When the Men Were Gone

by Marjorie Herrera Lewis

  When I emerged from the bedroom all gussied up, John smiled and extended his left arm for me to hold. Once I did, he paused.

  “Just a second,” he said, and he walked back to the bedroom. A few minutes later, he returned, only this time without the sport coat. He’d changed into what I’d once told him was my favorite of his two suits, a double-breasted pin-striped gray three-piece, plus a gray fedora.

  “You look like a million bucks,” he said. He smiled, and with both arms extended from his side, he said, “This is the best I’ve got.” Again, he extended his arm for me to hold. Before we walked out to the garage through the kitchen, I stopped at the front door to tack on a note I’d written while John was changing.

  Moose,

  John surprised me with dinner out. Let’s meet at the field house at eight o’clock in the morning.

  Tylene

  “Oh my, John,” I said as he escorted me to the car. “We’re taking the tin lizzie out tonight?”

  I knew that when John took his favorite 1927 Model T out of the garage, we were in for a big night on the town. No expense spared. When I got into the car, John had the radio he’d installed playing Glenn Miller, “In the Mood.”

  I started to swing my shoulders to the beat of the music.

  “I am ready for some dancing,” I said.

  “I hoped you would be.”

  “Do you remember the first time we danced together?” I asked John.

  “I pray to God I never forget.”

  It was during my senior year of high school. John didn’t have a radio at the shop, but I loved music, so I often sang to myself. I was a little shy of singing in front of others, even John, although by that time we’d been working together almost three years. I’d wait to sing until I was either alone or when the clanging of engine repair work below me had gotten so loud I could sing softly to myself without being heard.

  One afternoon, it was so loud in the garage, I didn’t hear John’s footsteps coming up the spiral staircase. I was singing softly, looking down, working on the books, when at the corner of my eye I spotted John. I looked up at him, and despite feeling red in the face, I’d hoped my volume was low enough to have been drowned out by the mechanics down below. He asked only for an invoice and left. I exhaled and got back to work.

  That evening, when the fellas had left and John and I were the only two closing up shop, he called out my name.

  “Tylene, I’m coming up,” he shouted. I could hear him running up the staircase, his boots so heavy I couldn’t understand how I’d failed to hear him earlier in the day. He found me standing, holding my purse, ready to leave.

  “What was the name of that song?” he asked.

  “Oh, gosh, you heard!”

  Then he took my purse from my hand, laid it on my desk, and with his right hand extended, he asked, “May I have this dance?”

  I took a deep breath—my futile attempt to alleviate my inhibitions—and I laid my hand in his. He placed his left arm around my waist, and I began to sing softly. We slow-danced in the tiny office space, and I knew in that moment that I’d forever dance only with John.

  AT THAT POINT in our drive to the Hotel Brownwood, my frustration had completely dissipated, which I’d figured was John’s goal for me all along. As Glenn Miller played softly, we headed downtown in our finest classic automobile. John kept it in pristine shape. It had little mileage despite its age, and it looked as if it were fresh off the assembly line—maybe even better.

  As the Hotel Brownwood on East Baker Street became visible from a distance, I thought of how often I’d passed the hotel but how rarely I had looked at it. In fact, it was a marvel—one of the nicest spots in town. Built in 1930 to a cost of $600,000, the rectangular redbrick hotel’s twelve stories shot up skyward—Brownwood’s version of the Eighth Wonder of the World.

  Shortly after the hotel’s construction, I joined my father on one of his ranch-related monthly trips to Comanche, a hub for farm resources and supplies. On our return, we’d spotted the building from Early, a small, unincorporated community outside Brownwood, and we talked about how life in the Pecan Bayou was changing. The hotel was the first major change we’d noticed in the area since we’d made our first trek to Comanche for a Brownwood football game in 1911. Comanche was the destination of our first road trip by car—actually, by our ranch’s working truck.

  I recalled driving down Farm-to-Market Road 1467 with my father at the wheel of an Avery Farm Wagon, essentially a horse-and-buggy but with wheels and a four-cylinder engine. We bounced around, ignoring the toll the drive was taking on our bodies. As we’d travel along the Texas Corn Trail, two hours each way, we talked football, losing all sense of time.

  I would bite my nails along the way to the games, always worried about the outcome. On the way back, after having witnessed another Lions victory, I would grouse over having bitten off my nails. My father would laugh.

  In 1911, Brownwood played Comanche twice. Brownwood lost 15–0 at home, so when my father and I traveled to Comanche for the rematch, I was, as my dad used to say, a “nervous Nellie.” No nerves on the drive home that night, as Brownwood won 17–15 on a last-minute touchdown. Under less unusual circumstances, my father and I would dissect the game on the way back, but on that night, I had lost my voice. While driving home, I slept.

  I was so warmed by the memories, as John and I approached the Hotel Brownwood parking lot, I asked him if he could remember the first time he had taken notice of the hotel’s visibility from so far away. He couldn’t recall.

  Having parked the tin lizzie, John ran around the front of the car to my side, opened the door, and grabbed my hand, and together we entered the steak house. Greeted by warm red-velvet walls, gold chandeliers, and waiters in tuxedos, we were set for an evening of elegance—dinner and dancing. The Hotel Brownwood was peaceful and relaxing, unlike a typical Friday or Saturday night when the visiting families of Camp Bowie soldiers stretched the hotel to capacity.

  We talked mostly about my mom, school, the auto garage, and how we both looked forward to our upcoming Saturday night of dominoes with Vern and Mavis, something we’d done twice a month for the past several years. When the topic of football came up, John reassured me.

  “You have a coach, and the boys are playing,” he said. “Certainly, the worst has passed.”

  Thursday

  I waited for Moose to arrive for our daily practice debriefing. I’d seen a particularly troublesome practice for the second day in a row—handoffs were fumbled, interceptions were dropped, snaps were low, frustrations were high—so I expected the meeting to be difficult. Oddly, Moose was late, which made me even more concerned, and when I opened the door, I took one look at him, and I knew it was all over.

  His T-shirt was untucked in the back, and he was wearing a pair of old shoes, his right little toe pushing his white sock through a hole. He also had the smell of alcohol on his breath. We skipped the small talk.

  “I’m done,” he said.

  We sat down at the kitchen table. I handed Moose a tall glass of water, and I listened.

  “I’m no good at this, Miss Tylene. I wanted to be good at it. I’ve never been so excited about something in my life. But I go home after our meetings, and I drink until I fall asleep. Sometimes I hear a knock at the door, and I know it’ll be Jimmy and Bobby Ray, but I ignore them. I don’t want them to see me like that. When I look out the window, I see them walking away, and I can tell they’re wondering why I never answer the door. I’m certain they know I’m home.”

  Moose’s hand covered his mouth as he rocked back and forth in his stationary chair. He was fighting back tears.

  “I’ve known since the first practice that I was in over my head. But I really wanted this. I wanted it for me. For you. For the boys. I didn’t want to give up. I really didn’t. It was the first time I’ve had meaning in my life since the war. But it’s too much for me. I can’t do this. I failed you, Miss Tylene. You believed in me, and I failed you.”
/>   “Moose, you didn’t fail,” I said. “The field house would have been padlocked by now if not for you. Every time I watched that door swing open and the players run onto the field, I knew it was because of you. You, Coach Moose Pecorella, kept the boys in uniform.”

  “Just not long enough,” he said.

  I wanted to convince Moose to stay, but I could tell by his presence that there was nothing I could do to get him to change his mind. I had come to realize that he was in over his head, and it broke my heart.

  “What is it, Moose? What’s behind this? Why today?” I asked.

  “The boys asked how I got injured.”

  I just looked at him.

  “What do I tell them? My buddy gets blown to pieces, and I get sent home? That I’m a fraud? They know I ain’t no war hero.”

  I had known how he’d gotten hurt. The word had long ago spread throughout town, but I asked Moose to tell me his story anyway. I had hoped something in the story would lead to healing.

  “What happened, Moose? Tell me.”

  Moose collected his thoughts for what seemed like minutes, not seconds.

  “We hadn’t been in the Philippines more than a week. Just a couple days, really. We’d just set up our platoon outside Luzon when we had a little downtime.”

  Moose then leaned forward, put his right elbow on the kitchen table, and rested his forehead in his right palm. He looked down at the table and stopped talking.

  “Then?” I asked.

  “We outnumbered the Japanese, but they’d sent their first-line troops. We were a ragtag bunch not ready for what we were up against. Hell, I was in the National Guard.”

  I moved in closer.

  “We were all scared; downtime kept us sane. We had a football stashed away, so I picked it up.”

  Moose then sat up straight in his chair and started rocking himself again.

  “It’s okay, Moose. Take your time.”

  Moose swallowed hard. He looked to be fighting back tears.

  “Eldridge Cooper, tall, skinny kid. Scared, too, just like the rest of us. He played high school football, so I called him out. He was still in full uniform, helmet and all, unpacking. I told him to run about twenty yards and cut right. He did, and as he made his cut, I threw the ball. Straight to him. But before he could grab it, he stepped on a booby trap.”

  Moose’s body started to shake and he began to cry. I grabbed his left hand and held it tightly. Moose closed his eyes, keeping them closed as he continued.

  “His body. Pieces flying everywhere. I took shrapnel from the booby trap to my hip, Miss Tylene, and I have bits of his helmet—bits of his helmet—always with me in my hip, too.”

  Moose’s eyes remained closed, but he could not keep the tears from falling. When he opened his eyes, he looked directly into mine.

  “The whiskey keeps me going.”

  “And nothing else?” I asked.

  “I wanted more. I wanted the team to keep me going, but it’s too much for me. You’ve got to know, Miss Tylene, tragedy changes you.”

  “It does, all right. It changed me.”

  “You?” Moose asked. “With all due respect, Miss Tylene, I don’t think you’ve seen what I’ve seen or experienced.”

  “Your story is tragic, Moose. I can’t imagine the horror, and I’m sorry for your loss. But we’ve all experienced loss. Everyone has. The loss of a child. The loss of a friend. The loss of an entire town.”

  “A town?” Moose asked.

  “Ever hear of the Zephyr tornado?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I was in grammar school,” I told Moose as I began my story.

  My family was living in Zephyr on property settled in the 1800s by my grandfather William McMahan. My bedroom was a converted oversized closet barely large enough for a twin bed. We had a four-room home. I went to bed by seven thirty, shortly after my parents and I had noticed the ominous sky, but it was a common sight for a Texas spring.

  I went to sleep with the sound of rain tapping at a tiny window my father had installed when he’d renovated the closet. I was awakened shortly before midnight by the sound of an approaching train. It was a familiar sound, but I’d never heard it at night; we lived far from the tracks. Seconds later, my dad burst through my bedroom door, grabbed me from my bed, wrapped me within the raincoat he was wearing, and dashed toward the backyard underground storm shelter.

  My dad held me tightly in his arms as the wind and the hail nearly knocked us to the ground.

  “Tylene, you’ve got to wait for us in here!” he shouted, although my ear was just inches from his mouth. “Wait for me and your mama. It’ll be dark in there, but don’t be scared.”

  Despite being pelted by hail the size of quarters, I kept my arms wrapped around my father’s neck. His face was bleeding. I didn’t know or care if mine was, too. He bent down on both knees and opened the flat-lying wooden shelter door. The wind held it open as he reached down low enough for me to grab on to the rusty metal ladder bolted to the shelter wall. Instead, I squeezed his neck more tightly.

  “You’ve got to let go, Petunia,” he shouted. “I’ll be right back.”

  “No, Daddy, no! Don’t leave me, Daddy!”

  “Grab the ladder! Grab the ladder!” he shouted above the howling wind and crunching sound of rain and ice hitting hard against our skin.

  My nightgown was flapping in the wind as I reached down and grabbed on to the ladder. Just as my father let go of me, I saw him lose his balance, falling and smacking his right hip against the shelter door just as it slammed shut.

  Barefoot and crying in underground darkness, I kept calling out to my father. My cries got louder each time I’d hear a tree branch snapping or wood peel away from our family’s frame home.

  Finally, I curled up on the third rung of the ladder. I closed my eyes to keep from staring into the darkness. I cupped my hands over my ears. My shouts turned into whispers.

  “Daddy, Mama, Daddy, Mama,” I repeated, convincing myself that the sound of their names would shut out the chaos screaming just inches above me.

  I waited until all that remained was an eerie silence. I was too afraid to wonder why my parents had never made it to the shelter. I was too afraid to call out their names and get no answer. I tried to push open the shelter door; it was too heavy. I tried again and again. Finally, thanks to a timely gust of wind, I managed to push it up about two inches, and when I did, I saw my father’s right boot.

  “Daddy!” I shouted. If he responded, I didn’t hear. The weight of the door was too much. It slammed down hard. I tried to push it open again, but it wouldn’t budge. Over and over, I cried out, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” into the darkness. I got no response.

  I began to sob but kept pushing at the door and calling out for my father. Then I noticed a crack of light, enough that only a full moon could provide. The door opened. Standing at the top was my mother, who reached down to help me climb out of the shelter.

  “My baby, my baby,” my mother said. “Grab my hand.”

  I grabbed on to her.

  “Mama, why didn’t you—” Before I could finish my sentence, I saw, just behind my mother, my father’s hunched silhouette pushed against a tree. He was barefoot. His clothes were ripped.

  “Daddy!” I shouted as I ran to him, ignoring my bare feet while hopping around the debris strewn throughout our yard. When I reached him, I threw my arms around his neck and began to cry. I felt him wince. Then I looked up and saw my mother walking toward us.

  I watched as she surveyed the neighborhood under the moonlight. I glanced around, too, and saw nothing but destruction. Very little remained of our own home. I watched as Mom looked back at the single part of the house left untouched: my parents’ bedroom closet. I figured that was the shelter that had saved my mother’s life.

  “Mom, do you have Frisky?” I asked about my dog.

  She did not reply, and I figured she had not heard me.

  When she reached my dad and me, she knelt
beside Dad. I was on his lap. Mom put her head on Dad’s shoulder and began to cry.

  Over and over she whispered into his ear, “Thank God you’re alive.”

  Once she pulled herself together, she stood up. “Give me your hand, George.”

  “It’ll take more than your hand, Fannie. I think I busted my hip.”

  I jumped off his lap. Mom grabbed his left hand, and I grabbed his right. He tried to stand, but he couldn’t. By then, we could hear sirens off in the distance.

  “My God, Fannie. Look at this,” Dad said as he viewed the destruction. I sat back on my father’s lap and kept my arms around his neck.

  Mom, wearing a nightgown and slippers, sat on the mud beside us and leaned against the tree. I crawled onto my mom’s lap, and she began to stroke my hair.

  “Frisky is okay, right, Mom?” I asked.

  Instead of replying, she hugged me more tightly, and I knew.

  The three of us sat there, holding on to each other, until shortly before sunrise.

  Two days later, with my father in the Brownwood hospital, the newspaper announced that thirty-five people had been killed and seventy injured. Because the tornado’s swath cut through neighborhoods, most people had been sleeping and were unable to react quickly enough to reach shelter.

  “You were one of the lucky ones, George,” Mom said as she read the paper in the hospital room. Dad shared a room with three other men injured that night. Their families were visitors, too. Everyone exchanged their survival stories, and I realized that not every family had stayed intact. One of my dad’s hospital mates had lost his wife. Another had lost two children, including a daughter from my third-grade class.

  My father remained in the hospital for months, battling back from his hip fracture and the ensuing infection. Mom and I had moved in with Mom’s parents in Brownwood while my dad convalesced. We never returned to Zephyr.

  After I had finished telling my story, Moose remained silent. He looked down at his leather shoe, staring at the piece of sock pushing through the hole in his right one.