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August 15, 1945

Betty shows me her scar.  Dark purple it runs six inches down her belly.  She says it’s ugly and I say it’ll fade in time.

Drove through town on my way back.  Jap surrender is all over the news so people hold up two fingers for victory.  It’s when I get away from the crowd.  I hit the gas and can’t let off.  Car speeds up but still can’t let off so I hook my arm under my leg and sit up hard pulling my foot up with me.

Stopped on the side.  Scary as hell.  Take some breaths and try my leg.  It works so I pull away.  Slow this time and make it back here.

Martins are outside.  He won’t stop talking.  I tell them her tests are normal and she’ll be home with the baby in a week.  That little dog stares like it wants an answer but I don’t have any.  All I have is the question.  Why did my foot stick like that again?

That time with Betty in the car.  She snaps at me to slow down.  My leg unsticks but she’s still mad so I say we have to burn off the factory oil.  She gives me a look and then we go on like everything’s normal.  And it was.  Until today.

I sat in here earlier.  Curtain stops high in its arc.  Falls back and starts all over again.  That crowd before my leg froze.  Dancing.  Hugging.  Almost got out but didn’t.  Their faces.  Such happiness.

I should be the happiest guy in the world.  War’s over.  I have a son and wife.  That job back home waiting.  We can do it all now just like we planned so what’s wrong?

Haven’t looked at this notebook since Kimbolton.  At the bottom of my grip but I put it aside.  Need to be there with donuts by eight.  That powdered kind she likes.

In bed early but then comes a dream.  One I never had before.  Someone I don’t know.  Saying something I can’t hear.  I try hard to listen but this roar in my ears blocks it out and then there I am again.  Awake.  Soaked in sweat.

It feels different in my hand now.  All soft and beat up.

Maybe if I read through I can put that year in the past.  Back where it belongs.  Or find an answer.  The answer I need.

And maybe that’s why my foot stuck today.  It’s telling me to get out now while I still have the chance.  If I can’t fix this before they come home that’s what it has to come to anyway.

May 10, 1944

At intake Doc Spencer wants to know if I ever froze up before.  Says if I come up with anything to write it down so here goes.

We’re on a weekend pass in Piccadilly.  Kal says one of the Red Cross girls is giving him the eye so we all laugh.  He says watch this and goes for a refill but it’s about then I decide to head out on my own anyway.

You might think Piccadilly Circus is full of clowns and elephants but it’s just a big city intersection.  An old guy tells me Park on the right so I go that way keeping right.

London has a smell.  Dirt and rubble but you can’t really say what that is.  Burnt brick.  Not fresh burnt old burnt.

Buds on the trees.  Without all the big guns you might think there’s no war at all.

Further in is a bandstand in a clearing.  No one there so I sit on a bench.  A couple comes through.  They keep going so I stay.  It’s quiet.

Then I wake up and don’t know where I am.  I try to get up but can’t.  I try again but still can’t so I just sit there and it comes to me.  There’s no war on that bench but when I get up it starts all over again.

A woman and kid come at me.  She has a newspaper.  Makes like she’s folding it and pushes it to the sky.  I figure she wants me to make an airplane for that kid so I take it and start folding.

It looks pretty good but when the kid tosses it it crashes.  I’m all set to try again with less pages but that woman looks at me now like I’m one sorry ass plane builder.  Maybe the worst she’s ever seen.

She drags the kid away.  I think what the hell was that all about and take off to find the guys.

May 11, 1944

An RC girl says no GI issue in the dining room so look in my closet.  I do and find a shirt and some pants there I have to roll the cuffs up on to keep from tripping.

I set my tray on a table when that same RC girl brings me a coffee and sits down with her own cup.  She looks at the wraps on my hands so I say frostbite.  I guess that’s her cue because then she starts up about perspex waist ports on the new B-17s.  It’s kind of funny but she knows her stuff so I listen.

I was going to give Spencer what I wrote but then left it here.  I tell him instead about not being able to get up from that bench.  He says maybe I don’t want to.  Big difference but I let it go.  Spencer’s like that mad scientist in the Frankenstein movie so now I’m looking for Igor to walk in.

He asks if I like it here.  I almost say best damn flak house ever but don’t.  Then he asks if I have any questions so I ask when I can get back with my crew but he don’t answer that.  Next time he wants one time up there when I didn’t think I’d make it back.

He tells me to lose the wraps.  So much for frostbite.  Frostbite of the brain and they all know it.

I know now why I didn’t take what I wrote.  It was my file there on his desk.  Just one more thing to use against me.

So here’s the deal.  I’ll tell Spencer what he wants.  Maybe even write it down but what I put in this notebook is my business.  Then I’ll decide if he needs to hear it.

May 13, 1944

They say ignorance is bliss.  Which means the less you know the happier you are.  It follows then that learning something new costs some happiness.  But people learn new things all the time so that means your whole life you become less happy.

The inverse then has to mean forgetting things brings back some happiness.  So why remember anything?  Maybe I don’t want to.  Maybe I don’t have to.

Most people don’t go up in airplanes to drop bombs on people.

Spencer wants one time when I thought I wouldn’t make it back but that would be every time.  Add to that it’s all mashed up in my head now anyway.  What sticks out I guess is the first one.  When I first found out what I’d gotten myself into.

We thought it might be a milk run like they sometimes give a new crew but then they pull back the curtain.  Schweinfurt is deep inside Germany.  Our mission is to destroy their ball bearing factory.  Stopping production there can end the war.  That’s what they say.

Last time there in the fall our group lost a quarter of its planes.  But you can’t know anything until you do it yourself and this was my first mission so I was ignorant.  Not happy.  Just ignorant.

We take off at dawn and don’t cross the Channel until 1140.  The bomber stream goes as far as you can see in front and behind.

About a half hour over France some Mustangs show up in my waist port.  I point them out on the headset and we’re all glad they’re there.  Then they’re not.  We learn later some fighters lured them off leaving us to face their main force alone.

Some chatter on the headset.  Then Whitman on top turret yells they’re coming in a voice so high I don’t recognize it.  He opens up with his Double Fifty and the rest of us do too.

They come head on rolling over while firing.  Then they hit the group to our right and I see three forts go down.  One with its tail blown off and two trailing smoke.

Some chutes open below.  I watch as far as I can follow.

Closing on Schweinfurt their ground Eighty-Eights open up.  Flak pings off our hull over the engine and wind noise.  Black puffs appear out my waist port and inside the close ones I see that red glow.  What they call the red monster and now I know why.

Our bombs are gone but it’s still three hours back to England.  They had time to land and re-arm so the only question is when.  Just before the Channel they come from all sides.

I stay on one all the way in.  He’s gone when I realize my body is up in the air behind me.  I land on the casings and see Kal yelling at me through a cordite haze.

Coastal batteries throw up one last barrage.  A fort in the distance takes a direct hit.  There it is one second and gone the next.  Then the Channel appears beneath us.

Kal says when I locked on that FW I kicked him in the head.  He thinks he’s hit but then sees my legs up in the air so I tell him I’ll keep my feet on the deck next time.

Back on my bunk not sure how long.  That’s when it comes to me if that’s number one how will I ever make it through twenty nine more.

May 14, 1944

Tough session with Spencer today.  Only thing I say about Schweinfurt is watching those chutes go down.  He wants to know about that so I say it was like them passing into another world.

That perks him up and I want to bash his head in with that paperweight on his desk.  He says I’m here to help.  I say you’re here to get me back into a B-17 so just sign my paperwork and I’ll be on my way.

He asks about that other world.  I say it’s a world of hate.  How the farmers down there are waiting to pitchfork us while the guys under those chutes watch us go on without them.  All they got anymore is that world of hate below.

Next time he wants to hear about my freeze-up.  Says I should make use of the facilities here.  That I should enjoy myself.  So how do I do that with my crew back there carrying all the load.  I say I will.

May 16, 1944

I take a shortcut to the driving range and get lost.  That’s when it comes to me to just go tell Spencer that’s it.  I’m done flying.  So I’m all set to do just that when I ask myself who I’ll be then.  A quitter for one thing and that ain’t so easy to fix once it’s done.

I don’t tell him I got lost.  Who gets lost in a clump of trees?  Then something pops into my head.  I tell him about this buddy when I’m a kid and how at the start of the school year he’s not there.  Then I find out he’s held back and wonder if he’s stupid.

Spencer asks what it means and I ask him why it has to mean something.  He says my buddy got left behind.  Same as those guys under the chutes.

I see where he’s going so I say there’s a difference with me.  I plan to catch up.  I’ll just volunteer for extra missions when I get back.  When you give me the okay.  I say that last part like a question but then he switches to my freeze-up.

I say it’s our eighth mission.  Montdidier.  No fighters all the way there and back so I’m looking out at some clouds thinking this one’s in the bag.  We’ll be back in an hour with more than a quarter of our missions done.  That’s when they hit us.

He asks what I think then.  I say it ain’t fair and keep going.

I’m on one but then here comes another.  Cannons flash round in my sight so I give him a burst.  He keeps coming so I give him another and then another.  And then.  My fingers won’t let off.  I stay on it until it gets so hot it jams.  Back on the ground my fingers are still stuck so the medics come on to pry me off.  I say it’s frostbite.  They take me to the infirmary.  And that’s it.

He makes a note and checks my file.  Then he asks about what they call me back home.

I have to think back on that one and tell him it’s like those clouds before the fighters jumped us.  One time instead of my chores I get caught laid back on this hill looking up at the clouds.  All those shapes.  So my little sister Tippy gets a big kick out of it and starts calling me Leisure.  Then they all start up.

He asks if it bothers me and I say no.  I do my job.  Like my football team back in school.  We were good because we all did our jobs.  Same with my crew.  Ask any of them.  That freeze-up just snuck up on me but it won’t happen again.

He asks if I’ve written home.  I say not until I know what happens.  He says I should.  I say maybe and we leave it at that.

May 17, 1944

Been here a week now.  He wants to know about Betty.

I tell how she lives in St. Louis and don’t want to live in Memphis.  How she won’t listen when I explain about my job.  I tell him about our last day in Forest Park and how I wish it went better.

What I don’t tell him is I decide right then to write to her as soon as I leave his office.  So I do and tell her we’ll find a way to make it work.

Funny.  Right after I mail that letter I want one back and then the next morning one shows up forwarded from Kimbolton.  Before even reading mine she answers me almost word for word everything in it.

Spencer says I should mix in more here so I say I’m going to toast marshmallows Friday night.  Colored signs everywhere.  Punch and cupcakes for all.

May 18, 1944

He wants me to go back through my missions.  Wish I wrote them here all along.

We skip a day after Schweinfurt.  Then go three straight.  Kassel.  No Oranienburg is first.  Aircraft factory.  We peel away from the main group as a diversion.  No losses.

Then Kassel.  It was destroyed in February but they rebuilt it underground.  We lose one fort while our sister group loses three.  Third day is to a V-1 rocket site at Sottevast.  Some Focke Wulfs and light flak.  Whole mission lasts only four hours.

Next day I sleep in but then keep popping up like I’m missing something.  That’s the day I meet Fred.  He’s already got fourteen missions and I can’t even imagine that many.

He asks what I think about killing innocent civilians down there.  I say it’s our job and he nods.  Then he wonders what it’s like getting hit with a five hundred pounder and I tell him there’s nothing to wonder about because there’s nothing left.  At that he just stares with that far off look.

Number five is to Landesberg outside Munich.  A new type Messerschmidt is built there.  Some groups from Italy are supposed to link up but all I see is what looks like the whole German Air Force.

Rail yards at Hamm-Bonn is six.  I’m looking at a runway crack thinking that concrete was poured way too fast.  It’s about then we all are wondering what happened to the land invasion.  Even the brass knows we can’t win this war by ourselves.

Seven is to Berlin.  Seven hundred forts and nothing goes right.  High winds and clouds the whole way.  Over the target we lose five forts and count very few chutes.

Fifty men.  Same chow line.  Throwing around the same football.  Gone.  Just like that.  That’s when they give us the two-day pass to London.

I try to make an airplane for that kid.

On the train back people out the window do the normal things people do.  And we feel normal too after our thousands of miles traveling together.  Difference is we ain’t in a goddamn airplane.

We get back.  First the quiet.  Then the gear missing from the middle bunks.  End crew ignores us until one pipes up.  Went down yesterday.  No chutes reported.

Fred’s crew.  I hope he’s a POW somewhere but there’s a better chance he’s not.  I think at least he won’t have to worry anymore about killing civilians.

That look on his face.  It’s like he knew but then how could he not?  You can’t keep rolling the dice and expect it to not come up snake eyes.  The law of averages.  It has to catch up.

Berlin’s the first time my hands freeze.  I’m plugged in so I figure it’s a bad connection.  I take my gloves over to the equipment chief and he hands them back saying they’re fine.  I think he’s telling the truth.

May 19, 1944

I try to tell about Fred but then don’t have much to say.  That’s when Spencer brings up me taking the Pentothal.  Nothing to it he says.  It relaxes you so you can talk.

And spout off any dumb thing in your head.  What he’s really saying is I have to take it if I want back with my crew while at the same time saying it’s my choice.  Funny how that works.  He tells me to sleep on it.

Then I go to the marshmallow toast.  GIs and RC girls.  A crowd at the fireplace cooking marshmallows.

It feels tight in there and then something jumps the rails.  This RC girl acts like I should say something.  I try to smile but that’s wrong so I go for the punch.  Then I think I might throw up so I head for the door and make it outside.

I lean against a bicycle rack when this other RC girl comes out and offers me a cigarette.  I see now she’s that one from my first day.

I tell her I don’t smoke so she lights up and lets out a long contrail.

She checks her watch a few times and asks if I want to go for a ride.  Then she hops on a bike and tells me to grab one.  Next thing I’m following her down the driveway and I don’t think anything’s ever felt so good as riding that bicycle through the night.

Almost bright out except for the tree shadows.  We go a long way and then turn down a lane that ends at a fence.  She hops over and heads off into a field.  She stops to check her watch again so I strike a match and ask if she needs to be somewhere.  All she says back is give it a minute.

You feel the hum before hearing it.  Then comes that rumble that gets louder until the ground shakes.  A Lancaster comes over the tree line followed by dozens more.  It’s RAF since they only fly at night but she knows that.

I say Limey and she says blimey.

She’s from New York so I call her a Yankee.  She says that’s what her husband calls her but he shortens it to Yank.  I ask where he is now and she points up to that bomber stream.  So that’s it.  We’re here to see him off.

Her eyes stay on that stream so I shut up and watch too.  I also watch her face and it reminds me of something.  Something I lost track of.

Back at the house all she says is I got heart and goes in.

There’s still that answer I owe Spencer.  I can turn down the Pentothal.  Get a ground job maybe.  Or I can take it and try to get back in the war.  After being out in that field earlier turns out there’s not much choice after all.

May 20, 1944

Bug Juice.  Truth serum.  I say I don’t need that stuff to tell the truth and that sets him off but good.

He says it’s not to find out if I’m lying but to reveal what we don’t know.  Think of it as peeling back the flesh on an infection to flush it out.  He’s wound up pretty good so I tell him I already said okay.  Let’s just do it.

I report in the morning to a small clinic behind the main house.

May 27, 1944

What’s fair?  Kids say that’s not fair to each other.  Some people say we lost the game but we played fair.  And then for others it don’t matter at all.

Been a whole week since writing here.  Sent another letter to Betty.  Told her I want to take a trip together when I get back.  And it don’t matter where.

I knew we were killing people by the thousands.  Guess I had to see for myself.

I want to go hunting again.  Not to kill anything.  Just to be there.  I want to see Betty again and see how we do together.  I want to live a little more like anyone else in the world and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But there’s no guarantee.  That’s the important part.  Some die and the rest go on.  There’s nothing fair about it.  The other side is you have to live with yourself and if you can’t do that you don’t have anything anyway.

My plan to catch up is over.  Those guys must be halfway through by now.  They’ve gone on and I hope they keep going on just like I plan on doing when the time comes.

May 28, 1944

If your mask fills with puke you choke.  But you can’t pull it off.  No oxygen so you fight it back down.  You fight the FWs too.  But then something wants to take you away.  You want to go but you have to stay on that Fifty.  So you do it and then do it again.  And keep doing it.  Until you don’t.

Spencer reads from his notes.  He says some remember everything under the Pentothal while others like me almost nothing.

Yelling over the headset.  17s falling out of the sky.  The cold.  Spencer says it’s okay to cry and I tell him why it’s not.

Then he brings up Jimmy Stewart.  He flew the lead fort to Berlin that day.  They say with a movie star leading us we shouldn’t mind following.  I remember all this.

After the mission we find out they turned him back over France but then we see a newsreel of him getting the Croix de Guerre for leading us to Berlin.  It’s a crap lie and Stewart gets cussed out pretty good that day as just another newsreel hero.

But that’s not fair and I say why.  Stewart’s flown more combat missions than all those other newsreel heroes put together.  Maybe he did have engine trouble but that’s not the point anyway.  And then there it is staring me right in the face.  It’s not fair.  I yell it out and wait for an answer but nothing.

Fair is for another time.  Another place.  And who am I to judge what’s fair anyway?  Maybe those newsreel heroes know something I don’t.  Maybe they know to not get themselves in a situation where they freeze-up.  Maybe they’re doing the best they can with this rotten mess and that’s all you can expect of anyone.

Only other thing I remember is getting up from that table soaked in sweat.

May 29, 1944

Got my okay today.  A new directive says B-17 crews will now be nine men instead of ten.  Half the waist-gunners will train on the radio and split time between it and the Fifty.  Spencer thinks I can be one of these radio-waist gunners.

He says my problem is all the waiting.  Too much time to think so doubling up on the radio suits me better.  I’ll be on the Fifty when the fighters come but the rest of the time will be all dots and dashes.

It’s up to the brass at Kimbolton but with my experience you can bet they’ll find a place for me.

Only thing I can’t figure out is how much to tell Betty.  In my letter today I only say I had some down time.  I don’t like lying to her but if I try to explain the censors will leave in some and block out the rest.  It’ll only confuse her more.

So that’s where I leave it.  With her and me it’s all about the future anyway.