Carry Me Home

by Sandra Kring

  I think about what Ma says when I’m laying in bed. I don’t think nobody gets to be the boss of a country unless he’s a man, and I know that men like to kick ass. I get to wondering then about how things might be if ladies was the boss of countries, instead of men. I think maybe there wouldn’t be no wars then. I think if any guys even got the notion to shoot somebody’s head off or toss a grenade in somebody else’s yard, a lady president would yell her fool head off and make them work twice as hard until they learned their lesson.

  Chapter 7

  Louie’s body ain’t coming home, on account of it’s stuck inside that ship that is sunk to the bottom of the ocean, all blowed to shit. So there ain’t no casket at Louie’s funeral, just a picture of Louie in his Navy uniform, propped up at the front of the church, right alongside of a flag folded up like a napkin, and the letter saying Louie is dead, signed by the President himself. I think of how it’s a damn shame you gotta get killed by the Japs before the President writes you a letter, ’cause Dad sure would like a letter signed by President Roosevelt. All around that picture and letter and flag, there is flowers. So many flowers that the whole church stinks like perfume.

  I feel real sad when I see Louie’s ma and dad sitting up at the front of the church, her shoulders moving like they is panting, and his all drooped down like they was hit by a bomb too.

  Preacher Michaels, he starts talking about God’s love and something called mercy, but I don’t pay much mind to that ’cause I can’t make heads or tails outta what he’s saying anyway. I just look around and think about how it ain’t right that Jimmy and Floyd and John ain’t here, and I think of how the kid next to me should stop picking his nose in church.

  I feel sad to start with, but when this girl stands up and starts singing “Amazing Grace” in a voice as pretty as an angel’s, then that sad grows so big and runs so deep in my guts that I start to crying. I think of how Louie won’t be going sucker fishing with us no more, and how I ain’t never gonna get to open him another Schlitz. I think about how scared Louie was when Floyd shot him in the head, and I think about how much more scared he musta been when it was big-ass bombs aiming at his head, not just a little spray of bird shot.

  Before I know it, I’m slapping the sides of my head just like there is blood right in front of my eyes. I am making so much racket that Dad takes me outside. Dad don’t get all frazzly and harpy at me like Ma does when I do this. He just takes my hands away from my stinging face and holds ’em and says, “It’ll be okay, Earl. It’ll be okay.” Then it’s like I’m a popped tire and I’m done hitting my head and I’m leaning on Dad and crying and I don’t even care if I look like a titsy baby.

  Dad leads me down to the church basement for sandwiches and pickles and cake when I’m done with my fit. Mrs. Pritchard’s fat ass is the first thing I see when we get down there. That chair don’t look no bigger than a teacup under that ass.

  It’s noisy with so many people talking and little kids playing tag around the tables, even though their mas are yanking their arms and telling ’em to settle down. The men are talking about when Spring Lake is gonna freeze over enough to ice fish, and the ladies are talking about if there is enough coffee, or if they should make some more. None of ’em are talking about Louie, and I wonder if they forgot that that’s why we come here, to talk about Louie and say good-bye to him. Ain’t nobody, it seems, who remembers why we is here except maybe Molly and Mary, who is sitting together holding hands and sniffling into their hankies. I know I forget things sometimes, so I get to thinking maybe even smart people forget things sometimes too, so I decide to help ’em remember. I stand up, and I shout real loud, “Louie’s dead!”

  Everything in the room gets dead quiet. I can see they ain’t remembering nothing, ’cause they look all dazed, like they got clobbered over the head or something, so I say, “He got shot up by the Japs, and now he’s stuck in the ocean, so we come here to say good-bye to him.” Nobody moves. Everybody just sits there all frozed up like their bodies and even their eyelids got the polio. Everybody ’cept Ma, that is. She comes running across the room so fast her skirt is flapping, and she tugs me down to my chair and says, “Earl, what on earth has come over you?” Then she calls to Dad and I gotta go outside again, even though I ain’t slapping my head.

  That night Dad comes into my room. He looks as tired and old as a grandpa. “You all right, Earl?” he asks. I shrug ’cause I know I’m suppose to say yes, but I don’t wanna say yes ’cause that would be a lie, and I’m thinking I got God pissed off at me enough already.

  Dad sits on my bed and he pats my leg that’s lumped up under the covers.

  “Dad, is Louie in heaven?”

  “Well, Earl, I’m not much of a religious man, but I guess at times like this we all get a bit more religious, don’t we?”

  “Is Louie in heaven?” I ask again, ’cause he ain’t answered me the first time.

  “Well, son, the Bible says if we love Jesus and live a good life, then yes, we go to heaven after we die.”

  “Are you living a good life if you drink Schlitz and go chasing girls with big titties in Janesville, and if you cuss a little bit?” Dad drops his head and smiles some and the chubby red skin under his chin poofs out.

  “Louie was a good boy, Earl,” he says, and I sure am glad to hear Dad say that.

  “Dad, you worried about Jimmy?” I ask.

  “Course I am,” he says.

  “I’m worried too. Jimmy’s the best brother I ever had.”

  Dad smiles again, and it might just be he got something in his eye, since Dad don’t cry, but he blinks hard like his eyes are stinging him some. He gives my leg a quick squeeze and tells me to try to get some sleep.

  After Dad leaves, I lay there and listen to the quiet. Jimmy’s room is right next to mine, and when he was home, I never heard nothing coming from that room at night ’cause Jimmy don’t snore and his bed don’t creak. Still, there was something that come from that room that let me know he was there, even if it wasn’t a noise. For months now, though, that room stays empty-quiet inside at night, and that makes me feel all empty-quiet inside too.

  Dad told me to get some sleep, but I can’t ’cause my head’s wondering about some things. I’m a-wondering if there’s anybody in that heaven place at all besides that Jesus guy. Seems to me there can’t be, ’cause even when we try to be good, we do bad things sometimes. Things like axing fat ladies’ legs, or drinking Schlitz, or shooting our friend in the head. Preacher Michaels says we is all sinners, so if we’re all a bunch of sinners, how’s a damn one of us gonna get let in to heaven?

  Betty Flannery, who teaches our Sunday school, calls God our “Heavenly Father” and says He loves us more than any dad in the whole world. I’m trying to sleep like I’m suppose to, but I just keep on thinking. Ma says Dad cusses like a sailor, and even though I don’t know how much a sailor cusses, I know Dad cusses a lot. He don’t pick up after hisself either, and sometimes, when somebody pays him cash for fixing their car, he don’t jot it down in that book so he knows how much he’s gotta pay the government. He just slips that money into his pocket, even though that’s being a cheater. Dad ain’t perfect. That’s what Ma says, and I guess she’s right. Still, sinner, cusser, and cheater of the government that he is sometimes, I know one thing for sure—I know that Dad would never get so pissed off at me or Jimmy that he’d lock us out of his house. And he’d never, ever, let some mean red guy poke us in the ass with a pitchfork and drag us into the basement and stuff us into the woodstove to burn for that eternity, which is a long, long time. If Dad can be that good of a dad, and he ain’t perfect, then I wonder how in the hell God, who is suppose to be perfect and the best dad in the whole world, can do those things. So before I go to bed, I ask God to please be as good of a dad to Louie as my dad is to Jimmy and me.

  Chapter 8

  This Christmas is like any other Christmas, yet it ain’t.

  Dad says maybe we should go to church with Ma on Christmas Ev
e, so we go. Afterward, Ma straps an apron around her waist and starts making pies for Christmas dinner. I ask her if I can help and she tells me I can. Ma don’t let me roll the pie crust, ’cause she says if it’s fussed with too much it gets tough, and she don’t let me cut up apples, ’cause I scare her when I wave knives around, so I just sit at the table and wait for her to tell me what I can do. She lets me open the cans of pumpkin, then she spoons the squished pumpkin into a bowl. She adds them spices that smell real good, and then she cracks the eggs and dumps ’em and the brown sugar into the bowl. After she pours the canned milk in, she tells me to stir it up real good. I stab at the eggs ’til the yolks bust, then circle my spoon around, going faster and faster like the propeller on an airplane. I’m Captain Midnight’s plane, taking him off across the ocean to fight evil. “Nrrrrrrrrrrr.”

  I don’t mean for pumpkin to slop up on my shirt and on the table, but it happens. “Good grief, Earl.” Ma takes the spoon away from me and tells me to go sit with Dad.

  Dad’s in the living room and it’s empty on Christmas Eve without Christmas songs, but Ma said she don’t want any this year. I ask Dad if we can put music on anyway. I remind him that Ma didn’t want a Christmas tree either, but he brought one home all the same, so why can’t we play Christmas music anyway? Dad says no.

  Dad is drinking coffee and munching on a cookie shaped like a bell and I go off into the kitchen to get me one. When I come back, Dad is watching me eat my cookie. Even when my cookie’s gone, he is still watching me. He stares at me for a time, then he gets up and yells to Ma that he’s goin’ out for a bit. Ma pokes her head out of the kitchen. “Where on earth do you need to go on Christmas Eve?” Dad don’t tell her, he just says he’s got something to do.

  By the time Dad comes back, the kitchen is filled with the smell of pies, but Ma says we can’t have any ’til tomorrow. Dad is grinning when he gets back. He jokes with me about Santa coming and I gotta remind him that I’m big enough now to know that Santa ain’t nobody but somebody’s fat uncle wearing a cotton beard.

  In the morning, we open presents. Ma gets a new Toastmaster toaster and holds it up and smiles into the shiny chrome. Me and Dad get new winter boots and Dad says that’s a good thing, ’cause with the war on now, soon we won’t be getting anything new.

  Ma starts picking up the ripped wrapping paper, but she stops when Dad says he thinks he forgot to bring over another present for me that he stashed at the garage in case I went snooping around the house. “Hank, what are you talking about?” Dad don’t answer, he just tells me to get on my coat and new boots while he goes to start the car, and I can go with him to fetch the present.

  It’s cold and snowy and I shiver as I stand outside the garage waiting for Dad to unlock the door. “Well, let’s just see what else Santa brought you,” he says as he shoves the door open. The floor of the garage where the cars get fixed is concrete, and so is the floor in the paying part where the counter and cash register are. That painted concrete is scuffed and muddy already, so we don’t ever have to stomp the snow off our shoes when we go inside.

  Dad ain’t even shut the door behind us yet when I hear something whining and scratching. Dad points to a box tucked under his messy desk, and I see a little black nose peeking over the top of the box. I look at Dad, ’cause I can’t figure out why in the hell there’s a puppy stuck in a box in his garage.

  “Merry Christmas, Earl,” Dad says, and he’s smiling.

  I run to the box and there that puppy is, shuffling around inside. A work shirt with squished puppy turds stuck to it is bunched up in the corner. The puppy ain’t a kind I ever see’d before. He’s got white and gray fur that looks like the bristles on Ma’s scrub brush, and he’s got one pokey-up ear and one droopy-down ear. He’s got a puny tail and legs that look like someone chopped ’em off at the knees, and there is some gunk stuck in the corners of his eyes. I pick him up. He’s about the damn cutest thing I ever did see. Even cuter than Scout or Spot. He squirms in my arms, making puppy grunts, and he licks my face and my hands and just about anything else he can stick his tongue to.

  “He’s the best dog in the world, Dad!” I say as I go dancing around the garage, not exactly doing the jitterbug, but something kinda like it.

  “I’m glad you like him, Earl. He was the last pup Mrs. Lark had left.”

  On the way home, that puppy stays right on my lap. When I start scratching him good, he rolls over on his back and I can see he’s got a little pecker, so I know he’s a boy for sure. “I’m gonna name him Lucky,” I tell Dad, hoping he don’t know that I’m naming him after somebody he thinks is a Nazi bastard. I pick Lucky up and hold him to my nose. He smells good, even his paws. I poke him up by Dad’s nose and tell him to take a sniff.

  “Oh, Hank, how could you?” Ma says when I walk in with Lucky. She starts harping about how we’re gonna be stepping in puddles now, and how we don’t need a dog to feed. Dad lets her yammer on a bit, then he says real slow, “Crissakes, Eileen. The boy needs something to hold on to right now, don’t he?” and she shuts up.

  That night when I go to bed, I don’t leave Lucky in his box like I’m suppose to, ’cause when I try, he starts to crying. So I tuck him under the covers, and he curls up against my armpit, making me all toasty warm, and he goes right off to sleep. I think of the box Ma shipped off to the Red Cross, even though she don’t know if Jimmy will get it. In that box she put razors and socks, candy bars, a fruitcake, and cigarettes. I sure do wish that box coulda had something extra good in it, like a puppy.

  Chapter 9

  I pedal my bike to the garage and Lucky follows. He’s growed a lot, but his legs ain’t, so I don’t pedal too fast or else the rope I got him tied to is gonna drag him, scuffing his belly on the sidewalk. I got Dad’s ham sandwich and a piece of pie in my basket.

  The front door of the Skelly is open even though it ain’t even sucker-fishing time yet, ’cause on the first warm-enough day of the season, Dad opens the doors to let the gas and oil stink get out. Lucky and I go inside and I put Dad’s lunch on the counter. I hear Dad in the garage part. I’m gonna go in there soon as I get my shoe tied, which ain’t gonna be real quick ’cause Lucky’s biting my hair.

  “Ed, our boys are getting crushed over there. But what do you expect, outdated rifles, goddamn lightweight M-3 Stuart tanks from World War One . . . Crissakes, Ed, those tanks are riveted. Can you believe it? Riveted. You know what’s got to be happening to them when they’re hit? Those goddamn panels have got to be buckling and dropping like playing cards.” Ed is Floyd’s dad. Ed Fryer.

  “Shit, Hank. Least they could have done is welded them. Lightweight or not, they’d have a chance of holding together if they were welded.” Floyd’s dad talks soft, probably ’cause he ain’t got much wind on accounta he’s skinny as a piece of straw. Hearing that Jimmy and Floyd are in trouble is enough to make my guts feel sick.

  “Shit, I don’t even know if it would make a difference at this point. Those boys weren’t trained for this kind of combat, and crissakes, the Japs got control of the water and the air now. We can’t even get supplies in. What in the hell was MacArthur thinking, running those boys down into the peninsula without supplies enough to last until reinforcements could get in? Our planes are all blown to shit, and our boys are starving and sick. That son of a bitch sent our boys to fight to the death, while he holed himself up in some tunnel in Corregidor. Coward bastard.”

  “They’ll be better off now with Wainwright, Hank,” Floyd’s dad says.

  “You’re goddamn right about that.”

  Dad and Mr. Fryer get quiet.

  “I’m even scared to go to the mailbox these days,” Floyd’s dad says, and them words sound like metal scraping on metal when they come out. “That boy is all I have left.”

  “It’s rough, Ed. I lost a brother in World War One, and now I got my boy in war too. Course, I don’t like to show how worried I am. Not around Eileen and Earl anyway, but I’m worried, Ed. I’m plenty worried.
My guts have been giving me trouble ever since their base was hit, so I know how you feel.”

  Lucky’s teeth, sharp as sewing needles, bite into my ankle and I let out a yelp. I hear Dad cuss, then him and Mr. Fryer come into the paying part. “Lunchtime already?” he says, and his smile looks like a belt strapped tight across his face.

  “Well, I’d better get home,” Floyd’s dad says. He pats my arm when he walks by. “I got that Anderson kid coming over after school to help with chores, but I’ve got work to do before he gets there.” Mr. Fryer reaches down and pats Lucky, who is jumping up on his leg. “Nice dog you got here, Earl,” he says.

  Dad opens his lunch bag and starts eating his sandwich. He pulls a string of ham fat out from between his teeth and tosses it to Lucky. Dad grabs two Coca-Colas out of the cooler and hands me one. “Here you go,” he says. I take the bottle, but I don’t take a drink, ’cause ever since I heared Dad and Mr. Fryer talking, I got about a million scary thoughts jumping into my head, screaming “Boo!”

  Dad is watching me. “Son, did you overhear Ed and me talking?” I nod. “Don’t you worry, Earl. Jimmy’s going to be all right. Jimmy and Floyd will look out for each other.”

  I hand my Coca-Cola back to Dad and tell him I gotta go, and I don’t wait around to explain why. I scoop Lucky up, run him outside to where my bike is propped, and plop him into the basket. When Lucky tries to jump out before I can even get my leg swinged into place, I yell at him to stay put, then I get on and I pedal my bike like my ass is on fire.

  In our store window, we got a paper flag hanging there (just like the flags other folks who got a boy or two fighting in the war gots hanging in their windows) and on that flag, there’s a big star. If our soldier is alive, that star is blue. If our soldier gets killed dead, that star turns to gold.