Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge

by Pamela Morsi

  “Just leave it on one of the shelves out of the way,” he told me almost as soon as we stepped through the door. “I’ll finish it up next time I’m home. There’s something I need to ask you about.”

  I sighed with relief. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too.”

  “First question,” J.D. began before I could even form my own words in my head. “Why didn’t you and Mom have any other children?”

  “Huh?” I couldn’t have been any less prepared for that inquiry. “I…ah, well, I don’t know. We just didn’t,” I managed to get out. “We thought we might get you a brother or sister once, but your mother miscarried after just a few weeks. She had some kind of women’s problem. The doctors said she probably wouldn’t be able to have more children. And she didn’t. We were sad, but we felt so lucky to have you.”

  J.D. nodded with understanding and then smiled at me. “When I was a kid I told myself it was because you could never love anybody as much as you love me.”

  I chuckled. “Well, there is that, too,” I said and then added, “We couldn’t love anybody more than we love you.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” he said. “I want you to know how much I appreciate all you and Mom have done for me. I am very grateful. But I have to ask you a favor.”

  “Anything,” I assured him.

  “I need you to watch out for Toni while I’m gone,” he said. “Oh, she’s got her plans. We have our little apartment near the base and she’s going to try to get a job in a dress shop, but I’m worried about her. This thing with her parents really took me by surprise. I mean, I knew they didn’t want any part of me. But I just didn’t expect them to turn on her. I didn’t think parents could be like that. Even if I went to prison, I know that you and Mom would show up on visiting day and Mom would probably bake me a cake with a file in it.”

  “She probably would.”

  “I just want you to keep an ear out in case she needs help,” he said. “Now that she’s my wife, that makes her your daughter and I want you to think of her like that, protect her like that.”

  It was hard to imagine that Geri and I could have any daughter as cool and reserved as Toni, but I didn’t say that to J.D.

  “Of course,” I told him. “You don’t have to worry about anything on that account.”

  “Good,” J.D. said. “’Cause I feel kind of guilty about leaving her. I mean, she’s given up her family just to be with me. So what do I do? I set her up in a twelve-by-twelve efficiency and go off halfway around the world for a year.”

  “I’m sure she understands that you have to do your duty,” I said.

  “She does,” he said. “And that makes me feel even worse. Now that I know I’m going, I’m really getting excited about it. I’m sure you remember, Dad, when the action’s going on, you just hate not being a part of it.”

  I did remember.

  And I didn’t tell him any of the things I should have. I didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm. I didn’t want to throw sorrow and grief and anger and fear all over his joy. I told myself that it would be all right. That this war wasn’t like mine and his experience wouldn’t be, either. That’s what I promised myself. And that’s what I can’t forgive.

  For the next four months Geri and I watched the evening news sick to our stomachs with fear. He was supposed to come back to see us again before he left, but he got busy.

  “I’ll see you when I get back,” he promised.

  And then he was there, like one of those boys in the news, the ones we saw lying on stretchers or wearing bandages on their heads.

  He wrote us once a week. Little blue letters that arrived with an APO as a return address. He sounded happy, upbeat. He told funny stories about the people he met and the guys in his unit. He thanked Geri for all the mail. She wrote him, as she had me, with all the news of Catawah and our garden and the facts and foibles of his aunts and uncles and cousins.

  In October we got surprising news.

  Toni is expecting, he wrote. She was on the pill, so we weren’t thinking that this would happen. But for sure, we’re both delighted. She says she’s been sick most mornings, but that the doctor says she’s healthy and should deliver in March.

  “We need to go get that girl and bring her here,” Geri said immediately.

  “What?” I couldn’t even imagine it. “She’d never come here.”

  “That poor girl is alone down there in San Antonio, pregnant and with her husband in harm’s way,” Geri said. “She needs someone to take care of her, to care about her. And we’re going to be the ones to do it.”

  I didn’t argue. I made a point not to argue with Geri. Especially because she’s usually right.

  Within a week Toni had packed up their meager amount of possessions in J.D.’s truck and made the long drive up to be with us.

  We settled her into J.D.’s room. Geri waited on her hand and foot and fed her until the girl pleaded for mercy. She wasn’t the most approachable person I’d ever met, but I grew to like her. She and J.D. wrote to each other every day, and she found something to share in every letter she received.

  Geri’s sisters were not as welcoming as they could have been. They didn’t like Toni from the jump go and found fault with most everything she said and did. They would get together and find reason to take Geri aside and make snide comments. For a while, she just let it go. Then finally she got her back up and told them so.

  “This is my daughter-in-law,” she said. “And it would be my place to defend her if she were the whore of Babylon. But she’s not that. She’s a lovely girl who is young and pregnant with her husband very far from home. Now you’re my sisters and always will be. You can think what you want and are free to choose how you behave. You can treat Toni with the respect she deserves as a member of our family, or you can stay away from my front door from now on.”

  Her hard line shocked them into better behavior. They probably still picked the poor girl to death behind her back, but no one ever made a snide comment to her or in front of us again.

  As the birth of the baby approached, we were all excited. Toni thought it to be bad luck to buy baby things before the baby arrived. Geri was certain that only meant the actual purchase of new items, something that she rarely did anyway. She got J.D.’s crib back from whatever family member had it last. I sanded it down a bit and restained the wood until it looked like new. She gathered up dozens of tiny T-shirts and sweaters and caps. And we rearranged Toni’s room to accommodate both her and the expected new one. Geri’s sewing machine hummed day and night as she stitched up baby bed linens and receiving blankets and plain cotton diapers.

  J.D. passed the halfway mark on his tour and our spirits were beginning to lighten. We put up our Christmas tree in the front room with all the flashing colored lights and Santa and snowman bulbs. There were presents for all of us, including Baby. Toni helped Geri bake six-dozen peanut-butter cookies, J.D.’s favorite, which they shipped to him with some Christmas candy and new socks, the only gift he claimed to need.

  I picked up a package from him at the post office and we could hardly wait until the big day to open it. For Toni he’d sent a cobalt box with a tiny jeweled frog inside. Geri got a large bowl made of tightly woven bamboo. I opened my small paper-wrapped present to find a miniature painting on a round piece of wood. The paint was applied water-thin, and the grain of the wood appeared as shadow on the tiny fishing village reminiscent of many I had seen in that part of the world.

  In a funny way it reminded me of something he might have made in Boy Scouts. It was done by a much more talented artist than any of the kids in the Catawah scouts, but there was a simpleness about it, a beauty in the ordinary that appealed to me. I assumed that it had touched J.D. in the same way. I put it atop the bureau where I could see it every day.

  We missed J.D., but it was as though he were always with us. We knew he’d be home before the baby was born, so we watched Toni’s progress with even greater expectation.

  On a cold February morning
with the hint of snow in the air, I left work at the post office and slowly drove toward Catawah, careful of ice on the road. I’d finished up on time, but with the condition of the pavement, I suspected I wouldn’t get to the house until eight-thirty or later. There were a few cars on the highway, but traffic was never a problem in our neck of the woods. I was in J.D.’s pickup. I had taken to driving it to keep the battery charged up and because it was a very sturdy, dependable winter vehicle. At some point along the trip I noticed that the sedan I was following had a U.S. government license plate. That was not so exceptional—there were official cars in and out of the post office with the same type of tag. But later I noticed that the two occupants in the car were in uniform, and I wondered casually to myself what two G.I.’s were doing out on the road on this cold morning.

  I’m not sure when my curiosity turned to anxiety. Maybe it was when we passed road after road and they never turned off. Or maybe it was slowing down on the highway through Catawah as if they were reading the street signs. When they came to a stop at the corner near the Jitterbug Lounge my heart was in my throat. When they turned east on Bee Street a wave of nausea clawed at me. I knew where they were going and I knew it wasn’t good news.

  In my imagination I saw J.D. bobbing alone and afraid in an empty ocean. It was my nightmare, but now I begged for it.

  “Let him be missing,” I prayed aloud.

  As the official car pulled to a stop in front of my house I gunned it into the driveway and abruptly shut off the engine. I had to get to them before they spoke to Geri, to Toni. I had to keep the bad news from my door. I had to shelter the women under my protection.

  I wasn’t aware of everything that was going on. It was as if I were acting on impulse instead of thought. And from the reaction of the two airmen, I must have seemed aggressive. Both raised their hands, either to ward off an attack or to show they weren’t holding weapons.

  “My son,” I managed to get out.

  The man nearest me lowered his hands. He was so young. No older than my own J.D., surely they would not send such young men.

  “Mr. Crabtree?”

  “Yes.”

  The front door of the house burst open. Both Geri and Toni stood on the porch. I can never recall what words were spoken. I’m sure that something standard was said, that there were official condolences. I have no actual memory of that. But I will never forget the look on the faces of those women.

  The next few hours, few days, blended into one long struggle with disbelief. I’m not sure how soon it was that I realized I was pretending. I was behaving how I thought a father would behave. I was stoic and soft-spoken with a display of strength. It was a sham. My actions were completely disconnected from what I was feeling. What I was feeling was simply numb. I needed to be alone. I needed to sort it all out in my head. But that was impossible. The Shertz family has no appreciation of solitude. They believe strength is in numbers. Every family member showed up at the house, including Cleata and her son, Julie, who never came to Catawah for any reason. They were all there and I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t think.

  I didn’t realize what a blessing that was, until I was alone and I did think. That’s when the guilt began pouring in. In my mind, image after image came of the face that I loved and it was always looking up at me with awe and admiration.

  “I want to be like you, Dad,” he always said.

  And I had known what he meant. He didn’t want to be a night-shift sorter at the post office or a woodworking piddler or even the guy who blew the warning siren when a tornado was spotted from the civil defense tower. He’d wanted to be an Air Force gunner flying high above the casualties in a cause that was right and good.

  I saw him reverently sorting through that box of medals and ribbons, being able to name the what and the where for each.

  Why hadn’t I stopped him? Or told him the truth? I wanted to scream at the heavens. But once again, God was not to blame. The guilt was mine. I was not some brave hero who risked my life for the good of my country. I was, at first, just a young, scared kid just doing what I was told. And then I was a dead man, risking nothing.

  Why hadn’t I tried to explain to him? I had told myself that maybe he didn’t need to know. Maybe I could spare him the truth. But that was not how it had been. I had been unwilling to look small in his eyes. My pride had killed him.

  I sat for long hours in the frozen chill of the garden at night. I could barely tell waking from sleeping. It was all about terror in the waves and emptiness of dying alone. I wanted to cry out to my son, to beg his forgiveness.

  Then Geri was there beside me.

  “Come into the house,” she said.

  “No, I can’t. I want to be out here.”

  “Then I’ll sit out here with you.”

  “No, you can’t. It’s too cold!”

  “Yes, it is,” Geri agreed. “But if you’re here, I’m here.”

  So we ended up sitting in the kitchen all night.

  “Stop blaming yourself,” she told me.

  “I should have stopped him from going,” I told her. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

  “And would it have been my fault if back in ’43 you’d have truly died out there in that empty ocean?” she asked. “I made it possible for you to do what you wanted to do. Would it have been my fault?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then J.D.’s death is not on your account, either,” she said.

  Her reasoning may have been compelling, but my guilt was stronger. It continued to be the vision in my eyes, the smell in my nostrils the taste on my tongue all through the next days of mourning.

  When his body returned to Catawah, we were called to the funeral home to see him. I felt numb as I walked into the building. Geri was leaning heavily on me. Toni walked ahead of us, head high, without even a hesitance to her step.

  It smelled like flowers, too many flowers, the scent nearly choked me. We were directed to the front viewing room. The door was open, but my eyes were drawn to the handwritten nameplate fitted into the plastic slot. Airman First Class Jack Dempsey Crabtree, Jr., USAF. The sight caught me up short. I was the dead one. It was supposed to have been my name. If I hadn’t continued on after I was already dead, J.D. would never have suffered this.

  The fact that J.D. would never have existed and the world would have been a much sadder place was also there, but I couldn’t grab on to it. My own remorse was too powerful.

  The room where they laid him was too dark for the Fourth of July atmosphere inside. There were flags and bunting everywhere as if the florists had no other colors than red, white and blue. The only thing missing was a watermelon laid out on a picnic table. Against one wall the flag-draped coffin was nearly hidden among the sprays of flowers.

  Harvey Crocker, the funeral director, seemed a bit too personally pleased by the display.

  “We’ve gotten flowers from all over the state,” he said. “The write-up in the paper helped a lot. And KTUL called me. They may come to the graveside to shoot some footage for the evening news.”

  Toni had walked forward and put her gloved hand atop the casket. Harvey quickly trailed after her.

  “You didn’t say if this was open or closed viewing,” he explained quickly. “So I left it closed until I talked to you.”

  “May I see him,” she said, so quietly I could barely hear.

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  Harvey scooted the flag down until nearly a yard of red and white stripes draped the end. Geri and I moved forward until we were right behind Toni. He opened the box at the center hinge.

  Beside me Geri gasped and Toni momentarily stumbled.

  I stared at my son in disbelief. What was so shocking was that he looked exactly as I remembered. I had seen plenty of dead men, corpses on the beach, bloated in the water, burnt beyond recognition as human. My son had been killed in a fierce gun battle with Viet Cong guerillas, and he lay there, spiffed up in his dress blues, looking only as if he were sl
eeping, so relaxed, so peaceful.

  The unreality of it welled up in me with familiar anger and despair.

  Back home that evening I rummaged underneath the bed in the back room until I found the shoe box that had so captured my child’s imagination. The carton was so aged and oft-handled that the sides were coming loose. I took it into the kitchen and taped it completely all around. Then, as an afterthought, I taped the top closed, too. I didn’t even look in it, I knew what was inside. It meant nothing to me. But every faded ribbon and shiny award was dear to J.D. and they had taken his life. I didn’t ever want to see any of it again.

  The next morning as we left for the funeral, I carried the box in the crook of my arm.

  “What’s that?” Geri asked me.

  “It’s my war junk,” I told her. “I’m burying it with J.D.”

  Her brow furrowed and I knew she was going to argue with me. I didn’t let her.

  “This box killed my son as much as any bullet from an enemy gun.”

  She never said another thing.

  The funeral was gigantic. The entire town of Catawah showed up. The family alone filled up the right side of the Pentecostal church. I remember very little of what was said or done during the service. My eyes and my heart were focused on the flag-covered casket at the front of the church.

  One of the airmen in attendance read a letter from J.D.’s commanding officer. The helicopter gunship had come under fire and J.D. defended the guys in his crew and the ones they were transporting as long as he could. The phrases were serious and solemn and heavily measured with words like duty, bravery and honor.

  A half dozen Shertz cousins, with Cleata’s boy, Julie, playing the guitar, sang “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Some like Julie and Leo still had the clean-cut military look about them. Others had long hair and clothing decorated with peace symbols. They were our kids as much as J.D. had been. And if any one of them had been in the coffin instead, I knew J.D. would have wanted to sing, as well.

  But mostly my focus was on the small shoe box beside me on the pew.

  The crowd filed out and it was just the family, though that group was certainly numerous enough. They opened the casket one last time and back to front, everyone in the room filed past. Finally it was our turn. Toni was dry-eyed and completely composed. She bent forward and kissed J.D. on the lips. The whisper she spoke to him didn’t carry as far as my ears. Geri openly wept. And even after she’d said her own goodbye she lingered as I stepped forward. I tucked the box into the near side of his chest. Then I looked at him. I didn’t have a word to say. The dead can’t hear your words of regret, and a million pleas for forgiveness would not give him back one minute of his young life. I stepped away and nodded to the funeral director to close the casket.