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  Anyhow, the army cooks were already hard at work fixing breakfast and I was standing around yawning and watching the troopers line up in their halfhearted rows when the rumor reached us about something important being in the newspaper. One of the officers said he’d overheard a guard talking about the headlines, so my daddy said the two of us would take Graphite into town and buy a couple copies of the morning edition before it sold out.

  The day had been declared a holiday for everybody, but from the looks of things, I don’t think the town of Pendleton had one single explosive left. The whole place was covered in a hazy firecracker fog that morning and seemed to be sound asleep. After all the crazy celebrating that had been going on, I figured a lot of people would be putting salt in their Coca-Colas for their headaches and staying in bed.

  Took us a while to find any newsboys selling papers. We drove up and down Main Street twice. Finally found a kid with two skinned knees and a runny nose. He hardly looked old enough to read what he was selling, and I don’t think he’d ever taken money from a colored person before either. When my father held out the money for him, he just stared at us. Then, after snatching the coins outta my father’s hand, he threw one copy at us and ran off. Good thing it wasn’t a windy day or the news woulda been all over the street.

  We sat down on a curb across from one of the barbershops in Pendleton to page through the paper. Other than the two of us, the red and white barber pole seemed to be the only thing moving. All the stores around us were closed. My father stretched out his legs on the empty pavement and unfolded the paper across them. As he turned the page, a headline on the inside of The Oregonian caught our eye. There, in two-inch type, were the words nobody ever believed we’d see: JAP BALLOONS FELL IN SIXTEEN STATES.

  I don’t think I’m giving away any army secrets if I tell you this was one of the few times in my whole life that I ever saw my tough father cry.

  34. Leaving

  They talked about the story for weeks afterward. Nobody in Pendleton could believe the Japs had launched thousands of balloons and they’d drifted across sixteen states. And it was an even bigger shock to find out one balloon bomb had killed five Oregon kids and a young preacher’s wife on a picnic in May—the same day the men had left North Carolina to come west. Another one landed near a factory in Washington State making parts for the atomic bomb. “See, we came closer to being the Book of Revelation than we knew,” Mrs. Delaney insisted when she read the news.

  The newspapers said some of the enemy balloons had traveled as far as Michigan and Texas, where people who saw the strange ghost-white orbs floating across the sky thought they were going nuts. By June, the Japs had given up sending them. Which explained why my daddy and his men had never seen one—nobody knew the attack on the West had mostly stopped by the time the paratroopers got there.

  A lot of the paratroopers at Pendleton cut out every newspaper article they could find about the balloons. They folded them carefully in their wallets and carried them everywhere. It was a small piece of pride, you know what I mean? Other soldiers brought home medals and ribbons from fighting overseas, but those headlines were all the paratroopers had to show why they’d jumped into forest fires and landed in trees and all that. For a lot of them, just having the proof they’d been part of something in the war was enough. They were ready to go home.

  I saved one of the articles and stuck it in MawMaw Sands’s basket to show off to Archie someday. Back in Southern Pines, I’m sure MawMaw Sands was sitting in her rocker, having a little laugh about the news. I could hear her saying, “I told you so, Levi Battle. Told you sometimes you gotta believe in things you can’t always see.” My daddy sent one article to Mickey’s family and another to Cal and Peaches, in case they hadn’t seen the news. He wrote on it, Watch out for any stray balloons floating over Georgia, which I think was a joke, although jokes weren’t my daddy’s talent.

  Then he hopped on a C-47 again and went on another fire call.

  Couldn’t believe it when we heard the big airplanes roar overhead only two days after victory had been declared. We were in the middle of finishing up a late breakfast—me, Mrs. Delaney, and Willajean were just sitting around watching the butter melt—when the planes from Pendleton sailed over the house, rattling everybody’s nerves again.

  “What in the world is happening now?” Mrs. Delaney leaped up and tuned in the radio right away. Think we were all wondering if maybe the Japs had changed their mind and taken back their surrender. But Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters were singing “Victory Polka” on the local station and everything seemed peaceful. “Must be another fire somewhere and that’s where all the planes are going,” Mrs. Delaney said, coming back to the table and whispering a quick prayer before she picked up her fork again.

  Of course, Willajean had to bring up the idea of me being stuck in Pendleton forever. “What if the army stays here for good and Levi never gets to go back home?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

  Didn’t say it, but I thought, I’ll walk back to Chicago if I have to. No way am I spending the rest of my life in Pendleton, Oregon.

  Mrs. Delaney sounded pretty sure the rainy season would put an end to the fires in the West soon. “Couple more weeks of August left, and then the rain will be here.”

  As the last weeks of August dragged on, I spent half the time hoping the fires would stop before my father or one of the other troopers died jumping into them—and the other half worrying what would happen when the missions did end.

  It didn’t help matters that everybody else in Pendleton seemed to be getting ready for their new future after the war. Every day more soldiers came home. There were weddings, funerals, parades, you name it. Mrs. Delaney kept moving my things into smaller and smaller piles, saying she had to make room for when her sons, George and Robert, got back from the Pacific soon. One day, I figured, she was probably gonna put me in one of those piles too.

  The whole country seemed to be on sale. Victory bargains were everywhere. Mrs. Delaney bought herself a brand-new kitchen range—probably with all the rent money she got from us. Willajean bought high school sweaters and new shoes and tried to convince me to sign up for school in September.

  Heck, school was the last thing I was worried about.

  I kept waiting on my father to say something, to give me some hint about what our future held. Was he staying with the army or moving on? Were we going back to Chicago or not? But the future coulda been a rattlesnake curled on the road in front of us, given how much my father avoided talking about it. When I tried tossing out a question here or there, he’d always answer how the fires and his men were his main mission. “Can’t think about anything else while I’ve still got a job to do here.”

  Once, when the two of us were strolling around the airfield for something to do, he asked if I had any interest in following in his footsteps and jumping out of airplanes someday. “You ever think it would be fun to go up in the sky and see what it’s like?”

  Guess we still had a lot to learn about each other, because he seemed surprised when I said, “Nope. Never.” Even if I convinced myself to fly inside an airplane someday, there was no way I’d ever jump out.

  That was the closest we came to talking about the future.

  The rest of the time, we stuck to what we already knew best. Between fire calls, my daddy taught me to play poker. We put in a lot of time at the horseshoe pits too, and one September weekend we finally caught some fish. Brought back three nice-sized trout for Emerald to fry. Those Oregon trout turned out to be our last taste of summer, because a few days later the rain arrived.

  I heard the sound first. Early one morning. A drumming sound like woodpeckers hammering on the roof. Then I noticed how the bedroom curtains in Robert’s room were fluttering. My long legs prickled in the sudden breeze and I realized the air pouring through the open window was chilly. What the heck had happened with the temperature? I yanked the blankets over myself. The whole bedroom was sunk in a dark gray gloom. Couldn’t make
any guess as to what time it was.

  Still freezing, I unrolled a pair of socks and pulled on my trousers. The hallway was empty when I stuck my head outta the bedroom, so I figured it was still real early. Could see Mrs. Delaney out on the porch, where she liked to sit before the neighborhood woke up. When I pushed open the door, she turned to check who it was. “Morning, Levi. You’re up early. Welcome to the rainy season.” She gestured toward the watery scene in front of us where the rain was coming down in sheets.

  I gawked at the sight as if I’d never seen rain before. Good grief, a few months in the West and I’d forgotten what rain looked like.

  “You can almost smell the Pacific, can’t you?” Mrs. Delaney said, taking a big breath.

  The Pacific? It was miles away. To me, the air smelled more like fish. A chilly, fishy smell. Uncle Otis had once taken me to see a pier that jutted into Lake Michigan, and I remembered how the greenish waves crashing onto the pier kicked up the same kinda smell. Watching the rain fall beyond the porch roof, I felt those same greenish waves kicking up inside of me, because I knew it was only a matter of time before leaving came up in my life again. Mrs. Delaney could smell the Pacific and I could smell leaving on the air.

  Sure enough, a couple of days after the fire missions ended and some of the cleanup was done, my father stopped by Mrs. Delaney’s house with an envelope in his hand. The rain was still falling, soaking the shoulders of his uniform.

  “Came to talk to Levi for a little bit, if that’s all right, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Delaney, who was dusting all her knickknacks in the front room with the help of Willajean. I put down the mop they’d given me and reluctantly followed his wet footsteps into the kitchen. Any other time I’d have been glad to give up cleaning something, but not then.

  When my daddy handed the envelope to me and I saw the handwriting on the front was Aunt Odella’s, I was convinced I was going back to Chicago. “Open it and see what’s inside,” he said, biting down on his lips like he was trying hard not to smile. I opened the flap, not knowing what to think about how strange he was acting.

  Stuck inside, there was a letter—and a small snapshot slid onto the floor. Picked it up and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was Aunt Odella smiling and standing arm in arm with a man in uniform. Written on the back in precise lines were these words: Odella and Paul Carter, joined in marriage, August 18, 1945.

  Let me tell you, I was speechless. Could hardly keep myself from going over to the window to check if chickens were plucking their own feathers and pigs were flying.

  “Can you believe it? My sister falling in love with a navy man,” my daddy said, shaking his head and grinning. “She shoulda picked somebody from the army instead.”

  I kept staring at the picture, still trying to believe it was true. How was it possible? How had Aunt Odella found love and a husband in a few short months? And what did that mean for me?

  Right then, it hit me. I was holding the snapshot of my future. My daddy was sending me back to Chicago to live with Aunt Odella and her new husband, Paul, wasn’t he?

  I don’t think my daddy realized I’d already guessed what was coming next. He pulled out one of the kitchen chairs, sat down, and said we had some important things to talk about.

  By then, I was hardly listening. Instead, I pictured what it would be like to be wrapped up in Queen Bee Walker’s fur coat—how you couldn’t see or hear anything from inside it. Didn’t care what my father was gonna say to me. All I knew was we’d spent the last few months getting to know each other and now it was all for nothing. I could say goodbye to the poker games and horseshoes and fishing and you name it because I was about to be handed those same three son-of-a-gun words again: I Am Levin.

  “I know all the people and friends you have back in Chicago,” my father said. “When I was your age, I loved Hixson’s and going to Uncle Otis’s and all that. Still do.” His fingers drummed on the table and his expression grew more serious like the tough news he had to tell me was coming up next. “Trouble is, you can see Odella’s got her own life these days and there isn’t much room for you and me back there in Chicago anymore.”

  My eyes swiveled in his direction. What was he saying? A dizzying hum of noise filled my ears. What did he mean about no room for us in Chicago?

  “If I want to stay in the service, the army says they’ll promote me to first lieutenant and send me for special officer training this winter,” my father went on, noticing nothing. “They want to recruit more paratroopers for our outfit, and they think I could end up being one of the top colored officers they have in peacetime. Who knows, if I keep moving up, maybe someday I’ll get to be general. Wouldn’t that be something if your daddy ended up being General Charles Battle?”

  A proud grin crossed my daddy’s face and you could tell he had his whole life planned out ahead of him like a road map. Only thing that road map didn’t include was me.

  See, Aunt Odella had been right all along, I realized—the war might have ended, but my father wasn’t giving up the army and returning to Chicago anytime soon. The truth was, he couldn’t stop chasing after bigger things in his life, no matter what he said. If he got to be general, he’d want to try for something else. The moon was always gonna be just out of his reach.

  But his next words caught me off guard.

  Clearing his throat, my father grew serious again. “What I’m trying to tell you, Levi,” he said, giving me one of his eye-to-eye lieutenant looks, “is that I’d like to stick with the army and I thought maybe you’d like to come along with me this time and see what happens.”

  I’m sure I was blinking like a bird that had just slammed beak-first into a window as I tried to sort out what I’d just heard: He wasn’t asking me to go back to my old life in Chicago. He was asking me to start over somewhere else. He was saying give up Archie and my friends, Aunt Odella and Uncle Otis, the neighborhood I knew every crowded square inch of—even the school I’d gone to since I was a little kid—and come with him.

  “So what do you think?” My daddy studied his big parachute-holding hands. “I know it’s a lot to decide all of a sudden.”

  I had no idea what I thought. I tried to come up with something else … anything else … to ask.

  “Do you know where the army’s sending you?” I held on to a small scrap of hope that it might be a place near Chicago, right? On the other hand, it could also be somewhere miles away. Like the South. No way I was going back there.

  Honestly, I thought it was a cruel joke when my father said, “Well, it turns out the army’s assigning our battalion back to Camp Mackall in North Carolina.”

  What?

  All I could do was stare. Out of all the son-of-a-gun places in the entire United States the army coulda picked—and my father was asking me to go back to the worst place I’d ever been?

  It felt like getting a sudden stinging slap across the face. Could feel my whole face getting hot. How could my father even think of asking me to go with him? There was no way I’d do it. No way.

  “Why would you want to go back there and put up with all that?” My arms chopped at the air and my voice was louder than it probably shoulda been. “All those signs and everything all over the place.” It was one thing to stay with the army, it was another thing to go back to the COLORED signs and water fountains and being treated like you were less than nothing, you know what I mean?

  “Wherever the army sends us, that’s where we go,” my father said coolly, trying to keep up his tough lieutenant bluff—as if the army could send him off a cliff and it wouldn’t much matter to him. Then he added with a trace more sharpness, “If I wanted easy in this life, I wouldn’t strap a parachute to myself every day and jump out of airplanes, now would I?”

  There was a long silence. A chilly, wet breeze ruffled through the kitchen. I think Willajean and Mrs. Delaney must’ve been listening in the front room, because they were awfully quiet.

  My father’s voice was softer when he spoke again. You might’ve b
een able to hear some disappointment in it if you listened hard. “If you don’t want to come along with me, that’s fine, Levi,” he said. “I can talk to Uncle Otis or one of my sisters and see if they wouldn’t mind looking after you, if it comes down to that. I’m not dragging you along with me if you don’t want to go. You’re old enough to make some of your own decisions these days. I thought you’d want to give this a try, but if you don’t want to, that’s all right. The choice is up to you.”

  More silence.

  “And if I was to go back to Chicago, who would you have left?” The angry question flew out of my mouth before I could stop it. Think it took both of us by surprise.

  “I don’t know,” my father said, looking confused by what I was asking. “The other troopers in the outfit, I guess.”

  “But not me.”

  “Right,” he answered uneasily. “Not you.”

  More heat pushed behind my voice. “So you’re saying you’d let me go back to Chicago and leave you with nobody?”

  My father rubbed his eyes. “What I’m saying is, it’s up to you.”

  Well, I couldn’t do it.

  No matter how much I wanted to stay in Chicago and no matter how much I hated the idea of going back to the South—I couldn’t tell my father I was leaving him in the dust. Couldn’t say those three words to his face: I am leaving. Even if he was ready to take off and follow the army wherever it went, I couldn’t do the same thing to him.

  Tell you the truth, realizing that fact about myself was one of the best things that coulda come out of the bad moment. When you are from a family of people who don’t stick around, it’s easy to start worrying if maybe you have that same quality. But all those years of picking up buckeyes—how I couldn’t leave one behind—that shoulda been my first clue. Because now I could clearly see the one thing I didn’t get from Queen Bee Walker. Or my daddy. Or the Battle family either.

  Some people might’ve been able to put a goodbye note on a car seat and say, I Am Levin, but the honest truth was—I couldn’t. When it came right down to it, I might’ve been born into a family of people who couldn’t stick around, but I was somebody who did.