Sons (28 page)

Authors: Evan Hunter

BOOK: Sons

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I’ve always had a thing about names, Will. When I was twelve or thirteen, I used to dream of dating girls with names like Connie or Grace or Wendy or Gail, they were all lovely blond dolls with long hair blowing. I guess I must have fallen in love with a dozen Connies later on, but only because I was already in love with the name. Even now, if someone says, Listen there’s this great girl you have to meet, her name is Gladys or Adelaide or Hannah, it’s simply not the same as April or Deborah or Diane. Okay, it’s a quirk. But
you
try living with Avery for a while. All I’m trying to say is that the
name
got me even before I saw the actual airplane. Even the
number
got me. What are you laughing at? You think P-38 is the same as P-40 or P-47? Well, it isn’t. There’s something sexy about P-38, stop laughing, will you? P-38,
listen
to it! It rolls off the tongue, P-38, it’s got a nice easy flow to it — you jackass, I’m trying to tell you something about this
airplane
we’re flying!

You know what the Germans call her?
Der gabelschwanz teufel,
I think that’s how it’s pronounced. It means fork-tailed devil. Now, Will, that’s a pretty fair reputation to have up there with you, the fork-tailed devil, the Lockheed Lightning. You can’t tell me that Curtiss Warhawk or Republic Thunderbolt sound anywhere near as exciting as Lockheed Lightning, that’s like saying Minnie is as exciting as Fran. I’m not even talking about
looks
now, I’m talking about the
name
of this bitch, the P-38 Lightning, it makes you want to hop into her and ride her up against whatever they’ve got!

The first time I glimpsed her, Will (I know you felt exactly the same way because I saw you when you landed, I saw that look on your face) the first time I glimpsed her sitting out there on the field in a long line of silver beauties in the sun, I thought You can’t ask me to fly that sweet precious thing, you can’t ask me to risk taking her off the ground where she might get hurt, you’ve got to build a big plexiglas bubble all around her and just let people come to gape at her the way I’m gaping now. I could have written a poem about that piece, well, what the hell’s so comical, would you please tell me? I happen to be
serious
here.

No, the hell with it. Never mind. No, never mind. Just forget it. If you want to go through life an ignorant, insensitive clod, that’s your business. Why don’t you go over there and sit with old Hotshot Horace, let him spit on you when he talks, maybe you like guys who use their hands when they tell how they dove at the screen, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, pwwwwwwwssssssshhhhhhhh, all over your blouse, go ahead, Will, never mind the people in this world who’ve got a little feeling for things.

I know that airplane has the same effect on you, I
know
she has.

Will, did you ever
see
anything so gorgeous in your life? I could’ve kissed that whole long shining silver line of her, right from that sweet thrusting nacelle, cannon and all, machine guns, every tooled part of that beautiful machine, kissed both those booms and traveled down her belly under those majestic wings — did you ever
imagine
such a wingspread? I thought, God, she’s the biggest fighting airplane I’ve ever seen, she’s going to
swallow
me, this bitch, and make me a part of her. When I climbed inside her, Will...

Saturday

June 17, 1944

Dear Will,
I haven’t heard from you as yet, but I thought I’d write anyway, just to see how you were getting along. It is now two o’clock in the morning, and I just got home from a dance at the U.S.O. The dance ended at twelve-thirty, but some of us girls went over to Wabash for hot dogs afterwards, and so I just got here. It is very quiet and still here in the house, you could hear a mouse squeak. (Not that we have any.)
I had a dream about you the other night, it was a very strange dream, I don’t even know if I should tell it to you. Louise says I shouldn’t, but I’ll take a chance. She thinks I’m crazy writing to you, anyway, even though my boyfriend Freddie knows all about us. (I mean, about my writing to you and all. I have never told him about how we met, do you think I should? I will do whatever you advise. He’s a very jealous person.) Anyway, about the dream.
It took place in Michael Mallory’s house, but it wasn’t on New Year’s Eve, it was Christmas morning instead. And it seemed I was living there or something because I woke up in the bedroom upstairs, and I was in my nightgown, and I came down the steps into the living room wearing only my nightgown. There was a big Christmas tree in the center of the room, all lit up with lights, and there were a lot of Christmas presents all around the tree, and all of the presents were for me. They all had these little cards on them saying “To Margie.”
So far it’s a funny dream to be having in the middle of the summer, don’t you think, when the temperature here in Chicago was ninety-four degrees yesterday!
Well, naturally, I started opening all the presents (this is the part Louise says I shouldn’t tell you) and in each one of the presents there was
YOU!?!
Even the tiniest present, when I opened it there was
YOU!?!
inside. You were wearing your uniform and a flying helmet and goggles and a white scarf and you had grease marks on your cheeks and around your eyes when you lifted up the goggles. You also had a mustache. (You haven’t grown a mustache, have you?) And each time I opened another present I was very happy to see that it was you, and I kissed you each time (I mean each time I took off the wrapping paper and there was another you). I got your grease all over the front of my nightgown. It was this pink nightgown I have, it’s hardly anything at all. Finally the whole room was all full of these Will Tylers, some of them life-size, some of them smaller, some bigger, I was absolutely surrounded! Then you said, this was the first time you said anything in the dream, you said “Margie, you have my grease all over you,” and I said, “Yes, my nightie got dirty,” and I woke up.
That’s some funny dream, don’t you think? What do you think of it?
Well, here I am in the same pink nightgown I had on in the dream (but no grease on it) and I feel just miserable in this heat. I hate Chicago in the summer, don’t you? As a matter of fact, I also hate it in the winter. I sometimes wish I could just leave this damn city and go someplace where nobody knows me. You fellows are lucky, though you don’t realize it. You get a chance to travel all over the country and even the world with Uncle Sam paying for it. Maybe I will join the Wacs, do you think that’s a good idea? Though brown isn’t my color. Maybe the Waves.
The dance tonight was very depressing, I don’t know why. I am a very moody person, Will, I guess you don’t know that, but it’s true. Sometimes, when Freddie calls me long distance from Ohio, I feel as if I have nothing to say to him because I’m in one of my moods. He’s a very nice fellow and he wants to be an engineer when the war is over, which is why the V-12 program is so good for him. It is paying for his college education, and he will also be an officer when he gets into the Navy. He says the Navy is the best place to be because you always know where you’re going to be sleeping that night, not like the Army, and also because you get hot meals. I think that’s very sensible. I sometimes wonder what it would be like married to an engineer. I don’t even know what it is engineers do. Do you plan to continue flying when you get out of the service? I guess all the airlines will be hiring you boys who have flying experience.
Did you get my picture? If so, what did you think of it? I know it’s not a very good picture, but I am interested in your opinion. It’s so damn hot here, you have no idea. I probably will go to the beach again tomorrow, and then tomorrow night it’s into my little bed early because Monday morning I have to go back to work. I certainly hate to go back after such a nice vacation.
Well, I seem to be running out of words, so until I hear from you, I guess I’ll sign off. Let me know what you think about my crazy dream, as I’m very interested in your opinion. Also about the picture I sent to you.
Affectionately,
Margie

6/25/44

Dear Will,
First of all, I hardly know the girl. As I told you, we met at a U.S.O. party, and she casually said (with a lot of coy arching of the eyebrows) that you and she were (little nudge of the elbow) very close (Get it, dearie?) and what a shame it was that she didn’t have your address. So I gave her your address. So a week later, I had just come back from the beach with Iris (the weather here has been so beastly, you could die) and the phone rings and it’s Margaret Penner. Margaret
who?
I said. Margaret Penner. Okay, hello,
Margaret Penner, how are you? (Aside to I: Who the hell is Margaret Penner?) Margaret Penner explains who Margaret Penner is. She is the girl who gave the U.S.O. party at her house, remember? and she used to know my brother Will, remember? So I said Oh
yes,
Margaret Penner! Whereupon she told me she had sent you a letter at Santa Maria but now she wasn’t sure you would get it because I had mentioned something about your perhaps going overseas soon, or into the pilot pool, or whatever, and did I think it would be all right if she sent you a second letter? So I said I certainly didn’t think you’d mind, and it was very sweet of her and all that, our dear beloved boys in the service of this mighty nation being very greedy for mail. Goodbye to Margaret Penner.
Until tonight.
Tonight, I washed my hair and I was in my pajamas listening to Eddie Cantor and the telephone rings again. It is (guess who?) Margaret Penner again, and she’s in tears. Apparently my dear brother Will wrote her some kind of filthy letter describing in detail all the things he would like to do to her, and Margaret Penner wanted to know from me whether I thought she looked like
that
kind of girl, the kind of girl you could write
that
kind of letter to. I assured her she looked every bit as sweet as Moll Flanders, and that you probably had written your letter in a drunken frenzy, the strain on fighter pilots being intolerable, and that you were probably sorry as could be afterwards.
I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Will, I think the Air Force has made you a little dotty. I don’t mind straightening out your romances (like hell I don’t) or handling nutty girls on the telephone right when Parkyakarkus is coming on, but I’m really disappointed that you could write a letter like that to
anybody,
really, Will! I might as well tell you this now while you’re still in the States, because I guess once you’re overseas I’ll have to be very careful of what I say, otherwise some nasty Nazi will shoot you down in flames and I’ll be sorry the rest of my life. I think it was a lousy miserable and not very comical thing to do, and you should be ashamed of yourself. There.
Besides, aren’t there any girls out there in California?
Linda

We had driven down to Los Angeles from Santa Maria, and were sitting with a sodden captain from the Van Nuys Army Air Base in a bar called The Eucalyptus on Wilshire Boulevard. The captain’s name was Smythe, and he had received a Dear John letter from his wife the day before. He was telling us that all women were tramps and that you could not trust them as far as you could throw them.

“To coin a phrase,” Ace said.

“Absolutely,” Smythe said, “to coin a phrase.”

He had a red mustache, and he stroked it now and lifted his empty shot glass, tried to drain it all over again, realized there was no whiskey in it, and said, “Bartender, let me have another drink here, willya? My glass is empty here.”

The jukebox was bubbling with red and blue and yellow lights and oozing “Harlem Nocturne” into the scented dimness of the bar. From the leatherette booths came the muted hovering whisper of men engaged in earnest negotiation with all the town whores, the clink of melting ice in whiskey-sodas gone two a. m. flat, the lamentable sound of someone puking in the men’s room behind the hanging flowered curtain.

Smythe sipped at his fresh drink with remarkable restraint, and then began to describe his wife’s lover in far too meticulous detail, it seemed to me, almost with reluctant admiration, almost as if he longed to poke us with an elbow every now and then, and grin fraternally, and say, “How do you
like
that son of a bitch?” The son of a bitch was a real estate agent in Smythe’s home town somewhere in Massachusetts. Naturally, he was 4-F, but apparently not too physically handicapped to have escaped Mrs. Smythe’s attention. “Knew the fellow all my life,” Smythe said. “Went to
school
with him. To
school.
With him. Her, too. Went to school with both of them.”

“He could have had the decency to stop while you were talking,” Ace said, and laughed, and said to me, “Do you know that one, Will?”

“Yes. I do,” I said.

“You know him?” Smythe asked. “You know the man who womanized my wife?”

“Never heard of him,” Ace said.

“Went to school with him,” Smythe said.

“What school was that?”

“Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

“Are you a Catholic?” I asked.

“No,” Smythe said. “Saint Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic, but I am not a Catholic, no. My wife is a Catholic.
Was
a Catholic. The man who womanized her is a Catholic. I should never have gone to Saint Thomas Aquinas. That was my first mistake.”

“That was your
second
mistake,” I said.

“What was my first mistake?”

“What was his first mistake, Ace?”

“Getting,” Ace said.

“Getting what?” Smythe asked.

“Born, married, drafted, screwed.”

“Yes, sir,” Smythe said, “that was my first mistake, all right.”

“This is the best pilot who ever lived,” Ace said.

“Thank you,” Smythe said, “but I am not a pilot. I am in Supply.”