Stork Bite

by Simonds, L. K.

  “You have ever seen,” Cargie muttered under her breath. “It was the most fatuous movie about colored people you . . . have . . . ever . . . seen.” The white woman heard Cargie’s voice, if not her words, and she smiled at her. Cargie turned her head as if she did not notice and walked away toward the streetcar stop.

  The next morning, Cargie took Bill Cole’s diary from the back of the desk drawer, where she had kept it all these years. She needed to feel her connection with her white friend. Cargie turned to her favorite passage.

  3 August 1918

  We were lolling around camp after breakfast this morning when we heard aeroplanes in the west, coming from behind our line. A few of the boys were keen to tally the planes they saw, and they had a contest going about who had seen the most different types. These fellas are walking Encyclopedia Britannicas when it comes to planes, and they were pretty disappointed this morning when a couple of Sopwith Camels came into view. We’ve seen scads of Royal Flying Corp Camels.

  The Camels are fighters, and we always see them in squadrons, so it was kind of unusual that there were only two. When they got close, we saw that one was painted camouflage and armed with machine guns, as is customary. This plane had Thunder painted on the side in black blocked letters. We had never seen a plane with a name painted on it.

  Now here’s a marvel—they synchronize the machine guns to fire between the propeller blades when the engine is running. It sounds impossible, but it’s true. The preacher back home says knowledge will cover the earth like water covers the sea the closer we get to the Lord’s return. War will cover the earth too. Between this awful war—the whole world’s fighting—and the things people know how to do these days, it seems like the end of time could be right around the corner.

  The other Camel was very strange. It had no armament at all and was painted snow white with big RFC roundels on the undersides of the wings. Lightning was painted in black cursive letters on the side. Thunder and Lightning. We didn’t know what to think. One of the guys said the flyboy in Lightning sure was feeling lucky. We all agreed he was a sitting duck painted up like that with no machine guns.

  I expected the planes to pass us by, but when they came overhead, the camouflage one peeled off and the white Camel continued straight ahead and appeared to dive toward the earth, which brought a roar from all the fellas standing around. It seemed like the pilot almost kissed the ground before he pulled up, up, up, all the way over until he was upside down and coming back toward us. The engine went quiet for a second, and then that crazy aviator turned his plane right side up again and the motor roared to life.

  One of the Britannicas hollered, “Immelmann Turn!” He said the aviators use the maneuver in combat to get the enemy off their tails and regain the advantage. He’d read up on it and he dipped and arced and twisted his hand to show us how it went.

  The Immelmann was something to see, and the aviator didn’t stop there. He rolled that Camel again and again, all the way across the tops of our heads. The plane was so low that I felt like I could almost reach up and grab a wingtip as it flopped by. That pilot was as mad as a hatter, but brave too. All the guys were jumping and shouting. It was quite a show, and we all felt good seeing it and suddenly very brave ourselves, like our side has something the other side doesn’t. Right then I felt like there was no way we could lose the war. I think the other guys felt the same.

  Let me tell you, we didn’t know the half of it. The white aeroplane landed and parked next to its mate. The aviator pulled off his goggles and leather cap, and—big surprise!—the pilot was a girl! Well, the guys just went wild. She made a big show of fluffing out her long red hair and climbing down from the cockpit one long leg after the other. The officers were falling all over themselves to take her hand and help her down the steps they had set beside the plane.

  She was a vision for sure. She had on a Royal Flying Corps shirt with the sleeves hemmed above the elbows of her creamy smooth arms. She wore her white aviator’s scarf tied in a bow around her throat. Her shirt was tailored and tucked into trousers, and her trousers were tucked into little leather boots. She waved real big at us, and I felt like she’d flown all the way from England just to see me.

  The pilot from the other plane came around to meet her. She hooked her arm in his and they headed our way. Ten-hut! We snapped to attention and then got the at-ease command. Every one of us tried to look as sharp as he could, dirty and battle worn as we were. I sneaked my hand up to smooth my cowlick, but it wasn’t any use.

  She shook the hand of every single soldier. When she stopped in front of me, her blue eyes and red lips and apple cheeks put me into a trance straightaway. She said her name was Adele and she thanked me for helping stop German tyranny. She asked my name, but I was dumbstruck and could not muster it. Then she put her hand out, and her fingernails were lacquered, with white tips that matched her scarf. Paris-style, the guys said later. When I touched her fingers, my heart was suddenly as desperate as a sun perch flopping on a creek bank. I grabbed her hand in both of mine and didn’t let go. The other pilot—her escort—said, “Steady, private,” and pushed my arms away. Adele smiled and showed me her perfect white teeth.

  She moved on to the next doughboy, but her escort stayed put. They were both tall, but he was way over six feet. Taller than any of us, or so it seemed. He leaned toward me and said, “The queue for falling in love with Adele forms over there.” Then he called me “brave lad,” and I halfway expected him to tousle my hair. But at least he didn’t laugh at my foolishness.

  Adele had tea with the officers in their tent before she and her wingman flew away later that afternoon. We heard she’s only sixteen, the daughter of an earl or some such. Everybody talked about how smart she is and how brave too, because the Camel is a handful and has killed a lot of men. All I can think about is, if I make it through this war, how will I ever find a girl like her back home?

  Cargie tucked the diary into her desk drawer when she saw Bill Cole coming through the front door after a long lunch with Walter Addington. She wanted to call, “Did you find a girl like Adele? Is Mrs. Cole anything like her?” Instead she said, “Been dead as a doornail here, Bill.”

  Bill hung his hat on a peg beside the door. If he was surprised to hear her say his Christian name for the first time in their lives, he did not comment on it. “Walter sent you something,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  He lifted the counter flap and came through. “Here you go.” He handed her a very thick brown book.

  “What in the world?” Cargie took the book and read the spine, “Security Analysis, Graham and Dodd.”

  “Walter says these men have come up with ideas for getting at a company’s value and whether or not its securities are trading at a good price. He thought the book had your name written all over it.” Tucked inside the back cover were a few folded pages. “Walter sent those too,” Bill said. The first page was a handwritten note on First City Bank stationery.

  Dear Mrs. Barre,

  I hope the principles and techniques Messrs. Graham and Dodd put forth in their book will interest you. If so, these companies are a good place to start looking. They make up the Dow Industrial Average. The Average is the benchmark for American Industry. In other words, these should be some of the strongest companies in the country, but you will be the judge of that. The names and addresses listed are your contacts for their financial records.

  Respectfully,

  Walter Addington

  Cargie laid the note aside, her conscience smarting from all the wicked thoughts she’d had about whites since seeing Imitation of Life. A body had to remember to take people as they came, individually, instead of lumping them all together in a bunch. She opened the book and began to read.

  “The book looked a little dry to me,” Bill said.

  “Uh-huh,” Cargie said without looking up.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it then.” Bill said. He left and closed the door behind him.

  Mr
. Graham and Mr. Dodd hooked Cargie in the Preface, where they laid out their intentions right up front. They were quick to say they had left some things out, such as judging the future prospects of an enterprise, not because it is not vitally important to do so, but because there simply wasn’t anything to say on the subject.

  Cargie respected a man who did not speak when there was nothing to be said. And so, for the first time since she had graduated college, Cargie believed she was about to sit at the feet of someone who knew more than she did, and to Cargie’s thinking, that was saying something.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  1941

  Everyone sitting around the Compton Thanksgiving table on Fairmount Avenue believed Mae and Hollister had been man and wife for years. They had shared holidays for a decade, and Hollister was a model son-in-law to Mae’s parents and a good uncle to Vic and Dewey’s two children, Dewey Junior and Bobbie. Mae and Hollister even wore matching gold wedding bands, inscribed inside with the phrase “For Good” though no one knew that but them.

  The Nazi’s were all anyone talked about that year. Herr Fuehrer was on a tear, striking Europe with sudden lightning squalls and striking terror in the red heart of the large but disheveled bear to Germany’s east. The French were down. The English, despite suffering heavy bombardment, stood bravely in the gap against the Reich’s wanton expansion, while America hung back and girded herself for war. Again.

  Hollister and Dewey Senior pulled out their draft cards, slapped them on the table, and covered them with five-dollar bills. Mae looked at Vic, who winked, even though Mae saw in her sister’s eyes the same gnawing dread she felt.

  “Whatcha got, Dew?” Hollister asked.

  Dewey slid his card out from under the five-dollar bill. “Thirteen-oh-four.”

  Hollister uncovered his. “Twenty-seventeen, my man. Pay up.” Dewey scooted the bill toward Hollister, who picked up the money and put it in his wallet, along with his draft card. “We’ll all go together if we wade into this thing,” Hollister said.

  “That’s a fact,” agreed Dewey.

  Two weeks after Thanksgiving, on a Saturday night, Mae and Hollister went to the Calanthean Temple on Texas Avenue to Jitterbug to Cab Calloway. The entertainer swung his conked hair in time to the band’s rhythm, and he danced wildly and tirelessly. No matter what song Cab was singing, the message was always the same, “The world’s going to hell in a handbasket, but tonight we’re alive!”

  The next morning, Sunday, they slept in and ate a late breakfast before retiring to the sunroom to read the paper and drink coffee. When they grew sleepy again, they cuddled and dozed under a quilt on the generous sectional sofa Mae had purchased at Rubenstein’s the year before. They were awakened around three o’clock by Mrs. Tidwell rapping on the sunroom window.

  “Uh-oh,” Hollister said. He pulled the quilt over his head.

  “For heaven’s sake!” Mae said. “What is she doing?“

  “Mrs. Addington?” Mrs. Tidwell reached past the shrubs and rapped insistently on the glass. “Mrs. Addington! Are you in there? Turn on the radio right away. The Japs are coming and they’re trying to kill us all!” Mrs. Tidwell disappeared and reappeared at the door. She jiggled the knob, trying to open it.

  “Mrs. Tidwell!“ Mae cried.

  Mrs. Tidwell cupped her hand against the glass to block the afternoon glare and peered inside. “You need to turn on your radio right now!”

  Mae sat up, keeping the quilt pulled up to her shoulders. “I will, Mrs. Tidwell. Thank you.”

  “Are you alone? Is your brother with you?”

  “He’s around here somewhere.”

  “Well . . . okay . . . as long as you’re not alone. This is all very upsetting.”

  “Indeed,” said Mae.

  As soon as Mrs. Tidwell left, Hollister got up and turned on the radio.

  “That’s it,” Mae said. “I have to put up some blinds.”

  News of the attack was on every station. “It’s still happening,” Hollister said. “Sounds like they’re hitting Hawaii.” He left the room and came back with the lovely globe Mae had found at Feibleman’s. Hollister settled on the couch next to her and rested the globe on his lap. He spun it around to Hawaii, so tiny in the big Pacific Ocean. “Where did they say it was?” he asked.

  “Pearl Harbor?”

  “Yeah. I think that was it. Here’s Honolulu. From what they’re saying, it’s close to there.”

  “It sounds so pretty, doesn’t it?” Mae said. “Pearl Harbor.”

  “It sounds like Paradise. I don’t see it on here.”

  “Well, it’s on the map now. I’ll go put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

  They listened to the radio in the sunroom until late that night. Mae’s Sunday evening blues, which she felt at the end of every weekend, deepened into grim melancholy. “Not the navy, Hollister,” she said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Please don’t join the navy. I can’t stand the thought of you on a ship with those U-boats sneaking around. They give me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Hollister laughed.

  “I mean it. I’m not kidding. I know you’re going to volunteer. Just not the navy. Please.”

  “Okay. Not the navy.” He pulled her close. “Even though I really, really like the ocean.”

  “It’s not funny.” Before Mae could stop herself, she began to cry. She did not want to talk or even think about it. She only wanted to cry.

  “Marry me, Mae,” Hollister said. “It’s high time you got your divorce and married me. For real.”

  “I already feel like we’re married. I’ve always felt that way.”

  “But we’re not. If I don’t come back, you won’t get anything from the War Department. More importantly, you won’t get anything from my trust.”

  “I don’t care about any of that.”

  “Well, it’s important to me.”

  Mae shrugged.

  “Look here.” Hollister sat up. In all these years, Mae had never seen him angry until this very minute. “I want to know you’ll be taken care of.”

  “I want to know you’ll come home.”

  “That’s not up to me.”

  “It might be. You might go over there and be all brave and reckless if you think I’ll be all right without you.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Mae.”

  “Good.”

  “So, you’ll marry me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I will. As soon as you get back home.”

  “Dammit, Mae.”

  “I didn’t ask you not to go because I know you have to, but I need something to hold onto. Promise you’ll come home and marry me.”

  “Mae . . . I can’t promise.”

  “Yes you can. You just say it and mean it. You promise. And then you keep your promise. I need that.”

  Hollister sat on the edge of the couch with his forearms resting on his knees, staring down at his clasped hands. “Okay. All right. I promise.” He looked up at Mae and smiled, as if the hardest part were already out of the way.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  1945

  Mae was deadheading roses in the front yard on a Saturday morning in late June when Jax pulled to the curb in his ancient Cadillac Sixteen. It had been years since she’d seen him, but he did not seem much changed. Mae stopped pruning and stood with her gloved hands on her hips while Jax got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk. He wore a straw fedora and sunglasses and a white summer suit cut in the latest fashion. As he always had.

  “The Sixteen looks like it just came off the line,” she called.

  Jax stopped, removed his sunglasses, and looked back toward the car. “She’s still a beauty, isn’t she?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You’re not looking too bad yourself, Mrs. Addington.”

  “Thank you, Jax. I see you’re holding your own too.”

  “War’s been hard on everybody, but I’ve managed.”

  “Thank God it’s over. Well, Europe anyway.”<
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  Jax looked down briefly, then he said, “Say, mind if I come in for a minute?”

  “Sure. Of course. I should’ve asked already. C’mon. I’ll fix you something cold to drink.”

  Mae opened the door and went in ahead of him. As far as she knew, Jax had not been inside the house since the day he proposed to her. Certainly, he had never seen it furnished. He walked into the living room and looked around. “It looks great, Mae.”

  “Please, have a seat. Want some iced tea or a Coke?”

  “Anything cold. Surprise me.”

  Mae went to the kitchen and fixed two glasses of iced sweet tea. “I’m glad you came by,” she said when she returned to the living room. “I need to talk to you about something.” Jax was standing in front of the big picture window. When she handed him a glass, she saw tears in his eyes. “Jax, what is it?”

  “It’s Ned.” He wiped his eye with the palm of his hand. “God Almighty. Crying like a little girl.” He inhaled deeply. “Old Ned bought the farm, Mae. Over Tokyo.”

  “Oh, Jax.” They sat on the couch. Side by side. “I’m so, so sorry, Jax. What happened?”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose noisily. “His B-29 took a hit during a bombing raid. The letter his wife got—did you ever meet his wife? Her name’s Ruth.”

  “No. I heard he had married.”

  “Oh, Lord, they’ve got six, seven kids. She’s a Catholic. Anyway, the letter said Ned stayed with the plane ‘til the crew got out. He tried to parachute out, but it was too late.”

  “Gosh, Jax. All those children . . .”

  “Yeah.” He stuffed the handkerchief back into his breast pocket. “Never knew a nicer guy than Ned Turner. Man, he was smart. Guy was a genius. Anyway, I wanted to come by and tell you in person, since you knew him and all.”

  “I’ll never forget that first flight,” Mae said.