Letters to America

by Tom Blair

  Ma tried to pretty up our home. She would get an old calendar from Mr. Drury down at the feed store. Any month that had a real good picture, she’d tear it off and tack it to the wall. Maybe ten pictures we had, more Julys than anything else. Still remember who made the calendar, the Progressive Farmer.

  For sure I loved Ma, but I didn’t really know what her thinking was. She never really talked to Billy or me. I mean, she talked, but it was talk filled with instructions, not of how are you doing or what are you thinking. And she had a look in her eyes, a gaze into the distance. Years later I saw the same stare in France and Germany and come to know what it meant.

  ’Course, there was one story Ma told that perked her up. Said her mother’s great-grandmother had married a rich brother of a plantation owner during the war. Not the war my mother’s brother was killed in, but the Civil War. Said he was killed by Union murderers, said they were paid five Yankee dollars for every Southern landowner they killed. Ma thought maybe someday a lost relative would come walking up our path with money for us. Money from our share of the plantation. Pa grunted that anyone walking up our path wearing shoes wasn’t no relative.

  Pa was good people. As a youngster I thought he was the strongest man in Alabama. Later, I come to know he wasn’t the strongest, he just worked harder than everyone else. Never seen anybody work so hard and have so little. ’Course, he wouldn’t have said that. Pa worked for the food on our table. All he wanted was a roof and food, and something for Billy and me. If Ma hadn’t took sick and got bedrid, he probably would’ve never bought the radio.

  Something else about Pa, the edges to his life were simple. Work hard and don’t lie or cheat. I figured he learned this from his pa. Later on I met a lot of no-count people who said the same thing—work hard and be honest—but when times got tough, they lied and cheated. Sorta thought if they lied and nobody knew it, it was just like the truth. That wasn’t Pa. One time Billy was getting paid a dime a day to help the Johnsons with their corn crop. Somehow Pa found out that Billy snuck away for a couple hours and rested under a tree. Next morning he got Billy and me up out of bed and dragged us out to Johnson’s place. Had us picking corn from sunup to noon. Didn’t ask the Johnsons for anything, neither. That was Pa.

  My growing-up days in Renfroe weren’t bad. Billy and me never got bad beatings. Maybe once or twice a month we’d get smacked upside the head. Not mean smacks, just getting-our-attention smacks. Some weeks we ate a little higher on the hog than others, but we never went hungry. If there wasn’t a stew, there was always corn mash or tomato bread sandwiches. Billy and I really liked them—tomatoes smashed up, mixed with sugar, and spread on bread.

  Lucky for Billy and me that school was close by. Some kids walked an hour or more. We’d get there in not much over a half-hour. ’Course we didn’t have watches, but it seemed for sure less than an hour. Coloreds went to school closer than ours, but ours was better. Never much liked school. It wasn’t that it was bad, it just wasn’t good. Billy was two years younger, but we was pretty much in the same grade. Everybody was, pretty much. Figures came real easy for me. I knew my tables and could move them around in my head fast. I could read good, but my writing and grammar, not so good. Never could diagram a sentence. I mean, who can say what the subject is? “A red apple is on the big tree.” So what’s more important, the tree, the apple, or the color red? I never did understand that.

  If everybody showed up, there was probably twenty of us in school. During the seasons, wouldn’t be many. Kids didn’t go during planting or harvesting. I wasn’t there a lot ’cause I was in the fields. Miss Lemmon was our teacher. She wasn’t married, and I think I know why. Her face looked like she just ate a lemon. Even so, she was always nice to us, not a sourpuss at all.

  I forgot to tell you that I was born on December 28, 1923. It wasn’t till years later that I figured out this wasn’t a good day to be born. You don’t get both Christmas presents and birthday presents, they just give you one present and two cards. But as a kid it didn’t matter, ’cause we didn’t get presents or cards. If things were good, we got a fruit pie or some other special eats with Christmas supper. Wasn’t till I was twenty-one that I got the best birthday present and Christmas present a fellow could get. That birthday I woke up alive.

  It was right after spring planting time that Ma got bad sick. I’m not sure when she first started to feel poorly, but by the time I was getting hair on my chest she was looking real frail. Pa and Ma never spoke to us about it. One day when I came back from school there was a car out in front of our house. First visitor that drove a car, a black covered-in-dust Ford with wooden spoke wheels, two bench-like seats and a canvas top. I’d never ridden in a car. I’d seen them passing by—not by our house, but on the concrete road we crossed going to school. The dirt road in front of our place was just an old crookedy wagon path that a car could use.

  Quiet, I went up the stoop to steal a quick look. In Ma and Pa’s bedroom was the doctor, his black satchel open, sitting on the floor. I remembered him because he had come to the school and checked everybody close up, looking for typhus or something. Anyway, after the doctor left things changed. Billy and I got some of Ma’s chores. That’s when I learned to wash clothes. Billy did most of the cooking. ’Course, we didn’t have a lot of clothes or food, so washing and cooking wasn’t much of a chore.

  It took about a year from when I saw the doctor’s car till Ma passed. She died, but she really didn’t die. She got bedrid and slept more and more each day till one morning she just didn’t wake up. Sort of like a drop of water in the sunlight. You look at it and you see it, but it just keeps getting smaller and smaller and then it’s not there no more.

  Pa made a box for Ma out of sidings from the old chicken coop. Billy and me dug the grave, took most of a day. Got a piece of oak board and rounded one edge for a marker. Used a red-hot spike to burn in her name and dates. Tried to get the letters and numbers real straight and perfect. That night, first time ever without Ma. Never gone to sleep without her in the same house. Next morning got up sorta hoping.

  Other things changed that year. In Renfroe we had two worries, not enough rain and too many bugs. Those were our worries. ’Course we knew everyone had worries, the country was hurting bad. Pa said there was people without jobs and no way to work for a meal. Told us that the good Lord gave us fifty acres to work, and if we just got up and worked a full day, we could go to bed with something in our stomachs.

  After a while the radio talked about other worries. Worries that weren’t America’s problems. Big commotion about Nazis bombing England. ’Course, I didn’t think much about it. Pa said we needed to take care of ourselves and let them take care of themselves. Ourselves being America. One night I heard Lucky Lindy on the radio. He was in Des Moines or some other place where they grow a lot of corn, remember thinking about the corn when I was listening. Anyway, he was telling us it’s their war and we gotta take care of ourselves. If both Pa and Lindbergh told me we needed to take care of ourselves and not worry about someplace an ocean away, I knew it had to be right. Three weeks before my eighteenth birthday things changed.

  It was a Sunday. Billy and me and Pa came back early that day from cleaning off the fields. Did some chores around the house, then supper. Beans with a ham bone and pot likker for stale biscuits, tried to eat good on Sundays. Billy flipped on the radio and we heard that the Japs had bombed us. ’Course we didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was, guessed California. But then they said the Hawaiian Islands. Billy was still in school so’s he had a couple books at home. One had a map. Took a while till we found the islands out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Next day President Roosevelt declared war on Japan. A few days later we was at war with Germany too. So from then on we didn’t have to decide what was the right thing to do, America was just doing it.

  Pa and I talked. Well, we didn’t exactly talk. Pa just asked, did I want to go in the army or the navy? I didn’t know nothing about boats, so I said the army. It didn’t ta
ke long. Three months later I had a letter in my pocket from the U.S. Army telling me where to go for my enlistment. The letter listed what to bring. Most things I didn’t have.

  Just like every day, the day I left for the army I got up early. Coffee and a slice of bread, then out to the fields with Pa and Billy. Pa behind the plow horse, me and Billy hunkered over, pulling stubble. I had on my boots, Billy was barefoot. We both pretty much always went barefoot working in the fields. But today I was going straight off to Renfroe to catch the noon bus.

  When the sun was close to halfway up I knew it was time, so I said good-bye to Billy. He asked me to leave a few for him to kill. I walked over to Pa, and with a quick tug, he stopped the brown mare. Looking down, kicking some just plowed clogs of earth, I mumbled good-bye. Pa told me to do the right thing. Then he turned, turned back to his god, work. A grunt and the mare was off. I walked toward Renfroe. Stopped and looked back. Pa in a halo of red dust, hunched over, following the mare’s ass to nowhere.

  Right in front of Drury’s Feed and Sundries was the Renfroe bus stop. Two other boys I knew from school, Robert and Emory, were joining up with me. Every other Robert I knew was called Bob or Bobby, but Robert’s middle name was Lee, guess he figured the hero of the Confederacy was never called Bobby Lee. Me and Robert each had nothing but the clothes we were wearing. Emory had a suitcase, never seen one close up. Wondered what all could be inside it.

  So there we stood in front of Drury’s, waiting for a bus, talking like we knew what we was doing. Emory’s ma and pa were standing back so’s us three boys could sort of lean on each other. Right off Robert said he wanted to drive a tank. None of us had ever even driven a car, so I think Robert figured the army would start him off in a car or truck, then a tank. Close to what musta been an hour late the bus showed up chased by a cloud of dust.

  Never been on a bus, so I wasn’t sure what to do. A driver with brown chaw juice on his chin and shirt saw my letter and waved me to the back. Maybe ten or fifteen fellas were already on the bus, most with big eyes, like, Where the hell are we going? I set myself down next to a window. Robert was right behind and slid in next to me. Glanced outside, Emory’s ma was kissing him good-bye while his pa shook his hand. Quick-like he climbed into the bus, down the aisle, looking away from Robert and me.

  Right away I liked the bus ride. Well, I liked the view. Up real high so’s I was looking down on everyone and everything. I had a feeling I’d never had before, a feeling of being special. I was on a bus, going someplace. I was sitting high, watching the world go by. That was the good part. The bad part was we were all scared. Not scared like we were going to get killed by some German or Jap. It was just that unknown stuff right in America that had our stomachs twisted tight scared. Fifteen minutes out of Renfroe I was further away from home than I’d ever been in my life. Same with most of the guys. Hard to believe, but for most everyone this would be their first night in their life not sleeping at home.

  So anyway, there we all sat. More and more guys getting on the bus. Then some big talk. One corn-mash-brained guy said that if we could take the bus clean to Berlin, we’d win the war. He was really saying that he’d rather take his chances in Berlin than with army training.

  Every half hour or so the bus would stop and a few guys would climb on with their army letters and their big wide eyes. Watching the new fellas sliding into empty seats made me feel like an army veteran. After Birmingham the bus went on down to Montgomery, made five or six stops picking up fellas on the way. At one stop we jumped out and ran behind a gas station to take a leak. Out front was a soda machine, a few lucky guys had nickels for Cokes. I’d seen Cokes in Drury’s cooler but had never tasted one. Didn’t this day either. After Montgomery we headed east to Georgia. Sort of expected Georgia would look different than Alabama, like with red grass or something. ‘Course it didn’t.

  When the sun went down things got quiet, real quiet. Close to midnight we were rumbling down a concrete highway with streetlights on both sides. Never seen so many cars, parked all along the sides. Never imagined such a thing. Two or three quick turns and we pulled into a bus station, big painted sign on the wall said COLUMBUS. A few nasty curses from the driver and we piled out and shuffled into the bus station, lit by a row of flickering neon lights. Rows of wooden benches, probably could hold thirty folks. But not this night. Guys that got there before us took up whole benches, laid out asleep. Other fellas were slumped against the walls, snoring away. Some had letters sticking out of their pockets that looked just like the one I had. We milled around and started to talk until one guy looked up from a bench and told us to shut the hell up. Emory and I went back out and set ourselves down on the grass and waited. My first army training for the next three years, being in the dark and waiting.

  After a spell two trucks pulled up. Army trucks with white stars and! U.S. ARMY stenciled on the doors. I didn’t know my ranks then. Now I know each truck was driven by a private—that’s one stripe. With them was a sergeant, three or more stripes. The sergeant didn’t have to, but he yelled anyway. Everybody into the trucks! We weren’t moving fast enough, so he hollered some more. Up we went.

  Getting in wasn’t easy. Didn’t know then that if you pulled two pins, the back of the truck hinged down so’s you could hop in. So we lifted one guy into each truck and he pulled and others pushed until everybody was in while the two privates stood back with dumbass grins. When the last guy got muscled in, the sergeant and two privates strolled off and there we sat on wooden benches, squashed like tomato mash. Another lesson, “Hurry up and wait.” Maybe more than an hour later the sergeant and privates were back, happier than before. Each had a beer in their hand. Some slams of the cab doors, engines gunning, and we were off.

  After a few long hours of bouncing in the back the dawn began to squeeze between the canvas flaps. I glanced around. No one had the look of wanting to go to Berlin. And for sure, I wasn’t feeling so special no more. With the sun pretty much up I thought of Billy heading to the fields.

  We pulled into Fort Benning, building after building with hundreds of guys marching around. Everyone seemed to know what to do and they were doing it real fast. Finally lurched to a stop, and then the hollering really began. Poured out of the trucks and two sergeants got us in a row with a lot of screaming and pushing, ugly mean things being yelled about our brains, our manhood, and our mothers. Fighting words in the schoolyard back home.

  Some fellas had their suitcases next to them. One of the sergeants walked over, picked up each case, and gave it a good toss. Emory’s case popped open and we stood at attention, watching his clothes blow away. Then we learned four real quick lessons. Right face, left face, forward march, and halt. They became my new heartbeat. Off we marched. At first our march had a cadence yelled by the sergeant: “Yer left, yer left, yer left, right, left.” Later in our training the marking of cadence became more entertaining. I found out more about sex while marching in Benning than I’d ever learned around Renfroe.

  Off we marched that first day, right to a haircut. Never had a haircut ’less Ma or Pa gave it to me. Never with an electric shaver before, neither. Some guys had a problem with it. It really didn’t bother me at all. Then we stripped down and took showers. I looked around. For sure I was worked hard thin, but there were some really scrawny guys there. A lot of ribs sticking out. Out of thirty or forty of us, I’d say just about everybody was skin-tight thin.

  Next was a physical. Even had to bend over stark naked and let them look places that I couldn’t understand why they’d want to look. But we were all clean then, so I guessed it was okay. Two guys didn’t make it. One boy’s foot pointed toward the side when he stood up. I don’t mean it pointed a little to the side—I mean it was straight out. The other one was blind as a bat. They asked him to read the chart and he said “What chart?” Thought he was lying at first, then one of the corporals giving the physical looked in his eyes and said, “Yeah, they’re foggy.”

  After the physical we each got a pa
ir of khaki skivvies. Off we go, marching down the road almost naked. Japs and Germans would have laughed till they wet their pants if they had seen us. Marched probably a quarter mile and then lined up in front of this building, then inside for our uniforms. I never seen so many clothes. Any size you needed. I couldn’t believe what I got. Six pair of socks, six skivvies, pants, shirts, jackets, shoes, and boots. I stared with my mouth open like to catch flies. I’d never had new shoes or boots. I’d never had much of anything new. And for certain sure never six of anything.

  The sergeant wouldn’t let us put anything on, except the boots. Then out again and marched down another road, holding our clothes in front of us. Maybe a half-mile or so, past row after row of buildings, each the same, one story high, about twenty feet wide and sixty or so feet long. ’Course later I learned they were called barracks. Each barrack had a door on both ends and windows along the sides. I looked around because I needed to use a privy, but I didn’t see one anywhere. Toward the end of the row of barracks the sergeant yelled a mean “Halt!” There we stood holding bundles of clothes like newborn babies.

  More screaming from sergeants and corporals and we got divided up into groups of sixteen. Emory was in my group, Robert in another. Quick like we were herded into one of the barracks, cots along each side. Then another corporal yelling at us, pointing each of us to a cot. At the end of the barracks through a door I could see what I guessed was an inside privy. I’d never seen one before, but I figured it was the privy. I could see it, but I was scared to ask to use it.

  In came a private who showed us how to make up a cot. Then the corporal pointed to the fellow next to me and said, “You do it now.” When he was done the corporal reached down and pulled the sheet and blanket off and had himself a hissy fit. Said a whole string of things that weren’t nice about the guy’s parents. He had the private make up another cot while we watched, then each of us had to make up our own.