A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  Section 029 1981 - Parental Disapproval

  “You don’t have tenure yet!” Mama lectured me. “Too soon to get married!”

  “I’ll probably never get tenure at such a prestigious school, Mama. Anyway, who said anything about getting married?”

  ” She’s a nice-looking girl,” Papa dared say, and he got a frown from Mama.

  “You don’t bring home a girl like that, crippled and in a wheelchair, if you don’t have big plans for her. That’s a lot of trouble for you unless she means something to you.”

  “You’re very perceptive, Mama.” Her frown turned to a big smile as she waited on a customer and took his money.

  I escaped Mama and walked down the narrow aisles of the old store. I saw and smelled and heard all the sights and scents and sounds of my childhood, growing up in the family business. Papa was putting out a new order of men’s dress hats, brushing them and stacking them in the glass cases. He kept glancing at me and smiling. He was on my side, although I wasn’t sure why. I had already disappointed him twice in my choice of profession. If I was honest with myself, Milly was another choice I had made that would likely not be as perfect as my parents wanted. Pausing at the front of the store I breathed in the pungent aromas of pipe tobaccos, clove cigarettes, cigars, the candy rack. Down the first aisle I perused the magazines and paperback books. I picked up a bag of chips from the floor and put it back on the shelf as I moved into the grocery section. It looked like everything was still moving off the shelves but I wondered how much longer Mama and Papa could keep it going. I hoped they weren’t really waiting for me to support them in their old age.

  “Where did you leave her?” Mama asked, finding me in the refrigerated section, looking at a possible leak under one case.

  ” She’s at the hotel,” I answered, pointing out the puddle of liquid to Mama. She ignored it.

  “Separate rooms?”

  “Separate beds, Mama. Same room. She needs some help.”

  “Why a crippled girl?”

  “And a white girl and a Catholic girl! I don’t know, Mama. It just happened.”

  “There were plenty of nice Korean girls around here. Was she the first white girl to be friendly to you?”

  “The very first! I was swept off my feet! When was any girl friendly to me?”

  “So, you have to settle for a cripple. OK with me! Just don’t marry her! Lot of trouble. You’ll regret it. How is she going to give you babies and help you raise them?”

  “Lord have mercy, Mama!” I was upset at Mama’s attitude. I never knew she was so prejudiced. I tried to calm down and appreciate her perspective. Also, there was the military situation that Mama would never understand, even if I could tell her about it. Mama was a very smart person but she never had the opportunity for a good education and a broadening of her horizon. “Milly is a very independent person, Mama. She’s strong and determined. If she wants children, she’ll have them and she’ll do it well. Only her legs are crippled. Her mind is better than mine. She’s a mathematician, a Ph.D. mathematician. She’s amazing. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me when I first met her, but she changed her mind.” I took a few steps away from my mother and swiped a soft drink from one of the refrigerated cases. She let me take a couple of swallows before resuming her cross-examination.

  “OK, so Milly is amazing and good at math.” She was saying Milly’s name now. That was a good sign. “Is that all you see in her? She has a pretty face, too.”

  “As a matter of fact, her math ability is quite important to me, but no, that isn’t all there is. She’s special, Mama, very special. When I’m with her, my heart races and my brain explodes with ideas. Without her, I can see myself in the future as an old man of no significant accomplishment, teaching at a small college. With her… ” I couldn’t tell Mama what Milly and I had already accomplished as a team. It was classified by the military.

  ” She’s special. Special as in smart. Good. But she doesn’t have to marry you, does she?”

  “It would be convenient.” I immediately regretted those words. Mama opened her mouth to pounce on the mistake and I cut her off. “Damn it, I love her, Mama! I’m crazy about her!”

  “OK, then!”

  Mama had to go back to the cash register. I drank half the cola and belched. I looked over at Papa, who had positioned himself to observe Mama and me down the aisle. He gave me a thumbs-up. I walked down the aisle toward him and leaned on the counter. He stuck a wool walking hat on my head, cocking it to one side. I put my glasses on the counter and picked up the cola to finish it.

  ” Something wrong with your glasses?” Papa inquired.

  I swallowed wrong and had a coughing fit, nearly losing the hat. Papa leaned over and pounded me on the back. Mama came back to us and we waited for her next pronouncement.

  ” So, are you bringing Milly to supper tonight, or what?”

  Supper went pretty well, except Mama was uncharacteristically quiet. She stole a lot of glances at Milly. Papa enjoyed talking to Milly. He’d been a secondary school teacher back in Korea and he asked Milly how she had beaten the odds to become a female mathematician. It had something to do with card games, especially poker, which led quickly to the subject of her father, Col. A. J. DuPont, veteran of World War Two and Korea, and from then on I was just a listener. Papa had also been a soldier in Korea before the War. Milly talked a lot about her parents. She also asked many questions about my parents and what their lives were like before they came to America. She seemed genuinely interested and I think she impressed Mama, and no doubt Papa.

  Just as we were about to leave for the hotel, Milly saw the old piano that was partially hidden behind some boxes in the cramped little apartment. It was my old upright practice piano. They still had it, despite the space it wasted.

  “I’ve never heard Sam play,” Milly said, and turned to me in silent request.

  We uncovered the piano and Mama dusted it off. I pulled out the bench and sat down, opened the keyboard cover. I did a backhanded sweep up and down the keys and shook my head at what I heard. Then I hit all eighty-eight keys, playing the chromatic scale, and paused at each of three bad keys that had completely lost their tones. I couldn’t play it. Milly never did hear me play piano.

  I just wished Dad would be nice. Nice is not his thing. Not that he’s unreasonable. He has no tolerance for fools. I anguished over what to do to prepare him for Sam and kept putting it off until it came down to just showing up on my parents’ doorstep nearly unannounced, with Sam rolling me into the house and Dad squinting at him and looking back out the door to see where his taxi was. It was a rental car and Sam was not a taxi driver.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Samuel Lee, Doctor Samuel Lee.” I was going to add, “The man I’m going to marry,” but lost my courage. While my parents gaped and pondered the meaning of Sam’s presence, I rolled in and saw all the mess scattered everywhere. As it turned out, they were packing up to leave for a new home in Florida and retirement near a military base and a VA hospital. It was about time. Dad had been in the Army forever.

  I turned around to watch the Old Man, and Mom watched him with me. We all knew the meaning of Sam’s presence. I had warned Sam about the colonel. I felt sorry for Sam. Dad pulled out his unlit cigar - Mom wouldn’t let him light one in the house - and stuck out his big hand for Sam to take. He then crushed Sam’s hand and smiled doing it, stuck the cigar back in his mouth, hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his khaki shorts, and put that look on his face that said, “Boy, are you in the wrong house!”

  Sam shook the pain out of his hand and lied by saying, “Pleased to meet you, Colonel.” I was ready to get up out of my wheelchair and shove that cigar down Dad’s throat.

  “We’re getting married!” I announced. “Just so we all know what we all know!”

  Mom took Sam’s hand in both of hers and smiled warmly at him. “This is so sudden! Are you Chinese?” Mom is a real sweetheart and a little on the petite side. She always waits unt
il Dad isn’t looking, before she hits him.

  “Korean,” Sam said.

  “Hmm,” Dad said. “What kind of doctor?”

  “Astronomer.”

  “I was about to ask about this pain,” Dad said, pointing at his liver. “What does stargazing pay these days?”

  Well, enough of this crap. Let’s look in on the father-daughter bout, a little later in the day, heavyweight division, round twelve.

  “He’s the first guy who made eyes at you after you got out of the hospital, ain’t he?” Dad asked. I had his wet cigar in my hand, after he leaned a little too close. I wasn’t about to let him wiggle it between his lips the whole dialog.

  “Damn right! I’m one-for-one. I was hot to trot and he was the best I could do.”

  He waved his hand in dismissal. “Let’s get serious, shall we? Say, did you get contacts? Where are your glasses? You look pretty good without them.”

  “Lost ‘em in a game of strip poker.”

  “I know you’re lying because you never lose at poker. Where was I?”

  “Something about being serious.”

  “Oh, yeah. Are you really serious about this Korean?”

  “He’s an American, Dad, born here, raised here. His parents are the nicest people.”

  “You gonna live with his parents?”

  “No, we’re gonna live with you!”

  “OK, let’s get serious.”

  “You said that before. Don’t make any stupid comments about Sam!”

  “If you had any feeling in your butt I’d give you a good spanking, young lady.” I laughed. It was always this way with Dad. I think it was his way of showing affection - being gruff and slightly cuckoo. “So, when’s the wedding, Punkin?”

  Now we were getting somewhere. When the name Punkin came out, I imagined I was finally softening him up. He needed a shave. Retired from the Army for only a couple of months and already he was going to seed. Couldn’t even keep his gig line straight.

  “The Air Force has a job for Sam and me that starts in September. If you look out that window you’ll see a car with a couple of suits in it. They’re armed and they’re making sure Sam and I are safe.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow then looked through the window of his study. “Astronomy must be trickier than I thought! Will they let you come to Florida to get married?”

  Section 030 1981 - A Marriage of Convenience

  “I know, I know, Mamacita, but we’re talking about my little girl here, my youngest, my best, but don’t tell that to Will and Carla. And especially not to Milly!”

  “They already know your feelings for Milly,” Lucia DuPont said to her husband Tony, as she inspected his wedding attire. She fussed with the carnation that wouldn’t fit right in his lapel.

  He took off the black jacket and handed it to her. It was too early to have it on. He was too hot. “Just sneak around and find Sam and ask him to come see me. Don’t let it get back to Milly that I’m talking to him in private. Hurry it up, Luscious. I gotta talk to Milly, too. In private.”

  Lucia laid the jacket on the bed carefully. She did not hurry. She was a very patient woman, or else she would be spending her remaining years with someone other than her husband, preferably a toy poodle. “Don’t you think you have talked to Sam enough? You’re trying to make him say the wrong thing, so you can call off the wedding.”

  “Are you kidding, after what it’s already cost us?” He sat down on the bed next to his jacket. He checked his watch. “He’s a good kid. His folks are real good people; he has to be a nice boy. I just don’t know if he has what it takes. You know, Milly is a lot like me: hard to deal with. I have a few more words of wisdom to say to him.”

  ” You mean warnings.”

  “I want her to be happy, and if Sam is well prepared, he might succeed in making her happy.”

  “She seems happy to me,” Lucia said. “So, in ten minutes on the morning of the wedding you will prepare Sam for Milly. Tony, even we are still not prepared for her! You’re just all wound up. You need to relax. It is all over except for the words and the music.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re relaxed, or you wouldn’t be fussing around me! You have a special feeling for Milly, too. She darn-near killed you getting born at your age. She darn-near killed you when she had her car wreck. She’s special to both of us and I think to Sam, too. But you know she’s a handful of trouble at her best, and hell on wheels at her worst. Hey, I made a joke! See? I’m relaxed. Go get Sam for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Well, since you put it that way, hombre.” Mrs. DuPont gave her husband a little wiggle of her posterior as she exited the bedroom. She looked pretty good to Tony, especially with that new dress for the wedding. He didn’t see her in dresses much these days. Good thing Lucia was well past menopause. Another one like Milly would kill them both!

  Sam knocked on the bedroom door and was startled when Tony yanked it open and pulled him in, checking the hallway before shutting the door. “Have a seat, Doc,” Tony ordered.

  “My name is Sam, Colonel,” Sam said, trying yet again to get Milly’s father to use his name. The only place to sit was on the bed.

  “And my name is Tony, Doc.” He remained standing and began to pace back and forth in front of Sam. “It’s a marriage of convenience. No, don’t try to argue with me! I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. You and she are a team. You’re doing God-knows-what for the Air Force. You’ll be isolated. Milly says we may not see you guys again for months or even years. I know you’ll take good care of her. You’re an honorable man.”

  “But?”

  “Yeah, there’s always them buts. I don’t know, maybe we didn’t raise Milly right. She was kind of an accident, after we thought our breeding years were done. Anyway, she’s a filly of another color, as you may have already found out. I guess I just want to know that you’ll be more patient with Milly than Lucia and I were. Don’t listen to me and think there’s something wrong with her. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s not as smart as she looks - she’s smarter. She’s a fighter. She won’t give up. But she’s also a lover. She was raised with lots of love, along with lots of discipline. You stick with her, she’ll stick with you. Promise me you’ll take good care of her.”

  “I promise you. And in a short while I’ll promise God.”

  “Thank you.” And then Tony had to ask: “Do you love Milly?”

  “Will you promise me not to tell her what I say, Tony?”

  “That depends on your answer, Sam.”

  “I am hopelessly in love with your daughter! From the first moment I saw her. I know this isn’t always a good thing, especially when a guy isn’t very experienced, and so I try to keep my feelings for her from being… I don’t know… too much, too soon, too vulnerable. I don’t think she wants to be adored and suffocated with how strongly I feel about her. I’m just trying to survive until my feelings evolve into something more solid and durable.”

  Tony chuckled. “No, I’m not laughing at you, Sam. Just remembering some of my own youth. Just thinking about what Milly might do if I did tell her you were mad about her. My lips are sealed.” He chuckled again. “But I am telling Lucia. You look cool as a cucumber. You’re faking it, right?”

  “Right!”

  Tony had to put on his jacket and go find his daughter. She was, of course, kept out of sight of the groom. There was only one place she could be and when he entered the guest bedroom she wasn’t there, but her sister and mother and aunt Ruth were there. They all looked a little fretful. “Where is she?” Tony asked, and they all looked at the closed bathroom door. “Go on, everybody get out of here. I’ll talk to her.”

  ” She won’t come out of the bathroom, Dad,” Carla said.

  “Yeah, she will. I’ll get her out.” He herded the women to the door and closed it behind them. He knocked on the bathroom door with one knuckle. ” So, what do you need in there, a shot of whiskey or a mop? Have you gone chicken on me?”

  “I’m
trying, Daddy!” It was a tone of voice he had not heard from Milly since she was a little girl. Still, it didn’t shake his faith in his daughter.

  “Trying to chicken out? I don’t think you’re capable of that, Punkin.”

  “Don’t you Punkin me! You don’t know what I know and I can’t tell you!”

  “You talkin’ about the secret stuff? What’s that got to do with marrying Sam? Seems to me you need him, Punkin.”

  “I desperately need him, Daddy! Oh, please, don’t tell him that! Promise me you won’t even hint to him how I feel about him!”

  “Hmm,” Tony said. “Hmm.”

  “Daddy? Daddy, are you still there?”

  He was trying very hard not to chuckle. “So, what’s the problem, Punkin?”

  “I’m a mess! A terrible, stupid mess!”

  “Get out of there and let your mother clean you up. I gotta wheel you down the aisle real soon now.” He heard the door unlock, saw the knob turn and the door open a little. He waited while Milly maneuvered the wheelchair to get the clearance to open the door. She wheeled herself out. “There’s nothing wrong with how you look, Punkin! You’re absolutely beautiful!”

  “I’m a mess inside, Daddy.” She wiped her nose. “I’m so afraid I’ll make Sam miserable. And that’s a dangerous thing.”

  “I think you underestimate Sam. You’re both young, both still immature, but when do any of us mature, unless it’s too late? I think you underestimate yourself. You stick with Sam, he’ll stick with you. Through sickness and in health. I’m sure of it. I made him promise to take good care of you. He’s an honorable man.”

  “You’re sure, Daddy?”

  “Never been more sure of anything. Here, use my handkerchief. I’ll get another.”

  Tony went back to his bedroom to look for another handkerchief to put in his jacket next to the crooked carnation. Lucia came in a few minutes later to inspect his suit. She straightened the carnation and fixed the folds of the handkerchief so that it looked right.

  “Better get me a couple more hankies, Mamacita,” Tony said, chuckling sadly. “I’m going to cry like a baby.”