Don't Talk to Me About the War Read online

  At the beginning of this school year, I brought Beth to our table. Later, Beth brought Sarah.

  Roger is always the first of us in the cafeteria, and he gets us a table near the front. We’re one of the only “mixed” tables—you know, boys and girls—and both our girls are pretty, Beth with long blonde hair and Sarah with dark hair and eyes. I know lots of boys walk by and wonder how we get to sit with them.

  “Hey,” Roger asks the girls when they sit down, “did you hear Bob Hope? He was funny.”

  “No,” Beth answers.

  Sarah just shakes her head.

  “So what did you listen to?”

  “News,” Beth tells him. “You know there’s a war.”

  “Not here there isn’t,” Roger says. “We’re not fighting anyone. Why should we?”

  My mom and dad agree. They don’t want us in any war.

  “Well, if you didn’t hear Hope,” Roger says, “you didn’t hear this joke. They were talking about who has the most fans and Crosby said, ‘When it comes to figures, I’ve got it all over you.’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ Hope told him, ‘if you take off that girdle, you’ll have it all over everything.’”

  “That’s funny,” Beth says, and smiles.

  Sarah smiles, too.

  “Tonight and tomorrow,” Roger says, “you should tune in to WEAF at nine o’clock. Tonight it’s Fred Allen. You’ll like him. He jokes about the news. And tomorrow it’s Good News of 1940. Listen for Baby Snooks. She’s such a brat.”

  I’m almost done eating. At last, Roger unwraps his sandwich.

  “Salami. Yuck! I hate salami. What do you have?”

  “Egg salad,” I tell him. “And I ate it.”

  Roger always asks what we have, but we never trade.

  He hurries, eats his sandwich, and finishes just as the bell sounds. We are about to leave the lunchroom when he tells Beth and Sarah, “Now don’t forget, WEAF at nine.”

  I go to English next, to Miss Heller’s class. She stands in front with her arms folded. You should have been here the first day of school. She stood there and didn’t say anything. We talked and talked. Finally, we realized she was waiting for us, and got quiet.

  “You’re in seventh grade now,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that when you come in here you should be ready to learn.”

  Today, Miss Heller is holding yesterday’s paragraphs. The one I wrote is about the parachute jump at the World’s Fair.

  “Your stories were very good,” Miss Heller says, and reads from one of the papers. “Listen to this.

  ‘When you go to the Fair, look for the tall red post and the big red, green, and yellow LifeSaver candies.’”

  Hey! That’s mine!

  “‘The ride cost forty cents, but it’s worth it,’” Miss Heller reads. “‘Take a seat beneath a parachute. Make sure to get strapped in. Then up you go! Up! Up! Up past the LifeSavers. You go two hundred and fifty feet in the air. Don’t be scared. Look around at the fair and at the tiny people below. Now hold on! The ride down is fast. Whoosh! That was fun. It’s a great ride and you should try it if you don’t mind waiting in line. I waited half an hour.’”

  Miss Heller looks up. “Wasn’t that great? ” she asks. “I could almost feel the excitement of the drop.”

  That’s exactly what I was trying to do. You know, I think writing should do more than list facts or tell a story. It should make people feel something.

  Sometimes I think I’d like to be a sportswriter and not just report which team won but write so readers feel the excitement of the game. Imagine that! Part of my job would be going to baseball games.

  I like Miss Heller’s class. Around Thanksgiving she read her favorite story to the class, “The Ransom of Red Chief,” about some crooks who steal a boy named Johnny and send a note telling his parents they will only give Johnny back if they pay a ransom. She said, “Listen to this!” lots of times when she read about Johnny, who is a real brat, something like Baby Snooks. It’s the crooks who end up paying the ransom. How about that! They pay the parents two hundred and fifty dollars just to get rid of Johnny.

  It’s a great story.

  The ransom story is by O. Henry, but his real name was William Sidney Porter. O. Henry is his pen name. If I become a writer I might call myself O. Tommy.

  After school, Beth, Sarah, and I meet by the oak tree. It’s right in front, just down the walk from those big doors. When I get out, Sarah is standing there with her leather briefcase and probably all her books.

  “You can’t need all that for homework,” I say, and point to her bag. “Why don’t you leave some books in your locker? ”

  Sarah shakes her head.

  “I’m just taking three books home.”

  Mine are held together with a large elastic band.

  “No,” Sarah says, and shakes her head again. “The authorities make searches. They can put something wrong in my book and say I was the person who wrote it.”

  Beth joins us and I tell her what Sarah said. She puts her hand on Sarah’s shoulder and softly tells her, “That doesn’t happen here. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  I wonder if that really happens in Europe, or if Sarah is just paranoid.

  Beth says, “We’ll wait here for you if you want to put back some books.”

  Sarah had been holding the handle of her bag with just one hand. Now she grabs it with her other hand, too.

  “No,” she says. She seems upset.

  So we start walking. At the corner we stop. The light is red. Beth smiles. “I’m baking bread, lots of it. Do either of you want some?”

  “No,” Sarah says. “I can’t.”

  Sarah is Jewish and only eats food that’s kosher. I don’t know what that means, what kosher is, only that our food isn’t.

  “I can,” I say. “I like end pieces.”

  While we wait for the light to change Beth says, “I wonder what’s happening with all those soldiers. Maybe there’ll be some news of them in the afternoon papers.”

  Sarah says, “When I get home, I will put on the radio. I also want to hear about the soldiers.”

  The light changes to green and we cross the street. Sarah turns and waves good-bye, and we walk straight ahead.

  Beth talks on and on about the war.

  “This could be a turning point. The Allies can’t afford to lose all those soldiers. And think about the men.”

  Mom used to talk like that, on and on. She talked about her favorite radio programs and who she met at the market. But now she talks less, and when she does, her words are sometimes slurred.

  “They cut off the British soldiers from the French and Belgians,” Beth says. “On the one side of the British are the Germans. On the other side is the English Channel.”

  I want to tell Beth about Mom and her shaking hand, to ask her about her mother and how she knew she was really sick, but Beth is hard to interrupt.

  “I’m stopping at Goldman’s,” she says. “I must find out what happened.”

  This isn’t a good time to talk about Mom, I decide, not when Beth is so worried about trapped soldiers.

  “Why don’t you do what Sarah does? Why don’t you listen to war news on the radio?”

  Beth tells me, “I do, but it’s not the same. The radio is too quick. It’s just headlines without details.”

  “And anyway,” I ask, “why are you so interested in the war? You don’t know anyone over there.”

  We’re in front of the bakery. Beth stops and asks, “And why are you so interested in baseball? You don’t know any of the players.”

  Beth’s eyebrows are raised. She’s waiting for me to answer, but I don’t know what to say.

  She turns and walks toward Goldman’s. She takes each of the different afternoon newspapers from the bench and goes in.

  I just stand there.

  Maybe Beth is right, I think. Maybe baseball is not important, but then I think, if the Dodgers win today they’ll be tied for first place and I do know the player
s. There’s Van Lingle Mungo, Fat Freddy Fitzsimmons, Cookie Lavagetto, Dixie Walker, Dolph Camilli, and Pee Wee Reese. I know them all. And Beth likes that actor Clark Gable, and she doesn’t know him!

  I look into Goldman’s. The shop is empty now. There’s just Goldman, who is sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper, and Beth.

  Mr. Goldman doesn’t seem to mind that his store has become her second home. He’s a nice old man.

  I wave to Beth. I know she won’t see me, but still, I wave to her. Then I turn and start toward home.

  3

  I’m Worried About Mom

  As soon as I enter our apartment I know Mom is having a bad day. Near the door is a large, thick shard of glass. There’s a pattern etched in it that I recognize. It’s from the vase Mom liked. She must have dropped it, and when she swept up she didn’t find this piece. The glass has sharp edges. I carefully pick it up and drop it in the wastebasket.

  I go into the parlor and see the back of the large upholstered chair. It’s set to face the radio, which is on a table by the wall. Mom is small, so sometimes when she’s sitting there, you don’t see her from the back.

  I walk around the chair, and there she is.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She looks up. “What did you say?”

  She leans forward and turns the radio down.

  Mom was listening to one of her shows, her soap operas. Her favorite is The Romance of Helen Trent, which begins with “Just because a woman is thirty-five, or more, romance in life need not be over—romance can live in life at thirty-five and after.”

  Yuck!

  “Can I help you with dinner? ”

  “Yes, that would be nice. Oh, and Milly came by this afternoon.” That’s her friend Mildred Muir. “She brought cookies and I saved one for you.”

  Mom holds on to both arms of the big chair and pushes herself up.

  I look away. Mom doesn’t like it if I watch her struggle. She especially doesn’t like it if I hold out my hand to help her.

  She has trouble with her legs. They’re stiff, she says. That’s why it’s difficult for her to get out of that big chair. And Mom drops things. It started more than a year ago and at first Dad and I thought maybe she had banged her legs. That’s why they got stiff, and maybe she was just clumsy. Then she got better, so we forgot about it. But about two weeks ago, it started again, and now it’s worse. Dad thinks it might be serious, that she should see a doctor, but Mom doesn’t want to.

  Mom sits by the table just outside the kitchen. The kitchen is small with just a sink, a stove, some cabinets, and an icebox. Well, that’s what we call it, but it’s really a refrigerator. We had a real icebox in our old apartment. Twice a week a man came with a large block of ice. In that apartment, there was always a puddle of water on the kitchen floor.

  Mom hands me a large oatmeal raisin cookie, the one she saved, and I notice her hand shaking.

  “It’s good,” I say after I bite into the cookie.

  Mom smiles.

  “We’re having meat loaf, potatoes, and salad,” she says.

  She’s sitting, so that means she wants me to take out the food. I have to pretend there’s nothing wrong, that I am just helping because I’m a good son, but I’m not that good. Dad told me to look out for Mom, to help her whenever I could.

  “How was school?”

  “School is school.”

  But then I tell her that Miss Heller read my paragraph. It was Mom who took me to the World’s Fair. We went last summer, which seems like such a long time ago.

  I scrub three large potatoes in the sink and put them in a pan.

  Mom stays in her seat and I bring her everything she needs. As she prepares dinner, I pretend not to notice that her right hand is shaking. I do most of the cutting for the salad and when we set the table I make sure I put out the glasses.

  After we’re done, Mom goes back to the large easy chair by the radio. I tune to station WEAF for her. It’s four o’clock, time for Backstage Wife and then Stella Dallas.

  I go to my room, get on my bed, and do my homework. I don’t have a desk. My room is small, with just a bed, a chest of drawers, and a window. No closet. My window has the fire escape, so if something happens, like a fire, I’ll be the first one out. Great! I hope there’s no fire, but sometimes, in the summer when it’s real hot, I sit out there and read.

  At dinner, Mom hardly talks, so Dad does. He works in a men’s clothing shop and tells us about some fat man who came in today and wanted to buy a suit that was too small for him. “‘That’s my size,’ he said. ‘Forty-two short. It’s always been my size.’”

  Dad smiles.

  He has a nice smile. I guess everyone does, but Dad smiles a lot. He’s forty-two and not fat at all, with a thin face and lots of brown hair with just a little gray on the side. He wears a suit to work, but as soon as he gets home, he takes off the jacket and tie.

  Dad says, “The tailor is fixing the suit, but he told me the man is a perfect forty-six short. ‘What we should really do,’ the tailor said, ‘is take a forty-six and switch the labels, give him the larger suit but with a forty-two label sewed in.’”

  While Dad is talking, I look at Mom’s hands. They’re steady.

  After dinner, Dad says he wants to do the dishes with me. “We can talk baseball while we wash,” he says. Dad’s a Dodgers fan, too, but we don’t talk about yesterday’s game and Van Lingle Mungo.

  “I’m worried about Mom,” Dad says. “Last night she told me she couldn’t see so well. The vision in her left eye was blurred, but when I told her to see a doctor, she got upset. I think she’s scared that he’ll say something is seriously wrong.”

  “She’s falling apart,” I say.

  I’m sorry I said it. It sounds so terrible.

  “What does a shaky right hand have to do with her left eye?” I ask.

  “Maybe she’s just weak,” Dad says, “but I don’t really know. That’s why she should see a doctor.”

  Dad talks for a while about us being a family, that we have to help one another. While he talks, I think about Beth. Her mom had cancer. I wonder if when her mother got sick, her dad said the same things to her.

  Dad says, “I told her to see the doctor for me, because I’m nervous. I told her I’m sure nothing is wrong, but I just want a doctor to tell me that.”

  After the dishes are done, we listen to the news. Mom is in the big chair. She looks fine, but I know she isn’t. Dad sits in a smaller chair and I sit on the floor real close to the radio.

  The news reporter is about as upset as Beth about the soldiers trapped near the Channel. He wonders what Roosevelt would do if the Germans invade England. “You know,” he says, “there’s a special bond between Roosevelt and Churchill.”

  I didn’t know that. I’m just glad I don’t know any of the trapped soldiers, and that America isn’t in the war. I think of Sarah and wonder if she knows any of the soldiers.

  At seven we tune to WOR, the Stan Lomax sports report and news of the Dodgers. They won again, 3-1 over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Fat Freddy Fitzsimmons was the pitcher.

  “Fitz was in control all the way,” Lomax says. “He’s a knuckleball pitcher, you know, and this was one of his best games. His pitches floated, fluttered, frustrated, and fooled the Pirates players. Freddy Fitz gave up only six hits in a game that lasted just ninety-eight minutes, the shortest so far this year at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field.”

  Fat Freddy is great!

  Mom has no interest in baseball, but she stays in the big chair and listens. She’s comfortable, and it’s so hard for her to get up.

  Then, while my parents listen to music, I sit on the floor and read an O. Henry story for Miss Heller, “The Gift of the Magi.” It’s real good! A husband and wife exchange Christmas gifts, but they’re poor, and the wife only has a dollar and some change to buy a gift, so she cuts her beautiful hair and sells it and buys a chain for her husband’s pocket watch. And guess what? He sells his watch to buy her fancy co
mbs for her hair, the hair she had cut off!

  Later, when I’m in bed and about to fall asleep, I think maybe one day I’ll take an afternoon job so I can buy Beth a gift, and she buys me tickets to a Dodgers game, only I can’t go because I’m working at the afternoon job. Maybe one day I’ll throw fastballs and curves like that Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller, but I’ll be doing it for the Brooklyn Dodgers. That’s what I’m thinking when I fall asleep.

  4

  Look for a Bottle

  The next morning, the apartment is quiet. Dad’s lunch pail is gone, so I know he went to work, and I guess Mom is still sleeping. At breakfast, I’m careful not to make noise. Sometimes, when the water is on full, the pipes bang, so I use just a little to wash my dish and knife.

  I hurry out and feel guilty. I tell myself I rushed out so Mom could rest, but I know I didn’t want to see her hand shaking or hear her words slur when she tells me about the weather.

  As soon as I leave our building I realize I should have looked out the window. It’s windy and cool for the end of May. I shiver on my way to Goldman’s. When I walk in, I see Beth at the corner table surrounded with newspapers as usual. This time she has the table to herself.

  “Where’s your jacket?” she asks. “It’s cold.”

  “The sun will come out. It will warm up.”

  Beth points to a map in her newspaper and tells me, “There’s good news! The Allies are fighting back! British bombers hit some of the bridges held by the Germans, and the French sent in more soldiers. Oh, and look at this!” She closes the paper and shows me an article on the front page. “The British government is now going to draft even more men to serve in the army. Their new prime minister, Winston Churchill, says his people will keep fighting till the war is won.”

  Beth tells me what’s happening here, that our Senate has voted to spend millions of dollars for our army and navy.

  “Why did they do that? We’re not in any war.”