Carry Me Home (6 page)

Chapter 8

T
his Christmas is like any other Christmas, yet it ain’t.

Dad says maybe we should go to church with Ma on Christmas Eve, so we go. Afterward, Ma straps an apron around her waist and starts making pies for Christmas dinner. I ask her if I can help and she tells me I can. Ma don’t let me roll the pie crust, ’cause she says if it’s fussed with too much it gets tough, and she don’t let me cut up apples, ’cause I scare her when I wave knives around, so I just sit at the table and wait for her to tell me what I can do. She lets me open the cans of pumpkin, then she spoons the squished pumpkin into a bowl. She adds them spices that smell real good, and then she cracks the eggs and dumps ’em and the brown sugar into the bowl. After she pours the canned milk in, she tells me to stir it up real good. I stab at the eggs ’til the yolks bust, then circle my spoon around, going faster and faster like the propeller on an airplane. I’m Captain Midnight’s plane, taking him off across the ocean to fight evil. “Nrrrrrrrrrrr.”

I don’t mean for pumpkin to slop up on my shirt and on the table, but it happens. “Good grief, Earl.” Ma takes the spoon away from me and tells me to go sit with Dad.

Dad’s in the living room and it’s empty on Christmas Eve without Christmas songs, but Ma said she don’t want any this year. I ask Dad if we can put music on anyway. I remind him that Ma didn’t want a Christmas tree either, but he brought one home all the same, so why can’t we play Christmas music anyway? Dad says no.

Dad is drinking coffee and munching on a cookie shaped like a bell and I go off into the kitchen to get me one. When I come back, Dad is watching me eat my cookie. Even when my cookie’s gone, he is still watching me. He stares at me for a time, then he gets up and yells to Ma that he’s goin’ out for a bit. Ma pokes her head out of the kitchen. “Where on earth do you need to go on Christmas Eve?” Dad don’t tell her, he just says he’s got something to do.

By the time Dad comes back, the kitchen is filled with the smell of pies, but Ma says we can’t have any ’til tomorrow. Dad is grinning when he gets back. He jokes with me about Santa coming and I gotta remind him that I’m big enough now to know that Santa ain’t nobody but somebody’s fat uncle wearing a cotton beard.

In the morning, we open presents. Ma gets a new Toastmaster toaster and holds it up and smiles into the shiny chrome. Me and Dad get new winter boots and Dad says that’s a good thing, ’cause with the war on now, soon we won’t be getting anything new.

Ma starts picking up the ripped wrapping paper, but she stops when Dad says he thinks he forgot to bring over another present for me that he stashed at the garage in case I went snooping around the house. “Hank, what are you talking about?” Dad don’t answer, he just tells me to get on my coat and new boots while he goes to start the car, and I can go with him to fetch the present.

It’s cold and snowy and I shiver as I stand outside the garage waiting for Dad to unlock the door. “Well, let’s just see what else Santa brought you,” he says as he shoves the door open. The floor of the garage where the cars get fixed is concrete, and so is the floor in the paying part where the counter and cash register are. That painted concrete is scuffed and muddy already, so we don’t ever have to stomp the snow off our shoes when we go inside.

Dad ain’t even shut the door behind us yet when I hear something whining and scratching. Dad points to a box tucked under his messy desk, and I see a little black nose peeking over the top of the box. I look at Dad, ’cause I can’t figure out why in the hell there’s a puppy stuck in a box in his garage.

“Merry Christmas, Earl,” Dad says, and he’s smiling.

I run to the box and there that puppy is, shuffling around inside. A work shirt with squished puppy turds stuck to it is bunched up in the corner. The puppy ain’t a kind I ever see’d before. He’s got white and gray fur that looks like the bristles on Ma’s scrub brush, and he’s got one pokey-up ear and one droopy-down ear. He’s got a puny tail and legs that look like someone chopped ’em off at the knees, and there is some gunk stuck in the corners of his eyes. I pick him up. He’s about the damn cutest thing I ever did see. Even cuter than Scout or Spot. He squirms in my arms, making puppy grunts, and he licks my face and my hands and just about anything else he can stick his tongue to.

“He’s the best dog in the world, Dad!” I say as I go dancing around the garage, not exactly doing the jitterbug, but something kinda like it.

“I’m glad you like him, Earl. He was the last pup Mrs. Lark had left.”

On the way home, that puppy stays right on my lap. When I start scratching him good, he rolls over on his back and I can see he’s got a little pecker, so I know he’s a boy for sure. “I’m gonna name him Lucky,” I tell Dad, hoping he don’t know that I’m naming him after somebody he thinks is a Nazi bastard. I pick Lucky up and hold him to my nose. He smells good, even his paws. I poke him up by Dad’s nose and tell him to take a sniff.

“Oh, Hank, how could you?” Ma says when I walk in with Lucky. She starts harping about how we’re gonna be stepping in puddles now, and how we don’t need a dog to feed. Dad lets her yammer on a bit, then he says real slow, “Crissakes, Eileen. The boy needs something to hold on to right now, don’t he?” and she shuts up.

That night when I go to bed, I don’t leave Lucky in his box like I’m suppose to, ’cause when I try, he starts to crying. So I tuck him under the covers, and he curls up against my armpit, making me all toasty warm, and he goes right off to sleep. I think of the box Ma shipped off to the Red Cross, even though she don’t know if Jimmy will get it. In that box she put razors and socks, candy bars, a fruitcake, and cigarettes. I sure do wish that box coulda had something extra good in it, like a puppy.

Chapter 9

I
pedal my bike to the garage and Lucky follows. He’s growed a lot, but his legs ain’t, so I don’t pedal too fast or else the rope I got him tied to is gonna drag him, scuffing his belly on the sidewalk. I got Dad’s ham sandwich and a piece of pie in my basket.

The front door of the Skelly is open even though it ain’t even sucker-fishing time yet, ’cause on the first warm-enough day of the season, Dad opens the doors to let the gas and oil stink get out. Lucky and I go inside and I put Dad’s lunch on the counter. I hear Dad in the garage part. I’m gonna go in there soon as I get my shoe tied, which ain’t gonna be real quick ’cause Lucky’s biting my hair.

“Ed, our boys are getting crushed over there. But what do you expect, outdated rifles, goddamn lightweight M-3 Stuart tanks from World War One . . . Crissakes, Ed, those tanks are riveted. Can you believe it? Riveted. You know what’s got to be happening to them when they’re hit? Those goddamn panels have got to be buckling and dropping like playing cards.” Ed is Floyd’s dad. Ed Fryer.

“Shit, Hank. Least they could have done is welded them. Lightweight or not, they’d have a chance of holding together if they were welded.” Floyd’s dad talks soft, probably ’cause he ain’t got much wind on accounta he’s skinny as a piece of straw. Hearing that Jimmy and Floyd are in trouble is enough to make my guts feel sick.

“Shit, I don’t even know if it would make a difference at this point. Those boys weren’t trained for this kind of combat, and crissakes, the Japs got control of the water and the air now. We can’t even get supplies in. What in the hell was MacArthur thinking, running those boys down into the peninsula without supplies enough to last until reinforcements could get in? Our planes are all blown to shit, and our boys are starving and sick. That son of a bitch sent our boys to fight to the death, while he holed himself up in some tunnel in Corregidor. Coward bastard.”

“They’ll be better off now with Wainwright, Hank,” Floyd’s dad says.

“You’re goddamn right about that.”

Dad and Mr. Fryer get quiet.

“I’m even scared to go to the mailbox these days,” Floyd’s dad says, and them words sound like metal scraping on metal when they come out. “That boy is all I have left.”

“It’s rough, Ed. I lost a brother in World War One, and now I got my boy in war too. Course, I don’t like to show how worried I am. Not around Eileen and Earl anyway, but I’m worried, Ed. I’m plenty worried. My guts have been giving me trouble ever since their base was hit, so I know how you feel.”

Lucky’s teeth, sharp as sewing needles, bite into my ankle and I let out a yelp. I hear Dad cuss, then him and Mr. Fryer come into the paying part. “Lunchtime already?” he says, and his smile looks like a belt strapped tight across his face.

“Well, I’d better get home,” Floyd’s dad says. He pats my arm when he walks by. “I got that Anderson kid coming over after school to help with chores, but I’ve got work to do before he gets there.” Mr. Fryer reaches down and pats Lucky, who is jumping up on his leg. “Nice dog you got here, Earl,” he says.

Dad opens his lunch bag and starts eating his sandwich. He pulls a string of ham fat out from between his teeth and tosses it to Lucky. Dad grabs two Coca-Colas out of the cooler and hands me one. “Here you go,” he says. I take the bottle, but I don’t take a drink, ’cause ever since I heared Dad and Mr. Fryer talking, I got about a million scary thoughts jumping into my head, screaming “Boo!”

Dad is watching me. “Son, did you overhear Ed and me talking?” I nod. “Don’t you worry, Earl. Jimmy’s going to be all right. Jimmy and Floyd will look out for each other.”

I hand my Coca-Cola back to Dad and tell him I gotta go, and I don’t wait around to explain why. I scoop Lucky up, run him outside to where my bike is propped, and plop him into the basket. When Lucky tries to jump out before I can even get my leg swinged into place, I yell at him to stay put, then I get on and I pedal my bike like my ass is on fire.

In our store window, we got a paper flag hanging there (just like the flags other folks who got a boy or two fighting in the war gots hanging in their windows) and on that flag, there’s a big star. If our soldier is alive, that star is blue. If our soldier gets killed dead, that star turns to gold.

When I reach the store, I jam my brakes on so hard that the ass end of my bike kicks sideways, and the whole thing tips right over, dumping me and Lucky out onto the grass. Halfway up the store steps I run, Lucky crashing into the back of my legs when I stop, lickety-split. There that flag is, and the star is still blue. Whew! Jimmy ain’t dead.

I swear that when Lucky was a little pup, he musta got that same damn fever I had, ’cause this dog can’t learn nothing new, it seems. I’m in the yard with him, throwing a stick and telling him to fetch it, but he don’t do nothing but hop around my feet. I pat him on his head, where his hair stands straight up like mine, and tell him it’s okay if he’s dumb as a stump. He’s my dog, and even if he ain’t a smart dog like Scout or Spot, he’s still one good dog.

I don’t go inside ’til my hands get cold, ’cause Ma and Dad are in the living room, and if Ma and Lucky are in the same room together longer than two minutes, she starts fussing over what he’s licking or sniffing, and if he even starts to walk behind a chair or the sofa to take a nap, she starts bellering ’cause she thinks he’s going off to take a piss or a shit, and she makes me take him outside again.

Ma and Dad got the radio on and Dad holds up his hand for me to be quiet. I can tell the man who’s talking is a reporter giving the war news. The first thing I think is how I hope if it’s bad news he’s saying, it’s about that European Theater, not the Pacific Theater. That’s what words they use, depending on if they’re talking about the war in that Europe place or about the war in that Philippines place. I don’t know why they call them two wars theaters—unless maybe it’s ’cause if you go down to the theater to watch a picture show, they always show a little movie about one of them wars first. I remember then that John is in the European Theater, so I whack myself in the head for hoping the bad news is about that Europe place.

The reporter is talking. “Bataan has fallen. The Philippine–American troops on this war-ravaged and bloodstained peninsula have laid down their arms. With heads bloody but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.”

Ma turns her head fast as a chickadee and says, “They surrendered?”

“Wait, Eileen,” Dad says. Dad finishes listening to the report, then he lets his back fall against his chair.

“They’ve all surrendered? What does this mean, Hank?” Ma’s picking at her skirt, just like I pick at my pants when I get scared. “What will happen to Jimmy now?”

“They are prisoners of war, Eileen.”

“Oh, my God! What will they do to him, Hank?”

“There’s international laws about how countries have to treat war prisoners, Eileen. Jimmy will be fine.” Dad don’t look at Ma when he says this. He gets up and stuffs his hands in his pockets. He walks in half a circle, stops, and walks back to where he was.

“Dad?” I ask. “What did that reporter guy mean when he said that Bataan falled?” I don’t want to, but in my head, I can see that little thumb of a place snapping off and falling right into the ocean, just like Louie’s ship did.

“It means, son, that our boys had to give up because the Japs were winning.”

That don’t sound right to me. Jimmy, he always says you never give up. Never. That no matter how many times you fall down when you’re learning something new, you gotta keep getting up and trying again, even if your goddamn knees and elbows are all scraped to shit. That’s what Jimmy telled me when he helped learn me to ride a bike.

Ma don’t even notice when Lucky starts chewing on the leg of the sofa. I notice, though, and I give him a scoot with my foot. I’m feeling skittery ’cause I got pictures of Jimmy and Floyd’s bloody heads sinking down into that ocean. It don’t seem right to me, our army losing that battle like that. Jimmy never gives up, and no team Jimmy’s ever played on loses.

Ma’s eyes go buggy, and her hands start to shaking. Those shakes creep right up her arms and then crawl right down the rest of her, not stopping ’til they reach her feet.

Dad looks scared when this happens. Lucky, he sees Ma’s shoes hopping and he thinks she’s play-teasing him, so he crouches and hops and barks at her feet. Dad picks him up and gives him to me. “Take Lucky and go upstairs, Earl.”

I run up them stairs, planning to take Lucky and head under the covers of my bed, but then I hear Ma crying hard, and I don’t go to my bed. I go to Jimmy’s room that is whistle-clean and quiet. I set Lucky down and I get on my hands and knees and look down the vent that shows into the living room.

Dad is bent over, his butt poked out. He’s got Ma’s shoulders in his hands. “Eileen, look at me. Jimmy’s going to be fine. You hear me? Jimmy’s going to be just fine.”

“I can’t do this, Hank,” Ma says. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can, Eileen. You have to. Earl needs you and so do I.”

Ma, she leaps out of her chair and she starts pacing. Her hands are rubbing the top part of her arms like they’s freezing and she’s trying to thaw ’em. “I don’t care who needs
me
. Right now,
I
need my son!”

“I know, Eileen. I know. But we have to be brave. For Earl, and for Jimmy when he comes home.”

Ma, she starts picking at her head then, like she’s got lice crawling around in them spit curls. “Comes home? We don’t even know if he’s coming home, Hank. He could be dead already. How would we even know? We haven’t heard from him in weeks. Neither has Molly. Oh, my God, he could be dead already!”

I ain’t suppose to bug Ma and Dad after Dad tells me to get lost, but seeing Ma with her worst case of the nerves ever, and Dad not knowing what in the hell to say or do to make her nerves stop, I run down them stairs and I take Ma’s hand. “Come on, Ma,” I say. “I gotta show you something that’ll help.”

“Earl, I don’t think your mother wants to look at anything right now,” Dad says, but Ma, she lets me take her hand and lead her out the back door and around the house.

The way the streetlight is hitting the store window, I can’t see nothing but shiny black glass. I drop Ma’s hand, and I hurry halfway up them stairs and lean over the bent pipe. I look real hard, and there that flag is. “Come on, Ma,” I say, reaching out my hand. “Come up here and have a look.”

Ma, she moves like she is sleepwalking. When she gets to me, I lean my head down to touch hers so I can see where she’s looking. I point at Jimmy’s blue star. “Ma, when you get them scared thoughts banging around in your head, you come out here and take a look, same as I do. Long as that star there is blue, Jimmy ain’t dead.” Ma, she looks at Jimmy’s star, then she buries her face against my chest, and she bawls hard.