Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

“Yes, sir,” Joe answered. “I played second base on the baseball team, and I was a backup guard on the basketball team.”

“No football?”

Joe shook his head. “I like playing touch in the park, but I’m not a great big guy.” That was an understatement. “I didn’t have a prayer of making the team. How come you want to know?”

“Teamwork,” Lundquist told him. “Basketball is good, football’s even better. Baseball shows coordination, but less of the other.”

One of the other men spoke up: “Second and short need it more than other positions. They have to work together if they’re going to turn double plays.” His wiry build suggested he might have been a middle infielder in his day. Whether or not, he was dead right, and Joe nodded. He and Danny Fitzpatrick, his shortstop, had taken endless ground balls and practiced 6-4-3 and 4-6-3 double plays till each knew in his sleep what the other was going to do.

Lundquist scribbled a note. He asked, “Have you got any flying experience?”

“No, sir,” Joe admitted, wondering how much trouble the admission would get him in. Again, he couldn’t tell what Lundquist was thinking. The man had one of the deadest pans Joe had ever seen; he wouldn’t have wanted to play poker against him.

“But you do drive a car as well as work on them?” Lundquist persisted.

“Oh, yes, sir,” Joe said. “I’ve had my license since I was sixteen.”

“Any accidents?”

“No, sir.”

“Tickets?”

“Just one.” Joe thought about lying, but they could check. The ticket might not wash him out. If they nailed him in a lie, he figured that was all she wrote.

The selection-board chairman shuffled through his folder. “I see you have your letters of recommendation in place.” He looked over each of them in turn. “Your boss and your two high-school coaches. They know you pretty well?”

“If they don’t, nobody does.” Joe wondered if he should have tried to get letters from important people-judges or politicians, maybe. The only trouble was, he didn’t know anybody like that. I’m an ordinary Joe, he thought, and grinned a little.

“One more question,” Lundquist said. “Why do you want to do this?”

“Why? Sir, the day after the Japs jumped on Pearl Harbor, my old man tried to join the Army. He wanted to hit back, and so do I. They wouldn’t take him-he’s forty-five, and he’s got a bad back and a bad shoulder. But I was so proud of him, I can’t even tell you. And what he did got me thinking. If we are going to hit back at the Japs, who’ll get in the first licks? Pilots flying off carriers, looks like to me. So that’s what I want to do.”

The man who looked as if he’d played second or short remarked, “Kid’s got a head on his shoulders.” That made Joe feel about ten feet tall. He tried not to be dumber than he could help, but he was no big brain. If they wanted guys with high foreheads and thick glasses to fly their fighters, he was out of luck.

“Why don’t you step outside?” Lundquist told him. “We need to talk about you behind your back for a little while.” Joe did a double take when he heard that. Lundquist was a cool customer, but maybe he was okay underneath.

Joe could hear them muttering about him in there. If he put his ear to the door, he might make out what they were saying. He didn’t do it. It was something else where getting caught would land him in hot water. Not doing it turned out to be smart. Ten seconds later, two guys in sailor suits turned the corner and came past him. They paid him no more attention than if he were part of the linoleum. But if he’d been leaning up against the door, that would have been a different story.

He wanted a cigarette, but didn’t pull the pack of Luckys out of his pocket. He didn’t want to have a butt in his mouth when they called him back in, and it’d be just his luck to get halfway down the smoke when the door opened.

Again, that turned out to be the right move, because a couple of minutes later the door did open. “Come on in, son,” Lundquist said. “Have a seat.” As usual, his face gave no clue to what he was thinking. He might have been about to give Joe what he wanted, or to arrest him and send him to Alcatraz.

Silence stretched. Joe craved that cigarette more than ever. It would have calmed his nerves, slowed his pounding heart. Finally he couldn’t stand it any more, and said, “Well?”

“Well, we’re going to make you an appointment with the psychological officers,” Lundquist said. “If they don’t say you’ve got an unfortunate tendency to raise hedgehogs in your hat, we’ll see if the Navy can make a flyboy out of you.”

“Thank you, sir!” The words seemed cold and useless to Joe. What he really wanted to do was turn handsprings.

“No promises, mind you, but you don’t look too bad,” Lundquist said.

The man who looked like a middle infielder added, “You had all your paperwork in order the first time you came in. That’s a good sign right there-you’d be amazed how many people have to try three times before they bring us everything we need. No promises, no, but my guess is you’ve got what it takes.”

“See the petty officer at the door,” Lundquist said. “Make yourself a psych appointment for right after the first of the year. Good luck to you.”

Joe thanked him again and left the conference room. His feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. He might have been flying even without a fighter under him. The petty officer, who had an impressive array of long-service hashmarks on his sleeve, set up the appointment for testing. That Joe had passed the selection board didn’t impress him. By all appearances, nothing impressed him.

Out in the street, Joe half expected people to stare at him and point and say, There’s the kid who’s going to shoot Tojo’s medals off his chest. They didn’t, of course. To them, what he’d accomplished didn’t show. The gray-haired man at the street corner who wore a helmet and an armband with CD-Civil Defense-on it was visibly part of the war. Joe wasn’t.

On the same corner, a kid in short pants was peddling the Examiner. “More Jap landings in the Philippines!” he bawled, over and over. “Read all about it!” Joe gave him a nickel and took a paper.

He read the Examiner as he walked back to the garage where he worked. Lots of people had their noses in newspapers, far more than had read as they walked before the war started. Every so often, they’d bump into each other, mutter excuse-mes, and keep on reading as they walked.

Not much of the news was good. The Navy was laying mines outside harbors on the East Coast to try to keep German subs away. Congressmen were fuming that blackout regulations weren’t strict enough and were being ignored. The Nazis and Reds were both claiming victories in Russia.

Rooting for the Russians felt funny. Joe’s old man had admired Mussolini before he got too chummy with Hitler, and couldn’t stand Stalin. But the USA and the Soviet Union were on the same side now, like it or not.

“How’d it go, Joe?” his boss asked when he walked in.

“Pretty good, Mr. Scalzi, I think,” Joe answered. Dominic Scalzi’s family and the Crosettis both came from the same village south of Naples. That wasn’t the only reason Joe had a job there, but it sure didn’t hurt. He went on, “Thanks again for your letter. I had all my ducks in a row, and they really liked that.”

“Good, kid. That’s good.” Scalzi lit a Camel. Joe couldn’t see how he smoked them; they were strong enough to grow hair on your chest. The garage owner was a short, round man with a graying mustache. He blew a smoke ring, then sighed out the rest of the drag in a blue-gray cloud. “I shoulda told ’em you were a lousy good-for-nothing. Then they wouldn’t take you, and you could go on workin’ for me a little longer.”