Don't Put the Boats Away

by Ames Sheldon

  The Hagmans agree that Nat can have a record player as long as he doesn’t play it after nine in the evening. When he goes to Eide’s, he finds a limited selection of records, but he buys a record player, a Billie Holiday album, and two recordings of Brahms’s early symphonies. He doesn’t bother to acquire a radio because he’s already learned that he can’t get jazz on any of the stations here. He used to love listening to Duke Ellington on the radio at home.

  Before long he grows bored with feeling stuck, and his curiosity reasserts itself. One night, even though the thermometer reads minus ten, he goes to the public library for a glimpse of the world beyond Northfield. He learns that even the Boy Scouts are experiencing the housing shortage, to which an Air Scout Squadron in Armonk, New York, has responded by buying a secondhand naval transport plane, taking off its wings, and equipping it for use as their clubhouse. This story amuses him, makes him smile. In Life magazine he reads, “The Russians tried to steal Europe and failed.” What does that mean? He doesn’t know much about Russia.

  An ad for The Secret Heart with Claudette Colbert and Walter Pidgeon catches his eye. Apparently the film concerns two women who love the same man. Nat’s experience with women is practically nonexistent. For a couple of months at Andover, he had a gorgeous girlfriend named Emma. But she never answered his letter about Eddie getting killed, and in the fall she didn’t return to Abbot Academy, the girls’ school down the street from Andover. He thinks having two women in love with him would be great.

  On Friday night he makes his way to the Grand Theater. The film opens with Larry Adams playing a passionate rendition of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Both women are in love with Larry, but after Larry’s suicide and revelations about the financial disaster he caused investors, the movie gets creepy. Larry should never have become a banker—he would have been a great concert pianist, but his father forced him into a practical career instead. Unnerved by the eerie resonance with his own life, Nat leaves the theater before the end of the movie.

  Every Sunday Nat pulls out his saxophone as soon as the Hagmans depart for church. He’s set up the record player on top of the desk in his room, and one day he is so engrossed in playing along with Billie Holiday’s rendition of “In My Solitude” that he doesn’t hear them return. When Mrs. Hagman raps on his door, he puts down his instrument and stops the record. “Come in.”

  “Was that you playing?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Holy buckets, you’re good!”

  “Thank you.” Her praise warms him, though he knows he still has a long way to go.

  “No wonder you don’t come to church with us. This is your chance to practice with no one around.”

  Nat nods.

  “I have an idea. On Wednesday nights when I go rehearse with the choir at St. John’s, maybe you’d like to come along? I’m sure we could find an empty Sunday school room you could practice in.”

  “That would be great, Mrs. Hagman. I didn’t realize you sang in the church choir.”

  “I don’t. I play the organ.”

  “Really? I love organ music. I’d like to hear you play, Mrs. Hagman.”

  “I could be worse.”

  “I played a little organ in high school, but mostly it was piano.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I’d like very much to come along with you Wednesday night. Thank you.”

  January 31

  Dear Nat,

  I’m glad to hear you can come to Madison for Easter weekend. That’ll be a treat. It sounds like you’re settling into life in Northfield. Have you had a chance to go skating yet? I love to get outdoors here when I can grab the time.

  Dr. McCann thinks I should consider going on for a PhD in chemistry. It would require more years in the lab, and then what? I can’t imagine teaching at a college or university. I prefer to do chemistry, not talk about it. What do you think, Nat? You know me well. What would you advise?

  Love,

  Harry

  Nat is amazed—Harry has never asked his advice before. He writes her back immediately to say she should do chemistry if that’s what feels right to her.

  Next Sunday after lunch Nat spots a notice in the Northfield News about an organ recital at Carleton that afternoon. While he points it out to Mrs. Hagman, he remembers thinking he didn’t have anything in common with the Hagmans. He sure was wrong.

  “Would you like to go with me to hear Mr. Woodworth?” Nat loved listening to Dr. Honiger play Bach in the chapel at Andover.

  “Thanks, Nat, but I need a nap.”

  Walking toward the college campus, Nat is surprised to see all these clapboard houses with light trim, which make him think of Massachusetts. It’s easy to find Skinner Memorial Chapel, for it’s a massive stone structure with a square bell tower dominating a large lawn; there’s nothing close by except for trees, and now he is reminded of Andover. Suddenly he realizes how much he likes being on a college campus. And this place has coeds, which makes it even better than Andover. As a pretty girl in a red wool cap covering long blonde hair approaches him, Nat stops.

  “Hey,” he says. “Hi.”

  She smiles but passes by without saying anything. How is he ever going to meet a girl like her?

  When he sits in the audience before the recital begins, Nat looks at the stained glass windows with elemental floral images and crosses, and up at the wooden beams just under the roof of the sanctuary. Then he drops his eyes to the crowd of older people, who must be members of the faculty and their spouses, and older students—GIs—and a few people closer to his own age. He fits in here. Once the music surrounds him, Nat starts to feel more like himself. He thinks about Andover and Eddie, performing Gilbert and Sullivan operettas with him, defying the rules by playing poker there with his brother and pals, and also the sobering occasion when he comforted Eddie after that brutal hazing by the ACB club. Then it dawns on him that he has the time now to go back to work on those songs he started writing about life at Andover. That would be fun—and it could be a way to connect with memories of Eddie.

  At the mill the next day, Nat watches a guy called Dick come up to a machine, and as the pulleys are going, Dick takes one belt off and throws another on in its place while all the wheels keep turning. The machine never stutters or slows. Nat is terribly impressed.

  The roar of the machine is deafening, so he grabs Dick’s sleeve. With exaggerated face and hand gestures, he mouths, “Wow!”

  Dick grins and nods at Nat.

  During the afternoon break, Nat finds Dick sitting in the cafeteria, smoking a cigarette. Then Nat notices the hand holding the fag has only three fingers. Nat sits down next to Dick. Opening the lunch box Mrs. Hagman gives him every morning, he says, “That was remarkable, Dick! Aren’t you afraid of getting pulled into the machine?”

  “Pretty slick, huh?” Dick replies proudly. “I’ve kept those machines going for more years than I can count. I know their workings better than the workings of my wife—’course the machines are more predictable.”

  Nat laughs as he opens the thermos and pours himself a cup of Mrs. Hagman’s weak coffee. “I wouldn’t have thought you could change a belt like that without incurring major damage.”

  “I got banged up in the beginning till I learned my way around. I have to say, you wield a mean broom. The mill has never been so clean. You go all the way into the corners.”

  Ridiculously pleased, Nat blushes. “Thanks, Dick.” Unwrapping a piece of apple pie, he asks, “Want some?”

  “No thanks. You’re not from around here, are you? You’ve got an accent.”

  “I grew up in New Jersey.”

  “Ah! That explains it. What’s a young fella like yourself doing in a place like this?”

  “I guess my father thought it would be good for me to get out on my own. It’s time I start earning my way.” As he hears himself, he notices that he feels a bit of pride about this. At last it occurs to him that when he earns his own money, he can do whatever he wan
ts. He’s independent of his father. He can be his own man.

  Dick says, “That’s not bad.”

  “I’ve been wondering about something. The machines are all operating at different rates, and they’re out of sync with each other. It’s kind of jarring. Wouldn’t it be better if they worked together, in some sort of harmony?”

  “Oh no, if they moved all together, they’d vibrate the mill to the ground—the building would break apart. The machines are purposely adjusted so they don’t do that.”

  “No wonder it sounds so clunky.”

  “You get used to it.”

  Nat’s arms are growing stronger from his work in the mill, and he becomes confident enough to jump onto the open man lift when he needs to move from one floor to another. During lunch he often sits and talks with Dick, but most of his conversations are with himself. He enjoys his own company.

  He writes another stanza for the song “Must I Go to PA?”

  Foll’wing Dad’s a tough act,

  All I’d do is detract

  From his great saga

  That’s told to this day:

  While at PA

  Grades are all A;

  He caught the pass

  Beat the big Red and Gray.

  He knows Eddie would agree with those lines. Is that why his brother played football at Andover, hoping to beat Exeter like their father had? As he composes the lyrics, Nat finds that he feels closer to Eddie than ever.

  In the town library, he studies a variety of newspapers and magazines. A battered issue of Life dated January 13 has an article about the Communists in France, who make up the largest party there; apparently, they follow Moscow’s directives. Having the Communists come to power in France would be “the surrender of the French Republic, the greatest bulwark of liberty on the European continent, to a totalitarian and foreign influence. For England and the US it would mean that the Soviet sphere had reached the shores of the Atlantic.” This image gives him the shivers.

  Nat decides to write his father, asking him to send articles from the New York Times about Communism and whatever Russia’s up to so he can better understand what’s going on. He’s starting to realize how much he doesn’t know. At an evening lecture about immigration by a Carleton professor of sociology and anthropology, he learns that 500,000 Italians are asking for admission to the US, but the quota for Italians is 5,800 persons. What can they do about all those people?

  A few weeks later Nat receives an envelope of clippings from the New York Times with a note from his father simply stating, “As requested.” A letter from Peter arrives too; Peter likes Cornell very much, and he’s decided to major in the history of art. Nat wonders, What is the point of a degree in art history? He thought Peter wanted to be a cartoonist.

  Late one afternoon, Nat is sweeping the top floor of the mill, where the largest grinders start the work of breaking up the kernels of wheat. As he moves the broom rhythmically, he thinks up sax riffs to go along with the swish swish swish of the broom; those swishes almost sound like brushes stroking the top of a snare drum. He’ll have to try those riffs out tonight in the room Mrs. Hagman arranged for him to use at the church.

  He hears a change in the sound of the machinery, as though one of the grinders has suddenly stopped. That’s strange. He removes his earmuffs. Stomach tightening, he moves quickly into the next room.

  Dick stands in front of the huge steel wheels, a five-inch-wide belt on the floor beside him, his right hand jammed in the tiny gap between a wheel that’s two feet wide and another that’s eight inches in diameter.

  Dick’s face is white. Between clenched teeth, he cries, “Turn it off!”

  Nat scurries around the machine, looking for a switch, but he can’t find one. He shouts, “Mr. Hagman, Mr. Hagman!” but realizes no one can hear him over the clamor of the other machines, so he races for the open man lift. Flying down to the first floor, whispering, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he finds Mr. Hagman and quickly leads him back to the fourth floor, breathlessly describing the situation.

  Once upstairs, Mr. Hagman makes the grinder reverse direction and release Dick’s hand. When it’s free, Dick cups the middle finger of his right hand in his left.

  Nat is surprised to see that there isn’t any blood, but Dick’s finger has been flattened. Mr. Hagman tells Nat to accompany Dick down the street to the doctor’s office.

  After examining and x-raying Dick’s hand, Dr. Jones says, “All three phalanges, the bones in your finger, have been thoroughly crushed, so much so that I don’t believe they can heal. I recommend we amputate that finger.”

  Dick replies, “At least I’ll still have two fingers on my hand—enough to hold a cigarette.”

  Fortunately, Nat is asked to leave the room while the doctor performs the operation. As he starts to calm down, he thinks how much he admires Dick for his bravery and his jaunty attitude. Dick is a real man.

  Later that night Nat can’t sleep. He keeps seeing Dick’s smashed finger. His own hand twitches at the thought of losing one of his digits.

  Early in March, Nat spots a notice about an upcoming performance of H.M.S. Pinafore at Carleton College. Nat and Eddie performed that operetta for their family during the summer of 1943, along with a cast of neighbors and friends, and it was more fun than anything—even more than the production at Andover they’d been involved in earlier that year. His second year at Andover, after Eddie joined the Army, Nat got to play the piano accompaniment to Pirates of Penzance, and that had been thrilling.

  “Mrs. Hagman? How would you and Mr. Hagman like to attend a performance of H.M.S. Pinafore at Carleton College with me this weekend?”

  “I’m not familiar with that,” Mrs. Hagman says.

  “It’s a very silly operetta with beautiful songs by Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  Mr. Hagman says, “Count me out. I don’t go for that kind of thing.”

  “We’ve never been up to the college,” Mrs. Hagman replies.

  Surprised, he says, “Never? The performance is open to the public. There’s no reason not to go.”

  “All right, then. I’ll give it a try.”

  On their way over to Carleton, Mrs. Hagman holds her coat closed around herself so tightly that Nat wonders whether she’s embarrassed. Maybe she’s intimidated by a college campus, but he feels very much at home here. He’s glad to be able to expose Mrs. Hagman to something new about her own town.

  During the performance, he is tickled anew by the nonsense. When Mrs. Hagman asks about confusing parts of the story, Nat explains that you have to suspend your disbelief and simply go along with it. Mrs. Hagman is very impressed by the student playing Josephine, who has an excellent voice, but Nat’s disappointed by the guy in Rafe Rackstraw’s role—he isn’t nearly as good a tenor as Eddie was.

  On the way home, Mrs. Hagman says, “Thank you, Nat. That was enjoyable. You know, I never heard you laugh before.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re such a serious young man. You don’t even smile very often.”

  “Well, I have felt a bit like a fish out of water. I’m not used to small towns or working in a mill, but I’m starting to get the hang of things.”

  “You’re certainly a hard worker.”

  The next Saturday after work, Nat takes an afternoon train up to Minneapolis, hoping to find a record store where he can buy some new jazz recordings now that vinyl is no longer reserved for military use. As the train from St. Paul to Minneapolis crosses over the Mississippi River, Nat recalls the pleasure he had reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Leaving the Great Northern Depot, he walks halfway across the Hennepin Avenue Bridge so he can view the great waterway. Although snow and ice cover the banks, the middle of the Mississippi is wide open and flowing freely.

  He turns back toward the city and passes a group of men standing together at the end of the bridge in rough clothes, smoking. Hennepin Avenue strikes him as slightly seedy, so he moves over to Nicollet Avenue. Most of the buildings are two and
three stories high, constructed of brick or stone. He passes by the J. C. Penney and Powers stores, aiming for The Dayton Company, which he spots up ahead. This is a name he recognizes from ads in the Minneapolis Star. The Dayton store is a strange-looking conglomeration of structures—one three stories tall, another five, and another eight. He figures it must have been added to over the years. Inside, he finds the record section downstairs near the books, and a sales clerk informs him that the best place to buy records by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and other jazz artists is actually Gabberts at 3035 Nicollet Avenue.

  “How far away is that?” Nat asks.

  “More than twenty blocks. You’ll want to hop a trolley to take you down Nicollet and get off at Lake Street.”

  Back outside, he spots the Foshay Tower, a skyscraper with thirty-two floors that rises high above the surrounding buildings, which aren’t very high by Nat’s standards. He walks over to Marquette Avenue and enters the foyer. The Art Deco interior is beautiful with its marble floors, gold-plated doorknobs, and silver-and-gold-plated ceiling—this is more like what he’s used to. The Foshay Tower may not have as many stories as the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, but it reminds him of home.

  A young woman wearing a navy coat and high heels walks by.

  “Miss?”

  She stops and smiles at him. Her lipstick is bright red. “Yes.”

  “Do you happen to know when this building was constructed?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know the date. It’s been here as long as I can remember.”

  Glad to find that he’s not invisible to all women, Nat grabs a streetcar down to Lake Street. In Gabberts, he snatches up the only copy of the new Charlie Parker Septet album and heads for the front.

  A tall skinny man with a protruding Adam’s apple, the cashier, says, “I see you got the last one. Charlie Parker’s albums fly out the door as fast as we can get them in.”