The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion (27 page)
Read The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion Online
Authors: Fannie Flagg
“I’m sure it is. But I doubt if she’s still there.”
“Don’t you want to find out?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Earle. I’m not sure. Even if I did meet her, what good would it do? What if she’s just horrible, and I hated her? Or what if, after she met me, she decided to move here with us? And I couldn’t say no, and then Lenore would find out. I don’t know, Earle. I still think it might be better to just leave well enough alone.”
“You do what you want, but if you don’t, and she dies, you might
regret not meeting her when you still had the chance, or at least talking to her on the phone.”
“But why?”
“Well, you could find out why she gave you up. Don’t you think she at least deserves a chance? Don’t forget you just found out about her, but I’m sure she has been wondering about you for fifty-nine years.”
“Sixty,” added Sookie.
L
ATER IN BED
, S
OOKIE
said, “Just imagine, Earle, I’m scared to go on a Ferris wheel, and my real mother actually flew a plane.”
Earle smiled. “It’s pretty exciting.”
“Yes … I guess it really is.”
Earle was glad to see Sookie start to take some sort of an interest. He hoped she would change her mind after reading about the WASPs and all that they did. He would like to meet the old gal himself. But it was Sookie’s decision.
N
OW
,
THINKING MORE ABOUT
it, Sookie realized that another reason not to meet her real mother was that when she found out that her daughter had never really accomplished anything and was just a housewife, she could be terribly disappointed in her. Good Lord. She had already disappointed one mother, and that was bad enough. She didn’t know if she wanted to take a chance on disappointing two.
S
WEETWATER
, T
EXAS
Billy,
What’s wrong with the damn male race? We are getting a lot of flack from a bunch of disgruntled flyboys. As if things weren’t tough enough, a group of them here are not happy that girls are doing the same thing they are, and in some cases (mine), doing it better. We could ignore it, but they have started enough rumors about us to sink our entire program. They are telling people that we are a bunch of man-hungry females who joined up just so we could sleep around with the male pilots and are generally a no-good lot that should be sent home. Two weeks ago, we found out that they brought in a group of prostitutes and put them up at the Sweetwater Hotel and told everybody they were WASPs. I can tell you that didn’t endear us to the townsfolk.
Finally, it got straightened out, but we are now being forced to live like nuns. Our director Jackie Cochran says we can’t afford a hint of scandal. No dating instructors, no cussing, and ladylike behavior at all times while the flyboys do what they want. But Cochran says that our morals are to be above
reproach. It’s hell being a guinea pig, but as our house mother Mrs. Van de Kamp said, if we can prove ourselves, it will all be worth it in the end. Then maybe the next group won’t have it so bad.
I know you are not reading about it in the paper. They don’t want it getting out, but we lost three girls this month, and one was a bay mate of mine and a really nice gal. She was married to a marine serving in Guadalcanal and has two kids at home. A few days ago, she came in too low and crashed on landing right outside the barracks.
I know you see a lot of this, and it’s all just part of training, but I am still not used to it and hope I never will be. It makes me so mad when all the newspaper reporters that come here only want to show the gals putting on lipstick or posing like models … all this phony baloney stuff. If anybody thinks this is a glamorous job and that we are just in it for the fun, they haven’t watched them pull a friend out of a burning plane and die right in front of them. Nobody here is saying much, but the mood is pretty glum.
Fritzi
S
WEETWATER
, T
EXAS
1943
M
OST OF THE MALE INSTRUCTORS AT
A
VENGER
F
IELD WERE NICE
,
BUT
some bitterly resented being assigned to Sweetwater, and they went out of their way to make the girls’ lives miserable. They would yell at them, call them “stupid” and “incompetent,” and do everything in their power to try to make them wash out. One, a surly lieutenant named Miller, was particularly rough on them. Day after day, girls would come in after their lessons with him in tears. One girl had been so devastated by his bullying, she quit and went home. And he made no bones about how he felt. It was clear he thought women had no business flying planes.
One afternoon, over at the club, he was sitting at the bar, talking to the bartender in a loud voice, so he was sure to be heard by the girls that were there. “God, I hate this job. When people ask me what I did in the war, what am I gonna say? That all I did was teach a bunch of Goddamned women? Shit …”
F
RITZI WAS STANDING AROUND
, waiting to go up and take her first military check ride, when Miller walked up and said, “Okay, Jurdabralinski,
let’s go. I’m gonna take you up and see what you can do. And when I tell you something, don’t talk, just do it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
As she was climbing up to her altitude, he reached over her from behind and yelled at her, “Jesus Christ, pull the damn stick back … don’t ease it back,” and he grabbed it and jammed it against her leg as hard as he could. “You’re not in some powder puff derby. Pull the damn thing. Jesus Christ, what idiot taught you to fly?”
Fritzi desperately wanted to pass this inspection, but something snapped. She gunned the engines and as soon as she got her altitude, she suddenly flipped the plane over and flew upside down while Miller, who was now suspended in midair and hanging on to his shoulder straps, screamed for dear life, “Turn over! Turn over! Goddamn it!” When she did, Fritzi did a barrel roll, shot straight up, and then did her famous death drop into fifteen spins straight down. She then pulled up at the last second, shot back up, and went into a hammerhead stall just for good measure.
D
OWN BELOW AT
A
VENGER
Field, all the ground crew was standing there and looking up and watching what was happening and yelling. Pretty soon, everyone on the ground was looking up, and people were running out of the hangars and barracks to see what all the noise was about.
Gussie Mintz came out of the mess hall with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth to see, and she looked up just as Fritzi did another barrel roll, and she started to laugh. “You show ’em how to do it, gal,” she said.
After another series of amazing spirals and loops, mechanic Elroy Leefers started grinning. “Give him hell, Fritzi!” After a few more minutes, she did a double loop, came in for a perfect landing, drove the plane to the main hangar, and stopped. She turned around and said to Miller, who was red-faced and fuming with rage, “Compliments of Billy Bevins, the greatest flight instructor alive.”
“Get out of the plane!” he said.
“Yes, sir! Right away, sir!” she said as she jumped down. She undid her parachute and left it lying on the ground. Fritzi knew she had
washed out, but nobody called Billy Bevins an idiot and got away with it, not while she was alive.
A
S
F
RITZI WALKED AWAY
, Willy and Pinks ran up to walk with her, and when Pinks looked back, Miller was still sitting in the plane. Fritzi went straight to the barracks and started packing her things. Once a girl washed out, they left as soon as possible. It was too painful an ordeal for everyone to drag it out.
Her bay mates who had witnessed her flight were not happy and stood there and watched her pack. Pinks said, “The bastard had it coming, but damn, Fritzi … what are we going to do without you?”
A
FTER
F
RITZI HAD PACKED
, Willy and Pinks walked with her to the gate. Just as Fritzi was about to get on the truck, a girl came running up, panting, “The captain wants to see you in his office right away.” Damn. She was hoping to get out before the report was finished and she had to face the music, but she hadn’t made it.
A few minutes later, when she walked into the commanding officer’s office, she saw Captain Wheeler sitting at his desk with an extremely grim expression on his face. Mrs. Van de Kamp sat in a chair behind him and looked as if she had been crying. Captain Wheeler glanced up from the report, looking furious, as he barked at her, “Young woman, that was one of the most reckless and irresponsible displays of complete disregard of rules and safety that I have ever witnessed. Do you realize you endangered the life of an instructor and yourself and risked destroying a military plane?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if that wasn’t bad enough, you also put the reputation and the future of the entire WASP program in jeopardy today. You, of all people, know how hard Mrs. Love and Mrs. Cochran are working to ensure that this program continues, and then to pull a stunt like that.”
“I understand. I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking. I lost my head.”
“This program is not about you. It’s about all the girls and the ones that will follow them.”
“Yes, sir.”
He picked up the report from Lieutenant Miller and said, “You obviously didn’t pass the inspection.”
“No, sir.”
“Mrs. Van de Kamp has informed me of some of the problems you girls have had with Lieutenant Miller, but that’s no excuse, and according to official military protocol, you should be court-martialed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Wheeler put the report down on his desk, leaned back in his chair, and looked out the window. After a long minute, he turned back around and looked at her and said, “I know military rules, and by all rights, I should throw you out on your ear.” Then he sighed, “But I think anybody that can make that sour little son of a bitch Miller mess his pants deserves another chance, so I’m grounding you for two weeks or until we can ship Miller out of here. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again, you are out. And I will personally make sure you never fly another plane as long as you live. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get out of here.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“And Jurdabralinski …”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell Billy I said hello.”
N
OW SHE KNEW WHY
Miller didn’t get out of the plane. They told her later, Miller made the mechanic taxi the plane over to another hangar and then ordered everyone out. But word got around. The mechanic was Elroy Leefers. As for Fritzi, she didn’t know how much she really loved being a WASP until she almost wasn’t.
W
INGED
V
ICTORY WAS AT THE
J
UST
T
EAZZING BEAUTY SHOP HAVING
her hair done when her friend Pearl Jeff came in looking for her. Pearl had just heard something from a friend, and she couldn’t wait to tell Lenore.
T
HIRTY MINUTES LATER
, L
ENORE
came storming in Sookie’s front door and marched back to the kitchen where Sookie was sitting and having her lunch. “I want to talk to you, young lady, and I mean right now. I am just appalled at your obvious complete lack of discretion. Have you forgotten you’re a married woman?”
Sookie looked up. “What?”
“I wondered why you were never home anymore and why I could never get you on the phone, and now I know.”
“What?”
“You know what. Word has just reached my ears about what’s been going on between you and that Dr. Shapiro, and I want you to put a stop to this nonsense right now.”
“But, Mother—”
“Don’t you ‘But, Mother’ me. Why, the very idea of you having … whatever you are having … is disgraceful. Earle Poole, Jr., is
one of the finest men I have ever known in my life, and now you do this?”
“Do what? What are you talking about?”
“Everybody knows you two have been meeting all over town. I simply will not allow you to treat Earle this way. Earle has been nothing but an ideal husband and father, and you’re lucky to have him. I just hope and pray I’m not too late, and he doesn’t find out. Remember, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and with his looks, why, he could have any woman he wanted, so I would suggest you just nip this little thing in the bud right now, before you wake up and find yourself a divorced woman.”
