My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850)

by Short, Sharon

  He frowned. “No, no. You didn’t hurt the car beyond some surface damage”—he waved his hand, as if paying for those repairs was no big deal to him; and to him, I realized, it wasn’t—“and even if you had…well, I shouldn’t have been such a jerk. That’s why I came in.”

  He reached into his denim jacket and pulled out a small white box, just as Shirley got to our booth. Quickly, I moved the box to my lap.

  Shirley put Jimmy’s club sandwich and my slice of apple pie on our table. Grandma, of course, hadn’t asked what kind of pie I’d like. I thought, I’d rather have coconut cream. Such a simple thought, but it startled me a little, this notion that I could have opinions, and they should matter, and people should pay attention to them—even people like Grandma. Did my notion come from being around Jimmy, from my boldness in talking Mr. Cahill into a secret job, from Mr. Cahill saying I had potential? I wasn’t sure. But I did know that I liked this notion.

  “Anything else I can get for you?” Shirley asked, overly polite, annoyed that she was covering my tables—and of course Grandma wouldn’t pay her double.

  “Listen, I’ll take some of your shift tomorrow—” I started, as Jimmy said, “No, thanks,” and Shirley stalked off.

  Then Jimmy said, “I hope what I got you makes up a little bit for how I acted earlier.”

  I looked at him. His expression was hopeful. He liked me…he wanted me to like him…simple enough. And yet it wasn’t. We were at most ten minutes into getting to know each other, and already our relationship—if we could even call it that—was burdened by unspoken expectations by Grandma, by what I guessed his parents would think of me, by the secrets I couldn’t share. My head suddenly whirled with all of that, plus the simple fact that I hadn’t eaten anything since the nibble of persimmon.

  The thought of that made me blush anew. Jimmy gave me a shy smile, encouraged again by misreading my expression. I opened the lid to the plain white box and pulled out a pink heart-shaped bottle with a blue lid. The heart-shaped label read Blue Waltz Sachet. The gift seemed strangely intimate from someone so shy.

  “After I dropped you off, I asked Babs what I should get you to show I was sorry, and she said you like this sachet powder, to put in your drawer of…”

  Poor Jimmy. As he faltered, turning red, I could just hear what Babs had said: Now Jimmy, she loves to sew little sachets, fill them up with this lovely powder—you can get it right at the Woolworth’s in town—and put the sachets in her intimates drawer….

  Somehow, she’d have managed to say it so sincerely, so convincingly, that Jimmy wouldn’t be embarrassed until he was actually giving me the gift, and imagining my intimates…. Bras. Slips. Panties.

  I put my hand on Jimmy’s, a calming gesture, like I would do with Will, but a tingle ran through me that was anything but sisterly. The feeling jolted me right out of my impending giggles.

  I caught my breath but managed to say, “Jimmy, this is a really sweet gift. Thank you.”

  He looked relieved. “I’m glad.”

  I pulled my hand away, suddenly awkward. I picked up my fork, took a bite of pie. I nearly moaned at the flavor, forgetting I’d have picked coconut cream, the crust and apple filling melting on my tongue. Grandma’s sweet pies would make a person nearly forget what a sour person she was.

  Jimmy took the little flag—an orange paper triangle on a toothpick—out of his club sandwich, and bit in.

  Somehow, quietly sharing a meal dissolved the awkwardness between us. We ate happily, without talking, until there was nothing left of my pie but a few crumbs, and nothing of Jimmy’s sandwich but the little flag. I picked up the flag, twirled it between my thumb and forefinger, and giggled after all.

  “Share with the whole class, Miss Lane,” Jimmy said, in perfect nasal-y imitation of our English teacher.

  My giggle turned into a real laugh, and I realized that in spite of all our awkwardness, I’d laughed more with Jimmy that day than with anyone else in a week. “It’s just—this sandwich flag made me think of my little brother—” I stopped. Dumb! What boy wants to know that he’s worked up the courage to give sachet powder to a girl for scenting her intimates, and she’s suddenly thinking about her little brother?

  But Jimmy said, “The one who wants to go to the Alaska Territory?”

  He remembered. That made me soften even more toward him. “Yes. Will’s crazy about Alaska. Last year, he even made a diorama of Alaska for class, when it was supposed to be a diorama of Ohio, and got an F! And you know the Marvel Puffs cereal promotion, for the switch to television of the radio show Sergeant Striker and the Alaskan Wild?”

  Jimmy shook his head.

  “Well, if you were a ten-year-old boy like Will, you’d know. For ten Marvel Puffs box tops, you can send in for your very own official deed to one square inch of Alaska! I guess that’s all right, but he also has this crazy notion that he’ll visit his claim someday. This sandwich flag”—I waved it under Jimmy’s nose—“is just the right size for one square inch of land; that’s how silly one square inch is.”

  Jimmy laughed.

  This time, I didn’t. “This isn’t funny!”

  Jimmy suddenly made his face fake serious, his lips still twitching. “You’re right. There’s nothing funny at all about using a sandwich toothpick flag to claim a piece of land as your own.” He took the flag from me and stuck it in the corner of the Blue Waltz Sachet box.

  I started to smile after all. It was a funny image. And I knew that soon enough, Will would see those dreams for what they were—silly and impossible—which should have comforted me. But, instead, I suddenly felt sad. And weary.

  I needed to change the subject, get us back on a lighthearted tone, but the overwhelming smell of old sweat and grime hit me. I looked up. Strange Freddie was standing at our table, staring down at Jimmy. I gasped. Strange Freddie never came into the businesses in Groverton—not for long, anyway—without getting run out again.

  Strange Freddie leaned over and smacked what remained of his right hand, wrapped in a dirty, cut-up flannel shirt, on the table by Jimmy’s plate, making his coffee slosh. On impulse, I grabbed that silly little sandwich flag, protectively put it in the box with the sachet bottle, closed the box, and put it in my smock pocket.

  Jimmy stared down at Strange Freddie’s arm, and his face went from confused to horrified as he realized that the filthy wrappings didn’t leave room for fingers, that this crazy man’s right arm must end in a mauled stump.

  “I hear you’re th’ son of th’ new big boss at th’ pulp and paper,” Strange Freddie said. He gasped, like it was labor to speak at all, and I realized I’d never heard Strange Freddie say actual words before. He always sat outside Main Street businesses, muttering. Like his hand, his voice was mangled, but from lack of human interaction instead of by a machine.

  “I am.” Jimmy lifted his hand automatically for a handshake, then pulled it back. The corner of Strange Freddie’s chapped, crusty mouth twitched. Jimmy cleared his throat. “Jimmy Denton. And you are?”

  “Frederick McDonnell.”

  It was the first time I’d heard Strange Freddie’s last name. That made me really look at him, instead of past him. I tried to see beyond the grime and shakes to the person that Strange Freddie—Frederick McDonnell—might have been before he became a lone wolf in Groverton. That thought reminded me of Trusty. I immediately felt ashamed, comparing a man to a dog.

  “Mr. McDonnell,” Jimmy was saying, “it’s nice to meet you. Is there something I—”

  Suddenly, Grandma was at our booth, holding a wooden spoon as if she might at any second start beating Strange Freddie about the head. “Leave this young man alone! It’s bad enough I send you food outside, but coming in here, smelling up my place—”

  Strange Freddie shrank back at Grandma’s shrill tone and started to back away from our table. But Jimmy snapped, “Mrs. Lane!” and Grandma fell silent. The whole restaurant went silent. Even Strange Freddie looked shocked. No one talked to Grandma
like that. “I’m having a conversation with Mr. McDonnell.” He looked away from Grandma—dismissing her—and back at Strange…at Mr. McDonnell. “Sir, is there something I can help you with?”

  Surprise tinged with a bit of fear flashed in Mr. McDonnell’s expression. He’d come in itching for a fight with the new Groverton Pulp & Paper boss man’s son. He hadn’t expected to find, instead, respect.

  “Jus’…jus’ tell yer daddy that you met a man who lost his fingers an’ most of his right hand in a conveyor at his plant, back in forty-six, all ’cause management didn’t want to spend money on safety shutoffs.”

  Suddenly, he looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “We was about to strike, but your daddy promised he’d get management to see our side.” He shook his head. “But he didn’t. Porter Lane betrayed us. Nothing’s changed.”

  Daddy hadn’t kept his promise, and as a result, Strange Freddie—Mr. McDonnell—lost his hand. Daddy must have caved to pressure from other managers not to be a union sympathizer. My stomach turned at the thought: My daddy…a coward.

  Then I thought, Nineteen forty-six. The year Mama went to the treatment center…

  Maybe Daddy had been so caught up in his grief that he just forgot to keep his promise. Still, my stomach flipped again. I knew Trusty, an innocent dog even if he was scary, was being abused, and I didn’t want to do anything about it, because I was so wrapped up in my own problems….

  Jimmy was saying, “I will tell my dad. I’m sure he’ll make safety a top priority.”

  Mr. McDonnell nodded slowly. “If he doesn’t, he’ll face a strike.” He leaned forward, his sour breath turning my stomach further as he added, “Talk is Local Eighty-three is thinking of letting the Negroes in.” Local 83 was one of several locals of United Paperworkers International Union, most of its members being janitors and sweepers. Those were also the only jobs that blacks were allowed to have at the mill back in 1953. I suddenly understood…. If the white members of Local 83 who wanted to strike could get enough new members in and swing the vote to strike, Local 83 could join with the other two mill locals for a powerful enough strike to shut down the mill.

  But why would Mr. McDonnell want to reveal this to Jimmy? Did he really think his testimony would be enough to get Mr. Denton to approve safety features and avoid a strike, which would cost workers a lot in lost wages? Was he trying to be a hero? Or was he trying to get back at all those who’d shunned him since his accident?

  I shook my head. Either way, Strange Freddie had to be crazy. His former coworkers would only be angry with him when they learned he’d revealed the local’s plans to the mill president’s son.

  Jimmy said, “Thanks for filling me in. Do you mind if I buy you dinner, as a thank-you?”

  Strange Freddie/Mr. McDonnell squared his shoulders as best he could after years of shuffling about town slump-shouldered. “Nah. Mrs. Lane always sends out food to me,” he said, and cut another look at me, but this time his watery gaze was grateful.

  Then it hit me…. Daddy must have told Grandma that she should feed Strange Freddie whenever he showed up near her café. Daddy.

  “It’s starting to rain. Wouldn’t it be nice to eat inside?” Jimmy stood up, reached in his denim jacket’s inner pocket, pulled out his wallet, and got out a five-dollar bill and put it on the table. Then Jimmy smiled at Shirley, who along with everyone else had watched the exchange in stunned silence, and said, “Please clean our table and get Mr. McDonnell whatever he wants for dinner. The change is yours.”

  With that, Jimmy looked at me, and I knew he expected me to follow him.

  “I—I have to get my things—from the back—”

  I grabbed my notepad and pencil and rushed through the kitchen doors to the locker, and shoved the notepad and pencil into my smock pocket, where I felt the box of Blue Waltz. I opened the locker and grabbed my book bag, dropped in the box, then quickly hung up my smock and rushed out, resisting the thought that everything that had happened was just a dream.

  But when I stepped into the diner, there was Mr. McDonnell, sitting up straight as he could at the booth where Jimmy and I had been, placing his order as if he ate inside Dot’s Corner Café all the time. There was Jimmy, waiting for me at the front door. There was everyone else, looking at me with new approval—except for the Leises, the only ones who seemed not to have noticed the exchange between Jimmy and Mr. McDonnell.

  Outside, Jimmy and I stood for a second on Groverton’s Main Street.

  The World War I memorial—a kneeling soldier aiming his rifle, primed to break free from his bronze pose and fire—was still in the middle of the town square. The mannequins in dresses still graced the window of Miss Bettina’s Dress Shop. The red, white, and blue pole still turned by the barbershop’s door, next to the Woolworth five-and-dime, where Jimmy most likely got the Blue Waltz Sachet.

  Everything was the same, yet utterly changed.

  I smiled at him. “What now?”

  He smiled back. “Now…I really teach you how to drive!”

  Chapter 8

  And so I drove.

  With Jimmy Denton patiently giving me instructions and tips, I drove.

  “Give me a tour of Groverton,” Jimmy said.

  And so I did.

  Now, fourteen years later, I still remember everywhere we went: up and down Main Street, away from Dot’s Corner Café; by Miss Bettina’s Dress Shop; by the Ace Hardware where Daddy worked; by the big Victorian house Grandma had grown up in, where her father practiced medicine as one of the town’s doctors and where she still lived, polishing her bitterness as carefully as she did the silver she’d inherited from her own grandmother; then out to the edge of town to the Cosmic Burger and Shakes, where I carefully steered Jimmy’s car up to the speaker, without adding a single scratch to the damage I’d already caused, and where we laughed at the shock on Lisa Kablinski’s face when she roller-skated out to deliver our chocolate malts. By morning, everyone would know that Donna Lane, instead of working Friday night again at Dot’s Corner Café, had been out with Jimmy Denton, even driving his car!

  Then I drove us on out of town, passing by the Lucky Horseshoe Bar, where Daddy drank most nights, by the Groverton Cemetery, where Mama should have been buried but wasn’t—her body had never come home from Florida because Daddy said it was easier to have her buried down there—and on out to Pleasant Valley Orchard, which had closed after the owner passed away, its gravel lot by the old barn becoming a favorite make-out site.

  But at first, we just talked. We talked on the drive and in the orchard parking lot, talked and talked.

  We didn’t drive by Mr. Cahill’s house. Groverton Pulp & Paper. Across the bridge to Tangy Town—definitely not there. Jimmy’s house.

  Eventually we kissed. My first kiss. I don’t know if it was Jimmy’s—probably not, but I didn’t care. It was a sweet, lovely, tender kiss that lingered and that made me feel just…happy. Nothing like all the pulps Babs insisted on loaning me, like Frenchie and Bonanza Queen, said I would feel. But happy.

  At some point, Jimmy turned on the radio, to a station playing some song with a racy fast beat and a wailing horn line.

  “Is this local?” Jimmy said, sounding surprised.

  “Are you kidding? No. It’s out of Chicago. Every now and then, late at night, you can pick it up here. But the local station would never play this. It’s jazz. Grandma says it’s only fit for colored folks to listen to.”

  “What do you think?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer, what he expected me to say. I decided to tell him the truth. After all, I’d perpetuated a lot of untruths that day.

  “I like it!” I said.

  Jimmy smiled. “I’m glad. I do, too.”

  So we listened and kissed until the old gravel parking lot filled up with too many other cars for us to really feel comfortable and then, at nearly midnight, I drove back to my house, my head fairly spinning at how much had happened since that morning, which now seemed a lifetime ago.

&n
bsp; The closer we got to 230 Elmwood Street, the more my heart thudded. It was dark, so Jimmy wouldn’t really be able to see how ramshackle our house looked compared with everyone else’s. But it was also late, much later than I usually got home on a Friday night after closing up at Dot’s Corner Café.

  I prayed, Please…let the porch light be off, the living room dark, just a glow coming from Will’s room, Will reading his comic books under the bedspread….

  But Dad’s car was in the driveway. The porch light was on. The living room was lit up. Will’s bedroom window was dark. And parked by the curb was a ramshackle truck with faded lettering on the back: Stedman’s Scrapyard.

  My stomach lurched. Oh God. I had to get inside, find Will….

  “Thanks, Jimmy, it’s been wonderful,” I said in a hurry, rushing out of the car.

  “But I should walk you to the door, meet your dad,” Jimmy said.

  “Not tonight, Jimmy,” I said firmly, and slammed the driver’s door shut, leaving him in the passenger seat feeling, I was sure, hurt and confused.

  Even before I was all the way up the porch steps, I heard the angry voices bellowing inside the living room. I glanced across the street. The curtain over the Bakers’ picture window fell back in place. I rushed into our living room, still lovely with the furnishings Mama had optimistically chosen: cabbage rose rug, striped chairs and couch perfectly perpendicular to the fireplace, a pastoral painting and candles on the mantel.

  Daddy and Mr. Stedman stopped shouting and stared at me. They looked so much alike in their rage, open mouths panting, bellies heaving over too-tight belts, in too-tight shirts.

  I’d stumbled into some grotesque diorama, in the middle of which was Will, slumped on the floor in front of the couch. I knelt down next to him. He looked up at me, his face wide open with fear. I thumbed away his tears.

  “Are you OK?” I asked softly, in a near whisper.

  Will barely moved his lips: “Trusty.”

  He wasn’t worried about himself, just that crazy, mute, wild dog. I pressed my eyes shut, forgiving my little brother his fervent passion for lost causes.