Palisades Park (20 page)

“Yeah, and it’s going fast too. Here, take a look at this and choose your poison.” He handed them a drink menu listing “grog” with names like Skull and Bones, Kona Swizzle, Dr. Funk, Fog Cutter, and Singapore Sling. Eddie liked the sound of that last one, exotic and dangerous.

“What the hell are
they
drinking?” Ernie asked, nodding toward a table of non-coms sipping, through long straws, from a huge ceramic bowl decorated with images of palm trees and hula girls.

“Ah, that’s a Scorpion. Got a nice little wallop. Serves four.”

“Three enlisted men are the equal of four NCOs any day,” Sal said. “We’ll take one of those.”

They watched as the bartender mixed together brandy, some kind of French liqueur, orange and lemon juices, mint, and, most important, a very liberal helping of Bacardi Superior White Rum. He blended it, poured it into one of the gigantic ceramic bowls, garnished it with a slice of orange, stuck three straws into it, and slid it over to the men.

“There you go, gents.”

They each took custody of a straw and began sipping, as if they were sharing a milkshake. The Scorpion was delicious as well as potent—there was no mistaking the taste of real, honest-to-God rum. Within minutes the three had drained the bowl, which earned an admiring nod from the barkeep: “Well, you made short work of that.”

“Man, oh, man,” Sal said, “I can’t remember the last time I had real booze. Set us up with another one.”

Eddie, nicely buzzed, said, “I’ll try one of these Singapore Slings.”

“Those are usually made with gin,” the bartender said. “I can substitute rum if you want, but I can’t guarantee it’ll taste the same.”

“I’ll take that risk,” Eddie said.

“We are men of the United States Navy,” Sal added. “We fear nothing.”

The bartender obliged, mixing an ounce of rum and a shot of grenadine in a cocktail shaker, shaking well, then straining the contents into a tall glass with a bas-relief of a hula girl on it. He filled it with club soda, then floated a dash of cherry brandy on top and handed it to Eddie.

It was smooth and sweet—almost like lemonade, or fruit punch. Didn’t seem that potent, but it was damned tasty and went down real easy. Eddie ordered another, even as Sal and Ernie ordered a Zombie and something called a Pondo Snifter, allegedly from the North Coast of Borneo.

By the time Eddie had finished his third Singapore Sling it began to occur to him that either the earth had begun rotating differently or he was very, very drunk. Apparently Sal and Ernie’s drinks were no less potent, because the two of them were as potted as the plants around them. When they tried to order a fifth round, however, the barkeep reminded them that all bars in Honolulu had a four-drink limit and they had reached it: “Sorry.”

With a chorus of cheers for Trader Vic—
whoever
the hell he was—they lurched outside and onto a crowded city bus bound for Hotel Street. As they approached their destination, Ernie announced: “I wanna get laid!”

“
Grade
idea!” Sal said with enthusiasm. “Lez go!”

Eddie swore. “Jeez-us! Not this again!”

“Aw, stop bein’ a pussy,” Sal said.

“Stop
callin’
me a pussy,” Eddie snapped.

“Chrissake, Eddie, thiz war might last years!” Ernie said. “What’re you gonna do, be a friggin’ monk for two, three, four friggin’
years
?”

“Stopka, I take it back. You ain’t a pussy.” Sal grinned. “You’re pussy-
whipped
—scared of your wife!”

Despite feeling as if he’d been run over by a Mack truck, Eddie jumped to his feet, grabbed Sal by the collar of his shirt, and jerked him up off his seat.

“Bullshit!” he yelled.

“Talk’s cheap, Stopka!”

“I’ll show you!” Eddie said heatedly. “C’mon! I’ll
show
you!”

He pushed Sal through the door of the bus and onto the carnival midway of Hotel Street.

*   *   *

Eddie woke with a headache the size of the island of Tortuga and a lancing pain in his right arm when he propped himself up on his bunk. He looked around him at the naval barracks, without the slightest memory of having come back here—with no memory, for that matter, of anything after he had grabbed Sal and shoved him off of the bus and onto …

Oh, shit.

His heart pounded, which only seemed to make his headache worse. He sat up on his bunk, panicky, and called out, “Sal! Ernie!”

Four bunks away, Sal groaned in response. Eddie propelled himself off the bunk and to Sal’s side.

“Sal! Jesus! Wake up,” he implored. When Sal didn’t respond, Eddie slapped him once across the cheek. “Will you for Chrissakes
wake up
?”

Sal’s eyes fluttered open. “
What
? Can’t you just let me die?”

“Sal, what the hell did I do? After we left the bus, what did I do?”

“You threw up,” Sal said. “We all did. Seemed like the thing to do.”

“Is that all? Then what?”

“Then you showed us,” Sal said, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Eddie shook him. “What? What did I show you?”

Sal made no response, but from the other end of the barracks came another voice:

“Jesus Christ, Stopka, stop shouting,” Ernie said, wincing.

“Ernie, what the fuck happened?” Eddie demanded.

“You
showed
us,” Ernie said, sighing, “how much you love your wife, okay? So shut the fuck up!”

And with that, he flopped back onto his bunk with a loud groan.

The lancing pain in Eddie’s arm awoke a dim memory—a sound of buzzing, like a swarm of insects—and he slowly rolled up the sleeve of his undershirt, all the way up to the shoulder.

On his right bicep was the still-raw tattoo of a red Valentine’s heart, and inside it, a single word:
ADELE.

9

Edgewater, New Jersey, 1942–43

A
DELE CRIED FOR TWO DAYS
after Eddie left, though never again in front of the children. Resolutely dry-eyed, she woke them each morning, scrambled their eggs and fried their Spam (bacon being a casualty of wartime shortages), bundled them in the mummy wrappings of their winter clothes, and sent them shambling stiffly down Undercliff Avenue to school. Only then did she allow herself to sink into Eddie’s easy chair and dissolve into tears. At night she curled up with her head on Eddie’s pillow, still holding the pungent scent of his aftershave lotion; when she closed her eyes she could pretend he was still here, sleeping beside her. Then she would wake, alone, in the middle of the night, and weep tears of anger that he could leave her—alongside tears of fear that he might never return.

She thought she was doing it quietly enough that the children couldn’t hear, but Toni, on the other side of the thin plaster wall, heard every sob. Toni was grieving too, though more for the loss of her father’s everyday presence than concern that he might not come back. At eleven years old she knew what death was, but simply couldn’t conceive of it happening to her father. He was like one of the tall, sturdy oak trees in her backyard, impervious to the storms and stresses of the world, and she assumed he would be there, roots firmly planted in her life, forever.

After the second day Adele regained some of her moxie, telling herself this was just the way things were and she would have to live with it as best she could. Many of the women she worked with in the Red Cross also had husbands in the service, and there was comfort in their shared loneliness. Driving up River Road to the Red Cross office, she passed house after house in whose windows hung a white ribbon bordered in red, with a blue five-pointed star—sometimes more than one—signifying a family member who was in the service. Occasionally one of the blue stars would be transmuted, by tragic alchemy, into a gold one, representing a man’s life lost in service of his country. Adele flinched at these, and when she received her own blue-star ribbon she dutifully hung it in the front window, but far enough from the driveway that she couldn’t see it when she left the house.

Being a housewife at war posed its own special challenges. Between what they had saved from Palisades, Eddie’s Navy pay, and the military’s dependents allowance, Adele had more than enough money to feed a family of three; but money was no longer all that was required to put food in her children’s mouths. Each time she went to the market, she had to bring along her government-issued ration book with its perforated sheets of red and blue stamps, each one assigned a point value. So in addition to paying forty-nine cents for a pound of pork chops, she also had to give the grocer seven points in Red Stamps. Canned spinach cost only ten cents a can, but required seventeen points in Blue Stamps. Butter set you back twenty points; cookies, which Adele found hard to believe were vital to the war effort, were even more pricey at twenty-two points. Each household member was assigned forty-eight points per ration period; Adele had to plan meals weeks in advance in order to purchase everything she needed.

Supplementing their food budget was the Victory Garden that Toni and Jack planted in their backyard on the slopes of the Palisades, from which the family harvested a robust crop of carrots, celery, onions, and tomatoes, which Adele’s mother showed her how to can for winter.

That first Christmas without Eddie wasn’t an easy one, but Adele made sure Santa delivered everything on the kids’ Christmas list—Jack got the watercolor paint set he craved, and Toni a Charlie McCarthy puppet. A holiday dinner at Marie and Franklin’s made them feel more like an intact family: along with Adele’s brothers, James and Ralph (who, as fathers, had so far avoided the draft), and their families, the Stopkas exchanged presents, sang carols, and gorged themselves on roasted turkey with all the trimmings, one of the few occasions they, like most Americans, were able to indulge themselves in these austere war years.

Her father was in good spirits, even managing to abstain
from
spirits for most of the day, but Adele noted with disquiet that his complexion was gray, he seemed easily fatigued and short of breath, and he had a bad cough. But he found enough voice to raise a glass of apple cider and toast, “Here’s to our brave boys overseas … and one boy in particular,” with a wink to Adele.

“Is Dad okay?” Adele asked her mother when they had a moment alone together, cleaning the dishes after dinner. “He doesn’t look good.”

“He’s had that cough for a while,” Marie admitted, “but whenever I ask him how he’s feeling he just says, ‘I’m fine.’”

“How much of the sauce is he putting away these days?”

“I don’t like to think about that,” Marie said, ill at ease. “There’s nothing to be done about it anyway.”

“Well, keep an eye on that cough, at least,” Adele cautioned.

Even so, it came as a surprise when, a week later, Adele’s mother called to tell her, in a strained tone obvious even over the telephone, that their family physician had checked Franklin into Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck. “That cough of his got worse,” Marie explained, “and then he coughed up something pinkish brown, and I made him go to the doctor. They’re running tests now, can you come over?”

Adele thought of cancer all the way there, an unexpected fear since she had worried for years about her father coming down with cirrhosis of the liver and had been alert to the telltale signs of it, girding herself against the day she noted a jaundiced cast to his skin. But instead she saw, as Franklin lay abed, that his legs and ankles were swollen and his neck appeared bloated in way she hadn’t noticed when he was wearing a shirt collar. He looked tired and weak, but smiled when she entered the room. “Ah,” he said, “everything will be all right now that my little star is here.”

She kissed him on the cheek and forced some cheer into her voice. “That’s right. Everything’s going to be fine, Daddy.”

Dr. Thomas DeCecio, a personable young internist in his early thirties, soon arrived with the test results and informed them soberly that Franklin was suffering from congestive heart failure.

“There’s been considerable enlargement of the heart,” he told them, adding pointedly, “due to excessive alcohol consumption. It’s like a sponge oversaturated with water—the heart’s been so weakened it’s lost much of its pumping capacity. The blood is literally backing up into other organs, like the lungs, which is why we found traces of it in your sputum.”

“Oh my Lord,” Marie said, and began to weep.

“It’s all right, honey,” Franklin said, “don’t cry.”

Adele held her mother as the doctor went on, “The good news is, the damage is to some degree reversible. I can prescribe a diuretic to reduce fluid retention, and digitalis to regulate the heartbeat. But as I’ve been telling you for years, Franklin—you
must
stop drinking. If you don’t, you’ll die, sooner than later. Is that clear?”

“Yes.” Franklin’s voice trembled with palpable fear, striking a resonant chord of fear in Adele. “Abundantly.”

“Good. Now, nobody’s saying this will be easy. If you need help, there’s this new organization, Alcoholics Anonymous, and I understand that Yale University is planning an outpatient program to treat alcoholism…”

“I don’t need any help,” Franklin insisted. “I’ll lick this on my own.”

That night, back home, Franklin went to bed without having had a single drink all day—for the first time in twenty years. Only hours before, Adele and Marie had searched every cabinet, cupboard, and closet for any bottles or flasks Franklin might have burrowed away. It took two hours to detoxify the house from basement to attic and pour all the booze down the drain—enough, Adele joked, “to sterilize the sewers for at least a day.”

Franklin soon found himself running a torturous gauntlet of insomnia, tremors, sweats, chills, and deliriums. Marie was at his side and Adele visited whenever she could get away from the children, from whom all this was being carefully hidden. Finally, after ten long days, Franklin bottomed out and fell into a deep sleep, from which he did not stir for nearly twenty-four hours. When he at last opened his eyes it seemed to Adele as if he were truly awake, and alive, in a way she hadn’t seen since she had watched him on the set of the last film he had directed, back in 1917. He had been drowsing, like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle, for twenty-six years.