Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel

by Phyllis Zimbler Miller

  He paused again and Wendy thought about her rudimentary school learning of the slaves in the South, the aftermath of Reconstruction, and the civil rights movement. It had all been pretty much book learning, because in her own black community – and then later at an all-black college in Texas – she led a rather sheltered life, not exposed to the rest of the world. This move to Ft. Knox would be her first time truly in the white world.

  "When I was in the army in World War II," her papa was saying, "it was strictly segregated units. It wasn't until the Korean War – and that's only 20 years ago – that there were integrated units. And I'm afraid," he said, his speech slowing, "that the army may not have changed as much as we would like it to have."

  "Do you think Nelson will have problems?" Wendy asked, holding her breath to see how much her papa would say now that he had started down this "truthful" path.

  "It will depend on a lot of factors,” he said, “including how you both handle yourselves. You and Nelson will have to wait and see."

  Her father then stood and came around his desk to hug her. "Your mama and I wish you and Nelson all the best," he said.

  That night when she and Nelson got ready for bed, Nelson asked, "What did your papa want with you in private?"

  Wendy stood with her nightgown still in her hands, her nude body outlined by the glow of the lamp behind her. She opened her mouth to tell her husband, then changed her mind. Nelson always chided her for her naiveté. And she was naive – why shouldn't she be? As her mama once said, "Why hear bad news? It only makes you feel bad and you usually can't do anything about it."

  In the same way Wendy hadn't really thought about blacks in America, she had refused to think about Nelson's army commitment. Why think of it ahead of time when she couldn't do anything about it? And even if her father's words had worried her, she wasn't about to admit this to Nelson. He'd just say something like "You're finally catching on."

  Instead she smiled and said, "He wanted to say good-bye and wish us luck." Then she got into bed. She knew the moment Nelson slid in beside her he'd forget the conversation, instantly immersed in his nightly exploration of the mysteries of her body. They had only been married four months.

  Now here they are outside Ft. Knox, Kentucky, about to look for an apartment for themselves for the first time. They lived with her parents after their December graduation and wedding. Nelson worked in her papa's office and she practiced cooking and keeping house with her mama while waiting for Nelson to go on active duty.

  The minimal active duty information they received from the army lists a housing office. Nelson stops the car at the entrance to Ft. Knox – they are here! – and asks the soldier there for directions to the office.

  "That's an MP – a military policeman," he explains to her as they drive onto the post.

  Wendy nods, then watches out the window. Wooden buildings perch haphazardly on green lawns, trees shading the buildings. The overall effect reminds Wendy of her college campus, and she resists the impulse to twist her head around, searching for the campanile at the center of the college quadrangle.

  They follow the signs to the post housing office, where Nelson introduces himself to the clerk: "I'm Lieutenant Johnson. I understand you have a list of available units."

  The clerk hands Nelson a manila envelope. "The list is inside. The ones with vacancies as of yesterday afternoon are marked," she says. "The one over in Muldraugh north of the post – Hansen's Apartments – is a good one. You should try there first."

  Back in the car, they study the list and the accompanying map. Then they drive to Muldraugh and pull into Hansen's – a paved central parking lot surrounded on three sides by two-storey motel-like units. Sprinkled across the lot are a handful of cars, but no people.

  The sun has already begun to fry the air, the moisture oozing onto their skin. Overgrown wild grass, edging the buildings, stands motionless. Food odors transmit signals from the closest units.

  A hand-lettered OFFICE sign points to their right. Wendy fans herself with the housing list as they enter the office, where a man in a dirty t-shirt sits at a desk holding a bottle of beer.

  "Hello," Nelson says, not offering his hand. "I'm Lieutenant Johnson. This is my wife. We've come about the unit to rent."

  The man doesn't stand. He just stares at them, then grins. Watching him, Wendy's neck hairs itch.

  "Sorry to say, that's been rented. I was just about to call the housing office and tell 'em."

  Nelson says nothing. Wendy says "Thank you" as she follows Nelson out of the office.

  "Damn!" Nelson says as they drive out of the parking lot.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I'm sure that unit's not rented yet; he just wouldn't rent to us."

  "Why not? He knows you're an officer."

  Nelson turns his eyes on her, then swings his eyes back to the road. "An officer yes, but still a black man," he says. "Hell, I don't know if it's going to be any different here than elsewhere. We're still going to be treated like shit."

  Wendy stares out her side window while she wipes away the tears trapped in her eyes. "Can we go back to the housing office and complain?" she asks. "Maybe they can convince that man to let us rent from him."

  "I don’t think so. We should just try the trailer park on the list and not waste our time with the others."

  Wendy gasps. "Live in a trailer?" White trash does that back home. She isn't going to live like they do.

  And how can she tell her mama what kind of place she and Nelson rented? If her mama finds out, she and her papa might arrive on the trailer's doorstep and demand Wendy pack up and return home with them.

  "It's our best bet. People will be more willing to rent to us if we're not living right next to some white folk, sharing a common wall and everything. I'm not up to taking a lot of this shit. It's only for a few weeks."

  A few weeks! A few weeks of living in a tiny, dirty trailer with a little patch of gravel in front of a rickety metal doorstep? A few weeks of being totally isolated there, all alone, except when her husband comes home in the evenings! How will she ever survive?

  As Wendy tries to decide what to say to Nelson, that little familiar flutter ripples through her. It's been there since the first time she laid eyes on Nelson.

  She smiles to herself. She'll put up with whatever it takes to stay with her husband – she isn't going home.

  “Where’s the trailer park?” she asks.

  SHARON – II – May 5

  Anti-war leaders call for national university strike to protest the war ... May 4, 1970

  “... be proud of the fact that you are making an effort to contribute to the esprit de corps that is developed when we serve with the United States Army as part of a happy, congenial and proud family.” Mrs. Lieutenant booklet

  Sharon and Robert leave her grandparents' apartment and take the road south of Louisville, wandering past fast food places and used car lots. Although early in the day, the humidity fills the Fiat, now lightened considerably by the stashing of their belongings with her grandparents.

  Her grandmother is really her step-grandmother, a Jewish woman who grew up poor in the cotton fields of Mississippi, where, she claims, she often played with the "colored" children. This morning Sharon had been tempted to ask if blacks still rode in the backs of buses in Louisville. Instead she and Robert graciously accepted the offered breakfast of hot – in this heat? – oatmeal and then hit the road.

  She flicks the radio on and twiddles the knobs. They watched the news last night at her grandparents' apartment. Rows and rows of helmeted armed National Guardsmen rushing unarmed student protesters. The sounds of the shots buried in the chanting and screaming. The slumped bodies lying on the ground unmistakable. Four students. Add them to the total of war dead.

  "...256 Vietcong captured," the cast of the Broadway musical "Hair" sang when Sharon and Robert had seen the production in New York the night after their Chicago wedding. Yet the musical’s "Age of Aquarius" with its promise
of "harmony and understanding" doesn’t seem likely to materialize any time soon. Then peace will guide the planet/And love will steer the stars.

  Sharon twiddles the knobs harder and still finds only commercials on the radio. She swats the knob into the “off” position, then brushes at the clammy film of moisture shimmering across her face and sliding down her neck.

  The face she sees is always indistinguishable:

  The perspiration drips down his face, oozing into his eyes and sliding over his mouth. He swipes at the beads dripping from his nose with the arm of his filthy fatigue shirt. "This heat is unbearable," the armor officer says to the 19-year-old enlisted man quivering beside him inside the tank. "How do the Vietnamese survive?"

  He pops the hatch, standing upright in the commander's seat to check the terrain. The enemy hides somewhere nearby.

  The explosion lifts his body up into the air, twisting it around before dumping it on top of the tank, his sweat-stained face turned downward as if searching for the softest place to land.

  The 19-year-old screams.

  Robert doesn’t notice her panic – he’s busy pointing at a sign on the highway indicating the approach of Ft. Knox.

  "You better start learning to recognize officer rank insignia. It's important for you to know," he says.

  Is this really happening? The National Guard kills four students protesting a war that the U.S. has no hopes of winning and she's about to become an officer's wife?

  She must concentrate on the present. She takes a deep breath and considers what she knows about officer ranks: 1) Robert as a second lieutenant is the lowest level of officer; 2) Within the two years he will be serving he can expect to automatically become a first lieutenant. "What's after first lieutenant?"

  "Captain, then major, then lieutenant colonel, full colonel, and several ranks of generals. The generals you won't have to worry about – you won't see a lot of those. For the others, you should know who's who."

  Sharon peers towards the Ft. Knox entrance as Robert moves over into the highway's left turn lane. Suddenly a huge semi-trailer hauls towards them – in their lane!

  "Shit!" Robert jerks the wheel and they spin out of the semi's path.

  The five-ton truck couldn't stop. Something wrong with the brakes. The family in the Rambler station wagon didn't have a chance. Just facts on the evening news. To Sharon, hiding in her dark closet, it is the end of her life too.

  Sharon releases her clenched hands. She says nothing.

  At the entrance to Ft. Knox a uniformed soldier waves them to a stop. He wears an armband with the letters MP. Robert displays his orders.

  "Welcome to Ft. Knox, sir."

  Following the MP's directions, they drive onto the post and head towards the housing office. Wooden frame buildings and trees dot grass lawns, almost like the Jewish camp she attended two summers in Wisconsin, where the counselors lorded it over the campers in probably the same way the officers lord it over the enlisted personnel. She hates that claustrophobic feeling of someone else being in control of one’s life, Big Brother watching every move. And now THE ARMY controls her life.

  Before leaving Chicago Sharon read the brief entry for "Fort Knox" in her childhood “World Book Encyclopedia.” The post – named for Major General Henry Knox, the first secretary of war – covers 110,000 acres 35 miles south of Louisville. Ft. Knox houses the United States Army Armor Center as well as the depository since 1936 of billions of dollars worth of gold.

  "Where's the building with the gold?" she asks Robert.

  "We’ll find it later."

  Sharon inhales. "What else should I know?"

  "Officers wear their rank on their shoulders – or on their collars when they're wearing fatigues."

  Fatigues. The olive green shirt and pants worn in combat. Every night on the news all of America can see men in fatigues, often soaked in blood. The bloodstains don't show up clearly on black-and-white television.

  Robert swats a fly away from his face. "Second lieutenants have one gold bar. First lieutenants one silver bar. Captains two silver bars. Majors one gold maple leaf. Lieutenant colonels one silver maple leaf. Full colonels one silver eagle. Generals gold stars, one for each rank – one-star general, two star, etc."

  How confusing, and this is only the officers' ranks. "What about enlisted men?"

  "Enlisted men always wear their rank on their sleeves. You won't have to learn their ranks. Officers aren't supposed to fraternize with the enlisted men."

  Just lead them into battle, often to their deaths Sharon thinks.

  The sign indicates the housing office straight ahead. Inside, a woman in a polyester pantsuit glances up from her desk behind the counter.

  "May I help you, Lieutenant?" Robert has worn his Class A uniform from ROTC to look more official. Obviously this woman can read rank insignia.

  "I'm Lieutenant Gold and I'm reporting for Armor Officers Basic. You have listings for available housing off base."

  The woman stands up and walks towards the counter. "If you were here alone, we'd quarter you in Bachelor Officers Quarters. As you have your wife with you, we can give you some leads on housing in the surrounding areas. I caution you, the places may not be what you're used to." She hands Robert a manila envelope. "Here's your information packet. Welcome to Ft. Knox."

  "What does she think we're used to?" Sharon asks as she and Robert return to the Fiat. "She certainly couldn't tell from what I'm wearing – a simple summer dress. And the uniform is the same for everyone."

  Robert grunts. "Maybe they've had complaints from new lieutenants before." Then he grins. "Or maybe because I didn't say 'you all.’"

  They drive back out of the post and, starting with the first place on the list, turn onto the highway that leads south towards Elizabethtown. Inside the town limits small and medium-size houses line the roads. Bright flowers decorate many of the front lawns, the air as hot as everywhere else.

  They follow the map provided by the housing office and stop in front of a brick ranch-style house. Robert rings the doorbell. After a few seconds a thin man in his early 50s dressed in casual clothes answers the door.

  "Hello," Robert says. "We're interested in the apartment listed with the housing office."

  The man looks Robert up and down. He doesn't even glance at Sharon.

  "You wouldn't be happy here, Lieutenant."

  "I'm sure the apartment is fine," Robert says.

  "I'm sorry, sir, but I really can't rent you the apartment." The man closes the door in their faces.

  "We didn't even see the apartment," Sharon says. "How does he know we wouldn't like it?"

  Robert walks back down the sidewalk without saying a word. Sharon follows and gets into the car. Robert starts the engine, then speaks as he pulls away from the curb.

  "He's obviously a former enlisted man."

  "How could you tell that?"

  "From the way he called me 'sir.' He doesn't want to rent to an officer. Makes him uncomfortable."

  "Uncomfortable! We wouldn't be living with him. Just renting his apartment. How dare he be so rude to us!"

  Robert flicks his eyes towards Sharon. "We have a lot to learn."

  **

  Hours later they drive back to the housing office. They have seen trailers not fit to live in, apartments so small they couldn't have turned around without bumping into each other, and plain dumps. For this she insisted on coming with Robert?

  "Maybe there'll be some new listings now," Robert says.

  "Since this morning?"

  The clerk greets them like long-lost friends. "One of the best apartment complexes in the area – Hansen's Apartments – has an opening. I didn't tell you this morning because I thought someone else was taking it. But it's still available. Hurry over to Muldraugh and see about this one."

  They look at each other. What does this clerk consider a good apartment?

  Muldraugh lies north of the post. They easily locate the place. The town isn't big enough to get lost. T
he complex looks just like a motel, with three buildings surrounding a parking lot.

  A man in his late 40s with arm muscles bulging under his dirty t-shirt meets them in the office. "Lieutenant, I have just the apartment for ya."

  The man comes out from behind his desk. In his right hand he holds a shotgun. Sharon recoils against Robert.

  The man looks at her, then grins. "I was just goin’ out to hunt stray dogs."

  Stay calm she tells herself.

  They follow him up an outside staircase to a furnished second-floor apartment with a minuscule living room, dining area and kitchenette. An equally small bedroom and bathroom complete the unit.

  It's clean and neat. Sharon nods.

  "Can I speak to you for a moment – in private?" Robert asks her.

  The man throws them a look and goes out onto the balcony, his shotgun still slung down his side.

  "There's no shower, only a bath," Robert says. "I can't stand not having a shower."

  "You'll just have to. I'm not about to give up this decent apartment. Who knows what else we'll find?"

  Robert goes out onto the balcony and Sharon watches him shake the man's hand – the one not holding the shotgun. "We'll move in tomorrow," Robert says.

  "I figure you'll get together with your neighbors," the man says, jerking a thumb to the apartment next door.

  Sharon wonders what he means as she watches Robert follow him down the stairs. When the men get to the bottom of the stairs, she leans over the railing, studying the other two buildings, one on each side of her.

  She is actually here and going to stay. She takes a deep breath and steadies herself against the railing.

  **

  The next afternoon a knock on the apartment door interrupts Sharon as she is unpacking their few kitchen utensils, brought from her grandparents' apartment in Louisville this morning. Robert stays in the bathroom putting away their toiletries. She goes to the door and opens it to a tall woman with dark hair and a wide smile.

  "Yes?" Sharon says.