Somewhere in the Stars

by Frank Polizzi

  IV

  Fort Hood, Texas, a flat endless place of raw heat with little or no shade, was not on anyone’s list of favorite sights to visit. It had the perfect terrain for an unexpected tornado to toss someone closer to the sun. But it was wartime and this was one of the best places to get tank training. They came from boot camps all over America to form the tank battalions waiting to be assigned to the divisions that would battle the German war machine, which had already trammeled most of the European continent. Tank Destroyer crews would train here till they got things one hundred percent right. The only thing saving America for the moment was the Atlantic Ocean.

  On a Monday in August just as dawn broke, the GIs piled off the buses to be sorted out into armored troops. Nick, drowsy and disoriented, could hardly make out the recruits who swarmed around him, but as fate would have it, Nick and Nathan fresh from boot camp at Camp Roberts, California, ran into Paul just arrived from Fort Ord, California.

  “Madonna, miu cuginu!”

  “Nick!” They kissed each other on both cheeks and hugged.

  “The Army screwed up. Swore up and down we’d be together from the start.”

  “It’s nostru destinu, Nick.”

  “What did I tell you, Paul? Push for tank training. Oh, you know Nate.”

  They shook hands. “We will be the three moschettieri,” Paul boasted as they laughed and remembered their meeting.

  “What’s so funny, you dickheads? Get in line!” a master sergeant barked, one of many sergeants screaming that day, as they tried to untangle the mass of humanity lining up. The trio marched along with hundreds of other new arrivals in a neat column.

  Having been separated for basic training, they weren’t taking any chances and managed to finagle their way into the same barracks set aside for tankers. Nick and Paul were catching up on family stories while Nathan listened with interest, when a sergeant barged into the barracks. He straightened out the brim of his Brown Round, an old campaign hat that he always wore. Everyone dropped what they were doing and stood at attention. Sergeant Ackers swaggered around eyeballing anyone caught staring at him.

  “What really gets to me is the army is so desperate for bodies, we are inducting any male specimen that can breathe.” Sergeant Ackers stopped abruptly, brandishing his barrel chest like Roman armor, his bare forearms tanned leather. “Now look at what we have here, not one but two Eye-talians, Spataro and Burgio, and their pal here, Fein. Now let me guess. German name, right Fein?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “And I’ll bet you’re a New York Jew too.”

  “San Francisco, Sergeant.”

  “Great.” The sergeant grinned. “We’ve got three guys who have ties to the Axis armies.” He tapped Nathan’s face. “Just kidding. I reckon you fellows were born here, so I’ll let it go at that.” The sergeant strode over the polished wood floor to the center of the room. “What are the rest of you losers looking at? You are not going to disgrace me, are you?”

  “No, sergeant!” they all bellowed.

  “That’s what I like to hear. I don’t want any lame tank crews. My reputation is on the line. I need one more stripe to make Master Sergeant, so don’t screw up.” He glared at Nick, Paul and Nathan. “Especially you three guys.” The sergeant guffawed. “I’m not mixing you with the others. You deserve each other.” He strode over to the front door and turned around. “Anyone of you jokers here want to join their crew?” After a silent pause, the sergeant added: “Can’t say as I blame you, but at least one of you, sure as shit, will have to team up with this sorry trio. A full crew would be five. But a whole company won’t help them none anyways.” He slapped his leg laughing. “What are y’all staring at? Fix up this pigsty before I come back. At ease!”

  The tank training was comprehensive, including classroom and practical runs on the field. They were expected to know everything about the vehicle they would be living in for a long time, how to drive, navigate, load, shoot and maintain their iron hulk. Nick was the designated driver, Paul the gunner and Nathan the commander, but they still needed at least one other member who would be the loader, or the sergeant would send them packing to the infantry, claiming they weren’t fit for a mobile unit. Their break came when Alastar Smith agreed to join their crew, just before ‘lights out’ in the barracks as they stood around his bunk bed.

  Nick asked: “So why do you want to go along with us, when you know the sergeant hates our guts?”

  “I couldn’t stand his picking on you guys and nobody said nothin’. Anyway, my mom is Italian, so I felt he could have been hassling me too if he only knew. Besides, you guys coming from Frisco must be cool.” He lowered his eyes. “I grew up in a small town. You probably never heard of it.” His eyes beamed. “Roseto, PA. It means rose garden in Italian, my Mom says.”

  “Well, wherever you’re from, we’re glad you had the balls to join us,” Nathan added.

  “Yeah, welcome aboard Al, you’ll be my loader,” Paul said.

  “So how old are you anyway, Al?” Nick inquired.

  “Me.” Al fidgeted on the bunk. “Seventeen! Says so right on my baptismal certificate.” His eyes twitched.

  “You’re bit taller than me anyway,” Nick said, as he slapped him on the shoulder.

  Before hitting the sack, Nick whispered to Nathan: “Do you think that Al’s all wet about his age?”

  “Just peach fuzz on his upper lip,” Nathan answered.

  Sergeant Acker’s harassment never wavered. He said their crew did not perform at the same level as the others, which made them more determined to prove him wrong. One day, about two weeks after they had arrived, the entire squadron returned to the compound after their first coordinated exercise. Sergeant Ackers pulled alongside their tank and shouted over the windshield of his jeep. “You four are the most harebrained, sorry asses I have ever come across. You’re taking our whole company down. Captain Monroe was shaking his head.” His jeep cut in front of them and sped away. After Nick parked the tank in the shed, they went behind the building for a private smoke.

  After a few drags Paul spoke up. “I have had enough of that red-necked sonofabitch.”

  “Me too,” Al chimed in.

  “Look guys, don’t you see what this is all about?” Nathan stomped his cigarette out. “Our crew can be as good as the others, maybe even better. Ackers wants to prove his superiority over our kind, even though he is as Southern white trash as they come.”

  “So we’re supposed to take all this crap from him?” Nick asked.

  “There’s only one thing we should do—perfect our skills as a tank crew and train when everybody else is off. At night. On weekends. We got six weeks left and if we work together, we’ll be the best tankers. And Ackers will look like a fool. Are you guys with me or not?” The crew surrounded Nathan and patted him on the back.

  Paul spent a lot of his time with Al practicing his moves for firing off fast rounds, while Nick and Nathan choreographed their techniques so the tank acted more like a sports car than an oversized truck. Nick already understood that there was nothing as bad as getting stuck where you couldn’t maneuver, or worse yet, not being able to move at all from a direct hit. Their bunk buddies thought they were crazy for working so hard, but Nick realized it wasn’t just about Sergeant Ackers—it was also about their survival on the war front.

  One evening they skipped their own private training to write letters, as they sat on the edge of their bunks.

  Nick wrote to his mother:

  Cara Mamma,

  You’re still not mad at me anymore, are you, Mamma? Like I said, I’m sending everything home, except for some cigarette and beer money. How’s Papà? I think about the both of you every day, but mostly Papà. Credo di no that he is still locked up. I wish Avvucatu Arcuri could do something for Papà now that I’m in the army. Nobody knows where we’re going for sure, and I can’t tell you anything, even if I did know …

  Al wrote to his large family:

  Dear Mom, Dad & Ki
ds,

  So how are things in Roseto these days, Mom? I don’t like to gripe in my letters, but let me get this off my chest. I can’t stand this lousy army chow. You know Mom, I miss your cooking bad and sometimes I dream about playing baseball in the cleared field outside of town with my kid brothers. So how’s everybody …

  Nathan wrote:

  Dear Mother, Father & Sis,

  I hope everyone is well in the family and that you’re not worrying too much, especially you, Mom. Just wanted to let you know, Father, that there are some people out here that don’t like us, like our southern sergeant, you know what I mean, but I don’t let that bother me because we all have a job to do. Anyway, I couldn’t be with a better team—me, Nick and his cousin Paul and Al from Pennsylvania …

  Send my love to Sis.

  Nick sealed his letter to Lucia and then wrote to Nathan’s sister:

  Cara Debbie,

  I am sorry about what happened between the two of us. I sent you a bunch of letters during boot camp and didn’t hear from you. I know your father only wants the best for you and I’m not taking it too personal. Mr. Fein is something like my pop, so I know what you’re going through. Anyway, you’re so pretty, the guys will be lining up. That’s not what I really want though. I mean I do love you, sweetheart, but what are we supposed to do, run away from our families? I promised that I would always write to you till you said enough—we would say basta in Italian. Here I am, stuck in a tank! Maybe a miracolo will happen for the both of us. Have a black and white ice cream soda for me and make sure you keep this letter out of sight …

  Love always, Nick.

  A week later during one of their daily mail calls, a corporal shouted their last names and handed out the letters. At moments like this Nathan’s crew split up into their own private spots to read their lifeline letters.

  Paul’s sister, Maria, had written for his mother:

  Caru Paolo,

  Figghiu miu, we miss you here. I tell your father it feels strange without you nella casa. I hope you are not getting skinny because you will get sick and die. I pray every night to Santa Rosalia on my knees that you will come home safe… Maria added her own comments. I feel so proud that my big brother is fighting to protect our country. The kids at school look at me differently now. But don’t do anything foolish. You know how you can get. Maybe you won’t tease me anymore when you come home …

  Con amuri, la famigghia

  Al’s mother wrote:

  Dear Al,

  The whole family misses you so much. Little Pete has been oiling your leather glove so that it doesn’t dry up. He wants you to teach him how to play as soon as you get back. I think your Irish father is turning Italian the way he is so worried about your not getting proper Italian food …

  Nathan’s father wrote:

  My Dear Son,

  I hope that things have not been too harsh for you. Remember that Hitler wants to destroy our people and anyone else who is not Aryan, so you’re doing a righteous thing. Do not let the bigots get the best of you. Watch out for your sergeant, as he will try to provoke you until you’re thrown into the guardhouse. He will get his comeuppance some day …

  With love from everyone

  Nick moved much further away from the barracks where brush trees clustered and black-capped vireos nested. While he meandered, Nick first read the letter from his father out of respect, then skimmed his mother’s note so he could get to Deborah’s. He sat down and leaned his back on the tallest tree, smelling the paper a moment, and gingerly opened the letter.

  Deborah wrote:

  Dear Nicky,

  I already feel like it’s years since we first saw each other. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from you. Nathan says he’s staying out of this, so he hasn’t been much help. I try to respect my parents who have sacrificed so much for me, but sometimes it’s very hard. I am graduating early and plan to go to San Francisco State College in the spring to keep my mind off things. No matter what my parents say, I will never forget you. I just want you to come back alive …

  Take care, mi amor.

  Nick leaned his head on a tree trunk to take in everything he had read. The line about Deborah not hearing from him was disturbing, but he shrugged it off as an army screw up. Beat from all the training, he dozed off and at first Nick thought he was dreaming but soon heard a vireo singing zhrrree right above his head. The memory of Deborah and him at the San Francisco Botanical Garden burst alive and he imagined hearing the black phoebe again and seeing all those bright colors right in front of him. He put the letter in his lap and the hues around him transitioned from green to brown to black after the vireo flew away.

  The next day Nick remained in a sour mood, as he shifted his thoughts to his father’s predicament. He reread his father’s letters, some of which dated as far back as the winter, the ones he had saved from North Beach. Nick poured through the bundle filled with censored lines that had been deemed suspicious and forwarded to the intelligence unit at Camp McAlester. If his father used any Italian words or made any reference to Italy, even negative comments about his native country, they would be blackened or scissored out. When Nick was a child, his father would draw cartoons about Giufà, the village fool, in the tales his mother read to him. His father included some new ones in his letters, so his son would think things were normal. Every cartoon was deleted, as there was a strict ban on all drawings, no matter what the content. Nick tried to decipher the reasons for Gaetano’s internment and struggled to imagine what was missing in all those deletions and what was really meant in his father’s own words.

  Nick’s father spent many cold evenings in primitive barracks, battered by high winds and snowstorms in a remote part of Montana. Fort Missoula had been painted on one of the buildings over a slant of the roof in big white letters, as if they needed to be reminded of the camp’s name. Papà would lie on his cot staring at the ceiling and, when he couldn’t sleep, he would get up and look through the dust-coated window at the mountains. He had met an old fisherman friend from North Beach, who like himself had been a member of the Ex-Combattenti, the Federation of Italian War Veterans in America. Marco Randazzo and Gaetano fought during World War I, when America and Italy were allies. Now they were reunited against their will in an internment camp, even though they had no use for the fascists.

  In the evening after supper, the two detainees played briscula or scopa because it was a link to their italianitá, now feeling so far removed from the extended families and their neighborhood with all its wonderful food shops, operated by paesani who used to speak their language openly.

  “Gaetano, I have trumped you again.” Marco, who always wore a white cap, slapped an ace down on the hard wood table. “You keep on losing in Briscula. Come vai?”

  “Mi dispiace! I can’t concentrate. All I do is worry like an old woman in a black dress.”

  “You must stay calma.”

  “But what about mia famigghia? What I have done to deserve such a fate? I have been humiliated in front of my family, the whole neighborhood. They call us enemy aliens!”

  “So what are we to the Amerigani? I have behaved myself from the first day I stepped off the boat. We fought together with the Amerigani in World War I. Now I am a traitor. Has the FBI ever read my newspaper articles attacking Mussolini? No! Nenti! Even the great American magazine, Time, had Mussolini on the cover. Quella fascista buffa!”

  “What can we do, Marco?”

  He shuffled the cards. “Have you heard from your son?”

  “Si, I got a letter yesterday. Nick joined the Army. He’s going in right after graduation in early June. He’s in a hurry to ride in a tank.”

  “Well, at least he won’t march for miles in the mud. Remember stumbling up the slippery edges in mountains on the Isonzo Front.” Marco stacked the deck on the table.

  “How could anyone forget the fear of being blown up or frozen to death? So Nicolo tella me all the time, ‘No worry, Papà.’ I’ll send money to Mamma every m
onth. She okay, Pop. That’s what he say to me.”

  “He’s a good son, Gaetano.”

  “Before I go to sleep each night, I wonder what will happen to all of us.”

  “Some people pray to their favorite saints, but as for me, it does no good. Our fate is all in the cards.” Marco tapped the deck. “It is like the lifeline across your palm.” He showed his palm and lined his index finger across it. Gaetano’s crossed himself, while Marco chuckled. “Don’t listen to me. I am an old fool. Do you want to play some scopa?”

  “No, grazie. I want to turn in now. Bona notte, Marco.”

  “Bona notte, miu amicu.”

  Papà sat on the side of his Army steel cot with an Army brown blanket dangling at the edge. He pulled on the string of his reading lamp, just a bare bulb hanging overhead. He had collected a stack of letters, one from Lucia and a separate pile for Nick, which he placed next to a statue of St. Thomas the Apostle, his patron saint. He took his scuffed brown work boots off and put black leather slippers on, a new pair that his wife had sent after her first visit. He got up to look out the window and could see the tower lights shining off the barbed wire that encircled the camp. The guards had their weapons on the ready so no aliens considered escaping. Gaetano could make out the outline of magnificent mountains in the distance, but he was trapped in this camp, over a thousand miles from his entire family.