The Unsung Hero of Birdsong, USA

by Brenda Woods

  And Tink noticed. “Or maybe you already have.”

  Tink stared at me until I smiled, and the way a smile sometimes can, mine gave me away. Tink nudged me with her shoulder.

  Right then, my eyes landed on my tennis shoes. They were old, but at least I was wearing my favorite blue button-down shirt.

  Some things definitely should make you feel ashamed. For instance, when you’re heading to a parade for war heroes, and you’re about to see your favorite and only uncle, whom you haven’t laid eyes on for a while—but before the parade begins, all you can think about is when it’s going to end, so you’ll be in the same room with a girl who’s way too old for you. One glimpse of Helene had pushed Uncle Earl into the back seat of my mind, and something like that should have given me at least a small dose of shame. But it didn’t. And I guessed that was part of being twelve.

  Hordes lined both sides of the streets, most waving miniature American flags, and ladies and girls were armed with open parasols and umbrellas. Straw and cowboy hats shielded other heads. It was hours before noon, but today’s sun was already a scorching one. A man on stilts was dressed up like Uncle Sam, and kids danced around him while smaller children sat on men’s shoulders to get a better look. Clowns with painted faces juggled balls and bowling pins while others did cartwheels and acrobatic flips—a sort-of circus without a big top.

  “Plenty of patriots out today,” Teddy remarked as he set up the folding chair he’d been lugging.

  Auntie Rita plopped right into it and had just opened her umbrella when an orange-and-black butterfly landed on her arm. “What a good omen!” she proclaimed.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Legend has it that if a butterfly lands on you and you say a prayer, it flies clear to heaven with it to make sure it gets answered right away,” she explained.

  “All the way to heaven? That’s a mighty long trip, Auntie Rita,” I said with a smile.

  “A legend’s just a myth and myths are mostly just made up, Nana,” Tink said. “Nuthin’ can fly clear to heaven . . . except maybe angels.”

  Auntie Rita gazed upward. “I got nuthin’ to say but amen.”

  The parade began with about twenty girls dressed alike in sparkly red, white, and blue, twirling silver batons. The leader signaled them to stop, and simultaneously, they tossed the shining batons high in the sky. Then, they swiveled around and caught them behind their backs. Except the smallest girl, who missed hers and started to cry.

  A marching band was right on their heels, playing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” their polished brass instruments and uniform buttons gleaming. Folks, including Mama, Auntie Rita, and even Tink and Teddy, sang along to the music. Cousin Polly hummed and Daddy tapped his foot. Trumpets make a most agreeable sound, I thought.

  The first convertible in the motorcade held two uniformed men, and one of them was my uncle—Lieutenant Earl Haberlin.

  Uncle Earl removed his hat and waved to the crowd. Whistles, hoots, yelps, and hollers came from everywhere, hands clapped, and voices cheered loudly, the noise nearly drowning out the band.

  I jumped up and down, waving both my hands to get his attention, and when our eyes finally met, my uncle Earl, a true-blue American war hero, stood and saluted.

  Tink snapped another picture.

  “Can you get an extra print made of that photo you just took?” I asked her. “One for me, so I can always remember?”

  My cousin smiled and said, “You betcha!”

  CHAPTER 19

  While we waited for the party to get started, Tink and I listened to music on the radio upstairs in her bedroom. The windows were wide open and a fan purred. While she danced around, the way she likes to do with her eyes half closed, singing and swirling with the music, I thumbed through her photos.

  As I flipped through them, I noticed there were more than a few photos of Helene. In all of them she looked beautiful, but in one she was staring directly into the camera, smiling, with a look in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out—something different. And then, as if I had no control over my actions, I slyly slipped that one into my back pocket. Instantly, my mind defended the thievery by reminding me that Tink always keeps her negatives. She could always have a copy made if she missed it and wanted another.

  Suddenly, she stopped dancing and I wondered if she’d seen me, but all she said was, “Wanna see my portfolio?”

  I sighed. “Sure.”

  The only thing I know about photographs is that I like looking at some more than others. But as Tink held up one after another for me to see, I found myself wanting to keep staring at all of them for a while.

  “Helene’s daddy says I have a talent for it . . . You think he’s right?”

  I nodded my agreement.

  Then she held up a picture of a colored girl on a bicycle beside a whites-only drinking fountain. “I think this is one of my best,” she claimed.

  I studied it for what seemed like a long time. “Did she drink from it?” I asked.

  “’Course not.”

  Silently, I wondered if she’d been thirsty and tempted, and if the feeling the sign gave her had a stink to it or if maybe she was used to the bad smell by now.

  “If she had drunk from it and someone had seen her, do you think they’d take a girl to jail?”

  “Probably not . . . just get her mama and daddy after her.”

  “Likely get a loud chastisin’ from them?”

  “Likely.”

  Right then, my thoughts flipped to something else. “You think the water tastes any different in the colored fountain?”

  Tink looked me square in the face. “It doesn’t,” she replied.

  “How do you know?”

  “We drank from the colored fountain . . . just last week. Me and Helene. She did it first. So I did it too.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “One old lady.”

  “White or colored?”

  “White.”

  “Then what?”

  “She accused us of being twelve shades of crazy. But Helene just took another sip of water and told her, ‘I’m a citizen of the United States of America, which is supposed to mean, white or colored, I am free to drink water from wherever I please.’

  “That made the woman start actin’ hainty, and she asked Helene where she was from. ‘New York City,’ Helene told her.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “The woman called her a Yankee troublemaker and told her if she didn’t like the ways of South Carolina to take a fast train back to New York City. Helene just laughed at her, until finally the woman walked away, all the while cussin’ us out.”

  In my mind, I pictured the beautiful girl from New York City in the photograph I’d just stolen—the girl Cousin Polly called Helen-with-an-E—and knew then what it was I’d seen in her eyes. It was bravery.

  CHAPTER 20

  Later, Tink and I were sitting on the front porch swing, waiting for Daddy and Teddy to come back with Uncle Earl, when a man wearing a blue bow tie and lugging a large camera strolled up the path. He was a stick-thin brown-haired man with more freckles than I’d ever seen. “I’m the photographer from the Charleston Evenin’ Post. This the Waldrop place?” he asked.

  “Yessir,” we answered. Tink got up and touched her camera as she inspected his. From the hungry look in her eyes I immediately sensed that his was something she was itching to have.

  He must have recognized the same expression, because he smiled at Tink and informed her, “It’s a Graflex Speed Graphic four-by-five press camera . . . in case you were wonderin’.”

  “A Graflex Speed Graphic four-by-five press camera,” she repeated as if she were storing it in her memory. “Is it an awful lot of fun . . . bein’ a real photographer?” she asked.

  “Generally, I find it enjoyable. An interested individual oughtta possess
immense patience and an adventuresome nature.”

  “I’ve got that—the adventuresome nature at least,” Tink responded confidently.

  He smiled again. “Your folks inside?”

  Tink stood, went over to the door, and hollered through the screen, “Photographer’s here . . . says he’s from the newspaper, Mama!”

  “The newspaper? Comin’!”

  I’d never seen Polly run, but from the sound of her shoes clicking on the wood floor, I could tell she was doing just that.

  He and Cousin Polly chatted, and when he left to go get more equipment from his car, Polly informed us, “He’s from the Charleston Evening Post. Can y’all believe it? Wants pictures of the house too.” She touched her hair and fingered the collar of her polka-dotted blouse. “Suppose I should go make myself decent.” Polly’s eyes fell on Tink. “You too, Theodora. Go put on a pretty dress.”

  “No, thank you, Mama, I’m decent enough,” she replied.

  “Suit yourself . . . Can y’all believe it?” Polly ripped open the screen door and practically danced into the house. “Photographer from THE Charleston Evening Post is here, y’all!” she yelled, emphasizing the word the.

  “She’ll be puttin’ on airs for the next ten years,” Tink confided.

  Because I knew it was true, I had to laugh.

  * * *

  SOON, SMILING GUESTS began spilling out of their cars and alongside others who’d traveled on foot they made their way toward Cousin Polly and Them’s house. Several entering guests were invited by the bow-tie-wearing photographer to pose. I studied my cousin Tink as she examined his every move.

  In what felt like no time at all, the inside of the house was as packed as a can of sardines, causing some folks to pour outside onto the wraparound porch and into the big backyard, where there were two gazebos and blooming flowers galore. Cousin Polly had put on quite a show—not for Earl but for herself and the neighbors, Auntie Rita gossiped.

  One of the colored maids moved in and around the crowd, offering little finger foods, including my favorite, deviled eggs. I grabbed two. Just like Mama’s, they were sprinkled with paprika. I stuffed one whole into my mouth, and the second was right behind it. Boy, was I hungry for some real food. And for that reason, I headed to the kitchen.

  Another maid was pulling a pie out of the oven, and a platter of sliced ham was on the table.

  I eyed the ham. “I’m ’bout starvin’,” I told her.

  She sat the hot pie on the counter, then inspected me. “I seen you ’round here a few times b’fore. You Miss Tink’s cousin, ain’t ya?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am, Gabriel.” I tried to recall her face but couldn’t.

  “Almost growed up, huh?”

  I shrugged. “Spoze. I just turned twelve.”

  “I could make you a sandwich,” she offered. “Think that might could keep ya from starvin’ for a spell?”

  “Yes ma’am, it surely might. Thank you.” I gazed at her. She looked to be as old as Auntie Rita, and her black maid’s dress was old too. A net covered her gray hair, and her white apron was soiled from cooking. Something about her finally rang a faint bell inside me—and I remembered a time or two I’d seen her here before.

  She poked around inside the refrigerator. “Mayonnaise or mustard?” she asked.

  “Both, please.”

  She motioned at the kitchen table and chairs and ordered, “Sit down, young mister.”

  I did as I was told. “What’s your name, ma’am?” I asked.

  “Auntie.”

  “No, I mean your real name,” I told her.

  “Johnnie Dove . . . That’s two words. Johnnie Dove Victory. But I’m called Dovey by most.”

  “Pleased to meet ya, Mrs. Victory.”

  “You mean that or you just sayin’ it ’cause I’m fixin’ to save ya from starvin’?”

  That made me chuckle.

  “The man they’s havin’ this party for, he was a flier, weren’t he?” she asked.

  I beamed. “My uncle Earl . . . yes ma’am. Shot down more than a few Nazi planes. He’s a gen-u-wine American war hero.”

  “Mighty kind of ev’ryone to celebrate his homecomin’,” she commented. Then she abruptly stopped what she was doing and gazed through the window. There was still noise all around but somehow it felt quiet. “My son was in the United States Navy,” she revealed. “Served out yonder in the Pacific. Even got hisself a Good Conduct Medal. Last letter he sent said soon as the war got done, he was gonna move to San Francisco and send for me and his daddy. He falled head over hills in love with California . . . Only spent a few days there but claimed it got in his blood.”

  “Is that where he is now?” I asked.

  “No, child. He’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “To heaven, I hope. Got killed out in New Guinea . . . You heard of New Guinea?”

  “Yes ma’am. I think it’s near Australia.”

  She nodded in agreement. “That’s right. I never even knowed there was sucha place ’til . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Last time he was seen alive, he was helpin’ carry wounded American soldiers to safety. Then, accordin’ to what his friend wrote us, there was a big explosion and he was gone. Makin’ things worse, only thing they found was his dog tags . . . but his body ain’t never been located.

  “I finally gived up prayin’ on that. Woulda been nice, though, to have a proper burial with a fancy stone grave marker. That way I could go sit there, bring him a few flowers, talk to him kinda like I used to when he was a li’l boy. I’ll never forget the evenin’ when the telegram came, nearly cried m’self blind. Sometimes durin’ my dreams I still hear that knock on the door and the man’s voice sayin’ ‘Western Union.’”

  It felt like a cloud of sorrow had floated into the room. “Sorry, ma’am. What was his name?”

  “Homer Lee Bartholomew Victory. Lord have mercy, he was handsome in that navy uniform. Pleaded with him day and night not to enlist, but he was deaf to our words.” She hesitated for a moment before continuing, “Sure was proud to be in the United States Navy, though.” She pressed on her eyes, the way people do when they’re trying to keep back tears. “He was our onliest child, a real good boy, my Homer Lee. And Lord, was he smart. Had a college scholarship to Claflin over in Orangeburg, but the war changed all that. Miss him somethin’ awful.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I repeated.

  She sighed deeply. “Forgive me, son, for carryin’ on,” she said when she placed the sandwich and a glass of lemonade on the table in front of me.

  “It’s okay, ma’am.”

  “Wan’a sweet pickle? They’s fresh and crisp.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She studied my face. “You a right nice young fella, ain’t ya?”

  “Mostly,” I told her, and took a huge bite from my sandwich.

  “Nice talkin’ to you,” she said, then chuckled before adding, “Then again, mostly all you done was listen. So, thank you for list’nin’ to an old woman go on and on.”

  “You’re welcome, Mrs.—” As usual, I’d forgotten her name.

  “Mrs. Victory . . . Johnnie Dove Victory, mostly called Dovey.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Victory. And I’m real sorry about your son, Homer.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Every time the front screen door opened, I crossed my fingers, hoping it would be either Uncle Earl or Helene stepping in, but so far, neither had shown up. Tink was still busy tailing the photographer, but now and then she’d shoot a look my way and smile.

  I planted myself in a chair, thought about Mrs. Victory, and imagined that all of us being here to celebrate a soldier’s safe homecoming was likely doubling her sadness.

  Soon Mama headed my way. “You havin’ a nice time, Gabriel?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  But I guess m
y face must have looked out of sorts, because she asked, “Why so gloomy, then?”

  I didn’t have time to answer, because at that moment Daddy and Teddy arrived with the guest of honor, my uncle Earl. More than eight medals, some silver and others gold, were pinned to his uniform jacket.

  Of course, the cheering commenced again. Except this time, because we were indoors, it seemed fifty times as loud.

  Uncle Earl’s a little taller than Daddy, with the same light brown hair, and according to most people, he looks something like Clark Gable without the mustache. I sprang up and wriggled through the swarm that had instantly surrounded him, and tapped his shoulder. “Hi, Uncle Earl,” I said.

  He turned, bear-hugged me, and lifted me off the ground. “Gabriel!”

  The photographer pointed his camera and nearly blinded us with the flash.

  Standing beside him, with his arm resting on my shoulder, I proudly listened along with the rest of his admirers to his war stories. Earl Haberlin was just about as entertaining as any radio show as he told us the number of Nazi planes he and his squadron had shot down. He spun riveting tales of the Battle of the Bulge and how cold and snowy it was, and how it was actually called the Ardennes Counteroffensive until the newspapers changed the name. “I guess Battle of the Bulge had a better ring to it,” he said.

  Then he captivated us when he gave us a blow-by-blow description of his near demise, as he called it. “I figured I was definitely a goner when my plane took some bullets and started smokin’, but somehow I was fortunate enough to make it back to British soil before I had to crash-land.”

  “Were you scared?” someone asked.

  Earl’s eyes darted around at his audience. “Spoze y’all would expect me to say no, but that’d be a lie. Can tell you this, though: if my life had ended that day, ’least I woulda died doin’ what I could to make this world better instead of worse.”

  A woman wearing a blue feathered hat who was frantically fanning herself hollered, “Ain’t that the gospel truth!”