Chris and his friends try to live a normal life but World War II has changed everything. They have to entertain themselves, staying at home without movies and even church, most of the time, trying to avoid Old Lady Rainey, the town Gossip and Busybody. Chris and his friends learn a great deal about cigarettes and Sex. And Polio does strike one of their friends. By the end of the war, Chris has learned much about the broken, imperfect and war mangled world around him and realizes that he must fix it.<br>
Broken Star
By Ray von RosenbergAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Ray von Rosenberg
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-8005-5Contents
Chapter 1: The Service Flag..................................1Chapter 2: Rumors and Roomers................................15Chapter 3: Amputees..........................................29Chapter 4: Loraine's Story...................................43Chapter 5: Supper............................................53Chapter 6: Cemetery/Church Benches...........................69Chapter 7: Polio/Medicine Games..............................83Chapter 8: The Tent..........................................95Chapter 9: Bicycles/Country Roads............................105Chapter 10: Letters/Plans....................................115Chapter 11: Flag Up..........................................131Chapter 12: Flag Pole Down...................................143Chapter 13: The Parade.......................................159Chapter 14: Sheets...........................................177Chapter 15: Library/ Dynamite................................189Chapter 16: Swimming/Illness.................................201Chapter 17: Loraine's Party..................................219Chapter 18: Run-Away/Good-by.................................237Chapter 19: The Next Friday..................................253Chapter 20: The Prisoner of War..............................265Chapter 21: Saturday Morning Revelations.....................275Chapter 22: Revelations Continued............................287Chapter 23: Breakfast/Conclusion.............................295Chapter 24: Afterward........................................313
Chapter One
The Service Flag
The red, white, and blue World War II Service Flag, hanging in the window of the door to our grocery store was always crooked. It was there to honor my brother, Junior, who had been drafted to serve in the Army and was somewhere in England or North Africa or who knows. We didn't really know because of stupid Junior's failure to keep us posted and/ or, as I liked to think, of our Government's top secrecy. Mother was afraid he lay bleeding and wounded on some battlefield or, worse, tortured and starved in some Prisoner of War Camp.
Before he left for overseas, I, a mere twelve year old, figured out a keen code for Junior to tell us where he was in spite of everything being censored, I wrote it down for the dummy. He was supposed to write and ask about our pet dog if he was in England, our breeding bull if he was is Spain, our camel if he was in Egypt, our tiger if he was in India. I had figured out a dozen or so animals and places – pandas in China, penguins in Antarctica. Even though I was only twelve, I thought it was pretty clever. But did Junior bother to use it? No! In fact, he didn't write anything at all. Nothing! Daddy was sure he was off having the time of his life seeing the world for the first time and never giving us a second thought. I was sure he was on some great secret spy mission and would come home a hero. He had always been good at slipping around and keeping secrets from the rest of the family, except for me. I always knew everything like where he kept his cigarettes and stupid love notes.
Our grocery store was known as 'Flint's Food and Feed' and was just about the oldest store in Temple, Texas. It had actually been around since 1890. My Grandfather Flint had opened it way out on the south-east edge of town so country folks wouldn't have to travel all the way into town to get supplies. My mother and all her sisters had grown up here. My grandmother ended up having to support six kids when my grandfather died of the flu right after World War I. When they all got grown, my Mother was the only one who wanted to keep the store going. So here we are.
Daddy claims it's more trouble than it's worth and nothing but a 'white elephant' hung around our necks. It had once been painted white and was a lot larger than an elephant! Mother defended Grandpa by saying, "Papa liked living here with all his goods and customers as much as with his family. He wanted everything spread out before him so he could watch and take care of it."
People joked around town that Old Man Flint would sell the clothes off his wife and kid's backs or the food out of their mouths to oblige a customer because he once sold the Thanksgiving turkey Grandma had spent half the night preparing. Anyways, that's how Old Lady Rainey, our oldest and snoopiest customer, always told it.
Daddy tried to get Mother to close it just about every day of their married life. "I just can't," she always said. "Not after all these years!" So here we still are.
And then along came World War II and the Government suddenly built this massive McClosky Hospital on Highway 36 across from our store. Business picked up, let me tell you, except for the fact that there wasn't a whole lot to sell since rationing had come along and we were suddenly in the stamp counting business – red stamps for meat, blue stamps for canned goods, not to mention coffee stamps and sugar stamps. It was along about this time that Mother almost gave up, but finally decided it was her American duty to help win the War by keeping the store going. "After all, farmers shouldn't have to use up all their rationed gasoline having to drive all the way into Temple to discover there wasn't much to buy." She always justified her decisions.
I forgot to mention the dumb red and blue plastic tokens we had to use as change for ration stamps. They were a real nuisance – worse than pennies. You couldn't even stack them because of the way they were sort of convex. "Leave it up to the Government to make the simplest thing difficult," Daddy always says.
Yep, in the summer of 1943, everything went haywire and changed all our lives forever. 'Forever' was my one of my favorite words, then. It sort of puts an importance on things.
It wasn't really summer yet, just late May, but for us kids our summers began when school let out just before Memorial Day and ended just after Labor Day when school started again. Summer days didn't have to answer to the mathematics of time and bells. Instead, they just rambled along, a whole lot like singing '99 bottles of beer on the wall,' which really sent Daddy 'up the wall' every time I started to sing it. I think summer vacation had the same effect on all the adults in my world.
Anyway, one day, Old Lady Rainey, whom I am required to respect, and not call her that to her face, stopped and adjusted Junior's blue Service Star Flag hanging in the front door window, as she entered, as always, after she smiled at her 'lovely' self in the glass reflection and straightened her ugly hat. There was a bell on the door that always rang but we had heard it so much we had stopped hearing it. It might as well not been there.
"Well," she announced, "I see this star ain't turned gold yet. Praise the Lord! Junior Wagner is still alive," and she waved her hands around like a silly cheerleader.
"Yeah! Somewheres ... maybe." I answered her. I was sitting and reading my favorite comic book, 'The Submariner,' at our big oak dining table with claw feet, just like a dragon, which we kept there in the store because we were always in there.
"Chris, you can at least be optimistic." Mother, who was behind the counter, corrected me, as usual. "Of course, he's alive and coming back to us ... and all in one piece ... he has to! ... Can't you say, "Hello" to Mrs. Rainey? We haven't seen her in a month of Sundays."
I tried to shake hands with her, but she looked at my hand like it was something dead. "Is it clean?" she said. "I'm wearing white gloves."
I put my hand in my pockets.
Mother went on like the old Hag was the Queen of England or somebody. "It's so good to see you, Hattie Bell Rainey. We've really missed you." She even came out from behind the counter to hug her. "I'm sorry about your sister's illness."
"Thank you. I couldn't stay a day longer. Harry was about to divorce me. He just can't stand it when I'm not at home."
Harry Rainey, her dwarf-like, railroad conductor husband wore little gold rimmed glasses just like hers. Both looked odd, like they were wearing magnifying glasses. Except for the ugly flowered dresses and the fact that I never heard him say a word, I couldn't tell them apart.
"You must be completely worn out, having to take care of her so long."
"Well, it would have been a whole lot easier if that husband of hers had enough sense to come in out of the rain. He was just helpless when it came to taking care of things. I don't know why she puts up with him. And that idiot doctor she had. All he cared about was how much money he could make off them. She didn't need that operation, if you ask me. At any rate, they were certainly glad to see me leave. All of 'em."
"And we're glad to have you back with us."
I wasn't so sure.
"It has been a while," Mrs. Rainey said and wandered back over to the door and looked out at the new Army Hospital. "It just gets bigger and bigger, doesn't it?" She shook her head. "I don't see how you can put up with all this racket. It would drive me slap mad!"
There was a lot of noise. Hammers banged and road graders growled all day and half the night. But like the bell over the door, I guess we had gotten used to it.
"Pitiful sight ain't it! Cripples just as far as you can see, I do declare." She laughed, "I do hope they don't all try selling pencils at the same time down on Main Street."
"Mrs. Rainey!" Mother gasped.
"Well, they have to start somewhere!" She laughed again. "Wouldn't you know, Temple would go and get something absolutely awful like an Amputee Center? Other places I can name, sure did a whole lot better. Little ol' tacky Killeen wasn't any more than a greasy spot in the road and now they got Camp Hood and money rolls in faster than those illiterate cedar choppers over there can count it."
"Temple has always prided herself on being a hospital center," Mother answered.
"Ain't much to pride ourselves with a bunch of torn up bodies nobody can fix," Mrs. Rainey grumbled. She leaned down and picked up a peach from one of the bushel baskets sitting in front of the counter and studied it. "Albertas?"
"No, but they are cling free. And home-grown, too. Just got them in this morning."
"Albertas is better for canning. Got more body." She took a large bite, leaning out over the floor to avoid any dripping. Then she smacked her lips and made a terrible face. "Uhhhh weeeeeee! Sour as persimmons!"
"Good price. Only five cents a pound," I said.
She just looked at me and smiled. "Just grazing, boy. Just grazing."
But I noticed she managed to finish it in about three bites, dropped the seed in the trash can, and then licked her glove.
Old Lady Rainey never paid for what she could steal, a word I was forbidden to utter in her presence. It seems that we had inherited her along with the store because she claimed to have been Grandmother Flint's dearest friend, which I have reason to doubt, although she had been 'grazing' as long as anyone could remember. Unfortunately, she lived behind us and had a well-worn path to our generosity. She was the only person I have ever known who would come into your house, open the refrigerator to see what we were having for supper, and decide right off, if she wanted to stay.
"You'll never sell these. Nobody's got any sugar to can things these days," she said. "This war has messed up everything in our lives."
"Maybe we could give them away free to all our 'paying' customers and not have to worry about the sugar or ... the money," I said from behind my comic book, knowing full well I would be corrected.
"Chris!" Mother cautioned.
"You could," Mrs. Rainey said, "Or perhaps you could go on ruining your God-given eyesight reading those useless gaudy colored comic books and wouldn't see so much you weren't supposed to," the Old Witch said as she snatched the comic book away from me and tossed it into the trash can.
"If comics are so bad, why does the Temple Daily Telegram print the Sunday school lesson along with the comics every Saturday?"
"Well," she paused, "You'll notice they aren't colored. They are designed for illiterates and ignoramuses. Take your choice."
"How are things in Amarillo?" Mother slipped between us to calm things down. "We certainly did miss you. How long was it you were gone?"
"Yeah, ... miss!" I grumbled.
"That's enough, 'Mr. Mouth!'" Mother said.
Mrs. Rainey continued. "Amarillo's just like Temple. Strangers everywhere ... Nothing but rude, thoughtless Yankees!"
"I might just as well have stayed home. My sister's the laziest white woman on Earth. You knew she was having ... uh," She hesitated and looked around at me and began to whisper, "Female Problems."
"You don't have to whisper," I said. "I've known all about 'Female Problems' since Mother had to have her appendix taken out for about the third time back when I was in the fourth grade. So there!"
"Chris, Please. You're being obnoxious."
"He certainly is ... as always."
"At least I'm not shop-lifting ..."
"That's enough, Chris! And you will apologize at once to Mrs. Rainey. She's been a good customer in this store for forty years."
"Longer than that" she said, "I'd tell you how long, but 'Mr. Know-It-All' would figure out how old I am and tell God and everybody else. Wouldn't you?" She tried to hug me.
"Chris, I don't know what we're going to do with you," Mother said.
I ducked around and recovered my comic book that now had a peach pit stuck to it.
By this time, she was meddling through things on the counter and I saw her pick up a small green spiral notebook and begin flipping through the pages.
I immediately felt in my shirt pocket and realized it was mine and grabbed for it. "That's mine, thank you!"
"Well, goodness. I wasn't trying to steal it," she said. "It's personal ..." That was a close call! "It's ... It's my list of out of state license plates. Peggy Nell and I are having a contest to see who can get all 48 first ... I have 29 as of today." Which was all true, but it also contained every secret I had in this world and a lot of other valuable stuff, including my new list of 'dirty' words. Mother had already found, and dealt with, my old list.
"Sound suspicious to me," she went on.
"Nothing to get excited about. Just ... 'Male Problems.'" I flipped through it, nonchalantly.
"Then it must be something vulgar!" she said.
I wandered over to the red soda water box, and out of habit opened it, and started playing with the ice floating around.
The Old Crone cleared her throat to get Mother's attention and said, "I don't think I'm going to need any milk today if that meddlesome boy keeps on letting hot air into that ice box to sour the milk." She placed her shopping bag on the counter.
"Chris," Mother said, "shut that lid and stop playing in the soda box before all the ice does melt."
"I just wanted to see if there might be a green soda water hiding in there somewhere."
"There aren't any. No Lime, no Strawberry, no Cokes, or anything else and you know it."
"'Lucky Strike Green has gone to war!'" the Old Parrot said. "Haven't you heard, boy? Where have you been?"
"Yeah, I've heard it about a million times on the radio."
"Yeah, what, young man?" Mother corrected.
"Yes, Ma'am. I know."
"All that green has gone to make camouflage for those air planes and jeeps. Anything to help win the war." Mrs. Rainey continued.
"I guess that must be why we don't have any Bubble Gum," I said. "They're using it to stick arms and legs back on over at the hospital."
"Chris! That's disgusting," Mother said. "Count your blessings that you don't have somebody over there in need of an arm or leg. Junior could be there just as well as the next one."
"Yes, Ma'am ... But Loraine says all that 'Lucky Strike green business' is just propaganda to make the cigarette company look good and patriotic while they go on making a mint of money selling cigarettes to the soldiers. If they really wanted to help, they give 'em away."
"Well, I never! I'm sure that fine American company is doing everything it can to help win this war, just like everybody else ... And just who is this Loraine person who knows so much?"
"She's one of our ... boarders." Mother hesitated. She knew Old Lady Rainey wouldn't approve, though how it was any of her business I couldn't figure out. "You don't know about our boarders ... I've started renting some of the upstairs rooms to the families who've come here to be with the wounded boys over at the hospital."
Mrs. Rainey grabbed her heart.
"We've got lots of empty rooms upstairs ... and one more now that Junior's gone. So far it's worked out real well. And we're certainly convenient, just across the street from the front gate."
Mrs. Rainey raised an eyebrow and glared. "Now, Lucy Lynn Wagner, I know that it's probably Christian as well as patriotic to open our hearts and homes to these ... Yankee riffraff, but I'm not sure that it's a wise thing to do. How do you know that these ... nasty little, pants-wearing, cigarette puffing floozies are ... even married to these boys? How can you just take anybody in? I shudder to think what your poor dead mother would say. You don't have any idea what you're getting ..." Suddenly she gasped, "And I hope to heaven, you don't let them use the same bathroom with the rest of the family!"
"There nothing wrong with Loraine!" I said. "She's the finest adult person I ever met."
"She really is nice," Mother said, but then she had to start acting cute and whispered to Mrs. Rainey, "Chris has a crush on her."
"I do not either! You're just making that up to embarrass me."
"What about that poem I found in your shirt pocket. How did it go? ... 'With a song in my heart just for you ...'"
I was really embarrassed. I'm sure I turned red. "I told you those were the words to a song I heard on the radio."
"Then why did it have, 'To Loraine' written on the outside?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Broken Starby Ray von Rosenberg Copyright © 2011 by Ray von Rosenberg. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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