Scars and Stars
Page 5
“A minute or two later, Ricky O’Malley came running up to fill us in. He was a year between Jack and I in age and both of us had always gotten along well enough with him. “Hey, did you guys hear?” he almost shouted.
“Yeah, we could hear this racket clear out at Myrtle’s,” Jack said.
“Ricky shook his head and said, “Not that. The war!”
“Jack and I turned our heads and looked at each other, completely unaware of what he was talking about.
"Ricky got so excited at the prospect of being the first to tell us, he almost started jumping and up and down. “You haven’t heard yet? North Korea breeched the 38th Parallel today! They’re invading South Korea!”
“Jack’s face was as solemn as the moment we walked up. “So?”
“So?! So it means we’re going to war! President Truman’s already sending troops over and is asking for more!”
“Jack and I turned and glanced at each other. “A bunch of us are going to Columbus tomorrow to enlist," Ricky continued. "There’s room on the flatbed if you want to come along.”
“I'll be honest, the idea of enlisting had never crossed my mind before. I tried to say something, but before I could Jack said, “We promised Myrtle we’d help him get his wheat in. For sure won’t be done by tomorrow.”
“Ricky’s mouth fell open as Jack and I walked on past him. Left him standing right there in the street.”
Uncle Cat smiled at the memory and chuckled, rocking back and forth in his chair as he did so.
“We walked on through the middle of town towards home, most of the way in silence. It wasn’t until we were almost there that I asked, “What do you make of all this?”
“Jack kept his eyes locked straight ahead and exhaled. “Mama’s gonna be a wreck. You watch and see.”
“Up to that point, there had been a thousand different things running through my mind. I’ll admit, Mama hadn’t been one of them.
“Old Jack, he was right though. We walked the last quarter mile in silence and got home to find Mama in tears at the kitchen table. A newspaper – this newspaper – was spread out in front of her.
“Her eyes were red and puffy, looked like she’d been crying for days. Her hair was matted and strewn in different directions and you could tell she’d been running her hands through it all evening. I already told you how warm it was, but she had an old sweater wrapped around her anyway.”
Uncle Cat’s voice dipped off for a second and he regained the faraway look he had earlier. Again I fixed my gaze on the water and waited for it to pass.
“The minute we walked in she jumped up and grabbed us both in a bear hug. For such a small woman, she held us with a strength I didn’t think possible.
“After a while she let us go and we all took a seat around the table. She outlined everything she knew for us and we sat and talked until the wee hours of the morning.”
Again he paused and stared out over the water.
“Talked about what Uncle Cat?” I asked.
He looked at me and gave a grave smile. “Jack and I had a choice. Either we enlisted right then, or we waited until we got drafted a little while later.
“Neither Jack nor I had ever thought of going into the Army. Our place was there with Mama. Besides, we'd both known our share of veterans walking around with canes and heads full of bad memories. It wasn't our war, we wanted no part of it.
“Word was though, they were offering a signing bonus of five hundred dollars on top of the usual enlisted man pay. Between the two of us, a thousand dollars would pay off the rest of the house. I was twenty, Jack was twenty-two, neither one of us had a wife or kids. It was only a matter of time before they came for us anyway.
"So, we both decided to do the only thing we could do. We’d fulfill our responsibility to help Myrtle bring his crop in, then we’d head north and enlist.”
Chapter Eleven
My uncle placed the album on the ground and rose to his feet. I could hear his knees strain as he stood, culminating in a short of burst of loud popping sounds. An inch at a time he walked to the closest porch support post and leaned against it.
“Hurts my knees to stay seated like that for too long. Need to get up and move around a little.”
Without thinking, I hopped down from my chair and walked to the opposite side of the post. I matched his pose and waited, hoping he would continue.
He did.
“My brother and I finished gathering the crop two weeks later on a Thursday. We worked six days a week like always, every one from dawn until after sunset. It was a pretty light crop from the heat and we got it off in record time.
"Looking back, I'm not sure if that was a good thing or bad.
“The next day, Mama took off the only day I ever remember her missing and the three of us spent it together. We went fishing, we had a picnic, we sat on the front step and watched the breeze blow through the willows.
“None of us spoke of where we were going or of what might happen when we got there. A few times I saw Mama’s eyes well up or heard her voice crack, but to her credit she never once broke down.”
Uncle Cat adjusted his weight against the pole, using his cane to prop himself up as he went. Once he was comfortable again, he continued.
“That night Mama made the finest meal I have ever had in my life. Fried chicken, homemade dumplings, baked beans. Cornbread, fried okra, sweet corn. It was a meal fit for kings.
“The three of us sat around the table and ate and talked and laughed for hours. We all acted like if we didn’t acknowledge what was coming, maybe it wouldn’t really happen.
“Just before midnight, my Mama took a small white envelope out of her apron and drew a single silver chain with a cross from it.
“I wanted to get you both one to wear around your neck, but the store in town only had one,” she explained, her voice thick with guilt.
“Jack and I both knew what the necklace must have cost, and we both knew she’d never spent anywhere near that much on herself in her life.
“I’m sorry you don’t each have one,” she said, “but maybe you can share somehow.”
“I opened and closed my mouth a few times hoping to find the right words. Across from me Jack stared down at the table, his only movement a muscle twitching on the side of his neck.
“I just wanted you both to know that Jesus and your Mama love you and will always be with you,” she whispered before running from the table in tears.”
My uncle pushed himself from the post and returned his weight to the cane. “I jumped up and started to go after her, but Jack grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away, but his grip was firm, his eyes set on the necklace. After a few minutes he said, “Take your shirt off.”
“I wasn’t sure what was going on, but Jack seemed pretty serious. Without a word I took my shirt off and watched him pick the necklace up from the table and remove the cross from the chain.
“He motioned for me to follow him with a jerk of his head and together we walked to the stove. The cook top was still hot from dinner and Jack laid the cross right on top of it . We both watched as the metal began to glow in the dim light.
“Jack grabbed an oven mitt from the nail beside the stove and said, “You might want to find something to bite down on. This is going to hurt a little bit.”
“I still wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but I found a wooden stirring spoon and clamped it between my teeth anyway. In one swift movement Jack grabbed the cross from the burner and pressed it to my bare chest, dead center of the left pectoral,” he said, tapping his chest with a finger.
My eyes grew large and my jaw dropped a bit. “Didn’t that hurt?”
He looked at me and gave a half twist of the head. “Man alive did it ever. I bit clear through that spoon, snapped it off clean in two different places.
“Jack held that cross to my chest for just a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. As soon as he was done, he put it back on the fire and pulled his own shirt off, me still standing
there gasping in pain.
“At that point I was about half mad at him for doing it. I snatched up the glove and the cross and pressed that thing against him quite a bit harder than I needed to. Didn't matter though, he never said a word."
Uncle Cat poked at a nail sticking up from the floorboards, first with his cane, then with the toe of his shoe. “A few minutes later, Mama returned. She'd been crying pretty hard, but had it all bottled up for the time being. “What in the world is that smell?” she asked, her nose crinkled. “Nothing I cooked smells like that.”
“She saw us sitting with our shirts off and it only took a second for her to put it together. “Oh, boys,” she whispered.
“In the silence, Jack rose and picked the cross up from the table between us. He threaded the chain back through its eyelet and handed it to Mama. “You said you wanted us to have something that reminded us that Jesus and Mama would always love us. Well, now we do."
“Jack held the necklace out for her to take. “And now you have something to keep with you too. A piece of us that is always close to your heart.”
“Mama’s hands trembled as she took the necklace from Jack and put it around her neck. Tears poured down her face as she grabbed us both and held us tight.
“This time, we both hugged back. We hugged Mama and each other. We hugged our home and the river bottoms and Birch Grove. We hugged and hugged and stayed that way clear until morning.”
Uncle Cat kicked at the nail once more. “Looking back, we were also hugging goodbye to our innocence and life as we knew it.”
Chapter Twelve
“Uncle Cat, if you gave the cross to great-grandma, how did it get here?”
The question surprised him and he flinched at the sound of my voice. I think it reminded him that he was on a porch with me and not back in 1950.
“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat, “this isn’t the actual cross that Mama got for us. She still wears that one around her neck.
“On the plane home we decided to put this album together and wanted to include a cross. Between us we had forty-six cents and sweet talked a lady in Los Angeles into giving us one for that.”
"Hmm," I said, nodding at the answer. “On the way home from where?”
A smile cracked out from the left side of his mouth. “Not just yet, son. So, where were we?”
I cast a quick glance at the album lying by the rocking chairs. I considered going and getting it, but instead just shrugged my shoulders.
“That’s alright, I know what’s coming anyway,” he responded. “The next page is a piece of paper about three inches by five inches. It’s got two holes punched through it and the letters F-C-K-Y scribbled across it in faded pencil.”
“A piece of paper with holes punched through and letters written across it?” I asked.
Uncle Cat smiled out at the water and again held his hand palm up towards me. “The next morning we got a ride to the recruitment center in Columbus from Bruce Rife. He heard Jack and I were going to enlist and said we could ride up with him on his weekly trip.
“We met him in town early so he didn’t have to see us say goodbye to Mama. The entire ride Bruce tried to make light conversation but neither of us felt much like talking. He dropped us off in front of the recruiting depot around noon, leaving us standing alongside the curb with our half empty duffels.
"Some people would call it packing light; but that would denote we actually stuff to take with us.”
The screen door swung open behind us and my second cousin Ginnifer walked out into the afternoon sun. “Mama wanted me to ask if y’all want anything to drink.”
Her tone did an excellent job of relaying the disdain she felt for the task. Not that her face needed any help in the matter.
I looked at Uncle Cat, who replied without turning around. “No Ginny, tell your Mama we’re just fine out here honey.”
That was the answer she was hoping for, the door swinging closed before he was even done responding.
“The recruiting center was an old butcher’s shop from back around the turn of the century. It was converted during the First World War into a draft office, shut down after the war, and re-opened during the Second World War. In a perfect cycle they closed it after V-J Day, only to re-open it again when North Korea invaded South.
“Lord only knows how many times it’s been closed and re-opened since.
“Walking into the recruiting center was like stepping into an alternate universe. The walls were lined with glossy pictures of men in uniform and maps of faraway places I’d never heard of. Weapons and munitions stood lined up in display cases around the room and a man in a sharp dress uniform sat behind a large desk.
“As we entered the room a small bell tinkled on the door behind us. When he heard it the man stood up and saluted us. He stood rail straight for several seconds before dropping his arm and smiling, shaking both our hands.
“So I take it you boys are here to do your duty in bringing those Communists to justice over there?” was the first thing he said to us. Not hello, not his name, “So I take it you boys are here to do your duty in bringing those Communists to justice over there?”
“Looking back it should have been a gigantic warning flag, but it wasn’t. I had only a vague idea what Communism even was. I just knew I wanted to wear a uniform like his, know the right thing to say like he did, be important like him.
“The man knew what he was doing too. Within minutes he had us both bent over the desk, signing away the next year of our life to the United States Army.
"In the movies they always make it look so big and grand. You go into a fancy office, you receive royal treatment, they present you with an official request from the President himself asking you to be part of the military.
“Turns out all it really takes is twenty minutes and an old butcher’s shop.”
My uncle turned and plodded back to his rocker. He picked the album up off the floor and placed it in his lap, then turned the page to reveal exactly what he said it would.
“Most of the volunteers came in together the week before. Army policy was to try and keep everyone that signed on together in the same platoon. Said it helped with morale and survival rates to have friends serving together.
“Everyone that came in the week before was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia. They even got their own private bus and all forty-seven of them rode down to training together.
“By the time we signed up, their platoon was already full. They paired them with some group from Cincinnati and between the two that was that.
“Instead of a bus full of boys we’d known our whole life, Jack and I got Greyhound tickets.”
He looked at the ticket on the page before him and pointed at the writing scribbled across the bottom of it. “F-C-K-Y. Fort Campbell, Kentucky.”
Chapter Thirteen
“The next bus south to Kentucky didn't leave for several hours. We had the entire afternoon to sit and rethink what we were doing, but it didn’t matter. They could have spent the time showing us bloody, gory war movies and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.
"We were both so excited to be in that room, with all those pictures and trophies and weapons that we both felt like we were going to burst. We stayed in that office for as long as we could and when the recruiter left for lunch we stood outside and peered in the windows.”
Uncle Cat pulled up short and focused hard on the horizon again. He snorted and muttered, “If we’d only known.
“The bus we were on was a newer Greyhound, polished silver with bright red and blue paint. It came down from Rochester, swung through Cleveland and picked us up in Columbus. By the time it got to us most of the seats were taken and we were forced to split up.
“Jack pulled up short and splashed himself into the first available seat he found. It was in the front row and was already half-taken by a large woman in the seat beside it, but he didn't seem to mind. He always liked it up front, being able to see out without anything blocking his view.
My uncle smiled and bobbed his head as he spoke. “Dorothy Bixby was in her mid-thirties from a small town not much bigger than Birch Grove between Cleveland and Columbus. Several years earlier her sister had moved to Nashville, Tennessee and she was on her way down to visit.
“She and I took to each other right off and within five minutes we were jabbering along like two old women at a church social. She told me all about her kids and her husband and their little house with a picket fence. In return I told her all about Mama and Jack and going off to war.
“She had a big basket of food with her for the trip and the whole way down she gave me fruit and fresh muffins. Fastest four hours I have ever spent.”
Uncle Cat leaned forward and returned his elbows to his knees. He smiled and shook his head from side to side, looking at nothing in particular.
“The bus dropped us off alongside the road just before sundown. Dorothy gave me a hug and more muffins, told me to be careful and that she would be praying for us. I hugged her back, thanked her, and laughed as Jack’s eyes bulged at all the food she gave me.
“The two of us stood beside the road and watched the bus disappear around the bend before tossing our bags on our shoulders and setting off down the dirt road. It was almost two miles from the highway to the fort and we took off our shoes and slung them over our shoulders too.
"We walked barefoot along the dirt road munching on muffins and for a few minutes it was like we never left home.
“It was the last time Jack and I were ever together without a worry in the world.”
A few long moments passed as we watched a boat move into view. A pair of people, too far away to make out, could be seen fishing from either side of it.
“When we were in sight of the front gate we stopped and put our shoes on, then walked the rest of the way in. We got within about thirty feet when the sound of a bolt action rifle stopped us dead in our tracks.