FICTION

BROKEN WING

I sit in the train seat with my skirt pulled down and my knees together, just like Aunt Ida told me to. Sitting like a lady isn’t easy when the seat you’re sitting on is wool and the June day outside is hot as blazes. Mrs. Russell is sitting next to me all upright and sour as vinegar, and she catches my eye and frowns her disapproval. I try to worm my skirt down behind my legs without twitching, but it doesn’t work, and I feel the sweat trickle from my bent knees to my ankles, where my socks stop it. I don’t dare pull my legs up. I’m eleven now, and too old to get away with the stuff I used to. At least, I’m old enough to know that anytime I try to get away with anything, someone always finds out. Billy hasn’t been around to take the blame for a year now. And besides, Mrs. Russell won’t hesitate to tell Aunt Ida since she thinks Aunt Ida is a fool for taking me on. It makes me want to kick her.

I twitch again and feel my face get hot. Mrs. Russell notices, too, but lays it down to the heat. She offers me a drink of water.

“No. Thank you, ma’am.”

“I suppose you are eager to see your brother, Sassy?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am.” I know she wants to talk about Billy, but I don’t talk about Billy to anyone.

Mrs. Russell waits a moment, but gives up when I turn my head to look out the window. I don’t see the corn fields, though. Instead I think about Billy, gone for so long that sometimes I have to look at his picture to remember what he looks like.

If a guardian angel is someone who looks out for you, then Billy is my guardian angel. He always has been—at least, until he joined the Marines last year. He’s been home on leave from Korea for a week and he’ll only be home for a month, but Aunt Ida wouldn’t let me leave school early to go see him. She thinks I’ll turn into a heathen if I miss a single day of school, let alone five days, even at the very end of the school year. Plus, she says, station houses are no place for a lady. I don’t know what she thinks that makes Mama. Or maybe I do. 

Anyway, this summer Daddy is painting the Santa Fe station houses along the rail line that runs alongside Highway 50 between Dodge City and Newton. I’m meeting them in Offerle. Since Mrs. Russell was going to Dodge City to see her married daughter, she offered to have me ride with her. Aunt Ida was grateful. I am not.

By the time I step down, holding onto the white glove of the Negro porter with one hand and the valise Aunt Ida lent me on the other, I know that Mrs. Russell thinks I’m the stupidest child that ever lived, and that she sincerely pities my aunt for trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Whatever Aunt Ida thinks about Daddy and Mama, they did teach me manners, so I don’t let her know what I think of her. Instead, I thank her, real polite. I can’t wait to tell Billy about her, and about Aunt Ida and Uncle Peter, and school, and how I told Mamie Peterson’s brother about filling a bag with cow poop and setting it on fire in the doorway of someone you don’t like and ringing the bell. Mamie Peterson’s brother really is the stupidest child that ever lived. He used dog poop, lit the bag, forgot to ring the doorbell, got scared he was going to burn down Mr. Odermeyer’s house, and stamped it out himself.

It’s mid-afternoon, and I’m wet all over. The heat surges off the shrunken planks of the platform where the sun has bleached the wood a dirty white. It stinks of diesel fuel and stale cigarettes. I look around and realize that for once I agree with Aunt Ida. Offerle looks to be about three streets long and five streets wide. Daddy hasn’t painted the station house yet. It looks faded and sad, sort of like Mama after Billy left.

“Sassy!”

I give Mama a hug and she hugs me back, quick and hard. She’s already scolding, so it feels just like home, even though home was in La Junta the last time I visited, at Christmas.

“You look like a washrag, and trust Ida to put you in a starched skirt to ride on the train.”

“She wanted me to look like a lady,” I tell her, and she snorts. 

“Well if she’s settin’ herself up as a lady she must be glad I’m where I can’t tell folks about her and her first husband,” Mama says.

I can picture Aunt Ida’s face and I grin. Then Mama grabs my hand and yanks me along the station platform. The train is already pulling away.

“Come along, Sass. I got to get back over to Mrs. Whitehead’s house. I’m doing her ironing, and she needs it done today.” 

“Where’s Billy at?” I pant, raising my voice above the noise of the rails. The valise drags along behind me, bumping against the uneven wood when it isn’t knocking into my shins. Mama’s hand tightens and she speeds up her pace. My sock drifts down my leg as I run to keep up.

“He’s around somewhere.” She jerks me down the station steps and we run along the north side of the tracks. She stops at the lone box car sitting on the siding. It’s a dingy orange, with the word Spreckels across it in five foot letters. A step stool sits below the two-foot crack where the door stands open on its slide. Daddy’s overalls hang next to Mama’s unmentionables on a rope that stretches from the coupling on the front of the car to the telegraph pole twelve feet away. 

“Mama! This is plain old box car! Don’t we even have an outfitter’s car this time?”

“You watch your mouth and stop sounding like your aunt. Why I ever listened to her about letting you stay in Newton to go to school—“ 

I flush, and wonder if Aunt Ida’s ideas are rubbing off on me.

“Aunt Ida thinks it’s a miracle that Billy graduated high school, after going to so many schools. She knows I’m not as smart as Billy, and she wants to see me get on.” 

Mama looks at me and pushes back her thinning hair with one hand. I hold my breath, but she ignores my words and her tone softens. “This is only for a week or so. The outfitter’s car is down the line. They didn’t realize we’d get here so soon, and they’re doing some work on it. Take your case up and settle in. Your Daddy’s painting at the station master’s house as a favor. He’ll be in for supper.”

“Okay, but where’s Billy?”

“Never you mind. Do as you’re told. When you’ve unpacked and changed you can take the dry clothes down and bring them inside.”

“What’s for supper?”

Mama’s hands flap as she shoos me inside. “Beans. Now get.”

When I hesitate, she aims a swat at my face, and I duck into the dark heat of the box car. Sweat pops out across my forehead as I peer ahead into the gloom at the rickety card table that been our dining table for as long as I can remember. Four rough chairs stand around it that Daddy has built out of railroad ties and barrel parts. Wooden orange crates form the kitchen, and they’re stacked with Mama’s heavy white dishes. On the top is the plate Grandma gave Mama before she died, real Wedgewood. A thin cot mattress rests in one corner, along with my old doll Tildi and the quilt Mama pieced for me when I was a baby. Mama and Daddy’s mattress has the wedding quilt on it that was part of her hope chest. The chest stands beside the bed. Billy’s sleeping bag and duffle are near the door.

“Where do you cook?” I ask Mama. 

“Outside, mostly, but one of the women across the way lets me use her stove if I share the food with her. She’s got a daughter about your age.”

I hunch my shoulders, then straighten them again as I hear Aunt Ida correcting my posture. I’ve learned it takes about three days to really leave Aunt Ida behind. I’ve also learned not to get too close to people, moving the way we do, and I’m not real interested in the neighbor’s daughter. That’s not why I’m here. 

“After I get the clothes, can I go see Billy?”

She speaks so quiet, I almost miss her words.

“You’ll see him soon enough.” She sighs and gives me another hug. That’s when I know something’s wrong. 

*     *     *

The sun is sinking across a sky that seems much bigger than the one in Newton, where there are a lot more trees. I sit next to Billy, kicking my heels on the side of the station platform. Skeeters whine past my ears, and I slap at one, then wince as my hand skitters against the wooden rail. I picked at the splinter it gives me.

“So what’s Korea like, Billy?” I ask. I’ve never in my whole life been shy with Billy, but he looks so different and he’s so quiet that it feels almost like talking to a stranger. 

Billy is staring out across the station yard. “Hot in the summer and cold in the winter.” His voice is absent, like his crinkly blue eyes, and he smells like the whisky Daddy swigs when he thinks Mama won’t notice.

“Get this splinter out, Billy,” I command. He takes my palm between his hands and peers down.

“Got a needle or a pin?”

“No.”

“Can’t do it.”

“Use your nails.”

“Can’t.” He holds up his hand. The nails are chewed down to the quick. They look sore.

“Whatcha do that for?”

“What’d I do what for?”

“Chew your nails down.”

“Better’n chewing my sister down.” He dips his face toward mine. “Suck it,” he advises.

I suck, but pause to say, “It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter in Kansas, too. Does Korea look like Kansas?”

“No. It’s greener in summer. And the cold is like nothing you ever seen in Kansas. It froze our motor oil solid. Nearly froze us solid, too.”

“Nellie Miller’s papa is in Korea. He writes letters home, telling her mama about how crazy mean the North Koreans are. Are they as mean as he says?”

Billy snorted. “The Allies I knew were meaner than the North Koreans.”

“The Allies? What are the Allies?”

His eyes focus on me. “Don’t they teach you nothing in that school in Newton? We’re part of a U.N. peace keeping force, and we fight alongside troops from lots of places.”

“What are the Allies like?”

He’s real quiet for a minute. When he speaks, his voice is kind of funny. “I went out with a team once. In the winter, the North Koreans sleep two to a sleeping bag to stay warm. The Allies slipped behind enemy lines into their camp. They picked a couple of bags and chloroformed one of the North Koreans and slit the throat of the other one. They left the live one with a dead body to wake up to.”

I swallow my stomach back down. I don’t even like to watch Mama wring a chicken’s neck for Sunday dinner.

“Did you do that, Billy?” I ask real low.

“Shut up, Sass.”

I lean against him and he puts his arm around me. I can hear Mama’s voice from inside the station house, talking to the ticket master as he closes down the counter for the night. It turns out we can use the electricity in the station after the Santa Fe Chief comes through, and Mama is inside ironing the clothes I brought in earlier. Later we’ll haul water from the spigot outside for washing up.

Billy lets me go and jumps up. “I hate it.” He says, and brings his fist down hard on the rail.

“The Allies?”

He looks at me impatiently. “Mama shouldn’t have to haul water from the station, or walk across the rails at night to take a shit.”

“The toilet is as nice as the one at Aunt Ida’s,” I tell him. 

“Yeah, because Mama cleans it.”

“It’s lots better than an outhouse.”

“And is sleeping and eating in a box car like a pig or a cow better, too?”

“It’s kind of like camping,” I offer.

“It never changes, Sass. Daddy won’t stay nowhere long enough to earn anything. Wendall Jones would’ve kept him on to paint year-round. Dodge City is growing. He could’ve made enough to keep the house there, with Mama helping.” He reaches for the cigarette pack in his pocket. His hand shakes on the match. “Christ, Sass. She ain’t even got a stove to cook on.” He takes a deep drag.

“We couldn’t pack a stove in the car when it comes time to leave,” I remind him. “And we’d have to put a hole in the roof of the box car for the stack.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps taking deep drags. The red of the lit end of the cigarette glows in the deepening dusk.

“You didn’t used to smoke,” I say.

“I didn’t used to do a lot of things.” He throws the cigarette down and grinds it under his foot. “See you later, Sass.” He leaps over the rail.

“Where you going, Billy?”

He doesn’t answer. I feel my throat swell up as he walks away. I don’t ever remember Billy walking away. Not before Korea.

*     *     *

The 2:00 a.m. freight train is headed east toward Kansas City on the track next to our siding. It rattles the box car something awful going by, and blows up the dust. I wake up in the dark, listening to it and thinking what it would be like to get on a box car that is hooked to an engine instead of stuck out on a siding. Hobos come through on those trains all the time, which is why I don’t get let out of sight, and Daddy keeps his .22 rifle near the bed at night. Billy used to talk about hopping a car and traveling by rail across country to California. I wouldn’t mind hopping a car, myself, if Billy is with me. 

I lay there listening to Pa’s snoring from the other side of the car. It’s hot, and the wood has a faint smell of things stored and hauled a long way on hot rails. I push the covers away. I need to pee and I can’t decide whether to do it outside the door or go all the way to the station house. 

I roll off the mattress and onto the floor. An arm like a vise closes around me and I yip.

“Shut up,” Billy says. He is crouched in the dark on the floor, breathing hard. “Do you hear them?”

“What is it, Billy?” I ask, my heart pounding against my ribs. 

“Shhhhh. We can’t let ‘em find us.”

He is wet with sweat. His breath rasps hot against my cheek. His grip hurts me. I try to twist free. 

“Don’t move. They’re coming—don’t you hear them?”

“I don’t hear anything, Billy.” My voice quivers. His fist knocks me sideways. 

“I told you to shut up!” he screams. He tears through the car, and I hear the break of dishes as the orange crates come tumbling down. Mama whimpers, and Daddy’s deep voice rises over the hubbub. 

“You’re home, Billy. Calm down, son. No one’s going hurt you.”

“Oh God—oh God—oh God!” 

I hear the strike of a match. Daddy lights the oil lamp. He lifts it and the light throws his gigantic shadow against the side of the car. Billy crouches in the corner, rocking. His pants are wet where he’s peed himself. Mama kneels on the mattress, her eyes huge under the scarf she uses to tuck up her hair at night. Daddy shakes his head. 

“We can’t go on like this, Billy.” His voice sounds tired.

Billy begins to cry in harsh sobs, his head tucked down on his crossed arms. 

“Go back to sleep, Sassy,” Daddy says. I crawl back up on the mattress. I am cold now in spite of the hot night, and I wrap the quilt around me and try to stop shaking.

“Son?”

Billy gets up. “She ain’t even got a fucking stove, Daddy! God, I can’t breathe with these walls closing in—“ 

He tears over to door and yanks it so hard the slide shrieks. He jumps off the car and I hear him throwing up.

Mama stands up and reaches for the broom. I can tell from the jerky way she moves that she’s trying hard not to cry.

“Leave it, ‘Nita. It’ll still be there come morning.” 

Papa leans over and blows out the light.

I listen to Billy until there’s nothing to listen to anymore. I remember something Daddy always used to say, when I’d call Billy my guardian angel.

“Sass, nothing falls harder than an angel with a broken wing.”