by Sandra Kring
“He sure always was, ma’am,” I say. “But Jimmy ain’t there no more. He wrote around Halloween time, and that letter come clear from San Francisco. That’s way across the country, Mrs. McCarty, ’case you don’t know that. Jimmy and Floyd and the rest of them guys, they were at some ‘deplortment’ place they called it, where they got shots so they don’t get the tetanus, ’cause they was getting shipped overseas—that means they had to go across the ocean.”
“I hate shots, Earlwig,” Eddie says, and I tell him I know that already.
Eddie’s ma is shoving Eddie’s feet into his boots, and she is grunting real hard. “Straighten your toes and push, Eddie.” Then she says to me, “Where overseas, Earl?”
“Well, they taked a ship over to this place called Manila. Just like vanilla, but with a mmm sound. They got there on Thanksgiving Day, Jimmy thought it was. Then from there, they taked a train to Clark Field, I think it’s called, in the Philippines. You know where that is, Mrs. McCarty?”
“Well, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know exactly where it is,” Eddie’s ma says as she hangs on to the wall so she can hoist herself up, then grabs Eddie’s hand and pulls him up. He’s so fat with clothes he can’t hardly move.
“Well, Dad showed me where it is on this map he’s got in a book. You can’t even see it good on there, though. Those islands look like little dots, but Dad says if you could see that place better, it would look like a thumb pointing into the water. They got palm trees there, Jimmy said in his letter. You ever see a palm tree before, Mrs. McCarty? Dad showed me in a picture. Craziest-looking trees I ever see’d. Anyway, Jimmy says it’s nice there. It’s hot, but it’s real nice there, Jimmy says.”
“You must miss your brother very much,” Mrs. McCarty says.
“I sure do, ma’am, but it don’t hurt like a toothache in my guts all the time no more, making me so sick I can’t eat. Now it’s more like when you got a bruise, how it don’t hurt all the time, just when you bump it. Sometimes I still think I hear Jimmy’s car, or I forget he ain’t in his room and go to tell him something.” Mrs. McCarty looks like she’s gonna cry for a second.
“Louie is gone now too, and so is John. They’re my friends. Louie signed up for the Navy right after Jimmy and Floyd left. I’d rather fly on an airplane, but Louie, he likes ships best. He’s done now with that training stuff and he’s on a boat in a place called Hawaii. John was gonna wait to get drafted, but then he, he”—I know I can’t say that John was shit-canned at the factory, so I gotta stop a minute and think—“he didn’t have a job no more, so he thought he might as well join up with the army instead of doing nothing but waiting around to get drafted. He’s at Camp McCoy now. That’s right here in Wisconsin.”
Eddie’s ma is shutting the closet door. I don’t think she’s listening no more, ’cause all she says is, “That’s nice,” when what’s nice about having all your friends gone ’cept Eddie?
Eddie’s ma holds the door open. I take Eddie’s arm and give him a tug down the steps. She reminds us not to stay out too long and tells me to be sure and walk Eddie home when we’re done playing.
Me and Eddie go to the woods off Circle Road and we find sticks long enough to be rifles. Then we start looking for swish marks in the snow, the ones that look like a feather was dragged across it, ’cause them would be rabbit tracks. When we hunt, we bring our hound with us. Eddie named our dog Spot, like in his reading book. Spot ain’t no real dog, just a play dog, but just like Scout, he’s one smart dog.
We don’t see no real rabbits today, so we shoot at the rabbits we don’t see, and Spot races to fetch ’em. He brings ’em back, and they flop, all dead, from his mouth. “Good boy, good boy!” we tell Spot, and we scratch him behind the ear.
When I get tired of hunting rabbits, I start to thinking about how maybe we should hunt Japs. I think I see one of them slant-eyed bastards behind a tree, so I yell out, “Japs!” I run real fast and dive behind a falled-over tree.
Eddie starts to screaming. “Where? Where?”
“Right there! Behind that clump of sumac! Watch it, there’s some in those red pines too! Get down, Eddie! Get down!”
I prop my rifle up on that rotted tree and I shoot, “Pow! Pow! Pow!” I’m powing all over them goddamn trees, but Eddie, he’s just standing there scared as shit. He drops his rifle and covers his eyes with his mittens. “Earlwig!” he screams.
I get up and run to Eddie, quick, before he pisses his pants. First I try to tell him that they ain’t for-real Japs I’m shooting at, but play Japs, but Eddie, he’s so busy screaming he can’t hear me. I figure the only way to make those Japs be gone so Eddie stops screaming is to shoot all those bastards dead. I pick up his rifle and shove it back into his mittens. “There, Eddie. Behind the palm trees. Shoot, quick, before they kill us dead! Open your goddamn eyes, Eddie, so you can see ’em!”
Eddie opens his eyes and his eyeballs bounce all over inside them sockets. Then he grins a bit, like he finally gets it that them Japs is just play Japs, and he starts making his rifle pow too. When we is done, them dead Japs are laying all over and Spot is trying to fetch ’em. I shout to Spot to leave ’em there, ’cause what in the hell we gonna do with dead Japs anyway?
We play ’til Eddie’s nose is running snot and he’s whining ’cause he’s cold, then I walk him home, just like I’m suppose to. “Earlwig, is Jimmy fighting Japs?”
“Dad says Jimmy ain’t doing nothing but holding down the fort over there in that Pacific. But it ain’t a real fort, not like Daniel Boone was in, anyway. It’s what’s called an army base. Him and Floyd and the rest of them Janesville ninety-nine, they is holding down that place, along with some Filipino guys, Dad says.”
“Well, it’s good he ain’t fighting Japs, because he could get kilt if he was.”
“He wouldn’t get killed, Eddie,” I say. “Jimmy’s the best shot there is. He’d kill any Jap that even peeked at him cross-eyed from behind one of them crazy trees. He’d shoot before that Jap even had time to fart.” Eddie laughs when I say “fart.”
Mrs. McCarty opens the door before we even get up the steps. Her hand is wrapped around her neck and she looks all shook up. She guides Eddie by the back of his head into the house and tells me I’d better hurry on home. Something about the way she says it makes me feel scared in my stomach, so I run all the way, my breath coming in gray puffs like diesel-engine smoke.
When I get home, the whole store is filled up with ladies even though it’s Sunday and the store ain’t even suppose to be open. I hear men talking in the house part too. Ma is carrying a tray of coffee cups from the kitchen and Ethel Larson hurries to help her ’cause them cups are rattling on that tray. Edna Pritchard is there, and Betty Flannery, and even Eva Leigh, with that slobbery baby on her poked-out hip. Them ladies got teary-red eyes. The radio is on, but they are making so much racket, I can’t tell what’s on. First I think it must be that show them ladies listen to, Backstage Wife, and maybe they is upset ’cause that Mary Noble died or something.
When they are quiet long enough to hear anything, there ain’t nothing on that radio but the Philharmonic Orchestra, and even though I don’t like that program either, I know damn well that music ain’t enough to make somebody cry.
I go over by Eva Leigh, figuring she’d be the most likely to tell me what’s going on and ’cause she’s standing the farthest away from Mrs. Pritchard. Eva Leigh is rocking side to side like she’s trying to shut up her baby, but he ain’t even fussing. He’s just biting on his fist and making more slobber. “The Japanese—” She don’t even get her words out, when suddenly all them ladies are going “Shhh, shhh!” and waving their hands at each other.
They make so much racket saying “Shhhhh” that it takes a minute before we can hear the radio announcer say what we were suppose to shush for. “Hank!” Ma calls, and Daddy, Ben Olson, Charles Flannery, and Delbert Larson come into the store. That radio is all staticky when them news reporters are talking from faraway places, bu
t still I make out enough words to hear ’em say that them Japs, they attacked a place called Pearl Harbor from the air, which means they flew over like Captain Midnight and dropped a shitload of bombs.
I lean down to Eva Leigh and ask her where Pearl Harbor is, ’cause I ain’t never heard of that place before and I hope to hell it ain’t in that Pacific where Jimmy is. Eva is busy looking across the store, where I notice that Louie’s ma, Louise Olson, is sitting on the stool Ma keeps in the store for when her legs get tired. Louise Olson is crying, and Ma is rubbing her back a bit with one hand and dabbing at her worried eyes with the other.
“I didn’t know either, until your ma told me. It’s in Hawaii,” Eva finally answers.
“Where Louie is?”
Eva is rocking so hard she’s bumping against me, but she don’t notice. “Yes,” she says, and her voice ain’t hardly more than a whisper.
That reporter, he says that the bombing in Pearl Harbor, it’s been going on pert’ near two hours. Louise Olson lets out a little cry. Then that news guy says he’s got to get off the air so that goddamn orchestra can play some more, but he don’t say “goddamn.”
Dad slams his fist down on the counter. “We’re getting attacked, for crissakes. You’d think those goddamn advertisers could give up enough airtime to let us find out what in the hell’s going on.”
My legs don’t feel like they are there anymore, and my insides are so jumpity that I’m scared I’m gonna start slapping my head. I don’t even see Dad come up to me. He don’t say nothing, he just puts his arm across my shoulder, and his arm holds that fear down a little bit.
The radio starts playing music again, and everybody is talking. Daddy leaves me and joins the guys. They are cussing about the Japs, who they say was talking out of their asses when they was talking peace to Washington.
Ma takes Louise Olson’s arm and says to her, “Why don’t we go in the living room, Louise.” Mrs. Olson, she gets up like she’s got so many heavy rocks in her pockets she can’t hardly move herself. Ma leads Mrs. Olson to the doorway, them other ladies following like ducks.
All afternoon this goes on, people coming in and out of the store, everybody waiting for them news guys to break in to the shows and tell us what’s going on.
Later, a news guy comes on again. The radio is so goddamn staticky that I don’t think Dad can hear, even though he’s bent over with his ear practically stuck on the speaker. Dad hears enough to know that the news guy is talking about the Philippines now. He don’t get to hear much, though, ’cause some lady from the telephone office, she cuts in and says the reporter’s gotta get off ’cause the line is needed. Dad slams his fist on the radio and cusses. “Hank?” Ma calls. Her and them ladies are back in the store again. “What did they say about the Philippines?” Ma sounds real scared and I hope she don’t forget to hang on to Louise Olson, ’cause she’s looking real tippy.
“Sounds like the Japs have hit there too,” Dad says. “He didn’t get to finish the report. The operator cut him off.”
“She cut him off?”
“Well, it’s wartime controls, Eileen. They don’t want the enemy knowing what’s going on, plus, the military needs those phone lines now.” Dad rubs his belly, then strings his thick thumbs though his belt loops.
And that’s how it goes all day. Ladies and men coming and going, dirtying up so many coffee cups that I gotta keep washing ’em. Everybody talking about how we is at war now, then shutting up when a news reporter comes back on.
I don’t know where to go, ’cause I don’t wanna see the ladies cry no more, and I don’t wanna listen to the men talk about war. So I go up to my room and I sit on my bed, and I think of how I shoulda gone to church so God wouldn’t be pissed off, ’cause now He sure as hell ain’t gonna listen to me if I ask Him to do me a favor. I scooch up against the headboard, even if I still got my boots on, and I wrap my arms around my legs. I feel all cold, inside and out, so I pull them covers up over me and I think about how I don’t want Jimmy and Floyd and Louie to be bloody-dead.
When Ma says she’s going to church to pray for them boys ’cause Preacher Michaels is holding a special prayer service, me and Dad say we’ll go too. And we do, even if that means getting on our Sunday clothes and slapping down our hair. I pray real hard, telling God how sorry I am I went hunting rabbits and Japs instead of going to church, but even if I did, could He please still make sure Jimmy and Floyd and Louie ain’t dead?
The next day, Dad goes to the station and Ma opens the store, and people come in to both places, but nobody buys any food or asks to get their car fixed. Instead, they crowd by the radio waiting for somebody to say what’s going on in Pearl Harbor. Most of ’em don’t ask nothing about the Philippines, like they don’t even know it was bombed too, but when Ma or Dad says Jimmy and Floyd are there, they start to worrying about what’s going on there too.
I mop the kitchen floor, even though Ma don’t tell me to, and I keep myself busy ’cause I don’t know what else to do.
That night, President Roosevelt comes on to give one of his Fireside Chats. Dad sits in his butt-dented chair, and Ma sits on the edge of hers, and she’s got a dish towel in her hands that she’s tugging and twisting so hard that, if it was made of paper, it would be all shredded up on the floor.
I don’t understand all of what the President says, but best I can tell, he’s saying that we tried hard to be friends with them Japs, but nothing much worked. He starts talking about them places in Europe and how the Nazis are attacking countries all over and without warning them first. This don’t surprise me none. You’d have to be pretty goddamn dumb to tell somebody that you was gonna wail on ’em before you did it, and I ain’t sure even a Jap or that Nazi bastard is that stupid.
Roosevelt, he talks about us being at war now, and how we all gotta be in it together. I hope to hell he don’t mean me. Then he starts talking about that bombing in Pearl Harbor. Even he, the President of the United States, don’t know how bad they got bombed there, imagine that, but he says that it’s gonna be bad, he thinks. And he’s talking about how it’s gonna be a long, hard war, and how we gotta make more weapons for it. “It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army or the Navy of the United States. Rather it is a privilege,” the President says, and Ma grunts and says, “Privilege!” and she sounds real pissed off at Roosevelt. Dad tells her to hush and he turns the radio up louder.
I don’t listen to all of what the President is saying, ’cause I get busy wondering if he’s sitting in his wheelchair as he’s talking or if they got him propped up by that fireplace. And I get to thinking about how maybe, if people let a cripple man be President, three whole times, then maybe they’d let a dumb person be President at least once. I ask Dad about this, soon as Roosevelt says we is gonna win this war and stops talking. Dad says, “Well, Wilson was no genius, but I guess you wouldn’t exactly call him simpleminded. Course, the way this world is going to shit, I don’t doubt that one of these years, we’ll have a downright idiot for a President.” Ma gets pissed at me and Dad for talking about this. “Our Jimmy is in trouble and this is all you two can think about?” she says, and then I feel kinda bad.
Days go by, and still we don’t hear if Jimmy’s alive or dead. We listen to Gabriel Heater’s war reports every night. He’s got the best voice I ever did hear on the radio. He tells where the army is, and which buncha guys is getting shipped where, but he don’t say no guys’ names, so we don’t know nothing about Jimmy, or Floyd, or Louie.
It takes a long time, but one day, while me and Ma is pricing bottles of Epsom salts and I’m putting them on the shelf, label side out, the mailman stops in to hand Ma the mail. He’s got his fist full of letters and he’s sorting through ’em looking for ours as he’s talking to Ma about how cold it is. Ma sees a Western Union letter poked out from the heap in his hand, and she sees them two stars in the corner that lets the mailman know that he’s bringing bad news to somebody. Ma makes a god-awful noise and she grabs
on to the counter. “No, no, Mrs. Gunderman. This telegram isn’t for you. Look, see, just the usual mail for you.” Ma gulps hard and my stomach floats back down to where it should be. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gunderman. I shouldn’t have let you see that telegram.” Then Ma asks him if that telegram is gonna go to Louie’s folks or Floyd’s Dad, and he says he can’t say.
Mrs. Pritchard don’t waste no time waddling into the store, big snowflakes dropping off the back of her ass onto the scrubbed-clean floor. “I just come by Louise Olson’s place,” she tells Ma, and she shakes her head real sad-like, so we know that telegram was about Louie. I hear everything she says, at least my ears do, but my heart, it don’t hear a goddamn thing.
Ma gets so upset as the day passes that she starts screaming at Dad, right at the supper table, where we ain’t suppose to yell. “I told you we should have gotten Jimmy out of the National Guard. He was drunk, for godssakes. He didn’t know what he was doing. My God!”
“It’s water under the bridge now that war’s been declared. It won’t be long and all our boys will be called up to fight.”
“You’re right about that, Hank! One by one, they’ll take them, just like before. And you know as well as I do just how many of them will die, buried where they fall, no mother to cry over their grave.”
Ma don’t ever cuss, but she cusses now. “You goddamn men and your war! You’re all the same. Just itching to go fight. To fight for what? To save the goddamn world like last time? Do any of you even give a damn that you take away our sons, our husbands, our brothers? Damn you all!” Ma runs into the bedroom and slams the door. Dad stops eating, his fork and knife just hanging there in the air. “They are our sons and brothers too,” he says, but Ma don’t hear him, ’cause her bedroom door is shut, and he ain’t said it with more than a whisper anyway.
