Missing in Action (11 page)

“Yes, ma'am,” Ken said, and he stepped into the kitchen first. “I'm going to play ball with the boys tonight—maybe teach them a few things I've learned on the high school team.”

Grandma was sitting at the kitchen table. She had some socks in front of her. She was sitting where the light was good, darning a hole in one of them. “Say, that's wonderful. Jay told me how good you are.”

“Well, what can I say? Jay wouldn't tell a lie.”

“You boys rest up a little, and I'll get some supper on before too long. You'll eat with us, won't you, Ken?”

“Yes, ma'am. I was hoping you'd invite me. Jay tells me what a good cook you are.”

“I'll tell you what, Ken. You know how to spread the blarney, and I don't think you're Irish. Jay never told you any such thing.”

“Mrs. Reid, certainly
I
wouldn't tell a lie—any more than Jay would.”

“Maybe not. But you know how to spread on the lard, nice and thick.”

“He jokes a lot,” Jay said. “That's why people like him.”

Grandma smiled. “I guess that's right,” she said. “You are a nice boy, Ken. It's too bad you're stuck out there in that sad place.”

Ken crossed his arms over his chest, like he wanted to look serious. “It's all right. I'm leaving soon, going into the army.”

Grandma looked up from her sewing. “That's what Jay told me. I just hope you'll be safe.”

Jay hadn't thought much about it until lately, but he didn't like to think about Ken leaving.

Ken went out back after that and sat on the back porch. Jay washed up, and then he went out too. But Ken was on the floor of the porch by then, sleeping on his back. Jay didn't say anything. He just sat in a chair and waited, and then, after quite a while, Grandma called them to supper.

Ken heard that, and he got right up. “I could eat an old mule—the whole thing—and finish off with a couple of watermelons for dessert.”

“That's how I am,” Jay said. “Maybe a mule and an old sow, too.” But it wasn't very funny. Ken didn't laugh much.

They walked down the hall, and Grandma told them to sit down. “Grandpa's still down at the store,” she said. “He's
stuck there late tonight. Your mom just came in, though. She'll be in to eat in just a minute.”

The boys sat down, and Grandma started filling up their plates with cooked carrots and parsnips and mashed potatoes. “I cooked a little ham tonight, but we don't have much left. Meat is getting scarce these days. Your grandpa killed a hog this spring, but it's mostly gone now.”

Mom walked into the kitchen. Jay looked up and saw her stop halfway to the table. She was looking at Ken. He could see that Grandma hadn't told her.

“This is Ken,” he said. “From out at the farm.”

She didn't say anything. She stood in the same place.

“Sit down,” Grandma said. “We were just going to say the blessing.”

“I'm not hungry,” Mom said.

“Now come on. Just—” Grandma started.

But Mom turned and walked out of the room.

Everything was quiet for a few seconds, but then Ken said, “I could leave, Mrs. Reid. I know her husband is missing. I understand about that.”

“No, Ken. You sit there and eat. If she wants to go without, that's up to her.”

So Ken ate, and Jay and Grandma did too. They didn't laugh much, though, and didn't even talk much.

After supper, he and Ken went over to the ball field early, still in the heat, but Ken hit some grounders
on the smooth field, and Jay handled them pretty well. Gordy came walking over after a while, and then the other boys started showing up. They all looked surprised when they saw Ken, but Gordy told everyone that Ken was a good guy, and he was going to teach them how to play. Most of the boys didn't say anything, but Renny told Gordy, “I don't need no lessons from a Jap,” and he left.

Ken didn't stay for the whole practice, but he talked up the game out at the camp, and the boys were all in for it. Then he said he'd better walk back and get some sleep. He was tired. By then, Gordy was telling Jay what a good guy Ken was. “He's not like a real Jap, though,” he said.

“The people out at the camp are like that,” Jay said. “Ken says they grew up in America, mostly. They didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.”

“Maybe some of 'em are like that,” said Gordy. “Some of the rest are looking to steal all our cars and trucks and everything. Everyone knows that.”

Jay didn't say anything. Lew said, “That's what I've heard too.”

But Eldred said, “My dad knows some Japs from out there. They're just like Ken.”

The boys walked back to town, and then Jay went home. He hoped he wouldn't see his mother, but she was sitting on the porch, waiting. “I don't want you walking around town with that boy again,” she said.

“Grandma didn't care if he ate with us. She said—”

“Never mind what Grandma said. You need to think about your father. What would he think if he saw you runnin' around with someone like that?”

“Ken's an American. He's going in the army.”

“The sooner the better.” She folded her arms. “You've got enough going against you, Jay. That's what you have to understand. People already have ideas about you. You can bet on that. You don't need to be seen with a Jap. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you better. We have to live in this town. And I have to go down to the store every day. By now the word's probably all over town—you two walking around, playing ball and everything, just like two peas in a pod.”

He didn't want to talk about this.

Mom was all stiff again, like she'd been when they first moved down here. Her face looked hard, especially her eyes. “I don't think the other boys' parents are going to like it either. Don't bring him into town again.”

“Gordy liked him,” he said.

“Gordy doesn't have enough brains to fill a thimble, Jay. Don't go by that.”

He nodded, then walked to the screen door. But he stopped. “Ken's my friend,” he said.

“That's all well and good, Jay, but you don't—”

“And Gordy's not as dumb as you think.”

She said something else, but Jay didn't listen. He walked into the house.

ON WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY KEN
brought the radio to the kitchen door. He turned it up loud and played dance music. Most of the time he danced in front of Jay and stepped hard to the music so that he could get the beat right. But when Ken found a hot tune, he would grab Jay's hand and show him some jitterbug tricks. He taught him some different ways to spin a partner or to twirl past her.

Jay still felt embarrassed dancing with a boy, but he liked the idea of showing up at the dance and not looking stupid. Ken kept telling him, “You're catching on. You're hearing the rhythm now, aren't you?” And he thought he was.

Ken took the bus out to camp on Wednesday night. That meant he didn't come into town to help the boys, and Thursday night was Mutual, so they wouldn't be playing. Jay was kind of glad about that. He didn't
want his mom upset again. He did tell Ken, “I'm sorry about my mother.”

Ken was pulling on some wire, trying to fix an old fence. He grunted as he said, “It doesn't matter. I'm used to all that kind of stuff. When a war's on, people like to hate someone. And this time around, that turns out to be me.”

Jay stepped in and helped hold the wire while Ken drove a staple in the post. “What about Indians?” he asked. “Why do people hate them?”

Ken stepped back from the fence post and looked at him. “I can't answer that one, Jay. It's like everyone has to figure out someone not to like.”

Jay couldn't understand that.

“Think about yourself. The first few days out here, you tried as hard as you could not to like me.”

Jay didn't know that Ken had known that.

That night Jay walked over to the church by himself, but as soon as he stepped into the recreation hall, he saw Gordy with Eldred and Lew, standing about as far away from the dance band as they could get. Some of the band members were tuning up, and the drummer was still setting up his drums. A lot of kids were standing around in groups of four or five, girls together close to the band and boys mostly at the back of the hall. The weather had cooled off a little the last couple of days, but it was plenty hot inside the hall, even with all the windows open.

“Hey, Chief,” Gordy said as Jay walked toward the boys, “what about the game? Are we on for next Saturday?”

“Yeah. Ken went out to the camp, and the boys out there want to play us. He said we can catch the bus in front of Van's Dance Hall and ride out there—so our parents won't have to drive us.”

“My mother threw a conniption fit about me going out there, so I'll just take off that morning and not tell her where I'm going. She don't keep track of me anyways. The only way Dad'll get mad is if I don't get all my chores done.”

“Do you think enough guys will go?” Eldred asked.

“Just so we get nine. That's all I care about. If Renny and Buddy don't go, we'll be better off without 'em.” Gordy turned toward Jay. “Are you going to dance, Chief?”

“I guess. We have to, don't we?”

But Lew said, “What if we all say no? If they throw us out, we can go play ball.”

“My mom and grandma said I have to dance,” Jay said. And it was true. He had complained about going, but they had both told him he needed to learn to dance. Grandpa had joked about how a boy had to get himself “civilized” sooner or later, even if he'd rather be shooting rabbits or catching snakes.

“Maybe I'll just tromp real hard on all the girls' feet, and they'll tell me I'm too dangerous to dance,” Gordy said.

“What are you talking about?” Lew said. “You said you wanted to come.”

“No, I didn't. I just said I wanted to get my arms around Elaine. I don't want to dance with any of the rest of these girls.” He looked at Eldred and laughed, then jabbed him a blow on the shoulder. “Should we do that, just tromp all over 'em on purpose?”

Eldred laughed, but he didn't say he would do it.

“Are you with me, Chief? Should we bust up some feet and get ourselves kicked out?”

“I won't have to do it on purpose. When my mom tried to teach me, I stepped all over her.”

“You did it, though? You tried dancing?”

“My mom made me.”

“Yeah. My mom too. But she's so round I told her we were doing the ‘Beer Barrel Polka' and she was the barrel. She about kicked my pants.” Gordy was laughing again, had never really stopped, and now some of the other guys their age were showing up. A guy on a horn, with a mute stuck in the end, was making weird sounds, and another guy was playing low notes, working up to high notes, on his clarinet.

Then Mitchell Roundy started yelling for everyone to quiet down and listen to him. He was dressed up in a white shirt and tie, with the sleeves rolled up, and his hair was slicked back.

“Everyone listen for a minute,” he was calling out, and gradually the kids were getting quiet.

“Ol' Mitch went on a mission to New Zealand,” Gordy said. “He can't talk to you three minutes in a Sunday school class without telling you one of his stories about it—like he was the only guy who ever went on one.”

“Listen up now,” Brother Roundy said. “We're going to start out with an opening prayer, and I've asked Sister Virginia Jones to say that. Right after she does, I want you older youth to move to the back part of the hall. When we start the music, you can choose up partners and dance. But you younger ones—all the Scouts and the Beehive girls—I want you to come up here to the front. We're going to assign you partners, and Sister LuRene Jenson, who's a professional dancer—”

“Don't tell them that,” Sister Jenson called out. “I'm no professional. I just know—”

“Well, she might as well be a professional. She's taught dancing for many years, and she attended the BYU, where she took dancing classes from those teachers up there. She knows every kind of dance there is, and she can—”

“Stop bragging on me, Mitch. You're making my face turn red.”

“Let's just leave, right now,” Gordy said. “I can't listen to her screechy voice all night. She sounds like a magpie.”

But Gordy didn't go anywhere, and Brother Roundy
was saying, “Well, you'll see. She knows what she's doing. Ginny, would you step up here by me and say an opening prayer?”

Ginny Jones was about sixteen or so, and she seemed pretty shy about the whole thing, but she stepped up by Brother Roundy, folded her arms in front of her, and said about the shortest prayer Jay had ever heard. But she did say something about everyone learning to dance “real well,” and Gordy laughed about that.

Brother Roundy started in yelling almost as soon as everyone said, “Amen,” and it still took him a good ten minutes to get all the younger kids up front and lined up in two lines, girls on one side and boys on the other. Jay didn't know how this whole thing was going to work, but Gordy seemed to. However much Gordy had talked about leaving, now he started counting girls in the other line and said, “Trade me places, Chief.”

But it was too late. Brother Roundy saw what was happening and told Gordy, “Just stay in line where you are, Brother Linebaugh. You can choose your own partner later on.” And then he had the two lines step closer together and there Jay was, standing in front of Elaine Gleed. She was thirteen, the same as Jay would soon be, but she seemed about two years older. To him she looked more like a woman than a girl. She had curly brown hair and eyes that looked bigger than fifty-cent pieces, blue as a lake. She was smiling for some reason, and that made her dimples sink in. He
took one good look at her and then he was too embarrassed to look again.