What others are saying about
Face the Winter Naked
“FACE THE WINTER NAKED is a gorgeously written and evocative novel of an earlier economic crisis: the Great Depression. Readers looking for a stunning read, intelligent and emotional on every level, will not be disappointed.” ~ Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of Crazy Beautiful and The Education of Bet
“Bonnie Turner’s Face the Winter Naked is a beautifully written tale of strength, hope, love, and despair. Within the pages of this book, the era of the Great Depression unfolds into sharply focused reality, and the people who were impacted the most by that time of financial desperation come to life. Ms. Turner is an excellent storyteller, and I found myself completely immersed in her narrative”. ~ (Bobby) www.bookwenches.com
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Face the Winter Naked
by
Bonnie Turner
Smashwords Edition
This book is also available in print from online book retailers.
Copyright © 2010 by Bonnie L. Turner
All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction, no part of which may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. Brief passages may be used in print media for review purposes.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting this author’s work.
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In loving memory of my dad:
Sharon E. Thomas
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Acknowledgments
Special thanks to author Lauren Baratz-Logsted for taking valuable time from her own work to copy-edit my manuscript; Dan Coleman, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri, for providing old city maps of streets and railroads; Renee Glass, Local History and Genealogy, Springfield-Green County Library, Springfield, Missouri, for researching early railroad lines and street maps from 1931; Claude R. Giroux, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, for his encouragement and dedication to my work; and how could I forget Google Earth, which allowed me to follow the same paths over hill and rail that my character Daniel traveled through Missouri.
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“We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever
before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.”
Herbert Hoover, accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
Palo Alto, California, August 1928
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Face the Winter Naked
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Chapter 1
May 1932
The walk across town in the merciless heat was more than he’d bargained for. He hoped he didn’t stink, but the way his shirt was sticking to his back, he figured it was already too late. But smelly clothes were the least of his worries. How would these people feel meeting a man who watched their son die? He wouldn’t blame them for running him off the premises.
He set his gunnysack on the front porch, adjusted his tools, and straightened his overalls. Removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his scalp. He hesitated a moment, then picked up the brass knocker.
An older gentleman opened the door, and the resemblance was startling. He recognized every detail of this man’s features—how could he forget, when Frankie’s face was permanently burned in his memory?
“Yes?”
“Good afternoon, sir. My name’s Daniel. I’m looking for the family of my Army friend Frankie Kimball.” He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and checked the house number again. “It’s the address they gave me at the gas station.”
The man stared at Daniel a moment, then came out on the porch and shook his hand.
“Yes, I’m Frankie’s dad. You took me by surprise—it’s been thirteen years. Please come in, Mr.—?”
“Tomelin. But you can call me Daniel. I’d be much obliged if you could give this ol’ bum a drink of water.” He looked down at his feet. “I must look like something the cat buried in the petunias. If you want, I’ll go ‘round back so I won’t track up your floors.”
“You’re a welcome guest in this house,” Kimball said, “not a servant. My son wouldn’t turn you away and neither will I.” He smiled. “Besides, floors can be cleaned.”
“I wouldn’t blame you none for not trusting a stranger,” Daniel said. “But I’ll be glad to come in and sit. That walk darn near wore me out.”
He wiped his shoes on the mat and followed Mr. Kimball into a parlor with furniture too nice to sit on in sweaty overalls.
“Please have a seat, Daniel. I’ll tell my wife you’re here.”
Daniel hesitated, then sat cautiously on the edge of an overstuffed chair near a large stone fireplace, crushing his cap in his hands. So this is where Frankie lived. He looked around the room at the various artifacts and photos, feeling embarrassed in surroundings far beyond his means. His glance swept across the top of the mantel and came to rest on an eight-by-ten-inch photograph in a gold frame.
It was Frankie, all decked out in his uniform, his service hat placed squarely above his brows. When his eyes met those of his friend, Frankie smiled, and the memories came back.
The trenches. The mud. Everybody hated the mud. They ate in it, waded in it, slept in it. The weary horses struggled through mud axle-deep to deliver rations to the front lines. The noise. Earsplitting blasts echoing in your skull long after they stopped. Shells bursting overhead, sending his pals and himself flying for cover. Frank bleeding, crying, begging. Daniel cradling his friend’s head in his arms, weeping onto a face filled with the terror of dying.
“T-tell my mother I—”
He thought he knew what Frank’s unfinished words were.
The glass over the print clouded and blurred Frank’s don’t-give-a-damn expression.
“Mr. Tomelin?”
A soft voice and a hand on his shoulder. He blinked back tears and looked up into a woman’s gentle face.
“I—I’m sorry, ma’am.” He removed his glasses and dried his eyes with his cap. “Something just came over me.”
“It’s quite all right.” She handed him a glass of water and stepped away from him. “I’m Frank’s mother.”
Daniel nodded and pulled himself together. “Thank you kindly. I mostly travel in the evening when it ain’t so hot. This’ll wet my whistle just fine.” He drank the cold water straight down, handed her the empty glass, and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve.
She gave Mr. Kimball a weary look and took a seat across from Daniel.
“My husband tells me you fought with our son in the war.” She smiled. “It’s all right to talk about now. Enough time has gone by that…”
“Yes ma’am, side-by-side. We called him Frankie the Yankee.” Daniel sensed Frank’s lingering vibrations in his childhood home. Here, in this room. He felt a chill go through him, along with an urge to blurt out his feelings, but caught himself in time.
“Frank mentioned the nickname in one of his letters,” Mr. Kimball said. “You must be Shine.”
A sheepish grin crossed Daniel’s face as he ran a hand over his slick bald head. “Yes sir, but only my war buddies called me that.”
Mrs. Kimball rose. “Come out to the kitchen. You’ve probably come a long way. The least we can do is offer you some lunch.”
“Well, yes, I’ve been all over the country. But I didn’t come for food, ma’am, just to meet Frank’s folks he talked so much about.” He grinned. “It was either you or baseball. We couldn’t get him to shut up. He talked about the Boston Red Sox and Babe Ruth.” He shrugged. “I’m not much for the game myself.”
“Ah yes,” Mr. Kimball said. “The ‘Babe,’ a great pitcher and a hard hitter. My son and I saw Ruth’s first World Series game right before Frank joined the Army. It’s too bad he didn’t live to see his hero become a legend.”
“That day at the ballpark was special for your son, Mr. Kimball. He never forgot.”
“Did he tell you he put away six hotdogs? And popcorn, peanuts, and too much to drink.”
“Is that right? That sounds like Frankie. Of course, he was a only a teenager and still growing.” He stopped growing on the battlefield.
Mrs. Kimball seemed more withdrawn and formal than her husband. Daniel thought she might be uncomfortable with a man in her parlor who looked like a tramp and no doubt smelled like a goat. It was too late now to do anything about his appearance.
“It seems like yesterday our boy went to war.” She nodded at her husband. “We were so proud of him—I framed his medals and hung them over his bed.”
“Yes ma’am. Frankie would like that.” He fiddled with his cap. “But the reason I came, I told myself I was going to find the families of my buddies who were lost in the war. I always meant to, but the years flew by and I had other responsibilities.”
“What a wonderful idea. Did you find them?” She motioned for him to follow.
“Nope. Just you folks and another family. Two others had moved. Nobody seen hide nor hair of them.”
“So many are suffering from the Depression,” she said. “Families breaking up, people dying.”
Daniel spoke as he followed the couple through the house, mindful his shoes might be tracking up the rugs.
“I found Big Woody’s family in Tennessee.”
They passed through the dining room arch into a large sunny kitchen with pots of red geraniums on the windowsill. She pulled out a chair for him and began preparing a meal.
“Where did you say you’re from?” Mr. Kimball asked.
“Independence, Missouri.” Daniel hung his cap on the back of the chair and sat down.
“So that’s where your accent comes from. The ‘Show Me’ state.”
“You been there? Guess my accent’s pretty sad, ain’t it?”
“Not at all.” Kimball glanced around as his wife came over with plates and napkins and dishes of food. “Ah, here we go. Now don’t be shy, Daniel, just help yourself,” he continued. “I visited Missouri years ago. One day I got an urge to see where the Santa Fe trail started.”
“Is that right?”
Mrs. Kimball took a seat and graciously passed him a bowl of chicken salad.
“Tell us about your family, Mr. Tomelin—Daniel. Don’t mind if I pry.” She handed him a basket of hard rolls covered with a white cloth napkin, and uncovered a crystal butter dish.
“I have a dear wife and three youngins,” he said. “A sweet little girl and two ornery boys that take after their daddy.”
It was cooler in the house. He wished he could unbutton his shirt and roll his long sleeves back up, but he dared not. He was the surprise guest of his friend’s parents. He could play the gentleman if he had to, albeit a gentleman dressed in overalls, dusty worn-out shoes, and sweat running down his sides. Again, he wondered if he smelled too ripe. I should’ve found a place to clean up before coming here.
He spread his napkin on his lap and tried to remember his manners, so they wouldn’t suspect he was on the edge of starvation. He helped himself to a slice of ham and a generous serving of green beans with bacon. The food smelled so good, he wanted to lay his face in the plate and inhale every morsel. But he laid his knife and fork down between bites and chewed his food thoroughly before swallowing. It wouldn’t do to eat like a pig and insult these fine people. But my goodness, his poor stomach was groaning to beat the band.
Mr. Kimball eyed Daniel’s tools.
“I assume you’re away from home on business. Not everyone carries carpenters’ tools when they travel.”
Mrs. Kimball agreed. “Yes, please tell us. You must be lonely away from your family.”
Daniel compared the Kimballs with Woody’s family, who had seemed to resent hearing about their son. They were in dire straits, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that.
He became aware of Mrs. Kimball speaking.
“Beg pardon?”
“You were far away. I asked about your family. Maybe you’d rather not talk about them.”
He told them his story, because to not tell them wouldn’t be fair. Yes, he’d left his family to look for carpenter work, traveling by foot, freight, and mule-drawn cart. At the same time, it had seemed a good plan to look up the families.
But the nightmares? No, he couldn’t talk about those—it was bad enough he’d deserted his loved ones in time of need. His life had become a jigsaw puzzle he couldn’t fit together. How could he explain it to anyone till he figured it out himself?
“Where will you go next?” Mrs. Kimball raised a brow.
How could he go back and face his wife, his children, or his own father, for that matter, without a job?
His hostess waited for an answer, which wasn’t long coming.
“I heard about a cash bonus the government set aside to reward us veterans for our service,” Daniel said. “But we can’t collect it until 1945.”
“Why on earth? It seems to me they’d give it to those poor wretches when they need it most. This makes me furious!” She turned to her husband, who nodded in agreement. “The veterans earned that money, some with their lives.”
Daniel wiped his mouth and placed the crumpled napkin by his plate.
“That’s what others are thinking, too. Some are going to march to Washington, D.C., and ask for their money early. Maybe I’ll go along. It can’t hurt.”
“I should say not,” she replied.
Mr. Kimball rose and motioned for Daniel to follow, and when they got to the parlor, he stopped before Frankie’s photograph. He brought it down, polished the glass on his shirt, and replaced it exactly as before.
“We tried talking him out of enlisting, but his friends had gone and he didn’t want to be left behind. I only hope he didn’t die without a purpose.”
Daniel bowed his head. “Frankie served his country well, Mr. Kimball. His was a noble purpose.” He glanced up as Mrs. Kimball came in and stood beside him.
“What I came to say, Mr. and Mrs. Kimball, is that your son told me with his last breath that he loves you.”
The woman’s voice caught. “Oh—and was he, I mean, did he suffer? Please, Daniel, we have to know.”
“Frankie was brave, Mrs. Kimball. He passed on while I held him, and there was peace on his face.”
He looked at Kimball, who stared at his son’s image without speaking. If he’d been to war himself, he would’ve known the bravery part was a lie, and just dying in someone’s arms was a luxury few soldiers experienced.
Mrs. Kimball took both of Daniel’s hands in hers, gripping them tightly, weeping.
“God bless you for coming.” She gave his hands a little shake before releasing them. “Don’t leave until I pack some food for your trip to Washington.”
“Aw shucks, ma’am, the food I just ate was plenty.”
She smiled through her tears. “Oh, I so want to do this, if you’ll allow me.”
Mr. Kimball excused himself and went up a wide flight of stairs off the foyer, returning shortly with a well-worn catcher’s mitt.
“This belonged to Frank. He burned his initials in the leather, see? F.K.” He handed the mitt to Daniel.
Daniel slipped his hand into the glove. He could almost picture Frankie catching a fly-ball and throwing it to third base.
“Looks like he used this a lot.”
“Take it.”
“Wh—?”
“It’s yours if you want it.” Daniel started to protest, but Kimball cut him off. “You were Frank’s friend, and you went to all the trouble to find us. He’d want you to have it.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Kimball said. “Frank was our only child, so we have no grandsons to play with it.”
“But it’s a dear keepsake, ma’am. It’s like giving part of your son away.”
“We gave all of our son away the day he went to war,” she replied. “Besides, you have sons, so it’ll get some use again.” She turned and started for the kitchen. “Now don’t you leave till I pack your dinner.” She paused a moment in the doorway and smiled back at him.
She’s just like Frankie when he made up his mind to do something. Daniel’s heart warmed at the thought as he turned back to Frank Sr.
“I didn’t come for gifts.”
“I know, but she’s right. We’ll be honored. Please take it. Unless it would be too much extra to carry.”
Daniel shook his head and grinned. He stretched his arm to catch an invisible ball, then reached out to shake hands, remembering to removed the mitt first.
“This means a lot, Mr. Kimball. I’ll make room in my pack for this great gift. Thank you.”
The couple saw him to the front porch, where he picked up his gunnysack and started down the steps. He looked back once and waved before walking down the street.
Chapter 2
LaDaisy nestled the baby against her breast, trying to ignore her own mother as the woman moved lazily around the room examining whatnots and pictures. Pausing once at Daniel’s shelf, Vera absentmindedly picked up a hand-carved walnut toothpick cup with a snake encircling the outside, stared at it a minute, then put it back.
Her mother didn’t understand Daniel’s lust for a talent to call his own; his passionate desire to add a part of himself to the accumulation of Tomelin artifacts: oil paintings, music, and religious poetry filled with the fear of God.
Vera finally walked over to the open front door and gazed thoughtfully through the patched screen at the shady yard. Halfway between the house and street, a huge white oak spread its summer canopy of dark green leaves. Daniel had tied a thick rope to one of the limbs for a tire swing. Not only the Tomelin children, but the neighbors, as well, had twirled, twisted, and dragged their feet beneath the tire until the grass grew a big oval dirt patch.
“Where are the kids?” Vera asked without turning.
“Bobby’s napping. Earl and Catherine are outside somewhere. Didn’t you see them when you came in?”
“No.” Vera paused. “Saul’s hanging around again.” She glanced over her shoulder. “He still lives in the little shack out back, doesn’t he? I think Clayton wants to tear that down.”
“Over my dead body, Mama. It’d be just like him to throw that kind old man out on his ear. Not going to happen as long as I can help it.”
“So, what good is Saul?”
“That’s a hateful thing to ask. What’s come over you?”
“It wasn’t meant to be hateful,” Vera said. “You know me better, LaDaisy. I only meant, what does he do with his time? Does he work? Probably too old to work.”
“He’s more good than you know. Yes, he works hard. He tends his little garden, keeps me in potatoes and green beans. Plays with the kids, pushes them in the swing and takes them for walks. Gets them out of my hair for a few minutes so I can think. He comes in and sits sometimes to keep me company.”
“You trust him?”
“Really, Mama, your nasty remarks offend me.”
“Humph.” Vera stared through the screen. “I just saw him go around back and the kids weren’t with him.”
“Little rascals must’ve taken off again. Oh, well, they don’t go far. Maybe they’re looking for milk bottle caps again.”
Vera turned.
“Milk caps? As if you need more clutter.”
“Earl pretends they’re money. When he finds ten, he runs over to the store and Bart gives him a stick of horehound candy. Lord knows he doesn’t have much else in the store these days, and nobody buying it anyhow.” Then she chuckled. “Earl also collects soda pop caps. He pries the cork linings out and uses them to attach the metal caps to his beanie. Daniel showed him how.”
“I’ll never understand you,” Vera said, “letting those little ones outdoors all by themselves. Certainly no child of mine would—”
LaDaisy stifled a yawn.
“Would ever do this, would ever do that, would ever would ever. Oh Mama, stop!”
“I meant—”
“They’re probably at Rose’s house.”
“You let them go alone?”
“It’s not that far.” LaDaisy sighed. “Rose gives your grandchildren homemade bread right out of the oven. The cousins play with them, or they go to the creek to find tadpoles.” She looked her mother squarely in the eyes. “When was the last time you baked light bread? Or invited my children to come sample any?”
“You don’t need to get on your high horse,” Vera sputtered. “You’re their mother. They should be here with you.”
“They’re here enough. I can’t be with them every minute. Besides, they’re doing things their dad would do with them if he was here.”
“Oh yes, if he was here.” Vera turned back to the door. “That seems to be the problem, doesn’t it?”
Her daughter ignored the remark.
Daniel Tomelin’s children often waited for him on the front porch, eyeing every movement on the road. Just a few days ago, Catherine ran inside, yelling, “Mama! Mama! My daddy’s here!” But when LaDaisy hurried outdoors to look, she saw no one at all. “No, Cath, Daddy isn’t here. You saw someone else. If it was Daddy, he’d be swinging you around and hugging you right this minute.”
The girl was crestfallen as LaDaisy stooped down and placed both hands on her cheeks. She raised her daughter’s face and met the confused hazel eyes staring up at her.
“I don’t know when Daddy’s coming home, honey. Maybe if we all ask Jesus, Daddy will come.” She gave the girl a hug, then rose. “Now run along and play.”
Another time, Bobby thought he saw Daniel by his bed in the middle of the night.
“It was just a dream,” his mother had said, tucking him back into bed.
Vera had no idea what it was like living with three frightened children who didn’t know from one day to another where their bread was coming from.
Mary had fallen asleep, the nipple sliding out one corner of her mouth. LaDaisy raised her to a shoulder, gently patted and rubbed her back. The soft baby skin was sweaty, but smelled sweetly of talcum as she hunched her body and tried to climb up her mother’s chest. Then came a burp, and with it a bit of milk against LaDaisy’s print smock. Thank God she’s too young to know.
She was small for four months—the smallest of the whole Tomelin brood—and hadn’t thrived as the other babies had. While the others had teethed and babbled at this age, their baby sister was unusually lethargic. LaDaisy worried about this. But then she worried about a lot of other things these days, too.
She frowned as she watched her mother. Vera looked out of place in the modest Tomelin house, wearing a pastel crepe dress and a perky little straw hat with fake asters around the crown. A cloud of pink veil encircled the hat, covering the woman’s tightly curled hair. But Vera fooled no one, least of all her daughter. For all her money, she often shopped at Kresge’s five-and-dime on the Square, instead of the more expensive Knoepker or Bundschu department stores on Maple. The hat was old, the dress homemade, and under the henna rinse was a headful of gray.
LaDaisy turned the baby face-down across her lap, patting and stroking as Mary dozed.
“Sit down, Mama. You’re driving me crazy.”
Vera turned and stared at her daughter, her double chins pressed closely to her neck, her mouth a tight, straight crack outlined in blood.
“I can’t stay. I just came to check on you. If you had a telephone, it would save me the trouble of driving over here.”
You came to snoop. LaDaisy rocked gently back and forth in the rocker, her bare feet sliding—slish, slish, slish—on the cool linoleum.
“I can barely pay for electricity, let alone a telephone,” she said. “But as long as you’re here, you’re welcome to stay for supper.”
Vera came over and looked down at Mary.
“Rufus likes me home when he gets off work, you know. We’re having company for supper—Ida and Clay. I just came out to shop and thought I’d drop by.”
LaDaisy looked up. “How’s Ida Mae doing?”
“Some better. She’s not as queasy.”
“She looked miserable last time I saw her. I think she’s feeling panicky about the birth.”
LaDaisy recalled the conversation.
“Please be honest with me,” her sister had said. “Does it hurt much?”
“Does it hurt? Oh yes. It hurts like hell sometimes. But you’ll push the baby out, then nurse it and forget all about the pain.”
Ida Mae wrung her hands. “I can’t do it!”
“It’s too late now. You and Clayton made a baby and it can’t stay in there forever.”
LaDaisy and her sister were as different as rain and sunshine—one like her mother, the other tall and slender after their father, Richard Blue. One outgoing, the other backward and shy. Why Clay ever married Ida Mae was a mystery, unless he wanted a woman he could dominate.
“The girl’s got no spunk,” Daniel had said after meeting Ida Mae for the first time. “She lets people walk all over her, and that includes your mother.”
Whatever the reason for Ida’s strange, retiring personality, there was certainly no love lost between the two sisters. Competition had been fierce between them from early childhood. After their parents’ bitter divorce, LaDaisy got the brunt of Vera’s anger toward Richard, and Ida Mae quickly learned how to manipulate the situation.
But all that was in the past now, or at least it should be. As a woman and mother herself, she sympathized with her sister’s first experience with birth. Under the circumstances, any woman would be nervous.
Her mother was still rambling and LaDaisy brought her attention back.
“I really came to insist you move back home. You can have your old room back—I repapered it in a nice rosebud pattern and made new curtains and a bedspread. Did I tell you? Maybe I did. Even your dolls are still propped up on the closet shelf.”
“I don’t play with dolls anymore, Mama. But you could bring them over here for your granddaughters. I would’ve brought them when I moved out, but I forgot.”
“Oh, no,” Vera said, “those dolls are my only reminders of your childhood at home. I won’t part with them.”
“Maybe you should charge them rent.”
“Don’t sass your mother!”
LaDaisy kept on rocking, occasionally stroking Mary’s sweaty curls away from her face. It was useless trying to get the dolls, her personal property, given to her for birthdays and Christmases. Catherine would delight in those baby dolls, since she’d never had a store-bought one.
“You didn’t come here to talk about dolls,” she said.
“I already said why I came. If I told you once, I told you a hundred times, we can easily make room for Daniel’s children.”
LaDaisy stiffened. “Daniel’s? For Pete’s sake, Mama, do you think Daniel made our children all by himself? Do you think I wouldn’t uncross my legs and help?”
“There’s no need to talk nasty. You know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately, I do. You mean Daniel put these kids in me without my knowledge or permission. What you really mean is they’re his children, not mine.”
“You’re as stubborn as your father. I’ll bet Richard hasn’t been to see you for years. Does he write?”
“Sometimes.”
“He knows about his grandchildren.”
“Of course.” LaDaisy became thoughtful. “Anyway, having five beautiful children is nothing to be ashamed of. Daddy would love Daniel if he knew him better, as almost everyone does.”
Vera sat stiffly on the edge of the davenport, puffed out like an old hen settling her feathers over a clutch of eggs. She wiggled inside her tight corset, seeking to adjust her fat folds more comfortably. Beads of perspiration glistened on her face.
“Why can’t you be sensible, child?”
“Maybe that’s the whole problem, Mama. Why do you treat me like a child when I’m a grown woman with kids of my own?” LaDaisy glanced at her baby. “Would you like to hold Mary?”
Vera shook her head. “Not right now—she’s probably wet and I’m wearing good clothes.”
You never want to cuddle this baby.
LaDaisy fought to keep her composure, thinking how selfish her mother was. Vera was all wrapped up in Ida.
She thought her sister had done a stupid thing, dropping out of school and getting married right in the middle of the Depression. But their mother thought Ida Mae had married well, for Clay had bought some property for back taxes, including the house Daniel and his family rented. Now the girl was expecting, and her big sister was beginning to think the two deserved each other.
It was a wonder Ida Mae didn’t see, but the heavier she grew, the more her husband ogled other women. How could she not notice?
Now, Vera stood and smoothed down her skirt.
“I guess I know when I’m not welcome.”
LaDaisy had an uncanny way of shutting her mother’s whining voice out of her mind. The rocker creaked back and forth, back and forth. Her feet continued to hiss along the floor. The antique clock ticked loudly in the otherwise quiet room. It was the same old story. Ever since Daniel’s disappearance, her mother had harped about her going home.
She nodded dreamily, her head tilted back. Through half-closed eyes she watched a fly buzzing dangerously near a huge spider’s web strung across one corner of the ceiling, tempted to land on the sticky trap. She had better get the broom later and sweep it down. Daniel always said spiders were mostly harmless—’less of course you came across a black widow—and they rid the house of flies.
Again, her mother’s voice cut through her dreamy veil. LaDaisy half listened, half not.
“I’ve been thinking,” Vera said. “You might as well divorce him.”
The fly landed on the web and fluttered its wings; the more it fought, the tighter the spider glue held. Divorce Daniel? She struggled to refocus her eyes. The rocker stopped rocking.
“What did you say?”
“I said you can divorce Daniel for walking out on you. I know this nice lawyer, name’s Roger Belton. He—”
LaDaisy straightened up and blinked to clear her eyes; she’d almost fallen asleep listening to her mother’s constant drone. She glanced down at her infant, softly stroked the fine, moist curls.
“Daniel loves his babies. He’ll be back.”
“When? He could be dead for all we know.” She went over and picked up one of Daniel’s caps, stared at it for a few moments without speaking, then laid it on the end table and brushed her hand on her skirt. “When’s the last time Daniel said he loved you?”
“More recently than Rufus told you, I’m sure.”
Mary wiggled and grunted. LaDaisy raised her up against a shoulder. The last thing she wanted was for Mary to wake up. If she didn’t get her nap out, the house would be in an uproar the rest of the day. She commenced rocking again, softly patting Mary’s bottom. The wet diaper had soaked LaDaisy’s smock.
She became aware of her mother staring, and looked up.
“It’s none of your business if he loves me or not.”
Vera crossed the room and retrieved her bag from the table by the front door. LaDaisy thought of a little girl’s Sunday school pocketbook; she could imagine in it a hanky, two pennies, a stick of Spearmint gum, and the crumpled scrap of her Sunday school work sheet.
“A man who loves his wife tells her so,” Vera said. “I’ll bet Daniel hasn’t said those words since your wedding night.”
“We already know how each other feels,” LaDaisy said, weary of the conversation. “You don’t live with someone, go through something like this terrible Depression, and not know what they’re thinking and feeling.” I am so tired of defending him.
“Ha! Did you read his mind the day he ran out on you? If you did, you’d know where he is, wouldn’t you? But you don’t know, and he isn’t coming back to his responsibilities. Mark my words, LaDaisy, Daniel saw his chance for freedom.”
LaDaisy ran a shaky hand through her bobbed chestnut hair, around back of her neck. She made no reply, but waited for her mother to leave.
Vera stood on the other side of the room, as firmly planted as the giant oak out front, her roots growing through the linoleum, her hand on the screen door handle and gazing at her daughter.
“What are you and the children eating? Or do you send them to their aunt’s house for meals?”
“We manage.”
“On the meager wages you get from hemming up a few dresses and sewing rips in other people’s clothes? You weren’t brought up for menial work, LaDaisy. Why land sakes, a daughter of mine doing maid’s work. Do you also take in laundry? No wonder people call you La Crazy.”
LaDaisy frowned. La Crazy, La Lazy. Childhood nicknames her sister had called her. She was doing well to get her own family’s clothes washed.
“Laundry? Hmmm, thanks for the suggestion.”
“Daniel wasn’t good for anything except making babies,” Vera said. “He made another one, then took off, leaving you to give birth and care for four children alone.”
Mary’s diaper was soggy but it could wait. It was all LaDaisy could do to sit and listen to her mother insulting Daniel Tomelin, the only man in the world she couldn’t live without.
“I already told you he didn’t know I was expecting.”
Vera shook her head, her curls bouncing close to her cheeks. Her rouge was too bright against the pale funeral makeup, as was her lipstick. LaDaisy could never understand why her mother, with all her money, would go around looking like a clown.
She knew Vera was peeved that she’d married into such a “plain” family—Vera’s own words. Now, something inside the younger woman snapped. Years of coping with her mother’s insults rose like bile in her throat.
“If you ever talk about Daniel that way again, so help me God, I’ll never speak to you as long as I live.”
“I’m just offering my help.”
“Your help isn’t needed.” LaDaisy felt her face redden. “It’s like Hoover sitting up there in his fancy mansion telling us to cheer up, things are getting better. I don’t have chicken on my table every Sunday. Dammit to hell, Mama! We know it won’t be all right for a long time, if ever. I’ve got me a scrub bucket out on the back porch. Why don’t you and Hoover come over and scrub my floors?”
“Now you listen here!”
“No, you listen! I don’t need you or Rufus Baker, President Hoover, Daniel’s folks, or Clay Huff to take care of us. If Daniel never comes home, you’ll see I don’t need him, either. We’ll manage without charity.”
Vera tried to speak again, but LaDaisy cut her off, her eyes glistening with tears. “I’m a Tomelin now, Mama, and we have pride if we don’t have much else.”
Vera’s hand flew up to her chest, fluttering there like a moth. “You’re not yourself. I’ll come back when you’re feeling better.” She paused in the doorway, holding the screen door open. “Rufus will be by here later with a box of clothes that might fit the children.”
More charity.
LaDaisy had no grudges against her stepfather, for Rufus had always treated her well. Still, she thought he should assert some authority over his wife and call her down when she became a meddling shrew in her oldest daughter’s life. The fact is, the man was content to let Vera run things at home while he attended to business at the store.
After she left, LaDaisy carried Mary to the bedroom, put her down in the cradle, and changed her diaper. Mary sighed and stuck her thumb in her mouth; for once, LaDaisy left it there. She glanced at the basket of dirty laundry a neighbor had delivered earlier, dreading the thought of heating water and filling tubs to scrub the clothes by hand.
She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, settling her body from its emotional onslaught in order to make milk; but her whirling thoughts would not settle.
Her life was falling apart since Daniel disappeared. Could her mother be right? Would he never return? She didn’t know what to believe.
Politicians encouraged citizens to hang on—“Things have to get better.” But many of their friends and neighbors had been out of work for months. Their lives had become a hellish existence. Their children wore rags, and everyone slept in the same bed in cold weather. Some had burned their furniture to keep warm. The mothers were too depressed to look after the kids, and their papas had given up looking for work and sat staring into space, smoking stale cigarette butts collected from the gutters.
My kids won’t ever be in that condition, if I have to mend and scrub the shitty underdrawers of all the gentry in Missouri.
As for Daniel, wherever he was, he could still be proud of his family. LaDaisy told herself he still cared what happened to them, but for some reason, he was unable to face the hardships of the Depression. She thought of his mandolin on the walnut shelf he made to keep it away from small, destructive hands. Something must’ve bothered him badly to run off without it, or even a word of good-bye.
Her breath came heavily after the confrontation with her mother. A pulse battered her temples and brought the first signs of a migraine, as though she hadn’t enough to contend with. When tears threatened, she willed them to stop—there had to be milk for nursing Elizabeth Channing’s infant. Strong, painful emotions would dry up her supply.
Her mother would faint if she knew that within the next hour her headstrong daughter would wet-nurse another woman’s baby.
She reached over to the nightstand and switched the radio on, lay back again and let the music soothe her mind. All of me. Why not take all of me. Her hand moved absently to her belly and rested there while she remembered.
Her husband had taken all of her before leaving for God knows where. She hadn’t thought about it much until now, when the memory of the embarrassing act returned full-force. He’d seemed distracted when he finished too soon and rolled over with his back to her. Was that when she’d conceived Mary?
She hadn’t suspected she was pregnant when Daniel left, and when she realized it was true, the shock was frightening. Alone and pregnant? It was the worst thing that could happen. But she gathered her wits and sought work to support herself and the three children. She ironed and sewed for financially secure families in big iron-fenced houses. To save money, she delivered Mary herself.
Mary’s arrival had been a blessing in disguise, for it provided a way to feed her family. When she learned that young Elizabeth Channing was unable to feed her own baby, LaDaisy seized the chance to wet-nurse baby Ralph in return for milk, eggs, butter, and meat.
After a few minutes of rest, she left the house by the enclosed back porch, past the old wringer washer and galvanized tubs, and followed the path to the privy. Returning, she heated water and bathed her breasts, inspecting her nipples for signs of irritation. She toweled them gently and slipped into a clean brassiere and smock.
She looked in on her youngest son, grateful that Bobby usually napped long enough for her to nurse Ralph. Quietly returning to the front room to wait for Elizabeth, she considered her children.
While blond-haired Bobby was the spitting image of his dad, six-year-old Earl was a mix of both families, having inherited her side’s dark hair and the Tomelin’s gentle disposition. Strong-willed Catherine was her daddy’s joy. Beneath the sugar-spun curls, behind the wide hazel eyes, was a four-year-old imp who put her brothers to shame finding mischief.
What possessed a father to abandon his children as if they didn’t exist? No matter how many times LaDaisy asked herself that question, there was never an answer that made sense.
She glanced at Daniel’s old cap on the end table. Surely it wasn’t true what her mother had said about him not coming back. Of course he would. She’d been around the Tomelin clan long enough to know that when they made commitments, they honored them. But what had changed in his life to cause him to leave?
Still, she often felt nagging doubts. Daniel was different from the others in many ways, a wanderer at heart. Maybe he needed to get it out of his system and the Depression gave him an excuse. But whatever it was, she was sure he still loved his kids. She didn’t want to think he’d stopped loving his wife.
“I’m stuck with you,” she whispered, “whether I want to be or not.”
She picked up the cap. Pressed it to her nose. Inhaled his scent in the material. She turned it over and saw the sweat line on the band. Had he taken his other cap? She hadn’t seen it around the house, and Daniel Tomelin could not live without his flat cap.
She closed her eyes tightly to dam the flood of tears welling for the second time that day. Drawing in a deep breath, she opened her eyes and gazed at the cap for a long time, as though his face would materialize beneath it. With a cry of anguish, she hurled it as hard as she could to the other side of the room, where it landed on top of a lamp shade.
LaDaisy got mad and threw the cap at least once a week.
Calmer now, she wiped her eyes, hating herself for the doubts her mother had planted in her mind. But suppose Vera was right and he never intended to come home? What would she do if it turned out he no longer loved her? Divorce? Out of the question. No matter what he was up to, she was his wife and she still loved him. LaDaisy Tomelin was still Daniel’s girl. Everyone knew that.
A short time later, Rufus arrived with a box of used children’s clothing and missed Elizabeth Channing by minutes. LaDaisy watched nervously out the window, hoping she wouldn’t have to explain to her stepdad about the wet-nursing. It wasn’t common knowledge around Independence. Not to mention that Rufus and Mr. Channing belonged to the same men’s club and were on the county election board together. No, she would keep the secret: Elizabeth produced less than a thimble of milk for Ralph.
The heat had clearly gotten to Rufus. His pulpy cheeks were moist and red, and even his eyes appeared to sweat. Carrying the box had been an effort.
“It’s pretty warm out,” he said.
“Would you like something to drink?” Say no, please. “I have cold tea in the icebox.”
“I can’t stay, LaDaisy. A glass of water will do.”
Rufus declined to sit, and she went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water.
“Don’t drink it too fast.”
“Ah, thank you, just what I need.”
LaDaisy thought she heard a car and jerked her head toward the door.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“What? Oh, no. I thought I heard something.” She smiled. “So, how are things at the store?”
“Hectic, if I must say so. Despite the poor economy, would you believe some people are still willing to spend a few dollars?”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? For you and Mama, I mean.” Leave now, Rufus, please.
He drained the glass and handed it to her.
“I must get home now. Much obliged for the drink.”
Ten minutes later, the Channing’s Ford V-8 pulled in behind Daniel’s 1925 Model T pickup. The truck was an eyesore, and LaDaisy had considered getting rid of it. But she couldn’t bear to give her husband’s truck away. The previous owner had replaced the truck’s back wheels with tractor tires so Daniel could drag a plow through the fields. He’d never gotten around to changing them, and Elizabeth’s spanking new auto put it to shame.
Chapter 3
The white dome of the U.S. Capitol rose majestically in the distance when Daniel climbed off the freight train a few miles from the federal grounds, realizing the longer he stayed on the train, the tighter the security would be with a bigger chance of getting arrested for vagrancy. Sweating and disheveled, he went over to a shady sycamore tree and set down his gunnysack so he could size up the situation.
This road he was on ran parallel to a river, laid out in the general direction of the Capital. Easy enough to find his way. But when he got there, then what? Most towns had laws forbidding vagrants from assembling, and he definitely looked the part: grubby, whiskered, reeking of sweat; scuffed, rundown shoes and baggy bib overalls about six times too big, and his flat cap had seen better days. After bumming around the country for the past year, he looked older than his thirty-four years.
Summer’s relentless heat was taking its toll on him, but his lack of food since leaving the Kimballs’ was a bigger worry. The supper Frankie’s mother had packed had consisted of two meatloaf sandwiches on homemade bread, a deviled egg, and chocolate cake with butter-cream icing. He’d bolted down the meal almost around the next bend in the road. Now his empty stomach complained.
He pulled off his cap and exposed his naked head to the air, his thoughts turning to his family. If he had any sense, he’d go home, beg LaDaisy’s forgiveness and hope she wouldn’t kill him for deserting them. How would he explain the nightmares? He was surprised she hadn’t figured it out all by herself after a few years of marriage. Would she understand those horrible experiences stole a man’s pride and sanity? And how could he admit his shame for being unable to provide for them? It was a hurtful situation for a proud family man. I promised you a vine-covered cottage, girl, not a ramshackle house with a yard full of weeds. You at least deserve someone who can pay the rent.
He put his cap back on, picked up his sack and started walking again. He hadn’t gone far when a dusty truck pulled up beside him, and one glance told him he needn’t have worried about his appearance. Men with unshaven, tired faces rode standing up in the back of the truck. A few sat at the rear with their legs dangling over the tailgate. A large sign hung from the side of the truck: BONUS ARMY. He would not have described any of those pathetic men as a bonus to the Army.
The driver stuck his head out the window and waved him over.
“I reckon you’re headed our way.” He motioned behind him to the truck bed. “Hop in, if you can find an empty spot.”
Daniel tipped his cap and nodded. “Much obliged, mister.”
He handed his pack up to one of the men, then grabbed an outstretched hand and clambered aboard. The men wedged him between them as the truck started up and continued down the road.
He got his breath and turned to the man beside him.
“My poor ol’ feet are killing me.”
“Been walking long?”
“Nope. Got off a train a ways back. But the longer I walk, the heavier my pack and tools get. Miserable weather, ain’t it? I feel like a toad that got run over by a car and been laying out in the sun for a week.”
He closed his aching eyes, thinking how good it would be to collect his bonus and head for home.
The truck rolled past the mansions of the rich, and a short time later, Daniel joined the throngs of veterans of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, which had descended on Washington, D.C., and demanded immediate payment of their cash bonuses. Like himself, many were unemployed victims of the Depression—ragged, sad, hungry, and mighty pissed off at the crooked politicians who’d let the country sink into such a sorry state.
After leaving his long-faced companions, he toured the area for a few blocks, marveling at the stately homes, and grimacing at the hovels springing up within spitting distance of them. He stopped not far from the Capitol, appraised the building’s handiwork but cursed the men who worked inside. This is where all our misery comes from. Damn politicians sitting on their asses. Refusing to help the poor, starving citizens buy a loaf of bread or a few lumps of coal to heat their houses.
The sun was already down by the time he found a secluded spot to park his weary body. He lay on the hard ground with his head on his pack—for comfort and safe-keeping. Frankie’s catcher’s mitt made a decent pillow, cradling his head in the soft leather.
Early next morning, Daniel awakened to the smell of coffee and followed his nose to a shack built from corrugated sheet metal and scraps of old lumber.
“Howdy,” he said to a squat little man tending a kerosene burner outside his building. “My name’s Daniel. Can you can tell me where I can find a privy? I can’t hold it much longer.”
“I’m Chester.” The man glanced up a dirt road with one eye, while the other looked in a different direction. “You can’t miss it, but you might have to wait in line at this hour.”
Daniel waited for Chester’s eye to refocus. He didn’t want to stare, but he couldn’t help wishing he could fix the eyeball so it wouldn’t roam all over the place. A moment later, he felt ashamed of himself. This was undoubtedly an old war injury.
“Maybe I’ll just find me a tree somewhere. Standing in line don’t sound like a good idea.” Daniel cracked a grin, but hesitated, tasting the smell of fresh coffee in his mouth. “Any chance of finding work here?” He looked around, noting the enormous crowd gathering on this side of the river, surprised to see women and children in the group. “What are all these poor folks going to eat?”
“Your guess is good as mine.” Chester paused, his eye turning outward again. “I think some steal their food.”
“Can’t say I’d blame them none, ‘specially hard-up folks with youngins to feed.” He nodded at the coffee that smelled so good. “What would you take for a cup of that coffee?”
“What have you got?”
Daniel chuckled, though his stomach rumbled. “Not much.”
“Everybody’s in the same boat. When’s the last time you ate?”
“Couple days ago.”
“I’ll show you where to find work,” Chester said. “What kind of work you looking for?”
“Most anything,” Daniel replied. “I’m a cabinetmaker by trade, but I can be a farmhand or a dowser.”
“Dowser, huh? A real specialty. One of a kind.”
“Well, I come by it naturally,” Daniel said. “But I can’t dig a well by myself. It’s hard work. There’s many odd jobs I can do, like sharpen knives and stuff. Fixing things.”
A few cents earned here and there—it all went into the small leather purse he carried in his shirt pocket beneath the bib of his carpenter overalls, over his heart. These pennies he hoarded, guarded with his life if necessary. Someday he’d hand over the pouch to LaDaisy—if she was still speaking to him.
“You’re welcome to share my shack while you’re here,” Chester said. “I can use the company.”
Daniel thanked him and hurried off to find the privy. When he returned, Chester explained he needed to register and prove he had an honorable discharge.
“Got your service papers?” He handed Daniel a cup of steaming coffee and a dry biscuit.
“Yep. I had sense enough to bring them along.”
He drank the coffee, then found his way to the group leader’s tent, spread his military documents on the table, and waited for Walter Waters, a former Sergeant, to examine them.
“Honorable discharge.” Waters added Daniel’s name to a list. “I see you have tools. Good. We need shelters and streets built. Latrines dug. We’ll hold formations daily, just like when you were in the Army.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing,” Waters said. “We’re here for the duration and we’re not going to starve, and we’re going to keep ourselves a simon-pure veterans’ organization.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Discipline has been good so far, but some of the residents don’t trust us. I intend to see that nobody does anything to bring us shame.” Waters glanced at the men waiting in line behind Daniel. “If we get our bonuses, our economic conditions will be relieved. You’re in, Tomelin. Move along.”
“Thank you kindly, sir.”
Daniel saluted before realizing the man was no longer an Army officer, causing an outburst of laughter from the men behind him.
But Waters returned a full salute with a smile.
“Good luck, soldier!”
____________
As the population of veterans swelled, Daniel put his tools to work, erecting shelters from old boards, corrugated boxes, scrap metal, and whatever materials could be dragged from the junk piles. At Anacostia Flats—a swampy, muddy area across the Anacostia River from the Capital—the largest camp housed tens of thousands of veterans and their families.
Daniel worked in the shantytowns through the end of May and into June. On Massachusetts Avenue, ragged hikers in scraps of old uniforms mingled with Washington’s elite. A sullen-looking group, they’d swarmed across the continent from every part of the country, descending on the city like hordes of locusts and chewing up every available inch of space.
One morning, the wife of the owner of the Washington Post approached him as he erected a wall for a new shack.
“My name’s Evalyn McLean,” she said. “Have you eaten?”
He laid his hammer down and removed his cap. “I ate some beans and a corn fritter last night, ma’am, but my poor ol’ stomach’s never satisfied.”
She nodded. “I thought as much. You must be famished.”
“Yes, I am,” Daniel said. “But I survived this long, and I can last a little longer if I put my mind to it.”
“Well, if that isn’t the greatest attitude I ever heard.” She gestured to the crowd. “Last night, I saw plain evidence of hunger on their faces. Such a pity. I wanted to thank the veterans who participated in wartime parades on these very grounds. If not for them, the war might still be going on.” She handed him a meat sandwich from a basket. “Take this, please, and God bless you.”
Daniel accepted the food with gratitude and watched as she worked her way through the bivouacked men, asking each one, “Have you eaten?”
He was itching to move again, and wished he could hurry and get his money. The veterans and their families were, through no fault of their own, getting on his nerves.
In memory, he found himself still on the battlefields in France, the horrific scenes returning full-force whenever he shut his eyes. The war was over. His common sense knew that. Yet here he was fighting it still. In his mind, shells blasted, kicking up dirt near the trenches. He woke screaming more than once, no doubt causing distress for his shantytown neighbors. They could not know how tortured he was. On the other hand, maybe they had the same nightmares.
A veteran in uniform approached him before dusk one evening. “Hey mister, did ya hear the news?”
“What news?” Daniel yanked a bent nail out of an old board and dropped it in a can of rusty nails.
The man pointed toward the crowded Capital grounds, where ten thousand marchers awaited the outcome of the Senate vote.
“They say the House already passed a bill to give us our bonuses. We’re expecting the Senate’s vote any minute. Pretty soon we’ll all have money in our pockets and we’ll go home.”
But when Walter Waters appeared a short time later, Daniel read the story on his face before he spoke.
“The Senate defeated the bill by a vote of sixty-two to eighteen.”
Stunned silence spread through the crowd, and Waters commanded them: “Sing America and go back to your billets.”
On that day, a silent “death march” began in front of the Capitol. But some folks refused to join the march and returned to their homes empty-handed.
Daniel wasn’t sure what to do, but there was no hurry to leave now.
“I’ve come this far with nothing in my pocket,” he told Chester. “So I ain’t losing anything.”
Yet he waited. Here were people in the same fix. There was nowhere else to go. Home? Of course he could always go home. But this late in the game he suspected his beloved wife probably hated his guts, with good reason. He’d be going home without a dime. If he walked through the front door right now, he wouldn’t be able to look LaDaisy in the face.
Finally, he made up his mind and joined the death marchers proudly flying Old Glory. But as he walked along, his mind tricked him into believing he was back at the front with his battery position and first artillery experience, ducking shells and diving headfirst into the ground. War planes flew overhead in the darkness, but he couldn’t see them.
His mind went blank at times. He couldn’t tell one day from the next as he worked automatically at this or that job, marched with other humans on blistered soles, and took meals when he could. And when he couldn’t, he didn’t. The nightmares continued. In the middle of one, Mrs. McLean appeared as an angel feeding the veterans, and when her image dissolved, LaDaisy took her place. He’d reached out to touch his wife, but his screams woke him before he could make contact. Gasping for air and drenched with sweat, he pulled Frankie’s mitt from his sack, clutched it to his chest, and wept silently.