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Prose
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Topless Rob
Rosen |
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Game
of Life Rita
Kepner |
Winter Pastimes
Kelley Jean White
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Topless Rob Rosen
Voices in the Dark Clifford Thurlow
Feldman's Idea Jack Goodstein
Welcome Home John C. Brown
New Ground Laine Perry
The Wake Melody Claussen
Stuttgart Martin Green
Unremitting Memory William Gladys
by Rob Rosen
y friends and I rounded the corner of Broadway at Columbus after having finished a truly stupendous Italian dinner in San Francisco’s famous North Beach district. We were stuffed, yet still full of energy, and decided to cap the night off with a drink or two. And wouldn’t you know it, we were standing directly in front of the historic Condor Club just as we made this decision.
Now, I’d never been in this particular bar before, but I was well aware of why it was indeed historic. San Francisco is the birthplace of television, the martini, and the fortune cookie—just to name a few. But other less, shall we say, noble inventions were created in the city by the bay; namely, topless dancing. The Condor Club happens to have the distinction of being America’s first go-go bar. On June 16th, 1964, Carol Doda appeared atop a white baby grand piano in nothing but a bikini bottom, and an era was born. (I wonder if she had an inkling of just how far the “art form” would come in a mere forty years.)
The Condor Club today is, I’m sure, nothing like it was back then. It’s now a bar, a restaurant, and a nightclub. The go-go booth still resides center stage, but no one goes topless anymore. And still, we ventured in, though there were plenty of topless options just a mere half block away. Proximity, you see, outweighed pruriency.
Anyway, the bar was hopping. Being surrounded by stellar Italian restaurants afforded it a great location. I’m sure the history of the place didn’t hurt none either. And that’s what caught my eye upon entering. The walls were lined with photos of the club’s past. So while my friends went and ordered our drinks, I perused the memorabilia. Ms. Doda, naturally, comprised quite a few of the black and white snapshots. Besides being an innovator in her field, she was also a pioneer in the use of silicon. And it showed. A knockout back then, I wondered what the queen of striptease looked like today. But my reveries were quickly cut short when I spotted one of the photos that was situated mid-wall.
In that picture, for all the world to view, was a face (and body) I wasn’t expecting to see; at least not in a nightclub, and certainly not topless. Though I could have been mistaken. I mean, really, it was forty years and many pounds earlier. Still, the resemblance was uncanny.
“Looks like you’ve seen a ghost,” my friend Marc said, and handed me my drink. I downed it in one fell swoop.
“Yeah, John, you’re white as a sheet. What gives?” added my friend Charles.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Must be something I ate,” I lied and veered them away from the wall to a table on the other side of the club.
The rest of the night went by in a blur, and an alcohol induced one at that. Still, nothing could wipe the horrific image from my rattled brain. Try as I might, I knew it would forever be etched in my memory. And so, I decided to piece together the puzzle of why my grandmother may have been a stripper at the Condor Club back in the sixties. (Oh please, dear Lord, let me be wrong on this one, I thought and prayed.)
***
“Ma,” I said, a few days after my finding, when I was over at my parent’s house for a visit. “Mind if I look at your family albums?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. Normally, she had to force those things on us kids, as well as assorted guests; most notably any and all girlfriends I was crazy enough to bring home with me. “Um, sure, okay,” she said, handing them to me. “Is everything alright?”
“Yep. Just wanted to see something, is all,” I answered, cryptically. Really, I wanted to see if the girl in the picture at the club matched what my Grandmother looked like back then.
I scanned all the albums. They started at her mother’s wedding day and continued to the present. Grandma was a looker, even back then, but she was also quite appropriately dressed in all the photos. Conservatively, I’d even go so far as to say; and not a bathing suit to be seen, topless or otherwise. And though there was a passing resemblance, someone in a wedding gown or a matronly skirt and blouse can hardly be compared to a topless go-go dancer. It’s like that old apples and oranges argument, only with strippers and Grandmothers.
“Um, Ma,” I said, looking up from the albums. “How come there’s no pictures of Grandma before her wedding day?”
My mother looked at me funny, but otherwise gave no indication that she had any idea of what I was getting at. “Well,” she offered. “Cameras weren’t widely owned in her day. Not like today. Most people posed for professionals back then. Like for wedding and baby photos. And Grandma’s family was poor, so her wedding photo might be the earliest one there is of her. I suppose she may have a baby picture of herself somewhere, but not that I’ve ever seen.”
Little did she know that a photo hung in the middle of the wall at the Condor Club that may or may not have been her mother. I’m sure she’d be less than happy about it. Of course, far be it from me to inform her of such a thing, I figured. So I simply let it go. But not before I asked one more pointed question.
“Ma, what did Grandma do before she got married to Grandpa?” I asked.
“Do? What do you mean do?” she asked in return.
“You know. For a job.”
“John, you know that women of her generation rarely worked. And Grandma was only twenty when she married Grandpa, so what could she have done before then? I suppose she helped out around her parent’s house, but other than that, I’d have to say she’s never worked a day in her life. Least not for money.”
Oh to be so naïve, I thought.
***
So, it turned out, the source was to be my only option.
Luckily, Grandma lived nearby and I frequently dropped in to say hello.
“Hi, Gram,” I said from her front porch.
“How much do you need now?” she said, by way of greeting. Okay, fine, I dropped by to say hello usually when I needed money. Guess she knew me pretty well. Now it was my turn to get to know her a bit better.
“Can’t a guy drop by just to say hello to his Grandma?”
“Yes, that would be nice, for a change. Okay, come in. And wipe your shoes off.”
I did as commanded and entered the home that hadn’t changed one iota for as long as I could remember. Neither had Grandma, for that matter. She was, for lack of a better term, grandmotherly, and had always appeared that way to me. She was on the short side. A good twenty pounds heavier than she’d probably like to be. Somewhat wrinkled. And if I had to say so, she was sort of on the pretty side. Kind of like my own mother with an extra twenty years added on. But she definitely didn’t look like a stripper. Then again, I didn’t really know what she looked like, or, for that matter, acted like forty-some-odd years earlier.
Grandma fixed me a sandwich and a glass of milk and sat with me at the kitchen table.
“You’re looking well,” she said and ruffled my hair as I ate.
“You too,” I said and set the sandwich down. “Speaking of which, I was over mom and dad’s the other day and I noticed something funny.”
“Yeah, I told your mom to try some room deodorizer. I think that smell is your father’s socks.”
“No, not that. But I think you’re right on that one. No, mom was forcing me to look at our family photo albums, and I noticed that there weren’t any of you from before you got married. How come?”
Grandma squirmed in her seat and remained silent. She looked down at her orthopedic shoes, her hands, and the table, but not up to me. Instead, she cleared away my plate and started scrubbing it in the sink. Eventually, she said, “Oh, I’m sure there’s a picture of me here or there.”
I knew exactly where, but was biding my time. Instead, I said, “Show me. I’d like to see what you looked like.”
“Why?” she asked, putting the dish on the rack to dry. “I thought you hated family photos.”
“Hate is such a strong word,” I lied, for truly I did hate looking at them. Especially since I’d viewed them all a hundred times before. But there were, I now assumed, some I hadn’t seen.
“Okay,” she said, and left me alone in the kitchen. Five minutes later she reappeared and tentatively handed me another album; one I’d never seen before.
This one was of her family. The one she came from, not the one she produced. All the pictures were ancient and browned from age. I’d only seen her parents in the photograph she had on the mantelpiece. Now there were aunts and uncles and cousins, all from a distant age and a far away land. Grandma was born in Russia. Grandpa in Ireland. It made for a strange mix.
“You were a cute baby,” I said to her, when I’d gotten a few pages into the album.
“Yes, you got that from my side of the family. Be glad you didn’t look like your grandfather when you were born. Your mother might have left you at the hospital.” She grinned at me and handed me a cookie. I accepted it and continued perusing the album.
Mom was right about one thing; Grandma did grow up poor. You could see it in her clothes and the furnishings of her parent’s home. Still, someone had a camera around. And from one page to the next, I watched as my Grandma grew up. And out. The latter pictures were probably the reason my own mom had never seen this particular album.
“Yikes,” I said. “I didn’t know that you…that you were…”
“Such a looker?” Grandma finished my sentence.
“Well, to quote someone from your generation…hubba hubba.”
“Yes, that was the general response I elicited. Back then.”
Of course, I had been right about the girl in the picture at the club and the woman now sitting next to me. There was no denying it. Grandma was a go-go girl. I gulped down my cookie and looked up at her. “Um, Gram, guess where I was the other night?” I asked as she sat down and admired herself in the photos.
“Where’s that, dear?”
“Oh, some bar in North Beach. It’s called the Condor Club. Ever heard of it?”
Grandma stopped looking at the album and looked over at me instead.
“So that’s why you wanted to see these old pictures, huh?” she asked, closing the album. “Well now you know.”
“Does mom know?”
“Heaven forbid,” she said, and grinned. “Though I’d sure like to see her face if she ever found out.”
“It would be more like the back of her head,” I said, with a grin of my own. “Cause she’d be passed out flat on her face.”
We both laughed at that one, but then found ourselves in an uncomfortable silence.
“And Grandpa?” I finally asked to break the quiet.
“Where do you think we met?” She blushed.
“You met Grandpa at a strip club?”
“Well, I assume you’ve been to one. So why not your grandfather?” Now it was my turn to blush. The apple, apparently, didn’t fall too far from the tree, though it did, apparently, skip a generation. “Anyway,” she added. “It wasn’t like those clubs today. It was more burlesque. A show. And not any of that sleazy stuff they have around these days. I was one of the first, you know.”
“To go…um…er…”
“Topless. Yes. You can say it. I’m not ashamed. I needed the money. Actually, my family needed the money. Though they had no idea where I got it from. You know, back then, a poor girl like me had few options. And the money rolled in. Especially once we went topless like that. The tips practically doubled overnight. And we girls had fun. It beat secretarial work by a mile. That Carol Doda sure knew what she was doing. Still does, actually.”
“You still speak to her?”
“Sure I do. We’ve been friends for nearly forty years. She still looks great too. Better than me, unfortunately. And I only worked for six months. Carol reigned for nearly twenty years. Now she owns a lingerie shop on Union Street. She even heads a rock group from time to time. We play canasta together every other week.”
Just then, it hit me: Carol with the big knockers. Of course, why hadn’t I noticed that at the club the other night? Guess the Grandma thing kind of threw me for a loop. “Wait,” I said. “And your friends Marge and Glenda?”
Grandma smiled and nodded. “You should see us when we have a few too many and the music is playing. Then again, maybe you can live without seeing that.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Some things are better left to the imagination.” Though some things are better left out all together, I thought. Yuck, I also thought, but kept it to myself.
“So what do you think about your old Grandma now?” she asked, with an obvious twinkle in her eye.
“Pretty much what I thought of you before, only now I have a great story to tell my own kids. Though next time you ladies are playing canasta, make sure I’m nowhere nearby. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a live performance might be overkill.”
“Deal,” Grandma said, patting my back.
“I Love you, Gram,” I said and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Same here, kiddo. Same here.”
Carol Doda today
by Clifford Thurlow
n the vacuum there's no light, no sound, and the hours are filled with arbitrary flashbacks, memories and friends, all young still with bright eyes and unbending certainties. We drank too much, talking long into the night, knowing more than anyone, about everything. Most of all, I think about you, Lizzie, with amiable scowl and sketchbook. We swam at night, ran naked on the beach. Greece: the colours radiant, as if from a postcard; white houses, blue sea, retsina, a pale translucent green, like a jewel; your orange hair. I called you an orang-utan and it made you laugh, a low, self-conscious sound that took me away from the abstruse claustrophobia of childhood: father in a cardigan, a job with the local council: security for life; mother in a woolly hat turning life's flux to satire working in the library, the pleasant woman with earth-coloured clothes and craft fair earrings; a nervous tic. I transformed satire to irony with good A-levels, a grant to study industrial design. We are a middle-England family, basic by nature.
I'll never forget their house, Lizzie.
The rose bushes lining the crazy-paving path Father had laid himself; Italian china saved for guests; don't let the neighbours hear and ours is not to reason why. My room had striped wallpaper where Che Guevara peered across the space at Eminem and dad chewed his lips and mum said it was only a phase, cheek twitching, and I sat locked within those paper bars reading foreign poets on winter nights rolling dad's dog ends in green Rizla.Do you remember that day when we climbed to the top of the hill and I said I could see Atlantis in the distance? You said it was only the horizon. You were right; you were always right, but I loved the spark in your eyes when we argued. The town looked small; the carpet of olive trees, the rocky coastline, a hint of mist and maybe it was something eternal rising from the sea.
We avoided the tourists and sat in the Plaka where artists sold paintings and the retsina lent the fish the taste of miracles. We read the English papers: royal sleaze, political shenanigans, cricket scores, cloud over middle England. We talked about things at home and felt as if we belonged far away from people with neat gardens and dogs named Doogle; my father as he put the lawnmower away and reappeared with the car polish: economy of time and motion. There was a sign on his desk at the treasury that read "Think Ahead," the d just squeezed on at the edge of the card: "Think Ahea...d." If there'd been nothing else, I would have loathed my father for that sign.
I drank cheap cider, smoked too much, and a wintry feeling stole into me like a cold at Christmas. There were friends with growing tensions, work boots, places at university. We sat up all night listening to music, our words scripting the manifesto of rebellion. There was something wrong. We weren't sure what. But we were going to change it.
I went to college and spent summers at home: mother's hair turning grey, stains on her teeth. Father with oiled secateurs and Julia, who I saw in the High Street, although she didn't stop to say hello. It was Julia who had invited me to share a great secret in the park when we were both sixteen. Three years had passed and she had become the Creature from the Black Lagoon with her perm and pushchair, a boyfriend with a lip ring and features from an artist's impression. She must have sold her navy blazer through the free ads in the local paper.
London was a black and white movie of abandoned shops, hard luck stories, harmonicas spitting from vacant doorways where posters flapped and the smell of urine rose with mediaeval indecency. I went to a barbecue and met Susanna; there was garage music, no wine; the wind too cold for her to take off her red tights and, anyway, you're only after one thing. Susanna? Susan? Stephanie? Simone? Something that hissed like the old mens' harmonicas.
I told you and you laughed. You wouldn't have taken off your red tights, either, you said. But you did.
Dad said I should find a summer job. I had never realised he had a sense of humour. I stopped eating mother's cakes and puddings. I stamped along the river bank growing thin and drawn, and when I arrived back at college that year you spoke to me for the first time. You asked if I'd had a good summer and I said no and you laughed, shielding your teeth with your hand.
A grey pallor had eased the youth from my cheeks. I had stopped playing cricket. I had learned how to drink and sometimes it seemed as if only my words made any sense. The more I drank the more sense they made. Yet you always contradicted me, Lizzie. When I said the world was selfish, you said it was evolution. I called the middle-classes the enemy and you said they were frightened. When I talked of war and want and suffering, you answered with the law of cause and effect: Karma; it had a lot to answer for. You were the same age as me, Lizzie, but you always knew more than I did.
We shared a single room. You painted everything white, even your black velvet trousers and the sound system I'd brought from home. I put your sketches on the wall and you took them down again. You cooked Arabic food and didn't wear any clothes and I loved your skinny arms and pale sad eyes and orange hair. I remember the Julias and Susannas and Stephanies. But you were the only one I wanted.
We found enough money to spend a few weeks in Greece and when we came back I saw the future before us like a tunnel in an abandoned mine. We consumed the months through winter and spring. I didn't notice the vanishing raves and early nights as the exam date drew closer. They would all become teachers and consultants: Friday night cinema, babies named Rupert, baby sitters with thin knees tucked under the dashboard of the BMW still not paid for. "Life's a cliché," I complained.
"Everyone knows that," you said and the lager cans rattled in the past and the empty spaces filled with the smoke from countless hand-rolled cigarettes. I looked with eyes that never closed and felt different from everyone else. We aren't living. We're cloistered in our petty routines. We can't do anything about it you said and I disagreed and you said it was reality I couldn't face. There was something I didn't understand. You said I must learn to love myself. It sounded stupid and I got angry. You talk about other people you said. But what do you do? Your eyes weren't angry. They were pale and sad. Nothing, I said. Nothing. But I'm going to.
You must learn to love yourself and I laughed and stamped around the streets and went to the library. Light lay over the path ahead like moonlight over the sea in Greece. I searched through chemistry books and made notes and bought sulphur and weedkiller, an alarm clock, a packet of six inch nails. We talked and played tapes and I watched your shadow on the white walls of our room. I was pleased with my secret mission.
I got up early, packed my goods in a bag and said I was going to see my parents. You were bleary with sleep and your eyes wouldn't stay open. I wanted to get back into bed and make love, but didn't. Your eyes were afraid and I called you an orang-utan and you smiled; you smiled, but didn't laugh. Don't go, you said. But it was too late. Karma was doing its thing.
I didn't visit my parents. They would have said I looked ill and thin and wasn't eating properly. Anyway, they were both at work. I spent half the day wandering around the park, then went to the pub. I didn't see anyone I knew, although the blue school uniforms made my think of Julia.
I went down to the river and watched the shadows. I felt like climbing to the top of the bridge, kicking out the fairy lights, then jumping off, just to see if I would drown. I imagined the headlines in the local paper; mother controlling her tears; dad wearing a black arm band, and everyone saying I'm sorry, as if they'd pushed me.
I wandered back into town. I passed my old school and found myself on the same primordial journey that led to my parents' house. The rose bushes had been pruned and the crazy paving path gleamed in the glow of the porch light. Father would turn it off after the news. I had a fleeting urge to go in. I would have shouted and slammed doors and told them what I really thought of them. I walked half way up the path, then changed my mind. I had more important things to do.
The bag I'd been carrying had become heavy and I wanted to get rid of it. I don't know why I had chosen the council offices, but if I was going to strike a blow, I had to start somewhere. There had been a scandal. They said the councilors were getting a rake off closing down the hospital. It didn't matter if it were true or not. I didn't really care. I had no clear plan for the future. But at least I was doing something.
The offices were dark. I found a window at the back of the building which I covered with tape; when I broke it, there wasn't a sound. I had seen it done in a cop show on television. I dropped the bag through the gap and climbed in. Once inside, I became nervous, but I had gone to far to back down. I went from room to room and decided that the best place for the bomb was the treasury department, where they kept the records of people who hadn't paid their tax. I set the alarm for half past eight. I didn't want anyone to be hurt, but I wanted people to be about. I wanted to shake everyone up, make them think.
I don't know what went wrong. There was an electric blue flash and an explosion that must have been heard miles away. I was thrown against the wall, then there was nothing.
I woke in hospital where I remained for a long time. The burns on my hands and chest gradually healed, then I was discharged. There was a trial, but I was only vaguely aware of what was happening. People kept patting me on the back and I'm sure they said it was out of character and I was only young and I'd suffered enough. All I can remember was your presence behind me. Your smell was warm and musky and I wanted to touch your skinny arms and run my fingers through your orange hair.
In the vacuum I concentrate on the silence. Only when you stop thinking will you understand. Only when you stop seeking answers will you cease having views. Close your eyes and see. The faces from the past fill the blank spaces that aren't filled with you. Close your eyes. The whole world is inside you. You are a reflection of the universe. You are the father of creation, as well as the son. I think of your words and I feel them growing as fragile butterflies that flutter against the silence and form voices in the dark.
The trial passed. I was set free and my parents gave us the money to go to Greece. I swim in the sea and feel the sand between my toes. I am learning to love myself. I still don't know why you care for me, Lizzie, why you bring me food and guide me through the days. It doesn't matter what hour it is that you leave the bed and open the curtains, for my eyes shall never see the daylight and my ears shall never hear your voice.
by Jack Goodstein
And so when on the morning of the fourth of May, this idea somehow found its way to the virgin neurons of Feldman’s brain, the shock of its appearance so filled him with astonishment that he completely failed to take note that the Fairlane in front of him was stopping for a red light. The damage to the cars was minimal, a scratch, a dent, a broken headlight. The damage to the other driver was minimal. "I always," he said, "wear a seat belt." But after the two men exchanged their insurance information ("You never know," the other driver said) the damage to himself Feldman discovered was perhaps greater than he might have expected. For not only had the unfortunate collision knocked out his headlight, much more disturbingly it had also knocked out his idea.
What had been so wonderful, so beautiful, so awe inspiring was gone as quickly as it had come. And try as he might, and try mightily he did, during the rest of his commute, during his eight hours at work and his return drive home, even during the silent supper he shared with Sonia his adored and adoring wife, he could not coax that glorious inspiration back into his head. And after he chewed and swallowed the last mouth watering piece of the meat loaf his beloved Sonia had so carefully prepared, Feldman washed it down with a glass of tea and began relating the momentous events of the day.
"And the car is alright," said Sonia when he had finished.
Feldman pushed away from the table seeking in the sanctuary of his favorite reclining chair the vision that had come so wondrously and gone so fickly. But nothing came. He looked at his newspaper but read nothing. When Sonia talked of her day, he heard nothing. Finally he stared searching out into space, but he saw nothing.
When eleven o’clock came, creatures of habit, Feldman and Sonia went to their bed. But when she turned to kiss his cheek good night, there was only his back. When she nuzzled him with her elbow, there was only a mumbling murmur from his still averted face.
"You’re sick?" Sonia asked.
"Mmmrrllmmllrll," Feldman replied.
And Sonia turned on her side, and back to back they lay until her snores filled his ears as he pressed his brain into his pillow and tried to think and tried again and again through the morning light and still wherever the idea had run off to, there it remained.
The next morning the alarm rang, but Feldman, still awake, remained stretched out on his bed staring now up to the ceiling in search of what, had he ever heard of it, had become his Holy Grail.
"Today is not work?" Sonia said.
"Mmmmrrllmmllrll," and Feldman turned on his side.
"He’s sick," Sonia told Mr. Bendel, Jr. when she called to say that Feldman wouldn’t be at work that day. "Tomorrow, he’ll be. . . ."
But the whole day he lay in the bed, a bite of food did not pass his lips, not a sip of water, and that night again, his eyes he never never closed, and so tomorrow came and Sonia called again: "Tomorrow,
he’ll. . . ." But tomorrow became a week, and still Feldman didn’t eat or sleep. A doctor he refused."I’m not sick," he said. "You’ll call the doctor, I’ll leave the house."
Sonia lovingly prepared his most favorite dishes—succulent cabbage rolls, silken chopped liver, crisp skinned roast duckling. And still he didn’t eat.
Weaker he grew as each day passed.
A golden chicken soup Sonia tried to spoon through his clenched tight lips.
"Open," she whispered through bewildered tears.
"Mmmmrrlllmmll," he said.
But on May 10, when Sonia at last found the courage to call, against Feldman’s commands, this in the time before there was Gloria Steinem and Martha Stewart, a doctor Adams at a number she found in the telephone book, it was too late. Feldman was dead,
Sonia explained what she thought she understood to the doctor.
"Um," he nodded knowingly.
She explained to Mr. Bendel, Sr.
"Aha," he remarked sagely,
She explained to Mr. Bendel, Jr.
"Oh."
Sonia wore black for six months after they buried Feldman, but twenty eight is still young, too young for a woman with great love to give to mourn forever. And after six months as she looked longingly through the dresses red and yellow waiting patiently in her closet, the white cashmere sweater, the open toed navy heels, Sonia got an idea, like a flash of light sent by, who knows, sent by Feldman himself from beyond the grave. Surely it was a stroke of fortune, a sign of some sort, that when the wondrous idea came to bedazzle Sonia, she, unlike her poor husband was not behind the wheel of a Rambler American following behind a stopping Fairlane, for it is a certainty that had she been, the fickle bee would have flitted off to another flower. Such are the vagaries of life.
Sonia smiled.
When a year had passed after Feldman’s death, Sonia married Ellenberg, a kosher butcher, and moved to Boca.
Welcome Home
by John C. Brown
he sun hammers the state park hard but shade from the Mississippi pines and oaks helps some with the July heat. The light breeze that comes up off the lake also helps, but it's shifty and unreliable.
Henry sits in one of the two lawn chairs he and Beth set out in the shade. Soon the rest of his brothers and sisters will be pulling in—he and his oldest sister were the first to arrive. Reclined and cross-legged, he can see down to the water’s edge and back to the left across the parking lot that fronts the park’s rental cabins. The flat hard sheen of the water is only slightly ruffled but Henry knows from his childhood that large bass lurk in the cooler depths waiting for evening to feed. But even in the hard sun, the edges of the lake will be alive with darting minnows and tadpoles working their way in and around the tall grass that rims the lake.
For a moment he thinks of going down and taking a look but a big blue Ford Ranger shoulders its way under the massive water oak rooted next to the cabins where they will all be staying the night so he stretches out his legs and leans back into the small comfort the cheap lawn chair gives and thinks: I'll wait and see who that is.
Even before it has fully stopped three boys pile out, laughing and shouting, scooping up rocks as they run to throw into the lake. A fourth somewhat older boy dismounts more slowly and stands surveying the park. He wears a T-shirt from a Christian summer camp. It is neatly tucked into a pair of pressed blue jeans that are a sharp contrast to the unruly shock of sun-bleached hair on top of his tanned face.
From where he sits Henry can read the front of the shirt where it boldly proclaims, black letters on the white cotton: "Jesus LOVES you!"
Henry wonders how they had chosen that particular emphasis. It could have said "JESUS loves you!", he thinks, or "Jesus loves YOU!" He reconsiders: perhaps the criteria are aesthetic and not semantic, the focus on symmetry rather than emphasis. But symmetry might as easily have led to "JESUS loves YOU!"
He hadn't seen his brothers' kids—or his brothers for that matter—for more than three years. He figures these are John's. They are bigger than he remembered and bigger than he expected. Four boys. They had to belong to John—or to someone he didn't know at all with a family shaped just like his brother's. The tinted windows of the Ranger block his view of the front seat so he can’t be sure.
His sister Beth pushes open the screen door and walks out of the second rental cabin, down the steps and out to the car—and the front doors of the Ranger finally open. It is John and his wife, and as they step out he wonders what they had been sitting there talking about: Probably talking about me.
Maybe they were just waiting for someone to invite them in. Or both.
"Hey, sis," John calls out to Beth, meeting her by the front bumper. He takes off his sunglasses for a kiss. And as he steps out from under the shade of the oak that umbrellas all but the very front of the car; the climbing sun catches them in high relief; black pools of shadow obscure their eyes.
"Hey yourself,” Beth says, with the kind of welcome in her voice one expects in the deep south; but since it is so expected and so often given, it is hard to know whether it reflects any deeper truth of feeling.
“How're ya'll doing," Beth continues, as she gives him a hug. "Come on in out of the heat. Henry and I only got here an hour ago. A taxi brought him to the house this morning. How was your trip up?"
Meeting here at the State Park at least avoids the problem of deciding who would host his return. Sort of neutral ground, he had realized on the plane in.
As John answers Beth's greetings and questions he looks over at the tree where Henry is sitting. He is looking right at me, Henry thinks, but John gives no sign of recognition, much less welcome. Henry feels like he has just received the emotionless and cursory examination that you might give a mongrel spied cutting across the lower pasture: something of no account and limited interest that you hadn't seen before and that you were not likely to see again. Henry almost immediately realizes that was a bit strong, perhaps even a bit unfair, but he decides not to take the first step, though he does for a moment consider waving at him. But he makes no move.
Henry does notice that John's neatly trimmed hair was mostly still black on top, though the closely cut sides were graying up. He is finally starting to look as old as he's always acted, he reflects. John had already turned away to go into the cabin.
It's going to be an interesting family reunion, Henry thinks.
He knows that John will eventually come over but that he wouldn't come alone; it would also be a while before he could build himself up to it. John would need time to shore up his confidence.
John puts his arm over Beth’s shoulder and they climb the steps up into the cabin, his wife in step behind.
By now the boy who had been the last and the oldest of John's to get out of the big four-wheel-drive also watching the greetings turns toward him. He trots over. Henry figures that he can't be more than thirteen, he sure has shot up.
"Hey Uncle Henry!" he calls. Henry feels his eyes narrow involuntarily and a gathering at the back of his throat as he hears the undoubted welcome in the boy's voice, and it is a good feeling. Under the circumstances it really was hard to know what to expect.
"Hey Thonnee," Henry says, his tongue fat and protruding over the front edge of his teeth. "How ah yuu?" He hopes that Johnny can understand him.
"Why are you talking like that Uncle Henry?" he asks.
"Uh yellu thacket sthung me on the thung," he lisps. Henry doesn't close his mouth and his tongue stays out over his lower teeth while he rests his upper teeth and lips on it.
"A yellow jacket! On your tongue!" Johnny says with vast surprise.
"Yeth, itz all sthwole up. Itz hard to sthpeek," Henry explains with a smile, "but ith thure iz good to sthee you!"
"Thanks Uncle Henry, you've been gone a long time," he says, his clear eyes looking straight into his Uncle's. Henry sees no judgment there and feels that pain again, more quietly.
"Hab uh stheat," Henry tells him.
Johnny sits down in the lawn chair to his Uncle's left and they watch in silence as a van pulls in next to Johnny's dad's car. Three kids in a shock of colored T-shirts and shorts pile out and race down to the beach to join their cousins. That could be us kids, Henry thinks, down at the Bogue Chitto River in the summer.
It strikes Henry hard how much easier it was for kids to live in the moment and to find joy there. While their parents seem to drag decades of hurt around with them. Like the slow accretion of life's obligations and complexity as one gets older, pain, frustration, disappointment and anger never quite get resolved before they sediment into place waiting for that next layer.
Johnny makes no move to join his cousins. He just smiles at his Uncle and nods at the van. "Uncle George," he says.
Smart kid, Henry thinks, he doesn’t assume that I will immediately know. But he's not patronizing me either.
Beth and John and John’s wife come out of the cabin almost immediately to join brother George near the front of his van. Henry and Johnny sit quietly listening to them repeat the ritualized greetings, meaning lost in among the Mississippi twang, and then, for the first time John turns to acknowledge Henry's presence. Beth and the wives climb the cabin steps as John takes George by the arm and they walk over to their younger brother Henry.
"Heah tha cum," Henry lisps to Johnny. He is surprised that John hasn't waited for more of their brothers to show up before confronting him.
"Hello Henry," John rumbles gravely. It is his here-we-are-in-church-before-our-Lord-God-
and-we-got-some-deadly-serious-stuff-to-talk-about voice. It is different from when he is talking to Beth. The problem is, Henry thinks, John undermines his own aims because he uses that same tone of voice to speak of the most trivial matters. Kind of an elocutionary one-trick-pony—you don't exactly get tired of watching it (or listening to it), you just become indifferent, unmoved."How’re you doing," he continues in the same voice and the same solemn, even cadence.
Before Henry can answer, Johnny exclaims: "A yellow jacket stung Uncle Henry on the tongue, Dad. He's lisping!"
Henry looks up at that tall slim, carefully cared for figure from his aluminum and plastic chair to answer him: "Fa-hne, just fa-hne, John. How are yo-ouu?"
He decides to use that southern Mississippi cadence where every two or three words a syllable gets drawn out. Henry has been up north for most of his adult life—to include the last three years—and has pretty much lost his accent. But he finds that it is easy to fall back into it.
As he speaks, Johnny looks up at him in surprise, and his father glances back and forth between the two of them in confusion. George doesn’t say anything. He just stands slightly behind John with his arms folded.
If you know George, Henry is thinking, that’s about all you can expect out of him. Henry had long realized that George wasn't that bright, but had learned to feign acuity with sobriety and silence: he gives you that heavy look that aims to put you at a disadvantage as you try to think what it is that he knows that you didn’t know that he did. That was how Henry would always put it to himself. It just doesn't take you long to realize that there is very little going on inside—it's all surface and all show.
Henry looks over at Johnny and gives him a smile and a quick wink with his left eye: "Well you know ... it could have happened. I was sitting here sort of drowsy in the heat and I could feel myself nodding off. My head would sort of sloo-owly drift backwards and my eyes staa-arted to close, but then I would snap it back to the front and wake up."
Johnny's eyes are dancing already. He quickly falls into step with the story. George's slow mind is still working on sobriety and hasn't yet caught up with the shift in the conversation. John still looks confused but Henry knows he is no dummy and a quick glance at him tells him that he is about to intervene so he presses on with no pause.
"But you could imagine that oo-one time," Henry draws the word out like he is slowly falling asleep, "oo-one time my head would go aa-all the way back and I was dead asleep with my mouth hanging open and my tongue all exposed."
He demonstrates how that might happen, his head kicked back, his mouth hanging open, he eyes closed, he even gives a small snort of a snore for effect, one that sounds more like a pig in the middle of a dream than a human.
Johnny laughs out loud. His father and uncle stand there in silence: John is on the verge of interruption; George is unmoved but his studied sobriety is now replaced by incomprehension.
"What do you think might have happened then?" Henry asks Johnny.
"Maybe a yellow jacket came buzzing around your head, but you didn't hear it," he speculates.
"Sure," Henry says, "and maybe my head was tilted off to the left like this, and I was drooling a little; that might have drawn that yellow jacket in. You know how they are always looking for moisture."
John starts to say something to Johnny, but Johnny is laughing hard now and doesn't notice. "And then it sort of settled down on your lip Uncle Henry, but it didn't wake you up yet, and it was trying to get some of your spit. Maybe you felt it and woke up, and instead of flying off, it flew right into your mouth and stung you."
"That makes a lot of sense," his Uncle says. "It could have happened exactly that way. I can also imagine that maybe that yellow jacket was settin' there while I was sleeping, trying to gather up some moisture from the saliva puddle by my lip like you said and I accidentally gave out a big snore." He snorts real loud and jerks his head back, his mouth snapping shut. "And I just vacuumed that bad boy right up into my mouth."
"Yeah Uncle Henry, that is probably exactly what happened," Johnny says with a big smile on his face. His father and uncle stand stolidly by; both of them have crossed their arms. It was clear that he had put John completely out of his comfort zone.
"And," Henry says, sticking his tongue fatly over his teeth, "szat iz why ahm lithping!"
Johnny is still laughing hard. John is clearly angry; George is as unreadable as ever. Johnny turns and shouts down to his brothers and cousins at the edge of the lake, "Hey guys, uh yellow jacket thstung Un-ka Henry ahn the thung!"
"Well, Beth asked us to tell you to come in out of the heat and get something to drink," John says. "If you're thirsty that is. Johnny, go get your brothers and your cousins. Tell 'em to come on in."
"Sure Dad," Johnny says, looking square at this father, still in possession of his smile. Henry realizes for the first time how much alike they look and wonders how alike they might become and how much space there will be for Johnny to be different.
Johnny turns and runs laughing down to the lake.
John and George face in toward each other to walk back to the cars and the cabin. John doesn't wait to get out of earshot to say: "Three years in prison don't seem to have improved his sense of humor much."
Henry stands to follow them inside. Maybe not, he thinks with more happiness than he had expected, but I am home!
New Ground
by Laine Perry
"I got this place when my grandmother died," I told Jayhawk. "She was a great story teller. I could ask her anything," I went on after him in bare feet, navigating the metal debris and rain sodden newspapers. "She'd take me with her wherever she'd go... garage sales, flea markets, the local cafe for a patty-melt and cokes. Depression glass. That was my area. I was almost an expert by the time I was eleven. We were going to buy a pink VW with purple polka dots, but she died before we had saved enough money." The machine was quiet. "Your grandmother didn't give you this place though," he said, poking around in a pile of wet shingles. "My mom gave me this house so I would never have to be with a man. That's a quote," I told him, wincing. "Oh," he said with a nod. I liked the size of him, and his blue-black hair. "Before she called to tell me about the house we hadn't spoken in five years. I didn't want to accept the place but the gift was more than a trifle," I said.
"I had a VW Thing once," he confessed. "It was orange. I won it in a contest," he told me. "What kind of contest?" I asked. "A & W Valentines' Day contest," he said, "I won second place." "What was first prize?" I wanted to know. "Free food for a year. All of the mamma and pappa burgers the winner could eat. I had to sell it after awhile. I got it back a few years later though. The exterior was rough, but the Thing ran." He rubbed his temple, dislodging a few flecks of dirt. "Lucky twice," I told him ."So, have you ever been in love?" I asked Jayhawk. "Sure," he said. "I've been married too. My first wife Maria was beautiful. So-o-o-beautiful that god-damned Maria." He reached for the beer he had tucked in the waist of his jeans. "I broke her heart," he told me, "You don't know," Jayhawk said, taking a swig of warm beer. He looked up at me, his mouth splitting horizontally to expose the few good teeth the alcohol hadn't rotted away. "I have kids too, girls, three of them," he said, realizing he did have certain accomplishments he could list if needed. "Where are they?" I wanted to know. I had only seen him walking alone. He took ground like a sidewinder. It wasn't easy to watch. "Oh," Jayhawk said, uncovering a small silver button, "I don't know...Montana, I think. They're with their mom. My oldest, Maria's girl, they live on the 'res'. I think she wrote they're in South Dakota." He pocketed the piece of silver, leaving the machine alone. "When was the last time you saw your girl?" I asked. "Silky? Oh, long time ago. She might have been seven." She was still that age to Jayhawk. I could tell by the smile he had for her. "Is that her name?" I asked. Silky, sounded like a nickname, and I wanted to hear the story. "To me it is," he said. The story was his. He didn't want to give it to me. "Will you see them again?" I asked, but Jayhawk was already down the road.
In the morning I opened the door to find five of a six-pack of Tequiza sitting on the porch. It was still in the brown paper bag. "Hmmph," I said aloud, and cracked the top of a bottle. "Blechhh...phfuh!" I drank two more before deciding to write to the manufacturer. Horrible. So Jayhawk was bringing me beer instead of asking for it. Interesting. I crawled back in bed. At eight Jayhawk was knocking. "Sorry to bother you. Did you get the beer I left?" he asked. "Was that beer?" I asked. He grinned. "Yeah, pretty bad, I know." "Thanks, though," I managed. "Do you know about arrowheads, and that type of thing, or just depression glass?" he asked. "Why, what do you have?" I asked him.
"Anasazi tools I think." He pulled the arrowheads out of the pocket of his jeans. He had a handful. "Where'd you get those?" I asked. "Back there," he said pointing to the area I had nicknamed the refrigerator graveyard. "Well what else is back there?" I asked, the image of an ancient burial ground in my head. "Just these," he said, still palming the loot. "And this silver piece. I've found these before. We can get about forty-eight to fifty bucks for it. You want half?" he asked. "Thanks," I said. "I need it." "So what about the Indian artifacts? Where do we take that stuff?" Jayhawk asked. I didn't know. It had been a long time and several states since I had gone junking. "What about the museum?" I suggested. Jayhawk grimaced, shaking his head. "I know a guy. I'll be back and let you know what I find out." And he was down the road again, this time toward town.
I saw him once again the following week. He was standing on the old highway road with his back toward my approach, wielding his thumb with what looked like mighty big intent.
The rain had just started in as I slowed to pull to the side of the road. A yellow Ford truck missing a back end swung in ahead of me. The passenger door opened with a whine. They remained ahead of me for at least twenty miles, laughing, smoking, and headed toward a place of certain kinship. My mother was due to arrive the same morning with a carry-on bag's worth of stories, excuses, memories, guilt, and disappointment with which she planned to coddle me.
Jayhawk's metal detector leaned against a barren lilac bush, already humming. Ahead lay the espial of submerged strengths under fine soil: roots, treasures, tools, whispered tips of antiquity beneath my feet. I longed for the easy days of our history, days when the repatriation of our souls seemed imaginable; afternoons full of hunger and bad beer, when truth was in good company.
by Melody Claussen
It’s at this point, as I lie in my empty two-bedroom apartment, when I think I’m going to die. My heart beats faster than it would after an uphill sprint. After a few minutes of trying to catch my breath, the pounding slowly subsides. I begin to wonder if someone my age can have a heart attack. My cholesterol’s low and I eat square meals. Then, I recall the story of a twenty-six year old accountant who died suddenly while calculating someone’s tax return. Adding numbers, what a boring way to die. Lying alone, what a sad way to die, I think. Then my heart beats again with a fierce, erratic rhythm.
If by chance I fall fast asleep, which is a rarity, I tend to have nightmares. Nuclear war has been an ongoing theme in my dreams since the age of ten. Sometimes, in my dreams, I can see bombs heading towards the town where my family lives. We all scatter to find shelter, but I always end up alone, crouching beneath something as ineffective as a tree branch or cardboard box.
Sometimes, before I go to bed, I try to relax and think about the ocean. I take deep breaths and stretch my arms out until I can feel the edges of the mattress with my fingertips. I’m lying in the center of my double-sized bed and only somebody as small as my son Matthew could fit on either side. Unfortunately, he won’t be climbing into my bed tonight to ask for another story or to tell me about one of his nightmares. He’s staying over at his father’s house, undoubtedly with every light on in his room and surrounded by at least five stuffed animals. They are his sentinels.
Tonight, I feel cold, so I cuddle my own stuffed friend from when I was my son’s age. Matthew’s seven now. I think I can recall fragments of that age. That was the year my Uncle Paul drank himself into a long, white casket at the age of forty-six. I remember going to his funeral and seeing lots of people I didn’t know. I had on these terrible purple corduroy bellbottoms and a white cotton blouse. When we went by the casket to pay our respects, I couldn’t help but laugh. Uncle Paul smelled like our old, brown naugahyde couch. Plus, he looked ridiculous with all that makeup on. It didn’t even remotely mask his leathery, yellow skin. My grandmother jerked me back to the car and gave me a lecture on funeral etiquette. I didn’t know death had so many rules.
My boyfriend and I often talk about death and agree that cremation is preferable to burial. It lacks the affectation and is less expensive. As a joke, I told him that I wanted to be sprinkled into the green foam that gathered below the steep Cliffs of Moher. But if he couldn’t afford a trip to Ireland at the time of my death, I said that anywhere along the coast of Pt. Reyes would do. If there had to be a service, I told him there wouldn’t be any crying allowed. Only drinking and dancing, the way a real dead Irish person should be commemorated. Always drinking, even after death.
There was a time when I’d drink myself to sleep every night. I kept a bottle of Bushmills in the back of the freezer so my son couldn’t see just how Irish I really was. I’d wait until he fell asleep and then mix the whiskey in a short tumbler along with soda or fruit juice and some ice, if there was any room left.
Why did I stop? Why am I still awake tonight instead being as motionless and dreamless as a stone? Maybe I stopped because I came from stone people. Like my uncle, my mother was a stone person.
Even when I was five, I recall having horribly realistic nightmares. I remember waking up one night with a bloody nose and I was screaming at whoever was chasing me in my dream. I ran into my mother’s room because her lights were still on and I had hoped that she’d lift her covers and pat the mattress next to her. Instead, I stood next to her bed crying and wiping my nose on the sleeve of my long, white, polyester nightgown. The blood didn’t soak into the fabric. It just smeared and beaded on the material that hung loosely on my trembling body. I waited for my mother to wake up, but she was gone. Stone. I tried to shake her, but she was heavy and still, like a boulder. I kneeled at the edge of her bed and rested my head next to her puffy face. Her hot, flammable breath on my cheek was another disappointment. I wanted to sit on her thick, warm thighs and have her rock me. I wanted her to hold me close to the heft of her breasts and sing “The Bard of Armagh” until I fell asleep.
Before I go to bed every night, I take a hot bath. It’s the ritual that replaced my tumbler of stone juice. Sometimes, I listen to music and sing along while I soak or light a candle and think about life and the details of my day. Occasionally, I plug my ears and put my head under the water to drown out the sounds that a noisy apartment complex can produce. It’s almost silent under the water, with the exception of my thoughts. They often roar and make waves in my head that continue to disturb me as I try to drift off to sleep.
My sister told me how she falls asleep every night. She said that instead of counting sheep, she counts numbers, which she visualizes in her head. The numbers are bold and black and she can see them on pages flipping over like on one of those desk calendars. The numbers start at one hundred and then descend toward zero. She tells me that she rarely gets past fifty before she’s gone.
Last night, I tried my sister’s ritual, but I was negative two hundred and fourteen before I gave up and decided to read. I’m reading the Catcher in the Rye for the third time. Sometimes, I feel like Holden Caulfield, still learning to let go of disappointments. Other times, I feel like I’m still that child at my mother’s bedside, trying to nudge her into consciousness.
Tomorrow night, I won’t be alone in my bed. My boyfriend is going to spend the night with me. He’s cuddlier than my stuffed animal and more responsive. We’ll talk about our fears and I’ll begin to relax at the thought that I’m not alone. I will open the blinds slowly and the lines on the wall will merge together and form a thick column of moonlight in which we’ll make crazy shadow puppets dance together.
Stuttgart
by Martin Green
anny Stein sat by himself at a rear table in the post exchange, Seventh Army Headquarters, Stuttgart, Germany, reading a book and finishing a hamburger. Eating at the PX was a rare treat he gave himself, despite his lack of money, when the food in the mess hall became unbearable. He heard his name called. Looking up, he saw a short scruffy-looking soldier, a private, whom he didn't recognize. "Danny, it's me. Charles Gruden. From college, Columbia. Don't you remember me?"
Danny remembered a Charles Gruden who'd been in his class at Columbia University in New York before he'd been drafted, but that Gruden had been a clean-shaven, well-dressed senior who'd exuded the confidence of having wealthy parents. "Gruden? What are you doing here? What's happened to you?"
"My outfit was shipped over a couple of weeks ago. I've been assigned to the motor pool. It's been terrible. My sergeant hates me. All I do is march back and forth in the snow to make sure nobody steals a jeep or something. I think I'm getting pneumonia."
It had been a cold winter in Stuttgart, as it had been in all of Germany that year, 1954. "That's too bad," Danny said. "But it should be warming up pretty soon."
"You don't understand," said Gruden. "It won't matter. My sergeant hates college kids. He told me outright he's out to get me."
"All sergeants hate college kids. Just keep out of his way. I'm in Barracks 8. Come on over and see me when you get a chance." Danny stood up to leave.
"Wait a minute," Gruden said. "Do you think you can help me get out of the motor pool?"
Danny shrugged. "I don't see what I can do."
"How long have you been here?" asked Gruden. "About a year."
"I see you've gotten a corporal's stripes."
"Yeah, I'm a real noncom."
"What outfit are you in?"
"It's a little section called the Historical Office. We keep track of everything the Seventh Army has ever done and write it up."
Danny could see Gruden's eyes lighting up. "Boy, that sounds a lot better than the motor pool. Is there any chance you could get me in there?"
"Not right now. We're fully staffed."
"Shit. When I saw you I thought my luck had changed. If I stay in the motor pool I'll get court-martialed for sure. I know it. Are you sure you can't help me?"
Danny looked thoughtful for a minute. "There might be something. But it may cost some money. Do you have any?"
"Sure. My father's a lawyer, don't you remember? Money's not a problem."
"Okay, I have to go now but I'll be in touch. I guess I can find you at the motor pool."* * *
Walking along the deserted streets of the Army post, Danny thought about the incident at the PX. He'd been secretly amused at Gruden's predicament. Quite a comedown from the smug, self-important big man on the campus. Let him stew for a while. But Danny had a problem and Gruden just might be the solution to it.
It was already dark and a cold wind was blowing. Danny was headed toward the post library, where he'd read for a while, maybe write a letter to his parents, then go back to his barracks. Suddenly, a dark form ran into his path. He saw it was a scrawny cat, one of the many that scavenged on the post. He reached down to pet it but it scuttled away into the shadows.
As Danny had told Gruden, he'd been at Seventh Army Headquarters for about a year. He'd fallen into the job at the History Office, which, if you had to be in the Army, wasn't bad but he'd never liked being in Stuttgart. The Germans, now so friendly and obliging to the American soldiers, made him uncomfortable. He wondered where they'd been when Jews were being put into concentration camps. Unlike many of his fellow soldiers, he'd made no attempt to get a German girl friend. But he did know a young German fellow to whom he sold his monthly ration of cigarettes to get a little more money. In the Army, you learned to be an operator.
Danny had been truthful when he'd told Gruden his section was fully staffed. But in a few weeks the Historical Office's long-time sergeant was due for retirement, leaving Danny the ranking non-com. The rest of the staff consisted of two other draftees. Colonel Blanton, the head of the Office, was pompous, officious and lazy. Danny was due to be discharged in about two months and wanted to go to Italy and Spain before he was shipped back to the States. He pictured both countries as being warm and sunny after Stuttgart. His problem was that Colonel Blanton refused to give him leave, saying that with the sergeant's impending retirement Danny couldn't be spared. Even if he did get leave, Danny didn't have money for the trip he wanted to make.
Blanton, unlike Gruden's sergeant, didn't hate college kids. Danny had found out that the colonel had attended a small midwestern college, then taught high-school history for a few years before making the Army his career. He was in awe of anybody who'd gone to an Ivy League school. He was sure to tell any visitor to their office that Danny was a Columbia graduate. Danny thought he could handle Colonel Blanton. He'd soon see.* * *
The next morning Danny approached Colonel Blanton about Gruden. He began by saying, "I think we're in luck. I ran into an old friend from Columbia yesterday. He'd fit into our section perfectly when the sergeant leaves."
"I don't know. I was thinking of keeping that spot open for salary savings. The General wants to cut costs."
"That may be," said Danny. "But we have a lot of new material coming in next week and if we're short-handed we'll fall behind. The General won't be happy about that."
Colonel Blanton looked concerned. If he had one goal in life, it was to keep the Commanding General, Seventh Army, who had some interest in history and who occasionally called for a special report, completely happy. "Hmmm. Where's your friend now?"
"In the motor pool. Sergeant Adams is in charge there and he's a hardhead. I don't even know if he'll let Gruden go." Danny knew this was certain to rouse the colonel's ire.
"What do you mean? I'm not about to let some pipsqueak of a sergeant get in my way?"
"I'll tell you what, let me sound him out."
"Okay, see him today. We can't afford to let the General get down on us. Of course, I'd have to see your friend first and make sure he's qualified."
"Of course, but I don't think there's any question about that. He was a History major, American history." Danny had no idea what Gruden had majored in but was certain the Colonel would never investigate. "Oh, one more thing, sir, you remember that leave I put in for? If I can get Gruden over here, I'd like to go. It'll be my last chance before I'm discharged."
"I don't know. How about all that new material coming in?"
"Don't worry, Gruden will be able to handle it. He's already told me he'll work late and on weekends if he has to."
"I still don't know."
"Of course we may not even get Gruden. That sergeant is hard to deal with."
"Okay, okay. I suppose you deserve to have some time off. Go ahead and see what you can do."
"Yes, sir."* * *
Two weeks later, Danny was walking through the Stuttgart public park. The sun was out but it was still cold. Some icy patches were left on the grass. No one else was in the park except a few disconsolate pigeons. He came to Stuttgart's main street, the Konigstrasse. Here it was crowded. Prosperous-looking men walked along, accompanied by stout wives. Women dressed in furs looked into store windows. Young girls in winter coats and boots lounged around several of the street corners, some of them eying Danny speculatively as he went by.
Danny went into the large restaurant by the railway station. The restaurant was already almost filled up. He was led to a small corner table and given a menu. He ordered the rumpsteak with fried potatoes and a beer. He'd decided he deserved a treat, and now he could afford it.
Dealing with Sergeant Adams hadn't been difficult. He'd had a few transactions with the sergeant before and was on good terms with him. After all, Danny was an operator. A bottle of Scotch and a $50 bill had been sufficient. Gruden had been grateful and hadn't raised any question when Danny had told him the transfer would cost $350. That money, along with what Danny had saved, would finance his three-week leave. He was going first to Rome and Florence, then to the Coste del Sol in Spain. A spruced-up Gruden had already started work at the History Office and the colonel was pleased to have yet another Columbia graduate. Things couldn't have worked out better.
The restaurant was noisy, as public places in Germany tended to be. Danny noticed a family at a table across the way. The mother and father were in their forties. They were with a young man and his wife. Danny decided the young man was the son as he resembled the older one. The girl was a blonde, quite pretty. They were talking loudly with intervals of boisterous laughter. Once or twice, he had the feeling they were looking his way and then talking about him.
Suddenly the food he was eating lost its taste. He lay down the knife and fork he was using and shivered. A feeling of absolute misery came over him. He felt lost and abandoned, like someone on a raft in a stormy ocean. The waiter came over and asked him if everything was all right. He took a deep breath. "Yes, fine," he said. "I'll have another beer." He felt the wallet in his back pocket, with Gruden's $300 in it. The hell with it, he thought. He was an operator. The next morning, he'd be on his way to Italy and Spain.
Unremitting Memory
by William Gladys
by William Gladys
In memory of Douglas N..., killed in action 22nd August 1944. Buried Bayeux cemetery, France.
St. Clement Street is an appealing mix of 1920’s terrace and bay windowed semi-detached yellow brick houses, twelve miles as the crow flies from the Houses of parliament in the city of London, yet bizarrely, still part of a semi-rural environment. In 1943 and 1944, two houses were destroyed and a number damaged by a single bomb and a soundless, sinister aerial mine, improbably, both in the month of June but twelve months apart. A cloying cloud of yellow dust would cover everything in a temporary shroud that was, paradoxically, both consolatory and disturbing. The shroud, acting as illusory camouflage ensured that St. Clement Street was protected for a few hours, while simultaneously concealing the death and destruction that would be evident after it had settled and cleared. Facial colouring was altered vividly until washed away to reveal the cadaverous white pallor obscuring the vital warmth beneath the pink skin. At the front of the houses, climbing roses would disappear beneath their gritty mask, patiently waiting to be rescued by natures cleansing rain or water from the coiled hosepipe on stand by at the side of the house. During these terrifying moments, the fundamental physical and spiritual strength of the inhabitants of St. Clement Street was reinforced further and united with those in the East end of London where the torment had been almost beyond endurance.
Sergeant Douglas Hopwood lived with his widowed mother a few doors away. I remember him with affection. A kind, fun loving but at times serious young man dressed smartly in a light blue air force tunic, polished black shoes and striking fore and aft cap that his girl friend Rita admired so much. Yet another ordinary person transformed by the idiosyncrasy of war into an instant hero. Nevertheless, it was difficult for me to grasp wartime rules, regulations and geographical situations that allowed Douglas to return home regularly while my maternal uncles were unable to.
In early August 1944 I spoke to Douglas for the last time. A beautiful day, the sky a vivid blue, the roses washed of their encumbering dust shone brilliantly in the hot haze. He was walking the route taken many times before. Passing me he gave familiar and ready words of kindness and encouragement. At the end of the street he turned, waived enthusiastically, and blew a kiss to his mother standing at the garden gate. Moments later he was heading in the direction of the elderly metal bus stop waiting faithfully to re-establish contact with his friendly shoulder. Try as I might, I have been unable to eradicate that vivid and sickening sense of foreboding of more than fifty years ago as he left the comparative safety of St. Clement Street to enter a zone of dangerous certainty over German occupied Europe. A presentiment so menacing that my heart, weighty with inexplicable sadness seemed; momentarily to stop beating. Hurrying after him I could see the red double-decker bus approaching to bear him to the railway terminal. Holding his hands so tightly that my knuckles hurt, I begged him not to go.
The old double-decker was strangely unhurried, reluctant to take him any further, the comforting sound of its engine and wheels singing on the tarmac lulled him into a moment of quiet reverie, reminding him of leisurely times before the war. A sense of foreboding grabbed his throat as he recollected the anxiety expressed by a small boy, a feeling the rest of the aircrew had been experiencing for a week. The more missions completed the shorter the odds of surviving, all bomber crews were conscious of that, perhaps someone had been talking to the boy, or was there something visible in his demeanour that disturbed him so much?
Predestination was not a consideration for him; there must be a rational reason for the boy's behaviour? He thrust himself deeper into the comfort of the seat, placated by the chatter of two pretty girls discussing the scarcity of silk stockings. Their sweet fragrance and soft skin, reminded him of Rita. He would miss her.
As the bus lurched on the bridge over the river Crane, he saw his face reflected in the clear water and was reminded of cherished moments in childhood. Great crested newts basking on the gravel bed, adders bathing in the rays of the sun on the footpath at the edge of the river, the blur of blue from a roaming kingfisher, the lingering call of the crested grebe. As he reached the outskirts of the rail terminal, he released a frenetic wasp trapped by the window glass and smiled apprehensively at high spirited children playing games on the pavement; skipping, hopscotch, five stones, catch ball.
Returning from a night raid they watched in horror as L for Lima took a direct hit in the cockpit; pilot less, it flipped over and plunged to earth. Earlier, D for Delta on their starboard side and part of a straggling depleted formation exploded without warning and plummeted to the ground welding men and machine in a definitive deathly embrace. Lady Luck had been shining on them tonight, no predatory fighters or flack. The tirelessly maintained engines of F for Foxtrot tuned to perfection sounded sweet and inviolate.
The German fighter had come in fast, raking the bomber from nose to tail, leaving a tangible, and repulsive mix of burning clothes, burning flesh and burnt exhaust oil; a macabre memento of its transient presence. In the cockpit, Sandy fought to keep the plane straight and level for a few agonising seconds before Lofty the rear gunner launched himself into the safe obscurity of a French night sky. Moments later F for Foxtrot succumbed, tipping gracefully to port, and losing altitude in an unforgiving flat spin slowly turning anti clockwise, seemingly attempting in its last frantic moments to reverse time. Eric the co-pilot, a gaping hole in his head, was dead. The pilot had cut the fuel supply to the engines, to gain a few precious seconds, but there was no chance of bailing out before death and oblivion encompassed them. In the time it takes to close a book, Mack, Samuel, Alec and Monty were dead or dying.
Douglas, pumping blood from his shrapnel sliced shoulder, was powerless to eject from the condemned aircraft, and waited for death to come to him. Within the slowly gyrating aircraft, tranquility had settled like a blessing on him and the rest of the crew, as the craft falling like an autumn leaf, came ever closer to the welcoming earth of France.
In St. Clement Street, his mother informed of her only child’s death, sat week after friendless week at the garden gate or in the bay window at the front of the house, silently beseeching him to return. Her mind traumatized by inconsolable grief had misplaced forever its serene equanimity and foremost purpose in life. In February 1945 she relinquished her hold on life and quietly died.
Alone in my tiny room at the back of the house, the gentle rain ran down the cracked and taped windows as I wept once more for mother and son.
Game of Life
Rita Kepner
Bunch up
Rita Kepner
Sitting 2
Rita Kepner
Sitting 7
Rita Kepner
Sitting 10
Rita Kepner
The Dinner Movie
Jeremiah Stansbury
Life Inspection
Jeremiah Stansbury
Seated to School
Jeremiah Stansbury
Missile Stamp
Jeremiah Stansbury
Cart Your Cans
Jeremiah Stansbury
Untitled
Konstantin Skoptsov
Siginak
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Balayeur mon frere
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
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Winter Pastimes
from A Gilford Offering, © 2004 by Kelley Jean White
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