Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

The day they saw Roy off to War was wind-whipped, raw, and cold. March had come in like a lion and was going out like one too. Dad was warming up the car in the driveway and Artie stood facing the house with his Baby Brownie poised to get a snapshot of Roy when he came out the door. Mom came out first with a bag of sandwiches she’d made for Roy to eat on the train, and then Roy came out with his duffel bag and put his arm around her, and that’s when Artie said, “Hold it!” and snapped the picture.

“Ready to roll?” Roy asked, and started for the car.

“Let’s not forget anything,” Mom said. “Are we all sure we got everything?”

It was like they were all going off on a family outing.

“I forgot something!” Artie shouted, and he tore back into the house. When he came back out with the football, Mom was in the car and Roy was standing next to it, taking a last look around, like he was trying to memorize how everything was. Artie tossed him the football. Roy looked at it for a moment, surprised, then he nodded, and said, “Go out for one!”

Artie turned and raced across the yard, leaning into the cold wind and pumping his arms and legs with all his might. He pivoted sharply at just the right moment as the ball came spinning from the leveled arm of the quarterback and struck him like a fist in the pit of the stomach, just right, and he reeled backward with it, holding on, completing the play, the connection. He would have that now, when Roy was gone.

At the train station, you could see everyone’s breath when they spoke. Artie was glad it was cold, since he figured it would be a long time before Roy lived in bracing weather again. He was going to San Francisco to be shipped out, which meant he’d be sent to one of the million little dots of islands in the South Pacific to fight in steamy jungles where the Japs swung down from the trees like monkeys. They were tough little sons of guns all right, even General MacArthur was retreating from them on Bataan, but with new reinforcements like Roy he would soon be smashing back at them and cleaning them out of the Pacific like so many cockroaches.

“Be sure to write this time,” Mrs. Garber said.

“On my honor,” said Roy, saluting.

“Just a line, son,” Mr. Garber said. “So we know.”

Mr. Garber blinked then and turned away, into the wind.

Roy nodded, and then he took Shirley’s hand and slung his other arm over Artie’s shoulder and led them a little ways off from the folks.

“Me and Shirley got some ‘sealed orders’ for you, ole buddy,” Roy said in a low, secret tone.

“You can trust me to the death,” Artie said.

“We know,” said Shirley, smiling through a mist of tears.

Roy reached in his pocket and slipped Artie something in a handkerchief tied with a knot.

“Put that in your pocket, and keep it somewhere safe, in your room or something, and don’t tell a soul.”

“My mother searches everything,” Shirley explained.

“It’s her ring,” said Roy.

Artie nodded, keeping a straight face and not even blushing to give away what he knew about the ring, how Shirley wanted to wear it when they did the thing.

“Thanks, pardner,” said Roy, squeezing Artie’s arm, “and keep an eye on the future Mrs. Roy Garber for me, huh?”

“Don’t worry about us,” Artie said. “We’ll keep the home fires burning for you.”

Roy made a funny face and spoke in one of those late-night radio announcer voices: “And keep those cards and letters coming in!”

Shirley threw her arms around him and they clinched, and then the train was coming and everyone crying and hugging and waving and Artie got off the last line, shaking his fist for Roy and shouting, “Give ’em gung ho!”

Artie felt a little weird pulling the little red wagon he used to play with as a kid right down Elm, but he figured anyone who wouldn’t understand that it wasn’t a toy any longer but part of the War Effort was a real dumbo. All the good guys in the class had got their old wagons out of their basements to use for collecting paper in the big scrap drive the school was having. With Roy gone off to War now, Artie felt he had to do everything possible to help on the Home Front, and he and Warren Tutlow had pledged to collect a thousand pounds of scrap paper for the drive. Artie was on his way to meet up with Tutlow and load a whole bunch of papers and magazines out of old Miss Morse’s basement when who should pop out from some bushes at him but Fishy Mitchelman.

“Gonna give Caroline Spingarn a ride in your little red wagon?” Fishy asked with a leer.

“Not that it’s any of your beeswax,” Artie said, “but me and Warren Tutlow are collecting for the scrap paper drive and we signed up to get a thousand pounds.”

“Won’t get any thousand pounds on that little dinkydoo,” said Fishy.

Artie gave him a real disgusted look and started pulling the wagon along up Elm, walking real fast.

Fishy fell in beside him, squinting his eyes.

“Old four-eyes Tutlow able to see good enough to collect?” Fishy taunted.

“Warren Tutlow’s got more brains than you eat applesauce,” Artie shot back.

“Foog,” was all Fishy could reply. “Anyhow, any jerk at all can load paper around.”

“So how come you don’t?” Artie asked.

“I am. I’m comin’ along right now and help.”

“Well, it’s about time you started doing something for the War,” Artie said.

He didn’t know if Warren would want Fishy coming along, but he hated to discourage the first sign of patriotism from the guy.

Fishy started marching, and singing at the top of his lungs, “Good-bye Mama, I’m off to Yokohama—”

Artie joined in, “For the red white and blue, my country and you …”

When they finished the song, Artie glanced at Fishy from the corner of his eye and said, “How come you said that about Caroline Spingarn?”

“’Cause she creams for you,” Fishy said.

“Foog,” was all Artie could think to say.

Warren Tutlow didn’t seem to mind Fishy coming along, but when they got to old Miss Morse’s basement and started stacking up the magazines and tying them in bundles so they wouldn’t fall off the wagon and fly all over Town, Fishy stopped helping after a couple of minutes and went into a corner to look at the pictures of women in some old fashion magazine.

“Hey, Fishy,” Artie said, “you going to help, or just stand around being a slacker?”

Fishy had already fixed his attention on one particular picture and was eyeballing it like he did the dirty magazine in Damon’s Drugs.

“Hubba-hubba-hubba,” he said in an unhealthy whispery sound.

Artie went over to see what he was looking at. It was an ad for some kind of cold cream, and it showed this sexy woman sitting on a beach wearing a real skimpy bathing suit.

“Is that all you can think about?” Artie asked.

Without even answering, Fishy ripped the page from the magazine, folded it neatly, tucked it in his pocket, and started up the stairs out of the basement.

“Hey, where you goin’?” Artie asked.

“Gotta go home and take a nap,” Fishy said.

“You’ll ruin your brains!” Artie shouted in warning.

Warren Tutlow finished tying a bundle of magazines and said, “Your buddy seems kind of fickle about doing stuff.”

“He’s not fickle, he’s a sex maniac. Not my buddy anymore, either.”

“Well, I guess you always find out who your real friends are in Wartime,” Warren said.

“Bet your bottom buck,” said Artie, and feeling a bond of battlefront comradeship, they hefted the stacks of magazines up the stairs.

Artie told Warren Tutlow he had to take an afternoon off from the scrap paper drive to attend to one of his other important Home Front duties, which was keeping up the morale of Shirley Colby, so she in turn could keep up Roy’s morale out on the battlefront with her loving, true-blue, inspirational letters from home. Also, Artie wanted to be able to write Roy himself and give him a firsthand account of how he was keeping an eye on Shirley, and how she was keeping a stiff upper lip and her home fires burning for him.