Slap Your Sides (2 page)

A
unt Lizzie didn't have any qualms about wearing furs. She handed my father what had once been a fox, with black button eyes and a bushy fur tail.

“How's Bud doing?” she asked my father.

“Fine! He's getting lots of exercise, cutting down trees, clearing forests.”

“In freezing weather,” my mother added.

“Worse than this weather?” Lizzie laughed. She was always teasing Mom about the weather in Pennsylvania, complaining that it was a sacrifice to drive all the way from New York City to Sweet Creek every Christmas.

“If you don't like the weather, come another time. The twenty-fifth of December isn't special to me,” Mom said. She said it every year; she enjoyed telling everyone how Lizzie and she grew up with no fuss at Christmas. The only important day on Quaker calendars was First Day, Sunday.

“Nothing's worse than this weather!” my cousin Natalia grumbled. “Damnation!”

Aunt Lizzie said, “What did I tell you about saying ‘damnation'?”

“Not to.”

“Then don't.”

“The weather's plenty worse where Bud is,” said Mom. “Bud's in Colorado.”

“I know where he is. You gave me his address, remember? I sent him a couple pounds of fudge from Schrafft's.”

“He'll love that, Lizzie,” Mom said.

“Poor Bud,” said Lizzie.

Tommy was bringing in their luggage, snow dusting his black curls and his coat collar. Natalia couldn't take her eyes off him. I felt like telling her she had a snowball's chance in hell of getting to first base with Fast Tom. That was Bud's nickname for him. I had to be polite and pretend Fast Tom would even
look
at someone fourteen, who was five foot two and about one hundred and fifty pounds.

My father said to Lizzie, “Around here we're not thinking of Bud as ‘poor Bud.'”

“Well I'm not from around here, Efram.”

“When in Rome…”

But it wouldn't do any good to remind Lizzie she was in Efram Shoemaker's home and should abide by his rules.

Lizzie always told Bud, Tommy, and me not to call her “Aunt,” to call her Lizzie. Her husband, Mike Granger, was Jewish and didn't care to celebrate the holidays, so he stayed behind with their four Siamese cats. They lived in Greenwich Village, once described by my father as “full of bohemians who believe in free love.” I'd asked Tommy what free love was, and Tommy had said it was going to
bed with someone you weren't married to. Mike and Lizzie rented apartments in their town house to writers and musicians, and for years I pictured a place filled with paintings and pianos, mattresses strewn about on the floors, and you-know-what going on day and night.

I thought of Lizzie as insanely glamorous. I didn't care that she wore a dead animal around her neck. She was blond like Mom, but thinner and more stylish. She had these peekaboo bangs that made her look like the actress Veronica Lake. Tommy and I had seen Veronica Lake in
This Gun for Hire
. Tommy had leaned over and whispered to me, “She can put her shoes under my bed any day.”

Mike Granger was an artist with long black hair and a bushy black beard. As kids, Mom and Lizzie had always been close in age, sentiments, and proximity. Then Lizzie went to Lake Placid, New York, one summer to work as a waitress and earn money for college. She picked a resort where Mike taught art to the guests. After that the sisters' lives were as different as fishes' and birds', with Lizzie doing the flying.

Also different as fish and birds were Lizzie and her daughter. I used to believe that if I closed my eyes and just heard Natalia without seeing her, I would think she was older than fourteen and not fat. She was a big talker. Sometimes there was a certain edge of sophistication to things she said. Then it would be spoiled when I watched her pop four marshmallows into her mouth at one time. She would talk with her mouth full, too, as though she
realized eating was going to be of prime importance in her life, so she'd better learn early how to eat while she did other things.

 

I had promised my mother that when Natalia went up to bed, I would go too, so she didn't feel she was missing anything downstairs.

She would sleep on a cot in the sewing room, and Lizzie would sleep on the studio couch.

Bud, Tommy, and I shared a room. I knew that soon Natalia would wander down to visit. I hadn't bothered to shut the door. I hadn't changed into pajamas, either.

She was wearing this long silk nightie, with Bud's terry-cloth robe over it. It had been too heavy for him to pack. Natalia had not only a manicure with bright-red nails, but also a pedicure in the same color. She had something in a paper bag.

“Do you like bonbons?” She held the bag out to me.

“I can't eat any more.”

“Only
one
pie,” she said, referring to the pumpkin pie Mom had made for dessert. “You should see what
we
have for dessert when we're home. Several different kinds of pies or cake, and then something exotic like flan.”

I was not going to ask her what flan was. I said, “How come you have so many cats?”

“They're not just cats. They're Siamese. They're very chic.”

“Why?”

“They just are. Everybody knows it…. Mummy wanted to give them Oriental names, but I said that was the most obvious thing I'd ever heard, and Daddy said over his dead body!”

“So what did she name them?”

“She didn't. Daddy did. He named them Marx, Freud, Einstein, and Shakespeare. Do you know why?”

“How would I know why?”

“Because Daddy says they gave us the best things in life.”

Natalia bent over to get a glimpse of Mahatma, who was under Bud's bed. She said, “Mahatma, you were named after a man of conviction too!”

Stapled to Bud's desk blotter was a typewritten quote from Mahatma Gandhi:
Nonviolence and truth are inseparable…. There is no God higher than truth.
Years ago Bud had won the senior essay contest at SCFS writing about Gandhi.

Over Tommy's desk was the sheet music to “I Surrender, Dear,” showing a silhouette of a female naked from the waist up. Thumbtacked to that was a photograph of Lillie Light, who hadn't surrendered to Tommy yet. I knew because Tommy kept a secret graph of how far he got with a girl. He hadn't hit the 100 mark with one yet, and he was only to 30 with Lillie.

 

Natalia exclaimed, “That dog has become pathetic! He doesn't even wag his tail!”

“He misses Bud. That makes two brokenhearted
beasts. Mahatma and Quinn, this horse at a farm where we help out.”

I'd watched Bud groom Quinn as a way of saying good-bye the day before he left. He not only brushed and curried him, but he clipped his fetlocks and the edges of his ears. Then he scrubbed him and shampooed him, and when he was done, I saw Quinn lift his head, eye Bud, snort, and dance a little.

Ever since, Quinn had been nickering for Bud, same as he'd nickered for his owner who'd boarded him there through the war.

Natalia said, “Did you hear the one about the absentminded professor?”

“No.”

“The absentminded professor unbuttoned his vest, took out his necktie, and wet his pants.”

I said, “Ha, ha, ha,” hating it that my face had turned red.

Natalia reached into the bag and put a bonbon into her mouth. “Mum said not to tell you any jokes, that you'd be shocked.”

“Oh, sure. Lookit me. I'm shocked.” I widened my eyes and made my mouth an O.

She said, “Do you know how porcupines make love?”

“No.”

“V-er-y carefully!”

“V-er-y funny,” I said.

“Who sleeps in the top bunk?” Bonbons #3, #4, and #5.

“I do. Bud sleeps on the single bed.”

“Which brother do you like most?”

“I like both the same. But I'm more like Bud.” I actually prayed that I
could
be more like my older brother. Before the war I didn't think about it very much, but after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, it was always on my mind. Was it fair that other guys would have to fight those Japs and the Shoemaker men wouldn't?

Natalia was in the doorway, her hand in the bag of bonbons, her mouth full of them. “Does Bud say thee like Quakers?”

“Sometimes he does, but we don't.”

“It's the farthest thing from my mind that you
would
. Mum says Bud's a
dedicated
Quaker, which is why he's a conchie.”

I'd heard Bud called a slacker, but I'd never heard the expression “conchie” before.

“He's dedicated about the big issues,” I said, “but he likes a beer now and then. And he doesn't have my mother's strict views of Christmas or things like that.”

“What about Tommy?”

“Tommy's Tommy.”

“Yes,” Natalia purred. “He is…. Well, thee have a good night.”

“Thee have one, too,” I told her.

“Don't you
love
saying thee, Jubal?”

I shrugged, because I didn't even like it.

I hadn't had anything against the “plain language” until Bud started speaking it with Hope. I couldn't help
thinking that she made it easy for Bud to choose the conscientious objector classification, 4E. She wouldn't have it any other way. Yet a lot of Quakers just became 1AO, which meant they would go into the service but not into combat. It would have been easier for everyone if Bud had chosen that route, but with some thanks to Hope, Bud wasn't about doing what was easy.

“Thee have a good sleep,” said Natalia, finally leaving.

“Okay. Thee too.”

 

I waited until I heard her door close. Then I shut mine and said my prayers.

On Sunday morning Hope was planning to come from Doylestown to the Sweet Creek meeting. Even though no one was supposed to decide beforehand what they got up to talk about, Hope had already planned to have her say about something. Mom said she hoped Bud and Hope were not going to marry; it wasn't good to begin a marriage living apart.

I hoped they wouldn't marry for a different reason. I felt like I was losing Bud, and she was part of the reason.

 

When I couldn't sleep, I turned on the radio. Radio Dan was saying someplace called Wake Island had been heavily bombed by a group of our Flying Fortresses. Some 75,000 pounds of bombs had been dropped. “But the good Lord be thanked, there were no casualties.”

I wondered if Bud let himself know what was going on in the war.

I could almost hear Bud say, How can you drop that many bombs without casualties? There're casualties, if you count the people you're bombing!

But I felt good about the news. Maybe the war would be over next year.

 

When Tommy came barging into the room, I was almost asleep. After he got into his pajamas, he prayed on his knees, whispering in that way he had so you almost heard the words, but you never really did.

I didn't want to get really awake, so I let him think I was sound asleep.

When he was finished praying, he fiddled with the radio dial for a minute. In between all the songs about waiting for somebody, missing somebody, and spending nights alone were the ones about the war itself. Stuff like “Good-bye, Mama (I'm Off to Yokohama)” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!!” He finally turned it off.

Then I heard him say, “Oh, all right!” and the dog tags around Mahatma's neck rattled as he climbed into bed with Tommy.

“L
izzie, would you mind coming to the Sweet Creek meeting with our family this morning?”

Lizzie shot my mother a look. She and Natalia were both dressed and ready to be dropped off at Second Presbyterian church, as usual.

“Your service is so plain, Win. If I go to a church, I like to sing. I love the Christmas decorations—the candles and the pine branches.”

“Just this once,” my mother persisted.

“I respect your beliefs, Winnie. While I'd love a Christmas tree on Christmas, I understand. I haven't lost my memory of Mama saying
every
day is special and we don't need to make one day more important than the next, unless it's First Day. I can hear her telling us that, when we were little girls. But Win, tell me why Natalia and I have to go somewhere and sit in silence, when that's not our faith? Our family isn't religious.”

My father said, “Let them go where they want to!”

“I wouldn't mind going to the Quaker church,” Natalia said.

“It's not a church,” her mother said. “It's a big room with hard benches, no backs to them. You sit there and say nothing. I don't think you could stand it, Natalia!”

“We'll drop you off at the Presbyterian church,” my father said. “Come along.”

But then Mom said, “This year I'd be pleased if all the family came together for Bud.”

“I'll do it,” Natalia said. “Mom?”

 

The meetinghouse was packed. Even the facing benches were full by the time the silence began. You were supposed to “center down” and get in touch with what was inside you. You were supposed to connect with your own light. “MIND THE LIGHT,” which Hope had had engraved on Bud's ID bracelet, just meant to follow your heart.

From across the street came the faint sounds of the Catholic choir singing in Latin. I closed my eyes and tried not to hear their music. We had none. Radio Dan was Catholic. I thought of him and Mrs. Daniel over there with Darie, the only kid they had left to kneel down with them. In their front window was the service banner with two blue stars on it. Those banners were everywhere in Sweet Creek. There were even a few gold ones, which meant that old man Chayka had probably been the one to deliver the Western Union telegram announcing someone's death in the war. There weren't any messenger “boys” in Sweet Creek anymore. Anyone old enough to work who'd been turned down by the armed forces could have his pick of jobs.

That was why Tommy and I had joined Bud working for Hope's father all summer, helping him and Luke
Casper tame and exercise the horses. The Harts had always been dairy farmers. When Luke Casper, their neighbor, had to fold his farm, he talked Mr. Hart into buying and boarding horses. Luke would teach him the business.

Bud used to worry because Luke sometimes drank and got careless, and Hope's brother, Abel, was just naturally careless. Abel didn't have the patience to load the trailer correctly. He'd forget the horses' shipping boots, or their head bumpers. Luke Casper would complain to Bud that Abel would blanket the horses wet after rides, that all he wanted to do was read his books up in the hayloft.

 

The morning's silence seemed heavy to me, probably because I dreaded the idea Hope could be announcing a coming marriage to Bud. Usually couples appeared together to say their intentions, but if one was away, as Bud was, it could be done by the other.

Hope had brought Abel with her. She sat with Mom and Natalia in the women's section, opposite us males. Friends who weren't looking Hope over were staring at Abel. He had fire-red hair, brown—almost black—eyes, and pale white skin. He wasn't what you'd call fat, but he was tall and chunky, with the kind of build a football halfback might have. Abel almost never smiled. He was always biting his lips, or blinking, as though he didn't have all his marbles. He had a reputation for being a crusader, protesting when factories hired scabs, picketing The Palace and The Strand in Sweet Creek because they
made Negroes sit upstairs.

I was eager for Hope to make her move. There was no minister, of course. We didn't recognize one person having authority over another. We didn't have stained-glass windows or candlelight or incense. Friends got up when the spirit moved them. I'd been in meetings when no one spoke. To me they were the most boring. I'd also been in meetings when someone went on and on and made no sense. You had to sit there and listen. If you closed your eyes, you could be accused of sleeping.

Soon Hope was on her feet. She was pushing back a strand of her long auburn hair, which never stayed back. She was waiting until she had everyone's attention.

“Friends,” she began, “you may have seen me at your meeting before. I'm a member of the Doylestown meeting, but I came here several times with Efram Shoemaker, known to all of you as Bud.

“As many of you know, he's now in a Civilian Public Service camp in Colorado. Some people say well, why didn't he just register as a 1AO and serve as a noncombatant?…
Some
people ask that. Most Quakers know the answer. If you load the bullet in the gun, or shoot the gun, or carry away the one shot by a gun, you are at war. If you join the military and do little more than paperwork in some office down in Richmond, Virginia, you are at war…. Bud chose to be a witness against this war, against war of any kind, for any reason!”

I could see many Friends nodding their heads in agreement with Hope.

“As a 4E conscientious objector he will perform work of national importance, unconnected with the war, serving without pay, in whatever capacity he is assigned, for however long is necessary.”

Hope pushed that same strand of hair back.

Across from her, Abel had this dizzy little smile on his face. He often looked as though he heard voices or was under some kind of spell. Even when a new horse arrived on the Hart farm, it was wary of him, would pull away or squeal when he tried to handle it. Horses always know if you're strange.

“I am asking for your prayers,” Hope continued, “to keep Bud strong and confident. But I am also here to thank you. I believe a lot of the credit for Bud's peace testimony can go to you and this meetinghouse.

“Thank you. God bless you.”

Natalia clapped, and heads turned to see who was rude enough to applaud.

Lizzie bent down and said something to her about it.

Slim Hislop waited another fifteen minutes to get up. He had been the caretaker of the meetinghouse for years, until his knees went on him. He said he'd known Bud since he was a little kid and even then Bud had been special. He elaborated: Bud gave his toys to the flood relief one spring, “and I mean his toys, all of them,” on and on through Bud becoming an Eagle Scout, up to the day Bud filled out Form 47. He returned it to the draft board, writing that the dictates of his personal conscience forbade him to participate in war, in any
form, because he believed man was destined to increase and improve, not to decrease and destroy.

I felt tears behind my eyes. I wished Bud was there to hear someone finally saying something good about him. I was glad for the Sweet Creek meeting, for the Friends there, for the company of other people who appreciated what Bud stood for.

Suddenly Aunt Lizzie was on her feet. The fur cape had dropped to the highly polished plain wooden floor. Lizzie stood there in her dark-green Peck & Peck suit with the white silk blouse and the sprig of holly in her lapel. Her blond hair was pulled back in a chignon. I knew probably no one approved of her makeup or her brightly colored clothes, but I believed as Dad did: It didn't hurt. Who did it hurt? I think I even liked it. The Sweet Creek meetinghouse could use a little glamour. I
was
surprised that Lizzie was going to say something; amazed, really. Yet I'd always suspected Bud was her favorite.

“Friends, I know you welcome anyone who wants to speak, and I feel obliged to.

“As a young girl I came to this meeting, and this morning when my sister, Winifred Shoemaker, asked me to join the family here, I did
not
want to do it. I'll tell you that right up front. I could have gone to the Presbyterian Church and been happy singing the old Christian hymns without my conscience waking up. I could have said my prayers to keep my nephew, Bud Shoemaker, safe and well, and that would have been that.”

I couldn't help smiling a litttle. She had everybody's attention, even Abel's. Lizzie always made an impression.

“Friends, I once considered myself a Quaker. This was my home meeting, as some of you know. But then I fell in love and ‘married out.' I am married to a man who is Jewish. Over the twenty years of our marriage I have come to know his relatives and many of his friends. We are lucky to be living in America, and if we were
not
, my husband, and his relatives and friends, would be in concentration camps at best. More likely they'd be dead.

“As Christian people aren't you concerned about the mass murder in Europe? Don't you listen to the news? Don't you know what's going on over there? Haven't you heard of Adolf Hitler? How can you expect other people to risk their lives in a war that affects every single one of us?

“Friends, I have to speak up and oppose this praise for a conchie, even though he is my own blood. I may love Bud Shoemaker, but I don't admire him any longer. How can I if he won't pull his weight in this war? How can you be pacifists with a madman like Hitler ready to rule the world? I want to say to you all, Wake up!

“Thank you.”