Departure

By Meredith Wadley

Janey stood between the kitchen and the den, waiting for a chance to slip away. She’d been told to set the table, but she wanted to be with her daddy, Stuart, instead. He was packing. In the morning, he’d be flying commercial to Tacoma. From there, he’d hop military flights to Saigon via Honolulu and Manila to begin a twelve-month Vietnam tour. The year was 1968, and Janey was halfway through being seven years old.
Isabel, Janey’s big sister, sat at the kitchen table, her head in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Their mother, Grace, bent over the oven to toothpick a cake for doneness. Janey backed away. The scents of melted butter, warm sugar, and toasted coconut followed her across the den and down the hallway. Usually, she’d run and slide on the wooden floors, but this evening, she tiptoed. Her stomach felt swishy like she’d gulped a cold root beer too fast.
“Hey, darlin’, come to keep me company?” Janey’s daddy held an empty olive-green, B-4B garment bag.
The smell of fresh-cut grass came through the open bedroom window along with the growl of their lawnmower. Janey’s big brother, Steve, mowed their lawn. Paid twenty-five cents a pop, he’d pay her a dime to do it for him any chance he got. He’d call her stupid for agreeing, but she earned ten cents doing a chore she would’ve done for free.
Her daddy flopped the bag onto the queen-sized bed and unzipped it. “How ’bout a story?” He winked, and she crawled onto the bed to nestle cross-legged.
“Did I ever tell you about my pal, Eddie?”
Her daddy’s storytelling always began with the same question and took Janey swimming in irrigation canals, stealing watermelons out of a farmer’s field, shuffling along a dusty road to the West Texas town of Ystleta, or galloping Smokey, his sister’s buckskin cowpony. Bareback, he’d hunt hares for the soup pot or tamales, and at Christmastime, he'd shoot mistletoe from the highest cottonwood branches to sell door-to-door around town. Smokey had given him the feel for speed. Now, he flew airplanes.
He fetched a stack of tan shirts—starched and folded—from the chest of drawers by the window and placed them in the bag. “Good ol’ Eddie,” he began. “When he was a wee thing, a harrow fell on his face.”
“Luckily,” Janey said. “The harrow didn’t kill him.” A farmer’s boy, Eddie. Not like her daddy, the son of a newspaper editor.
“Back when the harrow sliced open Eddie’s nose,” her daddy said, “the doctors didn’t have penicillin to prevent wounds from festering.”
“The gash healed,” Janey said, “but it didn’t close.”
“We used to go swimming in the canals, the pair of us. Eddie would pinch his nostrils underwater and blow bubbles out those holes. Best trick ever.”
“Were you jealous?”
“That would be envy, and you shouldn’t envy someone’s misfortune. But maybe I did—a little.”
He collected several pairs of tan slacks from their hangers and folded them into the garment bag.
From the opposite side of the house came the slam of the back door and Steve saying, “Geez, it smells good in here.”
Voices traveled well from the kitchen to the bedrooms. They traveled the opposite direction only if bickering was going on but not at all during the news hour. The news covered Vietnam. A lot. A conflict over there. Yet Janey hadn’t connected her daddy’s tour with what came on the news. Perhaps the word “tour” threw her off. It sounded like something her family would do on a weekend. Last summer, for instance, they’d toured the historic town of Williamsburg, Virginia.
Besides, everything on the news seemed to involve soldiers and helicopters in jungles. Not planes. Or pilots.
From the kitchen came the voice of Janey’s mother. “Wash your hands. And help Isabel set the table, would you?”
“That’s Janey’s job,” Steve answered.
“Where is she?” Isabel said.
Janey tensed. Yes, sound traveled well. To cover those of plates clattering and forks and knives jangling, to get her daddy talking again, she said, “And after swimming?”
Stuart set his shoe-shining kit and the kit for polishing wings and insignia pins on the bed and smiled. “Oh, we’d be mighty famished after a swim. So, we’d sneak into the watermelon fields—not those of Eddie’s father, of course. We’d help ourselves to the fattest, ripest melon we could find, leaving behind a slaughtered carcass.”
Janey’s fingertips didn’t have ears, and they wandered to her knee where they found a scab and traced its curled and brittle edges. Bits broke off the edges, but the center held fast. Prying off the scab might start it bleeding.
“One day, we found a sign in the field,” Stuart said.
BEWARE!
ONE MELON POISONED!!!
Sometimes Janey asked if the sign ever stopped them from stealing melons. The answer was never more than a lopsided grin.
Into the bag went Stuart’s skivvies. Next came his blues, the uniforms still sheathed in the base dry-cleaner’s tissue, which crinkled. He folded one of the uniforms and placed it in the bag. The second he’d wear on the flight to Tacoma.
Outside, the across-the-street neighbor’s black Mercury Breezeway pulled up. A boy’s voice cried, “Bang! Bang! You’re dead!” and the uniformed man getting out of the car pretended to aim a handgun at the little boy. “Mommy!” the boy shouted, “Daddy’s home!”
The man was a First Lieutenant—like Janey’s daddy—but army, not air force. An enormous army base, home of the Green Berets, overshadowed Stuart’s airfield, and most of the families on their street were army, including the family of Janey’s best friend. Lisa’s daddy, a Master Sergeant, had shipped out for Vietnam right before Christmas.
“Eddie,” Janey’s daddy said, “taught me the art of watermelon tapping. You can hear ripeness—as if a tap can crack ’er in half.”
Janey wondered what Eddie looked like, tall and trim like her daddy? But with darker hair and eyes—and that oddly shaped nose? She said, “Where’s Eddie now?”
She knew Eddie had joined the army straight out of high school. Maybe he’d made Master Sergeant like her friend Lisa’s daddy. Maybe he left the service to grow watermelons back on the family farm. And maybe he had a dozen dark-haired children, quick as quail—like her—who knew the feel of melons groaning to be cracked. Like she knew, too.
Stuart unzipped a second bag. It looked new; Janey had never seen him travel with two bags. In went his civvies and shoes. The shoes were in flannel draw-string bags Janey’s sister had sewn. Mom had taught Isabel how to sew on her featherweight machine and how to hand-embroider Stuart’s name and rank on each bag.
Janey didn’t want to learn to sew. She wanted to build and repair things alongside her daddy the way Steve did. To handsaw shapes out of wood instead of cutting fabric, to hammer rather than stitch. She preferred the zip of her daddy’s retracting metal measuring tape to the snap of her mother’s canvas tape. And she longed to build a birdhouse.
Building a birdhouse would have to wait.
Stuart squeezed the back of his neck. A thin line of glaring white skin followed his dark hairline—the mark of a fresh haircut. Earlier that day, he’d dropped off Janey, Steve, and Isabel at the base pool for their swimming lessons and gone to the barbers. By the time he returned, the swimming lessons were done. He swam laps with Steve, tossed bright pennies into the deep end for Janey and Isabel, and treated everyone to soft ice creams. While he napped in the sun, they flipped through the comics he’d brought them in a paper bag. Steve grabbed Captain America, Sad Sad Sack World, and Batman, leaving his sisters Mighty Mouse, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Little Dot. When Janey reached for Batman, he slapped her hand away.
Stuart piled his wings, golden oak leaves, and bars on the bed. Despite knowing not to touch anything polished, Janey reached toward them absentmindedly.
“Hände weg,” he said, German for “don’t touch.”
Janey had been born in Germany, but before she’d learned to walk at nine months, the family had returned stateside to Southern Texas. They moved to Lubbock next, where her daddy went to graduate school. After a stint in Arizona, they’d moved here. She remembers living on base housing in Arizona where she ran around barefoot, sharp little burrs in the lawns jabbing themselves between her toes—ouch! She did not miss those little burrs.
Once her daddy got home from Vietnam, he’d be reassigned to a new place, and they’d move.
At dinner one night, he told her mother that she and kids could live in Ysleta while he was on tour. With Nana, his mother, in her big adobe house. But Janey later overheard her mother on the phone say, “I’d rather die than live in godforsaken Ysleta.” Janey wouldn’t have minded it. She was old enough to swim in the canals herself now. Maybe they could have gotten some buckskins horses to take on long gallops. Maybe she could’ve played with Eddie’s kids—they could’ve stolen some watermelons.
She said to her daddy, “Does Eddie live in Ysleta? Does he have kids?”
The smells from the kitchen had grown savory, onions frying and dried chilies steaming for enchilada sauce.
Janey’s daddy shook his head. “Did I ever tell you about my donkey?”
“He did tricks.”
“He sure did.”
“But he came to a bad end.”
“Those were hard times. The Depression. Lots of poor folks, including Eddie’s family.” He excused himself and disappeared into the bathroom.
Janey pictured a little boy—her daddy—making his way along the dusty road into town, a dime burning a hole in his pocket. Should he buy himself candy or chewing gum cigarettes? Or a slingshot?
A man holding a rope tied to a donkey leaned against the storefront. The beast’s ribs showed. His hooves curled upwards. A missing eye, its lid closed and crusty, seeped a dark trickle, staining the poor beast’s wooly face.
Young Stuart asked if he could pet the donkey.
“Got any money on you?”
Young Stuart didn’t want to pay to pet a one-eyed donkey.
The man, an old, weathered fella, not too clean, not too fresh smelling, narrowed his eyes. “Your mama send you here?”
Young Stuart shook his head.
“Oh,” the man growled, “Then ya got no more ina dime on ya, I bet. What boy would come to a store like this’n with less?” The old man’s cowboy boots had split open, and his straw hat was brittle and broken. He patted the donkey’s head and said, “He does tricks. Wanna see?”
Young Stuart shook his head.
“Well, how ’bout a trade? My fabulous animal for your dime?”
Some deals could be too good to be true.
As Young Stuart led the crippled donkey up his driveway, his mama appeared. “Straight back it goes,” she said.
“He’s mine.”
“It’s a pitiful bag of worms and disease. And those hooves can’t be saved. Straight back it goes.”
“He does tricks. Pull his ear, an’ he’ll kick. Pull his tail, he’ll bite. Wanna see?”
His mama crossed her arms. “Wanna see. Where are you picking up language like that?”
“Watch this,” Young Stuart pleaded. “Donkey, what’s one plus four?”
The beast lifted a wrinkled, curved hoof and dragged it over the gravel five times.
“And four plus one?”
Donkey made five more lugubrious strokes.
Well the man took donkey back, sure, but he’d already spent young Stuart’s dime on a Nehi Cola and a plug of tobacco. And the next boy to come along had a quarter. He turned out to be Eddie, and Eddie’s nonno had a family recipe for salami.
“Poor donkey.” Janey thought. She couldn’t understand why the poor beast’s death didn’t sadden her daddy. Sure, he’d told her how he’d bawled out his eyes. But he’d also said, “Those were hard times, sugar. Imagine how sorry the old conman felt when Eddie didn’t bring back his meal ticket.”
She’d nod, figuring sooner or later the meaning of “meal ticket” would make sense to her.
In the bathroom, the toilet flushed. Water ran. On the opposite side of the house, a screen door slammed. A ball bounced and slapped: Steve in the driveway with his basketball.
Tomorrow at zero six-hundred Romeo, the family would drive to Raleigh Airport. Just that morning, Stuart had said to Steve, “You’ll be your mom’s navigator, getting her safely home.” Steve made as good a navigator as they came. He was twelve. Stuart had also said, “You’re the man of the house, now, son.”
Janey’s daddy went from the bathroom straight to the walk-in closet and came out carrying his flight suits. They gave off a thrilling mix of aftershave, tobacco, sweat, and something vaguely metallic. Earlier, Janey had scribbled several hearts in a flip-book she’d found in the sleeve pocket of one suit. Her daddy would find them the next time he’d fly and know for sure who loved him. Keeping the hearts secret from him made her smile.
He said, “I smell red enchilada sauce and tortillas frying.”
Dinner soon, and her daddy hadn’t answered her question about Eddie. Oh, drat it, now. Janey had done exactly what she didn’t want to do. A bead of blood formed at the edge of her scab. Quickly, she said, “What happened to Eddie?”
She’d never wondered what had happened to her daddy’s boyhood friend before. Now, she imagined his grin. Her daddy had never mentioned a grin before, but she one, wide, friendly, and show strong white teeth.
The remaining items set out on the bed went into the flight bag bag. Everything nestled perfectly. Sometimes, Janey’s mom laughed at her daddy’s tidy ways. “Starchy Stu, stiff as your shirts,” she’d teased. He’d shrug or throw his hands in the air. “Can’t help it, Grace. I was raised by folks who like everything just so. And what I didn’t get from my mama and pappy, the military taught me.”
Janey’s mom hadn’t been so teasing lately. She seemed to take this mission more seriously than past missions; Stuart had flown to Vietnam before. When the family lived in Phoenix, Arizona, he’d captained fleets of aircraft to Vietnam. And Janey had heard her mom say to her friends during a game of bridge, “Over those eighteen months, I reckon my Stuart spent more days TDY than he did at home.” The women, all pilot wives, had laughed, and one had said, “And when they’re home, they’re at the O Club or on the golf course.” More laughter.
Stuart would be gone twelve months. Janey knew she’d get through an entire school year before seeing him again, which didn’t bear thinking about.
Actually, school didn’t bear thinking about, either. First grade hadn’t been the fun she’d thought it would be. Steve and Isabel loved going to school, but Janey preferred swimming in the creek behind their house or crawling through the forest hunting for lizards, newts, or garter snakes. She liked exploring the new homes being built in the neighborhood. One time, she’d found an abandoned sandwich at a construction site. Its middle oozed maggots. Sometimes, Janey had nightmares about maggots.
Her daddy zipped his bag closed.
Outside, Steve’s basketball bounced, leather slapping concrete, slapping palm. The hoop occasionally thrummed like a giant spring that’d been pulled and released. Sometimes, the ball smacked the side of the carport. One time, Janey looked through her daddy’s high school yearbook and found him in a basketball team photo. When she’d asked if Eddie was on the team, too, he pointed out a back-row figure. The moment the photo was snapped, Eddie had been looking down. His image was a shadow of thick, black hair.
Janey squirmed, and the bedding under her bottom puckered. “When did you last see him?”
“Who?”
“Eddie?”
“Still asking about Eddie, huh?”
Outside, the basketball bounced, the hoop thrummed, and Janey almost missed her daddy’s soft words: “High school graduation, I suppose.” His voice carried the dreamy tone of being elsewhere. Maybe he half-listened to the beats of Steve’s basketball, the slap of hand to leather, the pause—the ball in flight—answered by Steve crying “Yes!”
“Dinner ready, you reckon?” Stuart said. “Sure smells good.”
As if cued, Janey’s stomach growled. Like her daddy, she loved red enchiladas. Her mother stacked them, adding diced onions and a fried egg to her daddy and brother’s stacks. Janey detested eggs. As much as she wanted to love them, they made her gag. She didn’t smell eggs yet, so she asked again, “Is he still in the army? Does he have kids, too?”
She knew about Eddie’s younger cousin, although her daddy didn’t speak of Julio often. The boy, playing with friends along train tracks, had found a railway torpedo once. He’d dinked around with his find, and it’d gone off. Mechanical hooks replaced Julio’s hands, which had been amputated.
The second flight bag was swung off the bed and set alongside its plump twin. If there’d been a third bag, Janey might’ve tried curling herself tight enough to fit into it. She treasured tight places. One time, after finding the cat asleep in the linen closet, she crawled in there herself, falling asleep on the stack of summer blankets. Once, she’d taken along a book and a flashlight. And another time, Steve locked her in it. She didn’t care.
Outside, the basketball bounced and slapped. Some children pedaled by on banana bikes, and a water-sprinkler cut on, “Shh, shh-shh-shh.”
Janey’s daddy now stood by the bedroom window. Hard to believe he’d be gone for so long. Lots of things filled a year: birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Maybe some January snow might fall, and she and Steve and Isabel would be eating breakfast and listening to the radio for school cancellations. Spring meant cherry blossoms and daffodils and Easter and then the long, long wait for school to let out for summer. They’d be going to the base pool without their daddy. Going out for hushpuppies without him. Would she be able to find the ripest watermelons without his help?
Janey wondered if Eddie grew watermelons. Kept his kiddies safe from harrows. Taught them to swim in the canal and would blow nose bubbles to make them laugh. “Daddy,” she said. “What happened to Eddie?” Her fingers picked at the scab on her knee, working it free. She pressed a finger to the bleed. “Does he grow watermelons?”
“Watermelons?”
“The size of horses’ heads? Like his daddy did?”
Janey’s daddy toyed with the college ring he wore in place of a wedding band. Turning it, turning it, turning it.
“Aren’t you still friends?”
He turned the ring, its ruby dome going ’round and ’round.
Janey thought of the Red Raiders from her daddy’s college. A song played in her mind automatically. “The stars at night are big and
bright . . .”
He took in a deep, distant breath as if he’d already boarded a plane and sat in the cockpit facing an instrument panel and “danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings” instead of stood at the window of his own bedroom, looking out on his own street. He took a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, flicked open his lighter, and lit up. “Poor Eddie,” he said.
Janey sat up. She scooted to the edge of the bed. Her daddy never used “poor” with Eddie before. Donkey, who’d been ground into salami, had been poor, the con man who lost donkey had been poor, and so many in Ysleta had been poor during the Depression of her daddy’s childhood but never, never Eddie.
Her daddy smoked his cigarette, and Janey jiggled her leg. Soon, she’d be smelling fried eggs; they’d be called to the dinner table. Her scabbed knee stung. She should have left it alone.
Outside, Steve’s ball bounced, bam, bam, bam, and Janey’s daddy said, “Joined the army. The day after graduation. Thought he’d make a career of service.”
“Yes,” Janey thought. “I know.”
Steve’s ball bounced faster, bambambambambam.
Janey’s daddy snuffed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the chest of drawers. he said, hardly audible, “Korea. What a mess a war makes.”

****

Meredith Wadley is an award-winning American-Swiss writer and air force brat who lives in a medieval micro town on the Rhine River. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Read her monthly musings and find links to her publications at www.meredithwadley.com. She tweets @meredithwadley and haunts Instagram without fervor: #meredithkaisi.