Defiant Heart

by Steere, Marty

  “I didn’t…”

  Jon never saw the punch coming.

  There was a sudden flash of light and a startling dizziness. Then Jon realized vaguely that he was lying on his back, though with no recollection of having gotten there. It took a moment for his brain to register pain, but, when it came, it was intense, radiating out from his left temple and cheekbone, a sharp, burning sensation. He felt confused. He tried to focus, but images swam in front of his face. In the background, he could hear voices.

  “The son of a bitch insulted my mother. I’m not gonna to repeat what he said. It was disgusting.”

  Jon tried to raise himself, but he slipped and fell back. He opened his mouth to speak, but that made the pain worse, so he immediately clamped his jaw shut.

  Someone was leaning over him. Or maybe it was more than one person. There seemed to be several heads swirling in the space above him.

  “If you insulted his mother, then you got what you deserved.”

  The faces disappeared. Then the voices dissipated and were gone as well. Jon lay on his back, stunned, the only sound the rustle of tree branches swaying in the breeze. Cold from the ground began to seep up through his trousers and coat.

  #

  Ben Wheeler walked to the small hangar door, stepped partially out and looked up at the sky, which was, for the most part, clear. Though it would be a little chilly, they would still be able to get in a short flight. But only if they got going soon. He checked his watch again. It was a good half hour later than the time Jon had arrived the day before. Unbidden, a feeling of anxiety passed through Ben. He chided himself and dismissed the emotion. The boy will get here when he gets here. Ben resolved to wait. He did not, however, return to the relative warmth of the hangar. Instead, he remained at the door, peering down the road.

  Another twenty minutes passed before a small figure appeared at the far end of the road and, as it neared, transformed itself into Jon on his bicycle. The boy was pedaling slowly, as if laboring, and it took him a full two minutes to cover the distance to the hangar.

  When Jon reached a spot a few yards from the building, he swung off the bike and began walking it, choosing to go around the back of Ben’s truck rather than making straight for the door. His head was down, and the way he was holding himself gave Ben the sense that he was trying to avoid looking in Ben’s direction. Jon set the bike against the outside wall and slid the knapsack off his back. He then walked toward the door, head still down and turned slightly away.

  “Sorry I’m late. I was delayed a little at school.”

  Ben stepped back to allow Jon to enter the hangar. However, he remained just inside the door, so that, as Jon stepped over the threshold, he was brought up short. Ben reached out, put his hand under Jon’s chin, and gently turned the boy’s head to face him.

  Encircling the outer two thirds of Jon’s left eye was a huge shiner.

  Nodding, Ben said, conversationally, “That’s a good one. Head still ringing?”

  Jon looked down and said carefully, “I’m ok.”

  Ben let go of Jon’s chin and stepped back. He did not say anything, but continued to regard Jon.

  After an awkward silence, Jon ventured, “We were playing dodgeball.” He made a vague gesture toward his face and added, “I got hit by a lucky shot.”

  Ben was silent for a moment longer. Then he asked, “That’s what happened?”

  Jon nodded, but did not meet his eyes.

  Quietly, Ben said, “You’re not a very good liar, son.” Walking to the door, he added, “Follow me.”

  In the house, Ben gathered ice from the small compartment in the refrigerator and wrapped it in a towel. He instructed Jon to sit at the table and tilt his head back. Then he placed the ice pack on Jon’s face and had him hold it in place.

  Ben returned to the refrigerator, took out a bottle of milk and poured two glasses. He set one down in front of Jon and the other on the opposite side of the table, where he took a seat.

  “So,” Ben said, “did you even see it coming?”

  Jon shook his head.

  “Sucker punch, huh?”

  Jon nodded.

  “Did he give you a reason?”

  Still looking up at the ceiling through his good eye, Jon replied, “He said I insulted his mother.”

  “Did you?”

  “No, sir,” Jon said, immediately, taking the ice pack away and looking directly at Ben.

  Ben motioned for Jon to re-place the ice. Jon leaned back again and returned the cloth to his eye. After a moment, Ben said, “Can you think of a reason why he might have felt it necessary to punch you out?”

  Jon didn’t reply. Something about his silence seemed odd to Ben. He took a sip of milk and studied the boy. After a minute, he said, “There’s more to this story, isn’t there?”

  Jon hesitated, then gave a half shrug of his shoulders and a vague nod of his head.

  Ben sat back. “Why don’t we start at the beginning.”

  It took some patient prodding, but, slowly, a picture began to emerge. Jon had somehow managed to cross the most important clique of students at his new school, the players on the school basketball team. He had, for several weeks now, been turned out and ostracized by a large part of the student body, the others being motivated either by the same thing inspiring the basketball team or because they were simply afraid of the players on the basketball team.

  Ben could understand the latter if Jon’s black eye was any indication of how those boys dealt with people they didn’t like. What he couldn’t understand, however, and what made the whole thing so mysterious, was how a kid as likeable as Jon could possibly wind up so at odds with so many others. Thus far, Jon had been reluctant to give details.

  “Jon, you haven’t told me why they’re treating you like this. You do know, don’t you?”

  Jon had sat up and set the ice pack aside. Ben had let it be. In response to Ben’s question, Jon nodded, hesitantly, a sad expression on his face.

  Ben waited, patiently. Slowly, Jon looked around the room. He glanced at Ben, but his eyes darted quickly away. Finally, he fixed on a spot in the middle of the table and stared at it for a long quiet moment.

  Then, in a small, barely audible voice, Jon said, “I’m Jewish.”

  Ben was not sure he’d heard correctly. He was about to ask Jon to repeat himself when the words sunk in.

  He looked at Jon, who was still staring at the center of the table. And then the full impact of the boy’s words dawned on Ben. Here was Jon, sitting across from him, afraid that Ben would think less of him.

  Ben asked, quietly, “Do you think the fact that you’re Jewish makes a whit of difference to me?” he asked.

  Jon looked up at him, a mixture of uncertainty and hope playing across his face.

  “Well, it doesn’t.”

  When he saw the look of relief on Jon’s face, he had to fight the urge to reach out to the boy.

  Slapping the table with his palms, Ben said, “Tell you what. We’re not going to fly today. It’s late and it’s too cold anyway. Take that ice and meet me out in the hangar. I need to get something.”

  #

  When Ben entered the hangar, he was carrying an old canvas bag. Stenciled in large white letters along the side, Jon could see, was the name “Wheeler.” Setting the bag down on the workbench, Ben took a seat on one of the stools. He gestured for Jon to do likewise.

  “I’m going to tell you a little something about my younger days,” Ben said. “I’ll be honest with you up front. I’m not proud of every part of it.”

  Jon settled onto a stool. Ben had his attention.

  “When I graduated from high school,” Ben began, “I couldn’t wait to get out of this place. Back then, if you can believe it, Jackson was even smaller than it is today. I felt there was just nothing here for me. I needed to see the world. That didn’t make my dad very happy. He wanted me here to help out on the farm. And I think he wanted my company. I was an only child, and we were pretty clo
se. But I was headstrong. We argued a little. He finally agreed to let me go because he knew deep down I’d go anyway.

  “For a few years, I bounced around a lot. I guess you could say I was a bit of a ne’er do well. I held jobs, but none for long. I didn’t have the inclination or the discipline to stick with anything. I’d make just enough money to keep from starving. I treated life as one adventure after another. I wanted to go everywhere, try everything. And, to me, the more danger involved, the better. I was a daredevil. Heck, you had to be a little crazy to strap yourself to some of the planes I flew before the war.

  “One night, when I was in Baltimore, a buddy invited me to go with him to a local prize fight. It was in a dicey part of town, but they drew a damn good crowd. The top of the card turned out to be a couple of tomato cans who whaled on each other for a half an hour before one of them walked into a wild right hook and went down for the count. When I found out what the purse was for the winner, it got me thinking.

  “You see, my dad had taught me how to box starting when I was a lot younger than you are now. He’d learned boxing from his father. I have no idea where my grandfather learned it. But my granddad, he had a reputation as no one to be trifled with.” Ben gave Jon a wry look. “He knew what to do in fight.

  “Anyway, there I was in Baltimore watching a couple of rubes I knew I could beat easily, and it turned out they were making more money in a half an hour than I was making in a week. Well, it didn’t take me long, and I had a new gig, as a prizefighter. I knocked out the first couple of guys I fought and started drawing attention. A couple more knockouts, and I was moving up the cards. One thing led to another, and, eventually, I got offered a title bout. I was going to fight Bob Bollman. They called him Bobo. At the time, he held the middleweight title for the whole mid-Atlantic.”

  “Wow.”

  Ben nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “It never came off. I walked away from the whole thing. It was just time to move on.” Ben made a dismissive gesture. “Truth is, I knew I’d probably gone as far as I could. I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken by then. America was getting into the war. So, I signed up to fly with the army. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And anyway,” he said, laughing, “Bobo probably would have taken my head off.”

  “So you never went back to boxing?”

  “Nope. Never boxed again professionally. But,” he indicated the bag, “I held on to this thing. When the boys were old enough, I dragged it out and taught them how to defend themselves.”

  Ben unbuckled the straps that held down the cover to the bag, reached in and withdrew a pair of leather gloves that looked to Jon like overstuffed kitchen mitts. He laid them on the workbench.

  “And I’m going to do the same thing for you.”

  #

  Dick Mayfield was seated in his favorite chair, his feet up on the ottoman. It was Sunday afternoon. After the effort that went into preparing for church services, the services themselves, and the inevitable busy aftermath, this was his moment to relax.

  He’d pulled down a book from the shelf to read and had lit a fire in the fireplace. The kids, he knew, were playing in the yard, and his wife was in the kitchen, shelling peas. Through the open kitchen door, the soft strains of classical music from the radio drifted in. He’d read a few pages from the book, but his lids were getting heavy, the warmth of the fire and the comfort of the chair luring him into a nap.

  He’d set the book on his lap, closed his eyes and was just drifting off.

  “Dick!” his wife called out in alarm.

  Mayfield’s heart jumped. His first thought was of the children. One of them must have fallen. He was out of his chair and across the room in two seconds. At the door to the kitchen, he saw his wife sitting at the table in front of a mound of unshelled pods and a bowl full of peas. She had a stricken look. She’d lifted one hand to cover her mouth. With the other, she was pointing to the radio on the counter.

  He could hear the ending notes of an orchestral piece, followed by polite clapping. An announcer began to introduce the piece. Tchaikovsky, it sounded like. He looked at his wife with a questioning expression.

  She lifted her hand away from her mouth. “They said the Japanese…”

  Suddenly, the radio went silent. Then a new voice started speaking.

  “This is John Daly speaking from the CBS newsroom in New York. Here is the Far East situation as reported to this moment. The Japanese have attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and our defense facilities at Manila, capital of the Philippines. The first disclosure of this news was made by Presidential Secretary Stephen Early by telephone at approximately 2:25 in Washington. I read the text of this historic announcement at a little after 2:30.”

  Mayfield sagged against the door frame. The announcer went on to provide what details were known. There were confirmed strikes on American ships, a naval engagement was in progress off the shores of Honolulu, police had been called out in case of revolutionary activity, declarations of war were imminent.

  In a shaky voice, Mayfield said, “It’s begun. God help us all.”

  #

  Marvella Wilson buttoned her coat slowly. The cold exacerbated the arthritis in her fingers, so it was not an easy task. On the dresser next to her sat her favorite hat. It was the one she had purchased the previous Christmas as a gift to herself. Not a person given to fashion whims or frivolous expenditures, Marvella had acquired the chic item in a moment that was completely out of character. But, she’d reasoned, it had been Christmas, and that was a special time. And, in any event, she was looking forward to wearing it tonight.

  For Marvella, the midnight Christmas service was the essence of the holiday season. Nothing meant Christmas more than the celebration for which she was getting ready. Every year of her life had included this special event.

  As she walked down the short hallway, she noticed her grandson’s door was open and the room was empty. Odd, she thought, given the late hour. When she entered the parlor, she found him sitting on the divan. He was wearing a nice pair of slacks and a clean white shirt she’d never seen on him before. His coat was in his lap. He stood as she walked into the room.

  “Oh,” she said, uncertainly. “What’s this about?”

  He looked a little self-conscious and hesitated before responding. “I was wondering if it would be ok if I went with you to the midnight service.”

  She thought she’d stopped being surprised by the boy, but this took her aback. She considered what to say next, but couldn’t quite find the right way to put it. The two of them stood there awkwardly for a long moment.

  Finally, he volunteered, “I know what you’re thinking. But every year since I can remember, we always went to the midnight service. My dad said it was something my mom insisted on from the time they were married. It was always a special thing, and it wouldn’t be Christmas without it. And I was just hoping,” his voice trailed off.

  Marvella blinked a few times. Then she nodded and said, formally, “Yes, we’ll go together.”

  The boy’s face brightened. He moved quickly to the door, slipping on his coat as he did. He opened the door and held it for her. As she stepped past him, she said, “Thank you.”

  They descended the steps and, side by side, walked up the darkened avenue.

  The church had been done up in splendid fashion. Boughs of evergreen had been tied with red ribbon and mounted at the end of each row of pews. The theme had been carried up into the sanctuary, where hundreds of candles had been placed among the branches, the flickering of their flames causing the panes of the stained glass window to shimmer in a constantly changing and seemingly infinite variety of patterns. The church organ was softly playing “Away in a Manger.”

  Marvella found a spot near the front, and she and Jon took their seats, each picking up one of the mimeographed sets of Christmas hymns that had been laid at regular intervals along the bench. Precisely at 11:45, the music came to an end, and Reverend Mayfield as
cended the short steps to the altar. He gave a brief blessing, then invited everyone to join in the first hymn.

  After a short opening flourish, the organist settled into the familiar strains of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” and the congregation took up the song. Someone with a fine, clear voice was singing near her, and it took Marvella a moment to realize that the voice belonged to her grandson. Without turning, she studied him from the corner of her eye. He had a joyous expression on his face and was unabashedly belting out the tune. She shook her head slightly and smiled.

  Over the next hour, the Reverend Mayfield interspersed the story of the Nativity with familiar Christmas hymns, and the service concluded with a rousing rendition of “Joy to the World.”

  As they were filing out of the church, a voice called out to her. She turned to see Everett Crane working his way through the crowd. She and Jon stepped to the side and waited for him.

  Crane and his wife, Cynthia, had been long-time acquaintances of Ernest and Marvella. The two men had been close friends, and, before Ernest’s death, the four of them had socialized on a regular basis. Cynthia had been a member of Marvella’s bridge group until she had passed away two years earlier.

  When he caught up to them, Crane said, “Merry Christmas, Marvella. You’re looking quite fashionable this evening.”

  Despite herself, she flushed. “Thank you, Everett, and a very merry Christmas to you. How have you been?”

  “No complaints,” he replied, and then he said with a smile, “at least none that are going to do me any good.”

  “Have you heard from your son?” Crane’s son, Charles was an officer in the navy, and he was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, there had been a few anxious days before word got back that he was fine.

  “I have,” Everett replied, his smile broadening. “He’s gone back out to sea, but, before he left, he was able to put a phone call through from Hawaii.”

  “Really?”

  Crane nodded. “It wasn’t a very good connection, and he couldn’t talk long, but it was wonderful to hear his voice.”