Jump into the Sky (29 page)

I couldn’t help wondering if my life woulda been any different if he’d talked to Queen Bee Walker all those years ago. Maybe they woulda fallen in love again, who knows. Or maybe she woulda taken off and left us twice in one lifetime. Guess there is no way of knowing if something is gonna be a Hollywood ending or a flop, right?

Sat outside with my father, talking and watching the celebrations, until way past midnight. Saw two shooting stars zip across the night sky, although I didn’t see either one land and sprout into a tree like MawMaw Sands said. Despite the big party everybody below us in the town seemed to be having and the happy crescendo of noise coming outta the mess hall, I could tell my daddy was still wrestling with the idea of the war being over. More than a couple of times, he said, “All I want is for the people down there to know we did our part for our country. Don’t want to go home feeling like we did nothing.”

Maybe the stars were listening that night. Or maybe MawMaw Sands was right all along about believing in things you can’t see. Turns out my father didn’t have to wait very long to get one of the things he wanted. The next morning, everybody woke up to the news that something about Jap balloon bombs was in the headlines.

W
ord reached the airfield as the men were getting into formation before breakfast.

Nobody was putting in much effort that morning, I gotta admit, with the war being over and all. Uniforms were wrinkled and trouser legs weren’t bloused real carefully. Everybody just threw on their jump boots and clomped out the door, laces dragging.

I’d only got a few hours’ sleep. I’d slept overnight in the service barracks, breaking every army rule there is—and probably worrying the Delaneys half to death—but since the army had locked up the base, what else could I do? My daddy couldn’t take the chance of sneaking me into the officers’ quarters, so Emerald found me a bunk in his barracks and some of the other fellows were kind enough to short-sheet the bed before I got into it.

Of course, I shoulda known from all my daddy’s letters that you can’t trust the mess hall crew any farther than you
can spit, but there I was—tugging and tugging on the blankets with sweat beading up on my forehead—until the men, who were howling with laughter by then, showed me what they’d done. Told them they were a bunch of fools before I yanked the blankets over my head to get some sleep.

Anyhow, the army cooks were already hard at work fixing breakfast and I was standing around yawning and watching the troopers line up in their halfhearted rows when the rumor reached us about something important being in the newspaper. One of the officers said he’d overheard a guard talking about the headlines, so my daddy said the two of us would take Graphite into town and buy a couple copies of the morning edition before it sold out.

The day had been declared a holiday for everybody, but from the looks of things, I don’t think the town of Pendleton had one single explosive left. The whole place was covered in a hazy firecracker fog that morning and seemed to be sound asleep. After all the crazy celebrating that had been going on, I figured a lot of people would be putting salt in their Coca-Colas for their headaches and staying in bed.

Took us a while to find any newsboys selling papers. We drove up and down Main Street twice. Finally found a kid with two skinned knees and a runny nose. He hardly looked old enough to read what he was selling, and I don’t think he’d ever taken money from a colored person before either. When my father held out the money for him, he just stared
at us. Then, after snatching the coins outta my father’s hand, he threw one copy at us and ran off. Good thing it wasn’t a windy day or the news woulda been all over the street.

We sat down on a curb across from one of the barbershops in Pendleton to page through the paper. Other than the two of us, the red and white barber pole seemed to be the only thing moving. All the stores around us were closed. My father stretched out his legs on the empty pavement and unfolded the paper across them. As he turned the page, a headline on the inside of
The Oregonian
caught our eye. There, in two-inch type, were the words nobody ever believed we’d see: JAP BALLOONS FELL IN SIXTEEN STATES.

I don’t think I’m giving away any army secrets if I tell you this was one of the few times in my whole life that I ever saw my tough father cry.

T
hey talked about the story for weeks afterward. Nobody in Pendleton could believe the Japs had launched thousands of balloons and they’d drifted across sixteen states. And it was an even bigger shock to find out one balloon bomb had killed five Oregon kids and a young preacher’s wife on a picnic in May—the same day the men had left North Carolina to come west. Another one landed near a factory in Washington State making parts for the atomic bomb. “See, we came closer to being the Book of Revelation than we knew,” Mrs. Delaney insisted when she read the news.

The newspapers said some of the enemy balloons had traveled as far as Michigan and Texas, where people who saw the strange ghost-white orbs floating across the sky thought they were going nuts. By June, the Japs had given up sending them. Which explained why my daddy and his men had never seen one—nobody knew the attack on the West had mostly stopped by the time the paratroopers got there.

A lot of the paratroopers at Pendleton cut out every newspaper article they could find about the balloons. They folded them carefully in their wallets and carried them everywhere. It was a small piece of pride, you know what I mean? Other soldiers brought home medals and ribbons from fighting overseas, but those headlines were all the paratroopers had to show why they’d jumped into forest fires and landed in trees and all that. For a lot of them, just having the proof they’d been part of something in the war was enough. They were ready to go home.

I saved one of the articles and stuck it in MawMaw Sands’s basket to show off to Archie someday. Back in Southern Pines, I’m sure MawMaw Sands was sitting in her rocker, having a little laugh about the news. I could hear her saying, “I told you so, Levi Battle. Told you sometimes you gotta believe in things you can’t always see.” My daddy sent one article to Mickey’s family and another to Cal and Peaches, in case they hadn’t seen the news. He wrote on it,
Watch out for any stray balloons floating over Georgia
, which I think was a joke, although jokes weren’t my daddy’s talent.

Then he hopped on a C-47 again and went on another fire call.

Couldn’t believe it when we heard the big airplanes roar overhead only two days after victory had been declared. We were in the middle of finishing up a late breakfast—me,
Mrs. Delaney, and Willajean were just sitting around watching the butter melt—when the planes from Pendleton sailed over the house, rattling everybody’s nerves again.

“What in the world is happening now?” Mrs. Delaney leaped up and tuned in the radio right away. Think we were all wondering if maybe the Japs had changed their mind and taken back their surrender. But Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters were singing “Victory Polka” on the local station and everything seemed peaceful. “Must be another fire somewhere and that’s where all the planes are going,” Mrs. Delaney said, coming back to the table and whispering a quick prayer before she picked up her fork again.

Of course, Willajean had to bring up the idea of me being stuck in Pendleton forever. “What if the army stays here for good and Levi never gets to go back home?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

Didn’t say it, but I thought,
I’ll walk back to Chicago if I have to. No way am I spending the rest of my life in Pendleton, Oregon
.

Mrs. Delaney sounded pretty sure the rainy season would put an end to the fires in the West soon. “Couple more weeks of August left, and then the rain will be here.”

As the last weeks of August dragged on, I spent half the time hoping the fires would stop before my father or one of the other troopers died jumping into them—and the other half worrying what would happen when the missions did end.

It didn’t help matters that everybody else in Pendleton seemed to be getting ready for their new future after the war. Every day more soldiers came home. There were weddings, funerals, parades, you name it. Mrs. Delaney kept moving my things into smaller and smaller piles, saying she had to make room for when her sons, George and Robert, got back from the Pacific soon. One day, I figured, she was probably gonna put me in one of those piles too.

The whole country seemed to be on sale. Victory bargains were everywhere. Mrs. Delaney bought herself a brand-new kitchen range—probably with all the rent money she got from us. Willajean bought high school sweaters and new shoes and tried to convince me to sign up for school in September.

Heck, school was the last thing I was worried about.

I kept waiting on my father to say something, to give me some hint about what our future held. Was he staying with the army or moving on? Were we going back to Chicago or not? But the future coulda been a rattlesnake curled on the road in front of us, given how much my father avoided talking about it. When I tried tossing out a question here or there, he’d always answer how the fires and his men were his main mission. “Can’t think about anything else while I’ve still got a job to do here.”

Once, when the two of us were strolling around the airfield for something to do, he asked if I had any interest in following in his footsteps and jumping out of airplanes
someday. “You ever think it would be fun to go up in the sky and see what it’s like?”

Guess we still had a lot to learn about each other, because he seemed surprised when I said, “Nope. Never.” Even if I convinced myself to fly inside an airplane someday, there was no way I’d ever jump out.

That was the closest we came to talking about the future.

The rest of the time, we stuck to what we already knew best. Between fire calls, my daddy taught me to play poker. We put in a lot of time at the horseshoe pits too, and one September weekend we finally caught some fish. Brought back three nice-sized trout for Emerald to fry. Those Oregon trout turned out to be our last taste of summer, because a few days later the rain arrived.

I heard the sound first. Early one morning. A drumming sound like woodpeckers hammering on the roof. Then I noticed how the bedroom curtains in Robert’s room were fluttering. My long legs prickled in the sudden breeze and I realized the air pouring through the open window was chilly. What the heck had happened with the temperature? I yanked the blankets over myself. The whole bedroom was sunk in a dark gray gloom. Couldn’t make any guess as to what time it was.

Still freezing, I unrolled a pair of socks and pulled on my trousers. The hallway was empty when I stuck my head outta the bedroom, so I figured it was still real early. Could
see Mrs. Delaney out on the porch, where she liked to sit before the neighborhood woke up. When I pushed open the door, she turned to check who it was. “Morning, Levi. You’re up early. Welcome to the rainy season.” She gestured toward the watery scene in front of us where the rain was coming down in sheets.

I gawked at the sight as if I’d never seen rain before. Good grief, a few months in the West and I’d forgotten what rain looked like.

“You can almost smell the Pacific, can’t you?” Mrs. Delaney said, taking a big breath.

The Pacific? It was miles away. To me, the air smelled more like fish. A chilly, fishy smell. Uncle Otis had once taken me to see a pier that jutted into Lake Michigan, and I remembered how the greenish waves crashing onto the pier kicked up the same kinda smell. Watching the rain fall beyond the porch roof, I felt those same greenish waves kicking up inside of me, because I knew it was only a matter of time before leaving came up in my life again. Mrs. Delaney could smell the Pacific and I could smell leaving on the air.

Sure enough, a couple of days after the fire missions ended and some of the cleanup was done, my father stopped by Mrs. Delaney’s house with an envelope in his hand. The rain was still falling, soaking the shoulders of his uniform.

“Came to talk to Levi for a little bit, if that’s all right, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Delaney, who was dusting all her
knickknacks in the front room with the help of Willajean. I put down the mop they’d given me and reluctantly followed his wet footsteps into the kitchen. Any other time I’d have been glad to give up cleaning something, but not then.

When my daddy handed the envelope to me and I saw the handwriting on the front was Aunt Odella’s, I was convinced I was going back to Chicago. “Open it and see what’s inside,” he said, biting down on his lips like he was trying hard not to smile. I opened the flap, not knowing what to think about how strange he was acting.

Stuck inside, there was a letter—and a small snapshot slid onto the floor. Picked it up and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was Aunt Odella smiling and standing arm in arm with a man in uniform. Written on the back in precise lines were these words:
Odella and Paul Carter, joined in marriage, August 18, 1945
.

Let me tell you, I was speechless. Could hardly keep myself from going over to the window to check if chickens were plucking their own feathers and pigs were flying.

“Can you believe it? My sister falling in love with a navy man,” my daddy said, shaking his head and grinning. “She shoulda picked somebody from the army instead.”

I kept staring at the picture, still trying to believe it was true. How was it possible? How had Aunt Odella found love and a husband in a few short months? And what did that mean for me?

Right then, it hit me. I was holding the snapshot of my
future. My daddy was sending me back to Chicago to live with Aunt Odella and her new husband, Paul, wasn’t he?

I don’t think my daddy realized I’d already guessed what was coming next. He pulled out one of the kitchen chairs, sat down, and said we had some important things to talk about.

By then, I was hardly listening. Instead, I pictured what it would be like to be wrapped up in Queen Bee Walker’s fur coat—how you couldn’t see or hear anything from inside it. Didn’t care what my father was gonna say to me. All I knew was we’d spent the last few months getting to know each other and now it was all for nothing. I could say goodbye to the poker games and horseshoes and fishing and you name it because I was about to be handed those same three son-of-a-gun words again:
I Am Levin
.