Bliss, Remembered: A Novel

by Frank Deford

  That was the vision. It was sort of a package deal in my mind. I didn’t just want people to say: there goes that Sydney Stringfellow, who just won a gold medal. I wanted people to say: there goes that Sydney Stringfellow, who just won a gold medal, & she’s w/ her fiance, Horst Gerhardt. Aren’t they a honey of a couple?! I’d always connected Horst w/ the Olympics so much that I guess I never really cared deep down about swimming after he left me. Maybe it still had more to do w/ him than it did w/ Jimmy.

  Now—not that I hadn’t come to love Jimmy.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I.

  Back on the Shore, I threw myself into studying for my insurance accreditation & passed w/ flying colors. Even before I could officially sell policies, tho, I had to take on more responsibility around the office, because my mother had gotten a beau herself. He was Elliott Parsons, who was a lawyer in Centreville, which was the next town down Rte. 2l3, over in Queen Anne’s County. Mr. Parsons was in the process of a divorce, which would’ve normally scared Mother off, as divorced men on the Shore were regarded notoriously. However, Mr. Parsons’ ex-wife-to-be had behaved so scandalously that word of her indecorous exploits had even reached C’town, so Mother was assured that Mr. Parsons was the aggrieved party, & thus could be legitimately comforted.

  Mom was, however, on tenterhooks around me at lst, vis-à-vis her budding relationship, fearful that I’d think that her attentions being paid to another man would insult the memory of my sainted father. When she finally broached the subject, tho, I promised her that I understood how time marched on in these matters. Given my blessing, Mom then began, sans impunity, to throw propriety to the winds in order to spend most of her nites in Centreville.

  This left me holding the fort at home, where I became a veritable Miss Lonelyhearts. Here I was, once again, pining for my lover, waiting for letters from him. (Well, at least this time they didn’t have to cross an ocean!) Jimmy was a faithful correspondent, too, if more given to cataloging the minutiae of Marine life than in elaborating, poetically, on his love for me & what a perfect human being I was, which had been more of Horst’s modus operandi. But Jimmy never failed to wrap things up by telling me that I was beautiful & wonderful & that he loved me & missed me & spent all his spare waking moments thinking of me. A girl couldn’t ask for much more than that.

  Jimmy himself was an outstanding Marine. Why should I be surprised? Jimmy always succeeded at whatever opportunity he was given (not just vocationally, you understand, but also w/ my heart) whenever those rare occasions for opportunity came his way. It was just that after every success, every time he opened a door to march thru, he’d then find another door closed in his face. That was the Depression for you. But at Parris Island, he was named a squad leader & given a certification declaring him “Marine Of The Cycle.” Also, altho he did not immediately apprize me of this, he became a devotee of poker, & was soon so accomplished that his fellow Marines began to call him a “card shark.”

  This mattered because when boot camp was over & he had a furlough, he had enough $ from his poker winnings to pay for bus fare. So it was, when I came home from the office one afternoon after work, to my absolute amazement (and delight), there was Jimmy on the front porch, just rocking away as if he owned the place. And, then, to his amazement (and delight), Jimmy learned that my mother was bivouacking at Chez Parsons in Centreville, so we had a love nest all to ourselves! Needless to say . . . well: needless.

  I introduced Jimmy to my mother the next day, & that nite Mr. Parsons took all four of us out to Bud Hubbard’s Restaurant, where you could get the most sumptuous crab feast in C’town. Mother came into the office next morning & told me 3 things:

  #l: Both Mr. Parsons & herself were tremendously impressed w/ “my young man.”

  #2: I should go home post haste & take some time off, to be with Jimmy on his furlough.

  #3: She was going to “look the other way,” thus to ignore the fact that I, an unmarried young lady of good breeding, would be alone under the same roof w/ a young gentleman. What w/ her cohabiting w/ Mr. Parsons, tho, I think this was a case of: what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (even if, in this instance, we were both geese).

  For Jimmy, it was more than just being w/ me, making love to me; for him, the whole experience was idyllic. Never had he had any existence like this: actually being in a real home w/ love. I was only part of his package deal, but it didn’t bother me at all not being the whole kit & caboodle. He said, “I don’t ever want to leave, Sydney.” By the time he returned to duty I knew I’d marry Jimmy Branch, &, I was sure, live happily ever after.

  On his last afternoon, we went down to the river to take a dip. After we came out of the water we lay down on our towels, & Jimmy closed his eyes & sort of l/2 dozed off. He was always built magnificently, but now, from that rugged boot camp, he was in the peak, the sun glistening off the droplets on the muscles of his body—pearls on ermine. I just gazed at him there, this Adonis of mine, & when he opened up one eye & caught me staring at him I felt a little embarrassed.

  “Whatcha lookin’ at, Sydney?”

  “Just you. You’re beautiful.”

  “Girls are beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  “No, boys can be too. You are. And this is the way I’m always going to remember you.” And I made my hands like a Kodak & pretended to snap him, only as soon as I did that, he reached up & pulled me down & kissed me, & after that, it was Katie bar the door. Imagine if Gentry Trappe had been around or some boat (w/ children!!) had come by on the river! There we were, in another moment, naked as the day(s) we were born, rolling around on the grass in the bright sunshine. When we were thru making love, we still didn’t care, & just lay there holding each other, absolutely oblivious to the world, especially to the Depression & the Marines . . . & Germany. We were prelapsarian.

  PRELAPSARIAN! What in God’s name was that? I know Mom liked to show off her vocabulary, and she never came across a word she didn’t understand that she didn’t immediately put down whatever she was reading and thumb through the dictionary. Myself, I’d usually just go on, trying to figure out the mysterious word on the fly (or to hell with it), but prelaparsian? I had to look it up. Surely it had to be high-class, elegant pornography.

  So I found Mom’s dictionary, and:

  pre•lap•sar•i•an adj relating or belonging to the biblical time before Adam and Eve lost their innocence in the Garden of Eden.

  All right, so there was my Venusian mother and my Adonian father, at the height of their beauty, unashamed, upon the grass in their own Chesapeakean Valhalla, not a fig leaf to be seen. So I was glad when I put the dictionary down and returned to reading the onion-skin pages to discover that Mom had spared me any further post-prelapsarian detail and had then taken me, her son, the unbidden voyeur, onto some less sensual reporting.

  When Jimmy’s furlough was up, he was posted to Quantico, Va. w/ the lst Marine Brigade. He remained there for the next 2 yrs. W/ his poker winnings, he was often able to visit me—altho starting in the fall of ’39, the size of the Corps was greatly increased, & what w/ all the new recruits, Marine life became more urgent, Jimmy’s fuller of responsibility.

  The reason the Corps—& the other services—were enlarged is because that’s when Germany invaded Poland. That was when World War II really started, altho most of us Americans were loath to admit it. Myself, I wasn’t surprised. Not because I was any wiser than the average Joe, but because I’d been there, in Germany, so every time something would happen like Munich or Kristallnacht, when the Nazis ran amok & beat up all the Jews, I would look back & see, from retrospect, that this was bound to be what the Nazis would do. It had all been there to see during the Olympics, as plain as the nose on your face, if you weren’t blinded by all the hoopla, all the fun & games (or in my case, by also falling head over heels in love).

  It was on those sad occasions, whenever Hitler & his crowd perpetrated something terrible again that I would think of Horst w/ SORROW. Poor Horst
! I could only imagine how upset he must be, how distressed he surely was for his Germany.

  Then I could not help but picture him on some ship & pray that he was safe. When the British fought that huge German battleship, the Graf Spee, I imagined Horst being aboard it. I eventually convinced myself that, yes, he must be, because when it was sunk none of the Germans lost their lives. I even imagined that somehow Horst had escaped when the ship was in port, at Montevideo, & now he was safely out of the war, being an architect in Uruguay. It was around Christmas when all this happened, & I thought to myself: what a wonderful Christmas present that would be, if Horst were alive, out of harm’s way.

  Then Jimmy came home on Christmas leave, & I was able to forget Horst again.

  Jimmy was such a fine Marine. He advanced 2 grades, to Lance Cpl., & it was clear he could make a successful career as a soldier. Happily, however, that possibility no longer interested him. He had found his dream, the place he wanted to be—which was w/ me, in C’town. He adored my little town. And it was mutual w/ whomsoever in town met Jimmy, for everyone found him to be a honey of a guy. In particular, Mr. Parsons took a special liking to him.

  He told me that one day he took him aside & told him, flat out, “Jimmy, we need new blood here on the Shore. Now, when’s your tour up?”

  “’Bout 2 more yrs, sir. July of ’42.”

  “Well, I speak not only for myself but for Trixie’s mother as well when I say that we both hope you marry Trixie then & settle down here.”

  “Sir, I wanted to marry Sydney the day I set eyes on her. I’ve just never had 2 nickels to rub together.”

  “Times’ll get better. Thank God we’re not going to let ourselves get involved in that mess in Europe, so that’ll only make the U.S. stronger while the damn Europeans go at it hammer & tong & never even mind what all those billions of Japs and Chinese are up to over that way.”

  “I certainly hope so, Mr. Parsons. If there’s trouble, they’ve told us: the Marines will be the lst to go.”

  Mr. Parsons let that unlikely possibility pass. “Now, I don’t know if Trixie has told you, but, at long last, my divorce is going to be final, & as soon as that happens I’m going to make an honest woman out of Marian. However, as you know, my practice is in Centreville, so it doesn’t make any sense to keep the place by the river.”

  “Mrs. Stringfellow will sell it?”

  “Well, that’s the plan. I mean, poor Trixie is out there by herself, rolling around like a marble in that big place. But . . . & this is a big but, Jimmy, if you’re coming here to settle down, then that’s where Trixie should live & raise her family.”

  “That’s what I’d like, sir, w/ all my heart.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. Now, have you thought what you’d like to do when you’re out of the Marines?”

  “Yes, sir, I have. I got into banking when I was in B’lyn, & I seemed to have an aptitude for it. I’m good w/ figures, so I thought I had a future in that line.”

  Mr. Parsons took that in. “Well, Marian & I have a better idea, if you’re open to hearing it.”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  “How ’bout insurance? Talk about figures. Insurance is a lst-cousin to banking. From what I’ve seen of you, you could pass that insurance exam in jig time, you could help Trixie take over the agency, & let Marian relax & take care of me. I’m sure they’ll be the pitter-patter of little feet in your house not long after you march down that aisle, & you’ll want Trixie home as a mother. There’s no reason why you couldn’t be in charge of the office—tho Marian could pitch in to help you now & again. What do you say?”

  Well, Mr. Parsons told me, it was all Jimmy could do not to cry—& he was of that generation of men who believed that it was sissy for a man to cry. He just rubbed his eyes. “Mr. Parsons,” he said, “I never had anything drop in my lap before. Ever. I can’t believe this.”

  So Mr. Parsons patted him on the back & said, “Jimmy, welcome to the Shore.” And they had hooters of Maryland rye together to seal the deal.

  Not only that, but after a couple ryes, Mr. Parsons showed Jimmy an absolutely gorgeous diamond ring. “Wow,” Jimmy said.

  “This was my mother’s. She left it to me when she died 3 yrs ago.” Jimmy nodded, not having the foggiest where this was heading. “Now, both my boys had already been married by then. You don’t know them. They both left the Shore—damn them. Had to be hot shots, go to the city.” Jimmy shook his head, commiserating. “I was going to give this to Marian when she accepted my proposal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But she told me something. She told me that I hoped I didn’t take it the wrong way, but she wanted to keep Bob Stringfellow’s engagement ring on. And I did understand. I knew Bob, he was one fine fellow & I can’t be jealous of the wonderful yrs he & Marian had together.”

  “That’s awful nice of you, sir.”

  Mr. Parsons just shook his head, modestly.

  By then, I was very glad he was marrying Mother. He wasn’t my father. No one could be that. But he was one good man. I think a lot of men would’ve gotten their nose out of joint if their wife-to-be had wanted to keep her lst husband’s ring. But not Elliott Parsons. And then he absolutely bowled Jimmy over. “So, I want to give this to you for Trixie’s engagement ring.”

  Jimmy was flabbergasted. “Oh, no sir, I couldn’t—”

  “Bullshit, son. There’s no sense letting it sit in a safe deposit box collecting dust till hell freezes over. Besides, it’s a nice symbolic way of bringing both you & me together into this wonderful Stringfellow family w/ these 2 beautiful Stringfellow gals.”

  That’s when Jimmy did absolutely break down, crying. He was so embarrassed till Mr. Parsons grabbed the back of his neck (because he’d bowed it in shame), squeezed it & said, “On the Shore, Jimmy, we have a saying that the way you tell a gentleman is that he’ll never let himself fart in mixed company or be afraid to cry w/ good friends.” So Jimmy cried some more.

  Then Mr. Parsons asked him, now that he had a ring, when he might propose, & Jimmy said, “I actually was thinking in a few wks. See, this is on the QT, sir, but that’s when the Brigade’s leaving Quantico for maneuvers.”

  “Where you going?”

  “It’s a place in Cuba called something like Geronimo.”

  “How long you be gone?”

  “Months, I think. We’re going to start practicing amphibious landings.”

  “Well, you’re right,” Mr. Parsons said. “Just before you go—I think that’d be a good time to hand Trixie this & pop the question.”

  Of course, that Geronimo place in Cuba was Guantanamo Bay, which nobody had much heard of at that time, & on his last leave before the Brigade shipped out, Jimmy did give me that ring, which was the most beautiful thing I ever saw (& which I’ve worn to this day). It had what seemed to me to be an absolutely monstrous diamond in the middle & 2 smaller (but not that much!) teardrop diamonds on either side, so I cried & Jimmy did, too. He was getting to be a regular crybaby, but he wasn’t the least bit ashamed of that anymore.

  For her part, my mother gave Jimmy the material for him to start studying for his Md. insurance exam, which he took w/ him on the ship to Guantanamo.

  We decided we’d get married in Aug. of ’42, right after he got out of the Marines. That really wasn’t that far off, hardly more than a yr and a l/2. Of course, I’m not giving anything away to say that by the time we did get to Aug. ’42, the U.S. was fighting the Jap. Empire in the Solomon Islands at the Battle of Guadalcanal.

  II.

  Going to Guantanamo was the start of the serious business for the Brigade. It never came back to Quantico again. It relocated to Parris Island, then it went to Camp Lejeune, which is in N. Carolina. There were whole months when Jimmy couldn’t make it up to see me. Then, late in ’41, the Brigade sailed down to Culebra, which is a little island off Puerto Rico. That’s where Jimmy was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, & all of a sudden, the work the Marines had don
e w/ amphibious landings made all the sense in the world.