Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

When Artie went up and tapped him on the shoulder, Fishy was engrossed in the pages of Wink . His eyes were focused like ray guns on a picture of a woman wearing a frilly black bra with matching panties, a garter belt as complicated as the straps of a parachute, and black shoes with heels like daggers. Artie just stole a quick glance at the picture, which made him feel queasy.

“Hey, Fish,” he said, “I got something real important to show you.”

Fishy only made a kind of grunting sound, and his eyes remained fixed on the picture like it was a map of hidden treasure he was trying to memorize.

“I said I got something to show you!”

“Better’n this ?” Fishy asked, his gaze still burning on the page of the magazine.

“I mean something real,” Artie said. “Important.”

Fishy sighed, stuck the Wink back in the rack, and said, “Foog.”

Artie started reading from the Collier’s editorial in an urgent, Wartime whisper. Fishy squinted as he listened, like he was trying to get it, but it really was too complicated, like one of those math problems about how many acres of crops Farmer Brown would have if he planted a third with potatoes and the rest with wheat and it rained seven months of the year except on Thursdays. When Artie finished he looked eagerly at Fishy, hoping at last his pal’s patriotism would be aroused.

“ Well? ” Artie asked.

“What?” Fishy looked blank.

“Well, what would you do if you caught one?”

“Bluegill, croppy, or bass?” Fishy asked.

“Not fish, you dope, enemy airmen! Japs parachuting down in the woods to spy and sabotage us! Would you lynch him, shoot him, or kick him to death? Or would you just tie him up and take him to jail so he could have a fair trial?”

“Kick him in the old crotcherooney,” Fishy said.

“ Collier’s says you shouldn’t, even though it’s a human impulse. You got to restrain yourself.”

“Foog.”

Fishy plucked the Wink from the rack again and flipped back to the picture he’d been memorizing.

“Don’t you even give a darn about the War?” Artie asked. “I mean, if everyone stood around looking at stuff like that, the Japs’d beat us easy. Germans, too.”

“Show ’em this, they’d be too busy beating their meat,” Fishy said, shoving his right hand in his pocket.

“You boob!”

Artie flung down the Collier’s in disgust and stomped out of the drugstore, knowing it was no use counting on Fishy to help in the War Effort. He was through with that jerk for the Duration.

Walking home briskly in the bracing cold, Artie felt suddenly surprised and proud that he had used that word in his mind— Duration . It was a new term, one of the many new things brought on by the War, from songs and slogans and uniforms even to new meanings of words. “The Duration” meant for however long it took to win the War, like when you said you shouldn’t use a lot of sugar or gas for “the Duration.” Artie vowed he’d find a new friend for the Duration, a real red-blooded patriotic kid who would help him carry on the work of the Home Front, and maybe even join the Marines with him if the Duration was still going on when they got to be eighteen. Fishy Mitchelman would never get in the Marines; even the Army might turn him down. They probably had tests that would show he thought too much about sex to be able to fight good.

Priority .

That was another important new word Artie learned from the War. With so much going on and everyone having whatever they did for the War Effort added on to their regular life, like work and school, people had to figure out what things were most essential and give them “priority,” which meant top billing, or 1-A classification.

Artie’s own priorities included schoolwork (you had to be smart to fight the enemy), his paper route (the more money he earned, the more War Stamps he could buy), writing letters to Roy with clippings from the sports page to keep up his morale, keeping watch from his rooftop position as an Assistant Junior Air Raid Spotter, cheering up his folks so they wouldn’t be blue all the time with Roy off at Boot Camp, and last but not least, maybe in fact most important of all, “taking care” of Shirley Colby like he promised his brother he would.

On the days Shirley had cheerleader practice after school, Artie sped right to the gym when he finished his paper route and walked her home, carrying her books. In the late blue afternoon light, with lamps coming on in the windows of houses, they strolled down the quiet sidewalks, talking about the War, and Roy.

“What’s his favorite breakfast?” Shirley asked.

Artie’s mind raced to come up with the best answer. He would never in a million years have revealed that Roy glommed huge blotches of peanut butter on Wonder bread and gurgled milk straight from the bottle without even sitting down at the breakfast table, since it might make him seem like a screwball. Bacon and eggs was the normal thing to have, but it almost sounded too normal, like Roy was no different than any other Tom, Dick, and Harry. Artie tried to think of what people in movies had for breakfast, lovey-dovey husbands and wives in vine-covered cottages with sun streaming in through the gingham curtains, but the only thing that popped into his mind was Jimmy Cagney squishing the grapefruit into the face of that pretty blonde he was mad at, and he realized grapefruit was a lousy answer since it might make Shirley think of the same thing. Artie himself had switched his breakfast loyalties from Tom Mix’s Hot Ralston to Quaker Puffed Wheat because it was “the cereal shot from guns” and that seemed better than “cowboy en-er-gee” in time of War, but it didn’t sound like the sort of thing a girl would understand. Then all of the sudden the right thing for Roy to like for breakfast came to Artie in a flash.

“Wheaties,” he said.

“Wheaties?” Shirley asked, like she was checking to make sure.

“‘Breakfast of Champions,’” Artie said proudly.

Shirley smiled, hugging her arms close to herself, like she was holding this new information with tender protection.

“ Wheaties ,” she said dreamily.

She began to hum.

Artie figured she was in the mood to sing now. On their walks, they usually ended up singing a song together, but Shirley didn’t like the fighting tunes that were Artie’s favorites, like “Good-bye Mama, I’m Off to Yokohama,” so he learned all the words to the sad-sweet kind she liked the best. He started crooning her favorite, even though his voice always croaked on the high notes, and Shirley joined in singing “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

When they finished, Shirley always had tears in her eyes, and Artie never said anything. It was like keeping quiet after a prayer. The walks with Shirley made Artie feel special, almost like he was in a movie about the Home Front of America, him being Mickey Rooney the kid brother, and Shirley being Claudette Colbert only younger, the beautiful girl who was keeping the home fires burning for her guy.

The walks were wonderful, but Artie thought they weren’t enough. He thought Shirley ought to be more in his own family, and finally he got up the nerve to ask his folks how come they never had her over for supper.

It was the night Mom made her special hot chili that you put on top of spaghetti and ate with cornbread and cold milk and custard pie for dessert. Maybe because it was Roy’s favorite meal that Mom forgot and set four places at the table and then when she saw what she’d done she sat down and cried. Dad rubbed the back of her neck and jollied her up, and after everyone got to stuffing themselves with chili and feeling good again, Artie came out with his question.