Keshona Far Freedom Part 1

by Warren Merkey

from me," Constant complained. "But never thoughts about me. Would it interest you to know that I was very worried the boy would be hurt or killed?"

  Etrhnk shook his head negatively and slowly, which she could not see, facing away from him. "I believe you," he stated. There was a different quality to her voice, he judged, an increase of some kind of meaning. There were no clues passed down to succeeding Navy Commanders, but Etrhnk thought it probable that such increased familiarity from a Golden One, at this late stage of his career, predicted the nearness of the end of it. Could she be hinting at regret?

  Constant turned and touched him, found the seam of his uniform, tugged at it gently while trying to capture his eyes with hers. "It would interest me to know why you didn't remove Demba from command of the Hub Mission."

  "I'm sure it would," he replied.

  She yanked at his uniform tunic, now angry or impatient. He finally dared look at her and he shivered. The light loved her golden feathers and played upon her human-like surfaces as though alive with capriciousness. "You are delightful to behold." He was uncomfortable with what he was able to say and amazed that he had said it.

  Constant seemed to appreciate his words. She smiled at him and helped him remove the jacket of his uniform, then his undershirt. She looked at his torso before wrapping her arms around it and pressing her feathered cheek against his chest.

  "You are also delightful to behold," she said. "I love your stripes."

  1-33 1981CE - Parental Disapproval

  "You don't have tenure yet!" Mama lectured me. "Too soon to get married!"

  "I'll probably never get tenure at such a prestigious school, Mama. Anyway, who said anything about getting married?"

  "She's a nice-looking girl," Papa dared say, and he got a frown from Mama.

  "You don't bring home a girl like that," Mama said, "crippled and in a wheelchair, if you don't have big plans for her. That's a lot of trouble for you unless she means something to you."

  "You're very perceptive, Mama," I replied, daring her to say something else so blunt and perceptive. I suppose I couldn't help how Milly was like an invading enemy to my mother, my mother who had so much invested in her only child. In a way, the wheelchair was an unfair weapon in this battle, because I knew Mama cared about unfortunate people like Milly.

  My mother's frown turned to a big smile as she stepped away to wait on a customer and take his money.

  I escaped Mama and walked down the narrow aisles of the old store. I saw and smelled and heard all the sights and scents and sounds of my childhood, growing up in the family business. Papa was putting out a new order of men's dress hats, brushing them and stacking them in the glass cases. He kept glancing at me and smiling. He was on my side, although I wasn't sure why. I had already disappointed him twice in my choice of profession. If I was honest with myself, Milly was another choice I had made that would likely not be as perfect as my parents wanted.

  Pausing at the front of the store I breathed in the pungent aromas of pipe tobaccos, clove cigarettes, cigars, and the candy rack. Down the first aisle I perused the magazines and paperback books. I picked up a bag of chips from the floor and put it back in its rack as I moved into the grocery section. It looked like everything was still moving off the shelves but I wondered how much longer Mama and Papa could keep it going. I hoped they weren't really waiting for me to support them in their old age.

  "Where did you leave her?" Mama asked, finding me in the refrigerated section, looking at a possible leak under one case.

  "She's at the hotel," I answered, pointing out the puddle of liquid to Mama. She ignored it.

  "Separate rooms?" she asked bluntly.

  "Separate beds, Mama. Same room. She needs some help."

  "Why a crippled girl?" Like that was an item on a menu.

  "And a white girl and a Catholic girl! I don't know, Mama! It just happened!"

  "There were plenty of nice Korean girls around here. Was she the first white girl to be friendly to you?"

  "The very first! I was swept off my feet! When was any girl friendly to me?"

  "So, you have to settle for a cripple. OK with me! Just don't marry her! Lot of trouble. You'll regret it. How is she gonna give you babies and help you raise them?"

  "Lord have mercy, Mama!" I was upset at Mama's attitude. I never knew she was so prejudiced. I tried to calm down and appreciate her perspective. Also, there was the military situation that Mama would never understand, because I could never tell her about it. Mama was a very smart person but she had never had the opportunity for a good education and a broadening of her horizon.

  "Milly is a very independent person," I argued. "She's strong and determined. If she wants children, she'll have them and she'll do it well. Only her legs are crippled. Her mind is better than mine. She's a mathematician, a Ph.D. mathematician. She's amazing. She didn't want to have anything to do with me when I first met her, but she changed her mind." Make her think Milly is too good for me.

  I took a few steps away from my mother and swiped a soft drink from one of the refrigerated cases. She let me take a couple of swallows before resuming her cross-examination.

  "OK, so Milly is amazing and good at math." She was saying Milly's name now. That was a good sign. "Is that all you see in her? She has a pretty face, too."

  "As a matter of fact, her math ability is quite important to me, but no, that isn't all there is. She's special, Mama, very special. When I'm with her, my heart races and my brain explodes with ideas. Without her, I can only see myself in the future as an old man of no significant accomplishment, teaching at a small college. With her..." I couldn't tell Mama what Milly and I had already accomplished as a team. It was classified by the military.

  "She's special," Mama conceded. "Special as in smart. Good. But she doesn't have to marry you, does she?"

  "It would be convenient." I immediately regretted those words. Mama opened her mouth to pounce on the mistake and I cut her off. "Damn it, I love her, Mama! I'm crazy about her!"

  "OK, then!"

  Mama had to go back to the cash register. I drank half the cola too fast and belched. I looked over at Papa, who had positioned himself to observe Mama and me down the aisle. He gave me a thumbs-up. I walked down the aisle toward him and leaned on the counter. He stuck a wool walking hat on my head, cocking it to one side. I put my glasses on the counter and picked up the cola to finish it.

  "Something wrong with your glasses?" Papa inquired.

  I swallowed wrong and had a coughing fit, nearly losing the hat. Papa leaned over and pounded me on the back. Mama came back to us and we waited for her next pronouncement, which was: "So, you bringing Milly to supper tonight, or what?"

  = = =

  Supper went pretty well, except Mama was unusually quiet. She stole a lot of glances at Milly. Papa enjoyed talking to Milly. He'd been a secondary school teacher back in Korea and he asked Milly how she had beaten the odds to become a female mathematician. It had something to do with card games, especially poker, which led quickly to the subject of her father, Colonel A. J. DuPont, veteran of World War Two and Korea, and from then on I was just a listener. Papa had also been a soldier in Korea before the War. Milly talked a lot about her parents. She also asked many questions about my parents and what their lives were like before they came to America. She seemed genuinely interested and I think she impressed Mama, and no doubt Papa.

  Just as we were about to leave for the hotel, Milly saw the old piano that was partially hidden behind some boxes in the cramped little apartment. It was my old upright practice piano. They still had it, despite the space it wasted.

  "I've never heard Sam play," Milly said, and turned to me in silent request.

  We uncovered the piano and Mama dusted it off. I pulled out the bench, sat down, and opened the keyboard cover. I did a backhanded sweep up and down the keys and shook my head at what I heard. Then I hit all eighty-eight keys, playing the chromatic scale, and paused at each of three bad keys that had completely lost their tone
s. I couldn't play it.

  = = =

  I just wished Dad would be nice. Nice is not his thing. Not that he's unreasonable. He has no tolerance for fools. I anguished over what to do to prepare him for Sam and kept putting it off until it came down to just showing up on my parents' doorstep nearly unannounced, with Sam rolling me into the house and Dad squinting at him and looking back out the door to see where his taxi was. It was a rental car and Sam was not a taxi driver.

  "Mom, Dad, this is Samuel Lee, Doctor Samuel Lee." I was going to add, the man I'm going to marry, but lost my courage.

  While my parents gaped and pondered the meaning of Sam's presence, I rolled in and saw all the mess scattered everywhere. As it turned out, they were packing up to leave for a new home in Florida and retirement near a military base and a VA hospital. It was about time! Dad had been in the Army forever.

  I turned around to watch the Old Man, and Mom watched him with me. We all knew the meaning of Sam's presence. I had warned Sam about the colonel. Dad pulled out his unlit cigar - Mom wouldn't let him light one in the house - and stuck out his big hand for Sam to take. He then crushed Sam's hand and smiled doing it, stuck the cigar back in his mouth, hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his khaki shorts, and put that look on his face that said: boy, are you in the wrong house!"

  Sam shook the pain out of his hand and lied by saying, "Pleased to meet you, Colonel."

  I