Jump into the Sky (21 page)

I remember how my father’s big arms suddenly wrapped around my shoulders, and the loud clang as his helmet hit the ground. Heck, it felt like being clutched by an army tent, with all the canvas he was wearing. My worn-out Chicago shoes came real close to being pancakes too. Didn’t need to wonder where my big feet came from, after seeing the size of his jump boots.

What got to me the most, though, was realizing how I was dead right about the buckeyes. My father was the color of buckeyes.
I’ll be darned
, I remember thinking when I stepped back. Guess I’d always doubted that memory a little. Had my daddy really held a buckeye next to his arm and said he’d fallen from the same tree? But I would have known that familiar red-brown shade of his arms anywhere. Probably coulda made a whole father—a whole family—outta all the buckeyes I’d stuffed in my pockets over the years.

My daddy spoke first. His voice was softer than you’d expect from a big man, although I guess mine wasn’t real booming either.

“How you doing, Levi?” he said, taking an embarrassed swipe at the glistening corners of his eyes. Then he glanced around at all the soldiers standing there gawking at us like we were humanity on parade. You could tell he was real uncomfortable, and I was feeling warm under the spotlight
too. He cleared his throat once, and then again. Rubbed the back of his neck in a way that reminded me exactly of Aunt Odella. “Well, this sure is some kinda surprise I wasn’t expecting today,” he said finally.

I know people were waiting on me to say something warm and heart-tugging next, but every line of the English language seemed to have left my head. Instead, I stood there with my hands stuffed in my pockets and my feet shifting uneasily on the dirt. Felt the same as when we’d arrived in Pendleton earlier that morning—how even though we’d had six days to be prepared, we weren’t ready. I’d had three years to plan what to say to my daddy when I saw him again, and now I couldn’t come up with one useful word.

Peaches and Cal swooped in to save the day. “Holy mackerel, we been traveling across the country forever,” Cal announced in an extra-cheerful voice. “We’re ready for some eats. How about if we double-time it over to the mess hall and leave Boots and his son alone, so they can have themselves a little peace-and-quiet time?”

I don’t think those soldiers coulda jumped outta a C-47 any faster than they took off after Cal said those words. Me and my daddy were left standing with nothing but our own shadows for company as they piled into the trucks—squeezing Peaches and Victory and all our gear inside with them—and zoomed off.

*  *  *

Now, you’d think we could have let down our guard after that and picked up the pieces where we’d left off as father and son. But, after three years of being apart, what do you talk about first? In the movies, it always seems perfect when two lost people find each other. Some sad-sack music starts playing and a sunset rolls across the screen and then the movie’s over.

Heck, that woulda been nice, but it doesn’t happen that way in real life, I guess. The sun wasn’t anywhere close to setting and there was no orchestra in sight. Honestly, it felt like we were two strangers—as if we were two people meeting on a bus. Sure, we’d sent all those letters back and forth to each other, but letters aren’t the same as a conversation, you know what I mean? By the time you get a reply to something you’ve written in a letter, you’ve half forgotten what you said.

Searching around for something to talk about, my daddy brought up Aunt Odella.

“How’s Odella doing? She all right?” he asked hesitantly. You could tell he was wondering if something might’ve happened to her and maybe that’s why I’d shown up on his doorstep all of a sudden.

When I told him she was the same as always, you could see the confusion deepen.

“How about Uncle Otis—he still cutting heads?”

I nodded.

“Huh.” My daddy hooked his fingers behind his back and studied the cloudless Oregon sky. “So you came all the way out here with Peaches and Cal to find me?”

It was easy to see he was jumping to the conclusion that I’d run away from Aunt Odella. That somehow I’d ended up with Peaches and Cal while searching the country high and low for him. Well, the last thing I wanted to do was go into the long story after I’d just arrived. Sometimes, in life, the imagination is way better than the reality anyhow, you know what I mean?

So all I said was yes, I’d come along with the two of them. Then I veered down a new conversational road and asked my daddy if he’d been one of the paratroopers we thought we spotted in the sky that morning.

A big smile finally eased across my father’s face. “Did you see us up there before?” He pointed at the sky. “Man, it was a heck of a beautiful jump this morning. Perfect weather. Warm and sunny, no wind. Couldn’t have been better. Just perfect.”

Even with the proof standing right next to me, I was still having a hard time picturing my father being up there in the wide-open sky. Kept glancing over at him like there oughta be part of a cloud stuck to him or something, you know?

Acting like he was eager to show me more, my daddy started in the direction of the mess hall, saying he’d give me a quick tour of the air base on the way to chow. I swear he walked at a speed most normal people would run. As I tried
hard to keep up, he pointed out the different buildings on each side of the dusty road as if he was the official army tour guide and I was a fresh-off-the-farm GI.

Barracks. Officers’ Quarters. Post Exchange. Dispensary. Operations Shed.

None of the buildings were real special-looking. Most of them were painted white and didn’t appear to be used much. The whole place felt kind of deserted. As my daddy reached the screen door of the mess hall and pulled it open, I was glad to see people again.

“No officers’ mess hall here,” my daddy shouted over the clamor of a roomful of servicemen. “We all eat together, officers and enlisted.”

Second Lieutenant Charles Battle. Heck, I’d forgotten all about him being an officer. Watching some of the soldiers jump up to clear spaces for us at the tables and seeing them plunk water glasses and silverware in front of us, I felt kinda proud all of a sudden, you know? Pulled my shoulders back a little as we strolled into the big room. I was an officer’s kid, how about that? The Battle family. Kings of the mess hall.

Forgot my daddy was a lefty too until we banged elbows taking our first mouthfuls of the turkey and green beans piled on our trays. Guess he forgot I was a righty from the surprised look that passed across his face and how he said in an embarrassed voice, “Long time since we sat down to eat a meal together, I guess.”

No two ways about it, we didn’t remember the smallest things about each other. Even our elbows weren’t very familiar.

After chow, the cook I’d heard about from Cal—the one called Emerald Jones—came out of the kitchen carrying a big batch of peanut butter cookies. My daddy might’ve complained about the army food a lot in his letters, but Emerald’s golden-brown creations were the size of saucers. You could hear the cook’s friendly laughter bouncing all over the mess hall. “For our guests,” he announced, sliding the whole mouthwatering tray in front of our group. “You can share with some of the other fellows if you’d like, but only if they promise to do their fair share of KP.” There was a loud groan. “Pans don’t wash themselves,” Emerald tossed out as he headed back to the kitchen.

Me and Cal had a good time passing around the cookie tray until it was empty. There were at least a hundred paratroopers packed in the room, and I swear Cal introduced me to all of them. Twice. “These fellows are the greatest troopers in the airborne,” he repeated at each table.

Archie woulda been real impressed by all the muscle. I met the soldier called Tiger Ted who looked like he could beat the peanut butter cookies outta anybody. He’d fought Joe Louis once, according to Cal. Next to Tiger, there was a skinny soldier with light brown skin and a wide, goofy smile.
Swear he didn’t look much older than I was. “He’s a good kid,” Cal said. “Everybody calls him Mickey.” Opposite him, a scowling fellow known as Ace barely glanced up when we passed by, just kept shoveling food in.

“He’ll warm up,” Cal whispered.

One trooper even challenged me to an arm-wrestling match for a cookie. Seeing as how his arms were the size of most people’s legs and his nickname was Killer, I gave him any cookie he wanted and got the heck outta there.

While most of the fellows were friendly, you got the strange sense that beneath the smiles and joking, there was something else brewing in the room. Seemed like the soldiers were trying to be polite to us and all, but it was a lot of hard work to do. And once you turned around, the sunny conversation slipped back into a black cloud. Cal noticed it too. “Guys don’t seem real gung-ho today. Maybe they’re all tired-out from the jump this morning, who knows.”

While me and Cal were taking the peanut butter cookies around the mess hall, Peaches gave my father the scoop on Aunt Odella and how she’d sent me packing. Guess the truth woulda come out eventually, but it was too bad my daddy had to find out so soon that I wasn’t the desperate runaway he thought I was. It woulda been nice to hang on to that piece of fiction for a while, you know?

What seemed to puzzle him the most was why Aunt
Odella decided to give me the heave-ho in the first place. “Doesn’t sound like her at all,” he kept insisting as the four of us talked after the meal.

I gotta admit I sweated over how much more to say, especially after what Peaches had already told him. Knew I had to walk a narrow tightrope with my facts. Couldn’t exactly tell him how Aunt Odella thought he needed to take responsibility and be a father to his son. So, I tried to pin the blame on the cactus instead. I described how Aunt Odella had been convinced her old cactus blooming was a sure sign the war was ending and that’s why she’d sent me to find him.

“Let me get this straight.” My daddy plucked out the lollipop he was chewing on and gave me his best lieutenant stare. “Odella sent you away because a cactus told her the war was ending?”

All right, so it wasn’t completely, one hundred percent true, but I nodded.

My daddy let out a long sigh. “Holy smokes.” He shook his head slowly. “This war has turned everybody’s minds a little crazy, even Odella’s. Never woulda expected it of her, of all people. She was always a hard nut to crack, I thought, but maybe the war caught up with her too after all this time.” He brushed off his canvas trousers and stood up like he’d heard enough.

Tried not to let him see my big sigh of relief.

“Well, we better get busy finding you and Cal’s family a place to live. Can’t have you bunking in the barracks, right?”
He cracked a smile. “Let’s head out back and I’ll introduce you to Graphite, our official army heap.”

The four of us wandered outside, with Peaches holding baby Victory, who was fast asleep for once. Behind the mess hall, there was a well-worn Ford the soldiers had bought for themselves. It reminded me of the old jalopy my daddy used to drive.

“Only a 1937,” my father said, “and it runs great.” The vehicle had one door painted army green while the rest of the car was black, and there was a piece of plywood for a front bumper. Uncle Otis woulda called it a disgrace on wheels.

My daddy said, “Get in and I’ll take you for a ride.”

Now, you’d expect after three years of being away from my father, I’d get to enjoy a few minutes sitting next to him as we rolled down the road. But I guess some things never change, no matter how old you are. Cal took the front seat and I had to squeeze into the back along with Peaches and Victory and all our things, as if I was being returned straight to age nine. I’ll admit it stung a little.

“Ain’t it wonderful seeing your own daddy again?” Peaches whispered as we started toward town. “Can’t imagine how you must be feeling after all this time.”

I kept my feelings to myself and didn’t point out how all I was looking at was the back of his head, which was a familiar memory of mine. Already knew the razor-sharp line his
hair made just above his collar and the creases of his wide red-brown neck.

Once we got to the town, my father turned onto Main Street, showing us some of the local places: Rexall Drugs, the Hotel Pendleton, the Cherry Fried Chicken Shack, F. W. Woolworth’s, Chinese groceries, and churches on every corner almost. The town reminded me a lot of Southern Pines—only without the bushy green pine trees and bright flowers. Low brown hills surrounded Pendleton and everything looked a little faded, as if it had been in the sun too long.

“They friendly around here or not?” Peaches leaned forward to ask my father. I knew she was wondering about all the flak that white commander had given to us.

“Not real friendly, no,” my father shouted over the rushing noise of the open windows. “Most places you won’t find signs like you’d see in the South. Out here, they’ll just pretend they don’t see you. You go into a restaurant and try to order something, and nobody will come to your table. The sun could rise and set for a week, and they’d let you sit there, waiting.”

Well, how dumb was that?
That’s what I was thinking in the backseat. What was the point of spending six days sitting on our behinds and sleeping on trains to come to a place where people would pretend we weren’t there? We’d gone from being colored to being invisible, which couldn’t be considered any big improvement in my opinion.

“So we can’t go in any of the places you showed us?” Peaches said, her voice rising.

“You can go in a few of them—Rexall’s is fine. And the banks will take anybody’s money, of course. And you can order whatever you want from the Chinese,” my father said as we rolled past two tiny restaurants that didn’t seem to have one word of English on their signs. Just a bunch of squiggles and shapes. My daddy insisted the Chinese were friendly and we’d learn to fall in love with rice and noodles.

Shaking her head, Peaches slumped into her seat and began patting Victory’s back as if she was going for the lands peed record in burping. Don’t think she was real happy with the idea of eating Chinese people’s food. Franks and beans were beginning to sound good again.