by Matthew Nuth
For Paul, the business was old, depressing, and certainly not in his sites for his future. His morning and late afternoon routines at the shop were as much as he could handle. For him life centered on school and basketbal and not in that order. As soon as he had completed his sweeping, he pulled on his coat and ran the three blocks home to gather up his brand new, white canvas, high-top basketball shoes and his kid brother and head off to school.
The basketball shoes represented a significant milestone for Paul. As a sophomore, he had made the high school’s varsity basketball team and Dad had purchased him a pair of Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars just in time for their first game. It was the first time his father had acknowledged Paul’s skill, success, and love for the game. It was also the first game his father had ever attended.
* * *
I had been dozing off for several minutes when Mom had come into the room to give Dad his pain medication. I was not aware of how long she had been in the room, but when I started she apologized for interrupting me.
“Randall, sorry to startle you. It just took me back to better times when I saw you sitting there with your eyes closed. You look so much like your dad. I won’t disturb you anymore. I’ll just give your dad something for his pain and let you have your time with him, alone. When he starts to groan, I just don’t know if he is hurting or just dreaming.” Mom, pulled the stopper out of the small bottle she had picked up from the bed stand. She placed a small drop of the opioid into the corner of Dad’s mouth and quietly sat beside me, forgetting that she had intended to leave me alone with him. Her reddened eyes belied the memories of better times with her husband of more than 50 years.
“Mom, I am surprised that Dad is holding on to that book. I tried to lightly take it from him to put it on the bed stand, but he had none of it. In fact, he grabbed onto it pretty tightly,” I noted.
Mom just nodded. “You know as he was getting bad, he had asked me to make sure he could hold onto this so as he would not lose it. He said it reminded him of a number of things he still needed to do.”
“What does he think, that he is going to take it with him? Do you think he would mind if I took a look at what he has written?” No sooner had I asked than I realized how thoughtless I must sound to Mom. Here her husband, my father, is passing away and I am talking as though he is not lying right next to me, disparaging his privacy and seeking her approval to have access to what? His secrets? His concerns? His fears?
Mom, surprised me as she always did. She gently leaned over to Paul, gave him a kiss, whispered something into his ear and gently removed the book from his hands. She then quietly stood up, placed the book in my lap and said “Don’t tell me anything.” and left as silently as she had entered.
I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what to do at this moment, feeling as though I now have access to something I should not know, or perhaps access to something my father had longed to say, but had no idea how to. I chose to believe the latter.
Chapter 3
Dad, I am sorry for leaving. August 8, 1943
We need to do things in our lives that we think are right. I think this is one of those times. Forgive me and be proud of me; I am going to be a soldier.
It had been an hour since they had returned from the bus station after sending Paul off. As soon as they had returned home, Dad had disappeared upstairs. Mom and William could hear the sound of sobbing upstairs. She cautioned William that this was something his dad had never prepared for. “It is necessary to leave Dad to some peace and quiet. He’ll come down when he is ready.”
Both could hear a door open and close, the quiet, deliberate footfalls coming down the steps into the entry. Paul’s father gathered his wife and remaining son together in the sitting room. Tears were streaming down his face. It was particularly disconcerting for William in that he had never seen Dad cry before. “Mother and William, I want you both to know how proud I am of Paul for doing what he is doing, but I fear I may never see him again.”
* * *
Basic training had been a pretty different experience than anything he had expected. He recalled grinning in spite of being scared as hell as he first stepped off the bus. He had been scared. anxious, apprehensive, and energized as never before. It now struck him; he was on his own. The heat was already suffocating even though it was still only the first week of June. Back home, June was wonderful, warm during the day, with just a hint of cool in the evening coming from being over 6,000 feet above sea level. In Fort Collins, it was daily blue skies only interrupted for a couple hours each late afternoon for rain showers. Here, it was 95 degrees at 6:00 in the evening, and humid . . . the sweat continuously beaded on Paul’s forehead, dripping down his face, stinging his eyes. Not too bad, but certainly, not great. He had escaped Fort Collins, trading one “fort” for another. The new fort, Fort Benning, in Georgia and the 1st Infantry Division would change his life. Mom had been dead set against him joining the Army and Dad had not known that he had planned to enlist. He was shocked when Paul announced to the family he had graduated from high school early and would be leaving to join the Army in a week. He had not provided them much notice; it was intentional to give them less opportunity to deter him. The excitement had been real and overwhelming; yes, excitement, but also trepidation, about this new challenge. He could not shake the anxiety about what he left behind: the caring family he had always been able to rely upon and a potential scholarship for a college education, something always out of reach for his father.
All-in-all, basic training had not been as bad as his friends had suggested; it had been worse. Yes, Paul had to endure a complete lack of privacy, marching, shooting, fox hole digging, studying, marching, grenade throwing, defense drills, and yet again more marching. He had little time to even think about home. Although he had thought his being an athlete and exceptional student would serve him well, it never prepped him for the monotony of long hikes or the fear of crawling under barb wire and real machine gun fire. Fun times. After four months, Paul had begun to question the wisdom of his choice. Even so, he was happy to be out of Fort Collins and serving his country. Basic training was complete and Paul was on his way to join the 1st Infantry Division in England.
* * *
After thumbing through Dad’s blue journal, I could see he had been pretty inconsistent in documenting his life. He sometimes had entries for several days in a row, only to be followed by gaps that appeared to extend for years. The entries themselves varied in length from only a couple of lines to some entries that extended for several pages in Dad’s small, controlled hand writing. The book was almost completely full and included several loose sheets that suggested that he had kept the book with him, occasionally returning to entries to provide updates, almost as afterthoughts.
I would never have expected Dad to be one that would have maintained a journal. He had always been one of few words, but as a kid, I thought this was a result of having little to say to me or my brother. I had not given him credit for the potential of having some level of deeper thinking or emotional intelligence. Actually, I had thought of Dad as always being somewhat one-dimensional, just focused at making money and providing for our family. Keeping a journal was something I had equated to sensitivity and personal awareness, two traits that I would never have assigned to Dad.
Although I had known Dad had served in the Army in WWII, he rarely discussed it, and it did not seem that he had kept any contact with any army buddies. For me, every time Veteran’s Day came around I had a degree of sorrow for Dad. For him, the Army and war appeared to be distant memories, pages of life that had turned, never to be referenced again. “Mom, you used to have some old boxes of pictures. Anything in them from when Dad was young?”
No sooner had the words fallen from my mouth than I realized how disruptive my talking out loud might be to Dad. Thankfully, he was lying peacefully, so peacefully that I actually leaned over him turning my head so that my ear was close t
o his lips just so that I might hear the short breaths validating that he was still with us.
As I stood back up, I felt Mom’s left hand on my arm. She gently pulled me out of the room with her right index finger raised to her lips as an admonishment to me to be quiet, but also as if she was leading me to some secret place, confidential only to her, and now me. At the end of the hallway was the doorway leading to the basement, the family storage area. Selfishly, I had always wanted to ferret though the boxes stacked down here to see what long-forgotten items from my childhood still existed here.
“Randall, it has always been a mess down here, and I am sorry to say it has gotten a lot worse since Dad’s health has been failing.” Behind a number of boxes strewn on the floor were a couple of chrome, wheeled shelving units packed with additional boxes filled with decorations for Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and Thanksgiving. Given the dust gathered on them, it was apparent that Mom had stopped decorating for the seasons several years earlier. As she pulled on a rolling shelving unit, she asked, “Here, can you give me hand pulling this thing out of the way? Back there, against the wall, you see that plastic filing box?”
I pulled the shelf to the middle of the room, making room among the boxes, pushing them out of the way with my foot. In the farthest quarter of the basement, next to the water heater was a large plastic storage tub with a hinged top. Thank goodness, the tub was strong and had good hand holds, it was heavy and obviously full. “God, Mom, what do you have in here?”
“Who knows? I started years ago, to consolidate this into books that might be good to hand down to you, but I always seem, to get distracted. I’ll pull out a picture, stare at it, and before you know it the day’s gone. I still need to get it organized so I am glad you asked. Let’s take it upstairs to the kitchen. There, you can spread out on the table.”
As I lugged the box up the steps, I could not help but wonder how I never knew about this potential treasure trove about my family’s past. I placed the box on the floor in the kitchen and quietly walked back into Dad’s room to snag the journal I had left on my chair.
* * *
Paul, stepped into what would become his new home and new family for the next several months. It would be a family eventually; however, today, he could feel the indifference upon first entering the barracks, leaving him feeling alone and out of place, five thousand miles and an ocean away from home.
The barracks for Paul’s platoon was empty except for four soldiers taking a break from the day’s activities. Apparently, downtime was a part of the daily routine, something that was necessary but needed to be managed effectively in order to maintain moral. The only greeting upon entering came from a private who was so pre-occupied with cleaning his rifle that he could not be troubled with actually standing and shaking hands with his new compatriot. He remained seated, head bowed over his rifle. Without interruption, he continued wiping the stock of the M-1 with a rag, raised his eyes to glance at Paul then down to Paul’s duffel bag with SIMMONS in block black lettering emblazoned across its side. “Simmons, your bunk’s back to the right,” gesturing with his thumb and returning to his gun as if Paul had not existed.
The barracks was laid out as a long rectangle with 16 bunks lining each side, enough for 32 soldiers. Between each set of bunks, there was just enough room for two green footlockers, one for each soldier. At the rear, there stood a second door, exiting the barrack to the latrine. Moving down the aisle, first to the right, in a lower bunk lay a soldier with his boots crossed reading a Look magazine. Beyond him, also on the right, sat a soldier in the standard drab olive-green T-shirt and boxers slowly polishing his boots. At the far end of the barracks by the latrine door was his bunk with a strip of adhesive tape with the same style, black block letters “SIMMONS” as marked his duffle.
Next to Paul’s bunk, sat a large man, silently reading a book. He was still wearing the drab olive-colored pants and black boots of the US Army uniform; he, too, had discarded the standard uniform buttoned shirt in deference for an equally drab olive-colored T-shirt. Even though Paul was tall at 6’2” and athletic, this fellow made Paul feel puny. Standing up and smiling, Paul’s neighbor for the next several months stood and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Orley. I take it you are Simmons?” Orley’s, deep but soft voice somehow belied his sheer size. He stood at least two to three inches taller than Paul, but the truly impressive aspect of his size was his physique. He looked as though he could take on the Germans with bare hands. The arms, muscled and defined were twice the size of Paul’s. Paul estimated this man probably tipped the scales at 250, and none of it was fat.
In spite of his intimidating size, Orley’s smile was disarming. Happy to shake hands, Paul introduced himself. “Paul Simmons. Is it always this quiet and friendly?” nodding to the individuals and referring to the indifference that permeated the barrack at this time of day.
“Hey, folks need their personal space and time. Not much of it here. They are all good guys, as soon as you get to know them. Paul, pretty soon you’ll be just like them, cherishing those few moments to yourself.” Since joining the Army, Orley was the only man to refer to Paul by his first name, and he would continue to do so from that time on. Regardless of his rank, it would soon become pretty clear to Paul, Orley was a real leader in the platoon. Orley’s use of “Paul” would catch on with the rest of the platoon quickly. Everybody was referred to by last name or nickname: Orley, Hernandez, Baker, “Flash” and such, but the use of “Simmons” was discarded by everyone in the platoon within a couple of weeks. Paul remained just “Paul.”
“What’s that that you’re reading?” asked Paul, more out of a desire just to speak to someone other than genuine interest.
“A Tale of Two Cities. You know it’s a classic I skimmed through it when I was in school, but I never really appreciated it at the time. The descriptions are amazing; you can close your eyes and imagine what London and Paris must have been like 150 years ago. Thank God, we live today and not then. You know, soon enough you and I are going to see Paris for ourselves.” Orley smiled again and added, “Let’s hope it’s a hell of a lot nicer than the Paris of Dickens and the Revolution.”
Paul had never read A Tale of Two Cities, but was reluctant to let the conversation die, plus he did not want to come across as being ignorant of the “classic” to his new friend. “So, you like the book? I wasn’t expecting there to be much time to read here.”
“Time is one thing we have plenty of. Not that we don’t keep busy most the time, but we have a lot of time where you have to be creative to avoid boredom. Some play sports, you can always catch on with a game of baseball or basketball. If you want to head over the Brit sector catching on with a soccer or rugby game is always easy. We have movies at night. I prefer reading and smoking. That said, I do have to admit busting some of the British heads in rugby is great. Even after getting themselves all bloodied, they still are happy sharing a couple beers to recount the highlights of the match. Good guys.” At that, Orley pulled a pack of cigarettes he had rolled up in the sleeve of his tee-shirt, snapped in expertly against his hand to eject two smokes and handed one to Paul. Paul had never smoked prior to meeting Orley. It was a habit he’d never relinquish from this day forward.
“By the way, my next book will be something called Berlin Alexanderplatz by some guy named Doblin. Lieutenant Jameson recommended it. He said it is about the underworld of Berlin in the 20’s. Sounds interesting. Given we are not planning to stop our move across Europe until we get to Berlin, I think it sounds like a good choice.”
“So, you pick books just because they are about places we’re going to?” prompted Paul.
“That’s one way to look at it, but no. For example, The Tale of Two Cities is kind of like being about resurrection; new life for Paris. A freeing from the social injustice put upon the people by others in power; the aristocracy, and later the revolutionaries. I think that’s why we’re here; to free the people
from the Nazi’s. It’s why I left college - to fight fascism.”
Chapter 4
I pulled two flat, cardboard boxes from the plastic tub lying on the floor and placed them on the table. One was marked “Paul” and the other “William,” my Uncle Bill. Even though everyone else referred to him as William, he was always Uncle Bill to me. I removed the lid from my dad’s box and tipped its contents onto the kitchen table. The contents were a jumble of school papers, newspaper clippings and black and white photos, the types of photos that we had forgotten long ago, the small glossy ones with the cut curvy edges on baryta paper. It was like stepping back in time. I was surprised that any of the old-school papers had survived the years. Report cards, reports written in Dad’s juvenile hand, and even examples of drawings were all here. Dad’s high school diploma was also here. He had graduated from Fort Collins High School in June of 1943 just in time to go to war. Flipping through his report cards, it was apparent Dad had been a better student than I had been, and I had been a good student. I could find no grades other than “A.” Excellent student and an athlete, pretty impressive.
I planned to return to the box later, but now I wanted to dig into another gem I had noticed and already pulled from the box: the scrap book Mom had started, but never completed. It was hard to imagine the book not being complete because it was already stuffed well beyond what the binding had been designed for. In the front cover, Mom had written “Paul Simmons and family.” The first couple pages included some obligatory pictures of Dad as a baby, Dad as a little boy with Uncle Bill, as a baby, but, unfortunately no pictures of the boys with Grandpa and Grandma Simmons.
After plodding past these first few pages, I was taken aback by large glossy picture of Dad in a way I had never imagined. I had known he had been a basketball player in high school and a good one at that, but this picture showed a young man in absolute confidence jumping over another while shooting the basketball with his right hand, a pretty amazing image given this was a time where the two-handed set shot was the standard. The backside of the picture was marked with the logo of the Denver Post, the main regional paper at the time, with the scrawled message “to Paul Simmons, see you in the pros.” On the facing page was a newspaper clipping with the head line “Simmons Takes a Lesson from Sailors’ Playbook.” The 1943 article was from the local newspaper in Fort Collins, The Coloradoan, and was drawing parallels between Paul and All American Kenny Sailors, the creator of the jump shot. The comparison was used to draw attention to the Fort Collins High’s big win over Laramie High. Paul, although only a junior at the time, had been one of the premier high school basketball players in Colorado.
