Edge

by M. E. Kerr

  Here’s my advice to you: Use it all. Keep on writing. Use everything that comes your way.

  Farewell, J.K.

  No one I know ever found out what became of the money from the third man, not even Polly Posh.

  John Klee would say, “This is just another little mystery story. Life is mysterious. You don’t know that yet, but you’ll see.”

  And of course those schoolmates of mine are right: There is no cure for poor Mouse Moore.

  They will always be coming after me.

  They are what I have come to expect.

  I’LL SEE YOU WHEN THIS WAR IS OVER

  I was thirteen the winter everything changed. I knew, even on the cold December night Bud left, that our family would never be the same again. Everyone was at the dinner table: Bud, me, Mom, Dad, my other brother, Tommy, and Hope Hart, from the next town over, Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

  No one was saying anything except what began with Please pass the … I hated the way no one would talk about it, but not enough to mention it myself. Someone had left the radio on in the living room. We could hear Radio Dan signing off. He was a Number One cornball, but I listened to him sometimes, secretly. He was the only celebrity I had a personal acquaintance with, never mind he wasn’t always sure which Shoemaker kid I was. He lived down at the end of our street. He had this deep, friendly voice. You’d think he’d understand anything you told him. But I knew better. Radio Dan wouldn’t understand what Bud was doing, that was for sure.

  My father got up, went in, and turned him off. He hardly ever listened to the radio anymore. Everything was about the war.

  A rib roast, Bud’s favorite, was being slowly eaten in silence. Even Mahatma, our old collie, who favored Bud over all of us, seemed to sense something dire was taking place. He lay just outside the dining room, his eyes fixed on Bud.

  When we finally left the house to take Bud to his train, Mom was crying and hanging on to him. Bud didn’t want her to see him off. She said she’d send him some of her gingerbread and macaroons.

  “I don’t even know if we can get packages from home,” Bud said.

  “Of course you can!” Mom said.

  Dad said, “Maybe he can’t. We don’t know how they feel about it.”

  “Well, he’s not going to prison, Ef.”

  “No, he’s not, and he’s not going to Boy Scout camp, either.”

  “Ef, what a mean thing to say!”

  “I didn’t mean it mean.”

  “Don’t send me anything, okay?” Bud said.

  Mom cried out, “Come inside, Mahatma! You can’t go with him!”

  I thought I’d be the one to ride in back with Bud. I couldn’t get used to Bud having a steady girl. He’d been with Hope almost two years, but I kept thinking it was like a case of measles or chicken pox—it’d go away in a while.

  “Jubal, ride up here with me and Tom,” Dad said.

  Tommy put the radio on.

  In the back of the Buick, Bud and Hope were sitting so close you’d think there were passengers on either side of them. They were holding hands. Earlier that evening, Hope had given Bud a silver identification bracelet with their initials on the front and “Mind the Light” on the inside.

  Hope Hart was a goody two-shoes and an optimist, the kind whose sunny ways wore you down eventually. She had hair a color in between red and brown, and brown eyes. She always knew the right way to walk in and out of rooms, and what to say in them. It was a skill Bud didn’t have. He scowled his way through most social gatherings.

  Hope was a year older than Bud, and she already had a college degree in home economics. I wanted to like her. I didn’t want to blame her for everything that was happening to Bud.

  I could hear Hope whispering to Bud, “I love thee. I’ll wait for thee, Bud, for as long as need be.”

  “And I love thee.”

  They were speaking the old-fashioned “plain language” some Friends still used with family and at Meetings.

  Nobody in our family used it until Bud met Hope when he took the summer job on their farm. After that I would hear Bud speak it nights on the telephone. I think of thee all the time.

  As a young man, Dad did not think of himself as a strict Quaker. He wasn’t a regular at the Meeting House. His family way back was, and then he was when he met my mother. Tommy was a lot like Dad used to be. But Bud and I were believers. We would never have considered a school that wasn’t Quaker. Bud ultimately chose to go to Swarthmore College. Sometimes when he was home and would speak at Sweet Creek Meeting, I would hear how serious he was about religion. I would be surprised at Bud’s anger, telling off Friends there, saying they were some of the most successful businessmen in the county, but did they tithe, did they give 10 percent of their earnings to Friends? Bud bet not! His eyes were fire, and I would be amazed. I also worried that I wasn’t as strong as Bud. When it came my time to register for the draft, what kind of a Quaker would I be?

  My dad said that it was a good thing Bud had found Hope. Hope, he had said, was more like Bud than Bud was.

  “Remember Pearl Harbor,” a male chorus sang on the radio.

  Dad snapped, “Shut that off!”

  “I’ll change the station,” Tommy said.

  “It’ll be the same everywhere,” Dad grumbled.

  Tommy tried, got “Here Comes Santa Claus,” tried again and got “White Christmas,” tried again and got some news commentator saying the making of automobiles had stopped and the factories were being changed over to airplane and tank factories. In a short time the making of new radios for home use would be cut in half because the materials were needed for the war. Rubber, tin, and aluminum had become precious and were being saved for only the most important uses. Men’s suits—

  “Turn it off, Tom!”

  “Yes sir.”

  I glanced up at Tommy, and he gave me a weak smile. He was seventeen. Bud was twenty. I was the baby. But all of us looked alike. We all had thick black hair, sturdy builds, and the Shoemaker light blue eyes.

  Anyone in Sweet Creek could spot us as Efram Shoemaker’s kids. E.F. SHOEMAKER was the sign over the only department store in town. My father called himself E.F. because he’d never liked the name Efram. Most people called him that, anyway. If you never liked the name, why did you give it to Bud? I asked him once. Tradition, the answer came back. There’d been an Efram Shoemaker in Delaware County since the 1600s. Bud was Efram Elam Shoemaker. “Elam” after our grandfather, just as I was Jubal after our great-great-grandfather. Lucky for Tommy that our great-grandfather was named Thomas.

  While my father parked the car, Tommy, Hope, Bud, and I went into the station.

  When everyone sat down, I asked Bud, “Aren’t you going to get a ticket?”

  “I already have a ticket, Jube.”

  “When did you get it?”

  “The government’s paying his way,” Tommy said.

  “They are?” I was surprised. I thought that was the last thing the government would do: spring for a ticket for a conscientious objector.

  “How long do you have to wait in New York before your train to Colorado?” Hope said. She was wearing her long hair pageboy style. She was in a red plaid pleated skirt with boots and a white turtleneck sweater under a navy blue pea jacket.

  “It’s just a few hours’ wait,” Bud said.

  “But what will you do at this time of night?” Hope asked.

  Bud tried a grin but didn’t quite manage it. “There’s always something to do in New York,” he said, making it sound as though he knew all there was to know about Manhattan. He’d only been there once, years ago, for a Boy Scout jamboree.

  Tommy said, “You could call Aunt Lizzy.”

  “I don’t think she’d want me to call her,” Bud said.

  “Sure she would. You were always her favorite.”

  “Wa
s,” said Bud. “Now, who knows?”

  Dad came in from the parking lot, and right behind him was Radio Dan and his kid.

  If you didn’t know Dan Daniel, you’d never expect that big, deep voice.

  In person, Radio Dan was plump and medium-height, balding, with a beer belly. He always wore polka-dot bow ties, blue ones, green ones, yellow ones. Were they clip-ons? He liked to wear V-neck sleeveless sweaters, the same color, with them.

  “Shhhoot!” Tommy said. “Radio Dan and Dean!”

  “So act like who cares,” I said.

  “Who does care?” Bud shrugged.

  Everyone seemed to be saying good-bye at railroad or bus stations those days. There were uniforms everywhere. Some of the guys wearing them looked to me like kids dressed up to play war games in their backyards.

  That’s what Dean Daniel looked like that evening—this skinny boy dressed up like a marine. His ears stuck out at the sides of his cap. He’d been my junior counselor in Cub Scout camp one summer, but he’d called for his folks to come and get him because he was terrified of spiders. Dean was a twin, but when you saw him with Danny Jr., they didn’t even look like brothers. Danny Jr. looked tough, and he was.

  The Daniels waved at us and sat down on a bench nearby. Radio Dan was lighting a cigarette and passing the pack to Dean.

  My father’s ears were red. I’d always thought he wasn’t comfortable with what Bud was doing. He’d never said as much, but I had overheard conversations between Mom and him, and I’d heard him say he wasn’t sure he would have made the same decision.

  “Is the train on time?” Dad asked Tommy. His voice was so low, Tommy had to ask him what he said.

  He said it again, then shuffled his feet and stole a glance back at the Daniels.

  Everyone in Sweet Creek knew about Bud, particularly Radio Dan. He knew all the town gossip. Nothing was secret for long in a town of twenty thousand. Bud had been asked not to lead his Boy Scout troop last fall. When he drove up at Texaco in his old Ford with the “A” gas-rationing sticker on the windshield, the help took their time coming out to collect his coupon and gas him up. It was the same when he stopped at Sweet Creek Diner for coffee, or went into Acme Food Stores for groceries. No one wanted to be of service to Bud Shoemaker.

  “Please don’t wait for the train,” Bud said.

  “We want to wait with you, Bud,” Dad said.

  “We’re waiting,” said Tommy.

  “I don’t want you to wait,” Bud said.

  I sang a little of “Wait ’Til the Sun Shines, Nellie,” trying to provide some comic relief. But I knew there was no such thing as relief for Bud’s situation. It was just going to get worse every day the war lasted.

  I went into the Men’s, and Tommy followed me.

  “I bet Dad hates having Radio Dan here!” Tommy said.

  I knew that Tommy hated it, too. Dean was home on leave from boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina. His twin had joined the marines when he was seventeen.

  A few days ago, Tommy and I had run into Dean in town in front of the bank. He was with his kid sister, Darie, her hair soft and tawny. She was my age but older-looking and -acting, the way girls have of becoming people before boys do. She didn’t bother to greet me, just stood there regarding me with these cool, bored eyes, as though in her short time on this planet she had rarely been subjected to an encounter with anyone as ordinary as I was.

  Dean punched his palm with his fist and told us he couldn’t wait to kill a Jap. Then he covered his mouth with his hand and said, “Whoops! Wrong guy to tell that to!”

  Tommy shrugged and said, “I’m not partial to Japs.”

  “You’d never kill one, I bet!” Darie Daniel piped up. She was always in Sweet Creek High plays, particularly ones with music. Twice a night there was a recording of her singing Radio Dan’s theme song. I’d seen her in a few Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. She was cocky, a little tomboyish, and she could belt a song so you’d hear it down to City Hall.

  Folks went past us, in and out of the bank. Tommy answered, “I doubt I’d ever kill anyone.”

  “Even if someone was holding a gun to your mother’s head?” Darie Daniel said. “What would you do then?”

  “I’d sic my bulldog here on him.” Tommy ruffled my hair and grinned down at me.

  Bud had told us the draft board asked him those kind of questions. What would you do if you saw a man raping a woman? What if foreign invaders came on your street; would you help fight them?

  “Let’s drop the subject,” Dean said. “It’s the last thing I want to talk about when I’m home on leave.”

  “I know how to shoot a gun,” Darie Daniel said. “And I’d have no compunction about blasting away if anyone dared hurt a member of my family!”

  That night while he washed his hands beside me in the Men’s, Tommy muttered, “Radio Dan’s going to mention this, wait and see!”

  “Probably,” I agreed.

  “At least Darie wasn’t with them,” Tommy said.

  “Who cares about Darie?”

  “I go to the same school with her! You don’t!”

  “It’s Bud I feel sorry for,” I said. “Did you notice Radio Dan said all our names but his?”

  When we came back out, Tommy checked on Bud’s train and called out, “Track three. All aboard, Bud!”

  The Daniels got up, too. There was only one train heading for Manhattan.

  Suddenly, servicemen seemed to come from everywhere, all heading for track three.

  Dad stopped and held up his hand. “We’ll say our goodbyes here.”

  He hugged Bud and then Tommy did.

  “I’ll miss you, Bud,” I said.

  Bud bent down and held me tight. “I’ll see you when this war is over. You take care of Mom,” he said.

  “Okay, I will.”

  “I’ll write you from Colorado,” Bud told us.

  Radio Dan and his boy had stopped a few feet away.

  “Take care of yourself, son!” that fabulous voice rang out.

  After our good-byes, we left Hope standing alone with Bud, locked in this long kiss, and headed for the exit.

  Radio Dan was also headed toward the only exit there was.

  Because Bud was a conscientious objector, he was going to a Civilian Public Service Camp. But I was still in the dark about what would become of him next. I had the feeling he didn’t know himself.

  Last fall, he’d received a list of things he should pack. There was everything there from “two pairs of medium-weight long underwear with long sleeves and legs” to “three bed sheets good quality, at least 63 by 99 inches.”

  Radio Dan paused to light another cigarette.

  “What’s going to happen to Bud now?” I asked my father, keeping my voice down. “Will he have a job?”

  “Wait until we get home.”

  E. F. Shoemaker Company and radio station WBEA were on the same side of Pilgrim Lane, a few doors from each other. Tuesdays Dad and Radio Dan went to Rotary together. Before Rotary, Dad would stop by the radio station to pick up Radio Dan and walk down to Sweet Creek Inn with him for the luncheon meeting.

  And there the two of them were at the train station: one seeing his second son off to war, and Dad seeing Bud off to Colorado, about as far away from any war as he could get.

  When Hope caught up with us, for the first time her eyes had a watery look, but she was holding her chin up, smiling.

  She said, “Bud’s going to be fine!” Then, probably for Radio Dan’s benefit, “I’m so proud of him!”

  “Well, we all are, we all are,” Dad said in a voice so low we could hardly hear it.

  The four of us walked silently to the car, not talking, until Tommy suddenly blurted out, “This damn, damn war!”

  THE FIRE AT FAR AND AWAY

  Around here they st
ill talk about the fire at Far and Away. That small landmark cottage on the point of the bay, burned to the ground. Fishermen going for clams waded ashore and watched helplessly. My father was gone by then. Everybody said he’d set the fire. He used to work at Far and Away. He used to open his big mouth mornings he was getting coffee at Springs Store, nearby. He’d laugh about his bosses and call them names. I can hear him now.

  “Ah, it’s spring and the pansies are back,” my father said. He was checking our phone machine messages. “What do they want me to do now? Put a tub of posies out by their mailbox?”

  I never said anything when Dad made fun of Paul and Robert. It made my life a lot easier than if I’d ever let on to him that I didn’t think they were bad guys at all. The few times I’d been to Far and Away they didn’t seem any different from other New Yorkers who came to spend the summer in our town.

  I remember once I called them a couple and Dad blew.

  “Don’t call them that! Your mother and I were a couple! They’re fakes! They’re phonies!”

  After Dad erased the messages on our phone machine, he said “This job at Far and Away has your name on it, Sonny Boy. They want their house opened.”

  “Why does it have my name on it?”

  “You’re the neatnik. I’m not as good at dusting as you are, either.”

  I let him get away with a lot. If I didn’t, he’d see an opening and go in after me. He’d call me Girl instead of Gil. He’d make fun of my idea to be a chef one day. He’d go for the throat, as only Dad and his buddies could when they thought they saw a weakness in someone.

  My dad called himself a contractor, but he was really a carpenter, a plumber, a yard man—he did what work came his way. He was more than an unskilled laborer but not much more. None of the men he hung out with ever went to college and like Dad, some of them never finished high school.

  You can imagine how they resented the rich gay fellows who have summer homes here. Double it where my father was concerned. He was afraid his own son had tendencies.

  Before my mother died he’d tell her I was beginning to look as pretty as her when they first started dating. I did have her blue eyes, and there were a few summers my blond hair was long. I liked to bake and I was a self-proclaimed neatnik. That was all Dad needed, to get on my back, when he was tired and depressed. Then he’d call me “Girlie” and he’d see if he could make me mad.