Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel

by Phyllis Zimbler Miller

  Spend the next 20 or 30 years as an officer's wife? Mrs. Donovan called, but that doesn't mean other women would. Wendy says: "I want to go home after two years, not move from post to post all around the world."

  Nelson laughs. "Our phone bills would be pretty big with you always calling your mama."

  She throws her arms around him. "Nelson, I do not want to be an officer's wife any longer than I have to. I do not want to worry our whole life together about unaccompanied tours. I want to go home!"

  Nelson pulls her down so they lay side by side. "I want to make you proud – this might be a way to do it. But if you're so against it, then maybe it's not right."

  She leans her head on his chest. She loves him so much. "Thank you, thank you, Nelson."

  **

  The next day Wendy parks her car in the hospital lot and walks towards the main hospital door. Nervousness and excitement fight each other.

  This morning at breakfast Nelson hugged her. "I'm proud of you." And grabbing her breasts and giving them a squeeze, he said, "Aren't all those soldiers lucky? I'm just glad they're in bed and can't get any ideas." She laughed and kissed him.

  Now she enters the lobby and follows Mrs. Donovan's directions to the nurses' station. "Hello," she says to the woman sitting behind the reception counter. "I'm Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Donovan arranged for me to visit soldiers this afternoon."

  The woman doesn't look up. Her pen slashes across a medical chart on the counter. Wendy's knees wobble. Has Mrs. Donovan sent her here only to be insulted?

  The woman clicks her pen shut and smiles. "Welcome aboard. I'll show you around in just a sec."

  Relief floods through Wendy.

  Two hours later she returns to her car, exhausted and pleased. The soldiers were friendly, happy to have a visitor hand them water cups, straighten their pillows, joke with them. "Won't your husband be jealous?" they said.

  Of course these soldiers are only sick, not wounded. She doesn't think she could do this for soldiers missing limbs, soldiers swathed in bandages. Soldiers who might make her realize what could happen to Nelson.

  And if Nelson goes Regular Army ...

  Wendy turns on her engine and pulls out of the parking lot. She won’t think of this now. It is five weeks before the commitment must be made. Anything can happen in that time.

  **

  Three days later Donna says "We thought you weren't coming," as Wendy walks across the grass towards the other women standing in front of a Ft. Knox building. "Maybe you had better things to do."

  "Not likely," Wendy says. She wouldn't miss this officers’ wives' tour of Ft. Knox for anything. Nelson doesn't talk much about what he does. Maybe seeing things for herself will help with some of her fears.

  "I like your outfit," Sharon says.

  Wendy smiles her thanks. The distributed Disposition Form for the “Visit of Ladies to US Army Armor School” had included dress options:

  “1. A tour through the Armor School for ladies of student and Staff and Faculty officers is scheduled for Saturday, 6 June 1970.

  “2. A copy of the itinerary is attached as enclosure 1. Ladies will assemble in Gaffey Hall Auditorium (Bldg 2369), at 0810 hours, with activities commending at 0815 hours. Ladies attending are encouraged to wear low-heel shoes; slacks may also be worn.

  “3. To assist in planning for this tour, students are requested to complete the attached questionnaire and deliver it to your class leader by 29 May 1970.

  “4. Staff and Faculty wives desiring to attend are requested to notify Guest Speaker Branch by telephone, extension 4-7445, NLT 29 May 1970.”

  The form had been signed by the Armor lieutenant colonel who was the deputy director of instruction. And the distribution list read like an induction into a secret society:

  DISTRIBUTION:

  1 - Ofc of DA/Secy

  1 - Ofc of D/I

  1 - Ea Married Student

  AOAC-3

  AOB-21 & 22

  OMO-14

  1 - Armor School Bookstore

  5 - Ea OP Off

  AMM Dept

  Autmv Dept

  Comm Dept

  Wpns Dept

  CO, Sch Bde

  Wendy had chosen a navy blue pair of slacks that set off her thin waist and a white short-sleeved blouse along with navy low-heeled pumps.

  Now Donna indicates a woman raising her hand to get their attention. "She's one of the older women from the coffee at the general's quarters," Donna says.

  "Come, come, ladies," the woman says, motioning them all to enter the building. "Please take a seat in the room on your left."

  When Wendy was growing up, blacks had to enter movie theaters from a different entrance than whites and sit in the balcony. Her parents convinced her that those balcony seats were actually the better ones – you could see clearer. Only when the separate entrances had been eliminated and blacks could sit wherever they wanted did her parents admit their "little white lie." And now she sits in the first row of this audience with her white friends!

  An officer in suntans stands in front of them. "I'm Major Polens and I'll be your tour guide." He turns his head from side to side so they can all see his smile. "Today you're in for a real treat – a chance to climb inside a M60A1 tank, a certified killing machine."

  Certified killing machine! How can he say such a thing? Isn't this what they are all scared of?

  The major continues, "It's not the easiest thing to get up into. Young soldiers hop aboard; older officers use the little toe hook on the front slope and haul themselves up. For your convenience we've arranged a set of steps.

  "Once on the deck you climb up on the turret, where you can look down into the tank through the commander's or the loader's hatch. The commander's is bigger. Sit on the edge and swing your feet inside, then lower yourself to the seat."

  The major grins. "We've got a lot to see today, so let's begin our tour. First stop is the enlisted men's mess hall. I'm sure you're curious how we feed all these men."

  They file out behind the major. "Certified killing machine," Sharon mutters to Wendy as they walk across the grass towards the mess hall. "Why did he have to say that?"

  "Just what I wondered."

  In the immense kitchen the major points out extraordinarily large ovens, mix masters, pots and pans, and recites statistics on how many meals a day are prepared.

  "I bet our husbands are pleased they don't have to eat here," Sharon says. "Robert thinks it's funny they can eat in the Armor School cafeteria, go to the Officers Club or Country Club, or come home for lunch every day."

  Wendy smiles. "Nelson told me we can even pack them a dinner when they go on that night training exercise."

  "What night training exercise?" Kim asks Sharon.

  Is it Wendy's imagination or does Kim never direct a question or statement to her?

  "The men are going to practice firing live ammunition off the tanks at night," Sharon says.

  Wendy sees Kim clench her hands. "Jim didn't say anything about this."

  "Our men will be fine," Wendy says to Kim as they all follow the major out of the mess hall and across more grass. "It's not really that dangerous."

  "I hope our husbands are all on good teams," Donna says, coming up on Wendy's other side. "I'd hate for them to be with any imbeciles. I don't want my husband shot at by accident."

  Wendy doesn’t look at Kim’s face to see whether she’s heard Donna’s comment.

  Two minutes later the women reach their next destination: an olive green tank sitting outside another low-slung building. "Here it is!" the major says.

  Close-up the tank hovers over them like a huge Frankenstein. The top of the treads are level with Wendy's chin and the long main gun points at her head.

  Wendy touches the tank. "I thought it would feel like a big heavy truck, metal, but hollow inside. Put your hands on it," she tells the others.

  "It doesn't feel like there's anything inside it," Sharon says. "It's like a rock!"

  "Ladie
s," Major Polens says. "Here's your chance to see the inside of a tank. Who wants to climb in?"

  Several women indicate they will try, and Wendy gets in line with them. Sharon stands behind her, while Kim and Donna step to one side to watch.

  Wendy flashes to standing in line at the county fair. She is five years old, waiting for a ride on the Ferris wheel. Her mama holds her hand, her papa stands on her other side. She eats pink cotton candy and her mama tells her to "hurry, finish it up" before they get to the head of the line. Wendy licks her fingers of the last wisps of cotton candy before it's their turn.

  There is no ride. When they reach the ticket taker – an old man in baggy pants with a smelly cigar – he says something to her papa. Then her papa takes her hand and leads her out of the line. She cries and her mama offers her an ice cream cone. She stops sniffling and accepts the ice cream cone. That night she dreams of riding the Ferris wheel, of going up, up, up so high in the sky and coming down, down, down so fast. The ice cream cone was a poor consolation prize.

  This time when Wendy gets to the head of the line she is motioned forward. She uses the steps to mount the tank, swings her legs over the rim of the open hatch, and lowers herself. Then she's sitting on a stool, with handles and dials and knobs all around her.

  Wendy gulps, her breath caught. Perspiration drenches her face. It's so tiny inside!

  She's hiding in a hole. The dogs are above, sniffing out one more runaway slave. She's not going to make it!

  Wendy flings her hands over her head and pulls herself halfway out of the hatch. The major grasps her under the arms, pulls her legs out, and helps her down the steps.

  "Wendy, are you okay?" Sharon asks.

  Wendy nods as Sharon climbs up the steps for her turn.

  Then Wendy sinks onto the grass. Kim and Donna bend over her.

  "What's wrong?" Donna asks. "Are you sick?"

  "I ... I just got frightened. It's so small inside." Like a hole where a runaway slave hides.

  Her high school education hadn’t spent much time on the Civil Rights movement – that subject was too close to the students’ segregated lives. But time had been spent on “safer” black subjects of a 100 years ago – the stories of those slaves who braved death or brutal beatings to make a dash for the North and freedom.

  Wendy looks up at Kim and Donna. They are not here to capture her – she’s safe – at least for now.

  **

  Two days later Wendy picks up Nelson's dirty fatigues piled on the couch. She'll drop them off at the laundry on her way to Sharon's for the committee meeting.

  As she reaches for the car keys, Wendy thinks about when she learned that Nelson had a two-year commitment to the U.S. Army – an army fighting a guerilla war in the jungles of Vietnam, wherever that was, with men being killed by "soldiers" as young as 10 and 12.

  It wasn't the first time she and Nelson spoke – when he came up to her after choral practice during her freshman year and introduced himself. It was the next choral practice. He asked to walk her back to her dorm.

  Leafless trees arched overhead as they walked along the path towards the school dorms. At first they talked about their majors. Wendy said she chose sociology "because I'm not sure what I want to do after college and sociology offers a broad background." Nelson said he was studying history – "even if it is white history."

  He stopped at a fork in the path and took her hands. "Only by studying the past can we learn how to improve the future," he said. "Martin Luther King, Jr. is showing us the way, but we can't expect him to do it all for us. We have to do our share."

  Then Nelson dropped her hands and told her about his father, who had been decorated in World War II for bravery in combat in an all-black unit in Italy. "He came home a war hero – to discover that the only job he could get was a porter for the railroad.”

  Wendy didn’t say anything. She waited to hear what else Nelson would say.

  "I'm the oldest of five children. My mama comes home exhausted every day from cleaning white folks' houses. Sometimes she brings home the leftovers – of food, clothes, and toys. We are appropriately grateful for this 'bounty.'"

  "How did you get to come to college?" she asked.

  "Scholarship. My parents are proud that I'm getting to better myself. And they didn't say anything when I told them that two years of ROTC are required here."

  "ROTC?"

  "Reserve Officers Training Corps." He paused. "Now I've decided I’ll stay in the program after the two years. Told my parents that being an officer was a whole lot better than being an enlisted man. My father agreed. 'More respect. Less KP.'"

  Wendy stood on the path next to Nelson trying to take everything in. There was so much – his parents, his siblings, his fervor – that the ROTC part got submerged. She only understood that he would be an officer and that this would be good for his future.

  After that night, as they spent more and more time together, she didn't discuss ROTC or the army with him except in the vaguest way. And she avoided seeing him on campus on the days he wore his uniform.

  She did resent the times he went on overnight exercises with his ROTC unit. She hated being left in the dorm on a Friday or Saturday night while the other girls were out with their boyfriends, going to parties, seeing movies. "Nelson's busy; tons of school work," she'd say if asked.

  Only the morning they left for Ft. Knox, the morning after her papa's big speech, did she really believe that her husband was to serve in the U.S. Army for two years. Even so, she visualized two years of living somewhere in the U.S. while Nelson had a regular job, just one requiring an olive green uniform.

  Vietnam was halfway around the world. Surely he wouldn't be sent there.

  **

  The next morning Nelson says "There's still time to change your mind" as she clears the breakfast dishes. "You can drive me to the post so you'll have the car."

  She shakes her head. What would she do with the car? She went to the commissary yesterday, she doesn't have a committee meeting today, and it isn't her day to visit the hospitalized soldiers. Sharon asked her to come swimming at the Country Club now that the pool is open, but Wendy isn't sure she'd be comfortable there.

  What she says to Nelson is, "I have letters to write today. I'll be fine at home."

  To keep her company she has Nelson's framed photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. His eyes stare at her as she turns on the radio. A commercial praises air conditioning units at a store in Elizabethtown.

  "Now back to music," the announcer says, "with the song ‘He Was My Brother’ from Simon and Garfunkel's first album – ‘Wednesday Morning, 3 AM.’"

  Wendy stops piling the breakfast dishes in the sink. She may have been sheltered from experiencing much of racial discrimination, but the song’s image of a freedom rider being killed for his beliefs always brings tears to her eyes:

  He was singin' on his knees

  An angry mob trailed along

  They shot my brother dead

  Because he hated what was wrong …

  As the song finishes she clicks off the radio and wipes her eyes with a tissue. Then she takes a dish scrubber and takes out her anger on the crusted frying pan.

  She doesn't know very much about the white Freedom Riders who came down to the South to register black voters in the early 60s. There hadn't been any in her hometown and she was too busy as a self-absorbed teenager to notice what her parents kept from her anyway.

  Yet one night, a month after she had said yes to Nelson’s marriage proposal, she and Nelson took a walk around campus. The moon crowned the trees, moonlight sparkling their path. The bell struck as they passed the campanile.

  Nelson stopped below the tower. She stood in silence with him until the bell struck the ninth and final time, then they walked on.

  Nelson waited until they had gone quite a distance further before he finally spoke.

  "That bell reminds me of when I heard that the three white civil rights workers had been murdered over in Philadel
phia, Mississippi,” he said. “I felt so bad, so useless that I wasn't there too, that I ran over to our church and pealed the bells for them."

  "What could you have done in Mississippi?"

  "Maybe nothing."

  The next day he met her after classes holding a record album. "This is a gift for you. Listen to the song 'He Was My Brother.' I don't know if it's about those three people in Mississippi or some other Freedom Riders. Yet every time I hear it ... I relive their deaths."

  Nelson didn't have much money. The song had to be really special for Nelson to have bought the album. She took it back to her dorm room and played it on the stereo her father sent with her to college.

  And that was the first time she cried when she heard the words, cried for the "brother" who'd been killed trying to help blacks, and for Nelson, who believed he failed in some way.

  She places the last of the washed dishes onto the dish drying rack. Now what? There's always the television. Yet even looking at it turned off makes her uncomfortable, reminding her of the story told her by Marylou Williams, the daughter of the white man who loaned his hunting lodge for Wendy and Nelson’s honeymoon.

  Wendy didn't know much about Marylou, who was a few years older, except that Marylou married an army officer. Marylou – who was back home visiting her parents at the time of Wendy and Nelson's wedding – called Wendy before the wedding with instructions about using the lodge. "Make sure you turn the hot water heater on two hours before you need it or you'll be taking cold showers." Wendy thanked her for the advice.

  "As long as I'm on the phone," Marylou said, "is there anything I can tell you about the army, one officer's wife to another?"

  One officer's wife to another?