A “Becoming” excerpt in sequence:

              “Deafening Silence”

_______________________________________________________

Fearing Myra would start on him next. Making a mistake that he quickly and ‘always’ thereafter regretted—because Walter truly loved Marsha—“Yes! For God’s sake...” siding with his wife, turning on the girl, “...that’s not ‘too’ much to ask! Why in hell can’t you ‘just’ do it?”

Tears coming to Marsha’s eyes. She felt she’d been assaulted by Myra and betrayed and abandoned by Walter—whom she’d truly considered as a friend rather than her father-in-law—and now, trapped, having no means of leaving this house, her eyes shifting from Myra to Walter and back, standing lost and terrified, not knowing what to do, what to say…

The phone rang...

_______________________________________________________

Skokie, Illinois

November 4, 1955

“I’ll get it!”

Shaking his head from side to side, looking sadly at Marsha as he stepped from behind the table. “It’ll give you a chance to calm down.”

Going to the den, “Hello.”

Surprised his father had answered the phone instead of Marsha. “Hi, Dad. How are you?”

“Fine, Mitch!” Walter said a little too quickly, a little too loudly as he continued to look at Marsha, who had followed closely behind —then at Myra who was standing just outside the doorway. “How’s everything with you?”

“I’m not overjoyed at shoving off tomorrow, but there’s not a hell of a lot I can do about it… How’s mom and the boys?”

“Fine.” Looking at Myra, “You want to say hello to your mother?”

Still wondering why Marsha hadn’t answered or been put on the line by now, figuring he’d just as soon get the conversation with his mother over with before speaking to Marsha, “Yeah, sure, put her on.”

Not trusting herself to speak calmly. Shaking her head, Myra whispered, “Tell him I got sick and went into the bathroom.”

“Mitchell, your mother’s not feeling too good tonight, and she’s in the bathroom… Here, here’s Marsha. Bye!”

Handing the phone to Marsha, holding his forefinger vertically in front of his lips, “Shhh!” he warned her.

Taking the phone from Walter. “Hi, baby...” breathing deeply, trying to sound as natural as possible, “...how are you?”

Sensing something was wrong when Marsha hadn’t answered the phone and now, by the tone of her voice, “What’s wrong?”

The family would usually give Marsha privacy while speaking to Mitchell. Now though, they were all in the den listening, waiting to see what, if anything, she’ll say about what had happened.

Still having a hard time believing that Myra had ‘actually’ thrown a cup of hot coffee at her. Finding it near impossible to converse. “Everything’s just fine,” she said a little too quickly, a little too loudly. “As a matter of fact…”

Mitchell believed there was a problem! But if there was ‘Halfmoon’ was sailing tomorrow morning and there was ‘nothing’ he could do about it anyway, so, Really, he thought, I’d just as soon not hear about it.

“….I’ve got some good news! Some ‘really’ good news!”

“Good news, eh? That would be nice for a change.”

Ignoring the comment. “My uncle Willy…” she said, forcing what earlier had been barely contained excitement, “...you’ve never met his friend, ‘Myron’, but he owns a used car lot, and guess what?”

Catching her feigned excitement. “Yeah, what?”

“Uncle Willie told me that he told Myron to be on the lookout for a real nice car that he can give us as wedding gift.”

“No kidding? A ‘car’! Your uncle Bill’s getting us a car?”

“Yeah!” Attempting to match Mitchell’s excitement. “He asked if we’d like one, and I told him that we were planning on getting one with some of our wedding money, and he said there’s other stuff we’ll be needing and that Myron had been keeping his eyes open for a ‘cherry,’ and that he found one.”

“Marcie, I can’t believe your uncle is ‘giving’ us a car! What is it?”

“Uncle Willie won’t tell me what make it is, only that it’s beautiful and that we’ll love it!”

“ ‘Really’?”

“Yeah!”

This being the last conversation they would have in over a month. Holding her hand to the mouthpiece, “I won’t say anything!” Marsha said to Walter through clenched teeth. “Let us talk!”

Glancing at his wife and motioning to the boys, Walter, Myra, Larry and Morton left the room.

****

The moment her conversation with Mitchell ended, Marsha asked Walter to take her home, and…

Marsha ‘never’ again entered the home of Walter and Myra without Mitchell.

Before this evening, Marsha had sincerely felt:

When the tension of the wedding was past…

When Mitchell’s enlistment was through…

When they returned to Chicago…

When their lives became normal…

Marsha felt ‘certain’ that her mother would revert to her old ways and that Myra would be the mother figure she had so desperately wanted all of her life. But…

She knew then that Myra would ‘never’ be a mother to her and Marsha felt a great sadness because of this…

Because of Walter’s cowardly betrayal, Marsha ‘never’ again felt the warmth… the love she had felt for him and to her he was no longer ‘Skipper’ and she would never again address him in that way... or in ‘any’ way.

Marsha did not tell Mitchell about the events of that evening, but…

The stones of thoughtlessness, once thrown, made everlasting ripples that reverberated throughout a lifetime.

And the gossamer threads of unwanted acts spun into an everlasting, ever-thickening, unbreakable cable that stretched into the future, binding Marsha and Mitchell from their youth to… forever.

Winter Patrol

November 5, 1955, to December 12, 1955

A piercing, glacial wind howling across the yawing deck. Solid sheets of frigid water and salt spray blowing across the superstructure, the prow of Halfmoon rising from the turbulence, slammed back with a jarring crash.

Watch cap pulled low on his forehead. Wet and cold even though he wore foul-weather gear and layers of clothing beneath still, spray trickling through the collar dripped down his neck.

Posted on the port side of the lookout bridge he tried to find a place where there was even minimal protection from wind and water but the pitching ship offered no concealment.

Glancing at the luminous face of his watch: 0557.

“Fuck!”

Not sure if he’d said it because there were still two hours left to this miserable watch or because of his miserable thoughts: Why’d I do it? Why? Am I that fuckin’ lonely?…

Actually, yes.

Am I that fuckin’ hard-up?

Actually, yes.

“Shit!”

She ain’t even all that fuckin’ pretty!

The frustration of once again being deprived— even though he was married —even though it was ‘justifiably’ and ‘legally’ right had been on his mind since the start of this patrol, and negative thoughts had festered and filled his heart with doubts about Marsha, himself and, ‘most’ certainly their marriage.

If her fuckin’ mother had stayed in her room another minute! One minute more! Shit, five seconds later and I’d been there!—the thought still incomprehensible— ‘Inside’ her! He thought reverently, Inside Marsha!

Due to circumstances throughout his life that had made actual penile penetration impossible, the completion of the sexual act in Mitchell Lipensky’s mind seemed an impossibility. And even when he does do it, if he ‘ever’ does it, in ‘some’ way, ‘some how’…

In this respect, more and more, Mitchell had actually come to believe—and maybe so—that God was truly against him.

But then again, considering the potency of a healthy, twenty-one-year-old male and the fertility of a healthy, nineteen-year-old female, and the fact that the healthy, twenty-one-year-old male did not have a prophylactic handy, maybe, after all, God might not have been against him.

And for the last couple of month, he thought, why all of these problems?

Early on the complaints he’d received from Marsha and his mother seemed minor and more than likely gross exaggerations.

****

“Mitchell, your future mother-in-law...” ‘Future’?

“Mitchell, your future wife…” ‘Future’?

“Marsha ‘never’ calls anymore.”

“Marsha won’t let me tell her ‘anything’!”

“Marsha includes me only when she ‘absolutely’ has to!”

And the big one, oh, yeah, the real big one…

“Marsha refuses to ‘address’ me when she talks to me.”

And ‘Marsha’! And ‘Marsha’! And ‘Marsha’!

Also…

“Mitchie, I don’t know what’s wrong with your mother!”

“Mitchie, I can’t seem to do ‘anything’ to please your mother!”

“Whenever I talk to your mother she sounds like she’s mad at me.”

“I can’t ‘ever’ do enough for your mother!”

“I don’t know what your mother wants from me!”

“Your ‘mother’!” “Your ‘mother’!” “Your ‘mother’!”

“Marsha this!” “Your mother that!” “Marsha…” “Your mother…”

“Fuck it!” “Fuck it!” “Fuck it!”

****

Hunching his head lower into his jacket. Pulling his watch cap lower onto his head. Jamming his hands deeper into his pockets...

Maybe we shouldn’t have done it, he thought. Maybe we shouldn’t have gotten married.

As black waves surged beneath the ship, black thoughts surged through Mitchell’s mind, and heart.

But we ‘did’! he reasoned. We’re ‘really’ married!

Rather than the wonder he’d felt when he was with Marsha, Mitchell now thought of his marriage as a sentence, and again…

Shit, we never even screwed!

And again a nagging thought came to mind.

Although he’d put it down each time he’d thought it. Now, though, letting it surface he remembered hearing: ‘When a guy’s married, until he and the girl screw, they’re not ‘really’ married and the guy can get it…?” Thinking, trying to remember the word…

The yawing ship. The biting wind. The frigid spray and drab sky coloring the world exactly to his depressed mood…

‘Remembering’, he said the word aloud. But the wind carried the word away

As though the word was the solution. saying it louder:

“ ‘Annulled’! I can get the whole fuckin’ thing ‘annulled’!”

Forward…

A distance forward. Digging its way through..

Digging its way through, in the far distance a thin stream of light pierced the black clouds and shone, beacon-like, onto the roiling ocean below.

Mitchell’s eyes focusing on the streamer of early morning light…

But, he rationalized, her parents have spent so much for the wedding.

As the adage, ‘Where there’s life, there’s hope’.

For Mitchell Lipensky, ‘now’! Where there was light there ‘was’ hope and— the beam of light bringing a ray of optimism.

But she loves me! he thought. Maybe even more than anyone ever has or ever will!

Remembering! He remembered a time in the past when he’d said these exact words to a different girl under yet sadder circumstances.

And lo…

As another stream of light funneled through the black sky…

Another positive thought came to mind…

And the apartment’s great!

****

The two-story elevator building was owned by Harry and Clara Tennenbaum.

Because the Tennenbaums had known Aunt Ida for years and, thinking of him as ‘a nice Jewish boy’, not only had Clara given Mitchell the lowest possible rent but— as the building was in the process of being remodeled and refurbished — Clara had also taken the decorating of the one-room, second-floor apartment on as her own project and had furnished it with the very best, brand-new ‘seconds’ from her husband’s furniture factory in Brooklyn.

Closing his eyes, Mitchell could see it.

Opening the door in the plushly-carpeted hall, he stepped into the sixteen-foot wide, thirty-foot long apartment.

Looking straight ahead there are double-hung windows. About twenty feet beyond the windows is the brick wall of the neighboring building.

Beneath the windows is a double-sized sofa-bed that had been upholstered in muted, floral design pastels. In front of the sofa is a blonde, glass-topped coffee table. On either side of the sofa are matching end tables with ceramic lamps.

Entering into the apartment— To the right of the doorway is a large dresser with the same light finish as the coffee- and end tables. To the left of the door there are two Danish modern chairs separated by a table and lamp.

The entire left wall are sliding closet doors.

To the far right of the apartment is the kitchen area with lavender-colored ceramic floor tile, a white porcelain sink, a contrasting lavender Formica counter-top, a new built-in oven and range and a reconditioned Philco refrigerator with a freezer compartment.

The bathroom is to the right of the kitchen.

The entire apartment is painted a flat, pale lilac and the synthetic wall-to-wall carpeting is a moderately darker shade of lavender.

Light and cheerful, in the opinions of Mrs. Tennenbaum, Aunt Ida and himself, this apartment was the ‘perfect’ place to begin a marriage for a young Jewish couple.

Ready for occupancy when Halfmoon returned to Staten Island on December twelfth, —five days before the ‘real’ wedding— even though the Tennenabums were allowing occupancy, as a wedding gift to Ida Charney’s grand nephew—that nice Jewish boy and his ‘shayner kalleh’, [pretty bride]—the actual rental would not begin until January first.

Marsha had sent her clothing and shower gifts—pots, pans, dishes, silverware, linens and the dozens of knick-knacks that go into making a room a home—by rail-express, and the four large boxes had been accepted by Mrs. Tennenbaum and carried into the apartment by a workman.

Mitchell would have two liberties to unpack and get the apartment into shape before he returned to Chicago on Friday the sixteenth, the day before the wedding.

He’d even thought of ordering a telephone from ‘New York Bell’, which will have been installed by the time he got home…

****

‘Home’!

The black clouds were now stippled with streamers of light and the jagged holes lined with silver.

December 12, 1955

Seagate, New York

“Marcie!” Purposely not calling till now. “Hi, sweetheart!”

“Mitchie! You’re back!”

“Yeah! Oh, baby, I ‘love’ you! I ‘miss’ you!”

“God! Me too, honey! I ‘love’ you, too!”

“Hey! You’ll never guess where I’m calling from.”

“The boatyard?”

“ Nah!”

“Aunt Ida’s?”

“No. I’ll give you a hint… Ready?”

“Sure!”

“I’m sitting on the floor and I’m surrounded by all kinds’a junk.”

“ ‘Home’! Mitchie, you’re in ‘our home’!”

‘Our home’. The thought bringing tears to his eyes. “Yes, baby. I’m…” momentarily finding it hard to speak, “...I’m home.”

“When’d we get the phone?”

“I ordered it before I left. Mrs. Tennenbaum let the guy in to install it.”

“God, Mitchie, I wish it was all over with and I was there with you, on the floor.”

“Me, too, honey. Only we wouldn’t just be sitting on the floor.”

“Yeah? What would we be doing?”

“Oh, baby, you ‘know’ what we’d be doing! So…” Bracing himself for complaints, “...how’s everything in Chicago?”

Afraid if she started she’d tell Mitchell about the coffee-throwing incident.“Fine, Mitchie.” Telling herself to hold off with the complaints. “Now that you’re back, everything’s just fine!”

Relieved. “You know,” he said, “not everything we got works like it’s supposed to.”

“Hmm? Everything should. What’s not working?”

“They let the liberty section off as soon as we secured and knowing all this stuff’s here waiting for me to put away, and that I couldn’t talk to you till you got home from work at about six, ‘your time’, and seeing as I was hungry— on the way here I stopped and got some stuff at the A&P and tried to make blintzes in the electric frying pan you sent. But the damned thing wouldn’t get hot. I had those blintzes in there for almost an hour and they wouldn’t even defrost, so I finally cooked ’em on the stove in a regular frying pan. And talk about bad design, Jesus! You know they got a screw inside the pan holding the electric coil on? I was afraid to dunk it in water, so I…” hearing laughter, “...so I, uh, just kind’a sponged it off.”

On the other end of the line, “Mitchie...” in Chicago, Marsha was laughing so hard she could barely get the words out, “...where’s the pan now?”

“I was going to dump it, but thought I’d let you take a look at it so maybe you can figure out how it’s supposed to work.”

“Go get it!”

“Hold on,” Putting the phone down...back in a few seconds. “Okay, I got it.”

“Mitchell, look at it closely.”

Looking at it, “So?” He turned it over.

“Mitchie...” laughing again, harder, “...the cover’s…” catching her breath, “inside the pan. I put it in upside down to save space and you…” breaking up again, “just tried frying blintzes in the lid.”

Looking at it closely, yanking on the side of the pan he pulled the lid out. “Damn!” Feeling a bit stupid, but finding it funny also, laughing, too. “Who’d’a guessed?”

Another reason she loved him: the ability to laugh at himself.

“Almost any genius!” She giggled. “God, Mitchie, this is going to be so much fun! I can’t wait to see you!”

“ ‘Five days’!” Can you believe it? ‘Only’ five days!”

“Yeah, honey, but only four till I see you.”

****

On Friday the sixteenth of December, Mitchell had permission to go ashore two hours earlier than the regular commencement of liberty.

****

Leaving from ‘LaGuardia’, flying to Chicago, arriving at 6:10 PM Chicago time, he was to be picked up at ‘Midway’ and taken directly to the hotel for the rehearsal.

On Saturday morning Mitchell would go with his father for his tuxedo fitting and after making certain that ‘everything’ fit, he and Marsha—and he could hardly wait—were to be driven to Myron’s used car lot where they were to take delivery of the car Marsha’s uncle Bill had bought for them as a wedding gift.

The wedding was to be held in an adjoining hall and the reception and dinner in the Crystal Ballroom of the Palmer House starting at 6:30.

The newlyweds were to sleep at the Palmer House that night, where—and he could not wait—they would ‘finally’ consummate their two-month-old marriage.

The next morning, whenever they awoke and, what’s more important — ‘whenever’ they decided to get out of bed and get dressed, Marsha and Mitchell were to drive to Skokie for brunch with both families, load their new car with whatever clothing hadn’t been shipped ahead and then drive to New York City spending one night—and he could hardly wait—on the road, arriving at their new home in Seagate sometime Monday afternoon.

They had decided to spend as much time as possible in their new home before he had to report back and, as she’d never been there, Mitchell wanted to show Marsha those sights of New York City that he knew, and discover other places together making those few days of his leave somewhat of a honeymoon.

Added to his twenty-four hour liberty, the seven-day leave period was to ‘officially’ begin on Monday, 6:00 AM, December nineteen and end at 6:00 AM on Monday, December twenty-six, which, as it happened, covered Christmas day.

**** 

“So, how’s the apartment look?”

Marsha knew it was only one room, but hadn’t the slightest idea how it had been decorated.

“It’s ‘beautiful’, Marcie! I can’t wait till you see it.”

“Mitchie, come on, don’t be so mean,” Pouting over the telephone, “Pleeease tell me what it looks like!”

“Nope!”

The Day Before

Chicago, Illinois

December 16, 1955

It had been snowing since mid-afternoon and traffic throughout the city had been slow, snarled or, in many areas, nonexistent.

The mothers at the hotel ‘organizing’. Walter was tied up someplace on the south side, and because Marsha didn’t drive, and wouldn’t in any case due to this snow, Eli was only too happy to get away from the tumult at the Palmer House and spend some time alone with his daughter and he’d—though Eli would have certainly been drafted—volunteered to drive to the airport to pick up Mitchell where now, the excitement had caught up with Marsha and she was, once again in the washroom vomiting when Mitchell’s plane landed.

Looking for Marsha, “Eli, hi!” shaking hands. “Don’t tell me…” Remembering the last time he’d come home she’d been in the washroom vomiting. “…she got sick again.”

Smiling, “Guess you just do something to her, Mitch.”

“Mitchie!”

Turning to the sound of her voice. Seeing her running to him, “Marcie!”

Flinging herself into his arms, they kissed until—he’d never seen her without a tan; even last October she’d still had the remnants of a tan—now, though, holding her at arms’ length, “You okay? You look so pale.”

“Mitchie, I just threw my guts up.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “your dad said I make you sick.”

“That’s not ‘exactly’ what I said, Mitch.”

“Daddy, he does make me sick. I puke whenever he comes home.” Taking Mitchell’s hand, “Guess you do something to me, kid.”

Hugging her again—knowing that after tomorrow nothing in the world could possibly happen to, literally, keep them apart—whispering in her ear, “I’m going to do something to you alright!”

“Yeah...” whispering back, “...me, too! But now we’d better get going because by the time we get there everyone’ll be waiting for us.”

****

Grey exhaust emitting from the thousands of cars that inched their way through the snow-induced, extended rush hour.

Slapping from side to side, the wipers of the Buick left streaky, wet stripes across the windshield.

Holding hands, sitting closely together in the front seat.

“You hear anything else about the car?”

“No, only what I told you: That Uncle Willie say’s the motor’s in ‘great’ shape, the body and paint look like new, it’s got brand new tires and that Myron will have it all shined and gassed up waiting for us tomorrow.” She looked at the filthy, snow and mud-encrusted cars around them. “And that he says it’s ‘cherry.’ I can’t wait to see it.”

He knew what ‘cherry’ meant regarding Marsha and himself. “Yeah, me, too.” But couldn’t quite relate their virginity to a new car.

Finally…

Beneath the ‘el’ tracks of Wabash Avenue.

Within minutes, stopping in front of the ‘Palmer House’ Eli handed the keys to the doorman and the three rushed through the revolving door.

Taking the elevator up…

“They’re here!” someone shouted as they entered the large room and as Myra, Walter and Rhea went to welcome them, the rest of the ensemble applauded.

****

Within forty minutes of starting, the rehearsal was finished.

The entire wedding party taken to dinner at a nearby restaurant by the parents of the groom, Mitchell looked for a sign of hostility or animosity between Marsha and his mother. But at the moment, happily, there did not appear to be any.

Marsha and Mitchell went to the homes of their parents to sleep alone for the last time —in the eyes of God— as unmarried people.

 The next “Becoming” Excerpt in sequence:

              “A Becoming Wedding Day”