Jump into the Sky

by Shelley Pearsall

  “So who are you going to see, Levi?”

  “My father in the army.”

  “Is he in Washington, D.C., too?”

  “No ma’am.” I tried hard to be polite with her curious questions since she’d given me a seat. “He’s down in North Carolina.”

  “That’s a long way away.”

  “Yes ma’am, it is.” I wondered again how far away it truly was. “You ever been there?” I couldn’t help asking, just in case.

  “Oh no. This is the farthest away I’ve ever traveled. My family are all farmers.”

  I pictured Margie’s family growing outta the ground like carrots—an entire orange-haired family like her. It reminded me of how Granny used to grow onions on the fire escape when I was little. I could still remember those floppy rows of green onions growing like magic outta an old metal washtub filled with dirt. That was the closest I’d ever got to farming. Granny believed in using onion soup to cure everything, from colds to death. Seeing how long she lived, I guess you could say it must’ve worked pretty well.

  I think Margie was lonely for somebody to talk to because one question kept leading to another. She asked me what Chicago was like, and I tried to come up with a simple way to describe where I lived. It’s hard picking out things to say about a place you know so good you don’t even notice it half the time.

  I thought about describing Lennie’s Restaurant, with the green bubbling jukebox that played six tunes for a quarter, or Hixson’s Grocery, where you could stick your finger under the molasses barrel spout and steal a dark, bittersweet drip or two before old Mr. Hixson chased you out with his broom. But for pure memorability you couldn’t beat the crazy lady in the apartment building next to ours who always got blind drunk on Saturday nights and stood on her fire escape in a bright pink dressing gown and raggedy feather boa, belting out songs like she was Ella Fitzgerald herself, even though she was wide as an elephant and tone-deaf as a tree.

  None of those stories was fit for telling to a stranger, though.

  So I ended up describing how Chicago was a place where the cold could kill you in the winter if you weren’t careful and the heat melted everybody’s brains into puddles in the summertime. Told the lady how there was a good-looking river that went through the middle of the city where you could catch catfish the size of cows, according to my uncle Otis. I said the downtown was full of more automobiles and people than you’d ever seen in your life, although I didn’t get to go there too often myself.

  “Sounds like a place that’d be real nice to visit someday,” Margie said—just being polite, I think. Her voice had a soft kinda roll to it, I noticed. Like a voice going over a hill.

  Just talking about the city made me miss it before I’d even left it. I craned my neck to see if I could catch a quick glimpse of Aunt Odella through the window before the train pulled away. “You looking for someone you know?” Margie asked.

  When I told her about my aunt being out there, Margie insisted on me taking her seat to get a better view. “I don’t know a soul in Chicago,” she said, sliding that cake box over. “So you take the window if you do.”

  Like I said, she was some kinda margarine-haired angel.

  I gotta admit I was surprised to see Aunt Odella still waiting there in the crowds of people looking up at the train. You woulda thought she’d have been miles away by then, since she was the one who’d been so all-out determined to see me go. Squinting up at the windows, she stood on the platform looking somber as usual, wearing one of the plain dark-colored housedresses she always wore, with one of Granny’s gold pins at the neck. Her sturdy brown legs were planted in an old pair of shoes that were almost completely run over on the sides, I noticed. All our shoes were falling to pieces because of the war shortages. It was a wonder we could walk in them.

  Maybe it was the grimy dust on the window or the way the light was slanting, but as my aunt stood there so still and solemn—no-nonsense arms crossed over her chest, face serious—she reminded me of an old photograph. She looked like one of those faded snapshots we had of Granny, or some of the other long-dead relatives with their weary faces and simple work clothes.

  Was she regretting sending me away? I pictured her running after the train, waving her arms, telling me to come back, come back, like the ending of one of those sad-sack movies. On Sundays after church, the two of us would always split a bottle of cream soda and listen to music on the radio station WIND outta Chicago. It was one of the few times you could count on Aunt Odella to be in a good mood.

  Now she’d have to finish the whole sweet bottle herself. Who knows if she’d even bother to buy one. She always told me she didn’t like cream soda before I came to live with her. “You got me started on this bad habit,” she’d say in a half-joking voice—well, as joking as her voice ever got. “If it wasn’t for these expensive cream sodas you always make me buy from Hixson’s, I’d be a rich woman, you know. Probably have more money than Uncle Otis.”

  As the train whistle wailed and a cloud of smoke floated past the window, I tried waving, but Aunt Odella didn’t move. Don’t think she ever saw where I was sitting. With the train pulling away and my aunt fading into the wall of people, I had the feeling it would be a long time before I saw her again. After spending three years with her, day in and day out, she’d turned into a photograph, like my daddy and Granny and everybody else I knew had done.

  8. So Long

  I must’ve been clutching the armrests pretty hard as the train gathered speed because Margie looked over and asked me if I’d ever been on a train before.

  “No ma’am,” I admitted.

  She laughed in her rolling Kansas way. “Well, it’s nothing but dull. If I were you, I’d sit back and sleep for most of the ride. That’s sure what I intend to do.” Kicking off her shoes, she tucked her feet under her skirt. With a balled-up sweater behind her head, she leaned back on the faded seat cushions and closed her eyes. Her eyelids were pale pink and almost see-through, I noticed when I glanced over quick at her. Never knew white people had eyelids like seashells before.

  There was no way I was closing my eyes, though. Not with all the things there were to see outside the window as we rolled out of the city. Criminy, Chicago was way bigger than I ever thought.

  Sometimes we used to go up to the flat rooftop of Aunt Odella’s building on hot summer evenings and sit up there cooling off with some of the neighbors. We’d chew on ice chips, play cards, and survey the neighborhood like proud kings. Like we owned it all. Big Man, the king of south Chicago, I used to think when I was looking down on everybody below.

  Now I could see how we were kings of nothing but a street or two. Heck, there must’ve been thousands of families sitting on their rooftops just like us, chewing on ice chips and looking down at the exact same things. The crowded neighborhoods stretched for miles.

  Once we left the city behind, the scenery outside the window changed fast. It turned from city blocks into flat scrubby fields crisscrossed by nothing but shimmery ribbons of railroad tracks—rows of them heading to the horizon. Hadn’t gone too much farther when you could see what looked like smoke rising in the distance. Big clouds of thick smoke. Of course, my first thought was the war. You get jumpy like that if you watch too many war newsreels. Started worrying that maybe we’d been bombed by the Japs and nobody on the train knew it yet. A kamikaze attack on Chicago. Maybe we were heading to certain doom. I glanced over at Margie, wondering about waking her.

  Then as we got closer, the outlines of factories and smokestacks began to appear outta the haze, and that sure was a relief. If you needed any proof that Uncle Sam was busy churning out things for the war effort, it was right here in front of your eyes. The whole smoky-yellow scene reminded me of the time Uncle Otis’s barbecue got outta hand and set his yard on fire. That sent up a big cloud of smoke too. Brought half of the Chicago fire department.

  Now, it woulda been nice to spot a few brand-new P-51 Mustangs from the factories, flying overhead with their wings
glinting in the sun. Or a line of shiny tanks rolling by. But the tracks around us suddenly turned into Railroad D-Day. Heavy trains thundered past us from both directions. I’m telling you, when some of those big steam locomotives thump past your window, just missing your life by inches, it will stop your clock every time. Don’t care how tough you are.

  I think everybody was real grateful when things finally quieted down after an hour or two. The conductor came through the car, making jokes and sending paper bits flying as he punched tickets, but he was our only entertainment. People in the seats around me must’ve nodded off in the peacefulness because they hardly made a peep. I kept my eyes open as we rolled through miles and miles of empty farm fields. Never saw that much open space in all my life. Aunt Odella’s kitchenette was so small, we had to move the table every time we opened her apartment door. Out here you coulda lined up a thousand kitchen tables end to end and never had to move a single one of them.

  I wondered where we were—if we’d reached Indiana already. Or Ohio. On the old pull-down map in the social studies room at school, Ohio was a faded yellow that always reminded me of a lemon drop with the color sucked out of it. Indiana—an unfortunate shade of pink. Last year Archie stuck a wad of half-chewed gum on Indiana and it took the teacher weeks to notice it. Now I wished I’d paid more attention to that frayed relic of U.S. geography.

  By late afternoon, the land around our train began to ripple with hills and valleys. Margie finally woke up when I unwrapped the wax paper from some of Aunt Odella’s fried chicken to eat around suppertime. I’d tried saving it for as long as I could, but finally I couldn’t stand it a minute longer. With the way Margie kept glancing sideways at my food, I could tell she was hoping I’d offer her a piece.

  Well, it almost killed me to hand over one of my aunt’s golden lovely creations to the lady, but I figured since Margie had given me a seat, it was the only decent thing to do. The sandwich vendor came around a little later, and the lady bought a Coca-Cola and a Milky Way bar for the rest of her supper. I tried not to mind when she ate every last piece of that beautiful candy bar herself. And licked the chocolate off her fingers too.

  Not all angels are perfect, I guess.

  Later on, Margie started telling me more about her fellow—what he was like and how much he loved her and how they planned to get married someday. Half of it I didn’t even listen to because what did it have to do with me? The rocking of the train and the darkness were making me sleepy.

  “How long’s your father been in the war, Levi?”

  “About three years, I guess.” I leaned my head back on the seat and rested my eyeballs, which had seen more in one day than in the past thirteen years put together.

  “You still remember what he’s like after all this time?”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said, even though that was only partly true. What I mostly recalled was the photograph I had of him. His army uniform. Big shoulders. Small mustache. And I remembered pressing our arms side by side once, comparing them when I was real young—and his being a shade darker than mine. Picking up a buckeye from the sidewalk, my father had held it next to his skin and joked how he and the buckeye were a perfect match. “Doggone it,” he said. “I believe I dropped right from this here tree.” Then he’d looked up and pointed at the tree branches above us, trying to get me to believe the dumb story. I must’ve been about five or six at the time.

  I’m sure that’s where I got into the bad habit of picking up every buckeye I saw. Archie thought it was a plain crazy thing to do. I tried making up excuses about how they were for good luck, but I don’t think he bought a word of it. “C’mon, how much luck does one person need?” he’d sigh as I’d hunt around for a few more and shove another handful into my pocket. Couldn’t seem to help myself, no matter what I did. Leaving one sitting on the sidewalk felt like leaving part of my father behind somehow, you know what I mean?

  Margie kept on with her dull story about her fellow, Jimmie, who was in the navy. I wondered if she’d ever find an ending. “When Jimmie left for the war, I was head over heels for him,” she rattled on. “He was such a swell fellow and everybody in my family—I mean everybody—adored him. But it’s been a couple of years since he left and things aren’t the same as they used to be. Everything’s changed now.”

  I figured she must not have been as used to change as I was. I’d have been more surprised if things stayed the way they were.

  Her voice got softer, as if she didn’t want the folks around us to hear what she said next. “You know, the war’s changed a lot of people. Some of the boys who’ve come back haven’t been the same people as they were before, because of the awful things they’ve been through. I’m going all this way to see Jimmie Ray, but I’m not sure I’ll still love him like I did. Or that he’ll still love me. Maybe I don’t want to marry him now either. Maybe I’ve fallen for somebody else. That’s what I keep worrying about.”

  Being only thirteen, I didn’t know enough about love to be able to offer Margie much helpful advice. The Battles weren’t a family who talked about love if they could avoid it. My father signed all his letters to me with So long in his scratchy pencil handwriting. And if Ella Fitzgerald or somebody else started crooning about love on the radio when me and Aunt Odella were listening, my aunt would roll her eyes and say she’d have time for love when chickens plucked their own feathers and pigs flew.

  I tried telling Margie the cake was a good idea. “Bet your fellow will like that.”

  “More and more, I wish I hadn’t made the cake or come here at all.” The lady’s voice got sadder and sadder, and I had the feeling she was close to turning on the big waterworks. No way I wanted to be around for that scene. I slouched down in my seat and pretended to be real exhausted. Rubbed my eyes and yawned.

  “You tired, Levi?”

  “Yes ma’am, a little tired.”

  “I’ll be quiet then, so you can sleep.”

  She wasn’t quiet, though. Once she turned toward her side, I could hear Margie snuffling back tears and breathing in hiccupping gulps of air. I guess I must’ve fallen asleep trying not to listen to her crying because the next thing I knew, it was early morning and our train was coming into the middle of a gray, foggy city that I figured must be Washington, D.C., because everybody was getting up and piling on coats and bags like they were leaving.

  Margie had a new pink hat perched on her head and her lips were colored neatly with fresh lipstick, but her pretty seashell eyes were a mess. Looked like she’d been up all night. Holding that mashed cake box on her lap, she was a picture of sorrow. “Hope you get to North Carolina all right, Levi,” she said, and then she pushed the cake box toward me. “I’ve decided I want you to have this for your trip.”

  “No, miss, you keep it,” I tried to tell her.

  “Nope.” She set her lips in a firm red line. “I want you to have it. I’ve made up my mind about what I’m going to do, and I’m not changing it back.”

  I had the feeling her mind didn’t include Jimmie Ray anymore and giving me the cake was a sign of that. Even though I didn’t know her fellow at all, I felt sorry he probably didn’t have any idea what was coming next. It’d be like one of those German V-1 rockets dropping outta the clear blue sky over London. He’d never know what hit him.

  Uncle Otis believes my daddy still pines for my mother. Says his heart is probably still chasing after Queen Bee Walker, so that’s why he’s never married again or settled down for more than a minute. Aunt Odella thinks his theory is complete hogwash. She says Uncle Otis knows as much about love as flies know about horse droppings. He’s already on his fourth wife.

  “Take care, Levi.”

  With a small wave of her hand, Margie with the Margarine Hair moved into the packed line of people heading down the aisle. You could see her pink hat bobbing up and down like a tiny lifeboat in an ocean of dark hats. I waited until it disappeared before sneaking a peek inside the cake box. It was a sorry sight, like I expected. The perfectly swirled
white frosting had hardened into something that reminded me of dried-up candle wax. When you touched it, little cracks broke across the top.

  Tell you the truth, that cake was probably as good a picture of love as any. For most folks—except maybe Archie’s parents, who still held hands when they were walking around together—it seemed as if love always started out looking sweet and perfect at first. But the longer you carried it around with you, the worse it became. And finally it got so bad, the whole thing crumbled into little bitty pieces, and you had to leave those dried-up crumbs behind for other people to clean up.

  Even though I didn’t want to keep the sad-looking cake from Margie, I didn’t know what else to do with it. I considered leaving it on the seat for somebody else to find. But later on, I was glad I didn’t. Margie’s cake would turn out to be the last piece of sweet kindness I’d get for a while, once I headed south.

  9. Southbound

  After the car I was riding in emptied out, a colored porter came down the aisle with his shiny cap tucked under his arm and asked me why in the world I was still sitting there. The whole car was empty and silent. It was just me and my suitcase and Margie’s cake box and a seat full of crumpled Milky Way wrappers. I was feeling like I’d been left on a desert island by the last ship.

  I told the porter I was waiting to travel to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and I’d been told not to get off the train until we got there. Dug around in my pocket trying to find the mashed-up ticket.

  The porter shook his head. “You been told wrong, son. This train ain’t going anywhere near North Carolina. It’s running back to Chicago. This is an east-west train. You wanna go south, you better find yourself a southbound one.”

  Heck, I didn’t know what to do next. Felt like I was sunk.