“They don’t hang out washing in Japan,” I said.
“How do you know?” she returned.
I didn’t, and so abandoned this point and seized upon the other. “Well, they wouldn’t have,” I said, “waved. Don’t you know anything? The planes are different.” I knew that Beth had been in the school auditorium last year when the fellow came to lecture us on civil defense. He’d shone a lantern at the ceiling and projected the silhouettes of American planes, pointing out their distinguishing characteristics, contrasting them with the shapes of the enemy. Beth often seemed to forget such things, conveniently. “They have different markings, even,” I told her. “Different colors.”
“So if I saw a plane, I could tell it was Jack, and not the Japanese?” asked Beth, seeming interested.
“Of course,” I said. I explained how she’d be able to tell them apart. Encouraged by her attention, I elaborated, describing the body style of Jack’s plane, and the markings on its wings, for all the world as though I were preparing her for a crucial and certain event.
Beth was looking at me strangely.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing,” she said, beginning to smile. “Only, you said all that real clearly. You’ve been talking regular, all this time.”
I blushed. I didn’t like my stutter to be referred to in any way.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she said, very kindly. “It’s wonderful. Did you hear yourself?”
Oddly enough, I hadn’t; the stutter had slipped from my tongue as easily as a loop of thread; I had lost it somehow.
“Peter piper,” said Beth.
“How much wood can a wood chuck chuck,” I said, flushed now with exultation. “She sells sea swells.”
“I can’t do that one either,” said Beth, laughing.
Those months stand out in my memory, a time of clarity and release. I felt like a debutante must, being presented entire to the world; I, too, had my “season.”
The news came: first a telegram, and then a telephone call. Jack was coming home. I made a special supper, but of course he came earlier than expected, walking into the kitchen while Beth and I were bickering over the cornbread. One minute, we were there alone, and she was grabbing the wooden spoon from me, and the next he was there behind her, shorter than I remembered. I shook his hand while Beth hung laughing first on one of us and then the other. Later, I had my first grown-up drink; and when I got up the next morning, my tongue felt thick in a head pounding from whisky, and my fluency was gone. I stuttered again: not so badly as before, and mostly with strangers, but it was a disappointment.
I fell back on my old tricks, the circuitous replacement phrases, the hand gestures, the facial expressions. Some days, the handicap remitted again miraculously, and I allowed myself to fantasize that it was gone forever; but it always returned, with a kind of maddening suddenness. I would withdraw abruptly and try not to speak at all, while Jack and my father filled the house with their own wordlessness. The three of us had that one thing in common; we became known in Naples as “still folk.”
We who had been left behind had spent the years like clams in a stream, greedily filtering from the newspapers all we could of the great events abroad. We had deprived ourselves gladly for the Cause; we had clapped our neighbors on the back, and sent them away to die. It had seemed that it would never end, but it ended, and we emerged on the other side thinner, newly cynical. War had changed us. But Jack, who had been at its very center, who had been there, had changed very little. His injury had healed completely, not even gracing him with a limp. He seemed exactly the same age, even, as when he had left. He took a job working for Pollard’s garage, and he settled into his old bedroom on the third floor. His uniform he hung at the back of his closet; he hadn’t brought back any souvenirs. Was it possible, I wondered, not to have changed at all? and I watched him. I detected only slight differences. The old mocking light which had burned steadily at the backs of his eyes was gone, replaced by a new wariness. He rarely joked now, and he rarely laughed at the jokes of others. He seemed at once more careless and more serious, shrugging off things others agonized over, yet grave at times when the rest of us were laughing. His most extreme expression was a sardonic smile, which whispered weakly at his lips, while his eyes remained cold and measuring, as though he were thinking: I could tell you all a thing or two.
This was the postwar Jack: only slightly less cocky, slightly more tolerant, than before. War had taken his sense of humor, but then it had been rudimentary to start with. War, I concluded, was nothing much.
He and Beth took up where they left off, and there were no more afternoon walks. I had a close friend at school now, a weedy soft boy with the unlikely name of Montgomery Twipp, whose twin interests were poetry and chess. He taught me the game, and together we brooded over the wooden board, my moves halting and half thought out, his sure and brilliant. He defeated me again and again, but I wasn’t bothered by the losses, having no deep interest in the game. The poetry appealed to me more. I went to the library in the morning before my first class, darting down the poetry aisle and making my selections hastily. Checking them out, I scanned the room, shifting from one foot to the other impatiently. I hid the thin volumes among the thicker, legitimate school texts I carried, and secretly I brooded over them, thrilling to the language of the dead romantics, and committing great stretches to memory.
Autumn found me back in the now-blazing arms of the apple tree, drowsing over books, or furrow-browed over the chessboard, across from Monty. Sometimes, in the distance, I saw them, walking slowly down the lane that ran behind Worth Street. She wore sweaters lightly tossed over her shoulders, wonderful misty things in powder blue or yellow; he wore his old football jacket, his hands shoved into the pockets. He slouched along, while she gestured and chattered, filling up the space between them.
Wartime, the summer just past, my briefly loosened tongue, all seemed far away. Beth in the company of Jack was a different person; and when I looked at them together, the poetry died on my lips, the chessmen stood frozen and inglorious. This was the real thing, then, the two of them. It was the Warrior Returned, and all that went with it: love and the passion of victory, and in its presence, all of my hapless pursuits turned wooden, the stuff of boyhood.
They dawdled along, while I watched them. Beth took my brother’s arm and held it, looking up at him with a new shining expression. I saw it, and felt the first stabbing emotion I would ever feel about a woman. It was ridiculous, and I tried to deny it to myself, but it was too powerful. It hunted me down, followed me into bed at night, and whispered at me. I lay, temples throbbing, and confessed it. I was jealous.
CHAPTER SIX
The Ladies’ Page
SURE, I REMEMBER your mama. Even mooned around her the way all the boys did. I was older than her by some years, but I acted as much of an idiot as anyone else. It was hopeless, acourse—she only had eyes for Jack Corbin then, and him a fighter pilot in the war, and put the rest of us to shame. I was 4-F, something about my heart, although I never had any trouble with it, not before or since. You could have knocked me over with a feather when the doc stood up from listening to my chest and shook his head. He said I had a murmur, and if that’s so, I’d like to tell you now I never heard it. I made him listen again, but I still went down 4-F, and sat the war out, feeling sorry for myself.
I’d got married right out of school, with never a thought of how I was going to support us. I thought I was going to war, you see. And though she was tickled when it came out I wasn’t going, I felt kind of stranded—married, no job, and sidelined to boot. I didn’t even have an idea what I might want to do with myself. My dad, he worked over to the State Correctional Center, as a guard. All I knew was I didn’t want to do that. So when my cousin Ernie suggested I come down here, I sort of drifted on over, not thinking too much about it. I had a kind of inflated idea of what reporters did, I guess from reading the funny pages and looking at movies. You know that old one, His Girl F
riday? I figured everybody was Cary Grant and all the girls looked like Rosalind Russell. I didn’t know damn-all.
I didn’t think I’d get the job; I hadn’t done any too well in school. But I could read and write, and I guess that’s all they were asking. There were jobs going begging then, every American boy off defending his country. I talked to the old editor himself, that’s John D., retired fifteen years ago, dead a year later. Story goes he died of boredom; they say retirement’ll do that to you. I’m nearly there myself, but I keep a hand in. I’m not ready to go yet.
I presented myself to old John dressed in the only suit I owned, the same one I got married in.
“It so happens,” he told me, “we got a place open.” I knew he meant that someone had gone off to fight and left a space. I felt a little like a grave robber, lying down in someone else’s bed while it was still warm. “Can you type?” he asked.
“Nossir,” I said.
“Take shorthand?”
“Nossir,” I said. I wasn’t even sure what that was.
“Make coffee?”
“Yessir,” I said.
I was hired, then and there.
At first, it wasn’t much; I kind of filled in wherever there was a gap, running copy back and forth, general office-boy stuff. I was waiting for the Big Break. Sure enough, one day it came.
Fred Wiggins, second cousin to me by marriage, worked in the features department. What we used to call the Ladies’ Page. I brought him some coffee one morning; he was looking fierce, and I made to leave, real quiet, so he wouldn’t take my head off, the way he did.
“Wait,” he said, when I had my hand on the doorknob. “Who’re you?”
“Gene Stubbs,” I told him. I didn’t think it was the right time to point out that I’d been bringing him his coffee for two months.
“Essie’s boy?” he said, kinda raring back in his chair to look me over.
“Yessir,” I said.
“You ever done any reporting?” he asked.
“Nossir,” I said, and then took a chance. “But I’d like to try.”
“Oh, you’d like to try, would you?” Real sarcastic. He took a piece of paper and scribbled on it. “Here,” he said, giving it to me.
I took it; he’d written a street address, over on the hilltop. I stood there, waiting for more instructions, but he’d put his head down again and had set to slamming some papers around on his desk.
Finally, he looked up.
“What the bleeding hell are you still doing here?” he asked. I remember his words exactly; they kind of impressed me, at the time. Before I could say anything, he said, impatient-like, “You want to do some reporting, so report. Go.”
“Sir,” I said. “What’s it about, sir?” He really scared me, kin or no. And he scared me even more when he smiled; it was kind of a tense smile, like his face was being stretched without his permission.
“It’s a hot news tip,” he said. “Take a pad and pencil.”
What it was was a flower show. My first story. I didn’t know tube roses from begonias then, boy, but I sure did after that day. I saw enough flowers to fill a funeral home, and then some. The stink of them got together and clogged up my nose; I was sneezing the whole time I typed the mess up, and that was a time, let me tell you, with two fingers. I handed the story over to Fred, eight whole pages of crap about daffodils, and made to leave. Again, he stopped me, before I could go.
“Stubbs,” he said. “How was it?” He seemed friendlier this time; hard to tell, but I took a chance.
“It was sure as hell fragrant,” I said. “Sir.”
“Fragrant,” he repeated. “Damn, I’ll bet it was.” Then he said, serious, “You still want to be a reporter?”
“Yessir,” I said, although I really wasn’t sure anymore.
“Wal,” said he, leaning back in his chair. “I know you probably have a lot of ideas about what reporting is like. But this is the Ladies’ Page, Stubbs. Don’t get me wrong,” he said, bringing his chair back down with a thump. “We have our share of events. We cover a lot of ground. This town and two others besides. And you’d be amazed what the ladies get up to.” He laid his skinny forearms across the desk. “It’s more complicated than you think,” he said. “Sometimes, we have to dress things up a little. Gloss over some things. This ain’t a scandal sheet.” He looked at me like I might disagree. “We do a real service here,” he said, tapping my copy. “More ladies read the Chronicle than men. Bet you didn’t know that,” he said.
“Nossir,” I said.
“Well, it’s true,” he said. “And we owe them something. They don’t want to read about the war. War—they hear enough about that. They don’t want to read about the president, and they sure as hell don’t want to read about Hitler. They want the bright stuff, what’s happening right here, what their neighbors have been up to, who’s having a baby. That’s their news, son, and by God we give it to them.” He was breathing hard now. “We even got a few ladies right here on staff,” he said, “and what do I see them reading on their coffee break?” I shook my head. “Not the news,” he said, with a sneer. “Not the baseball scores. They’re reading our page, our page before any other. If they are, so’re the other women out there. Times are changing,” he said, sitting up straight again. “Times are changing,” he repeated, “and the Chronicle will change with them. Soon this department will be a real action spot.” He looked at me real sharp, like maybe he thought I was laughing. “Not that it ain’t already,” he said. “We have rough times in here, yessir. Yes, we do,” and then he seemed to kinda tail off. He looked at the copy I’d given him, and then he started in to reading it, and slashing at it with his pencil, and after a while it was pretty clear that he’d forgotten I was there. I sidled out, and this time he didn’t stop me.
I thought it was strange, all that talk about the Ladies’ Page, until I talked to the other reporters. They called it “Granny News,” and I guess Fred was a little sensitive about it, having worked his whole life at the Chronicle, and never doing any real reporting. The boys ribbed me, too, but I could stand it pretty well; I told myself I’d be out of Granny News soon. I wasn’t planning to spend my life drooling out copy about chrysanthemums and weddings.
Now, what does it say on my desk? That’s right, this little thing here. Says, Eugene Stubbs, Editor. Editor of what? Now, that’s on my door. That’s right, the Ladies’ Page. Only we call it Features, now, and it’s a sight more interesting than it used to be. But I ain’t apologizing for it, not like old Fred. I guess God never meant me to be a real reporter, son, because He saw fit to put me here, and the Ladies’ Page has been just fine by me. I had other opportunities, could’ve changed horses long ago, but I saw where the sunny side was. By then I was married, and two kids, and I saw the other reporters dragging in here some mornings looking like a mule had kicked ’em. Not me. I was always fresh as a daisy, and I got to play with my kids, too, and supper every night bang at six o’clock. My wife and I were happy every day we had together. And why was that? Hell, son, it’s just a simple fact—there ain’t no emergency news in the Ladies’ Page. What am I going to be called out of my bed for? Aphid attack? Sudden hemline change? Nossir, I know a good thing, and I kept on at Granny News, and let the other fellows do the dog work.
I became editor on account of Fred’s retirement. I’d only been there four years; John D. passed over a couple of other fellows to promote me. Fred must have put in a good word about me; I think he kind of liked me. I was used to his moods, and didn’t act so frightened of them. Also, I think it pleased him how I seemed so happy working in the department, not like all the other reporters he’d had, always scrambling over each other to get over to News or Sports.
My duties didn’t change much, except I got a little more money and could sit on my butt a little more. Fred briefed me before the changeover, and it sounded fine to me: copyediting, some reporting here and there, when reporters were in short supply. Besides all that, Fred said, there was the summer
fair.
By tradition, judges for the summer fair are always taken from the staff of the Chronicle. I guess we’re seen as literate folk and unbiased.
“I won’t lie to you,” said Fred, seriously. “It’s a pain in the ass.” He sucked at his coffee cup. “I seen more flower bushes and ate more pie these last fifteen years—” He sighed. “It’s on you, now,” he said. He looked at me for a minute or so, reckoning something. Then he scooched forward in his chair and put on a kind of confiding expression. “You listening?” he asked.
I nodded.
“What I’m going to tell you will save you a lot of time and trouble,” said Fred. “It took me a while to hit on a system, but I found it, and stuck to it, and I never had any trouble after that.” He breathed in once, deep. “You ready?” he asked.
“Sure,” I told him.
“Okay.” He leaned forward. “This is the key: Don’t pay any attention. Nobody’s happy if you do.” He let that sink in. “Just remember,” holding up a thick finger. “First prize goes to the audience favorite. The one they clap loudest for. You got the majority on your side that way. Or the one who’s won every year for the last nine years. They understand that, it’s kind of like tradition.” He poked up another finger. “Second goes to a pretty girl.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Nuff said.” Third finger. “Third place goes to a kid. Look for freckles, missing teeth. You know. Oh, and if you get the pet show, go by the owners.” He folded his fist together again, brought it down softly on the desk. “That’s it,” he said. “Follow Fred’s rules, and it’s easy. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
I nodded. The summer fair was half a year away; it didn’t seem anything to worry about.
Well, summer came around, like it does, and with it the judges’ lottery. We had a list of the different contests, and they were drawn from a hat, just to keep things fair. Otherwise, there might be somebody crying afterward about favoritism. These contests can get pretty heated. Of course, the lottery wasn’t a perfect system; there was a lot of swapping around afterward—“I’ll take your Sunday graveyard if you take my pet show”—that kind of thing. Everyone wanted the beauty pageant, of course. It was a real slick job, just sitting in the sun for a couple of days over the fair weekend, and looking at pretty girls in different costumes, and asking them a couple of questions. The last two years, the same fellow had gotten it, and when he reached into the hat this year, he was smiling like he knew he’d be lucky again. Well, to make it short, he drew the quilting table, and I got the beauty pageant. Everyone crowded around me and slapped me on the back. Nobody liked this other fellow, you see, and they were glad to see him disappointed. Well, I thought I was going to pop, I was so pleased. What did I know?
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