rabbits. Towering over them, the evergreen trees shroud a gray sky. Beneath their boots, insects scurry to cover. Sgt. Brooks feels the wind pass through his face. The frigid air feels like ice on his newly exposed flesh. 
“Your birthday’s not too far away, huh?” he asks his son. 
“I hope I get some nice presents,” Elliot replies, not too far behind.
“We’ll see. You’re growing up, kid. You’re almost a man.” Sgt. Brooks tried putting a little rumble on “man” but it didn’t land. His son doesn’t seem to notice at all, he just keeps walking forwards.
“You still have some years left. But you’re getting to the age when you’re between a boy and a man.”
“…”
“So, although you’re still a kid, you’re going to have to start learning how to be a man.”
“…” 
“Isn’t that right, Elliot?”
“Yeah, dad. ‘Course.” Sgt. Brooks suspects that his son isn’t listening, but he figures that, after a year, he might have some ground to make up. He had traveled across the world and back—a little extra distance wasn’t going to slow him down. Although something keeps prodding at the rest of Sgt. Brooks’ brain: Elliot, from certain angles, appears similar to one of Sgt. Brooks’ brother in arms. Although the term “brother” is a bit deceiving; the eighteen-year-old is more like a nephew to him. Sgt. Brooks stares forward. In his left eye he sees his son. In his missing right eye he sees flashes of his former friend. Really, there’s only a five-year difference between them. Or there was. Because that kid lost his entire head.

They walked around the forest some more, but Sgt. Brooks hadn’t used his sights once. Eventually they stop in a large clearing of the forest, just to rest. Elliot sits on a fallen tree trunk and starts messing with his binoculars. Sgt. Brooks stands with hands on hips, wondering if only one eye and only one ear are to blame for their lack of success. He’d served the rest of his time in the army just fine without them, yet Elliot’s silence makes Sgt. Brooks second guess himself. He goes to speak to his son, but he stops himself, deciding whatever he was about to say isn’t good enough. Unsure of how to articulate himself, he raises his right hand to scratch his head, but instead he swipes at air. 
“Do you understand what it means to be a man?” Sgt. Brooks asks his son. 
“I don’t,” Elliot admits. The boy’s concession came at no personal cost to his conscience. Sgt. Brooks puts his hands on his hips, taking a moment to think. He surveys the field for an answer, something that can reach Elliot. Then he starts:

“Imagine there’s a castle. A large castle on the hill. It has large towers made of stone bricks and all the kingdom’s people live behind its walls. Those wide walls and tall towers keep its citizens safe—it keeps them in as much as they keep its enemies out. Now, imagine that, one day, someone notices that one of the stone bricks looks a little different. It has a crack! Now, one tiny little crack doesn’t mean the tower will fall. However, the citizen who lives in that tower might not feel as safe; the raider outside might want to attack that tower. Elliot, when you become a man, you become a tower. And a tower is only as strong as people perceive it to be. So don’t crack, is basically the gist of it.” 

Sgt. Brooks is relieved to be done with his spiel. Though, as he watches Elliot’s expression, he wonders if the metaphor overstayed a welcome it never received. 
“Huh, interesting,” Elliot nods. Sgt. Brooks pauses and squints with his one eye. The father knows his son—he hasn’t been gone that long. All that information, all the hard work he’d put into that metaphor had gone through Elliot’s ear and out the other. So he decides to switch his strategy:
“Hey. What videogame do you play most?” 
“Mostly Super Mario Bros.” Suddenly, Elliot becomes uncharacteristically engaged.
“Right. Say Mario doesn’t shout ‘wahoo’ when he jumps—say he loses his confidence. The princess is going to lose faith in him and those turtle guys are gonna attack him more if he shows signs of weakness.”
“But Luigi shows signs of weakness.”
“Is it called Super Luigi Bros?”
“No.”
“What’s it called?”
“Super Mario Bros.”
“Exactly,” he states. “Now be useful and find us a rabbit.”

*********

The sun started to set, earlier than Sgt. Brooks remembered it would. They ended up leaving early and without anything to show for it, neither rabbits nor lessons learned. Sgt. Brooks tells his son to head in early while he puts away their things. Sgt. Brooks goes to the basement room, unlocks the large safe, puts the gun inside, locks the door, and keeps all the keys in his pocket as he heads upstairs. 

In her room, Joan shuts her right eye. Then she opens it. Then she shuts it again. Then she opens it. Joan plugs her right ear with her finger. Then she shuts her right eye once more. She tries walking around. She stumbles at first, but she gets the hang of it. “I could get used to this,” she thinks. 
“Joan! Dinner’s ready!” She walks downstairs.  

*********

Fireflies float outside the ferns in the front yard. Crickets chirp and caper in the uncut grass. Noah Brooks sits silently on the veranda; besides his beleaguered breaths, he does not exist. He listens as the darkness talks to him. 

Suddenly he flinches. 
“Joan.” Standing outside the closed door is Joan, looking a little cold in her Hello Kitty pajamas. Sgt. Noah Brooks wonders how he did not hear his daughter.
“You’re stealthy, you know that? You’d make a good Green Beret,” he jokes, although only partially kidding. Joan remains silent. 
“It’s late. What’s up?” he asks his daughter. 
“…”
“Is something wrong?” A moment passes. All of the sudden, the girl smiles. 
“Tuck me in?” she asks.

The two head back inside. The keys inside Sgt. Noah Brooks’ pocket jingle loudly. Fortunately, Elliot sleeps like a rock. The man tucks his daughter in. She stopped asking to be tucked in years ago, because, as she put it, “I’m a big girl,” and therefore did not need to be tucked in. So, as he tucks her in, Sgt. Noah Brooks is overjoyed. 
“You snug?” he asks.
“Yeah!” she beams.
“Haha, you’re like a little burrito.” The girl giggles hard at that one. The dad is happy. 
“All right, then. Goodnight.” But before he can leave, the girl grabs hold of him by the pant leg. Spontaneously, she hugs him. Sgt. Noah Brooks chuckles, caught off guard, but a half second passes and immediately he feels a void has been filled. She whispers,

“Dad, I wanna be exactly like you.”

The dad’s eye glistens with joy. Unable to speak without letting a tear out, he nods, turns off the lights, and quietly closes the door.

So Noah Brooks tiptoes to his bedroom, thinking only of what his daughter had given him, but blind to what she’d taken. 

*********

Sgt. Brooks sleeps easier that night than he had in a while. He wakes up, stretches, and rubs his eye to adjust to the light. The bedroom is whiter than he remembers. The sun is shining bright today.

Sgt. Brooks makes his bed and heads to get breakfast. He walks down the stairs and into the kitchen. No one is around. He looks around the corner, curious. No one in the living room, either. Sgt. Brooks shrugs and decides to continue on. They’re probably taking advantage of the nice day, he figures. He opens the fridge doors. He looks around for a moment. He isn’t sure what he wants yet. Sgt. Brooks checks in the back for something. Then he finds it. Eggs. He takes out the carton of ten eggs and places them on the counter. He’s going to make scrambled eggs. 

Sgt. Brooks goes to open the drawer adjacent to the sink. He’s looking for a skillet. He crouches down to look. His legs feel light today. Sgt. Brooks is hardly an old man, but certainly not a young one either. Regardless, he sees only trays and cutting boards in that drawer, so he moves onto the one just across. There it is, he thinks. He grabs the skillet and rises to his feet. Sgt. Brooks smiles, impressed with his own dexterity. Maybe it was his improved mood that had given his knees new life. He pats his legs. Sgt. Brooks raises his only eyebrow, confused by something. He taps his right pocket. Nothing there. Then his left pocket. Nothing there. His stomach sinks. Where are his keys? 

Sgt. Brooks sprints upstairs. He wonders, in the middle of his stride, if he’s just paranoid. Some paranoid soldier who misplaced his keys. But he swore he had them. He had them last night. He bursts into Elliot and Joan’s room. Only his son is there.
“Elliot?” 
“Uh, yeah?”
“Did you take the keys?
“What keys?
“The keys. The ones to the safe, did you take them?”
“Uh…” 
“Answer me,” he demands. 
“No, no. I never touched them,” replies a hurried Elliot. Sgt. Brooks turns without saying anything. He rushes down the stairs and heads over to the living room.
“Ruth, Ruth!” he shouts.
“Yes?” hearing his urgency, she rushes over. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Where’s the keys? The keys to the safe.”
“I don’t know,” she replies. Sgt. Brooks looks around, panicked. 
“Where’s Joan?” asks Ruth. The couple’s eyes widen the way only a parents’ can.
“JOAN!” howls Sgt. Brooks, rushing to the basement. 
“JOAN!” screeches Ruth. Elliot follows silently. Sgt. Brooks nearly takes down the door on his way to the basement room. The thoughts swarm through his head. The possibilities of what he might see when he turns the corner. There is no logic in them, only the worst case scenarios. The darkness, chattering in his head, places bets on the outcome. Sgt. Noah Brooks turns the corner, sees it, and freezes. 

Nine-year-old Joan Brooks points the gun at her head.

A hundred dead faces flash in front of him. Allies, enemies, brothers—nothing changes what a nine millimeter can do to a human head. Sgt. Brooks glances onto the table. The dark door of the safe has been opened. When she turns the corner, Ruth gasps at the awful sight. Elliot catches a glimpse before he can turn away; his jaw drops open. Joan is the only one who isn’t mortified. In truth, she appears completely fine. 
“Oh my god, oh my god… JOAN!” Ruth cries and screams. Then she sees her husband put his hand up. She holds in her hysteria. 
Sgt. Noah Brooks has grasped the situation. Despite this, he remains calm. Calm as if there were nothing wrong. Any wrong move—a wrong word, a step too far, any flinch—could mean the end of his daughter. He slowly stretches his hand out towards her.
“Joan.” 
“Father.”
“Put down the gun, sweetheart,” he gulps. 
“But Dad, it’s fine,” she assures him. “If I shoot myself, I’ll be fine. Just like you are.” Joan rests the gun on her right eyebrow. If she shoots now, she’ll blow half her brain out. Sgt. Noah Brooks’ eyes start to water.
“Joan, no, that’s not how it works…” 
“But you have half your brain gone and you seem fine.”
“I am, but…”
“What’s the big deal? I’m only getting rid of this side. I’ll just use the other half.”
“Joan, listen to me. Give me the gun.”
“You said you’re fine. You said you’re happy…”
Sgt. Brooks’ words come back to bite him like a pack of hungry wolves. He concludes that if his daughter dies now it would be entirely his fault.
“It’s like I said: I want to be exactly like you.”
“Oh, kid, no…” 
“This way, you won’t feel left out. We’ll be the same—no one will say I’m not your daughter.”

She grips the gun tighter. Ruth shrieks. Elliot nearly falls.
“I LIED!” screams Sgt. Brooks. “I lied…” 

Joan loosens her grip. Sgt. Noah Brooks’ shoulders slump and his hands hang lifelessly. He continues:

“Dad is not fine. Dad is sad. Dad is a little different now. Dad just wanted… I wanted to have a normal life again. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be as happy as I used to be. But know this: I still love you—I always will. So please, Joan, put the gun down.” 

There is silence. Ruth stands breathless, teeth chattering from the shock. Elliot’s tongue is dry. From Sgt. Noah Brook’s remaining eye, a single tear falls down his face. Joan Brooks drops the gun at her feet. She scowls at her father.

“Was that so hard, old man?”















By Anthony Sharkey

by Anthony Sharkey