Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

The second day Roy was home he got out his cane, and used it to walk down Main Street. He even used it walking around the house, and Artie asked him about it.

“How come you’re using your cane?”

“Sometimes the old wound acts up again.”

“I thought it was healed, though. You said you were good as new.”

Suddenly Roy tore off his belt and yanked down his pants and even his underpants and stood in the middle of the living room in broad daylight with all his sex hanging out and he gave an angry slap to the outlining of stitches on his thigh.

“See it? There it is, buddy. It’s real .”

“Hey, I know, I’m sorry,” Artie said.

Roy stared at him almost like he hated him and then he pulled up his pants and buckled his belt back and picked up the cane and stalked off to the kitchen, pounding the cane on the floor as he went. Sometimes he used the cane and sometimes he didn’t, but Artie never mentioned it again one way or the other.

Roy was really different from the time he’d come home before from the War. Instead of being quiet and staring a lot like he was thinking deep thoughts, he talked all the time and cackled his sharp, mocking laugh. Artie invited Vickman and some of his other new pals from the freshman team over to talk to the hero whose exploits they all had heard about, and Roy told them lots of War stories—this time the “War stories” were really about battles and enemy attacks and dodging bullets instead of stuff about making out with girls. The guys were really impressed at first, but then Roy started telling some of the stories over again and Vickman said he had to get to bed early because of being in training and the other guys agreed and said they had to go home. Roy asked if they’d like a shot of bourbon and they said they couldn’t because it was during the season.

“Hell,” Roy said, “when I was a freshman we drank the varsity under the table.”

The guys just shrugged and went home.

Artie was kind of embarrassed for Roy, and then he felt guilty for feeling that way, so when Roy asked him to sit awhile out on the porch with him he did, even though he really wanted to get to bed early himself.

“Hell,” Roy said as they sat out in the dark, “looks like your team’s a bunch of pantywaists.”

“They’re okay,” Artie said.

“Looks like I better come over to practice some day and show ’em a thing or two about the game of football.”

“Sure,” Artie said, without much enthusiasm.

Roy mainly slept late and hung around the house drinking bourbon. After supper, Artie would sit out on the porch with him before going to bed.

Roy complained that most of his buddies were gone, and there wasn’t diddly-squat to do in this one-horse town. Bo Bannerman and some of the guys had already gone off to college on their G.I. Bills, or up to Chicago or Detroit to get jobs.

“Don’t know what they’re in such a rush about,” Roy said. “The rat race starts soon enough.”

“I guess,” Artie said.

It made him feel down in the dumps that Roy thought grown-up life was a “rat race,” but that was the kind of crummy mood he was in since he came back home.

“I wish to hell Wings Watson was here,” Roy said. “Now there’s a guy who’d have liked to live it up a while before he got stuck in the groove.”

“It’s a shame about Wings all right,” Artie said.

“All the guys are gone, one way or other.”

Roy took another swallow from his bourbon bottle.

“Hey, Roy,” Artie said, “You know who’s home?”

“I give up.”

“Shirley.”

“Who?”

“Shirley Colby.”

Roy made his harsh little laugh, and spit through his teeth.

“She’s going to college next semester,” Artie said. “To Urbana. She saved up a lot of money when she worked at the War Plant.”

Artie had written to Roy about Shirley moving to Indianapolis to work in the airplane factory, but Roy had never mentioned it.

“Speaking of hot stuff,” Roy said, “whatever became of Beverly Lattimore?”

“She married some guy she met at the U.S.O. in Moline. A Seabee, I think. From Pittsburgh.”

“Just my luck.”

Roy took another belt of bourbon and then stood up.

“Guess I’ll hit the sack,” he said.

Artie went up to his own room and prayed to God that Roy would feel better.

Dad asked Roy to give a talk to the Moose Lodge about fighting the Japs in the South Pacific, and Roy kind of perked up and put on his dress blue uniform with the red stripes down the pants.

Evidently Roy’s talk to the Moose was a big hit, and it seemed to give him a real shot in the arm. He started getting up early and going to help out Dad at the filling station, and Sunday he put on his dress blues again and went to church with the rest of the family. Monday he dropped by freshman football practice and gave the backfield guys some tips on passing.

“Thanks a lot for coming to practice,” Artie said when he walked home with Roy.

“Hell, I got a real kick out of it.”

“That was great, what you showed us. I bet you’d be a great coach, you know?”

“Ah, I was just horsing around,” Roy said, but Artie could tell he was proud. Maybe that’s what he would do in life, be a great football coach, the greatest since Knute Rockne. It made Artie feel good, thinking it might happen.

The whole family was in a great mood for their first big outdoor barbecue. Dad had decided to splurge and buy one of the new barbecue grills like people all over America were getting so they could enjoy the new life of Post-War leisure and home entertainment. It was pretty darn chilly, but the whole point of having a barbecue grill was so you could sit outside and eat in the fresh air, so everyone put on jackets and went to the backyard while Dad put the steaks on. They didn’t have a backyard picnic table yet like the kind people had in the magazine ads, but Mom spread a blanket on the ground and they sat around like it was a picnic, eating steak and corn on the cob and potato salad and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon out of the can, except for Artie who just had a Coke because he was still in training.

“Well, this sure is ‘The Life of Riley,’” Dad said.

“That’s for me,” Roy said. “‘The Life of Riley.’”

That was the name of a new radio show with William Bendix, and everyone talked about “leading ‘The Life of Riley,’” which meant enjoying yourself and having all the good stuff to do it with.

“You fellas can be ‘Riley,’” Mom said, “and I’ll be ‘Queen for a Day.’”

That was another popular new program, where regular housewives from all over America could compete to be “Queen for a Day” and win all kinds of terrific prizes, like a thousand dollars in cash, fur coats, jewelry, and free trips to nightclubs.

“The sky’s the limit these days,” Dad said. “They used to tell us ‘Prosperity is just around the corner,’ but I never thought I’d live to see it. Now it’s here.”

“Thanks to Roy and all the boys who won the War,” Mom said.

“You better believe it,” Dad said.

He raised his can of beer toward Roy, like a toast, and Artie did the same with his Coke bottle.

“Ah, hell,” Roy said, being modest.

“I just want to see you get your piece of this Post-War world,” Dad said. “You deserve it.”

Roy slugged back a big gulp of his beer.

“A guy just has to pick his spot,” he said. “I’m in no rush.”

“No need to be,” Dad said. “Plenty of new opportunities out there that won’t go away. Things we never dreamed of.”

“Shoot, yes,” Artie said. “I read in Life they already got radio shows you can see , in New York, and pretty soon they’ll have these little picture tubes in everyone’s living room, like little movie screens.”