Barnstorm (18 page)

The admitting doctor was clear and concise.

“Yes, Mrs. Baker, his nose is broken.” Clipboard cocked against his hip, Doc Smith waited patiently for a chance to get a word in edgewise. As his livelihood did require a keen sense of hearing, he held the iPhone a good six inches from his ear. The stethoscope was bought and paid for, might as well be able to use it again someday.

“I haven’t looked at the X-rays yet, ma’am. An arm hanging like that from the shoulder, generally isn’t a good sign.” Tapping his foot, he once again gave Mrs. Baker an opportunity to blow off some steam.

“Yes, we did check his testicles. The swelling should subside in a day or two. I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” That last medical opinion was probably communicated a bit prematurely. Young doctors sometimes learn the hard way. The practice of medicine does involve some practice.

“Mrs. Baker, let’s wait for the swelling to go down. I’m frankly more concerned about the ruptured spleen. Pardon me? No, I don’t make attorney recommendations. You might want to confirm all the facts with Principal Gardner before you decide to sue Mayor Jenkins.”

Every ear within fifty feet of the ER heard Mrs. Baker’s hang-up ‘click’ thunder from Doc Smith’s cell phone.

“That went well,” he muttered as he returned to the ER.

Mrs. Baker wasn’t done burning up the phone lines. The school secretary interrupted school principal Gardner with the news that Mrs. Baker was on the phone.

“Thanks, Martha,” Principal Gardner offered as he wiped his brow. “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

As Sally Brown, the sixth grade teacher was still at his elbow, Mr. Gardner didn’t cast his usual eye toward Martha’s svelte figure as she strolled from his office.

“Are you sure that’s the way it happened, Miss Brown?”

“Pretty much, sir,” Miss Brown tried to choke back a grin. “She kicked him, there? Crunch!” Mr. Gardner flicked a finger to an eye that offered a sympathetic tear toward his own manhood.

“Had a self-defense class at my college sorority, sir. Wanna take a guy down fast. Go for the . . .”

“I get the picture Miss Brown. That will be all. I better get to Mrs. Baker.”

As teacher Brown exited Principal Gardner’s office, she coughed that fake cough one coughs when one tries to avoid something with a nervous, fake cough. Eye contact with the bleeding urchin seated on the hallway bench would be a fatal mistake. Miss Brown closed the door behind her and scurried off to her classroom.

Mr. Gardner straightened his tie, stiffened his spine, and cleared his throat. His hand quivered, did not shake, as he raised the telephone to his ear. “Principal Gardner,” he started. “Are you at the hospital, Mrs. Baker?”

He listened to the expected harangue, and finally interruped, “Well, let’s start with the obvious. Gonna pinch a little girl on the tookus? Pick someone other than Emily Jenkins. Secondly, please tell Coach Baker that he’s suspended, pending probable dismissal by the School Board. Good day, Mrs. Baker.”

Principal Gardner opened his hallway door, restrained a needful chuckle, and looked at the triumphant future President of the United States seated on the hallway bench. “Miss Jenkins, let’s have a little talk.”

☁ ☁ ☁

The summer storm was turning the cow pasture at the edge of town into a mud fest of tents, banners, and goopy stables. Blip. Blip. Drip. Plop. Rhythmic, yet random; earthy, musty. The rain echoed off the rotting canvas tent allocated Madame Lucille by the grotesque carnival owner Zeke. While the tent mostly accomplished its intended purpose, huge drops of rain succeeded in annoying the gathered menagerie. A huge drop of rain chilled Florence, the tattoo lady, as it exploded on her bald head, then trickled down her spine.

“Next time, I’m throwing a camel turd at the jerk,” Rosie the gypsy midget promised. “The things they say. I’m people too.”

“And what good would that do?” Lucille scolded. “Times are tough. At least you’ve got a job. It’s 1932, most of these folks haven’t worked in years.”

“Bottom of the barrel job,” Swazi the Nepali rubber boy contorted. Swazi was no longer a boy. That would be stretching it. The ten-by-ten canvas poster flapping in the storm outside depicted a teenager, legs wrapped around his neck, arms bound in a knot. That was forty years ago. He could still elicit an ‘ooo’ when he stretched his lower lip over his eye brows.

“Find a more subtle way of returning the insult,” Lucille advised. “They’ve paid their dime. They deserve a show. Swazi’s got it figured out.”

Lucille didn’t like these little pep talks before show time, but she had to keep the troupe focused. It was expected that the freaks be a little crude. This low-brow blend of vaudeville and burlesque required that. However, cross the line? Local sheriff might shut her down.

The downtrodden were trudging their way through the mud to take their seats on the bales of straw arrayed in front of the foot-high performance platform. A full house would be twenty-five. The rain held the first show to only a dozen or so; dirty, bedraggled, unshaven drunks who had invested ten cents to abuse their fellow man. The kids huddled in the front row even looked bedraggled and unshaven.

The insults of “ugly bitch,” “hey midget breath, you stink,” and “lemme see ya stretch yer private parts rubber man” were somewhat dampened by the leaking canvas tent. Lucille was proud that her gang of entertainers were keeping their cool so well. It was now her turn. As she larded her way onto the stage, the hoots and the hollers could be heard halfway across the midway. Six-hundred pounds of porcine rolls and wrinkle-folds oinked her way through her routine of sword swallowing and belly dancing. The Richter scale was off the chart.

Lucille ended each show with a sit-down chat with the crowd. The abuse was horrid. Her retorts were hilarious. She’d wave off the worst of the insults with a flick of her handkerchief. “Hell, my old mule wouldn’t mount you,” an old man bellowed. “Yer so fat, how do you wipe yerself?” another quizzed. “She don’t, that’s why she smells like an August-baked outhouse,” a grungy woman shot.

Lucille took it all in stride, until a chubby little girl in the front row raised her hand. “My daddy made me come ‘cuz I been bad. He sez I’za gonna look like you some day.”

The hoots and the hollers stopped. The rain challenged the canvas show tent. Blip. Blip. Drip. Plop. A drop of rain violated the canvas, pierced Lucille’s soul. She gently dried her cheek with her handkerchief.

☁ ☁ ☁

Dignified. Poignant. The military funeral strikes all the right chords. The rifle salute. Crisp folding of the flag. The Army officer bends at the waist, whispers words of honor and thanks from the President of the United States as he touches Grandma Yvette’s hand. Taps echoes in the hearts of all in attendance.

Fifteen year-old Craig opens the car door for his great-grandmother as his fellow cousin and erstwhile partner in mischief Luke, also fifteen, offers his hand to the new widow. Clutching the folded flag to her breast, Yvette Graham is flanked by these strapping teenagers up the front walk to her stately, yet soon-to-be-lonely Victorian home.

Midwestern family funeral gatherings are joyous occasions when a life well-lived is celebrated. Ben Graham’s family has every reason to celebrate. Slipping away silently in one’s sleep at age ninety is a good start to any celebration. Grandpa, or Great-Grandpa, or just plain ole Dad was as common as dirt. Successful local businessman, soft-spoken town council head, church elder. It took some coaxing and begging; old World War II stories of glory and heroism were hard to drag out of Ben Graham. But when he got started, wow, could he spin a yarn. A daredevil pilot flying spies and contraband into 1944 German-occupied France.

Supporting the French Résistance. Crash landing in a foggy sheep pasture on one midnight mission. Broken leg, he was pulled from his flaming British Lysander by the head of the local Résistance. Fell in love and married her. Yep, Grandma Yvette was a war hero too. Married sixty-five years.

Every horizontal surface in the rambling, fifteen-room house is covered with food. Casseroles, pies, cakes, meatloaf. Kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors everywhere – and one dog. Laughter and joy in every room. Great-grandchildren feed cookies to the dog. Old Uncle Fred once again forgets punchlines to jokes he has been telling for fifty years.

“Craig,” his mother instructs, “zip up to the attic and bring down that old French serving platter.”

“Where is it?” Craig quizzes.

“Look behind the iron parrot cage.”

“I think I know where it is,” cousin Luke brags as he races Craig up the stairs.

The attic covers the entire third floor of the regal old Victorian house. Luke is in the lead as he opens the door to the steep attic stairs. As he flips on the never-enough solitary light, Craig elbows him aside and scampers past him. They tackle and push each other into the tomb of clutter and treasures.

To say that these two are competitive is an understatement. Best friends, but not beyond blackening an eye here or there, they can finish each other’s sentences. Craig is the quarterback on the JV football team. Luke is a wide receiver. They don’t need to wink or twitch an ear lobe. A quick glance at the defense and Luke would run a precise pattern and catch Craig’s perfect pass. The high school coach is already salivating.

The two cousins maneuver over boxes and weave a path toward the iron bird cage in the far corner. Craig picks up a pair of binoculars, blows off a layer of dust. “Craig, focus,” Luke orders as he surveys the attic’s dark reaches. Backing into a brass floor lamp, he catches it as cleanly as a quick-hitting slant pass. He turns on the three-way bulb, casting haunting shadows around the cluttered attic.

“Shut up,” Craig retorts, “forgot these were here.”

“We’ve only been playin’ up here our whole lives,” Luke laughs.

Craig puts down the binoculars, catches up with Luke, pushes him from behind. Luke falls against the iron parrot cage. The bird cage teeters. In his attempt to steady the bird cage, Luke loses his balance, falls against a book case. The domino effect continues as the book case and books tumble to the floor. Luke is trapped beneath a hoard of books and the bird cage. Craig lifts the book case back to its fifty-year perch against a side wall, enabling Luke to extricate and dust himself off.

The ensuing shoving match ceases as Craig’s mother shouts from the foot of the attic stairs, “What’s all the racket? Come on, we need the serving platter.”

“Coming,” Craig yells, as he finds the platter at the base of the bird cage. Craig retreats to deliver the requested china and assure his mother that all is well.

Luke wiggles the book case to a more secure position. He bangs his head on the steeply-sloped attic roof. “Crap,” he grimaces as he falls on his butt. Grabbing his head, he kicks the book case with both feet. The book case falls to the floor. Luke flings books and flails at anything else within range in a flurry of frustration.

The fallen book case no longer hides the small, three-foot high door it had guarded for half a century. The door stands askew, held only by a single rusted hinge. He rubs his head and clears the books away from the mystery door. As he pulls on the door, the solitary hinge breaks free and the door lands on top of him.

“Luke, Luke?” Craig yells as he returns to the attic.

“Over here,” Luke responds.

Not seeing Luke under the door, Craig scans the poorly-lit attic and quizzes, “Over where?”

“Here,” as Luke pushes the door off his chest.

Craig sticks his head into the newly-revealed side storage chamber. “What in the heck is this?” On all fours, he disappears into the small dark space.

“What’cha see?” Luke asks.

Slowly, the corner of a large, rectangular box appears in the door opening. Inch by inch, Craig wobble-slides the box out of its tomb. Luke scooches forward, grabs the leather handle at the small end of the box and pulls. The dry, aged handle breaks in half under the weight of the box. He grasps the edges of the box and helps Craig wiggle it into the attic. Crawling out of the cramped side chamber, Craig settles into an old oak rocking chair with his hands on the lid of the box. The box between them, Luke wipes his hands across the lid and blows decades of dust into his cousin’s face.

“Thanks a lot, jerk,” Craig coughs as he clears his eyes. “Sorry.”

In all their years of playing hide-and-seek and sneaking a smoke in Grandpa’s attic, Craig and Luke had never stumbled upon this treasure. Dull green, brass-edged corners, rivets; it measures three-feet long, two-feet wide, by a foot-and-a-half tall.

Craig picks up a wayward cloth and wipes layers of dust from the lid. White lettering solves the mystery: 1
^st
Lieutenant B. Graham, P28749382, U.S. Army Air Corps. Grandpa’s trunk is about to reveal its secrets.

“Wow!” Craig exclaims.

“Shhh,” Luke cautions as he looks toward the stairs to the second floor below.

“How cool is this?” Craig says as he kneels beside the end of the old Army trunk.

Luke releases the brass clasp on the front of the trunk. Together they open the lid and peer inside. A musty wisp of 1945 air insults the cousins’ nostrils. Coordinated sneezes echo throughout the attic canyon of junk. Luke shines his iPhone light in the three-inch deep tray that rests in the trunk. Craig gently fingers through a stack of letters bound with a ribbon. Luke unfolds a silk map of France.

“Carte de champagne francaise du Nord,” Luke says.

“Qué?” Craig protests in Spanish. “OK, showoff. You’re fluent in French. Grandma Yvette loves you best.”

Fingering the silk map, Luke translates, “It’s a map of Northern France.”

“Wow!” Craig exclaims. “Back when Grandma was in the Résistance.”

“Look at all this stuff!” Luke paws through the tray.

Together, they lift the tray out of the trunk and set it gently on the floor. Slowly, one-by-one, they pull World War II artifacts out of the trunk and examine them. Grandpa’s leather Army Air Corps pilot helmet, his flight jacket, brown/green waistcoat uniform. A wool, French beret. A captured German bayonet. Luke picks up a pocket watch, flicks open the scrolled cover. A cautious twist of the stem, he holds it to his ear and nods that it works. Craig grabs it and sets the correct time. He listens to the rhythmic tick-tock and carefully places it on the rocking chair beside him.

Craig’s hand trembles as he pulls a scarlet red armband up to the light. As his fingers follow the outline of the black Nazi swastika centered in the armband’s white circle, goosebumps rise on his arm. He drops the armband back into the trunk and dusts his hands together as he shudders at this brush with pure evil.

To free a hand, Luke stuffs the silk map into his shirt pocket. He points the light into the army trunk and eyes a small, shiny object. Kneeling beside the trunk, he removes a Zippo lighter. Rising to his feet, he lays his iPhone on the rocking chair and hands the lighter to Craig. Craig examines the brass and chrome-plated artifact. Craig rubs his fingers across the surface and flicks the lighter top open and closed.

Now standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the two cousins breathing in the same decades-stale air, arms touching, Luke grabs the lighter and flicks the top open again. His thumb on the small geared wheel, he gives it a spin. Steel scrapes flint and sparks erupt from the lighter. Had someone been outside the stately Victorian house, looking up at the attic roof window, they would have seen a flash of fire and rushed to call 911.

Luke and Craig fall to their knees, shaking their heads in temporary blindness. Lightning arches through the night sky, illuminating the tin roof of a small farm barn across a meadow. Crawling on all-fours, the wet grass and rain soak through their khaki pants and oxford blue shirts. They roll to their feet and run to the safety of the barn.

Panting, out of breath, the cousins hide in a horse stall. They bury their legs under dry straw and sit, backs against the interior wall of the barn.

“What in the heck was that?” Craig demands.

“Damn if I know,” comes Luke’s honest reply. He looks at the Zippo lighter in his hand. He switches it to his other hand, then back and forth to lessen the impact of the residual heat coming from the lighter.

As Luke places his thumb on the geared wheel, Craig screams, “No! Once is enough.”

The darkness in the horse stall is swallowed by flashlights in the boys’ faces. “Haut les mains!” came the command.

Luke raises his hands over his head.

Craig, follows suit, quipping, “Obviously, that means hands up.”

Secreting the Zippo lighter into his pant pocket, Luke responds in French, “Je ne tire pas, je ne tire pas.”

“What'd ya say, what'd ya say?” Craig pleads.

“Don’t shoot.”

“Yeah, Je an tore pu,” as Craig butchers the French language.

Luke gives Craig a sneer and says, “Let me do the talking.”

Flashlights still in their eyes, there is enough light to discern that the cousins are held at gunpoint by 9 mm sub machine sten guns. One of their captors walks up to Luke and pulls the silk map out of his shirt pocket. He examines the map and hands it to his partner. The sten guns are lowered to their sides as they relax. Laughter is shared as the taller of the two men yells over his shoulder, “Agneau.”

“Lamb,” Luke whispers to Craig.

A young woman, probably about twenty-two or three, enters the horse stall. As she studies the silk map, Craig and Luke study her. Despite her dark, drab clothes, and the charcoal camouflaged cheeks, she is beautiful. The beret cocked over her forehead cause the boys to glance at each other, puzzled. The beret looks just like the one from Grandpa’s trunk. From the wedding pictures, is it possible? “Yvette?” Craig whispers to Luke.

The sten guns level in a reflex. Flashlights in their eyes. Hands again rise over their heads. The young woman stops in front of Craig and whispers, “Jamais les noms réels, toujours nom de code. Agneau.”

“Luke?” Craig pleads for help.

“Agneau,” Luke acknowledges.

The young woman leader of this small patrol of the French Résistance does not act like a lamb. She takes charge. The French men lower their weapons and sit on the scattered straw in the horse stall. Agneau motions for the two boys to sit down. She hands the silk map back to Luke. The boys look at each other as if they couldn’t read this complex football defense. They conclude they have just been accepted into the French Résistance and are being sent on a mission. The leaders finish their sidebar whispers and circle with the two boys.

Agneau snaps her fingers at Luke and requests Luke’s map. In rapid fire French that Craig assumes Luke will summarize for him later, she taps her fingers on a corner of the map and issues instructions. She hands him a canvas pouch. Luke nods understanding and rises. Agneau grabs him by his upper arms, pulls him to her, and kisses him on both cheeks. The quick brush of her cheek to his raises the hair on his arms and causes a nervous swallow. Craig rises to accept a similar farewell. Luke and Craig had yet to comprehend what just took place when the two male patrol members kiss them farewell. This causes an embarrassed pinking of their cheeks.

Luke leads the way as they exit the barn into the rainy night. Craig stumbles across the ankle-high wet pasture. “Luke, stop,” he pleads.

“Not yet.”

Craig tackles Luke around the ankles. Rolling on the ground, Craig ends up on top. “Damn it! What’s going on?”

“She gave us an assignment,” Luke said, under his breath. “This isn’t real,” Craig implores.

Luke raises a knee and catches Craig firmly in the crotch as Luke assumes the topside position. “Does that feel real?” Luke runs and tumbles behind a hay stack that could have been painted by Van Gogh.

Still reeling from the knee in the groin, Craig sits down beside Luke, backs resting against the hay stack. “Okay, what gives?”

“You tell me?” Luke queries.

“You’re the Frenchie,” Craig pleads. “What did they say?” Luke retrieves the Zippo lighter from his pocket and flicks open the top.

“Don’t you dare!” Craig barks. “We might end up as cave men.”

Re-pocketing the Zippo, Luke brings Craig up to speed. “Agneau, Lamb, is her code name. She scolded me for using her real name. Résistance groups, patrols, are small. She leads those other two guys.”

“And us?”

“Appears so,” Luke confirms. “They hide in the woods. Maquis. We are to sneak into a nearby village. Reverse road signs and drop this pouch beside the well in front of the baker’s shop. If we have time, cut some telephone lines.”