“Who’s in the tower tonight?”
“Caesura and Pearlie.”
“How’d he get roped into that?”
“I was short a man so he pitched in. It’s pretty out tonight, isn’t it?” The Corinthian columns from the bank loomed out of the mists as they strolled by.
“A little damp.”
He put his wife’s arm through his. “My tests came back finally.” She walked quietly and he said, “I’m the bad guy here. It’s because of me we can’t have children. Not enough sperm. Doc Horning said it was maybe ’cause of the mumps I had when I was a kid.”
Julia said nothing as they kept walking. They stopped to admire the display in the Bon-Ton window, a golf outfit highlighted against a realistic green, the pennant hanging with number 16 on it.
Her first response when she did speak was, “Did you tell your mother?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t guess I’m surprised, Chessy.” She squeezed his arm. “Something had to be wrong. After all, we’ve been married long enough to get lucky—don’t you think? I mean, it’s not like we didn’t know, it’s just now we really know.”
“Yeah.”
“We can adopt.”
“That’s—let’s take it as it comes, Julia. My family won’t accept an adopted baby.”
“So?” she belligerently replied.
“Don’t you think that will make it hard on a kid?”
“Life is hard.”
“You’re losing me.”
“Life is hard. The kid will find out early. That’s how I see it. If we love the baby, then he will have a head start in life. We have to do the best we can. I don’t give a rat’s ass what your mother thinks about anything. She’s never cut me slack since day one. We need a baby, Chester. If we don’t do it soon we’ll be too old to raise a child—too set in our ways.”
“Honey, let’s give this a little time.”
“How much time?” She was right in his face now.
“I’ll know.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“It’s the only answer I have. Jesus H. Christ, Julia. I feel awful. This is all my fault. I need to get my feet under me.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s something inside your body.”
“If feels like my fault.” He jerked his head up. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying I need to …” He shrugged. Emotional descriptions eluded him. He felt plenty but he said little.
“All right.” She was matter-of-fact, as though this were a bargain between them. “Let’s hope you know before I run out of patience.”
He put his arm around her as they crossed the street and walked into the square, the mist giving George Gordon Meade a runny nose.
51
The boys who enlisted after Pearl Harbor had all completed basic training. It was only a matter of time before most of them would be posted overseas.
Rob McGrail and Doak Garten missed the Battle of Midway, which infuriated them, for it was a decisive American victory according to the newspapers, although by now people took the war news with a grain of salt. They may have been small-town, but they weren’t stupid.
The S.S. commander in Czechoslovakia, former Olympian Reinhard Heydrich, had been assassinated. The occupying forces announced they would destroy an entire Czech village, Lidice, in retaliation for killing a man even the Germans themselves didn’t like. The British were being handed their ass in the desert as the Germans roared toward Tobruk.
A restlessness infected Americans. They wanted to fight now. The tedious process of training men, gathering sufficient materials, and getting them across the Atlantic and Pacific dragged on.
People danced longer, laughed louder, and partied harder than before. They thumbed their noses at death by celebrating life. Julia danced the most. Chester still had not surprised his wife by dancing. Louise discovered parties, not that she had avoided them before, but now she entered into the spirit of them because she said it was good for morale. She was really doing it for the boys.
This particular June 15, Runnymede Day, celebrating the Magna Carta, fell on a Monday, so people enjoyed a long weekend. The pageant took place in Runnymede Square, where it always had, and most inhabitants dressed in thirteenth-century costumes, which meant lots of brightly dyed bedsheets wrapped in silken draper cords. Digby Vance played King John while Millard Yost was head of the barons.
Local breweries supplied kegs of beer, the Coca-Cola dealer donated sodas, and the Rifes paid for free hot dogs. Spoon races, three-legged races, and gunnysack races filled the afternoon once King John got his comeuppance.
Chester winked at Trudy Archer but steered clear. Celeste and Ramelle won the three-legged race against all comers, even the kids. The sight of Celeste Chalfonte hopping along unraveled her opponents.
With the soft fall of a long twilight the band played; adults and children danced under gently swaying lanterns. Julia Ellen and Louise were on tower duty at nine, but they hung around until the last sliver of light.
As they climbed the ladder up to the top the music sounded ethereal. Juts sang along as she swung her leg over the side of the sturdy tower. Louise, being the elder, believed she was in charge; she checked and double-checked the enemy-aircraft silhouettes leaning against one side of the tower. Juts double-checked the big searchlight, antiaircraft gun, and siren.
“You’ve got those memorized cold.”
“Doesn’t hurt to refresh my memory,” Louise smugly said.
“How much did you have to drink?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” came the sarcastic reply as Juts sat down. “How much did you have to drink?”
“A beer.” Which meant at least three. “But don’t worry. I drank it at six. It’s worn off by now.”
“When you climb up and down that ladder to go to the bathroom I’ll know this is just another Juts fact.” Louise called any fib a Juts fact.
Julia leaned over the tower to watch the dancing below. She tapped her foot to the beat. The scarlets, royal blues, burnt oranges, yellows, and purples of the costumes sparked her imagination. This really could be a square in medieval England.
“Think dead people had as much fun as we do?”
“No, they’re dead.” Louise fiddled with her binoculars.
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, when the people who signed the Magna Carta were alive, do you think they had as much fun as we do?”
Louise stood next to her sister to observe the music and frolic. “I don’t know. They had the One True Church, so they weren’t tempted by false prophets.”
Disgusted, Julia, a tepid Protestant but a Protestant nonetheless, said, “I bet they didn’t think of the church when there was dance music. I bet they didn’t worry about half the crap we worry about. And I was reading somewhere—maybe the ‘Your Health’ column in the paper—that they had fewer cavities than we do because they didn’t have refined sugar. Their sweets were made with honey. Sugarcane came with the New World. So there.”
“What did they do when they got sick? Died. That’s what.”
“So? So do we—it just takes longer. You know what else I think?”
“I can hardly wait.” Louise spied Maizie dancing with a classmate, yet another of the numerous BonBons.
“I believe we grow all our lives—”
Louise interrupted. “Junior McGrail certainly did. Took two chenille bedspreads to make her robe that time.”
“I remember. Anyway, if we don’t keep growing we shrivel up.”
“Juts, you had more than one beer.”
“Two, but let me finish.”
“Let you finish? You’ll talk all night.”
“I will not, Louise, but I want to tell you this. I think the dead keep growing, too. If our souls depart our bodies, then the soul can keep learning, so if I want to talk to Mamaw I can, and it affects her as well as me.” Juts mentioned their deceased grandmother.
Since this
was close to blasphemy, Louise, on dogma alert, remained silent for some time. “I don’t know about that. I’d have to ask Father O’Reilly.”
“Think for yourself.”
“I do,” came the curt response. Irritated, Louise put the binoculars back up to her eyes. “I don’t believe my eyes.”
“What?”
“Chester is dancing.”
“Oh, he is not.” Juts paused a moment. “Not unless someone poured twelve beers down his throat. He can’t dance.” She reached up for the binoculars but Louise shrugged her off because they both heard a droning in the sky. Louise scanned the night skies.
Julia babbled on. “Had to be someone else, not Chester.” She craned her neck to peer into the velvet darkness. “Louise—”
“Julia, shut up!” Louise searched for the plane. “There he is!”
“It’s one of ours.”
“Shut up!” Louise trained the glasses on the plane, looking for telltale insignia. A big white number was painted on the side, as well as a white circle with a white star inside. “It’s a Boxcar. Wonder what he’s doing here?”
“Thought he’d drop in on the party.” Juts wanted those binoculars. “Maybe the weather’s bad where he came from.”
“Could be.” Louise dropped the binoculars. They hung around her neck.
“Let me.” Juts reached for them and Louise flipped the strap over her head.
Juts didn’t bother to check out the airplane. She zoomed right in on the dancing. “He’s not dancing. He’s sitting next to his mother, the bitch.”
“He was dancing with his mother.”
“Boy, he must be loaded.”
“Looked okay to me.”
“Maybe she held him up. She thinks she’s been doing it for thirty-six years.”
“I’m telling you, he was dancing with his mother.”
Juts didn’t believe her. She changed the subject, which was what she always did when she wanted to avoid an argument or slide away from criticism. “I’ve a mind to ask the old battle-ax what’s the deal with Hansford? Wouldn’t you like to see her face?”
“No. I don’t care.”
“Ah, Wheezer, come on, he’s our father.”
“Some father.”
Julia shrugged. “I don’t guess we ever know what goes on inside someone else’s head. Maybe he had good reason.”
“His excuses don’t hold water. I don’t see why you waste time on him.”
“Because he’s the only father we’ve got, whether he’s a good one or a bad one, and when he’s gone, that’s the end of that. We’ll never know whatever it is he learned from life.”
“You’re on a learning kick.”
“Some people learn from books. I learn from people.”
“And what have you learned so far?” Louise challenged her.
“That everyone has their reasons, no matter how crack-brained they may be. People really think they’re doing the right thing. Adolf Hitler thinks he’s doing the right thing.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re telling me that Hitler doesn’t know right from wrong.”
“He knows. He thinks he’s right.”
“I don’t believe it. Some people serve the Devil.”
“I think some people serve themselves—it’s the same difference.”
Louise wrinkled her nose. This was a new thought for her, and her first reaction was always to stiff-arm something new. However, she mulled it over. “I don’t know.”
They sat together, listening, the laughter curling up from below. Tears trickled down Julia Ellen’s rosy cheeks.
Louise noticed. “Juts, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sick?” Louise got cross. “I know you drank too much. You always babble when you do.”
“I did not.” Juts stopped crying. “I feel funny, that’s all.”
“If you get sick up here in this tower I am not cleaning it up.”
“I’m not sick!” Her eyes flashed. “I feel blue, kind of. Louise, you can be a real turd sometimes, you know that? I don’t pick on you when you feel blue or have the mean reds.”
“I don’t get the mean reds.” Louise tucked up her chin.
“The hell you don’t.”
Ignoring this, Louise said, “What’s going on?”
“Chester hasn’t said a word about a baby since the results came back from Dr. Horning. He said he needed time, but how much time?”
“It’s only been—well, a few weeks. Don’t pressure him.”
“I haven’t said a word.” She wiped her eyes. “Wheezie, maybe he doesn’t love me anymore. If he loved me he’d know this means the world to me.”
“He loves you. Being a father doesn’t seem to be as important to men as being a mother is to us. Leave him alone.”
“You think?”
“Men are like children, Juts. I don’t know why you can’t get that through your head. You treat them like a friend, and you can’t. Chester is a big boy so you think for him, manage him—you know.”
“God, Louise, that’s so much work. I want a husband who can go and do for himself.”
“Never happen.”
“Pearlie seems to do all right.”
“I make his appointments, I keep his books, run the house, I figure out big purchases—he’s too impulsive—I lay out his clothes each morning. What does he have to worry about? Not one thing. All he has to do is get up in the morning and go to work. It’s never going to change, Julia. Women have been organizing men since B.C.”
“No wonder we’re exhausted.”
In the depth of the night the only music left was provided by Patience Horney, who availed herself of the free beer. She lay sprawled on her back in the middle of the square singing “Sweet Marie” at the top of her lungs. Occasionally she varied this tune with a heartfelt rendition of “Silver Threads Among the Gold.”
Finally both the sheriffs converged upon the square. Half of Patience belonged to Pennsylvania and the other half belonged to Maryland. Patience was probably the only drunken person in the history of the United States to sleep smack on the Mason-Dixon line. After a fulsome discussion as to where she should continue her slumbers, the North jail or the South jail, the two men reached a compromise and carried her home.
Staying awake pushed every Civil Air Patrol watchman to the limit. Sometimes Juts dozed off, then Louise would rouse her and vice versa. Neither woman noticed Chessy slip off with Buster after the party broke up. The only bad thing about neither Chessy nor Juts being home at night was that Yoyo went on a rampage. Usually Chessy could get home in plenty of time to repair the damage.
At about 0400—Louise had taken to using military time—both sisters slept, sitting down, leaning against the side of the tower. Louise opened her eyes first. She heard a strange sound. She stared up at the sky and saw Prussian-blue cumulus clouds curling over her head. She knew there were airplanes up there—not one or two, but a squadron.
She shook Julia. “Juts, Juts, wake up!”
“Huh.”
Louise, on her feet, tried to catch sight of the planes coming closer now. She strained for a glimpse of anything through her binoculars but the clouds played peekaboo with her.
Juts scrambled up, strained to hear the sound, but it didn’t sound like engines to her, although there was something up there, sure enough.
“Hit the lights,” Louise commanded.
Julia hurried, rolled back the canvas, and turned on the great searchlight, but it took a moment or two to warm up. “Shit, this sucker’s heavy.” She trained it straight up in the sky.
“Can’t you move it around—over there.”
“Stop giving orders!”
“I’m the senior officer here,” Louise spat at her.
“Oh, balls.”
“If those are enemy aircraft up there you’ll have a lot to answer for!”
That settled Juts’s hash. Reluctantly obedient, she grunted and groaned as she swung the big ligh
t upward toward the noise.
“Stukas!” Louise shouted.
The black silhouettes in a V, high up, could have been the lean German dive-bombers used to devastating effect.
“The motors sound funny.”
“It’s the altitude—Julia, stay on the planes.”
“I lose them in the clouds.”
“Stay on them! I’ll crank the siren.”
“Shouldn’t we be certain before we blast everyone out of bed?”
“Better we blast them out of bed than the Germans.”
“Okay.” Julia steadied the light, her shoulders straining as she tried to tip the beam at a higher angle.
Louise turned the big wooden handle on the siren and the low wail, a sound of terror the world over, shrieked through the summer night.
“Louise! Louise!” Julia shouted, but Louise couldn’t hear her over the earsplitting howl. “It’s Canadian geese!”
People poured out of their houses in nightgowns and pajamas, pastel robes for the ladies as the siren split the night’s silence.
Juts tapped Louise on the shoulder. She stopped turning the handle for a moment. “Canadian geese!” Juts shouted.
“Impossible.” Her disbelief had some foundation, for those beautiful flyers usually migrate north in spring, returning for the fall.
Juts kept the beam on the geese, who soared in and out of the huge clouds. “Look for yourself.”
Louise watched as the V formation flew directly overhead. “Oh, my God.” She dropped her glasses. “Julia, Julia, you can’t tell anyone.”
“Jesus, Louise, we can’t have people thinking it’s the Germans. It will get all of Maryland in an uproar.”
“You can’t do this to me!” Tears rolled down Louise’s cheeks. “Canadian geese,” she cried out loud. “Come on, Wheezer.” Juts thought and said, “Tell them it’s German geese.” She paused. “Anyone can make a mistake.”
“Not one this big.” Louise picked up the binoculars. “Oh, no.” Then she swung them down to look at the people. “Oh, God!”
People staggered out of back doors, shot out of front doors. A few, perhaps still feeling no pain from Runnymede Day, leapt out of windows.
Caesura Frothingham, in her nightgown, exposing more of herself than anyone needed to see, was screaming, “We’ll be killed,” just as Wheezie fired the antiaircraft gun in the air to pretend she was attacking the enemy.
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