Tide King

by Jen Michalski

  “You’re a strange one,” Cindy laughed. He felt her hand in his hair. “You’re not going to die. And you don’t seem like a criminal to me.”

  “I’m not,” Stanley said. “I just got a little drunk, got a little lucky at poker, got a little luckier that you were staring out the window.”

  “Well, I’m just a nice girl, too, aren’t I?” He heard her voice, slightly wistful. “Don’t think I haven’t tried to get respectable employment. But lotsa places, they don’t hire people like me—they say we’ll scare the customers. Or we’re too short to work the registers or the machinery. They all tell me to run off to the circus. I ain’t no freak, Stanley. I just want to work respectable like everybody else. A lot of guys, they like the kinky stuff. They like little girls, right? But they ain’t going to actually screw or marry no little girl, get run outta town by a lynch mob.”

  Stanley drifted away. He wasn’t sure if it was the wound or his usual drifting. He dreamed of circuses, of Cindy riding a Shetland pony, hanging on by the neck, her little legs bouncing off the shoulders. Both wore their hair in ringlets. Johnson was there, too. He sat in his own cage, looking glum. Above him, a sign read THE BOY WHO NEVER GROWS UP.

  “Stanley.” Cindy was shaking him. “Stanley? You okay?”

  “Just sleeping,” he said.

  She petted his head. “You want me to run to the store, get you some aspirin now?”

  “Stay. I need someone to wake me up if I start to go again.” He turned on his side, feeling a little stronger. His shoulder burned like fire, and he wondered whether a cold shower would help.

  “Just stay down for a little bit, Stanley.” Cindy hopped off the bed. “You like eggs? We got a few eggs left, some Tabasco. I’ll split an omelet with you, okay?”

  “Just hurry back,” Stanley called after her. Although he supposed it wouldn’t matter once he was dead, he wanted someone to see him die. So many men had died in the fields, in the dark, in the middle of fighting, without anyone to say goodbye to. Even Johnson, left there to rot. Had the cleanup crews brought his body back to America, or had they buried it in the Hürtgen?

  Cindy came back before long with a hot plate of eggs and splash of coffee. She put the plate between them as Stanley eased himself up on his elbow. He could see better now, with the sun up. She had a pretty, baby doll face: an upturned nose, lips in a permanent slight pucker, a round chin and chubby cheeks. She had breasts like a real woman, but there’s where the similarities ended. He wondered whether she wore children’s clothing. He wondered how the men could fuck her, how she could take a larger man. He could not imagine fucking her himself, even kissing her, and yet her voice drizzled over him like honey. She was how he imagined a woman would treat him, a woman he wanted to marry. And yet, she was a child.

  Stanley sat up gently in bed, wondering if, after breakfast, his cue to leave would be short in coming. He tested the weight of each foot on the floor before pushing off the bed. The room vibrated faintly, still, like a spun quarter laying down to rest, and he made it to the window, sticking his head out, just before the eggs and last night’s whiskey plumed out of his mouth and in the small concrete yard below. Beyond the fence, he could not see Vadim and Nicolai. She must have only had a head shot on each. Maybe the wrong sex had been enlisted to fight.

  “Stanley, what’s wrong?”

  “Come with me,” he heard himself say. It wasn’t a proposition, he didn’t think, but he wasn’t ready to let her pass by his life. She was the first solid thing he’d seen, touched, since sailing back to Baltimore. Not an anchor, more like a buoy, something steady in the undulating sea. “I got this farmhouse, see…”

  “I got a room here, a job,” she answered. “You’re sweet, baby, but I don’t even know you.”

  “Well, here, take this.” He handed her half the bills. “For your trouble. But I’m going to this farm. To start over. If you want to come, come over to the ferry docks. I’m leaving as soon as I can.”

  “Do I look like a farmer girl to you, hon?”

  “You don’t look like a sharpshooter, either,” he said. She opened the closet and rummaged through the few shirts, dresses.

  “Here.” She held out a large, purple satin women’s shirt. “Here—this looks like it might fit you. One of the girls, Rhonda, left it behind. Let’s see that wound.”

  She peeled the bed sheet off. The bullet had carved an alley across the top half of his bicep. It wept blood, but Cindy was able to wrap a smaller bandage of bed sheet around it before helping Stanley into the shirt.

  “Thanks a million.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry we have to part ways like this.”

  “Just stay out of trouble, huh?” She answered as he opened the bedroom door. “If you bother me at three in the morning in the alley again, it’ll be your head I’ll be aiming for.”

  “Well, if I have to be shot at one more time, I’d want it to be you.” He smiled before frowning. It was probably the stupidest thing he ever said. He wondered if he’d ever learn how to talk to a woman. But she laughed and beamed at him, a little too long, and he thought he’d better leave before the space between them filled with branches that pulled at their arms and legs and organs and got them tangled up in each other, like Siamese twins.

  “Stanley, wait—” Cindy grabbed at his leg. “Can you get that suitcase down from the top shelf?”

  They slid into a bench under the deck of the ferry with Cindy’s suitcase. Stanley had not even stopped home to say goodbye to Linus. It was like he had never been home anyway, a listless ghost that dissipated when Linus opened a window. Cindy dabbed the dirt off Stanley’s face with a spit-moistened tissue. He was tired still, so tired he might die. But he was so afraid Cindy might be a figment of his own imagination, his angel taking him to heaven, that he slapped himself awake in his wounded shoulder. Blood dotted his purple satin shirt, and the fabric strained against his back. The plank rose from the dock, and slowly, Baltimore shrank until it became a miniature city, too small even for Cindy. He felt like they were running away to the circus, although to many aboard, they probably looked like they were already in it.

  1946

  The man who came back from the dead, they called him at church. The man with nine lives, they called him at the drug store. At the gas station, they called him lucky. Calvin smiled, laughed, let his back get slapped by his father, his cheek pinched by the wrinkled ladies who smelled like rose water, let himself get roped into football games when the kids at the playground called after him, begged for a game of catch.

  “Can you believe it?” His father laughed to his friends. “It’s like God gave us our life back.”

  His mother touched Johnson’s shoulder, lightly. She had been touching him more since he returned. He wondered whether she thought he was real, whether she’d go to grab his arm and her fingers would sink into it like sand.

  “Leave it to the government to make a clerical error.” His father rocked on his heels like a proud father. “Worst month of our life because some paper jockey got the wrong man.”

  They called him heroic, brave, honorable. He always knew the men who said these things to him had not served. The men who served said nothing. He’d see them at the movie theater, sitting next to their girls, their wives. They stared in their popcorn sacks as if they’d lost a tooth in it. At the dance hall, their hands would hold their girls close, but their eyes would be far away. He held girls close as well, mindful of their gravity. Without them, he would certainly float away.

  When they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Johnson’s father came through the door of the house, late edition of the newspaper in his hand.

  “You know what this means, boy?” He slapped Johnson on the back. “We won, we won it all!”

  He wondered about the other men in his platoon, Polensky, Abraham, mostly Polensky. Did he go back to Baltimore, or was he an occupier? He’d have to write the platoon. He waited in the line, filled out forms, talked with a few of the other
soldiers returning, had no equipment to return. He listened to occupational counselors, who stressed on him the decorum of the GI, one’s presentation at the employment office, job interviews. The need to take advantage of civilian goodwill toward vets, turn it into a good-paying job. Find a girl, pick up a hobby. Return to a normal he had yet to know.

  “Maybe I should go to school.” He put down his fork one night at dinner.

  “What would you study?” His mother scraped her plate by the sink, shaking her head. She dried her hands and returned the table, straightening her dress, a simple cut that she had sewn from some old satin curtains. Materials were still in short supply; she made him two ties from the same curtains, embroidering a duck on one and a deer on the other. Animals he didn’t think he’d ever have the heart to shoot again. He’d worn the ties to church in her presence but carried his old tie from high school in his truck in case of an interview for the postal service, for a job administering civil service exams, an electrician’s apprentice.

  “Architecture,” he answered, dabbing his lips so she couldn’t see his face.

  “Architecture,” his father laughed. His nose was thick, his eyes wide and steady on either side, like Johnson. Slow and deliberating. Dumb to some. Like his son, he had been a pupil of the physical field in high school, not the academic one. He’d served in the first World War and still had the shrapnel in his shoulder to prove it.

  “Yes, architecture.” He stood and put his dish in the sink.

  He’d been captivated by the architecture the corporal at Camp Upton, who’d been drafted out of Princeton, had described to him. He talked about buildings, the arch of stone and metal girders. Vertical space. The only way to move—up. Johnson imagined rebuilding churches, houses, storefronts, in London, Salerno, Berlin. He imagined making structures that could withstand all manner of bombing and blitzing. A city of clean lines that paid homage to the past but looked forward to the future. And even if his ability matched more of card houses than cathedrals, he knew he did not ever want to draw a gun again. He wouldn’t have to tell his father, he figured, for a semester, at the very least.

  Johnson enrolled at Bowling Green State for one class. His mother spent the evening starching and ironing his one white shirt while he sat at the kitchen table, writing his name in the clean, unmolested notebooks. CALVIN JOHNSON. Before the war, he had assumed he would take over the farm. But the war had made him bigger and everything else in his life a little smaller. He hoped his greed for the big world was not bigger than his ability. He had held a rifle. He had shot men and thrown grenades and looked into the unmoving faces of his battalion mates in the sand of Normandy and the snow of Germany and he had been left for dead. He could surely become an architect.

  But he still sat in the family pickup in the parking lot, watching the young men with pressed slacks and quick steps enter the arts building. Their faces were smooth, their smiles as light as their consciences. The girls were lithe and graceful, and he could not imagine going to the drug store to socialize, drink egg creams. Not when his hands felt too awkward and his tongue too big and his left leg not quite his. They probably thought he was a chump, a stupid farm boy who couldn’t get a college deferment to keep out of the war. And he wanted to knock all their blocks off. Why had he thought this a good idea? He drew his books toward him, so important to him the night before, now seeming like cheap imitations.

  Maybe he just wouldn’t go. He could drive across town, to where Eva Darson lived. She had written him during the war; he’d responded once or twice. But Europe had opened his eyes, the women, the cities, the culture, and he thought he was better than her. No, it wasn’t that. It was just that he was young, and there was a lot to see before having to settle on the known. But maybe he was no better, deserved no more, than Eva Darson. She would be wearing the slip that he liked and would put lots of lime in his gin to conceal the fact she could only afford the cheap stuff, and they’d sit on her couch that had been clawed to shit by her cat and make out a little, maybe more. She would be grateful. Maybe it was all they deserved.

  He imagined the slightly smug smile that stretched his father’s lips rubbery, the touch of relief in his mother’s, the wrinkle in her forehead unfurling, as he returned that night, no longer a student. He got out of the truck and walked to the humanities building.

  The classroom for Introduction to British Literature smelled like chalk; the fluorescent lights scrutinized every pimple and discoloration on the student’s faces. He spotted a seat in the back and kept his head down, aware of his size, his age, and awkwardness. He felt the desk scrape his knees as he watched the professor, a man in his sixties with neat silver hair clipped close to his skull. His brown wool suit jacket stretched across his waist; he looked like he’d made it through the rationing okay. He thought of the pot roast his mother had made with the few scraps of chuck she’d gotten from the market. Where she had gotten that extra dollar, he didn’t know. But cooked with carrots, potatoes, and barley from their own farm, it was a godsend, a rich fur that nestled in his stomach like a bunny rabbit in a hutch.

  “Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to Introduction to British Literature.” The man wrote on the blackboard in light, quick strokes. “I’m Professor Shillings. This is an introductory requirement for bachelor degree programs at Bowling State. If you feel you are in the wrong class, please leave now and do not interrupt us by your departure later.”

  She was in the third row, to Calvin’s right. Her long, dark hair was exotic to him, at least in Ohio, where bloodlines ran brown and blonde. She wore a light blue sweater that hugged her shoulders and elbows lovingly. He watched her milky arm rise, her hand flick through her hair.

  He opened his notebook and began to take notes, afraid to look at her again. His fear, his embarrassment was slowly replaced by anger. He had dug out foxholes until his fingers bled and he’d huddled aside fucking Stanley Polensky in them. He’d shat, had diarrhea in the same holes while Stanley laughed until it was his turn to shit, too. He knew more about Stanley’s bowel movements than his father’s. And he was supposed to take this know-it-all professor in English class seriously.

  “I’m going to ask a question, and I need a volunteer.” Professor Shillings raised his head, his forehead wormy, and scanned the class. His gaze settled on Cal. “How about you, young man?”

  “Tell me the question first.” Cal gripped his pencil in his fist. “And then I’ll let you know whether I’ll volunteer.”

  “Hmm.” Professor Shillings frowned, then smiled. Boys snickered, letting their crossed legs unfurl. The girl with the dark hair looked back at him, and he froze. “Things don’t work quite this way here in my class, Mr….”

  “Johnson. You wanted a volunteer. I didn’t volunteer.”

  “Very well, Mr. Johnson. I choose you to answer my question. What do you think all literature, through the centuries, has in common?”

  “I don’t know.” He felt the veins in his neck inflate, an area in the back of his head boil.

  “Is that your answer, Mr. Johnson?” Professor Shilling raised his fist to his mouth, coughed. He leaned over his podium and examined his fingernails.

  “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t have to take the class if I knew.” His pencil snapped, one half of it rolling to the floor. He trapped it under his foot, his church shoes. They weren’t as smart as the shiny, soft leather loafers that tapped, slid on the floor around him.

  “Mr. Johnson, if that is your attitude, I suspect you won’t do very well in my class. And that you may as well save yourself the embarrassment of dropping out later by leaving now.”

  “My attitude is that if you’re going to try and make me look like a fool, I’m not going to let you. I’m no fool, and I’m here to learn.” He sat up in his chair. “I’m here to learn what all literature, through the centuries, has in common, sir.”

  “Veteran?” Shilling raised his eyebrows slightly, and then nodded. “How about someone else? You in the second row.”

  J
ohnson stole glances at Professor Shilling when he thought he wasn’t looking. He copied Professor Shilling’s words into his notebook and he avoided his sweeping gaze when he asked questions. After class, he let everyone file out before he walked to the front of the classroom.

  “Sir, I apologize for my behavior this evening.” Johnson stared at his hands, grasping his books. “I don’t want special treatment. I served, and I want my education so I can get a job. I follow orders well, so if you tell us what we need to know, I’ll work real hard to get it right.”

  “I appreciate your candor, Mr. Johnson.” Shillings snapped the locks of his briefcase shut. Cal could see the top of Professor Shilling’s balding head, oily crown. He stepped back. “But this isn’t the Army. You may have taken orders there, but in university you cultivate independent, critical thinking. And our opinions, your thoughts, are much more important, much more interesting to me than rote—er, following orders.”

  “Well, I haven’t done too much thinking about literature, Professor Shilling, but I’ll give it my best shot. I promise.”

  “Well, that’s all I ask, Mr. Johnson.” Professor Shilling smiled slightly and turned. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Shilling put on his hat and nodded before walking out the door. Johnson looked around the classroom for a moment before following, not wanting to leave. The walls of these buildings harbored great secrets, he surmised. Why men fought wars. What they did once they were over.

  “I hear he’s a bit of a rat.”

  The girl from the third row stood a few feet away in the empty hallway, her books pressed against her chest. Her eyes, wide and brown, smiled at him.

  “He seems all right.” Johnson kicked at the linoleum. “A little stuffy, maybe.”

  “I’m Kate.” Her hand, small and delicate, raised, her fingers slightly outstretched.

  “Calvin Johnson.” He took it. He could not remember the last time he’d held something so delicate. Maybe the hatchlings on the farm. Soft furred, chirpy hearts. He removed his hand quickly, not understanding the danger he felt. She was not holding a grenade, a revolver. They walked side by side by the classrooms, opening and expelling their students. Their chatter swirled between them; his neck felt hot.