Spitfire

by Evan Balkan

  When Daddy returned from work at Bethlehem Steel, he’d place his pail on the table, give me a kiss, and take off his dirty clothing. I’d take the pail to the kitchen for cleaning and carry the clothes to the cellar to dunk them in sudsy water, scrubbing that stubborn residue with that coarse brush we have, and hang them along the line in the back of the house so that they’d be dry for next morning. The same routine—every day, until you arrived. Sweet Caroline.”

  Mrs. Panski rubbed her hand gently along Caroline’s forehead.

  “And then the routine resumed once again. It was a happy time. Some women might have seen all the housework and a new baby as stifling—no room for anything creative. No room even for yourself. But for me, it was a thrill. I had a home, a husband I loved, and I had a beautiful new baby girl. It was hard to imagine anything better. I hardly had a moment to even think about hockey.”

  Caroline looked again at the photograph, at her smiling and radiant mother. “You’re so pretty.”

  Mrs. Panski took the photograph from her daughter and returned it to the box in the bureau. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “I’m not surprised. I know you’re pretty. It’s just that … I don’t understand.”

  “There’s lots you don’t understand.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me before?”

  “And encouraged you even more? Last thing you needed.”

  “But if you loved it so much and had so much fun, why are you so against me playing hockey, and why are you telling me all this now?”

  “So you can see that I’m not just trying to make you unhappy. I understand your desire to play. I do. But you need to listen to me. It’s true what they say. Hockey is for boys. You want to figure skate, fine. But there’s nothing but trouble in hockey.”

  Caroline thought for a long moment. “Your leg?” she finally asked.

  Mrs. Panski nodded.

  “You told me you were born with that limp.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  “Is that the real reason you stopped playing?”

  “I told you, I met your father.”

  “He made you stop playing?”

  “And I became pregnant. Weren’t you listening?”

  “I made you stop playing?”

  “I became what I was supposed to become—a wife, a mother, a homemaker. Girls can have all the dreams and games they want. But someday, girls turn into women. And then it’s time to put all that silly stuff aside.”

  “But you got to play. You just told me—”

  “I didn’t know any better. And neither did my parents. They were too busy working all the time. You have the benefit of having a mother who knows better. Dreams are for girls, not women.

  “But I’m still a girl.”

  “And one day, sooner than you think, you’ll be a woman.”

  “But, mama—”

  “No buts. Now get washed up for bed.”

  Caroline didn’t move.

  “Go.”

  After Caroline disappeared down the hall, Mrs. Panski drew the picture back out of the box. The young woman in the goalie gear and the big smile looked back at her. Mrs. Panski looked out the window and then returned the photo to the box, stood, and turned out the light.

  LIKE THE REST of her classmates, Caroline sat at her desk wondering what was going on out in the hall. A couple of kids near the doorway strained to hear what Miss Bloom and their solemn-looking principal, Mr. Podolski, were talking about. Whatever it was, it looked serious. After a few moments, Miss Bloom entered the classroom, and everyone straightened up and stopped their murmuring.

  “Children, your attention, please. We have a new student joining us today.”

  “Boy or girl?” one of the boys asked.

  “A young man.”

  Alma looked at Caroline and made a face.

  The door opened again, and everyone turned as the principal steered a scared looking Negro boy into the room. Miss Bloom cocked her chin toward an empty seat in the middle row, right next to Caroline’s. “Joseph, take a seat there in the second row.”

  Joseph tentatively walked to his new desk, his chin buried in his chest and his eyes on the ground. The rest of the students murmured and looked to their neighbors, unsure how to compute this unprecedented turn of events.

  Beatrice raised her hand. “Miss Bloom?”

  “What is it, Beatrice?”

  “Isn’t it illegal to have Negroes in schools with whites?”

  “Apparently, it isn’t. Now, everyone please open your math textbooks—”

  “Miss Bloom?” Beatrice spoke up again.

  “What is it now?”

  “I thought it was illegal—”

  “Joseph has just moved to Baltimore from the south, and his Daddy … well, there are special circumstances … and I do not need to explain this to you. We have work to do. Now, open your mathematics textbooks to Chapter 14.”

  A few of the students still sat frozen, while others looked warily at the new arrival who, quite conspicuously, did not have a book.

  “Do I need to repeat myself?” Miss Bloom boomed.

  The students hopped to, but the nervous energy did not fully dissipate even as Miss Bloom began chalking up the board with some rudimentary algebra.

  Joseph looked around, obviously nervous. One girl in the front row turned and openly scowled at him. He continued looking around the room until he caught eyes with Caroline, who managed to give him a shy smile. After a few moments, she scooted her desk toward him and laid out her book between them.

  Miss Bloom watched but said nothing. The students in the class murmured to each other as Miss Bloom turned back to the board.

  “Thank you,” Joseph whispered.

  Miss Bloom clapped a stick against the board and the students got the message. They began their lessons with renewed focus.

  During lunch, Joseph sat by himself in the cafeteria, a long table’s only occupant, nibbling on a paltry lunch. Caroline looked over at him, something her friends noticed, but she did not join him.

  Three white boys did, however, including Alan, Caroline’s nemesis from the hockey pond. Alan “accidentally” spilled some milk on Joseph and then walked away laughing. Joseph didn’t react, as if this was all a normal part of the school day. Caroline continued to watch, but she didn’t get up to help. In fact, no one did, not even the teachers. But even if she had wanted to help him, he was already up and heading out. To the bathroom, she guessed, so he could get cleaned up.

  When the bell rang signaling the end of the school day, the students poured out through the doors—yelling boys, laughing girls, making their way down the front steps of the school. It had been a couple of days since she stopped using the crutches, but Caroline still walked with a limp so Alma, Beatrice, and Genevieve walked slowly so she could keep up.

  “What’s eating you?” Alma turned to ask Caroline as she fell behind again. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “I’m just thinking it must be hard for that boy. New school, being the only colored boy. I can’t imagine. Seems nice enough to me.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a little crush.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I certainly do not.”

  “I don’t even think that’s legal in Maryland,” Beatrice chimed in. “Really, Caroline. It’s all good and well that you like our new colored friend, but everyone saw the way you looked at him in class.”

  Caroline’s face reddened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He’s colored, Caroline,” Beatrice said. “He might very well be a nice boy. But he’s a colored boy, and there’s nothing but trouble in that.”

  Genevieve glared at her friend. “Oh, shush, Beatrice.”

  “I’m just saying you should keep your distance is all.”

  The girls reached their separation point and said goodbye to one another.

  “See you,” Genevieve said. “And Caroline? Don’t pay Bee any mind.”

  “I�
�m just saying is all,” Beatrice said before she and Genevieve headed in one direction, Caroline and Alma in the other.

  The girls walked silently. Alma looked at her friend. “You have been quiet, Caroline.”

  Caroline swallowed. She had been thinking of Joseph, but she knew she couldn’t admit that out loud. There was something about him—she didn’t know what. She had wanted to talk to him at lunch, but something like that just wasn’t done, and no one, not even her friends, would understand.

  But that was just the point, wasn’t it? What if she believed that Joseph could be the only one who might understand her? When she looked at him, she saw the same thing in his eyes that she saw in her own while staring at herself in the mirror as she combed and curled her hair each morning. It was a certain kind of fear, a trepidation, a belief that something terrible was on the way, that life will throw not its blessings but its banes at you, and that it could happen any day at any time. Her father was fighting in a war and she knew what that meant, what it could mean. And the way Joseph had about him, like he too was holding on to something sad, something way beyond him, deep inside.

  Of course, she couldn’t say these things to Alma. Alma was fun and being around her rarely failed to make Caroline happy. But she just couldn’t understand how Caroline felt, not with her own daddy at home with her. So Caroline didn’t bother to try to explain.

  Caroline walked as if she were dragging a weight behind her, a weight from the whole wide world that pressed down on her. It wasn’t just Alma. No one understood her—not her mother, not her brother, not her friends. Not really, anyway. Only one person, and he was so far away. She struggled against the weight of it all, consciously straightening her shoulders with every other step, the universe pushing them back into a hunched shape as she moved, a push and pull that seemed unrelenting.

  But then she entered the house and there, awaiting her arrival, sitting by the front door, was a new pair of skates. She rushed to them and picked them up, running a finger softly and carefully across the very tip of the blades.

  “Those are for figure skating,” Mrs. Panski said from the kitchen doorway.

  Caroline ran to her, throwing her arms around her mother’s aproned waist. “Thank you, Mama. They’re beautiful.”

  “I got them secondhand, from Mr. Reider’s. They were inexpensive, but they’ll do. Certainly better than those old ones you had.”

  “They’re beautiful, Mama. I love them.”

  Mrs. Panski crossed her arms and furrowed her brows at Caroline.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I promise.”

  “Caroline—”

  “I promise.”

  “No more of this running off in the middle of the night.”

  “No, Mama. Only in the day.”

  THE NOISE COMING from the kitchen sounded like a goose.

  When they first heard it, they all looked up. Sam, Caroline, and their mother had all been in the front room, each lost in a book: Belles on Their Toes for Caroline; A Town Like Alice for Mrs. Panski, and a Plastic Man comic book for Sam. Caroline got up and went to the kitchen only to find Beautiful standing there, tail wagging, and water dribbling from her muzzle into little splashes on the floor. She looked like she was smiling.

  Caroline bent down to scratch the dog’s head. “Was that you making that noise, my beautiful little Beautiful?”

  The dog’s tail whirled and helicoptered.

  “You swallow a goose?”

  Beautiful stood on her hind legs, her front paws scratching into Caroline’s shins. Beautiful’s nails never did any more damage than leaving small white lines on Caroline’s skin and the scratches felt good somehow, an affirmation of life from the little doggy who loved her so much.

  She picked up Beautiful and nuzzled her, carrying her into the front room. “I think it was her,” Caroline said.

  “What kind of noise was that?” Mrs. Panski asked the dog. “Can you do it again?”

  But Beautiful did nothing other than squirm out of Caroline’s arms and drop to the ground, where she pranced over to her favorite spot on the rug next to the big red chair Mrs. Panski favored. Beautiful circled the rug three times before plopping to the ground in a tight ball. The family watched her, smiling as they often did at Beautiful’s antics.

  Later, with everyone spread out in various parts of the house, Beautiful made the noise again. Caroline was in her room, daydreaming, but slowly the realization that the noise was back dawned on her. She got up and went downstairs to see Beautiful still curled up near the chair.

  “You okay, girl?” she asked.

  The dog blinked at her a few times and within moments fell back asleep, leaking little whistling noises as she snored.

  At first Caroline was worried, but soon she forgot about the noise. Instead of worrying about strange noises or her father in danger far away, she buttoned up her coat, slung her new skates over her shoulder and headed for the pond.

  As usual, Caroline arrived to see there were already a dozen or so boys playing hockey. They were so into it, in fact, that it took a while for any of them to register that Caroline was standing there at the edge of the pond, her new skates on her feet, a look of steely determination in her eye.

  “Look who’s here,” Alan declared.

  “I just came to skate. That’s all,” she said, remembering her promise to her mother.

  “We don’t play with girls,” one of the boys declared.

  “Yeah. We don’t play with girls,” another chimed in.

  Caroline wanted to tell this last kid that he looked like an idiot, standing there with a stupid smile on his face, repeating what his friend already said as if he didn’t have an original thought anywhere in his stupid little brain. But she bit her lip. She didn’t need any trouble.

  “I told you I’m only here to skate.” Caroline tiptoed toward the ice. She knew she should have just let it go at that. But as she listened to the dummies laugh and make snide comments, she couldn’t help herself. She knew she was going to say something else. The words seemed to spring up from somewhere deep inside, against her will. “But I could beat you if I wanted to,” she said, stepping onto the ice.

  At that, the boys laughed hysterically. It was the laughing that got her. It was a cackling sort of thing, a hyena-like peal echoing and bouncing off the nearby buildings, slipping across the ice, doubling back on itself, a chorus of idiocy. She wanted to tell them that they sounded like stupid little girls, but she couldn’t figure out how to tell them that without insulting little girls. She felt as if some alien force deep inside her was pushing her forward, telling her that the last thing she should do is turn and walk away, go home, let them win.

  But simply taking her rightful place on the far end of the ice, practicing her skating, wouldn’t do either. Because she knew full well they wouldn’t let her be. They’d be watching her, shouting things at her, maybe even skating next to her and knocking her down. They’d make her the focus of their stupid game.

  So she skated directly toward one of the boys and yanked the stick out of his hand.

  “Hey!” he yelled. He was at least a head shorter than she was. She loomed over him, his stick in her hand, and stared down at him. All he managed to come up with was, “Dumb girl,” something even his friends recognized as completely lame.

  The boy backed away, muttering about stupid girls and figure skating in an attempt to save face.

  Caroline looked at all the other boys gathered around her and banged the stick on the ice. “Well, are we playing or not?”

  The boys snorted and shook their heads and then someone dropped the puck and passed it toward Caroline. She took it with ease, skated a bit, eluded some poke checks, and slid it to a boy who fired a shot. He didn’t score a goal, but it was a pretty play. A newfound level of respect seemed to ripple through the boys. But they were not all convinced. No way.

  As they skated back and forth, Caroline proved she was good, but several times she lo
st the puck or fired an errant or intercepted pass. She could play, but she certainly hadn’t shown them she was some kind of superstar.

  Until, that is, she collected a pass and charged toward the net. Facing down two defenders, she executed a nifty little twirl—shades of figure skating, it appeared—deked between them both, and continued charging toward net, leaving the defenders a tangled mess on the ice. Alan charged behind. He reached out his stick to trip her up, but she remained just a step ahead. She raced toward the goal, wound up, and sizzled a slapshot past the goalie and into the makeshift netting.

  Cheers went up across the pond. Arms raised, Caroline circled back toward the midline when Alan rammed into her, sending her sprawling onto the ice. Several of the boys groaned. But Alan stared them down, and no one, it seemed, was willing to challenge him. Nor was anyone willing to help Caroline up. She lay there for a few stunned moments before collecting herself. Then she dropped the stick onto the ice, skated to the edge, and stepped off the pond. Alone. No one even asked if she was okay.

  Dusk pooled in the western sky—a dark bank of clouds lending a dismal grayness to an already colorless scene. Through this, Caroline trudged toward home, broken less in body than in spirit. Sore, yes, but that would heal. It wasn’t the physical pain that got to her. No, that she could handle. It was the unfairness of a world that made rules without her input and against her will.

  The next morning, as the sun broke the horizon, Caroline was sound asleep, a slight smile on her lips and a look on her face that spoke of untroubled dreams. But she suddenly gasped and thrust upward, jolted out of sleep by something unpleasant: a bad dream, a premonition, something deep and unknown. She looked around, blinked, exhaled a few times, and remembered everything. Her father was in Korea. The hockey boys were jerks. Alan was a bully. That poor Joseph had to go to school with no friends. Why was it that sometimes bad dreams and reality were one and the same?

  She began a slow crawl out of bed and into full consciousness, then dressed and made her sluggish way to the breakfast table.

  Sam shoveled oatmeal into his mouth, the gluttonous noise he made the only sounds during an otherwise silent breakfast. Caroline pushed her oatmeal around with a spoon, occasionally reaching down to give Beautiful a distracted head scratch. The dog reacted to her fingers by thrusting her head up to meet the outstretched digits, but when she stretched too far, it set off a series of chokes and dry heaves and she immediately lowered her head again. Caroline hardly noticed the dog’s struggles.