Now since the War was over and Roy was safe and would be coming home before the year was out anyway, fishing seemed okay again, and besides, this wasn’t a family outing, just a man-to-man kind of thing with Artie and his Dad.
The lake was like glass, not even a breeze stirring. Artie and his Dad wore old straw hats with big brims to keep off the sun. They had sat in the same place for over an hour without saying a word. That was the nice thing about fishing; you didn’t have to talk just to hear yourself, you could just sit and keep your eye on the red-and-white bobber that dunked down into the water when you got a bite, and you didn’t even have to think about stuff, you could just be still and let your mind go blank.
When Dad spoke, his voice was low and soft. It was all right to talk, as long as you weren’t so loud you scared the fish away.
“You’re growing up now,” Dad said.
“I guess so.”
Another good thing about fishing was that you didn’t have to look at the other person when you talked, you could just concentrate on watching your bobber, so you never felt as embarrassed about stuff as you would if you had to stare into somebody’s eyes all the time.
“It’s not all peaches and cream. You got to make some effort. Otherwise, you’re liable to get off on the wrong foot for your whole life.”
“Sure.”
“Lots of fellas, along about your age, they get sneaky. Then it gets to be a habit. Like snitching beers. You can have a beer now and then, it’s no crime. Just be out in the open about it. Don’t go hiding in your room, or out in some bushes, be it beer or anything else.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How you act at home is how you get to be. That’s why you want to have some manners, even if it’s just family. Sure, you want to relax and kick off your shoes sometimes, that’s what home is for, but you don’t want to act like you’re out in the barn.”
“No, sir.”
“You’ll be all right, you just keep your head on.”
“I’ll try.”
“I know you will. I know you’ll try specially hard when Roy comes home. We all got to.”
“You think he’ll be sad?”
“He was wounded. More ways than one.”
“You mean Shirley?”
“They both got hurt, the two of them. Things like that happen in Wartime. It’s a shame.”
“Darn right it is.”
Artie felt proud, and manly, sitting there talking over deep stuff with his Dad while they fished.
It was quiet again, an almost perfect stillness, like the world was in just the right balance. After a while Dad squinted up at the sun and then looked around the lake.
“Maybe we ought to try over there in that little cove, where the willows hang down. Looks like it might be a spot for a nice school of bass.”
“Good idea,” Artie said.
2
That fall was a season of victory.
The countryside flared with the red and gold blaze of the turning leaves, and the land was lush and ripe for harvest. Apples hung fat and heavy on the trees, and pumpkins lay like orange treasure in the fields of farms. The air was sharp, tinged with the scent of leaf smoke and cider, and at night the autumn skies were lit by the victory glow of football bonfires. The long War was over, and life was full.
Artie was part of this grand new season, following right in his brother’s footsteps as quarterback of the freshman team. His arms and chest were ringed with the gold and black stripes of Birney, and the fact that the jersey was faded and torn only made it more glorious, part of the tradition. The freshman team got the hand-me-downs of the old varsities, so the smudged numerals and raveled sleeves were like badges of honor, the ragged emblems of former battles fought by the valiant troops of the Bearcat past.
Barking signals in his best new “BO” Lifebuoy voice, Artie in his pads and cleated shoes and battered leather helmet was a leader, guiding his team down the ordered stripes to the goal line, the score, the victory. They were tied with the freshmen of DeKamp 6–6 in the first game of the season when Artie hupped the call, got the snap from center, pedaled back to survey the flow and pattern of attack and defense, spotted his favorite receiver cutting down the sidelines, grasped the seam of the leather oval, set, cocked his arm, and snapped his left wrist forward to send the ball spiraling like a shot to the waiting arms, the trained sticky fingers of the fleet-footed future All-Star end who was also now his best friend—Ben Vickman!
They were a team. Not just the starting eleven that Frosh Coach Ray Spinezzi was molding into a finely tuned gridiron machine with its own fighting spirit and character, but within that, a shining part of it, was the dynamic aerial duo of Artie Garber and Ben Vickman, a quarterback and end who were pounding along in the footsteps of the great grid combinations, Birney’s own answer to Cecil Isbell and Don Hutson of the Green Bay Packers! Well, anyway, they had clicked for a total of three complete passes, which really was fiery stuff for freshmen, who usually just gave the ball to the biggest guy on the team and hurled themselves forward like a pack of wild elephants, or passed by throwing the ball up for grabs and saying a prayer.
It showed how wrong you could be about a guy. Ben Vickman was the last human in the world whom Artie would have ever imagined he’d ever team up with for anything. Back at the start of the summer when he wanted to practice up on his passing he tried to get Warren Tutlow to work out with him. Artie figured that even though Tutlow was small, and wasn’t growing very much, he might learn to leap for the ball and become some kind of circus-act receiver, a jack-in-the-box who popped out of a pack of enemy defenders and nabbed passes with surprising skill and timing. But when Artie got his spiral down and was throwing real bullets, they either bounced off Tutlow’s tiny chest or the impact popped his glasses off. When Tutlow tried without his glasses, he couldn’t see the ball till it was almost right up to him, and after a couple of times when he turned for the pass, squinting and blinking, and it caught him right on the nose, he gave up.
“I don’t think football’s my game,” he said.
“Maybe you’re just not an end,” Artie told him. “Maybe you could be a ‘watch charm guard.’”
“There’s other things than football,” Tutlow said.
“I guess.”
After that they didn’t look each other in the eye for a while and Tutlow turned to his chemistry set, trying to develop a gas that would make people giggle against their will.
For a while Artie tried to train Fishy Mitchelman to use his long, flailing arms and lanky body to the good purpose of catching a football, but every time Fishy went out for a pass, he’d wiggle his hands in the air and snap his fingers, singing some dopey jive stuff, and forgetting where the ball was. Then he’d yell “Foo-ball!” and do a little dance step.
“I guess you’d rather be in the Band,” Artie finally told him.
“Woody Herman’s band!” Fishy croaked, throwing his head back and snapping his fingers.
Artie took an old tire home from the filling station, hung it with a rope from the limb of a tree in the backyard, and practiced throwing the football through it every Saturday morning. One day Vickman came by on his bike, watched for a while, and said, “You wanna play ‘doughnuts’ or football?”
Artie spit on his hands, rubbed them together and said, “You wanna go out for one?”
Vickman dropped his bike to the ground right on the spot and went charging across the yard, holding his arms out. Artie cocked his wrist and put his whole arm and body into throwing Ben Vickman the hardest bullet pass he could ram right into the gut of the wise guy. ‘There was a grunt as the ball struck home, and Vickman wavered a moment but held on to the ball and fell backward with it. Artie went running over to him, and extended a hand to help him up.
“Nice catch,” he said.
“Not a bad toss,” said Vickman. He spit from the corner of his mouth and stood up.
“Now gimme a bullet,” he said, “if you got one.”
The
y practiced the rest of the day, and Vickman stayed for supper.
Only a handful of kids came to freshman games, mostly girls. They did not include Caroline Spingarn, who had ambled down the hall of high school the first day of class right onto the arm of Scooter McShea, a Junior who was Central Region State Low Hurdle Champion and sixth man on the basketball team. Artie had to laugh. Ha. He bet Old Scooter didn’t have to wait for any Wars to end before he got a kiss off her, and he probably got a lot more than that, being a Junior and a low hurdle champ, but Artie preferred not to think about the details. There was this real nice new girl who had moved from Wisconsin, Gay Ann Fenewalt, who came to the opening freshman game and cheered like crazy, her thick gold braid bouncing against her back, her apple cheeks glowing in the late September sun. At school the next day she told Artie he was a wonderful passer, and he realized she was a genuine person, not the kind who was impressed by guys just because they were upperclassmen.
Not just in Birney but all over the country Sports was now as important as War used to be (the papers predicted the greatest “Sports Boom” since the Golden Days of the 1920s) and the homecoming heroes lost no time in trading in their Service uniforms for the combat gear of gridiron and diamond. Detroit pitcher Virgil Trucks got home in time for the World Series, and only one week out of the Navy he pitched the Tigers to a 4–1 win over the Chicago Cubs as his team went on to take what the papers called “The Thrill Series,” saying the 1945 baseball championship was “stuffed with more thrills than anything since the War started!”
Artie was itchy for Roy to get back and be part of it all. He wanted his brother to see him playing quarterback for the freshman team, and maybe even go with him on a double date. Roy could drive, and Artie would get to sit in the back with Gay Ann Fenewalt, maybe even unhook her bra and place his eagerly trembling hands on her bare boobs. In the meantime Artie worked hard at football and school, and even helped out his Dad on the weekends.
One Saturday morning Artie was pumping gas at Joe’s Premium when a beat-up old Plymouth coupe rolled up. Artie wiped his hands with the greasy rag that he wore jauntily in his hip pocket, and went around to lean on the driver’s window.
Some girl was behind the wheel, and she smiled at him.
“Fill ’er up?” Artie asked.
“You sure have grown, Artie.”
He blinked, and looked at the girl again.
“Shirley?”
“I guess I’ve changed too,” she said.
Her hair was cut so short it looked like a tight black cap pulled down on her skull. Her beautiful bangs were gone, and she wore almost no makeup. For a second, Artie thought of those women in France who had their heads shaved because they had made out with German guys during the Occupation, but he realized Shirley had probably cut her hair like that so it wouldn’t get caught in the airplane factory machinery. Her cheeks had a hollow look and she seemed a lot older, but still real pretty, especially when she smiled.
“Hey, this is great!” Artie said. “Can I buy you a rainbow Coke at Damon’s? I get off in an hour.”
“I’d love it. In the meantime, give me a dollar’s worth of Regular.”
It was almost like old times, having the Cokes at Damon’s. But the times were new, and the two friends were different now. It was sort of spooky, but exciting, like people who had known each other years ago at some summer camp and now were grown up.
Shirley had bought the coupe she was driving with her own money she’d made at the War Plant, and she’d even saved up some more to go to college. She wanted to do it on her own, and not have to take from her folks when they could use it themselves. She was going to start Urbana the first of the year, and in the meantime, get some reading done and have a long visit with her parents. She had planned to wait to come home till after Thanksgiving, but everyone got laid off because of the War ending.
“What about Donna Modjeski?” Artie asked. “Did she get laid off too?”
“Donna got married,” Shirley said. “To a man she met in Indianapolis. He’s older. But very nice.”
“What about you?” Artie said.
Shirley held up her left hand, which was bare of any jewelry, and wriggled her fingers.
“No wedding ring,” she said.
She smiled, and put her hand back in her lap.
“Didn’t even fall in love,” she went on. “Met some nice guys, though. I dated some. Decided I was pretty normal, after all.”
“You’re not!” Artie burst out. “I mean, you’re better than normal.”
Shirley laughed, smiling.
“Well, at least I’m not worse, anyway.”
Artie sucked up the rest of his Coke, and leaned back in his chair.
“Well, you’re home from the War now. That makes about everyone, except Roy. He’s still down at Parris Island.”
“How is he?”
“Okay, I guess. I mean, we really don’t know. He never was much at letters. Except to you.”
Shirley’s cheeks turned as bright as if she had rouge on them, and she stirred the ice at the bottom of her glass.
“I was such a kid,” she said.
“You want to see him again?”
“I doubt that he wants to see me. Anyway, I’m not expecting any miracles. That’s not what I came home for.”
“No, I didn’t mean you did.”
“It sure was nice seeing you, anyway.”
Shirley smiled, and stood up. Artie offered to walk her home, forgetting she had her own car now. It was probably just as well. They might get real sad, thinking about the old walks, realizing now the Bluebirds were finally over the White Cliffs of Dover and the world was free, but other things hadn’t turned out like they thought.
3
When Roy finally came back home from the War the parades were over. The biggest parade of all had been for the first guy home, and it turned out to be Burt Spink! He hadn’t even got overseas, but was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he was only a private in the Quartermaster Corps, which meant he probably just helped get the other guys uniforms clean, but he was the first to get home so he got the best parade. A few weeks later a whole crowd from Oakley Central came up with the High School Band to welcome back some of their guys who had fought in the tanks with Blood ‘n’ Guts Patton, but after that mostly just the family and friends of the guys who got back went down to the station to greet them. You couldn’t keep having parades all the time, they got old just like everything else, and besides, people were busy now going about their new Post-War lives.
Artie knew that was the way Roy wanted it. He hadn’t even come straight home from Parris Island, but stopped off with one of his new Marine buddies who lived in Atlanta to “have a little R’n’R,” as he said on the postcard he sent. When he finally got home one day in late October, the town just went on about its business. Artie got an excuse Mom wrote so he could get out of school and go to the station with his folks. The only other people waiting for the train were the Minnemores, and that was just because they were going to Chicago.
When Artie saw Roy, he was just as glad the bands and cheerleaders and everyone weren’t there to greet him. His uniform was rumpled, like he’d slept in it on the train. His face was puffy, and there were deep purple blotches under his eyes. The eyes didn’t seem to focus exactly, and the grin on his face was kind of crooked, like he was just coming out of a pileup in a football game.
Roy didn’t carry his cane, but he swayed a little when he walked to the car.
“How’s the leg?” Dad asked.
Roy slapped his thigh.
“Good as gold,” he said.
When he got in the car he unbuttoned his jacket and loosened his belt, and his stomach bloated out like an inflated innertube. He patted it and belched, and the car smelled like some kind of stale, sweet syrup.
When they got home and Mom brought coffee out for everyone in the living room, Roy took a half-pint bottle from his hip pocket and splashed some in his cup.
&nbs
p; “Coffee Royal,” he explained.
“Good whiskey?” Dad asked.
“The best. Real bourbon. Sour Mash, from Kentucky. Try a splash?”
“I’m just a beer man,” Dad said.
“Well, whatever Roy wants,” Mom said, “he deserves it.”
Dad nodded.
“There is a time to plant, and a time to reap,” he said.
“And a time to rest,” Mom added.
“I had me some real good R’n’R in Atlanta,” Roy said. “The best. All I need’s a little sack time, and I’m ready to roll. Go out and get me a piece of that Post-War world.”
“There’s plenty of time,” Mom said.
“You gave some good years,” Dad said. “Hard years. We’re grateful to you, son. And thankful you’re home.”
Roy nodded, took a slurp of coffee, spilling some in the saucer, and then jumped up.
“Snafu! I left your presents in the car!”
Roy had gone shopping in Atlanta and bought a lavender sachet for Mom, a hand-painted tie for Dad, and a fountain pen for Artie.
Everyone was real excited with their presents, and thanked Roy a lot.
He laughed in this sharp, mocking kind of way that didn’t sound happy or funny.
“The ‘Spoils of War,’” he said.
Then he poured some more of the Sour Mash into his coffee cup.
The second day Roy was home he got out his cane, and used it to walk down Main Street. He even used it walking around the house, and Artie asked him about it.
“How come you’re using your cane?”
Under the Apple Tree Page 26