A “Becoming” Extract in sequence: Furlough/1954

March 20, 1954 To April 2, 1954

New York City/Skokie/Chicago, Illinois

Furlough/1954

The plane taxied slowly. It turned to the left and to the left again. After a minute or two of quiet hesitation…

A plume of smoke belched from each of the four engines as the propellers, one after the other, spun to life, blurred as their speed increased, then became invisible.

The roaring of the engines barely heard within the cabin, still stationary, shuddering, straining to be on its way…Straining. Straining, and now, as the airliner lurched forward, his head jerked backward.

Slowly… Faster… Faster… Faster… faster, faster. Faster until the patched cracks in the runway and the weedy grass alongside the concrete strip became a blur…

Inches. The wheels were inches off the ground… A foot… A yard… Two, three, five, ten yards off the ground…

The airplane rose in steeply angled flight over the terminal and hangers and planes and commercial structures that dotted LaGuardia Airport... then over houses and yards…

Higher… Higher… Higher…

Banking westerly, the mid-morning sun, moving from port to starboard reflected off the millions of windows of the skyscrapers of New York City.

This being the first time he’d flown; excited, terrified, sweat prickling his scalp he wiped his sweating palms on the knees of his dress-blues.

Staring out the window watching the diminishing city, forcing himself to relax he leaned his head against the headrest. Wanting a cigarette more than anything in life—at the moment even more than sex—he stared anxiously at the ‘NO SMOKING’ sign…

**** 

… ‘Ding’. ‘Ding’. ‘Ding’.

The side of his head laying against the window, hearing the soft bell while feeling a shift in the plane. Opening his eyes he saw a steeply downward angled wing with nothing beneath but gray sky. His heart pounding, in near panic, looking up, ‘NO SMOKING—FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT’. Mitchell looked at his watch: ‘3:30’.

His forehead pressed against the double Plexiglas window, looking down again, Oh, God! He saw—it… ‘Lake Michigan’. Lake Michigan!

‘Ding’. ‘Ding’. ‘Ding’.

Reminding him, he touched the belt around his waist which he’d never unbuckled and realized that within minutes the plane would be landing and that after a year and a half he’ll be home… ‘Home’!

Turning northwest for an approach to Chicago’s ‘Midway Airport’, the airplane’s flaps lowered and the wheels dropped with a bumping clatter that helped slow the plane’s forward motion causing Mitchell to have the frightening sensation that the plane was stopping in midair inducing a few moments of silent panic… Until the far-off dollhouses became larger and he realized that they were still moving—that the plane was still flying.

The threads of the far-off runway loomed closer…Closer… Larger… Larger… Larger, until the runway was all there was under the plane and with a puff of smoke from each of its wheels, the plane lightly bumped once, twice... and touched down…

Now Mitchell realized just how fast they were going…

Fast… Fast… Slower… Slower... until the plane rolled to a stop.

Home. ‘Home’!

****

“Mitchie! Mitchie!”

There! “Mom!” Waving. “Mom!” Running to his mother. Held in her arms Mitchell felt the warmth of her embrace.

Separating, the son and mother looked into the moistened eyes of the other.

“Hey, I’m here, too!”

“Dad!” Noticing splotches of gray in his hair and in the stubble of his beard that were not there when they had parted at Union Station. Hugging, “Hi, Dad!”

Embarrassed. “Hey!” Pulling back, holding his son at arms’ length. “Outside of the couple of pictures you’ve sent us, now’s the first time we’ve seen you in uniform. You look ‘great’, Mitch.”

“But so skinny,” Myra chimed in.

No one had ‘ever’ called him ‘skinny’ before.

“Sounds like a Jewish mother to me.” Walter jokingly chastised.

“An’ don’t forget me!” said the tall, well-known stranger standing alongside Walter.

“Who the hell’s this guy?”

“ ‘Come on’, Mitchie!” Lawrence blushed. “You know it’s me!”

“ ‘Larry’?” Standing back, “It’s you, Larry? I can’t believe it! Holy smokes, look at you! You’re almost as tall me!”

Approaching the age of ten, Lawrence was a scant inche shorter than his brother.

The two reached their hands forward but, “ ‘Hell’!” Mitchell said. Grabbing him by the shoulders he pulled his brother into his arms.

Standing shyly behind his mother. “And this?” Taking his cap off and reaching behind Myra he put it on five-year-old Morton’s head, “This ‘can’t’ be Mortie! ‘Hi’! Boy oh boy, did I ever miss you!”

Stepping aside, Myra moved her youngest son forward.

Kneeling, holding his arms forward. “Hey, Mortie…” Tears formed as he realized that he was a stranger to his own brother. “You remember me, don’t’j’ya? I missed you more’n anything!”

Hesitating another second “Yeah!” Throwing himself into his brother’s arms almost bowling him over. “Hi, Mitchie!” Both arms about Mitchell’s neck “Sure I merember you!”

“Oh, God!”Llooking from face to face. Realizing just how much he had missed his family, “I missed you, ‘all’ of you, so much!” Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he scrubbed it across his eyes.

“Okay!” Walter said. “Enough with the ‘schmaltz’ already! Let’s get your bags and go home.”

****

During weekdays, with traffic the drive from Midway Airport— on the far south side of Chicago to Skokie, beyond the far northern fringe of Chicago —could easily take two hours, but on this Saturday traffic was minimal.

“Mom, go on, ‘tell’ him!”

Sitting in front, Mitchell turned to look at his mother who was sandwiched between the boys on the spacious back seat of the maroon, ‘1954 Buick Roadmaster’. “Tell me ‘what’?”

All three smiling, Myra looked from Lawrence to Morton who, holding back laughter had both hands over his mouth.

Smiling, too, “Tell me ‘what’?” Mitchell asked again.

Unable to carry a joke for longer than thirty seconds, glancing at his wife in the rear-view mirror, “For Christ sake, Myra,” Walter said, “ ‘tell him’!”

“Okay.” Myra said seriously. “We adopted a little girl.”

“Yeah,” Morton giggled. “we ‘dopted a little girl.”

Stunned at this, They ‘adopted a little girl’?“You, ‘what’?” Mitchell thought he knew how much his mother wanted a daughter, but…

“Yeah, we ‘dopted a…”

Reaching behind his mother, Lawrence slapped Morton on the back of his head.

“Ow! ‘I’m tel-ling’!”

Looking at each other, Mitchell and Lawrence began to laugh.

“Come on! Mom, Dad? I ‘don’t’ believe it! You guys ‘really’ adopted a baby?” By their attitude he knew, It’s got to be some kind of a joke.

“You’ll see,” Myra said mysteriously.

“Myra, for Christ sake…”

Slapping her husband playfully on the back of his head, “Shush!”

“ ‘I’m tel-ling’!” Walter mimicked.

“A baby girl, huh?” Mitchell asked, “ ‘Really’? What’s her name, then?”

“Wait, you’ll see. Don’t be such a ‘nudnick’.”

****

This year ‘March came in as a lamb’, and was going out the same way.

As the Buick turned off ‘Crawford Avenue’ onto ‘Lee Street’, Mitchell saw that the winter-burnt lawns of Skokie were blotched with green and the limbs of trees and bushes hung heavily with burgeoning life. In flower patches and soil borders along sidewalks leading to houses the sharp pointed spears of tulips had begun their push from soil to sun.

Rolling the window open, putting his head through and breathing deeply Mitchell smelled the odors of spring… And home.

“Mom,” reaching over the seat, taking her hand. “It’s great to be home!”

The Buick stopped in front of the pie-shaped lot.

Opening the door. Stepping out, Mitchell looked at the house.

He had never thought of it as beautiful before but it was ‘home’ and he was home and nothing—‘nothing’—had ever looked better.

Fitting his key in the lock, “Come on, Mitchie! Don’t you want to meet your sister?” Unlocking and opening the front door Lawrence stepped aside as…

There was a rush of black and white as, bounding out the door, a young, full-grown Dalmatian flung its front paws onto Walter’s chest almost knocking him off the stoop.

“Walt, I thought you were going to break her of that!”

“Yeah, I will… ‘Hi, pup’,” Walter said affectionately rubbing the dog behind her ears. “Don’t be such a ‘kvetch’, Myra.” Pushing the dog down, “Mitchie, meet our new ‘kid’.”

“She’s ‘beautiful’!” Turning the dog in his direction, rubbing both sides of her muzzle. “What’s her name?”

“ ‘Crickie’!”

“ ‘Cricket’!” Myra corrected her youngest son. “Her name is ‘Cricket’.”

Hearing her name, pulling from Mitchell’s hands Cricket turned to Myra, and as she did her tail whipped both sides of his dark-blue uniform leaving his leg speckled with short, white hair.

“If we could only train her to shed her ‘black’ on ‘dark’,” Walter said, smiling, “and her ‘white’ on light colors, she’d be perfect.”

Still outside. “Go on in, Mitchie,” Myra urged. “You’re home now.”

Standing in the doorway looking in—The same sofa and chairs, coffee table, lamps and large, split-leaf philodendron still stood in the ‘exact’ places they had been on the day he had left home.

Although in the year and a half ‘nothin’g had changed, his home looked ‘wonderfully’ new.

Taking a running start, crashing into his buttocks. “Come on!” Morton propelled his big brother three steps into the living room.

Grabbing him. “You little squirt!” Pulling Morton onto the carpeted floor. As he rolled over his baby brother in make-believe fight, Cricket joined in by shoving her muzzle between Mitchell and Morton and with lapping tongue washed both faces.

Laughing, letting the little boy get the best of him, sitting on his chest giving his big brother an Indian head-rub. “ ‘Ow’! Wonder who taught you that… Pattoie!” Pretending to spit as Cricket stuck her tongue into his mouth, he looked at Larry who was sitting on the chair by the door watching his brothers and Cricket play.

“Yeah!” Patting his head tenderly. “Wonder who taught me that?”

“Mitchie, guess what we’re having for dinner.”

“Let’s see, Mom.” Holding Cricket by her collar, turning his face from the dog’s over-zealous tongue. “Today is Saturday. Um? Would ‘lox’n’bagels’ be a good guess?”

“Yes… Unless you’d like something else.”

“ ‘No’!” he said emphatically. “Mom, would you believe I dream about lox’n’bagels?”

Weirdly, the only dream Mitchell could remember, other than an occasional dream of Susan, was of a family dinner of lox and bagels.

Climbing off his brother’s stomach, heading to the bathroom. “Got’a go.”

“Come on,” Taking Mitchell’s suitcase, “I’ll help you put your stuff away.” Going upstairs, Lawrence turned right, to the front bedroom.

“Hey, you don’t have to change rooms just because I’m home. Really, I don’t mind sleeping with Mortie.”

“Nah, I want you to have your old room while you’re home.”

****

“Hello.”

“ ‘Normie’! Hi! It’s me!”

“’Mitchie’! Hi! When’d you get in?”

“They got me from ‘Midway’ about two hours ago.”

“How long you in for?”

“Two weeks… What’ch’ya doin’?”

“Nothing much. Just sitting around watching television… Hey, am I ever glad to hear your voice again!”

If either boy had a sense of ‘déjà vu’, it was because they’d had this same conversation —practically word for word— three months short of ten years before when Mitchell came home from ‘Baylor Military School’.

The line silent a number of seconds, neither spoke, till…

“So, Mitch,” breaking the silence, “ ‘it’s over’? You’re ‘not’… You ‘don’t’ think about…?”

“ ‘Ol’ what’s’er name’? No! That’s why I waited this long before I came home; to be sure it was over, and it ‘is’.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

“Hey, Normie, know what I’d really like to do tonight? Uh, that’s if you’re not busy. You’re not going steady or engaged or anything?”

“Well, now that you mention it, I ‘am’ going steady… with ‘Ava Gardner’, and we do have a date tonight! But what the hell, for ‘you’, Pal, I’ll break it… What would you ‘really like to do tonight’?”

“The ‘J’!” Looking out the window he saw Walter and the boys sanding the hull of the boat. “The kids still hang out at the ‘J’?”

“Yeah. And on a night like tonight looks like it’s going to be there ought’a be a million broads around… That ‘is’ kind’a what you had in mind, isn’t it?”

“Yeah! ‘Of course’!”

“Yeah! I kind’a thought.”

“Yeah! And you’ll never believe it, Normie, but what I want to do is to meet a good, old-fashioned Jewish broad.”

“Even if they do think ‘their tits are made of gold’?”

“Well,” Mitchell said hopefully, “maybe now that they’re older…”

“Don’t bet on it, Pal!”

“Yeah. Well, we’ll see.”

“Yeah. But don’t be too disappointed.”

“Yeah. So, what time should I pick you up?”

“Hey, any time. My folks’ll love seeing you!”

“Okay. See you about, uh, ‘seven, seven-thirty’?”

“Yeah. See you then, Mitch.”

“Hey, Mom.” Coming up behind Myra, putting his arms about her waist. “I got time for a shower?”

“Yes.” Turning form the sink, “ ‘And straw is cheaper than hay’.” she said with a smile.

****

Having taken a shower he dressed in Levi’s, a fresh T-shirt and his old, white-buck shoes.

“Hi! Chow almost ready?”

At the sink again. Looking at her eldest son in ‘civvies’. Nothing’s changed, Myra thought. It’s as if the last year and a half had never happened, and as if he had never left home.

****

After a slow, leisurely—three lox and bagel, with cream cheese, tomatoes and sweet onion sandwiches type of—catch-up-on-news dinner, Mitchell went upstairs to find a shirt.

However, rather than searching the long bar in the bedroom to bedroom walk-through closet, opening the bottom drawer of his old dresser Mitchell removed the cranberry-colored cashmere sweater from its plastic bag. Holding it against his face, feeling it’s buttery softness he thought, ‘Susan’, and he remembered Susan and...

“ ‘Fuck it’!” No longer the shrine of his lost love! Now being just a beautiful cashmere sweater, he put it on.

****

After sun-down on Saturday evenings— for as far back as Mitchell could remember— kids from the north and west sides had congregated at the ‘Max Strauss Center’, better known as the ‘J’; the J standing for the ‘J.P.I.’, ‘The Jewish Peoples Institute’.

The J was the place to go if you didn’t have a date—if you didn’t mind people seeing that you didn’t have a date—and want to meet a girl or a guy that possibly ‘might’ be next week’s date. To renew old friendships. To make new acquaintances or to just hang around.

As predicted by Norman: Being a beautifully balmy spring night, there were, so it seemed, hundreds of teenage kids milling outside the building’s lobby, overflowing onto the wide steps leading to the J’s large, concrete courtyard.

Having circled the congested block twice looking for a place to park, Norman and Mitchell arrived shortly after eight-fifteen, and were there for no more than a few minutes, when…

“You ‘schmucks’! Why didn’t you call and tell me you were in, Mitch? And you, you ‘putz’! Why didn’t you let me know he was coming home?”

“Lurey, you ‘schmaggi’- ‘asshol’e,” Normansaid. “I ‘did’, to see if you’d be here tonight, and left a message with Dolly.”

“Putz! Don’t ‘ever’ do that again!”

“Jesus!” Glancing at Mitchell. “Look who’s calling who a putz! ‘I shouldn’t ever do what’?”

“Leave a message with my sister.” Looking at Mitchell, “She ‘never’ gives me my calls!” and back at Norman. “I’m going to kill that little mieskite!”

“Yeah, Lurey! She’s ugly ‘cause she looks like you. So, ‘cause you’ve got a dummy for a sister, that’s my fault?”

“Fuck you, Parminter!”

“Mitchie, god-damn-it,” shaking his hand briskly. “You look ‘great’! ‘Uncle Sam’ sure seems to agree with you!”

Glad to see him, too. “Thanks, Ron. How’ve you been? What’s new?”

“The ‘same’. What could be new?” Jerking his thumb towards Norman. “Him’n’me’ll be through with ‘Wright’ this year and I’m trying to talk him into going to the ‘U of I’ with me but the schmuck’s talking about joining the Navy. Maybe you can talks some sense into him.”

Turning to Norman. “How come you didn’t say anything about this?”

“Well, I’m not ‘really’ sure yet. It’s just that I haven’t any idea of what I want to do. So thought maybe a few years away’ll give me time to figure it out.”

“Yeah, Normie, I know the feeling. But after all that ‘R.O.T.C.’, how come the Navy?”

“I’ve looked into all of ’em, and the Navy seems to have more to offer, for me. But like I said, I haven’t really made up my mind.”

Looking around, “Hey, there’s someone I want to talk to. Be back in a minute… Hey, ‘Irv’!” Ron called, rushing to a hoody-looking guy with slicked back hair, wearing a black leather jacket.

“So, see anyone you know, Norm?”

“Nah, no one I know, but a few I sure wouldn’t mind knowing.”

“Mitchie…”

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned around.

The girl was thin, weighing about a hundred-twenty pounds and tall, at least 5'7". She wore Levi’s, a blue ‘Ship’n’Shore’ blouse and a red club jacket. The girl had curly black hair that was pulled back, emphasizing a sharp widow’s peak and bound closely to the scalp giving her a ponytail that hung to just below her shoulders. She had dark-brown, almond-shaped eyes and well defined eyebrows. Her complexion clear and dark, The girl had an oval-shaped face with a small mouth and a straight, slightly hooked nose, giving her, if not a ‘totally’ beautiful face, then most certainly a ‘lovely’, classically Semitic aspect.

Looking slightly familiar, Mitchell’s eyebrows knotted as he tried to place her… But couldn’t.

Seeing the look on his face, turning to Norman, nodding, confusing the boys all the more, “Hi, Normie.”

Having no idea who she was, or how she knew them. “Uh,” nodding his head, “Hi,” Normansaid.

Smiling mysteriously, bringing her full attention back to Mitchell. “You truly ‘don’t’ remember me, do you?”

Sensing that he, really, was not going to be an essential component of this conversation, “Mitch, I’ll be over with Lurey.” Looking at the girl. “And whoever you are,” Norman said, backing away, “it’s been nice seeing you, again.”

Alone—at least as alone as it was possible to be within a crowd of hundreds—standing quietly, each studied the other’s face.

“Well...” breaking the silence, “...the last time we saw each other…” Stopping, the girl thought a second. “No, ‘that’ wasn’t the last time we saw each other. But the last time we did see each other you didn’t pay any attention to me. As a matter of fact you were pretty ‘darn’ rude.”

“ ‘Rude’? Come on! I’d ‘never’ be rude to a girl as pretty as you.”

“Obviously you didn’t think I was very pretty then… Tell you what, I’ll give you a hint: I’ve never seen you without Norman.”

Staring at her… Trying to remember.

“The first time we met you walked me home… ‘Almost’ walked me home until you found out that I wasn’t ‘quite’ thirteen. And the second time you and Norman were on the beach in ‘Union Pier’, and each time I saw you…”

‘Union Pier’? The words Union Pier sending the pages of his memory ruffling backwards. “Oh, ‘God’, that was…”

“…I called you a ‘big jerk’, and told you ‘to drop dead’.”

Having a recollection of a warm night and soft music. And of a girl with fireflies reflected in her dark eyes… And also, a soul-touching kiss.

“Yeah! You’re, uh…?”

“ ‘Marsha’, ‘Marcie Goldman’.” Seeing a look of remembrance in his eyes. “You remember me now, don’t you?”

“Yeah! ‘Sure I do’!” Stepping back, looking at her, “Marcie, my God, you grew up ‘great’!”

Oddly, although this girl was the absolute opposite of the stocky, big-busted, Coca-Cola, All-American, ‘girl next door’ type of girl that he’d always been attracted to, for some incomprehensible reason, She’s beautiful! he thought. And for the first time since…? For the first time since Susan, looking at a girl—looking at this girl—made Mitchell’s eyes feel good…

Meaning it, not meant as just flattery, the words coming without thought. “You’re beautiful!”

The words, ‘You’re beautiful’! echoing in her mind. Her heart jumped, thinking, Yeah, you, too, Mitchell. At a loss for words—which for Marsha Goldman was highly unusual—having to say something. Softly spoken, “Thank you.”

“So, what are you now: seventeen, eighteen?”

“Mitchie,” smiling, “don’t you know by now that you’re ‘never’ supposed to ask a lady her age?” Calculating his age at between nineteen and twenty, thinking, perfect, “You go to college?” she asked.

“No. I’m in the service. The ‘Coast Guard’.”

“Really? Are you stationed here, in Chicago?”

“No. At a lifeboat station outside of New York City, at a place called Far Rockaway… How’s about you? You in college? Or…” hesitating, “still in high school.”

“Boy, are you ever nosy! Okay. I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in October. I am still in high school, at ‘Roosevelt’, and will be graduating in June… That ‘okay’?” She smiled, “Or are you going to send me home alone, ‘again’?”

‘Seventeen’. Okay! Yeah, he thought, seventeen’s just fine! “And if I remember right, I didn’t send you home alone. You told me to drop dead and ran home on your own.”

“Mitch! ‘Hey, Mitch’!”

Reluctantly turning from Marsha, “Yeah, Ron?”

“Come on over here!” Motioning urgently. “There’s something we got to talk to you about.”

“Marcy,” turning back, “excuse me a minute. ‘Don’t’ go away now. I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah,” said impatiently. Clearly annoyed at being pulled away from Marsha. “What’s so damned important?”

 Next “Becoming” excerpt in sequence: “The Red Light”