Don't Put the Boats Away

by Ames Sheldon

  “I’m really glad you had this. Parker’s my favorite saxophonist.”

  “He’s a great one.”

  After paying the man, Nat asks, “Is there any place to hear live jazz in this town?”

  “The Flame Room in the Radisson Hotel is probably your best bet.”

  “Where’s the Radisson?”

  “Downtown between Nicollet and Hennepin Avenue, next to The Dayton Company. You can’t miss it.”

  On the train back to Northfield, he pores over the liner notes accompanying the album. Back at the Hagmans’ he listens to the whole record, and then he plays “Yardbird Suite” over and over again. If only he had some other musicians to jam with.

  The following Saturday, in order to look as old as possible, Nat dresses up in the only jacket, tie, and pair of trousers he brought to Minnesota, and he makes sure to tuck the bottoms of his long underwear into his dark socks so the white doesn’t show. This time he takes a later train up to the Cities, figuring that the music at the Flame Room won’t start before eight.

  The clerk at Gabberts was right—Nat has no trouble finding the Radisson Hotel. He buys a package of cigarettes. Entering the Flame Room, he sees a table for two near the back and sits there. It’s been months since he’s smoked a cigarette, so his first inhalation makes him cough repeatedly, and then he feels dizzy. Maybe having asthma means he shouldn’t smoke. Once he recovers his breath, he looks around. Most of the tables are occupied by people dining, the men wearing suits, the women in dresses and high heels. The room is dim despite the small lamps on each table, though spotlights are trained on the bandstand, where a drum set, piano, string bass, music stands, and microphones wait.

  Nat wonders what he should drink. He’s not twenty-one yet, but he had no trouble ordering alcohol in the clubs in New York. When the waiter comes by, he stops the man. Adopting his father’s manner when he gives an order at his club, Nat tries to sound assured. “Please bring me a rum and Coke, sir.”

  The waiter nods.

  Soon the musicians emerge, chatting with each other as they take their places. Nat is shocked to see that all of them are white. Back home his favorite jazz musicians have dark skin. He wonders how good these white guys can possibly sound. At least the band has an appropriate mix of instruments, with trumpet, trombone, and saxophone to go with the piano, bass, and drums.

  He takes a slug of his drink. The band starts off playing “I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So,” a tune by Duke Ellington that Nat recognizes. He relaxes. Leaning back in his chair, he closes his eyes. This is more like it. This is the life he wants.

  April 1947

  A devout Lutheran, Mr. Hagman closes the mill at noon on Good Friday so his employees can attend church. Instead of heading over to St. John’s, though, Nat hurries to the station to board the train to St. Paul, where he changes to the Milwaukee Road train to Madison.

  As he heads south, he recalls the despair that crushed him the last time he rode this train. He no longer feels quite so desperate about his plight, but his sister didn’t seem very sympathetic. After Eddie died, he and Harry should have clung to each other, but they didn’t. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it was because Harry is so much older than he—nine years is a lot. Maybe it was because that first summer after they got the news, Harry leaned on him really hard to get the farm work done since Eddie wasn’t there to help with his muscle and can-do attitude. Nat tried to fill the gap, but he isn’t as strong as Eddie was. That summer Harry got even bossier than usual, and she lost her sense of humor entirely.

  He pulls out a piece of paper and thinks about another stanza of “Must I Go to PA?” Must I live in a dorm? What rhymes with dorm? Conform. What are the ways in which we were expected to conform? Our haircuts? Our clothing? He was always afraid his ties were wrong, though he felt sure Eddie’s were perfect. Eventually he writes:

  Must I live in a dorm,

  Feel that I must conform?

  Though I’m a perfect

  Brooks Brothers’ size,

  I’ll be despised

  By all the guys,

  If by some gaffe

  I wear really bad ties.

  When he climbs down from the train in the West Madison station, he grins to see Harry waiting for him on the covered platform.

  “Nat!” she cries, throwing her arms around him.

  He stands stiffly, still holding his suitcase, though he leans his shoulders toward her.

  “You really don’t like hugs, do you?” she says, still holding tight.

  Pulling back, he replies, “I’m not used to them.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” She looks wonderful: pink cheeked and as familiar as his own face.

  “I’m glad too.” He puts his suitcase down and gives her a peck on the cheek.

  “Gracious!” she says. “That was unexpected.”

  He picks up his suitcase.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I bought a sandwich on the train.”

  “All right, then. We can head home.”

  “Home? Where’s home?” he asks. The relevance of this question for himself strikes him momentarily.

  “I live in a boarding house nearby.”

  Outside the station, Harry motions for a cab.

  “Where will I be?”

  “You’ll stay with me in my room. Klara and my two other roommates have gone home for the holiday, and I managed to convince Mrs. Schmitt to let you take one of the empty beds. We’re really crammed in tight this year, but I think we can manage.”

  Once they enter Harry’s room, Nat feels her eyes on him.

  “You’re taller, Nat. You must have grown two inches since Christmas.”

  Nat says, “No wonder my pants keep getting shorter! I thought they’d shrunk.”

  “Why didn’t you buy some new ones that fit?” She sounds snippy.

  “I suppose I look like a scarecrow. At least I didn’t wear my dirty work jacket. You should be glad about that.”

  “I am glad about that. We’ll go shopping tomorrow.” She points to the corner.

  “Your suitcase should fit over there.”

  He squeezes between two of the four narrow cots crowded into the middle of the room on his way to the spot she indicated. After putting his bag down, he says, “I’ve never slept in a lady’s boudoir before. This is kind of exciting.”

  She laughs. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but I see what you mean.”

  He wanders over to a lamp standing in the corner and gingerly touches its lacy shade, and then he moves to a chest of drawers, the top of which is covered with bottles of nail polish and remover, tubes of lipstick, baby powder, cotton balls, earrings, and bracelets jumbled together. “Who uses all this stuff, anyway?”

  “That’s Klara’s. She’s not very well organized, but she’s a nice girl. Young.”

  “Would I like her?”

  “She’s not bright enough for you, Nat. Besides, she’s engaged.”

  Pleased to be reminded that at least he has intelligence going for him, he leans in to scrutinize himself in the mirror over Klara’s bureau. He purses his mouth.

  “Are my lips too big?”

  “They’re fine.”

  He turns away from the glass.

  Sitting down on her bed, Harry says, “I’m sorry I didn’t write you as often as I meant to this winter, but I’ve thought about you lots of times. I’ve just been so busy working.”

  It seems to him that she’s practically bragging, or maybe it’s just that he envies her being preoccupied with work she enjoys so much. “That’s okay.”

  She yawns. “Tomorrow I want you to tell me all about life in Northfield.”

  “There’s not much to say.” He opens his suitcase and hands Harriet five Hershey’s chocolate bars. “I know you love chocolate, so I brought you a present. Hershey’s Sweet Milk Chocolate—it’s ‘more sustaining than meat,’ as the advertisement claims.”

  “Thank you, Nat, that’s very thoughtful.” She g
ets up to put the candy bars in the top drawer of her dresser. Turning back to him, she teases, “I might even share some with you.”

  He smiles. “You’d better.”

  In the bathroom together, while Nat brushes his teeth, he sings, “I polished up that handle so carefullee, That now I am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!”

  She chuckles.

  “Do you remember that song from H.M.S. Pinafore? Eddie and I used to sing it while we brushed our teeth.”

  “You guys would laugh so hard you’d make a huge mess on the mirror.”

  Back in the bedroom, she says, “Let me know if you need another blanket or an extra pillow.”

  Once he slides under the covers, he thinks how happy he is to be here with his sister. Then he shuts his eyes and sleeps more soundly than he has in months.

  The next morning over breakfast, as Mrs. Schmitt moves in and out of the dining room with orange juice, coffee, and platters of eggs and sausage and toast, Nat chatters away, telling Harry about sweeping the mill and living with the Hagmans, practicing his sax at St. John’s Lutheran, going to free concerts at St. Olaf and Carleton. He tries to make his current life sound like it has all sorts of charm. It’s certainly different from anything he’s known before.

  When Mrs. Schmitt leaves them on their own, Nat comments, “She makes me think of Mother.”

  “Mrs. Schmitt looks nothing like Mother. She’s old and stout.”

  “Her hair is the same.”

  “Well, they both roll their hair up around their ears and across the back of their head. It takes long metal hairpins to keep that ‘do’ in place, and I can’t imagine how that could be comfortable.”

  “I guess.” Nat pours himself another cup of coffee.

  “It’s good to hear you sounding more like yourself. When I left you on the train in January, you really had the blues. I’ve worried about you.”

  “I feel better now.”

  “What are you thinking about your future, Nat? Have you made any plans?”

  “Not really. What about you, Harry? How’s the work on your master’s going?”

  “I just handed in the first draft of my thesis this week. I hope that my advisors won’t have any major criticisms. After breakfast I’ll show you my lab.”

  “I’d like to see where you work. That’ll help me picture you when I go back to Northfield.”

  The day is overcast, the clouds are gray, and the wind off the lake is piercing as they walk past the Quonset huts and the Historical Library. Nat wears his new raincoat with the flannel lining, but he’s sorry now that he didn’t bring his warmer blanket-lined work jacket after all, even though it’s grubby. While they trudge up Bascom Hill, Harry points out the Music Hall and the Science Hall, the Radio Hall and the Law Building, the Education and Engineering Building, and finally Bascom Hall.

  At the top, breathing hard, he leans over.

  “Are you all right?” she asks, putting her hand on his back.

  After a few moments, he stands up straight. “I’m afraid my asthma’s getting worse from all the dust I inhale while I’m sweeping.”

  “You should see a doctor.”

  He shakes his head no. “What’s with the statue of Abe Lincoln?”

  “I think he’s here to inspire us to be honest and study hard. People rub his foot for good luck before exams.”

  “That’s why the front of his boot is so shiny.”

  “After graduation, students climb up and sit on his lap.”

  “I bet you can see a long way from there.” He turns to look at Bascom, North, and South Halls. “I can’t believe the size of these buildings—they’re massive.”

  “Usually the campus is really crowded. We have more than twelve thousand students at UW now.”

  Harry takes Nat over to the Carillon Tower to show him her favorite view of Lake Mendota. Dutifully he admires the scene, but now he’s shaking with cold, despite the sweater beneath his raincoat.

  “Don’t you get lost? This campus is huge.”

  “I only spend time in a few buildings.”

  As they turn down Charter Street, he says, “Are we almost there?”

  “Two more blocks.”

  Once they enter the Chemistry Building, he feels his shoulders relax. She points out the lecture hall with the periodic table of the elements hung from the ceiling, large blackboards behind the instructor’s lab table, and seats for four hundred students. They look into smaller classrooms and laboratories before they arrive at Harry’s lab. There, chemicals in labeled glass bottles with glass stoppers fill several shelves against the wall, and clear glass beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks are ranged on other shelves. Nat runs his hand along the gray soapstone counter, which is as smooth and cool as it looks. A Bunsen burner sits nearby, along with a metal clamp for holding test tubes above the flame.

  He wrinkles his nose. “I smell gas.”

  “We don’t get much circulation in this room.” She walks over to open the window.

  Grabbing a stool, he sits. “Tell me what you do here.”

  She stands next to him. “We’re testing different kinds of mold to see which produces the most penicillin. Penicillin cures lots of infections and diseases that used to be fatal, so this is really crucial work.”

  “I can tell you love what you’re doing, Harry.” He’s proud of her—envious too.

  “I love doing something that can help people live longer and healthier lives. I just hope we find the key to being able to mass produce the stuff.”

  “I bet you will. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

  She smiles. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Nat, but it’s an enormous challenge that many leading scientists have been wrestling with for a very long time.”

  “I mean it, Harry. I’ve always been in awe of the things you can do. Remember the time we changed that flat tire on the way to see Oklahoma? You were wearing stockings and a dress, but you jumped right out and had that tire switched out in seconds.”

  “It wasn’t quite that fast.”

  “Was too.” He swivels in his seat, gesturing toward the test tubes. “Tell me more about penicillin.”

  Sitting on an adjacent stool, she says, “Penicillin was first discovered by accident by a Scottish scientist named Alexander Fleming in 1928. He wasn’t able to attract any interest in his discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin mold, which must have been frustrating as hell for him. Finally, a few years ago scientists in the UK and in this country started experimenting with different molds, trying to find a method for producing the drug in quantity. At first they just used what they had—milk bottles and other small flasks to contain the culture. Someone estimated it would require a row of bottles stretching from New York City to San Francisco to generate the penicillin needed during the war.”

  He snorts. “That’s quite an image.”

  “Now scientists are fermenting penicillin in deep tanks in a process that’s something like brewing beer.”

  “Speaking of beer,” Nat says, “isn’t that something Wisconsin is known for? Maybe we could get some with lunch.”

  “You aren’t hungry already, are you?”

  “I guess I’m still growing.”

  “We’ll go to the Rat for lunch—they have beer there. Just let me check a few of my beakers.”

  As he wanders around the lab, careful not to touch anything, he asks himself whether he misses Yale. No, but he does miss being in school. Heading out to the corridor, he stands in front of the flyers posted on bulletin boards. A young woman in a white lab coat comes out of a door across the hall.

  “May I help you?” she asks.

  “I’m just waiting for my sister, Harry—Harriet—Sutton.” Nat’s eyes skip down to her breasts and then back up to her face.

  She says, “All right, then.”

  As she walks toward the stairs, he admires her shapely legs, and then he recalls telling Eddie once that he is a “leg man.” But that’s not something he can say t
o his sister.

  In the Union, Nat and Harry descend to the lowest level and move through the main archway into Der Rathskeller. He heads right to the fireplace, steps onto the hearth, and holds his hands out toward the heat. Turning back to Harry, he says, “Boy, it’s nice in here!”

  He looks up at the mural above the fireplace, which depicts a bespectacled professor in a gown with very wide sleeves, an open book, a skull, a bone, and tools on the desk before him, standing in front of an audience of seated young men wearing suits.

  Pointing up, he says, “Is that guy meant to be a physician?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m just trying to make conversation, Harry.”

  “Sorry.”

  He spots the German slogans painted inside banners on the walls. “We could almost be in Germany.”

  She says, “This is a real German rathskeller. Wouldn’t you know, women weren’t allowed in here on a regular basis until the war started.” She leads him over to the lunch bar, where she orders beer, grilled cheese sandwiches, and pickles for two.

  They find an empty table and sit down with their food. She picks up her glass of beer. “Once Prohibition ended, Congress declared that 3.2 beer wasn’t intoxicating, which meant it could be sold in all sorts of places. Soon the university’s officials figured out they’d better make beer available to students here in the Rat if they wanted to keep them on campus.” She takes a sip.

  “Lucky for us,” he replies, lifting his own glass as he looks around the room.

  “I noticed you looking at every girl we passed coming down Bascom Hill,” she teases.

  “I don’t see pretty girls in the mill.”

  “Do you think you’d be happier at a coeducational university rather than a men’s school?”

  “Maybe. Are those frescoes on the walls?”

  “Not exactly.” She bites into her sandwich.

  Returning his glass to the scarred wooden table, he starts flexing the fingers of his right hand.

  She says, “Someone told me the artist used oil paint on the plaster after it dried, so it’s not quite the same technique—”