The Better Angels

THE BETTER ANGELS by ROBERT A. MILLS An extremely moving portrait of a generation of remarkable Americans, our better angels. Ken Burns, commenting on Tom Brokawis The Greatest Generation January, 1999 This is a work of fiction, actual historical figures and incidents notwithstanding. The events and characters in this story are composite figments of my imagination and experience. World War II was a defining global tragedy; however, actual personalities and places involved in this story occur solely as essential to the plot. The chapters concerning events aboard the USS James Madison and with the President of the United States at the Biltmore Estate may (or may not) have occurred, depending on whom you believe at the Pentagon and what florilegium you stumble across in the National Archives. The reader may interpret this as journalistic reporting or docudrama, and that would be my good fortune, though hardly my intention. If I were Max Shulman or H. Allen Smith, I would have subtitled this novel iHow My Fatheris Civil Defense Flashlight Won The War and Saved the Worldi. Robert A. Mills Atlanta, January 2000 To . . . My wife Christine My daughters Barb and Alex My son Bob For . . . Putting up with the likes of me as a husband and father CHAPTER ONE iKnow what?i Shadow mumbled, partially under his breath; and as usual, I had difficulty understanding him: Nuhiott. iGet us a surplus Jeep we got any money layini eround donit know what to do with.i iYeah. Sure gotta lotta that. . . How much money?i I asked, suspiciously, uncertain where this was heading. A week before school was out at Maury, that fateful and curiously wonderful day in 1943, the air was light as a morning mountain mist, as though we lived in the open Blue Ridge rather than the suffocating, odoriferous Tidewater; and it was easy to breathe, the omnipresent canopy of wood pulp and fertilizer factoriesi fragrance now more routine than rude. Another term was nearly behind Shadow and me. And, of course, there was no way we could have known a page was turning, trembling, flapping in the spring wind, and The Great Adventure, as Iive always thought of it since, was about to begin. Shadow and I walked home amidst the derelict curb weeds adorning Norfolkis West Princess Anne Road, the foot tall strands brushing against our trousers like the silly and shy whispers of teenage girls, leaving dots of pale pollen on the cotton twill as reminders of promises none of us were ever going to keep. We were semi-conscious, somnambulistic in the nether world between the end of school and supper, kicking at small chunks of concrete that had broken away from the curb, lifeis languishing soccer game played to an open net, when Shadow suddenly came awake and shot a hard elbow against my shoulder. I pushed him away from me, and he tripped gracefully off the curb, then back on again, laughing that disparaging giggle of indifference, a sputtering verbal shrug: iPssshitt!i I repeated my question. iGot any idea how much money yiall talkini about?i He still didnit offer a direct answer. iIf we did have some money, we donit have to walk to school all the damn time. Ani 1 we got a date or sumpthini we donit have to go eround beggini rides offa asshois we donit even like.i En we gotta dye-ter sumthin we doan haffa gew roun bacon ryes offa ass-hoes ee doan een lie-yak. Shadow, who had been born in Bramwell, West Virginia, on the Virginia border, was my best (probably my only) friend and had been since the day we moved to Norfolk and had met in eighth grade. His real name was Lamont Cranston, and quite naturally he was called Shadow, because of the popular and long-running radio show about that mysterious man, Lamont Cranston, who ihad the power to cloud menis minds!i Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts and minds of men? The Shadow knows! This Shadow had more of a Tobacco Road or Liil Abner accent than I did, more than enough to make words slide into each other and dissolve consonants into that Southern liquid of shimmering vowels girls loved and Yankee actors worked a lifetime to perfect. iDoniti became idoani, itoi was ituhi, icani was ikeni, iGeti was igiti, itimei was ity-ami, irighti was irati or irioti or irye-otti, and ischooli sounded like iskew-eli, and so on. iYialli could be singular or plural and was used unconsciously for emphasis, and just about everything else. Also, iyoui fell into the category of a mild personal pronoun, whereas iyialli made an attention-getting statement of and by itself. iYou owe me twenty cents,i a reminder, became, with iyiall owe me twun cent!i a demand for payment. iRsi often as not disappeared into a thin rush of air, and itherei, ineveri and ireari became ithehi, inevehi and ireahi. Sentences of some relative importance were often ended with iyou heari (pronounced, usually, iyihuhi or iyiheahi or iyiai) and intoning the slight inflection of a question mark, sometimes, but then, sometimes not. It was all a matter of interpretation, like a song sung by different crooners. Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby brought entirely different responses to the same lyric sung by Buddy Clark, Harry Babbit, Johnny Mercer, or Johnny Desmond. About a year ago I had begun noticing that girls pay attention to the way boys talk. One 2 dopey girl had told Shadow he looked like Cornel Wilde with a brush cut. I, on the other hand, had been dubbed a cross between Nelson Eddy and Donald OiConner (by the same girl). iDonit have a driveris license,i I reminded Shadow, as though it were something we could share. iPsssshit; no matter. Get one easy; so can yiall. Only cost a quarter.i Oh-knee cossa cawtuh. iWhere you get eem?i iDrug store. . . You got any money?i Every morning before leaving for school my grandmother would make a gigantic sandwich of either Spam or jelly, or both, on the fresh, still warm bread my grandfather brought home from his job as master baker at Sunderlinis Bakery. Then, on my way out the door, Momma would give me some loose change to buy a gil of chocolate milk. Early in the war, the Virginia Board of Public Schools had come to the realization that healthy adolescents would make healthy cannon fodder, and, thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt, the school lunch program quickly got underway with tiny four ounce glass bottles of either whole or chocolate milk delivered by the case and sold for four cents (the word gil, sometimes spelled gill but always pronounced ijilli, a genuine measurement, was eventually corrupted to ichilli, and even as late as the e60s, kids referred to a minuscule carton of chocolate milk as a chill ). I more often than not squirreled away my daily coins in a ragged change purse I had won two summers ago throwing darts at balloons at Ocean View Park; this was on top of my weekly allowance of thirty cents and the $1.88 I earned each week (up until March that year) as a part- time helper in a local photographeris studio. There were days when I actually could count out as much a seventy-five cents or a dollar. This was one of those days. iGot a little money,i I mumbled, cautiously. iGot fifty cent?i Shadow asked. iProbily.i iYiall wanna get a driveris license?i iSure.i Why wouldnit I? I wondered. iWhy not?i At that precise instant we were standing in front of 3 Gardneris Drug Store & Ice Cream Soda Fountain on the corner of Doumar and West Princess Anne Road. We slid inside. Gardneris and the Colley Avenue Movie Theater were the only two places I knew of in our neighborhood that were air- conditioned, and it was at least twenty degrees cooler inside Gardneris that afternoon. In Norfolk, as in many places in the South and near-South on the Atlantic seaboard, it wasnit necessarily hot, but there was perpetual six-months-a-year killer humidity. As clean and pure as Iid felt outdoors that spring day, I actually felt a sense of invigoration inside Gardneris; the drug store smells mixed with the confections of the soda fountain were the most delightful I could imagine. What mysterious wonders were borne on those pungent odors of healing wholesomeness! iWhat you fellas want?i barked thin, diminutive, and darkly gloomy Lester Gardner, from behind the counter, his voice and tone offering no hint of cordiality. It was said that Lesteris grandfather, William Regis Gardner, had come from Atlanta, where heid been in partnership with a certain pharmacist named John Styth Pemberton, the man whoid invented Coca-Cola in 1886. Old W.R., however, claimed it was he, not Pemberton, whoid perfected the famous syrup that gave the world its pause that refreshes; but when Pemberton suddenly up and died two years later, his estate sold the formula to Atlanta businessman, Asa Candler, and old W.R. was abruptly cut out of the deal and never saw a dime from the partnership. Lore has it he and all his progeny, out of jealous spite, neither drank nor sold even a single bottle of Coke in all those years. As late as 1943, under the proprietorship of young W.R. and son Lester, now twenty-seven, to ask for one gained little more than the not-so-refreshing-pause of a silent glare from Lester, his father, or any of their four employees. iCouple Cokes,i Shadow replied, and we both doubled over with laughter. Lester glared, silently. Then, iIim busy,i and he started to turn away. 4 iHold on,i said Shadow. iWe wanna get driveris licenses, yihear?i iAinit old nuff. Why donit yiall get a ice cream instead?i iAm too!i I said, iShadowis eighteen.i Lester looked at me. iHow oldire you?i I hesitated a skipped heartbeat. iIim . . . eighteen, too.i Lester squinted. iYeah, yiall look more eighteen than your asshoi friend here do. Got identification?i Eye-den-ti-fi-kay- shun? iJusi live a block down the street, on Doumar, corner by Gill Alley. My daddy works at E.K.Careyis.i iHe the heavy-set fella, gone bald . . . shoe man?i I nodded. iYeah, thatis him. Bernie Eden.i Lester looked vaguely relieved I was at least in the neighborhood, but he glanced suspiciously at Shadow. iWhois your oli man?i iScotty Cranston. Drives Topland Truckini. Comes here all the time. Says he never ever gonna buy rubbers from nobody else.i We both laughed again, but Lester didnit smile. Instead he walked down the counter, reached underneath and brought out a huge ledger, thick and stained and dusty. I could see it was stamped in peeling gold leaf: Commonwealth of Virginia, Princess Anne County, United States of America 1931 - 1941. Lester slammed it down on the countertop, sending up a blizzard of dust from the moldy cover. He flipped it open and looked for a blank page in the back. iI gonna start with you,i he said, pointing at my belt buckle. iBook only goes to e41,i I said, tapping the cover. Lester glanced up. iDonit matter none. This hereis the only book we got, ani theyis still fifty pages empty, ani they ainit gonna get me another one til this here oneis full up . . . Wanna get a license or not?i We nodded that we did. iYiall each got a quarter?i I reached into my left hip pocket, pushed my crungy comb aside, and pulled out my equally grungy change purse. For 5 security, I instinctively moved my left shoulder away from both Shadow and Lester, twisting the crossed knobs that separated me from my fortune, and opened the metallic jaws that supported the crinkled, scarred leather pouch; I could immediately see three shiny quarters, plus a dime or two and maybe fifteen pennies. Deftly, my thumb and forefinger extracted two twenty- five cent pieces. I placed them on the counter side by side. iThis here ought to cover us,i I said, with practiced nonchalance. I glanced over Lesteris shoulder at the glass cabinet behind him and saw John Garfield smiling back at me. With his left index and middle finger, Lester slid the quarters closer to his edge of the counter and, with his left hand, poised his fountain pen over the application page. iOkie-dokie,i he sighed, looking at the form. iName.i iMe?i He glanced up at me. iNo, prick, the man in the moon. Said I gonna start with yiall!i I shrugged. I suddenly recalled one day about a month ago I was eating a warm Spam and ketchup sandwich for lunch, lying on the grass behind the school watching a pretty good handball game, and Shadow, sitting next to me, said, iI read someplace yiall wanna get famous ani make a freaggin fortune, yiall should change your name to your middle name ani the street where yiall grew up.i I thought about that, and I liked the idea: I would be known as Martin Gill Alley. . . But why waste it on the likes of Lester Gardner? iNameis John Martin Eden.i iEatini? Like supper?i iUh-uh. Like Eden. The garden. E-D-E-N.i iOh. . . Yeah. . . Address?i i617 Doumar Street. Nor-fuck, Virginia. U. S. of A.i iAll right. Hold on.i Awl rat. Hole un. Lester methodically, laboriously, printed it out, as though auditioning for an apprenticeship at the Gutenberg Press. He painstakingly inscribed each letter and number as though the document would eventually be enshrined at the Smithsonian. Shadow mumbled, iThis here gonna take freaggin forever.i iAge?i 6 iEighteen.i iBorn?i Bawn. I heard Shadow again mumble: iSeems like so he must of been, to me.i I made a fast mental calculation. iUh . . . Nineteen hundred twenty-five.i iRight.i Lester agreed, as if he too had figured the difference. iWhere?i iWhere what?i iWhere yiall born?i iWatertown, New York.i Shadow looked surprised. iNo shit? Didnit know yiall from New York City, you Yankee-pussy!i iAm not!i I protested; iWatertownis up near to Canada. eSides, only lived there like a couple weeks efore we moved.i Lester cleared his throat. iShitheads wanna do this today?i We said iYeah, yeah.i iHow tall ani how much yiall weigh?i he continued. iSix feet even ani a hundred twenty-nine pounds.i Shadow said, iDidnit know they pile white trash crap that high.i Lester ignored him. iEyes?i iTwo. Both brown.i iHair?i iCurly.i Shadow reached over and tousled my hair. iLooks like curly horseballs to me! Yiall got dandruff so bad you got scurvy. Ainit never seen brown dandruff!i iAll right, all right. Any scars or marks?i Awl riot, awl rat. Eny skah-zer mocks? I had a small scar on my left cheek where a doctor in Chillacothe, Ohio, had lanced a boil when I was seven, but I knew Lester could not spell Chillacothe and I wasnit sure I could either. I grunted, iNuh.i Lester asked, iSpeak English?i iMostly. Read ani write it, too.i iHowis your eye-sight ani yiallis hearini?i 7 iGreat. Right up there, toppa my head.i Lester made an entry on the form, then he set down the pen. From under the counter he brought up an optometristis eye chart and stepped back two paces. iCover your right eye ani read this.iI cupped my palm over my left eye and read: iE, P, W, S, Q, R, D, F, B, A, and T.i iDo the other one.i iT, A, B, F, D, R, Q, S, W, P, and E.i iYeah. Good.i Lester rolled up the eye chart and slapped it against his thigh. iHear that okay?i I nodded. iWhadit sound like?i Shadow answered for me. iLike a whisky-fart.i iAll right, all right.i He spun the book around on the counter. iSign your name righicheer,i pointing to a place at the bottom, after which he signed his name beside it, wrote in the date, and tore off the lower 4 1/2 by 3 inch perforated slip and handed it to me. I saw it contained, in addition to our signatures, the official Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia. iCongratulations.i Cun-grad-jalay-shuns. iNow go kill yourself.i He turned to Shadow, and said, iOkay, next,i as though there were a line of waiting applicants. Fifteen minutes later Shadow had his driveris license, I had mine, Lester had my two quarters in his cash register, and my friend and I stood outside Gardneris, comparing our prizes. It had taken longer for Shadow and Lester to complete their business because, for some reason, Lester insisted on knowing why Shadowis dad did not live with him and his mother. That prompted Shadow to argue the relevancy of his parentsi marital status, and finally Lester conceded. iGuess doan matter none.i The age question never came up; Lester simply printed 18. Shadow actually failed the eye test: he covered both eyes and tried to recite the letters from memory; he wasnit even close, ending the recitation with iQ, R, B, D, F, U, C, K.i Lester seemed to have lost interest and marked the application: 20-20 8 OK. He didnit even bother slapping his thigh for the hearing test.Outside, in the heat again, we stood under the storeis awning examining our licenses, our Passes to Paradise, as though weid suddenly come into possession of Coca-Colais secret formula. iWell . . . i I rubbed my nose with my little finger just inside my left nostril, inow that we got gen-yew-wine driveris licenses, whatire we . . . drivini?i iA Jeep,i Shadow announced. iLike I said; like I told you. . . A surplus oh-fish-al U.S. military re-ject!i iRight. And where we gonna get this . . . Barney Oldfieldmobile?i Shadow tucked his license into his shirt pocket (neither of us owned a wallet or billfold.) iFrom the U.S. Navy, where you think? Couple weeks from Saturday, yihear? They havini a auction right out there at the base.i I was confused. iAni just anybody can go?i iGuess so. Tommy Eugene Merkle told me his brother got one last month, ani they only cost fifty dollars.i I giggled out loud. iFifty dollars! Shoot, they might just as well cost fifty thousand! Where we gonna get fifty dollars?i Shadow pushed me over against the drug store window, and the cool glass felt good against my back. iWhere yiall think, asshoi? We gonna steal it.i * * * My house in Norfolk was actually on the corner of Doumar Street and Gill Alley; the address was 617 Doumar Street, but my recollection is that I grew up in Gill Alley. Besides, I didnit want to be known as the fellow who grew up on the street named after the Norfolkonian whoid invented the ice cream cone: Abe Doumar. Gill Alley was a block long cement path of many garages and garbage cans, mean cats and scruffy dogs, belonging to houses that ran parallel along two adjacent streets twenty-five to fifty feet beyond the backs of the garages. Our garage was the 9 first stall of the first group of ten right behind our yard, but of course, it had no rear door. Neither did it house a family car. It protected two disintegrating Victory bicycles belonging to my brother Douglas and me, some odd pieces of useless furniture, and discarded, broken, and forgotten toys. Our house, actually, was not our house. The house was an apartment, or iflati, as my British-American grandmother called it; an upper flat at that, the entire second floor, starting on Doumar Street and ending, eight rooms later, on Gill Alley. Perhaps it was more than eight rooms if you counted the awninged front porch, the serving pantry, and the solitary, narrow bathroom with its ancient, rust-stained tub, noisy toilet, and minuscule sink. Surprisingly, I donit recall it being crowded. Not even with the eight of us: my mother and father, Bernie and Dorothy Eden; my brother Douglas, age eleven; my motheris ibabyi sister Fredericka Ouspenskaya (she was twenty-eight, 11 years older than I, and we called her Freddie); my grandmother and grandfather, Mommais parents, Toma and Lizzy Ouspenskaya. And, of course, me. When we moved to the house on Doumar Street, I still think of it as geographically dominated by Gill Alley, I was thirteen years old. World War II was eighteen months away, but everyone said it was coming. I thought this must be the most exciting time ever to be alive. Three years later it was 1943. The Japs and the Germans were murdering us on every front. The radio news at night said we were driving them back and back, wherever back was, and it was just a matter of days before they threw in the towel; but the newsreels at the movies on Saturday and newspaper reports from Europe and the Pacific told a different story. In 1943 my dad said we werenit doing all that well; fact of the matter was, iweire losini the damn war through lack of preparation ani lack of manpower. Chrissakes, look at all the blackouts ani thick blankets over the windows, cars driving up and down the street with their lights either off or hooded shut with black tin or cardboard shields.i There was the incessant and frightening (and dramatically exciting) talk of 10 imminent bombing, and there were the Air Raid Wardens, chief of whom (at least in my mind) was my father. Bernie Edenis primary contribution to the war effort, so far, was as a Civil Defense Air Raid Warden. Every night when he went out on patrol, which was, as I recall, every night except Thursdays, when the department store where he worked, where they all worked, E.K. Careyis, was open late, I would put out his equipment: his brilliant white Civil Defense steel helmet (kept clean and shining by me and my brotheris own special sort of patriotic spit and elbow grease), his two CD armbands, his snug orange outer vest, his brass whistle attached to a genuine leather thong, his canteen (which he filled privately, surreptitiously, in the pantry, with Calvertis Blended American Whisky, as though Momma and none of us would ever know), his Government Issue flashlight (one of an arsenal of four he kept at the ready, each of which worked on five Government Issue EverReady D cells, and stored in the rear hall closet): long, oversized, the lenses reduced to a quarter inch slit with black friction tape, a weapon of immense destruction that would leave any Nazi or Nip frozen with fear if confronted while lurking in Gill Alley. And of course, his 6X40 wide angle binoculars in a genuine imitation leather case with which he could surely spot an enemy bomber silhouetted against the moon and pale clouds. iCan I go with you?i I would ask at 7:45 on school nights, knowing the negative answer would be based on national security. iWe canit have no kids out there, for chrissake!i my dad would respond. iDonit you know thereis a goddamn war going on!i Doancha know thehis a gaw-dam wall gaw-nawn? iThat Navy Baseis lessin a mile from here. Anybodyis gonna get hit, boy, itis gonna be us, yihear! Itis comini, I can tell yiall that . . . ani like the monkey said when he got his tail caught in the buzz- saw, it wonit be long now! Ha! Ha! . . . We should be buildini a air raid shelter in the basement ani stockini in all the food ani can goods we get our hands on.i iWater, too?i 11 iYeah; sure. Wateris gotta be there.i It was all so matter- of-fact, so patriotic. The Norfolk Navy Base, north of the city, where the Chesapeake Bay flowed into Hampton Roads, was, in fact, 7.3 miles (as the Zeros and Messerschmitts fly) from the corner of Doumar and Gill Alley; Virginia Beach was another nine or ten miles southeast of the base. Separating the two was Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base and the dunes at Ocean View on Chesapeake Bay. Oceana Naval Air Station was under construction just south of Virginia Beach. The Navy Shipbuilding Yards at Portsmouth were maybe three, four miles southwest. What my dad didnit know was that kids were out there, on patrol, not nightly but on Fridays and Saturdays after dark, combing the dunes and scanning the bay, flicking their flashlights and pretending they knew Morse Code, on the alert, ever vigilant, smugly confident no Kraut U-boat or Jap Sardine Can would even try to sneak into Hampton Roads and pull off another cowardly Pearl Harbor-like attack. The older ones, the high school seniors and college undergraduates, were snuggling on blankets between the dunes, necking and groping, drinking 3.2 beer, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and occasionally, if they could get them, Luckies, Chestefields, or Old Golds, and some, not many, actually succeeded in casual, carefree sex. Those who didnit (mainly boys) said they did, but no one believed them or took them seriously. Although I was only sixteen, seventeen next month and not yet in twelfth grade, I was six feet tall and wore size 12 shoes. I was very thin, iwiry,i proclaimed Grandma, and looked, easily, 18 or 19; maybe, when I combed my light curly hair back off my forehead, even 20! In fact, Shadow was 17, two full moons short of 18, and together we would, before long, actually own a U.S. Military Surplus/Reject Jeep, somehow, now that we had official Virginia driversi licenses! 12 CHAPTER TWO Radio, in 1943, next to the movies, was our major source of entertainment; there were a lot of shows I liked, and there were as many I didnit care for at all. I was indifferent to Jack Armstrong, Little Orphan Annie, Fred Allen, Easy Aces, Superman, The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, Batman, and most science fiction. I remember hearing Orson Wellesi War of the Worlds epic on an October Monday in 1938, but I didnit respond to it or take it seriously, my grandmotheris hysterics notwithstanding. I went outside that Halloween night and looked in the direction I assumed to be north, toward New Jersey, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. My father walked in from work just then and listened to the show for about five minutes while Grandma raved that weid all be slaughtered in our beds. He shrugged indifferently and muttered, iThey get yiall in the light, Lizzy, theyire gonna let you go right fast,i and he went, laughing, to the pantry that divided the kitchen from the dining room and poured a shot of Calvertis into a flowered Welchis jelly glass. Quietly, my mother asked him, so as not to alarm Grandma that she or anyone might be concerned, iYou think thereis anything to any of this stuff, Bernie?i Dad popped down the whiskey and snorted, iItis a goddamn radio show, Dottie, thatis all it is, for chrissake.i So much for intergalactic and earthly political science. My favorite program, by a long shot, was Dr. I.Q. I really loved that weekly half-hour show, with the good doctor, Jimmy McLain, standing up on a stage somewhere in America, massaging his vast encyclopedic knowledge, with his phalanx of assistants roaming throughout the audience in search of contestants palpitating with excitement and anxious to be stumped by the Grand Master Genius of All Mankind. iWeire live from the Hippodrome Theater in Buffalo, New York!i (Applause) iI have a woman in the balcony, Doctor!i iYour name, my dear?i 13 iJudy Anne Wetta, Doctor!i iFrom?i iAkron, Ohio!i (Applause) iAnd what brings you to the beautiful city of Buffalo?i iVisiting my sister! Came on the train!i (Curiously, more applause) iAll right. Are you ready?i iYes! Yes, I am!i iFor ten silver dollars, then, tell me, who said, eThey can have any color car they want, so long as itis black!ii iHuh?i iTen seconds, Judy Anne!i iAaaaa . . . J. Edgar Hoover?i (Groans, smattering of applause) iIim sorry, but give that lady a Mars Bar! Who has the answer?i iI have a gentleman in the orchestra, Doctor!i iYour name, sir!i iSamuel Pelusio, from Cheektowaga!i (Applause) iDo you know the answer, Sam?i iHenry Ford!i iGive the Sam-man ten silver dollars!i (Heavy applause) Dr. I.Q.is delightful trivia show traveled all over the United States, and each week it originated live from some cityis largest and most ornate movie palace. For twenty-five cents you could see a double feature that was programmed so Dr. I.Q. could go on the air between the movies at precisely 8:30PM Eastern Time. The one occasion he played Norfolk I was downtown at Schineis Rialto three hours before the broadcast to assure myself an aisle seat in the center balcony. It was like a dream. It was unreal. I knew I would be chosen, and I was! iDoctor, I have a young man in the balcony!i iYour name, my good fellow!i My mouth became the bottom of an elephantis foot. iAwrkrkwawsusqurkaw . . . Marty . . . Eden,i I sputtered over network radio. iFrom?i 14 iNorfuck, Virginia!i (Chaotic applause) iHow old are you, Marty?i iFifteen. Uh, seventeen . . . almost sixteen. I go to Maury!i (Serious applause) iAll right, Marty, for five silver dollars and a Snickeris candy bar, who starred in the first real talking movie?i It was uncanny. Not only did I know the answer, I was suddenly able to manufacture saliva. iThat was . . . Al Jolson, and the movie was The Jazz Singer!i iRight you are!i (Thunderous applause) iGive that young man five silver dollars and a Snickeris! And because you even knew the name of the movie, give young Marty Eden an additional five eMiss Libertiesi and a box of Mars bars!i (Applause became ovation) It was my finest moment. From that night forward, until it finally disappeared from the airwaves in 1953, I rarely missed Dr. I.Q. But . . . I had an ulterior motive. One feature of the show dealt with a rather complicated biographical question that was based on an essay of 175 to 250 words depicting the life and times of a particular personage, dead or alive, who had made major impact on society via the arts, science, religion, politics, crime, warfare, unadulterated good fortune, or some other resourceful endeavor that had rendered him or her a ihousehold name.i The essay had to be cleverly written, however, with ambiguous clues and devilishly contrived descriptions that made it possible to discover the protagonist by stringing together a series of scenarios and events and adventures that, somewhere along the way, would point directly to the subject. It was not easy. The first clue after a sadistically shallow narrative was worth, if answered correctly, a magnificent 64 silver dollars! If, after ten seconds, the person was not identified, the biography continued until the next clue, which was worth 32 silver dollars. Again, if the bio went on, the third clue was worth $16; the fourth worth $8; and if the dim- witted contestant was still stumped after the fifth clue (a paltry 15 four silver dollars), he or she went home with a box of Mars bars wrapped in a confection of semi-illiteracy and self-conscious embarrassment. And the listener who had written and submitted the biography became the Big Winner. The prize was two-fold. If all five clues were offered, and no correct name was given, the author would receive the 64 silver dollars and a box of Mars bars. And just for having had his biographical essay chosen by iour panel of judges, whose decision is finali, he would receive a brand new, fully-equipped Speed Graphic press camera, the photographic pride and joy of the Graflex Corporation! The opportunity was what appealed to me: ian audience-at- home biographical essay contest, 175 to 250 words written on a single sheet of paper, typed (if possible), but hand-printed will be accepted if neat and legible, tri-folded and mailed in a legal- size envelope; sorry, entries cannot be returned, and they must be postmarked no later than midnight this coming Monday to be eligible for next weekis program! One entry per person per week, please!i And a Speed Graphic press camera was precisely what I wanted more than anything else in this world. Nearly seventeen, I probably knew more about photography than 95% of the American population, but even at that my interest was somewhat vague and disoriented. I loved taking pictures, and I considered every shot a work of art, especially if it came out. I loved developing my own film, preparing the chemicals, the baths, the fixers, working in the dark (roll tanks were for amateurs), hanging strips of negatives, and then the printing, more fixing, drying, cutting, cropping. This was exciting magic; far better than model airplanes and far more rewarding. Of course, I had no darkroom. What I had was a kitchen table late at night. And I rarely had any film, thanks to the war as much as my paucity of funds. Rationing of meat and butter and sugar and coffee was one thing; gasoline was another, but to be restricted to one 8-exposure roll of black and white film per week was a crippling limitation. Kodak Verichrome, size 16 620, loaded into an ancient Kodak box-camera my father had bought for $3.95 (and rarely used) when we were little kids. A fixed focus, fixed speed, cumbersome quasi-semi-reflex with a single element lens comparable to a plastic magnifying glass; virtually non-existent aperture control (f8); 60th of a second single speed leaf shutter (forget the worthless iBi setting); no flash, no case, no . . . nothing. But, man, could I make that piece of junk sing and take pictures! 8 shots a week! What I would do with a Speed Graphic went beyond imagination. It was the ultimate camera. Plate photography at its finest; synchronized flash and shutter speeds up to 1,000th of a second at f22. This was the camera newspaper photographers relied on all over the world; AP and UPI and Reuters in the European and Pacific theaters, everywhere. . . Sporting events, Washington political intrigues, crime in the street, train wrecks, plane crashes, highway disasters, weddings, portrait studios. The finest, greatest camera ever produced. I had to have one! And, of course, my only hope was Dr. I.Q. A Speed Graphic cost around two hundred fifty dollars. On my allowance of thirty-five cents a week, I could barely afford a roll of Kodak Verichrome 620 from Gardneris. Processing chemicals and darkroom equipment (such as it was) came from odd jobs I was able pick up around the neighborhood, in winter, emptying ashes from furnaces and carrying them in washtubs to the curb; in summer, pulling weeds, mowing lawns, raking leaves, hustling housewives at the A&P to tote their groceries home in my brotheris wagon, and my brief tenure as a darkroom technician for a local photographer. And, of course, the unstinting generosity of my grandfather, good old Toma Ouspenskaya, a Croatian Jew, who always had some odd change hiding in the pockets of his sagging trousers. Currently, however, my only purpose in breathing was to write a biographical essay about someone that would make the panel of judgesi decision not only final but focused directly on Marty Eden of Norfolk, Virginia. Lacking even the most rudimentary research capabilities at the corner of Doumar and Gill Alley, except for a Modern Home Medical Advisor (two 17 volumes) edited by Dr. Morris Fishbein, I began spending a suspicious amount of time at the Larchmont Public Library. iWhatid you do, rent a room there?i Shadow asked. iYiall livini there?i I explained as best I could about Dr. I.Q., about the essay contest, and about the Speed Graphic. iPshhhit, yiall think youire gonna win a camra writini about some dead asshoi?i iIt doesnit have to be somebody dead,i I told him. iJust somebody you heard of . . . uh . . . that did something people remember.i iLike who?i I thought for a moment. iWalt Disney.i iPshhhit! I guess him right off the bat! All you gotta say, heis Mickey Mouseis oli man, ani they gonna walk off with sixty-four smackaroos!i I shrugged. iWhat I care? I still get the Speed Graphic.i iYeah, well . . . who else?i My brain spewed names like a machine gun spews bullets: Helen Keller, Ben Franklin, William iBuffalo Billi Cody, Amelia Earhart, Glenn Davis, iDoci Blanchard, Ernie Pyle, Charles Lindbergh, William Shakespeare, Attila the Hun, Bruno Hauptmann, iWrong Wayi Corrigan, Elliot Ness, Babe Ruth, Mickey Rooney, Al Capone, Bugsy Seigal, Carl Sandburg, George Eastman, Thomas Edison, Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Kaye, Kay Kaiser, Dennis OiKeefe, Brian Ahearne, Cecil B. DeMille, Somerset Maugham, Walter Winchell, Robert Benchley, Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker, James Barton, Clara Barton, Barton McLain, Erskine Caldwell, Noel Coward, John Mills, Marie Curie, Alf Landon, Wendell Wilke, John Wilkes Booth, Booth Tarkington, Clare Boothe Luce, Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, Rudyard Kipling . . . Sadly, were I to pronounce any of those coming immediately to mind, chances were Shadow would have heard of but one or two. . . Not to mention, my total knowledge of most was limited to a short sentence; perhaps, rarely, a short paragraph. Thatis why I had begun spending my afternoons and early evenings at the Larchmont Public Library. 18 Located on 43rd Street, near Old Dominion University, the library was a twenty-five minute walk from the far end of Gill Alley. It was a magnificent old building, two stories high and half a block long, made of stone and brick and cement, covered in ivy and garlands, with tall, narrow windows that invited light inside single file rather than a noisy implosion of colors and high lumens. The facade and wide steps from the street were protected by two crouching, hungry lions ready to pounce with the unrestrained power of knowledge upon anyone foolish enough to approach this sanctuary of learning with anything but literate purposes. The lions fascinated me. I had asked Miss Tortoretti, the head librarian, the name of the artist who had sculpted them, and she said it was an Englishman named Grinling Gibbons, a man whoid done most of the serious stone work at Blenhem Palace in Great Britain. They had been acquired, she told me, when our original library, built in 1843 of Georgia pinewood, burned down in 1929 and had to be reconstructed from the ground up o this time with huge stones quarried around Lexington and bricks from Roanoke. The architect, the renowned Emeril Shadha, wanted lions at the door, and someone discovered these were available as the result of renovations being done at Blenhem; they were shipped over in 1931. Miss Tortoretti said she thought they had cost twelve hundred dollars, a piece! I didnit care if they cost twelve million; I loved those lions! Every once in a while, if the weather was dry and no one was paying any attention, I would climb up on one or the other and ride bareback across the fertile plains of higher learning. The power was exhilarating! However, the first time I came to that library to research my very first biographical sketch I hadnit a clue as to whom I would ascribe the effort. The moment I climbed the steps and walked between the lions, my composition book under my arm and five No. 2is in my shirt pocket, all the names I had considered vanished as though dumped into the deepest part of the ocean. Whatever buoyancy the ideas had held for the last few yards of the trip had expired in a loud mental hiss and had sunk without 19 even a rippling trace beneath the roiling surface of my immaturity. Inside, I was pleasantly amazed at how cool this unair- conditioned building was. And how quiet. And how it actually smelled like, like thinking. In the center of the main foyer was a long, curved Information-Reception-Return-Checkout counter, behind which presided a woman who, over the next years, would become my close friend, advisor, mentor, mother, lover and wife (in idiotic fantasies), editor, critic, confidant, and advocate, something neither she nor I could have had, at that moment, the slightest inkling. The name plate said Anna Theresa Tortoretti, Head Librarian. iMay I do something for you, young man?i Anna Theresa Tortoretti was, I figured, about twenty-five years old. A tall woman, she stood very straight, full-busted beneath a basic black dress designed by that Great Worldwide Costumer of Librarians, her hair done up and tied at the back, as was the fashion, glorious light brown, almost-golden hair turning prematurely pale at the edges and framing the most gentle face I had ever seen; emerald eyes above a wide mouth, eyes separated by a perfect, aquiline nose with flaring, purposeful nostrils. The emerald eyes gleamed and the wide mouth smiled, revealing two rows of symmetrically positioned pearl-white teeth. I fell, at that precise moment, irretrievably in love for the very first time, for all time . . . Stupidly I said, iIim Dr. I. Q.i iAre you now!i iNo, Iim sorry. Iim not a doctor. I mean, I want to write a biography for Dr. I. Q. . . . The radio program. . . . Sponsored by candy. Mars. . . . i I broke off; I was making a fool of myself; my mouth was going dry. iOh,i said my divine librarian, still smiling. iIive heard that program, once or twice.i iI was on it,i I blurted. 20 iReally?i She tilted her head and looked at me with her eyes slightly narrowed, as if she were uncertain whether to believe me. iI won twenty dollars ani a bunch of candy bars. No, I mean, one box was Mars bars; the other was just a Snickeris.i Why was I telling her all this? Why was it suddenly so important what she believed? iWell, Iim afraid I must have missed it that night. Whatis your name?i I actually had to think for a moment. iAaaaaaa . . . Marty Eden.i She looked surprised. iMarty? As in Martin? As in Martin Eden?i I nodded. iMy friends call me Marty. So do my parents.i iIs that, really, your real name?i This time she tilted her head in the other direction, as though she were posing for the cover of a ladiesi fashion magazine. iYeah.i I was becoming a little unnerved. I apparently could say nothing sheid believe right off the bat. iHow did your parents happen to name you that?i She looked genuinely interested. I had no idea why. iDunno,i I answered, uncertain where this was leading. Was someone looking for me? Had my mother called and said to send me home right away? Did Shadow want something? . . . No one knew where I was, and anyway, we didnit have a telephone . . . I said, iI think my granipa on my fatheris side had a brother who died when he was a baby named Martin.i (Great convolution!) iActually, my middle name is Martin, after granipais brother, but my first name is John, but nobody ever calls me that; Iive always been called Martin. Marty.i Miss Tortoretti squinted, all-knowing. iJohn is your first name? Do you know what name is short for John?i iAaaaaaaaaa. . . Jack?i iAnd would you know any particular writer named Jack?i iA writer?i iYes. Named Jack.i 21 My mind was a room with the blinds drawn, full of choking dust. iNo,i I said, a whisper of defeat. iHave you ever heard of Jack London?i Ker-pow! Bingo! The blinds flew up; the dust swirled. iSure! Jack London; Call of the Wild! Sure! I didnit like it too much, but I read it last summer. Or the summer before. . . Maybe.i She nodded, moderately impressed. iWhat else have you read by Jack London?i I tossed my head back and forth. iThatis it; just that.i iLet me suggest something,i she offered, and with that she moved away from behind the counter and headed toward the racks marked Fiction. I watched her walk, and although her dress came to a median between her knees and ankles, I knew I was looking at a fantastic pair of legs. This lady didnit walk; this lady . . . Danced! . . . Glided! She was back in less than sixty seconds, and she placed a book on the counter between us. iIf you have a library card, you can take this home. And Iid like you to read it all, from cover to cover.i I glanced down at the book. It was upside-down, and on the back cover was a photograph of Jack London taken outside a shack somewhere on the frozen tundra. He was wearing a fur parka, and his face was fairly obscured by the thick, hairy hood. I thought he looked like an escaped convict. Then . . . I turned the book over. Its title was Martin Eden. 22 CHAPTER THREE iBest shotid be oli Ben Wuis Laundry ani Dry Cleanini . . . in Fern Alley,i Shadow announced on our way home after the last day of school: early June, 1943. It was raining a little, the sky was gray and depressing, the air very humid, and I could hear thunder off in the distance. A few cars driving past us had their lights on, pale beams peeping through blackout slits. iWhy a laundry?i I wondered. iLaundryis just a front,i he explained. iEverybody knows Wu sells dope, ani heis always got a hundred, maybe a hundred ani fifty stashed under the counter.i iAni thereis probably a shotgun stashed under the counter, too, if there is any money,i I muttered, my pragmatism seeping, like fog, over the transom of my cowardice. iOh, yeah, thereis money all right! I seen it!i Ho, yeah, thehis muny awl riot! Ah seeeeeenit! I glanced at him skeptically. I had no idea how Shadow could possibly know what Ben Wu had stashed under his counter unless heid walked in one afternoon with a load of dirty underwear and Ben Wu had grabbed him by the hand and said, iHey, kid, looky here what I got!i and heid pulled out a wad of fifty dollar bills and showed them to him, right there and then! Shadow jerked his shoulders as if his jacket were slipping off. iYeah, yeah, well, maybe I didnit actually see the dough, actually . . . but I know heis got a lot stashed in there, ani itis probily under the damn counter!i iHow yiall know this?i iDammit,i he snapped, irritably, iI just know, thatis how I know! . . Dammit, I just know things.i He plunged his hands deep into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and stared at the ground. Shadow, at eighteen, had first- second- and third-quessed his way through life more than anyone I had ever known, and I think 23 he played the law of averages the way some kids play sports. I didnit buy any of it. I asked, iWhatire we gonna do, walk in, point a finger at him, ani say eStick eem up, you dumb Chinki?i iPsssshit!i Shadow ran his hand across his brushcut, and I thought I saw a spark jump. iWe gonna break in . . . at night. Like after, midnight. Ani the doughill be right there, waitini on us; I know exactly where it is. Weill just take it ani stuff it in our pockets, ani out we go. Take lessin four minutes; take less timein it takes to jerk off.i Not known to me until now, Shadow had done his homework, and the more he talked, the more I knew he was serious. This was really going to happen. I got very nervous. iWhat if we all get caught?i I sniped. iNever happen,i he shot right back. iBut what if we do? We gonna be in prison ani we never gonna graduate. Fugg, we gonna get caught!i iWe wonit. There ainit nobody gonna be there, ani we in ani out in lessin four minutes, yihear me? Ani besides, when oli Wu sees the doughis gone, whatis he gonna do?, call the cops?, tell eem all his dope moneyis been snatched? Pssshit, if we did got caught, theyid probily give us a freaggin re-ward!i I sucked my lower lip, and I was very, very nervous. Ben Wuis Laundry and Dry Cleaning was on North Ferry Avenue, about six blocks from my house, and it backed up to Fern Alley, a strip not unlike Gill Alley between North and South Ferry Avenues, except it was a more commercial area with a small butcheris shop, a tinsmithis shop, a shoe repair shop, and an ignition and body shop, Poppickis Magneto, at the far end. Many times Shadow and I, as well as assorted classmates from the Doumar/Gill Alley neighborhood, cut through Fern Alley on our way to Maury; it added about five minutes to the daily walk. More often than not, however, we chose that route bound for home after school because it was Annette Poppickis father who owned the ignition and body shop over which the Poppick family lived. And Annette was the class iButterfacei in 1943. 24 iHow come yiall call her eButter-facei?i asked Reggie Glessing, a recent transfer. I said, iThatis her name.i iWhat kinda nameis Butter-face?i iDunno. Just her name.i iBut whereid it come from? In school . . . sheis Annette Poppick.i We all agreed; Shadow explained. iAfter school, upstairs, in the apartment over the car shop, while her oli man ani oli ladyire workini downstairs, ani she takes off her clothes ani lets us stick it in a liil bit, sheis Butterface.i iDoan get it.i iWell, you will, yihear, next time youire with us ani we get her up there.i Shadow always had the punch line: iYiall gonna say, eMan, she has got some body, but her face . . . !ii The four or six of us would roll on the ground, laughing, holding our sides. And now, three doors down from Annette Poppickis second floor House of Joy in Fern Alley was the rear of Ben Wuis Laundry and Dry Cleaning, soon to be the setting for the Crime of the Century. * * * I was back from the library and had just finished writing the final draft of my third biographical effort (Jim Thorpe) for Dr. I.Q. when my mother came into the bedroom and informed me Shadow was on the front porch with my little brother. I told her to tell him Iid be right out. I looked over my single sheet of handwritten prose, and I had a nice, clean feeling that this was a good piece. It couldnit offer much in handwriting style, but it was neat and readable, and that was all they could ask. I thought it would be a good idea that when I won the camera if I could also win the sixty- four dollars and buy myself a used typewriter. I was really getting a kick out of writing, of making up stories to go with the standard biographical data. I tri-folded the manuscript as 25 instructed and inserted it in a legal envelope already stamped and addressed to Dr. I.Q. I knew this one would be a winner; I was certain of it. I placed the envelope in my jacket pocket and walked out of the bedroom to join my brother Douglas and Shadow on the front porch. This second story front porch was half a block from my bedroom, because the bedroom was the last room in the flat, and it looked out on Gill Alley. The porch was the front-most place, encompassing the full width of the flat, and it overlooked Doumar Street. Shadow and Douglas were lying on the floor of the porch playing Street Fighters. This was a war game where you aimed your Red Ryder BB gun through the slats of the railing and pretended pedestrians and cars were Nazi or Jap soldiers and tanks fighting their way through the streets of Norfolk. We commanded a pretty good vantage point from the second floor porch: three blocks of Doumar in front, all the way up to Elmwood Avenue on the right and Ashford Street on the left, plus the upper half of Gill Alley. With the right ordnance, nothing could get past us. iAny BBs in that thing?i I asked eleven year old Douglas. He looked over his shoulder in disgust. iNuh. Jusi practicini.i He turned back to the task at hand, squeezed off a round and dropped a man walking his dog. iTake that, you filthy Kraut!i When the air popped out of the empty rifle, the man looked up, surprised. iGottum!i Shadow got up off his knees and sat down beside me on the metal glider. iYiall ready for this?i he half-whispered, so Douglas couldnit hear. iFor what?i iBen Wuis. Tonightis the night, yihear?i I immediately had a stomach cramp. iWhy tonight?i iNo moon. Blackoutis on. Darkerin a Zerbieis ass in a coal bin. iiSides, we gotta get some wheels. Auctionis at the base tomorrow at noon, ani we gotta be there, cash in hand.i The operative phrase seemed to be cash in hand; I looked at the envelope in my own. iThis biography gets accepted for next 26 weekis Dr. I.Q., I get sixty-four dollars ani my Speed Graphic..i iAsshoi, schoolis out three days already, we canit blow a whole summer while yiall keep dreamini oli Dr. I.Q.is gonna pick your stupid letter outta six million others probily written by people who know what they talkini ebout already. Iim sick as shit takini streetcars to the beach ani beggini Leroy ani those nigger-jerks for rides every time we got a date or sumpthin . . . Whois the story about?i iJim Thorpe.i iPssshit.i iYou know who Jim Thorpe was?i Shadow waited a heartbeat too long. iSure. Hei a . . . I dunno, a football player or sumpthin.i iRight. Ani my biography ani clues are right on target. Most people at homeill get it, but my clues will freeze the fella on the radio. This oneis gonna get picked.i iSure. Right. Anyway, yiall ainit gonna win by tomorrow, ani like I said, tomorrowis when the auction is. I got no way of knowini when the next oneis gonna be. Tonightis the night, or weire deaderin Kelseyis nuts.i We sat on the glider and watched Douglas wipe out a tank battalion, and when it got dark, we watched my dad leave with his gleaming white helmet bouncing like a slow-motion tracer bullet down Doumar Street (Douglas drew a bead and followed him for about fifty yards before POP!, and our old man was a goner). iYiall just shot one of our top officers, you asshoi!i Shadow snarled. iSo what! Heis nuthini but jusi some oli Nazi spy, you jerk!i Douglas pulled the gun inside and pointed it at Shadow. iGotta cock it before you get me, nigger, ani before yiall do that I slitcher throat, you yella-belly-Jap-lover!i Shadow pretended to pull a combat knife out of his high-top, and he swiped at Douglasi head. Douglas tried to cock the Red Ryder but the invisible knife had sliced open his jugular, and he dropped the BB gun and grabbed at his throat, falling to the 27 floor, gory blood spraying in all directions, writhing in a prolonged death throe. iAhhwwwrahhwarraaaa! Grrrrhhhhwwwwwrrrraaaaa! . . . . . i He gurgled for a moment, jerked his body in agonizing spasms, and then he died. He was better than James Cagney when it came to violent death. Shadow smiled and shrugged simultaneously. iDies good, doan he?i On our way out the back door we opened the hall closet where my dad kept his emergency air raid warden paraphernalia, and from his arsenal of flashlights Shadow and I both took one, making sure they tested satisfactorily, and stuffed them into our dungarees. * * * It was eleven-forty when we left Norfolkis park-like area called The Hague, crossed the southern-most edge of Lafayette and came out on North Ferry Street. It had begun to drizzle, as it often did in the Tidewater, a soft mist, a motionless spray; it was very warm, and the air was a heavy, hooded cloak. And it was dark with no street lights, no glow from rows of houses, their blinds drawn, hardly any cars on the road, and those that were had headlights dimmed with pale light struggling through tiny slits across their lenses. The streets were empty but for an occasional air raid warden who would sweep his virtually non- existent beam in our direction. One went so far as to inquire iWhy yiall stayini out this late onna school night for?i Eye yawl styne ow iss lyte onna skoo-el nigh fah? Shadow told him school had been out for half a week, and under his breath added: iAinit no business a yours, asshoi.i I wondered if heid recognized us, but he was twenty feet away and we were just two white boys walking in the rain, looking for stray girls and probably up to no good. Norfolkis residential areas where no Negroes lived were ghost towns on weekday nights after it got dark, while downtown, on Church Street, the U.S. Navy was getting drunk, screwed, blewed, and tattooed like every night 28 was New Yearis Eve. Only God knew for sure what was going on in South Norfolk and in the Zerbiadition, where most of the Zerbies lived. But the Lafayette Park-Hague region was Tombstone and Death Valley. The Hague was actually a tributary off the Elizabeth River, and there was a museum and an art gallery hugging the shoreline leading into Lafayette Park. I often went there, alone and in the daytime, to sit on the slopping green banks and fantasize that I was in Holland on a spy mission for the OSS. Alan Ladd. Shadow said, iWe run inna any more air raid wardens, just ignore eem. There ainit no curfew till the end of August, ani anyway, yiall gonna be seventeen on July 12th.i I wondered how he knew that was my birthday. iYou always remind me.i iNever give me anything,i I said. iYou grow up ani smoke, I was gonna give yiall a cigarette case ani lighter combination. Ronson makes eem. Bottom part holds ten cigirettes ani top partis a lighter. Cost morein twenty bucks; real silver, ani a place on the front yiall can getcher enitials engraved.i iWell, I doan smoke,i I affirmed. iRight. But I do. Ani I hate cases ani lighters.i Shadow was the only person I ever knew who could actually light a kitchen match with one hand, using his thumbnail. iThatis why I give the cigirette case away, to Billy Ray Provence; he smokes like a chimney, ani he thought it was purty smooth.i iWas it his birthday?i iNope. Jusi give it to him when I dinnit give it to yiall.i iWhy didnit you just keep it for yourself? Ani where you ever get twenty dollars for a thing like that?i iPsssshit, it doan matter none, ani I doan want no sissy Yankee-pussy silver cigirette case, anyhow.i We had reached the corner of Fern Alley. iYiall wanna go see Butterface still up?i I asked. iFreagg no! Soonis we get the Chinkis money we can go down Church Street ani get all the pussy we want etill our 29 brains fall out! Ten dollars you get a trip eround the world make your nuts fly off! Butterface! Pssshittt!i We had stopped walking now and had stopped talking, and we stood in the mist looking down Fern Alley. It was pitch dark; no lights from anywhere. And totally silent. Shadow took the flashlight from his belt and turned it on. I did likewise, and we shined our twin beams at the wet pavement in front of us. With the quarter inch slits over the lenses, the field of illumination was limited to a horizontal swath about six inches long, enough to keep us from tripping over our own feet. We started to move down Fern Alley. iAw, freagg psssshit,i Shadow whispered. iWhatis wrong?i He pointed the flashlight at the metal grillwork covering the back door to Ben Wuis Laundry and Dry Cleaning. iHeis gotta freaggin iron fence across the freaggin door!i We stood still in the faint rain and stared in disbelief at the barricade Ben Wu felt was necessary to slide across his alley door at night to discourage burglars. Behind the metal grate was the door, windowless and for certain locked. Even if the iron accordion grate werenit there, I wondered how we expected to open the door itself. iWe screwed,i Shadow sighed. iHow were we gonna break in back here anyway?i I whispered. iI dunno. Probily ainit locked. . . Letis try the front.i iLetis not ani say we did.i iWell, shit, Marty, youire right, letis jusi stand out here in the freaggin rain ani piss ani moan for the rest of the freaggin night. Or we gonna get in there ani get us some dough for a freaggin Jeep?i Shadow kicked at a shallow puddle and sent a single sheet of water up his pant leg. iGoddamn it all! . . . Shit! . . . Freagg it all!i I pointed my pale beam up the wall of the building, revealing a small window, rectangular, short but fairly wide, about eight or nine feet off the ground. The tilt of the glass gave me reason to believe the window was open, or at least ajar. I 30 glanced at Shadow; he had stopped pouting long enough to watch what I was doing. iHow yiall know that was up there?i Shadow asked, a low rasping gurgle. iI dunno. Just looked up ani there it was. I think itis open some.i We stood staring at the window as if Wuis head would suddenly pop out and invite us in: Oh, hello dere, boys! Come on in! I got lotsa good American dollahs unner my counter! Come take what you want! Shadow looked directly at me with renewed enthusiasm, and the trace of a smile grew to a full-blown devilish grin. iHokay,i he said, ihereis what we do: Iim gonna lean against the wall ani boost you up sois yiall can stand on my shoulders, ani you see if the windowis unlocked ani we can get in through it.i I didnit think it was a great idea, but I said, iAll right, but . . . no ticklini, no droppini me, no horsini around!i I held the flashlight on him, and he moved to the building. He stashed his own flashlight in his belt, then leaned his back against the brick wall and cupped his hands in front of his crotch. iOkay. Alley oop!i My one soggy sneaker started in the stirrup of his palms, my other found the fabric covering his right arm, and with a grunt and a groan I got both feet astride his neck and balanced myself (with tilted assistance against the building) on his shoulders, and much to my surprise found my face even with the window o which, it turned out, was unlocked and ajar, a top-hinged window that swung inward with a gentle push. iI can get in here!i I whispered. iDo sumpthin!i Shadow grunted. iYiallire killini my shoulders!i Without actually thinking about it, I pushed the window open full and hooked my arms over the sill, lifting my body off Shadowis shoulders, stepping on his head, and hoisting myself to a position half in and half out, suddenly realizing I was actually inside the back room to Ben Wuis Chinese laundry. Or 31 at least half my torso was, and I was about seven feet up the interior wall over a huge washer and rinse tub that appeared, in the glow of my flashlight, right under me. I pulled the rest of my body over the sill, carefully turned around, and let my feet slowly touch the edges of the washer; I was able to lean my head back out the window and look down at Shadow. He asked, iWhatire yiall doini?i iIim in. Come on.i iHow?i iHow?i iYeah, how? Yiall want me to pole vault?i iCanit you climb up on something?i iLike what?i I had to think. I was inside. Shadow was out in the alley. There was no way for him to climb in through a window ten feet off the ground; there werenit any boxes or garbage cans to be seen. Better he stayed outside so he could get me down when I came out the window. Better I stayed inside and . . . and what? I whispered, iYiall stay there ani wait to catch me when I come out the window. Whereis the money?i iIn the front. Under the counter; under the cash register.i I shone my flashlight on him. iHow do you know that?i iThatis where I seen Wu put it. Inna shoe box.i iWhen yiall see that?i iLast week.i iBullshit! Iim gettini outta here!i iNo, listen, I seen him, last week, Thursday. I brought some shit in to get cleaned, sois I could case the place out, so I hung around ani let some people go ahead of me, ani I seen him take money outta the cash register ani put it inna shoe box under the counter. He musta put twenty dollars in there just while I was standini there. . . Go look.i I carefully turned around and surveyed the room as best I could with my limited candlepower. The place was a mess of washbaskets, a couple of dryers, maybe three mangles, and a long worktable on the far side of the room, near a door that must 32 have led to the front. The worktable was littered with sleeping laundry waiting for the start of a new day. The pungent, dank odor of cleaning fluid and naphtha stung the lining of my nostrils. Silently, I let myself off the top of the washer and made haste, tip-toe, for the door. When I got there I was surprised to see it was not a door, but a doorway; an archway, actually, and it separated the front from the back with a cascade of shimmering oriental beads. Just like in the Charlie Chan movies! The instant I went through the beads I doused my flashlight. The front of the laundry had two large plate glass windows and a glass front door. There was a sign on one of the windows which read: . The sign on the glass door said: There was just enough light coming from North Ferry Street to lead me quickly to the section of the counter on which sat the cash register, and when I looked on the shelf underneath, again using my flashlight, I saw the shoe box. And thatis when I started to shake all over. What am I doing? was a phrase that kept going through my head. I knelt on the cold cement floor and stared at the shoe box. I held the flashlight in my left hand, barely able to keep it still, and with my right I lifted the lid off the shoe box, trembling so badly I dropped it on the floor, oblivious of the sound it made. Carefully, I slid the shoe box closer and peered inside. Holy shit! I actually whistled out loud. The shoe box contained the biggest nickel-plated, pearl- handled revolver I had ever seen, not that Iid seen many, or actually any, outside of the movies. Under the pistol was something else: four parallel stacks of money; what appeared to be stacks of twenty dollar bills, maybe six or seven inches of twenty dollar bills, side by side by side by side. I picked up the gun and set it on top of the counter; I placed the box on the floor and extracted about half an inch of the money, folded it once, and stuck it in my pants pocket, right next to my tattered change purse. I was about to grab a full wad when there was an alien tintinnabulary rustling noise behind me, and just as I turned back toward the beaded doorway, I heard the 33 six words that would end my life of crime forever: iWho in dare? Whai you do?i 34 CHAPTER FOUR The gun, which had to weigh three pounds, was in my hand, but I had no idea how it got there. Light filtering through the windows was sufficient for both Ben Wu (I assumed it was Ben Wu in the beaded archway) and me to see that I was holding the gun, its nickel-plating shining in the dim light and sending off speckles that bounced on the walls and ceiling as though from a spinning mirrored globe in a dance hall; and I pointed the gun directly at him. Instinctively, he reached his hands out in front, as if, were I to fire, he could catch the bullets and throw them back at me. My own hands were shaking so badly I reached up and gripped the pistol like a baseball bat, my index finger outside the cage, nowhere near the trigger; I was literally so scared I expected, at any moment, to pee my pants. Perhaps I would have if Ben Wu hadnit spoken. iDonit pull trigger! Very sensitive hair-trigger! You gonna shoot me!i I tried to talk, but it came out a mean growl: iGarwwwraraagegawwwwrararwa!i I found my voice and breathed rather than spoke. iNo shooting, unless yiall make me! Put your hands up over your face; cover your eyes, donit look at me!i iTake all money! Donit shoot! Take money! Take money! Go eway!i He placed his palms over his eyes, and I could see his hands were shaking worse than mine. I noticed that I could see him fairly well as he was facing the windows; my back was to them, and I was in the shadows, and there was no way he could identify me, now or ever. I think. This was a bad dream, and I had to either get out of there or wake up. iLay down on the floor, on your belly! Keep your hands over your eyes!i Ben Wu dropped down flat on his face and stretched out behind the counter, his feet still in the archway; his legs trembling, body shaking in spasms. iMake one move ani, Iill 35 shoot you!i I whispered hoarsely, disguising my voice. iWhen I go out the door, yiall lay there for ten minutes, yihear! Count slowly to . . . to . . . four thousand, before you get up! My friend is in the back room, waiting by the mangles, ani heis got a gun, too, ani heill shoot you dead if yiall . . . get up before ten minutes!i While I was saying all this, I was backing away to the end of the counter and toward the front door. iAni donit call the police! If you do, Iill tell them this is all dope money, ani theyill send yiall back to China ani put yiall in prison!i At the door I flipped the deadbolt, opened the door, backed out, slammed the door, and ran like hell. I was at the corner, around it, and heading back to Shadow in Fern Alley when I realized the shoe box full of money was still sitting on the floor, behind the counter, about four feet from Ben Wuis head. * * * iYiall left the goddamn money in the laundry?!!?i Shadow was beside himself with disbelief. iI left the goddamn money in the laundry,i I said, for the tenth time. iShadow, I was freaggin busted, I totally panicked! Whaddaya want from me? The sonofabitch scared the shit outta me!i iI oughta kick the shit outta you!i iWell, why didnit you tell me the guy lived in the damn laundry?i iHow I suppose to know where the freagg he lived? iWhat if he jumped me from behind ani broke my neck with jujitsu or somethini? What if heid had the damn gun? What if the damn gunied gone off ani I shot the dumb sonofabitch? . . . What kinda asshoi jerk lives in a laundry, anyway!i I asked, incredulously. iYiall didnit shoot him, didijuh?i asked Shadow, apprehensively. I turned my head and looked at my friend lying on the floor beside me. It was probably after one oiclock, and weid been 36 lying there for twenty minutes trying to catch our breath and stop sweating. From the instant I tore around the corner into Fern Alley, we had started to run. iBen Wu got me . . . !i I had cried, hysterically. iJay-sus! Ben Wu shot you?i iNo, asshoi! Caught me with the money! Gotta get outta here! Run!i And run we did, back through Lafayette Park and on to Lee Street, then Richmond Street in Norview, and up a small hill and into Shadowis house. About something more than three miles. The only time we stopped was for less than fifteen seconds at the edge of the Elizabeth River. I took the muzzle of the gun in my right hand, stepped back, whirled twice, and threw the gun as hard and as far as I could. It disappeared instantly in the dark, and we didnit hear it splash down for at least six seconds. Shadow wheezed. iWhazzat?i iThe gun!i iPssshit, we shoulda kept that!i Now, we were lying on the floor in the living room at Shadowis house on Richmond Street. The house, a Levitt home, was a tiny two bedroom prefab that was all the rage during World War II. Set on a cement slab, it was a cracker box with a small living room, a smaller bathroom squeezed between two miniature bedrooms, and a kitchen that had a coal furnace in the corner. It was surrounded by dozens of identical cracker boxes. Shadowis mother, Marilyn, was at work on the swing shift at Lockheedis ballbearing plant on Little Creek Road, where she made almost four dollars an hour plus overtime working a split shift from 11 AM to 5 PM, then the swing from 10 PM to 7 AM. Some weeks Shadow said she brought home a hundred twenty- five dollars, an unheard of wage for a woman in a defense plant (or anyplace else, for that matter). I donit think my momma and dad together made that kind of money. Scott Cranston, Shadowis dad, lived in Virginia Beach, and heid been divorced from Marilyn for about five years. He drove a transportation rig for Topland Trucking, and at forty-two he was trying to get into the Marines, but with no success. They 37 werenit yet drafting men over thirty-eight, especially those paying child support, and his three attempts at enlisting resulted in rejection due to high blood pressure. Shadow adored his old man, and although there were no formal custody arrangements, they spent time together whenever they could. Marilyn encouraged it. And Shadow had serious hopes his dad and momma would wind up back together, especially since Scott stayed overnight on an average of two weekends a month anyway, and neither of them seemed to be seeing anyone else. iYiall should of been there,i I said, and I knew it would gnaw at Shadow that he wasnit. iI had all that money, there must of been a couple hundred thousand dollars, ani oli Ben Wuis trying to sneak up behind me. But he must have forgot heid left the gun in the shoe box with the money. Ani when I heard those beads rattlini behind me, my first thought was it was you, but then he said somethini in Chink talk, like eWhatire yiall doini here?i or somethini like that, ani I scooped up the gun ani had the drop on him, just like Brian Donlevy!i iJay-sus!i was all Shadow could say. iYisure he couldnit recognize yiall?i iI dunno.i I was quiet for a moment, trying to remember how much light there was. iI mean, it was dark in there, ani what light there was, was comini from the street. He was facing me, you know, ani my back was to the light. I could see him pretty good, so I gotta figure he couldnit see me at all. Then I made him lay down on the floor with his hands over his eyes, ani I went out the front door.i iHowid you know it werenit locked?i iIt was locked. It had one of those deadbolts with the little half knob you turn from the inside and a bolt pops out. I flipped it ani opened the door, ani I was gone. I was afraid he was gonna get up, grab another gun, ani start chasini me. At first I thought Iid protect you ani run the other way, away from where yiall were.i iPssshit!i Shadow protested. iYou doan need to protect me! That nigger-Chink come out the back way, Iid a knocked him on his ass so fast heida seen next week!i 38 iYeah,i I giggled, relaxing at last. iRight.i iYeah, anyways . . . Yiall really ran out of there ani left all that money?i iYeah. Musta been three hundred ani fifty grand stuffed in that oli shoe box.i iHoly freaggin shit!i We lay there silent for several minutes, savoring our own thoughts, mine focused on how glad I was to be alive; how glad I was that Ben Wu was alive; how, if we truly got away with this, I would never, never, ever put myself in a position of such jeopardy again. My life of crime was born and killed off in one short experience. Even if Iid taken the money, Iid be figuring a way to give it back . . . The money! I suddenly remembered, folded in my jeans was some of the money! I lay very still, trying to feel the wad in my pocket by pressing my thigh against the lump where I knew it would be. It was there. I could feel it and I got very excited. iI gotta take a leak,i I said, getting up. iAgiin?i In the cramped bathroom I stood in front of the toilet and took the money out of my pocket, unfolding it. It was all in twenties, and it took me about thirty seconds to count out two hundred and sixty dollars, all told. Thirteen twenties! Wow! I flushed the toilet, put the money away in two different pockets, and went back into the living room. Shadow was sitting in the armchair smoking a cigarette, one long leg dangling over the arm of the chair. iWhat timeis the Jeep auction tomorrow?i I asked him. iStarts at noon. . . Whadda we care?i he pouted. Casually, an air of nonchalance perfected watching Franchot Tone in many dark movie theaters, I took three twenties out of my left pocket and tossed them in a crumpled wad into Shadowis lap. iForgot to tell you,i I smiled, ibut I was just sortini out a sample when oli Ben Wu made his move. Say hello three times to our new chauffeur: Good oli Andy Jackson!i 39 40 CHAPTER FIVE I bounded up the wide, cement library steps between the fierce and protective lions on the next gloriously mild and balmy Monday in early June, and I leaned heavily on the huge doors that separated me from . . . Anna Theresa Tortoretti. Glancing back, I admired the topless U.S. Marine camouflaged, olive drab Jeep that was hugging the curb in front of the library, illegally parked, but in perfect view of anyone looking out from the Information/Reception/Lending/Return desk. In my mind, I replayed driving up, parking, and leaping over the passenger seat, vaulting with one hand on the windshield frame and the other on the back of the seat, my legs and torso gliding through the air and landing smooth as silk on the sidewalk leading up to the buildingis entrance. She had to have been watching! That was just the way Tommy Dix did it with an old Chevy convertible in Best Foot Forward! I was wearing a plaid sweater vest over a fairly clean shirt, and this particular pair of pants had the memory of a crease slightly visible from the double pleat; the cuffs were pegged, the knees billowing, and my twenty inch key chain was curved at just the right depth from the belt loop to where it disappeared into my pocket. My hair was combed, meticulously casual, a curl dangling with sculptured carelessness over the center of my forehead. Edith Head could not have prepared me better to ask my best girl out on a date in my brand new Jeep. Anna Theresa Tortoretti glanced up as I approached the counter and said, cheerfully, iHello there!i She noticed I was not carrying any books. iAre you coming or going?i My key chain seemed to sag a little lower, keeping my spirits company: she hadnit seen me arrive. iWas just . . . in the neighborhood. Had to mail in my, uh, you know, my biographical sketch; I gotta mail it before midnight.i A brilliant flashbulb went off in my mushy brain. iYou want . . . I wanted you to read it. I left a copy in, my car . . .i I watched her reaction. 41 iGreat! Bring it in. Iid be happy to look it over.i Look it over? Look it over? Anna Theresa, I want you to crush it to your glorious breasts and shed tears over the magnificence of my prose! I want you to tell me itis the finest thing youive ever read! I said, iIill go get it.i She smiled and nodded, and returned to the work in front of her. I noticed she had a casual curl just like mine, only hers encircled the rim of her ear, a shimmering frame protecting a delicate petal. Mine became just a clump of rat hair hanging over my eyebrow. With contempt, I waved it away with the back of my hand. God, she was beautiful! I stood still, staring at her, and I realized that if I lived to be a hundred, I would never know any woman as exquisite as she. Her eyes, her lips, her tawny Roman complexion; the light brown, golden hair, coifed to perfection, here and there flecks of silver dust coyly playing peek-a-boo with the eraser of the pencil thrust into it. I glanced at her hands as they sorted index cards in a long, wooden file drawer. The hands of a world class concert violinist . . . no, wrong! . . . a flutist whose long, narrow fingers would caress each key, and whose full and pouting, lightly rouged lips would dominate any instrument (or any person) they touched. She looked up. iDo you have it?i iWhat? . . . Oh. No. I . . . I ainit . . . havenit got it. Itis outside. In the Jeep. The car.i iOh.i iIim goini to, uh, go get it . . . now.i I turned away, my face burning, and bolted across the entrance and out the heavy doors: What an asshole! What a jerk! What a spineless, mindless, juvenile piece of crap I really am! I stood on the curb, gazing at the Jeep. A carbon copy of the biographical sketch on Jim Thorpe was in the open utility compartment under the enveloped and three cent-stamped original about to be on its way to New York, where the panel of judges would make their final decision and 42 select it as this weekis winning entry. I took it out and headed back inside the cool library. Anna Theresa was nowhere to be seen. I placed the essay on the counter and aimlessly slid it on the slick marble, back and forth, with my right middle finger. I looked around and breathed in the cool, musty library air. It was exhilarating, this sharp aroma of living and dead authors, dull and brilliant books, prose as gorgeous as a sunrise; poetry as mesmerizing as a sunset. This is where she lives, the air she breathes; where I will live forever. . . with her. iAh, there you are,i Anna Theresa said, coming up from behind. She stepped around the counter and put down a load of books to be checked in. iWhois your biographical victim this week?i she smiled, bedazzling me. iCanit tell youi I blurted. iRead it ani see if yiall can get the clues.i I pushed the essay across, and she turned it around and picked it up. She brought up the silver half-glasses she wore on a chain around her neck and placed them lightly on the tip of her nose. She leaned her hip against the counter and started to read.Almost immediately a young girl came up with three books to check out, and Anna Theresa dropped the essay on the counter and went through the process of flipping the back covers open, sliding out the due date cards, stamping them, replacing them, stacking the books, and handing them to the young girl. I glowered at the inconsiderate, intruding borrower. iNow, letis see.i Anna Theresa resumed reading and within a minute was at the first clue. She glanced up at me. iJim Thorpe?i Give that lady sixty-four silver dollars and a box of Mars Bars! I could hear Jimmy McLainis voice as though he were standing next to me. Holy shit! Howid she know! iWow,i I said, my spirits again sagging lower than the loop on my key chain. iHowid you know so quick?i iWell, I think the first clue kind of gives it away.i Her voice was that soft Southern breeze that comes up late at night 43 and slides gently, skimmingly over water like a low lying branch, giving its leaves a cool drink. iAnybody who follows sportsill guess it.i She looked down and read from the sheet. ieA native American whose athletic records still stand at Carlisle College . . . e I think thereis enough right there to give it away. Let me read the rest of it.i Anna Theresa turned toward a shaft of pale light slanting through the tall west windows and went on with the essay. I watched her read; even while watching her do something in which I could not participate, but knowing she was doing it with something I had created, gave me a sensation of tingling excitement that ran from the center of my forehead, down my arms, down my spine and into my groin, and I was aware of a trembling charge that resulted in the beginnings of an erection. iThis is very good,i she muttered once, without looking up. iReally think so?i iHhhhmmmmuh.i And she began reading out loud: ieA life which, at the end, many people said was a wasted life. A life dominated by circumstances that crippled his spirit, drained his strength, pushed and pulled him down a path that led to scorn, shame, and destruction. But a life that at one time had been unique, important, thrilling, and accomplished. He changed the face of amateur sports forever, but his achievements have been dimmed by misunderstanding and distortions of the truth. Who was this great athlete?i . . . This really is very good, Martin.i iI epreciate that, maiam,i I said, practically a whisper, and looked at my shoes. iI think you have . . . some genuine talent.i iI do?i I looked up, and she smiled at me, patting the essay. iI think so.i She held the biographic sketch in both hands, bringing it up closer to her face. She told me she thought it was interesting, unique, actually, that someone my age wrote with his heart, not with his head. Very few young writers use words to make sentences that tell the story from feeling, rather than just facts. iThis is something,i she said, ithat you donit 44 learn to do. Itis something called etalenti. . . Did you read Martin Eden?i I nodded. iYeah. I mean, Iim into it ani I like it a lot. Ainit finished it yet. Iive . . . been sort of . . . busy.i She handed the essay back to me. iWell, I hope youill read it all.i She paused and looked me straight in the eye. iDo you like writing?i I wasnit sure how to answer. iI . . . donit know. Yeah, I like to do it. It comes easy sometimes, but I donit know what beini a writer really is. All I know about writing is who Dickens was, ani Mark Twain, ani Victor Hugo, ani . . . yeah, Jack London ani Sinclair Lewis, Chaucer . . . you know; stuff we have to read in school.i iWell . . . i Anna Theresa glanced at her watch. iI think maybe you could be a good writer if you wanted to. You know, there are all kinds of writers, maybe a reporter, a journalist . . . May I see some of your other biographies?i iAll right; yeah,i I answered quickly, pleased that someone of her stature would want to read my three other failures. iOnly got a few others, ani they were all losers on the program.i iThat doesnit matter; the program doesnit matter. Remember, they get hundreds of thousands of entries every week. I doubt if Pearl Buck or James T. Farrell or William Faulkner, or even Somerset Maugham, would get selected on writing technique.i For some reason, this struck her funny, and she laughed out loud. I had no idea who James T. Farrell was, but Somerset Maugham was something else. iIim related to Somerset Maugham,i I said, enhancing in my own mind, at least, my literary stature. iReally? How is that?i iMy granimother was a Maugham, ani she says old Willis her second cousin.i iWell, maybe you come by it naturally then. Maybe itis in your genes. Have you read The Razoris Edge? It just came out.iIid never even heard it. iNo,i I said, inot yet.i iDonit bother. Uh-oh, look at the time!i 45 I looked at my old, scarred Bulova, a hand-me-down from my grandpa. It was after five. iI have to leave,i she said cheerfully, moving away and around the counter. iWhere yiall goini?i I asked, presumptuously, hoping wherever it was sheid be taking a streetcar. iIive a class in modern art at Old Dominion, and I like to get there early. Thereis an exhibit in the gallery I want to look at before the class starts.i I blurted, iI can drive you!i iOh, well, yes, no, not really, thank you, but itis just a little piece down the street . . . You have a car?i She looked truly surprised. iYes. Well, yeah, a . . . not really a car. A Jeep. A Marine Jeep. Shadow, Lamont Cranston, my buddy, ani I bought it together; itis half mine, half his.i This made her laugh again. iWhich half is yours?i iI . . . donit know.i iIs your friendis name really Lamont Cranston?i iYeah. Wild, huh? His daddyis name is Scotty Cranston, ani his mommais maiden name was Lamont. So they just named him Lamont Cranston, ani then there was the radio show ani everything . . . They just started calling him eShadowi, ani thatis what everybodyis called him since he was right little.i She laughed that enchanting laugh again and gathered up her things: a sweater and her purse; she headed toward the door. iIive a car of my own, but with gas rationing like it is, I donit drive it much. Never ridden in a Jeep, though; that should be grand fun. Youill have to take me for a ride sometime, with the top down. Donit forget. Goodnight, Martin, Eden!i And she was out the heavy doors and gone, and my heart went with her. I stood by the counter for several minutes, holding my essay and touching the paper where her fingers had held it. I knew I had to get it in the mail before the 6 PM pickup so the envelope would be postmarked by midnight. The air around me was ripe with the smells of books and authors, and her, my Anna Theresa. 46 My Anna Theresa . . . The thought never crossed my mind, and of course, it couldnit have, but I had just attended my first literary salon. * * * iThree gallons! Three gallons a week! I mean, where we goini on three gallons a week? This is awful, this the biggest kick in the pants I ever heard of!i Shadow punctuated each noun and adjective with a thrust of his fork in the direction of first my mother, then my father, then my grandmother, then me: Supper time around the ancient dining room set on Doumar Street. Once or twice a week Shadow managed to be hanging around just in time for supper, and that Wednesday night was no exception. The dining room in our flat was, probably, the largest room in the place; the old second-hand massive oak table and chairs, and the elephantine buffet sideboard, filled the room o plus the matching china cabinet at the far end, and some sort of telephone table (we did not, at that time, have a telephone, but thanks to the iAnnual Scratch-and-Dent Salei, plus an employeesi fifteen percent discount at E.K. Careyis, we had a . . . telephone table.) All in all, however, by normal standards, it was a rather elegant room, made so, I think, by the wallpaper with massive orange flowers and the bay window with beige, sun-bleached, almost-orange crocheted curtains. The window looked out upon Gill Alley. iCan yiall believe,i Shadow ranted on, ithey gave us a A sticker? Three gallons a gas a week! School start up, thatis what we use just to get back ani forth ani pick up each other!i My father, who always sat to my grandmotheris right o Grandma sat at the head of the table, closest to the kitchen, and Grandpa sat at the foot on the table, said, iYeah, well, maybe I can pull some strings.i I looked up from my place diagonally across, down at Grandpais right. iWho do you know?i I didnit mean to inflict sarcasm, but there was enough of an edge in my tone to make Dad purse his lips and glare at me. 47 Douglas piped up from his place between Mom and Dad: iTell eem youire a doctor. I seen in the paper doctors get all the gas they want.i iSince when did you all ever read a newspaper?i I wanted to know. Grandma spoke up, her accent emanating from somewhere between Cambridge and Liverpool, iH. V. Kaltenborn said thatis so. An A sticker is for normal, everyday use, ani a B sticker is for people whose livelihood requires them to drive more than that, and a C through E is for doctors and professional practitioners who . . . uh . . . who . . . i Her explanation was exhausted, like excess steam from the side of a locomotive, and her train of thought remained in the station. My mother picked up the slack and asked, iWhereid retail people fit in? I bet floor managers and executive buyers and proprietors get all the gas they want.i No one had an immediate answer so my Aunt Freddie volunteered, iAll depends.i We waited, and when she didnit elucidate, three of us asked, in near harmony, iOn what?i iWell, I wouldnit be one to know.i Aunt Freddie was a very pretty woman of twenty-eight, slender and chic, still unmarried, and very professional. I always thought of her as a topographical blend of Signe Hasso and Gene Tierney. She was the cosmetics buyer at E.K. Careyis. For a few moments there was silence while we all addressed our attention to Grandmais beef-and-carrots stew, mashed potatoes, water-thin gravy, string beans, and fried, slightly burnt pork chops. Although I didnit know it at the time, Grandma was not one of the worldis great cooks. But she ranked somewhere in the top twenty million for sheer quantity, blandness, and inventiveness. Of course, she was British, and until later that year, she had never prepared nor eaten a truly delectable meal. Grandpa, on the other hand, fancied himself a world class epicurean, a gourmet, judging by his waistline, of expanding proportions. Actually, he was a Croatian who had fled his homeland alone and barely out of his teens, with an English 48 vocabulary of fewer coherent words in his head than he had dollars in his pocket; he had brought to America an undying love of schmeercase, Limburger cheese, soda crackers and spicy mustard, and room temperature beer in quart bottles. Unable to get the true Budweiser of Europe heid known as a young man, his domestic favorite was Ballantine 3-Ring Lager. While my father and Aunt Freddie preferred Calvertis and water, Grandpa was content to ido shotsi and wash them down with Ballantine. Grandma said little about the constant drinking that was going on before, during, and after dinner, probably because she had no control over what they did between the time the store closed and they finally got home for supper. More often than not, the three of them, Dad, Momma, and Aunt Freddie, stopped for nightly cocktails at Sabrinais, a small bar in the Stonewall Jackson Hotel across from E.K. Careyis. Momma, to be fair, limited herself to just one drink per night, and Grandpa, of course, having finished work at the bakery at eleven in the morning, limited himself to whatever he could consume at home behind Grandmais back. Grandma herself enjoyed one or two before supper, but by the weekend, Saturday (payday), she was ready to go at Grandpa tooth and nail when heid come in with five loaves of freshly baked bread, a tray of cinnamon rolls, a dozen sweet ni stickies, a pound of odoriferous Limburger, two pounds of schmeercase, a box of Nabisco soda crackers, a jar of hot mustard, a bottle of Calvertis, and two or three quarts of Ballantine 3-Ring; there was little doubt he had been drinking at the bakery since early morning. Grandmais opening gambit was always the same: iMark me words, you drunken sot, youire pavini the road to the poor house with the blood of me broken heart!i And for the next two or three hours, the imps of hell ran rampant in our second floor kitchen. It was Grandpa who broke the silence. iVee alls go for got stickers each. Dat many . . . haf stickers for . . . i He looked around the table and made a mental, inaccurate calculation. iVee haf sixteen gal-loons.i Shadow looked at Grandpa, then he looked at me. iWhass he say?i 49 I shook my head. iNever mind. . . Youire right, Granipa. But they wonit give that many stickers to one family for . . . uh . . . one car.i The old man nodded, resigned in full agreement. iSo . . . vee take vhat vee gits.i iRight, Dad,i said my mother. Momma understood Grandpa better than anyone. She was his oldest natural child (Grandma had brought my Aunt Lorna, half sister to my mother and Freddie, from England in 1912. We did not know who Aunt Lornais father was, and I doubt if Grandma did either; but we all knew we owed our very existence to her. She and Grandma had been denied boarding by shipis customs because Lorna, then age four, appeared to have what might have been a pox, chicken, small, or otherwise. This delayed their departure from Southampton by several days, long enough for them to learn that their original ship, Titanic, had hit an iceberg and had perished in the North Atlantic; there had been pitifully few survivors from 3rd Class, where Grandma and Aunt Lorna were ticketed. Obviously, they made it via a later ship. . . I never seriously considered the significance of all this until I was in my mid-twenties. Had Grandma perished with Titanic I might have been born a Carnegie, a Rockefeller, a Harriman, or even a Vanderbilt. Douglas, hopefully, might have been the Lindbergh baby. . . Lorna was now married to a man from RKO Pictures whose job it was to maintain movie projector arc lamps in theaters all across the country, thus making Lorna our only direct connection with show business. They currently lived in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.) iWell, it ainit right,i sighed Shadow. iSome allowance should be made for students. I mean, look it this way: we support the war effort probily morein anybody else in the whole country.i I wondered how. iWell, for one thing, weire tryini to get a education. For another, we doan eat much. Ani Marty here, he gets one roll a film a week to take pitchers.i iBig war effort,i I said. 50 Douglas said, iSome pitchers! They look like he takes eem through the bottom of a milk bottle!i iThere oughta be some way to get more gas for yiall,i my father cut in, his tone conspiratorial. Bernie Eden was a big man; eheavy seti was the phrase most commonly applied, along with ebig bonedi as well as eheavy, but he can carry iti. His complexion was ruddy, the flesh of his face loose and rubbery, and he wore rimless, tinted glasses that rested on a bulbous nose already, at thirty-five, showing signs of reddish spider webs from countless sessions with Calvertis. His voice was a distinguishing feature, and he knew it. A rich, deep baritone that seemed almost cultured, belying an education that halted with high school graduation and my motheris pregnancy. iWhatire you thinkini, Pop?i I always called him ePopi when I really wanted to know something. He took a sip from the large jelly glass in front him. It was the color of iced tea, and it might have been iced tea, but it wasnit; it was unquestionably Calvertis and water. iAll righty, look at it this way . . . If Mr. Big Shot here should by some miracle, I say, should, not that heis going to, fichrissakes . . . if he should win that speed camera thing, ani believe me, even the dough donit make all that much difference . . . well . . . your gas worriesire over.i iHowid you figure that, Bernie?i asked my mother. iThe speed camera thing would be his, uh, credentials as a newspaper photographer, ani he tells the motor vehicle people he has to have his Jeep to cover stories, ani they gonna give him a sticker for all the gas he wants.i Dad looked around the table. iAm I right? Am I right? Am I right, or what?i he boomed. Emma riot? Emma riot? Emma rye-ott, er whah?i Freddie (one of those prickly women who could always say whatever she wanted and get away with it because she exuded an intimidating manner, either that, or nobody gave a damn what she said or thought) said, iYouire nuts. Ani youire drunk. Heis no newspaper photographer. Heis a sixteen year old kid with pimples ani blackheads.i iDonit have pimples,i I protested. 51 Shadow chimed in: iWhazat on your chin, strawberry shortcake?i That made Douglas burst out laughing. iI donit think weive had a dollop of strawberry shortcake since the war,i Grandma offered. iListen,i my father said, iI know what Iim talking about. Even if heis workini for the school newspaper, thatis a essential newspaper job, ani he can get a C sticker for the askini. Ani if you get a C sticker, yiall can get all the gas you want, just for the askini.i Douglas stopped laughing about the zit on my chin (which, in truth, was barely visible) long enough to ask, iWhatis so essential ebout a dumb high school newspaper?i iThink it through,i Dad said, and sipped his drink. I tried. All I could come up with was, taking pictures for the Maury Megaphone, our monthly 4-pager, was about as essential to the war effort as digging foxholes in the sand at Ocean View dunes and watching for Nazi and Jap submarines in Hampton Roads. iBesides,i I said out loud, iweire outta school till after Labor Day, ani the first issue of the Meg wonit come out till the second week in October.i iIf then,i Shadow mumbled. iThatis what I mean,i Dad expounded. iYiall gotta start now layini the ground work!i My mother said, iI donit think a C sticker is all the gas you want. I read it was about eightir ten gallons a week.i iSee?i Dad pointed out. iSee what I mean? Eightir ten gallons a week. Thatis what I mean: nobody knows whether itis eightir tenir eighteenir eight hundred, fichrissake!i I cut a piece of pork chop and rolled it around in my mouth. It was pan fried and burnt, a flavor I would always love. iTrouble is,i I gurgled, munching, iI could walk in with a dozen Speed Graphics around my neck, ani they gonna look at me ani see a kid in high school with a surplus Jeep, ani when I ask for sumpthin betterina A sticker, theyire gonna . . . they will . . . they . . .i iThey gonna kick yiall out on your dumb ass,i Shadow giggled. 52 iWatch your language, young man,i Grandma warned. iSorry, maim,i Shadow whispered and stared at his stew. My father wouldnit let it go that easily. iWho gave yiall the A sticker anyway?i iNavy,i I told him. He looked at me with his jaw hanging limp. iThe Navy! What the hell has a Navy got to do with gasoline rationing, fichrissakes?i Whadda hails a Nigh-vee gotta do wih gas-oh- leen rayshunen, ficry-say-icks? iI dunno,i I said, a whining tone I hated whenever it slipped out in frustration at my own lack of knowledge or information. iWhen we got the Jeep, we had to sign a lotta papers for this Navy fella, ani then we had to get eem validated, stamped, by this fella from the Virginia Motor Vehicle Department, ani then we took eem to another fella, a civilian, who filled out some more papers which we signed, ani he was the one who gave us the A sticker.i My dad wanted to know, iDidnit he ask you no questions?i iYes, sir.i iLike what?i iHe wanted to know if we had driveris licenses, ani we showed eem to him. He asked me where we got eem, ani I told him at the drug store. He looked at eem again; then he sorta shrugged ani handed eem back to us. Then he asked us what we did for a livini.i Shadow spoke up: iI told him I was a professional football player for the Washiton Redskins. Said I was Sammy Baughis backup quarterback.i Sa Ahis Say-me Baais backa caw-tuh- baa.My father glanced at Shadow. iHe believe you?i Shadow shook his head. iDoan think so. Told me to shut up; he said he was talkini to Marty, not me.i I shrugged my shoulders. iI told him I was still in high school, ani thatis when he handed me the A sticker. I guess that was that.i Actually, that had not been that; there was something more to it, but I didnit want to go over the entire scenario in front of 53 the whole family at the supper table. Explaining things that didnit make a lot of sense was difficult enough, but explaining to these people, my people, was . . . I donit know . . . impossible. There had been a better than decent turnout at the Navy Base for the Jeep auction that Saturday, and when I saw the crowd at the South No. 5 Gate, I got nervous and apprehensive that after last nightis business at Ben Wuis Laundry, there might be someone, maybe Ben Wu himself, who would spot me and somebody would say, iHey, ainit that the kid what broke into the laundry ani ripped off the old Chink? Letis get eim! Letis call the cops! Letis lynch eim! Letis lynch eem both, the other kid was there, too; I seen him takini a piss out inna alley!i I was so nervous my hands were shaking. iWhatis the matter with yiall?i Shadow prodded. iNuthin.i iWell, youire actini like you got the shiverini fits. Cool off. Letis go.i Shadow grabbed my wrist and began snaking his way into and through the crowd, towing me in his wake, and in a few minutes we were next in line at the gate, looking up into the disinterested, craggy face of a six-foot-six shore patrolman. I looked at his webbed gun belt and saw the eighteen inch billyclub and the holstered gun, the canvas flap covering all but the black grip of what I knew was a loaded Military .45 automatic. It looked nothing like the gun Iid held less than twelve hours ago, but I felt like I was going to throw up all over the SPis puttees. iHoli on. Righichere. Yiall gotta pass?i A pass? Shadow had said nothing about a pass. We were dead.iItis okay, sailor,i Shadow smirked. iWe got Capinis permission.i iCapiin who?i the SP wanted to know. iCapiin Blauser. Heis my uncle.i The SP looked at little less disinterested, but he didnit open the turnstile. iIf yiallire Capiin Blauseris nephew, whois he?i 54 He indicated me with a white-gloved index finger pointed out of a balled fist, like he was pointing a gun. iHim? Aw, heis okay,i Shadow assured us both. iHeis Capin Blauser son.i My bladder was on the verge of rupturing. The SP had now gone from disinterested, somewhat less disinterested, to downright uncertain as to what his next move should be. iHoli onna sec, righichere.i He turned to a wall phone, opened the cover, and spun the L-crank three times. There was a squawk discernible to us from within the ear piece. iChief, yiall know if Capin Blauseris onna base? . . . Yeah. . .Yeah . . . When? . . . Yeah . . . Doan know . . . Wait. Yiall know if heis gotta son? . . . Yeah? How oli? . . . i The SP moved the phone from his face and turned to me. iHow olier you, kid?i I took a deep breath. iSixteen.i iGo tuh Granby?i Shadow answered for me. iBoth do.i The SP was still not satisfied. iYiall know the capinis in Washiton this weekend?i iYessir,i I said. Aw, what the hell, we were dog meat anyway. . . iHe ani Mom left yestaday.i The SP turned back to the phone. iOkay, thanks, Chief. They check out okay. . . Aye aye, thanks,i and he replaced the phone, actually smiling at us. iNexi time get your daddyis middy to write a pass for yiall.i He then raised himself up to his full six-feet-six and three-eighths inches. iWe got a war goini on eround here, ya know!i And with that he released the turnstile and we were inside. The Norfolk Naval Base was, in reality, an island unto itself, as large as a good size city, and completely surrounded by water. Every conceivable type of vessel could be docked somewhere within the huge compound, from submarines to destroyers to battleships to aircraft carriers. Right now, at the height of the war, many of the berths were open, as just about everything seaworthy was engaged somewhere in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, or the South Pacific. A few ships were in that 55 Saturday for repairs or retrofitting, and we walked along Halsey Boulevard beside two mountainous gray behemoths. Up close, they did not seem real . . . you had the feeling you were suddenly wandering through a surrealistic nightmare. Looking at these metallic giants of destruction with their glaring white numbers and lettering, the awareness of power was overwhelming; even those whoid just come in dripping barnacles, rust, and scars of combat exuded the stench and physiognomy of Fear and Death. We looked at battleships and carriers in the movies, but we saw nothing but the flickering images of Victory and Bravado. Sonny Tufts, Aldo Ray, William Bendix, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Stewart, they killed and got killed and then got up, wiped off the Hersheyis syrup, walked away, got their money, and went home, had martinis and made love to their women. Shadow, as though reading my mind, said, iSince weire here, oughta go to the movies.i iYeah, right,i I replied, sarcastically. But it wasnit a bad idea. Movies on the base were a dime, and there were five different theaters all showing first run movies so new they hadnit yet played downtown. If you had fifty cents and eight hours, you could see them all on one Saturday. The day before Easter we saw They Got Me Covered, The Phantom of the Opera, Edge of Darkness, Forever and a Day, and Sweet Rosie OiGrady. We always got in through the South No. 5 Gate; the iCapinis permissioni gambit was not new, but this particular SP, with his penchant for passes, was. Shadow knew, as did everyone, that Captain W. R. Gordon Blauser was the commandant currently in charge of base operations; his name was in the newspaper or on the radio every other day. iWhereire the Jeeps?i I asked Shadow. iNimitz Way, at the end, by the motor pool. They bring eem over from Newport News on LSTs ani dump eem on the pier.i I wondered how he knew all this, and he told me heid been casing it out now for five weeks. iBobby Joe Trauis oli man works in the motor pool, ani he told Bobby Joe the whole deal, ani Bobby Joe told me. They get these things from the Kaiser 56 plant outside Baltimore and Philadelphia; someire for the Army, some the Navy, some the Army Air Corps, ani some the Marines. Sure like to get us one from the Marines; they got camouflage all over eem, ani U.S. Marine Corp insignia; real great stuff. The ones that get rejected as surplus by them General Issue asshoisire brought down here ani sold to whoever wants eem.i I wondered, iWhy they get rejected?i iCripe, I dunno. Most eemire like brand new, but the freaggin goveriment wonit pass eem if they got a gear shift knob missini, or the glassis cracked on the speedometer, most eem ainit even got speedometers, ani they get passed on. Once in a while a seatis missini, or a headlight, or a canvas top ainit there, pssshit, I doan know. Far as I see, they all got motors ani tires ani even a windshield wiper, but if the goveriment finds somethini wrongir missini, they just ship eem to the nearest base ani put eem up for auction. . . Know what?i I shook my head. iWhat?i iTill ebout three, four months ago, they didnit even auction eem off.i iWhatid they do? Ship eem back?i iNope.i Shadow kicked a loose stone in the road and it clanged against the hull of an LST. iWatch it, ya dumb gob!i some swabbie hollered from inside. Shadow ignored him. iWhat they did is load eem up on barges ani tow eem out ebout twenty, thirty miles; then cut the barges loose ani use eem for bombini ani shootini practice. Navy ani Air Corps planes blow eem to smithereens! Ones they miss, they just dump eem right in the ocean! Brand new reject, surplus Kaiser Jeeps, right on the bottom of the damn oli ocean, probily a thousand eem scattered all over down there with a fishies! Motors, tires, tops, seats, winishields, steerini wheels, wipers, battiries, gas tanks, the whole shebang! You believe them asshois! . . . iThere they are!i Shadow shouted in my ear, and there they were: Ten olive drab beauties, all lined up and glistening dull 57 and subdued in the noonday sun. Maybe three dozen people o all men, all white civilians, were milling about, examining the squat, powerful vehicles from their flat, double steel ring bumpers in the front to their rear spares and gas cans mounted dead center on the back. Shadow and I spotted the single camouflaged Marine Corp entry at the same moment, and we raced across the lot to its side. iHoly shit, will you look at this baby!i Shadow cried, jumping ahead of me into the driveris seat. I vaulted across the back and into the passenger seat, and we knew we were not leaving until this gorgeous machine was ours. Shadow flipped the ignition lever. The roaring purr which followed was music to our ears. iThis baby sounds . . .sweet!i Shadow exclaimed, much as I thought Illinois Jacquette might have when discovering a new saxophone. iMeeerrrrr-ccciiiii!i An older man, maybe thirty, needing a shave and a haircut, and wearing ragged dungarees and a dirty undershirt, came up and leaned on the hood. His filthy Georgia Cracker baseball cap was slight askew. iYiall like this one, donit you?i Yiall lye-yak issun, doancha? His tone, hissing through missing teeth, was anything but friendly. Shadow stood up on the driveris seat and looked down at the grimy interloper. iNot only do we like it, bubba, we buyini it! Ani weire gonna buyi it today, right now.i iWell, we might hafta see ebout that, kid.i I stood up and looked around, starting to climb out of the Jeep. iYeah, maybe we should look at some of the others.i iHold on.i Shadow reached over and pushed me back into the passenger seat. iJust hold on a cotton-pickini minute. We seen this here Jeep first, ani we was the first over here in it. So Iid epreciate it if yiallid get your fat ass off a our brand new Jeep.i The man backed up and regarded Shadow as if he were a gnat on the windshield. iTough fuggini talk, you skinny turd. Yiall gonna make me?i iMake yiall? You say, make you?i Shadow laughed out loud. iI gotta come down offa here, my little friend here with 58 the curly hairis gonna kick your nuts up in your throat so far yiallire gonna drown in your own cum. Now get off my car, you asshoi white trash sumbitch nigger!i The old guy got off all right, but not to leave. He began making his move toward Shadow just as the six-foot-six SP (whom Shadow, from the corner of his eye, had undoubtedly seen moving toward us) came up and put his hand on the manis shoulder. iThese heh boys heh got first dibs on this heh un, ani I think yiallid best mosey on ani find yorself un yiall really do like, yiheh? I think thass what yiall better do.i iShit, I seen this one first!i the man protested, but we could tell by his tone his degree of enthusiasm had diminished in direct proportion to the SPis size. iJesi move on,i the SP said softly, and the man, slinking, did just that. The SP glanced over at me and smiled. iSeaman First Class Rodney Herkimer doan want nuthin happenini ta Capin Blauseris kin, do he now?i I didnit say anything, but Shadow couldnit resist, iSailor, weire gonna let Capin Blauser know sure as shootini itis men like, whoija say?, Seaman Robert Herman?, whois gonna win this here war for us young high school fellas who gotta still stay at home!i The SP suddenly went to six-foot-seven and put his size 16 up on the rocker panel. iNameis Rodney Herkimer, not thass so important, but you boys want this heh Jeep, iss gonna be yors, that much Iim gonna tell yiall riot now!i he said, and we believed him. At that moment the bidding started. Within the hour we were sixty dollars and fifty cents poorer (in stolen money) but richer than weid ever dreamed possible as we drove the camouflaged Marine Corp Jeep off the base with a full tank of U.S. Navy gasoline, the official title and bill of sale signed by Henry J. Kaiser and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, official Virginia registration and license plate (seven dollars and fifty cents), and an iAi sticker affixed to the window entitling us to three gallons of gas per week for the duration. Our antagonist made a half-hearted attempt to out-bid us on 59 the Jeep, but the last time he raised us a dollar the SP casually walked over and said something in his ear. That was his last bid, as he turned his attention to another vehicle. Someone in the back said, iFifty dollars!i Shadow shouted, iFifty-one!i The same someone said, iFifty-two!i and for a moment there was silence. I noticed the SP slip through the crowd to where the opposition bidding was. iI have fifty-two!i bullhorned the auctioneer. Shadow looked at me and I nodded. iFifty-three!i he cried. Again there was silence. iDo I hear fifty-four?i queried the auctioneer. Dead silence. iFifty-three goini once. . . Goini twice . . . Sold! To the skinny fella there with the G.I. haircut!i iPssshit!i muttered Shadow, running his hand over his bristling hair. iWe got it!i The registration officer wasnit sure how to list the Jeep in both our names since there was space on the form but for a single owner. I suggested he list the owner as Lamont Martin Cranston-Eden, and since I had a garage, we noted 617 Doumar Street as the official address. We both displayed our driveris licenses for examination (luckily, the SP stayed outside), and the registration officer asked, iWhereid yiall get these licenses, in a drugstore?i iYeah,i Shadow told him. iCost twenty-five cents o each.i iWell, they ainit no good,i he said, and my heart sank. iYiall gotta get licenses from the Virginia Motor Vee-hickle Department. Doan yiall know that?i iNo, sir,i Shadow insisted. iNo, sirree, Bob. For the duration, yiall can go to certain oh-fee-shell, authirized drug stores, as well as the A ani P, that got a sticker in the winda, like Gardneris has, ani fill out the papers ani get a license for a quarter if yiall can pass the tests. Which we did. We passed eem with flyini colors.i iNo shit,i the reg officer said. iI didnit know they did that no more.i I nodded and threw in my two cents. iSure do! . . . The war. Itis in alla papers!i 60 iYeah, sipose. I know they was doini it for a while. . . Yiall gonna get insurance for this thing?i iYeah, probily,i Shadow muttered. I asked, iDo we have to?i iNo. But it might be a good idea. Whaddya fellas gonna use this here Jeep for?i iNuthin,i Shadow replied. iJust back ani forth to school ani pickini up girls. Yiall know.i iOkay. Nuthin e-ssential then?i iNaw. Unless yithink pickini up pussyis all that ee-sen- shell. Ha! Ha!i iOkay. Put this here A sticker on the windshield. Upper left hand corner.i Shadow took a perceptible step back from the counter. iThatis only three gallons a week! Yiall kiddini me? We gotta have more gasin that!i The reg officer riffled the pages in a small pamphlet. iDoan see nuthin writ down in here says nuthin about going to school ani pickini up pussy as beini ee-sen-shell to the war effort or oi he actually stopped at a page and read from it, i eee-sen-shell to maintain the welfare of the family, or self, through pro-fesh- nell activity required by oneis work, uh, ethici.i iWhat the hell does that mean?i Shadow wanted to know. iMeans yiall ainit no doctorir lawyerir goveriment worker. Means yiall get a eAi sticker, ani thatis ebout far as Iim goini on this with yiall.i iWell, I pro-test!i iYiall can do that if you want.i iHow?i iGo see the asshois at the O-P-A.i Ten seconds later we were out the door and standing beside our Jeep. The SP was waiting for us. iBoys wanna gimme a lifi ta South Nummer Fie-yev?i iSure,i I said. iWasnit for yiall we all might be walkini ourselves back there right now.i iWell,i Seaman First Class Rodney Herkimer explained, ithat dumb oli piece of crap werenit gettini this here oli Jeep 61 from Capin Blauseris kin whiles Iis on duty, thatis for sure!i Whale, at dum ol pissa crap wharnt gittin iss heh ol Jeep um Capin Blauzeris kin wiles Ahis on duty, ass fo shoo! Shadow said to me, iFlip ya to see who drives.i I felt magnanimous (also I wasnit sure I wouldnit make a fool out of myself; Iid never driven a Jeep): iNuh, hell, yiall drive; this was all your idea anyhow!i iPssshit! . . . Okay!i We piled in: Shadow behind the wheel, the SP in the passenger seat, and me in the jump seat behind Shadow. Herkimer said, iOnna way, stop over there atta end a the moipool. I think they gotta lotta exter surplus gas at one a them pumps, ani I betcha this liil oli puppyis ebout dried up!i 62 CHAPTER SIX The issue of the iAi sticker was not resolved that Wednesday at supper, and, in truth, it was never resolved as my father thought it should be. Not that Shadow and I didnit appreciate his concern, it was just that I wasnit going to go before the OPA people (or anyone else) with some sort of asinine story that I needed more gas because I was the high school newspaper photographer and it was my professional duty to be out there chasing down sensational stories about our losing football season, class dances, drama club performances, and assorted intramural activities that nobody really cared about anyway. I didnit have to come up with even legitimate excuses, but my dad never knew it. Fact was, we had more gasoline each week that summer than we could ever use, thanks to our friendship with Seaman 1c Rodney Herkimer and his access to the Navy Base pumps at the motor pool. Dr. I.Q. came on NBC Radio every Thursday evening at 8:30 EDT (Daylight Saving Time had been in effect year around since February 2, 1942, and it was absolutely marvelous. Congress had decided, quite accurately, that longer daylight meant less electrical usage, hence less coal, less oil, and less energy consumption. Among the nay sayers the rationale was that longer daylight also meant greater opportunity for German and Japanese aircraft and off-shore battleships to blast American cities into oblivion, a curious argument, considering that most air raids overseas were conducted at night.) Dr. I. Q was the one radio program for which I forsook Grandmais glorious living room Philco, a magnificent monolith arguably the only luxury we had ever invested in, standing four feet tall and two and a half feet wide, surrounding a Worldwide Dial with its mysterious green and rheumy eye, selected in favor of Grandpais bakelite Emerson on the night stand in our bedroom at the rear of the house. This was my one program demanding total privacy for total concentration; I was certain that I could somehow control the judgesi final decisions by staring at the 63 tiny Emerson until I would hear Jimmy McLain say iOur biographical essay this evening, from which our five clues are taken, was sent in to us by Mr. John Martin Eden at 617 Doumar Street, Norfolk, Virginia. Mr. Eden will be the proud recipient of a brand new, fully equipped Speed Graphic camera with syncro-flash and a yearis supply of Kodak film. And if Mr. Edenis clues stump our theater-audience participant, the gentleman from Virginia will also receive Sixty-four Silver Dollars, and a box of Mars Bars! All right! Are we ready for this portion of our program?i iDoctor, I have a lady in the balcony!i At 8:30 that Thursday evening Shadow was somewhere with the Jeep (he claimed he had a date with a junior named Josie Crump). Dad was out patrolling his section of the neighborhood in pursuit of slivers of vagrant light as he nipped now and then from his canteen of Calvertis, occasionally scanning the horizon for invading Axis bombers while swapping lies with his cronies; Momma, drinking Coca-Cola and smoking one of her ubiquitous cigarettes, was on the front porch with Douglas; Grandma was in the kitchen baking something from ingredients Grandpa had surreptitiously brought home from the bakery; Freddie was in her room, smoking and doing her nails; and Grandpa was in his bed on the far side of the room, sound asleep and snoring vigorously, content with whatever Lowell Thomas had said about our various, if somewhat mythical, victories on land, sea, and in the air. I was alone on my own bed, my ear close to the radio, my eyes peering through the half-screen in my single window at the mysterious shadows in Gill Alley. I felt it in my bones: Tonight was my night! iAnd now,i promulgated the announcer Dale Hathaway, iMars Candy, makers of Mars Bars, Milky Ways, and Snickers, presents Dr. I.Q., the man with a Thousand Questions and a Thousand Answers! Dr. I.Q., the program which asks eHow Much Do You Really Know, America?i, as we travel coast-to- coast to find the Smartest People in the World, right here in the good old U. S. of A.! . . . And now, live from a packed Fox Theater in Detroit, Michigan, that motor jewel of the Great 64 Lakes, where Americais greatest war machinery is actually assembled, itis time for Dr. I. Q.! And hereis the man himself, the good doctor with his medicine bag stuffed full with Questions, Answers, Silver Dollars, Mars Candy, and tonightis Biographical Biggie, Jiiimmmmmy McLain!i Tumultuous applause. I turned the volume down a hair, lest it waken Grandpa. The first twenty minutes of the show were no different from the first twenty minutes of the 73 shows which had preceded it. A lady in the balcony, a gentleman in the orchestra, a young man on the aisle, a child in the loge: iWhose signature on the Declaration of Independence is synonymous with ePut your Blank-Blank right herei at the bottom of a contract?i . . . iAt what airport did Charles Lindbergh land? Was it Heathrow in London, or Orly in Paris, or DeLellis in Paramus, New Jersey?i (Much laughter, but a prompt warning: iQuiet, audience, no help, please!i) . . . iA two-part question: The English writer, W. Somerset Maugham, practiced another noble profession before becoming a world renowned novelist? What was it? And for an additional ten silver dollars, what was his first novel?i iA doctor,i I said, out loud. iOf Human Bondage.i Behind me, Grandpa stirred and rolled over. I turned the radio down another hair. (The lady in the box seat didnit know either part of the question; she quessed a lawyer and Private Lives. Jimmy dispatched her with a gentle iIim so sorry, my dear, but thanks for playingi and a Snickeris.) Finally, the third commercial began, and I knew what was coming next. Always, right after the third commercial for Mars Candy, Jimmy McLain resumed the program for its final moments with iTonightis Biographical Essay Questionsi. And he didnit dilly-dally; he went right into it with the name of the listener iout there in this great land of oursi who had written the essay the judges determined was the best of the week. It was nerve-racking beyond normal stamina, because in my heart I honestly believed my life, my future, my, sanity, rode on winning that Speed Graphic. The killer was that I always knew Iid won or lost immediately, even before the name was 65 announced, because Jimmy always prefaced the name with either iMisteri or iMissusi or iMissi, and that gave me just one chance out of three. Tonight was no exception. iOur judges have selected as our winning essay a marvelous one submitted by Missus . . . i So much for Jim Thorpe. So much for the Speed Graphic. So much for my life, my future, my sanity. So much for any chance I might have with Anna Theresa Tortoretti. So much for paying Ben Wu back the money, (Whereid that thought come from?) I heard a car pull into Gill Alley, and even in the dark I knew it was Shadow and the Jeep. He tooted the horn: a ghastly, garish, grating mechanical sound . . . the honking death of a goose strangling on a rusted wire. iYiall up there?i iYeah!i I shout-whispered through the screen. iBe quiet; my granipais sleepini.i iYiall win?i iNo!i iTough shit. Come on down!i iWhat for?i iGo for a ride.i iI gotta write another essay.i iScrew it. I know where we can get some three-two beer.i iYiall like to drink that crap?i iYou betcha. Come on!i iLemme go tell Momma.i I clicked off the radio just as the theater contestant got the biography answer on the first clue: Bill Tilden. 66 CHAPTER SEVEN Every Saturday morning Shadow and I showed up at the Navy Baseis South Gate No. 5 at precisely 0900, the time Seaman 1c Rodney Herkimer came on duty in full shore patrol regalia. iHey! How you boys doini?i iJust great, Rodney, you sly oli dog, you!i Shadow and I had been on a first name basis with the SP now for three weeks. iYiall havini a ball with eat there Jeep, aincha?i iYou betcha!i iYiall tell Capin I been takini good care a yiall?i iSure do.i Shadow affirmed. iHeis mighty proud of way his men make sure yiall look out for his family ani all. Merci, yeah!i His voice dropped to a conspiratorial semi-whisper. iCan we get some gas?i iSure ken! Lemme raise a gate, ani Iill ride over with yiall.i Jovial as it sounded, I was waiting for the Saturday morning when Rodney would meet us at the gate with a half dozen other SPs, invite us in, then draw their weapons, place us under arrest, impound the Jeep, and escort us to the brig where Captain Blauser would be waiting. iYour right, sailor; this hereis not my son. And that other oneis no kin of mine, either. They look like Nazis to me. They sure ainit Japs. Lock eem up and throw away the key! Then schedule an execution for sunrise!i But for now . . . Seaman 1c Rodney Herkimer was from Oxford, Mississippi, and, kiddingly, I had asked him if he knew William Faulkner. iSure do,i he had said, and I had recoiled in surprise. iLives innat big oli gray house with that big oli tree out front with a Spanish moss; righi downna road a piece from Ole Miss; you ken almosi walk from downtown; cain miss it. I seen him a lotta times out walkini his dog, big oli white dog size a hound but fat ani ugly ani mean as dirt, but I ain never said nuthin to him. Aina very big fella.i 67 Perhaps not physically, I had thought. Of course, when youire six foot six and weigh in at maybe two-fifty, two-sixty, nobody would seem very big. Rodney, we learned during our weekly gasoline raids, had actually finished high school. Graduation had been on Saturday, and next Monday morning bright and early, he had gone into town and enlisted in the Navy. iIfin it ain been for the war, I was gonna go play football at Ole Miss ani then ecome a poileeseman, but when I got inna Navy, right after boot, I got assigned to this here shore patrol unit, ani thatis where Iim gonna stay, least til we hafta ship out. Iim trained for carrier duty onna flight deck, but I doan much care ifin I never get to sea. Oniy reason I join the Navy esteada the Armyir Marines is Iim born agin, ani I ain much for killini people, even if they is filthy, sumbitchini Japs ani Germans. Ani I sure doan want eem killini me, neither! I doan righily see the Navy as a killini machine like the Army ani Marines is.i As big as Rodney was, and as intimidating, it didnit take long to realize that beneath his formidable mass was a very gentle human being. We didnit know it at the time, but his apparent concern for Shadow and me (Captain Blauser notwithstanding) had a lot to do with the fact he had two younger brothers still at home in Mississippi, and he was afraid that if the war lasted long enough, they too would be swept into it, and that really bothered him. At the motor pool that morning Rodney pumped the gas himself, and the Jeep drank it in like a camel at an oasis. iYiall ainit burnini up much fuel,i he said, replacing the gas cap. iOnly took ebout three-quarters of a tank. Howis the oil?i Yiall hane bunnin up much few-el. Ony took bow three-cawtuhs a tay-ank. Howza awl? Shadow popped the hood and Rodney wiped the dip-stick on a candy wrapper he picked up off the ground. iLooks riot up theh!i iSure do!i I got back into the Jeep and asked Rodney if he wanted to go back to the South Gate. iNot righi jesi now,i he said. iGotta 68 meet a boisun on seventeen dock ani get a ree-port ebout a fight lasi nighi downtowi at Swoozie Suzyis. . . Whaire yiall doini tanighi? I got me a one nighi pass from fifteen hundurd to oh- eight-foriy-five, ani if yiall dune nuthin, me ani a couple buddies gonna see a showir sumpin.i To me it sounded like a super idea, but Shadow thought it through faster than I could. iNah,i he said, ishoot, we canit. We got dates with these two cheerleaders from Granby, where we go, you know, ani theyis under age so we canit take eem downtown on Satiday when the fleetis in. Yiall know, darn oli curfew ani all that . . . i It was, of course, all bullshit. But Shadow quickly had seen the repercussions if we got involved with a bunch of sailors from the base, and one of them had ever seen Captain Blauseris real son. Good-bye free gas; hello Navy brig! iYeah,i said Rodney, somewhat hangdog, ithatis okay; maybe some other time.i iYeah,i I agreed. iYeah,i said Shadow. iRight.i (I noticed that in talking with Rodney for just a few minutes, Shadowis accent and dialect became even more corrupted, and he began picking up the SPis Mississippi draw. Right came out rye-ott.) Driving back from the base Shadow leaned over and said above the wind whistling over the windshield, iIim gonna joinna Marines end of the school year. What ebout you? . . . Letis get sumpthini to eat.i I glanced at him and shook my head. iAir Corp for me. Gonna fly P-40s. But not etil I graduate. Wonit be eighteen etil a month after graduation. Ani yiall ainit joinini nuthin etil graduation, either!i iDoan matter none about age,i Shadow said. iPsssshit, we could quit school ani join up right now if we wanted to. They take you at fifteen, if you look seventeen. Ani at seventeen, all you gotta do is get one parent to sign for you!i We were driving down Hampton Boulevard toward a drive- in called Supreme Sarahis where we could get four of the worldis greatest cream-filled doughnuts for a dime. Swing right 69 on 27th Street, and the Double SSis, as everybody called it, was on the left. We turned in and pulled up by the front door. A pretty little waitress on roller skates came up right away, making a smooth, twisting turn by the Jeepis front wheel and pirouetting with a swirl that brought her pleated yellow skirt as high on her thighs as it would go, revealing red panties above super legs; and a neat stop, leaning her round buttock against the Jeepis shallow fender. iHey, Marty! Hey, Shadow! Yiall gonna get breakfast?i Blonde, buxom Corrine Lyke was in our class at Maury, as perky and pretty as any cheerleader in a Johnny Johnston movie; a straight A student who played piccolo in the school orchestra. Shadow had dated her just once but had not come even close to first base. Corrine was the kind of girl about whom a dirty nocturnal fantasy really made you feel dirty, not that that stopped the two of us and about sixty other fellows. iShe can play the skin flute in my orchestra any day of the week!i Shadow would mutter every time she walked the schoolis corridors. iNah, too late for breakfast,i I said, digging in my dungarees for my ragged change purse. iCan we get four creamies, two chocilit ani two butterscotch?i iSumpin to drink?i Shadow wanted a Coke. I said, iGimme a Dr Pepper.i iHey, Corrine, yiall wanna go to beach later?i Shadow had to ask. She looked back. iDoan think so. Gotta work etil four, ani esides I told Jerry Lee Younger weid go to the movies after supper. We, uh, been steady since schoolis out, jusi ebout.i And she was gone. iWhatis she wastini her time with that asshoi for?i Shadow pouted. Jerry Lee Younger, like us, was a senior next year, and he was the quarterback on our football team. iThink heis pumpini her?i I shook my head. iNobody pumpini Corrine Lyke. Anybody is, though, I figure itis gonna be Jerry Lee.i iLike to get her down the beach.i 70 iAinit gonna happen.i Shadow started to sing: iLike to get Lyke like Lyke should be got, down on the beach, down onna beach, Lyke this, Lyke that!i I glanced at him with my best Edgar Kennedy slow burn. iLike yiallid turn Lyke down!i Shadow snickered. iIf Corrine was a problem ani yiall fell asleep thinkini about it, youid wake up with a solution in hand!i We both broke out laughing at the same time. iJust make that up,i I asked, ior you hear me say that?i iYiall never said nuthini that good and you know it!i I filed the line away for later, thinking maybe I could use it in the minstrel show in May. And Shadow was right: there was no way I would ever turn down anything like Corrine Lyke. Unless, of course, I was seriously involved with Anna Theresa TortorettiO * * * In the three weeks following acquisition of the Jeep I spent as much time as possible at the library working on three new biographical essays: Charlie Chaplin, Woodrow Wilson, and Sister Elizabeth Kenny. The first two had not been selected, and the third was in its final re-write when I showed it to Anna Theresa. iHmmm,i she said, as she read the final sentence. iNot bad.iiThink itis got a chance?i I wanted to know. She pursed those magnificent lips, thoughtfully. iDepends,i she replied. iYou certainly have a chance of becoming a real writer someday; Iid say thatis a pretty good chance. Do you have a chance of winning your Speed Graphic camera? Ah, thereis the rub. Whois to say? I think it all boils down to o how lucky are you?i I didnit know what she meant and she had the insight to realize it. She said, trying to avoid patronization, that I had the same 71 chance having my biography selected next week as a few hundred thousand other aspiring listeners. iIim not sure you understand that the quality of writing has nothing to do with who wins and who loses. Dr. I.Q. doesnit care if you use words, ah, like eplethorai instead of a ewhole bunchi; esuccincti instead of ebrief and to the pointi, and so on.i She glanced down at the paper through the half-glasses resting on the tip of her nose. iTo me, itis remarkable you instinctively almost always use the right word in the right place at the right time; and Iid say thatis the benchmark of a good writer. Certainly a decent poet. . . Your sentences and thought sequences have a flow, a rhythm that makes me wonder if there isnit . . . something to reincarnation.i She smiled and laughed softly. iSure you havenit been here before, couple hundred years ago? . . . Did you finish reading Martin Eden?i iYeah,i I nodded. iI sure liked it a lot; I brought it back with me so I wonit get charged a late return. But I think that fella Swinburne was fulla goober peas. I was surprised London let his Martin Eden get sucked in by him.i iSwinburne was a super atheist. I think Jack London was as well. Remember at the end of the book, just before Eden did himself in?i iYeah. Eden picked up a book and read a Swinburne poem about dying.i iYou remember the poem?i I nodded. I opened the book and turned to the last couple of pages. iGonna memorize this one of these days. It bothers me.i Anna Theresa said, iRead it aloud to me.i iOkay. eFrom too much love of living, From hope and fear set free. We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be, That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.i Up to that point, Iid say it was a pretty good book, ani then Eden tosses it all away, chucked it all ani took the, uh, easy way out.i iWell,i she sighed, imaybe you donit know, but London himself committed suicide a short time later, so he must have been teetering on the edge while he was writing about it. Poetry 72 can be a strong influence; it must have gotten through to his deepest psyche, or he could never have written something like Martin Eden. How do you feel about poetry?i iI dunno. It, uh, itis kind of boring sometimes. Then, sometimes it excites me, too. The way the wordsire laid out can be . . . sort of, I dunno, hypnotic, I guess. The Bible is like that, not that I read it too much anymore. So is that fella Swinburne, I keep wanting to call him Swine-burn. I never even heard of him before I read Martin Eden. . . Shoot, itis funny saying my own name when Iim talking about a famous book. You know something?i iWhat?i iThe poets we have to read in school are good, but theyire pretty dull ani, uh, empty, ani thereis not much to talk about after you read eem. Except that one about Abu Ben Adam.i iAh, yes, emay his tribe increase!i Interesting. Do you ever write any poetry?i iNo. I wouldnit be good at it; I doan, uh, think in poems.i iWhat is thinking in poems? In rhymes?i iNo. I dunno. Poets seem to think in . . . I dunno . . . thoughts, uh, images and brain-pictures.i iHmmm. Brain-pictures. . . What do writers think in?i she asked. I shrugged. iDunno that either. People, I guess.i Anna Theresa looked at me with penetrating eyes that seemed to see inside my skull. She said nothing more for a moment, and I turned away from her gaze and tried to engrave on the undeveloped plates of my subconscious how beautiful she was.iYou know something else I notice about you?i she asked. iWhatis that?i iYou write entirely differently from the way you talk, and then when we talk about writing and books and poetry, you talk entirely differently from the way you were talking before we started talking about books . . and things. You start out talking like . . . Shadow . . . then itis . . . different.i iHuh?i was my best response. 73 A elderly woman in her fifties came up and checked out a thin volume. She stayed on a moment or two prattling on about a son or grandson named Myron who was overseas with the Army. Anna Theresa listened patiently, sympathetically, then bid her a sweet adieu. When she had gone, Anna Theresa slid a yellow legal pad across the counter and said, iWhen I asked you if youid finished Martin Eden, you said eyes, I sure liked it a loti. Right?i I nodded. iGuess so.i iWell, supposing I lived in another city and I had sent you a letter in which I asked you the same question, edid you finish reading Martin Eden?i If you answered by writing a letter to me, how would you respond?i I said I didnit know. iAll right, then. Take this pad and go sit at the reading table over there and write out your answer to my question.i iNow?i iOf course. Yes. Now.i Obediently, responding as I had been raised to respond to any woman older than I, I took the pad and walked across the wide room to a long reading table paralleling a row of shelves that disappeared into the haze of fading sunlight at the far end of the building. The chair was thick and massive and heavy, and it made a scraping sound that crackled, rupturing the silence when I slid it away from the table. I sat down and looked back at her, and she was looking at me, smiling. I stared at her for a moment, and then I looked at the yellow legal pad and I wrote I love you, Anna Theresa Tortoretti. I love you more than itis possible to love anyone. I got up and walked back to the counter. iForgot the question,i I whispered. She laughed and whispered back: iQuestion was, did you finish reading Martin Eden? And what did you think of it?i iThatis two questions,i I told her, and went back to the reading table. 74 In five minutes I had finished writing, and after removing the top sheet of paper and tearing it up, I brought the pad back to the counter. iLet me see it,i she commanded. iAinit so good. I canit write under pressure like that.i iDonit say eainiti. Please, let me see it.i She took the pad, adjusted her half-glasses, leaned a hip against the counter, and read what I had jotted down. She must have read it more than once because she took a suspiciously long time.iVery nice,i she said, as she laid the pad down. iDo you really believe what you say here?i iDunno. Guess so.i She picked the pad up and started to say something, but a kid, a young girl, came up and checked out three books. Anna Theresa set the pad aside and took an easy five minutes yakking with this girl. I moved nervously from one foot to the other. When the kid had gone, she turned her attention back to me. She read from the pad: ieAt first, I thought Martin Eden was an impossible story about impossible people. Martin was, at first, unbelievable, and I donit think an ordinary writer would have gotten away with him. A dunce, a dupe, a loser of magnificent proportions; uneducated, illiterate, ostensibly a . . . moron.ii She glanced up at me. iYou did read it, didnit you! . . .i Our eyes met briefly, and she then went back to the yellow pad. ieTo go through all he went through and wind up with a college degree, a writer of immense value; to go, as an adult, from virtual worthlessness to monumental achievement, not to mention winning (and losing) the love and adoration of his one true love . . . well, it goes beyond reality. And yet, London pulls it off, makes it work. Itis fiction at its best: unbelievably believable. But it was contrived and unreal, unnatural, the most contrived of stories Iid ever read. I canit see what fresh light London threw onto characters or actions in the period covered. The ending was awful: deus ex machina.i . . .i She looked up at me again, her gaze more penetrating. iGood Lord, Martin, where did you ever learn that phrase?i 75 I shrugged, embarrassed. iYear I failed Latin 3. I remember Mrs. Cranberry told us it was a phrase used in English Lit when a writer comes up with a miracle, off-the-wall ending that rings every which way but true.i And then a most remarkable thing occurred. She placed the pad on the counter, and when I reached for it, she placed her hand over mine and pressed down ever so lightly. I couldnit stand it; it was an electric shock that flew up my arm, my neck, into my head and exploded my pituitary gland. I jerked my hand away, and then I tried to put it back, but it was a clumsy movement, and she brought her own hand away from the counter, and it disappeared modestly by her side. The moment was evaporating and I could taste the smoldering, charred glandular debris dripping through my sinuses, trickling down the back of my throat. We stood there and looked at each other. I swallowed hard; I was choking; I was very embarrassed, and I donit know whether she was or not. I was the first to look away, downward, at the tops of my shoes. Neither of us said anything in the space of a long moment. Two people came up and checked out a pile of books, and another came in to return a stack. I stood there, off to the side, and watched Anna Theresa, realizing something important about her: This fantastic woman, this gorgeous, fabulous female person, about whom I knew so little, loved books the way . . . some women love babies. The way she handled them, caressed them, place one on top the other, there was a gentleness in her hands, her fingers . . . I was burning with passion and jealousy! I wanted to be a book; I wanted her to touch me the way she was touching those used volumes. I was bouncing from one foot to the other. I was losing my mind. When she spoke again, her voice was, to my ears, the soft song of a golden flute. iWhen I was in college, right here at Old Dominion, I knew I could never hope to read all the books in the world. It occurred to me there might be an alternative: if you cannot read them, write them. Writing one good book is equivalent to reading a thousand of them. . . And thatis perhaps what you should do.i 76 iWrite books?i iYes. Of course. Since you canit read them all and absorb the sum total of human experience, the next best thing, obviously, is to write them. And in your book, or books, if youire the least bit prolific, you can record the sum total of your own human experience; and that, my young friend, is what a journalist does; it should be more than enough.i I wanted to know, iIs that what you did?i She nodded and pursed her lips. iYes. Well, itis what I tried. But, i she sighed, iI was badly lacking the primary ingredient.i iLack of experiences?i I hoped it didnit sound like a wise- crack. iHa! That, too, I suppose! But, no. Lack of talent. A great reader I am, but a writer I am not, not even a mediocre one.i She smiled and offered a sad little laugh. She brought her finger up to her lips. iSshhh! . . . Listen, Martin, I have an idea. Have you ever written a story? I mean, a real story about people youive made up, not a biography, a story, just out of your head? . . . With a beginning, a middle, and an end?i I felt a new and different sense of vibrating excitement right behind my belly button. iLike a, short story?i She nodded. iRight. Like a short story.i iNo,i I said. iNo what?i iNo, I ainit never wrote a short story.i iTsk! Tsk! eAinit neveri, Tsk!. . . Do you have a typewriter?i I shook my head. iI would get one with the money from Dr. I.Q. . .i iOh, puh-leeze, Martin, forget Dr. I.Q.,i she said, a little forcibly, with noticeable irritation. iI want you to start writing fiction; made-up stories; stories about anything that pops into your head; fiction. Do you have any money at all for a typewriter? Could you get a used one?i There was no way I could tell her about the two hundred dollars I still had from the Ben Wu caper . . . 77 iI know!i she said. iYou could rent a used one. They rent them at Hahnis Office Supplies on Monticello. Will you go see them and find out what it costs?i She glanced at the pile of books that had come in from the last borrower, and she handed me one. iHere. Take this home and read it. If youive read it before, it would be a good time to read it again.i I asked, iWhois it by?i iFitzgerald. F. Scott.i I looked at the cover. This Side of Paradise. iAny good?i iNot bad,i and she laughed almost sardonically. iIf you arenit Martin Eden, maybe thereis some Amory Blaine in you. . . Also, Iid like you to start reading William James; one of the James brothers.i iLike in Jesse and Frank James?i She laughed under her breath. iNo! Like in Henry and William James. Henry wrote novels, i iOh! I read him!i I enthused. iI read The Turn of the Screw ani Daisy Miller.i I nodded emphatically. iTurn of the Screw was sort of confusing, but they were both fun to read.i Anna Theresa seemed to contemplate me in a new light. iWell,i she said, iHenry had a brother named William, and he was not a novelist, but he wrote some remarkable things. One of them was Principles of Psychology, two-volumes that many people feel make him the father of American psychology. I want you to read him; study him.i iWhy?i I asked, naively. iBecause,i she said, iI honestly feel no one can ever hope to be an American writer of any value without a firm foundation in William James. Iim going to get those volumes for you, and you may keep them out for three months. You can read them and re- read them. Deal?i I walked out of the library, into an early, sultry summer evening; Fitzgeraldis novel was under one arm and Jamesi ponderous tomes under the other, and all I could think about was how marvelous it would be to jump into the Jeep with Anna Theresa and head due east to Virginia Beach. We could drive right out onto the beach and park in the surf, just far enough in 78 to let the ocean lap against the tires, and with the map light we would alternate reading chapters to each other. Then, later, tired of reading, weid put the books away and leave the Jeep safely behind a dune, quietly slip out of our clothes, and walk hand in hand into the warm, salty tide for a silent, moonlight swim . . . iPsssshitt!i Shadow expectorated, an hour later that night, when I told him what, in my fantasy, we had done. iYiall canit swim a stroke ani you know it! What you gonna do if she gets a cramp out there ani starts drownini? By a time you go get somebody, sheis a goner, yihear! Riptide grab her ani they be draggini out there for a week!i I hedged on the fantasy. iWell, we werenit gonna go in too far, anyhow. Just wadini up to our hips . . . i Shadow laughed and punched my shoulder. iYeah, right, like sheis gonna whip off all her clothes ani go skinny-dippini with a snot-nose who ainit never stuck it in nothini hotterin his own hand. Pssshhit! She old enough to be your oli lady. Mer- cy! Yiall wouldnit know what to do with a piece like that even if she was dumb enough to give you the time of day.i iWell, thatis not true,i I protested. iNot, huh? What she say if she knew yiall never even jumped on Annette Poppick except to pretend you was stickini it in her? Sheid laugh her ass off! How many times yiall shot off in your pants just watchini me ani Reggie ani Lester Holcomb ani the Cohen twins makini Butterface the happiest dodo bird on Fern Alley?i I didnit want to talk about Annette Poppick while I was still in my Anna Theresa Tortoretti frame of mind; it was like . . . like thinking about . . . like imagining your parents in bed doing it. iLeti get somethini to eat,i I said, and whirled the Jeep in the direction of the Double SSis. * * * For a weekday night, the Double SSis was busy. We found a parking spot just to the right of the front door, and I brought the 79 Jeep in fast and sweet, turning on a dime, sliding in between a derelict Model A and a e39 Mercury convertible. iYiall wanna go inside or eat out here?i Shadow asked, and we both knew the answer. There was nothing better than being seen in your own vehicle, relaxing and dining in the luxury of a drive-in diner parking lot. Of course, I assumed if anyone could see us, they would note two bon vivants, two men of the world, out on the town. The blackout requirements, if truth were a factor, made it virtually impossible to recognize even yourself in a magnifying mirror past ten feet. A waitress on roller skates came up, but neither of us knew her or had seen her before. She was about twenty, cute and well-stacked; a brunette. I could read Shadowis mind: Man, she bill lyke a breck shiihouz! iYiall wanna see a men-yew?i iNuh,i Shadow replied, iwe know what we want.i He looked at me and winked. iWhadda we want?i I had about three dollars in my pocket, but I didnit want Shadow to know it. iYiall got any money?i I asked. iSome,i he said. iAbout seventy-five cents.i I leaned over and looked at the waitress. iGet us two eburgers ani two chocilate shakes.i iYiall want hush puppiesir curls with that?i Shadow said Yes and I said No. I turned to face him. iWe ainit got enough money.i iSure we do.i iHow you figure that? Two eburgers is forty cents ani two shakesire thirty cents, ani that makes seventy cents. You only got seventy-five.i Shadow squirmed and straightened out his legs so he could reach into the pockets of his dungarees. iYiall ainit got no money?i I shook my head. iAnna Theresa took all I had for six books that were overdue.i iHow much?i iTwo dollars,i I lied. iJay-sus, how long you had eem?i 80 The waitress interrupted our high-level financial symposium. iHush puppiesir curls? I gotta know.i Oh, what the hell . . . iGive us some curls; weill split a large order,i I said. Twenty-five cents for a carton of quasi-french fries that would have filled a shoe box. iYiall eat in the car,i she reminded, iwith the top down, cainit use no flayshlightsir nuthin.i iYeah, yeah,i Shadow growled, and the waitress skated away into the darkness. We sat silently for a moment, staring, squinting, trying to make out cars around us. It was a weird sensation, parked in a drive-in with no lighted neon signs, heavy canvas curtains over the large windows, encircled by a crowd of cars with people inside eating and laughing, waiters and waitresses roller skating in all directions and occasionally colliding, spilling trays on the cement, cursing, cleaning up, scrambling to collect orders. iHow the fugg they know what car ordered what or where it is?i Shadow wanted to know. I said I didnit know. But in a way I did know. It reminded me of one large darkroom, similar to the one Iid worked in part-time for a few weeks last winter. A professional photographer named Cyril Chesseaux, a transplanted French- Canadian, hired me to come in after school three days a week and process his negatives in the basement of his house on Redgate Avenue. His studio was on the second floor, where normal people had bedrooms, and the darkroom was a converted bin deep in a far corner of the basement. There were no windows, and the room was sealed with a thick door that could be opened only from inside. The darkroom itself was well- equipped for serious printing, enlarging, and cropping. But the negative processing was a gerryrigged system as ingenious as it was archaic. Rather than invest a hundred dollars or so in a ipack developeri manufactured by Kodak for small-time pros, Chesseaux rummaged half a dozen old automobile batteries and hollowed out each of the three cells, leaving the two equally spaced dividers inside, and scrubbed the black interiors until 81 they were sterile. Each cell was just the right size to hold up to six plates suspended in their frames for developing, bathing, and fixing. Accordingly, I could knock off two dozen plates at a time, and time was critical. In 1943, film rationing was as bad for professionals as it was for the likes of me, due to the paucity of silver created by the war effort. Many like Chesseaux, however, were able to purchase excess x-ray film from the local hospitals not subject to rationing, and I spent many afternoons in total darkness sizing and cutting 200 or 300 sheets into 800 or 1200 individuals plates. I would arrive at the darkroom about 3:30 each afternoon, and by 4 Iid have the chemicals mixed and waiting inside the hollowed-out batteries. Iid arrange the stacks of plates, still in light-tight cartridges, so that I could strip them open in total darkness, carefully insert each 4 by 5 inch film sheet individually into a stainless steel frame that had two arms protruding from each side of the top, and in one motion drop each batch into the battery cases. The protruding arms would reach over the edges of the cases and keep the frames suspended about a quarter inch from the bottom, of course no two plates would be allowed to touch each other, and in the dark I soon became a master at balancing the framesi arms on my extended forefingers and agitating the plates at proper intervals for even saturation. It was a simple and most workable process. Just before I started stripping the film from the cartridges I would set the timer for thirty-five minutes, and that would give me sufficient time to transfer the sheets to the frames and dump them into the battery cases. When the timer chimed, I would then remove the frames from the developer compartment, place them in the bath for ten minutes, then lift them out and put them in the fixer for the remainder of the time, all the while agitating the racks as if on cue. The trick was, it all had to be done in absolute, total darkness. And then, the hardest part, sitting alone and waiting for the timer to chime once more, again in absolute, total darkness. Not a bad deal, though, for twenty-five cents an hour! 82 After the film had been in the fixer for about fifteen minutes, I could turn on a dim, red work light and begin cleaning up the daily mess, which really wasnit all that bad considering how adept Iid become at working in the dark, using the illumination of memory and routine and instinct to function effectively at this simple task. If I learned nothing else, an appreciation for the unique abilities of the blind would always be with me. Actually, my main ambition during my short tenure at Chesseaux Photo Studio was to graduate to printing, enlarging, and cropping, tasks with which old Cyril was still reluctant to entrust me. Occasionally, heid let me experiment with the enlarger, but that was about it. Had I remained longer in his employee, I might have had my chance. But it was not to be. On a Monday in mid-March, one windy, rainy afternoon, I came in about three-fifteen to find Cyril, a tall, slender man, fortyish, with long and rather girl-like curly hair reaching down to his bony shoulders, in the darkroom installing a new lamp in the contact printer. He glanced up and remarked I was early. I told him I had skipped study hall. He finished what he was doing, and I went about preparing the chemicals in the batteries for the dayis developing, an unusually large stack of plates. I said he must have had a busy weekend. He told me it was a large wedding; he used the phrase ivery poshi more than once. I said if he ever needed an assistant on such assignments, Iid sure be happy to tag along, even for nothing, just for the experience. He looked at me and said that was a wonderful idea, marvelous, and heid keep it in mind. In retrospect, I think he actually reached over and touched my arm when he said iWonderful idea! Marvelous! Love to have you with me! Splendid idea! And of course Iill pay you! I really could have used you last weekend! It was a stupendous affair. Very posh. Rosemary Lawrence married Garret Hearn, everyone was there. Must have been a thousand at the reception. Biggest social event of the season. My camera was red-hot from start to finish! It was, glorious!i For the next five minutes I was extremely busy with the 83 chemicals, the battery cases, arranging the plates, the frames o having everything properly placed so I could kill the lights and get underway. I took up the timer and began adjusting the dial. iCyril,i I said, iif youire done, I gotta get the sheets in the soup . . . i I looked around but heid gone, leaving the door half open. I shrugged, crossing the room, and closed the door, locking it and flicking the switch on the outside warning light. A moment later I was in the dark, totally immersed in blackness, and I began stripping the sheets from the cartridges. From outside, I could barely hear the hiss of wind and light tattoo of rain. As soon as the frames were in the developer I sat down on the one wooden stool beside the workbench and began the thirty minute wait for the timer chime. It was only a few moments before one of my sagacious inner vibrations informed me I was not alone in the room. iHey! Cyril, that you?i iYes,i was the soft reply. iScared the shit outta me!i I said. iWhy yiall here? Where are you?i There was no answer, but I was aware he had moved closer to me, and I felt him reaching for me. iGive me you hand,i he whispered. Instinctively, I stuck out my arm, and he found my hand. iIim right here,i I said. iBe careful you donit knock over the chemicals.i I remembered Iid left two one liter bottles on the table, behind the battery cases. But he was on the other side of me. I felt him pull my hand to the right and down and against a mound of warm flesh and wiry hair. iThere,i he sighed, a hoarse whisper, ithere, my darling!i It was as if someone had stuck an icicle in my belly button. I pulled my arm away in a huge circle, and my hand made immediate contact with one of the chemical bottles; it flew across the room, smashing into the concrete wall, shattering glass and liquid all over, permeating the close air with the 84 pungent, stinging aroma of acetic acid. I spun in the other direction and found the light switch at the tableis edge, flooding the room with sudden, brilliant white light. iNo! Donit . . . i Cyril said in darkness; then in light: i . . . turn on the lights! My pictures! The wedding!i But I had turned them on. And what it revealed, in retrospect, was simultaneously disgusting and hilarious, but at the moment, extremely frightening: Cyril was standing there staring at me, stark naked except for his shoes and black stockings held up with knee-garters, and displaying a pitiful erection not much larger than a boiled goober pea. I was inundated with emotions that could not be separated: fear, embarrassment, revulsion, but mostly fear. I backed away, unable to take my eyes off the wretched creature, and leaned against the door, groping for the lock, finding it, opening the door, spinning, and dashing out of the basement and the house as fast as I could run. iMy wedding shots are ruined! Youive destroyed my wedding! . . . But I love you!i was the last thing I ever heard Cyril Chesseaux say, and, to date, that was the end of my professional photographic career. A few days later at school, during lunch on the handball court, I told Shadow, Drew Cohen, and Jimmy Ray Tye what had happened; I knew they knew who Cyril Chesseaux was because he took all the class pictures. Play stopped entirely when I got into the story. iJay-sus,i Shadow muttered, ifellais a freaggin queer!i iFull-blown,i Drew confirmed, and that got a good laugh. Jimmy Ray wanted to know, iBut where was he when yiall turned out the lights in the first place? How come yiall didnit see him?i iHe flew up to the ceiling, like Tinker-Bell,i Shadow rejoined, not to be outdone by Drew. iThatis what fairies can do!iI said, iNuh, I donit think so. What he did was slip in behind some file cabinets on the other side of the labi, I loved letting these fellows think I had worked in a real darkroom, 85 rather than a basement bin, eani soon as the lights were out, he dropped his pants.i iWas he jerkini off?i Jimmy Ray asked. iI dunno.i iBet he was!i iYou actually touched his pecker?i iI dunno. Donit think so.i I really wasnit sure. Shadow started dancing around us. iBet yiall did! Bet yiall grabbed his cock ani sucked him off! Pssshhhitt! You big a queer as oli Chesseaux!i I threw my arms around Shadowis neck and pulled him off the handball court, and we wrestled to the ground, but we were both laughing so hard no one bothered to separate us. iYiall loved it, didnit you?i Shadow grunted in my ear. iYouire a asshoi!i I said, and punched him in the shoulder. iYiall a big fairy!i And he kicked my behind. iYeah, yeah! iYeah! Pssshhhit!i . . . iFoodis here,i the waitress on roller-skates said. iHuh?i Iid been recalling the incident from last March, and I never heard the waitress skate up beside the Jeep and start adjusting the portable tray on the edge of the low frame where, on a real car, a door would have been. I told Shadow the darkness made me think about Cyril Chesseaux. iMiss your lover, doancha?i he snickered. iWhat happen to the dumb bastard?i I said I thought he was still around. iDonit think heis doini the school stuff anymore, though.i iProbily figures yiall told everybody in the school yiall was blowini him.i iRight.i Shadow seemed contemplative. iKnow what I was jusi thinkini, sittini here in the dark?i iNo.i iHow do blind people know when theyis done wipini their ass?i 86 We ate our hamburgers and french fries in relative silence, and the shakes seemed particularly delicious. I thought about popping the horn and ordering another, but that would mean staking Shadow to one as well. Our eyes fairly accustomed to the darkness by now, we were looking to see who else from Maury was hanging around the drive-in. There was music coming from the jukebox inside: Tommy Dorseyis Boogie Woogie. We could make out a couple of kids jitterbugging on the walkway between the building and the parking area. iBet thatis Wayne Arnold ani Wanda Russell,i Shadow said.I agreed. iYeah, think youire right.i They were two juniors whoid been winning every dance competition since the 7th grade at Blair. Every girl at Maury dreamed of being able to dance like Wanda Russell, and every fellow, from the football jocks on down, dreamed of kicking the shit out of Wayne Arnold. Wayne made Fred Astaire look like Groucho Marx on the dance floor. It was as in the movies when there was a high school or college dance scene, and when this one couple, usually the leads, Andy Hardy and Polly Benedict, for example, got up to dance, the crowds parted like the Red Sea, and all the other dancers came to a standstill and formed a circle around them, and Andy and Polly would go crazy with a routine that had been choreographed by MGM and rehearsed for six weeks before one frame was shot, and we sat there believing it was all spontaneous . . . Only with Wanda and Wayne it really was. And it really happened that way, at every school dance weid ever been to. They would come into the gym and only dance one or two numbers, but when they got out on the floor, the world stopped spinning, the war was over, we all got Ais in Latin and algebra, and our lousy football team would never lose another game. In Mauryis music world there was another prodigy: kid named Joe Wexler. Joe played drums in the school dance band ensemble (nine pieces made up of one piano, one guitar, one bass, two saxophones, one trumpet, one trombone, one clarinet, and Joe Wexler on drums). The only people who 87 knew the names of the other band members were their parents, their teachers, their girlfriends, and each other; the student body only knew and cared about Joe Wexler. iGoini to the dance Friday night?i iJoe Wexler playini?i iThink so.i iIill be there!i Joe was a great drummer. At least once, sometimes twice a night, he would take a solo, and it might go on for ten or fifteen minutes. Life on this planet came to a halt. Just like in the movies, the crowd would be drawn to the edge of the bandstand to gape in utter awe as Joe converted his magical set of traps into a mighty Wurlitzer of overpowering rhythms and percussion harmonics, staccato syncopation, angelic cymbals, riffs and rim shots, pounding bass, tinkling top-hat; and it would go on and on, building and settling back, tempting one emotion after another with a tribal tempo of greed and lust, until eventually one, sometimes two adolescent females, having sufficiently soiled their panties, would actually swoon a la Sinatra-mania at its peak. I loved it. And so did 99% of the rest of the boys who had dates on their arms. Thanks to Joe Wexler, they were in like Flynn (preferably Errol). I had for a time endured the fantasy that I too could play drums, and in the 7th grade I literally begged my parents for a starter set of traps: bass, snare, tom-tom, cymbal and top-hat o something in the financial stratosphere of two hundred dollars and totally out of the question. When my birthday came and the drums didnit, I was heartbroken, devastated, and bent on leaving home. It didnit take long to realize I wasnit a drummer anyway; never was, never would be. Couple of years later, one Friday afternoon, I cut through the school gym to go out the back door to the handball court to meet Shadow, and Joe Wexler was setting up his equipment for a dance that evening. I stopped and watched him, fascinated, and I asked if I could give him a hand. iNuh, thanks,i he said. iJusi about done.i Joe was a small fellow, compact, with long arms and tiny hands. His hair was 88 straight and long, unkempt, and when he played, it flew in circles around his head. iYiall gonna practice?i I asked. iYeah, some. You play?i iMe?i I touched my chest. iNaw, I just listen. Can I watch you practice?i Joe shrugged. iI doan care.i He climbed on the stool behind the traps and picked up a couple sticks. iYiall like drums?i iLove eem!i I said, realizing that when Joe was behind the bass and cymbals, he was no longer small. He was larger than life itself. He asked me what was my name, and I told him. Then, after a sensational riff that made the rounds of each drum and cymbal, he said, iYiall wanna whack a couple skins?i Talk about excitement! iMe? Yeah! Sure!i iCome on up,i and, timidly but with apprehension, up I went. Joe got off the stool and handed the sticks to me, gesturing with the other hand to sit down and have a go at it. I straddled the stool as Iid seen Gene Krupa do it in the movies, and I think I impressed Joe by placing my feet just right on the bass and top hat pedals. Alternately, I gave them both a try. iSounds good,i I said, in my most professional, reassuring and absolutely bewildered tone. iGood ani tight.i iYeah . . . go ahead; lay a beat on me.i The sticks in my hands precisely as Iid studied Joe and Gene and Barry and Winnie and half a dozen others I thought were the hottest guys on earth, I got a beat in my head by thinking of Benny Goodmanis Sing! Sing! Sing! All I had to do was let it flow.And flow it did: Across my shoulders, down my arms, through my hands, out the sticks, the primeval sounds of an erotic tempo born in a sweltering, misty land of dark, pulsating, senseless cadence, decadent rhythms ripped from the souls of savage desire and frustration . . . and it was, horrible. Awful. 89 Absolutely the worst racket ever created. A din; a cacophony of amateur worthlessness! After about twenty humiliating seconds I hit the big cymbal a crashing blow and laid the sticks on top the bass. I didnit want to look at Joe, but I had to. And I had to grin my most shit- eating grin, lifting my shoulders in the eternal shrug of defeat. iAinit so easy after all, is it?i Joe sympathized. iAinit easy at all,i I conceded, crestfallen but still smiling. I got off the stool and moved around to the front so Joe could get on. iHow old yiall, Marty?i That year I was fifteen, a sophomore at Maury. iI was four when I got my first drum. Started lessons o serious lessons, when I was six. Got a full set when I was eight. Played my first gig for money I was ten. Formed my own band at eleven, ani weire all still together.i I was impressed, and it made me feel better. Joe went on, iIim a junior this year; soonis I graduate I wanna join the Marines ani play in their band. Big time. Then after the war I wanna go to New York ani Chicago ani Los Angeles. Recordini studios. Big bands. Really big time. Whaddaya wanna do?i iWell, whatever it is, it wonit be musical,i I laughed. iGuess I wanna be a photographer.i iBring your camira tonight ani take my pitcher. Itis any good, weill try ani get eem to put it in the yearbook.i I left shortly after that so Joe could practice in peace. As I closed the door and stepped into the fading sunlight, I could barely hear the soft brushes Joe was using. But I swear to God I could actually identify the melody. . . From inside the Double SSis, the music tempo had changed and it was Itis Been A Long, Long Time, a drippy ballad about a couple whoid been separated by the war, and now he was back home on leave, and she wanted him to kiss me once, kiss me twice, and kiss me once again, itis been a long, long time. Shadow sucked hard on his straw and noisily slurped up the last dregs of his milkshake. iWanna dance?i 90 iWith you? Right. Rather dance with my granima.i There was just enough light at close range to catch the glint in his eye. iWhat?i I wanted to know. iLetis go get some poontang,i he said. iYeah. Right. . . Where?i iSouth Norfuck.i I didnit know if he was serious or not, but I didnit even like to kid about it. South Norfolk was allegedly where the loose girls hung out, both white and black, but to get to where the action was you had to pass through what my dad called the Zerbiadition. And thatis where all the Zerbies lived. A Zerby was, simply, a Negro, or anyone who was not white. We had all grown up using the word, and it was acceptable, even in so-called polite, modern, pre-desegregation society, to refer to Negroes as iZerbiesi. We did not consider that to be a racial slur or demeaning, like iniggeri, which was a word very rarely used, as one might think it would be, in this part of the South. Zerby was a word we used openly and freely, even when talking to Negroes, not that we had much occasion to participate in such discourse. Nigger, on the other hand, was a word that was as distasteful in the mouth of the speaker as it was in the ears of the listener because it sounded cruel and dirty, despite the fact that most boys, white and black, often used it as a term of camaraderie, if not affection. iHey, nigger,i a close friend might say to another close friend, iwhai yiall gonna do wenna sun goes down enna moon comes up?i In this context the word had nothing to do with race or color or much of anything. Unfortunately, someone from another part of the country, or an older black person, hearing this kind of talk, could not help but suspect he was in the company of rampant racists. Shadow used to say, iAnybody gets insulted by the word eniggeri has to be a nigger.i And I know he wasnit talking about colored people. Tonight . . . iWe gotta drive through the Zerbiadition to get to South Norfuck,i I cautioned. 91 iSo what? You afraid one a them Zerbies gonna getcha ani cutchur balls off ani eat eem for breakfast? Psssshit! We drivini through inna Jeep, ani even Zerbies canit run that fast!i Our waitress skated up just then and gave us both a start coming out of the darkness. iYou boys gonna want sumpin else?i iNuthin they sell here,i Shadow said. 92 CHAPTER EIGHT Surprisingly, we made it through the Zerbiadition and arrived in South Norfolk without incident at about nine-thirty; and it was very dark. No street lights creating mysterious shadows amidst the heavy, silent trees, no lighted windows in the small, clapboard houses; and the trickle of beams moving with us from our headlights offered nothing more than an ignis fatuus landscape, a surreal view of occasional parked cars and fewer people walking along dim and obscure sidewalks. Our headlights had been carefully modified by my dad with strips of black friction tape that left only a two and one quarter inch gash in the center allowing a minimum of lumens to escape. Our taillight had been rigged with a toggle switch on the dashboard that made it possible to completely disconnect it at night. I had suggested to my father there might a safety issue there, but it fell on unconcerned ears. iThe safety issue,i he had said, from somewhere under the Jeep, his belly precarious centimeters from the warm exhaust system, his feet sticking out into Gill Alley, iis that these red taillights can be spotted easier at twenty thousand feet than pointing both headlights right up in the sky. The Germans got this bombsight thatis betterin our Norton; itis got this infra-red refractor thing in it, you know, ani that means it can pick up red lights, all kinda red lights, even through a heavy cloud cover. Drive this thing around the Navy Base area or up to Ocean View Park, ani those bastards could sink the whole damn fleet in . . . one good sortie run.i Dad had spent a lot of time as an Air Raid Warden, and hanging around with other family men who were out there every night with their trusty canteens protecting their women and children had taught him a great deal about the terminology and strategies of modern, technical warfare. I asked, iWhy wouldnit they just come in the daytime when they could see the base ani the ships ani bomb us to kingdom come right there ani then?i I heard him cough up a scoffing pearl of phlegmy wisdom from beneath the Jeep. iYeah, why? Thatis what they expect us 93 to go eround askini. Iill tell yiall why. Itis ecause theyire a bunch a sneaky, no good sonsabitches who use the night, the dark ani, uh, the clouds . . . to sneak up on you ani blow yiall up with five thousand pound bombs ani incendiaries . . . Look what they doini to England. Damn near killed every person livini there with those incendiaries; burnt the whole damn city to the ground. Ani they doan come in the daytime either, like they got any guts. No, sir! They come at night, late at night, when all the kids ani old peopleire in bed sleepini, ani they bomb the shit outta them, ani kill eem all in their beds, the bastards. Ask your grandmother; sheis English.i My grandmother hadnit lived in England since 1912, and I had no idea what light she could possibly shed on the subject, but I didnit say anything. She wasnit even in England during World War One. iThey never come in the daytime,i my father continued, from his forum on his back beneath the Jeep. iFirst place, theyid never make it. Our radar insulations at Hampton ani Virginia Beach ani Newport Newsid pick the fuggers up two hundred miles out to sea, ani the Hellcats ani P-40isid be up there to meet eem head- on. Plus the ships already out to seaid open up with anti-aircraft pumpers ani 50 cal tracers, shit, theyid lose ninety percent of their bombers before they ever saw land! Nah, itis nighttime when those shit-cowards strike; they like lizards; night killinis all they know.i He slid his substantial bulk out from under the Jeep, grunting and sweating, and said, iTry the taillight.i I stepped on the brakes and pulled the light switch. iDeaderin Kelseyis nuts,i Dad said. He told me to try the toggle switch, and when I did, the taillight came on. iAll right! Just remember to turn eem off after dark ani turn eem back on for daylight.i Once again our homeland was safe from the Nazi marauders. * * * The girlis name was Anneleise Odum, but I had no idea where she lived, except it was somewhere in South Norfolk. She was in the Glee Club with Shadow and me at Maury, and Iid thought about asking her out a couple of times, but she lived so 94 damn far away, and Iid had to rely on public transportation until this summer. If there had been a high school in South Norfolk, she would not have been at Maury anyway, but Tidewater was like many Southern school districts in congested areas. There were really only three high schools for white kids: Maury, Granby, and Norview High, out where Shadow lived. The colored kids all went to Booker T Washington in the Zerbiadition. Maury, Granby, and Norview were all north of the Elizabeth River, north of downtown and somewhat near the Navy Base. Shadow had enrolled in Norview when we had gotten out of 8th Grade at Blair Junior, but he had hated it. Everyone he knew had gone to Maury, especially me, so he told them at Norview that heid made a mistake, his address was not 37 Richmond Street, but 617 Doumar Street; that he lived with me and my family because his parents were divorced and didnit want him anymore. What was amazing was that the school officials indifferently believed him, and they let him transfer to Maury. It meant getting up an hour earlier and taking the streetcar down Monticello Avenue and walking four long blocks across town to my house, then walking to school with me, but he didnit care. It was nowhere near as bad as for kids who lived in South Norfolk. They had to catch a city bus at 6:30 each morning that would take them into downtown, then transfer to a street car to take them north for about fifteen blocks before depositing them within three blocks of Maury, better than an houris journey to get them in class by 8:20. The Zerbieis had a much better deal. Not only was Booker T Washington centrally located in the Zerbiadition, it was a beautiful school, brand new and fully equipped with all the latest, most modern facilities. Maury had been built before the Civil War, and it was literally crumbling around us. The four up- and down-staircases were swaybacked to the point of near collapse, the classrooms were dark and narrow caves, close walls and high ceilings, with ancient desks and broken chairs; the auditorium was a huge hole off the main corridor, a slanting room that pitched toward a drooping, dim and dangerous stage, and the rows of thin wooden seats with plywood backs were built for some race of miniature 95 students who had long ago succumbed to a rare spinal disease; it not only crippled them, it had annihilated them. The gymnasium was functional but archaic with equipment too tired and worn down by countless teenagers striving for fitness for their bodies (and letters for their sweaters) to be of much value. At least we had separate locker rooms (lockerless with crate boxes for storage) for boys and girls, but only the boys had showers, not that it mattered much, except for the football and basketball teams. Granby was newer but not much better; I think it had been built right after World War I. When we were in 9th grade, Shadow had come up with the grand idea that the place to really impress girls was in the Glee Club, the schoolis choral group. Neither of us had a popcorn poke of talent; neither could we read music; but we were both vocally mature with rich baritone voices; our voices had ichangedi in 6th Grade, and we sounded at thirteen and fourteen as good (or bad) as we would at forty. At least we thought so. Also, Shadow had it on good authority they never turned anyone down for Glee Club, especially baritones and basses, of which there was only a handful in the entire school. So we tried out, got in, and dutifully went to practice three periods a week. Actually, we werenit bad. The group was about thirty strong and pretty much equally split between boys and girls, and I found I really enjoyed the rehearsals and performances we gave each week during iassemblyi. I especially liked the old spirituals that were becoming the mainstay of our repertoire: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, The Gospel Train, Amazing Grace, Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, Go Down, Moses, How Great Thou Art, In the Garden, Just As I Am, Just a Closer Walk With Thee, The Old Rugged Cross. And we did more than justice to a bevy of Civil War and World War I ditties: When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Aura Lee, Battle Hymn of the Republic (our show stopper), Dixie (often brought the audience to its collective feet), Johnny Rebis a Mighty Fightini Man, I Broke My Rifle on a Yankeeis Head, Wrap My Body in the Stars and Bars, A Mighty God was R. L. Lee, Momma, I Ainit Comini Home No More, 96 eCause a Yankee Bullet Killed Me Dead, Over There, Youire a Grand Old Flag, Yankee Doodle Dandy (we sang it iDixie Doodle Dandyi or iYank My Doodle, Itis a Dandyi), A Long Way to Tipperary. Of course, we had our holiday treasures and Irish ballads (some of us couldnit get through Danny Boy without a few sniffles) and all in all, we became rather proud of the sounds we made, albeit, in Shadowis and my case, a remarkable accident. In the spring of 1942 we reached the zenith of high school choral achievement by taking second place in the State Competition at the Mosque in Richmond; it was the first time since 1911 that Maury came in better than 20th. Later that spring I performed in my second Annual Benefit Minstrel Show just before school was let out for the summer. This was the Music and Drama Departmentsi SRO of the year, and it ran for four straight nights, Friday through Monday. I was one of eight blackfaced End Men and Shadow was, as he had been the year before, the perfect Mr. Interlocutor. I auditioned for (and got) a featured spot singing solo with backup by Shadow and the other seven End Men. That freshman year my featured song was Shortyis Gotta Go! With memorized, energetic choreography and two of the End Men playing exuberant banjo, and Shadow playing Shorty Jones, rummaging, in sync, through a suitcase that contained a pork-pie wide-brimmed hat, a cheap and flamboyant suit, a pair of size 22 shoes, flashy tie, and a pair of long johns, plus my studied imitation of a jilted Negro, I somehow managed to sing somewhere near on key, and the number was a solid hit. But the show stopper, the piece that brought the audience to its feet with a guaranteed encore/reprise was the Phil Harris classic, Thatis What I Like About The South. The pit band, with Joe Wexler and his eight dedicated sidemen, played bridges and releases between verses that would have made Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa sit up and take notice, and the choreography Wayne Arnold taught us during six grueling weeks of rehearsals made me feel I might give Donald OiConner a run for his money after all. The director/drama 97 coach, Dwane Englert, was so impressed heid all but promised me three featured solos in my senior year, and Iid already started working on other Phil Harris classics: Is It True What They Say About Dixie? and The Preacher and the Bear. . . Shadow applied the brakes and jarred me back into the South Norfolk night. iIim gettini mine,i he said; iyiall gotta get yours.i There was a girl standing on the corner of Issac and Cayce talking to two boys, and Shadow thought he knew her. In the dark, I was surprised heid even seen her. iHey! Julie Hayden! That you?i He stopped the Jeep and snapped on the hand brake, jumping out all in one motion. iItis me, Shadow Cranston, from school!i Frum skew-ell! A moment later he was back beside the Jeep, on my side, with the girl Julie Hayden and the two boys. One boy was Rob Kepple, a sophomore at Maury, a good basketball player; and the other was a kid from Portsmouth Iid never seen before. iHey,i I said, good-naturedly. iHey, Marty,i Rob said. iThis hereis Walker Elder; heis from Portsmouth.i iHey,i I repeated. iHey,i mimicked the Portsmouth kid, a tall, heavily muscled boy with a jockis crew cut and acne. iHey,i smiled Julie Hayden, and I saw how cute she was o diminutive, ash blonde, and full-figured; not cheerleader cute but smart-looking, poised, Southern, pink and very soft; good, clear skin. She was another one Iid noticed before and had thought about asking for a date but never had; sheid have probably said no, anyway. iWhacaiall doini down here?i she asked Shadow, a happy lilt, a smile, in her voice. iI thought yiall never got south of the river.i Kids who lived in Norfolk and went to Maury had all gone to Blair Junior High first. South Norfolk kids went to Chesapeake Junior before the long trek up to Maury or Granby. iNever could bifore,i he replied. iBifore what?i 98 iBifore we got us this here U.S. Military Surplus/Reject Jeep.i iSays U.S. Marine Corp on the side,i Rob pointed out. iSure do!i Shadow laughed. iThis Jeepis so hot the Army couldnit handleier. Marines took one look at her ani stampedier Surplus/Reject, go find oli Shadow!i The Portsmouth kid, Walker, asked, iWhatis wrong withier?i iJust ebout everythini, son.i Shadow took Julie by the hand and led her around to the driveris side. iYiall wanna go for a ride with me ani Julie here?i Rob protested, mildly, to Julie: iI thought we was goini over to your house ani listen to Fibber McGee ani Molly onna radio.i iPsssshit,i Shadow spat, ido that anytime! How offen yiall gonna get to ride in a brand new U.S. Marine Jeep?i iI cainit go,i said Walker, somewhat forlornly. iOli manis gonna pick me up at 10 . . . what time is it?i iTen affer,i Shadow offered, without even looking. iShoot damn then, gotta go.i iWell, hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go, thatis what yiall gotta do then.i Sullenly, Walker departed to meet his father and head back to Portsmouth, perhaps the dreariest town in the South. None of us recall ever seeing him again; in fact, none of us can recall to this day that we ever saw anyone from Portsmouth, except when our football or basketball teams played. I asked Julie, iYiall know Anneleise Odum?i iSure. We ride the streetcar to school sometimes; sheis in my homeroom last year. Yiall know her?i I nodded. iYeah. Sheis in the Glee Club with us, but I doan know where she lives.i iHere. South Norfolk.i iWell, I knew that. But not where, actually.i iI do. Wanna go by ani see she wants to go for a ride?i iLetis go!i Shadow said, pushing Rob into the back seat. iNo, hold on. Got a better idea. . . Marty, you drive, ani 99 hold on, Rob, yiall sit up front there, with Marty, ani ride shotgun. Ani Julie, me ani you gonna sit in the back. iI doan want the wind blowini my hair,i Julie pouted, but Shadow had already lifted her into the seat behind the driver. I climbed over the gearshift and let Rob come in where Iid been, and Shadow leaped over the back of the Jeep and plopped down beside Julie. iSee! This is really great, ainit it! I mean, is this really great or what? Flaps up, Marty; letis roll!i * * * We had no trouble finding Anneleiseis house on Jefferson Street, considering it was nearly 10 oiclock and virtually pitch- black. Julie had a good sense of direction and an uncanny talent for seeing in the dark, much better than I, certainly, and when she said iThere it is!i she was precisely right. Anneleise, it turned out, did not live in a house any more than I did, but rather in a flat, an apartment, over her parentsi pastry shop. There was a door to the right of the shop, and a very cleverly wired flashlight bulb behind the doorbell button revealed it was indeed the residence of Wilbur P. Odum & Family. On the second ring a voice came out of nowhere. iWho is it?i I stepped back and looked up but saw no one. The voice, actually, came out of a small radio speaker built inside the doorjamb and covered with steel mesh the size of a matchbox. iYes? Who is it?i iYiall hear me?i I called out, stupidly, and much too loudly. iYes. Whois there?i iAnneleise?i iYes . . . i iThis is Marty Eden. From school, from chorus. Yiall home?i I was so dumb. There was a brief pause. iJusi a minute.i I stepped back further and looked over my shoulder at the rest of them in the Jeep, at the curb. I could see little more than the orange glow from Shadowis cigarette as he reclined in the 100 back seat, puffing away to impress Julie Hayden. I waited what must have been exactly sixty seconds. iHey,i she said, and stepped out on the stoop. There was just enough light coming from the hall stairs to frame her in the doorway. iWhat yiall doini down here?i Anneleise was not cute in the usual high school sense, but she was extremely pretty; a sort of adolescent magazine model prettiness. Medium height and very thin; full in the right places, but not too full. She had long, straight, shiny black hair worn in bangs over her forehead, then tumbling straight to her shoulders in rolling shivers. She had a look of concerned maturity about her.iI dunno,i I said. iShadow ani I out ridini eround in our oli Jeep, ani we just sorta wound up in South Norfuck. Ran into Julie Hayden ani Rob Kepple ani some guy from Portsmouth, ani I said, eHey, doesnit Anneleise live around here?i, ani Julie said yiall sure did, so I said, eHeck, I bet sheid like to go for a ride with us ani get sumpthin to eati . . . maybe, I dunno.i My voice trailed off evanescently. Anneleise seemed uncertain. iItis ten. Or after. I doan think my daddy . . .i iYeah, well, thatis what I figured; it was too late. But I thought, what the heck, might well stop by ani say eheyi; maybe we could go out enother time, like this weekend . . . i A new voice squeezed out of the intercom: iAnneleise, yiall got company down thereir sumpthin?i iYeah, Momma, some people from school,i she replied, turning her head to address the doorjamb. iWell, tell eem to come up. Daddy brought some eclairs from the shop.i Behind me, I could hear Shadow moving out of the Jeep. iLove eclairs!i he wheezed and tossed away his cigarette, the tip flaring up a shower of sparks when it hit the sidewalk. Julie piped up: iWe ainit got a lotta time to visit. Itis after ten.iiYeah,i said Rob. iI thought weis goini for a ride.i Shadow spun around. iYiallis right as rain, Robbie! Thatis 101 what weis gonna do.i To me: iWhy doan yiall go upstairs ani have a nice visit ani eat some eclairs, ani Iim gonna take these guys over by the river ani look at the lights from downtown.i iWhat lights?i three of us wanted to know. iWell, pshhitt, weill look at eem like they was there ani pretend weire in a big city. Yiall know what I mean. Maybe thereill be some ships come down the river from the base.i Anneleise said, pragmatically, iBe first time they ever come this far down river.i I told Shadow, iYiall come back ani get me in ebout one hour. . . That okay by you, Anneleise?i iSure.i Mrs. Odum again sent her voice down the wire: iFoiks comini upir not?i She was waiting for us at the top of the narrow stairs, and she was an extraordinarily attractive woman of, probably, forty (I was off, in her favor, by six years). She was wearing pleated shorts and a halter, it being a typically steamy Tidewater summer night, and I was astounded at how much she and Anneleise looked alike; side by side I would have suspected, had I not known better, they were sisters. A really stupid thought popped into my head as I remembered something my dad once said at the table on Motheris Day: iDonit never marry a girl etil yiall look at her momma. You gonna have a smart idea what that liil oli galis gonna look like in twenty, thirty years, so play your cards accordinily. Most of us woulda folded the hand ani run for the hills.i My mother had replied, iOh, Bernie, yiall such a tease!i iMomma, this hereis Marty Eden, from school. He sings in the Glee Club with me.i iHey, Marty, glad to meetcha!i She thrust out her hand and I shook it; rather she shook my hand, vigorously. iCome on in ani take the load off, ani have some ee-clairs!i The Odum apartment, or flat, or whatever their grandmother might call it, was much smaller than ours, but it was much nicer: Better furnished, cozier, more modern, cleaner, less cluttered, more like what I thought a home was supposed to be like. The 102 living room was right off the front stairway, beyond a heavy, dark oak door with three gleaming brass locks. There was a red plush sofa against the wall, under a wide window with a closed venetian blind; the sofa was flanked by matching end tables with matching lamps that spread a golden, orange glow across the room. There were two pale red plush chairs that matched the sofa, and one was an honest-to-God recliner/rocker. The other had a matching ottoman waiting in front of it, and there was a coffee table set just the right distance from the sofa; the coffee table had a thick, beveled glass top, and there were copies of Redbook, Modern Romances, Silver Screen, Life, Readeris Digest, PhotoPlay, TeenAge! and Seventeen neatly spaced across the top beside a rose-colored cut-glass bowl of huge gumdrops next to two thick and ornate photograph albums. The carpet was a deep wool berber, maroon and gold with flecks of orange. There were two tall windows at the end of the room that I guessed looked out over Jefferson Street when their venetian blinds were open in the daytime. Between the two windows, over one of the plush chairs, was a ceramic wall plaque of two people kissing; one half-face (his) was maroon and the other (hers) was pink: A perpetual, never-ending, tender love scene. This was one gorgeous living room! Even the pictures on the other walls, not paintings, but pictures, sepia-toned etchings in gilded frames, of Civil War battle scenes, and they were perfect. Iid been there less than thirty seconds, and I liked, and envied, actually, these Odums a lot! iCome on in the kitchen ani eat some of them ee-clairs!i Mrs. Odum invited. iYiall gonna love how light ani sweet they are!iShe moved out of the living room and down the hall toward the rear of the flat where I knew the kitchen would be, and Anneleise and I followed her. We passed, first, a room on the left, and Anneleise said, iThatis my Momma ani Daddyis room.i I peeked in without stopping, and my intracranial Speed Graphic caught an image of soft pinks and reds spilling from the chenille bedspread and dresser shawl; the bedside table-lamp was dim behind a crimson shade. Next, we passed a room on the 103 right. iThatis my room,i she said, but we kept walking. Glancing in, I saw nothing. The door was half closed; there was no light from within. iAni this,i said Mrs. Odum, iis the kitchen!i Brightly lit, the kitchen, as in most Southern homes (except mine), was the center, the hub, of all family activity. And this was a fine, great kitchen. Spacious and functional, the two prerequisites, with all the most modern features and appliances: A heavy black gas stove, four burners, with attached oven and broiler; an electric Frigidaire with a freezer and ice cube compartment inside, a white porcelain sink with cabinets on both sides and underneath; an enamel bread box displaying a painting of a hunter about to shoot two flying ducks, and next to that, a gleaming chrome pop-up Toastmaster; a chrome-trimmed Formica table, marbleized, reddish, and six matching chrome- trimmed chairs, heavily padded under thick vinyl, and extremely comfortable. The kitchen also served, apparently, as the dining room because against one wall there was a china closet in which resided what had to be the Odumsi very best dinnerware. And next to the china closet was the piece de resistance: a wringer washing machine that could be rolled across the shining, red- checkered linoleum and hooked up to a special nozzle on the sinkis spigot! There were two tall windows with venetian blinds, plus a door that led to a large porch off the rear of the flat. I did not know it at the time, but the porch was beautifully furnished with a cushioned glider and matching chairs, and even a cocktail table. In a corner of the porch was a collapsible clothesline on a pulley that extended from the porch railing post all the way to the garage below, some 45 feet away. Mrs. Odum, or Anneleise, could do the family wash in the kitchen, then just step outside on the porch to hang it all up to dry! My mother and grandmother would literally kill for something like this. iSit yourself down,i Mrs. Odum commanded, iani sink your pearlies into one of these.i In the center of the table was a platter of sensational eclairs. They were long and thick, some with chocolate icing, some with vanilla, and I could already taste the dense cream inside: 104 flavored butterscotch, whipped cream, marshmallow, even berry flavors. I thought, Wilbur Odum, you gotta be one hell of a pastry baker! iThank you, maiam,i I said, reaching for the one on the end waiting for me in its paper boat. iEat manyis you want . . . ani donit call me emaiami,i the lady said. Anneleise backed her up. iMomma hates to be called emaiami, eless itis in the shop or with the colored woman who comes in ani cleans twice, three times a week.i iIim sorry, maiam . . . I mean, Mrs. Odum, maiam . . .i What a dunce I was. She took an eclair for herself and sat down at the table, pointing for Anneleise and me to sit down also. iThatis okay. Why donit yiall just call me Irene like everybody else does? Whatis your mommais name?i I actually had to think for a moment. iMotheris nameis Dorothy.i iDorothy. My, that is a purty name!i Irene Odum said. iYour Momma purty?i I bit into my eclair and looked at Anneleise. I had to chew and swallow before answering, and I was glad; I needed the time to think about it. Momma pretty? Well, yeah, sure, of course she was pretty. I said, out loud, iJust never thought about it bifore; I mean, yeah, sheis pretty; I mean, not like a movie starir nuthin like that, but, yeah, when Momma gets dress up ani theyire goini out someplace, like a picture show or church, sheis right pretty. Fact, sheis real pretty when she goes in to work at E.K. Careyis . . . i iYour momma works at E.K. Careyis?i Irene seemed astounded. iYes, maiam, uh, Irene, maiam.i I was never going to be able to call this lady by her first name, and I told her so. In Virginia, in the e40s, you were taught to say iyes, maiami and ino, siri as easily as youid say iyialli and iAh lake suh maw ass in muh tayi and iAh lake ta knock eim onniz icei. Ice and ass were, south of the Line, interchangeable. 105 Anneleise spoke up in my defense: iTook me etil I was fourteen to stop callini Momma emaiami.i iWell, it donit matter none. Donit care what either of yiall call me,i Irene said, ijust donit call me late for ee-clairs!i and she laughed happily. iWant some milkir Dr Pepper to drink?i I nodded vigorously. iSure could use some milk to wash these down with.i Irene Odum slid out of her chair and walked across the kitchen, first to the cabinets along the wall by the sink where she got two fingers and a thumb into three jelly glasses. They clinked together and she carried them in one hand back to the table, setting them next to the eclairs. Then I watched her glide across the other way to the refrigerator to get the milk. I couldnit help but notice she had fantastic legs, as well as plentiful boobs that bounced freely inside her halter. Anneleise must have noticed me watching her because she said, iAinit my momma the purtiest thing you ever saw?i I tilted my head. iShe surely is that pretty.i I was proud of myself that when I said eprettyi it didnit come out purty. Irene Odum was, in fact, a great looking lady. From the top of her pageboy, gleaming dark brown with reddish tints from serious brushing, to milk-white skin, flawless in smooth contrast to her hair, to sparkling blue eyes that seemed constantly smiling, to full and firm and unrestricted breasts, to a phantom waist, to long and graceful arms, to longer and more graceful legs . . . she was undoubtedly, next to Anna Theresa Tortoretti, the most beautiful woman in the world, outside of the movies. iYour mommais a dead ringer for Susan Hayward,i I said. Irene laughed gaily. iThatis what Will says! He says I could go to Hollywood ani be Susan Haywardis double. I donit see it, myself.i iOh, Momma, I do!i cooed Anneleise. Iid forgotten all about Mr. Odum. I looked at Anneleise. iYeah, say, where is your daddy? In the pastry shop?i iNooooo! We close up at eight on weekdays. My daddyis on duty etil midnight; heis a air raid warden.i iWow!i I said. iThatis great! My dadis an air raid warden, 106 too! Heis out there practically every night. Eight to midnight. Bet heis out there tonight!i Irene brought the milk bottle to the table and filled all the glasses. It was ice cold and tasted great with the eclairs; I was on my second. iItis really great,i she said, iwhat these men who have to stay home ani take care of their familiesire doini for the war effort. I feel a lot safer knowini theyire out there every night. Donit know whatid happen to us if they was droppini bombs on America. I bet your momma feels a same way.i I nodded in profound agreement. iAni my granima, too. Sheis from England, ani she knows all those places the Nazis are bombini.i Irene made that sweet sound of concern that all Southern women were born with: A gentle rush of breath across the tip of the tongue pressed against the top of the mouth, just behind the front two teeth; a sort of wistful whistle, but not quite a tone . . . More of a sigh that begins in one heart and escapes to another when matters of great moment are pondered. iBlessier poor soul; how brave she must be just to think of all those dear people ani rememberini those places from her chilehood. I donit think I could abide it. i iWell, maiam, truth is,i I said, not wanting to lead anyone astray, imy granima was a gypsy. When she was just a young girl, she traveled all over England ani Ireland in a sort of caravan of wagons pulled by donkeys. They was, they were, like circus people, like carnival acts, ani she was an up-and-comini fortune teller when she left England. Come think on it, I donit think she ever actually lived in London, where all the bombini is. She says she thinks she was born in Somerset, which reminds me, her cousin is Somerset Maugham, the writer.i iThat a fact!i Irene was mesmerized. iShe still tell fortunes?i iOh, sure,i I said, iall the time. Nearly every night, after she ani Momma ani my Aunt Fred have tea oi iAunt Fred?i I smiled my most charming. iFredericka. My mommais 107 sister. We all callier Fred or Freddie.i They both laughed at that. iAnyhow, after she, Granima, ani Momma ani Freddie have tea, Granima reads the tea leaves, ani what she says almost always comes true.i iLike what?i they both wanted to know. iWell . . .i Here is where it got tricky. Most of the time I paid little attention to Grandmais clairvoyant nonsense, but I had a captive audience and I wasnit going to let them off the hook, especially Anneleise; not while they were showing proper enthusiasm and deference to a great storyteller. I loved this kind of a brand new audience. . . Annaleise and her mother stopped eating eclairs and drinking milk, waiting for me to continue. iWell . . . lemme see . . . just the other night, ebout three months ago, Granima was readini tea leaves in Mommais cup, ani she said, eHa! Looky here! Yiall gonna get some really good news from a man . . . a tall man with dark hair ani a mustache is gonna bring you some good news . . .ii iAni? What happened?i Irene had to know. iWell,i I went on, deliberately slowly, icouple days later Momma went in to work at her job at E.K.Careyis, Mommais a ready-to-wear ani costume jewelry assistant buyer, fact, just ebout my whole family works at E.K.Careyis; my dad is the shoe buyer ani my Aunt Freddie is assistant cosmetics buyer; Granipa is a baker at Sutherlinis Bakery, though, maybe Mr. Odum knows him . . . i iYes, yes, so what happened?i Both Irene and Anneleise had moved to the edge of their seats. iWell, long ebout noon, just before Momma was goini to lunch, Mr. Nassar comes up to her, Mr. Nassaris womenis department buyer, ani on top of that, heis also a vice president o anyhow, he comes up to her ani says he wants to take her to lunch; is she free right then ani there? Course, she is, ecause Momma most usually just has lunch with Freddieir my dad, or sometimes both. So she ani Mr. Nassar go right on down to the store lunch counter, ani they no sooner get set down when Mr. Nassar . . . oh, yeah, I almost forgot, Mr. Nassaris like right tall, ani heis got jet black hair ani a skinny liil oli mustache o 108 ani he turns to Momma ani says, eIim really happy to tell you that we been watchini yiall real close this past year, ani thereis gonna be a two-fifty raise in your pay envelope startini this week!ii The two females exploded: iWooooweee!i I was on a roll. iWell, thereis even more. He went on to explain to her that if her boss, Mrs. Wendell, gets transferred to NiAwlins, whichis what theyire expectini to happen, Momma will get promoted to full buyer for costume jewelry. Seems Granima hit it right on the nose!i Irene shook her head back and forth. iMy word! Ani this happened just two days affer your granimother read it in the tea leaves?i iYes, maiam. Happen just like that,i I said, and I tried to snap my fingers. Unfortunately, they were slippery from the eclairs, and all I made was a squishing sound. iBut it ainit always good news she sees. I emember once she was readini the cards . . . i iTaro cards?i Anneleise asked. iNo.i I didnit know what Taro cards were. iJust cards; ordinary playini cards, kind yiall play five hundred rummy with . . . Granima takes the cards ani has a person shuffle the cards ani cut eem into two piles. Then yiall gotta select one of the piles, ani count some of them off, like for the day of your birthday ani stuff, ani whatis left, thoseire a ones she works with.i iWhat does she do?i iWell, she starts turnini the cards over, one at a time, ani layiniem out sois yiall can see eem ani see how one relates to the others.i iHowis that?i iTell the truth, I donit know,i I admitted. iBut she does. Ani the way the cards come out tells the story of your future. Like a night she was doini it for Esther Pitts, the oli lady downstairs . . . May I have an another eclair?i Irene pushed the platter closer. iSure can . . . What happened?i 109 I took a bite and a sip of milk before continuing. iWell. Mrs. Pitts ani my granima been good friends ever since we moved to Doumar Street, ani sheis up one night last winter, before Christmas, ani Grandima was readini the cards for her at the dining room table. I was sitting there watchini with my little brother Douglas, I think Granipa had already gone to bed, ani Dad ani the rest of them were workini to nine; must of been a Thursday night . . . . Anyhow, Mrs. Pitts shuffled the cards ani cut eem ani all that, ani Granima started readini away, when sort of sudden-like, she just stopped ani put her hands over the cards ani closed her eyes. She told Mrs. Pitts that was all the card readini she was doini for that night, ani Mrs. Pitts got a might agitated ani insisted on knowini what my granima had seen in the cards that made her stop like that. I remember sayini to Douglas later that Iid never seen Granima act like that, just stoppini right in the middle of a readini ani closini her eyes like that; she looked strange, too, her face real pale ani her hands sort of shakini. Ani Douglas said he was real scared when she just stopped like that, ani he was more scared a few minutes later.i I took another bite and sipped my milk. iLord,i whispered Irene, and I saw Anneleise shiver. iWhat ever did she see?i iWell,i I moved on, ifirst she didnit say a word. But Mrs. Pitts was not gonna leave it alone, ani again she insisted Granima tell her what was in the cards. Finally, like maybe five minutes later, Granima opened her eyes ani looked like she was comini out of a trance, lookini right at Mrs. Pitts, ani she barely moved her lips when she asked if Mrs. Pitts knew where her grandson Charlie was. You see, Mrs. Pitts only had one grandson, ani he was about twenty-five ani in the Marines. I think he was her pride ani joy ecause she was always talkini about him. Anyhow, she said she didnit know for sure, but she thought he was somewhere in the South Pacific. Ani Granima said, eLooky here,i ani she pulled her hands away from the pile of cards ani spreadiem a bit on the table. She said, eSee? See this? This is the Jack of Hearts, this is Charlie. Ani right next to him is a Queen of Clubs; thatis yiall. Ani look here: between 110 you ani that 3 a Spades is . . . the Ace a Spades! Ani just ahead of Charlie ani just after the Ace is, the 3 of Clubs.i The way Granima said it, the tone of her voice, made goose bumps on my arms. Mrs. Pitts wanted to know what it meant, ani Granima said oeNuthin.i She said it didnit mean a thing until she turned over the next card, ani it was, the 6 of Spades. Ani she looked back ani saw the card just before the Jack had been the 6 of Clubs. Right then she peered deep into Mrs. Pitts eyes ani said, eWhat it means is, Esther, is . . . Charlie is dead!ii iLord!i Irene evoked once more. iAni worse than that,i I continued, ialthough Granima didnit tell us right then, he was not the only one in the Pitts family whose time was up!i iYou mean . . . ?i iYes, maiam. Next day, I mean the very next day, Mrs. Pitts got a telegram from the War Department tellini her that her grandson, Corporal Charles Pitts, had been killed in action on a tropical island in the South Pacific. Ani lessin twenty-four hours later Mrs. Pitts was found dead in her bed, ani they say she died of a broken heart . . . Ani all thatis what Granima had seen in those cards.i There was silence in the Odumis kitchen as thick as the cream in one of the eclairs, and although I appeared to be concentrating on the last of my milk, I knew two pairs of mesmerized eyes were focused on me. I loved telling this story, and I loved the reaction it always got. The first time Iid told it to Shadow his response was precisely what Iid expected. iPssshit! Jusi a damn co-in-ci-dunce!i Iid shaken my head slowly. iNo coincidence. My Granimais got the power. Donit forget, sheis a gypsy.i iDoan believe in none of that crapola,i heid said. iThen next time yiall come over Iill ask her to read the cards ani tell your fortune.i iUh-uh, not me!i I wondered if I should lay that story on Irene and Anneleise tonight, but Irene answered it for me. iWell, I think the time has come,i she pronounced, ifor me 111 to hit the hay. This turned into quite a night.i She got up and started clearing the plates and glasses away. iAlmost eleven, Anneleise; I think your daddyill be comini in right soon, ani I have to open the shop up in the mornini . . . i I stood up the moment Irene had pushed her chair back and offered to help her clean up, but she waved me off. iReally enjoyed meetini you, Marty, ani I hope yiall come see us agin ani tell us some more stories.i She put out her hand, and I took it; again she shook it firmly, like a man. This time I didnit rush; I let her hold my hand an extra few seconds; I liked the way it felt. iAni I sure liked meetini yiall,i I said, with just the right amount of enthusiasm. iAni I sure liked these ee-clairs.i iIim glad,i she smiled, and said to Anneleise, iHoney, not too late now; want yiall to help me in the shop tomorrow. . . Nychaiall!i I watched Irene walk out of the kitchen and down the short hall, disappearing into her crimson boudoir. iWanna go in the livini room?i Annaleise asked. iWhat? . . . Oh, yeah, sure.i Within a minute we were sitting on the sofa and Anneleise was showing me the photographs in one of the coffee table albums. Half the open album was in my lap, half in hers, and when she leaned over to point out who this was, or who that was, her left breast brushed against my elbow, pressed against my upper arm, and I noticed how nice she smelled: some sort of lilac cologne or toilet water. And I was aware I was starting an erection. iThis thereis my auntis house in Roanoke,i she was saying, pointing to a house I could barely make out, at the back of an unkempt lot; like looking at something through the wrong end of a telescope, itwo summers ago. Look how Momma fixed her hair then.i iYeah.i I was glad half the album was in my lap. She turned the page. iThis was at VMI when my cousin Scoffie Goodis was in his third year. He was a Dyke, ani this here other fella was his Rat, ani I think his name was Clyde Erdle, or somethini like that. I hated that dress, but Momma 112 made me wear it for the Bible Awards in the chapel. Scoffieis a loo-ten-ant in the air corp, ani heis flyini bombers in Europe.i I looked closer at Scoffie Goodis and Clyde Erdle. iHe was a Dyke, that what you said? Ani he was a Rat?i Anneleise giggled a cute, squeaky sound I thought was very sexy. iSilly, thatis what they call freshman at VMI, a eRati. Ani when you get assigned a upperclassman, heis called your eDykei; youire sorta like his slave, or assistant, or somethini like that.iiAni that makes you a eRati?i I wondered out loud. iGuess so. Looky this one: thatis my daddy ani me o Momma took this one, we were comini home from Ocean View Park . . .i I looked at Anneleiseis father, and he looked like a very handsome man. Tall and young looking, in pretty good shape. Compared to my dad, he was Robert Taylor. I asked, iWhat time your daddy comini home, yiall figure?i Anneleise looked at her wristwatch, a nurseis Gruen that was all the rage among girls during the war. ieBout a hourir so.iiGood,i I said, leaning to one side and kissing her gently on very full, very warm, very wet, and very willing lips. I tasted raspberry lipstick, essence of eclair, and musty milk. Almost immediately the photo album slid to the floor, and Anneleise curled up on the sofa, her head and upper body in my lap, her knees bent and her legs tucked up against the cushions. It was the s.o.p. sofa-smooching-and-necking-position, and with my right hand covering her left breast, virtually unnoticed, I dropped my head over hers and the serious spit-swapping got underway. My erection was now a restrained but jumping, gargantuan hard-on, and I didnit care if she noticed it or not. iI like yiall a lot,i she whispered, when we broke long enough to breathe. iI have for a long time.i iReally? A real long time?i iYeah. Ever since I saw you in the minstrel show. Yiall were so funny!i She was a squirmer. Every time we kissed, which was 113 about every thirty seconds, with fifteen seconds rest and breathing in between, she would twist in my lap, her shoulder and upper back massaging my helpless erection while I groped from one breast to the other, and this went on for about twenty minutes. Finally, I slipped my hand inside her blouse and under her bra, kissing with our mouths wide open, squirming and pressing, my tongue exploring the walls of her cheeks . . . The instant I touched her button-like nipple I ejaculated in my dungarees with a silent, screaming moan, just as the bottom stairway door opened and Mr. Wilbur Odum slowly began a creaking climb up to the apartment. 114 CHAPTER NINE Wilbur Odum was a peculiar looking man. I noticed, when he came through the door to the living room, that he was not nearly so tall, nor so handsome, as heid appeared in the snapshots Anneleise had shown me. He didnit even appear to be the same man. And he was a little on the chubby side, but not so much as my own dad, whose protruding potbelly seemed to grow larger each year. He came into the living room wearing a short sleeve shirt, cotton twill pants, and his white air raid wardenis helmet. His Civil Defense armband had slipped down a bit with only the top half attached to his mini-sleeve. He was carrying a three-foot G.I. flashlight in one hand, and he had an auxiliary 9-volt lamp suspended from his belt, along with a sheathed hunting knife. Over his shoulder, hanging from a webbed strap, was a canteen, and around his neck was a pair of heavy U.S. Navy 7X50 binoculars. I couldnit see it at first, but attached to his belt, over his ample buttocks, was a tin Red Cross first-aid kit. He was wearing hi-top basketball shoes, and the thought occurred to me, in retrospect, that could I have photographed him with a Speed Graphic for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, returning to his tree house from a tour of duty in the jungle of home-front warfare, tired and sweaty, a bit tipsy from frequent draws on the canteen, but unscathed, rejoicing that not one bomb had dropped on our beloved country during his watch, I could have achieved for photo-journalism what Norman Rockwell was achieving for American historical pop art. Although a mere thirty-three seconds (the exact same length of time, ironically, it had taken for the Hindenberg to explode, crash, and burn at Lakehurst, N.J., just six years before) had elapsed from the time weid heard the lower door open and Mr. Odum had appeared in the living room, we had managed to separate, sit up, return the photo album to its proper place on the coffee table, fluff a couple of sofa pillows, and wipe our mouths with the back of our hands, hoping to remove any traces of 115 smudged lipstick and pressure burns. I had, in fact, come to my feet and was standing in front of the coffee table by the time Mr. Odum walked in. My boner was gone, lost in the mysterious after-shock of imminent discovery, and my only fear was that I would not be able to escape before the seminal stains of emission seeped through undershorts and thin denim fabric to be followed immediately by the stinging effluvium of ammonia. Fortunately, the dim crimson glow from a single table lamp o aided by Mr. Odumis long hours meandering around South Norfolk in the dark, would, in all likelihood, have prevented him from identifying me in a police lineup a day from now. iWhich one of these bastards shot off in his pants while neckini and feelini up your sixteen-year-old daughter?i demanded Inspector Winteringham, as they gazed through the one-way glass at six hapless, petrified Maury near-seniors standing before a height-chart backboard. Wilbur Odum could only shake his head. iDamn if I know!i he said. iDarkerin a catis ass when I got home. Maybe the tall one, on the end.i iNaw, not him,i pronounced Winteringham. iNameis Lamont Cranston; they call him eShadowi, ainit that a pisser? He never cums in his drawers. Youida walked in on him, theyid both been bare-assed, ani heida been bouncini on top. Youida shot him dead on the spot, ani youid be standini in the freakini lineup.i Anneleise said, iHi, Daddy. This is my friend Marty from school. Weire in the Glee Club together.i Mr. Odum grunted at me with pleasant indifference; to my relief, he turned and disappeared down the narrow hallway toward the kitchen. It was time to go. Anneleise walked ahead of me down the stairwell, and at the bottom, she turned quickly and let me kiss her goodnight. iYou smell funny,i she said, hugging me. iMilk ani ee-clairs,i I said. I looked over her head at the empty, quiet street. No sign of Shadow and the Jeep. iShadow doesnit come back for me, Iim gonna have to take a bus downtown ani catch a streetcar.i 116 iHe wonit come back,i she informed me, iif heis with Julie Hayden.i iWhadaiya mean?i iWell, sheis in the right mood, ani he treats her right, sheill let him stay all night with her.i iYeah. Right. . . Howis he gonnna do that?i iWell, itis just her ani her momma; her daddyis in the Army overseas. Ani her momma works Monday ani Thursday nights at Bell Aircraft, eleven to seven. He ainit back by now o which he ainit, he ainit comini back. I do believe you seen the last of him etil seven oiclock this morning.i iGreat,i I sighed. iJust, great. Damn all!i iI wish yiall could stay here,i she said, softly. iYeah, I wish I could, too,i I lied. My only desire was to get away from her as quickly and politely as possible, before the ammonia and stickiness got worse. iWell,i she said, ilast bus downtownis twelve-fifty ani last streetcar up Monticellois one-twenty.i iHow yiall know that?i iI dunno. Live in South Norfuck, yiall just have to know things like that. Same on weekends, too.i I tried to see my watch in the sliver of light from the lower hallway. iTwelve-thirty-five right now.i iYiall better go.i And she let me kiss her again. iWhereis the bus stop?i iTwo blocks on that way,i she pointed toward what I guessed to be north, iani one block up left. We gonna see each other again bifore summeris gone?i I broke away and turned back after three steps. iYou bet! Whatis your phone number?i iItis in the book! Odum, with a eui; Jefferson Street.i iRight!i And I was immediately absorbed by the darkness. * * * In a residential area like this one, boasting but a few scattered shops such as Odumis Pastry Emporium, Murrayis 117 Shoe Repair & Zippers, Lamarchis Drug Store & Fountain, Sloanis Groceries and Notions, there were rarely more than seven or eight houses or four two-story buildings per block. And between most were empty lots overrun with tall grass and weeds. Even so, it didnit take me as long as I had expected to reach the bus stop at the corner of Ohio and Jackson. A voice slid out of the darkness and I spun around, startled. iYiall missed the last one. Just left a minute ago.i Yawl missa lassun. Jes leff mint go. Straining, I made out a form leaning against the unlit lamppost. iYiall see it go?i I asked. iYup. Just now, almost.i The form moved closer and I could see it was a sailor, in uniform and drunk. He was not wearing his cap, nor was he carrying one. He was of medium height, stocky, blond, maybe nineteen; he looked like a typical Maury High senior. iYiall miss it, too?i I wanted to know. iFuggit,i was all he said. I shrugged and started to walk away; the sailor reached out and touched my arm. iYiall intress inna blow-job?i I pulled away and stepped back, almost stumbling off the curb. Not knowing what to say, I said: iNo! Thanks! Not tonight!i And I turned and started to run. iFugg-yew,i was the last I heard the sailor say, as I turned off Jackson and continued up Ohio Street. I stopped running and looked back and saw no one. Goddamn it, I thought to myself. It would take three, four hours to walk home. Goddamn you, Shadow! Got a perfectly good Marine Jeep, and heis parked somewhere at some dameis house, screwini her blind, and here I am, walkini at least five, ten, twenty, fifty miles to get home, ani right through the Zerbiadition o Jay-sus! I would have to walk right smack dab through the goddamn Zerbiadition at one oiclock in the goddamn morning, during a freaggin blackout, no gun, no knife, not even a roll of dimes like George Raft always carried in his fist . . . shit, Iim a dead man! . . . 118 All because I had to eat a bag of eclairs and get my nuts off with a sweet little oli thing . . . I had to admit I did like Anneleise and her momma, even if her oli man was a little goofy o and I was definitely going to see her again, and soon. But walk all the way home from South Norfolk! Jay-sus H. Chrisimus-sox! My pants, the area around my crotch, were now not sticky: they were stuck. My prick was glued to my nuts, and my nuts were tight and scrunched up, and the smell was bad, a mixture of ammonia and cotton shorts and denim and something else, like model airplane dope. And a freaggin swabbie wanted to give me a blow-job! I started laughing out loud. Or did he want me to blow him? I felt like crying. There was a seductive blue glow coming up on my left. I crossed the street and looked, to no avail, into a storefront window, painted black, opaque, with a chipped and peeling sign that said Pastime Pool Parlor. There was noise and music from within. I might find a taxicab driver. I opened the door and went inside. iShutta fuggin doe!i someone shouted. iBlackoui cops heh foe yuh note!i I quickly closed the door and looked around. Compared with outside, it was broad blue daylight in there, fogged over with smoke. A pool room: four tables and a bar. Loud music from a radio or phonograph. Smell of beer, smoke, and urine (I would never be noticed, I thought, except for one thing: I was lily-white in a huge room full of strong and menacing Zerbieis o all black as the ace of spades, as my daddy would say). I spun around, opened the door a crack, and squeezed back outside. A gush of laughter followed me, pushed me from behind and, into the street. Walking quickly, I made it another three blocks before I was aware someone had come into step by my side. iWhachawl dewin dow heh, boy?i the colored fellow said in my ear. 119 I stopped and looked around. There were three of them standing with me. I was scared shitless, and my hands started shaking. iNothin,i I said. iMissed my bus.i iShoe. Lookin foe black pussy, rye?i one of them asked. iYeah,i another agreed, ilookini foe coon poon.i That made them all laugh. iNo,i I said. iI had a date with my girl friend in South Norfuck . . . i iWe come up inna Norfuck iss time nye lookin foe white pussy, whatcha dew wif us?i One of the others answered for him. iDey gonna vite us in foe dinnuh en drinks, give us a beer an some sham-pain, take us ta movies, dey gonna give us a red carpet!i iYeah, thass rye!i they all agreed. iWe come uppair en weis like vissin roy-a-ty! Dey gonna kiss us black ass on Main Street ai high noon, dey so happy see us!i I had backed up against a telephone pole, and the three of them were around me, in front of me, and I didnit know what was going to happen. There were no lights coming from any of the houses along this street; no cars nor people. Just me and three colored Zerbie hoodlums; nigger killers. I had no place to run if I could have. My legs shook like rubber sticks. The one whoid spoken first, spoke again. iYawl Granby?i iNo. Maury.i My throat was ashes; I could barely speak. iYawl know wha Maury boysid dew wid us we fuggin innair hood one clock inna mawnin?i iNo.i iYass, yew dew; yew know wha yawl dew wid us.i I whispered, iI got no idea. Weid, uh, pay no attention to you. Weid let yiall alone.i iShoe. Thass rye. Muh ass, yawl pay no tention. Yawl cutter ears off, thass wha yawl dew!i The others intoned: iRye! Yass! Yawl doot, too! Yew kess us, yawl cut offer fuggin ears!i I thought I was going to faint. iYawl know wha we gonna do wid yew?i my chief tormentor asked, his voice a sinister growl.. I shook my head, unable to speak. 120 iGonna dew sumpin wid yew yall neveh dew wid us. We gonna dew sumpin real bad. Sumpin so bad we gonna be real ashame. Bad. Real bad.i iBad,i said another one. iYeah. Bad.i iReal bad. Worse thin we eveh dew wid wanderin white traysh.i My knees were starting to buckle. iYawl know wha we gonna dew ta yawl?i I shook my head; I was going to drop. iNuthin,i he said. iThass wha we gonna dew witchyew. Nuthin. We gonna dew absofugginlutely nuthin. . . Yawl know why?i I got out a barely audible, iNo.i iCuz we ain gaw no knifes, an we ain gaw no ray-zors! We all honuh stewentsat Booker T, an when we graduated nex yeh, we gonna git jobs inna city an move inna yore ehood an really fugg yawl up foe shoe!i And they all laughed hysterically. The first one grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the telephone pole, pushing me into the street and kicking me in the behind. iSo, git yo dumb why ice outta heh an doan yawl neveh come back heh no moe, yew heh, yew assho niggeh why- traysh shii huckwhirr!i So get your dumb white ass out of here and donit you never come back here no more, you hear, you asshole nigger white trash shit hookworm! I started to run up the middle of the street, stumbling, regaining my balance, egged on, propelled by a torrent of laughter. I must have run for six or eight blocks before I realized that once again I was alone in the world, alone in the dark, in the Zerbiadition, all alone, and I was never going to see Gill Alley, or my mother and father, or my brother, or Grandma and Grandpa and Freddie, or my Jeep ever again. I sat down on the curb, my face even closer to the awful smell in my crotch, and I started to cry. Like something Douglas would do. I felt as worthless and put upon as any human being had ever felt. Goddamn you, Shadow, Iim gonna kill you, you sonofabitching bastard! When I get my hands on that Jeep, 121 youire never gonna see it again, you mean, ungrateful cocksucker! I could have been shot in the Chinese laundry on account of you! I coulda gone to jail! Buncha Zerbies want to cut my ears off! But that wasnit why I was crying, not because Shadow had gotten lucky and was spending the night doing God-knows- what with Julie Hayden and had left me stranded and vulnerable in a God-forsaken place like the Zerbiadition. I was crying because I suddenly realized I was . . . nobody . . .a complete and total nobody. I was not Superman or the Lone Ranger or The Green Hornet; I could not defend myself and fight crime and social injustice like Batman and Robin, no POW! ZAM! CRUNCH! THONK! CLUNK! (if I could do that, thereid be three Zerbies lying with their heads smashed flat in the gutter!) o no telephone at home so I could call Dad or Grandpa to come and get me or send a taxi for me; no car of my own so I could tell Shadow to take the Jeep and shove it; no Speed Graphic so I could record all my dynamic deeds of insufficiency and worthlessness; no drum set so I could be as popular as Joe Wexler and have any girl I wanted; no typewriter waiting for me in my writeris garret; no short story about to be published in Redbook; no half-completed novel waiting for Anna Theresa to critique and edit and swoon over . . . Anna Theresa. Lord, I was crying because I could not have been with her tonight, could not call her now to come and fetch me out of here, take me home to her place, help me out of these terrible clothes, wash me gently and take away the grime and cum and sweat and fear, comfort me, hold me, caress me, lull me into a deep, mindless sleep . . . I was crying because I . . . was nothing, had nothing, would forever be nothing. I was alone, in the dark, forgotten. . . lost . . . No telephone at home to call my dad? So what? How would he come and get me? On Douglasis Victory bike? Steal a car? I looked up and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, the same way Iid wiped my mouth when Anneleiseis old man had walked in on us an hour ago. Parked against the opposite curb across the street was a car, an old Pontiac, maybe a e39, and Iid seen enough movies to know they definitely must have left 122 the keys in the ignition. I got up, my legs rubbery, suddenly aware how tired I was, sore and sick to my stomach, and ambled over to the car. In both directions, no lights, not a soul, no cars coming or going. I tried the door and it was unlocked; once opened, the dim dome light flickered on . . . and the keys were there, dangling from the ignition. Hello again, my life of crime! Fifteen seconds later, the old Pontiac and I were wheeling north past Clinton Street, on our way across the Elizabeth River into downtown Norfolk. But before I got to Colley Avenue pangs of conscience and a tingling fear of The Law conspired to manufacture severe stomach cramps; I badly needed to have a bowel movement. I knew my fingerprints were all over the steering wheel, and maybe somebody had spotted me and had already called the police; I watched the rearview mirror, and I watched the speedometer, staying well within the limit. I moved cautiously through downtown, and instead of heading directly for Colley Avenue to take a direct route to Doumar Street and Gill Alley, I swung over to Monticello Avenue and followed the streetcar tracks as far north as Princess Anne Road. Once there, I pulled off to the side and tried to rationally think through my master criminal plan. I guessed I had traveled about ten miles, but it might have been five and it might have been twenty. Anyway, I had used up a lot of some poor fellowis gasoline (he had a iBi sticker in the window; I wondered, fleetingly, if I should peel it off and keep it.) I opened the glove compartment, found a filthy, oily rag, and wiped the steering wheel until it shone, removing any trace of my fingerprints. Then, using the heel of my palms, I slowly turned the car to the left and drove it very carefully onto the streetcar tracks, stopping dead center over the gravel roadway between the tracks, leaving the front of the car on the southbound rail and the rear on the northbound. The first streetcar in the morning coming from either direction would have to stop and discover the abandoned car, and I knew a simple check of the license plate would result in the vehicle 123 being returned to its rightful owner. I turned off the motor, removed the keys from the ignition, wiped them clean, and tossed them into the back seat where an efficient policeman would find them. I reached inside my dungaree pocket and took out my change purse. I had two dollars; that would more than cover the gas and use of the car. I folded the money once and placed it on the dashboard, just beyond the steering wheel, in plain sight. I used the filthy cloth to open the door, and when I got out, I wiped the door handle clean of any prints or smudges. I then tossed the rag inside through the window and, conscience clear, walked the three remaining blocks home. Sleep, however, did not come easily. Every car I heard on Doumar Street over the next ten hours was about to stop and disembark a platoon of FBI agents; they would surround the house with weapons drawn, at the ready. 124 CHAPTER TEN I was still sleeping when Shadow showed up at 11 oiclock the next morning. My mother tipped-toed into my room, careful not to awaken me, so she could lean over and shake me gently and wake me up. iHoney, Shadowis here. Heis in the kit, i He had followed Momma into the room. iHey! Iim here!i i, chen,i Momma finished. iReally, Shadow, youire enough to give people a heart attack!i iSorry, maiam, thought yiall heard me behind you.i Momma sat down on the edge of my twin-sized bed, and I scrunched over, pulling the covers over my head. Like an ostrich. iMarty,i she started, iwhat time yiall get in last night, honey?i iI dunno,i I grunted, from the bottom of Cotton Quilt Canyon. iThought I heard you about four oiclock.i iWasnit that late.i iI canit hear you from under there.i I slid the covers back and squinted up at them both. iI said it wasnit very late.i iFour oiclock,i Shadow confirmed, smiling wickedly, iseems pretty dang late to me!i He crossed over and sat down on the other side of the bed. iI must of got home about midnight, ani I was up bright-eyed ani bushy-tailed eight a.m!i iGood for you,i I muttered, and to myself: You lyini sonofabitch, yiall might of got up at eight, but by the time you drove home . . . drove home? Yeah, right. You ainit even been home; yiall drove right over here! iYou boys all together last night?i Momma asked. I said, iNo,i and Shadow said, iYes,i simultaneously. iWell,i Shadow explained, imost of the time, but we met some very nice ladies, ani, you know, we kinda wanted to be 125 alone together with eem. Matter fact, we got dates this afternoon to go to the beach . . .i I slid back the covers and looked curiously at Shadow. What dates? My mother said, iI see,i like she really did, but there was no way she could. Dorothy Eden was one of those mothers who believed everything everyone said, especially if they said it with even the slightest conviction. For years I was not sure she had ever finished high school, and I knew she had never attended college even so much as to visit. She had met my father when they had been living in Marietta, Georgia; Grandpa Toma was working in a bakery, Aunt Lorna helped out with a little money she earned as a box office cashier at the Marietta Square Cinema, Freddie was still in grammar school, and Momma was a sophomore at Marietta High. Dad was a senior the year they met, his parents had owned a small family-style restaurant in their home on Atlanta Street, and on Columbus Day night he introduced my mother to the mysteries and miseries of sex in the back seat of his friend Porter Cooperis magnificent Dusenberg. The result of their initial, fumbling effort was, me. Pregnant and promptly showing it, Momma did not, in fact, finish her sophomore year, and she and Dad ran off (again in the Dusenberg) to Birmingham, Alabama, got married by a justice of the peace, and moved into Mommais room in Grandma and Grandpais three bedroom house on Cherokee Street. Dad graduated that June, and started full time with a fairly decent job in the shoe department at J.C. Penneyis. I was born in July, a few weeks after Mommais sixteenth birthday, at the height of the Depression. If I could have truly understood the term ilong sufferingi, I would have had some understanding of my motheris personality and attitude. Momma was not a beautiful woman in the accepted sense of the word; not within a cannon shot of the beauty of an Anna Theresa Tortoretti, or even Shadowis momma; certainly not a match for Irene Odum. Momma was more . . . well, more of a skinny Jane Darwell type. But her beauty was in her devotion to her family, in her blind acceptance of her fatheris and her 126 husbandis drinking, the latteris eventual philandering; in her concern for my brother and me; our growth and discipline, and in her hopes for our eventual success, whatever that would be. She saw in us all the things she and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa (and probably Freddie, too) would never become. She was a dreamer, like me, I suppose, and I know she dreamed the same dreams as I, only more superficially, with less drama, more pathos. Momma actually saw me winning the Dr. I.Q biography contest and going on to fame and fortune as a world class . . . something. She saw Douglas becoming a renowned lawyer or doctor, and she truly believed that if you wished hard enough for something, it would come true, just like in the movies and in the pulp magazine stories and on the Lux Radio Theater. She even dreamed dreams for Shadow; for her, he was destined to become a great actor on Broadway or in the movies. Right! Pollyanna was a name I didnit know in 1943, so there was no way I could have known I was living with her. iSo,i she asked, iyiall gonna spend another wonderful day at the beach . . . . Which one? Ani who with?i Shadow said, iVirginia Beach. Just a couple girls from school we met in South Norfuck.i My mother looked surprised, her short and curly dark hair snapping when she turned her head to look at Shadow. iYiall went to South Norfuck? At night?i She shot a looked back down at me. iYour father wouldnit like to hear about that!i I wondered why? iWhatis Dad care we go to South Norfuckir not?i Momma wasnit sure herself. iWell . . . I doan know. The blackout ani all, crossini the bridge . . . the Zerbiadition . . . yiall know how he feels . . .i I didnit want to talk about South Norfolk or the Zerbiadition. My soiled underwear was on the floor, just under my side of the bed. The thought occurred that if Shadow saw it and picked it up and saw the cum stains . . . oh, God, get eem outta here! Suddenly I was able to smell the ammonia. iYeah, well, come on, I gotta get up!i I announced, feigning pushing the covers back. 127 Momma stood up and, to my relief, so did Shadow. Momma asked if I wanted anything to eat; I did, but I said, iNo, not right now.i iYiall have to eat.i iIn a while . . . i iNot good to stay out late, then sleep the morning away, ani get up on a empty stomach. . .Tell me what you want after yiall get cleaned up . . .i She started for the door. iHoney, I can fix a basket for the beach if yiall want.i I said that would be great, and as soon as she was gone I came up on my knees in the bed and grabbed Shadow around the shoulders, pulling him down under me. iHey! . . . i iHey, my ass!i I said. iI like to beat the crap outta you!i iHere, beat this!i He snatched my hand and thrust it between his legs. iYou assho!i I jerked my hand away and made a fist. Shadow did his John Wayne imitation: iCock that thing, you better be prepared to use it.i I fell back on the bed. iWhatis the use,i I said, and it wasnit a question. iI hit you ani yiall kick the shit outta me. Whyid you leave me hung up at Anneleiseis last night?i iLeave you? I didnit leave you no place.i iNever came back for me.i iSo? Told you I wasnit comini back.i iYou never told me you werenit comini back!i iWell . . . told Rob Kepple to tell you.i iHowis he gonna tell me? Send me a telegram? He went with you!i iWell, he was supposed to come back ani tell yiall.i iBullshit.i iNo, for real, I told him if I was stayini with Julie Hayden, heis suppose to come back ani tell yiall to come ani get the Jeep oi iYou are a goddamn asshoi liar ani you know it!i Shadow collapsed on the bed, and I lay down beside him. iFugg you,i he whispered. 128 iFugg you, too.i iHow yiall get home?i iYou wouldnit believe . . .i I started to tell him about walking into the Zerbiadition and stealing some poor fellowis old car, but somehow, for some reason, I held back. Why tell Shadow about an adventure like that when I knew heid poo-poo it, even if he half believed it? Also, Iid have to explain how I felt about it, and I wasnit completely sure how that was. iAnneleiseis oli man drove me home,i I said, the idea coming out of nowhere. iNo shit! He must appreciate yiall pumpini his daughter.i iYeah, like I really did.i iYiall didnit bang her?i iNo.i iHow come?i iHow come? How come? How the hell do I know how come? What am I suppose to do, sneak into her room with her momma ani daddy snorini next door ani jump on her right there ani wait for her oli man to come in ani toss me out the window?i Shadow laughed. iWell, thatis what I did.i iYou did, what?i iJumped on Julie Hayden right in her own bed, in her own room, bare-ass ani bouncini all over the place. We even took a bath together.i iMusta been a thrill for her,i I said, sarcastically. iToo bad her oli lady didnit get off the swing shift early ani walk in on yiall when you were bitini the bubbles.i Shadow rolled over and sat up on his elbow, looking at me. iHow you know that? . . . Thatis ex-ackly what happen!i iYeah.i iNo. Serious. Yiall shoulda been there. We was in the tub, water was hotterin tar; we had bubble bath all over, ani I was sittini facini her, washini her face ani shoulders ani tits ani snatch, when all of a sudden we hear the front door come open, ani her momma shouts, eHey, Julie, yiall home? Yiall in bed?i I like to shit right there in the bathtub!i 129 iJaysus.i I could tell he wasnit making this up. iWhatid you do?i iWell . . . she hollers out, eIn the tub, Momma, takini a hot bath; couldnit sleep!i Ani Momma says, her voice gettini right close, eYiall ainit sick, is you, baby?i Ani like two seconds before the door comes flyini open, we never thought to lock it, I jump outta the tub with a hard-on the size of a baseball bat ani run into the stairway thatis like a linen closet that goes up into the attic, just closini the door behind me as oli Missus Hayden comes into the bathroom. She says, eYou okay, honey? Ainit got no fever or nuthin, has yiall?i, ani Iim behind the door, three feet away, sittini on the attic steps where they keep toilet paper ani a plunger ani cleanini stuff, naked as a Church Street whore on Saturday night, freezini my ass off, drippini wet, ani I hear the oli lady lift the lid ani sit down to take a leak. Psssshit! I mean, she takes a leak makes Nigh-gra Falls souni like a puppy pissini in a sandbox! Then I get three horrible thoughts hit me rightichare all at once on the attic stairs: What if there ainit no toilet paper, ani she gets up ani opens the attic door? Or what if thereis too much toilet paper ani she starts wipini her pussy ani the toilet gets clogged up ani she needs the freaggin plunger? Or worse yet, she goes to get somethini in Julieis bedroom, ani thereis all my clothes scattered all over the place with hers? I mean, man, Iim shiverini ani shakini ani sweatini all over!i He flopped back on the bed and took a deep breath. iJust thinkini about it makes my bowels roar!i iSo . . . whatid you do?i He reached in his shirt pocket and took out his pack of Luckies and stared at the white package and red circle behind the cellophane. iJust sat there on the steps, like a asshoi, like for a hour, it seem like. Got to thinkini, if she ever did come over there ani opened the door, I gonna jump out after her like some perverted rapist or somethini thatis been hidini in the attic. Sheid probily topple over with a heart attack or somethini, ani if she died, weid take off her clothes ani put her in the tub, stickini 130 her head under the water, ani theyid all think she fell asleep and drowned.i I shook my head. iThatis one great idea,i I said. Shadow seemed to stifle a shrug. iWell . . . didnit happen that way, anyhow. She finally got up ani flushed the toilet ani told Julie not to stay in there too long ani get a chill, ani I guess she went in her own room ani went to bed. I waited etil Julie come outta the tub ani fetched me, ani we tippy-toed into her room where I got my clothes on ani snuck outta the house. Psssshit, I was still wet ani soapy when I was haulini ass in the Jeep outta South Norfuck, bubbles flyini all over the place. Really hadda go for it! Look. Want to smell me?i Pssssshii, Ahis sta wet en zoapy wheh Ahis hawn ice inna Jeep outta Sou Nofuck, bubbas fline awl oveh a plice. Real hadda guh fart! Luh. Wansmellme? iRight!i I pushed him half off the bed. iJust get away from me, you dimwit white trash!i * * * Virginia Beach, in 1943, was the most beautiful beach in the world. Of course, I had never seen Ipanema or Coronado, Kaanapali or Acapaulco, I hadnit even seen Myrtle Beach or St. Simonis Island, Jekyll Island, Tybee or Hilton Head, but from what I had seen in Fitzgeraldis Travelogues between double-features and The March of Time newsreels at the Colley Theater, they couldnit be much in comparison to Virginia Beach. I often tried to imagine it seventy years ago, a desolate strip of sand; its only notoriety being that of a graveyard for ships along the Atlantic seacoast. Iid read that sometime after the Civil War Congress had set aside funds for the development of three or four lifesaving stations nearby, and one of them, Seatack Lifesaving Station, evolved into the township of Virginia Beach. It actually became a city when Virginia Beach elected to merge with Princess Anne County, and what resulted was a thriving community with a 29-mile-long 131 coastline and a superb beach and a boardwalk that stretched for nearly three miles. On Atlantic Avenue (a mile or so south it became, for reasons I never discovered, Pacific Avenue) sat what to my mind was the epitome of elegant sophistication: the Cavalier Hotel and Golf Links. If there were ever an excuse for achieving success and wealth, it would be to vacation frequently at the Cavalier. For now, however, with the war accounting for very meager occupancy, most of us from Maury, Granby, Norview, and VB High casually used its beach as though we were paying guests on holiday. The sand for a mile in both directions was immaculate, white and powdery and soft underfoot, and it extended, at low tide, out over a hundred yards. At high tide it was still a good twenty to thirty yards to the wateris lapping surf. Consequently, at all times, you could wade out up to your shoulders and still be walking on pristine sand with nary a trace of kelp or seaweed or pebbly shells. There was nothing like it from Penobscot to Key West. The summer of my seventeenth birthday, all along the mid- Atlantic, was, weather-wise, one of the best in twenty years: very warm, little humidity, soft breezes off the ocean, crystal clear skies and pure white, billowy clouds against a cobalt sky. They were Ivory Soap clouds: 99 and 44/100 percent pure o and they float! (Shadow made that up, imitating Westbrooke VanVoorhis on the radio.) A Friday in late July I went to the library to work on the short story I had promised Anna Theresa Tortoretti I would write, and then neglected to start, offering to myself one excuse after another: Had to take the Jeep out to the Naval Base. Had to take Anneleise Odum to Ocean View. Had to write another (losing) biography for Dr. I.Q. Had to take Douglas downtown and meet Momma so she could buy him some new sneakers. Had to help Granipa clean out the basement, the attic, our room, the hall closet. Had to read some more William James. Had to pick up Shadow and some girls weid met and go to Virginia Beach . . . Every time Anna Theresa inquired, I had another lame excuse for not writing that short story. 132 On that particular Friday she asked, in the quiet, off-handed way Southern women have of catching you off guard, iMartin, do you know, have you ever thought about the difference between a person who wants to write, and a writer?i I admitted that I did not. iA writer writes,i she informed me, smiling at the dead-aim, bullseye simplicity of her own answer. Right. She was exactly right. Last night I had begun to seriously think about a short story, and this morning I woke early, before eleven, and drove the Jeep to the library. She saw me come in, and she smiled, as she always did, as though she were truly glad to see me. She looked especially lovely that day, especially summer-like; she had abandoned her normal librarianis costume, and her dress was light and airy, printed with gay, colorful flowers. When I stood across the Return/Lending counter, I was intoxicated by the scent of her, a lavender cachet scent that was as pure as, as the Ivory Soap clouds outside. iHey,i I said aloud, and in my brain I said, iI love you, my fantastic and beautiful goddess!i iWhere have you been?i she asked, and I was astounded that sheid actually missed me. Or at least seemed to. iDid you go on vacation someplace with your folks?i I laughed at that. iYeah, vacation! Ha! We all took club compartments on the Norfolk ani Southern Tidewater Express ani visited my other granipa in Georgia. Right!i I didnit tell her that, as a family, we had never gone on vacation anyplace. iDid you, really?i I shook my head. iNo, ecourse not. Just been real busy with Shadow ani people from school; I been doini a lot of readini ani jottini things down.i She asked if Iid finished This Side of Paradise. I told her I had, and I presented it for return. She asked, casually, processing the cards, iWhat did you think of it?i iI dunno. People seemed, I dunno . . . tinny. Like they came out of a Cracker Jack box.i 133 She nodded. iInteresting observation. What did you think of Amory Blaine?i iDunno. Not much. Not anybody I ever met. Kind of o you know, empty thinker; dead liver. Not a kind of fella Iid, uh, hang around with.i iHmm. Interesting.i She stamped my card and passed it back, placing the book in a pile on the counter. iWhat about Fitzgerald? Like his writing?i iYeah, sure. Heis good. I like a way he lets his characters just keep yakkini about each other and, uh, doesnit drag on for a hundred pages describing each other ani the action ani all that stuff. I never read a writer who seemed to go out of his way to do that, did that, uh, like that, exactly.i I really had no idea what I was talking about. iA lot of them try,i she said; imost fail. Fitzgerald has the style down pat. They call it enarrative analysis through target dialoguei.i iHe write anything else?i iYes. But donit read him anymore for a while. Before summer is over, you might want to read The Great Gatsby. Youill love it; I think itis one of the best three novels written so far this century.i I asked, iWhatire the other two?i iI donit know.i She looked at me in serious thought. iMaybe The Sun Also Rises . . .i iAnd?i iIim not sure. Ulysses, James Joyce, for certain. Three of Faulkneris come to mind oi iIive read him!i I blurted. iWilliam Faulkner, man, heis tough! I canit get through him half the time.i She nodded, and I felt relieved she agreed with me, if, in fact, she did. She said, iYouive got plenty of time for Faulkner when you get to college.i iYeah,i I mumbled. iCollege.i iIn the meantime, be careful with Fitzgerald and Hemingway.i 134 I wanted to know why. iThey have a way of, well, spoiling young writers,i she cautioned. iThey are very imitative, young writers love to imitate them and begin to adopt that style because it seems so easy. They think. . . Have you ever read Calder Willingham?i iThat a book?i iNo. Heis a writer. I read him occasionally; heis good and fun to read.i iNever read anything by him.i Iid never even heard of him. iHeis a good study in style,i Anna Theresa said, but I wasnit at all sure I knew what she meant. iHow far did you get with William James and Principles of Psychology?i iWell,i I said, iitis . . . slow. But,i I quickly added, iI like a way he makes me feel about myself. I like when he talks about, about beini happy, about havini a choice to be happy or, uh, to choose beini sad, unhappy. He says happiness is a choice.i Anna Theresa nodded. iKeep reading him; I think youire on to something. . . So, my friend, whereis my short story?i I blinked, further astounded. iYiall remember, about the, uh, short story?i iOf course. I asked you to write something for me, and you said you would. Did you?i She tilted her head and gazed at me with sparkling eyes. I was standing in the presence of the most complex and astonishing woman who had ever lived, and I didnit know what to say. If I said that I had not written it, she would know me for precisely what I was: a typical, lazy, Southern lout. If I lied and said I had, she would see through it in a flash. I decided, in milliseconds, to lie. iYessum, sure enuff did.i She made that sound with her tongue behind her teeth. iNooo, you didnit, Martin. And I might have believed you if you didnit come on like Stepinfetchit.i I lowered my head. iIim sorry.i iDonit be. You did the right thing.i iLyini?i I asked, surprised. 135 iNo; it has nothing to do with lying. You did the right thing by not running home to sit down and write a story simply because I wanted you to. You canit write anything of value because youire told to, anymore than your heart will keep beating because someone tells it to.i I thought, My heart will beat always by your command! iWell,i I said, iI didnit go with a short story right away, but I did think it through, ani thatis why I came in today. Iim gonna sit right over there ani turn out about twelve hundred words before closini, just like the, uh, other Martin Eden in that book named after him. Youill see.i I picked up my composition notebook and No. 2 Eberhards and moved away to a carrel at the far end of the first row of shelves; not so far, however, that I could not watch Anna Theresa as she toiled behind the counter. I wished my teachers at Maury talked to me the way she did. A couple open and frank conversations with this lovely librarian had taught me more about modern literature than a dozen courses in English and Literature. How was it she always seemed to say precisely what I needed to hear? The name of my story was Poor, Poor Richard, and the title, the opening sentence, and the closing scene were as much as Iid come up with overnight. It started with At least forty boys were named Richard at James Longstreet High that year, but only one knew the difference between a forward pass and a iStatue of Libertyi play, and he wasnit even on the team! The story would end with They found Richard in the locker room, and, of course, by now he was gone. Frenchy pointed him out to Herb, and they both stood there, saying nothing, just looking. Then Herb said, iMan, he was really hung, wasnit he?i And Frenchy agreed. iYeah.i Poor, poor Richard. Loosely, it was going to be a story about a kid in high school who never makes the football team, but who loves the game so passionately he volunteers for every menial job that comes along allowing him to be with the team in some capacity or other. Of course, thereis a girl in the story, Rachel, and she loves Richard, although she detests football and thinks it is a barbaric, 136 cruel contest with no redeeming social qualities. But, the eternal but, she also knows she cannot win Richard unless she gets with the program, so she decides, in their sophomore year, that she will learn all she can about the game and really impress him with her own brand of devotion and fanaticism. The problem occurs, however, when she overdoes it and wangles a job on the school newspaper as a isports writeri. By their junior year Rachel is the star reporter for the rag, and her clever and insightful stories are being picked up by the local daily newspaper. Richard has graduated from locker room attendant to field water-and-towels assistant. By their senior year, Rachel is covering football, baseball, basketball and tennis; her reports are highlighted in the daily press (she even gets paid a nominal fee for her weekend column). Richard screws up with his towel- and-water duties and gets demoted back to the locker room, and he even loses his field pass privileges. At senior graduation, Rachel learns sheis going to the University of Virginia on a journalism scholarship, and Richard (who comes from a poor white-trash family) is offered a fulltime job as the high schoolis assistant janitor. After they say goodbye at the train station, Richard kills himself: he hangs himself with the star halfbackis jockstrap. Thatis where it ends. The story was finished, first draft anyway, by four oiclock; it ran more than twenty-five hundred words and covered over half the composition book. Anna Theresa had come up behind me at the carrel, and I looked back at her, tense, sore and a bit weary. iAll done,i I said.iGood. You must be exhausted; youive been sitting back here for nearly four hours.i iNuh. Itis, uh, just a first draft; gotta lotta bad dialogue ani misspelled words.i iDoesnit matter,i she said, with the slightest giggle. iMost writers canit spell, Hemingway might be the worst, and only a handful know the first thing about dialogue. If you ever get involved with real editors, the first thing they tell you is how bad your dialogue is. Iill bet some sycophant at the Globe 137 Theater told Shakespeare his soliloquies needed work; sounded false and hollow. . . . Want me to read it?i I looked around. iHere?i iNo. Itis four, and Iim through for the day.i iWhere can we go?i iWhere would you like to go?i iUh, I dunno. . . beach?i iVirginia Beach?i iYeah.i iYou have your Jeep?i iYeah.i iYou have enough gas?i iYeah. Morein enough.i iMay we stop and pick up my bathing suit and a beach blanket and towels?i iYeah, sure. I got my trunks on under my dungarees. I was thinking about goini there, anyway.i She laughed, silently, as only librarians can. iI see what you mean about bad dialogue. I want you to start reading John Steinbeck and John OiHara. Study the way they write dialogue; youill learn to hear with your eyes and write with your ears. Shall we go?i iGive me something by OiHara,i I requested, getting up slowly. iLet me think. . . Appointment in Samarra; Iive got a pocketbook copy at home you can keep.i We walked out of the library together. When I held the huge doors open, she passed by so near I had only to move my head three inches forward and my lips would have brushed her cheek. 138 CHAPTER ELEVEN The apartment where Anna Theresa Tortoretti lived was on 43rd Street, near Hampton Boulevard, walking distance from both the library and Old Dominion University; only a couple miles or so from Doumar Street and Gill Alley. It was a large, bright, sparkling and airy apartment (there was no way I could think of it as a flat), the entire second floor of an old brick and pillared antebellum house, in a neighborhood that was neat, scrubbed and shrubbed, almost iNew England academici o the sort of neighborhood one might expect to find in proximity to an Ivy League university (which Old Dominion certainly was not.) The apartment had four square, spacious, and high-ceiling rooms and a huge, modern bath with its own separate shower; there was a patio porch in the front, overlooking the main entrance to the campus. The combination living room/library/dining room was just off the patio porch, and its focal point was a gleaming ebony grand piano sitting nearly dead center and surrounded by casual, overstuffed furniture possibly dating from the turn of the century. The tall walls were covered with good copies of what I assumed were great paintings, in ornate frames, and encompassed by many shelves, and the shelves were crammed with books. Books of all kinds and shapes and sizes. At first glance, I thought there must be more books in this room than there were in the entire Larchmont Library. There was even a fat Replogle globe on a mahogany stand. I sat in a deep, enveloping sofa while Anna Theresa gathered things from her bedroom for the trip to the beach. iYiall play the piano?i I asked, when she returned carrying a blanket and two or three towels. iNo. I wish I did, well, I do a little bit, but Iim not very good. Do you play?i iMe? No!i I said. iI was just wonderini. Itis a, fantastic piano. Never saw one like it except in the movies.i iItis a Steinway concert grand,i Anna Theresa told me. And then she added, iIt belongs to my husband.i 139 My throat constricted and I had trouble clearing it. iAwgrhghwwra. Your husband?i iYes. He was the pianist with the Norfolk Symphony. Perhaps you heard him play. His name was Claudio Tortoretti.i Her voice was flat and subdued, an indifferent monotone. I moved my head from side to side. iNo, never did. We o I never went to the Symphony.i Speaking of him as she did, in the past tense and without a hint of emotion, lifted my spirits. If they were divorced, he must have been a sonofabitch and a fool, and she was well rid of him. If he were dead . . . well, he was still a sonofabitch, and she was well rid of him! She glanced at the piano. iReally. Thatis a pity. Shall we go?iFor an instant I thought she meant Shall we go to the Symphony? and it would have been a marvelous idea, but she actually meant the beach. I offered to help her carry the blankets and towels, I wondered where her bathing suit was, and then I realized she must have put it on under the blouse and shorts sheid changed into. I allowed her to go down the stairs first, and I marveled at how svelte and sculptured her hips and legs were. Sheid put on delicate sandals; I saw her toenails were painted a quiet red. In the Jeep, she removed some pins and let her hair fall loose about her shoulders. From her pocket, she extracted a linen scarf and wound it around her head. iWant me to pull the top up?i I offered. iAnd shut out this glorious day? Iid shoot you!i she laughed. It didnit matter; sheid already shot me through the heart with her silken arrow of everlasting love, and to all women everywhere, past, present and future, I was a dead man walking on naked feet over scorching coals of agonizing ecstasy! We were at the beach just after five-fifteen; the sun was still a glowing brilliance, high behind us and reluctant to make its move toward setting. This time of year, at oceanis edge and facing east with low, flat swamplands behind us, we still had over two hours of sunshine. I parked directly in front of the Cavalier, on the public side 140 of the street, and visually picked out a spot on the sand about two hundred yards away. It wasnit secluded, but what people there were on the beach were clustered more in the opposite direction, closer to the hotel. I glanced back at the Cavalieris main building, and I thought how marvelous it would be to take Anna Theresa there for dinner some night. Tonight! Yes! Tonight! After a couple hours on the beach and in the water. After reading my story to her three or four times; talking about it, editing it together; finishing it. Hungry and thirsty. Drinks, sloe-gin fizzes, on the terrace overlooking the darkening Atlantic. Talk of writers and books. Then dinner al fresco; lobster and candlelight. A mellow white wine. Music; strolling violins and guitars. A dance or two, holding her close, laughing softly and nibbling her earlobe; then a fluffy dessert. Espresso coffee. More talk, this time of the books I would write, the ones she would critique and edit. Then . . . then a promenade from the terrace, our arms about each otheris waists o through the dining room, across the lobby, into the elevator, up to our suite . . . Hugh Williams and Deborah Kerr . . . I glanced at her walking a step in front of me, and I was aware of the first tremor of an erection. I thought of the three dollars or so I had in my change purse, and the mood, the fantasy, slithered back into the dark, musty, stale closet of reality from which I had let it escape. iHere?i she suggested, pointing to a spot in the sand. iNo. There.i I indicated what I considered to be what I had seen from the street, and we moved a few feet more, closer to the gently lapping water. iYouire right,i she said. iThat is much better.i With her oversize sunglasses hiding the sparkle of her eyes, I couldnit tell if she was being patronizing or not. Since I was holding my pencils and composition book, as well as the towels, Anna Theresa flipped the blanket alone, billowing it on the slight breeze, and it spread easily on the creamy, fluffy white sand. I placed the writing material and my sneakers at the edges, and it was secure. I knelt down and pulled off my shirt, watching Anna Theresa slip off her shorts and 141 remove her blouse, revealing a jet-black one-piece swim suit that must have been custom-made just for her. Jay-sus, I thought, I most surely must of been killed in the Zerbiadition the other night ani gone to heaven, and this is my reward! Anna Theresa Tortoretti had, I was now certain, posed for every statue of every gorgeous woman every sculptor had ever sculpted since the beginning of art. As tall as she was, five- nine now in bare feet, she was perfectly proportioned from graceful, swan-like neck to slightly sloping shoulders, round and full and up-pointed breasts, her waist a mere vapor, hips precisely symmetrical with the width of her shoulders, and legs, those magnificent legs that began at porcelain ankles and erupted like two masts penetrating the horizon of all my desires, framing from my kneeling vantage point the ocean, the sky, the sand, and, eternity! She broke my reverie. iDonit be disappointed,i she said. iWhat? You kidding?i I was breathing heavily, as though I had just run a 100 yard dash. Disappointed? Were the Wright brothers disappointed at Kill Devil Hills? Was Madame Curie disappointed when she saw the key through the top of the box? Was Alex Bell disappointed when he heard Mr. Watsonis voice? iI mean,i she said, iwe have plenty of time for your story. Letis swim first.i She dropped her blouse, shorts, and sandals on the other edge of the blanket and ran, in that tingling, gyrating, dainty way women run, toward the ocean. I got up and out of my dungarees, my flapping, ill-fitting trunks billowing about my skinny legs in the soft breeze, and followed her across the white sand. She was in the water long before me, and she started running with long strides, splashing, going faster to where the water was deeper, and she plunged in, head-first, and disappeared under the surf. I came up short, stopping with the salt water lapping just below my knees. My God, she could actually swim! And there she was, breaking water and flying away from me o first in free-style, then in breaststroke, then on her back o 142 backstroke, finally in a circle and treading water, waving to me from sixty feet away, shouting iCome on! Itis great!i I stood there, mental and physical inertia sparked by desire but fueled by common sense. Ruby lips above the water, blowing bubbles soft and fine; Alas, for me, I was no swimmer o so I lost my Clementine! . . . So I lost my Anna Theresa! Several more cautious steps and I was in up to my nipples; that was as far as I dared go. I watched her, marveled at her, as I might watch and marvel at dolphins at a sea-show in a Pete Smith Specialty. I watched her dive under the surface, disappearing for frightening moments, and I folded my arms and waited for her to come up again, wondering what I would do if she did not reappear, knowing I could do nothing except scream my lungs out. But she always came up, and each time she did, breaking water in a spirited pirouette, sheid look back at me and wave. I did not wave back. Finally, she turned and swam toward me, and when it became too shallow to swim, she touched her feet to the rippled sand beneath and walked close to me, reaching for me and I for her, until her hands gripped my forearms and mine gripped hers. iI, uh, canit swim,i I said, but I was not embarrassed. iIim not much of a swimmer myself.i She was not even breathing hard. iYiallier Gertrude Ederle!i She laughed at that. iI feel like Wilma Whale! . . . You want to get out?i iYeah.i I was cooled off in more ways than one. iAll right. Letis take a look at your story,i she said, exuding exhilaration. Back on the blanket we sat close enough so that occasionally our bare, cool flesh touched, and I wondered how long it would be before I had to go back in the water. The sun was a fat fried egg behind us, spreading temperatures over the beach of at least eighty-five degrees as we approached six oiclock. There was now no breeze whatsoever, the ocean was making barely audible sounds of farewell as the tide moved slowly away, and I self- 143 consciously buried my toes in the sand as Anna Theresa started reading my story. iI can read it to you,i I offered. She shook her head; tiny drops of water sprayed on my shoulder, and I treasured each one, letting them sink through my pores enroute to my heart. iNo, I really donit enjoy being read to.i She looked at me coquettishly. iEspecially by a writer. They always bastardize their own work with emphasis and pronunciations to impress the listener. If youire a reader, you read; a listener, you listen. Iill get more out of it this way. Shush now.i It took her fifteen or twenty minutes to read the story, and then, without comment, she started over, reading it again. I played in the sand, building a spherical mound, squashing it, and building it up again. I wished I could have built a sand castle and moved in with my princess. iThis is . . . something,i she said, finally. iYou like it?i She was silent for a moment, staring off at the horizon beyond the ocean. iThis is something,i she repeated, and again she was silent. I started to say something but she held up her hand.iMartin,i she spoke softly, as if not wanting to bruise my name. iMartin, this story . . . this non-story . . . is . . . Lord, I donit know. Itis . . . very bad. Awful. I mean, thereis no other word for it. Awful.i My heart exploded in my chest; not breaking: exploding. Bits and shards and jagged edges lay all over the sand. iThat bad, huh?i iNo,i she modified, inot bad. Awful. Martin, this is o grotesque. Richard loves football. Rachel loves Richard. Richard is a, a vacuum who canit play football because heis apparently some ninety pound weakling who always gets sand kicked in his face . . . So he gets a job in the locker room to be close to the team, does all sorts of disgusting chores like picking up bandages and muddy, sweaty pads and socks . . . Meanwhile, 144 Rachel, to be part of his life and his love, starts writing sports stories and wins the Pulitzer Prize oi iI didnit say she won the Pulitzer Prize,i I protested, softly. iWell, whatever. She goes on to get a scholarship to study journalism; Richard has no better future than an assistant janitor, so he hangs himself with . . . with of all things: with a jockstrap! Christ, Martin . . . And then you come right back and hit me with the two boys who find him saying Man, he was really hung!i And she burst out laughing. I sat staring at her. Her laughter was infectious, and, in spite of myself, I began laughing also. iIs sorta funny, ainit it?i I gasped, as I visualized the scene, and the tears of humor and frustration began choking me. Anna Theresa had also laughed herself into a blubbery state. iFunny? Funny? . . . Itis, hilarious!i In a while, several more gasping chuckles, we were under control. iBut, listen, you didnit mean it to be funny, did you, truthfully?i I shook my head. iAh. I didnit think so. Thatis why itis so awful. You thought you were writing a serious, romantic story about people who both wanted something they could not have, and it turned out to be, awful wry humor. And it is funny! But itis also awfully bad. Here let me show you.i She leaned over and placed the composition book on the blanket between us, and page by page she went over the entire story. She picked up a pencil and began scratching out words here, jotting in others there, crossing out paragraphs and some dialogue (iMartin, you really have got to start noticing how people talk.i), adding lines where none had existed, and making margin notes: Rewrite, rethink, re-hear the way this sounds. Visual impact. Write visually. Write with your ears. Eyes. Heart. As she worked, she muttered thoughts to me, but I paid little attention. I was focused on the tops of her breasts as she leaned over the composition book, distracted by her hands holding down the pages and caressing the pencil, distracted by an erection in my trunks that I didnit really care she may or may not 145 have noticed. iIf itis so bad,i I said, for something to say, iwhy donit we drown it in the ocean ani put it outta its misery?i She didnit look up; she spoke under her breath, not in the least distracted. iDonit get defensive. You sound like this twerp Richard.i She worked on, and I looked on, falling more and more in love with her. At last she stopped and closed the composition book. iI think weive got something here . . . bad as it is . . . bad as it was.i She sat up and crossed her legs under her. iHereis what you do: Take it home and re-do it from the notes Iive made here. Do it on a typewriter, did you ever rent one? Well, you have to have a typewriter. Rewrite this story and make it seriously amusing, sardonic, ironic, pull out the stops and go for a little high school slapstick (you should be good at that!) . . . When you write about Richard, think about, about, yes! think of Shadow! Iill bet Shadowis the biggest twerp you know; think about him and what he would do, what he would say, how he would say it, and how he would act and react. . . Maybe this storyis not so bad as I first thought.i Again, she drifted off into silence. Then: iI think you could sell this story to some high school magazine; itis so, stupidly amusing. In a way, itis even got . . . an element . . . of sophistication about it. Somebody might really see something in this.i iLike TeenAge!?i I volunteered. iWell, I donit know about them. Theyire the top of the heap; first class; slick. Their fiction is usually solicited from top writers; published novelists and short story writers with names that attract buyers and advertisers.i I was genuinely surprised. iYiall read TeenAge!?i iOf course. Every kid in America, from thirteen to seventy, reads TeenAge! You think thirty-one is over the hill?iiYouire thirty-one?i iYes.i She quickly added, iAnd itis none of your business, my young friend, nor anyone elseis . . . How old are you, Martin?i 146 iSeventeen. Couple weeks ago.i iHappy birthday. You should have told me; Iid have gotten you a present.i You already have, I thought, wishing I could say something profound. She placed her hand over mine, and the ocean, the sky, and the heat began to spill over me. iI think you are a very nice person, Martin. You have a chance to become something, perhaps, as a writer; maybe a journalist, or a journalistic photographer; I told you that before. You have a strong imagination, and, ah, you, see things. I think you have talent. I want to help you any way I can. But forgive me; sometimes, Iim just a snotty grown-up.i iCan I ask you something? Back at your apartment; about, uh, the piano . . .i She paused briefly, looking again at the water; then back at me. iIf youire going to ask me about Claudio, Iid rather you didnit. Not right now.i iOkay. . . Iim sorry.i She smiled, and it was a brief smile, and slight. I didnit know what else to say, so I said nothing. Neither did she. We sat there, the composition book and the pencils on the blanket between us, and it got dark quickly at the beach. The next day, at 9 A.M., I came into possession of my first typewriter. I had told Shadow I would pick him up at eleven, and weid hang out either at Ocean View or the Navy Base with Rodney Herkimer until it was time to head down to South Norfolk and keep dates with Julie Hayden and Anneleise Odum. Shadow had phoned them both from the booth at Gardneris a couple days ago and told them weid all go see a movie at Schappis Drive-In. Hahnis Office Supplies on Monticello had a neatly painted sign in the window which said Typewriters * New & Used * For Sale or Rent. A middle-aged man in a three piece suit and sporting a massive mop of wild dark hair approached me, inquiring, first, after my health and, second, if he could help me. 147 iFine, thank you, sir,i I said, iani I want to rent a typewriter.i iNew or used?i iYiall rent new ones?i iOf course!i The total came to $20.99, a deposit of $10 plus the first monthis rent in advance plus $.99 for the ribbon, a small but necessary dent in the money from Ben Wuis Laundry. The new (rebuilt, actually) Underwood sat next to me on the passenger seat of the Jeep when I took it home, and every time I stopped at a light or stop sign, I reached over and ran my fingers over the smooth, white keys with the big black letters and numbers. For the first time since Iid started with the Dr. I.Q. biographies, I felt like a writer, even though I had no idea what a writer was supposed to feel like. I couldnit wait to start working on Poor, Poor Richard! 148 CHAPTER TWELVE My father clanged his fork against his plate and said, iWhat the hell you want a typewriter for? Yiall gonna bang on that damn thing all night ani half the day all summer! Nobody gets no peace around here anymore as it is!i Grandma said, iYour grandfather has to get up at two-thirty in the morning whether he wants to or not. Mark me words, you ani Douglas ani that Shadowill be the death a eim yet!i Aunt Freddie said, iI can hear that stupid thing all the way in the front, ani I have to go to work very early on the bus while itis even dark outside half the time!i Grandpa said, iSo wass write stories we . . . read by inda machine dere?i Momma said, iWhen one a his stories clicks, heill be on his way!i Douglas said, iCan I try it? Can I? Come on!i The typewriter became, for a short while, the family focal point; having little else to talk about, it dominated dinner conversation for nearly a week. Not having a room of my own and unable to type there after Grandpa went to bed at seven- thirty, I set up shop on the kitchen table at night, and wherever I felt like it during the day. The kitchen was a good spot because it was fairly remote from the living room and bedrooms with a full size swinging door to close, and the pantry separating me from the rest of the flat. My main concern was Grandpa sleeping in our room just off the far side of the kitchen, but within a couple of days I came to realize the clacking keys bothered him less than anyone. Grandpa would end his evening with a quart of beer and as many as five shots of Calvertis, climb into bed and listen to Lowell Thomas on the little Emerson, and be asleep long before old Lowell got to iAnd so long until tomorrow!i If anything, Grandpa was, at first, a major distraction to me with his snoring. Actually, it wasnit snoring; it was a nightly reenactment of all the warfare Lowell Thomas had described in the European and Pacific Theaters. Grandpa would 149 have won gold if snoring was a medal competition, and the nightly roar of B-29s and Sherman tanks emanating from our tiny bedroom seemed to compete with the noise of the typewriter, and I noticed for the first time that I had difficulty concentrating. It was very odd. When I was writing in longhand, either in the bedroom or at the kitchen table, I was rarely aware of Grandpais snoring. Now that I had the mechanical convenience of a clacking typewriter, his snoring paddled ideas out of my head like they were Ping-Pong balls. After the third night, I moved my operation upstairs into the attic where there was a small partitioned room, an enclosed alcove of sorts, with a light socket, a window, and a wooden bench, an old table, actually, supported by two orange crates. An odd kitchen chair and gooseneck lamp found in the garage on Gill Alley, plus an ancient Websteris dictionary, completed my garret, my writeris den. Poor, Poor Richard was a simple story to write, and I had a final draft in a little over a week. Anna Theresais notes made the re-write flow unhindered, even the dialogue, and I was ready to show it to her the next week following our time at the beach. Shadow, whoid had the Jeep all to himself, came over about five-thirty (he had perhaps calculated that supper would be ready in a little over an hour), and he found me in the attic, bent over the Underwood. iMer-ceee, man,i he gasped, breathing hard, ican yiall make it hotter in here? Placeis a oven! Maybe you oughta toss another log on the air-conditioner! Ever think to open the window?i I was sitting in my shorts, a pair of moccasins on my feet. I hadnit noticed the heat until he mentioned it. iWindowis stuck,i I said, not looking up. Shadow went to it and forced it open. iHuherghrjrtutsyutsyt!i he grunted. iNot no more!i I stopped typing. iAll the bugs gonna come in.i iNah, got this liil oli screen here.i Behind the glass someone had left a rusted quarter screen in the outer sill; Shadow retrieved it out, blew off some dead mosquitoes, dragon 150 flies and debris, adjusted it to fit, and slipped it back in the sill, bringing the window down sharply to meet it. iThere. Tidewater air-conditionini. . . Yiall still writini them biographies?i iShort story.i ieBout what?i iFella named Richard; girl named Rachel.i iHe pumpini her?i I slid my chair back and looked at Shadow. iThat all you think about?i iYeah, pretty much. . . Can I smoke up here?i iI donit care. Just donit burn the house down.i He took his Luckies out of the sleeve of his t-shirt, snapped the bottom of the pack with his forefinger, and offered me the cigarette that popped up. iI donit wanna smoke,i I sighed. iMissini good stuff.i He slipped the cigarette between his lips and pulled the pack away with his left hand while flicking a kitchen match with his right thumbnail. Smooth, I thought: Alan Ladd. iHow much yiall practice doini that?i I asked, making no effort to hide a twinge of jealousy. Shadow shrugged. ieBout thirty times a day; pack ani a half.iiThingsill kill you.i iThey donit, somethini else will. . . Know what I heard the other day?i My turn to shrug. iGive up.i iYou get drafted 1-A ani yiall donit wanna go, thereis one hot damn good way you can get out. . . Got another chair up here?i I looked around as if I didnit know I was sitting on the only chair in the alcove. iYeah,i I said, ithereis this leather lounger with a matchini sofa, but we sent eem out yesterday for cleanini. Back on Monday.i 151 iPssssshit. Place is a shithouse.i He flopped on the floor and leaned against the drywall, smoking and flicking ashes next to himself on the floor. iGo downstairs ani ask Granima for an ashtray.i He ignored the idea. iNah, thatis okay. . . Hereis what yiall do. Get your draft letter to go for your Army physical, for ebout three days bifore you go yiall smoke two, three packs a day. But first you get yourself a bottle of India ink ani a hypo-dermic, uh, needle thing, ani you inject each cigirette bifore you smoke it with a good shot of India ink. Then when yiall go for the physical ani they take the X-rays, your lungsire gonna look like shit. Like you got TB ani cancer ani malaria ani . . . ani . . .i iCrabs?i I suggested. iWell, donit know ebout crabs in your lungs, i I cut him off. iWhyid anybody want to flunk their Army or Navy physical?i iI dunno. Draft dodgers, uh, especiant fathers, only family support fellas, I dunno. Thereis other ways, too.i I wanted to know where heid come up with this information. iRodney,i he said. iSeen him at the base the other day, ani he asked me if I was goini in after graduation. Told him I didnit know.i That surprised me. I watched Shadow closely. iYou donit know? Thatis funny. I thought yiall were hot pants for the Navy if the waris still goini on next year.i iYeah, well, I am. Maybe the Marines. But . . . yiall never know. I mean, this damn waris gettini crazy over there. Them freakini Japs ani Germans, theyis killini a shit load of American fellas. Yiall hear about Thomas Luitjohn last week? He was like nineteen, ani he sat on a goddamn hand grenade in Itily. Blew his asshoi right out his ears!i I remembered him. He was a running halfback at Maury when we came over from Blair. iDidnit know him real well, but he seem like a good enough guy.i iYeah, well, heis a good enuff dead guy right now,i Shadow lamented. iAni how ebout Pauly Geiger? His ship got hit by them kamikaze cocksuckers ani sunk in lessin five minutes, ani 152 about five thousani swabbies, includini Pauly, went down on her. I dunno. Waris goini on too long, ani our fellas gettini popped out just as much as the Krauts ani Nips. . . I dunno.i This kind of talk from Mr. Gung Ho was making me nervous. iSo,i I said, iitis a bridge we cross like next year after graduation.i Neither of us said anything more for a few minutes; I sat staring at my typewriter keys, thinking about Thomas Luitjohn and trying to remember what Pauly Geiger looked like, and Shadow stared at the glow on the end of his cigarette. He asked me, iWhat about college?i I flashed another surprised look. iCollege? Yiall thinkini about college?i iNah . . . not me. Yeah. Sometimes. . . You. What ebout yiall? You the one wants to write stories ani books ani shit. . . iBisides, no way I gonna get a college dee-ferment.i iWhatis that?i iWhatis what?i iCollege deferment.i Shadow shrugged with his shoulders and his hands, spreading his palms open in a gesture of supplication, or resignation. He said, iYiknow, like yiall get 3-A in the draft when youire in college, ani they donit getcha etil yiall graduate, ani by then you hope the freakini waris over.i iSeems to me,i I suggested, iyiall either have to be in college, or at least accepted ani on your way. We ainit, arenit, even outta high school yet.i iYeah, yeah, I know. I just thinkini out loud.i Again, neither of us said anything for a few moments; then I broke the silence. iYiall really got a hard-on ebout the war all of a sudden. Whatis up?i Shadow shrugged again. iI dunno. Just gettini sick of it. All the rationini ani blackouts . . . fellas we know gettini their ass shot off. Canit do this; canit do that . . . Yiall gonna go to college, ainicha?i I looked at the paper in my typewriter and shook my head. iDunno. Iid like to, but . . . I dunno. Folks got no money, ani 153 my marksill never get me any kind of scholarship. Probilyill just graduate ani go into the Air Corp. Up in the wild blue yonder. After the war, maybe the goverimentill send me to college.i iWhat college yiall wanna go to if you could go?i iI dunno. Probily Oli Dominion.i iThatis a shit school.i It was my turn to shrug. iAnna Theresa Tortoretti went there. Still does, once in a while for some art classes.i iThe lye-berry lady?i iYeah.i iHubba-hubba.i Shadow stifled a giggle. iYiall still got blue balls for her? Psssshit, she olderin your momma!i I typed a couple of words and ignored Shadow for about five minutes. He lit another cigarette, and again I told him to go downstairs and get an ashtray. iYeah, I will. . . Know what else yiall can do to get outta the Army? . . . Rip up some blotters ani stuff eem in your shoes, ani walk around with eem for ebout a week bifore your physical. Then when they take your temperature, yiall gonna have a fever up to ebout a hundred ani ten, ani they ainit got no idea whatis wrong with yiall. They stamp your papers Ree-ject 4-F right there ani then ani tell you to get your ass to the hospital fast as yiall can!i I asked, iWhere you get all this crap from?i iTold you; Rodney toli me. Says it works for all the guys he knows from Missisippi.i iSound like bullshit to me,i I concluded. iOh, I forgot, somethini else . . . Rodneyis shippini out.i I turned away from the typewriter and looked at Shadow. iWhatidya mean, shippini out?i iI mean, like . . . shipping out, like goini to war . . . on a freaggin flat top.i iHe told you that?i iYeah. Yesterday.i 154 iHeis takini a hell of a chance talkini like that, ispecially to a dimwit like yiall. Loose lips sink ships. You seen the posters.i Shadow shook his head. iYiall forget, I may be a dimwit, but Iim also Capin Blauseris nephew. Ani youire his Number One asshoi son. Pssshit, Ha! . . . Anyway, oli Rodney got his orders ani heis shippini out like real soon. He wants us to get together efore he goes ani go in to town ani have a real down- home bon voyage with him ani somma his buddies.i I got up and stretched and walked over to the window. iGonna get our ass in a sling if some of his buddies know Blauseris real son.i iPsssshit, them swabbies donit even know what day it is half the time! Ani bisides, so what? Theyis all shippini out anyhow, ani by a time they get back, if they do get back o they probily gonna be at New Haven or San Diego or, who knows where? Blauseris probily goini with eem, so what difference it make for us?i iWell, you go. Iim set against temptini too much fate too many times.i The one window in my garret alcove faced the house next door where the Fisher family lived on Doumar Street, and I had a fairly good view into Sandra Fisheris bedroom one floor below. Sandra was a sweet looking fourteen year old; she was sitting at her vanity mirror in panties and bra, brushing her hair and staring dreamily at herself. I figured she had to be listening to Sinatra records on the phonograph. iOne thing yiall not thought about,i I said, over my shoulder. iWhatis that?i iRodney goes ani . . . our gasoline goes with him.i iPshhhitttt! Thatis fuggin-A right! Psssshhittt!i * * * The story was done. I sat staring at the last page, page number 32, and wondered if I should count the words. I 155 typed, 3-0, near the bottom of the last page; just like Bill Stern: iAnd thatis the ethree-ohi mark for tonight!i In Jack Londonis book, Martin Eden, he made a big deal about writers getting paid by the word, and back then the benchmark was two cents per. I rifled through the pages and picked out one that looked what I considered average, and I carefully counted the words. Two sixty-nine. Two sixty-nine times thirty-two pages . . . roughly 8,600 words; better make it 8,000, considering short paragraphs and dialogues. 8,000 times two cents. About $160. Not bad for a few hours banging on a typewriter! Yeah, right. Who was going to pay me $160 for a stupid story about a couple of weirdoes like Richard and Rachel? I was beginning to think maybe Anna Theresa was right. But . . . it was damn good to be writing it! Even if it was shit! I glanced at my old, scarred Bulova: nine-fifteen. It never occurred to me that no one had called me down for supper. Downstairs, I crept into my room as quietly as possible so as not to awaken Grandpa. I wiggled out of my shorts and kicked them under the bed, found a fresh pair and my dungarees in the dark, and a polo shirt, slipped them on, patting my pockets to make sure I had my change purse. Faintly, the sounds of the big Philco drifted back from the living room, and I knew they were all involved with whatever pulse-pounding drama or comedy NBC-Red or CBS were offering. I doused the night light in the kitchen and left the flat by the rear door and down the back stairs. Outside, in Gill Alley, there was no light from any source, in either direction: pitch black. It was a balmy night, again with heavy, humid air; I moved past the corroded chain- link fence, out the gate, and turned right, walking alongside the house until I reached the front at Doumar Street. Right again, and I walked slowly away, covering the three blocks to Gardneris Drug Store & Soda Fountain in less than six minutes. Approaching, I could not tell if they were open; the blackout made all stores appear closed and buildings seem empty, as though the whole world had just gone away someplace. I tried the door and it swung open, and I hurried in, closing the door 156 quickly, lest some ray of light escape and warn an approaching Nazi bomber. It was bright inside, and for a moment I squinted to see if I knew any of the six people sitting in the soda fountain area. I didnit. Nor did I know the other three standing at the main counter and waiting for attention from either Lester Gardner or his old man. I moved toward the telephone booth, aware that Lester had glanced over at me. Our eyes met briefly, but he looked away just as I feigned picking up a box of Ex-Lax and putting it in my pocket. The booth was empty and dark. Hanging from a short brass chain attached to the outer wall was the Norfolk phone book, and I swung it up, opened it, flipped a few pages, and ran my finger down the columns under T. Tortoretti, Claudio...224 43rd St....HAmilton 8382 I sat down on the small wooden spoon-seat affixed to the corner of the booth and closed the folding door; the overhead light snapped on automatically, and I could hear and feel the small ventilating fan hidden mysteriously inside the rim of the overhead light. I ran my hand over the cool, copper-colored dimples of the tin walls, aware of the unusual metallic odor. I gazed at the long black phone box and fingered the nickel Iid taken from my change purse. There was a low voltage charge trickling from the battery of anxiety in my bowels, and I waited interminable minutes before the operator said, iNumber, please!i iAwreggrgeheut,i preceded a deep breath before I could bring myself to say, iHamilton 8-3-8-2, please, maiam!i iThank you! Please deposit five cents.i I deposited the nickel, listened to it tumble through a hidden electronic maze, and almost instantly the burr of the ring set off a tremor in my ear. One burr. Two burrs. Three burrs. . . Damn, sheis gone to bed, or gone out. . . I told myself to hang up, but I didnit obey. iHello?i I was unable to speak. iHello? . . . Anyone there?i iItis, me,i I said, weakly, my voice a late night snack of soggy milk-toast. 157 iWho?. . . Whois calling?i I thought again of hanging up, but I took another deep breath. iItis me. Marty. Marty Eden.i iOh--hi! Marty, is that really you? Are you all right? Is there anything wrong?i Why was it, women always thought something had to be wrong for the phone to ring after nine eoiclock at night? iYeah . . . I mean, no, nothingis wrong. I just . . . aaaahhhh . . . I finished the story.i iWhich story is that? Which books did you take?i iNot a library book. . . The story. My story. Richard and Rachel, Poor, Poor Richard.i Goddamn it, she probily doesnit even remember we went to the beach last week! iOh, yes! Of course! Your short story I read at the beach last week! You really finished it? God, thatis great, Martin! When can I see it?i What a woman! Sheis been sitting by the phone all this time, just waiting for me to call and tell her the story was done! I took a shot in the dark. iHow about right now? I can bring it over, ani yiall can read it right now. I can be there in five minutes.i iWhat time is it? My watch is in the bathroom.i I moved the receiver into my right hand and twisted my left wrist to reveal the face of my watch on the underside, just like Mickey Rooney in A Yank at Eton. iItis only five to ten,i I said. iYou can be here in five minutes?i iYeah . . . lessin that if I get green lights . . . Aw, shi, wait a minute!i iWhatis the matter?i iThe Jeep. I ain, I havenit got it. Shadowis got it. He had a date in South Norfuck. Damn it all!i There was a brief pause at the other end. Then, iWell, no matter. Itis a little late anyway, and I want to go in early tomorrow and work just a half day. You can bring it to the library in the morning, and I can read it there.i Tomorrow was Saturday, and I had to meet Shadow before noon and get gasoline at the Navy Base. iTell you what,i I said. 158 iI could jog up there in no morein twenty, twenty-five minutes. I could be there by ten-thirty latest. I really want you to read the story with, uh, the changes I made; see what yiall think!i I was starting to sweat, and I didnit know why. iWell . . . itis a long way to walk, or jog, this time of night; itis up to you.i iOnly a few blocks. Yiall sure? Wonit take me no time at all.iiWell . . . yes; okay . . . itis your choice.i iAhim on mah way!i Whooooeeeeeee! I dropped the receiver into its cradle without saying good- bye (no chance for her to change her mind), and jiggled the folding door noisily, trying to stand up and move out before the door was open, it stuck momentarily, and I cracked it with my forearm. It folded in on itself with a loud bang, and I ran out of the booth only to collide with Lester Gardner coming up the aisle from the other direction. iHey! Jay-sus!i iSorry, Mr. Gardner!i iTake it easy, fichrissake! Asshois ainit got no sense yiall born with!i Outside the store I spun right and ran sixteen strides before it occurred to me I didnit have the story with me. It was still home, in the attic, in the garret, on the table beside the typewriter. Son of a bitch! Shadow, no question, Iim definitely gonna kill yiall etil your freakini dead! 159 160 CHAPTER THIRTEEN I woke up just before eleven Saturday morning, greeted by brilliant sunshine strained through a tired and tattered green window shade and pinpointing my forehead with the golden pockmarks of a pounding, pulsating headache. Standing in the kitchen, in my underwear, my mouth tasted like Iid been licking the bottom of a birdcage. I opened the refrigerator door and peeked inside. Milk and buttermilk and two quart bottles of Ballantine 3-Ring Lager. On the lower shelf was half a glass of what appeared to be orange juice. I picked it up and took a huge gulp.iJay-egrhge-sus Chris-ggwwwrwgh-mas!i I gagged, gushing the liquid from my mouth, down my chin and over my chest, onto the cool linoleum beneath my feet. It wasnit orange juice; it was three mooshed up raw egg yolks that looked just like orange juice! Grandma, at the same moment, came around the corner of the pantry and into the kitchen as I stood spitting chunks of foul-tasting chicken embryo all over myself, the Frig, and the floor. iMartin! . . . Lord, have ye lost your bloody mind!i She came at me in a crouch, as if she were going to tackle me, grabbing the glass from my hand, careful not to step in my mess in her frayed cotton slippers. iWhy on earth would you want to drink whipped eggs? Mark me words, Martin, you ani Douglas are going to be the bloody death of me!i I stepped over the mess on the floor and moved away from Grandma, in case she took a swipe at me; I glanced at her right hand; she was wearing the dreaded thimble. iI didnit know what it was, thought it was orange juice!i iWell, itis not, as any fool can plainly see.i iWhy you put egg yolks in a glass so they look just like orange juice?i Grandma flung the remaining contents of the glass into the sink. iDonit mock me, young man! Pay attention to what youire doing ani you wonit be drinkini things you shouldnit! If 161 it was castor oil ani it looked like lemonade, youid toss it down like it was water!i I started to say something, but I knew there was little use. Grandmais domain was her kitchen; she was the chancellor of the exchequer, and her treasury was everything from the back door to the end of the pantry. I considered myself lucky that she let me use the kitchen sink and table for my late night photographic laboratory (something Iid done very little with o and missed, since school was out.) iSorry, Granima,i was the best I could come up with. iSorryis a sorry lot when thereis nothini else worth sayini,i she shot back, running water in the glass and washing it out. iThoseire the yokes a four eggs, ani that was five stamps from the ration book to fetch a dozen. No more now etil Wednesday, Lord help us all, ani so much for an angelis food cake. . . Are you wantini some breakfast? Or lunch? Look at the bloody time!i I shook my head. iSpeak up, or youill be holdini dust in your hands.i iNo, Granima,i I sighed. iI ainit hungry. Got an awful head. I . . . was out late.i iAye,i she said, knowingly, awkwardly going to her old knees to begin cleaning the floor. iI heard you come in last night, sneakini like a bloody burglar you were, through the front ani sleepini on the porch. Smelled like a brewery, to boot.i I reopened the refrigerator door to see what else there might be to drink. iWasnit me; must of been Shadow. I slept in my own bed.i I saw no other liquids, save Grandpais beer and the milks. iReally, now,i she muttered, a swirling dishrag scooping up the mess. iShadow it was. Comini ani goini like he owns the place. . . There was soda in there last night; wager that boy drunk it all hisself! No concern for any of us, thatis certain! Iim puttini me foot down.i Caught, indicted, convicted, and executed under foot. Squash! So much for Shadow! I had to giggle, unable to help myself. 162 iWonit be that funny when I put me thimble to your cranium!i Since I could recall, Grandma was capable of issuing a severe punishment whenever she caught Douglas or me at some misdeed. Being a seamstress and constantly replacing buttons and repairing rips, hems and cuffs, and all other clothing reconstruction for a family of seven, she wore a thimble on her right forefinger during all of her waking hours, and perhaps in bed as well, for all I knew. When the occasion demanded, and she could get close enough, she would launch that forefinger in a flipping motion from behind her thumb, bouncing the thimble off one of our heads with the force and velocity of a not-quiet- spent bullet. Iid seen Douglasis eyes roll back and his knees buckle, and on more than one sorry occurrence I too nearly relinquished consciousness from a solid flick of that deadly thimble. As corporal punishment, that was the extent of any we were destined to endure at home. Momma never spanked either of us, that I can remember, and Dad was a master at inflicting the deadliest of retributive suffering: glaring, disgusted and disappointed silence. His unblinking and deadpan stare could be, somehow, on some dire occasions, worse that fifty thimble thumps. iIim not laughini at you, Granima,i I said. iJust had an image in my mind of yiall puttini your foot down on Shadowis head.i iMind you, I will, at that,i she threatened, iif he gives me the chance! . . . Your head hurts because you were gallavantini all over town drinking that dastardly near-beer; thatis wot iitis.i iNo. Not true. I had some wine . . . with a lady. I think I had a drop too much of it, ani . . . itis given me a wretched skull.i When I talked alone with Grandma for more than a couple minutes, I often found myself imitating her British accent and using words and phrases drug up from the archives of books, movies, and radio dramas I had stashed away in my subconscious over the last decade. iAnd what lady,i she asked, suspiciously, iplies a mere slip of a boy, still wet behind the ears, with divil wine?i 163 What lady indeed! (Ani, Granima, itis edevil rumi, not wine) . . . . . . It was a quarter to eleven by the time I had rung Anna Theresais doorbell last night after having run home, gathered up the manuscript of Poor, Poor Richard, and jogged all the way to 43rd Street, just two blocks past the library and off the Old Dominion campus. She opened the door for me, and I quickly stepped inside before catching the attention of some dutiful Air Raid Warden. iHey!i I whispered harshly, breathing hard. iYou ran all the way?i She seemed genuinely incredulous. iYeah!i iWell. . . Come upstairs; Iill give you something to drink.i iGreat!i I grunted. iMy throat feels like a sack of feathers.i In the soft yellow light from the hallway chandelier, she was a rose petal of moist and delicate beauty. She was wearing a flowing, sheer pink negligee, a gossamer robe over a deeper pink and satiny gown. Her glorious hair was pulled back tight in a Psyche knot, and her feet were bare. She seemed cool, and yet it was a warm and humid night, and the porcelain skin of her arms and neck and tops of her breasts glistened with a light mist of pale perspiration. Whatever cologne or perfume she wore had been distilled in a magnolia kiln of passion. I had never been in the presence of anything so sensual as this incredible woman, this love of my life. The hint of an erection started before we reached the top of the stairway. In the living/dining room that surrounded the overwhelming grand piano, I was met by a symphony of twenty or thirty thick white candles glowing from all directions and tossing a panoply of dancing shadows across the walls, the paintings, the books, and the high ceiling. iImpossible to get candles now; good candles,i she said; iIive been saving them, collecting them for years before the war. Iive only got a couple hundred thousand left. Ha! I adore 164 candles, donit you?i She indicated I should sit on, in, actually, the deep sofa. I adore you! I thought, and plopped into its enveloping cushions. It was a sofa you did not sit on; you reclined; you bathed; you luxuriated; you nearly disappeared. iWhat would you like to drink?i iDr Pepper. Coke. Water. . . Whatire yiall havini?i iRed wine.i iSure. Hey!i I bounced slightly in the sofa. iMe, too!i I watched her walk across to the wet bar against the opposite wall and pour wine into a long stem goblet. iYou have your story?i she asked. iThat I do.i My breath was coming back and I was inhaling and exhaling less noisily. She handed me the wine, and I handed her the large manila envelope containing my thirty-two pages. She took it, and her own glass of wine, and curled gracefully into a chaise lounge next to an end table covered by half a dozen bright candles. iI might have made some typo, i iNo matter . . . Shussssshhh; be still.i For the better part of twenty minutes I watched her read; watched her sip a little wine from time to time while quietly slipping pages from the manuscript and placing them face down on her lap as she finished them. I was surprised at how cool it seemed in the room despite the pulsating inferno of candlelight. A stupid lyric popped into my head: Lips that touch wine will never touch mine! . . . Your lips? . . . No, no, my darling, my wine!I drained my own glass of wine in four gulps and asked her if I could have a refill. She didnit answer; she shook her head but didnit stop reading; she raised her arm and gestured in the direction of the wet bar. I crawled off the sofa, aware now that my erection had become a serious hard-on, and I poured myself a full glass, glancing at the bottle. Cabernet Sauvignon. The tongue of my mind pronounced it Cab-er-net Saw-vig-nawn. Whatever; it was delicious. I sat down at the piano and played, with one finger, Mary Had A Little Lamb. iMartin, please,i 165 Anna Theresa whispered, and I stopped playing. I drank my wine. I got up and returned to the wet bar and poured another glassful. I went back to the sofa, adjusted my boner to a more comfortable upright position, and let the cushions swallow me. When she finished page number 32, she sipped the last of her wine and looked across the room at me. After a moment she said, iMartin, itis . . . Christ, I donit know . . . itis . . . unbelievable.i Her voice was so soft I could barely hear her. iYou like it?i She slowly shook her head. iYes. I like it. Of course, I like it. I like it so much I hate it.i iYou hate it?i I felt a phantom fist poke me in the belly. iI love it; I hate it, yes, because, because I didnit write it; couldnit write it.i She was quiet for a moment, staring at me. iYouire seventeen years old, and youive written this absolutely . . . marvelous . . . serious . . . funny, strong, human . . . touching, literate . . . short story.i She giggled slightly, and it was punctuated by a soft hiccup. iGood Lord, Martin, whatis wrong with you? Itis . . . freakish. What are you? What kind of insane talent do you have?i I started to crawl out of the sofa again. iJust followed your ideas ani your notes.i I shrugged immodestly. iIt was easy to do. Can I have some more wine?i She looked at me with a penetrating intensity. iYouire seventeen; donit drink. You really shouldnit drink at all.i I wasnit sure what I should do. iThis is an awfully good story,i she murmured. iI donit know real writers who could write this when they were seventeen.i She waved her arm in the air in a meaningless gesture; she turned her hand over and stared at her palm, tracing the lifeline with the finger of her other hand. iWhoire real writers?i iI donit know. What does it matter?i Anna Theresa slid off the chaise lounge, unaware that as she moved so too did my thirty-two pages, slipping from her lap and cascading to the floor, fluttering white birds shot by deadly accurate hunters. She 166 took the glass from my hand and went to the wet bar to fill both hers and mine. iDo you know who Krista Rosakovia is?i iNo,i I said. iI thought maybe you might have heard of her; but then, why would you? Sheis fairly, ah, prominent in the publishing world. She was my roommate in college. She was my best friend all through high school, and when we went to Old Dominion we shared a small apartment, not far from here, actually. . . After college, we went to Europe together, and for three years we traveled in England and France, Spain and Germany, Russia, Lord, it was a wondrous time!, and then Italy, where I met Claudio Tortoretti, in Rome, at the Musica Academia diRoma. Krista and I, hmm, both efound ourselvesi, as they say, in Europe, and because I love books, feel so strongly about them, and writing, and all that good literary stuff, I came back here to make a career for myself in library sciences. Claudio came back with us, of course, and he went to Rochester to study at the Eastman School of Music, then on to Julliard, then down here to the Norfolk Symphony, i iAni yiall had to marry him,i I interrupted, sarcastically. iNo need for sarcasm, Martin.i I lowered my eyes into my wine glass. iIim sorry,i I whispered. iI hate sarcasm. Itis the wit of the ignorant. . . But youire right, I did marry him; ah, well, yes, I did, thatis true, I did, we did . . . we were married, later, a while later. In Ireland; Wicklow; in 1939. I was twenty-six. We came back here. Back here, we found this apartment, and I eventually became head librarian at Larchmont. Claudio . . . itis really so sad . . . Claudio was doing so well with the Symphony; he was even guesting with Baltimore, and Atlanta, and St. Louis . . .i She paused and handed me the glass of wine. She leaned forward slightly and touched her glass to mine; it made a melodious chime. It was the first time Iid ever toasted. iCheers,i she mumbled, and I realized, having seen it often enough in my own home, she was somewhat, slightly intoxicated. iSo . . . where is Claudio?i I asked. iYiall divorced?i 167 iNo, of course not.i She sipped her wine. iClaudio is Catholic; he would never . . . permit a divorce.i iYou?i iEpiscopalian.i To herself she mumbled, iNothing we donit permit.i iWhere is he?i iClaudio?i iYeah.i Anna Theresa went back to the wet bar and returned with the bottle of Cabernet. She sat down on the sofa beside me and we drifted down, sinking to a dangerous depth. She filled her glass.iItis a long, tiresome story,i she said, iand Iill make the telling even longer. Claudio, if you must know, left me and went back to Italy in 1941, less than two years after we were married; before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He wanted me to go with him, but I couldnit do it. Italy, Europe, was no place now for me. When I met him, even when I married him, I had no idea he was a Fascista . . . an Italian Nazi, for Godis sake. Now he plays piano for Mussolini and his generals and their whores. In fact, he lives with all of them in the headquarters palace in downtown Rome, on the Via Melagonia.i iHeis a soldier?i iNo. Ha! A soldier, no! Oh, he wears a uniform and all that, medals and ribbons and all . . . hmmm . . . but a soldier? No. Maybe a soldier like a Sicilian in the Mafia is a soldier. Letis not talk about Claudio. Heis a bastard. Bastardo. Not a word from him since we got into the war.i iYou had no idea he was, uh, a Nazi?i I asked. She shook her head and looked away. iNot an inkling. Claudio was very cultured, a true artist, very, very talented o like you, a prodigy, Ha!, only he came from an aristocratic Italian family. We, we were quite happy together in Europe and here, at first, in America.i She sipped some wine. iWhy am I telling you all this? Claudio is gone, and heis never coming back, and I donit really give a damn. Like Rhett Butler. 168 Frankly, my dear, I donit give a damn. Claudio, really, was . . . is . . . a bastard.i I wanted to talk about him, bastard or not, because he was the enemy, and I knew it was crucial to know the enemy if you wanted to defeat him. (I think Iid heard that in a speech by President Roosevelt.) iWell, he can never come back to this country,i I announced, as though having stumbled upon an earth-shattering dictum. iHa! Right you are! Unless they win the war!i Profound female logic fueled by excessive wine. iWant to know what happened to Krista Rosakovia?i I took another gulp and shrugged as best I could on the enveloping sofa. I improvised: iShe became a spy for Hitler?i Anna Theresa frowned and glanced at me sideways. iDonit be silly. What a dumb thing to say. She went to New York and got a job as a reader at Simon and Schuster. Then she became an assistant editor. Now sheis fiction editor at TeenAge! and thatis where Poor, Poor Richard is going!i iIt is?i iYes!i There were times when Anna Theresa spoke in the positive affirmative, and there was no debate as to the direction of her meaning. This Yes was not a suggestive Yes, I think that would be a good idea, or Yes, if you agree, I believe this would be the best approach. This was simply a stated Yes, this is what you are going to do, and I couldnit care less what you think about it! I asked, naively, iYouire going to send it to your friend Krista?i iI am not sending it anywhere,i she replied, ignoring my hopeful grasping at a fraternal straw. iForget the eitis not what you know, but whomi syndrome. Krista and I were good friends. But that was yesterday, like everything else. I hear from her occasionally; holidays and birthdays, but itis like, hmm, everything else in life. Here today; gone tomorrow. Bosom buddies, then comes the inevitable time and distance. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. Weekly letters and phone calls become monthly, then every six months, then yearly. 169 Youill find out, my young friend. . .You are going to send the manuscript off just like youid send off any story to any magazine. Out of your typewriter, over the transom, and into the slush pile. First class mail; manila envelope, self-addressed, stamped return envelope folded once inside, clean eight and a half by eleven bond paper, typewritten, double spaced, not folded, not bound, no paper clips . . . Do you have a carbon copy at home?i I nodded and lapped my wine. iGood. Thatis good. Leave this copy here, and when you get home, type a fresh copy from your carbons. . . i iAll thirty-two pages?i She paused and breathed deeply, her breasts rising and falling next to my elbow. iWell, if you want to omit a few pages here and there, Iim sure theyill understand. Of course, all thirty-two pages! . . . Send the manuscript just like I said and address it Attention: Fiction Editor.i iYou think your friend Krista will open it ani read it?i iI think . . . I think,i she offered, iitill be read by a junior reader who will get naively excited and immediately pass it on to a senior reader, whoill pass it on to Krista with a recommendation she consider it . . . and the rest will be history.i iTheyill buy it ani publish it?i iYes. Probably. Hmmm. If they have a brain in their collective heads. Want some more wine?i I did and I didnit. I was excited now and I wanted to go home and get at it. iSure,i I said. iHow much you think theyill pay me?i iI donit know. What does it matter? Here; hold your glass still.iiYeah, well, yeah, I guess it matters. I wanna make enough money over the next year to go to college.i She filled her own glass and sipped the Cabernet. iWell, I donit know. A first time writer, theyill probably give you a fifty, seventy-five dollars.i iWow. Thatis great.i iAnd,i she added, giggling, imaybe a yearis subscription to 170 the magazine.i She moved her head slightly, letting her chin drop to the rim of her goblet, then her lips slid to the rim, softly inhaling the wine. iYes, it would be, great. It probably wonit happen, but if it did . . .Iid be very proud of you. You read that collection of William Jamesis letters I gave you?i iSure did! I liked eem.i iRemember the one he wrote to H.G. Wells?i iUh . . . no.i She nodded and sipped her wine. iLook it up. And write it down and remember it. He said, I donit know, something, something, something . . .ethe moral flabbiness borne of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That, with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word Success, is our national disease.i . . . Martin, do you, may I ask?, I donit mean to embarrass you but. . . do you have an erection there?i The heat of two dozen candles swept over my face, and I burned a furious crimson; I broke out in an immediate sweat. iDonit be embarrassed. Nothing to be embarrassed about.i iI . . . am not,i I said, my voice no more than dense, black smoke escaping from a clogged chimney. iNot what? Not embarrassed or not aroused?i I couldnit look at her. iNot embarrassed.i iGood. No reason to be,i she said, settling the matter. iI noticed it when you went to the bar for more wine. Very noticeable right now.i Following her gaze, I looked down at my lap. My erection had lifted the fly of my dungarees like the center pole of a tent. iI . . . Iim sorry, Anna Theresa.i iOh, puh-lease! Sorry for what? For being human? For being a man?i She gave a slight laugh, and it relaxed me. iMay I see it, Martin?i I gazed at her, aware that my eyes were on the verge of losing focus, and she met my stare, her sweet face mere inches from mine; she never wavered or caused me to consider her request as anything but honest, open curiosity, and I had no idea what to say or what I should do. iItis all right,i she smiled, reassuring me. iIim only 171 kidding; just teasing you. I havenit seen a young manis erection in . . . in . . . I canit remember when.i I breathed deeply, and my voice was a harsh whisper. iIim not very, uh, yiall know . . . big.i That made her smile. A lovely softness spread over her face. iHmmm. How big is big supposed to be among seventeen year old men?i she wondered. iClinically, the average erection is six and one-quarter inches. Are you at least that?i iI . . . donit know. I think so. I donit know. Maybe; Iim . . . not sure.i I wanted to look away, but the intensity of her gaze was too much. I had measured myself a few times, and it was never more than just six inches. iWell . . . not to worry,i she said. iI grew up with three brothers, all older than me, and on more than one occasion I spied on them when I was in junior high, and I watched them compare their penises . . . limp, medium, and hard. Michael, the youngest, was the champion at seven and three-eighths inches. Liam, the middle one, never advanced past five and a half. Growing up with three older and somewhat crazy Irish brothers, I learned more about penises and erections than any lass really should be expected to know. Not that any of them ever touched me, or vice versa, you can be sure, theyid sooner have hacked them off with a fishing knife. They were boys. And boys will be boys! . . . I have no idea what girls will be.i I was intrigued; dumbfounded. iI didnit know yiall had three brothers; I never even thought about . . . before . . . before what was, uh, goini on before I first met you, uh, we met each other.i She nodded and said, iAh, yes, laddie, there were four of us. The Mooney kids. Growing up in Biloxi.i iMooney?i iMy maiden name. Annie Pauline Mooney. When I married Claudio, I became Anna Theresa Tortoretti. Good-bye Pauline; hello Theresa! Theresa was his motheris name, and it worked a lot better with Tortoretti than Pauline, thatis for sure.i 172 I thought about this with focused concentration (to some avail, the hard-on began to regress). iThen, youire not . . . Italian.i iNope. Plain and simple Irish; as plain and certainly as simple as can be. Shanty Irish. Second generation. Second hand lace curtains and all.i Her gesture took in the entire room, and I followed it, looking about. There were no curtains anywhere; just plantation shutters; all closed. iI canit . . . donit believe any of this.i iGodis awful truth,i she said, lapsing into a momentary, gentle brogue. iMe father came here from Londonderry; me mother from Dublin; Protestants, the two of eem, C of E, Church of England, Anglicans, woodjabelieve! Da was a longshoreman on the docks in Biloxi and Mobile, he was a lot like your namesake, that other Martin Eden . . . maybe thatis why I find meself so taken with the likes of you . . . ani me mum did day work fer some fancies up on Chatsworth Run. They both live in Waterford now; gone home to die, as they say.i Hum tuh day, as thy sigh. iMichael is in the Coast Guard, and Liam is in the Army. Kevin, the oldest, is married with five brats, he is, ani they live in Seattle; we keep in touch. He works for Boeing Aircraft. . . There ya have it, laddie, the whole lineage in a nootshell.i I shook my head. iI donit believe . . . How yiall get to Oli Dominion?i iSheer guts, determination, and hard work, plus grand grades on the entrance exam. . . Take off your polo shirt.i She removed the wine glass from my hand and pulled my shirt up in the front. I reached down for it and pulled it over my head, letting my arms fall through the short sleeves. I tossed it aside at the end of the sofa. She said, iRelax, Martin; just lean back . . . recline against the pillows . . . There; there you go. . . i Very carefully, her fingers the lightest of humming birds, she traced abstract circles on my chest. 173 iAnna . . . i The tingle behind my belly button and at the base of my neck was unbearable. My pituitary gland was pulsating neon. iPlease. Donit talk anymore; donit say another word. Just relax. Enjoy the wine and the candles.i Another deep breath of resignation, surprisingly almost no embarrassment now; overwhelming excited anticipation, and I could not imagine what would happen next. I heard her voice from a distant planet: iFor a writer, you are a remarkably goodlooking young man. Most writers, the good ones o make a dreadful appearance. Let me see your face. Look at me, Martin.i She leaned forward and examined me carefully. Her lips were nearly touching the tip of my nose. iI like your eyes,i she said, and I could taste her breath. It was sweet dough dipped deep in honey, soaked in mellow wine. She exhaled a sigh, and I felt her breath move over my face. Her eyes wandered down to my belly and across my chest. She said, iIim very glad youire not all that hairy, Martin. Contrary to the common consensus among uncommon commoners, men with hair on their stomachs and chests turn off sensitive women, especially women of genteel upbringing. Such as meself. There are no women in the world more genteel than we Southern women. Especially second generation Irish Southern. Did you know that? . . .Your stomach and chest seem just right. Your head, though, needs work. Hmmm. How often do you get a haircut, or do you cut it yourself?i I shook my head, unable to speak. iIill do it for you, one of these days. Ha! No, of course, I wonit! . . . Women really like as little hair on their menis bodies as possible. Claudio, of course, was a mess.i She slipped forward on the sofa and reached across me for the wine bottle, allowing her forearm to lightly brush against my re-ignited erection. Involuntarily, I jumped and stiffened further, as if by an electric charge. Anna Theresa laughed quietly. iRelax. Just relax. . . Lean back, Martin. . . Donit be so tense, laddie.i She poured wine into her glass and sat on the edge of the 174 sofa, to my right, looking down and back at my sprawling, reclining body. She offered the glass to me, holding it in both hands, and I drank heavily; some of it ran down my chin. She said, iIim dying to ask you something, but Iim afraid if I do, you will take the question as having another meaning, and in any case, youill probably lie.i iYou know you can ask me anything you want. I wouldnit lie to you about, anything.i iOf course. And thatis the prime lie all men tell: eI wouldnit lie to you.i Right.i iNo, itis okay. I feel I could tell you anything youid ever want to know . . . Yes. . . All right.i Anna Theresa smiled, and there was a chuckle ringing over her glass of wine. iAll right, then. Are you a virgin?i iA virgin?i I repeated, with the same inquiring inflection. iYes. Simple question.i iNo,i I blurted what seemed the only sensible answer. iI donit believe you,i her voice a whisper. iWould you believe I was a virgin until I married Claudio?i iNo.i I had no rationale for not believing her. iWell, I was.i She sighed heavily and looked away. iAnd I am again. And so I shall remain.i She glanced back at me, her eyes slightly crossed as we sat so close. iCan we change the subject?i I started to say I hadnit brought it up, but she spoke first. iMartin,i she said, iwould you like me to kiss you? Do you like kissing girls? Do you enjoy necking; smooching?i iSure. You kiddini? Iive wanted to kiss you ever since I first saw you in the library!i iWell, Iive wanted to kiss you, too; Iive wondered what it would be like to kiss a very young man. I mean, really kiss him. Iid like to kiss you right now, if I may.i And it was then that she kissed me. Very softly at first, our lips barely touching, then moving against each other with only fragile pressure. After a few seconds, she pulled her head away. iThat was nice. Now I would like to really kiss you, Martin,i she said, reaching across my shoulders and pulling me 175 up to her, and it was a kiss unlike anything Iid ever experienced: deep, enveloping, her lips opening slightly, and I felt myself tumbling off the edge of creation when I was sure her tongue had flicked against my own lips. Her face was over mine as I drifted deeper into the weird sofa; she backed off, then came to me again, and it was a kiss that seemed to last forever. I was certain my spirit, my soul, was leaving my body. I was transported off the earth, and I didnit care what she did or how long it took. I knew I had only a few minutes left to live. I had but one dying request, and I turned my face away. iCan I see your breasts?i I begged, my voice a shaking bag of gravel. iNo. Please donit be so common. Of course not.i iCan we do it?i I whispered. iCan I be inside you?i iNo. Donit be silly. And donit be so vulgar.i iCan I see you completely naked? Can we lay here naked together?i iNo.i iCan I kiss you again?i iNo.i iCan I kiss your breasts?i I pleaded, a pitiful whimper. iNo.i iCan I touch them?i iNo,i she repeated, but took my hand in her free one and pressed my palm against her left breast. She left it there, allowing me to gently knead the rolling fullness through the cool, smooth satin; and again she brought her face to mine and the kiss that followed was firmer, rougher, and when we stopped we both breathed harder. Courageously, I moved my hand from her left breast to her right, and she scrunched back on the sofa, slightly upward, until her breasts were even with my face. I gently cupped her left breast higher until the fabric and all, disappeared inside my mouth, my upper lip actually pressing the edge of her bare skin. She moaned ever so slightly, and her eyes glazed over. I immediately orgasmed in my dungarees. iOh, God. . . Oh, God. . . Oh, God,i was all I could say, my hand sliding from her breast and landing in her lap. 176 Anna Theresa said nothing. She simply looked at me, at my eyes, and she smiled. Then she closed her eyes, and we remained there, silent and not moving, many sacred minutes of our lives slipping away forever. Overwhelming passion had surrounded me, then quickly departed, and a picture formed in my mind of how ludicrous we must have looked. Embarrassment began to seep under the door of my desire like fog off the ocean at midnight. iPlease! Can I . . . i I fought to say it . . . ilove you? Do it? Make love to you?i I groveled, my words a scraping cry of desperation. She opened her eyes, and she appeared surprised. When she answered, I could barely hear her. iNo.i iTomorrow?i iNo.i iI love you.i iYes. Yes. I know,i she whispered. iOf course you do. Hmmm. In some bizarre . . . Jocastian way . . . I feel something like that, too, similar. . . I think I . . . I suppose I probably love you, am guilty of loving you, also. But itis very . . . complicated. Not the same thing. . . Thereis a problem. Hundreds of problems.i iWhat . . .?i iWell, first off, Iim certainly not in love with you. And really, Martin, you are not in love with me. . . You are young, Martin, so young. And I . . . I am old enough to be your mother . . . Christ, I could be labeled a child molester; I could go to jail for carnal knowledge of a minor, or vice versa, if there is such a law; at least contributing to the delinquency . . . ! Christ. You could be demented with an Oedipus complex that pops up o like your erection, every time weire together, and perhaps youire about to pluck out your own eyes! . . . Ha! Our once and forever time of outward, pure physical affection, passion, you can say, tell me you love me a hundred times, call it what you will, that will be no more. . . . You understand this? . . . Any of this make any sense to you?i 177 I couldnit lie. iI just know I love you. Iive loved you from the very first time I ever saw you.i She shook her head. iNo, no, puh-leese, please, please. . . dear Martin. . . eI love youi are words that roll out of your mouth . . . you say it like a stage actor on tour trying to impress some air-head from Indiana. You think you love me, Iim a thirty- one year old very, very lonesome and very frustrated, desperate . . . overly-romantic woman whose husband is gone, never to return, heill never be back, and who has nothing really but the fantasies of . . . books. And books and books. Itis all words and phrases you might use in a story. You may, today, think that I am the girl of your dreams oi iYou are!i I proclaimed, swearing an oath. Anna Theresa smiled, dazzling me further. iWell,i she sighed, iit may seem cruel, Martin, but you . . . are not the man of mine. A year from now, five, ten years from now, and twenty-five other women from now, youill think back on tonight, and youill be very embarrassed and very sensitive, youill probably get an erection just thinking about it, hmmm, and youill even think this fantasy was real . . . Real! Ha!i iWhat about you? Whatill you think back on . . . about tonight?i She paused and appeared to give it serious consideration. iGood question.i Then she laughed. iTwenty years from nowo when Iim fifty-one and menopausal and worried about osteoporosis, and youire thirty-seven and still climbing literary Everests and conquering the world, Iill probably think I may have made a colossal mistake . . . in letting you get away. . . Jesus, what am I saying?i With that she got up, somewhat unsteadily, picked up the wine glasses and the empty bottle, and started to move away. She turned in the flickering candlelight and let me gaze upon her one more time. iYouire a writer, laddie. You have a journalistis memory,i she whispered. iYouill make this last a lifetime. . . Youill have to, because this is the last of it thereill ever be, and, sure, it doesnit mean I donit like you or admire 178 you, even love you in some confused way, for whatever itis worth. But, letis not spoil something rare and unique with what I can only call . . . senseless melodrama. Or something. Whatever it is . . . Now get up, put your shirt on and go home. Poor, Poor Richard awaits!i 179 180 CHAPTER FOURTEEN By the time Shadow and I reached Number 5 South Gate at the Navy Base, he had told me, in ponderous, unrelenting detail, every moment of his date the previous night with Julie Hayden. iGirlis nuts ebout takini baths,i he related. iWasnit into neckini ani foolini around on the couch five minutes ani she dragged me, I mean, she like dragged me, into the bathroom, got the water runnini, ani ripped off our clothes, ani ker-plop, like a couple oi starvini catfish, into the tub with the bubbles ani salts, psssshit, I ainit never been so clean or smelled so nice since I was kickini the slats outta my crib ani my momma was changini my diapers ani sprinklini me with Pillsbury Flour! Fugg, Iid like to bang her just one time on a regilar bed once in a while!. . . Whatid yiall do last night?i I managed a silent shrug. iNothini. . . What do you mean, sprinkled you with Pillsbury Flour?i iYeah, she did; Momma did. We was too poor to have baby powder. All I got spread on my ass was Pillsbury Flour. Then every time I went out in the sun, Iid break out in cookies!i I had to laugh. iYiall a freaggin idiot!i iRight. So what did yiall do last night.i Riot. Siwhajiawl dew lass ny-ott? iNothini,i I said. iJust finished up my story.i iShow it to the lye-berry lady?i iYeah. She went over it. . . Then I re-typed the whole thing etil maybe two, three oiclock. Mailed it off just bifore we left to come here.i iWho yiall send it to?i iTeenAge! Magazine.i iPsssshit, they ainit gonna buy no story from the likes of yiall like that!i iEver read that magazine?i I asked. iYiall kiddini! Nobody but pussies, squirrels, dikes, ani swishes read that stuff!i Shadow rambled on for a couple more minutes about his 181 date with Julie Hayden, but I had little to say. I had no desire to share with him the marvelous events of last night. Had it been anyone other than Anna Theresa I would have gone over every detail with exaggerated titillation until I had him gasping for breath. By comparison, his date with Miss Spic ani Span was a casual walk by the Hague, holding hands on a Friday night. iDonit see no light in the attic when I come in,i he mused. iLike to write in the dark.i iHow yiall do that?i We were third in line at the gate, and I sat thumping a drum beat on the steering wheel, the melody line and tempo from Artie Shawis Temptation running through my mind. When the car in front was waved on through, the barricade came down and I pulled up to it, nudging it ever so lightly with the Jeepis head lamps. An SP, not Rodney, came out of the guardhouse and looked at Shadow. iYeah? So?i he inquired, not entirely with malice. iWhere Rod-ney?i iRodney who?i A momentary rumble emanated from my bowels. iRodney Herkimer,i I said, across Shadow. iBig fella whois usually here on Saturdays.i The SP leaned on the edge of the Jeepis windshield. iOh. Yeah. Herkimer. Yeah. Seaman One C. Big sumbitch. Ainit here right now.i Hane heh rat nuh. I said, iYeah. We suppose to see him, rightichere.i iYeah. Well, like I said, he ainit here.i Shadow said, iCan yiall call him?i iHow I do that?i iOn the phone.i The SP stared at Shadow for a full ten seconds; then he sagged and turned back to the guardhouse telephone. iHey. This South Five. Anybody down there know where Herkimer is? . . . Couple guys in a Jeep . . . Yeah, two kids. . . Marine Jeep, got camouflage on it. . . Who? . . . Yeah? No shit . . . How a fugg I sipossi to know, asshoi!i He hung up and turned back to us. iWhich one yiallis Jerome Blauser?i 182 I raised my hand. iMe, sir.i He looked at Shadow. iYou his cousin? Whatis the name, Stanley Zima?i Shadow saluted. iAye aye!i It was obvious the SP didnit know what else to say. He improvised: iWell, I donit have no way of knowini. You sipposei to meet Herkimer down by Q ramp at Pier Seven, near the stern of the Madison, endda the pier. Heis waitini for yiall down there.i I wanted to know, iWhatis the Madison?i iCarrier. Flat top. Your oli manis ship, fichrissake. Best you go down Nimitz ani cross over to Farragut; keep them destroyers ani escorts on your left. Pier Seven; yiall canit miss it. Lotta guys shippini out this weekend. . . Look, sorry if I wise-mouthed yiall; I got no way knowini who the fuggis comini ani goini. They donit tell yiall nothini rouni here!i Shadow reached over and playfully punched the SPis shoulder. iNo prob, pal. Gotta to keep security tight as a Church Street pussy!i iYiall got that right!i The SP manually raised the barricade and waved us through. iYou got brass balls,i I told Shadow, as I revved the engine. iYou gottum, bounce eem,i Shadow smiled, saluting the SP, who saluted back. iUp yours, swabbie,i Shadow muttered under his breath, a shit-eating grin from ear to ear. The Navy Base was a mammoth beehive of frenetic hustle and bustle, preparatory to major embarkation. The streets were cut through rows and rows of barracks, maintenance buildings, administration buildings, and countless Quonset huts; traffic was a cluttered turmoil. Everyone had some place to be and it appeared no one knew how to get there; but the cars and Jeeps, half-tracks, trucks, staff cars, motorcycles with sidecars, forklifts, buggies and bicycles kept moving, horns kept blowing, and SPis, acting like traffic cops, were blowing whistles, waving arms, cursing, pointing, and the flow was slow but unimpeded. It was, fortunately, a warm and clear day, and the 183 sun felt good. I remarked to Shadow, iMan, is this freaggin exciting shit, or what!?!i iPisser,i he agreed. iAny idea where Pier Seven is?i I shook my head and pulled up alongside a gyrating SP. iWhereis the Madison? Whereis Pier Seven?i I shouted over the din. He pulled the whistle out of his mouth. iFugg I know! Try Farragut!i iWhereis that?i He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. iThree blocks up Nimitz, bear left! . . . Keep them destroyers on your right!i He looked at us for the first time . . . iWhatire you swabbies doini drivini a Marine Jeep?i Shadow rubbed his nose with his middle finger, and we moved on. Nimitz Boulevard was essentially the imain dragi going north and northwest from Gate 5, and there were a number of streets leading to the various piers and dry docks that literally surrounded the base from Sewells Point, across Willoughby Bay, to Gate 17 at Ocean View Boulevard. At any given moment, there could be as many as three aircraft carriers, seven battleships, a dozen destroyers, fifteen mine sweepers, cruisers, innumerable LSTs, thirty thousand military personnel, and twenty-five percent as many civilian employees collected between Craney Island, the Elizabeth River, the James River, Hampton Roads, Willoughby and Chesapeake Bays, and the Atlantic Ocean. All the streets, lanes, avenues, and boulevards inside the base were named for Navy officers of high rank or heroes of historic deeds. The only exceptions were Merrimac and Monitor Avenues, commemorating the intense but slightly less-than-pivotal battle between the first two ironclad warships ever built. It had taken place just off Craney Island during the Civil War. The armor of neither having been pierced, the Merrimac (flag name was CSS Virginia) eventually lost interest and turned its attention to two nearby wooden Union gunboats, the Congress and the Cumberland, both of which it promptly destroyed and dispatched to the bottom of Hampton Roads. The sight of the USS James Madison, looming majestically 184 as we bore left off Nimitz Boulevard onto Farragut at Pier 7, brought out goose bumps on my forearms. An aircraft carrier o any aircraft carrier, is a Brobdingnagian mechanism of military sea-power of such overwhelming dimensions that when suddenly viewed from a low vantage point, at a distance which permitted peripheral vision to view it all at once, one was simply awe-struck. The James Madison was even more impressive because it was at first far off, then close up, and it seemed to envelope us, swallow us as we got closer. And in the process of massive, frenetic loading activity, its mammoth size was brought into almost incomprehensible but exhilarating perspective by comparison to the men, vehicles, equipment, and ordnance moving in and out from pier to vessel. iJay-sus!i Shadow muttered. In the shadow cast by the towering flat top, it was twenty degrees cooler and almost dusk. An SP appeared from amidst the chaos and waved us to a stop. iWhere yiall goini, fellas?i iSeaman First Class Herkimer waitini on us at Q ramp.i iYiall skipperis kids?i Shadow pointed at me. iHeis Capin Blauseris liil boy. Iim his nephew.i I suddenly had a fresh vision of standing in front of a firing squad. iYeah, okay, I seen Herkimer five minutes ago.i I asked, iWhereis Q ramp?i iJust keep goini. Qis last on-ramp at the end of the ship. Thatis where theyis loadini your daddyis staff car, ani his private Jeep ani his private rations ani liquor ani shit for the brass ani braid. Just keep on goini, downiatta way.i Once more in gear, we made our way over many minutes down the length of the USS James Madison. There must have been at least twelve ramps entering the enormous hull under the upper decks; the canopy formed by the flight deck easily covered three city blocks as it extended out at a slight angle from the bow back to way beyond amidships. Notwithstanding its height of several stories, a raging typhoon could not have dripped a drop on any of the hundreds working on the pier 185 below. When we finally arrived at Q ramp, we immediately spotted Rodney directing a platoon of swabbies moving cases of rations and food stuffs of all sorts through a gaping gangway. He was stripped to the waist, drenched in sweat, and both Shadow and I were in awe at what a hulking Charles Atlas he really was. Hey!i he called out, over the incessant racket. iFigured yiall musta got loss!i iNaw. Serious traffic in this here place,i Shadow called back. iTook damn near a hour comini from the gate!i I asked, iWhere can we park the Jeep?i Rodney looked around. iTell you what. Donit park it out here; somebodyill scoop it up ani stick it inna hold someplace, ani we never find it again. Drive right up the ramp ani weill parkier just inside the ship. Lemme get in.i In a graceful motion no one would have suspected of a man Rodneyis size, he leaped over his own arm and landed lightly in the back seat. iNice move,i Shadow admitted. iYiall shoulda been a tailback at Ole Miss.i iDang near was,i Rodney laughed. iOffered me a scholarship right outta high school, but Tojo had different ideas. . . Go on right up the ramp ani make a left first turn just inside.i First thing I noticed was, if it was eighty degrees outside, it was a hundred and eighty inside the aircraft carrieris lowest cargo deck. Lit by hundreds of naked bulbs hanging from within metal colored frames, a glow of pale orange prevailed inside the cavern that, at first, made it difficult to see where I was going. Huge boxes were piled to infinity on both sides of a narrow passageway, just wide enough to permit the Jeep to move one way and a forklift or people to move the other, and shipping crates and containers were lined up in another direction as far as the eye could see, which wasnit very far because of the immensity of the place and the limited glow from the light bulbs. I passed three other Jeeps and a staff car parked to my right just beyond where Rodney told me to park. The other Jeeps were fully equipped, the staff car was resplendent in olive drab; they were all sporting fender flags. One had a single gold star in a 186 navy blue field, on both fenders. William Powell came to mind. As I flicked off the ignition switch on the steering column and climbed out, Rodney saw me staring at the flags. iYour oli manis a pretty power-ful guy,i he said. iHowis that?i iServini capin over a vice admiral up on that bridge.i iWho is it?i iJohn Paul Serateen, nobody less!i Shadow whistled, iPsssshit! Heiza man!i iThatis right.i Thass rat. iYiall see in the newsreels what he did in the Pacific so far? Your daddy tell you what that man did? Took on the entire Jap fleet in the Java Sea with one flat top ani one battleship ani two destroyers ani two subs, ani we kicked the shit outta them so bad the Nips got outta there with only one battleship left floatini. Sunk thirteen of their best tubs ani ebout a hundred of their Zeros, ani all we lost was a liil oli sub! Letis go.i We left the Jeep and followed Rodney deeper into the cargo hold. I wanted to know where we were going. iWanna get yiall set up with enuff gas for your Jeep,i he said, as we walked faster to keep pace with him. iAinit gonna be here for a while, you know I cainit yak too much ebout this stuff . . .but while we gone, I got this buddy name Glenn Worthy o heis a SP like me but he ainit goini on this one, ani heis gonna meet yiall on Satidays ani fix yiall up with gas. Right now, though, heis workini pack duty sois we can get this oli fleet outta here today.i I stopped and placed my hand on Rodneyis shoulder. iYou leavini today?i Rodney looked at me with curious concern. iDidnit your daddy tell yiall we was shippini out? Donit your momma know? Shit, I figured you boysid wanna come on board ani say goodbye proper-like ani all. Itis like S.O.P. for officersi male kin, ispecially capinsi kids. Your momma ani your sisters ainit all that welcome, course, but, shit, I figured this was a right Christian thing to do.i In the dim orange glow, Shadow and I looked at each other, 187 and for the first time ever, I saw Shadow was confused and a little frightened. He said, iWeeellllll . . . i . . . and I thought I was standing beside Jack Benny. My mind was racing, but the finish line was nowhere in sight. We needed time. iListen, Rodney,i I said, slowly, trying to talk and think at the same time. iI sure wanna say good-bye to my daddy ani all, but, you know somethini, I really hate leavini the Jeep in here . . . i iLot safer in here,i Rodney reaffirmed. iYeah, but not really . . . I mean, we leave we should just go ani take off outta here, you know, itis gonna be kinda tough on both me ani Sha, huh, Stanley here, ani we donit wanna go screwini around lookini for the Jeep ani gettini held up by a bunch of whistle-happy SPs, you know, with all this hub-bub goini on . . . i Rodney shrugged his mountainous shoulders. iSo o whatcha wanna do?i iWell . . . how about we go get the Jeep ani park it outside, ani then we come back righichere ani, go from there?i iYeah.i Rodneyis face screwed into a thought-mode. iYeah, guess thatis a plan. I gotta get me a clean skivvy-shirt anyhow if I gonna take yiall up to the Capinis bridge . . . so thatis what we best do. Yiall park against the fence right outside the gangway. Tell the load master at the end of the gangway to keep his cotton-pickers offin that Jeep, ani then come right back here. Anybody stop yiall, tell eem Rodney Haychis waitini for yiall.i Shadow and I spun and ran full out for the Jeep. I was groping for the ignition switch before we hit the seats, and within two minutes I had backed out into the driving aisle. It wasnit easy leaving the ship, as we had to dodge forklifts and swabbies carrying seasacks, boxes, and all sorts of supplies. Finally, outside, I snuggled close to the chain link fence and shut off the engine. I giggled out loud and Shadow punched my thigh. iWell, Ollie,i I mimicked, ithis is a fine mess youive gotten us into! 188 He wants us to go up there ani kiss oli Capin-Daddy bye-bye!i iYeah,i he said, iyou gonna be laughini your ass off inna a federal penitentiary next twenty years. We get up on the bridge, we gonna run smack ass dab into Blauseris real kin. Whatire we doini sittini here? Letis haul ass, while we can!i Less hawl ice, whale wah ken! I shook my head. iWe canit do that. Rodneyis gonna wait for us just so long; then heis gonna come lookini. Gonna take us forty-five minutesir an hour to get back to the gate with all thatis goini on, ani heis gonna call the gate, all the gates, to look out for us, an every damn SP on the baseis gonna come lookini for us, ani . . . ani . . .i iAni,i Shadow finished for me, iour ass is grass. Psssshit! Man, weire dead as Kelseyis nuts!i iNot quite,i I said, the light bulb of an idea flickering at low voltage in my petrified brain. I watched Shadow intently. iWhat if we went back in,i I suggested, speaking very slowly, iani told Rodney weid already said our goodbyes to dear oli Capin Blauser-Daddy last night, ani there was no way we could go through all that emotional bullshit all over again? All the cryini ani the women wailini ani huggini all night long! What if we toli him how much we really appreciate all heis done to get us in there for a final squeeze today, but we donit really wanna get all sticky ani mushy again . . . shit, Shadow, heis gotta understand that, beini from Mississippi ani all!i Shadow was on the verge of buying it. iWhatis Missisippi gotta do with anything?i iI dunno,i I admitted. iAll them books ani short stories by William Faulkner always has everybody slobberini ani cryini all over each other, i iAinit never read none of that shit.i iI know. But I have. I mean, Faulkner writes in sentences that go on for six pages, ani at the start somebodyis gettini sick, ani half way through they die, ani by the time you get to a period, they got him buried ani theyire readini the will. Ani there ainit a dry eye in the place!i 189 Shadow punched my thigh again. iWhat the fugg yiall talkini about? We gonna spend the next fifty years in the brig ani youire doini a freaggin book report! Jay-sus!i iCome on,i I said, and slid out of the Jeep. iBesides, if we take off now ani do get outta here, you can kiss all that gasoline good-bye. We might as well drive this here oli Jeep right off the pier right now!i That was the closer. Shadow sighed and jumped out beside me. iPsssshit!i was his only retort. Walking up the slight incline of the gangplank (the load master was nowhere in sight), it occurred to me that we could easily be mistaken for a couple of swabbies. Wearing dungarees and fairly clean, white t-shirts, we were the right size and age, almost. Some of those working around us wore crushed white crew hats, but most didnit; everyoneis hair was as short as Shadowis brush cut, and I was the only one looking a little scruffy, like Iid been at sea, maybe, the past six weeks. Our shoes, however, hightop basketball shoes, actually, were dead giveaways; that, plus our apparent lack of tattoos. But once inside the rampis gaping hatch, in the pale orange glow of virtual sunrise, we blended in like street scene pedestrians in a Woody Van Dyke movie. iGet outta the way, asshois!i someone growled, and we stepped aside to let two swabbies pass between us carrying a gunbox. iGuys on vacation?i a tunic with insignia shouted at us. iPick up those fuggini crates!i Shadow mumbled iAye aye, shithead,i and we hoisted what seemed to be immovable cartons. iWhatis in here? Bowlini balls?i Once deeper inside, in the shadows, the heat, noise, and general confusion of the cargo hold, we set the crates down on top of similar ones and headed back to where we assumed Rodney was waiting for us. iSure this the way we come in here?i Shadow stood still, looking, trying to see in all directions. iYeah, sure. We drove in, we turned right, then left, then straight ahead,i I said. iRodney should be right over there right near the Jeeps.i iWhat Jeeps?i 190 iThe capinis . . . ani the admiralis . . . Aw, shit.i iYeah. Yiall can say that again.i We were lost. There were no Jeeps, no staff car parked where we remembered them from a few moments ago. Only boxes and crates. Equipment. Steel carriers. A half-track. Sailors coming and going. Duffels and seasacks. Crew hats and t-shirts and tunics. We had made at least one, possibly two critically wrong turns. iRod-ney!i Shadow shouted at the top of his voice, but he was drowned out by the forklifts, the lifting cranes, the roar of small vehicles, the chattering, sonorous rumble of men grousing, grunting, bitching, shouting orders, a cacophony of the grim, deafening roar of waris preparation. It was a sound you could literally smell inside this cauldron of sweat, steel, gun powder, motor oil, kerosene, diesel fuel, high-octane aviation gasoline, and heat. iRod-ney!i We automatically moved on, sensing that if we stood still in one place too long we would draw attention to ourselves and be noticed, singled out. We walked deeper into the shipis canyon of steerage and cargo, and the farther we went, the hotter it got, and noisier. iRod-ney!i A hand shot out from between a stack of boxes and grabbed my arm. iJay-sus!i I jumped a foot off the ground. Shadow crouched low, ready to spring. iYiall lookini for Herkimer?i A swabbie stepped into the dim light and smiled, letting go of my arm. iSorry ifin I scared yiall.i iWho the fuggire you?i Shadow snapped. iI like to piss my pants!i Ah lake tuh pu-iss muh pay-ants!i iSeaman Third Class Andrew Jackson Rooke,i the swabbie replied, proudly. He was a small fellow, a kid not much older than we, and he looked as though he had never shaved; even in the pale orange glow his skin was tissue-pale, sallow; perhaps, I thought, he had been born in this sunless hold. He had a remarkably large nose, and when he spoke, he spoke through it; 191 it was his personal megaphone, and it gave his voice a strange kazoo-like resonance. iAinit gonna find Rodney Herkimer ebout here,i he wheezed. iRodney went on ahead up top, ani he said I was to find yiall ani getcha up with him there. Said yiall was gonna get lost, probily, ani I was to find you. Said just go look for two pussies walkini rouni tryini to look like theyis sailors carryini on down here, ani itid be yiall. Findini yiall werenit no chore.i We moved to both sides of the swabbie and maneuvered him under one of the light bulbs. iYiall know who I am?i I whispered in his ear. iSure do. Capin Blauseris boy.i He looked at Shadow. iThis hereis his nephew Stanley.i He looked back at me. iYiall sure do look like your daddy!i That was the first time weid heard that one, and Shadow broke out laughing. iI gotta believe everybody on the whole damn base knows who we are!i he said. iSure do!i Seaman Rooke confirmed. iThey say Capin Blauseris mighty proud of his boy. . . Ani you, too, Stanley.i I asked, iYou know Capin Blauser; you ever see him?i iYeah, sure, I seen him. Donit know him, though.i Rooke actually giggled through his nose. iHow yiall figure Iid ever know the capin?i iI donit believe youive ever even seen him,i I taunted. iHave, too!i iHave not.i iHave, too!i Shadow saw where this was going, even if it eluded Rooke. iThen tell us what he looks like.i Without hesitation the swabbie answered, iWalter Pidgeon.i iWho?i iWalter Pidgeon; heis the spittini image. Yiall seen him in Flight Command or How Green Was My Valley?i We both nodded. iWell, your daddyis Walter Pidgeon through ani through; spittini image, thatis for sure, oh yeah!i 192 I looked at Shadow. iKnow somethini, Stanley? Andy Jack hereis right on: My daddy is the absolute spittini image of Walter Pidgeon.i iBoy,i Shadow agreed, iyou sure got that right. Uncle Capin looks more like Walter Pidgeon does than . . . Walter Pidgeon!i It occurred to us both that we werenit 100% sure of Captain Blauseris Christian name. Weid seen it in the paper, at least I had, but it was not an easy name to remember; it had extra initials ahead of the name itself. Shadow tried, iTell me somethini . . . What do the men eround here call my uncle when they need to speak with him?i iCall him?i Rooke had to think a moment. Then: iDunno. Capin Blauser, I guess.i I tried, iWell, donit they call him somethini more than that, like if theyire officersi or close buddies . . . or somethini?i The young swabbie sighed. iGuess ifin they knowed him like that they just call him by his first name.i iWhich is?i iDonit you know?i iCourse I know!i I said roughly, feigning exasperation. iHeis my daddy! Only one I got! I just donit think you know anything about my oli man, i iThatis it!i Rooke cried out, jumping from one foot to another. iOli Man!i iWhat?i iThatis what they call him, ithe Oli Mani! eThe skipperi! They call the capin ethe Oli Mani!i I gave up and moved away from our new found friend. iOkay. What about Rodney Herkimer? Yiall know where he went? We gotta find him.i iYeah. Not right now, though. He was down there, on the other side of the gangway, ebout half hour ago, but he got called up on the upper deck deck, ani he toli me to look for yiall ani tell you sumpin . . . i iTell us what?i Shadow prodded. 193 iHe said . . . he say . . . i Rooke was having a hard time with this. iWhat did he say?i iHe said . . . i A flashbulb went off between Rookeis ears, and his eyes glowed: iHe said yiall was to come up to the upper deck deck, ani he would meetchiall near elevator number six soon as yiall come by. Thatis what it was.i I put my arm around Rookeis shoulder. iYouire a good man, Andy Jack. . . Now, where the upper deck deck?i Rooke seemed surprised. iYiall donit know?i I shook my head. iDaddy never allowed us come down this far inna flat top before, ani we donit know shit from Shinola.i iThatis too bad. These here oli aircrafi carriersis the best ships we got in this here whole Navy.i iSure believe it,i Shadow whispered. iWell, all yiall do,i Rooke explained, playing a new and mellow tune on his kazoo, iis go up this row to where yiall see stairs goini up, ani what you do is go up, ani keep goini up, ebout four, five decks, ani the deck right up from the last cargo deck is gonna be the upper deck, ani yiallill know you there because if yiall miss it, the next deck up is the hanger deck, ani you gonna see ebout a zillion airplanes all lined up like big oli blue ani silver horseflies sittini onna sugar cake ebout size of ten city blocks. Go on back down just one deck ani Rodneyis gonna be waitini for yiall right there by elevator number six.i Rah- kneeis gone be whytin fer yawl rye-ott theh bay elavatuh numsick.i Shadow was trying to memorize all this. iWhy cainit we jusi take elevator number six from here right up to where Rodneyis waitini for us?i Rooke reached up and scratched his head. iYiall know sumpin? . . . I doan know! I think yiall might do jusi that!i And he stepped out into the narrow aisle between the boxes and pointed off into the dim orange glow. iThatis it, thataway. Just go right down there ebout fifty yards ani thereis gonna be a elevator down there, ani if itis number six, just ring the bell ani get on ani turn the wheel to the right to go up. When the sign 194 say upper deck, get off, ani thereis oli Rodney waitini for yiall!i He went on to explain that if it wasnit elevator number six, whatever number it was, we were to proceed toward the stern to find a higher number, or toward the bow for lower numbers. Before Shadow could ask which way was which, I said, iAndy Jack, thereis somethini I want yiall to do for us.i iSure. Whatcha need?i I pulled him closer, more conspiratorial. iCan yiall disappear outta here for about ten, fifteen minutes ani help us out with Capin Oli Man Skipperis Jeep?i iNo prob. . . Where is it?i I told him where weid parked the Jeep by the chain link fence. iItis an official Marine Corp Jeep with camouflage ani all. I wanna make sure no dumb ass swabbie moves it or tows it outta the way; so if yiall could go sit in it etil we get back, weill make sure oli Walter Pidgeon gets the story that oli Andrew Jackson Rookeis takini care of his personal Jeep real good. Yiall get the picture?i iHey, man, leave it to me! That Jeepis safe as Fort Knox!i iGreat! . . . Okay! . . . Letis do it!i My arm over Rookeis shoulder, I spun him away toward the near wall and, hopefully, out the same ramp gangway from which we had arrived. As soon as he was gone, I turned to Shadow. iWhat the freaggin fugg are we doini here! We outta our goddamn minds! We gonna get ourselves in one freaggin jam! You ani your goddamn gasoline! Weire gonna wind up in a fediral prison for a hundred freaggin years!i Shadow, as scared as me, could do no more than shrug, exhaling a nervous: iPssssshit! . . . I dunno!i * * * I woke up with a start, as if from a nightmare, frightened and confused, so hungry I felt I was going to vomit. Shadow was asleep and snoring heavily. I could barely see him. He was curled in a ball against the far wall of the container; the light coming in through slats and cracks was just enough to make out his crumpled form on the steel floor. I had no idea what time it 195 was; I could not see the hands on my watch; I had no idea how long we had been asleep there, but it had to have been a long time, maybe a day, maybe overnight . . . maybe more. I had to take a leak so bad, as Aunt Freddie would say, iI could taste it.i I was oblivious to a slight rolling of the floor beneath my feet and the thumping hum of a rhythmic, metallic grind, a humming groan, somewhere in the distance. In the farthest corner from where Shadow was sleeping, I unbuttoned my dungarees and pissed against the side of the container, a stream hitting the wall with the resonant clanging roar of a firehose full force against a galvanized roof. Reconstruction of events leading up to this moment was difficult: The elevator, I think it was number six, began its ascent, and then I was unable to control the small wheel that made it go up and down; no matter which way I spun it, the huge freight elevator just kept on climbing . . . sailors and officers outside the cage shouting at us, screaming and cursing and waving their fists as we passed them by . . . deck after deck slipping away . . . glimpses of aircraft lined up to infinity . . . stopping finally on what had to be the top deck, the flight deck, outdoors, a momentary view of the entire Tidewater area from high up, a deck so large that from the elevator nothing of the base was visible . . . Then, out of the cage through the iron-grate door, hit by a blast of fresh, cool air, the sour, clean smell of salt water from off Hampton Roads, squinting against bright, late afternoon sunshine, and surrounded by the hustle and bustle of hundreds of Navy personnel preparing to take the flat top out to sea. Shadow and I stood still amidst it all, overwhelmed by the size, the noise, the excitement, the immense novelty of being someplace we had never been before, except when absorbed into the fantasy of the silver screen from our secure seats near the front of some dark movie house. Perception was now reality, and reality had become its own perception, and we had stepped off that elevator from the kindergarten of experience into the undergraduate world of young manhood, in the space of a few misguided moments. A tunic stuck his face near mine. iYou shitheads got nuthin 196 better to do than stand gawkini? This ainit no fuggin cruise ship! Start movini them ammo boxes down to B deck!i We stood staring at him. iGo! Gah-dammit!i The boxes were very heavy, and we both grunted as we grappled them waist high. We hoisted them up and walked quickly back toward the open elevator door. A marine sergeant got on ahead of us. iAsshois left the fuggini door open.i He was wearing battle fatigues and an engineeris cap. iYou guys know where B deck is?i Shadow was quick; glib. iAye aye, Sarge! Justi under A deck!i iShit,i the marine said, looking at us with open suspicion. iOnly thing under A deckire four turbines, eight Babcocks, four prop shafts, a hundred ani fifty thousand horses, ani a gah-damn ocean. Couple a blue fuggs two days outta Great Lakes ani loadini a fuggin flat top! This is a shit war! Where you get them dumb-ass shoes?i We shifted our ammo boxes and looked at our feet. iThese?i I asked, stupidly. The marine glared at us. iOh, you mean, these!i Shadow answered, iWe on the basketball team. Our hammock won a camp tourniment, ani they give us these; first prize. Pretty nice, huh?i I glanced at Shadow across the top of the ammo box. Our hammock? The marine broke his gaze away from Shadow and closed the iron-grate door. Turning the handle on the small wheel to the left, the elevator began its slow descent. The marine, obviously trained in operating elevators, stopped it at the next deck down, and for the first time I noticed there was a placard on the wall just outside naming what deck we were facing. In this case it read UPPER DECK (E). iGit the pitcher, dumbos?i the marine snarled. My math was never as fast as Shadowis, but if the flight deck was F, and this was E, then B deck had to be three more decks down. That probably made A deck the very bottom, the one with ramps and gangways to the pier; actually the deck where we came onboard. I said to Shadow, in a voice I hoped 197 only he could hear, iWhen we get to B deck, dump the boxes ani head down one more ani weire gettini off this ship fast as we can!iiGotcha!i Several more personnel got on at E deck, some carrying duffels and seasacks, and the marine turned the wheel again. We stopped at D deck. Three got off and four more got on. Conversation among the troops was non-stop: iTake longer to load this piece a shit then fight the fuggin war!i . . . iSo gah- damn tired I couldnit take a shit if Iid eat a boxa ExLax!i . . . iAinit no way we gonna be outta here by eighteen hunert!i . . . iBlauseris a asshoi!i . . . iLew-ten-unt say England. Then he say Philippines.i . . . iHe fulla shit! We gone North Affer-ca!i . . . iI hate Englund. Fuggers got worst food in the world; country got one kinda meat ani five hunert gravies!i . . . iAffer-ca? Shit, man, you can jump ship ani be rat at home!i . . . iFugg you!i . . . iFugg you, too!i . . . iKnock it off, sailor!i snapped the sergeant. At C deck everyone got off but the marine and the two of us. Eight more got on, including three tunics. We were pushed to the back of the cage, and when we stopped at B deck, nearly everyone had to step out to let us off. iFicryssake, you carryini sumpin stay inna front!i . . . iWatcha corner onnem boxes, dumb shit!i . . . iRedneck asshois!i The marine spun around and slammed the iron-grate behind him as the elevator pulled away. He glared at us one more time and walked off to the left; instinctively we moved right. B deck was much more brightly lit than A deck had been, and within a minute or two we had walked to a pile of boxes that were identical to the ones we were carrying. We quickly stashed ours on top and leaned back against the stack to survey the situation. There was an overhead sign suspended from a thin chain which read Live Ammo-No Smoking. Shadow said, iMan, I wish I had me a cigirette.i iBlow us all to kingdom come.i iYeah. Big loss. . . Whatta we gonna do?i I stepped away from the stack and looked around. B deck 198 was, apparently, the accumulation of first staging for the shipis munitions and ordnance. Forklift after forklift had stacked huge 5i/38 caliber shells, 80mm and 60mm AAis, 454kg and 907kg bombs for Hellcats, Corsairs, and Avengers, box upon box of 12.7mm machine gun bullets, .30 and .50 caliber bullets, tracers, incendiaries, rifles, automatic pistols, grenades, and grenade launchers. It all went in all directions, as far as the eye could see. There were conveyer belts along all sides of the hull to transport whatever ordnance was required up to a variety of relay points on various other decks for dissemination to fighter planes, gun mounts, wherever. Easily, there were five hundred men on B deck, swarming like drones looking for the queen in a honeycomb. iOne Kraut or Jap torpedo in here,i Shadow speculated, iani this whole shipis mincemeat.i What neither Shadow nor I knew, of course, was that the ordnance deck was strategically placed to allow a torpedo (or kamikaze) the opportunity for minimal damage, even with a direct hit at or below the waterline. iAi deck, forty feet below us, was still above water with the ship fully loaded; this class carrier pulled a draft of only twenty-nine feet. A torpedo lucky enough to find its way through the maze of destroyers, mine sweepers, cruisers, battleships, and hovering aircraft, would strike the hull nearly perpendicular to the engine deck, a series of sections running the length and breadth of the ship across the very bottom, comprised of countless fairly water-tight compartments. A couple well placed hits might cripple the vessel, but an aircraft carrier was unquestionably a most difficult tub to sink (the Franklin and the Lexington were and would be living testimony to that; the mortally wounded Lexington had had to be scuttled by our own torpedo planes in the Coral Sea). The tragic demise of the Yorktown in the Battle of Midway last year was another prime example. The Japanese were aware the carrieris greatest vulnerability lay on the flight deck and the bridge, and they had mounted a continuous bomber attack from the air combined with well-lobbed shells from strategically placed gunships, not to mention eight hits from torpedoes. 199 Since all counter-attack activity had essentially to commence from the flight deck (with direction from the bridge), the enemy had concentrated incessantly on that area of vulnerability. During the Battle of the Coral Sea, one bomb had gone down her main funnel and knocked out her furnaces and boilers, rendering her hopelessly dead in the water. Moments later, another bomb tore through her flight deck and exploded in the mess hall two decks down, killing more than a hundred crewmen. A few weeks later, in the Battle of Midway, most of the Yorktownis compliment of aircraft and ordnance, as well as many of her honored crew, went down with the carrier. Lecturing on the disaster in a seminar at the Naval Academy after the war, Rear Admiral James Zachary Pio said, iIf we canit get eem off the flight deck, we might as well lock the pilots in the brig and dump the aircraft in the ocean! A carrieris only got one offensive function: Get the planes in the air and then get their tailhooks back on the arresting cable! The rest is defensive bull!i I grabbed Shadow by the forearm and we started moving back toward the elevator. iI think we better forget about Rodney ani the gasoline ani get our butts outta here.i iMaybe we oughta stay off the elevator. They gotta have stairways; we only gotta make just one deck down.i iYeah.i We stopped to look around. iNOW HERE THIS! NOW HERE THIS! . . .i We both jumped two feet off the ground. A boatswainis voice, sharp and crystal clear, literally exploded from a speaker mounted over our heads. iATTENTION ALL NAVY, MARINE, CIVILIAN PERSONNEL ATTACHED TO TASK FORCE TWENTY- THREE!! . . . THE BRIDGE REPORTS IT HAS INFORMATION THAT TWO UNAUTHORIZED CIVILIAN STOWAWAYS ARE ON BOARD. . . TWO CAUCASIAN MALES, AGES LATE TEENS, EARLY TWENTIES, POSING AS SAILORS IN DUNGAREES AND T-SHIRTS, POSSIBLY WEARING HIGH- TOP BASKETBALL SHOES, ON BOARD PRETENDING TO BE THE SON AND NEPHEW OF CAPTAIN BLAUSER. . . IF 200 SEEN, APPREHEND AND HOLD FOR SHORE PATROL. . . THESE MEN ARE NOT ARMED AND ARE NOT CONSIDERED DANGEROUS; HOWEVER, APPROACH THEM WITH CAUTION. . . REPEAT . . . i iHoly shit! Now what!i The vision of a firing squad reappeared, only this time I could hear the command: Ready! Aim! Fire! An uncontrolled bowel movement was imminent. We started to run with no idea whatever in which direction we were running. At first, Shadow was ahead of me, but when we rounded a corner and found ourselves in a knot of confused sailors, I moved to the front and set the pace. iHey! Is zatiem?i someone shouted. iYeah! Thass zem! Look at them shoes!i And the chase was on. Once, in our sophomore year, Shadow and I had gone out for track and field, and we had actually qualified in two events: high jump and the 100 yard dash. The meet was held at Granby High in April, and both of us came in dead last in our respective heats. Had that meet been held this August day in 1943, we would have taken home the blue ribbons. Today I was Jesse Owens being pushed by Paavo Nurmi, and chased by a pack of limp and outclassed sea wolves. Within a minute we were totally disoriented; we had no idea where we were running nor which way to turn next. The entire B deck was a maze. Boxes and cartons and containers were piled floor to ceiling. Mounds of stacked shells created obstacles that prevented running in a straight line more than a few feet at a time. Canisters of powder pouches reached out like animated topiary. Had it not been for our basketball shoes and desperation, we would have been caught almost immediately; as it was, we kept ahead of the ever growing pack by a diminishing twenty yards. Suddenly an elevator appeared thirty strides in front of us. The iron-grate door was open and beckoning, and I started to sprint full steam when Shadow suddenly tackled me, and we slid to a rolling stop at the elevatoris edge. Before I could get up, he 201 jumped inside, spun the wheel to the left, and jumped out, slamming the gate as he came, just as the elevator began to drop. He grabbed me under my armpit and dragged me between two mammoth containers, just as the pursuing swabbies came around the bend and converged on the departing elevator. iFugg! Theyis onna way down tuh A deck!i iYou gobs run like a buncha pussies!i iCall down tuh A; they grab their asses down there jusi like that!i iHey, we catch them fuggers, skipperis gonna give us some good time off!i iWell, we ain gonna catch shit! Go call down tuh A!i Grumbling, the dozen or so swabbies shuffled back to work, and we remained pressed between the two containers a full five minutes, catching our breath, sweating in the heat of the hold. Our eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness and we moved slowly back into the secure area away from the aisle in front. iLooky here,i Shadow whispered. He held out his hand and took mine, and together we felt along the side of one of the containers. A flap moved inward, a small hinged door at the base of the container, apparently unbolted, and when we pushed hard against it, it opened up, and we slipped inside the empty container. Once inside, the flap dropped back into a closed position, leaving us standing upright and gazing up at the vast space enclosed by slightly rusting metal. From cracks in the vertical slats, we had enough light to barely make out the emptiness surrounding us. iWhy you figure they got empty containers down here?i Shadow wanted to know. iGot me. Maybe they shuck their casings in here, then toss eem overboard.i iBet thatis it.i His voice went back to a whisper. iDonit talk too loud. Makes a echo.i iYeah.i We moved to the far side of the container where there was slightly more light and sat down on the cool floor. iWeire in deep shit,i Shadow confided. iWhat yiall figureis gonna happen?i 202 iI gotta think. Yiall think, too.i I said, iI think weire gonna get caught; theyire gonna put us in a fediral penitentiary for about fifty years bustini rocks; oli Ben Wuis gonna see my picture in the paper, ani theyire gonna add twenty more to our sentence; the fella whose car I stole is gonna put two ani two together, so thereis another ten years . . . weire dead people just sittini here, waitini to die.i Shadow grunted, iWeire deader if we try gettini off this ship right now. Letis just stay put. Maybe Rodneyis gonna come by ani we can grab him.i iWhat for? You heard what the loudspeaker said. Rodney canit do nothini now. The whole storyis out, busted. He knows, his chief knows, Blauser knows, everybody, the whole freaggin Navy knows . . . i And, as if on cue, the speaker again came to life with the boatswainis sharp, staccato delivery: NOW HEAR THIS! NOW HEAR THIS! ATTENTION ALL TASK FORCE TWENTY- THREE PERSONNEL ! . . . THE TWO STOWAWAYS ARE ON iAi DECK! REPEAT: THE TWO STOWAWAYS ARE ON iAi DECK! BE ALERT AT ALL RAMPS AND GANGWAYS! . . . ATTENTION SEAMAN FIRST CLASS RODNEY HERKIMER! SEAMAN FIRST CLASS RODNEY HERKIMER! REPORT TO THE BRIDGE ON THE DOUBLE! REPORT TO THE BRIDGE ON THE DOUBLE! . . . ALL PERSONNEL STAND BY TO CAST OFF AT EIGHTEEN HUNDRED HOURS! . . . ALL CIVILIAN PERSONNEL MUST BE ASHORE BY SEVENTEEN-THIRTY! . . . REPEAT . . .! iWhat timeis it now?i Shadow asked. iDonit know.i I tried to find a shaft of light so I could read my watch, but it was no good. iCanit see the hands.i iThought they was supposed to be radium.i iYeah. But . . . I canit see eem.i iGreat. . . What time yiall think it is?i iI dunno. Last time I looked it was just around one.i iHow long agois that?i iDunno.i iPsssshit! Weire fugged.i 203 Fear, fatigue, hunger, thirst, remorse, anticipation of disaster o each one alone offers a degree of debilitation, but at seventeen, working in concert, they have the paralyzing effect, physically and mentally, of being buried alive in a Sahara sandstorm, or worse yet, freezing to death at twenty-five thousand feet in a blizzard on Mt. Everest. In either case, compressed into the panic of near-madness, we would have been equally at a loss as to what to do next, so we did precisely what our age, experience, and state of mind had prepared us to do: We sat down and leaned against the metal wall and . . . fell asleep. It never occurred to either of us to simply walk out and surrender to the first tunic or SP we saw and be escorted off the ship, driven in our own Jeep off the base, reprimanded by the authorities, turned over to our parents for further reprimand and possible punishment (Grandmais thimble indenting my skull and confiscation of the Jeep by my dad; house arrest the remainder of the summer for both of us), an inaccurate newspaper account, and a full senior year for the re-telling of an adventure we would enhance with outlandish lies and embellish with barbaric exaggerations. The simplicity of such a solution was alien to our crazed psyches. Sleep being the placebo of youth, we swallowed it with relish and enthusiasm. 204 CHAPTER FIFTEEN Rodney Herkimer answered without emotion the question put to him by the captain. iSir, they was hidini in one a them brand new garbage dumpsters on B deck. Probily still be there, but one of eem took a leak eginst the side, ani it sounded like he was bangini a baseball bat on a oil drum. Boys got eem outta minute later, ani here they is.i Captain W. R. Gordon Blauser sat at his desk in his office just off the rear of the bridge and stared at us, and from his expression there was no way I could tell the degree of anger and frustration that was probably simmering inside him. His elbow resting on the arms of his chair, heid formed a pyramid with the tips of his fingers; his upper lip rested on the point of his two forefingers. His cold glare was a solid sheet of polished steel as he peered across the top of his hands. We sat across from him on two straight-backed metal chairs, and it was not easy meeting his gaze. Shadow was to my right, fidgeting, twisting his hands, nervously cleaning under his right thumb nail with the forefinger nail of his left hand. My own hands remained still, folded in my lap; my palms were cups of sweat. W. R. Gordon Blauser did look like Walter Pidgeon, and I was fascinated. The dark, wavy hair, the elongated face and puckered, protruding lower lip, severe nose-line separating gentle, merry eyes; a tall, once thin frame being slowly given over to middle age and minor paunchiness. His uniform was immaculate: khaki operational fatigues, four-stripe insignia on his collar, open-neck shirt, creases razor sharp, three rows of campaign and medal ribbons in perfect symmetry above his left breast pocket. The captainis office was equally precise and sterile. The desk, appropriately, was battleship gray, covered by a beveled glass top, shatterproof and bolted to the huge metal desk. The desk equipment was silver: the silver pen and pencil set impaled in an onyx and silver slab, the blotter was maroon in a silver 205 frame, the clock was silver; the telephone sat on a silver mount. Everything, of course, was bolted to the desk (which, likewise, was bolted to the floor). His chair was an oversized maroon judgeis chair with silver piping. Overhead, on the rear wall, his Annapolis diploma was in a silver frame, along with three or four citations I could not make out, all of them in matching silver frames. Behind us and beyond closed doors were the captainis private quarters: his dining room, his living room and study, bedroom and bathroom . . . rooms we were destined never to see. He finally spoke, and his voice was icicle-sharp, though his tone was flat. iWhen was the last time you boys ate?i iSaturday mornini.i Shadowis voice was buried in a pit of despair. iI see. . . Do you know what day this is?i We both shook our heads. Casually, he turned the calendar/clock around so we could see it. Nine-twenty. iItis oh nine-twenty hours,i he said. iSunday morning.i Shadow and I glanced at each other. Weid slept all night Saturday, nearly half of Sunday. iYou know where you are?i iNo, sir,i I whispered. Captain Blauser looked off to his right and out an oval- shaped port hole at the sky. We followed his gaze, but sitting down none of us could see anything but sky. iI donit either, exactly,i he said. iWe stood out from Norfolk Saturday before eighteen forty-five hours, and somewhere dead east off Georgia or Florida would be an educated guess, about four, five hundred miles out to sea. . . I imagine your parents are frantic. . . I would be.iI looked up at Rodney. He was standing to the captainis left, near the door, with a chief petty officer, and an executive officer I believed to be a commander wearing three-striped collar insignia. Rodney looked away, betrayed. Captain Blauser picked up his telephone; after a moment he spoke quietly. iDonald, can you whip up a couple breakfasts for 206 some guests of mine? . . . Four eggs each, over light. Pile of home fries; grits, if you got any, throw on a slab of sirloin, medium rare. Lots of toast, with jam. . . What? . . . Strawberry, blueberry, I donit . . . really care. . . Oh, also a pot of jamoke and a bottle of milk and a carafe of orange juice. . . No, serve it here in my office on the bridge. . . Good. Thanks. . . And, Donald, on the double.i Just listening to him order food for us brought saliva to my mouth for the first time since I woke up; another few minutes without something and I would certainly have to vomit, even if there was nothing to toss up. iFor the record,i Blauser said, ithere are things I have to know.i iSir,i I started, iweire really sorry . . . i He held up his hand, showing me his palm. iPlease. Donit say anything right now. I want you both to eat first. Get a good, hot meal inside you. Then weill talk.i He added an aside to the other officer nearby: iAnd try to figure out what the hell weire going to do with you.i Again the firing squad appeared in my mindis eye. This time we were standing naked on a plank out the side of the upper deck, hands tied behind our backs, blindfolded, the entire shipis personnel was assembled, the band was playing the Maury Alma Mater, then, bang! Shot dead, dropping into the ocean, toppling end-over-end; breakfast for the sharks. No one said a word for fifteen minutes. Everyone merely sat or stood and stared at us. Shadow and Rodney fidgeted. After another ten minutes, there was a knock at the door. iCome!i snapped Blauser. I expected to see an executioner in black hood come through the door, but it was a sailor in a chefis uniform, tall floppy hat and all, wheeling in a huge table with a silver-domed tray hiding under white linens. iFor my, uh, guests,i said Blauser, in response to the chefis curious expression, gesturing to place the table between Shadow and me. The last meal, I figured, then the firing squad. Ravenous hyenas on a feeding frenzy after an arduous kill could not have devoured that breakfast quicker and more noisily 207 than we. If it took twenty-five minutes to prepare, it was gone in less than half that, including the coffee, milk, and orange juice. We finished nearly together, wiped our mouths, and sat back, slipping to a slight recline on the smooth gunboat gray metal chairs, ready now for whatever fate awaited us. Blauser gestured again, and the chef pulled the table away, covering the debris with the napkins he snatched from our laps, and began wheeling it all out the door. Belching heavily, I managed, iThank . . . you!i Shadow belched also but said nothing. When the chef had gone and closed the door behind him, Blauser stood up, towering over us from behind his desk, and asked: iNow. Tell me. Why?i iSir?i iSimple question. Why? . . . Why was getting on board this ship to say good-bye to your friend Herkimer here so damned important that you risked getting shot by some trigger-happy SP? Why? And why was staying on board so goddamn necessary?i We stared blankly and could say nothing. Rodney spoke up. iSuh, I think I can, i iNo!i The captain cut him off, sharply. iNo! I want to hear this from their own mouths!i He turned back to us. iWhy would you go to all this trouble; why would you concoct such an elaborate scheme to make my men believe you were my son and my nephew, just so you could get on board to say good-bye to your friend here? Why couldnit you say good-bye to him at the gate, like everybody else? Why did you run and hide when he tried to save you and get you off before we stood away? What did you think we do with stowaways? Did you actually think you could stay here and go with us? Good Lord, this is an aircraft carrier and our country is at war! Iive got nearly three thousand men on this ship, plus a hundred aircraft, outside weire in convoy with four battleships, six destroyers, eleven cruisers, what-ever possessed you to do something like this? Do you have even a vague idea what it would cost this task force in time, and money, to have to turn this task force around and go back to Norfolk? Do you have the faintest idea what 208 would happen at the Pentagon, at the Washington Navy Yard, if we had to alter this mission and return to Norfolk? Do you . . . do you . . . have any idea . . . ? Christ!i There was no answer anyone present would find acceptable. Shadow and I could not look Blauser in the eye; we stared at the floor.So that was it: Rodney had lied for us, tried to cover for us, and for himself as well. The gasoline was not an issue after all (there just wouldnit be anymore for the duration). iI . . .wanna go home,i Shadow said, forlornly. iIim sure you do.i The captain looked at me. iWhat about you, young man?i iYes sir. I wanna go home, too.i iWant to tell us your real names, so we can at least inform your parents where you are?i We both nodded. Shadow said, iIim Lamont Cranston.i iOh, for chrissake!i Blauser sighed, angrily. slapping the desktop with his open palm. It sounded like a gun shot, and Shadow and I both bounced, startled, off our chairs. iDonit start that smart-aleck crap with me!i iNo, no, siri I butted in, ithatis his real name.i iAnd I suppose youire, Clark Kent!i iNo, sir, Iim John Martin Eden; everyone calls me Marty. Shadowis real name is Lamont Cranston, ani everybody calls him Shadow.i iI wonder why?i Blauser cast aside, again in the direction of his aide. iChrist. . . All right. . . I assume you boys are from Norfolk; right?i We nodded. I told him I lived at 617 Doumar Street, ani Shadow lived with his momma in Richmond Street, in Norview. iWeill be seniors this fall at Maury. Neither one a us has a telephone, but my momma ani dad work at E.K. Careyis, ani we can call them there tomorrow oi Blauser cut me off. iWhat weill do is radio Norfolk and theyill relay the message, personally, that youire safe and sound and, somehow, will be home by tonight.i 209 The other officer, the commander, spoke for the first time. iSir, how we gonna do that?i The captain looked at his executive officer as though heid just spit up on himself. iFly eem outta here, thatis what weire going to do. I donit think we have any other choice. Weire gonna fly eem home, Francis, what did you think?, throw eem overboard and let eem swim? Theseire kids, for chrissake; stupid and irresponsible, worse than stupid, but kids. Weill put eem in a TBF, the Avengeris the only three-seater on board, and fly eem back to the Norfolk Naval Air Station, put eem in a cab and send eem home. Or would you rather wait until weire . . . well, a damn long way from here . . . Shit, weire going to lose an hour or more just getting ready to launch aircraft. Goddamn it!i He turned to his chief petty officer. iChief, set this up: Get a TBF ready and a pilot to fly it, and get these boys in the air in under an hour. Alert the convoy to cut back to five knots and stay in position for action. Take two F6Fis to escort them within fifty miles of the field, Francis, heill need you to arrange this o and tell the PR people to play this down as much as possible. Serateenis gonna shit a brick as it is. . . Goddamn it!i He turned back to us. iDo you fellas realize the magnitude of this operation? . . . Just to get you off this ship and on your way home? Iim really sticking my neck out for you, and when the press gets their hands on you, you just, well, for Godis sake, just make sure you sure as hell make the Navy look good. Just tell the truth, for once. I got kids of my own back in Norfolk, as you obviously are well aware, same ages as you fellows, dammit. . . Now go; get ready and go home. And I wish you to Christ you could take Herkimer here with you . . . heis the best friend you boys ever had!i * * * Vice Admiral John Paul Serateen occupied one of three massive Captainis Chairs just beyond the conn, the command center of the bridge, the brain stem of the entire fleet. He was 210 surrounded on three sides by a phalanx of officer subordinates. The admiral was a small man, and he appeared ill at ease and out of place in the enveloping chair. His legs barely touched the metal ring foot support, and were it not for his wild tuft of white hair and scraggly, deeply lined face below billowing white eyebrows, he might be taken for a trick-or-treater dressed up in a Naval officeris highly decorated uniform. Out of the corner of his twinkling, elfin-blue eyes he spotted Shadow and me coming from Captain Blauseris office on the other side of the conning tower. He motioned with a spindly forefinger to approach. iBoys! You there, the two of you! Come here!i His voice was high-pitched, effeminate, and frail. I thought he sounded like Sterling Holloway. iChief, bring those boys over here!i The chief petty officer prodded us from behind, and we made six steps across the bridge to face the admiral; the lesser officers parted and let us stand to the left of the great Naval hero of the South Pacific. The chief and Rodney executed a smart salute and took two paces back. I wasnit sure what Shadow and I were to do; instinctively we both made sloppy, half-hearted salutes of our own. Shadow extended his hand, but the admiral took no notice of it. I think I knew how Dorothy and her entourage felt the first time they approached the Wizard in the Land of Oz. I was aware of a titter wafting through the amused staff on the bridge. The view of the flight deck, the Atlantic, and the mighty armada, the task force of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, was breathtaking on this clear, sunny Sunday in August. It was a cyclorama painted on the interior walls of my brain, and I would never forget it. Admiral Serateen gave us a flute-like chortle. iSoooo . . . youire the boys who have single-handedly taken it upon yourselves to bring the war and the Navy to a screeching halt! Good for you! Couple years older and weid have you keel- hauled!i Shadow looked at me and whispered, iWhatis that?i I shook my head; I had no idea. It sounded ominous. iTell you later.i 211 The admiral turned and glanced out the thick glass as the ship made an almost imperceptible dip to starboard at the bow. iProbably hit a whale,i he mused, and the officers laughed. He came back to us. iSo . . . what now? Gonna enlist or wait to get drafted?i Shadow jumped right in. iSure gonna enlist, sir, soonis schoolis out!i iNavy?i iNo, sir. Marines.i iHa! Good. Second best.i He focused his brilliant blue eyes on me. iWhat about you, boy?i I wasnit sure what to say. iI guess . . . after high school o college. I hope. Sir.i iWhere?i iI . . . dunno.i The twinkle left his eyes momentarily, and I sensed the staff of officers eavesdropping on this tIte- -tIte caught their breaths. iYou donit know, what? Put a esiri on that, boy, on this bridge!ii iI donit know, sir!i iRight.i He looked back at Shadow. iWhatis your name, son?i iLamont Cranston, sir!i The admiral pursed his lips and nodded. iOf course it is. Anybody ever call you The Shadow?i iYes, sir, everybody. Only itis just eShadowi. . . siri Shadow looked down and shuffled his feet. iI donit believe that show was even on the radio when you were born,i the admiral grunted. iJust a co-in-ci-dence, I guess. . . sir!i iHmmmm.i He looked back at me. iWhat about you? Are you Captain Marvel?i I stifled a laugh. iNo, sir. My name is John Martin Eden o sir!iiHa! You have three names, too! Thatis good . . . Did you say eMartin Edeni?i 212 iYes, sir.i But you can call me eCaptain Fucking Marveli, I thought to myself. iSo! Martin Eden!. . . I read your book twenty years ago. Jack Londonis the best writer in America; best we ever had; never be another like him! Men donit read Jack Londonill never make it in this Navy, by God!. . . The captain take good care of you? . . . You going home?i We both answered: iYes, sir!i iFine. Good. Good luck, then.i He turned his attention back to the ship, adjusting his small body in the great chair, and, summarily, we were dismissed. Rodney touched my arm and gestured for us to follow him off the bridge. Nothing more was said, and everyone seemed to go back to work; they seemed to forget about us in a twinkling of old Serateenis misty blue eyes. There was a ready room on the upper deck and a Seaman 2.c brought us each a pair of gray/blue khaki coveralls, actually, it was a flight suit, all one piece, with a lot of zippered pockets and pouches, also, a fur-lined leather flight jacket and matching leather gloves, and a leather helmet with attached goggles and oxygen mask. The sailoris name was Kevin Jones, and he was no more than a year older than we. iWhat size shoes you fellas wear?i Jones asked, piling our flight apparel on a long mess table. I told him I was 12 1/2; Shadow was 11. iIim gonna get you some boots. Youill have to leave them sneakers here or stuff eem in your pockets, which might be quite a trick.i Shadow asked, iWhat we need boots for?i iAinit no heater inna airplane, ecept a manifold heater which ainit no good,i Jones replied. iColderin a witchis tit ten, fifteen, eighteen thousand feet. I seen pilots come in here offa mission inna South Pacific with frostbite even when the temperature is niney-five inna shade onna deck.i Kevin Jones left the room to get our boots. The chief had gone on ahead with Commander Francis Oliver to find pilots to fly us home, and I thought it was a good chance, maybe the only one, to speak privately with Rodney. He was still quiet 213 and sullen, and Iim sure he felt weid betrayed him horribly. And it was clear he had lied for us; had truly saved our asses. iOkay, Rodney,i I started, iwhatis the story? How come we ainit all sittini here in handcuffs ani leg-irons?i The giant shrugged. iI figured if they found yiall ani started with questions like they do, yiall would throw me under the trolley in ebout five seconds. I doan wanna get busted outta the Navy for just tryini to do a Christian, neighborly thing by yiall.i iWhen did you know we werenit Blauseris kin?i Shadow asked. iDidniti Rodney confided, ietil yiall ran like scared mice ani hid in that garbage dumper like weid never find you. I figured ifin you was Blauseris kin, you be walkini all over ani actini like yiall owned the place. I dunno. Maybe I smelled sumpin fishy few weeks back when I said I wanted yiall to go downtown with me ani summa my buddies, ani you said yiall couldnit ecause you had dates with some oli gals in South Norfuck. Blauseris kin go to Granby; they wouldnit be messini with South Norfuck dames.i Shadow nodded. iPhssshit, youire a real Rasil Bathtub, Rodney, you sly oli wolfhound you.i iYeah, yeah,i I said, a little perturbed. iBut howid yiall get the capiin to buy your story we wanted to come on board just sois we could say good-bye to you?i Rodney shrugged again. iWerenit no chore. I toli him yiallis my cousins on my mommais side, ani you bought eat oli Jeep at the Navy auction, ani when yiall come out here ani saw me workini a flat top, yiall just had to come on board. We got separated, ani I got scared ecause you wasnit siposed to be here in the firsi place, then yiall got scared ecause there was boisuns all over a place yellini at everibody, ani they thought yiall was swabbies ecause a your ages ani the way yiall was dressed ani all, anyway, you didnit know what to do, so yiall just high-tailed it ani run ani hid in that oli dumper.i Enney- why ya dinno whata dew, so yawl jes hi-tiled it en run en hid innat olidumpa. 214 I asked, iBut who told the public address guy we were posini as Blauseris kin?i iI dunno,i Rodney admitted. iCoulda been any one ebout twunty SPs who knew yiall was comini in here for gas every Saiday. Sure wasnit me! That was my big fear, if Capin found out I was givini yiall all the free gas you wanted, ani yiall werenit no more Blauseris kin than Charlie Chaplin, Iid be up in Levenworth bifore anybodyid knowed I was missini! So I said yiall was my cousins, ani you come by to see me bifore we ship out, ani the whole thing just got outta hand. Capinis a big family man ani all, ani I guess he just bought it.i The three of us stood in silence and digested the simple magnitude of the scheme. Then Shadow stepped forward and held his hand out to Rodney. iHerkimer,i he said, iyiallire one pisser of a fine fella!i Rodney smiled and reached out his huge arms and pulled the two of us to him, hugging us first roughly, then tenderly. iIim gonna pretend in my heart you fellas really did come to say good-bye to me. I ainit never gonna forget this day ifin I live to be a hunnert. You know, itis right like, uh, like havini my two liil oli brothers comini on here to say good-bye. I know yiall ainit born again, but can we pray together?i At that moment, to our relief, the spell was broken: Jones came back into the ward room carrying two pairs of yellow flight boots. iAll I could get was a 13 and a 9 1/2. One a you gotta squeeze in while the other flops around. You fellas better get dressed.i Shadow and I climbed into the jump suits, pulling them over our dungarees and t-shirts, and then we replaced our basketball shoes with the flight boots. We tried stuffing the sneakers into our pockets, but they were much too large. iLeave eem here,i Rodney said, iI can throw eem in my footlocker ani keep eem for yiall etil I get back. Or if I gets a chance, Iill mail eem to yiall.i Shadow tossed his on the table, and I did likewise; Rodney strung out the laces and tied them together. We slipped into the leather jackets and picked up the helmets. There was a plastic tube extending from the face mask, as well as a three foot 215 electrical cord with a metal jack at the end. Shadow asked, iWhatis this for?i iPilot show you when you get in the plane,i Jones explained. iPlastic tube sticks on a oxa-gin tit, ani the plug goes into the radio socket. When you wanna talk, you put the mask up on your face ani squeeze the sides under your jawbone. Thereis a ear piece in the helmet sois you can hear whatis beini said back to you. Gotta warn you ebout one thing, though.i iWhatis that?i iYou gonna throw up, doan throw up in the face mask. Fuggs up the micriphone ani the oxa-gin flow.i Rodney tried not to, but he laughed at that and opened the door for the chief petty officer. He was followed into the room by a lieutenant commander wearing a fur-lined flight jacket and a blue garrison cap. iHi, fellas, Iim Gary Frankavilla, and today Iim going to be your pilot! Whoppee!i He laughed good- naturedly and saluted. He was maybe twenty-six; tall, blond, ruddy complexion. Van Johnson. Rodney snapped off another smart salute and said, iThese hereis my cousins, sir, Marty Eden ani Shadow Cranston.i iGreat!i Frankavilla beamed. iHow yiall doin?i For a Yankee, I thought, he said it pretty well. iWe doini okay, now,i Shadow said. iIim Shadow Cranston. This hereis Marty Eden.i We shook hands all around, and Frankavilla asked, iYou fellas ever been up in a TBF?i I giggled. iNever even been in a elevator morein ten floors!i iHow ebout you, Cranston?i Shadow shook his head. iMy oli man took me ani my momma to New York City once, ani we went to the top of a skyscraper. I was only ebout six months old, though.i Frankavilla sat down on the edge of the table. iWell, youire in for a fabulous ride then. The Avenger is one great airplane. You ready to go?i iSure am.i iGood. Couple of deck jockeys will help you with your 216 parachutes and Mae Wests, and weill get this show on the road.i He sized us up. iEden, I want you to sit in the radio seat, right behind me. You, is it Shadow?, yeah, you sit in the turret; youill have a pretty good view of whatis goini on; weill be in front of you but youill be breathing down Mr. Edenis neck. Come on; Iill show you in the plane.i Outside the door Rodney stopped and put his hand on my arm. iThis where I gotta say guhibye tuh yiall.i We shuffled to a halt and turned to face our friend. I stuck out my hand and so did Shadow; again we shook hands all around, even the chief and Lt. Cmdr. Frankavilla. iSuh, yiall take real good care a these boys, yiheh?i I truly thought I heard a catch in Rodneyis voice. iNot to worry, sailor. Theyire as good as ridini bikes down Tidewater Lane right now. Letis go!i Just before we got into elevator number 2 to the flight deck, I glanced back; Rodney was still watching us, holding our basketball shoes. He waved and we all waved back. I couldnit believe nor understand how sad I felt. We would never forget him. 217 218 CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Grumman TBF-1 Avenger was the most beautiful airplane Iid ever seen, not that Iid ever seen any up close except in the movies and magazines. It was the Navyis standard carrier-borne torpedo/bomber aircraft and a sometimes training workhorse, arguably the best Navy fighter/bomber built during World War II. To the purists, it was, compared to the Corsair, a rather ugly aircraft with its fat fuselage and rectangular surfaces, but it was a sturdy and reliable ship of advanced concept, on some production models it even had iautomatic-piloti capabilities, nothing like the iflying bricksi, the killer Hellcat and the venomous Corsair it often trained men for. The Avenger was not lean, but it was mean, a mean fighting machine, low-slung and powerful, sporting an elongated cockpit and sectioned-Plexiglas canopy, plus its own turret for the gunner/bombardier; and it accommodated a crew of three. Fully armed with three 12.7mm machine guns, and a 7.7mm ventral machine gun, it carried either one 907kg torpedo or four 500 pound bombs inside its fuselage, and it performed magnificently in combat. But training was its true calling, and there were but a pitiful few wearing silver Navy wings who hadnit learned their trade in a TBF-1. Before we were beckoned to approach, several aviation deckmates idressedi us in parachutes and Mae Wests (yellow self-inflating life preservers), deftly wrapping the straps over our shoulders and between our legs, juggling the packs to just the right position under our butts and over our chests. iWhen you get in,i Frankavilla instructed, imake sure you sit square-butt on the main echute; let the spare dangle in your lap, like a premature beer belly. . . And you know what youire supposed to do if I do a barrel roll and you fall out of the plane . . .i We looked at him with our mouths open. iDonit do anything,i he said. iJust take a hold of that square metal ring and count to ten in one second increments o 219 one thousand one, two thousand two, three thousand three, and so on. Then pull it to the right. If it doesnit open, pull it to the left and release the auxiliary.i Shadow swallowed and asked, iWhat if that donit open then, neither?i iThen parachutingis not for you,i Frankavilla laughed. iBetter find a new career path!i As we walked toward the gleaming airplane, a dazzling navy blue and black bird that had just eaten a tremendous meal and was now sunning itself and poised for action on the vast deck of the USS James Madison, the enormity of the situation caused my knees to buckle. The brilliance of the red and white stripes on the rudder, and the huge circle on the fuselage with the white star and red dot in the middle, it all made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Shadow reached out and caught me as I lost balance; I would have pitched forward on the armored deck if he hadnit reached under my right arm and steadied me. iGonna be okay, Yankee pussy?i I took a deep breath. iYeah. If I donit crap my pants first. You scared?i He snorted. iPsssshhhittt! Donit know the meanini of fear.iiRight.i ieSpecially since I lost conscious a hour ago!i His attempts at humor, sometimes even funny, eased the tension. iPshhhit, we gonna be home in time for dinner! Wonder whatcher granimais makini?i Wonner wotcher gramawis mykun? At the plane, Frankavilla pushed me gently toward an aluminum ladder leaning against the fuselage. iUpsadaisey, Mr. Eden. Climb right into the middle seat, sit your butt right- smack-crack-center on your parachute, and make yourself at home. Just donit touch anything.i Standing on the trailing edge of the left wing was a machinistis mate who reached out and helped me step off the ladder and sling my right leg over the side and slide into the cockpit. I dropped unceremoniously onto my parachute and realized I was in a leather, Plexiglas, and stainless steel 220 wonderland of technology, in an area smaller than the phone booth from which Iid called Anna Theresa just forty hours ago. It was overwhelming. The deckhand leaned into the cockpit and pulled the seatbelt tight against my hips and adjusted the shoulder harnesses so that I was firmly ensconced. No longer able to see or hear Shadow and Gary Frankavilla, I pulled the helmet over my head and snapped the chin strap firmly, the face mask and attached cords dangling between my legs. Slipping my hands into the fur-lined gloves, I looked down and stared at the joystick pointing up at me like a giant erection, and I thought of Anna Theresa. God, how I wished she could see me now! Shadow was climbing in from the other side of the plane, and fixing himself in the gunner/bombardieris seat in the turret behind me. Another aviation mate was attending to him, and Shadow yelled at me through the canopy: iFugg! Fuggin fugg- fugg! This is abso-fuggin-lutely the greatest fuggin thing in the whole fuggin world! . . . Look at all this shit!i iYeah! Man, this is, meeerrrrccccciiiiiiii!i I screamed. This was it; this was the epitome of life. I was John Payne and Shadow was Dana Andrews and Lt. Cmdr. Gary Frankavilla was . . . Joel MacRae! Although I could not see him over the instrument panel and headrest in front of me, I was aware Gary Frankavilla was maneuvering himself off the wing-step and into the pilotis seat up ahead. The pilotis cockpit was First Class Luxury compared to my radiomanis nest. It was roomier and slightly higher, and it placed the pilot just at the wingsi leading edge with a totally unrestricted view in all directions except directly to the rear. With the canopy still open, he shouted over the headrest at me. iPlug in your headset! Tell Mr. Cranston to do likewise!i iWhere?i Shadow bellowed back. iHe says thereis a plug onna dashboard.i Dashboard? Is that what itis called? An arm came over the side of the fuselage and a deckhand reached in, took up the wire with the jack on the end and stuck it in a hole in the instrument panel; it clicked into position. Then 221 he took the plastic oxygen tube and fastened it to a spigot sticking out of the fuselage wall beside me. He leaned far back and did the same for Shadow. In a moment I heard a squawking hiss in the earphones inside my helmet. iAnybody home?i Frankavilla sputtered. I said I was here and ready to roll. Nobody heard me. iPut your face mask up to your mouth and squeeze the yoke under your chin. Release the pressure when you want me to respond. Got it?i iGot it,i Shadow said. iMe, too!i I cut in. iGood! Now listen carefully; just listen and donit talk anymore until weire airborne, and I say weire all clear. Then you can yak all you want until we get ready to land. Got it?i iGot it!i I confirmed. iAye aye, sir!i Shadow blurted. iRoger wilco!i iWhat?i Frankavilla laughed. iOh! Yeah! Roger that roger wilco! . . . Okay, now listen carefully, especially you, Mr. Eden. . . In front of you are a lot of crazy looking instruments and dials and bells and whistles, most of which wonit make much sense until youive spent about thirty hours in flight school staring at them. Thereire also a bunch of switches and knobs mixed in with the gauges and dials. . . From time to time, those switches and knobs and levers are going to move and shake and light up, seemingly all by themselves. Actually, they move and light up because I have a panel identical to yours, and I have to move them to get, and keep, this bird in the air. Mine move; yours move. Also, you Mr. Eden, you have a joystick between your legs. Itis going to be moving all over the place from time to time, so just let it. Keep your knees far enough apart so you donit impede its movement. . . Now look down on the floor, at your tootsies. See those two pedals down there? Those two pedals control the rudder on this ship, and the top half of each one moves independently; theyire the brakes that hold us on the deck until we want to take off, and they bring us smoothly to a stop when we land. . . Thereire two main things I want you to do, Mr. Eden. Number one: Keep your feet off those pedals at all times. If you donit, weill probably be sleeping with the fishes tonight. Number two: Keep your hands 222 off the joystick and off the throttle. The throttle is one of the three levers on your left, on the fuselage wall; the one with the red knob. The one next to it with the white knob is the fuel mix. The other one, the one with the green knob, thatis the pitch control; it adjusts, changes the pitch of the propeller. . . If you see eem, say eyesi.i iAh . . . yeah! Yes!i iGood. The throttle, the fuel mix, the prop pitch, the pedals, and the joy stick: Theyire what I use to fly the plane, at least most of the time. If you move any of them, and I move them differently, the plane will become totally confused and drop out of the sky like a stone . . . Iim just kidding. More like a rock . . . Just donit give in to temptation and start playing with the prick o I mean, the stick! Ha! Ha! Ha! And also, donit push the red button on top of the stick. There are two machine guns in the wings on this aircraft, and I donit know right now whether theyire armed or not oi Another voice cut in from somewhere outside the plane. iCommander, the guns are fully functional with a total complement of ammo. Also, you are carrying two five hundred pound TS-11 bombs. U.S. Navy Rules of Engagement, Volume One, Section Seven, revised October, 1942: no aircraft will leave any carrier and commence flight in any waters for any purpose without full armament capabilities.i iWho was that?i Shadow asked. iGod!i Frankavilla responded, shouting over his shoulder after pulling his face mask a foot away from his mouth. Then into the microphone. iThank you, Commander. I was giving the boys last minute instructions to keep their cotton-pickers to themselves.i Then another voice: iBoys! Can you hear me?i iYes, sir; sir!i we replied in harmony. iThis is Captain Blauser speaking. We have radioed Norfolk, and they are trying to contact your parents as we speak. We will assure them you are fine and all is well. As near as we can predict, you should be on the ground at the Naval Air Station this afternoon, ETA sixteen forty-two, about a quarter 223 to five. Do as Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla tells you, and youill be just fine. Good-bye, and Godspeed!i I looked around as best I could, but I could not see high enough up the iisland structurei, into the bridge from where I assumed Captain Blauser was watching. I glanced back at Shadow, and he looked up at me; he gave me a thumbs up gesture of relaxed confidence: Pat OiBrien. iCouple of other things for right now,i Frankavilla squawked over the intercom. iMr. Cranston, youire in the gunner/bombardieris nest, or turret, and that means you normally would have control of the dorsal gun and the ventral .30 cal. In fact, you also control the bomb bay doors and the torpedo release. But . . . I have de-activated the guns and also the bomb release mechanisms. However, Mr. Eden, there is an override on your joystick; itis a recessed button on the front of the stick that you cannot push unless you take off your glove. That button, when pushed in, is like taking the safety off a revolver. So . . . keep your meat hooks away from it!i I asked, iCan I ask a question?i iYou just did! Ha! Ha! . . . Go ahead.i iWhen we talk over these helmet microphones, can they hear us up on the bridge all the time?i iGood question,i Frankavilla affirmed. iWhat do you think, Captain? . . . Commander?i The commander came on. iKeep on this frequency until youire airborne and five minutes out. Then switch over to 71 megs and keep in touch with your escort. If need be, weill contact you on auxiliary 12-80. We donit want every bozo on the East Coast with a ham set taking notes on this. Iim signing off again and handing you over to deck control. This will be our final communication. Good luck!i iContact!i came through my earphone. The engine coughed, gurgled, shook, and then roared into spastic, shaking life. Its sound was an ear-splitting rumble, as though we were surrounded by a dozen freight trains. I felt the first gush of cold wind sweep back from the propeller, and I felt the plane shudder and tremble as Frankavilla revved the engine. The dials and 224 gauges on the instrument panel bounced, settled, bounced again, then established themselves into various readings. Frankavilla said, iIim closing the canopy and securing it; keep your hands away from the fuselage.i With the airplane sitting stationary, its angle prevented me from seeing directly ahead. My only view was either right or left, or to the rear toward Shadow. To the left was the port deck falling away toward the ocean, which still seemed flat and remote, a backdrop painted by Norman Rockwell, a panorama of waris grim visage that may not have been real. There was activity at deckis edge. Many aviation machinists and deckmates and other personnel were engaged in take-off preparations that involved starters and firemen and traffic coordinators. Everyone seemed to be scurrying in all directions with no apparent goal other than to avoid colliding with one another. To my right, a long white line of what I assumed were a hundred curious sailors and officers. I noticed one was taking pictures of us with a gorgeous Graphlex Speed Graphic, and I entertained a momentary thought that perhaps when I got home I should write a biography on Vice Admiral John Paul Serateen. Would it impress the judges to say that Iid met him personally? . . . Behind the Navy onlookers was the towering iisland structurei that rose to the bridge and radio/radar towers and smokestack which I could barely see through the top of the canopy. I heard more than actually saw two other aircraft coming off mammoth elevators near us on the flight deck, and Iid tried to piece together enough models to know these would be our F6F Hellcat escorts. The plane began slowly to move forward and sideways, and I felt my arms and legs tense up; I applied heavy pressure on the floor of the cockpit with both feet, as if I could prevent the plane from moving. I squeezed the face mask; I could smell my own breath inside the molded rubber, the aroma of war: Sweat, rubber, leather, fuel fumes, acrid human breath. iAre we takini off?i iI donit know,i Shadow answered. iWeire goini sideways!i 225 iKnock off the chatter!i It was Frankavilla. iWeire just being moved into a eGoi lane.i Outside, unseen by me, four able-bodied ipushersi had lifted the tail of the plane and were pushing and twisting it onto the primary runway of the carrieris flight deck. Once we were set facing dead center, they replaced the tail on its wheel, and one of the sailors came alongside and gave Frankavilla a ithumbs upi. The lieutenant commander acknowledged with his gloved hand, and I did likewise. The sailor, wearing a white cloth helmet, looked at me and grinned, and I felt both stupid and heroic. The engine was now revving to a whining pitch, and the plane seemed to be straining not to jump into the sky. The RPM gauge in front of me read 2,800. I saw the altimeter suddenly rotate to zero; the oil pressure gauge had no numbers but it was centered evenly between a green line and a red line. All the other gauges were bouncing and fluctuating as the plane shook and groaned as if in a terminal seizure. Into the headset came a new voice, droning and bored: iAvenger TBF-1, U-S-N niner six one-one, dead into 13 knots south southwest, 21 degrees, check vitals; over.i iAvenger niner six one-one,i Frankavillais equally disinterested monotone replied, ifull prop, rotating twenty-eight, fuel mix max, wheels locked, altimeter zero, oil up, coolant moving, hydraulics a-ok, mags open full, seven-eighths throttle; over.i iTen percent flaps, Avenger; over.i iFlaps ten percent; over.i iWiggle your rudder; over.i iNegative, tower, holding wheels. My feetire too small; over.i iRoger, Avenger. Stay loose a minute . . . Op says ask the kid behind you to wiggle them; over.i iHang on, tower. . . Mr. Eden, you read me? Over.i iYes, sir! . . . Over!.i 226 iPut your feet on the bottom of those pedals in front of you, the ones I told you to keep your feet off, youid think they were the clutch and the brakes in a car. Got eem? Over.i iYes, sir! Should I push eem? Over!i iPush eem one at a time. Not hard; just a nice push. Like youire riding a bicycle with a pretty gal on the handlebars. Over.i I pushed them alternately, and I was surprised how little pressure it took to press them clear to the floor. iLookini good, Avenger. Rudder wiggle smooth. Wiggle your ailerons.i iRoger.i iA-OK, Avenger. Flaps to fifty . . . five-oh . . . percent.i iRoger.i iYou all set, sir? Over.i iLike they say in Pensacola, eready for a long night of hard tongue and soft shoulderi, uh, sorry, boys; forgot you were here!, over!i iOkay, Avenger, two F6Fis right behind you. Sea is less than four feet. Watch your horizon. Take two dips, then balls- to-the-wall on the third bow-climb. Itis all yours. Deck crew, ahoy; withdraw, crew, withdraw! Over.i Outside, a TC, traffic controller, had crouched to one knee just beyond the edge of our left wing. He was wearing earphones the size of coconuts, and he held a thick, oversized Ping-Pong paddle in each hand, gesturing with one of them like a pendulum in time with each drop and lift of the carrieris bow, spinning the other above his head as we kept the engineis rev at a steady, screaming pitch. He was watching Frankavilla, and Frankavilla was watching him. I could hear Frankavilla counting to himself as the huge carrieris bow dipped slightly with the movement of the ocean. He said, iOne!i on the first dip; iTwo!i on the second, and iEeeeeioiiiooiioioiooooiii, hang on to your gonads!i on the third. The TC pirouetted like a ballerina and pointed with both paddles toward the bow. GO! As the ocean pushed the carrier upwards, Frankavillais 227 boots slid off the brakes. The plane, itis engine revved to a pounding 3,000 rpmis, shot forward as though it were a pebble snapped from a slingshot. My head and shoulders were flung back against the cushioned seat and headrest, breath spewed out of my mouth as though I had been kicked in the stomach, and I could feel the flesh on my face sweep back behind my ears. Shadow screamed into my headset, iMuh nutsire comini outta muh ice!i I think I heard someone laughing from the bridge. The Avenger roared like a rocket down the flat topis flight deck, and I experienced the most exhilarating sensation I ever had, with the possible exception of last Friday evening with Anna Theresa. Over Frankavillais shoulder, I watched the end of the deck get closer and closer, and when we reached the end, I had to fight not to close my eyes. Something was going terribly wrong! We were literally flung off the end of the carrier and immediately our tail sank, our nose came up, and I could feel the plane dropping, settling gently like a leaf wafting from a tall oak. The ocean was coming up to meet us, and the monstrous carrier, obviously traveling much faster than we, would most certainly run us down. Good-bye, Momma and Daddy, Douglas, Granima and Granipa, Freddie, Anna Theresa, Good-bye, Life! . . . Hello, Death! The demise of the fictional Martin Eden popped into my mind, and I saw him drowning. I remembered thinking what he thought: And somewhere at the bottom he fell into darkness. That much he knew. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know. . . I had wondered, when Iid first read it, what that would be like, what it had really meant. Now I would find out exactly, first hand . . . But, at that precise instant, a most miraculous thing occurred. The Avenger did not crash into the ocean; the USS James Madison did not roll over us. Instead, the plane seemed to billow out like the mainsail of a Spanish galleon, and it began to climb into the azure sky at a thirty degree angle, banking automatically to the right. I looked back and saw the wide, 228 white markings on the flight deck become smaller as the carrier slipped away from us; I saw the two Hellcats moving into take- off position. I saw the entire convoy of battleships, destroyers, cruisers and sub chasers spread out behind us on the smooth surface of the sea, their wakes tracing abstract patterns in squiggles and swirls. It was a tapestry of military might in green and gray and silver and golden sunshine forever painted on the fabric of my mind. iJay-sus Ayech Chrisimas!i gasped Shadow in my headset. iThis is Avenger niner six one-one,i intoned Frankavilla, icome in Madison flight control; over.i iThis is Madison flight control; over.i iAvenger airborne at twelve-twenty-one hours; all systems sweet and normal; over.i iNice take-off, Avenger. Hellcats are on your tail. Set course for Norfolk Naval Air Station, 28 degrees north by northwest, a.s. two hundred twenty knots; hold for further instructions on beep-beep ground control; standard VFR. Anything further, Avenger? Over.i iNegative, Madison. Thanks for a smooth lollipop. Whois shotgun? Over.i iLieutenant Goldsmith and Commander Wiggins. Know eem? Over. iYeah. Goldsmithis in my wing, but who knows anybody in this manis Navy anymore? Over and out.i And Frankavilla looked over his shoulder and around the corner of the partition created by his headrest; he had switched off contact with the tower and bridge. iHowid you like that rolly-coaster?i iGrweurtsgfwt!i I grunted to clear my throat. iWe almost fell in the ocean!i iNot even close.i iI like to shit,i Shadow said. iWhich reminds me, thereis a relief tube right under your seat, on the floor between your legs. Got to take a leak, just pull it up and piss in it. Try not to get it all over yourself.i I reached down and felt around and came up with a small plastic funnel stuck into what seemed to be a garden hose. I was 229 able to pull it up about equal to my crotch. iHow you supposed to get it out of your pants with a jump suit ani dungarees on?i I asked. Frankavilla chortled, iGetting it out is one thing; gettini it back is the trick. Not to mention peeing while sitting down on top of your parachute. You boys heard of eshave-tail ensignsi?i Shadow answered, iAinit that when a pilot finally solos ani they slice off his shirt-tail? Then he gets his wings? Right?i iAlmost,i Frankavilla explained. iThey rip off his shirt-tail all right, but he doesnit get his wings until he masters pissing in the relief tube without drippini a drop. Little known fact about life at Pensacola.i Another voice came into my earphones. iYou guys believe that, I gotta bridge up in Manhattan Iill sell you cheap!i Frankavilla looked to his right, and we followed suit. Twenty five yards off our wing was a Hellcat. The pilot waved and we waved back. Instinctively, we looked to our left, and there was the second escort. iWhois which?i Frankavilla inquired. iCanit read your names from here. Over.i iBetter get your eyes checked. Iim Wiggins, on your right. Thatis Goldsmith on port. Bridge said 28 degrees north by northwest until we get the beep-beep. Right? Over.i iYeah. Letis stay here for a while, then move up to about ten. Over.i iNot too long. Too much surface wind outta the east down here. I hate it when I canit take a nap. Over.i iDonit be a pussy. And letis can the eoveri and eouti crap as long as itis just us girls. Okay?i iOkay by me!i I glanced at the altimeter; we were at four thousand feet. iDo we need oxygen?i I asked. Frankavilla raised his hand so I could see and pointed his thumb down. iNo oxygen for you until fifteen thousand feet. And then only if youire good!i Shadow wanted to know, iWhatis ebeep-beepi?i iGround control at Norfolk. Theyill pick us up about fifty, 230 seventy-five miles out. All we do is hone in on their radio beam, set controls, and they bring us in right on the runway. Piece oi cake, as the Brits say.i I looked around the instrument panel. iHow fast we goini?i iWhatis the airspeed indicator say?i iWhich one is it?i iRight center; about three eclock.i iAh . . . says 230. Knots.i iRight.i iHow fast is that?i iJust what it says: 230 knots per hour.i Shadow cut in. iYeah, but how fast is that in real speed? Like in miles per hour?i Frankavilla remained silent for a moment. iLet me think . . . As I recall, thatid be about 270 miles per hour.i Commander Wiggins came on from our right. iHow much would that be in kilometers per hour, Mr. Wizard?i iDo you know?i Frankavilla shot back. iBetcha a sawbuck I can figure it out fasterin you!i iGot a slide rule over there?i iNope. Just a unisonic brain.i iYouire on!i Within thirty seconds Frankavilla said, i435 kilometers per hour!i iWrong!i Wiggins shouted. iFour hundred thirty-six!i iYou got to have a slide rule over there!i iPsssshit!i Shadow exclaimed, cutting in. iLook at the whale down there!i iWhere?i I banged my head on the closed canopy trying to look over the edge of the fuselage. iWhereis a whale?i Lt. Goldsmith came on and said, iTake a look under me; eleven oiclock.i I glanced over at him, as he was on my side, and he pointed down toward the ocean. I followed his gesture, but at first I couldnit see anything. The sun was overhead and a bit behind us, and its powerful illumination penetrated the surface of the water and revealed shallow coral reefs probably no more than 231 fifty feet deep. It was a beautiful, glorious sight, but that wasnit what Lt. Goldsmith was concerned about. Frankavilla, Goldsmith, and Wiggins simultaneously banked slightly to the left for a better view, the joystick moved slightly to the left, and in unison we began a slow circle. iThat ainit no whale,i Wiggins said, softly. iNo, sir,i agreed Goldsmith. iThatis a . . . i iYou betcher ass.i Frankavilla whispered, iThatis a goddamn can oi sauerkraut!i I was mesmerized, and judging by his silence, so was Shadow. I asked, also in a whisper, iThatis a . . . a German U- boat?i iYeah,i confirmed Frankavilla. iThass das boot all right. Iim gonna call the Madison.i iHold on,i Wiggins cautioned. Shadow came on: iMaybe itis one of ours.i iNo,i said Goldsmith. iOurs are longer and not so fat in the middle. The Naziis all look like spatulas from above. Rounded bow, then wider at the tower on back, like a handle. Also, heis got a pompom on the aft deck and two fiftyis on the tower. We donit.i iJay-sus!i Shadow breathed. iWhat we gonna do now?i iWhadda you think?i Wiggins giggled very quietly. iI vote we sink the sonofabitch . . . then we alert the Madison.i Goldsmith added, iAll those in favor say Aye Aye!i iWe have to be careful,i Frankavilla warned. iHe may be part of a wolf pack, and weive got a whole flotilla back there o not to mention a couple of civilians up here.i iNo wolf pack; I donit think so,i Wiggins said. iNot this close to our coastline. Not in this shallow water. . . You know what I think?i None of us said anything, but my hands began sweating inside the sheep-lined gloves. iI think,i Wiggins went on, ithe dumb bastardis got himself snared in that coral reef and canit find his way out. Heis only fifteen, twenty feet under water, and he certainly canit dive. 232 Heis gonna have to come up and find a way to work himself back into deep water.i Shadow asked, iCan he hear us? Does he know weire here?i iNot yet,i said Frankavilla. iIf he did, heid either surface and fight it out, or heid attempt to dive and try to escape. His periscope is down; no trace of a ewhite featheri. Heis just sittini there.i iA sitting duck,i Goldsmith quipped. iSittini fugg,i Wiggins giggled. I wondered, iWhatire German subs doini around here, anyway?i iWell, so far,i Wiggins explained, ithey sunk three Liberty ships thatid just been launched off Brunswick, Georgia; never even got a shakedown cruise out of eem. And last spring they got a couple tankers off the coast of St. Simonis Island; sunk eem both within ten miles of shore. They also lobbed some 75is on the beach up in New England. One even got into Hampton Roads and put a few dings in a destroyer before we got him. He only had one torpedo, and it misfired, luckily.i iNever seen nothin ebout that in the paper,i Shadow said. iAnd you never will, unless one of eem comes up in New York Harbor and blows the head off the Statue of Liberty.i I wondered when was the last time Iid seen Shadow reading a newspaper. Wiggins had pulled slightly ahead of us, and Goldsmith had slipped in between as we continued making a wide, lazy circle above the drifting submarine. iHereis the plan,i Wiggins said. iTake the Avenger up to twenty, twenty-five thousand and get those boys outta harmis way . . . i Frankavilla cut in. iWho died and made you Secretary of the Navy?i iThe guy what gave me the three fat stripes and a star; same guy what gave you two stripes and a dinky streak . . .Way I see it,i Wiggins went on, iwe got two choices. We can alert the Madison to send in the Marines while we haul-ass outta here o and by the time they get here, Jerryill find his way off the reef 233 and disappear in deep water. Heill come up-periscope right in the middle of the convoy, and with a little luck plop a hot fish right up Serateenis wizened oli gazoo. And weire nothini but fodder for the oli court martial cannon. Or you can get them kids out of here and let me and the Goldfish have a go at these bastards. How would you play it, Mr. Wizard?i I could hear Frankavilla sigh in resignation into his face mask. iYouire right, sir! Iim climbing . . . oh, shit! Look!i iToo late,i Wiggins declared. iTheyire comini up!i The U-boat suddenly broke through the calm surface, and in less than fifteen seconds the conning tower hatch popped open, allowing three German sailors to slip out and race to the aft gun. Three more swung into action on the machine guns, and I could see a man I assumed to be the captain, his brilliant white officeris cap billowing in stark contrast to its black band and brim, standing in the tower and pointing to the sky. The pompom and then the machine guns whirled around in our general direction. iLetis go, Goldilocks!i Wiggins bellowed. iItis showtime!i iPull your goggles down and fasten your face masks!i Frankavilla commanded. iThereis a toggle right next to where your oxygen tube is inserted in the wall! Flick it to the up position! Breathe like normal!i Frankavilla pulled back on the joy stick, and the Avenger went into a steep climb just as a series of ack-ack exploded across the sky in front of us, off to our left. The pompom began a choreographed tattoo of shrapnel-filled bursts, an invitation to what British pilots called ithe macabre dance of deathi. The Avenger, climbing, swayed first to the right, then to the left, as Frankavilla took evasive action. The joystick seemed to be rotating in circles. Black and red and yellow puffs appeared on both sides, in front and behind, followed by thuds of high concussion that rocked the plane back and forth. Shrapnel pinged against the armored wings and fuselage, and I saw a sudden tear appear in the starboard wing, near the tip. iMan,i Shadow screamed, iweire hit!i 234 iI see it!i Frankavilla confirmed. iLittle rip; no prob!i Another one exploded in my left ear. I flinched and ducked automatically and closed my eyes. iPshhhhit! My windowis broke!i Shadow cried out in amazement. I looked back at him, and there was blood on his left cheek. iYou okay?i iYeah, Iim okay, but I got a hole in my window! Colderin raw dick in here!i I could feel the frigid air rushing under my seat from the turret behind me. iYou sure you okay? Yiall got a cut on your cheek!i Shadow ripped off his glove and felt his face. iFugg! Chunks of a Plexiglas all over the place! . . . Is this my blood?i iYeah,i I shouted. iMust of whacked a chunk outta your cheek! Just a scratch! You feel anything?i iNo. Nothin! Betcha fuggeris gonna hurt like hell tomorrow!i POW! Frankavilla came on: iKeep them goggles down! How big is the hole in the turret?i iI dunno! eBout size of one frame!i POW! iJay-sus! Get us outta here!i POW! At ten thousand feet, the Avenger banked sharply to the right, and we had a momentary glimpse of Cmdr. Wiggins o followed by Lt. Goldsmith, diving directly into the machine gun fire from the German U-boat. We could see Wigginsi return fire spitting from his wing-mounted guns, and we saw two German sailors spring backwards off the tower and literally fly into the ocean where they lay spread eagle on their backs. Wiggins pulled out of his dive and began climbing for another run when Goldsmithis plane suddenly leveled off as he dropped one of his 500 pounders from about nine hundred feet and a quarter mile in front of the submarine. At that point, it became a dream sequence: hazy and jerky, 235 slow motion and unreal. Frankavilla switched his climbing right bank to a circling left turn that momentarily, a space of maybe three seconds, actually, blocked my view of the action below. Two more pompoms erupted in front of us, and our plane seemed to lift with the concussions and lay over on its port side. I paid no attention. Frankavilla gasped, iAw, Christ!i and Shadow growled, iLook at that!i and I watched, mesmerized, as Goldsmithis 500 pounder dropped pinpoint-perfect right smack- dab down the subis conning tower, right through the open main hatch. I truly thought I could see the Nazi skipper turn in amazement, reach out as if to catch it, and then watch in amazement as it disappeared. An instant later the bomb exploded, somewhere in the bowels of the U-boat, and the enemy vessel literally disintegrated, flew apart, as its own shells, explosives, and torpedoes ignited in a display of fireworks, balls of orange fire and destruction I could never have imagined had I not seen it with my own eyes. It took a couple of seconds for the sound to reach us, but when it did, it was deafening. To this day, Iim sure I felt the concussion under the plane right after I heard the explosions. Goldsmithis voice came in loud and clear. iEeeeiiiiiyyyyyaaahhhhooooo!i iWhat a shot!i Wiggins bellowed. iYou guys see that? . . . Navy Cross, here you come, you oli dope fiend!i iMan, that subis mincemeat! You see that captain in the tower? He watched that oli bomb go right past his ass!i iMan, I thought he tried to reach out ani grab it!i iGrab this, you fuggin Nazi Jew-killini cocksucker! I hope you burn in hell a zillion years, you goddamn sonsofbitching fugg bastards!i I think Goldsmithis voice broke, clipped in a genuine sob as he banked left and commenced another dive at the spot where the sub had been but was now nothing put a widening patch of debris, bodies, body parts, and burning oil. He dove through the black, billowing smoke and released his second bomb, while emptying his machine guns into the holocaust. Ten seconds out of his dive the bomb exploded, and Goldsmith flew off alone, to the southeast. 236 iWait up,i Wiggins ordered, and Goldsmith dipped his wings and began lazy circles. He said nothing more. We had resumed a straight, level flight. Eighteen thousand feet. 28 degrees, north by northwest. 235 knots. Off to the left, I was able to see what I believed to be the United States shoreline. Wiggins came along our port side. iYou guys see that?i SHADOW: Yeah. ME: Yeah. FRANKAVILLA: Goldsmith all right? WIGGINS: Yeah, sure; he will be; heis okay . . . Never saw anything like it. You? FRANKAVILLA: No. We took shrapnel and machine gun. . . Howis my ship look? Wiggins dropped back and under us, came up the other side; then over the top. WIGGINS: Looks okay; ragged but intact. You got a rip in your starboard wing tip and a broken window in the turret and in the front port canopy . . . by you. Either shrapnel tears or bullet holes all over the port side. Your hydraulics okay? SHADOW: Freezini my ass off in here. Ani Iim bleedini all over the place. WIGGINS: He hit?i ME: I donit think so. Think he got cut by Plexiglas when the turret blew in. FRANKAVILLA: Iim taking her back down to about twenty-five hundred . . . puttini her on auto. WIGGINS: You okay, Gary? FRANKAVILLA: Yeah. . . Follow me down. Iim havini a hard time seeing outta my left eye . . . At twenty-six hundred feet I felt the aircraft jerk slightly and slide to the left. FRANKAVILLA: Eden. Cranston. You . . . warmer back there? ME: Toasty. . . Can we take off the oxygen? FRANKAVILLA: Yes. Sure. . . Weire on auto-pilot now. . . You know what that is? 237 SHADOW: Yeah. The planeis flyini itself. Remote control. FRANKAVILLA: Yeah; sort of. Itis right on course, at least for now. Donit . . .touch anything on the instrument panel. . . Little while, you should hear the beep-beep. . . Commander Wiggins? WIGGINS: Yoe. FRANKAVILLA: Stay with eem for a while. WIGGINS: Sure. Why not?i Frankavilla did not answer. WIGGINS (after thirty seconds): Gary? . . . Gary? SHADOW: Whatis going on? Whatis wrong with him? WIGGINS: Gary? . . . You read me? . . . Kid . . .Eden, whatis wrong with Commander Frankavilla? Has he been hit? ME: I . . . donit . . . know! WIGGINS: Well . . . unhook yourself and stand up and look over the headrest, for Godis sake! It took me three minutes to find the harness release, wiggle out and hoist myself into a semi-standing position where I could look over into the pilotis cockpit. Gary Frankavilla was slumped slightly forward in his seat. I couldnit see his face, and I couldnit tell if he was breathing or not. He didnit seem to be. Both his hands were motionless in his lap, and his gloves were covered with blood. After a moment, I fell back into my seat. My own hands were trembling as I pressed the face mask against my mouth. WIGGINS: Well? . . . Kid . . . Speak up! ME: Mister Frankavillais slumped down in his seat. Like heis . . . unconscious or somethini. . . Heis got blood all over his hands. I think heis . . . dead.i WIGGINS: Jesus. . . Is he breathing? ME: I dunno. WIGGINS: Can you hear him breathing in your headset? ME: . . . No. Shadow made a sound like a tired race horse: iPhssshit! If heis dead . . . how we? . . . how can we? . . . whatire we supposed to? . . I donit believe this! Jay-sus, merc-eeeeei!i 238 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Cmdr. Wiggins brought his Hellcat to within twenty feet of our left wing tip and produced a pair of binoculars, 7X50is, Swift Skipperis, Navy issue, with which to examine the front cockpit. Lt. Goldsmith, having heard our conversation, rejoined us and was flying formation just off our right side. iHey, Avenger,i Wiggins called into my headset, iIive got to switch over to an auxiliary frequency, 12-80, and talk to the Madison. Weive, uh, got a sticky wicket, as the boys in the R.A.F. like to say.i I tried to keep panic out of my voice; my bowels were on fire and my hands were shaking. iWhatis wrong? Somebody talk to me! . . Whatis wrong?i Wiggins ignored my question. iLook at your instrument panel. See the radio dial? Itis a small window with fat white numbers behind a curved glass; thereis a black ribbed knob directly under it. Itis high on the panel, at about twelve-thirty. You see it?i It took me a few seconds, but I found it. iIs it to the right of the, uh, altimeter?i iYeah, sort of. Thatis it.i iWhat do I do with it? It reads seventy-one.i iRight. . . See the little silver toggle switch just to the right of where it says seventy-one?i iYes, sir.i iFlip the switch to the down position, and then turn the dial until you see one-two dash eight-oh. Got it? . . . Do it!i I did as I was told, and immediately the hiss and pitch of static in my earphones went to different decibels and clarity. Wiggins voice came on again; this time louder and clearer. iS.S. Madison, this is Navy Hellcat F6F seven-three-seven, escort for Navy Avenger TBF niner-six-one-one; Commander Pete Wiggins calling the bridge. Over.i iHold on, Hellcat seven-three-seven. Over.i Within twenty seconds Captain Blauser was on the radio, 239 listening in awe to Wigginsi narrative as he described Goldsmithis direct hit down the enemy submarineis conning tower and its subsequent result. iI think the U-boat was an IXC 40, SD Dortman class. He had a pompom on the aft deck and a pair of fifties in the tower, both of which opened up on us at about three thousand feet, or less. Lieutenant Goldsmith and I attacked immediately, and Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla scrambled for altitude in the Avenger with the kids, .i Blauser cut in, iAre those kids all right? Over.i iAffirmative. One of eem, Cranstonis, got a cut on his face from flying Plexiglas or something. He says itis just a scratch. Pompom blew out a panel on his canopy. Over.i iCan you hear me, uh, Shadow? Over.i iYeah. Yeah! Sir!i i . . . You okay? Over.i iYes sir!i Temporary bravado returned to Shadowis voice. iJust a knick; a liil oli flyini plastic. Nothini to worry over. I had my goggles down over my eyes. . . Over.i Ah hah muh goggledow ovuh muh ice . . . Ovuh. iCaptain,i Wiggins came back, iweive got a bigger problem than a little flying Plexiglas. . . Frankavilla has the Avenger on auto-pilot, and . . . and heis not responding. His canopyis pretty much blown out on port, and thereire tear holes in the armor around the cockpit; about six fifties caught the fuselage broadside; heis slumped over and motionless. It looks like he took shrapnel fairly close, but those tear holes could be from the machine guns on the subis conning tower. He was a lot less than two thousand when they opened fire. Eden . . . uh, Eden thinks heis, uh . . . he might be . . . dead. Over.i iChrist.i There was a long silence. Then, off mike, we were able to indistinctly hear Blauser conferring with someone else, probably Admiral Serateen. When he came back, he said, iMr. Eden, can you hear me? Over.i I cleared my throat and tried to appear calm. iYes sir, Iim here. Over.i 240 iWell, son, we apparently have a, uh, somewhat critical situation. Tell me why you think Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla is dead. Over.i I explained that I really didnit know if he was dead or not. I had looked at him over the huge headrest that separated us, and he was slumped over, forward; there was blood on his gloves, his jacket sleeves, and his hands were in a wet, crimson pool in his lap. I couldnit see much of his face, but I didnit think he was breathing; there was no visible upper body movement, and he didnit respond to my calling on the intercom. Blauser wanted to know if I could reach around and squeeze his neck to see if he had a pulse. iI tried to reach out ani shake him,i I said, ibut I couldnit make contact from back here. . . Over.i Wiggins came on, iSir, I put bi-nocks on him, and it looks like heis sustained serious trauma to the left side of his head. Eden may be right . . . he may well be dead. I gotta believe he is. I cranked up the volume on my headset to full max, and thereis no sound of breathing. Usually, we can hear a mouse fart o Sorry, sir. Over.i iAll right, mister. Stand by.i There was a distinct click as Blauser killed his mike, and this was followed by a lengthy silence. I spoke to Shadow: iThis a really fine mess you got us into, Ollie. How you feelini?i iScared shitless, ani so are yiall, so knock off the Laurel ani Hardy crap, yihear? Whadda we gonna do? . . . Fugg, we gonna die up here!i I shrugged as though someone could see me, and Humphrey Bogart came to mind: iI think weire gonna take a short swim inna big drink, Harry. You gotcher water wings?i For some reason, this made Goldsmith chuckle. Before we could ask him what was so funny, Captain Blauser came back on. iAll right, Commander,i he said, calmly and matter-of- factly, ihereis how we play this. . . If both you and Goldsmith agree that in all likelihood Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla is 241 dead . . . or at least incapacitated . . . our only alternative, our only mission, is to protect those boys and get eem home safe and sound, and as fast as possible. You men agree? Over.i iAye aye, sir,i came back in tense harmony. iHereis the plan then: we are notifying the Fleet Training Center at Virginia Beach of our situation, theyire the closest. They will immediately dispatch a SARS unit for rendezvous per your directive and coordinates. You will stay with the Avenger and walk Mr. Eden and Mr. Cranston through all emergency procedures. At the appropriate place and time, as close to shore as possible, you will have them take the Avenger off auto-pilot . . . youill have to walk eem through it step-by-step, second-by-second, and have them bring the aircraft around and point it out to sea. They will then put the aircraft back on auto- pilot and then detach their canopies and, uh, bail out.i iJay-sus!i Shadow exhaled into his face mask. iBail out! You nuts? I ainit jumpini outta no airplane!i iYou Hellcats,i Blauser went on, iwill stay with them as far down as possible and assist SARS to find and secure them safely aboard. The aircraft will continue on out to sea until itis exhausted its fuel. When it ditches, weill make every effort to recover Lieutenant Commander Frankavillais body. . . For the record, this plan is endorsed and approved by Admiral Serateen. Over.i iAye aye, sir,i Wiggins concurred, but his voice seemed sullen. I asked, iWhat does SARS mean?i iSearch and Rescue,i Blauser explained. iTheyill be there before you hit the water. Have either of you ever parachuted before? Over.i Both of us shook our heads as though he could see us; I thought to myself, No, sir, not a required high school course! Finally I made enough saliva to say: iUnh-unh.i iNothing to it. Just relax and do everything Commander Wiggins and Lieutenant Goldsmith tell you. Itis going to be a lot easier than it sounds. Youire both young and appear in good physical shape. . . Letis keep on this frequency so we can be 242 apprised of everything thatis going on. We will not come on unless itis absolutely necessary, which it wonit be. Boys, Iive made over fifty training jumps myself . . . under all sorts of weird circumstances . . . and Iill tell you right now thereis nothing to it, especially in calm water. Just relax and do precisely what youire told, and youill still be home with your families before dark! Good luck and Godspeed!i Again, a sharp click and the Madison was gone. I knew they were listening, however, as well as God knew how many other ships in the flotilla, plus ground stations all along the eastern seaboard. The thought occurred we had to be conscious of what we said among ourselves, of how we reacted to this situation and what was in store for us. I felt Shadow was thinking the same thing: We were in a tough spot, but no matter what happened, we could not be written off as a couple of whining, sniveling teenagers who couldnit hack it in wartime when the going got tough. I glanced over at Lt. Goldsmith, and maybe he was able to read our thoughts; he gave us a smile and a thumbs up. iYou know something, Lieutenant Goldsmith,i I said, and it was not a question. iI canit swim. And Shadowis no Johnny Weissmuller, either.i iDoesnit matter,i Goldsmith came back. iYour Mae West will keep you afloat until they pick you up. Just before you hit the water, yank the red tag near your left shoulder, and it inflates automatically. Makes you bob around like a cork! Also, that bright yellow makes you visible to the SARS crew like goldfish in a coffee cup.i The United States coastline was now plainly visible off to our left and slightly in front of us. My watch said it was only one-fifty in the afternoon. I honestly thought weid been in the air for at least ten hours! iIs that Virginia over there?i Shadow asked. iProbably South Carolina or Georgia,i Wiggins replied. The radio crackled and hissed in my ear. iNavy Hellcat seven-three-seven, this is U.S.N. Fleet Training Center, south squad, Camp Pendleton, Virginia . . . do you read? Over.i iNavy Hellcat seven-three-seven; loud and clear, Fleet 243 Train. This is Commander Pete Wiggins. Identify yourself, sailor. Over.i iChief Petty Officer Paul Lassiter. Iim here with Marine Lieutenant Jason Latham. Understand youive got a Class Two emergency. Over.i iRoger that, Chief. Couple oi potential recruits who canit fly, canit swim, and arenit going to be home in time for dinner if we donit get eem in the water and picked up mighty quick. Gimme short status. Over.i iPotential recruits, you got civilians on board the Avenger? Over.i iRoger, double roger. Over.i iHowid that happen? Over.i iYou donit wanna know, Chief. Give me status. Over.i iSir, S.S. Madison skipper, Captain W. R. Gordon Blauser, high endorsement from Admiral Serateen, ordered one of our J-2-9is dispatched a-sap with full crew and medics full steam to rendezvous with Avenger TBF off coastline and retrieve two personnel bailing out. When he said epersonneli, I assumed he meant military. . . A cutter is also enroute to follow disabled Avenger until it ditches and try to retrieve body of mortally wounded pilot. Sir, how much fuel on board the Avenger? Over.i Wiggins spoke directly to me. iMr. Eden, can you read your fuel gauge? Over.i I didnit want to say I didnit know which one it was; I said nothing as my eyes searched the instrument panel. There it was: FUEL. The needle, assuming it meant the same as it would in the Jeep, was at one oiclock on the dial. iI think,i I said, iwe have about three quarters of a tank or so left. Over.i iYouill have to dump most of it,i Chief Petty Office Lassiter remarked. iYou know how to do that? Over.i iNo, sir.i iWell, first things first. . . Commander Wiggins, can you give me precise coordinates? Over.i 244 iYes, Chief. Are your J-2-9 and your cutter tuned in? Over.i iThey better be . . . i iWeire here. S.S. DeKalb, Lieutenant Commander Marion Husted, seven minutes out of port, 91 degrees, south by southeast, 32 knots. Over.i iS.S. Heyes Herbert, Commander Lawrence Femia, 2000 yards behind the DeKalb. Weill be with your Avenger until itis in the water. We have frogmen to do all possible to retrieve your pilot. . . By the way, who is, uh, was he? Over.i Goldsmith answered: iLieutenant Commander Gary Frankavilla. Paramus Squadron Leader, Fifth Wing, USN. Eight months in the Pacific in e42. Got off the Yorktown just in time. Eleven known Zero kills and a carrier assist with three Avengers. Air medal; two clusters. Up for his silver leaf and three fat stripes next month. He was my boss.i Someone muttered, iShit,i and there was silence. Then: iYou fellas actually got a Kraut sub? Over.i iRight down the oli conning tower chimney stack! Blew the sonofabitch apart in five directions; nuthin left but jelly and smoke!i iAny survivors?i iNot so much as a final seig heil,i Goldsmith responded. iThe entire crewis breakini down the doorway to Hell as we speak.i For the next few minutes I did little but stare at the instrument panel in front of me. I wanted to talk with Shadow, but Commander Wiggins and the officers on the rescue ships were in a high-tech orbit of coordinates and directives that I could neither interrupt nor retain. Our lives were at stake now in a situation that was totally beyond our individual control. Chances were, we were at maximum risk of drowning, falling out of the sky with unopened chutes, crashing into the sea while trying to point the Avenger away from land, or floundering in the water undetected until a school of sharks found us. . . And not necessarily in that order. 245 At the first brief lull in radio traffic, I said, iShadow, you awake?i iNo, asshoi. Takini a nap; gettini my forty winks.i Commander Wiggins cut in: iPlease, boys, stay off for now.i iI was just wondering if thereire sharks down there,i I asked. I heard Shadow gasp. iSharks?i Goldsmith came on, iIf there are, theyire havini a banquet on weinerschnitzel ani sauerkraut a hundred miles back. They wonit bother with no redneck ham hocks, grits and gravy.i We heard laughter from several sources, but I didnit think it was very funny. I continued to stare at the instrument panel in silence. A few minutes later there was another gap in military conversation. Shadow came on, speaking very softly, almost a whisper. iMarty, yiall believe in . . . God?i iYeah,i I answered. iYou baptized?i iYeah.i iComplete dunkini, or did the preacher just flick water in your face?i There was an unmistakable tremor in my friendis voice. iI dunno. How could I remember? I was just a baby. Probably just sprinkled me.i iPssshhit. My momma says yiall gotta get full-dunked if you wanna be saved.i iYeah,i I sighed. iMaybe your mommais right.i Shadow remained silent for a minute or so, but I knew he was as frightened as I was. Then, iCan I ask yiall somethini, Marty? You think we gonna get out of this okay? We ainit gonna die or nothini up here, are we?i iI hope not,i was my best answer. iLemme ask ya: if we die, you figure we gonna go to Heaven?i i . . . Yeah. Sure. . . Yeah.i 246 iWe done a lotta bad things, Marty. Good chance we, uh, might just go straight on to Hell.i iI, dunno. . . Shut up about it, will you, Shadow?i William James suddenly popped into my mind, and I remembered reading his thoughts on Hell: The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells us, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way . . . This might be some comfort to me (it really wasnit), but conveying such ideas to Shadow would have been difficult if not impossible under normal circumstances. The idea of dying in this situation, and having little control over its possibility, was frightening enough without having to deal with judgment and its consequences. As overwhelming terror began to sink it, I couldnit think it through to any logical conclusion. I knew Shadow was, as was I, at the edge of hysteria. iMarty, you sorry we done all them bad things we done?i iYeah.i I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. iWe, uh, got to mold our characters better in the future,i I said. iYeah. . . Huh? What diya mean?i I knew he was looking for a loophole, and so was I. iI dunno what I mean.i There was another tense silence on my headset. Then he said, a plea of quid pro quo going out over the airwaves and, hopefully, picked up by a monitor in Paradise: iIf Jesus gets us out of this, I wanna give that sixty bucks you stold back to Ben Wu.iiOkay.i I stold? iAni Iim through takini baths with Julie Hayden, ani Iim gonna stop smokini cigirettes ani drinkini near-beer, ani swearini, ani all that other freaggin stuff . . . i iYeah. Good.i When he mentioned cigarettes, something a revival preacher once said at a tent meeting my Georgia grandpa took me to a million years ago snapped into my mind: Smoke here ani you sure gonna smoke hereafter.i iWhat about you, Marty? Whaichall gonna do for Jesus if He saves us?i 247 i . . . I dunno.i iMaybe you could write a real good Chrisimas story.i iYeah, I might do that.i iMaybe a Easter story.i iYeah.i iBetter think of somethini.i iYeah. Iill think of something.i What I was really thinking was that dying at seventeen was the least of my priorities; until Shadow mentioned it, it had not even remotely occurred to me. I believed I was here for a reason, alive for a definite purpose, and until that purpose was accomplished, I could not die. So far, my accomplishments totaled absolutely zero. I was safe; immune. I might have an appointment, I thought, but it was not in Samara! Iid have to remember that; Anna Theresa would like that. iWhat did you think about,i sheid ask, ijust before you died?i iYou,i Iid reply. iAnd literary stuff.i But . . . there was one certainty: We were both scared shitless. iGentlemen,i Cmdr. Wiggins said in my headset, ilook down at nine oiclock and behold a grand sight: Two Navy sea craft converging at our predestined rendezvous to snatch you from Davey Jonesis locker. Ready to play a hot hand of ePilots In Distressi?i A deep breath; then Bravado, vying for recognition with its arch enemy Fear, was again in contention: iAye aye, Sir!i A second later Shadow signed in with gusto, false or otherwise, it didnit matter: iYiall bet your ass!i Yawl baycher ice!i Laughter seeped across the oceanis expanse from several sources, and Wiggins solemnly intone, iNow I lay me down to sleep oi Goldsmith said, with just a trace of sarcasm, iWhy donit we sing the Navy Hymn?. . . Sir.i iOkay, okay, knock it off . . . letis get the show on the road. Everybody off the air but Eden and me.i Cmdr. Wiggins looked over at me, and I looked back. He pulled his goggles down, and so did I. Behind me, Shadow did 248 the same. I think we were all smiling, but I wasnit sure. And I had no idea why we thought we had anything to smile about. iOkay, Mr. Eden, hereis where we go for the Navy Cross and get immortalized on the silver screen with Gary Cooper playing all of us at the same time! Listen, my children, and you shall hear . . . i I cut in: iAre we going off auto-pilot? Over.i iYep, as Coop would say. And letis can the eover and out and rogeri crap. This is the Big Time, laddie.i ME: Okay. WIGGINS: Okay. First thing, look at the instrument panel. ME: Been lookini at it for an hour. WIGGINS: Good. Keep looking at it. Iim going to tell you a few things about it, and if you understand what Iim sayini, click your mike by squeezing your face mask. CLICK! Good. Okay. Do you see the altimeter? CLICK! Mine reads two thousand one hundred feet. Yours should be the same. CLICK! Okay. Look at your air speed indicator. CLICK! It should say two hundred five knots per hour. CLICK! Your compass . . . you see it? CLICK! It should show we are heading north by northwest at 3-4-0 degrees.i ME: Iim not sure. WIGGINS: What do you mean? ME: The compass is moving, swingini back ani forth, sort of, between 3-2-0 and 3-5-5. WIGGINS: Thatis okay. The median is 340. They do that sometimes. The compass sits in a pot of oil, and after a while the oil gets thin, watery, and the magnetic ball floats all over the place. Theyire gonna have to replace yours as soon as. . . well, yeah, what I mean is . . . well, you know what I mean. CLICK! CLICK! Okay. Now look just to the right of the compass. See a small triangular panel with two inserted levers at the bottom two points of the triangle? CLICK! Is there any kind of lettering or designation either under or on top of the triangle? ME: No. There was somethini there, but itis worn off. WIGGINS: Does it look like it might have been tiny stick-a- letters? 249 ME: Yeah. WIGGINS: What does it look like it might have said? ME: Uh . . . A . . . uh . . . either P or B. WIGGINS: Bingo! Thatis your auto-pilot control. They only put it on about two hundred of the two thousand Avengers they built so far, and on half of those itis buried low on the panel by your left knee. . . Shadow, you paying attention back there? SHADOW: No. Iim readini a comic book. WIGGINS: Do you have a similar triangle on your panel? CLICK! Whatis it say under it? SHADOW: eAuto-Piloti. Somebody wrote it out with a crayon. WIGGINS: Okay. Now. Look at the levers inserted in the corners of the triangle. Is the one on the left up and the one on the right down? CLICK! . . . CLICK! Okay. Shadow, what we want to do is over-ride yours right now. You, Shadow, on my command, push the upper half of the left lever in, and at the same time depress the lower half of the right lever. When you do this, youill both feel a slight jerk in the planeis forward movement, and it may dip slightly to port. Donit be alarmed; itis perfectly normal. Okay. Got it? . . . Do it! ME: My levers moved slightly. That okay? WIGGINS: Yes. Did you feel the plane jerk a little? ME: Yeah. But I donit think it dipped left. WIGGINS: Thatis okay; doesnit happen all the time. SHADOW: I felt it dip. . . I really did, hear? ME: I didnit. SHADOW: Well, damn it, I did! WIGGINS: Okay, okay. It doesnit matter. What weive done so far is release the bombardieris panel from auto-pilot control. This would be an essential maneuver in combat because the bombardier can put the aircraft in an auto-pilot mode during a bombing run; for the duration of attack, the pilot is sitting there fairly worthless, so to speak. When Frankavilla went to auto-pilot he instinctively surrendered future control to the turret. In order for you, Mr. Eden, to regain control and actually 250 fly the aircraft from your cockpit, you will now have to disengage the auto-pilot and resume manual flying mode.i It was ridiculous, but in my head I could hear Red Skelton, as ethe mean widdle kidi, saying, iDo we wheely have to?i WIGGINS: But before you do that, let me tell you whatis going to happen and what youill have to do. CLICK! On my command, you will do just the opposite of what Shadow just did. You will push in the upper half of the right lever and at the same time depress the lower half of the left lever. When you do, the nose of the plane will dip down, almost like itis falling asleep o just for a second, but Iim going to explain how you will overcome that. With me so far? CLICK! Okay. The joy stick is right in front of you, and itis been moving slightly, in a circle more or less, with the updrafts and down drafts and torque of the engine. Once youire off auto-pilot you will have to place your hand on the stick and actually fly the airplane with it. Donit grip it like you wanna choke it to death; just hold it firmly in your right hand and move it only when necessary, only on my directions. Now. At your feet are two pedals. These pedals control the rudder of your plane; the vertical part of your tail assembly. The one on the left controls your movement to the left, and the right controls your movement to the right. The stick controls the elevators; the horizontal part of the tail; and the elevators are what makes the plane go up and down, because thatis what elevators do, go up and down. Confused completely? CLICK! Thatis all right. Weire going to work this so that you will have a minimum to do once we get you on a course out to sea. Note that the pedals are divided in the middle, and the top and bottom work independently from each other. The reason is that they serve a dual purpose. The top half are the brakes that grip the landing gear on landing, for now, forget about brakes; weill concentrate on just using the pedals and the stick to fly the aircraft. Just one more thing for right now. . . . See a small wheel about the size of a tennis ball on the right side of the cockpit wall, right where the seat meets the wall? Itis sort of wedged back halfway behind the leather flap on your manifest pouch. You see it? 251 ME: Iim not sure. Itis sort of . . . brownish? WIGGINS: Yep, thatis her. Is there a tiny wire seal hanging from under it? CLICK! Good. Thatis the fuel jettison release, and in a while weire going to untwist that seal and open the wheel cock to let the fuel drain out. When we go back to auto-pilot just before you guys hit the silk, the plane will keep on flying out to sea and eventually ditch with no harm other than to itself. I think weire just about set to sing the national anthem and play ball . . . ME: But . . . how do I fly this thing so we can jump out of here?WIGGINS: Not to worry, laddie. Thatis the easy part and oli Pete eBy-The-Seat-Of-Your-Pantsi Wiggins will guide you every step of the way. You know how to ride a bicycle? ME: Yeah, sure. WIGGINS: Well . . . forget it; ridini a bicycle is nothing like flyini a airplane! So just be still and pay attention! I sat back and looked at the triangle on the instrument panel. There was no way I could do any of this. I breathed a heavy sigh.It was followed by an even heavier sigh. Then another. iYou okay, Shadow?i I asked. iYeah. Whatis the matter with you?i iNothini. Why?i There was another heavy sigh in my earphones; then another. Cmdr. Wiggins came on: iKnock off with the heavy breathing, kids.i iSinot me,i Shadow whispered. iYou okay, Goldsmith?i He didnit answer. I looked over at him, and he was watching us through binoculars. In our headsets, we heard, iAhhhaarrrackk!,i a throat-clearing gurgle, moist and rough. Then softly, barely distinct: iI canit . . . my hands wonit . . . move . . . Whatis wrong with me?i 252 iJesus Christ,i Goldsmith profaned. iFrankavilla ainit dead! Heis trying to wipe the blood off his face by rubbing his head against his canopy frame!i 253 254 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Fear is a hot breath that prickles your cheeks, cascades down your neck, across your chest, under your armpits, through your belly, and enervates your sphincter muscle; it spreads upwards into the scalp, under the hair, scorching its path in the underbrush. It itches and you want to scratch, and when you do, bits of flesh come away and curl under your fingernails; little scabs of white flesh, hardening as the fear mounts; wet scraps, with blood diluted by perspiration. Sometimes there is blood mixed in because youive dug into yourself, your fear deadening the nerve ends, and you donit realize your sharp nails have penetrated soft flesh. You feel the wetness on your fingers, and you look at your hands and you see the blended pink blood at your fingertips. You have no idea how it got there because you cannot feel any pain; your feelings respond only to the nerve- wracking, discordant melody of fear ringing in your ears. Fear is the smotherer of all feelings, all rationale. It is not bravado or patriotism that enables men to participate in combat. It is suffocating fear. It is not honor or duty that makes men perform impossible heroic feats of valor. It is the deadening, senseless anesthesia of fear. And it was fear that afternoon in mid- summer that kept me from screaming and crying out in anguish that I did not want to die in a Navy airplane with my friend and a pilot I barely knew. It was fear that made me take my gloved hands away from my burning face and blazing, itchy scalp and say:iThereis no way we can bail out and let this plane crash in the ocean with Commander Frankavilla alive and helpless! No way! No way! . . . Whatire we gonna do now?i Shadow said, iThis plane ditches, we goini with it! We hit the water, ani weill get Frankavilla out before it sinks!i Yeah! I thought. Right! Rat! Rye-ott! iSuicide,i came back to us through our headsets. Lt. Cmdr. Frankavilla spoke very slowly and quietly. iLet me talk. . . I donit know if Iive been . . . hit by machine gun fire 255 or . . . shrapnel from ack-ack. . . I canit see outta my, uh, left eye. My right is . . . blurred. I canit . . . move my arms . . . my legs. . . Sleepy . . . like . . . sleeping . . . drifting . . . off . . . i iGary, this is Pete Wiggins. If you can hear me, just relax. Donit try to talk. Weire going to get this plane down safely, get you to sick bay, and get these boys back home. I donit want to hear anymore talk about ditching the plane in the ocean!i Another voice came on, and it was Captain Blauser on the S.S. Madison. BLAUSER: Commander Wiggins, this is Captain Blauser. If what weire hearing is correct, Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla is wounded but conscious. Is that correct? Over. WIGGINS: Affirmative, sir. He seems to be slipping in and out. It appears the plane has suffered damage on the port fuselage and canopy, and Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla has been wounded. He seems to drift in and out of consciousness. At times heis barely breathing. We all thought he was dead. The boys are okay, and the plane is still on auto- pilot. Over. BLAUSER: All right. . . Stand by, Commander. WIGGINS: Ahoy, S.S. Dekalb . . . Commander Lassiter, are we still in sight? Over. LASSITER: Aye aye, barely. Youire still on a right angle course from the coastline and moving away from us. We canit keep up much longer. Over. WIGGINS: Roger. Suggest you turn hard to starboard and follow us as best you can . . . for the time being. Over. LASSITER: Where you figure youire going? Over. WIGGINS: Land of Oooh Poppa Doo, for all I know. Over. For nearly two minutes there was silence on the radio. There was, for company, the steady drone of the mighty Double Cyclone 14 cylinder radial engine in front of me, and the more metallic grind, the higher pitched roar of the Hellcats on each side. I noticed the sun had dipped closer to the coast, just off to my left. It was a beautiful day over the Atlantic by the southeast coast of the United States . . . but the fear had not subsided even a little bit. 256 iMaybe todayis the day we die after all,i Shadow said, from a great distance. iNot me, you dumb oli dog,i I replied, between my teeth. iNot me; not yiall; ani not today.i BLAUSER: Commander Wiggins, Captain Blauser again. What chance do you think weid have talking young Eden through a possible landing procedure?i I felt my heart slip into my stomach. There was no way I could land this plane, let alone fly it! WIGGINS: Tough call, Captain. From what I understand, neither of these boys have ever been in an airplane before, and until a few minutes ago I donit think they knew a rudder pedal from a bicycle pedal. Also, Edenis view from the radio seat is fairly obstructed directly forward. I was on the verge of taking eem off auto-pilot and turning the plane out to sea so they could bail out. And just that had me shakini in my boots up here! Over.i BLAUSER: Right. Well . . . hereis the plan, mister; listen closely, all of you, especially you boys with Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla. The Avenger is probably the easiest, simplest military aircraft to fly thatis ever been commissioned. Itis big and fat and looks pretty clumsy. But take it from me, thereis no airplane anywhere that flies so easily. In fact, a lot of pilots love it because they say it practically . . . flies itself. Now, I know flying it is one thing and landing itis another, but landing an airplane is pretty much like . . . like . . . well, like sliding down a huge slide. When you come off at the end, you just wanna sort of glide in a stretched out position until you come to a full stop on the seat of your pants. . . If that makes any sense. WIGGINS: Sir, if I may interrupt . . . suggesting they bring this plane down for a water landing is . . . well . . . tantamount to risking the kind of variables that even experienced pilots canit control o BLAUSER: Negative, Wiggins! What Iim going to suggest is this: Talk Mister Eden through a landing procedure that will bring them down on a long runway at the Norfolk Naval Air Station. Weire fully aware that an ocean landing would 257 diminish the odds of survival, even for a qualified pilot, by better than fifty percent. Chances are that with a modicum of luck, those boys can bring the plane in with the least amount of harm to themselves and damage to the aircraft by setting it down on concrete rather than water. You agree? Over. WIGGINS: Aye aye, sir. Your reasoning is well stated. But I think a emodicum of lucki is wishful thinking. Uh, over. I said, whining and subdued, iI donit think I can do this.i iAinit got no balls,i Shadow said, and there was unmistakable desperation in his voice. iGet me up in that middle seat!i BLAUSER: You can do it, son. You have to do it. For yourself and for your friend. And for Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla, a true Navy flying ace. Not to mention an aircraft thatis worth a hundred thousand dollars to your country. You are in a unique situation, young man. You have a chance . . . to do . . . something for your country, in wartime, no other boy your age has or ever will have. . . Youive got to rise to the occasion and, uh, become, a man! Somewhere, beneath the shroud of blazing fear that was smothering me, I thought I could hear Glenn Milleris American Patrol slip in under the captainis monologue. I managed to say, iYes, sir, aye aye, sir! We must be vigilant! We must be vigilant! . . . i Shadow and I both started laughing. It was Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla who joined in with what was certainly a weak but serious laugh. iYou tell eem . . . men! . . . You tell eem you can . . . bring this old bird in for a touchdown like Doc Blanchard . . . and Frank . . . Leahy . . .i And his laugh became a throaty gurgle, and he faded away once more.i * * * Ten minutes later we were off auto-pilot, and I was lightly o firmly but lightly, holding the joy stick in my sweat-slick right hand. My feet were on the rudder pedals, but I was applying only equal pressure and very little of that. I had 258 learned in the space of two minutes that by equalizing pressure by alternate taps I could keep the plane in a fairly level attitude. The stick was another matter altogether. The slightest movement to either side and one aileron would go down while the other went up, and the plane would begin a leaning turn in that direction, banking, as it was called, either right or left o and in concert with the movement of the pedals: lateral control. Cmdr. Wiggins cautioned me that hanging the stick all the way over would result in a continuous irolli. Pushing the stick forward dropped the elevators and caused the nose of the plane to dip down and send us into a diving descent; pulling it back made us begin to climb, as the elevators were shifted into the opposite position. iWorking the stick in coordination with the rudder pedals is the basic skill needed to successfully takeoff, fly, and land yours or any other aircraft,i Wiggins told me. What real pilots had learned during hundreds of hours of instruction and continual practice, I was expected to master in a few desperate minutes. iYouire doini just fine,i Cmdr. Wiggins encouraged in my headset. iWeive made a pretty wide sweeping circle from north by northwest to south by southeast to west to back to, uh, sort of northwest. You gettini a feel for those rudder pedals?i I told him my left turns seemed better than the right ones. He assured me that was natural, because turning left for right- handed pilots was always more instinctive and common. Left- handed pilots felt just the opposite. He asked, iYou feel like you gotta apply a bit more left pressure against the stick to maintain level, forward flight and keep on course?i iYeah. I let up; the plane seems to drift on right.i iCalled etorquei,i Wiggins explained. iThe prop spins clockwise, or left to right. At two thousand or so r.p.m.is, the power of the engine more or less pulls the ship in the direction of the force that spins the prop. Slight pressure on the stick to the left raises the right aileron and lowers the left just enough to compensate for that epulli. Make sense?i I said I guessed so. Flying seemed to be a lot of common sense, and it made me wonder why man had taken so long to 259 figure it out. If Gallileo could sit in a frigid stone garret hundreds of years ago, looking at the darkened sky filled with uncharted stars and planets and distant galaxies, and calculate, accurately, that Earth was round and not flat, and that we revolved around the sun and not vice versa, why did so many otherwise knowledgeable geniuses take so long to grasp the principles of flight? In movie short subjects, I had always delighted in those ancient clips of men running and flapping their arms attached to sheets of feathers, hoping to ascend like birds, only to fall in crumpled heaps after being airborne for a tenth of a second. Or men on motorcycles plummeting down a long slope with two tiers of papier-m chE wings affixed to their handlebars and their bodies, rocketing off the upturned edge of the slope, and tumbling end-over-end into Lake Ontario. Or, the one I thought was the funniest, the man who simply jumped out of a hayloft, flapping what appeared to be mammoth Ping-Pong paddles, and dropped straight down into a pile of manure. . . What did the two bicycle repair brothers know the others did not? iAhoy, Commander Wiggins, Hellcat seven-three-seven, escort for Avenger TBF-1, do you read me?i It was Captain Blauser again. iAye aye, roger, sir. Over.i iAdmiral Serateen just brought up a valid point. Let me put him on.i SERATEEN: Commander Wiggins, sir, yes, are we . . . together on this? WIGGINS: Sir?. . . Ah, yes, aye aye, sir. I read you. Over. SERATEEN: Right. . . The other boy, the one in the back, whatis his name? WIGGINS: Uh . . . Lamont Cranston, sir. Over. SERATEEN: Yes. Right. Calls himself eShadowi. Thatis the one. The radio program kid. Ha! Tall, muscular. Crew cut. SHADOW: Yiall got me, Admiral! Thatis me! SERATEEN: That you, Wiggins? WIGGINS: No, sir. 260 SHADOW: Shadow Cranston here, sir. How can I help yiall? SERATEEN: Commander Wiggins, thereis another problem bothering me, and we can solve it right here and now. . . That Cranston boy, he has nothing to do with flying the Avenger, does he? WIGGINS: Negative, sir. Once the auto-pilot was switched off o SERATEEN: Heis better off out of there. Stop and think. Think about it. If he bailed out, heid be picked up by SARS, and his chances for survival are best estimate ninety-seven percent. If he stays with the ship, and the other boy crash lands it, survival estimates, uh, drop significantly. Since Cranston is able-bodied and has no role in landing the craft, tell him to bail out. Thatis an order. iIim not jumpini outta here!i Shadow cried. iShut up,i said Commander Wiggins. iNo way o!i iShush up! I mean it!i There was silence on the airwaves for about a minute. iThis is Captain Blauser again. Admiral Serateen has left the bridge. He expects his orders to be carried out, Commander; a word to the wise . . . Over.i WIGGINS: Aye aye, sir, roger that. . . All right, Avenger. Mister Eden. Mister Cranston. Listen and listen carefully. Admiral Serateen has issued a direct order, has left the bridge, and expects his orders to be carried out to the letter. Thereis no debate here; no discussion; no dissension. Mr. Cranston is to bail out and be picked up by either the DeKalb or the Heyes Herbert, you fellas on the air? Over. SHADOW: Shit . . . DEKALB: Affirmative, Hellcat. Over. HEYES HERBERT: Aye aye, Commander. Over. WIGGINS: Then you heard Admiral Serateenis order. Mr. Cranston will bail out as soon as we are all in position, and the nearest ship will pick him up as fast as possible. . . . Right now you both seem to be about thirty, forty miles due south of us. 261 Suggest you stop all engines and wait until we swing around and approach from the east by northeast. Lieutenant Goldsmith and I will escort the Avenger down to about twenty-five hundred feet, and Mr. Cranston will bail out south of your position . . . SHADOW: Donit I have nothini to say about all this? WIGGINS: No! Yes! Nothing! And get off the air! . . . Seas appear to be exceptionally calm. Whatis your surface wind speed? Over. DEKALB: Five knots, due westerly, seas running about a foot.WIGGINS: Very good; excellent. Mr. Cranston will drop out at twenty-five hundred or so, about two kilometers east of you. By the time he hits the water, you should be within a hundred yards. Roger that? Over. DEKALB: Roger that. Over. HEYES HERBERT: Roger. Over. WIGGINS: Good. Weill be all set up here soonis I have a tIte- -tIte with the, uh, potential recruits. . . You fellas hear all that? Over. ME: Yeah. SHADOW: I hear it, but that donit mean I like it! What the fuggis the point of my bailini out? WIGGINS: Two very good reasons. Number one: your chances of being home in your own bed tonight are huge if you hit the silk. By the luck of the draw, Edenis in the hot seat, not you. And Mr. Eden, Iim going to be frankly blunt. A betting man would take the odds at nine to five you canit set that plane down on all three wheels in less than six tries. I might give the odds-on that you can do, but thatis because I feel I know you by now, and I think youive got what it takes. Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla has no choice in the matter. To save him, youive got to land that plane in one piece; to save yourself, likewise, too, for Godis sake. But Cranstonis got an ace in the hole: He can bail out, and weire dead sure . . . so to speak . . . of one survivor. And his bailing out is no reflection on courage or character or . . . any of that stuff. It would be a reflection on his 262 sanity and confirmation of his abject stupidity if he didnit. . . Also, itis his way of adding to the success of the mission. ME: Howis that?i WIGGINS: Weive got to reduce the load weight any way we can. . . How much you weigh, Shadow? SHADOW: I . . . dunno. Hundred seventy. WIGGINS: That plus the weight of your flight clothes and parachute just increased Edenis chances by five to ten percent. . . . Speaking of weight, I want you to jettison those bombs in a few minutes, out here over the water where they canit do any damage. Eventually, weire going to unload a lot of fuel as well. ME: Whatis the second every good reasoni Shadow has to jump? WIGGINS: The most important one: Admiral Serateen wants it that way. SHADOW: Psssshit! He ainit the one gettini his nuts squashed up here! ME: How do I drop the bombs? How many are there? WIGGINS: Two; both in the belly behind bomb bay doors. But you canit drop eem. Shadow has to. . . First things first, me boys! Now, pay attention; both of you. By gently tilting the joy stick to the right, and applying pressure on the right rudder pedal, the Avenger banked at fifteen degrees and began a slow turn to the right. My focal object was Lt. Goldsmithis Hellcat 2,000 yards in front of me. I was to follow him at this speed and distance until told otherwise. iGood show!i Wiggins complimented. iCareful; donit overdo. Watch Goldsmith as much as possible; heill keep you right on course.i If Iid had to worry about airspeed and compass directions, altitude and attitude, I would have been lost within minutes. By keeping Goldsmithis tail in my line of sight, I could, hopefully, maintain proper visual coordinates by instinctive alignment. Wiggins was somewhere behind me, watching my every move. He had told me to ignore updrafts, down drafts, and cross-wind currents. iDonit over-correct!i was his constant admonition, but I couldnit comprehend. If the plane went one 263 way, and I wanted it to go another, my natural tendency was to snap the stick or kick the pedals to bring it back. iKeep it up and youire gonna roll!i Or, iIf you fall forward into a tail- spin, I canit save you!i Or, iBring your nose down or youill stall out!i This seemed to have been going on for the better part of an hour, and we were so far out to sea I could no longer see the shoreline. iWhere are we?i I asked. iWhere the fishes go to make more fishes,i Wiggins replied. iThis is where we get rid of about a thousand pounds of excess baggage. . . Shadow, pay attention!i iAye aye, General!i Wiggins ignored the jibe and began explaining how Shadow was going to release the four bombs living in the lower fuselage. There was, on Shadowis instrument panel, at the lower right, a one inch lever with a white tip. It was in the up position. When pushed downward, it opened the bomb bay doors. iDo it now!i Wiggins commanded. The plane instantly dropped twenty knots in airspeed, and I felt myself thrust forward against the shoulder harness. iA touch more throttle,i said Wiggins. I reached for the red knob on my left and eased it forward until the airspeed indicator came back to its previous mark. iGood. Now, on my command, release first bomb number one, then bomb number two,i Wiggins quietly instructed. iHow I do that?i Shadow needed to know. Wiggins asked if he could see four side-by-side olive drab buttons just above the bomb bay door lever. iYeah,i Shadow reported. iI push eem to drop the bombs?i iOne at a time. And wait etil my command.i Wiggins took up his binoculars and scanned the surface of the ocean in front of us. Seeing nothing, he said, iOkay, Shadow, bombs away! Push the left button first; wait three seconds and push the next one on the right, and so on. With the weight gone, the ship will lift a few hundred feet. Eden, make no adjustment for that. . . Okay, do it! Bombs away!i 264 Although I could not see the four five hundred pounders drop from the belly of the aircraft, I felt the plane shoot up while remaining horizontal, and the altimeter jumped inside the gauge. Looking back, we saw the bombs plunge into the water with four forceful geysers that sprayed high into the air. iThey didnit explode!i Shadow whined, disappointed. iNo,i Wiggins agreed. iThey werenit armed. That was a step that may have been a little too risky. Fifty years from now some squid will spot them a couple miles down and try to make love to them. If he thumps eem just right, on the rim near the nose, somebody will report what looks like an oil leak from some innocent tanker!i With the bombs gone and the two SARS coming into sight, Shadow knew his departure was imminent. Wiggins came on again, iOkay, Mr. Eden, this is where Mr. Cranston gets his Saturday night bath a few days early.i Shadow and I both must have envisioned Julie Hayden waiting for him amidst the bubbles as we started laughing simultaneously. iGlad you fellows see the humor in all this,i Goldsmith commented, wryly. Wiggins explained that the first step would be to bring the aircraft down to twenty-five hundred feet. Next, Shadow would unsnap his canopy at four places; two on the right and two on the left. If the airflow did not rip the thing open, and it might not, with a section already gone, he was to simply grab it near the top and slide it back. After unfastening his seat belt and shoulder harness, he would proceed to climb up on the seat and over the port side of the fuselage, from which he would let go and tumble away from the plane. After counting to ten with incremental delays of ithousandi, he would pull the square metal rip cord located above the parachute pouch, roughly at his breastbone. Just before hitting the water, he would tug and snap at the red tag on his Mae West to inflate the life preserver that would keep him afloat until rescue. iNow,i Wiggins said, iIim going to tell you a secret. . . Once youire in the water, you want to get rid of your echute as fast as possible. Reach in behind the empty pouch on your 265 tummy and youill feel a thick metal buckle. Itis a eTi buckle that will snap out in one twisting motion to the right. As soon as you do it, your entire echute package will just float away from you, like magic, silk, pouches, strings, harness, everything. Make sure you do it right away. More than one Wisenheimer airman has drowned tangled in his own echute!i iGlad you told me,i Shadow murmured, his tone a resignation to fate. iWhat the fugg; Iim ready when yiall are. Do I have to holler Geronimo?i iOne more thing,i Wiggins said. iWhen you hit the water, keep your legs fairly rigid; lock your knees if you can. On a ground landing you want to keep your knees bent to absorb the shock, but on a water entry, if youire knees are bent, the pliability of solid mass penetrating soft water could cause your legs to fold up under you, and not necessarily in the right direction. Keep your legs stiff until youire, uh, comfortably immersed.i iListen,i I said, iwhen you get back on land, call my momma ani tell her where I am, that Iim okay . . . i iCall her yourself, Jocko,i Shadow cut me off. iI ainit no messenger boy! Besides, call her on what?i Wiggins came on. iYou about ready, Shadow?i iYeah. Psssshit, less do it!i He seemed, to me, overly anxious to depart. Wiggins told me to reduce my airspeed to one hundred ninety knots. iKeep your mixture full and your pitch at max. Bring the red ball back till your airspeed reads one-nine-oh. . . Youire a little too high; follow on Goldsmithis tail. . . Shadow, see those two ships off to your right? Thatis home base for today! . . . Okay, Eden, level off with just a little stick back. . . Good. . . Shadow, unplug your radio jack and your oxygen. . . CLICK! . . . Thatis the last weill hear from him,i Wiggins laughed, and for some reason, I felt relieved. iHeill be okay, kid; fellas like him we never have to worry about, much. Only the good die young. . . Okay, Eden, turn around and give him a thumbs up and a big fat, definite Go!i It was not easy turning in my seat, and it was even more 266 difficult watching Shadow unhinge his canopy and squirm out of his seat belt and shoulder straps. The canopy didnit fly back the way Wiggins said it might, and Shadow had trouble sliding it open Finally it slipped away, and Shadow stood up on the seat, the wind nearly toppling him over backwards, one foot on the fuselage and one hand holding on to the canopy frame between his turret and my cockpit. With his free hand he pulled his goggles up on one side, and when his left eye was exposed, he winked at me and smiled. Leaving his goggles in that cock-eyed position, he thumbed his nose at me and rolled over the side and was gone. Chester Morris. I momentarily glimpsed the spreading wet stain on the seat of his flight suit. I watched him fall, and I counted to myself as weid been instructed: nine thousand nine, ten thousand ten. Then fifteen thousand fifteen! Then twenty thousand twenty! His echute did not open. Thirty thousand thirty! iJaysus H. X-mus!i I whispered. Then . . . I saw the white puff of silk far below me, and the echute billowed open, and Shadow floated under me and I couldnit see him anymore. On the starboard side I could, however, see the DeKalb and the Heyes Herbert racing to where I assumed he would enter the water. 267 268 CHAPTER NINETEEN Fear was no longer my only companion. It was joined by its sister, the whore Loneliness, and I was left sitting in the cockpit, staring at the instrument panel, now the most alien of contraptions, alone and helpless and, now, finally certain that perhaps today would, after all, be the day that I die, my lack of accomplishments notwithstanding. And, quite probably, Iid take Lt. Cmdr. Gary Frankavilla with me. Shadow was safe. By best visual calculation, he was in the water less than ten minutes (which must have been, for him, a lifetime.) The DeKalbis crew plucked him from the tiny whitecaps even, I quessed, before the ocean had soaked through his flight boots, and for all I knew, he was drinking hot coffee and/or cold 3.2 beer in the officeris mess and regaling them with the hair-raising tale of how heid sunk the Nazi submarine. And I was alone up there, up here, with a badly wounded, incapacitated, and dying Navy airman; alone in a cockpit barely larger than my body and flying a plane I hadnit the least clue how to fly! Now they expected me to land it at the Norfolk Naval Air Station. Yeah. Right! iIt could be worse,i Goldsmith said into my headset, jarring me back. I glanced to my left, and there he was, in his Hellcat, flying off my port wing. How was it, I wondered, that pilots could discern each otheris thoughts? Assuming, of course, I had the audacity to consider myself any sort of pilot . . . iHow?i I asked, a more frustrated and frightened sigh than question. iIt could be night. Could be overcast; low fog; zero ceiling; zero visibility; raining like hell; thunder and lightning . . . Over the ocean at night you canit find the horizon. You canit tell which wayis up and which wayis down. Even with an artificial horizon staring you in the face, you can get disoriented and roll over into a Graveyard Spin and not even know it until you hit the water nose first at three hundred miles an hour.i 269 Wiggins came on from the right. iWhen gravity catches up with you, youire first instinct is to pull back on the stick, and thatis usually the last instinct youill ever have!i Goldsmith kept it up. iCould be worse? Could be winds off the ocean at thirty-five knots, gusting to seventy. . . i iAll right, Goldie,i Wiggins grunted. iKnock it off.i iCould be,i Goldsmith continued, enjoying it, ithe Jerries blew out your hydraulics; one wing could be hangini by a rivet. You could be down to a tin cup of fuel . . . i iWhich reminds me,i Wiggins cut in, ihow you doini on petro, old sport?i I swallowed hard and looked at the fuel gauge. iMorein half.iiOkay, weive got to dump some . . . i There was fresh static on the radio. iAhoy, Hellcat seven- three-seven, this is S.S. DeKalb, Lieutenant Commander Lassiter. Do you read? Over.i WIGGINS: Hellcat seven-three-seven reads roger-fine, Lassiter. Over. LASSITER: Roger, Hellcat. Commander Wiggins is it? Over.WIGGINS: Roger that. Over. LASSITER: Roger, Hellcat. . . Sir, we have secured the, uh, civilian on board; heis A-OK. He was in the water only a few minutes, but he must of drunk half the ocean. Threw up all over the deck. I think he landed on his face; and wound up upside down in the water. ME: Sure heis okay? LASSITER: Yeah. We got him down in sick bay; theyire pumping him dry. Heis okay. But he says they donit have telephones at home, and weire supposed to have the base contact their parents. How we gonna do that? ME: Try ani call my dad, or my momma. They both work at E.K. Careyis department store. On Granby Street. WIGGINS: You fellas been missini for three days and they gonna to be at work? ME: . . . I dunno. No, hold on, itis Sunday. Maybe 270 somebody could go to my house. I live at 617 Doumar Street, in Norfuck. WIGGINS: Dekalb . . . go ahead and have the base try it; send someone out there. LASSITER: Aye aye, sir. Uh, Mister Eden, what about this Cranston fellais parents? Whereis his old man work? ME: Topland Trucking, and his mommais on the swing shift at Lockheed. WIGGINS: Look, DeKalb, do what you can. Tell the base to try whateveris necessary. Really appreciate your picking up the Cranston kid so fast; take good care of him, and . . . and . . . letis take him over to the Naval Air Station. Over. LASSITER: Which one? Over. WIGGINS: Good question. Let me get back to you. How long you outta port? Over. LASSITER: Forty-five minutes; hour at most. Over. WIGGINS: Stay open on this frequency. Will advise. Over and out. Neither Wiggins nor Goldsmith made contact with me for a minute or so. We were still flying north by northwest, according to my compass, and the shoreline was on my left. I realized that very little adjustment had to be made to keep the Avenger parallel to both escorts if I applied minor pressure left on the joy stick and made gentle taps, alternately, on the rudder pedals. iOkay,i Wiggins came on, ihereis the plan. . . The Norfolk Naval Air Stationis a scrub, unless bigger brass shoots me down. Itis surrounded by hangers and housing and civilians with kids and Navy personnel, too big a risk for, uh, possible miscalculation.i iOceana,i Goldsmith muttered. iRight you are. Oceana Auxiliary Airfield is still under construction, but I think their northeast-southwest runway is in, and itis about a thousand feet longer than Norfolkis. Also, itis in the swamp just south of VA Beach; a lot less congested.i Goldsmith again: iAlso, itis a lot closer to the coast.i 271 To ease the tension, I had to say something; I just wanted to get on the ground, one way or another. iLetis just go for it! Iim, uh, really . . . nervous . . . in here; up here.i iYou got it, kid!i Sharp static in my ear and Captain Blauser came on from the USS Madison. iGood thinking, Commander. This is Captain Blauser. I was going to suggest Oceana once you got yourselves organized up there. Glad to hear the Cranston kidis all right. . . So listen up, Mister Eden. The ballis in your court now. Commander Wigginsill bring you through this with, uh, flying colors, and have you safe and secure on the ground in no time at all. Lieutenant Commander Frankavillais depending on you. Iim depending on you. Admiral Serateenis depending on you. The whole country, your country, is depending on you! You can do it, boy! You can do it!i The pressure valve inside my brain was in the red zone, and I could think of nothing better to reply than: iYes, sir! Yeah! Gimme liberty or gimme death!, Sir! I regret I have but one life to give for my country! Sir! Aye aye, Sir!i Now I lay me down to sleep . . . I thought of Grandma and Momma, all of them. Shit, I would never see any of them again. Dad, Grandpa, Douglas, Aunt Fred . . . Shadow . . . Anna Theresa Tortoretti . . . Aw, Jesus, Anna Theresa . . . help me! Somebody . . . help me! * * * iEden!i Wiggins barked in my earphones. iYou still with us; you fall asleep? Bring up your right wing!i Jarred back, I looked to my right and my heart leaped. My right wing had dipped to a twenty degree angle, and I instinctively jerked the joy stick to left-center. The correction was swift and ragged. iEasy, kid! Easy!i Wiggins snapped. iNo rudder; keep off the pedals! Letier stabilize herself.i The plane shook itself and eased into a fairly level position. iI . . . wasnit . . . paying attention,i I said, meekly. iFamous last words on a lotta white crosses in Arlington,i 272 Lt. Goldsmith chimed in. iAre you dead-nuts on my tail?i Dead-nuts? iAs much as I can be, I guess,i I said. iI can barely see you if you stay right in front of me; Lieutenant Commander Frankavillais headrest blocks my view.i Goldsmith spoke to Wiggins as though I were not there. iThis is going to be a big problem on approach, if we get that far. I can lead him dead-nuts on the runway, but if he canit see it, heill either miss it completely, or hit it when he least expects to. At flying speed heill tear the landing gear off the bottom and flip over into cartwheels . . . i iRight,i Wiggins agreed. iIive got to bring him in with his nose down enough to see over the front cockpit. . . You know, thatis really a shitty design when you stop to think about it. They shoulda lowered the front cowling and put the radio seat higher up. Or shortened that damned headrest.i iI donit know,i Goldsmith pondered. iOn accelerated take- off and tailhook landing, your noggin snaps back with real force. That headrest saves a lot of sore necks. Or broken ones.i iYeah, youire probably right. What they should do is build the thing so the radio man could, in emergencies, release a set of hinges that would allow the top half to swing either back or forward in case he had to fly the plane. Like right now. Anybody in combat ever complain, you know of?i iI never heard anything about it,i Goldsmith replied. iI read most of the Modification Reports they send down.i iMaybe we oughta file a Mod of our own when we get back.i iBe a good idea.i I cut in at this point: iIf you stay off to my right just a bit, I can see you better.i iIt wonit matter where I am, Mister Eden,i Goldsmith responded. iYouive got to keep a bit port of my tail. Just be careful you donit rudder left and drift away from me. Thereis an old pilotis saying that you egotta go sideways to keep from flyingi, and thatis pretty much whatis gonna happen here. Youill feel yourself slippini sideways if you drift too far left, your airspeed can drop fasterin you realize. That happen and as 273 the saying goes, youill ekeep from flyingi all right. Get the picture?i I said I thought I did. Cmdr. Wiggins laid out the plan. He had the Norfolk Naval Air Station on the ibeep-beepi, and he spent some time explaining to them that we were opting to come in at the Auxiliary Airfield at Oceana, VFR (whatever that was), eleven miles to the southeast. Oceana was alerted to clear all airspace, military and commercial in and about the Tidewater and adjacent Atlantic region. All ground rescue and fire equipment were to be deployed in the area of the northeast runway o runway 43, approaching from the southeast, and ambulances and medical personnel were to standby to receive a wounded officer. The Avenger TBF-1 was being piloted by an inexperienced teen-age civilian and escorted by two Hellcats. iSir . . . what? A teen-age civilian?i Oceana tower responded. iSir, our ranking O.D. is a lieutenant j.g. I donit know . . . i iI donit care,i Wiggins growled, iif heis an ordinary seaman! Is he a flyer or a goddamn office clerk? And whereis your commanding officer?i iI donit know, sir!i iGet your o.d.is ass up there, on the double!i Lt. Ross Wittenmyer was on the air in less than sixty seconds. Two minutes later he was thoroughly apprised of the situation, admitting he hadnit been monitoring the action. iYou gotta be the only asshole with a Navy radio in five hundred miles who hasnit been glued to this frequency since eleven this morning,i Goldsmith suggested. iSir,i he protested, iweire under construction here, and I was with a crew since oh-six-hundred laying out an addition to Ad-min; Captain Zarin is up in Hampton Rhodes. . . You fellasire the first and only call this toweris got this month!i iWell, you got yourself a doozy,i Wiggins said. iIs your runway forty-three totally clean?i 274 iRunway forty-three, or twenty-one, is all we got. Concreteis still wet on thirteen and thirty-one; all the markings are in on forty-three. Virgin surface.i iHow long is it? I read it was a lot longer than Norfolkis.i iTwelve hundred nineteen point two meters.i I wanted to know, iHow much is that in real distance?i iFour thousand feet,i Goldsmith calculated. iLong enough to land two B-25s back-to-back. Helluva runway!i iOughta be able to accommodate a little oli Avenger!i Wiggins added, happily. iSo, everybody listen close: hereis the plot . . .i The first step was to swing off to the east and take the Avenger another hundred miles out to sea. I would then be instructed to jettison enough fuel to bring the gauge down to about one-quarter full. Lt. Goldsmith would then set a course for a direct north by northeast approach to runway 43 at the Oceana Auxiliary Airfield. My job would be to line myself up as best I could to follow his tail until the runway was clearly in sight, gradually decreasing altitude as we progressed toward the landing strip. The end of the runway was less than four kilometers from the ocean; the only obstructions were electrical wires on telephone poles along Dam Neck and London Bridge Roads, at the edge of the swamp. Most trees and shrubbery were long gone. By the time we reached land Wiggins calculated our airspeed would be a bit more than one hundred ten knots per hour, altitude at 1,250 feet. On a constant descent, nose attitude pitched slightly forward for better visibility, I was supposed to touch the end of the runway less than five hundred feet beyond the edge, immediately throttle back, stick back, activate the spoilers, and set down on all three wheels for a gradual roll with gradual brake pressure to bring the plane to a gentle stop many meters before the far end of the runway was even in sight. iIn dreamland,i I sighed, wishing my hands would stop shaking. Wiggins quickly warned: iDonit start a negative attitude on me, kid! When I tell a recruit he can do something, he by Jesus 275 better do it. You can do this, Eden, because Iim going to walk you through it every step of the way. You wonit be able to screw up even if you wanted to!i iI donit know . . . i iDonit give me you donit know, mister!i iHowim I supposed to remember all this stuff?i I whined. iThe same way short order cooks at the White Towers and Huddle Houses remember sixteen orders shouted at them simultaneously by five waitresses at seven oiclock in the morning. They think; they use their heads! They donit get distracted.i iCommander,i I argued, trying hard not to start crying, iI ainit no short order cook ani I ainit no pilot, i iAnd you didnit finished your education by graduating summa cum laude from the fifth grade, either, kiddo. What are you, a senior this year? Going to college next year, or the service? I ever get you down at Pensacola, Iill teach you how a short order cook, and a pilot, learns how to think!i Goldsmith said nothing, but I think I heard him grunt into his microphone. And I most certainly did hear Lt. Cmdr. Frankavilla whisper, iYou can do it, kid. You can . . . do it.i iHow yidoini, Gary?i Wiggins asked. There was no answer. iChrist, we gotta get him down. . . Eden, you ready for this?i iNo,i I said. iDonit tell me no. Tell me . . . yes!i I shrugged and wriggled inside my flight suit. I wished I could wake up from this nightmare. iOkay. . . Okay. . . Yeah. . . Yes!iiAtta boy!i Goldsmith began a wide sweep, banking gradually to starboard, in front of me by two-thirds of a mile. I followed him, making my moves as gently as possible, the stick only a couple inches right and my foot just nudging the right rudder pedal. iGood,i said Wiggins, a hundred yards off my right wing. iWatch his wings as close as you can. When he banks, you 276 bank; when he levels off, you level off. Forget about the horizon. Just do exactly what he does.i iYeah,i I said. iOkay.i I was starting to sweat profusely. iCan I take my goggles off?i iNo!i Both Wiggins and Goldsmith snapped simultaneously. iKeep eem on!i Wiggins commanded. iThereis enough shit flyini around with the back canopy open and the front broke up, you get something in your eye with the runway comini at you . . . i His voice trailed off. iI donit mean to yell at you, Eden, but, dammit, donit . . . do nuthin etil you hear from me!i iGreat title for a song,i Goldsmith quipped. iYell all yiall want,i I said. iI got no idea what the fugg Iim doini!i For the next few minutes we proceeded directly out to sea, and then Goldsmith banked again and set a new course due south. Wiggins came on and said to reach under the manifest flap where Iid previously found the small brown wheel with the wired tag. iTake off your right-hand glove,i he instructed, iand put your finger through the wire loop and break it off.i iIt doesnit want to break,i I said, tugging at it. iGive it a solid yank.i I did, and it snapped apart. iCut my finger,i I said. iBleeding?i iYeah.i iBad?i iNo. I donit think so.i Goldsmith cackled. iPut your glove back on sois you donit bleed all over your new yellow boots.i Wiggins told me to turn the small wheel counter-clockwise; this would open the jettison cocks on the fuel tanks, allowing the gasoline to spill out and drain nine hundred feet into the ocean. The thought came to mind what reaction Shadow would have dumping a three monthis supply of high-octane gas our precious Jeep would never see: Jay-sus, how many gallons yiall showered onna fishies? Yuh know how many miles we coulda 277 drove the freaggin Jeep on that! Probily a whole freaggin lifetime! When I turned the wheel as ordered, Wiggins banked his Hellcat away from me once he was certain the gasoline was draining out. As it emptied, he kept a safe distance of about two miles from my side. iWhen your gauge reads a hair under a quarter full,i he said, iclose the wheel all the way clockwise, good and tight.i It didnit take long. When the fuel gauge had dipped to exactly one-quarter, I quickly turned the wheel in the opposite direction and forced it snug. Wiggins came back beside me, a little beneath, and reported, iNuthin drippini, as the good doctor said. Okay. Now we can have some fun.i His Hellcat banked away from me and started a shallow dive toward the ocean. At about three hundred feet Wiggins fired his wing guns directly into the long stream of gasoline, and it immediately ignited, bursting into a lake of fire and thick, black smoke. iThatill all burn off in about two hours,i he said, ikeepini those coastal beaches clean as a pussy willow.i My heart jumped. iI canit see Lieutenant Goldsmith!i iHeis in front of you. Slip off to the left; just a little stick. . . There.i iI see him,i I said. I was drenched in sweat. The muscles in my thighs were in continuous tremor. iWatch him closely,i Wiggins suggested. iHeis about to set a final course for home sweet home. . . You hear us, Oceana? Weire comini in!i 278 CHAPTER TWENTY My brother Douglas, it seemed, was the only one in my family truly concerned that Shadow and I had driven off Saturday morning and had not returned by evening. Momma, Dad, and Aunt Freddie came home from work late Saturday afternoon, Grandpa had been home since ten oiclock, and it was not until during dinner that Douglas finally asked, iWhereis Marty?i iProbily in his room sleepini,i Dad said, sipping Calvertis and water from his Welchis jelly glass. He was in a cantankerous mood. Aunt Freddie, who hadnit a clue and could not have cared less, merely shrugged. Grandma thought a moment and said, iI havenit seen the boy all bloody day, since he ani that Shadow took off in their wretched Jeep.i Grandpa nodded sagely. iHe a boy widis own mind, for sure, dat gots . . . his place uni go.i iYouire right,i Momma said, not necessarily in response to Grandpa. iIs he upstairs writing?i Douglas said no; heid looked. iHeis ainit in his room, neither.i Dad said, iProbily him ani Shadow got some bimbos down at the beach. Ha! Heill come home when he gets hungry for some free food.i iBernie,i Momma asked, iyou all right? Yiall on for the blackout tonight?i Dad shook his head. iNo. Thisis one air raid wardenis gonna no-show this time. Ani maybe every night from now on, god-damn it.i A curious silence settled over the table, as if a mosquito net had drifted loose from the chandelier and covered the family with thin white gauze. Momma looked at Grandma, and Grandma looked at Aunt Freddie. Douglas looked at Grandpa who got up and went into the pantry to fix himself a shot of Calvertis. He brought it back 279 to the table in time to hear Momma say, iWhatis wrong, Bernie? Yiall sick or somethini.i Momma rarely talked eDeep Southi unless she was particularly perturbed. iThis is whatis wrong,i Dad grunted, reaching into his shirt pocket and extracting a folded letter which he snapped open with one hand and unceremoniously flipped across the table at Momma. Part of it landed in the bowl of green beans, and Momma placed her fork and knife on her plate, took up the letter, and wiped a corner of it with her paper napkin. iItis from the United States of America,i she said. iI love this stationery; ainit it just grand!.i iRead it,i Dad commanded. iOut loud.i He drained his jelly glass and got up, heading for the pantry as she began. ieGreetings from the President of the United States.i . . . Oh, my God, Bernie! Itis your draft notice!i iNo shit,i he answered, from the pantry. iYouire thirty-five years old, for Godis sake!i cried Aunt Freddie. iAnd Iim classified 1-A!i he shot back, filling the jelly glass to the brim. iWith a wife, two kids, a mother- ani father-in-law, a idiot sister-in-law . . . god . . . damn it! Iive got two weeks ani I report for a god-damn pre-induction physical. Iim goini in the god-damn Army!i iGod help us!i Grandma wailed. iOh, Bernie . . . i Momma started to bawl. iVeeis been troubled . . . in dere wars ven da Huns send . . . widout much after dere,i Grandpa offered. Douglas piped up, iWhy donitcha fox eem all, Dad, ani join the Air Corps?i iFor Godis sake,i Aunt Freddie predicted, iyiall ainit gonna be no good in the Army! What they even want you for? Youire thirty-five ani fat as a pig.i iScrew you, Fred!i iWouldnit you like to, though!i Freddie replied, sarcastically. iFix me a drink while youire in there, Sergeant York.i iI wouldnit mind one, meself,i Grandma said. iBut 280 remember, tomorrowis church; eleven oiclock service; communion . . . weire not going to stay up and drink all night. Army or no Army!i The next morning, bright sunshine and high humidity notwithstanding, Grandma, Douglas, Aunt Freddie, Momma, and Dad headed out for church (it had been concluded without much debate that Iid spent the night at Shadowis house, and Iid probably be home in time for supper Sunday afternoon). Aunt Freddie was fashionably dressed in what I would have referred to as her Joan Crawford ensemble: hair coifed and mouse-rolled in a halo at the edges and encircling her head, Fedora-styled hat with the crown seated perfectly between the rolls, a smart beige suit with the pleated skirt three inches below the knees, white blouse igniting an explosion of delicate ruffles beneath her chin, and the obligatory lapel-less jacket with Victor Mature shoulders. Momma and Grandma dressed as though twins: somber black frocks and matching wide-brimmed hats that might have been discarded forever by Judith Anderson after the final cut of Rebecca. Dad, of course, was, as always, the quintessential Sunday Edward Arnold in one of his two suits o this one a double-breasted gabardine pin stripe of muted gray over a gleaming white, painfully starched broadcloth shirt adorned, sadly, with ordinary button cuffs; fronted by a wide blue-gray silk cravat, meticulously tied half-Windsor. His shoes were jet black wing tip brogues, polished to tap dancer brilliance. The piece di resistance, however, was his hat, a pearl gray felt homburg, no less, its stiff and curled brim and its high, creased crown as alien to a summeris Sunday in Norfolk as a deep sea diveris helmet would have been in downtown Des Moines. And had anyone south of the Potomac known its name or place of origin, his patriotism would have been questioned by even the most piously liberal of St. Peter and Paulis Episcopal Church. Douglas, to be fair, was totally inconspicuous: His wardrobe was identical to every eleven or twelve year old boy worldwide who had been dressed by a helplessly middle-class- minus-three-degrees mother and grandmother. His jacket was homemade, cut down from one of Grandpais old suits, and 281 poorly fitted; his discordant cord pants were too short and too tight; his one white dress shirt was too big, the collar hung loosely about his bulging Adamis apple, and his red knit tie was tied too snugly. His shoes were scuffed moccasins. Tommy Kelly on his way to church in Tom Sawyer looked only slightly more appurtenant. Collectively, they were accompanied that morning by two serious hangovers, two mild ones, and Douglasi constant babble about how grand it was going to be having his dad serving our country in the United States Army. iWe can get a silk flag,i he said, iwith a single white star ani gold fringe to hang in the front window. Only we gotta hang it in the door at the bottom landing; nobody can see the front window from the street. Granima can stitch Dadis insignia on my winibreaker. When he makes private first class, thatis one stripe; corporal is two. When he gets to be a sergeant, thatis three. . . He goes airborne, Iill get a parachute inside silver wings! If he goes in the infantry, thereis a silver rifle on a blue back-tab with a gold crescent up each side! Wow! You oughta see Phil Rennis jacket! His dadis a Air Corps major, ani heis got combat ribbons ani campaign ribbons all over his jacketOi Douglas kept it up all the way to St. Peter and Paulis Episcopal Church on West Princess Anne Road, the nearest Anglican Church that was walking distance from Doumar and Gill Alley. . . That is, he would have kept it up all the way had they made it all the way. Unfortunately, depending on whose perspective mattered, they made it no further than the corner of Colley Avenue and West Princess Anne Road. There were as many versions of what happened as there were witnesses and participants, but Douglasi English composition in sixth grade the following autumn, How My Father Helped Out The War Effort As A Air Raid Warden On Crutches, was probably the most accurate account available: My whole family, almost, and me went to church at St. Paulis and Petter nearly every Sunday. This Sunday we went was after my Father got his draft notise. He 282 was 1-A in the draft. He was sent by mail to appear for a physicle two weeks after the day we went to church. My brother Martin heis called Marty was not with us. He was supposed to be in his jepe someplace with his freind Shadow. We miss him. Where he really was will be in my next compositshun. At the corner of Princess ann and Colley we waited for the light to change for the church was on the other side of Princess Ann. There were alot of people waiting to cross. This pretty lady the librarian Mrs. Torortetti was waiting too. Just when the light changed she stepped off the curb and this pick up truck came barreling down through against the light. He was driving really fast. My Father saw it coming before anybody else did. He stepped off the curb and grabbed Mrs. Torterottiis arm and yanked her back just before the truck run over her. It didnit, though because my Father yanked her back and saved her just in time. She fell back agains my father and he fell back and tried to step back up on the curb. He missed it and his right foot was only half on and half off. The libraian womanis foot must of stepped on my Fathers and snap! he broke his ankle!! They both fell down She fell down on top of him and they rolled around in the street trying to get up. If he had not been in such terrible pain it would have been a very funny thing to see. He was cursing and shouting dirty words. Mrs. Toretti finally got up and fixed her clothes. She was not hurt at all but her stockings were toren up, My grandmother accidentlystepped on my Fathersi hat and ruined it when her heel went through it. My Mother was screaming alot. The pickup truck didnit stop. We didnit go to church because we had to find a taxi and take my Father to the emergincy room. As soon as he was able to walk on crutches he began his work again as a air Raid Warden. He never 283 missed a night from 8:45 to 12 mid-night. Thatis how he helped fight the war since he never did take his physicle and go in the Army. If it wasnit not for Air Raid wardens we would be bombed like Londin and Berlin. We are very proud of my father. Douglas Eden * * * I asked both Cmdr. Wiggins and Lt. Goldsmith if either had ever been in an airplane crash. Had either ever crashed while attempting to land? Had either ever been shot down? Neither answered right away, and then Wiggins came on and said, iYeah. I crashed on a missed carrier approach. I . . . donit want to talk about it.i Even at seventeen I knew the three greatest lies had nothing to do with penal penetration, aborted oral sex, or money drafts in the possession of postal employees; the three greatest lies were 1) Believe me, itis not the money, 2) I didnit know you were asleep (or the sundry variations of I donit mean to disturb you, contradict you, interrupt, inconvenience you, intrude, put a damper on, toss cold water on, throw a monkey wrench into, etc.), and 3) I donit want to talk about it. iIt was a crazy thing,i Wiggins went on, his aversion to talking about it suddenly lubricated with the oil of reminiscence. iThe squadronid taken out half a dozen Zeros and three destroyers, and weid lost only one Hellcat. I was flying an F4U Corsair that day, and I was unscathed, not a mark on me; it was a beautiful day to realize you were still alive. No wind; sea flat as a plate of piss. I somehow overshot the deck and landed upside down in the ocean. Lost the plane and had to be plucked outta the water with egg on my face. I dunno what happened. Lost my concentration. What about you, Goldilocks?i Lt. Goldsmith cleared his throat as if about to address a Kiwanis luncheon. iWell, it was pretty much the same thing,i 284 he recalled, iexcept we hadnit seen any action to speak of, except weid been ridini shotgun for a bunch of Avengers, out lookini for subs. We came upon a wolf pack escorting some cargo ships, and one of the TBMis got a tanker right in the breadbasket. The subs took one look, then dived and disappeared. Back at the carrier, I had a malfunction in the left landing gear, so I belly-flopped into the net. Prop was mangled and flew apart, and the underside looked like hamburger, but that was about it.i iAnybody get hurt?i I asked. iYeah. A pusher caught a piece of the prop right between the eyes. Never knew what hit him, poor sonofabitch. Those guys . . . theyire the real heroes. . . I donit wanna talk about it.i We were approaching landfall on the distant horizon, and Wiggins informed me it was North Carolina. I was reminded to keep Goldsmithis Hellcat as directly in front of me as possible. His route would take us over land at the northern edge of North Carolina, and almost immediately we would turn north and head for the Auxiliary Airfield at Oceana. Runway 43, which, as Wiggins explained, corresponded to 43 degrees on the compass, as did all runway direction designations, ran from southwest to northeast. The plan was to land on runway 43 because it was the longest of the two at Oceana (the second was inoperative, anyway), and longer by far than anything at Norfolk NAS. Also, after the first 800 feet or so, the width of the runway more than doubled, giving me a bonus margin for error. Goldsmith and Wiggins argued the question of wind direction; Oceana reported it to be easterly, off the ocean, and fairly steady at eight to ten knots. Wiggins claimed anything less than a hurricane from the south was okay for 43; Goldsmith claimed an increase in cross winds from the east or west might prove disastrous. In the best of worlds, ten knots out of the northeast would be most desirable, but Wiggins won out, finally, arguing the additional width of the runway was of greater value since the wind was light and virtually variable; Oceana reported the windsock was swinging with indecision from north to south on the western side of the pole. I, having no knowledge of the meaning of any of 285 this, listened attentively but silently. I was too frightened to do anything but respond as an automaton. Shortly after we crossed the shoreline, Goldsmith said, iIim going to make a lazy bank to starboard. To the right.i iI know what star-bird is,i I said, a bit testily. Wiggins came on, iMr. Eden, I suggest you listen very carefully to what we tell you, and save all remarks, sarcastic and otherwise, until weire on the ground. If you donit understand something, say so right away, and weill make it as plain as possible. We will try not to be technical; letis stick with the basics. Just do exactly what we tell you to do, when we tell you, and donit question it unless you donit understand how to do it. We can discuss the whys over coffee later. You roger that, Mr. Eden?i I knew when to be humble; my life, Lt. Cmdr. Frankavillais life, and a hundred thousand dollar airplane were in their collective hands. iYes, sir,i I said, softly, iI do roger that in full, Commander.i iGood. Then . . . letis go!i We were less than a hundred miles south of the Auxiliary Airfield at Oceana, over the eastern coast of North Carolina, flying at fifteen hundred feet and two hundred thirty miles per hour. Lt. Goldsmith was a mile or so in front of me, and from time to time I slid a tad to the left, as Iid been instructed, to make sure I could see his tail. Cmdr. Wiggins was a football field off my right wing, watching me intently. iLetis run through some checks,i he said. iWhatis your throttle setting?i iUh . . . Back a little back from center.i iWhatis your mixture? And your pitch?i I told him both the green ball and the yellow ball were pushed full forward. iEase off a quarter on the green. At this altitude you wanna stay rich but not full. Your pitch is good; let the prop do the work to maintain speed. Whatis the engine temperature?i iI dunno. Whereis the gauge?i iDead center. Has a big eCi right under the dial.i 286 iYeah. Got it.i I replied. iNeedleis left of middle; says e66i.i iThatis the route!i Goldsmith giggled. Wiggins reminded me to glance at it once in a while, and if it got near 90 or 100, let him know right away. iDo you see a lever,i Wiggins asked, iin the lower right quadrant of the instrument panel that has a black knob on the end and sticks out about two inches?i After a moment, I found it. iGood. See the sort of ratchet on the left side of the lever holder? Should be five indentations for five settings. The lever is currently set at zero.i iGot it.i I said, rather proud of myself Iid found it so quickly.. iOkay. Now listen, but donit do anything . . . If you were to move the lever a quarter inch to the right, you could drop it down to the next ratchet setting which should be e10i. See it?i I said I did. iThen the next setting should be e30i . . . then e50i . . . then e70i . . . then eFi. Do you see it?i iYeah. I see it. Whatis it for?i I asked. iJust listen. . . Those are flap settings, and they are very important. When we begin our final approach, I will tell you to drop your flaps ten degrees. This will slow the plane down when you move the lever down to e10i. Then Iill tell you to move it to e50i. This will slow you down even further; lift under the wings will increase significantly as the settings get greater. Finally, I will tell you to drop it down to eFi, and this will bring you to full flaps down, and youill think youive been reduced to a crawl. Which, in a way, you have. You with me so far?i iI . . . think so.i iGood. Now this is critical. Every time you give me more flap, you create more lift, but the engine has to work harder to maintain flying speed. So what do you think you have to do?i iI donit know!i I whined. I was on the verge of panic. iYes, you do, damn it, Eden! Think! What do you do to increase or maintain speed against unexpected resistance?i I took a deep breath; the answer was obvious: iGive it more gas, more throttle?i 287 iRight on! Keep one eye on your airspeed. Never let it drop below one-twenty. Thatis critical. Lose flying speed and you lose control, and the gameis over. So watch your airspeed at all times. When you drop flaps, you have to increase your throttle if your airspeed gets near one-twenty. Is this clear; fully understood?i I nodded. iI canit hear you!i Wiggins yelled in my ear. iYeah, yes, I understand! . . . How am I supposed to watch my airspeed, my throttle position, Lieutenant Goldsmithis tail end, the flap lever, the horizon, and a runway I canit see, all at one time?i I cried. iFor Godis sake, I canit do this!i iRemember the short order cooks,i Goldsmith whispered. Wiggins actually laughed. iOh, I forgot to tell you, you also have to lower your landing gear, watch your rpmis, watch your temp and oil, watch your altitude, keep your left hand on those three balls so you can cut your engine to idle, choke out the mixture, and reverse the prop pitch and drop the spoilers. All the time gently applying the brakes so you eventually come to a stop in, hopefully, one piece somewhere in Virginia. Donit tell me youire seventeen years old and been driving a car since you were twelve, and you canit do fifteen things at once! I donit buy it!i Lt. Goldsmith spoke slowly from a mile away, in front of me. iGradual descent to one thousand feet. Reduce airspeed to one-seventy. Watch my tail, Mister Eden. . . Better tell him how to lower his landing gear, Commander.i The next twenty minutes might well have been twenty seconds, for all I can remember of it. The first calamity came when I removed my sweat-fogged goggles; even tightly squinting against the sharp air and swirling dust did not prevent me from immediately getting something in my left eye. I rubbed it with my gloved fingers and the tears helped some; as soon as I could, I pulled the goggles down again. Next, I mistook the temperature gauge for the my airspeed, and I screamed, iMy airspeed is sixty miles per hour! What do I do!i 288 iCalm down, i Wiggins answered. iYour airspeed is okay; Iim right beside you.i Goldsmith said, iRunwayis in sight. Descend to five hundred.i iI canit do this! Aw, Jay-sus, get me out of here!i Wiggins said, iStay with it, boy! Watch Goldieis tail! Flaps down to e10i, now!i There has to be some part of the human brain, some cluster of cells wallowing in the cerebral juices of responsive command, that allows us to do things we are totally incapable of doing. Hidden deep in some cranial cranny is a voice-activated pile of pus and slime that permits oneis eyes and hands to perform as though they belonged to the person (or persons) speaking. Thoughts, similarly, are transmitted to that core, and the rest of the brain just rolls over and goes to sleep. The peripheral emotions become dormant, and the body surrenders, almost with glee, as this newly programmed chamber is focused on the task at hand. It was mystical, cabalistic; hypnotic. Panic departed, or at least became compartmentalized for the time being; perspiration was dammed up behind glands that resigned all personal functioning. My hands shook, still, but my mind told me it was because I was cold (which was a lie; I was actually quite comfortable; even my fear of vomiting inside my face mask had subsided). A sense of contentment became soul- encompassing, and I wondered if this was the way you were supposed to feel just before you died. The final paragraphs of Martin Eden again came to mind, and I felt I was on the threshold of that great abyss in which I would be aware that I could not be aware; I would know nothing, except that I knew nothing nor ever could. It was wonderful! Exhilarating! I looked forward to certain death! iLower and lock landing gear, and roger that!i Wiggins commanded. iRoger that,i my larynx responded on its own. My hand found the lever four inches below the throttle, mixture, and prop pitch levers. I pushed it from a horizontal to a vertical position; ten seconds later the green light came on above the tab in front 289 of me marked LG/L. iLanding gear down ani locked. . . I think. . . How they look?i iOkay by me,i Wiggins replied, dropping briefly under my wing for a better view. iFlaps at e50i,i he commanded. iKeep airspeed at one-five-oh.i Goldsmithis voice came from a distant void. iDescend to two-five-oh.i One-five-oh. Two-five-oh. What did it all mean? iRoger. Following you.i iCan you see the runway?i iNo. Can you?i iYes,i Goldsmith answered. iDead ahead. Ten miles.i Wiggins said, iStick tiny touch forward; drop the nose a hair. . . See it now?i iYeah,i I responded, without a scintilla of emotion. iJust the way runways look in the movies. I could see it better if Goldsmith got out of the way.i iJust follow me,i he shot back. iGradual descent. Stay on my tail. Iim going to full flaps.i iDo the same, Eden,i Wiggins said. iFull flaps. Keep your left hand on the throttle. Go to full mixture; green knob full forward. . . Watch your airspeed, youire droppini back! Ease throttle forward; pick up to one thousand RPM. Airspeed at one-forty.i Another voice came on. iYouire . . . doing great, kid.i It was Frankavilla. iUnder control, Commander,i I said, and I was Errol Flynn in Dive Bomber. iJust relax. I can handle this.i Yeah! Now I lay me down to sleep . . . Todayis for sure the day I die! For a brief moment I thought of my mother and father. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Douglas, Aunt Freddie, and Grandpa. I saw Grandma, and she was pointing her punitive thimble at me. iDonit worry, Granima,i I said, out loud; iIill do it right.i iWhat!i Wiggins shouted. iDo what? Who you talking to?iiMy grandmother,i I said. iWhy yiall yellini at me?i 290 Goldsmith said, iAs soon as Iim down ani youive got me in your sights, Iim gonna take off again, but donit try to follow, even if you think you know how! Once youire down, stay down and do exactly what Commander Wiggins tells you. Iill circle around, and once youire safely off the runway, Iill follow the commander right in behind you. You roger that?i I told him I was all rogered out. Wiggins came on to tell me he would follow alongside until I was on the ground. He would then have to pull away because of the tower and nearby hangers, but he would join Goldsmith and land as soon as I was off the runway. iDonit leave me!i A panic cell seeped out of its hiding place inside my skull. iNobodyis leaving you,i Wiggins assured. iJust because you canit see me doesnit mean you canit hear me. Iim with you all the way, boy, right up etil when you shut her down! Man, weire almost there! . . . Frankavilla, you hear me?i There was no response. iOkay,i Goldsmith said, iIim over the end of the runway. Youire fifteen seconds behind me.i iI see you; little bit.i iEase it forward,i Wiggins prodded. iStick gently forward. Watch your airspeed. One-thirty. One-three-oh. Back up on your stick; get your nose up just a little bit.i iI canit see anything! Am I on the runway?i iNot yet. Almost . . . come back on the throttle a tiny bit; youire a little hot. . . Touch your right rudder a hair. . . Youire right on; dead center. Throttle back a little more. Sheis settling; great; lookini good. Over the first marker oi iI canit see where I am!i I breathed, between clenched teeth. All I could see was the back of the headrest and a canopy full of brilliant sky. iYouire fifty feet from touchdown! . . . Steady. Steady. . . Bit less throttle. Twenty-five feet. . . Bring the throttle back a bit more. . . Ten feet . . . i I felt the first jolt when the tail wheel hit the runway and the front of the plane literally slammed forward, blowing both tires 291 and jarring the entire structure so violently my goggles slipped down past my nose and lodged under my face mask. I was certain the plane would break in half, explode in a ball of fire, and that would be that. I was going to pee in my flight suit. iThree balls off the wall, back hard, all the way!i Wiggins shouted. iEasy, firm pressure on the brakes, donit hold eem! Tap eem! Tap eem! . . . Letier coast, letier coast!. . . Youire rippini rubber! . . Aw, shit, youire goini off the runway! Heis gonna cartwheel! Jesus! Left rudder, left rudder! . . . There! There! . . Steady as she goes! Get off the rudder! . . . Tap the brakes! . . .Brakes, goddamn it! . . . Whereis the spoilers? . . . Aw, fugg, there she goes! . . . Little more! Firmer! . . . Okay! Okay! Just letier roll; let her roll right off in the grass! . . Roll! Roll! . . . Tap the brakes; tap eem! . . . Jesus Christ, Goldie, I think we did it! Sheis flattened out! Sheis stoppini flat!i iYaaahhhoooo!i Goldsmith responded. iWe sure did! One point, followed by two even-steven (sort of), blew eem both and we stayed on the runway almost all the way! Sacre bleu, monsieur! We are a couple a oli Navy blue fuggs, if I ever saw one! And we still got a thousand feet of cement weill never use!iWiggins, completely insane with joy, did a fly-by to my left with a four-point roll. Goldsmith started a straight-up climb, fell over backwards, and did three spins before leveling off at five hundred feet. iYaaaaaaaaahhhhhhooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!i iAaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwaaaaarrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkk!i I sat very still in the Avenger and stared straight ahead at the instrument panel which now, with the engine choked out and silent and the prop stationary at vertical, was asleep and snoring, winding down and inactive. All that remained alive was the clock: Seventeen-eighteen hours. I finished the only prayer I could think of, uncertain when it had started . . . ibefore I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless, EVERYBODY!i Hands came at me from both sides as ground crew swarmed 292 over the plane. The canopy scraped and slithered back, my seat belt and harnesses were released, and I felt myself being lifted from the radiomanis cockpit over the port side. I was aware of activity in front, and I saw Lt. Cmdr. Frankavillais limp and blood-smeared body being carefully lifted from the plane, and I will always remember the bright burgundy blood dripping off his yellow flight boots. We were surrounded by ambulances, fire trucks, staff cars and even an amphibious half-track. Red, blue, and yellow lights were flashing everywhere, sirens and tires were screaming and screeching; havoc and chaos seemed to be the order of the day. Firemen in heavy beige coveralls and flame-suits were running all around the plane, spraying foam in all directions, although there was no evidence of fire. Many hands and arms brought me from the cockpit to the wing to the ground, and two sailors tried to make me lie down on a waiting stretcher. iIim okay,i I kept saying. iIim okay!i An officer said, iAre you all right, son? You okay?i iYeah, yeah; Iim okay . . . Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla oi iThey did a great job gettini you down, boy!i I shook my head. iNo, I mean, Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla, the pilot oi An ambulance roared away. iGonna be okay, kid,i someone said. iOn their way to sick bay, ani theyire gonna fix him up like new . . . dontcha worry, kid! Gonna be okay!i I leaned against the port wing and looked at all the excitement around me. The Avenger, now that I was outside, seemed a monstrous killing machine, not at all the blue beauty it had appeared to be on the Madisonis deck. I glanced at the shrapnel tears and bullet holes in the fuselage. I saw the shattered canopy, and the empty space where Shadow had sat. Christ, is this all for real! Casually, I removed my helmet and ran my hands through my hair: Gary Cooper. . . A sailor standing in front of me had a pack of Luckies rolled up in his t- shirt sleeve. 293 iSpare one of those weeds, fella?i I asked, gesturing toward the cigarettes festooned on his arm. iYibetcha!i He whipped out the pack and flicked the bottom with his forefinger. A cigarette popped up and I took it. The sailor struck a match, cupping it in two hands like an old salt in a crowis nest. I leaned forward and took a deep drag. Fred MacMurray, high tenor and smoke, came out of my mouth, and I fought hard not to cough. iWe earned this one o didnit we, pal?i iMan, you sure did! Fugg, you sure as shit did!i I wanted to say it out loud, but it got no further than the silver screen of my mind: You guys donit happen to know a skirt name of Anna Theresa, do you? Carefully, so as not to be noticed, a slid my ungloved hand down the front of my fight suit to make sure I hadnit pissed my pants. 294 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE When fame and notoriety sneak in and attend the celebration of oneis life unbeckoned (hoped for, perhaps, but never really expected), shyness, humility, and general stupidity seem to envelop the bewildered victim who is suddenly transported or shoved into the limelight. William James once wrote, The word OR names a genuine reality. An effervescent personality becomes reticent, demure, and withdrawn, a living, breathing euphemism for shy and confused. An otherwise gregarious and outwardly happy-go-lucky individual could be mistaken for a silent misfit who enjoys looking at his shoestrings rather than having joyful discourse with his admirers. The public, the sycophants, the fans, the Great Unwashed, often mistake this new and unusual shyness and abstract humility for conceit, indifference, and boorishness when, actually, it is a natural response to adulation when the hero is anchored in fear, uncertainty, amazement, incredulity, and the confounding realization that the sheer happenstance of being in the right place at the right time, of possessing an ability or talent appearing singular, valuable, or pleasing, does not, in any way whatsoever, separate him so much as an iota from others less fortunate, if, truly, fortune is a fair assessment. My first exposure, aside from minor accolades on the assembly stage at Maury during the annual minstrel shows, occurred the moment I was escorted into the main hall of the administration building beneath the tower at Oceana Auxiliary Airfield. The crowd, and I do mean crowd, broke into unrestrained applause, cheering, and military catcalls. Flash bulbs exploded from half a dozen dazzling Speed Graphics and Rolliflexes. The main hall was a large, unfinished room containing no furniture save a metal desk and two wooden chairs. It was packed with Naval officers, non-commissioned officers, enlisted seaman, and nearly as many civilians, many of whom I later learned were from local newspapers and radio stations. I didnit 295 see them at first, but my mother and brother were there, as were Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Freddie. Shadow, his left cheek half hidden by a brilliant white bandage four inches square and fastened to his head with thick adhesive, pushed his way through and came running forward to throw his arm about my shoulder. Capt. Howard Zarin, the commandant of the airfield, causally slipped Shadow aside and put his own arm around my shoulders. Two pilots I immediately knew were Cmdr. Wiggins and Lt. Goldsmith came up and, just as casually, maneuvered the captain away and stood on both sides of me. iIim Pete Wiggins!i Wiggins shouted in my ear. I said, iGuessed that by the silver oak on your flight jacket!i iAnd Iim Jay Goldsmith!i the lieutenant yelled over the din. We all shook hands profusely. iThis is Shadow Cranston,i I said, pulling my friend closer to me. iYou dumb shit,i Shadow whispered, in my other ear. iWhatire we doini here?i iI know,i Wiggins affirmed, recognizing Shadow. iWe all met when he first got here, in brand new and totally dry fatigues!i I had determined earlier I would bite my tongue and make no allusion to the flight suit he had soiled. A nugget to be held in reserve, that was something I would hold over Shadow the rest of our lives. (Truth of the matter is, until this scribbling, I have never mentioned it.) Wiggins was not what I expected. He was a small man, slight of build and balding. His uniform seemed two sizes too large. He was chomping on a dying, smoldering, nearly dead cigar.Goldsmith, on the other hand, was a giant, almost as big and bulky as Rodney Herkimer, but strikingly good-looking; a very young Randolph Scott. The ovation and the cheering was disconcerting, and true to form I could do nothing but drop my head and stare at my yellow flight boots. Capt. Zarin, a chubby, somewhat rumpled man, finally raised his hands above his head and called for quiet. iMen . . .i he began, and I thought he surely would say 296 ilend me your ears!i but he didnit . . .iand you ladies, too, of course . . . it isnit often an airstrip gets to welcome a . . . a, well . . . a hero, by God, even before its open for business . . . and a civilian at that! And a young civilian, on toppa that!i More flash bulbs; another rousing cheer went up, then subsided. Momma, Douglas, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Fred had been escorted by two SPs to the front and now joined the immediate throng around me. iThose of you,i the captain continued, his cherubic face bright red and glowing with excitement, iwho were glued to your radios this afternoon know the story. Those of you who donit will read about it in the newspapers tomorrow! Anybody here from Life Magazine? Ha! Ha!i No one was. iDonit matter. Stars and Stripes will, as usual, feed eem all they wanna know!i Heavy laughter, and a few more flash bulbs erupted. iWhat weive got here is maybe the action combat story of the war, at least as far as activity on the eastern mainland is concerned. Ha! Ha! This boy here, these two boys here, actually, were part of something every serviceman dreams about doini: . . .uh, goini into action against the enemy, successfully destroying that enemy, and then while risking all personal safety, takini no regard for the outcome, going to . . . uh . . . the extremes to save the life of a comrade-in-arms. Well, these boys o especially this here one, i again putting his heavy arm around my shoulders, ia great American boy who hasnit even signed up for the Navy yet, he has done just that!i Roaring ovation; blinding flash bulbs. iI donit know how he did it, but he did it; with no experience whatsoever, he managed to safely land that Avenger out there with minimal damage to it or himself, and in so doing, he saved the life of a Naval commander who might otherwise not . . . uh . . . be in the, uh, process of . . . surviving. . . Letis hear it, men, for young Larry Eden!i Another riot of cheering and applause. Cmdr. Wiggins stood on tiptoes and spoke into Capt. Zarinis ear. iMARTY EDEN!i the captain shouted, but no one heard him. I leaned over and asked Douglas, iWhereis Dad?i 297 iBroke his ankle on the way to church this mornini,i Douglas giggled. iWhat! Yiall kiddini?i iNope,i Douglas assured me, trying to make sense above the din. iFell on top of the lye-berry lady, whatis her name? o Missus Tortelli. Goini to church. iWhat!i My mind was turning to jelly. What was my father doing on top of Anna Theresa in church? An ensign worked his way through the crowd with a mobile telephone slung over his shoulder. iUrgent call for you, Captain,i he said, thrusting the handset in Zarinis face. iHello? . . . Hello? . . . Who? . . . Oh. . . Oh! . . . Oh! Yes, sir! . . . Yes, sir! Right here, sir!i The captain turned to me, handing the phone over. iNot for me, son! For you!i I took the handset and Capt. Zarin signaled for the crowd to be quiet. In my ear I heard: iMister Eden? You there, young man?i iYes; sure. Iim here. Whois this?i My first thought was it was probably Dad. iWell! . . . My name is Franklin Roosevelt, and Iive just been informed of some marvelous, uh, work youive been engaged in down there in Norfolk . . . and I wanted to call you and congratulate you on, uh, a rather remarkable achievement Iive been informed of. Where in the world did you learn to fly the Navyis Avenger?i I pulled the handset away from my ear and stared at it. I looked at Shadow. iYou know who Iim talkini to?i I whispered, continual shock ebbing and flowing against my sense of equilibrium. I wanted to sit down, and I pointed at one of the wooden chairs in front of the metal desk. An ensign hastily grabbed it and pushed it under me, and I flopped into it. iIim talkini to . . . the President of the United States!i A fireworks display of flash bulbs blinded me. iPssssshit!i Shadow hissed between closed teeth. iLemme talk to him. He gonna know who heis talkini to!i Capt. Zarin put his hand on Shadowis arm. iShhh!i he 298 commanded; to me he said: iCall him eMister Presidenti, son.i I fought to regain control of my shaking hands and legs. iYes, sir, Mister President, thank you, the Navyis got a great plane, there. Flies itself!i iWell, that may be, young man, but from what I hear, it takes a real pilot, a real man, to land that plane, especially in a cross wind over forty knots . . . i Forty knots? Whereid that come from? What wind there was, was probably caused by Goldsmithis Hellcat in front of me and Wiggins off my starboard wing! iAnd they tell me you and your friend Campbell oi iCranston, sir.i iWhat? Yes, your friend and you were right there when the boys in the Hellcats encountered and sank a German U-boat. A sub, I might add, that shot holes in your plane and slightly wounded your young companion. They tell me you boys actually spotted the U-boat and called it to the attention of your pilot . . .i I looked up at a beaming Goldsmith and shrugged, as if he could hear both sides of the conversation. The lieutenantis expression changed to merely quizzical. i . . . who, by the way,i Roosevelt went on, ithey tell me is in the hospital and doing very well. The report is, heis going to be okay in no time at all. And a lot of that, young man, is thanks to you.i I said, iI sure am glad to hear that, Mister President. Getting Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla on the ground ani under medical care was, uh, my, uh, our only . . . concern.i iI believe it!i Roosevelt affirmed. iWeire all very proud of you, Mr. Eden; the whole nation is proud; and we owe you a deep debt of gratitude. And Iim very anxious to meet you and your friend Campbell. Iim going to have my friend, Mr. Harry Hopkins, get in touch with you both, and your families, and see if we canit set up a time we can all get together, in the very near future. Iid certainly like to meet you and shake your hand, and I want Mrs. Roosevelt to meet you boys as well.i iI would like that very much, Mister President; that would 299 really be . . . great,i I muttered, with fragile hesitation, and I could think of nothing more to say. Neither could President Roosevelt, I assumed, because after a prompt igood-bye and God bless,i he hung up. I handed the mobile phone back to Capt. Zarin. iThat was the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief!i Zarin said, more to the crowd than to me, and a prolonged roar went up. More flash bulbs popped. I turned again to Douglas. iWhat do yiall mean Dad was on top of Anna Theresa in church?i iNot in church,i Douglas shook his head. iOn the curb outside, on Princess Anne. . . Anna what? Is that the lie-berry ladyis first name?i iHe broke her ankle?i iNo! She broke his! You could hear it crack all the way back to Gardneris. Sounded like when you cock the Red Ryder.i I turned toward my mother for more information, but Capt. Zarin pulled me in the opposite direction, again put his arm around my shoulders and addressed the crowd. iGentleman, this has been a great day for the Navy!i More shouts of confirmation. iTomorrow morning, at the base, Iive just been informed the new resident commandant, Captain Kenneth Moulard, will be holding a general press conference o ani we may be on a national radio hookup with CBS, and by then weill have a more detailed report on Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla, plus a full report on this here, uh, mission from Commander Wiggins ani Lieutenant Goldsmith. I want all officers ani non-coms directly involved with this event over there with me at the base at oh-nine-hundred.i There was much milling around with no apparent purpose as the crowd began to disperse. Shadow and I remained where we were, surrounded by most of my family and Oceanais senior officers, as Capt. Zarin explained they were unable to reach either of Shadowis parents (we later learned that Marilyn Cranston had a long weekend off, as did Shadowis dad Scott, and the two of them were spending the weekend at the Cavalier Hotel, less than four miles from where we stood! Apparently, 300 they assumed Shadow was spending the weekend at my house. God, what insane families we were!). The captain told us we had two Navy station wagons with drivers at our disposal. The flight suits and leather jackets were ours to keep, as well as Shadowis fatigues, and the Navy wouldnit be offended if we chose to wear them to tomorrowis press conference. I explained we would also have to keep the yellow flight boots, at least for tonight, as our basketball shoes were enroute to wherever the Madison was bound. Capt. Zarin assured us that was no problem; the boots were also a gift. iWe get the boots, to boot,i Shadow mumbled. I said, iSir, Shadow ani I own a Jeep, a surplus Jeep we bought at the Navy auction in June, ani we left it over at the base, on the pier next to where the Madison was docked . . . i iNot to worry, boys,i the captain assured. iItis already been impounded. We know the whole story, i iHow, ?i iCaptain Blauser filled me in early on about your so-called stowing away to say good-bye to Seaman Herkimer,i he laughed. iYou boys are somethini else! Anyway, donit worry about the Jeep; itill be there all gassed up and waiting for you tomorrow at the base. Let my middies drive you home in the station wagons; weill come ani pick you all up again at oh-seven hundred hours tomorrow. Get a good nightis sleep, boys; youive more than earned it!i * * * Late Sunday night, when I saw Dad in the overstuffed chair in the living room, his plastered foot propped up on an ancient cracked, hunter green plastic hassock, his face unshaven, his vanishing hair swirling above his shining dome, sitting there and reading the newspaper in a short sleeve shirt and pajama bottoms, his glasses on the end of his nose, well, I had to laugh. It was a genuinely funny sight! Again I thought, My kingdom for a Speed Graphic! Eat your heart out, Norman Rockwell! 301 iYou actually spoke on the phone with FDR?i He was awestruck, dumbfounded, eaten with envy: Roosevelt was his all-time, numero uno god of gods. Dadis glasses, although not pince-nez, were rimless and vaguely tinted, a la our reigning President. iYes, sir, I sure did.i I tried not to sound too proprietary or impressed. iWhere he call you from?i Dad wanted to know. iWhite House, I guess; he didnit say.i iWhatid he sound like?i iI dunno.i And I really didnit. iJust like he sounds on the radio ani in the newsreels, I guess.i iWhatid he say? Whatid yiall talk about?i If Dad could have somehow slid to the edge of his seat, Iim sure he would have.iWell . . . i and I wasnit being coy or feigning trying to remember. i . . . well, he said it sure was nice talkini with me, ani he was proud as could be of Shadow ani me. He said he was real pleased we was able to get the plane down in one piece aniOi iYeah, yeah,i Dad cut in, impatiently. iI mean, whatid he say about . . . about . . . the war?i iThe war?i I racked my brain. iDonit think he said anything about the war. He said he was glad we were able to get Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla, i iWhat kinda nameis that? What is it?, Franken-vella?i I hadnit thought about it before. iI dunno. Maybe Italian; maybe Spanish.i iWhatis his first name?i iGary.i iWell, least that much sounds American. Whatid FDR say about him?i I shrugged. iJust that he was glad we got him down safe. The President sounds like a really nice oli guy.i iWell, he sure as hell is! There ainit nobody on this here planet like FDR; you can believe that! Wasnit for FDR, this country woulda gone to hell in a hand basket with that asshoi 302 Hoover runnini the show. Hitler would of marched in here in 1932, ani you ani your brother would be gettini straight Ais in German right now, ani weid all be spayken de Doytch! Everything east of the Missiippi would be flying the goddamn swastikas on the fourth of July, ani everything west would be bowini ass to the risini suns-abitches.i Dad was off to a good start, but he suddenly changed the subject. iYou ani Shadow really snuck in on a aircraft carrier? At the Navy Base?i I nodded. iYes, sir.i iAni it went to sea with yiall in it? . . . You all nutsir somethini?i I gestured with open palms. iItis a long story, Pop . . . i I wondered what pain killers and sedatives Dad had mixed with his Calvertis and water. iYiall actually flew back in a Navy airplane? You didnit really . . . land . . . the damn thing all by yourself, fichrissakes!i I continued nodding. iYeah. Yes, sir. I did. I sure did do that.iHe didnit say anything for a moment, and neither did I. There was something too overwhelming about all this for my dad to fully comprehend. He was thirty-five years old, and he had been married to Mom for almost eighteen years. He had barely finished high school, had never gone to college, and had worked for either J.C. Penneyis or E.K.Careyis since he was eighteen. I donit think Dad had ever read a book by Jack London or a short story by Mark Twain, if, in fact, he had ever read anything since high school that could be classified as iliteraturei, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot certainly couldnit; and what he read of it consisted solely of war news and the funnies. He did not read the business news, the columnists, or the sports: iI get all that bullshit from the intelligencia prima donnas at the store, ani what they donit know, the radio does o ani so do the newsreels!i I asked him once if he wanted to read a Dr. I.Q biography Iid just finished writing, and he said, iSure!i I left it on the dining room table for him, but the next morning it had not been disturbed; I know he never looked at it. 303 My father was not a stupid nor ignorant man. What he lacked in formal education, or awareness of things one finds in books and plays, poetry and paintings, he more than made up for in good-natured ribbing and horseplay and, believe it or not, interestingly inventive conversation. His ability to hold serious discourse on politics and the war constantly astounded me; where he actually acquired his knowledge of national and international events would forever remain a mystery, even if his facts and figures were often erroneous and convoluted. iThe problem,i he once pronounced at the dinner table, istarted with Czechoslovakia ani Poland. Before FDR got in there ani took control, we sold that goddamn country down the river! Hoover ani the goddamn English litirally handed Germany ani central Europe right over to Hitler ani Mussolini ani those moron thugs to do with whatever there they wanted to do with it. I coulda told yiall in 1930 we were headed for another World War, fichrissake!i His hatred for Englandis Neville Chamberlain was legendary, as was his distrust of all things Republican. During the Depression, his father and mother, my grandparents who lived in Georgia, had a small restaurant in part of the old ramshackle homestead. Behind the counter, in a gilded frame, was a small mirror on which was written, in neoclassic high- style gold leaf scroll, This Establishment Does Not Serve Coloreds Or Republicans. Business, of course, being what it was, Grandpa Eden never bothered much with political credentials, and Grandma Eden never turned anyone away o although coloreds and itinerant tramps, fed but never fared, were served on the back porch where theyid not be seen. Grandma, the only truly sainted member of the family, died very young, of ithe canceri, in 1938. I never really knew how my father felt about all this, as familial emotions were something never openly displayed or discussed. I was eleven years old that year, but only Dad and Momma attended Grandma Edenis funeral. We were living, briefly, in Syracuse, New York, and they took the Greyhound all the way to Atlanta and back. iThe boysire too young,i Momma said, and we were left at 304 home with Grandma and Grandpa Ouspenskaya and Freddie. I never knew my Georgia grandparents very well. iPeace in our time! Yeah! Right!i Dad often said, when Chamberlainis name somehow came up. iI like to give him a piece of my finger right in his eye! How that liil oli sissy Lord Funnelroy could go over there ani kiss the fuehreris ass like that is beyond me! That sonofabitchill go down in history as the bastard that started this war morein anybody else, fichrissakes!i And now, as the aging thirty-five year old father of two and supporter, in his mind, of many more, he sat in his overstuffed chair, favoring a broken ankle that would prove to be a imillion dollar woundi even before the military had a chance to get their hands on him; and he had to come to grips with his seventeen year old son as a bona fide war hero through no direct involvement other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.iWhat the hell yiall know,i Bernie Eden asked, in jealous disgust, iabout flyini a goddamn airplane?i iNothini, thatis for sure,i I said. iI built a couple of fighter models ani stuff, ani I read this book by Ernest Gann once about a fella flyini a fighter. . . You ever been in a plane, Pop?i He rattled the newspaper in his lap, but he didnit look at me. iMe? Nah! What the hell I be doini in a airplane, fichrissakes?i iDidnit you ever wanna go up in one when yiall were a kid?iiNope; never had that desire,i he said, still looking off, away from me. I said, iI ever have to go in the service, I wanna try for the Air Corps. Shadowis got hots for the Marines, but I think thatis because his oli man really wants to get in.i My father guffawed. iOli Scotty ainit got a prayer of beini a Marine.i iI think thatis so,i I agreed. iHeill never make it; heis forty years old; olderin you, even.i I wanted him to ask me about flying and landing the Navy Avenger; I wanted him to ask me what it was like sitting in that cockpit, flying, being shot at . . . 305 iWell,i Dad jumped in, as if a new thought had suddenly worked its way through the antediluvian ooze of male competition, imy chance at gettini in ani doini my part went in the toilet when that dame stepped off the curb ani almost got her ass knocked to kingdom come. Yiall shoulda seen that truck tearini down Princess Anne! Sonbitch never even slowed down. That truck hitter, sheis a goner. One lucky dame I was there when I was; theyida scraped her off of the cement with a shovel!i The irony was too much: My precious Anna Theresa snatched, in the nick of time, from the clutches of violent death by my father in his double breasted suit and homberg, while I was out in the Atlantic Ocean, asleep in an empty garbage container with Shadow, on an aircraft carrier on its way to God- knows-where . . . flying home in a Grumman TFB-1 Avenger . . . being shot at with ack-ack shells and machine gun bullets . . . seeing a German U-boat attacked and destroyed . . . Shadow o blood running down his cheek, parachuting into the ocean . . . me actually flying and landing an airplane Iid never even sat in before . . . being cheered by real servicemen and officers . . . talking on the telephone with the President of the United States . . . I really wanted Dad to ask me about it, what it was like, how it felt. All that concerned him was his own heroics on the way to church. If I wrote all this down in a story, Anna Theresa would take one of her candles and burn the pages before anyone else read them, and then sheid convince my parents to have me put away in an asylum someplace! Momma and Douglas came into the living room with a tray for Dad. iHow you feelini, Bernie?i Momma asked, placing the chicken a la king and coffee in his lap. iYiall feelini any better?i iFeel like shit,i Dad replied. iWanna fix me another drink? Easy on the water.i She took his empty glass. iIs it okay to drink whisky with the codeine pills? They say codeine is one of the miracle drugs to come outta the war.i 306 iAll the good they do, I hope nobody gets hurt in the goddamn war,i Dad groused. iJust get me a drink.i Douglas said, iCan I write my name on your cast?i iWhat? What for?i iI dunno. Kid in my class, Delores Creedon, broke her arm last winter, ani we all wrote stuff on her cast.i iLike what?i iJust our names ani dates ani . . . stuff.i Dad guffawed again. iWhatid she do with the cast when they took it off, frame it? Ha! Ha! Anybodyid wanna write on somebodyis cast gotta be sick in the head! Thatis about the dumbest thing I ever heard of!i We watched him eat the chicken a la king, washing it down with the coffee and whisky Mom brought from the pantry. Grandma and Freddie wandered in from the front of the flat and sat on the sofa. Grandpa had gone to bed. It was getting dark outside. The only light in the room was from the floor lamp beside Dadis overstuffed chair. iDouglas,i Grandma said, ipull the blinds ani letis have a wee bit oi light in the room. And turn on the Philco; maybe thereis something on the news . . . i iYeah,i Dad chimed in, imaybe some more bullshit about Tyrone Power here.i It was just after seven; Douglas found a local station: WNVA. i . . . at the local Navy airfield, but it is a piecemeal story at best. One reporter said the plane crashed and burned upon attempting to land, but it was later confirmed the only damage was blown tires. The pilot was badly wounded and unconscious, and the plane, according to Navy Captain Howard Zarin, was actually landed by a civilian passenger. WNVA has learned that the civilian was a Maury High School senior named Larry Eden. What he was doing in a carrier-based Navy fighter/bomber is information not being released by the Navy at this time, but speculation is, it was probably some kind of Junior Achievement activity directly related to the war effort, the Red Cross, or Civil Defense. Another report filed by the Associated Press is that 307 Eden and another Maury High student named Lamont Cranston oi At this point, the announcer paused and turned off his mike, as if to ascertain the legitimacy of Shadowis name from someone in the studio. iYes, that appears to be his real name . . . a student named Lamont Cranston reportedly was also aboard the Navy plane but is reported to have . . . bailed out? . . . somewhere over the Atlantic. Mysteriously, however, he was present late this afternoon at a reception at the Virginia Beach airfield. Edenis family was also present, along with a multitude of military personnel, and one unsubstantiated report has it that President Franklin D. Roosevelt made an appearance at the reception. The White House did not respond to a phone call from your WNVA reporter. Stay tuned for later developments. In other news . . .i Grandma let burst a sigh that overrode the news broadcast. iGood Lord! I saw it all in the tea leaves right after lunch!i This got Dadis attention. iWhen you have time to read the tea leaves while Iim here dyini with my ankle, fichrissake?i Grandma shot back, iDyini, were ye? More like snorini to wake the divil himself, you were so fulla medicine and whisky! Between you and Dad, there was a dead sentry in the trash.i That got Mommais attention. iBernie, you ani Dad drank a whole quart a whisky sinced we came back from the hospital? . . . Sometimes itis gettini to be . . . too much.i I wondered to myself how much Freddie, who was remaining out of the conversation, might have contributed to the isentryisi demise. iFichrissake, I was in pain!i Dad growled. iAni I still am!i iWell,i Momma pronounced, ienjoy the drink you got there, because thatis the last of it for tonight. Iim hidini the damn bottle!i Aware for the millionth time where this was heading, I slipped around behind Dadis overstuffed chair and out the door to the upper landing. On the cement steps at the bottom, I sat and stared at the empty street; I wondered who would take Dadis place on his air raid warden tour-of-duty tonight and tomorrow 308 night, every night in the future, and then I wondered why I cared. I honestly didnit give a flying fugg. I looked up as a car came down Doumar Street, slowed at Gill Alley, and then pulled up at the curb in front of me. It was familiar, a 1938 2-door Ford coupe, and I knew why it was familiar when Anna Theresa climbed out and stood in front of me. iHey!i I said, scrambling to my feet. iTalk about surprises!i iYou didnit call me,i she said, and I think (hoped) she was pouting a little. iIs what theyire saying on the radio true? Is Shadow all right? Is your dad all right? Is he back from the hospital?i I took both her hands in mine. iYes,i I said; iyes to all four. Whatire yiall doini here?i She pulled her hands away and sat down on the stoop, and I sat down beside her. iI wanted to come by and see your father; thank him . . . I was . . . damn near killed, you know! Did he tell you?i iCourse he did. Amazing! I couldnit believe it! iI couldnit believe the news on the radio!i she exclaimed. iWhatis going on with all this? What in the world did you and Shadow get involved in?i iI dunno. Itis crazy.i I shook my head, dumbfounded. iI wish yiall could of been there when we got back this afternoon. It was . . . wild.i I could barely see her in the near-dark, but I knew, sitting close beside me, the warmth and the smell of her seeping into my soul, that she was beautiful and caring and concerned. She was wearing a simple summer sundress, and her hair was brushed back in its professional bun. Her half-glasses swung from about her neck, catching glints of whatever light reflected near us. iIs any of it true?i she asked. iDependini on what yiall heard, it probibly all is.i I leaned back against the stoop just as it began to drizzle a little; it was a hot and sticky Tidewater night. iShadow ani I went out to the 309 base ani were on board an aircraft carrier to make a deal with a sailor we know to get gasoline for the Jeep, ani we were posini as the son ani nephew of the Navy captain, ani we got found out . . . ani they chased us all over the ship, ani we hid in a garbage dumpster, but we fell asleep . . . ani when we woke up, the ship had sailed, ani we were way out in the Atlantic . . . i Anna Theresa touched my hand. iMartin, slow down, slow down . . . you making this up? You testing out a story on me? If you are . . . itis a fantasy . . . and not a very good one . . .i iNo,i I protested, iitis all true. We woke up ani they found us ani took us to the bridge where the captain got us a fabulous breakfast with eggs ani steak oi iYeah; right.i iNo, Iim serious. Then he told us they were gonna fly us home in a Grumman fighter/bomber, ani on the way, we spotted this German U-boat which shot at us ani really wounded the pilot pretty badly, even Shadow got a cut on his cheek . . . Anyway, he bailed out, Shadow did, ani got picked up by these Search and Rescue ships. Then these two Navy Hellcats we had with us sank the submarine, well, actually, that happened before Shadow bailed out, but the problem was, our pilot was seriously wounded, ani he was unconscious, so I had to fly the plane back ani land it at the auxiliary airfield in Virginia Beach. . . I guess thatis it. . . Sounds hard to believe. . . I know that.i I didnit know what more to add, and Anna Theresa remained silent, sitting and staring at me, and I couldnit tell whether she believed me or not. She finally spoke: iThe radio said you were congratulated by President Roosevelt.i iThatis so,i I said. iMister Roosevelt called me on the phone, i iYou havenit got a phone,i she inserted. i, at the airfield. There were a lotta people there; even my folks were there. Except my dad. I wish youid been there. You can be tomorrow . . . thereis gonna be a press conference at the Navy Base!i Again, she was silent; staring now into the darkness. 310 iI couldnit have been there, anyway,i she said, after a moment. iI was still shaking from almost being run over by some redneck madman in a pickup truck. Your father saved me. I mean, he really saved me.i iI know.i iI mean,i she went on, ihe literally threw himself between me and that truck, and if I hadnit lost my balance and fallen against him, well, I donit know what would have happened. Probably, weid both be dead, hit by that truck. But it would have hit him first. As it was, when I fell against him, he tried to step back up on the curb, and I think thatis when he broke his ankle, and I think the sudden pain made him spin around, away from the street, and he pulled me over on top of him, and the truck completely missed us. It was . . . awful.i Instinctively, I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to me. iYiall must of been scared out of your wits,i I said. It was my turn to be jealous, and it annoyed me. Iid much rather my father had flown in the Avenger and brought it down safely . . . if I could have been the one to have saved my beloved Anna Theresa. iLife just isnit fair!i whined Peter Lorre. iYou have no idea. I was never so scared in my life. Thank God your dad was there at that precise instant.i She actually, for a second, tilted her head and placed it on my shoulder. Then she sat up, quickly, scrunching away from me, and I removed my arm. I knew she was looking at me, although in the dark I could no longer see her eyes; those gorgeous eyes I would give anything to kiss. iHave you ever been scared to death like that?i she asked, and I loved her sudden naivetE. iNo,i I said, as nonchalantly as possible, recalling the instant just before the Avengeris wheels touched down on the concrete runway; itakes a lot to get my bowels in a uproar.i That made Anna Theresa laugh, and my image of Dennis Morgan talking with Ann Sheridan in Wings for the Eagle evaporated. A passage from William James slid into my mind, and I said, iI sometimes thought the best way to, ah, definine a personis character would be to seek out the, uh, particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he 311 felt himself most deeply ani intensely active ani alive. They say, at such moments thereis a voice inside which says, eHey, this is the real me!ii Paraphrased as it was, I knew Anna Theresa recognized the quote and was looking at me. iHow do you remember things like that, all of a sudden?i iI dunno.i iIs that from William James; it is, isnit it?i I nodded. iYeah. Heis my Swinburne. . . Thanks to you.i Anna Theresa sighed and took my hand. iYouire an incredible piece of work, Martin Eden,i she said softly. We both got up at the same time. iYiall want to go upstairs ani see my dad?i iYes. I got a lot to thank him for.i So do I, I thought. I had to ask, iThat the only reason yiall came over?i She seemed to think about it. Then: iYes, of course. Why else?i iProbily to see me ani see if I was okay,i Shadow said, stepping between us out of the darkness. iNobody home at my house. What time yiall havini supper?i 312 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The day school re-opened for our senior year was a grand day in Norfolk . . . one of those bright, brilliant, sharp summer days, cobalt blue skies punctuated with Ivory Soap clouds, 99 and 44/100ths percent pure and floating close the the ground; the sort of day photographers hasten outdoors to shoot next yearis calendars. Shadow and I, bona fide war heroes now, men of the world about whom legends are spun around camp fires at Ocean Viewis dunes late at night, came to school that day in creamy white denims, spotless white polo shirts, and filthy white sneakers; if we could have acquired white sailor crew hats at the base, we would not have had the nerve, finally, to wear them; but we wanted to appear as casually Navy as we could. We knew that every teacher and every kid from Richmond to Rocky Mount was aware of our exploits, but we had no idea what to expect on our first day back at Maury. In fact, Richmond to Rocky Mount may have been too modest. The press conference at the naval base, carried live on CBS and moderated by a young reporter named Edwin Newman, had been broadcast for a full hour, coast-to- coast, and then re-broadcast in a condensed version from 7:30 to 8 that evening. Reporters and photographers came from Life, Colliers, Associated Press and United Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the New York Herald, in fact, a reporter and photographer from the Hearst Syndicate made an embarrassing scene by insisting on front row seats. One fellow, an Army corporal named Andy Rooney, covering the story for Stars and Stripes, graciously gave up his seats in front so that the rhubarb would cease. Rooney, it was noted, had two seats on the aisle; one for himself and one for his knapsack of notepads, a dictionary, a thesaurus, a Gideon Bible, assorted pens, pencils and articles of clothing, and five back issues of S&S containing columns he had written on a variety of military subjects. Newman asked him, before the conference got underway, iAndy, why do you carry all that stuff around with you?i 313 iWhy do you think?i Rooney responded, defensively. iThe dictionary and the Rogetis should be obvious. The Bible comes in handy if some dogface mistakes me for a chaplain, you gotta admit I look more like Pat OiBrien than I do Cary Grant. I need the clothes because I sweat a lot. And I can always whip out these back issues with my by-line if some colonel or admiral wants to know if Iim a real reporter or not.i The auditorium, like the hall at Oceana last evening, was packed to overflowing with Navy and Marine brass; the local, lesser media were pressed against the walls with civilian civic leaders and politicians from all over the Tidewater area. Our principal from Maury, Mack Thomann, and several of our teachers were on hand, as were the pastor and his deacons from St. Peter and Paulis. My family and Shadowis family were there o even my dad, reinforced with a dangerous amount of codeine and Calvertis, insisted on coming, and the Navy supplied a wheelchair so that he could join us on the small stage at the far end of the auditorium. iRoosevelt calls again,i he said, with hopeful emphasis, iheis gonna talk to this kidis oli man as well, yiall can make book on that! Betcher bottom dollar on it!i Holman Perkins, a reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, assumed Dad was the wounded pilot whose life weid saved and interviewed him for ten minutes before the conference started. Shadow and I sat at a long table in the center of the stage behind a battery of CBS and MovieTone News microphones, flanked on both sides by our parents and family, Anna Theresa, the captains of both the base and the Oceana Air Station, Cmdr. Pete Wiggins, Lt. Jay Goldsmith, and a Navy doctor, Cmdr. Brett Stanyard, the physician who first saw Lt. Cmdr. Frankavilla at the base hospital. iOne of the first things on all our minds,i young Ed Newman remarked upon opening the conference, iis the condition of the pilot who was bringing these boys back to Norfolk. Lieutenant Commander Gary Frankavilla was badly wounded during yesterdayis off-shore encounter with a German U-boat, and Medical Officer Brett Stanyard is with us this 314 morning. Commander, can you give us a status report on Lieutenant Commander Frankavilla?i The Navy doctor was an older man, not long from retirement once the war was over, and he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat before answering. It was apparent he was not used to discussing patients on national radio, especially among laymen. iAh, uh,i he began, iMr. Frankavillais, uh, wounds, injuries were, are, quite serious. He suffered severe head trauma caused by, uh, ack-ack explosions, uh, shrapnel wounds, ah, at close range. There was powerful concussion. Uh, also three machine gun bullets penetrated the airplaneis, uh, fuselage and struck him in the wrist, the hip, and, uh, the side of his abdomen. He lost a great deal of blood, and he, uh, was in surgery for seven hours last night. Iim, uh, delighted to report that, uh, thanks to these young men here, and, uh, thanks to Mister Frankavillais superb physical condition, he will, in all likelihood, recover in due time and, uh, be back on the job within a year. Or less. We certainly, uh, hope and pray . . . so.i There was sustained applause and a tattoo of flashbulbs. The rest of the hour was pretty much a repeat of the previous afternoonis activity, except Newman remained in charge and gave Capt. Zarin and Capt. Moulard little chance to take over the proceedings. The best part, the part Shadow and I liked best, was when he opened it up for questions from the floor. iMr. Eden,i someone asked, ididnit the Navy take a terrible chance letting you attempt to land a fighter plane thatid been pretty badly shot up?i iI donit know,i I said. iThe plane really didnit seem to be all that eshot upi, like you say, ani I donit think the Navy or anybody had much to say about it. We, uh, either had to land the plane, or let it crash in the ocean, or someplace.i iWho made the decision to have you try and land it?i iGuess that was decided by Capiin Blauser ani Admiral Serateen on the Madison.i iDid they consult with your parents before ordering you to make such an attempt?i I glanced at Shadow; he rolled his eyes at the ceiling and 315 said, iLemme answer that. I know the capiin called up my momma ani he told her I was up there in a Navy plane that ainit got no pilot or nothini, ani she told him to tell me I was to get outta there right now ani come home before dark, or there werenit gonna be no supper for me for sure. Psshhhit! Thatis why I bailed out!i A big laugh from the audience silenced the reporter. Another asked, iMarty, when did you know you were capable of flying and landing that aircraft?i I thought for a moment. iI donit figure I ever knew that. Iid never been in a plane before, ani all I know about flyini one is what Iive seen in the movies. Which is the bigger part of nothini. It was Commander Wiggins ani Lieutenant Goldsmith who actually flew the plane ani landed it. They told me just what to do step-by-step ani minute by minute, ani they made it easy for me to do what they told me. I betcha my eleven year old brother Douglas over there could of brought that Avenger down just as well as me, with those fellas guidini him.i This brought heavy applause; both Wiggins and Goldsmith stood up and took a bow. The reporter from Life spoke directly to Cmdr. Wiggins. iCommander, how difficult was it, instructing, uh, teaching a very young and very inexperienced kid how to fly a plane like the Avenger.i Wiggins leaned over my shoulder to answer in the microphones. iWasnit,i he said. iI said to Lieutenant Goldsmith last night, we were talkini about it in the Officeris Club, I said, you know, itis simply incredible that with all that was happenini, we got this young fella over there in the radiomanis seat flyini an airplane heid never seen the inside of before. We got a dying pilot up front, another young man bailini out over the Atlantic for the very first time in his life, a U-boat back there shot to shreds, and we gotta talk this fella down safely in a ship he knew no more about than I do about doini surgery on somebodyis eyeball! Difficult? There was a while there I figured it was downright impossible!i iHow do you account for the success of the mission?i 316 Wiggins shrugged. iI dunno. Guts. Determination. Luck . . .i Goldsmith leaned in. iPlus he had a darned good teacher. Couple of eem!i The press conference went on for a full hour, and I was bored beyond false humility answering the same questions weid already been asked over and over. We covered everything: biographical data, aspirations after graduation, moments of apprehension, degrees of fear, what did we think about this, about that . . . Someone even brought up Rodney Herkimer, and we retold the story of buying the Jeep and sneaking aboard the Madison to say good-bye to our dear friend. iHave either of you ever met Captain Blauseris real son and nephew,i someone asked. iNo,i I said. iAni we donit want to,i Shadow added. iThey go to Granby, so they ainit good for much.i Another big laugh from the crowd. Shadow was a solid hit with the audience, and the reporters played up his idynamic, theatrical personalityi in their stories. Ed Newman asked, iMarty, what did you think when you realized you were on the phone with President Roosevelt?i I shook my head and glanced at Dad off to the side of the long table in his wheelchair. iGuess my first thought was, I wish my dad could of been there ani shared a few words with the President. Dadis, uh, admired Mr. Roosevelt for a long time, ani I think they would of hit it off ani had a great oli confab about the war, right then ani there.i iWhat did the President actually say to you, Marty?i I thought for a long moment, looking out over the anxious crowd. iWell, Mr. Newman, Iive got to be honest with you. Most of what he said was just nice things about beini proud of fellas like Shadow ani me. The other stuff he said was, uh, well, sort of personal, ani I think Iid rather just keep it among him ani Shadow ani me. At least for the time beini.i I really had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded good and was fun making up, just like writing a story. That night when we were all in the living room on Doumar 317 Street listening to the replay on Grandmais magnificent Philco, Shadow whispered in my ear, iWhat the fugg was all that about? Whatid the oli guy say to yiall that was such a, personal secret?i I whispered back, iHe said it was gonna be your ass if yiall kept smokini those cigirettes with the India ink squirted inside eem!i * * * It was dumbfounding. From the side door all the way to our lockers, very few, if any, students actually spoke to us. A couple said, iHey! Howis it goini?i or iHi, how yiall comini?i (to which Shadow would mumble, iBy hand, mosily.i), but most just stepped back and stared at us, awe struck, as we passed by. Julie Hayden and Anneliese Odum had gotten lockers near us and tried to walk with us, but their homerooms were on the third floor, and we soon lost them on the narrow, sagging staircase. There was a general assembly called for eleven oiclock in the auditorium, and Shadow and I hung back, lingering in the hallway until nearly everyone was inside and seated. We slid into the last row of wooden seats just as the principal, Mack Thomann, said, iYou boys ani girls have no idea how lucky yiall are to be goini to Maury again for another year.i Thomann was a tall, thin man with absolutely no chin; Shadow often called him Mr. Gump, after Andy, to his face; but he didnit seem to mind. Either heid never seen the cartoon character, or he thought it was some kind of weird intramural compliment. Even his sparse and unkempt hair had been purloined directly from the comic strip, as was his posture, and no one ever took him seriously. He continued, iMaury High has had a remarkable history ani has contributed many fine students who have gone on to local ani national prominence. Angela Bradshaw comes to mind, as does William Barnett ani Sean Gentry, all of whom have made a fine mark for themselves in Virginia politics ani 318 medicine ani show business. Not to mention our own state senator ani U.S. congressman, David Hale ani Moody Gewehr!i After each well-known name there was a smattering of applause, more whistles, and louder catcalls. iBut, I gotta tell yiall, nothini ever got my blood goini or my heart poundini with real pride ani goose bumps than when I heard on the radio news ani read in the papers what our own two war heros, Marty Eden ani Shadow Cranston, had done in that U.S. Navy aeroplane a few weeks ago . . . i the applause and whistling and stamping was building. . . iani the honor ani glory they brought to oli Maury High by sinkini that German U- boat submarine . . . let me tell yiall, weive got those two great boys right here with us for another whole year, ani this senior class is gonna be the one the whole country remembers, ani this school, ani everything weive worked ani dreamed for . . . i Old Mack Thomann was on a roll, on a build, on his way to utter confusion, and there was no stopping him. Shadow leaned over and whispered, iThat asshoi call us up on the stage, Iim headini for the Jeep!i The kids in the row in front of us turned around, egging us on: iGo on!i they said, igo on up! Get up on the stage!i iLetis bring those boys up here, letis show how much we love eem, how much pride we got in eem; letis hear from their own mouth, the story of, of, uh, their great adventure at sea! Letis hear it for Shadow Cranston ani Marty Eden!i Over the roar, I hollered in Shadowis ear: iWhat gives here? Iim supposed to get top billini!i (Jack Carson aside to Robert Cummins.) On stage, Shadow came to life and held out his hands for quiet. I took a step back and folded my arms. iHey!i he said. iFor the benefit of you freshman, Iim Cranston, the good lookini one; the one with the scar on his cheek, Iim the one who spotted that dumb, unlucky oli U-boat!i I looked at my sneaker laces while the assembly stamped and whistled. iSeriously,i he continued, iI just wanna thank yiall for comini down here to assemily ani appreciatini what me ani oli 319 Marty here did. Truth of the matter is, uh, we just happened to be right there on that aircrafi carrier in the right place, uh, at the right time . . . ani in that oli air-plane. Shoot, we didnit do nothini anyone of you Maury guys wouldnit of done if yiall ever got the chance.i Wild applause. iUh, ainit that right, Marty?i Ainnat rat, Mah-ree? He turned to me and stepped back, whispering in my ear, iAll you gotta do is say eshiti ani every cabbage head out there gonna squat in the aisle!i I playfully jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow. iYeah,i I said to the audience, most of whom were now standing, slipping into the aisles and crowding toward the front. iWhat Shadow says is sure right. We got a real lucky break, uh, being out there just when things were happenini, ani what we did, uh, like yiall must of read in the newspapers, was just somethini anybody would of done given the opportunity. Frankly, though, we, uh, would rather we would of been watchini Maury kick the stuffini outta Granby on the football field than . . . i And I was drowned out by insane cheering and screaming. Just the mention of Maury doing anything to Granby was enough to set off a small riot. Control of the assembled student body was forfeited until Byron Sermonet, the head of the music department and girlsi basketball coach, ran to the piano and began playing the Maury Alma Mater: The Fighting Spirit of Our Gallant South. As usual, it had the power to stop a tornado. iOh, Maury, Maury of my longing heart, your Light of Learning Shines eternal in the souls of Southis gallant young; In the heart of our fighting, loving Rebel Virginia spirit! We will never tire, oh, Maury, my Maury, never slack or flag In the love burning within, to win! to win! to win! For the glory of Maury, in our hearts ever full of sweet memories; 320 And faithful to thee, Alma Mater, old Maury High, we love you so! The singing of this passionate pledge of eternal devotion was more a religious chant than a rousing charge to do harm to Granby or any lesser institution, and it actually had a calming effect on the undergraduates. Those who were standing on their chairs came down to the floor; those pushing and elbowing toward the front came to a halt. Even the jocks stopped shoving and kneeing and goosing, and joined hands. At the end, a few of the girls and lady teachers could be seen brushing away a tear; gentlemen of the South, of course, never wept publicly, although a glistening above the lower lid was acceptable. The melody was beautiful, and it was original, written by a former student named Barkley Finch, a close friend of the poet Joyce Kilmer, both of whom were killed in the battle at Aragonne Forest in World War I; there was, for many years, the oft-spoken belief that Kilmer had written the songis lyric, but there was never any substantial evidence to support such wishful thinking. While it wasnit Dixie or The Battle Hymn of the Republic, or even High Above Cayugais Waters, I thought it was worthy of a flip side for Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. Maybe someday . . . * * * In mid-September, a Thursday afternoon after school, I found, on the dining room table, a letter from TeenAge! Magazine offering me $300 for Poor, Poor Richard. The letter was signed by Krista Rosakovia, Fiction Editor, and she outlined her intentions of publishing the story in the April, e44 issue. It isnit often, she wrote, that we find buried in the weekly stacks of unsolicited material a piece with such genuine humor, and a joy to read, as your story, Poor, Poor Richard. We are sincerely delighted to offer you the enclosed agreement to purchase the story for publication, and we would appreciate it if youid return it signed and notarized and also enclose a brief 321 biography. If you have any other work you feel might be suitable for TeenAge!, and as you apparently are not represented, please feel free to submit same to my personal attention. . . By the way, I have a dear friend in Norfolk, Mrs. Anna Theresa Tortoretti, the head librarian at Larchmont Library. You wouldnit, by chance, know her, would you? Most cordially, . . . . I ran all the way from Doumar Street and Gill Alley to the library on 43rd Street. I irreligiously smacked the snout of one of the lions with the letter as I bounded up the steps; panting, sweating, and in total disregard for silence, I leaned across the Reception/Return/Lending desk and kissed Anna Theresais cheek, firmly holding her shoulders to keep myself from collapsing over the top of the desk. iMartin! Please!i She tried to back away, but I wouldnit let go. iAre you completely berserk?i iYes! Yes!i I cried. iLook at this!i And I whipped the letter from one hand to the other and held it open with both hands, in her face, and she read it once quickly; then again, more slowly. iGood Lord!i she gasped. iYou did it; you, really, did o it!i iNo!i I said, taking her arm and leading her away and around to the front side of the desk. iWe did it! You ani me o together! Iim going ta give you half the money!i iOh, yes, right!i she laughed. iSure you are!i iNo, really, seriously, half is yours. You made it happen; yiall showed me exactly how to write it, itis yours as much as mine!i We moved away from the libraryis foyer and found an empty and secluded reading table near the furthest shelves. She sat at the edge of the table, and I was kitty-corner at the side. iThis is the greatest thing,i I said, unable to keep my voice level and in a normal lower register, ithatis ever happened to me. To us. Just think if Iid never known you; if yiall hadnit helped me . . .i Anna Theresa shook her head, a wide wisp of whitish hair, 322 ashen and gleaming, swinging loose from the prim knot and dangling over the delicate pink shell of her ear. iAh, Martin, sweet, sweet Martin, it would have made no difference; none aitall.i iBut oi I tried to interrupt. iShhh. Listen,i she cut me off, placing her warm hand over mine, diverting my attention completely. iWithout me, this time, Poor, Poor Richard might never have made it past a junior reader; Iill grant you that. But your next story, or the one after that, would have; I know that for certain. You are a talented writer, Martin, a clever storyteller; I am a good reader, and maybe a good editor, thatis because Iim older, Iive lived longer, read more, experienced more; I have that, well, that ability to sift through words and paragraphs and scenarios o make sense of them. But youire the writer; youire the one who hears the words with your heart, and you have that, uh, uncanny gift of assembling those words in such a way that they create emotions in people as you tell the story; youire the one who concocts and imagines and puts the words and the images down on paper. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. . . Need me? Maybe, for now. Not forever; not for long.i I sat silently and looked at her, in her eyes, and I loved her so much there was a squeezing ache in my chest. The love I had for her was giving me, God help me!, a genuine heart attack! iCan never be anything without you,i I whispered, and it was becoming difficult to speak. I had to clear my throat. She too said nothing for a few seconds. Then she nodded. iThank you, Martin. Thatis a very high compliment. . . But itis nonsense. You already are something, and you were something before you even knew I existed. Now, as a real honest-to- goodness author about to be published, youire on the first stepping stone, and heaven alone knows where itis going to lead.i I spoke abruptly. iIim gonna write a novel!i I announced. iYou probably will someday.i iNo, Iim serious. Iim gonna write a novel . . . Iim gonna 323 take Poor, Poor Richard ani blow it up into a full length novel.i Anna Theresa tilted her head, smiling. iBetter start over again; you had Richard kill himself at the end of the short story.i iNo, not about Richard. Rachel. Iill pick up with what happens to Rachel after she buries Richard. . . I want you to be my agent. Iill give you fifty percent of everything I make!i iGreat deal!i she laughed. iBut agents get ten percent, not fifty.i iBut youill get fifty! Ten for beini my agent, ten for editing, uh, ten for rewritini, ten for typini, ani ten for . . . for . . . beini my lover!i She stopped laughing, and the smile drifted away from her lips. iMartin . . . tell you what. Krista mentioned in her letter that sheid look at any other stories you might have. . . Do you have any?i iNo,i I said; iyiall told me right here in this library to go sit down ani write a short story for you, so I did. That was my only story. If thereire any others, theyire still in my head.i iWell . . .i Anna Theresa frowned, apparently thinking how this would play out. iOkay, Iill tell you what. You are going to write other stories, and when you do, if you want me to, Iill look at them. If thereis anything there, Iill work them over and help with rewrites. When theyire ready, weill send them to Krista o Iill send them, as your agent, your, uh, literary representative. If she buys them, or someone else does, Iill take a flat ten percent, just like a real agent. Thatis all I would want, and I think it would be a fair arrangement, donit you?i I didnit hesitate a second. iI, think itis a fantastic arrangement!i iThen, shake?i She thrust her hand against my shoulder, and I slid the chair back and took it in mine. I wanted to hold on to it forever; never let go. iYou want to see some of my biographies?i I kidded. She did not want to be teased. iMartin,i she said sternly, speaking in the tone of the Maury Boysi Advisor, iyou have written your last biography for Dr. I.Q. From now on, we concentrate on writing stories, real stories.i 324 * * * The $300 I received from TeenAge! went, after protracted discussion around the dinner table, into my college fund, an account I set up for myself at the local First National Bank on the Hague. Two hundred went into the fund, ten dollars went for a new pair of dungarees and two new shirts, and ninety dollars bought a brand new Smith-Corona portable typewriter and carrying case, a ream of Duralast bond, a large packet of carbons, a ream of second sheets, and a dozen manila envelopes. At dinner the evening Iid received the letter from Krista Rosakovia, I announced my good fortune in selling my first short story to a major magazine. My father was flabbergasted. iThey gave you three hundred dollars for a short story? For writini down somethini you just made up? Jay-sus H. Chrisimus!i My mother said, iThatis wonderful! Martin, thatis absolutely marvilous! I knew it; I knew one a your stories would click!i Momma considered all my biographies were stories, too. My brother said, iWhatis it about, sinkini German subs?i I stared at the tablecloth in front of me. iWhatis it about? Well . . . i How could I explain a story like Poor, Poor Richard to the people around that dining room table? Or any story, for that matter. My mother and Aunt Freddie read only True Confessions and romance novels; my father read only inventory tallies from E.K. Careyis and looked at the war pictures in Life; Douglas, comic books; Grandpa Toma, nothing; Grandma, cards and tea leaves. Stories were what movies were made of; that was the extent of my familyis literary exposure (if one were to confuse movies with literature). I pulled at my lower lip and made a helpless gesture with the same hand. iWell, I dunno, itis, uh, itis about a couple a kids, like at school, who get involved with football ani, uhi other sports . . . ani they like each other, but they got a lotta problems, ani . . . well, thatis about it.i 325 iHa!i Dad exhaled, as though forcing something out of his throat. iThatis why TeenAge! bought it, a kidis story about high school! I thought youid written somethini about the war, about, uh, your deal with that Navy airplane or somethini. . . They really gave you three hundred dollars for a story about a football game? . . . Shit!i Aunt Freddie had little interest in any of this; she wanted to know what I was going to do with the money. iWell, I dunno, exactly,i I said. iFigured Iid buy a new typewriter; get rid of that oli rental . . . i iHow much new typewriters cost?i Dad asked, suspiciously. iI saw one, uh, they got them at Hahnis, less than a hundred dollars.i He looked at me as if I were contemplating a down payment on the Empire State Building. iI should sure hope so! A hundred bucks!i iAni the rest,i I said, evenly, ifigured Iid give to you ani Momma, ani maybe yiallid like to get a new sofa ani chair for the front room; maybe some lamps, too, ani venetian blinds oi iOhhh!i Momma sighed, iWe canit let you do that, thatis money you earned writini a story!i iWait a minute,i Dad protested; iwhatis wrong he wants pay us some money oi iPay us! Bernie, whatis gotta pay us for? Heis only seventeen years old, ani he wants to be a person who writes . . . stories . . . i iBe somebody,i Grandma inserted, ithatis wot he wants; not like the rest of this wretched, bloody, worthless clan.i Dad was pushing his chair back. iI was seventeen years old, I was totini stock at J.C.Penney days ani workini table at my folksi place at night, fichrissake, ani I never begrudged my parents a damned dime! I ever come home with three hundred dollars, my oli man, your grandfather,i glancing at me, i o shit, heid beat the hell outta me, i iHe tink right outta then you stold da money!i Grandpa Toma laughed. 326 I said, iPop, I just said I wanted to take out eighty, ninety dollars for a typewriter, gee whiz, ani give yiall the rest to get somethini nice for the house; thatis all!i Momma stood up and, for the first time I could remember, took a position on the matter at hand. iWell, thatis not,i she said, her lips forming a determined bow, iwhat youire going to do with that money. I mean, itis okay about the typewriter, but the rest of itis goini in the bank. This could be the beginnini of a way yiall could get to college after you finish up in high school.i iMartin donit wanna go to college,i Douglas said, hopefully. iHeis goini in the Air Corps!i iOh, fichrissake!i Dad slid out of his chair and propped a crutch under his armpit; his right foot still in a cast, he hobbled into the pantry and replenished his Welchis jelly glass with straight Calvertis. iYou want one, Toma?i he called back to Grandpa, as though it were necessary to ask. I saw where this evening was headed, and I wanted to get away from it as fast as possible. iThere is one thing I do want to do, though,i I said. iWhat?i Douglas prompted, jumping up and down in his chair. iWhat?i iI want to, uh, I want us to get a telephone . . . i From the pantry, Dad coughed a sharp iHa! Mister John D. Moneybags wants a telephone, too, to go along with his typewriter! Ha! Every big-shot with a typewriteris gotta have a telephone!i I was not going to back down on this point. iI called the phone company,i I said, in a tone I hoped left no room for compromise, iani they said we could have a four-party line for three dollars ani twenty cents a month. They said there was no charge to come out ani hook us up, ani we could cancel after six months if we didnit like havini the phone. Six months would cost nineteen dollars and twenty cents, I figured it out, ani Iill pay it for six months out of my money. At the end of six months, we gotta couple choices. We can cancel it ani get rid of it once ani for all, or yiall can take over the payments, or if I 327 sell any more stories, Iill keep on payini for it so long as I can from the money I get from writini stories.i I looked around the table, waiting for an argument that, surprisingly, never came. iSo. . . What do yiall think of that?i I said. 328 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE My dad went back to his air raid warden duties in late September, limited to one hour or less each night, still on crutches and wearing a cast. I had to admit, silently, it was humorously pathetic watching him hobble down Doumar Street in his white Civil Defense helmet and his armbands and orange outer vest, whistle and flashlights dangling, binocularsi case draped over his left shoulder, a canteen full of Calvertis over his right, a crutch under his right armpit, his right foot held back and up so as not to scrape and drag the heavy plaster cast. Shadow said he looked like the poster boy for The eSo-sy-et-teei of War Effort Rejects. iHe sure does qualify,i Shadow went on, ias the oldest livini accidentally-coulda-been-on-purpose draft dodger in captivity.i A letter to the local draft board right after the accident on Princess Anne Road, stapled to an official report from a Dr. Thomas Nesbit at Norfolk General, resulted in Dadis Selective Service classification of 4-F. Any chance he might have had for a call to arms in this or any future war was ended forever. iIill be next in line right after your two granipaws,i he said, laughing with obvious relief, his arm safely and securely around my mother. The telephone, a black two-piece unit with a plastic circle covering a white label with our number (JEFFERSON 3812) in bold, black letters and numbers, a gaping cradle, and a thick, brown cloth-insulated wire, was installed on the resident telephone table under the bay window in the dining room the first Monday in October, and that night Momma called Anna Theresa Tortoretti and invited her for Sunday supper, Sunday next.iWhy, Iid love to come!i Anna Theresa replied, and I was excited that I could actually hear her, standing next to Momma and craning my head toward the ear piece. iWhat may I bring?i 329 iBring?i Momma was confused. iWhy, just yourself; thatis all thatis necessary.i iPerhaps a nice California wine . . . may I ask what youire planning?i iPlanning? I guess just, supper.i iI mean, what will you be serving?i iTo eat? Well . . . I donit know,i Momma groped. iMaybe a nice roast, if my mother has enough stamps.i iOh, if you need stamps, I have far more than I can use.i This was making Momma uncomfortable. We rarely, if ever, had anyone in for supper, the exception being Shadow, who didnit count. Maybe half a dozen times a year, mostly during holidays, the rest of the Cranston family sometimes dropped by. iWell,i she said, iweill see.i iJust let me know,i Anna Theresa offered. iAnd Iill bring some nice Cabernet Sauvignon. . . Howis your husband doing? Still in the cast?i iOh, yes, ani crutches. Doctor says heill be hobblini around right through the holidays.i iWhat a pity. You know, I really feel so guilty.i iDonit be silly,i Momma chided. iIf truth was king ani I was queen, it was the best thing ever happened to him!i On Friday, the effervescent Corrine Lyke danced up the aisle in study hall and took the seat next to mine. She was wearing a white cashmere sweater and a black skirt with ten thousand perfect pleats. Bobby sox were folded once below her shimmering calves; her feet were encased in immaculately scuffed saddle shoes. I wanted to reach out and knead a shapely bare calf, but I folded my hands over an open copy of Joseph Conradis Victory. iHey,i she said, her smile an Ipana ad on the overhead trolley cards. iHey,i I responded, equal to any form of sophisticated discourse. iIs it true what Shadow told a bunch of us? You wrote a story thatis gonna be printed in TeenAge!?i Her face was a 330 radiant, well-scrubbed glow; her full, crimson lips a perpetual pout.iYeah,i I said, oozing humility. iNext April issue.i iWhatis it called, in case I get a chance to read it?i iPoor, Poor Richard,i I answered. iI think youill like it.i iI always read the stories in TeenAge! Am I in it?i I didnit understand. iIn what? The magazine?i Corrine giggled and pouted more. iNo, silly! Your story!i Her yellow, lacquered, June Allison-cut hair swayed about her head, and when she sighed, her large, pointed breasts beneath the cashmere sweater went dormant, deflated momentarily, but ready to bounce back with the next breath. iAh, Corrine,i I groaned, ilovely, obtuse Corinne, i I was on safe ground; chances were remote she knew obtuse, especially preceded by lovely, which I was certain was all that registered. iOf course, yallire in it! In fact, youire all itis about. Only the girlis name is Rachel oi iShoot, why not Corrine?i iWell . . . i I pondered this. iI guess I was sort of afraid if I called her eCorrinei, ani it turned out you, uh, didnit like the story, yiall might never speak to me again.i I saw in her eyes I was off the hook. She literally bounced in her seat. iCan I tell everybody your story is about me? Can I?i I took serious time to ponder this. If anyone in Maury thought Iid actually written Poor, Poor Richard with Corrine in mind, theyid naturally assume Iid patterned eRichardi after myself. With eRacheli the glorious heroine in the story and eRichardi tossed on the garbage heap of adolescence at the end, like five year old outgrown sneakers, somebody would conclude Iid written the piece while pining away with unrequited adoration of Corrine. Nothing could be further from reality! iWell, I donit think thatid be such a great idea,i I said, slowly, as though Iid suddenly stumbled upon a great discovery. iThe girl eRacheli, well, sheis got lots of your, uh, wonderful qualities, isnit nearly as sweet ani pretty as yiall, ani has a, well, a streak in her I had to make up so the story would, uh, kind of 331 come out right, that people might suspect was what yiall are really like, ani that wouldnit be fair. Be better if you just kept it to yourself, that I, uh, had yiall in mind when I created the, uh, girl in the story. Okay by yiall?i The pout was overwhelming; it created dimples in her rosy cheeks in which you could hide small change. iOh . . . all right; just etween you ani me, then.i Then she blurted, iYiall busy tonight? Yiall wanna go to the movies or somethini?i Corrine Lyke asking me for a date! Celebrity was everything. Shadow had a date that Friday night with a new girl in the senior class named Dede Sheppard, and when I saw him back in homeroom at dayis end, I told him I had a date with Corrine Lyke. iYeah!i he declaimed. iRight! Ani Iim shackini up with Lana Turner!i iNo,i I confirmed, iIim serious. I ran into her in study hall, and I just said it right out, like, eyou wanna go someplace tonight?i ani she said, esure, why not?ii Dede Sheppard was a sweet little thing transferred from Tyler, Texas, and Shadow wasted no time asking her out. She was set for Friday night with him, as was Corrine with me, so plans were made on the spot I would pick up Shadow at seven, weid pick up Dede at seven-fifteen, then Corrine at seven-thirty. iCorrine said she wants to go to a movie,i I told Shadow, driving him home after school. iPssshit! Screw the movies,i Shadow decided. iJoe Wexleris bandis playini in the gym, ani Dede never heard eim. Sheis out of Texas, you know, ani those girls really know their music. I wanna get her on the dance floor. . . Besides, Corrineill tongue your ear when yiall slow dancini.i iThat right?i eAt rye? iWhat I hear.i I had other concerns. iWhat am I gonna do if Jerry Lee Younger ani the rest of the football team wanna make sure my first date with Corrine is my last?i 332 Shadow shrugged. iTell eem come see me. They ainit gonna fugg around with a couple big time war heroes.i I looked at my friend as though Iid never seen him before. iMan,i I said, iyiall live in a world all your own!i * * * Anna Theresa arrived at my house promptly at 4:30 Sunday afternoon bearing not one but two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon. I met her at the bottom entrance of the front landing, took the package from her, and escorted her up to the flatis living room. iYiall gotta lot of intestinal fortitude,i I said from behind, closely watching the delicate muscles in her fabulous legs propel her from one step to another. iSunday supper in this asylum is what Pulitzer Prize stage plays are made of.i She glanced over her shoulder. iWhen did you start reading Moss Hart?i iRecently,i I mumbled. I gave her one of my smart-aleck side glances. iAbout same time I started reading George S. Kauffman.i She nodded knowingly. iNow I know why mules never go to college.i iWhyis that?i She got me: iNobody likes a smart ass.i Momma gushed as I knew she would, taking the wine in one arm and wrapping the other around Anna Theresa. iWeire all so glad you were able to come! Yiall had no trouble finding us?i iNot a bit. Your directions were absolutely explicit.i And she exuded charm with that dazzling smile. Momma apparently had forgotten, in all the confusion, that sheid stopped over that night back in August, right after Dadis accident. My father hobbled out of the dining room. iSo! Look whois here again!, the lady who makes like a bullfighter with pickup trucks! How yiall doini?i Anna Theresa stuck out her hand, but Dad brushed it aside and pulled her to him in a bear hug. I thought for a moment he 333 would lose his balance again and topple over with her to the floor. But she laughed and moved back, steadying him with her free hand. iIim doing just grand,i she laughed, ithanks to you! Every night I say a little prayer of thanks you happened to be at that corner at the right moment. Question is, how are you doing? Howis the ankle?i Dad backed up and plopped into his overstuffed chair, hoisting his damaged foot to the crumpled hassock. iNot bad. Not bad at all. Donit pain me much; not like at first. Doc says Iill be off the crutch ani outta the cast by Chrisimas . . . i Grandma and Aunt Freddie came into the room and re- introductions were made. Freddie plowed right in: iMarty says you helped him write his short story that got sold to TeenAge!i iAh yes, thatis so; I did. I helped him with some spelling o but he did the real writing.i Everyone took seats on the sofa, and I steered Anna Theresa to the lone rocker by the radio. I remained standing, and when Douglas came in from his room, I pointed at Anna Theresa. iHey,i said Douglas, as though her presence was a surprise. iI seen you in the lye-berry all the time!i I wondered on what mysterious occasion Douglas had ever set foot in the library o any library. iAnd you of course are Douglas,i she smiled, uncertain where he was going to light. iIive heard a lot about you.i He nodded and squeezed in on the sofa between Momma and Freddie. Grandma was perched at the end, and the four of them sat like cartoon characters in a shooting gallery; they stared at Anna Theresa. I said, iMy Granipa went to bed early. Heis a baker . . . I guess I told you that. Sunday nights he has to get up at midnight. And, uh, go to work.i Anna Theresa nodded and looked back at Freddie. iYes, your nephew is a very talented young man. I think heis going to make something of himself if he keeps at it.i 334 Freddie made a sour face, almost an intuitive reaction. iJudging by the way he talks,i she said, iIim surprised he can put two sentences together in the same breath.i iOh, thatis what make his talent so interesting,i Anna Theresa said, glancing at me. iSo rare. When he writes, I think he uses some other part of his brain, and the words come out perfectly; words he probably would never say, just talking. You folks should be very proud of him.i Dad butted in, iHowis a high school kid write a story they wanna give him three hundred dollars for?i This conversation was killing me. I started, iDad, what difference oi iYes, how, indeed!i Anna Theresa asserted, giving credence to a phenomenon that would live with this family beyond the millennium. Momma came to my rescue. iYouire right, Missus Tortoretti oi iPlease. Call me Anna Theresa.i She reached over from the rocking chair and placed her hand over Mommais. My mother melted. iYes . . . well, Anna Theresa, yes, ani you call me Dorothy, ani Bernie, ani Fred oi She stopped short of indicating grandma; calling grandma eLizzyi was out of the question. iI am very proud of my boy; always have been. Ani Iim proud of Douglas, too.i (I had no idea why.) iI guess youive, uh, read his story. Martyis story.i iOf course,i she replied. iHavenit you?i They both turned and looked up at me as if Iid just broken a four second whisky fart.I said, iAnna Theresa helped me in, uh, rewritini ani reshaping the story, ani I figured yiallid rather read it when it gets published than wade through a mess of typewriter pages . . . ani stuff. Besides, i I might as well lay it out ioAnna Theresa ani I have a, well, a working arrangement. Sheis going to be my, uh, agent ani my editor ani, uh, handle all my stuff, whatever I write from now on.i 335 Grandma thought that was a fine idea. iWell, now, donit that beat all!i she flustered. iAn agent, is it? Like for a real author! Wouldnit me cousin Somerset be proud!i I didnit have to wait long for Dad to ask the inevitable question. iLet me ask you, Anna Tee. . . How much does beini an agent get paid for, uh, beini an agent?i iWell, let me see,i she pondered, pretending to figure it out in her head, counting on her fingers. iA good agent gets anywhere from one to two percent for correcting spelling; anywhere from two to four percent for repairing bad grammar; four to six percent for making sure the events of the story occur in the right order . . . and a handshake for getting a publisher to pass judgment on the thing. Comes to about ten percent.i iHa!i Dad nodded, sagely. iSo for Martyis story yiall got thirty dollars! Not a bad dayis work for a couple hours!i Anna Theresa shook her head, laughing, and to Grandmais delight lapsed into a bit of a brogue. iAh, sadly, etwas not me good fortune on that one. Marty here sold the story on his own, before we made our arrangement; the pikeris keepini the filthy lucre all to himself! Done me in for thirty pieces of silver, he did!iDouglas chimed in, iBetcha had to fix up a lotta his spelling ani, ani, uh, the syntax parts!i My brother would attempt walking on the ceiling if it impressed my gorgeous friend. Just saying esyntaxi, something I was certain he knew absolutely nothing about, was a monumental undertaking for that twelve year old. iThat I did,i she admitted. iThen,i Dad determined, to my surprise (and chagrin), ihe should give yiall somethini for your time.i Anna Theresa laughed heartily, and they all, even Freddie, fell in love with her when she said, iThat he should, but he wonit, the cheapskate. Frankly, Iid settle right now for a glass Cabernet.i Momma said, iWouldnit yiall rather have some wine?i 336 Dad retrieved his crutch and started crawling out of the recliner. iSave the wine for supper,i he said. iWhat say we have a highball? How about Calvertis ani water?i iCalvertis?i iRight. Went out last night and got a pint and a quart, and mixed eem! Ha!i iSounds delightful,i Anna Theresa agreed, getting up. iHere. Let me help you, Mr. Eden.i Dad, beaming from ear to ear, said, iLike Dottie said, call me Bernie. Call me Jubel. Call me Eden. Just donit call me late for cocktails!i I wanted to jump out the window. 337 338 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR It was precisely eight-thirty that Sunday evening, right in the middle of Grandmais runny but notoriously sweet and addictive pineapple upside-down cake, when the telephone rang. We stopped in mid-munch, I think Dad was explaining the significance of the Munich Pact and Anna Theresa was nodding perfunctorily, probably wondering if he, in fact, had a single, vague clue as to what he was talking about, and we listened, entranced, as the bell behind the large black box on the wall near the floor sent forth its majestic, marvelous, piercingly tinny electronic jangle. My family had never owned a telephone, and I think this was the first time we had ever heard ours ring. We were spellbound. iShall I get it?i Anna Theresa offered, after the sixth ring. The incantation was shattered. iHell no!i Dad sang out. iFreddie, answer the damn phone!i Normally, had Dad been whole and mobile, and charming, exotic company not present, Freddie would have said something obscene and told her brother-in-law to get off his fat ass and answer it himself. Instead, she placed her fork beside her dessert plate, twisted to the left in her chair and reached back, picking up the receiver. iHello? . . . Yes, it is. . . No, Iim his aunt. . . You want Martin?i Something from a Katharine Hepburn movie may have popped into her head: iMay I tell him whom is calling? . . . Just a moment.i She shrugged and pointed at me with her other hand. iItis for you. Somebody named Early.i iBaseball player,i Shadow muttered. I got up from the table and circled around between Momma and the telephone table. I took the phone from Freddie. iHello?i iHello, good evening. This Marty Eden?i It was a manis voice, and he was not a Southerner. iYes, sir.i 339 iMarty, this is Steve Early, at the White House in Washington. How are you?i iI . . . fine, sir.i I glanced at Shadow and mouthed: The White House? iIim not calling at a bad time, am I? iNo . . . no, sir, we were just, uh, finishing pineapple upside- down cake.i iAh, great, one of my favorites. Well . . . I wonit keep you but a moment. I am calling on behalf of President Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt, remember when you talked with him on the phone back in August?i iSure do! How could I ever forget that?i iWell, if you recall he said he wanted to get to meet you and your buddy, your friend, uh, Lamont Cranston, is that really his real name?i iYes, sir, it is; for real.i iYes, well, amazing. . . Well, anyway, the President asked me to call this weekend and see if you and your parents, and Cranston and his parents, could meet with him over the Thanksgiving holiday. He remembers offering the invitation to, uh, get together, and when he says something like that, he never forgets; he always follows through.i iUh . . . you mean he wants to come here, for Thanksgiving?i iThere? No! Ha! Ha! No, Marty, what heid like to do is . . . you ever heard of the eLittle White Housei?i iOh, yeah, sure, down in Georgia.i iThatis right. Warm Springs, Georgia. Well, the President and the First Lady often go there for holidays, and they plan on celebrating Thanksgiving weekend there . . . i iYou want us to come to Georgia for Thanksgiving dinner?i There was a brief pause at the other end. Then: iNo, not exactly, Marty. The eLittle White Housei is really a, uh, misnomer; they should have called it the eDinky White Housei. There really isnit enough room down there for a staff meeting, let alone a Thanksgiving dinner. . . No, Marty, what the 340 President has in mind, have you ever heard of the Biltmore House in, uh, Asheville, North Carolina?i iIim not sure. . . Oh, yeah, sure! What am I thinkini?i iYes, well, itis the big old estate owned by the Vanderbilts; itis been empty for a few years, but Vanderbiltis son-in-law goes there occasionally, and they let the President, uh, enjoy the place once in a while. . . Anyway, itis on the way between Washington and Warm Springs, and the President would be delighted if your family and young Cranstonis family could join him there for a day or two just before Thanksgiving. Do you think that would be possible?i While I was listening to Mr. Early, I kept glancing from one to another at the dining room table. They all sat silently mesmerized, the pineapple upside-down cake a sagging, coagulating relic of the past, even Anna Theresa, somehow sensing this was a momentous phone call, was transfixed. I wondered for a second if it wasnit Jerry Lee Youngeris idea of a practical joke, but that idea fled when I considered the depth of his intelligence. Where would he find someone who spoke with this Mr. Earlyis eloquence? I said, iI canit think of any reason, uh, why it would be impossible.i iWell, thatis good; great. The White House will be contacting you by Western Union with all the specifics, but for now, suffice it to say we will arrange transportation and take care of all expenses. Thanksgiving this year is on November twenty-fourth, Thursday, of course, and I think the President would like you to be his guests at Biltmore on the twenty-second and twenty-third. Thanksgiving Day I believe will be a formal dinner for family and, uh, well, Washington associates, so you all will be home in plenty of time for your own Thanksgiving celebration. Then the next day heill be heading for Warm Springs. Anyway, Iim going to relay to the President that, for now, all the plans are operative, and we can go ahead with necessary arrangements.i i . . . I, ah, donit know what to say.i iJust say youill inform your parents of our plans oi 341 iI have my grandmother and grandfather, too, ani my liil brother Douglas . . . i iNo problem. The house has two hundred twenty-five rooms, and a total of thirty-two guest bedrooms, not counting unused servantsi quarters oi iAlso,i I suddenly inserted, a flashing brainstorm, iI have a very close friend, my agent, actually oi iYou have a, an agent?i iYeah. Uh. Yes, I do. Sheis a close friend of, my familyis. May she come, too?i There was the briefest pause. iWhy not?i iGreat!i There is a brief pause. Then: iAnybody else?i iUh, no, sir, canit think of anybody.i iThen itis settled. Tell your folks all about this and stand by for a complete itinerary from the White House. Also . . . in case anything goes haywire, let me give you a private number here in the Press Office you can use to reach me. Got a pencil?i I didnit, but Douglas had a stub of one in his shirt pocket. I pointed to it and snapped my fingers, and he, surprisingly without fuss, handed it over. I wet the tip with my tongue and prepared to write on my palm. iGot one. Go ahead.i iCapitol 9994. Got it?i iGot it. Just ask for you?i iYes. Steve Early. Or Mr. Harry Hopkins, if Iim not available.i A few seconds later we said good-bye and hung up. I stared for a moment at my hand on the receiver, and then I looked up at the people around the dining room table. They were all staring at me, saying not a word. iThat was the White House,i I said. iPresident Roosevelt wants Shadow ani me, ani all of yiall, to meet him during Thanksgiving in North Carolina.i No one uttered a word at first, then Grandma said, iMark me words, you boys are movini too fast!i Mom said, iLet me tell yiall somethini, I knew things were going to click for us!i 342 Freddie said, iAm I invited? What am I supposed to wear?i Dad sucked his teeth and said, barely audible, iIill be goddamned. . . Meet FDR! . . . Son of a bitch!i Shadow sighed, iPsssshit! My folks gonna bust a gut!i Anna Theresa just looked at me and smiled, and there was a volcano in my chest. * * * Adjacent private sleeping compartments on the train to Asheville were reserved for us, and if the schedule was accurate, weid arrive in the small North Carolina city of 47,000 early on the morning of November 22. It was a twelve to fourteen hour trip from Norfolk, mainly because the train stopped at least half a dozen times enroute: places like Emporia, South Hill, Danville, Greensboro, Winston-Salem to name a few, and then 5 or 6 hours through the Blue Ridge Mountains, straight into Asheville. The compartments were, to my thinking, lavishly furnished with soft, upholstered sofas and lounge chairs, coffee tables, and convenient floor and wall lamps. There were framed paintings on the walls, and the window of each compartment was cleverly dubbed a ipicture windowi. After dinner, the compartments were magically transformed into bedrooms with two beds that mysteriously slid out from the walls. It was my first train trip, and it immediately became, for all time, my favorite mode of travel. Years later I would write articles about The Orient Express, the zenith of elegance, but for now the Norfolk & Southern suited the Eden clan to a T. The compartments were divided up with Momma and Dad in the first, Grandma and Freddie in the next, then Douglas and Grandpa, then Marilyn and Scott Cranston, then Anna Theresa by herself, and Shadow and me in the final one just before the door to the Dining Car. iPssshit!i Shadow spat; iwe got the whole freaggini Pullman to ourselves, just like havini a private train!i iThis had to cost a arm and a leg!i Dad calculated. iDamn glad Iim not payini for it.i 343 iFDR can afford it,i confirmed Scott Cranston, a stocky man of medium height. Shadowis dad was resplendent in tan slacks and double breasted blue blazer. I will always remember his hair, a mass of blondish-gray curls, tightly woven like a lumpy placemat. It was real, but it never looked it. We were all crowded into Momma and Dadis compartment when the porter knocked, came in, and asked if anyone would like something to drink. iWhutcha got?i Dad asked, beaming jovial expectation. The porter, a slender Negro in his late thirties, pursed his lips and offered a semi-shrug inside his gleaming white, starched jacket. iYiall name it, suh, Iice mosi certain we got it.i Dad hesitated. iLet me see your bill oi fare, son.i iSay my . . . what?i iYour price list,i Mom offered. iOh!i The porter smiled and revealed a glorious gold eye- tooth. iAinit no prices, suh . . . miam. Effertingis onna house, thanks ta the U-nited State Goviment! Iice even got a crisp twunty dollah tip jusi take care a you all!i Dad would have stood up and done a buck-and-wing had it not been for his crutch and cast. iBoy,i he exclaimed, iyiall just said the magic words!i Grandpa chimed in, iI tink some ice buckets, some Ballantine, some bottle of Calvertis do us der . . . glasses . . all dat. Maybe limburger . . . crackersani moosturd . . . i Scott Cranston was a bourbon drinker, and his wife Marilyn liked rye whisky. It wasnit an argument, really, but a brief debate on the merits of each. Shadowis mother was a wisp of a woman, slender and pale to the point of emaciation; ikinda mousy, skinny, reminds me of Olive Oylei was the expression Iid occasionally heard Freddie use when discussing her behind her back. iCalvertis,i said Scott, iis rot gut. Pure rot gut. I canit believe yiall got any stomach left, Bernie.i My dad took the defensive. iYiall wash it down with cold beer, itis like soda pop. No hangover, neither.i 344 iYeah, yeah, I seen their ads: eClear heads chose Calvertsi. Ha! Thatis right! Whoops! No more clear heads!i Marilyn said, iRye whisky, prefer-ably in Manhattanis, is all any woman should drink,i and I wondered if there was a rationale for gender preferences. There must have been, because Momma, Freddie, and Grandma agreed with her. Anna Theresa shrugged when I glanced in her direction and seemed disinterested, voicing no opinion. The porter resolved it all by suggesting he bring a bottle of each; no one disagreed. I sat alone with Anna Theresa in the dining car after dinner, and, over coffee, we watched the dark countryside fly by outside. She had some great news for me; she said sheid saved it for the right moment when we were alone on this trip. iKrista Rosakovia called yesterday,i she said, and I watched her delicate fingers bring the china cup to her lips. iThey want to enter Poor, Poor Richard in their annual short story competition.i iI didnit know they even had such a deal.i iItis something they do every year, apparently. Itis open to anyone under twenty whois never been published before, and she thought your story might have a chance. The judges are editors from Redbook, Collieris, Readeris Digest, and The Saturday Evening Post. The winner will be published in May o first prize is twenty-five hundred dollars . . .i iWow! Jay-sus!i iIf you lose, thereire actually four prizes: first, second, third and fourth, theyill still publish it in April, and youive already got the three hundred. What do you think?i I guffawed. iThink? I think if I win, college is on for definite. If I lose, I still got a good down payment. If I donit get drafted into the Army, Iim goini! Letis do it; I say we go for it.i Anna Theresa nodded. iThatis what I told her. Keep your fingers crossed.i iAni all the rest of me, too,i I laughed. She sat quiet and pensive as we listened to the steel wheels 345 serenade the steel tracks, the train a cylindrical peg sliding melodically on plaintive strings. We looked at each other from time to time, but mostly we watched our reflections in the large window. Despite the blackout, the blinds were but partially drawn; the lights inside the dining car were dim enough to give the windows a mirror-like quality. I tried to imagine what the country outside looked like in this rather desolate part of Virginia and North Carolina. iYiall like some more coffee?i I asked. iNo. Thanks.i She shook her head, and her hair, now loose and curled under, falling to her shoulders, shimmered in the soft light from our table lamp. iI donit think so.i iDo you . . . have . . . any idea how beautiful you really are, Anna Theresa?i She gave me a visual, facial shrug. iI know how beautiful you think I am. . . You know who I think is beautiful? Really beautiful?i iNo. Who?i iYour Aunt Freddie.i iHa! Yeah! Right!i I roared with laughter. iFreddieis a beast . . . from a polluted lagoon! Beautiful! Ha!i Anna Theresa couldnit help but smile, it was so ridiculous. iNo,i she protested, iseriously; Freddieis a lovely, gorgeous young lady.i iYoung? Shoot, sheis twenty-eight, ani I bet you a dollar to a donut sheis still a virgin!i iNow you sound like Shadow.i I said, iShe gets a date about once every two months ani never with the same fella twice. Yeah, sheis a beauty all right!i Anna Theresa saw she wasnit going to win me over on this one. iWell,i she persisted, ishe certainly is a very pretty girlOi iPretty ainit beautiful. Pretty she may be, but beautiful is what you are.i iOnly because sheis your aunt, and youive know her since you were born. What were we talking about?i iCollege,i I reminded her. iMy going to college.i iRight.i My offer notwithstanding, she poured herself 346 another cup of coffee from the silver serving urn. iYou sure about going to Old Dominion?i iYeah. Iive thought a lot about it, ani thatis where Iim going to apply. My grades arenit straight A, but this year Iill do a B-minus average, ani I think thatill be good enough. I want to go in for liberal arts with a major in English literature.i I didnit particularly like coffee, but I turned my unused cup over and poured a cup anyway. iAlso,i I added, stirring in three sugars, iI want stay close to my agent. Just in case I decide to write something once in a while.i iHmmmm,i was the extent of Anna Theresa enthusiasm and encouragement. The party, which had actually started before dinner, was in Momma and Dadis compartment, and it was reaching full pitch. The liquor was flowing unimpeded, as it had been since the porter delivered on his recommendation, and the fog created by incessant cigarette smoke billowing amidst the plush, crimson upholstery was a pub scene from a John Mills movie. From some source the porter had gotten them a radio, and Freddie had found a station playing a festival of Ray Anthonyis big band recordings. The vocalists were Kenny Gardner and Ginny Simms, and the volume was well above the clickety-clack of the train. Donit sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me! was still the admonition of the day. Momma danced occasionally with Scott, and Marilyn tried to navigate Grandpa around the limited floor space. Dad was in a lounge chair with his foot propped up on the cardboard suitcase Momma and he had brought on board; the Calverts, ice, and water was easily within his reach on the cocktail table. Grandma sat keeping time to the music by snapping the top of her thigh with her thimbled index finger, and Freddie was singing along, off key, with the radio. Shadow and Douglas were reading comic books out loud to each other in the far corner of the compartment. It was after ten oiclock. Anna Theresa stood in the doorway for a moment, then said, iI think Iim going to turn in.i No one heard her but me, so I said goodnight for all. iIim hangini in for a while,i I said, ijust in case they decide to set the place on fire.i 347 348 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Biltmore Estate, if not quite walking distance from downtown Asheville, took us by surprise. None of us, even Anna Theresa, had ever seen that grand old castle, it was not open to the public during the war years, and little was known about it (except by occasional tourists and architectural students) until the 1990s, when Rizzoli International Publications of Italy printed and bound John M. Bryanis delightful history o Biltmore Estate: the most distinguished private place, and arranged for distribution in the United States. George W. Vanderbilt, grandson of the incredibly wealthy transportation and shipping magnate, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, commissioned construction of the estate when he was twenty-five and still a bachelor. When he died unexpectedly at the age of fifty-two, the estate soon began to fall into disarray, disrepair, and gradual, unfortunate disinterest and despair. His wife and daughter, no longer equipped emotionally or financially to maintain the place, departed after a few years, and it toppled, for the most part, into absolute desolation. Unbeknownst, however, to the general public, even to most of the citizens of Asheville, sections of Biltmore House were renovated to nearly their former luster by the personal fortunes of the Sproule and Attridge families of Atlanta for purposes, during World War II, of inational securityi. A large portion of the estate had been deeded to the federal government, much more had been sold to private interests, and only about 7,500 acres remained when Edith Vanderbilt Gerry (the widowed mistress had remarried) and John Cecil and William Cecil, the husband and son, respectively, of George and Edithis only offspring, Cornelia Vanderbilt, decided in 1930 it was time to abandon the burdens of maintaining the mansion. It was opened to the public as a tourist attraction and was fairly self-sustaining until the war began; at that time, the estate was, in all outward appearances, closed. The Sproules and the Attridges, however, made it possible for Biltmore to remain open and operative as a 349 secret refuge, haven, and meeting place for U.S. Presidents ranging from Franklin Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower. In 1964, William Cecil again opened the estate to the public, and it was thereafter rarely, if ever, used by wandering occupants of the White House. It became a National Historic Landmark and today enjoys the status as one of the most visited shrines to American capitalism in existence. While San Simeon was responsible for bringing new meaning to gaudy ostentation, Biltmore, as always, survived as the epitome of extravagant but cultured taste. That November morning in 1943 a glaze of snow and frost spread lightly across the esplanade leading up to the front of the mansion, and I was paralyzed with awe. The symmetry of the buildingis majestic towers, the angles of roof lines, the breadth and depth of its broad shoulders and wings, the artistry of its visual impact and the power of design was hypnotic. It was immense; overpowering. I had never seen anything like it, and I was certain I never would again. iPsssshit!i Shadow spat. iPeople actually lived here?i My dad stood on his crutch and kept his cast out of the layered snow. iJ. H. Chrisimus, how much this place cost?i iMy goodness!i Grandma exhaled. iItis not Windsor Castle, but it does make the old place look a bit shabby now, donit it?i Anna Theresa laughed and touched the sleeve of Grandmais ancient fur jacket. iIt does at that; it most certainly does!i Momma said nothing, but she shook her head and glanced at Freddie. My aunt pursed her lips, whistled, and shrugged. iWhy canit the men I meet . . . ?i she wondered aloud, rhetorically. Grandpa brought it all into perspective. iOnna hills der from Sarajevo . . . palaces wid da Turks, er, all da filthy Serbs . . . dey blow up der places wid all dis. Kill everiwhere. Wars ani every ting. i We had been transported from the train station to Biltmore in three identical military station wagons, the burnished wooden sides polished to a painful glow in the morning sun. They 350 looked exactly like the ones that had taken us from our home to the terminal in Norfolk, but the three drivers, all Army first sergeants and MPs, military policemen, were, of course, not the same. Our luggage, such as it was, was stowed in racks atop the station wagons. Dad and Scott Cranston, in jump seats and traveling backwards, were fluctuating in and out of various stages of hangover; quiet and sullen in the back with their wives. Grandma, Grandpa, Freddie, and Anna Theresa followed in the second vehicle, and Douglas, Shadow, and I brought up the rear. Douglas, whoid apparently researched Asheville a bit, kept up a running narrative during the short trip from the train station. iThey got two rivers runnini right through the whole town,i he pointed out, although at that moment neither was in sight. iAni those mountains over thereire the Great Smokies; the ones behind us are the Blue Ridge.i iLook just like fat oli hills to me,i Shadow opined. iWell, theyis mountains,i Douglas insisted. iThey why it gets cold here a lot, ani it snows. We never get no snow, much. When the waris not on, lots a people come here for vacations, especially in the summers, ecause it ainit hot ani sticky too much.i Shadow wanted to know, iWhere they all stay? This Biltmore place we goini to?i iNo, nobody stays there. It ainit no hotel. But they got one, though!i I asked, iGot what?i iA real fine hotel.i He turned in his seat and pointed to the left. iItis back that way. Itis called the Groove Park Inn, or somethini like that, ani itis where all them hoy-paloy stay.i Shadow said, iKinda place hoy-paloy like us can afford to stay, right?i iYeah,i Douglas giggled, iif yiall gotta suitcase fulla money!i I had slept remarkably well on the train, and Shadow said he did also, and my head was clear with thoughts of . . . why? Why were we really here, and what was going to happen in this cold 351 and strange place nestled between two mountain ranges and decimated by two separate rivers? Why? Questions like that have followed me all my days. The caravan of station wagons entered the Biltmore Estate just south of the main downtown area through the Lodge Gate in what I later learned was Biltmore Village. Vanderbilt had erected the village near the railroad spur as a means of providing homes and places of business for the hundreds of workers needed to build and maintain the vast estate. At one time the village had boasted a hospital, a post office, and a school; a huge Episcopal church known as All Saints was still an attraction for the devout. (Grandma and Anna Theresa, hearing of it, hoped to visit the remarkable edifice. Unfortunately. the opportunity was not to materialize.) Beyond Lodge Gate was a three or four mile twisting road coursing through ravines, through a deep natural forest of mysterious pools, sparkling ponds, and rushing, laughing streams, ending suddenly when we swung around the final curve o and there it was, as though erupting on cue from a mystical sea of enormous, immaculate landscaping, a thousand yards beyond iron gates and pillars supporting 19th century French stone sphinxes: Biltmore House . . . almost indescribable 16th Century French Chateaux architecture of overwhelming volume and beauty that literally made breathing difficult. We were met in the immense driveway at the houseis main entrance by an aged and bouncing little man I assumed at first was President Rooseveltis press secretary Steve Early. iHello! Hello!i he cried, bouncing with delight to see us. iYou must be the Cranstons and the Edens! Welcome! Welcome to Biltmore! We are so happy to have you all here! Welcome!i His name, he told us, was Chauncey Delos Beadle, and he was the Superintendent of the Estate. He had come from Canada in 1890 to work at Biltmore, and he was later named Superintendent (a post he was to hold for sixty years!). With the help of the Army sergeants and a platoon of servants who had come out from the house, Mr. Beadle 352 supervised getting all the luggage from the tops of the station wagons and safely inside the huge marble Entrance Hall. iNow!i he said, clapping his hands, still spinning and jumping. iLetis see! Letis see!i Small though he was, and elderly, his remaining hair a fringe of pure white, his eyesight somewhat infirm but well-aided by thick lenses in a wire frame, Mr. Beadle possessed a ruddy and spotless complexion and surprising energy. His voice, squeezed to a higher pitch by passing years, was still clear, commanding, and firmly tuned to let all around him suffer no uncertainty who was in charge. iIf each of you would please point out his own luggage,i he cheerfully ordered, iI will have you escorted immediately to your rooms. Letis start with this one,i and he pointed to a wet and dilapidated cardboard valise. iDass meen,i smiled Grandpa. Mr. Beadle looked at his peer and said, iAh yes, the Grand Papa!i He referred to a sheath of papers he suddenly produced from under his greatcoat. iYou, sir, are sharing the Brown Room in the Bacheloris Wing with young Master Douglas.i iThat thereis my suitcase there,i Douglas shouted, admiring the echo his voice produced against the walls of granite and stone, pointing to a cloth container whose biological parents might have been a derelict dufflebag and knapsack. iGood!i cried Mr. Beadle. iMr. Jacky here will take your luggage, and if youill follow him, heill escort you to the Brown Room . . . Ah, hold on, before you all depart, a bit of housekeeping.i He stood in the middle of our baggage, in front of the servants, and addressed us en masse. iThis is a very big house, as you can already see. We have so many bedrooms upstairs and downstairs that we . . . really . . . have no idea exactly how many there really are! Ha! Ha! . . . But we are keeping you all pretty much together in one wing, on one floorO iNow then. You will notice in your bedrooms there are no telephones and no radios. There is heat, however; forced air and radiators. If you are too hot, ring for a servant, and he will turn down your heat. If you are too cold, again ring for a servant, and 353 he will turn up your heat. To ring, just pull the rope or wide, tapistried bell-pull either by your bed or by the door to your bathroom; each bedroom, of course, has its own bathroom, and everything in it is fully functional. We have hot and cold running water, of course, but you will note there are no sinks in the bathrooms. There is a servant assigned to each bedroom, and heOor sheOwill be there in no time at all; probably in less than a minute to fill and dispose of your basins. In your room, there should be everything that you will need. Everything is provided; even toothbrushes and sterile combs; the medicine cabinets have mouthwash, aspirin, Epsom salts, bicarbonate of soda: everything. If anything has been overlooked, just ask; it will be provided. And if you want anything to eat or drink in your room, again, just ask your servant, any time, night or day! Feel free to explore your rooms; you will find them fascinating. Feel free to explore the house. You are guests at Biltmore, and everything here is yours to enjoy.i He extended his arms and gestured off to his left. iThere are, of course, a few restrictions due . . . due, ah, to the requirements of other people who are in the house, or soon will be. All of your party will be billeted in the Bacheloris Wing. President and Mrs. Roosevelt, who are your hosts, and their party, are situated on the second floor where there are seven guest suites and two master bedrooms. That area, plus the Living Hall, have been designated as off-limits to all visitors o unless you should be specifically summoned by the President or the First Lady; and itis quite possible you will be, from time to time. Also . . . there are certain other restricted areas of the mansion which have been secured because of, of . . . ah, certain necessary securities. But fear not: should you wander anywhere you should not, the place is full of Secret Service and military sorts who will gently steer you toward more agreeable venues. . . So. Letis get back to the luggage . . . i Douglas piped up, and we all looked at him. iWhat time we eat lunch?i iAh, good question, Master Douglas!i Mr. Beadle responded. iLunch will be served at noon sharp, and you will 354 dine, in fact, for all meals, in the Breakfast Room, only for your stay we shall rename it the Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Room. Ha! Ha! Breakfast from seven until nine-thirty. Lunch promptly at noon. And dinner as close to six-thirty as possible. . . Shall we separate the luggage and get situated?i What marvelous fun this was, all this attention, being taken care of so meticulously by servants and aids! As if we really were somebody! I offered to carry my own suitcase, and the gentleman assigned to Shadow and me, a very tall and muscular man, older, I guessed, than my father, glanced from the corner of his eye, the tiniest trace of a smile tilting his mouth on the side of his face closest to us, and said, as only a gentlemanis gentleman can say, iCanit let you do that, sir. Carry the joy of being at Biltmore in your heart; let me carry the rest.i Wow. Shadow looked at him closely, admiring, I assumed, his close-cropped salt and pepper haircut. I thought my friend seemed unnecessarily gruff when he asked the servantis name. iIim called Lankford, sir. You, I believe, are Mr. Cranston, and, i looking at me, i you are Mr. Eden?i iThatis right,i I said. iThis place weire going through o what roomis this?i iThe Winter Garden, sir; but itis not actually a room. More of an atrium, you see, with the flowers and palm ferns and all. Everything else, the bamboo furniture, the fountain, the Parthenon frieze over there, just exactly as everything was when the Vanderbiltis lived here, believe it or not!i A bit further on was the Gallery, and this area stopped us dead in our tracks. Lankford, four steps ahead of us, kept going until he realized we werenit behind him. iJay-sus!i Shadow muttered. This was my first face-to-face encounter with the opulence of unbridled wealth (there were going to be many others before our visit was over.) iWhat is this?i I whispered. iItis called the Gallery,i Lankford explained. iNote the three tapestries flanking both fireplaces. Theyire named The 355 Triumph of The Seven Virtues. I always admire the decorations on the fireplaces themselves, and the stenciling on the ceiling. . . Shall we move on?i Shadow said, iOur whole freaggin school ainit this big!i Lankford nodded, knowingly. iWell, then,i he said, iif size delights you, let me have you look in on one more part of the house before we enter the Bachelor Wing.i Beyond the Gallery and past two other smaller rooms, we suddenly came to a gargantuan set of double oak doors. Lankford set down our suitcases and turned the large brass knobs, allowing the doors to swing silently open. Beyond was the Banquet Hall, and Shadow and I stood in the doorway blinking in disbelief, our mouths hanging agape, like an amateur artistis rendition of Tragedy above a proscenium stage. There were no words to be said. Ceiling arches over seventy feet high; walls and fireplaces, trophies of armor, flags of the thirteen American colonies, of the Revolutionary War, great circular chandeliers, tapestries, the carved backs of thrones, the Vanderbilt crest over the fireplaces and flags of major powers from the time of Columbus, a cathedral organ loft with gleaming pipes (but, curiously, no organ) . . . iThis is . . . thisis . . . i Shadow had no words with which to finish whatever he was thinking. iThis is,i I said, iwhere Maury should play Granby on Thanksgiving Day. The entire student body could watch the game while eatini dinner here!i iYes,i Lankford chuckled, iI would imagine they could, if Iim correct in assuming youire referring to your high school football game. Even the lighting here would be a goalieis delight! . . . Would you like to experience something quite exciting?i Again, Shadow shot curious looks in Lankfordis direction. What could be more exciting than just being in this extraordinary place? iYeah, sure!i I enthused. iWhat is it?i iItis the acoustical perfection of this great hall,i Lankford explained. iLet me show you. . . Here, you, Mr. Cranston, come 356 with me to the east end of the banquet table. And you, Mr. Eden, you go to the west far end, down by the fireplaces and stand just behind the master armchair. When we get there, at our separate ends, I will whisper something in Mr. Cranstonis ear; ask him a question, if you will. See if you can hear his answer, which he will whisper in my ear.i I moved quickly to my position, avoiding walking on the behemothic bearskin rugs near the door. Shadow followed Lankford to the tableis end some sixty feet away, and the man- servant bent down and whispered, iWhen your friend travels to exotic places, is his fly usually open?i Shadow collapsed across the back of a throne chair, convulsed with laughter, and I, having heard each word as if Lankford were whispering in my own ear, glanced down as volcanic lava seeped up from my neck to my scalp. Christ, had I been walking around since breakfast on the train with my dick practically hanging out? Shadow whispered to Lankford, iWhen itis nice out, Marty likes to just leave it out!i Every word rotated on unimpaired sound waves and seemed as loud as though we were within a foot of each other. iVery funny,i I grumped, and zipped up to full enclosure. But, I had to admit, it was a most remarkable phenomenon. Leaving the hall I said, diverting attention from my embarrassment, iDining in hereis got to be a great, uh, experience.i iOh,i said Lankford, ibe assured it is! Unfortunately, however, I doubt this room will be used this week. They can seat sixty-four with ease, and I think thereill be only nineteen or twenty in President Rooseveltis party, i his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as he confided, iand they say heill be moving on to Warm Springs for Thanksgiving Day.i I looked at Shadow, and I donit think either of us really comprehended the magnitude of the fact that we were going to reside overnight in the same house as the President of the United States. Moving on amidst the grandeur and romance of Biltmore toward an uncertain destiny with all the accouterments of 357 incalculable wealth, while nibbling around the edges of historical happenstance, began to take on an eerie, dream-like quality; and I was afraid I would suddenly come awake. Somehow, the realization that Anna Theresa and Shadow and my entire family were with me, somewhere in the house at that very moment and perhaps sharing the same fantasy, gave me inexplicable and tingling sensations of joy, well-being and excitement! * * * Our room, a suite of rooms, actually, the Old Rose Bedroom in the Bacheloris Wing, seemed larger than our entire flat on Doumar Street. There was a richly furnished sitting room with fireplace, or parlor, as Lankford called it; a dressing room, a bedroom (also with glowing fireplace) with two gigantic double beds, and a bathroom with a shower stall and a six foot by three foot tub. iWhoeeee! Can yiall imagine,i Shadow cried, iwhat Julie Hayden could do in a tub like this!i Lankford, of course, had no idea who Julie Hayden was, or in what context Shadow was referring to her, but because I laughed, he, being still what I considered the perfect gentlemanis gentleman, chuckled also; kindly, but barely noticeably. iIt might interest you to know,i he said, ithat this was Mr. Vanderbiltis bedroom suite before he married Mrs. Vanderbilt, when he was, I believe, only about twenty-five, Iid wager just a bit older than you men, at the time the mansion was under construction. They built this wing first so heid have someplace on the property to live. The swimming pool, gymnasium, and bowling alleys are on the lower level, more or less below us, and Mr. Vanderbilt was a fanatic about physical fitness. Youill have to wander down there later. Weire particularly proud of the bowling alleys; the first few feet of which are hard maple o where the balls hit, and the rest is natural Georgia pine o where they roll. The Brunswick people installed them in 1885, 358 the same type construction applied before and after the war, and theyire the oldest lanes in existence. Unfortunately, the swimming pool, dressing rooms, and gymnasium are off-limits when President Roosevelt is in residence. They are set aside for his private use, but if he isnit actually down there, Iim sure you could peek in.i He placed our small suitcases on the rack near the armoire and began unsnapping the latches. iThatis okay, Mr. Lankford,i I interrupted. iWe can unpack ourselves. We only got enough for overnight, anyway.i iAs you wish,i he said, stepping away. iIill leave you, then.i He stopped in the doorway to the hall. iIf you require anything at all, Iill be nearby in this wing. Just alert me with a gentle tug on the poignee de sonnette.i Shadow, nonplused, looked askance. iThe, who?i iThe bell pull,i Lankford smiled, indicating the tasseled, ornate rope hanging by the doorjamb. Just like in a Charles Laughton movie! I thought, and Shadow moved toward it, anxious to give it a try. iLunch will be served promptly at noon,i Lankford reminded us. iItis really the only meal for which Cook relies on punctuality. In the Breakfast Room, you know; if you canit locate it, a number of house staff will be milling about. Just ask anyone.i When heid gone, I turned to Shadow. iYiall gonna unpack?i iNah. All I gotis a clean pair of shorts ani a pair of socks. A shirt ani a tie. Mommais got my sport coat in her long bag.i I nodded. iMe, too; thatis all I brought, too. Yiall bring a razor ani toothbrush?i iYeah.i Shadow was walking around the sitting room, examining the walls and the paintings. iYiall know somethini?i iWhat?i iThereis somethini, funny, about that asshoi Lankford.i iLike what?i iI dunno. Just, funny. Fishy. . . Yiall know somethini else? I bet they got secret passages all around these oli rooms.i 359 I had considered it. iLike in Basil Rathbone ani Boris Karloff movies.i iYeah.i Shadow was running his hands over the walls, along the edges of small tapestries. iMakes sense, donit it? Oli man Vanderbilt, who wasnit so old anyhow, heis up here runnini around from one room to a nother, havini a high oli time with his paintinis ani statues ani books ani all, countini his money ani tellini the carpenters ani brick-layers to get off their asses and do this and that . . . ani all of a sudden he gets the urge to go bowlini or swimmini or somethini. Psssshit, he ainit gonna go all the way back down the hall half a mile to that freaggin staircase. No, siree! Heis gonna push a button someplace, ani the wallis gonna slide back, ani then thereis this oli passageway down a fire-pole, or down some moldy oli stone stairs or somethini with torches stuck in the walls, right smack dab in the recreation area. Whatis it your granima always says?i iMark my words?i I offered. iThatis it. Mark my words.i I went out the door and left Shadow to ponder and rummage about the room; I looked up and down the immense hallway. The door to the room next to ours was open, and I glanced in. Anna Theresa Tortoretti was reclining on a chaise lounge before the fireplace in her sitting room, a vision of such relaxed and comfortable loveliness I had to clear my throat before speaking. On the wall above her was the most beautiful painting I had ever seen; the girl was what I imagined Anna Theresa must have looked like as a teenager, and the fellow with the wings could have been my double. (I later learned it was Psyche and Cupid by Baron Francois Gerard.) iMadam Vanderbilt, I do believe,i I gurgled softly, entering the room. Anna Theresa did not look up; she was staring at the jumping fingers of flame squeezing out whatever life was left in the fresh logs. The glow cast a kaleidoscopic aura of changing colors and shadows across her pale, rapturous demeanor. I remembered the scene in Camille when Robert Taylor came to 360 Greta Garbo as she lay dying on a daybed; there was a new ache inside my soul. iIs that you, G. W.?i she mimicked. iOr is it just that lout Martin Eden, home at last from the Sandwich Islands?i She turned and looked at me, her expression child-like on a Christmas morning. iIsnit this all too much; too o unbelievable!i iI wish, uh, it were our place,i I said, juvenile as it sounded. iJust imagine if we could live here, work here, ani I could write here.i Anna Theresa laughed that sweet, throaty chortle that stirred my desire. iIf,i she repeated. iBiggest word in the mother tongue. If we lived here, Iid never work another day; youid never write another word. Our every hour would be spent just o living here. Managing it, furnishing it, fussing, fixing, overseeing the acres of it, two hundred twenty-five rooms of it, running the village . . . How do we care for a hundred servants and their families, the farmers who work our land, the animals, the trades people, i iThe bill collectors,i I added, hastily. iYes. Donit forget the bill collectors! So far,i she reminded me, iyouive managed to earn three hundred dollars for one short story. The air inside this room costs more than three hundred dollars!i I laughed with her at our nonsense and asked, iAny idea what my folks ani the others are doing?i She told me my mother had been there a moment ago. iShe and your grandmother and Mrs. Cranston are off exploring the rooms on the first floor; I told them I would catch up with them. Your father, grandfather, Shadowis dad, and your Aunt Freddie are in your parentsi room having mid-morning pick-me-ups in the form of Bloody Maryis.i iJust what they need. Ani Douglas?i I wondered. iLord knows. He went off with the steward assigned to his room; said they were going to the Billiard Room. . . You know what Iid like to do?i she asked. 361 I knew what Iid like to do, I thought, glancing quickly in the direction of the bedroom. iNo,i I said. iWhat?i iThe Library.i She slipped off the chaise and crossed the room. iMy maid said itis the piece de resistance of the entire place. Over ten thousand books, and there are more than twice that many throughout the house! Just scattered all around hundreds of rooms. She says Vanderbilt was able to read in eight languages, can you imagine!i I nodded appreciatively. iMust of been a heck of a fella.i iShe says the Library is paneled in walnut, and itis two stories high,i Anna Theresa went on. iThereire wrought-iron circular staircases that take you to the upper tier of bookshelves, and the ceiling is a painting, The Chariot of Aurora o Giovanni Pelligrini, 18th century; and whatis interesting is, in my last letter from Claudio, he mentioned most of Pelligriniis paintings in Rome and Venice have been destroyed. I think this ceiling came from the Pisani Palace in Venice. Can you believe it?i iWow,i I said remotely, between clenched teeth. The mere mention of Claudio Tortoretti in any context did nothing for my psyche. I was learning, slowly at first, but learning, that the women one really cares for have an almost instinctive knack for saying, in the wrong tone and context, the wrong thing at the wrong time. It was incredulous that a mild mannered person like myself could be transformed, in an instant, from the sweetest, most loving, charming and gentle man alive into a demoniac ax- murderer capable of the most heinous spoliation, by the utterance of a simple word or name. Claudio! . . . Screw you! I took a step toward Anna Theresa and placed my hands on both her shoulders with the figurative intent of grabbing and shaking her until the name Claudio tumbled out of her head and rolled into the inferno beyond the hearth, to become brittle ash and never recovered, but Shadow slipped into the room and stood between us, his expression as mischievous as I had ever seen it. iCome see what I found,i he whispered. iThis oli barnis the greatest!i 362 * * * Curious, Anna Theresa followed us back to our suite, and Shadow immediately led us into the bedroom. There, between the massive double beds, he indicated where he had pulled the marble-topped commode away from a four foot panel of mahogany wallboard on which was displayed, higher up, a heavily framed portrait of Mrs. Vanderbilt standing beside her favorite mount, a chestnut mare of distorted proportions. In her right hand, she gently held the horseis reins; in her left, a thick leather riding crop. The painting was signed: G. Boldini. iSo?i I shrugged. Shadow looked at Anna Theresa. iSee somethini, uh, different about this here picture?i . . . differn bough iss heah pitcha? Anna Theresa joined me in a collective shrug. Shadow, playing Sherlock Holmes to the hilt, said, sharply mysteriously, in his best imitation of Basil Rathboneis clipped British accent, iNeither did I, at first.i He moved around the far side of the bed. iCome here. Look on it from this angle.i We followed him and peered over his shoulder at the painting. iIill be damned!i Anna Theresa exclaimed, to my surprise. iLook at that, will you!i I was frustrated. iLook at what?i iThe whip in the ladyis hand,i Shadow said. iLook at that oli thing!i iAn optical illusion,i confirmed Anna Theresa. iAn honest- to-God optical illusion!i Still confused, I studied the painting, squinting, twisting my head from side to side until, finally, the anger Iid infused in my brain moments ago (infusion breeding confusion) subsided, and I was able to see what all the fuss was about. The riding crop, viewed from just about any frontal position from five degrees and more, was normal enough to be totally ignored. But, when viewing the painting from a side angle o 363 either side, and analogous to the canvas, the riding crop was not actually a part of the painting; the tip stood out about one quarter of an inch, three-dimensional, and was not a riding crop at all, it was a brown metal lever! iWhat in the world . . . i Anna Theresa was dumbfounded. iPre-cisely,i said Shadow, a word Iid never heard him previously use. I asked, iPrecisely what is it?i iElementary, old boy. Watch this, white trash,i he giggled, iani learn somethini.i Carefully, leaning across the edge of the commode, Shadow took the lever/riding crop between his thumb and forefinger, pushing it gently down toward Mrs. Vanderbiltis billowing skirts; and from behind the wall came the sound of quiet whirring. An electric motor had been activated. Slowly o imperceptibly at first, the panel between the two beds moved back two inches, then, even more slowly, disappeared into itself, a sort of pocket door, revealing an opening slightly larger than the width and height of a manis body. We stood staring into the strangely dim but mysteriously illuminated void. Shadow nudged me. Anna Theresa, perhaps unconsciously, slipped her hand into mine. iWho wants to go first?i Shadow asked. iYou do,i I whispered. iRight,i he said, and right sounded more than ever like riot. iWe need a flashlight,i murmured Anna Theresa, the essence of common sense. iThereis light in there, but not much.i Shadow and I spoke simultaneously: iDouglas!i Outside, the sun had been covered over, and it had begun to snow. * * * The room Douglas was sharing with Grandpa, the Brown Room, was further down the hall, and, of course, it had not occurred to either of them to lock the door. It was a smaller 364 guest suite with twin beds; the fireplace was aglow only in the parlor. We found Douglasi quasi-knapsack right were we knew it would be: under the bed furthest from the bathroom. iLook at the crap he brought with him,i Shadow groused, dumping the contents on the bed. Out tumbled a pair of tan Boy Scout socks, a clean pair of BVDis with four visible holes, one sneaker without laces, a toothbrush and a crumpled tube of Pepsodent toothpaste, a comb with most teeth missing, three rubber bands, three sticks of Black Jack chewing gum, one pajama bottom, one woolen mitten, a scruffy and filthy baseball, a decomposing banana, five pencils (one of which had a sharpened point), a jack knife from a long forgotten pair of high- tops, a set of keys with no known purpose, eleven comic books o and, at the very bottom, one of Dadis Civil Defense air raid wardenis flashlights, loaded with Government Issue D batteries and ready to go. iI knew it,i I said. iHeid never make a trip like this without least one flashlight.i iDonit chide him, hear?i Anna Theresa admonished, as she began placing the articles back into the curious cloth container. iHeis a life saver, that one!i iYeah. Surprised,i Shadow admitted, ithere ainit none in the bag.i iNone what?i iLife Savers. Heis got gum ani a banana oi I tested the flashlight as Shadow returned the knapsack to its rightful place under the bed. The beam, against the near wall, was constricted due to the friction tape over the lens blocking out all but a narrow slit, thanks to blackout requirements. Try as I might, I was unable to dig my thumbnail under the tapeis edge preparatory to peeling the lens clean. iDamn!i I said. iCanit get the damn tape off.i iHere; let me try.i Anna Theresa, with exquisitely manicured nails, was also unable. Shadow retrieved the knapsack and rummaged around until he found the jack knife. Within a minute heid stripped the black tape away, and for the first time in its not-so-illustrious life, the 365 flashlight shot forth a full beam of revealing power. Shadow scooped up the debris of black tape and stuffed it into Douglasi bag; he unceremoniously dropped the bag to the floor and kicked it under the bed. iLetis go,i he said, ibefore the dumb-ass kid gets back ani wants to come with us.i Going out the door we nearly collided with a staff butler. iAnything I can do for you, sirs . . . maiam?i iWould you know the time?i asked Anna Theresa. He consulted his pocket watch. iFive past eleven, maiam.i iAh, nearly time for lunch then,i she nodded. iWe have to make ready, boys!i iIndeed,i said the butler. iCookis not happy in the service should anyone come in past twelve noon sharp!i We waited by the door until he moved on down the hall; Shadow was the first one into our suite, and we hurried to the bedroom. iHow,i I asked, ido we close the panel from inside?i iI dunno,i Shadow answered. iBetter question,i Anna Theresa considered, iis how do you re-open the panel from the inside when we get back from . . . wherever weire going?i I sat down on the edge of my bed. Shadow gave it ten seconds thought. He said, iWhy donit we just leave it open, sois when we get back, we just walk out in our own bedroom?i iWhat if somebody comes in ani sees the panel wide open?i Shadow looked at me as if Iid never listened to Ellery Queen on the radio. iWhy donit we just lock our door then? Anybody come by ani knock or try the knob, they gotta think weire takini a nap or somethini.i Anna Theresa laughed. I said, iRight.i And I went back through the parlor and locked the hallway door. Flashlight in hand and turned on, Shadow was the first to slip through the panel. From inside, he beckoned Anna Theresa to follow. When sheid disappeared into the blackness, I entered last. The three of us, illuminated only by the flashlight, a slice of daytime seeping in through the panel behind us, and a few well-spaced low wattage light bulbs, stood in a cluster, not sure 366 which way to turn. Shadow slowly played the flashlightis beam along the wall beside me. Immediately, it came upon a toggle switch imbedded in a round, porcelain connector box. I reached over and flicked the switch. An unusual thing happened. The electric motor whirred again, and the panel quickly and quietly closed behind us. iFlip the switch again,i Shadow ordered, and I did as I was told. Instantly, the panel re-opened, revealing the bedroom from which weid just come. iSo much for that oli riddle,i he said. iDo the switch again.i I did, and the panel closed. iThereis somethini really goofy about all this,i I said. iThese lights were on when we came in, ani they seem to stay on all the time. I thought they would go on ani off with the opening ani closing of the panel. They donit. They just, stay on!iiGood old George Washington Vanderbilt!i Anna Theresa softly exclaimed. Although the flashlight was not really essential, Shadow kept it on, pointed at the floor. We agreed the main part of the house had to be to our left, and it was in that direction we began to move. We stopped abruptly, colliding with each other as in a Three Stooges short-subject. The passageway was a winding affair, and it was roughly four feet wide and seven feet high; the path seemed to go off in several directions, there were no stairs, as far as we could see, but the tilt and slope of the floor indicated the passageway encompassed at least three floors and as many wings, if, in fact, our estimates were accurate (which they were not, entirely). The floor was of planked wood; the walls were simple plasterboard, dry and unfinished; there was an electric light fixture every thirty feet or so with a low-wattage bulb inside a small glass and wire fixture. Also, here and there, was a porcelain switch box identical to the one outside our bedroomis secret panel, and it didnit take either Sherlock Holmes or Ellery Queen to conclude one could enter or leave the passageway from any and all rooms in the house so equipped (we never had time to learn there were only nine such rooms.) The problem for us, of course, was that 367 neither the switches nor the panels were marked, and we would have no way of knowing one room from another. And that brought up the interesting dilemma that had stopped us in our tracks. iHow are we going to know which is our bedroom when we come back?i I wanted answered. iEasy,i said Shadow. iI took this pencil outta Douglasis bag. Go back ani mark that first toggle switch with a X or somethini, hear?.i I took the pencil from Shadow and made one giant step backwards. iShine the light righichere,i I said. I suddenly remembered seeing a MovieTone newsreel about some G.I.is who always wrote iKilroy Was Here!i whenever they left a particular place theyid never been before. I could do no better in the space provided on the porcelain base than scribble KWH. Close enough, I thought. I chuckled out loud. iWhatis funny?i Anna Theresa whispered. iI wrote KWH on the switch box,i I said, still chuckling. iWhat if, say, in 1999, maybe fifty-six years from now o some curious fella comes down through here ani sees KWH on the light switch here. He wonit have a clue what it means or how it got here.i After walking through the passageway for what seemed an incredible distance, we came to the first intersection where a new passageway suddenly branched off at a perfect right angle. iOh, boy,i Shadow whispered. iNow which way?i iI say we stay right here,i I said, iin the main passageway. If it goes down, we go down; up, we go up. Bet that one goes to a different wing, a different level; probably down to the pool or the gym . . . or someplace.i Shadow shined the beam down the new tunnel. iYiall may be right. Looks like thereis stairs or somethini down there. Or a slide. I dunno.i Anna Theresa insisted we stay with the main passageway or weid get lost for sure. We walked for what seemed like fifteen, twenty minutes, and nothing was different or unusual about the place. Once, we 368 came to a new toggle switch, and we knew that meant we were at a secret panel in a new room, but we had no idea what room it was, or where it was in relation to any other in the vast house. And then something very unusual occurred. We had come upon a lengthy and darkened area between two sets of wall lamps, a distance of maybe seventy-five or a hundred feet, and Shadow, who had turned off the flashlight, brought it up and was about to re-light it when Anna Theresa reached out and touched his arm. iLeave it off,i she whispered. iHuh? Why?i iWhat is it?i I asked. iShhh! . . . Look.i iWhere?i iOn the wall; to the right. On the right-hand wall.i At first, neither Shadow nor I saw what she was indicating o but then, abruptly, we did. There were four sets of amber dots of light glowing against the plasterboard wall, dots about the size of quarters, in sets of two and evenly placed, though somewhat staggered, an illumination having, at that moment, no obvious source. iWhat the hellis that?i Shadow whispered. Cautiously, we moved closer, the flashlight still extinguished, and we all breathed easier when we saw the dots were created not by lights on the plasterboard, but by light emanating from identical holes in the wall on the left-hand side and shining across the passageway to the opposite wall. iJ. H. Chrisimus!i Shadow exclaimed. iPeep holes! Put your face right up there ani yiall can look right in the room at all whatis goini on, ani nobody knows yiall are out here!i Because the peep holes were uneven in height, someone had built what we at first thought was a narrow ramp on the floor so a shorter person could stand up and look through them without bending over or stretching and straining. Carefully, we each took one set that seemed about the right height, Anna Theresa standing on the box-like ramp and bending slightly forward o and we peered through twenty-five cent piece-size holes 369 perfectly aligned with our own eyes into the room beyond the plasterboard wall. None of us spoke for over a minute. I was not sure any of us breathed. Anna Theresa broke away and glanced at me. I looked over at her, and our eyes locked in genuine astonishment. iDo you recognize any of those people in there?i she whispered. iI sure recognize President Roosevelt!i iWhat about . . . anybody else? The heavy-set man in the black suit and bow-tie. You know who he is, donit you?i I held my eyes on her for a few seconds more, then I went back to my two peep holes. iI think itis . . .Winston Churchill!i Anna Theresa had returned to her own peep holes. iShadow,i she murmured, iwho are the military people?i iI dunno. One of themis Geniral Eisenhower. I seen him in the newsreels all the time. I dunno none of the others. . . Some uniforms ainit American; theyis Brits, I think. That one guyis a dead ringer for like Nole Coward, the other one, sittini next to him, a deader dead ringer for John Mills.i He turned and looked at us. iYiall know somethini? These holes ainit real peep holes. They got glass in them.i We all looked back in again. Shadow was right. The peep holes were built optically like miniature wide-angle telescopes; they were similar to the peep holes eventually installed in hotel and apartment doors so one could see who was on the other side. What, at the moment, we did not know was, we were looking directly into the Oak Sitting Room, which had been converted into an intimate meeting room for the people who were visiting the President of the United States. The peep holes through which we were viewing all this had been, I learned much later, installed by George Vanderbilt many decades ago; it was his way of keeping track of his guestsi activities for the sole purpose of assuring himself they were having a superb time. He was, by no stretch of the imagination, a voyeur, a busybody, or maliciously suspicious of anyone; he merely wanted to make 370 sure the tone of contentment in his magnificent house could be occasionally observed and documented. He was an inveterate journalist and keeper of numerous diaries; biographers were often astounded at how he knew so much about his guestsi activities while enjoying the amenities of Biltmore, but none of these peep holes were ever installed in any of the bedrooms, bathrooms, or parlor suites. Vanderbiltis moral integrity, unlike his grandfatheris, was above reproach in every aspect of his remarkable life. The wall between us and the unsuspecting group of dignitaries was two feet thick, but the optics were so cleverly ground and astutely placed the viewer had a crystal clear and unobstructed view of almost the entire room. Locations of the holes within the rooms themselves were ingeniously disguised in the portraits and tapestries; in the painted eyes of people and animals, in buckles and buttons, flowers, angels, trees, and illusive designs. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may have been, it was impossible to hear any conversation or sound from either side of the wall. We watched for another few minutes as the group of men talked and gestured and argued decisions we instinctively knew (or at least assumed) would affect us all. President Roosevelt smoked cigarettes incessantly, inserting them one after another into a long black and silver holder. Prime Minister Churchill smoked cigars, and he seemed to chuckle a lot; from time to time, he gestured with his cigar in a pointed, emphatic manner, and he frequently sipped from a brandy snifter on the casual table at his side. General Eisenhower sat ramrod still, and when he spoke, his cheeks and spacious forehead glowed red; he maintained a steady look of concerned disgust on his bald face. The other men talked now and then, but mostly they seemed to listen. Even the other generals and military men, as well as the civilians, seemed to defer to Roosevelt, Churchill, and Eisenhower. I noticed, though I didnit think much of it at the time, there were no Russians present. After a few moments we stepped away from the peep holes, and I offered my hand to help Anna Theresa move down off the 371 ramp, and it was then that she almost fell. The top of the ramp, hanging over the edge, tipped and slid away under her weight and clattered to the floor, exposing the interior of what was, in reality, a large box. I grabbed her and helped her regain her balance, and Shadow shined the flashlight at the ramp o which we saw now was not a ramp at all. It was a large black box, a coffin-like affair actually, and what it contained brought a chill charging up and down our spines. iMeeercccceee, shit!i Shadow exclaimed. iWhat the hellis all that stuff?i We knelt down and peered inside, and what we saw was an arsenal of automatic rifles, hand guns, two machine guns, boxes of ammunition, smaller crates containing hand grenades, and five boxes marked Dynamite, Caution, Explosives. Next to those were two more boxes containing silver-colored mushroom- shaped objects Shadow immediately recognized as detonator caps. iI seen stuff just like this on the aircraft carrier! Yiall remember when we was stackini those ammo boxes for that asshoi Marine sergeant?i iWhat the hellis all this for?i I muttered, breathing heavily. Anna Theresa shook her head. iI donit know.i iWell,i confirmed Shadow, ithereis enough junk here to blow up this whole freaggin house to kingdom come!i iWhose is it?i iAinit mine!i he said. I suggested, iLetis get out of here, right now!i My mind was racing, and I wondered how high level a confab this really was. Roosevelt, Churchill, EisenhowerO 1 1 The secret meetings at Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, the week of November 21 through 28, 1943, according to Siskeyis World War II, Vol. 7: 1942-43 (Brace-Hayslett, 3rd Edition, 1953), was attended by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, White House Administrator Harry Hopkins and press secretary Stephen Early; American generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, and Joseph Stilwell; Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Secretary of State Cordell Hull; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Parliamentarian Sir Anthony Eden, British admirals Lord Louis Mountbatten and Sir Anthony Cunningham; British generals Sir Alan Brooke, H.R.L. Alexander, and Sir Bernard Law 372 Montgomery; Air Chief Marshall Tedder, Field Marshall Sir John Dill, Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King, and the Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, the son of Lord William Cecil, Marques of Exeter and son-in-law of the estateis late proprietor, George Washington Vanderbilt, III. The agendum, discussed at length but sans known stenographic records, was preliminary to plans for the invasion of Europe by the Allies in the spring or summer of 1944. The final paragraph reads, iAlthough not all principals were in attendance at the same time, the meetings being informally constructed and preparatory to publicized conferences in Cairo and Teheran (resulting from the Algiers and Quebec meetings), President Roosevelt made time to privately entertain two civilian families from Virginia, the eldest sons of which received accolades from President and Mrs. Roosevelt for eexemplary conduct in matters of national interest and security.i This was orchestrated by the White House to divert media attention and possible suspicions that something of great import was occurring at Biltmore.i Inexplicably, the names of the icivilian familiesi are not mentioned, nor does any known record of these high-level Allied meetings, aside from Vincent Siskeyis brief account, exist in the National Archives, as far as can be determined by the Archives and Records Administration, an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government. There is, furthermore, no reference to these Biltmore meetings in any declassified material in the Military or Presidential Records Repository at the Pentagon, with the exception of an entry in a diary kept by one Maj. Rollin G. Witkov, USMC, a military attachE at the White House during that period. It reads, iFDR and Missus at Warm Spring [sic] by way Biltmore in N.C. w/Hopkins, Erly [sic], and others for Thnksgng. Lots of brass in all week and Brits. Sorry to say am assigned to stay at WH. Some civs invited to Biltmore. Scuttlbut [sic] is something b-i-g is up.i The date of entry was November 22, 1943, two days before Thanksgiving. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shadow handed the flashlight to Anna Theresa and snapped his fingers. iLetis see if we can lift this thing,i he said, bent over his end and pointing to the edge of the box nearest to me. iWhat do you wanna do with it?i I asked. iI dunno. But I think we oughta get this crap out of here.i iWhere we gonna put it, under Douglasis bed with his knapsack?i iRight.i A new but familiar voice came out of nowhere. iGentlemen o and lady, I think youid best leave it precisely where it is.i I stood up and turned in one direction, Anna Theresa looked 373 in the other, and Shadow spun the flashlightis beam in a wide circle. The shaft of light came to a halt on the bright, white jacket of Mr. Lankford. It took us all of a second or two of visual adjustment to realize that he was holding an automatic pistol, a P08 9mm Luger, in his right hand and pointing it first at Shadow, then me, then at Anna Theresa. iLankford!i I exhaled, in relief. iThank God! Yiall scared the hell out of us!i iPlease,i he smirked, iaccept my sincerest apologies.i iJaysus!i Shadow intoned, jamming the flashlight up into his armpit, freeing both hands, and again bending over the cache of ordnance. iAm I glad to see yiall! We gonna need help carryini this stuff back to our room. Thereis enough dynamite ani crap here to blow the state of North Carolina off of the whole freaggin map!i I added, iYiall wonit believe what we found here!i Lankford took a step forward, the gun still pointed at us, and said, iWhat, actually, do you think youive found?i iThis,i Shadow said, leaning forward to tilt the flashlightis beam into the box, revealing the guns, the ammunition, the dynamite and detonator caps. Shadow knelt down and extracted a hand grenade from an open carton of twelve. iLooky here,i he smiled, indicating the explosive. iThis hereis a real honest-to- almighty-genuine hand grenade.i He stood up and reached out, offering it to Lankford. iAni, uh, if yiallid be so kind as to put that oli German gun away ani not keep pointini it at us, Iim gonna let you take it ani, uh, put it right in your pocket.i A new and different look came over Lankfordis face. The smile slipped away, and the twinkling eyes narrowed; he took a new stance, feet slightly apart, shoulders hunched and menacing, and he said, iIim afraid I canit do that. Iim afraid youive put me in a rather untenable position.i The pistol was now pointed directly at Shadowis head. iMy suggestion,i Lankford continued, iwould be to carefully, very carefully, place the grenade back where you got it. Then step away from the box. All of you.i I glanced at Anna Theresa, that crawling, familiar sense of 374 fear creeping up my neck toward my scalp, and I instinctively took a small step to place myself in front of her, somewhat between her and Lankford. My hands began trembling at the same time a pitiful growl emanated from my belly. iWhatis goini on here?i I whined, my voice sliding to a higher register. Anna Theresa now reached around my right arm and watched the pale light from the flashlight stuck under Shadowis arm play on the gun in Lankfordis hand. iWhatis going on here, dear lady,i replied Lankford, mistaking my voice for Anna Theresais, iis that three meddlesome and foolish Americans have let their curiosity get the better of them. People who stupidly wander into forbidden areas and interfere with serious and well-laid plans in which they should have no concern, often find those areas to be the last they ever occupy. . . Now you, young man,i once again addressing Shadow, iput the grenade back in the box.i Shadow stood perfectly still, his eyes locked in the half-light on Lankford. iI donit think so, Mr. Lankford-Nazi-Shithead. I think what I wanna get out of this place is a nice souvenir I can take home to my girl friend. I always wanted to give her a ring. Maybe one like . . . this!i If, as they say, the hand is quicker than the eye, it must also be quicker than the trigger finger. Before anyone, particularly Lankford, could react, Shadow deftly reached up, slipped his finger through the ring, and pulled the pin from the grenade and placed it in his shirt pocket. Holding the grenade in his left hand, the pressure of his fingers depressed the detonator clip o it was all that shielded us from our final 4.5 seconds on earth. Anna Theresa gasped; I felt light-headed and breathed deeply. I said, almost whispering, iWhatire you doini, man; yiall gone nuts?i iDonit be a false hero,i Lankford hissed. iA bullet between the eyes doesnit somehow seem worth it.i iYeah, thatis right. A bullet between the eyes,i Shadow responded, iani I drop this here grenade right between your legs.i 375 Lankford raised the gun an inch or so. iPut the pin back in the clip.i Shadow actually giggled. iYeah. Yiall just make me, asshoi.i iI can shoot dead where you stand.i iGo ahead, ani then kiss your sweet swastika good-bye!i iYou havenit got the nerve,i Lankford said. Shadow shrugged. iShoot me, ani find out.i iYouid kill yourself and your friends that easily?i Shadow hesitated a split second. iPsssshit, I forgot all about them! Glad yiall reminded me.i Without taking his eyes off Lankford, he spoke to Anna Theresa and me. iYou fellas just start backini away down the passageway. Ani keep movini. When yiall get inside again, get a hold of them Secret Service people ani tell eem to get out here fast. My handis startini to cramp. . . Go!i Lankford seemed confused. iHold on! Nobodyis going any where!i iGo on!i Shadow commanded a second time. We started to move and Lankford swung the pistol in our direction, pointing it directly at Anna Theresa. iTake one more step and Iim going to shoot the woman!i iYeah. Ani Iim gonna shove this pineapple right up your ass!i was Shadowis retort. I donit know if it was deliberate or not, but I think it was some sort of tribute to Rodney Herkimer that ipineapple right up your assi sounded just like pie-un-apple rye-ott up you ice. iGet goini, Marty.i Lankford was grasping at straws. iIf you detonate that grenade, youire liable to set off everything in that footlocker. Youill blow out the wall to the Oak Sitting Room and kill everyone inside! Is that what you want?i Shadow chuckled. iNot what we want, but sure make yiall piss-happy. Lie-berry lady, look in there, ani tell us whois numberis up, yihear?i She stepped away from me and put her eyes against the closest peepholes. After a moment she said, iNobodyis in there. Roomis empty.i 376 iNobody?i iNot a soul.i iMust be lunch time. Speakini of which, yiall donit wanna be late; must be right near twelve. Get goini.i I said, iWhat about you?i iStayini righichere with Mr. Lankford Schicklebgrubber while yiall go fetch the U.S. Marines.i Lankford took a threatening step forward, and Shadow raised the grenade higher and held it out closer, suspending it, more or less, directly over the weapons cache. iNobody is leaving this passageway,i Lankford said, but I felt his tone lacked conviction. I took Anna Theresais hand. iCome on,i I said. Lankfordis voice climbed a full octave; he was almost shouting. iI swear to God Iim going to shoot!i Shadow said, iYou do, ani yiall can swear to Him face-to- face just before He opens the trapdoor ani drops you smack-dab in the center of Hell!i This was Henry Fonda at his best. Anna Theresa and I slipped to the side, our backs against the outer passageway wall, and slid past Shadow and Lankford. Once away from them, we broke into a confined trot and made it around the corner and out of sight just as a single shot rang out with a deafening, prolonged echo. iOh, my God!i Anna Theresa cried, and we stood frozen, my hand squeezing hers, waiting for the roaring fire and concussion of a crushing explosion as the grenade rolled out of Shadowis lifeless hand and went off, sending up the entire box and bringing the east wing of Biltmore House crumbling down upon us all. I brought my arm up and around Anna Theresa, pulling her close to me, my hand at the side of her head as if I might protect her face from the inevitable blast. I glanced at that beautiful, delicate face, and somehow I was content it would be the last thing Iid ever see. 4.5 seconds sped by, then half a minute. Nothing. A full sixty seconds; a minute and a half. Not a sound. iPssssshit!i Shadow spat, coming around the corner of the passageway, still holding the grenade and trying to replace the 377 pin, the flashlight still under his arm. iSumbitch ainit got no more ballsin our dumb-ass football team!i 378 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX At precisely noon, the three of us joined our families for lunch in the Breakfast Room, having agreed enroute that, at this point, we would say nothing to anyone of what had transpired in the past hour. iWhat do you mean,i I had to know, once we were back in the Old Rose Bedroom, iyiall knew he wouldnit shoot us? All he had to do when he walked up on us is pull the trigger three times, ani nobody would of known we even found the dynamite ani guns ani all. They could of gone ahead ani wiped out the whole dang Allied leadership in one fell swoop!i Shadow slowly shook his head back and forth. iWerenit no way that Nazi dunghill was gonna shoot us with me holdini the clip down on a live grenade ani him standing less than three feet away. He was down here to kill the President ani Eisenhower ani Churchill. We didnit matter for nothini.i Anna Theresais hands were still trembling. iBut, Shadow,i she reasoned, iif he had shot you, and youid dropped the grenade, weid all be dead, i Shadow sucked his upper lip. iYeah, guess thatis right. Didnit even think about it like that, at first.i iGreat,i I muttered. iHowid yiall know Lankford was a Nazi?i He shrugged and jammed his hands into his dungarees pockets. iI dunno. I think I smelled somethini funny about him right from the beginnini. When we first come in, ani he was carryini our stuff up here ani all, ani we stopped off in first one room, then nother; it was the way he talked to us, told us about those rooms.i iLike what do you mean?i iI dunno. It just seemed like heid memorized all that stuff about the paintinis ani them wall hanginis, ani all the, uh, dimensions ani stuff. Ani when he pulled that whisper gag in the big Banquet Hall . . . Makini that crack about your fly beini open. I dunno. Seems like a real servant in a place like this 379 would never stand around recitini stuff out of a guide book ani makini wise-ass smart-aleky cracks. Besides, the way he talked was just too . . . too . . . i iToo what?i iI dunno. . . Perfect. It was perfect Yankee ani perfect Limey; like a sort of combination. Pshhhit, not even Ronald Coleman can do that! Ani he said dumb stuff like our football team havini goalies. We ainit got no goalies in football. But they do in Europe, difference is we call it soccer! Ani he almost said soccer, then corrected himself and said football oi iHowid you know,i Anna Theresa cut in, iit was a German gun?i Shadow waved both arms with his palms spread apart. iSame oli gun Conrad Veidt ani Paul Lukas always whip out when the good guys got eem cornered! I think they call it a Lew- ger. Neat lookini gun, ainit it? Well, that was the capper. Then when he wouldnit put it away when I showed him the box of goodies . . . i I looked out the window at the vast expanse of surrounding woodlands. iBut, Chrisimus,i I said, ito just stand there ani blow your own head off . . . i iPlease, Martin,i Anna Theresa protested, iIim not up to hearing it again.i Once we were safely back in the bedroom suite, Shadow had gone into graphic detail as to how Lankford, realizing the iMexican standoffi had crippled, had destroyed, his assassination mission beyond repair, had suddenly placed the barrel of the Luger in his mouth right up to the toggle axle, and with his left thumb inside the trigger guard, had fired the single shot weid heard and blown two-thirds of his head clean off his shoulders. iJaysus,i Shadow had said, iI like to crap my pants! Dumb oli sumbitch didnit even try to call my bluff. Iim standini there scared like I ainit never been scared before, psshhhhit, jumpini out of that airplane was nothini compared to holdini a live hand grenade ani starini down the hole of a oli Lew-ger two feet from my nose, lookini at a fella twice my size who wants 380 to kill oli FDR, ani then he up ani splatters his brains all over the wall! Man! Merrrcccciiiii, shit! Then I look down at him, ani thank God there ainit much light, there ainit hardly nothini left of his head on one side but half a ear ani one open eye . . . i I watched Shadow closely while he hurried through this narrative, and there was something about it that . . . bothered me. Something didnit make sense; didnit ring true. Shadow was, had always been, a great liar. But there was something about this story . . . I donit know. Maybe he told it all too quickly; it was too pat. I donit know . . . It was three minutes to twelve when we left the Bacheloris Wing and headed for lunch in the Breakfast Room. * * * iYour grandmother,i Anna Theresa predicted, soto voce, with accurate insight, iwould simply pass on to the next life if she knew Winston Churchill and Mountbatten were in residence o and she did not have a prayer of meeting them, even seeing them.i Shadow said, iMaybe she could read the cards or them tea leaves ani figure out how they could end this fu, i he glanced at Anna Theresa, iuh, foolish war.i My father, Shadowis dad, and Grandpa were already well past three sheets windward, laughing hysterically at whatever anyone said. Grandma and Momma were thoroughly enjoying everything, as was Shadowis mom, and they sat together at lunch, alternately ignoring and glaring at their boorish husbands, and fawning non-stop over all they had seen so far. Aunt Freddie, having had four Bloody Maryis, had gone to her room ito freshen upi and would not be heard from again until dinner. Douglas, showing premature signs of acute boredom, sat and sulked, staring at the delicate Minton and Spode place setting in front of him. I could tell by his demeanor he would have preferred a toasted cheese sandwich or a hamburger and soggy hush puppies or fried curls on a paper plate. 381 Lunch consisted of the most delicious chicken and corn soup I might ever had tasted, slices of cold lean and rare roast beef, cold beets, corn bread, and a fantastic carrot and raisin salad. Anna Theresa, Shadow, and I did a decent job faking our interest in food. Wine was served, and my father, my grandfather, and Shadowis dad, the chuckling threesome, told the wine steward to just leave the bottle, which, of course, he did. Then, after the first bottle, they requested another. iWhatire we gonna do after lunch?i Shadow asked. I shrugged, feigning bravado. iI dunno. . . Go to the movies. Take a nap.i iBe serious,i said Anna Theresa. iLetis see if Mr. Early or o someone, could meet us. Weive got to talk to someone in authority, tell someone about you-know-what. You, Shadow o have to explain everything.i iMe?i Shadow frowned apprehensively. She whispered across the table, iFor Godis sake, use your head! This is not some Saturday matinee at the Colley! Thereis a dead man in the passageway outside the Oak Sitting Room, a box of munitions there because someone is trying to assassinate the President, maybe kill all of us . . . Do you think that Lankford person was acting alone in this? Are we all that stupid?i There was that grinding, burning growl in my bowels at her tone, and I had just glanced up at the portrait of old Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt that graced the wall above the door to my right when that door suddenly swung open and the President of the United States of America was wheeled into the room by a solemn, middle-aged Secret Service man. I dropped the spoon into my soup bowl, and it made a piercing chime, as though I were deliberately announcing a late arrival. My brain, immediately overwhelmed by that larger-than-life presence whose life might be hanging on the nail of our recent discovery and actions, sent an electric charge to my kneecaps, and I jumped to my feet, nearly upsetting my chair. An instant silence 382 fell over the room, and one by one everybody else rose and turned toward the smiling President. iMy friends! My fellow Americans!i the Chief Executive beamed, his voice as full, rich, and robust as it was on radio and in the newsreels. iPlease! Donit let me disturb your luncheon. Sit! Sit down!i His cigarette, the holder tilting it at a jaunty angle, sent smoke swirling around his brilliant blue eyes, set deep in darkening, widening circles. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit and a bold crimson school tie; his withered legs were covered by a wool plaid lap blanket. iPlease! Sit down . . . I just wanted to stop in and say hello and see how everyone was. Itis so darn good to have you all here with me, with us, here at Biltmore!i I glanced at my father. His eyes were rolling around in their sockets, and he was totally overwhelmed to be in the same room with his idol of idols: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. iI hope,i the President continued, ithat everyone is having a marvelous time; that everything so far is to your liking. If thereis anything any of you needOi Anna Theresa, standing partially behind me, nudged me forward with her elbow. I racked my brain to think of some movie scene I could emulate; all that came to mind was Yankee Doodle Dandy. iMr. President,i I said, and then cleared my throat because it came out iMizzer Pressdundargalahrrgagaga.i I started again. iMr. President, sir . . .uh, Iid like you to meet my family and . . . uh, Shadowis family.i iAh!i He stuck out his hand. iYou must be the boy, one of the boys, of the moment! Are you, Martin? I recognize you from the newspaper pictures.i I took his hand in mine, and his grip was that of a champion arm wrestler. iI am, sir oi iWell, my boy, Iive wanted to meet you for a long time! Iim very please to make your acquaintance.i His smile was an infectious disease, and everyone in the room was succumbing to it. Unable to see Shadow, he glanced across the table at Douglas. My brother suddenly came to life and realized why he 383 was on his feet, bouncing from one to the other. iDonit tell me this young fella is Shadow, Lamont Cranston!i iNo, sir,i I laughed nervously, and so did everyone else. iThatis just my little brother Douglas. . . This is Shadow.i I turned to my friend and signaled him forward. iOf course! Of course!i Shadow slipped away from the table, skirted around Anna Theresa, and came to my side. He took the Presidentis hand and shook it profusely. Roosevelt returned the shake with equal, if not stronger, enthusiasm. iGlad to meet you, young man!i he sang out, his voice again booming with pleasure. iIsnit often I get to meet the youngest civilian in American history ever wounded in aerial combat!i Shadow puffed up like a blowfish, and I was afraid he would explode and splatter all over our illustrious leader. iYeah . . . yeah!i He was at a total loss for words. I said, iSir . . . Iid like to present my mother, Dorothy Edeni (Momma stepped forward and curtsied) . . . imy Granima, Lizzy Ouspenskayai (Grandma not only curtsied, she muttered, head bowed, iHow do you do, your majesty!i which brought a short, hearty laugh from the President who said, recognizing her accent, iIim always delighted to meet a daughter of the Empire!i) . . . ithis is Shadowis momma, Marilyn Cranstoni (another curtsy, and I thought he might say something about her choice of a name for her son, but, benchmark of class, he didnit, though Iim certain I would have) . . . iand this is Scott Cranston, Shadowis dadi (not knowing what to do from the far side of the table, Cranston snapped to attention and saluted, like the Marine he would never become) . . . imy Granipa Toma Ospenskaya, who is Austrian-Croatian ani speaks very little understandable English, i iBut,i interjected President Roosevelt, iIim willing to wager he speaks darn good Deutch! Ya?i And for the next few moments the President spoke to my grandfather in something passable for his native tongue, an exchange of moist, guttural, spitting sounds the older man had not heard outside of 384 occasional neighborhood saloons in thirty-five years. When it was over, there were tears in Grandpais eyes. Roosevelt turned back to me. iHe said, loosely translated o he is more proud of you than any grandfather has a right to be.iI nodded my head, a hot poker in my throat, and smiled at Grandpa. iWell . . . well, last one here, Mr. President, this is my father, Bernard Eden. He is, uh, one of your biggest, uh, supporters.i My father, now miraculously upright but far from sober, slid his crutch under his arm and began hobbling around the table toward the President. Roosevelt, seeing Dad too was handicapped, pulled away from the Secret Service man and began wheeling himself to meet Dad halfway. iGreat to meet you, Eden!i Roosevelt boasted. iGreat to meet men, and women, who can produce outstanding boys like these! Good Lord, what happened to your foot?i iAnkle,i Dad said, swallowing hard and grimacing as though it had just happened on his way over. iBroke it few weeks ago. Fell off the curb; there was this pickup truck oi iThatis quite a cast!i iComini off in a couple weeks. Wanna get rid of this crutch, too, ani start walkini around like a real man!i I heard my mother gasp. iBernie . . . i iI donit know how you do it, Mr. President, sir. In that wheelchair all day long, ani still runnini the whole country, ani the war ani all. I donit know how you do it.i He took Rooseveltis hand and pumped it as though water would gush forth. iYouire the most emarkable man whois ever lived, ani I wantcha to know I voted for you, my father has voted for you o my granddaddy and my brother, all of us . . . for as long as even before, uh, you the man, you the President, ani runnini for o something we could vote for. Sir, I gotta ask you: Iid consider it a real honor if youid autograph my cast for me!i Douglas shot his arms over his head. iYeah!i My mother, mortified, made her move. iBernie, I donit think President Roosevelt has time for anything like that oi 385 She took Dadis free arm and pulled him back toward his seat, nearly toppling him over. Scott Cranston said, under his breath, iShit; christ-amighty, sit down, Bernie; take the load off!i Roosevelt, sensing unexpected tension, said, iNo! No! Not at all! Iid love to sign your cast, Mr. Eden; be a pleasure. Maybe a first, but a pleasure nonetheless! Tonight. Tonight, after dinner. Thatis what I came by to tell you, I want all of you to be my guests for dessert and coffee, with Mrs. Roosevelt and me, in the Second Floor Living Hall. Come up right after dinner, say, seven-thirty. . . Here, I know: when youive finished dinner here tonight, just have one of the butlers ring me in the Living Hall, and Iill send Hopkins or Early to fetch you. Itis very important I see you all tonight. Especially these boys, here. Mother, Mrs. Roosevelt, is really anxious to meet them. All of you. Iive got a splendid surprise for you boys! . . . Itis agreed then. Until tonight!i And he waved to the Secret Service man to pull him away and wheel him out. On the way, he glanced back at me, and he smiled; the smile was devastatingly gentle and somewhat melancholy . . . a little sad. To this day, I have no idea what he was thinking, but I wish I knew. William James was right: All life is speculation, at best. * * * In our suite in the Bacheloris Wing, Shadow and I sprawled on the beds and stared at the ceiling. Anna Theresa had gone to her room for a moment, and the others had, I assumed, done likewise. Momma had made it plain to Dad and Grandpa there would be no more drinking on this trip or she and Grandma were catching the next train home. Marilyn Cranston reinforced the threat, idle as it probably was, with Shadowis dad. iHow could you talk like that to the President of the United States!i Momma said, for the ninth time, as they had entered their room down the hall. iHow dare you humiliate us like that! Walk around like a real man! Autograph your cast!i 386 iAw, Dorothy, gee whiz, for chrissakes, how many chances I ever gonna get . . .i She had slammed the door hard enough for the hall steward to look up from his station near the corridoris entrance. iYour oli man ani my oli man,i Shadow said, iare a freaggin piece a work.i iAinit gettini no better, either.i iDonit say eainiti like white trash; lie-berry lady gonna gitcha.i As if on cue, there was a knock at the parlor door. I slipped off the bed and crossed two rooms and opened the door. It was Anna Theresa. iI ainit gonna say eainiti no more,i I smiled. She was wearing a violet cardigan sweater over her shoulders. iWhat? . . . May I come in?i iOf course.i I closed the door, and we went and sat near the fireplace. Shadow came out of the bedroom and joined us by dropping to his knees and flopping, stretching out on the floor. iReally snowini hard outside,i he said. I glanced toward the window. iYeah, sure is. Maybe weill get snowed in ani have to stay for Thanksgiving. Think they got an extra turkey or two layini around?i iBoys, get seriousi Anna Theresa said; iweive got to talk about that Lankford person and this secret passage business and all that, and those guns and munitions in there. Thereis only one reason why those weapons are there. There could be a dozen foreign agents . . . i Shadow sat up on his elbow. iYiall wanna go explore some more ani see where some of them off-shoot tunnels go?i iNo!i she said, emphatically, shaking her head. iI want to discuss how we should report this to the President. Iim sure he hasnit a notion such opportunities exist here for people to spy on certain rooms. What would Churchill or any of those other foreign dignitaries think if they learned theyid been brought to a place with sliding panels and secret passages and peep holes, weapons and dynamite, assassins . . . and . . . oh, Christ, whatever else there is we donit know about?i 387 I said, iIim surprised the rooms with the peep holes arenit bugged, like in The Thin Man movies. William Powell would oi iThatis what I mean,i Anna Theresa interrupted. iHow do we know theyire not? How do we know there arenit microphones hidden in the telephones, or the lamps, or seat cushions?i iMaybe,i Shadow thought out loud, imaybe nobody knows about the slidini panels ani the passageways. Hell, this place was built before just after the Civil War; the folks workini here now were not even born, or they was just babies.i iWhat about the old man who met us, whatis his name o Chauncey somethini?i I reminded them. iBeadle,i said Anna Theresa. iRight. Heis been here from the very beginning. I gotta believe he would know about the passageways. Somebody has to go in there once in a while ani replace light bulbs or something.i We were silent for a moment, thinking. iSo,i Shadow asked, finally, iwhat do you want we should do?iAnna Theresa leaned forward and the glow from the fireplace twinkled in her shining eyes and radiated a golden glow on her porcelain cheeks and forehead. I watched her closely, and there was a stirring from within Iid come to accept as a natural reaction that automatically came over me whenever we were together. iI think,i she said, iwe canit just leave a dead man out there in the passageway. His compatriots are going to find him sooner or later. . . Did he say anything about when they planned to make their move on the President?i iYeah,i Shadow remembered, and I quickly looked down at him. iJust before oli Lankford committed harry-kerry, he said him ani his ecountrymeni were gonna do the job tonight, at dinner, when they were all in the Banquet Hall; gonna get eem all. I told him there was no way it was ever gonna happen, ani I think he must of agreed with me. Unless he could of figured out a way to drop me without blowini up the entire neighborhood, 388 the jig was up. His buddies werenit about to come roarini in ani save him, so I guess he just did what he had to do. Ker-bang! Ani that was that! Just before he pulled the trigger, he said it was a suicide mission from the start, Heil Hitler!i I looked up. iHe actually said eHeil Hitleri?i iYeah. But he got the gun in his mouth on the Hitler part ani it come out eHeil Hitteri.i Anna Theresa shook her head and said, iI think we owe it to Roosevelt, to the others as well, to inform them, and let them do what they have to do. I think we should go right now and find out where he is and tell the whole story.i iI dunno,i I said. iIf we tell him what we know, ani all the stuff thatis happened, we have to tell him how we found out in the first place. Then heill know that we know whois here in the house, ani we might be blowini the lid off some national security business . . . or something.i Shadow now sat upright. iI think yiall got somethini there. What if our just knowini about Churchill ani Eisenhower ani all them big time generals ani admirals ani such snafus some national wartime security, ani we ainit supposed to know this stuff. Psssshit, theyis liable to make permanent sure we ainit never gonna tell nobody!i Anna Theresa was silent for a moment, thinking it through. Then, iBoys, we canit just sit here and do nothing. Thereis a corpse out there in that passageway; a box of explosives and guns and grenades . . . Thereire still people in this house planning to kill Roosevelt and Churchill and all those others. What if theyive already found Lankford? What if theyive decide not to wait until everyoneis in the Banquet Hall? What, what if they somehow tie the three of us to Lankfordis death, and come looking for us?i That got Shadowis attention, and he came up on his knees, then to his feet. iLet eem come!i he said. iI still got that hand grenade!i iGreat,i I muttered. iWhen they come bustini through the door with sub-machine guns, just pull the pin ani hand it to eem! Ha!i 389 Anna Theresa shook her head. iYouire both missing the whole point. What is it, actually, weire not supposed to know? We have no idea what the President, Churchill, Eisenhower, and all the rest were talking about. Do we? And we donit really know who besides that Lankford person stashed all those explosives and guns in the passageway, right outside the room where they were all meeting.i iDonit take no genius to figure out they was talkini about the damned war!i iBut, do you know what was said?i ieCourse not! I cainit read lips, ani neither can you!i I saw this wasnit going any place, and there was little point for us to be arguing among ourselves. I said, iLetis do this: letis get a hold of that fella from the White House, yihear?, the Presidentis press secretary, the one who set this whole thing up. His name was, uh, Stephen Early; the one who called me on the phone in the first place. He seemed like an all right sort of fella.i Shadow looked at Anna Theresa; she shrugged and pulled the cardigan closer about her shoulders. iOkay,i Shadow grunted. iHow we call him? Ainit no phone.i iWe could ask the hall steward to bring him to us,i Anna Theresa suggested; but then she shook her head. iNo. That wonit work. Maybe the stewardis one of, them. And besides, whatis he going to say, iMr. Early, please go meet those folks over in the Bacheloris Wing so they can show you something you wonit believe? Thereis a dead servant out in a secret passageway, and thereire some weapons that will probably be used later today to assassinate the President and Churchill and a bunch of other leaders of the free world.i Iim sure heill rush right down, or up, from wherever he is, with a battery of psychiatrists in tow!i iOr a battalion a Marines,i Shadow added. I said, iWrite him a note.i iA note?i iYeah. Yes. Sure. . . Iill write it.i 390 iA note,i Anna Theresa repeated. Shadow said, iSure; thatis the ticket! Write him a note!i I got up and moved to a desk near the tall window. I didnit know it, of course, but it was a Louis XVI roll-top desk with brass mountings; in the middle drawer between the cubbies and near the back, I found a stash of pale blue stationery and a few matching envelopes. An ornate B was engraved in an upper corner of the paper. There was a pen beside a large brass inkwell atop the desk, and I sat down and started to write. Anna Theresa wanted to know what I was going to say. iShhh,i I cautioned. iLet me think . . . i I wrote, in as decipherable a hand as possible: Dear Mr. Early:o I have come I crossed that out, then crumpled the paper and started anew. Dear Mr. Early:o My friends and I, Mrs. Tortoretti and Shadow Cranston and I, have made an astonishing discovery here in the Bacheloris Wing of Biltmore House, and we feel it is something you, and certain other people from Washington o should know about. We feel it could be a matter of urgent national security. Could you possibly take a moment and meet with us in the Old Rose Bedroom suite in the Bacheloris Wing? We wouldnit disturb you with this if we did not think it was extremely important. In fact, I canit think of anything at the moment of greater importance, in all our lives. Marty Eden I handed the note to Anna Theresa, and she read it aloud to Shadow. He said, iPssshit, no wonder yiall get big bucks for puttini words in a row. Sounds okay to me.i iYes,i agreed Anna Theresa. iLetis send it.i iGot a three cent stamp?i Shadow kidded. I folded and placed it in one of the matching envelopes. On the front, I wrote Mr. S. Early Urgent and Confidential. I licked the flap and firmly sealed it. Shadow came with me when I stepped out into the hallway and approached the stewardis small desk. iHi,i we said. iCould yiall do us a favor?i The hall steward, a dark and gloomy young man not much older than Shadow and I, came to his feet immediately as we approached. iCertainly, sir. What do you need?i 391 Shadow suddenly snapped to attention and thrust out his right arm. iSeig Heil!i iHuh?i He was completely baffled. iYou okay, sir?i I poked Shadow in the ribs. iJ. H. Chrisimus!i Shadow slugged my shoulder in return. iCanit be too careful, asshoi. This fellais okay.i I asked the steward what his name was and where he was from, and he responded, iDan Russell, sir. Aiken, South Carolina.i We were both satisfied. If heid said iJohn Smith from New York Cityi, weid never have trusted him; Dan Russell was too simon-pure to make up, and only someone actually dealt such a cruel hand would ever candidly claim to be from Aiken, South Carolina. I said, iWe need for yiall to take this letter to wherever the White House people are, ani make sure itis placed personally in Mr. Steve Earlyis hands. Put the letter in your pocket ani donit show it to anyone except Mr. Early. Yiall know who he is?i The young man nodded. iYes sir, sure do. Heis President Rooseveltis press secretary; the one who smiles once in a while. Theyire probably upstairs in the Living Hall, if not, he canit be far away. Iill make sure he receives this. Should I wait for an answer?i I looked at Shadow. iNo. Just make for certain sure he gets it right away!i iOkay, sir. Consider it done.i Back in the room, Shadow asked, iWere we supposed to tip him, or somethini?i I shrugged. iI dunno.i I heard Anna Theresa utter a sharp tsk! tsk! from her chair by the fire. * * * Steve Early was a large man. A large man with a large head, a large body, and very large hands. He was rugged in appearance, his hair a vast brown and gray tangle that must have been a chore to comb, his face well-wrinkled and scabrous, and 392 his clothes seemed to strain to stay intact on his huge body. He wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses, large glasses that seemed to cover more of his face than necessary, through which he peered with relentless black eyes. We were frightened of him until we heard his voice; heard him speak. iThis is simply, absolutely incredible!i he said, his voice a mellow and gentle rasp, cultured like a professoris, but controlled like an actoris. iHow in the world did you people discover this?i We were, the three of us and Early, standing in the passageway just off the bedroom after we had shown him how the panel opened by lowering the lever/riding crop on Mrs. Vanderbiltis painting. iShadow here figured it out,i I told him. iWe see a lot of Peter Lorre ani Sidney Greenstreet movies, ani, i iAni,i Shadow cut in, ithey always got these big oli houses ani castles, ani they always got secret panels that come open, ani passageways leadini down to dungeons ani laboratories, ani all that stuff. But this hereis just the start; waitill yiall see whatis on down around the bend a piece!i When we came to the area near the Oak Sitting Room, the first thing Early saw was Lankfordis crumpled body sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, a nearly headless corpse covered in blood and gore. The press secretary muttered, under his breath, iChrist Almighty Mother of God!i iWatch where yiall step,i Shadow cautioned. iThis here fella Lankfordis got a whole new meanini for escatterbrainedi.i iPlease, Shadow.i Anna Theresa stayed back a few paces behind me, and from her vantage point, and in the semi- darkness, she could, luckily, make out few details of the gruesome sight. iWhereis the gun?i Early asked, and Shadow nudged it toward him with his foot. With his handkerchief, the aide leaned over and picked it up. iGerman Luger,i he said. iNine millimeter. Official Third Reich officeris issue. Probably Gestapo.i When we showed him the peep holes into the Oak Sitting 393 Room and he looked through them, he stepped back and leaned against the opposite wall. He grimaced and exhaled: iSonofabitch . . . This is . . . incredible.i iYeah. Now,i I said, itake a look at this.i Shadow pointed the flashlightis beam at the ramp-like box, and I bent down and removed the loosened lid. The four of us peered inside at the cache of weapons and dynamite. We waited in silence for him to say more, and in a moment, he did. iJesus. . .Who else knows about this besides the four of us?iiNo one,i Anna Theresa said, from behind me, coming no closer; iat least, no one we know of.i iHis accomplices have to know,i I said. iHad to take more than one person to tote all this stuff in here, stash it here, ani then wait for the right time to come back ani make use a it. Also, somebody has to come through here occasionally ani replace burned out bulbs.i Shadow added, iPlace ainit exactly filthy neither. Got less dustballs down herein in my mommais closets.i iWhat about sound?i Early wanted to know. iWere you able to hear what they were saying in there?i iNo, sir,i I said. iThere seem to be no speakers or microphones. We could see them talkini, but nothing came through the walls.i Steve Early stood against the plasterboard and looked back and forth between the peep holes and the stockpile of munitions. iAstonishing. Simply, phenomenal; shocking . . . Are any more rooms, uh, like this? Any more peep holes in other rooms?i iWe dunno,i Shadow said. iThis is far as we got. Then oli Nazi Lankford here snuck up on us. I think he was gonna shoot us if I hadnit picked up the hand grenade. He said just before he killed hisself, they was gonna shoot the President ani Churchill tonight ani then blow the whole place up. Probily kill us all. I think Marty ani me ani the lye-berry lady snafued his plans right good.i Early nodded and looked down at Lankfordis shattered head. 394 iIid say thatis a pretty fair assumption.i He wrapped the pistol in his handkerchief and thrust it into his jacket pocket. iLetis go back; get out of here before anymore of these thugs show up.i Back in our suite in the Bacheloris Wing we sat in a semi- circle by the fireplace. It never occurred to any of us how the fire continued to burn with fresh logs until we realized, much later, the hall steward must have come in from time to time and replenished them, although we always locked the door whenever we opened the secret panel. Shadow concluded (accurately) the steward must have had a master key; locked doors in the Bacheloris Wing meant nothing; Lankford must have simply let himself in and followed us into the passageway. Early had sent the hall steward to fetch Harry Hopkins, the White House administrator and confidant of the President and the First Lady. iI think,i Steve Early said, after showing the panel, the passageway, the dead Nazi, and the box of ordnance to Hopkins, iwe would do well not to inform the President of this matter right now. If we tell him, he will certainly tell Eisenhower and Churchill. Ike will call in a half dozen colonels from the Pentagon, a division from Bragg, and a squad of Hooveris men from the FBI. Theyill sweep this place cleaner than an operating room at Walter Reed, and weill never find out whois behind this. Churchill, Iim sure, will find it all extremely amusing, but Montgomery will go berserk. Cecil will be embarrassed, humiliated, and threaten to call the North Carolina State Police. Of course, if anyone from the newspapers finds out, it will be a serious black-eye to the President for allowing a meeting of this magnitude to be held here in the first place.i Harry Hopkins sat in a comfortable wing-back chair and pondered the matter. He was older than Early, somewhat frail, balding, and wore out-dated, somber clothes more appropriate to the Wilson era. He was very pale, as though he had been recently ill, and his hands were slightly palsied. He, too, thought at length before he spoke. iThere are people in this place who have designs on the Boss and the rest of the boys from Brass Alley, and us, too, all 395 of us now,i he said. iWe have no choice; weive got to call in the military and the FBI and get to the bottom of this as fast, as quietly but as quickly, as possible. Weive got to go to the President first; heis got to make the call. And weive got to get him and the Missus out of here. Ike will, as you say, go right through the roof; youire right about that. . . Lord in heaven. . . Who the hell is behind all this! Damn it! There could be a platoon of Nazi elite commandos running loose all over this place! Letis get that old codger Beadle down here,i he said, and his voice was wafer thin and very tired. iWhy the hell didnit somebody tell me about those passageways five years ago when the Boss first started coming here!i Anna Theresa asked, iDo you think Mr. Cecil knows?i Hopkins glared at her as though heid seen her for the first time. iWhat? . . . Oh, yes, Iim sorry, youire Mr. Edenis, uh, agent. Of course.i He cleared his throat noisily. iPardon me . . . Yes, of course, of course, John Cecil knows, absolutely, of course he does. Heis old George Vanderbiltis son-in-law; knows this place inside and out. Thatis why we thought the whole placeis harmless and, well . . .secure. Heis English, yiknow, and he would never allow Churchill and Mountbatten and that whole gang to come over here, not to mention the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, if there was the slightest possibility of a breech in security. . . Maybe he doesnit know. Good Lord!i iBut,i I was compelled to say, ianybody, servants, other guests, tourists, could have stumbled on those passageways ani wandered around, like we did, ani, uh, look in on whoever was in certain rooms. You think anybody would be dumb enough to try ani assassinate all these people?i iYoung man, thereive been no tourists here since 1930.i Hopkins shook his head as though he had not been listening. Shadow piped up. iWhy would anybody wanna kill the President or Churchill or Eisenhower or . . . i iShadow, puh-leeze!i Anna Theresa looked at him in exasperation. iWhy indeed,i sighed Hopkins. 396 Steve Early spoke up. iAn assassination of two of the three major world leaders, plus half the top brass on both sides of the Atlantic . . . be quite a coup for the Nazis. Especially since it would probably take the FBI a year to figure out where the shots came from! Ha! Or who lit the fuse that blew this place apart eight ways to Sunday! Ha!i iHa! indeed,i groused Hopkins. They sent for Chauncey Beadle, and within ten minutes he joined us by the fire and was apprised, to a certain extent o of the situation. iI donit believe a word of this!i he gasped. iNot a word! You people have got to be out of your wits!i iWell,i Hopkins assured him, iyou can start believing it now. . . Look here, Mr. Beadle, do you mean to tell me youive been here since 1885, youire the superintendent of this property, and you have no knowledge parts of the building are ringed with secret, hidden passages, sliding doors, and peep holes peering into certain rooms?i Beadle looked him straight in the eye; he was aghast. iItis the first Iive heard of it! And I donit believe it. Makes no sense at all! Iive never heard of such a thing!ii iHard to believe,i said Early. iBelieve what you want! . . . Why would Mr. Vanderbilt have such a thing in this magnificent house and not tell me about it?i iThatis precisely what weid like to know,i asserted Hopkins. iSomebody has to know about it. The passagways are clean as a whistle, and none of the light bulbs thative been there since God-knows-when are burned out. Whois your next in command? Whois on your staff and been here long enough to have knowledge of what the hell is going on?i Beadle, from memory, recited a list of names, none of which meant anything to me, but when he mentioned one name in particular, Anna Theresa looked up and interrupted him. iWhat was that last name, sir?i she asked. iEh? Tiwania Pruitt?i 397 iYes. . . Tiwania Pruitt. Is she a white woman or a black woman?i Beadle pulled his head back as if dodging a blow. iWhy o I believe she was a colored woman. Yes, Iim sure she was. But . . . what difference, i iAh-ha!i Anna Theresa glanced at me as though I should know what was going on. iTiwania Pruitt. Would she be somewhere in, say, her early sixties?i Beadle mumbled and opened his hands in a gesture of ignorant supplication. iI wouldnit know, maiam. I didnit keep records of such things. Iim a poor judge of womenis ages. Sure o I can tell you that, she was no spring chicken . . . i iWas? You keep saying ewasi.i Beadle nodded. iMiss Pruitt passed away about six months ago. The cancer, poor soul. Took sick mid-week, I think it was, and was gone in a fortnight.i iGreat. Just great.i Anna Theresa turned back to me and stared at me, her eyes narrowed in thought. iMartin, do you remember in the spring when you were researching the material for a biography on Thomas Edison? Remember we talked about a young, very young, lab assistant in West Orange, one of only two women who ever worked there side-by-side with Edison? Do you remember her name?i I punished my brain, but it was hopeless. I had always had trouble with names, even of people Iid just met, and trying to recall the name of someone Iid come in contact merely by reading o iPruitt!i I said, as the name shot out of some dormant lobe. iTyrone Pruitt!i iNo!i corrected my precious mentor. iNot Tyrone. It was Tiwania. I remember because it was such a beautiful and unusual name. Thatis it!i iYes?i Hopkins shot Anna Theresa a blank look. iSo?i iSo,i she replied, leaning back in her chair, iit all comes together.i 398 I looked away from Anna Theresa and caught Shadowis eye. He shrugged and made a circling motion against his temple with his forefinger. iTiwania Pruitt,i explained Anna Theresa, iwas a brilliant twenty year old lab assistant at West Orange around the turn of the century when Edison was at his prolific heights. She was a self-educated Negro woman, a rarity for the times, I have no doubt, but she was an electronics genius. A prodigy Edison had discovered while setting up his utility in New York City. I have no idea where or how she was educated.i iWait a minute. Hold on a moment,i Beadle interjected. iTiwania came to work at Biltmore very early in the nineteen hundreds; as I recall now, she was just a kid . . . i iPrecisely,i confirmed Anna Theresa. iShe left Edison in 1905, there was some talk of a, well, a disastrous romantic liaison with the great man himself oi iHogwash!i spat Hopkins. iEdison was old and deaf and had no interest in such nonsense!i iPerhaps. Anyway, she left New Jersey and wound up back in North Carolina . . . i Beadle said, iI hired her, if weire talking about the same person, and I assume we are, as an assistant to my chief electrician, Gus Webber. Mr. Vanderbilt was an absolute fanatic about electrical gadgets. Even before the turn of the century, we had light bulbs here and refrigeration. Not to mention central heating and an early prototype of air conditioning that actually worked. Electric dumb waiters and two elevators. And running water for all forty-three bathrooms . . . i Early asked, iYou mean to tell us this place was electrified from the very beginning? There were no gas lights ever in this place?i iNot a one!i Beadle affirmed. iWe never even had back up gas pipes. All the electricity was generated by steam boilers, right here on the property.i For the fourth or fifth time, Early used his favorite word: iIncredible!i 399 iAnd,i added Anna Theresa, a figment of knowledge only a well-read woman would retain, ithe plumbing pipes all over the house accommodate both hot and cold water. . . But thereis one thing that bothers me.i iWhatis that?i iIn the bathrooms, thereire no sinks!i ieCourse not!i said Beadle. iWhen youire of Vanderbiltis status, dear lady, or that of his guests, you never drew your own water. Thatis maidis and valetis duty! They would simply open a tap, fill a pitcher, and deliver it to your room. You would wash, or whatever, in a matching basin; then theyid dispose of it. Same as today, matter of fact.i Hopkins, with no interest in water pipes, wanted to know, iWhat about that fellow Webber, the electrician, is he dead, too?iBeadle gestured with open palms and shrugged. iI donit know. He left here just before World War One and went back to Germany. . . i The silence was that of a giant grandfatheris clock that had suddenly stopped ticking. Hopkins glanced at Early and Early, sucking his lips, looked at us. iHe was German?i asked Shadow, naively. iWebber? . . .iCourse,i said Beadle. iHe certainly wasnit Canadian!i iThatis it!i said Anna Theresa. iIill bet George Vanderbilt had those passageways built when the house was first under construction, and when Tiwania Pruitt came on board, he had her and that Webber fellow rig the lights and the motors to control the sliding panels, and it was her job to maintain them all these years.i Steve Early piped up. iThat explains why the passageways are so clean and spotless.i iAbsolutely,i nodded Anna Theresa. iIf a man had been maintaining them, the tunnels would probably be pigsties.i Beadle shook his head. iI donit think for a moment Mr. Vanderbilt would have tolerated that kind of slovenly housekeeping!i 400 iBut what about the light bulbs?i Hopkins asked. iIt would seem that over a period of time, at least some would have burned out. We have twenty, thirty light bulbs in the White House replaced every month, for Godis sake.i It was my turn. iChances are,i I said, ithe bulbs in the passageways are the original bulbs Miss Pruitt installed in 1905. I remember my research that Edison ani his West Orange folks invented the perfect light bulb; one that could burn forever. Or at least for fifty years or so.i iNo shit,i muttered Shadow, under his breath. iAni it was also said the funding for that research was subsidized, uh, anonymously.i iAnd I would imagine,i Anna Theresa added, iby someone with very deep pockets who was also a efanatic about electrical gadgetsi.i The people in the room simply stared at us, drowning in their own rapt silence. iFilaments in regular light bulbs,i I went on, recalling some of the clues from my ill-fated biography, iare made from pure tungsten fibers, extruded under intense heat, ani then rapidly cooled to, uh, achieve flexibility while retaining a certain amount of, tension. When theyire re-heated by electric current inside the vacuum of a glass light bulb, theyill glow brightly ani give us, light! But after a period a time, however, the heat sort of reduces their flexibility, ani they get brittle, ani they just burn out. Or burn up, to be more correct.i Shadow was lost. iI thought the juice inside the light bulb comes outta the wall, up the cord, ani makes the air inside the bulb real hot, ani bingo, bango, bongo!, yiall got light!i iAlmost,i sighed Anna Theresa, ibut not quite.i iEdison,i I went on, iwas said to have invented a light bulb that would burn in, well, in, uh, perpetuity, i Shadow whistled. iNifty word! Whatis that mean?i I ignored him, but now I was really going to impress them all as the details of my research came back like a negative plate in a tray of developer. iIt was this Miss Pruitt lady,i I said, iwho came up with the idea that if yiall coated tungsten with 401 silver nitrate, the fiber would be, uh, impervious to heat, ani yet it would behave just like untreated tungsten; it would glow ani give off whatever wattage of light it was engineered for, yet it would never suffer the, uh, debilitating effects of prolonged heat. What it was, was that a light bulb made with what she called SNT, silver nitrate tungsten, would last for years ani years ani . . . maybe never burn out.i Anna Theresais gaze was fixed on me as if I had just arrived from Neptune. iMartin, Iive seen you write like that, but Iive never heard you speak so . . . so . . . i iPsshit!i Shadow jumped in. iWhat the hell yiall talkini about?i Hopkins was mesmerized. iIf such a light bulb exists, young man, why isnit it on the market, in general use nationally? In the military? Worldwide?i I shook my head, digressing to normal thought processes with no more pages from the biographical research on the reading screen of my memory. iI dunno. Probily costs too much to make, ani way too much to buy. Probily put G.E. ani Westinghouse out of business if yiall donit have to replace light bulbs.i Chauncey Beadle got up and moved closer to the fireplace; then turned and faced us. iLet me get this straight and clear,i he said. iYouire telling me these secret passageways go all over, all through the house, upstairs, downstairs, to the bowling alleys, the servantsi quarters, the kitchens, the main rooms, every place? And the lights remain on all the time and never burn out; and itis been going on like that for at least ten years before Mr. Vanderbilt died? . . . i He leaned wearily against the mantle. No one noticed (or cared) the snow had stopped. iThis is too much! Too much, I say!i Early said, iWe donit really know how many passageways there are, or where they go. All we know is what these, uh, young people here discovered, and all weive told you. Thatis all we know for now.i Hopkins apparently concluded Beadle had nothing additional to contribute now except for a roster of every person 402 currently employed on the estate. iI need this right away,i he demanded. iAnd I want you to assemble the entire staff o every single one of them, no exceptions, in the Banquet Hall. And not a peep to anyone what itis about!i iIim not sure, i Beadle started. iWell, I am! Get me that list and get those people into the Banquet Hall, Mr. Beadle!i Beadle, still confused and somewhat reluctantly, left shaking his head; Hopkins turned to Early. iHow many years,i he asked, softly and rhetorically, ihas the information Webber took back to Germany been waiting for just this moment in history? . . . Find the President, Steve. And Eisenhower. Iill get Churchill and Cecil . . . oh, shit, round eem all up! Letis get eem all together in the Library. Christ! This is all we need, an assassination attempt on the Boss and the whole goddamn gang!i * * * Dinner that evening in the Breakfast Room seemed interminable to Shadow and me. The families were fidgeting almost out of control with the prospect, though now I wasnit so sure it would occur, that we were going to have dessert with the Roosevelts; we rushed through the meal as though the President were sitting in painful anticipation, waiting for us to finish before summoning us to the Second Floor Living Hall. iMaybe,i Shadow kidded, whispering in my ear, iwe should go through the passageway ani jump out at him from behind a secret panel! Bet heid piss his pants right there in his wheelchair!i My sense of humor being as warped as his, I thought it wasnit a bad idea, but, of course, it was out of the question. Having narrowly missed a German bullet, I was in no mood to be shot at our own Secret Service. Dinner was a nervous, subdued affair. Dad, Grandpa, and Scott Cranston had all had long naps, followed by long showers (my dad had to settle for a hot soaking in the tub with his leg and 403 cast dangling over the side), and, needless to point out, no one had had a drop to drink since lunch. Aunt Freddie was nonplused by all this because she had slept through lunch, had sobered up from the night before and the morning Bloody Marys, and felt she was being unduly denied because of the festivities at lunch in which she had been unable to participate. When the waiter was serving wine and she was the only one not to decline, Momma glared at her. Dinner was a wonderful consommE and poached salmon, steaming vegetables, French bread, and hearts of palm salad. I closely watched Anna Theresa as she sipped the soup, and I tried to imitate her. She used a ball-shaped spoon, sliding it into the soup from the edge of the bowl closest to her and scooping the broth away from her, bringing it gently to her lips. She sipped quietly, nary a whisper of sound, no blowing nor slurping; and I thought how elegant she was. I tried to emulate her graceful motions, but filling my spoon from six oiclock to noon, bottom to top, was awkward, and I wound up dribbling some on the fine Irish linen tablecloth. When the salmon was served, I waited to see which utensils she would use, and I was not surprised she was the only one who selected the flat, wide, odd-shaped knife resting horizontally beyond the top of her plate. I watched as she held the fish knife in her right hand, her fork inverted in her left, and tenderly cut pieces of the salmon with the knife, then forced tiny morsels onto the tines of her fork, which remained curved downward, and brought the delicacy to her mouth in one liquid, unbroken sweep. Had Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten been observing us through a handy peep hole, they would have applauded her performance. By contrast, Shadow and Douglas devoured their meals with only a fork and spoon, plunging them into the fish as though it were not quite dead. The others ate as I had always seen them eat, quickly and with little concern for what it was or how it was prepared, except for Momma and Grandma, who both seemed more relaxed and proper. Grandma took a sip of ice tea and said, iI read the cards this afternoon.i 404 That seemed to get every oneis attention; we sat in silence, looking at her and waiting for her to continue. After a moment, she looked around the table. iAnd I donit like what Iim seeini in the cards, thatis for sure.i iWhatis in eem, Mom?i my mother asked. iYou donit want to know, deariei the old lady replied, her accent more pronounced this evening that Iid recently heard it. iThereis more goini on in these walls than any of usid be suspectini.i You can say that again, Granima! I thought to myself. iThereis at least a hundred and more people moseyini around this castle, and let me tell you, theyire up to something.i My dad said, flatly, iMost of eem are the damn servants.i iYeah,i said Scott Cranston. iYou shoulda seen the one we had takini care of us. He actually helped me get my pants off over the cast, and then he practically carried me into the tub! When I got out, he was right there lickety-split with a big oli fluffy towel; he just picked me up and actually lifted me outta the damn tub!i Freddie grimaced. iBet he was thrilled.i Truth was, most of them were not servants. Within an hour after our meeting with Steve Early and Harry Hopkins, truck after truck of military and Secret Service personnel descended on Biltmore, and it seemed like two-thirds of them trampled through the Old Rose Bedroom (from which Shadow and I had been permanently evicted, transferred to the Mountain Balcony suite one flight up, in which we found no evidence of any secret panels). A squadron of soldiers, under the grim direction of a two-star general and a full-bird colonel, promptly removed the body of Mr. Lankford and confiscated the box of guns and munitions. Secret Service and FBI agents were everywhere, inside and out. Military and government personnel took over all domestic role and duties. Grandma shook her head. iNo. Not those. Iim not countini the house people. Iim saying thereis a whole bevy of police an esoldiers ani, foreigners, in this place. I donit know who there are, or why theyire here, but I tell you theyire here!i 405 Oh, Granima, if only you knew! I looked at Shadow, and he shrugged, unfolding both hands and lifting them past his face. Freddie said, iThe Roosevelts are here. And all those White House people.i iWell, theyire not foreigners,i Grandma assured her. iAlI Iim tellini ya is, the cards say thereis some, ah, wild intrigue goini on in this house, and itis got nothin, to do with any of us, but it most surely affects each and every one of us. Did any of you notice how poorly Mr. Roosevelt looks, poor divil?i Douglas jumped in. iIs he gonna die on us or sumpthin?i Grandma looked at Douglas. iYes, laddie,i she sighed, a voice now barely a whisper. iThat, he is.i iMother!i Momma reached out and touched Grandmais arm. iWhat a terrible thing to say! Thatis, awful!i iWell, itis true. Mark me words. President Roosevelt is a very sick man, but,i she hastened to add, iheis not going to die here, not now, not right away. But soon. Before the war is even over.i My dad nudged Scott Cranston and said, iSheis got more damn bullshit with them cardsin tea cupsin ball players got spit!iiScoff if you want, Bernard, but mark me words.i For a few seconds no one said anything, then Grandma continued. iThese other people here, theyire from over the ocean. I saw a lot of military men, and a lot of highly placed government people in them cards. Officials. People of prominence. One in particular, a heavy-set man, face of a bulldog . . . i iWinston Churchill,i Shadow submitted, quietly, to me. iGotta be him for sure.i To Grandma, iFella inna cards smoke big black cigars?i iI donit know.i She pursed her lips in thought. iThere was a haze of smoke over the king of clubs . . . i iChurchill,i Shadow confirmed in a whisper. iNo question.i I kicked him under the table. Dad said, iYou were probily puffini Chestefields ani blowini smoke all over the cards yourself, Lizzy! Ha!i iScoff all you want,i she smirked. iThere are people in this 406 house meetini ani talkini about this wretched war, ani I donit think we should be here. There was one spade face card after another, and there are things going on here that puts us all in grave danger. Iim glad weire goini home tomorrow, ani I donit care if I ever come back!i I thought that would be the end of it, but Grandpa spoke up. iVot Lizzy see inna cards for . . . to . . . to for us . . . to haf?i iNot much, Dad,i Grandma said, sweetly, and she smiled at him. iThe boys here have a proud thing, but not much else. There was something about the house itself, though, but itis hard to explain. The cards act funny sometimes when youire in a place that ainit exactly what it seems. This house . . . has many stories no one will ever tell. All is not what it seems in this place. I saw places inside this house that go places no one ever sees. And I saw . . . death in those places.i A chill passed up my spine. iWhat kind of places, Granima?i iI donit know, laddie. Long, narrow, and darkened places o with little lights here and there; holes in walls like . . . ghostly eyes.i iPssshit!i spat Shadow. He leaned over and whispered, iThe oli lady knows; betcha sheis got a secret panel in her own room, ani she knows! You hear me?i iNo way,i I whispered back. iSheis just makini up card crap.i iPlease, Momma,i Freddie said. iYouire scarini me.i iNo need,i Grandma said. iWe have nothing to fear from this house or anyone in it. There were bad, dangerous people here, I counted five of them. Four five-spots and a Page came together, and they were about some dastardly deed. But one is dead and the others . . . the others are gone. I donit know where. At the end, the cards were very clear; I saw us on the train ani goini home tomorrow.i My mother shivered and sighed. iIid just soon go home tonight.i iMe, too,i agreed Douglas, now genuinely frightened. 407 Dad laughed at them all. iHow many of usire goini home in caskets, Lizzy?i There was a tense silence now, everyone staring at the centerpiece of fresh cut wild flowers from the conservatory, and we all jumped, startled in our seats, when the door under Cornelius Vanderbiltis portrait suddenly flew open and the huge frame of Steve Early swept into the room. iHi, howis everyone doing?i 408 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Second Floor Living Hall was just off the overwhelmingly grand and wide winding staircase that ran from the ground floor all the way to the third floor. The staircase itself was magnificent; an elegant spiral, it was wide enough to allow people to walk eight abreast alongside tall stained glass windows that seemed to reach from the very bottom to beyond the clouds. The stairs slipped past massive circular chandeliers that replicated the ones in the Banquet Hall. The steps, uncarpeted, were a Vermont marble of unmatched quality anywhere in the world. Although it was now dark outside, and it had stopped snowing, there was a nearly full moon illuminating the fresh drifts that could be seen through occasional clear glass separating stained glass areas of colorful pastoral and religious scenes. iI still think,i Shadow whispered, on the way up, iwe shoulda come in from a secret panel.i iThatis all we need do,i I said. iLook at the Secret Service ani FBI fellas all over the place. Look at the soldiers up ani down the stairs. Everybodyis armed like theyire goini over the top any second.i President Roosevelt was sitting behind a Boulle-style desk with pewter and brass inlays; pen in hand, he appeared to be writing on a document, his pince-nez peering down at a pile of papers. The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, was sitting across the room, near the fireplace, in a 17th century Queen Anne wing chair; she was reading a thick book I later noticed was The Ambassadors by Henry James, the brother of my favorite philosopher. I was immediately taken by what a serene and actually pleasant woman she was sitting there, the glow from the fireplace complimenting her the way it always did Anna Theresa. In photographs and newsreels, Mrs. Roosevelt looked older, more matronly, stern of demeanor, much heavier and robust and, well, grossly unattractive. I saw her from an entirely different perspective as she got up, standing easily six 409 feet tall, and closed her book and placed it on an end table; she crossed the room to meet us. iGood evening!i she exclaimed, thrusting out her hand, immediately approaching my grandmother. Her voice was high- pitched, warm but squeaky, and wafer-thin; her speech was somewhat distorted by badly aligned teeth. iItis so good of you to come and join us for dessert and coffee! Franklin, look whois here!i The President, of course, had seen, or heard us, enter the room, and although he could not rise, he put down his pen, removed his pince-nez, and gave us that famous arm-waving gesture of greeting we had seen so often on the silver screen and in newspaper and magazine photos. iHello, there! All of you, the Edens and Cranstons, the Ouspenskayas, and, of course, the ever lovely and captivating Mrs. Tortoretti!i Stupendous! Even the President of the United States was smitten with Anna Theresais agonizing beauty! I glanced at her and was delighted to see she was actually blushing. iCome in! Come in!i he beckoned. iSit down, there, anywhere; we donit stand on ceremony when weire having dessert and coffee at Biltmore!i He waved to a butler-in-waiting who was hidden by the shadows at the far end of the long hall. iCharles, show them to their seats!i A long Spanish table with scrolled stretcher had been set up in the center of the room, and it was surrounded on all sides by gilded and painted Italian chairs. Mrs. Roosevelt would be seated at the far end of the table in a Flemish rococo arm chair, and a space was left for the President at the other end, to which Steve Early was wheeling his chair. Harry Hopkins joined us from another part of the hall, and he would take his place alongside the First Lady. The President indicated that Shadow and I should sit across from each other, at his right and left, next to him at his end of the long table. Introductions to Mrs. Roosevelt were made by the President, and I was genuinely impressed that he remembered all our 410 names and was able to add a small tidbit of information as each of us was presented to his wife. iMr. Ouspenskaya speaks an eloquent idiom of German and Austrian, Mother,i he told her. iBeing from Croatia, his learning of the father tongue was never compromised or corrupted by Aryan pretenses.i iReally! Well, then, let me greet this charming gentleman in his own language.i And for the next moment my grandfather chatted with the First Lady in German, as though heid known her since childhood. Aunt Freddieis eyes glazed over as she was introduced, and when the President clasped her hand in both of his, I was certain her knees would buckle. She had not been exposed to his aristocratic charms at lunch, and this first encounter with the great man left her limp and tongue-tied. To Mrs. Roosevelt, she could do nothing more than curtsy. In the wild revelations and activity of the afternoon, the President, a master diplomat, seemed to have forgotten, or forgiven, my fatheris unfortunate earlier faux pas, as he proclaimed, iGood to see you again, may I call you Bernie? . . . Here, sit on the other side so you can put your leg straight out and under the table. Steve, have Charles get an ottoman under there for Marty Edenis father!i My mother was seated across from Harry Hopkins, next to Mrs. Roosevelt, and Grandma next to Momma. Marilyn Cranston was next to Hopkins, and Scott was beside his wife. Douglas found himself between Grandma and Grandpa; Freddie was between Scott and Dad. Nicely arranged, but certainly by accident, Anna Theresa wound up between Grandpa and me. I noticed that after Steve Early had properly ensconced Rooseveltis wheel chair at the head of the table, he whispered something in the Chief Executiveis ear that elicited a prompt nod; he muttered, iIf youill excuse me, then . . . i and departed. iWell!i beamed the President, seemingly pleased, iI think we make a fine-looking table! Bring on the dessert!i Complementing the eclectic collection around the table, the place settings consisted of 19th century Minton bird-pattern 411 dessert dishes, French Baccarat and English Webb crystal; the flatware was heavy Mexican sterling silver. The center of the table was graced with a bronze candelabra by August Cain, aglow with eight thick, creamy tapers. I noticed Anna Theresa admiring it, and the memory of other white candles swept over me. Our eyes met for an instant and, though Iim not certain, I think she smiled at me, as if perhaps she too were momentarily reminiscing. This was a night my father would never forget, if for no other reason than his beloved FDR addressed him and sought his counsel, right out in front of everyone: iBernie, this war has been going on far too long, and in some ways, not exactly the way it should. At least from our point of view. What are your thoughts, what is the thinking of the, uh, man in the street o as to what direction we should be heading?i Roosevelt had a pattern of speech, an aristocratic tone, that was, at first, alien to our ears. He would isolate certain words and phrases with crisp emphasis so that no meaning would be mistaken or lost. Words like war and far were pronounced waah and faah. But it was the emphasis and choice of words that commanded we listen intently and grasp every shaded definition, intonement, inflection. I had never heard anyone speak with the purposeful, concentrated Yankee intimacy of Roosevelt, and I have never since. Dad took a deep breath, inflating himself to where I thought he might lift off his chair; he leaned back, then forward, and seemed to carefully weigh his thoughts before speaking. Being sober and rested, we all expected him to be profound, and, surprise!, to a moderate extent, he was! iMr. President,i he said, iwe little guys out there in the, uh, trenches at home, fellas like Scott ani me, ani these kids here growini up in a time when nothing seems normal or comes easy, ani the, uh, women going without stuff, you know, nylons ani cosmetics ani cigarettes ani butter ani sugar ani meat, ani all the stuff thatis gone to the war effort, all I can say is, we gotta end this darned nonsense and, uh, get rid of those Huns, ah, Jerries ani Japs anyway we can, once ani for all. If I can talk 412 plain ani open for a minute, Scott ani me was sayini just last night, you ani the Army ani Navy fellas were right on target by takini this war right to them, right in their own backyard, especially in the, uh, Pacific ani in Africa ani Italy. Those Russiansire givini it to them right where it hurts on the Eastern Front. But, you know something, Mr. President? Weire missini the boat, if I can speak freely. We gotta do more; we gotta get more aggressive over there in, uh, Europe. Scott here, ani me, we been waitini every day for the announcement that our boys have hit the streets of France ani are on their way to crossini the continent ani smashini Hitler, not in his backyard, but right smack dab in his front yard! Ani then right in his own house! Thatis what we thinkis gotta happen, ani happen soon!i Dad slumped back in his chair, an exhausted orator. The President said nothing for a moment, his dark, encircled eyes firmly on my father, and his head nodded in full agreement. And then my mother, surprise of even more surprises! o spoke up and offered what might have been the final word. iThis war,i she said, ihas to be the last of it. No more. No more mothers ani wives crying all night over lost sons ani husbands. No more children growini up, uh, without fathers ani brothers. The waste . . . the waste . . . i Roosevelt looked at my mother for a long moment and said nothing. Then he spoke, and there was an edge to his words. iI hate war,i the President said. iEleanor hates war. Even our little dog Fala hates war, believe it or not. This country must never allow itself to fall into the trap of senseless confrontation unless it is forced on us, like the current hostility . . . What was it Washington said about avoiding eentangling alliancesi? There will always be upheavals in Asia; Korea is already in turmoil o and Indochinais fuse is just waiting for the right match . . . i iWe sure canit let ourselves get involved in those places,i my dad offered. iHa! Iim sure we wonit be,i Roosevelt affirmed. iThis administration, no administration would ever be so naive, paranoid, heartlessly foolish that weid involve ourselves in any conflicts but our own. These civil wars, the Communists, i 413 iFranklin,i the First Lady cut in, iI donit think we should burden our guests tonight with all this talk of politics and warOi iNot at all, maiam,i prompted my mother. iWe wouldnit know what to talk about around the table if we all didnit talk about the war.i iThe war,i Grandma said, iis a bloody way of life, if youill pardon me language. This is the peopleis war; weire all in it together. And weire going to come out of it together. Just be careful of those bloody Russians. I donit trust eem. Mark me words. . . i iTheyire right, Mother,i the President said, after a short pause, down the table to his wife. iAmericans, the American people, are this war, the very fiber of it. They didnit ask for it, but when it came, they rose to meet it head on. Weire all in this together; thatis been the battle cry from the very beginning. Thatis why will endure, why we will prevail . . . i The dessert was brought in and served by a platoon of military and government staff. Coffee and tea were offered. The President, the innocent quintessential host, suggested, iIf youid care for an after-dinner libation, perhaps a brandy . . . i We all looked at Momma and Grandma; their return gaze immediately forbade even a grunt that might be construed as acceptance. iNo, thanks, uh, Mr. President,i said Scott, and my father concurred: iRight. No, thanks, not tonight.i Their eyes dropped to their coffee cups with prayerful exigency that the Great Man might wave a mystical wand, transforming the delicate Minton into full and hardy brandy snifters. The dessert was a pleasant surprise. I had expected some sort of exotic, probably inedible concoction of fruits and creams and sour crusts, some sort of baked or steamed sauce over a crinkled, thin sheet of sticky dough, and when what arrived was simple and plain old American rice pudding, none of us could have been more pleased. Sprinkled with cinnamon, dotted with raisins, soaked in whole milk, and served with snapping sugar wafers, it was a culinary delight. 414 iUnpretentious fare,i said Eleanor Roosevelt. iItis Franklinis favorite, and weill probably have it again on Thursday, at Warm Springs. Had we more room down there in that tiny place, I would have loved to have all of you joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. But the place is so small we barely have room for the family, now that the boys are grown and have wives and children of their own. I suppose we could have gone to Shangri-La; itis such a marvelous retreat and just outside Washington, but Franklin needed to, uh, be away from the Capitol for, well, some private meetings, and things . . . Well, anyway, the recipe for this pudding is very special; comes from my side of the family, they tell me, all the way back to the Netherlands, and itis something of a secret my Uncle Teddy passed on, something to do with the raisins; at least, the final step, if, in fact, there can be a secret with something so ordinary as rice pudding.i iHa! Ha!i confirmed the President. iWhatever the secret, it is delicious!i A glance at Shadow across the table and I knew he was thinking the same thing as I: You wanna know a real secret, Mr. President? We can tell you one thatill knock your socks off! Little did we know, of course, he had been fully apprised hours ago by Early and Hopkins of every detail of the situation . Mrs. Roosevelt looked down the table at me and said, iMartin, may I call you Martin? Iive wanted to ask you, ever since I first heard of your exploits in that Navy plane, wasnit that the most thrilling adventure of your life? I mean, heavens, just the thought of actually flying an airplane of that size and power, under those circumstances . . . i I modestly shook my head. iMaiam, what I know about flyini an airplane is less than nothing. I never even had a lesson in my life!i iThatis what is so amazing about it,i she said. iI know I could never do it, never fly and land a ship like that, even after all the lessons I had with Amelia . . . i 415 Anna Theresa looked up from her pudding and stared at the First Lady. iAre you referring to Amelia Earhart?i she asked, incredulously. iYes, yes, most certainly,i Eleanor Roosevelt replied. iAmelia, the poor darling, got me interested in airplanes and flying, oh, when was it?, many years ago, not long after Charlie Lindbergh made it all the way to Paris. She actually gave me several weeks of lessons, and I even got my studentis license. Of course, I never soloed. I made the mistake of telling Franklin about it, and, well, that was that. He really put his foot down, so to speak. Ha! Ha!i To which the President added his own good-natured guffaw: iHa! Ha!i My God, I thought, these are ordinary, real people! Just like Momma and Dad and all of us. They may sound different, but the talk, the interaction is just the same! iThe only person who knew,i she continued, ioutside of Amelia, of course, was Gene Vidal, who headed up our Commerce Department back then; he and Amelia were such good friends.i She smiled and looked at me. iHe, Gene, has a young son about your age, Martin; I believe his name is Gore, and he too wants to be a journalist, or so I hear.i When dessert was finished and the President, Shadow, Douglas, Dad, Scott, and I had had second helpings, cigarettes came out and we were lingering over coffee as Steve Early re- entered the room carrying an ornate wooden box with the Presidential Seal; my first thought was it was probably a box of cigars. He was followed out of the shadows by another man I at first did not recognize. The newcomer was a younger man, wearing a formal dress Navy uniform with commanderis insignia, and it took a moment for me to realize it was, Gary Frankavilla! iJay-sus H. Chrisimus!i Shadow cried, and we both jumped up and ran to embrace our old friend and pilot. iHey! You fellas look great!i he said. iHow yiall doini?i He had tears in his eyes, and I think we did, too. iYiall look great, too!i I said. iYou okay now, all better?i 416 iFit as a fiddle! Be back on active duty next month, and, man, I canit wait!i Suddenly remembering he was in the presence of his Commander-in-Chief, Gary stepped away from us and smartly saluted the President. iCommander Frankavilla, sir, reporting as ordered. Had a difficult time getting onto the estate, sir; itis an armed camp out there, whatis been going on around here?i iHa! Ha!i guffawed the President. iCome on over, Commander, sit down, Early, get a chair for the commander o here, have some rice pudding; Mrs. Rooseveltis favorite, mine too, damn glad you could make it!i The rest of the evening was, for the most part, a blur of excitement and exhausting tension, pressure, and pleasure. What a great surprise having Cmdr. Frankavilla come in like that! He told us Cmdr. Wiggins and newly-promoted Lt. Cmdr. Goldsmith were unable to make it, though theyid certainly been invited. Both were still assigned to the USS James Madison, somewhere in the Mediterranean. iLet me tell you,i said Frankavilla, itheyire really kicking some serious butt out there o pardon me, ladies, but in the Navy we, uh, sometimes forget ourselves . . .i iNot to worry, Commander,i assured Mrs. Roosevelt. iThe President served, you know; even became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. And thereire my sons now, of course. Over the years, thereis not much in the way of salty language that hasnit shaded these ears crimson. Frankavilla smiled his appreciation and nodded to the First Lady. iThank you, maiam.i He then turned back to us. iBut,i he said, iI do know Captain Blauser and Admiral Serateen send their warmest regards.i I glanced at my father and Scott Cranston; there was no describing the bald-faced pride on their faces as we chatted about combat-buddies and iouri senior officers with this decorated Navy flying ace, whose life Iid held briefly in the palm of my hands. Shadow asked, iWhat about Rodney, Seaman Rodney Herkimer? If it hadnit been for him to start with, none of us 417 would be sittini here tonight, yiall can betchere bottom dollar on that!i The smile left Frankavilla lips and a shadow passed over his handsome features. iOh, Lord,i he said, softly. iDidnit you know?i iKnow what?i I asked, knowing precisely from Frankavillais tone the answer before I heard it. Frankavilla cleared his throat and spoke softly. iSeaman First Class Herkimer was . . . killed in action, middle of October. The carrier was under attack by Fokkers, Stukas, and Macchi Saettas, and he was working topside, getting planes off in a rolling sea. They were being strafed mercilessly by one Jerry sortie after another. Herkimer was fully exposed on the deck o his only concern was moving our planes into take-off position, and the way Goldsmith told me, all of a sudden he was caught running for cover back of the wind-draft shield. He . . . didnit make it. He was, well, gone before he hit the runway. We lost a lot of men that day, according to Wiggins, but they lost thirty- nine aircraft. A lot due to Rodneyis non-stop courage in getting our men and planes off the ship and into the air.i He looked at the President and said, iSir, I believe he was posthumously awarded a citation for extreme gallantry.i The President looked at Hopkins, who nodded and said, iYes. Yes, he was, Commander. As I recall, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, for conspicuous bravery.i Shadow and I both looked into our coffee cups. There was nothing either of us could say, at the moment, even if weid had the right words. There was a branding iron in both our throats. President Roosevelt, sensing our sudden grief, broke the silence after nearly a full minute. iBoys,i he said, ithe shock of losing a friend, a relative, in war is something we never get over. The loss is so great because it is so . . . stupidly unnecessary. A friend here, a father there, a son, a brother, nothing can be said to ease the pain; nothing can be done to replace the emptiness. On the eighth of December, nineteen hundred and forty-one, when I stood there in the House of Representatives, and asked Congress to declare 418 a state of war exist been us and the Empire of Japan and the Axis monsters in Europe, I knew I was asking those noble elected officials to sign the death warrants of many thousands of American boys and men; even some women. And also the death warrants of many young and old people on the other side; innocent people, civilians, and God help us, children as well. It was not an easy task; not one that I entered into lightly. It was a task only a handful of Presidents before me had been compelled to undertake. Washington. Lincoln. Wilson. To mention a few. But there was no alternative. There was no way we could preserve this great countryis freedom without the sacrifices all out war demands. You have lost a fine friend, and you will, in all likelihood, lose others before this dreadful time has passed. We nearly lost this fine young officer here, and if it hadnit been for your bravery, your loyalty to your country, and your apparent disregard for your own personal safety, he might not be sitting here with us tonight. And for that reason, we have decided to honor the two of you this evening, in a manner befitting your heroic acts.i The President summoned Steve Early by gesturing with his left hand to place the ornate wooden box on the table before him. He thanked his aide, who then stepped back into the shadows. I did not notice, at first, that a photographer had appeared in the room, quietly stalking the long table and taking pictures, as the occasion demanded. The frequent flashbulbs were not a distraction, but my interest in his Speed Graphic caused me to look away from time to time. I wondered if a biography of Mrs. Roosevelt or Steve Early might be suitable for Dr. I.Q. Maybe not Early, but certainly Harry Hopkins. . . Carefully, the Chief Executive opened the wooden boxis heavy lid and took out three smaller boxes, flat and rectangular plush velvet boxes of royal blue. Turning slightly to the left in his wheel chair, he addressed Shadow first. iYoung man,i he said, iIive never jumped out of an airplane in combat or otherwise, but Iive got to believe it takes a rare courage to abandon ship, so to speak, and leave your friend and a disabled, seriously wounded pilot behind. You could have 419 stayed with the plane and put yourself unnecessarily in harmis way. Your added weight may well have caused a much different outcome to an extremely risky maneuver in getting that plane on the ground in one piece. But I was more impressed with your conduct and actions during the discovery and sinking of the enemy submarine, and for that I am proud to award you . . . the Presidential Citizens Medal.i I heard Marilyn and Scott gasp in surprise from down the table, and I saw a humility unfold across Shadowis countenance I had never seen before, or since, for that matter. iWow! Thank you, Mr. President.i He reached out to take the opened box from Roosevelt. iYouire more than welcome,i said the President. iBut wait; thereis more.i He reached for another velvet box. iThis is an award I am particularly proud to present. In military life, all soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, even clerks at the Pentagon o never expect to be wounded or injured during combat. We are all invincible, or so we think. But when a mishap occurs, it is incumbent upon your superiors to recognize the sacrifice with a token even so small as a medal. Therefore, Mr. Cranston, in recognition of the wounds you endured in the service of your country, I am again moved with genuine pride to make this award, endorsed by the Department of War, to the youngest civilian in general knowledge: the Order of The Purple Heart!i At this there was an open gasp from the Cranstons, the Edens, and even Mrs. Roosevelt, who swiftly wiped away a tear of pride. Applause broke out from my father and Anna Theresa, and I started to rise to cross over and embrace my friend. iNot so fast,i said President Roosevelt, reaching out and placing his hand on my forearm. iYou arenit going to escape a bit of recognition yourself, Marty Eden.i I sat back down, as he reached for the remaining royal blue box. iI had Commander Frankavilla come down here from the Washington Naval Hospital where heis been recuperating these past three months. I wanted him to be here tonight as living proof that when the youth of America make up their minds to do something, nothing can stop them. . . i 420 He addressed the people at and around the table: my family, Shadowis parents, Anna Theresa, Steve Early, Harry Hopkins, the First Lady, Gary Frankavilla, Shadow, several Secret Service agents and military police lost in the shadows by the distant walls, and the phalanx of White House staff servants attending us, as well as me. iSome say there is a limit to bravery and resourcefulness. Some say that when the chips are down, when the dice have been rolled and snake eyes appear inevitable, when the skies are darkest, the water roughest, when it seems all is lost and the curtain is coming down, thatis when Americais young people toss in the towel and say eif it looks like it canit be done, it probably caniti. To that I say, rubbish! Nonsense! Itis just the opposite. When it looks like weive played our highest card and weire about to be trumped, you can always depend on the youth of America to pick up the cards, shuffle a fresh deck, and without blinking an eye, give us a brand new deal. And thatis exactly what young Marty Eden did when he miraculously landed that Grumman Avenger under circumstances that would have tested the mettle of a trained, experienced pilot, and in so doing, saved the life of a valued Naval officer. Not to mention a very expensive aircraft I understand was repaired and back in service within two weeks! This extraordinary feat could not have been accomplished without the unstinting, guiding efforts of Commander Peter Wiggins and Lieutenant Commander Jay Goldsmith, both of whom, by the way, have been awarded the Navy Cross as a result of their destruction of the enemy submarine. Mr. Eden could have bailed out with his friend Shadow here and let the Avenger ditch in the ocean with Commander Frankavilla still aboard; and quite honestly, I donit believe the commander would have survived; he would not be celebrating with us tonight. Because of that act of unselfish determination and for an exceptionally meritorious contribution to the national interests of the United States, I hereby award to John Martin Eden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And I might add, Mr. Eden is the only civilian minor to ever receive 421 this medal. In fact, here, Commander, join me in presenting this medal to this remarkable young man!i Within seconds there was a great deal of hugging and crying, kissing and handshaking as Momma, Dad, Grandma, Douglas, Grandpa, Freddie, everyone came upon Shadow and me with loud and wet accolades of pride and excitement. Even Mrs. Roosevelt extended her personal gratitude for whatever it was we had done by actually pecking us both on the cheek. It was a memorable moment, embarrassing as it was. For me personally, the best was the look on Mommais and Grandmais faces, exceeded only by the firm embrace of Anna Theresa at the end, followed by a soft, serious, and meaningful kiss. The inflation of all my hopes and dreams exhaled back to reality, however, when she turned and administered a similar affection on Shadow. He looked at her as if he were Gary Cooper in Sergeant York, and for a heartbeat I was afraid he would mutter Aw, shucks, miam, it werenit nuthini! As the evening came to a close over a final cup of coffee and more cigarettes, the President asked Shadow and me what plans weid made for college. iIf either, or both of you would like to entertain attending one of the military academies, Iim sure I might have some influence in that direction.i Shadow, to my surprise, said, iI been thinkini along those lines.i iReally! Good! West Point or Annapolis?i Roosevelt enunciated Annapolis about twenty-five decibels louder. iNeither one of eemi said Shadow. iI was thinkini more in terms of VMI. Virginia Military Institute.i iReally. Well . . . I believe I have a few connections there as well. Ha!i He turned to me. iAnd you, Mr. Eden? They tell me you want to be a writer. A journalist, perhaps, or a photographer. Perhaps you could wind up with Earlyis job! Ha! Ha! Have you thought about college?i iYes, sir.i I glanced at Anna Theresa and nodded with certainty. iI want to look at Old Dominion, right there in Norfuck.i iI see,i he said, but I donit suppose he really did. But he 422 smiled and remarked, iSomehow I think no matter what you choose to do, it will be not only the best choice, it will be the right one.i When it was finally all over, and we had expressed our gratitude, said our good nights, and were offering our goodbyes, President Roosevelt pulled me down by my coat sleeve and whispered in my ear, iMr. Early and Mr. Hopkins told me what happened to the three of you and what you all did in the passageway beyond the secret panels. Youill be interested to know we can all sleep soundly tonight and without fear; the other four foreign nationals who had breached the security of the estate were arrested and taken to Fort Bragg. Early tells me you discovered who was here and, more or less, guessed the reasons why. You donit know the whole story, and you probably never will, but I would consider it a personal favor if you and Shadow and Mrs. Tortoretti keep this under wraps at least until the war is over. Please speak with them and get their cooperation. Itis imperative, in fact, itis an order, sailor!i I nodded; I wanted the President to know the depth of our loyalty. iWhen we realized their intentions were to harm you ani Mr. Churchill ani all the rest,i I whispered back, ithere was nothing else we could do.i iYes. Of course. Remarkable. It wasnit the first time theyive tried, but if you people hadnit been here, it probably would have been the last. Ha! I thought Winston would bust a gut, and Ike would expire of apoplexy! But mumis the word for right now; at least until the war is over!i Shadow and I were the first ones out the door, with Douglas and Gary Frankavilla not far behind. He said he would take us to the Billiard Room, and we could play partners in a game of Eight-Ball. On the way down the marble staircase, Shadow said, iRemember that scene at the end of Yankee Doodle Dandy, right after Roosevelt gave George M. Cohan his medal for writini all them patriotic songs? Remember what Cagney did?i 423 iYeah,i I said. iHe started dancing on the steps, ani they brought up the music, ani he danced all the way down! Too bad we got no music.i iWhat diyou mean? Just like in the minstrel show: make it ourselves!i With that, I did a sort of downbeat tap with my left foot, we joined arms, grasping our boxes of medals, and time-stepped from stair to stair, singing . . . Iim a Dixie Doodle Dandy . . . At the bottom I could hear Anna Theresa laughing behind us as she said to Momma, iI donit think James Cagney or George Cohan have too much to worry about!i It was one of the few times I recall Momma laughing with genuine mirth. iI think theyire gonna sleep like babies!i 424 EPILOGUE 1944 was a catalystic, magnificent year in American and world history. On June 4, U.S. and British troops entered Rome and liberated the city from the Germans who had seized it the previous September. On June 6, Allied troops landed at Normandy to commence our crushing D-Day offensive. On June 20th, the ill-fated plot by disgruntled Nazi officers to assassinate Adolph Hitler failed miserably. On August 25, American GIs and British Tommies liberated Paris, and on Oct 13th, the Allies freed Athens. However, on a cold, gray December 16, the Germans struck back at U.S. troops in the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German counteroffensive and very nearly a catastrophic set-back for the Allies. The battle raged for ten days, and 19,000 Americans died. The Germans lost 40,000. In the spring of 1944 Shadow and I graduated from Maury High School with final grades that were, to no oneis surprise, flatly unremarkable; a sorry row of Bis and Cis was just enough to get us past the admissionsi committees entrance exams at Old Dominion and VMI respectively; adequate but barely. It did not take a Basil Rathbone to figure out that influence from the White House or the Pentagon was, probably, a determining factor, particularly in Shadowis case. Our senior year was not an easy one, thanks to the attention we received when official photographs accepting medals of valor from President Franklin D. Roosevelt were released to the press. The stories and captions that accompanied the pictures were, to my mind, blown all out of proportion. Shadow and I both felt, in retrospect, we did nothing all that extraordinary; had we had an alternative, we would have refused to board the airplane, thrown a tantrum and cried for our mommas. In fact, when reporters from Life came to Norfolk and interviewed us, along with a crew from MovieTone News, we switched roles and told them I had bailed out first, then Shadow, and the plane 425 had landed all by itself, by a secret remote control the Navy had just invented. Shadow, lapsing into his Harpo Marx imitation, pretended to be deaf and dumb, and I made up a story that the radio program after which he was named was really a documentary based on his fatheris true identity. Scott Cranston was the real Lamont Cranston, with the power to cloud menis minds. I donit think the reporters took us seriously or believed a word of it; they just laughed and wrote their stories from the press releases made available from the White House and from Maury High. The photos and stories passed out by the government pointedly said that we had received our awards from President Roosevelt at the White House. No mention was made of the Biltmore Estate, and whatever might have been seen of the Second Floor Living Hall had been air-brushed out of the official photos. The morning we left Asheville to return to Norfolk, Steve Early met with all of us, the entire families, in the Winter Garden. iThe President,i he said, iwas delighted to have you all here, even for so short a time. He wants to wish each of you a splendid Thanksgiving and a joyous Christmas holiday, and he would like to ask a special favor. Until the war is over, it is his wish, his, uh, directive, that none of you speak of your brief visit as, uh, taking place here at Biltmore House in North Carolina. As your Commander-in-Chief, he would, uh, your government would, appreciate it if you spoke of this as little as possible; and when you do, please just say it all took place during a visit to the White House. A fib, yes, a white lie, uh, so to speak, but in view of the war-time situation, and all that happened here, and might have happened, a necessary one for security. Not to mention the national and international interests of our allies. Weire counting on you to keep it all under your hats, so to speak. Loose lips, uh, sink ships. . . Well, thatis it; we all have to go, have to move on.i All of us nodded with grim seriousness and pledged to ourselves and each other, as loyal Americans, to comply with our Presidentis request. iYou tell the President he can count on us!i beamed my 426 father. This day undoubtedly would be enshrined forever in my fatheris psyche with monumental significance. Today was the day he was entrusted with a national emergency conspiracy concocted by his idol, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. iAll of us,i concurred Scott Cranston. Everyone nodded and murmured acquiescence, but as far as Bernie Eden was concerned, this was his mission and his alone. How many times after the war would he sit around a dining room table and re-tell over and over again this tale of loyal dedication, trust, devotion and patriotic heroism, even if it was covered up by a bald- faced lie? I said, iWeid like to thank the President personally for his hospitality ani say good-bye.i iThe President,i Early informed us, ihas left the building. I would, however, like to speak with you, Mrs. Tortoretti, and, uh, Shadow here, privately.i While the rest were being bundled into the waiting station wagons outside in the snow covered driveway, the press secretary escorted the three of us into the Gallery just beyond the Winter Garden. iThe President wants you to know,i he told us, iyou three arguably prevented serious harm, perhaps even saved the lives of Mr. Churchill, General Eisenhower, the Chief of Staff, and at least two-thirds of the keenest, most important military and government minds in the world, not to mention your own Presidentis as well. Iim at liberty to tell you this much: the four bastards the FBI arrested had been getting inside information over a period of two years from a mole, uh, an informer at the OSS, and theyid been waiting for this opportunity to get the entire Allied brain trust in one place at one time. This pre- summit was apparently leaked in Europe, and they were just licking their chops. There is no question they regarded it as a suicide mission, and even though Stalin was not here, they got the green light from Berlin to proceed. The plan was to blow up the Banquet Hall last night while the Roosevelts were entertaining the entire entourage. They would then rush in through collapsed walls and finish off whoever was still alive 427 with machine gun and small arms fire. After that, assuming they themselves were not killed by Secret Service and military police, the assassins planned to use what explosives they had left to destroy as much of Biltmore as possible. There were two things they didnit count on: first, the Roosevelts inviting you all to come here and spend the night, and second, that you would accidentally discover the passageways and hidden munitions arsenal. And then when SS officer Major Rudolph Wolfgang Langdon von Gunter-Lankford, yes, that was his full name o found you all in there . . . well, they knew they were out of business as soon as they realized youid found the cache, taken care of Lankford, and called in the troops. The remaining Nazis were ferreted out by Army Intelligence when Beadle got the staff assembled; three of them tried to commit suicide right on the spot, with cyanide capsules. I think Lankford knew it was all over when he came in to put fresh logs on your fire and saw the panel to the passage way was partially open. His big, and fatal, mistake was following you by himself; he should have alerted his colleagues. Then when he failed to call Shadowis bluff with the hand grenade . . . i Shadow said, iWerenit no bluff.i I got the impression he was pouting and wanted to say more. But for some reason . . . he didnit. iWell,i Early continued, ithe jig, as they say, was up. If heid shot you and the grenade flew out of your hand, the bluff, such as it was, would have been moot. And I suspect Lankford knew it.i iYeah. He knew it all right. . . Jusi like inna good oli Alan Ladd movie!i iWell,i Early grinned, ithis is one movie thatis never gonna get made! The only way the press will ever get wind of this is if you people leak it out. We want your solemn word, as Americans, that knowledge of this will remain one of the great secrets of the war . . . at least until itis over. Do we have it?i I wondered aloud where all the dignitaries and everybody had disappeared to? iChurchill, all the British nationals, as well as most of our 428 own Washington officials and civilians, were safely out of the house and out of the area inside of forty minutes yesterday afternoon. For appearances, only you people, the President, Mrs. Roosevelt, Mr. Hopkins, key America brass, military police and the Secret Service, and myself remained overnight. As far as the press knows, nothing was ever slated to occur here beyond the Presidentis honoring you two for your heroics with Commander Frankavella. And as far as the pre-summit was concerned, you people were just a smoke screeni iHow did those awful Nazis ever get inside Biltmore House in the first place?i Anna Theresa asked. Early grimaced as though having a tooth extracted. iThat was the easy part, Iim sorry to say. Posing as Americans returning from a day in Fort Erie, brandishing forged documents, speaking with perfect New York accents, they walked across the Peace Bridge from Canada into Buffalo, carrying all those guns and explosives in ordinary suitcases and briefcases. It must have been a tremendous risk, but Customs obviously took little notice of them, they probably made the crossing several times over a few weeks, and familiarity bred honest negligence. They caught a cab to the train station and bought tickets to Asheville and simply showed up at Biltmore here, where they applied for jobs as house staff. Old Chauncey Beadle, always on the lookout for qualified, genteel help, hired them. Their Yankee dialect was impeccable, and they looked as American as, as we do, I guess. It would never occur to the employment office to ask for passports or proof of citizenship. Believe me, the Nazis know how to train their operatives!i I said, iSomeday Iid like to write a story about all this.i iYou can, if you wish; and if you can retain all the details in your memory,i Early nodded. iBut not while the war is going on and not while the President or any of the major players are still alive. We got a deal on that?i We all agreed, and we all shook hands, even though shaking hands with Anna Theresa made me seem foolish and uncomfortable. Shadow asked me, iWhat would yiall call the story? Poor, Poor Lankford?i Steve Early didnit get it. 429 TeenAge! Magazine placed Poor, Poor Richard in their annual short story competition, and Krista Rosakovia informed Anna Theresa just after the New Year that I had won First Prize. The telegram said I would be paid the staggering sum of $2,500! Anna Theresa adamantly refused her $250 commission. iI wasnit your agent when you originally sold the story to TeenAge!,i she insisted, iand it would be unethical to expect a fee like this, after the fact. The answer is no.i iBut, i iNo!i she said, sharply. iTell you what: When you start at Old Dominion, move into my spare bedroom; we can work together on future writing projects, and Iill make it all up then. Plus Iill charge you fifteen dollars a month room and board.i A sensation of delirious, delicious anxiety shot through me like an electric charge: Live with Anna Theresa Tortoretti! My life instantly took on a new dimension! Nothing else really mattered! In that ascending instant my entire being seemed to light up and glow, and I knew for the very first time what it felt like just being alive! It was the most tremendous expectation I would ever experience, or so I thought at that moment. What did matter, however, was that my father received word in May that he was being transferred to the E.K. Carey store in Birmingham, Alabama, and he had to be there by August 15. That storeis shoe buyer had been drafted, and there was no one else left with sufficient experience to replace him. Dad would get an automatic five percent raise, and all moving expenses. That meant Momma had to be accommodated with a position at the Birmingham store, and Freddie, Grandma, and Grandpa had to make a decision whether to stay in Norfolk or move with them to Alabama. Douglas would again, as I had five times before o change to a new and different school. After discussing it during the course of one Friday night supper, it was decided Momma, Dad, and Douglas would move to Birmingham, and the rest of them would remain in Norfolk until Freddie could wangle a similar transfer from E.K. Careyis. Grandpa, it was taken for granted, could easily find a job in 430 Birmingham, as there was always a dearth of European master bakers. iAnd,i Momma said to me, iyouill be living right on in the dormitory at Oli Dominion, ani you can come visit during holidays ani some weekends, ani weill have the summers . . . i I had, of course, other plans, and now was as good a time as any to reveal them. iMomma, I donit think Iim really cut out for dorm life,i I said. iEven if yiall were stayini here on Doumar ani Gill, I donit think Iid be living at home while goini to Dominion.i Momma had that quizzical look of suspicious innocence of which Southern women were masters. iWell, honey . . . where on earth would yiall be living if not on campus?i iWell . . . i I cleared my throat. iWell, I been thinking about movini in with Anna Theresa Tortoretti. I talked with her about it, ani she agrees it would be a good thing, a perfect idea.i Dad looked up from his plate. iYou gonna live with a dame old enough to be your mother, ficrissakes? Sister? Same age as your aunt? Huh? Jay-sus!i iNo,i I protested, inot living with her, not like that. Sheis got this really great apartment right practically at Oli Dominionis front gate. Sheis got a spare bedroom ani a big bathroom . . . ani sheis got a grand piano,i I added, as if it would mean anything. iI donit care if sheis got a not-so-grand piano,i Dad quipped; iI think thatis a lousy, stupid idea. You canit go off livini with some old woman thatis married to some fella while heis off . . . off, off . . . where the hell is he, anyway?i I sighed. iHeis in Italy; heis in the Italian Army, fightini against Americans. He ainit, isnit, ever comini back.i iYou better hope not,i Dad sighed right back at me. iThose dagosill cut your dick off yiall mess with their women.i Douglas broke out laughing at that. iBernie, please . . . i Momma looked helpless, and Grandma just shook her head. Freddie giggled. iWell,i I said, ithereis nothini wrong with me going to college ani livini at Anna Theresais place. Our relationship is 431 strictly, uh, platonic, sheis my agent, for Godis sake, ani she helps me with my writing. Sheis knows more about writing than Iill ever know, ani we both feel she can help me better if Iim right there ani not livini in some oli dormitory, or hangini out in some oli frat house. Anyway, itis pretty much decided, ani Iive already informed Dominion I wonit be living on campus.i iDamn nice of you to have told us,i Dad said. iYouill be eighteen in a couple days, yiall got money of your own ani all, so I guess we ainit got much say in what yiall can ani canit do.i iWell,i I said, guilty humility my trump card, iI donit want yiall thinkini like that.i iWhatis platonic mean?i asked Douglas. iMeans weire just friends,i I replied. iYeah. Right,i my father snorted. iDo you have to pay her rent?i Freddie wanted to know. iNo,i Dad answered for me. iJust tax. Amusement tax!i Grandma said, iIn my day, thereid be no considerini such a fool idea, someone your age. Youire too young. It can come to no good; not so much as dry behind the ears. Youire just moving too fast; too fast. Mark me words.i Nothing more was said for about thirty seconds, and I knew the discussion had run out of fuel when Momma muttered, iI jusi donit like it, thatis all, yihear? Donit look right. Whatire people gonna say?i iWhat people?i I wondered aloud, rhetorically. . . The Allies, led by Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George C. Marshall and orchestrated, Iim sure, by President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, invaded Europe by way of the French beaches at Normandy on Tuesday, June 6, 1944, in one of the greatest, most horrific battles our country had ever known, over 9,000 Allied casualties, dead and wounded, and, just as Dad had suggested to the President at Biltmore House, we were fighting on the country roads and in the villages and city streets of France and bringing the war, at last, right up to Hitleris front door. My father, the self-proclaimed military and political scientist, contemplated for thirty minutes the possibility of writing a book. 432 I came home from the beach one evening in late June and found him up in the attic, sitting at my writing table in the garret alcove, staring at a blank piece of paper, and running his fingers over the keys of my new Smith-Corona. iWhaicha up to, Pop?i iAaah, nothini,i he shrugged, embarrassed. iJust takini a look at, uh, how this oli typewriter thing works.i iYiall thinking of writini somethini?i iMe? Nah, just foolini around. . . This hereis a pretty good machine?i I nodded. iGive her a try.i He put his hands on the keys and stared at them; then he picked them up and rubbed them together. iI donitOI reallyi He looked up at me, and whatever there was, had been, behind his rimless, tinted glasses was gone. Probably forever. iTell you what, though,i he said, with enthusiasm, iif I was gonna write somethini, Iid write about what I told oli FDR down in North Carolina, yiall know?, ibout how we gotta take this war right over to them bastards in Europe ani Japan. I could write a book on the subject, yihear me?i Perhaps he could have, but of course, he never did. Momma, Dad, and Douglas moved to Birmingham, Alabama, on the first day of August; a Tuesday. Momma had found a small house for rent on Sapple Ruin Road, right on the public bus line; and I stayed on at Doumar and Gill Alley with Grandma, Grandpa, and Freddie until the 12th. That Saturday Shadow helped me pile the three boxes containing my clothes, books, typewriter, photographic junk, high school diploma, yearbooks, and a few other possessions into the back of the Jeep and head up Colley Avenue to 43rd Street and Anna Theresais apartment at the edge of Old Dominionis campus. iPsshitttt, Iim gonna miss this oli Jeep,i Shadow said, caressing the steering wheel as he drove. He was scheduled to report to VMI on Thursday, August 17. I said, iTold yiall you could have it. Give you my share outright, ani the damn thingis all yours.i iNope.i He shook his head. iOther way around. I sign 433 over my share, ani yiall keep it. They wonit let no Rats have a car at VMI in the freshman year anyhow, ani by the time I get around to makini upper classman, we can work out what weire gonna do with it. Yiall keep it etil then; then weill see, hear?.i iDonit really need it,i I said. iI can walk to classes.i iWell, so can I; only we gotta march, like liil toy soldier- shits. . . Besides, yiall gonna have oli Anneleise to tote around on the weekends to the beach ani all, psssshit, you gonna need wheels morein me, thatis for sure! The Warshiniton ani Lee campus practily backs right up to parade ground, ani I hear they got five, six hundred coeds over there. Gotta be at least sixty or eighty of eem havini wet dreams every night just thinkini about me ani all us new Keydets movini in next door!i iYeah, but Anna Theresais got a car I can use, i iWhooooeeee!i he bellowed, and slapped the dashboard. ieHey, there, lye-berry lady, I got this here date tonight to go down on the beach sois I can get a liil South Norfuck poon, ani I need to borrow yiallis car. Yiall donit mind, do you? I promise I gonna be real careful ani not get no pussy tracks on the apolstery!i Yeah, man, I wanna be around to hear that conversation!i Shadow had never seen Anna Theresais apartment, and when he and I carried the boxes up to my room, he stood for a moment and stared at the grand piano. iShe play that oli thing?i he asked. iNuh,i I said. iHer husbandis a concert pianist. I told yiall about him.i iOh, yeah; the wop in the Eye-tal-yun Army. Is he really gonna cut your dick off, like your oli man say?, what Douglas told me heis gonna do?i Anna Theresa was still at the library until six, so Shadow made himself at home. He flopped onto the all-enveloping sofa and momentarily disappeared. iJ. H. Chrisimus! What kind of couchis this?i iHow yiall like this place?i I asked. He struggled up and looked around. iThis placeis a Ingrud Bergman movie set, thatis what this is. Pssssshit, just look at 434 this place! Ingrud Bergmanis gotta live here, hey, thatis who the oli lye-berry lady reminds me of! Ingrud Bergman! No wonder yiallire so all-out gaga in love with her, you oli Charles Boy-yay dickhead, you! . . . Yiall fuggin Ingrud Bergman!i iDonit be a schmo.i iDonit schmo me! Betchew you are! Hot damn! I really betchew are! Meeeerrrciiiiii!i iKnock it off, dumb shit, yi hear!i I said. Shadow laughed and fell back amidst the dense cushions. iMan, I gotta hand it to you. Yiall got it made in the shade. This is one fuggin great apartment, ani sheis gotta be one fuggin great lady, or one great fuggin lady. I donit know if itis better to be good lookini ani dumb like me, or walk around with your finger up your ass ani makini up stories on a typewriter ani livini the life a Riley with Ingrud Bergman. I really gotta hand it to yiall, Gunga Din, you a better man than me! Ugly, but one lucky nigger!.i We would never know what might have happened if Claudio Tortoretti had survived the war and returned to America, because on April 20, 1945, he was executed with Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci, the former dictatoris mistress, and three others of the entourage; shot by rampaging Italian Partisans as the desperate Facistas sought refuge in Switzerland, then hanged upside down in the street at Lake Como. Anna Theresais only reaction was to sell the grand piano. I came in from classes one Thursday and it was gone. To my best recollection, she never again mentioned Claudiois name in my presence. The week after I moved into her apartment I drove Shadow up to Lexington, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the home of Virginia Military Institute. It was such beautiful country, such a fabulous little Rebel town, so rich in the history of the South, and such an exciting military college campus, I had momentary regrets Iid be leaving my friend there and returning to the rather drab, ordinary, commonplace existence of Norfolk and Old Dominion. Neither Scott nor Marilyn Cranston could accompany 435 Shadow for enrollment at VMI. Marilyn had pulled a double shift that Thursday and Friday, and the money was just too good to pass up. His father was on a long run to Portland, Oregon, and would not make it back to Norfolk before Sunday night. iJust as well,i Shadow rationalized. iMy momma really hates all this military crap, ani the oli man still canit get it through his noggin he ainit never gonna be no Marine.i As we drove past the Alexander-Witherow House, Shadow pointed out that it was one of the few buildings to survive the fire in 1796 that destroyed most of the town. iThis here part,i he said, ithis hereis called Lawyersi Row ani Court House Square. When they rebuilt the place after the fire, they made it look jusi like the way it did way back in 1778, if yiall can believe that.i I was impressed, and I said so. iHow you know all that?i iStopped by over to Larchmont, ani the lye-berry lady give me some books on Lexiniton ani VMI. I started to read a couple of eem, ani they was pretty damn good. Yiall know somethini else?i he went on. iTwo of the three biggest losers in American historyire buried righichere in this oli town.i iWhois that?i iStonewall Jackson ani Robert E. Lee.i iNo kiddini? They buried here?i iYep.i I asked, iWhois the third?i iOli Jeff Davis.i iWhereis he buried?i Shadow shrugged. iDamn if I know. Someplace else, I guess.i First glimpse of VMI, just outside of town, was mildly moving in its stark, Spartan, and fortress-like appearance. Military tidiness and masculine strength were evident in everything from the buildings surrounding the vast parade grounds to the late summer demeanor and apparel of old students returning and new arrivals unpacking their pickup trucks and battered, pre-war family cars. Somehow, even civilians like Shadow and me knew without being told, we were 436 in a well-scrubbed, well-organized, no-nonsense military compound. As we pulled up in front of Lejeune Hall, Shadow told me our high school in Norfolk had been named after a VMI teacher. iYiall kiddini me? Never even thought about Maury being named after a person. I always thought it was a place or o somethini.i Shadow shook his head. iMaybe yiall ainit so smart like yiall pretend all the time. . . Matthew Fontaine Maury, that was his name all right, taught physics ani astronomy in this place sometime after the Civil War. Maybe yiall should of done a biography on him, ani you mightive got one of them hotsy- totsy camiras!i I was skeptical. iYiall sure it was him they named Maury after?i iPsssshittt, I dunno. I read all this stuff in a book. How many asshois runnini around named Maury yiall think there is?i We unloaded Shadowis two large suitcases, his Army- surplus duffel bag, and a topless A&P crate-box of odds and ends. We stood on the sidewalk and nudged the luggage with our sneakered toes. iYiall want me to help carry this stuff inside?i I asked. iNaw. I probily gotta lug it to wherever my barracks are, anyhow. They said jusi come on in Lejeune Hall ani get registered ani all. Iill find some scared, snot-nosed kid about to crap his pants to help me. Heis gonna take one look at me ani think Iim some asshoi officer or somethini.i I laughed. iYiall should of worn your medals on your jacket. They take a look at your Purple Heart, they gonna get you a wheel chair.i iYeah. Shoulda used my head ani got eem out. But I ainit even got eem no more, anyhow. Gave eem to my momma ani my oli man to keep. They got eem sittini up in plain sight on the shelf by the door to the kitchen at Mommais.i I was surprised. iDid you really leave them behind like that, just sittini on a shelf?i iYeah. What the fugg I want eem for? Canit wear eem on 437 my uniform up here; besides, my Dyke see eem, he probily kick the shit outta me.i I asked, iWhy they call your upper class mentor a Dyke o of all names?i Shadow made the open-palm gesture: iDunno. Books never did explain it.i We stood there a little longer and didnit say much of anything. Shadow pulled out a Lucky and stuck it in his mouth. Before he could light it, a senior Keydet with an impressive row of stripes on his sleeves walked by and touched Shadowis arm. iLight up, Rat,i he said, softly, with no hint of a smile, iani I guarantee youill have to eat it, flame ani all. Just stick it back in the pack, ani then give the pack to your friend here . . . unless heis stayini on, too.i Shadow handed me the pack, and the Keydet moved away. iGuess thereis a lot I gotta teach these oli fellas around here,i Shadow muttered. iSee the way that asshoi was oglini the Jeep?i iYeah.i Shadow looked off across the parade ground. iMarty, thereis somethini I been meanini to tell you. . .i iWhatis that?i i . . . for several weeks now. Been sort of botherini me. Somethini I think yiall should know.i I remained silent and so did he. Then I said, truly from instinct and no rationale: iSomething to do with Biltmore and that day in the secret passage?i iYeah.i He took a deep breath and looked directly at me. iThat oli Nazi Shithead Lankford, remember him?i iLike Iid ever forget him . . . i iWell. . . He, uh, thereis somethini I been wantini to tell you, wantini to get off my chest . . . i I shrugged. iShoot.i iWell, thatis just it. He didnit.i iHe didnit. . .i my turn to spread my palms upward. i . . . what?i 438 Shadow shuffled his feet and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. iHe didnit . . . didnit shoot himself, like I said he did.i I looked hard at my friend. iWhat do you mean?i iI mean, I, killed him. Shot him. I shot him with his own fuggin gun.i I said, iYeah, right,i but somehow I knew he wasnit lying. iWell, then, but whyid you say he shot himself?i Again, a heavy silence hung between us. Then: iI dunno. I was scared. I didnit know what would happen, what theyid do if o if I told eem what really happened.i I wished now I could have taken those cigarettes out of my pocket and offered him one. And one for myself. iI donit get it,i I said, quietly, glancing about to see if anyone could possibly overhear us. iHow could you have managed to shoot him? He had the gun. You were holding that live grenade . . . i iYeah. Ani I was also holding your oli manis air raid warden flashlight.i iSo? . . . And? . . . i Shadow was rocking from one foot to another, and he kept it up while he told me the story he must have gone over a hundred times in his mind: iWell, oli Lankford wasnit about to give up and let us wreck the whole Nazi plan to kill Roosevelt ani Churchill ani that whole bunch. He knew all he had to do was get rid of you ani me ani the lye-berry lady, ani they could just go on and finish their business, right then and there, that night like they planned. iWhen yiall started to walk away from us ani head back up outta the passageway, Lankford turned and raised that gun ani pointed it dead nuts at the back of your head. I could see his finger up against the trigger, ani I could see the knuckle startini to turn white, ani I knew he was pullini that trigger ani was gonna shoot yiall right then and there.i I let out a sharp breath of air. iJay-sus. . . But, he didnit.i iThatis right,i Shadow nodded. iHe didnit. For two reasons. . . One, you ani the lye-berry lady were startini to turn the corner outta his line of fire ani . . . Two, I let the flashlight fall from under my armpit ani into my right hand . . . ani before I 439 even know what I was doini, I swung the thing like it was a hammer or somethini, ani bashed the sumbitch in the back of his head as hard as I could. Pssssshit, he went down like his legsid been sliced off. He jusi spun around and leaned back against the wall ani flopped on his ass with his eyes wide open. The gun flew out of his hand ani hit me in the shins. I picked it up jusi as I saw oli Lankford open his mouth like he was gonna holler, ani I stuck the damn thing in his pie-hole ani o merciiiiii!, it went off ani his head exploded like a fuggin watermelon! I thought I was gonna puke and shit my pants both at the same time!i Once again we stood there looking at each other in silence. I didnit know what to say except, iThis for true?i Shadow nodded. iYeah. I been wantini to tell you this all along, but . . . I dunno. With all that was happenini to us, the medals ani the publicity, beini Big Time war heroes for savini the world and all, Ha!, ani finishini high school, ani headini for college, pssshit, I dunno. Like a flash in my head, it all seemed a lot simpler to just say he shot himself . . . I didnit know if theyid still call us heroes or change their minds ani write us off as murderers, ani weid wind up in some fediral prison or somethini. . . i For an instant, I wondered what he meant by iusi? But I didnit say anything. iAnyway, I been thinkini on this now for some time, ani I been wantini to tell you. Ani it ainit gotta be no secret as far as the lye-berry lady is concerned. You can tell her, too, if you want to, or you can leave it like it was. I donit care none. . . . Do yiall think I did the right thing?i I shrugged again, uncertain. iI dunno. What diyou think?i iI dunno. I guess so. Itis all over now, anyhow. He was a German, a fuggin Nazi; Iim a American. Itis like we was both soldiers fightini a fuggin war, ani I dunno, it was him or us.i I tried to sort it out, but there was no conclusion rushing up from the cesspool of uncertainty. I guess Iid known all along there was something about this Shadow had kept from me. iYeah,i I said, finally, iI guess so. . . . One good thing come out of it, though.i iWhatis that?i iMy daddyis civil defense flashlight. Heid have it gold- plated if he ever knew it really was in battle ani whacked a Nazi. eSpecially one that was out there to kill FDR and most of those world leaders like that. That oli flashlight would wind up glued to a plaque hangini on the front room wall!i We stood there and looked around at the campus, glancing occasionally at the other arrivals; neither of us had anything left to say. iWell,i I finally sighed, iguess we wonit be seeini too much of each other for some while.i iYeah, guess not. Ha! Thatis what we thought when I jumped outta the fuggin airplane, too, didnit we?. . . Few weeks, anyways. . . Once we get settled in ani get a handle on the swing of things, get the lay of the land, yiall get Anneleise, maybe even Julie Hayden or Dede, yiall might wanna take a ride up on a weekend . . . i I nodded. iYeah. Sure. We can sure do that. Maybe even Anna Theresa might wanna take a look around.i iYeah. Iill give Ingrud Bergman a tour of the Preston Lye- berry over there, hear? Maybe yiall can sneak her into the barracks, ani weill show her where oli George Marshall hung out.iiYeah,i I agreed. iBet sheid like that. . . Know somethini?, one of those fellas at the Biltmore House was George Marshall; the one who looked like Donald Crisp in How Green Was My Valley.i iShhhh.i Shadow put his finger to his lips and looked over his shoulder. iAinit supposed to talk about that stuff. Loose ships sink lips,i he grinned, wickedly. iYeah. . . Well . . . I guess I gotta go if I wanna get back to Norfuck before dark.i iYeah. Guess so.i iWell . . . i Shadow reached out and punched me, fairly hard, on the shoulder. iI ainit much for shakini hands with white tray-ash,i he said, iani if yiall think youire gonna gimme a bear hug ani a big, wet French kiss, yiall got another think comini. So . . . take this ani get the fugg outta here.i And he punched me as hard as he could on the other shoulder and almost knocked me down. He gave me his best Cagney: iBetter haul ass, Jocko!i Betteh hole ice, Jaw-ko! I drove quickly away from VMI and through Lexington, and there was a heavy emptiness all around me inside the Jeep and beyond. The beauty, the majesty of the lower Shenandoah Valley was now alien to me. I could see no people on either side of the road, and no cars passed me in either direction. Trees rushed by, but I saw no homes, no farms, no sign of life. I was in the world; the world was deserted, vacant; I was alone. . . In less than a year the war would be over. Hitler would be dead, a suicide with Eva Braun, in the Fuhrer Bunker beneath the gardens at Alte Reichskanzlei, in Berlin (curiously, today it is a childrenis playground with no discernible historical significance, no marker, not even a stick in the ground to indicate this was where the remorseless man who had murdered over 6,000,000 human beings had drawn his own last breath). Germany would surrender at Reims, France. My country would drop the first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and in less than sixty seconds 78,000 men, women, and children would be dead; thousands more quickly and slowly dying. Three days later weid drop another one on Nagasaki, and nothing on this planet would ever be the same again. . . . . . I drove a little faster. The Blue Ridge Mountains took on a deeper hue than Iid ever noticed before, and the road unwinding in front of me had a sheen of fading sunlight slipping in at sharp, blinding angles. It was blinding. I was going blind with loneliness. I had to get back to Anna Theresais apartment before I was physically ill. I couldnit think straight; Fear and Loneliness, mixed with Expectations, concocted a brew of Anxiety and Panic, iLetis get a pint ani a quart ani mix it!i my daddy would say, and I suddenly knew what the other Martin Eden had known: I honesty could no longer know anything. I depressed the accelerator and moved away even faster. The Jeepis engine purred with a gravelly yet strangely mellow- throated song whose nonsense doggerel from a minstrel show routine sprang into my mind, and I began to sing, my thumbs thumping the rhythm on the steering wheel: Iid rather have goober peas on my plate Than all the money ani oil in Kuwait; eCause money is funny ani oil will boil o But goober peasill always be loyal! Iid rather have Hickory and Dickory and Doc Than all the borscht in Vladivostok; ecause borscht is worscht when served by the cup o t makes Mommais girls wanna throw up! ....................The End....................