The Future Homemakers of America (14 page)

We seen the smoke as we crossed the Gypsum River. Nobody said anything, but Ida drove a little faster. By the time we got to the base we could smell burned rubber, and fuel and other things too. Everything was quiet though. The crash trucks had already gone down, and military don't gather in the street, waiting on bad news. They stay home, stand by their telephone.

Ours had been ringing out. It stopped just as I come through the door. I tried Betty. Her line was busy. I tried Gayle, she wasn't home yet. It was nearly time to pick up Crystal from school, but I wasn't really thinking of that. I wasn't thinking anything much. All I knew was, I wanted to keep on the move. If there was bad news on the way, I didn't want to be an easy target.

I was nearly out the door when the phone w'tot again. It was Betty. She sounded real tense.

‘Where were you?’

‘In town. You heard anything?’

‘Nothing. I don't like it. Why don't you call the squadron office?

Wives did not call the squadron office.

I said, ‘Betty, you want that call made, you do it.’

‘I'm not allowed,’ she said. ‘I ever called around, checking up on him, Ed'd kill me.’

I said, ‘Tell you what. Why don't we both get off the line? Give Ed and Vern the chance to call home personally and put us out of our misery?’

I paced around some, then I ignored my own advice and called Pearl.

‘You hear anything yet?’

She missed a beat. ‘Well …’ she said, ‘the word down here is, it's a crew from 96
^th
. But, honey, don't take my word.’

I sat down.

‘Peg?’ she said. ‘Want me to pick up Crystal? I have to get Ritchie anyhow. Peg?’

I didn't wanna stay indoors. If somebody said they
thought
it was 96
^th
, then it
was
96
^th
The odds against Vern Dewey coming home safe had shortened. That's when I started trying to cut a deal with God.

Betty had heard the same rumour. She was mopping her floors when I got over there. She stopped to pour iced tea, but neither of us touched it. We didn't even talk. I was just going over things in my mind, see if there had been any omens. Trying to remember the last thing Vern had said to me. And Betty kept mopping, mopping. When her phone rang, we both jumped a mile. Then Betty just froze.

‘You get it,’ she said.

I got it.

Lois said, ‘Peg? Is that you? I could have swore I dialled Betty's number.’

Lo had been out looking for Gayle and failed to find her, but she'd seen Dewitt Haas, meant to be on a rest day but he was on his way down to the pad, and he'd heard it was a B-47, no survivors. That meant three men.

He'd also heard, not confirmed, it was a major, a first LT and a non-com. It was tight inside a Stratojet, I knew. Just the pilot and co-pilot, one behind the other, and the navigator in the nose section.

‘I'm coming over,’ Lois said. ‘Might as well go out of our minds together.’

I went out on to the front yard to wait for her, and Betty come as far as the doorstep, and then there was Lo, striding across the street, and Gayle cruising along in her old Ford, waving and tooting, not even realising an incident had occurred, and coming the other way, two faces nobody ever wanted to see. Chaplain Major Lawrence Conyers. And Mrs Lieutenant Colonel Shelby Munt, Friend of Widows and Orphans.

34

Landing a B-47 was a finely judged thing. This was a well-known fact. The undercarriage was dropped, to act like a air brake, so the plane would lose altitude fast, but the flaps weren't lowered until the final approach. First problem was keeping its speed down somewhere in between stalling and running outta tarmac and that depended on how light she was, coming in from a sortie, low on fuel. Then, once you had her down, there was the problem of keeping her down. The main wheels were mounted in tandem and if they didn't touch down together, she'd bounce right back up o'ff the runway. If that happened, main thing was to avoid trying for a go-around, because you probably didn't have the acceleration to succeed. She was fitted with a extra drogue, so they could maintain power and still come to a halt, kinda having your cake and eating it, but even so. That day the senior officer was bringing her in, not so used to handling her skittish ways as his co-pilot. He deployed the drag chute, bounced her, one wing dipped, he used too much rudder and over she went, 6,000 gallons of fuel inside her and three good men.

Captain John Deacon. First Lieutenant Carl ‘Okey’ Jackson. Warrant Officer Lyle Clark.

35

We took turns sitting with her. When you held her in your arms, she felt like a little bird. I got home from one of my sessions, Vern had bust the bathroom mirror with his fist.

I said, ‘You all right?’

‘I am now,’ he said.

I never seen him cry, but there was plenty going on inside.

Ida loaned Gayle a black coat. I went to Drew's Drapers for black chiffon scarves. Okey's dad come up from Boomer, but his mom couldn't face it. She was prone to sinking spells. All Gayle's mom had said, when she heard, was, ‘I'm sorry for your loss, but don't think you can just come back here. Your bed's took.’

Vern and Ed and Herb were honorary pall-bearers. I sat up front with Gayle, Lo the other side of her, then Betty. Her hands were froze, even though it was a sunny day. The chapel door was open so we heard the escort being called to attention. Then the band started ‘Rock of Ages’ and I didn't know if I could hold myself together, sitting up there where everybody could see me. I wished Audrey was there in my place. She'd was good at that kinda thing.

Then they carried him in, and our boys were all chewing up the inside of their cheeks, screwing up their eyes, taking it like men.

The chaplain said it was a humbling thing, to honour the patriotic sacrifice of Carl Jackson and bring the message of hope to his young widow that God so loved the world he gave his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and give us life everlasting.

They fixed the casket back on the caisson while the band played ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save’, and then we got in the first car, Gayle, Mr Jackson, Lois and me.

Gayle smelled of liquor, but I ain't criticising. The escort was brought to order.

She said, ‘They never let me see him.’

Her voice was like a little bird squeak.

There was a fly-over, of course, in formation, one position empty. That was when Vern nearly lost it. I was watching him. Okey was like a kid brother to him. When he first joined 96
^th,
Vern used to play jokes on him, send him for a gallon of propwash, or a dozen skyhooks. But he soon stopped, when he saw what kind of aviator Okey was.

The body-bearers brought the casket to the grave while the escort presented arms and then they lifted the flag over him and held it there while the padre said his piece, earth to earth and all that. Then the firing squad fired three volleys and the bugler sounded Taps.

Fades the light, and afar goeth day.

Cometh night

And a star leadeth all to their rest.

Me and Lo were just about holding hex up by then. Darned if I know who was holding us up.

The CO presented Gayle with the flag, but she gave it to Mr Jackson.

‘I always knew this'd happen,’ she said. ‘I knew right from the start.’

Later on, Betty said, ‘Best thing now would be if she found out she was in the family way after all.’

‘No, Betty,’ Lois said. ‘Best thing'd be if you kept those kinda dumb ideas to yourself.’

36

‘See,’ Vern said, ‘Okey would have handled it. Used the flaps and been sparing with the rudder. He'd have brought her in all right. He was a natural.’

Vern was already rearranging the facts, blaming events on the pilot, a man he never did rate, nothing but a chairborne-ranger, etcetera, lost his nerve and took two good men with him.

I didn't argue with him. I could see, if Vern was gonna get outta bed next day and do what he had to do, we better not start on all the ways that underpowered top-heavy bitch of a B-47 could find to kill you, even if you were a natural-born aviator.

Crystal said, ‘What house'll Auntie Gayle live in now?’

We'd been over there, helping her to pack. She'd gotten three weeks to quit.

I said, ‘She's going back to North Carolina, see her mommy.’

Crystal was sitting on Vern, squashing his face up with her little hands. ‘But why didn't she just stay with her mommy and daddy anyway? That's what I'm going to do,’ she said. ‘I'm never going away. I'm gonna stay here for ever and ever, amen. Daddy? Uncle Okey got all burned up. Sherry and Deana told me. Why did he?’

‘Because he was defending us from the threat and cancer of Communism, and I want you to remember that. What was he defending us from?’

‘From the threat,’ she said. ‘Can I go play out with Ritchie?’

Gayle took the Greyhound back to where she'd come from. There was a rollaway bed and a job packing cigarettes waiting for her in Winston-Salem, thanks to Okey's sister.

I drove her to the bus. Lois and Betty come along too.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I guess this is goodbye.’

I don't know what kinda fairweather friends she took us for.

‘That poor child,’ Betty said, after we'd waved her out of sight. ‘I don't care to think what lies ahead of her.’

‘Put it like that,’ Lois said, ‘I don't care to think what lies ahead for any of us. Tell you what. Gayle's young. She ain't got brats to feed. And she's still got her looks. All up, I'd say her chances were pretty good.’

‘Well
I
wouldn't trade places with her,’ Betty said. ‘I'm so glad I have my Ed.

‘’Sure,’ Lo said, ‘we're all glad too. Keeps him off the streets. If
you
didn't have him, there's no telling.’

THE TIMES WEDNESDAY JUNE 3 1953

THE CROWNING OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II

The impresive Scene in the Abbey as the Archbishop of Canterbury boids aloft St. Edward’s Crown before plaring it upon the head Of Queen Elizabeth II. Het Majesty, seated in King Edward’s Chair, has received the Orh, the King, the seeptre with the cross, and the Road with the Dove. On the extreme right is the Duke of Edinburgh, and on the left the Archbishop of york. In front of the Royal Gallery are the Mistress of the Robes, the Dowager Dueheas of Devonshire, and the Minids of Honour.

The Queen Seated in her hand of Istate in the Abbey. In the Royal Gallery(left to right) are: Princess Aleaandra the Durshes of king the Princess Royal, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Princess Marqates, and the Duchess, of Gloueester with has two sons.

The Duke in Edinburgh Lneeling on the steps of the ‘I, Phillip, Duchess written do become your liece man of life and limb, and of earthly worship…

37

On May thirty-first, 1953, Betty washed all her drapes, made a double quantity of Five-Can Casserole and pressed, Ed's blues before she gave in and admitted she had had a few pains. At 6 p.m. on June second she produced another 10lb girl, just as Queen Elizabeth the Second was arriving at Westminster Abbey to get crowned. Betty wanted to name her Elizabeth Regina in honour of the coincidence, but Ed said it had to be Carla, in memory of Okey Jackson.