Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

“Hell, yes. If her country’s at war, and her guy is off fighting the enemy, there’s no tomorrow the night she makes but with another guy. Nice girls all over the world are doing it right now, be they French, English, Hawaiian, whatever.”

“And no one could blame them?”

“No one who’d been around the block and knew which end was up.”

“Especially a guy who’d been making out with lots of different girls of all different creeds and colors while he was off to war. Right?”

Roy was about to light a new cigarette, but he left it dangling in his mouth and squinted real hard at Artie.

“Are you asking about a particular guy?”

Artie’s head began to throb, and he rubbed it real hard, trying to keep things in focus that seemed to be slipping away and spilling.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I mean, if it’s true what you say then it doesn’t matter who the guy would be, does it? Or the girl?”

Roy lit the match he’d been holding, but he had trouble getting the flame to hold still at the tip of the cigarette. Finally he made the connection, and waved out the match.

“What girl?” he asked.

“The one who’s the girl friend of the guy who goes off to War and makes out with lots of other girls.”

“Is this the girl who makes out herself while the guy she loves has gone off to War?”

Artie felt like his brain was going to burst.

“Well, I guess it could be, yeah.”

Roy took the cigarette he had only started to smoke and jabbed it into the ashtray on the dresser so it broke, and some sparks flew up.

“Let me get this straight now,” he said. His voice got higher and faster as he spoke. “A guy goes off to fight in the War and risks his life and limb to keep his country safe, and the so-called ‘nice girl’ he leaves behind is fucking her ears off with every stud who comes down the pike.”

“That’s a lie!”

“You just said she made out while her boyfriend was gone off to War.”

“I never said with every guy who came down the pike!”

“Oh, there was just a handful, a lucky two or three who hit the jackpot?”

“One! There was only one guy!”

Roy grabbed the front of Artie’s shirt, twisting it.

“ Who? ”

Artie jerked away. Everything was spinning now, out of control.

“Hey, come on, you’re getting me all mixed up,” he said.

Roy grabbed his shoulder and pulled him toward him again. His hot, beery breath was in Artie’s face, making him dizzier.

“Who was the sonofabitch who got in her pants?”

Artie pushed his hand against Roy’s chest. “I was only talking about ‘some girl,’ that it might have happened to.”

“I know who the hell you’re talking about!”

“I never said Shirley!”

Roy let go of Artie and slammed his fist on the dresser so hard the ashtray jumped off and fell to the floor.

“That bitch! That dirty little two-timing bitch!”

“You liar!”

“ Me? What the hell did I ever lie about?”

“You said it was all right for a nice girl to do it if her country was at war!”

“I didn’t say America , for chrissake!”

“But America’s at war—we’re fighting the Japs and the Germans, you are yourself!”

“America is not getting bombed and invaded, it isn’t at war like England and France and Hawaii, and you know why not? I’ll tell you why not—’cause guys like me are over there getting blown to shit to protect our loved ones, while all the time they’re home humping away like rabbits!”

“You mean if the Nazis had actually bombed Chicago, or the Japs had invaded California, then it would have been okay for Shirley to make out with a guy?”

“You got everything all screwed up, kid. I was talking about foreign girls, not American girls.”

“American girls are different?”

“They’re damn well supposed to be! What the hell you think we’re fighting for, anyway? Haven’t you ever heard of ‘the American Way of Life’?”

“It’s not fair!”

“Great. I come home and find out my girl friend is cheating on me and my own little brother is knocking the American Way of Life. Jesus. What am I fighting for, anyway?”

Roy went to the closet and grabbed his Windbreaker.

“All I meant was, it doesn’t seem fair that you get to make out in Wartime all you want, and Shirley’s not allowed. That’s the part I don’t get.”

Roy rammed his arms in the jacket and yanked the zipper up. “Well, ole buddy, I’ll make it real simple for ya. The fact is, I am a guy and Shirley is a girl . You got the picture now?”

Roy grabbed his cane and pounded out of the room.

“Hey, wait!”

Artie ran after him, scrambling down the stairs two at a time.

“Hey, Roy, please don’t !”

Roy was already charging out of the door, hobbling forward with huge, lopsided strides.

“Stop!”

Artie hurled himself outside, careening across the front yard in a dizzy panic, throwing his whole body into tackling his brother around the waist, but Roy didn’t even fall, he just kept on moving, pushing Artie away as he went. Artie held on for dear life, sliding down and grabbing hold of Roy’s good leg.

“Please!” he yelled.

“Get away, go home.”

“She wasn’t in love with the other guy, she just felt sorry for him!”

“I can’t wait to hear all about it, straight from the bitch’s mouth.”

“No!”

Artie still clung to Roy’s leg but then Roy broke into a limping gallop and his heel came back and struck Artie in the chest. He let go of the leg and sprawled on the sidewalk as Roy hobbled off like fury down the middle of the street. The pain shot through Artie’s body like sudden poison but was not as bad as the awful knowledge that he’d gone and ruined the lives of his two favorite people in the world.

Roy was drunk for three days and Mom and Dad couldn’t do anything with him; he was like a wild man. He still wasn’t all the way sober when he packed up and left for Parris Island before his leave was even up.

Everyone in Town knew the story.

Artie went to the Strand to find Shirley, but Patsy Ann Paddington, the new Junior Prom Queen, was sitting in the ticket booth just like she’d always been there and always would be.

Artie got up the nerve to call the Colby house by putting a handkerchief over the phone to disguise his voice in case Shirley’s mother answered.

Shirley’s voice sounded like she was speaking from the bottom of a well about a thousand miles away. Artie begged her to meet him at Skinner Creek and he thought she said yes.

Shirley wore no makeup. Her face looked pale and startled.

“It’s all my fault,” Artie said.

He blew his nose to keep from crying.

“Don’t blame yourself for my mistake,” Shirley said.

She took his hand and they walked along the creek.

She told him she was going to Indianapolis to live with Donna Modjeski and work at the Curtiss Wright airplane factory.

“Can I see you off at the Greyhound?” Artie asked.

“My parents are going to drive me.”

“Oh.”

He was glad she had a ride, but sad because it seemed like her mother had proved it was right that in the end she could only depend on her own family.

“Will you come back home when the War is over?”

“We’ll see,” was all she would say.

It seemed like she was one of the casualties—a person who was wounded in the War, and might or might not get well again.

They sat on the bank of the creek and Shirley smoked a cigarette. It didn’t seem right to talk. Artie thought of how long ago it was that they used to walk home after cheerleader practice singing “The White Cliffs of Dover” and he had to blow his nose again.