Under the Apple Tree

by Wakefield, Dan;

  Mom and Dad had the radio tuned to “The National Barn Dance,” and they were hopping and twirling around to the music of the “Barn Dance” regulars, Lulu Belle and Scotty, Arkie the Arkansas Woodchopper, and the Hoosier Hotshots. Mom and Dad were real giggly because it was Saturday night and they were having their Pabst Blue Ribbons along with a big bowl of popcorn. It used to make Artie feel kind of funny that his folks got a little bit tipsy on beer most Saturday nights, but then he saw this ad in a magazine where the Brewing Industry Foundation explained that “A cool, refreshing glass of beer—a moment of relaxation—in trying times like these, they too help to keep morale up,” and he realized it was all right. It sure was better than the nights when they sat around after supper looking glum and worrying about Roy.

  Artie was only skimming through the Ladies’ Home Journal while his mind kept jumping back to wondering how the heck he could help Shirley convince her mother it was okay for nice girls to work in a War Plant. He knew she was bound and determined to do it anyway, but ‘she’d feel a lot better if she got her mother to approve, so she wouldn’t just have to sneak out and hop the Greyhound.

  He stopped flipping pages when he came to this ad that showed a nice girl who was doing exactly what Shirley wanted to do. The ad, for Pond’s hand lotion, told the story of “Hilda,” who said: “Dick enlisted two months before Pearl Harbor—I wanted to be doing something necessary, too, so I found my job helping to build planes. I get up at 4 A.M. and don’t get back home till 4 P.M. It seemed outlandish at first, but now I like it. I do have to watch out for my complexion, though …”

  Artie figured Mrs. Colby might be impressed that “Hilda” was still worrying about her complexion, which meant she was being ladylike even though she worked in a factory.

  Artie ripped the page from the magazine, and Mom turned around to look.

  “Hey! You tearing up my new Journal?”

  “Must be a pinup,” Dad said.

  “Not in the Journal,” Mom said.

  “Come on, it’s just an old ad,” Artie said, folding it quickly and sticking it in his pocket so he wouldn’t have to explain anything.

  Mom came toward him, holding out her hand.

  “The ads have stories on the back of them sometimes, and I haven’t read this month’s stories yet.”

  “There wasn’t any story on it,” Artie said.

  “Then let me see.”

  “I swear.”

  Dad took a swig from his glass of beer and gave Artie a wink.

  “Some of those gals in the ads now, they got gams as good as Grable.”

  “Aw, come on,” Artie said, feeling his face get hot.

  He hated when his Dad talked about gals and gams and things to do with sex, especially when he winked.

  Mom was still holding her hand out.

  “Artie, I want to see what you tore out.”

  “I need it. For school.”

  “You can have it back as soon as I look at it.”

  “Novschmovzkapop,” Artie said disgustedly, taking the folded page from his pocket and handing it over.

  “No language, son,” Dad said.

  “That’s from the funny papers, Dad. The guy who’s always saying ‘Novschmovzkapop.’ It’s the strip where the little girl holds the hanky up to her kid brother’s nose and says, ‘Now blow.’”

  Dad took a swig of beer and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

  “Carry me back to ole Virginny,” he said.

  Mom had unfolded the page and was looking it over, her brow furrowing in puzzlement.

  “‘Dick enlisted two months before Pearl Harbor’?” she read out loud.

  “It’s just a crummy ad,” Artie said, reaching to take the page back.

  “Ad for what?” Dad asked, and came to look.

  “Oh, brother,” Artie sighed. “I guess it’s a federal case now.”

  “‘… so I found my job helping to build planes,’” Mom read.

  Dad looked over her shoulder and continued, saying “‘I get up at four A.M. and don’t get back home till four P.M.’ Who is this, ‘Rosie the Riveter’?”

  “‘… It seemed outlandish at first, but now I like it …’” Mom went on.

  Dad grabbed the page away and said in a high voice, imitating a girl, “‘I do have to watch out for my complexion, though.’”

  Mom grabbed the page back.

  “Hey, you’re messing it up!” Artie said.

  “What’s this got to do with school?” Mom asked.

  “Lemme have it. Please?”

  “I will if you tell me what it’s for.”

  “Okay,” Artie said. “It’s for Shirley.”

  Dad put down his glass of beer and Mom turned off “The National Barn Dance” and came and sat down by Artie next to the davenport.

  “Shirley wants to do what the lady in the ad is doing,” Artie explained. “Work in a War Plant, making airplanes. So I thought I’d show it to her. That’s all.”

  “All what?” Mom asked.

  “All there is to it.”

  His mother kind of looked at him sideways, like maybe there was more, which of course there was. Artie had to be real careful not to give away the part about Shirley wanting to get away from 4-F Foltz, and he told his brain to be on guard. He figured he wasn’t lying, he was telling the actual truth, but just leaving out the part that would ruin Shirley’s life if anyone else knew about it.

  “Where?” Mom asked.

  “What?”

  “Where would she work in a War Plant?”

  “Wherever they have one. Donna Modjeski is working in one in Indianapolis, where they make planes.”

  “It’s a pretty far piece to Indianapolis,” Dad said.

  “Anyway, her mother doesn’t want her to,” Artie said. “That’s the whole story.”

  He was proud of his craftiness, telling the truth as far as it went, but leaving out the part about Foltz. He figured he could hold his own in an enemy interrogation, as long as they didn’t threaten to beat his privates to jelly, and only wanted to match wits.

  His mother put her hand to her mouth, covering a grin.

  “Marcelline Colby must be having kittens,” she said.

  “Speaking of kittens, let’s not get catty,” his Dad said. “I doubt you’d be much more thrilled than Miz Colby if you had a daughter wanted to go off and work in a War Plant.”

  “I’d root for her, that’s what I’d do. I’d pack her a nice lunch in her lunch bucket and send her off to make B-Seventeens.”

  “Not your own daughter, you wouldn’t.”

  “Shirley’s my daughter-in-law, or will be, and I’m behind her a hundred percent.”

  “In-law’s not the same. Blood is thicker than water.”

  “Blood nothing. I’d do it myself it we had a War Plant here.”

  “You’d do what? Rivet?”

  “As good as any ‘Rosie.’”

  “You’d get that pretty braid of yours caught in some machine.”

  “I’d wear me a turban. It’s all the style now.”

  “Since when did you care a hoot about style?”

  “If it kept my hair from getting caught in a machine.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry, they aren’t gonna make any B-Seventeens in Birney.”

  “Maybe I’ll just up and go off with Shirley to where they do. Couple of working girls.”

  “You already got your job, woman. And foolin’ aside, I don’t see Shirley Colby weldin’ wings on bombers.”

  “Why not? Other girls do.”

  “Must be the kind built like a Mack Truck. Shirley, she’s not only small, she’s delicate-like.”

  “But, Dad, she’d be good for wiring,” Artie said. “All the articles say ‘the nimble fingers of women’ are good at that, and you don’t have to be big or anything.”

  Mom put her hand on Dad’s chest and started tickling her fingers around.

  “I got nimble fingers myself,” she said.

 
“You just keep ’em busy on me, not some B-Seventeen.”

  He poked her and she giggled and then they were nuzzling again and Artie went back to the magazine figuring the crisis was past for now, and then the phone rang.

  Everyone stopped to listen, counting two longs and one short, which was their ring, and Mom got up to answer.

  Dad yawned, and rubbed his stomach.

  “Wonder who’s calling on Saturday night,” he said.

  “Hello? Yes, this is Mrs. Joseph Garber. Who’s this?”

  Her face went suddenly pale and she put her other hand on the phone, gripping it tightly.

  “You want me to what?” she asked.

  Dad stood up, squinting at her and cocking his head to one side like he was trying to figure out the call.

  “Who is it wants something?”

  Mom pressed the phone against her chest.

  “The Red Cross,” she said. “Wants me to sit down.”

  Then she fainted.

  Dad sprang across the room to her and Artie jumped off the davenport and grabbed the phone off the floor.

  “Hello, this is Arthur Garber, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Garber, brother of Corporal Roy—”

  Dad yanked the phone away from Artie with his left hand, still holding his right hand under Mom’s head.

  “This is Joe Garber. I’m already sitting down, so tell me whatever you have to.”

  Artie held his breath.

  “Wounded in action,” Dad said. “Then he’s alive? He’s all right?”

  Mom opened her eyes and pulled herself up to her knees, holding on to Dad.

  “‘Shell fragmentation,’” Dad said. “Yes? … But he won’t lose it? … Thank God.… When? … Yes, I understand. Fine. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  Dad put the phone down and pulled Mom against him, holding her tight.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

  “How bad?” she asked, digging her fingers into Dad’s back.

  “He was wounded in the thigh. He won’t lose the leg.”

  Dad took hold of Mom’s arms and pried them away, so he could look at her.

  “He’s coming home. He’s on his way to San Diego, to the Naval Hospital. He’ll have some skin grafts, and then he’ll be home.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe only weeks. A matter of weeks.”

  “Wahoo!” Artie yelled.

  Mom sank back on the floor.

  Artie jumped up and grabbed a pillow from the davenport and lifted Mom’s feet up onto it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, raising up again.

  “Putting your feet up is treatment for shock. I learned it in Scouts.”

  “I don’t need my feet up,” she said, pulling her legs back and then sitting up on them. “I need to be on my knees.”

  “What’s that for?” Artie asked.

  “For giving thanks to God,” she said.

  She bowed her head, and Dad and Artie scooted around so they too were on their knees beside her.

  The three of them knelt there on the living room rug, each one saying his own prayer in silence. After a while Dad reached out one hand to Mom and one hand to Artie and they were linked, together, in thanks, and then Dad quietly said, “Amen,” and they all stood up and hugged.

  “To think,” Mom said, “‘a matter of weeks.’”

  Artie suddenly rushed to the closet and yanked out his coat.

  “I gotta go tell Shirley,” he said.

  Mom and Dad both started talking at him.

  “Be careful how—”

  “Button up before you—”

  That was all he heard before he was out the door.

  The ticket booth at the Strand was dark. Artie went in the lobby and looked around quickly. The only person there was the Usher, but it wasn’t Foltz. Billy Shavers, this tubby kid who played snare drum in the Band, was stuffed in the red and black outfit, one of the gold buttons open at the stomach, letting the white of his shirt poke out. He was eating a Mars Bar and reading a Captain Marvel.

  “Hey, Billy, you the Usher now?”

  Without looking up, Billy pointed to his gold-buttoned, bursting jacket.

  “I ain’t Admiral Nimitz.”

  “So did Foltz leave town, or what?”

  “All I know is Old Man Risley offered me Usher, four bits an hour.”

  “Hey, Billy, that’s great! Congratulations and salutations!”

  Artie figured it was all some kind of Wartime miracle, like a story in the Saturday Evening Post. Just as Roy is coming home a wounded hero, his 4-F challenger has skulked away in defeat. Probably he gave up on making out with a loyal girl like Shirley; maybe Shirley finally just laid down the law and told him to get lost.

  “So Billy, did Shirley Colby go home? She’s not in the booth.”

  Billy pointed a chocolate-stained finger to a coat hanging on the door of the ticket booth.

  “Coat’s still here.”

  “Maybe she’s watching the movie?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Well, is it okay if I go in and see the end while I wait for her?”

  Billy shrugged.

  “Madame Curie discovers radium is how it ends.”

  “Well, I’ll go look. If you see Shirley, will you tell her I’m in there, and got something real big to tell her?”

  “How big?” Billy asked, stuffing the last of the Mars Bar down his gullet, “Six inches?”

  “You always got your mind in the gutter?”

  “Takes one to call one.”

  Artie shook his head in disgust and walked into the darkened movie. He slid into the back row and sank down in his seat. Greer Garson was Madame Curie, working away in the laboratory, wearing a white coat like scientists and druggists have, and her husband, Walter Pidgeon, was helping her out. They both looked pretty pooped, probably from staying up all night year after year trying to discover radium. It was hard to get charged up about it if you missed most of the movie, so Artie just leaned back and looked at the screen, not even concentrating. He had run all the way over like it was the hundred-yard dash, and he figured he was even more pooped than Walter Pidgeon was in the movie. He closed his eyes.

  Shirley Colby was wearing a white lab coat, and pouring some bubbly potion into a test tube. She wasn’t in the radium lab, but the weird, secret kind with all the zigzaggy fiendish modernistic machinery where they always brought Frankenstein back to life again. There was a clap of thunder, a streak of lightning, and the guy who was strapped to the table broke his bonds and started stalking toward Shirley, but instead of being Frankenstein, the guy was Clarence Foltz. Shirley screamed, Foltz let out a yelp, and then the two of them were moaning and talking some kind of gibberish.

  Artie blinked, and sat up. It was dark, and he was the only one left in the theater. Evidently Billy Shavers didn’t even know yet the Usher was supposed to make sure that everyone was gone when the last show was over.

  Or was it really over?

  The screen was blank, but there were sounds coming from somewhere, much like the moans and gibberish he had heard in his dream. He pinched himself to make sure he really was awake.

  He was.

  The sounds seemed to be coming from up above where the movie projector was. Maybe Old Man Risley was playing some movie for himself with only the sound and not the picture.

  Artie sat still and listened.

  “Ohhhhhh,” went the low voice.

  “Noooo,” said the high one.

  “Huh?”

  “Here.”

  “Where?”

  “Ohhhhhhhhh.”

  “Go—on.”

  “Eeeeeeeeeee!”

  “Wait!”

  “Shir-leeeeeeeeee!”

  Artie stuck his fingers in his ears. He got up, stumbling, and plunged through the door to the empty lobby. He blinked, looked around, seeing only the folding chair where tubby Shavers had been, and the wadded-up wrapper from the Mars Bar lying on the floor. Artie reeled out,
and leaned against the building. He was breathing hard, his heart pounding. He couldn’t think, didn’t want to try. He just stood there, like a watchman or guard, holding the building up, his hands shoved deep and clenched in his pockets. The street was empty. Finally Shirley came out, alone.

  “Where’s Foltz?” Artie said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Is he still in there?”

  “Clarence? He’s closing up.”

  “How come, if he’s not the Usher anymore?”

  “He runs the projector now. Why? What are you doing here?”

  “I heard you. And him.”

  “What do you mean? Where?”

  “In there.”

  Shirley looked puzzled for a second, and then her face seemed to collapse. She covered it with her hands.

  Artie just stood there.

  Foltz came out.

  He looked at Shirley and then at Artie, and sprang at him, grabbing his collar, yanking it.

  “You goddamn little sneak!”

  “Don’t!” Shirley hissed.

  She grabbed Foltz and pulled him away from Artie.

  “Goddamn you,” Artie said quietly. “Goddamn you both.”

  Shirley took a step toward him, like she was walking on ice that might break underneath her.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight was the last time—I mean, that I’ll ever see Clarence.”

  “You won’t see Roy then, either,” Artie said.

  Shirley flinched, like he’d slapped her, and then she took a deep breath, and nodded.

  “You’re going to tell him. What happened tonight.”

  Artie shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “Never.”

  “What do you mean then? That I won’t see Roy. Artie? Artie!”

  She fell to the sidewalk in front of Artie, grabbing him around the waist, squeezing so hard he thought she might crush his bones.

  “Stop!” Artie yelled. “Listen!”

  “Oh, Jesus God,” said Foltz.

  Shirley was sobbing and choking as she spilled out words.

  “Don’t tell me he’s dead don’t tell me they killed him don’t tell me don’t let it be true oh God oh please—”

  Artie grabbed her arms and yanked them to keep her from crushing him.

  “He’s alive, he’s only wounded in the leg, he’s coming home.”

  “Oh my God oh my God oh thank God oh Jesus Christ in Heaven thank you—”