by Dean Hughes
“No. I’d better go. I’ll see you in the morning.” And he slipped out the door.
After, she took a warm bath, and as she lay in the water, she was alarmed at her own vulnerability, the force of her desire. They had gone too far, and she couldn’t let that happen again, but she loved him and she had to marry him. She couldn’t feel this need for someone and then walk away. Everything would have to work out.
The next morning David came over a little before ten. The two of them took the elevator down to the coffee shop in the hotel, and Bobbi ordered an omelette, with toast and milk.
“I just want a cup of coffee. Black,” David told the waitress. It was all he ever had. He didn’t like breakfast.
“It’s almost lunchtime,” Bobbi said, laughing. “You ought to be hungry. I’m famished.” She flirted with her eyes. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t worried by what had happened the night before, that she was still basking in the closeness.
But he seemed subdued, even a little distant.
“Do you know,” she said, “that in my entire life, until this week, I have never had breakfast with someone who was drinking coffee. I’m afraid I’m spending my days with a sinner.”
He leaned back and smiled, his eyes quiet. “Only a Mormon could find sin in something as nice as a morning cup of coffee.”
She had only meant to tease, but she was embarrassed, partly because his coffee actually did make her uncomfortable. She hoped he was still willing to commit to the Church; he hadn’t brought that up all week.
The coffee shop was quiet, with only a few tables occupied. A waitress with a white paper cap was standing behind the counter. She was chatting with a cook who was having his own cup of coffee. The cook was a Negro, and the woman white, and yet they seemed at ease, talking and laughing. Bobbi was not shocked but curious. She had never known a colored person, personally, and had rarely even been around people of other races. She mentioned to David, again, how affected she had been by her experience on the south side, but David had little to say about that. She wondered what he was thinking this morning.
Bobbi tried a couple more times to get a conversation started, but then David said, rather abruptly, “Bobbi, we need to talk. There’s a lot we need to think about.”
She reached across the table and touched his hand. “So now you want to think. You told me not to do that.”
He didn’t smile. In fact, he looked troubled. “Bobbi, I want to marry you. You know that. But I’ve seen some things this week that worry me.”
Bobbi was taken by surprise. She had felt cosmopolitan and open-minded all week. She thought she had handled things well.
“I think, if we got married, I’d have to return to the University of Utah. I don’t think you could be happy here.”
The waitress arrived with Bobbi’s omelet and David’s coffee, and she asked, absently, “Anything else?”
“No,” David said. Bobbi was already telling David, “I don’t understand.” She studied his eyes, but he seemed unwilling to look her straight on. “I can’t believe this is you talking, David. I thought all we had to do is love each other.”
“That would be enough for me. But you need your family. You don’t seem yourself here. I tend to push you too hard to be someone new, and you try too hard to prove you can make the adjustment.”
“I don’t feel that at all, David.”
“Bobbi, I know who you are. You need Thanksgiving and Christmas at home. You need the life you know: the dance festival, the road show, the Twenty-Fourth of July. Your church is who you are. It becomes obvious when you’re taken out of your element.”
Bobbi looked at her food, but she wasn’t hungry now. She felt the lovely joy of the past few days slipping away. “What are you doing, David? You’re the one who always said it could work.”
“I know. I want it to work. But I don’t want to ruin you.”
“You’re a good person. That’s what matters to me.”
Bobbi saw the confusion come into David’s eyes. “I don’t know whether I’m good by your definition, Bobbi. If I joined your church, I would stick out like a sore thumb.”
“David, you said you could join. Why are you doing this now? I’m finally ready to commit—and you’re trying to run away and hide.”
“Bobbi, you aren’t hearing what I’m telling you. I love you. I want to marry you. I just don’t want you to get into this and then find out that I’m making you miserable.”
“Or that we’re making each other miserable?”
“That’s possible too, I guess.” He picked up the cup of coffee. “Bobbi, to most people in the world, coffee doesn’t have a lot of meaning, but you know you wouldn’t want me to drink it in front of our children. And frankly, that seems ludicrous to me. I would give it up. That’s not the problem. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t resent it.”
“But coffee isn’t good for you, David. Why can’t you look at it that way and not worry about whether it’s a sin or not?”
“I guess I could. But you can’t. I watched you at that jazz club. All the smoke and alcohol and loud music was part of the atmosphere for me, but you were hanging on for dear life, telling yourself you could live with it for one night.”
“So you’re giving up on me because of coffee and . . . whatever?” She slid the plate away, put her elbows on the table, and ducked her head.
“Bobbi, I want you. But that’s selfish. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“I’m going to see whether I can change my train tickets—and leave today.”
“Bobbi, don’t. I want to find a way. I just think we need to see things as they are and then work from there. I don’t know whether I could get a job at the U again, but I could try. “
“No. I won’t do that to you. You love this job. You love Chicago.”
“I know. But . . .” He dropped backward in his seat, clamped his eyes tight for a moment. “Bobbi, last night I could have ruined your life. If I hadn’t asked—and given you a moment to think—I might have ended up staying all night. And that, to me, would have been beautiful. But it would have destroyed you. On the train, going home, it finally hit me: if we were together, I would pull you away from everything you stand for.”
“I’ll go upstairs and pack—before check-out time. Will you see about the train schedule?”
“Bobbi, please don’t leave yet. Let’s—”
“David, stop. Let’s just part as friends. I don’t want to get angry.”
“Angry? Why?”
“You’re the one who filled me with all the nonsense: ‘Don’t be practical. When two people are in love, they have to be together.’ I told you and told you that life didn’t work that way—but I was so miserable without you that I . . .” She had to stop or she was going to cry, and she didn’t want to do that.
“Bobbi, I still feel the same way. I just don’t know whether you will.”
“Don’t put this on me, David. You’re all talk, it turns out.”
David folded his arms across his chest. Bobbi could see the pain in his eyes. “You’ve got a point,” he finally said. “When I couldn’t have you, I longed for you. But now I’m scared—for both of us.”
“Better now than later,” Bobbi said, but she couldn’t work up the anger she wanted; she felt a dreadful sadness setting in. She got up, leaving her breakfast uneaten.
That afternoon she and David stood by the train again, in the noise and the humid heat—but everything was different. Again they kissed, but this time lightly and quickly. David shed some tears and told Bobbi how sorry he was, but Bobbi didn’t cry. She felt as though she had been turned to stone.
When Bobbi got back from Chicago, a day early, she took a taxi home. She could have called her parents, but she didn’t feel like doing that. It was fairly late in the evening when she walked in carrying her suitcase, and Dad and Mom were in the living room listening to the radio.
“What are you doing home already?” Mom asked.
“I caught
an earlier train than I planned at first.”
And then they waited. Bobbi was tired and depressed, and the emotion came through in her voice—but no one asked the question. So Bobbi decided she would get it over with. “I’m not going to marry David. You don’t have to worry about that.”
That might have been the end of it, because she picked up her suitcase and headed for the stairs, but Dad couldn’t resist. He got up and walked to the parlor. He looked up the stairs and said, “Bobbi, what happened?”
Bobbi kept going. “We just made a decision.”
“Well, it was a wise one. I’m very proud of you.”
Bobbi had reached the top of the stairs. She set her bag down and turned around. “You don’t understand, Dad. I was ready to marry him. But he decided that it wouldn’t work.”
“Bobbi, I’m sorry. All I meant was—”
“I know what you meant.”
Bobbi turned, picked up her suitcase, and walked on to her bedroom. But she didn’t unpack. She sat on her bed, and finally she let go and cried. What had grown in her during the time on the train was not only the gloom about her future but also shame. She had been ready to compromise so much of what she had always believed, and it was David who had had to tell her that she couldn’t do it.
Mom came upstairs in a few minutes. Bobbi didn’t tell her much more, but she had decided one thing, and she did say that much. “I need to move out, Mom. I just want to be alone, like Alex. I’m too old to live with my parents.”
“How will you pay your rent?”
“I don’t know. I spent my money.”
“Maybe I could find work—and I could help you.”
“Work?” Bobbi couldn’t have been any more surprised had her mother suddenly spoken in a foreign language.
“It’s something I want to do anyway. I have my reasons.”
“Dad will throw a fit if you even bring it up.”
“Well, maybe. But it’s not fair for you kids to have all the fun. It’s my turn to get him upset.”
Bobbi laughed softly, but she was also still crying.
***
The weather in the Philippines didn’t change much. More rain fell in the spring and summer, and that pushed the humidity higher, but the temperature was about the same. By the summer of 1941, Wally had taken over the supply room and had made sergeant. He doubted anything like that could have happened in the other branches of the military, so he was glad he had chosen the air corps, and he was also happy he had seen a part of the world that he might never have seen.
But there was another side to all of this. One day was very much like another, and a three-year hitch was a long time. Wally was beginning to realize he was going nowhere. True, with a high school diploma he had some advantages, and officers’ training was a possibility. But that would mean staying in the military, and Wally had lost interest in that. He didn’t like being told what to do. Besides, officers did all right, but no one was going to get rich in the service.
Wally still had dreams of making a lot of money, and he wasn’t sure, now, how he was going to do that. He had been anxious to get away from his dad, but he had traded his dad for his C.O., and now he needed to get on with his life. He wanted to open some sort of business, and he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to get the money together to do that. He might have to take Alex up on his offer, but he still didn’t want to do that.
Wally’s entire unit had recently been transferred to Clark Field, an air base with a dirt runway and a few hangars, near Fort Stotsenberg, an army base. The place was close to the mountains and a little cooler, but it was eighty miles north of Manila, which made trips to the city more difficult. Angeles, the closest town, didn’t have much to offer except a decent place to eat called Chicken Charlie’s. For now, the men all bunked in a hangar, but a new supply shack was under construction, and Wally’s C.O. had promised him he could bunk there. It wasn’t fancy, of course, but at least he would have a place to himself. The squadron had received new Curtis P-40 fighters, the latest in pursuit airplanes, plus a few B-17 bombers. This brought the unit much more up to date, but it also created more work, and duty now lasted all day.
Wally continued to drink a little beer and occasionally some gin. The men all said it was safer to drink alcohol than the local water, and gin only cost thirty-five cents a bottle. Every now and then, for no real reason, Wally would also smoke a cigarette or a cigar. He didn’t really like smoking that much, but when everyone stopped to take a break, it was just something to do, and the military handed out cigarettes, free.
Wally knew that his parents would be upset if they knew he drank, or that he smoked a little, but he didn’t plan to do it all his life. Once he moved back to Salt Lake, where people were so strict about that kind of thing, he would quit, and that would be that. Here in the islands, everything was different, and having a drink or a smoke didn’t seem that significant.
Warren Hicks had gone through some changes in the past year. He had started studying his Book of Mormon every day. And he liked to raise questions about points of doctrine. He had even begun to write home for certain books he wanted to read. That was baffling to Wally. He was religious, he told himself, and he wasn’t one of those guys who got drunk and got in fights or who ran off to prostitutes. In fact, the men teased him about being a “Goody Two-Shoes.” But Warren was getting into all this straight-laced stuff, chastising Wally, and always wanting to talk about the Second Coming or the meaning of the Atonement. Wally believed in those things, but he didn’t see that there was a lot to say about them. In fact, that was the problem with Church; everyone talked about the same things over and over.
Wally did go to church services almost every Sunday. There was no Mormon group, but a chaplain gave a ser-
mon, and quite a few of the men went. Wally felt compelled to go, partly because he could write home and reassure his
parents—when he got around to writing—and partly so that Warren wouldn’t ride him. But there was more to it than that. He had always gone to church, and he told himself he always would. It was his way of saying to himself, “See, all these people don’t have to worry about me.”
Wally knew also that he did, someday, want to go home to Salt Lake. Every now and then he would get so homesick that he could hardly stand the thought that he had signed up for such a long tour of duty. He was sure Lorraine would be married by the time he got back, but he knew he wanted someone like her, and he was pretty sure he would only find a girl like that at home.
Warren asked Wally one day whether he ever prayed. “Not in the regular sense,” Wally said. “I don’t get down on my knees and—”
“I don’t either, Wally,” Warren said. “I don’t want everyone staring at me in the barracks. But I lay in bed and pray, or sometimes I go out into the jungle, and then I kneel down. I always feel better after I do that.”
“Well, that’s probably good. I ought to do that,” Wally said. But he didn’t do it.
Most of the men liked Wally more than Warren. Wally joked around with everyone and swore just enough that he
didn’t seem prissy, and he was the champion of “wanglers.” When someone needed something, everyone always said, “Talk to Wally Thomas, the supply sergeant. If he can’t get it, it can’t be got.”
Warren didn’t get preachy with the men, but he lived more strictly. He had stopped going to Chicken Charlie’s because of all the drinking. But Wally liked the food: whole deep-fried chickens with French fries and homemade bread, all for one peso. And he didn’t mind the guys’ drinking so long as they didn’t get out of hand.
But one night that summer Wally’s friend Barney was loaded up on gin, and he started grabbing at one of the waitresses, who made it clear she was not a prostitute. Barney wouldn’t take no for an answer, however, and kept bothering her. When he reached behind her and began to slide his hand under her skirt, she stepped back and slapped him across the side of his head.
Barney grabbed his ear and then burst ou
t of his seat and reached for her. The waitress made a quick retreat, and in a moment, the manager—Charlie—came through the swinging doors of the kitchen. He was wearing the customary fancy white shirt that most Filipino men wore. “Boys, boys,” he said, smiling, “enough is enough. You don’t want me to call in the MPs, do you?”
Barney was not so drunk that he wanted to get in trouble with the police. He made a gesture of truce, holding his hands up and grinning, and then he sat down. “Send her back with my chicken,” he said. “That’s all I want from her.” But as soon as Charlie had disappeared, Barney said to the men at the tables, “Who does that little slut think she is? All I’d have to do is flash five pesos in front of her and she’d be begging me to take her to the back room.”
“I don’t think so,” Wally said. “She didn’t like you grabbing her like that. She’s probably a good Catholic.”
Barney laughed. “She’s a good little gook, that’s what she is. I’ve been all over these countries—China, Japan, Burma. Gooks are all alike—Japs, Chinks, Filipinos, it doesn’t matter. You show them enough money, they’ll sell anything.”
“That’s what some people say about Americans.”
“What?”
The table was suddenly silent, and Wally wished he had kept his mouth shut. He had broken the rule—no one ever spoke well of Asians. But Wally had chafed at that from the beginning. He remembered too much of what he and Mat had talked about.
“Look, Barney,” Wally said. “People are just people. There are good and bad ones everywhere in the world.”
Barney laughed, showing his broken front tooth and the deep tobacco stains on the rest of his teeth. “No,” he pronounced. “These gooks aren’t people. They don’t care nothing about life. If you don’t watch your step, they’ll pull you off in an alley and slit your throat—just for your ring or your watch. You can’t trust any of ‘em. I know—I’ve been around ‘em.”
“That’s right,” one of the other men said, a guy named Clyde. He was another old mechanic from the flight line. “I wish the Japs would quit messing around and attack us. In about two weeks, the American navy could wipe out that whole stinking island, and then we wouldn’t have to put up with them anymore.”
