The Oldest Game
Dad’s attic smelled like time. It held enough plastic-wrapped dressers and pieces of Frank Sinatra memorabilia to give out to the entire neighborhood. The endless stacks of cardboard boxes looked like they’d wanted to tumble over since the Nixon administration. They were all marked J. Burke in thick black marker — just to be safe I guess. I still couldn’t believe that he was gone.
I couldn’t believe that his entire life had been reduced to this, a cramped room stuffed with useless things. I imagined my daughter feeling the same way a few decades from now, disappointedly rummaging through my old comic books and G.I Joe action figure collection after I was gone. But I had to find it. I wanted to finally see the gold medal he’d been hiding all these years.
I’d never been up in the attic as a kid, mostly because of the “ghosts” Mom told me about, but even more so because Dad said I wasn’t allowed to. He required no explanation. I only learned about his secret gold medal because Mom brought it up by accident at dinner years ago. I remember him yelling at her later that night.
He told my sister and I that he had won the medal for being the strongest man on the planet, but he didn’t like bragging about it. Dad was a first-generation American with vertically-challenged Italian genetics coursing through his veins. So even as an eight-year-old, I found the idea of him being a world-class power lifter to be a little far-fetched.
I asked him about the competition and what the other athletes were like, but I’ll never forget how quickly and violently he scolded me. We knew Mom had seen it, but we also knew better than to ask her about it behind his back. She’d always tell us that men from their time were incredibly private and devout in their modesty. We left it at that for years.
I spent hours up there sifting through lumpy boxes and rotten books, hoping to finally get a look at something that I had wondered about for over 50 years. I knew it had to be tucked away up there somewhere. I imagined it would be encased by a wooden frame alongside a picture of Jeffry Burke standing on top of a tri-tiered podium in a strongman leotard. But after an hour of digging, it was nowhere to be found.
I was ready to give up and started climbing down the ladder when my eye caught a glimpse of a little blue ribbon dangling from the very top of one of the old dressers. I climbed back up and pulled the plastic cover off, eager to grab the dusty loop of fabric that sat just within my reach. I stood on my tippy toes and carefully pinched the blue loop with my finger and thumb. I Kept my arm held high while I dragged it off the dresser so the medal wouldn’t smack me in the face on the way down. Then I finally saw it. Then it all made sense.
Dad was the strongest man I’d ever known, even more so than Grandpa. I once watched him slice his arm open while working on our shed and instead of rushing to the hospital, he duct tapped the wound up so he could finish the job he’d started. He was that kind of Dad. But I also remember how he’d cry in the night.
I’d wake up to him screaming hysterically at people none of us could see. I’d peak out my bedroom door and catch glimpses of him smashing the house to pieces before Mom would usher me back into bed. I remember how fast he’d turn angry, how scary his eyes were when he was mad. As I grew up, I understood that Dad had some demons tucked deep within his soul, I just didn’t realize that he had been awarded a medal for it.
It was a golden star. Roman goddess Minerva sat at the center of it —her figure encased by oak leaves, trefoils, and a laurel wreath. Above her sat an eagle clasping at an olive branch and a bundle of little arrows. Its talons sat perched on a solid gold bar, a single word raised across it: VALOR
