Boy Soldier

AI-generated image

by Sascha Goluboff

Little Bobby Scofield didn’t want to go to the carnival. He’d rather play with the toy soldiers he’d set up as a battle between the Marines and the Viet Cong, but here he was with his mom, reluctantly walking the Midway the summer before sixth grade, kaleidoscope lights pulsing against a dark sky. Popping balloons at the dart game sounded off like sniper fire.

“Five-minute caricature,” a man called out from a tent behind concessions. He leaned on a snake-headed cane. His hair was white but his face unlined.

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Bobby’s mom asked.

Bobby shrugged.

“What’s the boy into?” The man ushered Bobby to sit by an easel.

“His army men.”

“Marines, mom.”

She gazed outside, lost again in her own world.

The man sharpened a charcoal stick with his fingernail. He sketched in large loopy strokes. Bobby’s eyelids grew heavy.

Bobby liked to reenact the Battle of Hue City in Vietnam. Maybe if he'd been there – all grown up – he might have saved his dad and his fellow Marines.

The snake cane flicked its tongue.

“You wanna be a hero?” the man asked.

Bobby nodded.

The man handed him the portrait – Bobby in camo.

Bobby stumbled out of the tent into Hue City, leaving his mom behind. Real gun fire crackled across a sooty sky.

Bobby spotted his dad across the rubble and yelled out to him.

His dad turned to him in a flash of recognition. He moved towards Bobby, arms outstretched. A grenade detonated between them. His dad careened backwards in a red shatter. Bobby was thrown against a concrete wall.

When Bobby came to, he felt the snake curled mockingly around his feet.

“Hero,” it hissed.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Sascha Goluboff is a writer, mother, and academic who lives in Virginia. Her personal website is saschagoluboff.com.