HEROES
The house had been vacuumed, dusted, scrubbed and polished like never before, at least not in Nick’s memory. Normally his mother put very little energy into housekeeping, but his week Lucille Shane was on a mission.
Nick tried to keep a low profile and not be drawn into his mother’s wake, but there was no place to hide. He had been assigned specific duties in his room, plus scrubbing and polishing chores elsewhere. He was beginning to hate the smell of Old Dutch Cleanser and Johnson’s Furniture Polish.
All of this activity stemmed from the fact that his Uncle John was coming to visit. His father’s younger brother had never been to their home in the Northern California town of Vallejo. In fact, the brothers hadn’t seen or spoken to one another in nearly a decade. Recently there had been an exchange of letters, then a tentative phone call. And now Uncle John would be coming to call for Sunday dinner.
John Shane had followed his older brother into the Navy and had decided to make a career of it. In 1949, with the Great War over, the Navy wasn’t a bad place to be. Now his ship was in port in San Francisco undergoing repairs. It was the perfect opportunity for the brothers to put their differences behind them.
Nick’s mother was determined that everything would be perfect. The house would be in order and she would prepare a Sunday feast that John would never forget. She shopped at the commissary on Mare Island Naval Shipyard and purchased a nice lean sirloin tip roast. She would serve the roast with oven-roasted potatoes and vegetables picked fresh from their garden, including Nick Sr.’s prized sweet corn. To top it off, there would be German chocolate cake for dessert.
Lucille picked out the clothes that Nick and his older brother Richie would wear, and she made sure they were clean and pressed. Now as Sunday approached, she flew through the house running down a mental checklist. Had anything been overlooked? If so, she would smoke it out and make sure it was fixed.
Sunday morning came and Nick could feel the tension in the air. Uncle John would arrive from San Francisco on a Greyhound bus around 2:00 pm. Nick Sr. would take the local transit bus downtown to the station to meet him. After a stop at the Towne Club for a short beer, they would catch the bus back home. Dinner was planned for 4:00 pm.
Nick sat on the couch in the front room, trying to be inconspicuous lest he get roped into last minute chores. Just then his father emerged from the bedroom wearing his best sport coat and slacks. Nick was used to seeing his father in work clothes, heavy tan pants and shirts with labels that read Big Ben Davis. When his father dressed in a jacket and slacks, it was a serious occasion.
“Oh, Daddy, don’t you look nice.” Lucille approached her husband and straightened the lapel on his jacket, even though it was perfectly straight. Nick didn’t often see his mom flirt with his dad. He was a little embarrassed.
“Okay, I’m gonna take off. The bus will be here soon.” Nick could tell his father was nervous.
“Just be careful, okay?” There was concern in Lucille’s voice.
“Careful? What the hell, Lou! I’m just going to pick him up at the bus station.” Nick Sr. was a little annoyed.
“Okay, Daddy, you know what I mean. Just be careful.”
“Oh, alright.”
“We’ll look for you around 4:00. Do you have your watch?”
Nick’s father took the watch that hung from a gold chain out of his pocket and checked the time against the clock on the bookcase. He gave Lucille a peck on the lips and headed for the bus stop on the corner, across from their house.
For a fleeting moment, Nick felt a tingle of excitement over his uncle’s visit. It passed quickly. There wasn’t much he could do now except hang around the house until it was time to take his bath and get dressed. He would take a cue from Richie and hang out in his room.
__________
Nick would be seven years old that summer, old enough to exhibit some vanity when the occasion called for it. He took a look in the bathroom mirror and found himself to be quite the handsome lad, wearing the clothes his mother had laid out for him, his hair plastered down with a generous quantity of Wildroot Cream Oil.
He walked out into the living room and saw that it was nearly 4:00 PM. In the kitchen, his mother was taking the roast out of the oven. It could stand for few minutes before being carved. The table was set and there were just a few last minute things to do when John and Nick Sr. arrived.
Nick was looking out the front window when the bus arrived at their corner. He felt that twinge of excitement again, but it passed when the bus left the corner and nobody got off. He wandered back to the kitchen to tell his mom.
“They weren’t on the bus, Mom. Nobody got off.”
“It’s okay, Nickie. I’m sure they’ll be on the next one.” Lucille was a little concerned. She wasn’t sure when the next bus was scheduled on a Sunday.
Her concern grew as time passed and the men had still not arrived. Around 5:00 pm, she thought about calling the Towne Club, but she knew her husband and she knew that would be the wrong thing to do. At 6:00 pm, she was doing her best to preserve the dinner she had prepared, covering dishes in aluminum wrap, growing more anxious as the time passed.
“Mom, I’m starving. When are we going to eat?” Her older son Richie was losing his patience.
“Yeah, Mom, me too.” For once, Nick agreed with his brother.
At 6:45 pm, she gave in to the pleadings from her sons. She prepared plates of food for them, all but the special sweet corn, which she was waiting to boil at the last instant. They ate quietly and quickly. They could see the strain on their mother’s face and they knew better than to ask questions.
When they finished eating, Richie asked if he could go over to a friend’s house. Lucille thought for a moment, and then said yes, as long as he was prepared for a phone call telling him to come home and meet his uncle.
Nick thought about asking for a piece of cake, but he held his tongue. His mother was blinking back tears now, and he felt awful for her. So bad he even cleared his dishes and put them on the counter in the kitchen.
Nick and his mother were sitting in the front room, half listening to the radio, when the Yellow Cab pulled up in front of the house. It was after 8:30 pm and growing dark outside. They looked at each other, then back to the street, surprised at the sight of a cab in their neighborhood. The lights came on inside the cab and combined with the lighted sign on the roof to cast a yellow glow on their front lawn.
“Nick, stay here. Don’t come outside!” His mother was emphatic. She opened the front door and went out onto the porch. Nick stood at the screen door, trying to stay out of sight. Something made him want to hide.
The rear door of the cab opened and Nick could see his father inside. He called to his wife who went to cab and began to speak to him. He couldn’t hear their conversation above the engine noise and the strange voice crackling over the two-way radio in the cab. Nick looked up to see that the neighbors across the street had come out onto their porch to see what the commotion was about.
Nick saw his mother take his father’s wallet and hand some bills to the cab driver. Then she took Nick Sr.’s arm and began to help him out of the cab. He made it to his feet and threw one arm over Lucille’s shoulder. They had started across the front lawn, the cab still sitting at the curb, when his father lost his balance and tumbled onto the grass, taking Lucille with him. She got to her feet quickly, but Nick Sr. rolled over on the grass, laughing out loud. The cab driver came over then to lend a hand, and together, he and Lucille helped his father up the steps and into the house.
Nick saw more neighbors coming out of their houses, unable to turn away from the spectacle. He pressed back against the wall of the living room, trying hard to stay out of sight. The smell of alcohol was thick around his father as they brought him into the house. They got him into his chair at the head of the dining room table and the cabbie took his leave to loud shouts of “thank-you” from Nick Sr.
“Daddy, what happened? I was worried sick.” Lucille fussed around her husband, dabbing at the grass stains on his pants with a napkin.
“What happened? What happened?! What do you think happened, Lou?” Nick could hear the anger in his father’s voice. “It was the same old shit. The same crap I’ve heard from him for years. How I left the family and left the farm and everybody else had to work their ass off. How it broke my old man’s heart. As if that cold sonofabitch had a heart. He never showed it to me, that’s for damn sure.”
“But, Daddy, I thought you two were going to get past all that.”
“Like hell! Not with that little bastard John. He wouldn’t quit, Lou. I told him to quit, but he wouldn’t quit. Same old shit, all over again.”
“But what happened? Where is John?”
“What happened is I popped him. Right in his fat mouth. Knocked him on his ass. Then Pete Bennett stepped in. He put me a cab and he had some guys take John back to the Greyhound station. That sonofabitch’ll be on his ship in about an hour. That’s where he belongs. He’s the Navy’s problem now.”
“Oh, Daddy, no. And I worked so hard all week to make this special dinner…” Her voice tailed off, as though she knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. It was dead quite for a minute, like the calm in the eye of a hurricane.
“Special dinner, eh? Special dinner? And just where is this special dinner?”
“Daddy, the kids were hungry. I finally had to give them their dinner. It was nearly seven o’clock.”
“So, you couldn’t wait to carve that damn roast. Couldn’t wait. A man works hard all week and his family can’t wait to sit down to Sunday dinner. Now that’s a fine piece of work.”
“I can fix you a plate in a minute, Daddy. I’ll heat it up for you. It’s a fine roast, it really is.” Lucille started for the kitchen, but Nick Sr. grabbed her wrist in his iron grip.
“Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you. I don’t want any of your damn roast.”
“Daddy, that hurts! That’s my bad arm, please… let go.” Since recovering from a stroke, Lucille had always favored her right arm.
“You think that hurts, well it can get worse.” Nick Sr.’s voice was hard and bitter.
“Ow, Daddy, please stop!”
With that, Nick couldn’t take it anymore. He bolted around the corner into the dining room and charged his father sitting at the table. Swinging his fists like clubs, he pounded on his father’s shoulder. “Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting her!”
Suddenly, Nick realized what he had done. He staggered back a few steps and stared in shock at his parents, who stared back at him in disbelief. Then he spun around and ran to the hall and into his bedroom, throwing himself on the bed, his face buried in the pillow.
The house was quiet for a minute, and then his father walked into Nick’s room and sat down on the edge of the bed. He began to rub Nick’s shoulders with his powerful hands.
“Son, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? Things got out of hand.”
For a moment, Nick was relieved. Then the smell of booze overwhelmed his senses and he was furious with his father all over again.
“Leave me alone,” he cried. “You hurt my Mom!” He swung his left arm and swatted his father’s hands away.
Nick Sr. sat up straight on the bed and said nothing for several seconds. Finally he said, “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.” With that he rose and slowly left the room.
Nick stayed in his room, crying hot tears into his pillow. He was too young to offer understanding, or quickly forgive what seemed unforgivable. Years later, when he had the responsibility of being someone’s hero – and failed just as miserably as his father had failed that night – he would come to see things in a different light. Heroes are only human, and we all fail at one time or another. By then, it was too late to make amends. All he knew on that warm summer evening was that his life had changed. For Nick and his father, things would never be the same.
__________
The house had been vacuumed, dusted, scrubbed and polished like never before, at least not in Nick’s memory. Normally his mother put very little energy into housekeeping, but his week Lucille Shane was on a mission.
Nick tried to keep a low profile and not be drawn into his mother’s wake, but there was no place to hide. He had been assigned specific duties in his room, plus scrubbing and polishing chores elsewhere. He was beginning to hate the smell of Old Dutch Cleanser and Johnson’s Furniture Polish.
All of this activity stemmed from the fact that his Uncle John was coming to visit. His father’s younger brother had never been to their home in the Northern California town of Vallejo. In fact, the brothers hadn’t seen or spoken to one another in nearly a decade. Recently there had been an exchange of letters, then a tentative phone call. And now Uncle John would be coming to call for Sunday dinner.
John Shane had followed his older brother into the Navy and had decided to make a career of it. In 1949, with the Great War over, the Navy wasn’t a bad place to be. Now his ship was in port in San Francisco undergoing repairs. It was the perfect opportunity for the brothers to put their differences behind them.
Nick’s mother was determined that everything would be perfect. The house would be in order and she would prepare a Sunday feast that John would never forget. She shopped at the commissary on Mare Island Naval Shipyard and purchased a nice lean sirloin tip roast. She would serve the roast with oven-roasted potatoes and vegetables picked fresh from their garden, including Nick Sr.’s prized sweet corn. To top it off, there would be German chocolate cake for dessert.
Lucille picked out the clothes that Nick and his older brother Richie would wear, and she made sure they were clean and pressed. Now as Sunday approached, she flew through the house running down a mental checklist. Had anything been overlooked? If so, she would smoke it out and make sure it was fixed.
Sunday morning came and Nick could feel the tension in the air. Uncle John would arrive from San Francisco on a Greyhound bus around 2:00 pm. Nick Sr. would take the local transit bus downtown to the station to meet him. After a stop at the Towne Club for a short beer, they would catch the bus back home. Dinner was planned for 4:00 pm.
Nick sat on the couch in the front room, trying to be inconspicuous lest he get roped into last minute chores. Just then his father emerged from the bedroom wearing his best sport coat and slacks. Nick was used to seeing his father in work clothes, heavy tan pants and shirts with labels that read Big Ben Davis. When his father dressed in a jacket and slacks, it was a serious occasion.
“Oh, Daddy, don’t you look nice.” Lucille approached her husband and straightened the lapel on his jacket, even though it was perfectly straight. Nick didn’t often see his mom flirt with his dad. He was a little embarrassed.
“Okay, I’m gonna take off. The bus will be here soon.” Nick could tell his father was nervous.
“Just be careful, okay?” There was concern in Lucille’s voice.
“Careful? What the hell, Lou! I’m just going to pick him up at the bus station.” Nick Sr. was a little annoyed.
“Okay, Daddy, you know what I mean. Just be careful.”
“Oh, alright.”
“We’ll look for you around 4:00. Do you have your watch?”
Nick’s father took the watch that hung from a gold chain out of his pocket and checked the time against the clock on the bookcase. He gave Lucille a peck on the lips and headed for the bus stop on the corner, across from their house.
For a fleeting moment, Nick felt a tingle of excitement over his uncle’s visit. It passed quickly. There wasn’t much he could do now except hang around the house until it was time to take his bath and get dressed. He would take a cue from Richie and hang out in his room.
__________
Nick would be seven years old that summer, old enough to exhibit some vanity when the occasion called for it. He took a look in the bathroom mirror and found himself to be quite the handsome lad, wearing the clothes his mother had laid out for him, his hair plastered down with a generous quantity of Wildroot Cream Oil.
He walked out into the living room and saw that it was nearly 4:00 PM. In the kitchen, his mother was taking the roast out of the oven. It could stand for few minutes before being carved. The table was set and there were just a few last minute things to do when John and Nick Sr. arrived.
Nick was looking out the front window when the bus arrived at their corner. He felt that twinge of excitement again, but it passed when the bus left the corner and nobody got off. He wandered back to the kitchen to tell his mom.
“They weren’t on the bus, Mom. Nobody got off.”
“It’s okay, Nickie. I’m sure they’ll be on the next one.” Lucille was a little concerned. She wasn’t sure when the next bus was scheduled on a Sunday.
Her concern grew as time passed and the men had still not arrived. Around 5:00 pm, she thought about calling the Towne Club, but she knew her husband and she knew that would be the wrong thing to do. At 6:00 pm, she was doing her best to preserve the dinner she had prepared, covering dishes in aluminum wrap, growing more anxious as the time passed.
“Mom, I’m starving. When are we going to eat?” Her older son Richie was losing his patience.
“Yeah, Mom, me too.” For once, Nick agreed with his brother.
At 6:45 pm, she gave in to the pleadings from her sons. She prepared plates of food for them, all but the special sweet corn, which she was waiting to boil at the last instant. They ate quietly and quickly. They could see the strain on their mother’s face and they knew better than to ask questions.
When they finished eating, Richie asked if he could go over to a friend’s house. Lucille thought for a moment, and then said yes, as long as he was prepared for a phone call telling him to come home and meet his uncle.
Nick thought about asking for a piece of cake, but he held his tongue. His mother was blinking back tears now, and he felt awful for her. So bad he even cleared his dishes and put them on the counter in the kitchen.
Nick and his mother were sitting in the front room, half listening to the radio, when the Yellow Cab pulled up in front of the house. It was after 8:30 pm and growing dark outside. They looked at each other, then back to the street, surprised at the sight of a cab in their neighborhood. The lights came on inside the cab and combined with the lighted sign on the roof to cast a yellow glow on their front lawn.
“Nick, stay here. Don’t come outside!” His mother was emphatic. She opened the front door and went out onto the porch. Nick stood at the screen door, trying to stay out of sight. Something made him want to hide.
The rear door of the cab opened and Nick could see his father inside. He called to his wife who went to cab and began to speak to him. He couldn’t hear their conversation above the engine noise and the strange voice crackling over the two-way radio in the cab. Nick looked up to see that the neighbors across the street had come out onto their porch to see what the commotion was about.
Nick saw his mother take his father’s wallet and hand some bills to the cab driver. Then she took Nick Sr.’s arm and began to help him out of the cab. He made it to his feet and threw one arm over Lucille’s shoulder. They had started across the front lawn, the cab still sitting at the curb, when his father lost his balance and tumbled onto the grass, taking Lucille with him. She got to her feet quickly, but Nick Sr. rolled over on the grass, laughing out loud. The cab driver came over then to lend a hand, and together, he and Lucille helped his father up the steps and into the house.
Nick saw more neighbors coming out of their houses, unable to turn away from the spectacle. He pressed back against the wall of the living room, trying hard to stay out of sight. The smell of alcohol was thick around his father as they brought him into the house. They got him into his chair at the head of the dining room table and the cabbie took his leave to loud shouts of “thank-you” from Nick Sr.
“Daddy, what happened? I was worried sick.” Lucille fussed around her husband, dabbing at the grass stains on his pants with a napkin.
“What happened? What happened?! What do you think happened, Lou?” Nick could hear the anger in his father’s voice. “It was the same old shit. The same crap I’ve heard from him for years. How I left the family and left the farm and everybody else had to work their ass off. How it broke my old man’s heart. As if that cold sonofabitch had a heart. He never showed it to me, that’s for damn sure.”
“But, Daddy, I thought you two were going to get past all that.”
“Like hell! Not with that little bastard John. He wouldn’t quit, Lou. I told him to quit, but he wouldn’t quit. Same old shit, all over again.”
“But what happened? Where is John?”
“What happened is I popped him. Right in his fat mouth. Knocked him on his ass. Then Pete Bennett stepped in. He put me a cab and he had some guys take John back to the Greyhound station. That sonofabitch’ll be on his ship in about an hour. That’s where he belongs. He’s the Navy’s problem now.”
“Oh, Daddy, no. And I worked so hard all week to make this special dinner…” Her voice tailed off, as though she knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. It was dead quite for a minute, like the calm in the eye of a hurricane.
“Special dinner, eh? Special dinner? And just where is this special dinner?”
“Daddy, the kids were hungry. I finally had to give them their dinner. It was nearly seven o’clock.”
“So, you couldn’t wait to carve that damn roast. Couldn’t wait. A man works hard all week and his family can’t wait to sit down to Sunday dinner. Now that’s a fine piece of work.”
“I can fix you a plate in a minute, Daddy. I’ll heat it up for you. It’s a fine roast, it really is.” Lucille started for the kitchen, but Nick Sr. grabbed her wrist in his iron grip.
“Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you. I don’t want any of your damn roast.”
“Daddy, that hurts! That’s my bad arm, please… let go.” Since recovering from a stroke, Lucille had always favored her right arm.
“You think that hurts, well it can get worse.” Nick Sr.’s voice was hard and bitter.
“Ow, Daddy, please stop!”
With that, Nick couldn’t take it anymore. He bolted around the corner into the dining room and charged his father sitting at the table. Swinging his fists like clubs, he pounded on his father’s shoulder. “Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting her!”
Suddenly, Nick realized what he had done. He staggered back a few steps and stared in shock at his parents, who stared back at him in disbelief. Then he spun around and ran to the hall and into his bedroom, throwing himself on the bed, his face buried in the pillow.
The house was quiet for a minute, and then his father walked into Nick’s room and sat down on the edge of the bed. He began to rub Nick’s shoulders with his powerful hands.
“Son, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? Things got out of hand.”
For a moment, Nick was relieved. Then the smell of booze overwhelmed his senses and he was furious with his father all over again.
“Leave me alone,” he cried. “You hurt my Mom!” He swung his left arm and swatted his father’s hands away.
Nick Sr. sat up straight on the bed and said nothing for several seconds. Finally he said, “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.” With that he rose and slowly left the room.
Nick stayed in his room, crying hot tears into his pillow. He was too young to offer understanding, or quickly forgive what seemed unforgivable. Years later, when he had the responsibility of being someone’s hero – and failed just as miserably as his father had failed that night – he would come to see things in a different light. Heroes are only human, and we all fail at one time or another. By then, it was too late to make amends. All he knew on that warm summer evening was that his life had changed. For Nick and his father, things would never be the same.
__________
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