Shifty's War

by Marcus Brotherton

  We didn’t run the restaurant long. A couple of months maybe. We weren’t making much money, nothing to look to the future on anyway. So Bob decided to go into the coal mining business with his dad, and I decided to go back to the coal company. A machinist position opened up right about then, so we sold the restaurant and I moved back in with my mom and dad.

  It was good to be back. I hadn’t been sleeping real well upstairs in the restaurant, and I hoped I’d sleep better when I got back to my own room at home. I kept having these dreams, you know, these memories. Some of those thoughts were apt to drive a man crazy. One night, those dreams were circulating round my head, you know, so I got up and went out drinking. Real late I came home. My sister, Gaynell, was still up and I sloshed in and sat down in the living room, and she gave me a long, hard stare.

  “I’ve never been so drunk in all my life,” I said.

  She shook her head and said, “Darrell, you’re not drunk.” She must have been thinking of pictures she’d seen in a book or something about fellas who’re drunk, because my hair wasn’t disheveled, my clothes weren’t sloppy-looking, and I wasn’t staggering around. But I was most certainly drunk.

  “Sis, I don’t know if I can rightly get upstairs,” I said.

  A few minutes later, I guessed she believed me. The bathroom was at the end of the stairs, and I ran over and spilled everything I had inside of me up into the toilet. I got to studying that, leaning over the toilet as full of mess as it was, and it dawned on me that this wasn’t me, you know. I’d never done this sort of thing before I was in the service. I didn’t know why I was doing it now.

  Well, Gaynell was a real peach about the matter, because the next day she didn’t say anything when I told mother it was from some cashew nuts I ate. But other things kept aggravating me, pulling up devils I didn’t know were there. My youngest brother, Frankie, had joined the service, and one day he came home on leave. He and some of his buddies went out to a beer joint in this little town called The Pound. Frank was driving that night, and I guess they stopped somewhere and he stepped out of the car. Three guys came along, jumped Frankie, and knocked him out cold.

  My oldest brother, Barney, was married by then, and one of the guys ran over and found Barney and told him what happened. Barney got so mad. He came around and found me, and I pounded my fists together and looked around for a baseball bat. I was really seeing red. The two of us decided we were going to hunt down those boys and tear their hides off.

  Mother caught wind of it. I’ve never seen a sterner look on her face. She stepped between us and our car and held up her hand for us to stop. We were all feeling sorry for what happened to Frankie, she said, but none of her boys were going to get thrown into jail, and that’s what was going to happen if we carried out what we were planning to do.

  Barney and me stomped off somewhere and drank some whiskey, and I got to studying my actions. Mom was right. I’m not sure if I’d ever got that angry about things before the war. Sure, I got aggravated about things, but not devil-mad, like I’d just been. I didn’t know where that came from.

  Well, one year stretched into two, and two years stretched into three. In 1948 I was twenty-five years old and working at the mine. One day near the start of sports season, Pete and me volunteered to coach the high school basketball teams, just for fun. Pete was drinking quite a bit then, and could raise quite a fuss when he got that way, so we had drifted a bit in our friendship, but we were still close, you know. He’d been in the war as well, and that’s how some fellas chose to cope, I guess. Still, he could be mighty aggravating when he’d had too much to drink.

  Anyway, he was on a dry run for a while and things were okay, so Pete decided to coach the boys’ team with me coaching the girls. There was this one girl on the team, Dorothy was her name. Such a fine-sounding name. Dorothy. Now, she was a fine-looking young lady, just seventeen years old, a junior. I’d known her around town for years, but she’d always been a kid, you know. Still, I got to watching her run up and down the basketball court, and I thought to myself, Shifty, that girl’s all grown up.

  Well, I started winking at her, you know. And I started talking to her, you know, about more than just basketball stuff. I asked her out on a date, and we went to a movie. When it got good and dark in the theater, I kissed her. After the movie was over, we went out driving and parked up on the Ridge. That’s when I kissed her a lot more. She kissed me back, and I told her she was real pretty, the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, and that I liked her just fine. She said she’d had a crush on me ever since I got back from the service, that I was the most handsome young man she’d ever laid eyes on. Well, I didn’t know about all that, but I knew that whenever she was around and I was on the basketball court, maybe showing the girls how to do something, I got downright light on my legs in her presence. So I told her more words to that effect, you know.

  It was a short courtship. We only went together for nine months. It doesn’t take long for a man to know for sure if he knows for sure. With Dorothy, I knew. She was eighteen then and a senior, and I was twenty-six. One day we were out on a date and I said, “Let’s get married.” She said okay, so it was as simple as that. Dorothy was still in high school, but waiting didn’t make much sense. We didn’t talk about having a fancy church wedding. My brother Jimmy and his wife had a plan. My parents didn’t know. Her parents didn’t know. I guess you could say we eloped, because that’s what we did. Jimmy and his wife drove us over to this little town. We said the words and signed the papers, then came back. That night, our first night of being married, Dorothy slept back at her home, and I slept back at mine.

  That was October 8, 1949, when Dorothy and I got married. We didn’t plan to tell anybody until she graduated from high school. We were really in love, and it was hard to keep our getting hitched a secret for very long. People were real happy for us when they found out. Daddy shook my hand and said I had made a real wise choice. Mama made us a special supper. Everybody’s folks seemed okay with the arrangement, too, because we got our own place soon—right after Dorothy got out of school in the spring.

  That was such a happy time, but Daddy hadn’t been his usual self. He was walking slower, coughing more. Things like that. Well, I put Daddy’s health out of my mind for the time being and kept working at the mill. Things were slowing down there, too. Coal business can be like that. I was wondering how I was going to be the provider I needed to be when one day Dorothy looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and said she was in the family way.

  I was real happy then, and after she was sick a few times, the pregnancy seemed to go smooth. It was a good thing, too, because Daddy got real sick early that spring, and they took him over to the hospital for some kind of surgery on his gallbladder. Things went downhill real quick after that. It was March 1951, and Mom had been at the hospital all night. She went home for some rest, and I was at work, and that’s when the hospital called me. I rushed right over to the hospital, then I went home. To my parents’ home, I mean. Frankie and Gaynell were sitting in the living room playing double solitaire. I walked through the front door and Gaynell said, “I thought you were working.”

  “No,” I said. “Where’s Mother?” That was all I could say. I leaned my head against the wall and started sobbing.

  Daddy was real young, much too young to pass like that. He was only fifty-six.

  We held a nice funeral for him. We sang hymns and the preacher talked about the hope of a far better place, but I didn’t know what to do with myself. Daddy had always been there. Even during the war when I was so far away. Daddy had always been there for our family. Now he was gone.

  Less than two months later, on May 3, 1951, Dorothy started having pains real bad, and I sped her to the hospital. They whisked her right inside. I paced around in the waiting room, my hat in my hand, smoking Lucky Strikes by the fistful. That was the first time in a long while I remember asking God for something for myself. If I ever prayed, I don’t ever remember praying for myself. It mig
ht be more like saying grace at the supper table, or having a moment of silence when somebody died. But as I paced I was saying “Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, please don’t take Dorothy from me,” over and over again. I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to my wife. I just couldn’t bear it.

  Well, all those prayers and pains must have been for something good in the end, because that day our son popped out to say hello and decided to stay. He was red like a potato and scrunchy and fat when I held him, and Dorothy said it was okay if I named him Wayne after my good friend from Easy Company, Wayne Sisk. Skinny Sisk was a fine fella and had written me a letter to say that he’d gone and become a minister after the war like he promised God he would. I figured any son of mine would be doing well to follow his example. My son didn’t need to become a preacher, I wasn’t thinking that. Only that he become a man of character. And I knew Wayne could aspire to that.

  Dorothy and me and little Wayne went home and started adjusting to our new life together. The baby was doing well, and I was real proud of all the things he could do. I’d teach him how to throw a baseball soon. Take him out in the woods, you know, and tell him about listening in the forest. Life was real happy, but my work at the mine was getting slow, and I admit it put a lump in my throat, as men are prone to get, a short time after that when Dorothy looked at me again with that same twinkle in her eye. It was a happy lump, but I sure didn’t know how we were going to pay for things with her sitting on the nest again. That next July 8, 1952, Dorothy gave birth to our daughter, Margo. Our baby’s skin was perfect, as creamy as a peach, and, well, our little girl was about the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  About a year went by, and work still wasn’t picking up the way I needed it to. A friend from out in California wrote and said times were better out there. I got to studying that letter and knew that I couldn’t rightly take Dorothy and the babies out there with no job to go to, no place of our own. So maybe I could head out west and get things set up for my family. I’d call for them later, and they could join me then.

  Well, I started praying again, reminding God that I had fairly simple dreams. I didn’t know why they weren’t coming to pass like I wanted them to. When it came to life, I never dreamed of being someone who folks considered special, you know, someone who folks considered famous or rich or powerful. I was satisfied with who I was and with the direction I was going with my life, and I wanted to keep on being a machinist in the town of Clinchco with my family, the ones I loved the most. But that wasn’t meant to be.

  In early 1953, I kissed my wife and children good-bye and climbed aboard a train. I was leaving home again, you know. I hated that thought with all my being, but that’s what a man needed to do.

  15

  HOW A MAN WRESTLES WITH WAR

  Palm trees swayed in the breeze. The weather was more balmy than I’d felt in a long time. I pulled off the side of the road in the old Chevy I’d recently bought, turned off the ignition, strolled across a little bank into a grove, and helped myself to an orange from right off a tree. Pulling out my pocketknife, I cut the orange into sections and settled back onto the grass, chewing on a wedge. That orange was sun-warmed and sweet. Best-tasting orange I’d ever eaten. So this was California, I thought. Maybe not too bad.

  Along with the orange and the sun, I had a job. I hadn’t been out West for more than a week, and already I’d been picked up by a machinist company. They had a government contract, and it came with enough work to last quite a spell, they said. I slapped my knee at that thought and grinned. From out of my back pocket I pulled my billfold. Wasn’t any money in it except three old wrinkled one-dollar bills. It would need to do until I got my first paycheck. I ignored the money and pulled out a picture I’d been studying a lot lately. It showed me and Dorothy dressed up in our Sunday best clothes. We were lounging beside my car by the side of the road in Clinchco. I had my arms around her and we were kissing. Boy, how I loved that picture. I pulled out two more snapshots, of little Wayne and Margo. I wanted to be with my family. I wanted to forget what I’d been through, and get on with living the rest of my life.

  Two weeks passed and I got paid. I sped back to Virginia, loaded up some suitcases and a chair, then Dorothy and me and the kids headed to our new home in Van Nuys. Dorothy settled in and made the best of it, but she remarked more than once how strange it felt living in this faraway place. I knew what she meant. Cars whizzed past, anywhere you went in California. Folks were friendly, but they came in crowds. It took an hour to drive anywhere, and when you did, you needed to study a map. Dorothy found work part-time in an auto parts store to help ends meet, but she confessed to me she didn’t like California much. I agreed with my wife. I surely did.

  We figured we’d make the best of it. A year passed, and then another, and then another, and then another. We moved to North Hollywood and bought a little house. Sure, we had some good times. One morning, little Wayne and Margo hid in the backseat of my Chevrolet. When I arrived at work for my shift, they popped out from under a blanket with a cheer. Well, I was sure tickled to see them, even though it meant I needed to drive back home. Still, we all chuckled about that for a long while. Most days when I got home from work, I’d throw a baseball around with little Wayne. He was getting real good, young as he was. And Margo would come running to greet me, toddling and squealing. I called her “Marjo” and sometimes “Sissybug.” Every once in a while for fun I’d hide a fake fuzzy spider in her bed. She always laughed with a sweet roar. We wanted our kids to remember where they came from, so each year we drove our old Chevy back to Clinchco for a visit. We stopped at motels at night, ate picnic lunches by the side of the road.

  One night in North Hollywood Dorothy and me sat looking at each other from across the kitchen table. The kids were long tucked in bed, and I wondered if Dorothy was happy, you know, truly at ease with the life we were leading. It’s hard to put that question into words, but I think she was thinking what I was thinking because she looked at me, real straight across the table, and said, “It’s all too fast here, isn’t it.”

  I nodded. We went to bed that night, and that’s about all we said about the matter. But the next morning when I got to work, the company foreman told us they’d lost the government contract and we were all laid off. I finished the shift, motored home on the new interstate highway, and told Dorothy the news. Getting laid off aggravated us at first, and we fussed about how we were going to pay our mortgage. But then we got to grinning. We stuck up a “For Sale” sign, sold that house in a jiffy, and hightailed it back to where we belonged.

  My, it was good, driving back into Clinchco. It was 1957, and oak trees greeted us, their leaves all out in fiery glory. Hickory. Beech. Sycamores. The air felt crisp and clean. A squirrel darted in front of our car and I swerved and screeched on the brakes. He got away fine, and I noticed he was chasing another squirrel all playful up the side of a holler. We were back home, and I slapped my knee for sheer joy. This is where I wanted to spend the rest of our days.

  Folks around Clinchco were right friendly welcoming us back. “Where you been?” they asked, and joked, “Hey—stay awhile this time.” Jobs were picking up again, and other folks were moving back, too. A machinist job opened up for me at the coal company, and I thought it looked to be an outstanding job. I already knew plenty of the fellas over there. Everybody had nicknames—Shotgun and Red and Pee Wee and Bowtie. Plenty of guys, you didn’t even know their real names. I was more or less my own boss in the shop and able to do whatever I wanted, within reason. The coal company gave us good insurance. I didn’t want to be any other place for the next long stretch of time.

  My job was at a place called the Moss Number 3 Mine. It was actually in the town of Duty, about twenty-five miles away from where we lived, so I had a bit of a commute each morning and evening. I’d go to work about 6 A.M. Get home about 5 P.M. I worked a lot of overtime, too, to keep extra money coming in for the family. I liked the job just fine. About the only thing strange about
my job was that every day as I was driving to work, this funny little kid who lived down the road from the Duty coal mine ran out and threw rocks at my car. Her name was Sandy. She was about six years old. I never did know why she chucked rocks at me. I reckoned she was the sassy type who threw rocks at all the passing cars. So that was that. I didn’t know then that we’d get to know her a lot better one day.

  Dorothy got a job as secretary at the school we’d gone to, and she was happy there. A little while passed, and the kids got to be in school, so Dorothy was able to be around them during the days. Dorothy’s mother moved in with us, and that was fine. Truly, I didn’t mind having more family in the house. My brother Frankie came to live with us for a spell, then went back into the Navy. We were all real happy, and we settled in to the life we’d always wanted to lead.

  I guessed Dorothy and me made a fine young couple around town. We became active in school programs and community events. In my off hours I fished. Trout fishing in a stream was my favorite. I had two fishing buddies, Pete, and another guy named Claude King. Everybody called him Pee Wee, but I don’t know why. Each year, I’d take my family on a big fishing trip. The state held opening days around the end of March, and we’d go out to Whitetop to camp for the weekend and trout fish. I still hunted. Mostly I liked target practice. Oh sure, I’d hunt squirrels, rabbits, birds, but never deer or big game. I got to enjoy fixing things around the house and yard. Lawnmowers. Washing machines. Shoot—sometimes I’d fix a washing machine with a lawnmower part. That set Dorothy to chuckling. Every spring I planted a big garden and tended it all summer. We’d eat real well off that. Tomatoes, corn, beans, peas. Whatever would grow. A couple years I even planted some tobacco. I figured out how to can vegetables, too, because I figured that might come in handy. So I’d can beans by the quartful. Late each summer, my sister-in-law and me would compete to see who could get the most quarts of beans canned. My record was twenty-four quarts. It was real fun.