Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge

by Pamela Morsi

  The scent of flowers and the buzz of bees lured her out to the garden. She’d been weeding and watering for the last two days. It was not perfect, but it was very close. Only Geri herself could have made it look better. She was tempted to piddle with that perfection, but steeled herself to accomplish something more substantial. Claire turned around and marched back into the house.

  The screened wash porch was full to bursting with piles of junk. Crates and boxes of jelly jars, rubber hoses, cardboard packaging and plastic bottles were stacked to the ceiling. The table and chairs that had once been the room’s furniture were hidden among it. Claire didn’t know where to start. Why had Bud kept all this trash? And what was Claire going to do with it? The answers to those questions unexpectedly came walking around the corner.

  “Hello.”

  Claire glanced up to see Jack’s cousin Theba.

  “Oh hi,” Claire responded.

  “I was up at the church with the preacher and I thought I’d just stroll down here to see how you two are doing, find out if you need anything.”

  “No, I think we’ve got everything. The whole community has been so generous,” she said. “If one more pie shows up here, my backside will never fit in the airplane seat, going home.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Theba said. “A woman’s suppose to have a womanly figure. Those models in the magazines, they’re just clothes hangers.”

  Claire chuckled. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any danger of me turning into that.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve decided that I have to do something about all this stuff,” she said, indicating the wash porch.

  “Mercy!” Theba exclaimed and then laughed. “I guess Bud’s not been keeping up with the recycling since Geri died.”

  “Recycling.” Claire shook her head at her own obtuseness. “Of course, it’s the recycling. There was just so much, I couldn’t imagine what it was for.”

  Theba nodded. “Geri was a big saver, all the Shertz sisters are,” she said. “You know they grew up in the junk business. People like them were the original recyclers.”

  “I don’t guess I knew that,” Claire admitted.

  “Yeah, my old granddad made a living from other people’s castoffs,” Theba told her. “And I don’t imagine that was easy during the Depression when nobody was casting off much of anything that had value.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “My mama’s just like that, too. Can’t throw anything away, no matter what. When the old man died, the county was going to just bury his junkyard, make it a landfill. It was just one giant mountain of refuse. The sisters spent weeks up there picking it clean before they’d let it go.”

  “Wow.”

  “You can say that again,” Theba agreed. “Geri knew where to recycle everything. It was really important to her. I suspect Bud wasn’t able to keep up with it.”

  Claire nodded.

  “Maybe if I get it sorted, I can figure out where to recycle it,” she said.

  “I’ll help you,” Theba said. “Between the two of us, it won’t take that long.”

  They dug into the work, creating new piles on the back lawn—things that could go to the town’s recycling center, household items for the Goodwill thrift shop, books for the library’s annual sidewalk sale, metal parts and wires for the salvage company, electronics and car parts that would require special handling and disposal. If Theba thought that her mother’s generation knew a lot about this process, Claire was very impressed about Theba’s store of knowledge. They worked well together and they made lots of progress.

  “I really appreciate your help,” she told the older woman. “I’d never have been able to figure this out without you.”

  “Nonsense, you would have done fine,” Theba said. “And I’d much rather be doing this than fetching tools for the preacher while he tries not to curse at the church’s plumbing.”

  Claire laughed.

  “Your husband’s church is near here?”

  “Yes, it’s right up at the highway,” she said. “You have to pass by it every day.”

  Claire remembered the long, odd-shaped building on the corner at the highway that had all the earmarks of an ancient honky-tonk. “I thought that’s, like, a Mexican church,” she said.

  “Hispanic,” Theba answered. “Iglesia de Jesus.”

  Claire managed not to smile at her pronunciation. It was probably only here that the son of God might be called Hay-Zoos.

  “I didn’t realize that you and the preacher spoke Spanish,” she said.

  “Oh Lord, I wish that we did,” Theba said. “It would sure make things a lot easier. But I just know a few words and the preacher is even worse than me.”

  Claire was momentarily incredulous. “How did he get to be the pastor of a Hispanic church without speaking Spanish.”

  “Oh, he was called by God,” Theba explained. “You ought to hear the story from him, ’cause he tells it much better than I do. But the gist is, God called him to preach, but he could never find a church to give him a chance. Then one morning about three years ago, he was sitting in the coffee shop and the place was full of Hispanic people. They were all yammering to each other in their language and the preacher was resenting it. He was wishing that they were gone and that the town would be back to the way that it used to be before they came. Back when everybody knew everybody else and everyone was the same.”

  Claire was a little surprised at this politically incorrect admission.

  “So then right there in the coffee shop,” Theba continued, “it was as if the Lord brought his finger down through the cloud and popped the preacher right on the breast bone. He told him, ‘if you don’t know these people, it’s because you choose not to. Get to know these people because they need you and you need them.’”

  Theba clasped her hands together, shook her head and glanced up toward heaven.

  “It changed our life,” she said. “The preacher began to talk to them. Most everybody speaks a little English, though, for some it’s not much. And we had come to find out what these people needed was a church. They didn’t feel welcome in any of the ones we have, they wanted one of their own. The preacher had just inherited the old Jitterbug Lounge up at the highway—it had been a nightclub and dance hall for years. The preacher wouldn’t have nothing to do with that kind of business and didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the building. Then he realized it could be a church for these people.”

  Claire tried to hide her surprise.

  “Aren’t most Hispanic people Catholic?”

  Theba shrugged. “We don’t let that bother us,” she said. “We all worship the same God. Sure, it’s different than they expected. But the nearest Catholic church is forty miles from here. They can always make that trip if they really have to. But mostly folks around here get by. They make do with what they have until they reach the place where they realize it’s exactly what they want.”

  Claire gave her a little half smile, as much puzzled as amused.

  “You should come tomorrow and meet our folks yourself,” Theba said. “You can learn a lot by watching people putting square blocks in round holes.”

  Claire wasn’t so sure.

  Bud

  I was floating, floating down as if I had not a care in the world. My escape from the plane had been without injury. We’d been so flaked that one engine was knocked out and two were badly sputtering. When I saw the far right one burst into flames, I knew we were in trouble. The captain ordered us out of there and nobody hesitated. Mugs jumped just ahead of me. It was only after my chute opened that I realized that his hadn’t. I watched him fall to his death as I floated on the breeze.

  In the distance, the plane tipped its wings near perpendicular to the horizon and then slipped into the water as neatly as a diver eager for a summer swim.

  A quietness settled over the moment. There was no sound on the breeze, no birds or bugs or engine noise. Even the sea made no noise if there w
as nothing for the waves to lap against. It was peace. I wanted just to close my eyes and enjoy it, because I knew the future would be uncertain.

  Instead I forced myself to look for other chutes. I saw only three. Jedlowski had been dead in the plane and Mugs had bought it on the way down. In a ten-man crew that made four unaccounted. The B-24 was notoriously hard to get out of. The G.I.s in the European Theater had nicknamed it the flying coffin. But we’d dropped our bombs. That should have made the catwalk from the flight deck to the tail exit a lot easier.

  I guessed it wasn’t easy enough.

  I drifted down so gently into the Solomon Sea. As soon as I hit the water, I detached myself from the chute and let it go. My life vest, a Mae West, inflated successfully. It was not sturdy enough to keep me upright for long. I had to tread water if I was going to stay alive.

  My first priority was to rendezvous with my crewmates, but after hours of fruitless swimming, I was content to just drift, bobbing and treading water, waiting for rescue. The other planes in our squad must know we were out here. When they got back to the field, they’d send a boat to look for us. In the first hours I was certain of that. As the day got longer, my hope wavered. These waters were notoriously shark-infested. We’d flown over huge schools of the beasts many times and marveled at the numbers. Remembering that, I tried not to kick so noticeably and I was keenly on the lookout for the sight of fins.

  Suddenly, I did spot something that was much more welcome. It was debris from the plane and it was floating. If it was floating, I could maybe get onto it. I swam as hard as I could in that direction.

  As I got closer I recognized it as the plane’s five-man survival raft. The raft, stored in the tail, was supposed to be released when the plane hit the water. I’m not sure when I realized that there was somebody clinging to the side of it. But I do remember my joy. I hadn’t realized how alone I’d felt until I saw someone else.

  “Hullo!” I called out, stopping to tread water and cup my hands as a megaphone before raising my arms in the air to get his attention. With more energy and eagerness I swam toward the raft, stopping to holler in that direction several times. His back was turned to me. He couldn’t hear.

  I felt so much better, I felt almost safe. It was a part of our evac plan to rendezvous in the water. But after hours of swimming in the direction I’d seen other parachutes, I’d given up. They’d seen me, too, and the current was in their favor, not mine. So I’d waited for somebody to find me. And now, somebody had.

  “Hey! Over here. I’m here.”

  The person hanging on to the raft still didn’t move. I swam harder to get to him. As I got close my stroke slowed. I knew before I reached him that the man was dead. I’d already seen a lot of death. Without thinking my body steeled itself for the horror. I’d seen worse, I reminded myself.

  It was Lt. Randel. I identified him from his jacket, there was nothing else recognizable about him. It was hard to tell if he’d grasped the cords on the raft to save himself, or been trapped in them accidentally to fall to his death. I untangled him and let him go into the sea.

  I took a deep breath and heaved myself up into the raft. It took two tries. My arms, the young muscular arms of a nineteen-year-old, had inexplicably turned to jelly. Finally, I got myself high enough to fall inside. The relief was so tangible that I actually laughed out loud. I was exhausted, but I was out of the water. It was only after that I noticed Lt. Randel still bobbing on the waves. I’d forgotten to take off his life vest.

  Don’t remember. Don’t remember! Don’t remember!

  On the first night I’d fallen to sleep with Geri in my arms, I’d remembered.

  For several weeks since that night at Jitterbug Lounge we’d been dating. If dating is what you call two people who had been chastely married for three years, now unmarried and spending every possible moment together having sex. We didn’t talked about the past. We didn’t talk about the future. Come to think of it, we didn’t talk much at all. We let our young, eager, lusty bodies say everything that needed to be said between us.

  In any other era in Catawah, we would have shocked the village. But after the war, there were a lot of couples just like us. Kids who’d married too fast, guys who’d seen too much, girls who were widows too young. It was a crazy time. And it was as if our elders, who had always maintained the highest of propriety for themselves and insisted on the same for their offspring, turned a blind eye to what was going on. It must have been like a gift to us, to our generation from their generation. They gave us some time and some latitude. From what I saw, and as for Geri and myself, we really needed it.

  Sex together back then was wild and frantic. I couldn’t get enough of her and she apparently felt just the same. The first time we barely managed to get inside the house. We did it on the living room rug that she’d so carefully braided and sewn.

  “That was good. Oh my God, that was so good,” I told her after.

  “Me, too,” she said snuggling up next to me and resting in the crook of my arm. “You’re not disappointed are you?” she asked me after we’d had time to catch our breath.

  “Disappointed?”

  “That I’m not a virgin.”

  I hadn’t noticed. But then I didn’t know what to notice. The few women I’d been with had been, if not professionals, certainly very experienced.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “It does to me,” Geri said with a sigh. “I should have waited. I should have had faith that once you were back home you would love me.”

  I remembered my long-ago plan to just dump my mother on her and never come back.

  I put my fingers atop her lips. “Sweetheart, lots of things happened in the war. Lots of things that just don’t bear speaking about. Now we’re never going to talk about this again.”

  That was my choice and hers, too. We didn’t talk about the war. We were both willing to put it all behind us.

  But it wouldn’t stay there.

  I was still spending my days listlessly. At night we’d meet at the Jitterbug Lounge. We’d have a couple of beers and we’d dance and laugh and then we’d walk down to my house and we’d have sex. Our evenings frequently lasted until the middle of the night and then I’d walk her back to her old clunker Ford and she’d drive home. I’d walk home and begin my day. Which meant wandering the house until the sun was up and then sitting in the garden once it was.

  Then one night came when we fell asleep. There was nothing different from other nights, except maybe the winter cold had passed and the spring was finally on us. The windows were open and the perfume of the honeysuckle on the trellis outside my window enveloped us.

  “I love you,” she whispered in the moment our passion was spent.

  “Me, too,” I’d answered and pulled her up against me, spooning our bodies so comfortably as I caught my breath. She was warm and smooth and I was so relaxed beside her. The softness of those brunette curls were a perfect pillow.

  I drifted off. Off to that place I never wanted to visit, but couldn’t stay away from. I was back in the water. I don’t recall which of the dreams it was. Lt. Randel or the leaky raft or the worst, alone in the water. But I woke up screaming and flailing as I always did. It was just that this time I was not alone or among crewmates who’d seen as much as I had. I was in bed with a beautiful, gentle and caring woman who loved me.

  When I realized where I was, she was cowering at the foot of the bed. The first rays of morning sun lit the room well enough that I could see her brown eyes wide with shock and fear.

  I managed to get control of myself. Or at least as much control as I could take immediately. My hands would sometimes shake for a quarter of an hour. There was nothing I could do about that but clutch them together.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m…I’m just sorry.”

  I climbed out of bed desperate to get away. I grabbed my pants and pulled them on as I left the room. I had no shirt, no shoes, but I headed straight out the back door and walked up
the rows to the middle of the garden where my ancient cane-bottom chair was waiting.

  I’d been caught. My secret had been revealed. All was lost. I expected Geri to get herself dressed and out the front door as quickly as possible. I knew she’d never come back to the house with me again. And I’d be lucky if she didn’t tell people why when they asked her what happened.

  I really underestimated that woman.

  The back-door screen slammed. I glanced up to see her standing on the step. She must have made the noise on purpose warning me that she was there.

  I purposely looked away. I remembered the fear in her eyes and I couldn’t bear to see it again.

  She was walking toward me, I could see that in my peripheral vision, but I refused to turn my head to look at her. I still thought if I kept my distance, she would, too.

  But she didn’t.

  “Here,” she said. “You can’t be sitting out in this cool morning breeze half-naked.”

  I glanced, then, at what she carried. My shirt and shoes. I took them from her and busied myself with buttons and socks and laces.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly. That was her cue to leave, but she didn’t take it. After a moment I added. “I’m fine now.”

  Still she didn’t go. Instead she squatted down in front of me and took my chin in her hand, forcing me to make eye contact.

  “Is this what’s going on with you?” she asked me.

  My first impulse was to lie. Anybody can have a nightmare. It’s no big deal. But that little heart-shaped face, those flashing, determined eyes, I couldn’t belittle her by deceit.

  “Some things happened to me out there,” I answered.