Five individuals bound together by their shared experiences in a childhood tragedy, grow into maturity at the beginning of W.W.II. Two join the Marines and experience combat at Peleliu, Guadalcanal, and Okinawa. The book traces the impacts of the childhood experience upon their subsequent lives and their individual resolutions of its consequences.
Red Rover
By Robert R. DozierAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Robert R. Dozier
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-7465-2Chapter One
It was one of those summer days when time seemed to be irrelevant, as if this was how God intended the world to be forever. The sun beamed down on a peaceful world, white clouds floated above a late spring morning where the leaves had lost their fragile new look and had settled down in their greenery for the long haul. Baton Rouge, Louisiana could be at times uncomfortably hot and humid, but on this morning in June 1931, it was as comfortable as the Garden of Eden.
In a cul-de-sac called Spain Street, two adults and a boy, the latter straddling a battered suitcase between his legs, stood on the sidewalk in front of a solidly—built, two story frame house painted white with green shutters. The men, talking together earnestly, were controlled in their expressions and speech, adopting poses calculated to ease challenges and reduce threats, yet they were obviously at cross purposes. One, the shorter and younger of the two, was explaining something, not begging, yet obviously trying to convince the older that his wishes were normal, not outside the range of reasonable requests. The older man was listening carefully, trying not to be judgmental or accusing. The boy seemed to be the only anxious one of the three.
Timmy Leblanc, the boy, tried to shade his eyes from the sun and look up at the two adults who were talking about him. His father and grandfather, arms folded and with serious expressions on their faces, were speaking the Bougalie, and, of course, he couldn't understand what they were saying. The Leblanc brothers, of which his father was the youngest, had always blamed their French accents as the prime cause of their economic failures and social woes, and had agreed to raise their children without that handicap. Timmy had learned what little of the language he knew only by chance. But trying to glean information from their expressions was simply too difficult. The sun was directly behind them and he couldn't look up without somehow getting it in his eyes. Even at that, he wasn't sure he would understand better even if he could see them.
On top of all that, they had only just arrived, had not gone in the house, and, standing in the sun on the sidewalk this way, he could feel its heat above and below. He was tired after the long trip up from New Orleans, and was more than usually apprehensive about being brought to a strange place to live. There was even an added distraction. He had noticed children playing across the street who looked about his age: seven, eight or nine.
They were in two groups: one, in the shade of a tree that looked perfect for climbing, laughing and talking excitedly, the other playing on the sidewalk quite seriously. The laughing group was composed of five boys and one girl, and Timmy could see that they were playing "Tops;" each hurrying to scoop his top, rewind, and cast it back into the melee, where the "it" person was trying to scoop one to get out. Timmy thought he was pretty good at tops himself, and he envied the players.
The other group, two girls and a boy, were glumly playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. Timmy finally saw why there was no fun exhibited by the players; the boy was not playing according to the rules. The two girls constantly called out turn-ending mistakes the boy was making, but he ignored them, blatantly breaking more rules as he refused to give up his turn. In the rear of his attention, he heard his father switch to English, so he turned back to the adults. He knew what they said would be important to him, and he was afraid that the use of a language he could understand was some sort of conversation ender, so he tried to understand.
"I haven't been able to make Timmy stop," his father said. "Somehow the little guy always ..."
"What does he fight about?" Peter Ryan, his grandfather asked.
"Seems like everything. When I talk to him about it ... well, it seems like he had a good reason, but I only hear his side." Timmy thought about that. That was always the chief problem for him when his father, Alcide, "let" him stay with various relatives, friends, and acquaintances. He was always in the wrong. And it was partly true. Sometimes it was not too bad, if he remembered not to be pushy, or if he could manage to stay in the background. This was not too hard in the homes where he had stayed. But at the new schools, if he started off on the wrong foot, or if he didn't control his temper, it could be a nightmare. Every day after classes there would be a clash, continuing until he either admitted total defeat, or won an incontestable victory. But on two occasions, victories did not end the hostilities, and he had to face a new opponent, a friend or brother of the defeated, going through all the agonies again. Timmy did not relish the problems of moving from one location to another if it meant changing schools. He felt thankful that summer vacation had begun and at this new place with his grandfather, he wouldn't have to face new schoolmates for the next three months.
"How long you plan to leave the boy?" his grandfather asked.
"Just until I get on my feet. Things are real slow in New Orleans."
In this year, 1931, "real slow" had a wealth of meanings. Alcide had been out of work for months.
"I hear the telephone company ..."
"I got a lead on a real good job with the L & N. In fact, I'm supposed to show up day after tomorrow."
"If you don't pick him up by the fall, should I put him in school?"
Alcide looked up and studied Peter Ryan's face. Peter was about six inches taller and it irked Alcide to have to speak to him this close where the difference in height was so noticeable. He saw a squarish face, a strong chin, and eyes under level eyebrows that glared at him with a stern, serious, disapproving expression. But Peter's attitude had always been that way, Alcide thought, since the days when he first began courting his daughter, and now that she was gone and especially when he was asking a favor, it seemed to be even more disapproving. What was worse, Alcide felt Peter could see right through him.
"I guess so. But I'll probably come get him before then."
"How long then?"
"If I get the job, it'll be no more than three-four weeks before I get my first check. Then I got to find a place to get set up ...."
"You could let me know when you're ready and I could put the boy on a bus. But wouldn't you have the same problem when ...?"
"Maybe he'll grow out of it. He ain't really bad ... just bad luck or something, or at least that's the way I kind of figured it. Maybe something might change by then. But I got to go," he said pointing up the street. "Joe's already late leaving."
Peter looked the way Alcide pointed and saw Joe sitting in the cab of a tractor-trailer waiting on Rome Blvd. Joe didn't want to turn into Spain Street because it was a dead-end, and backing a trailer out was too much trouble.
"Tell Gladys I'm sorry I couldn't stay." Alcide continued, then looking down at Timmy said,
"You be a little man, and mind your grandfather. Here, give me a shake."
Timmy shook his hand mechanically, knowing what his father would say next.
"I'll send for you as soon as I get on my feet." Then to Peter, "Thank you for helping me out. I'll be in touch." He then walked rapidly away, waving to Joe, who started his engine.
Timmy watched his father's back recede, his anxiety increasing with every step. Unable to control himself, he took a few hesitant steps to follow him, but stopped, dejectedly. When his father got into the cab, he gave his obligatory wave as the truck pulled away. Fighting back the tears that rushed into his eyes, and feeling abandoned, he watched in silence as the truck lurched down the street. Even after it was out of sight, he could hear the roar of the truck's engine and the gears clashing. He pictured his father sitting next to Joe. Maybe he might change his mind, he thought quickly, but that faint hope faded just as quickly. He looked up at his grandfather. Peter wasn't smiling, but there was a kind look on his face.
"I'm your Papaw, Timmy, and you'll be staying with me for a while. Come in and we'll get ready for you to meet your Nanan."
Peter didn't touch the boy, but after one last disdainful thought about the "worthless" father who had finally left, reached down and picked up Timmy's cardboard suitcase and walked into the house. Timmy followed slowly, glancing again at the children playing across the street. They were his future friends or enemies. As he watched, the boy playing hopscotch pushed one of the girls down and ran away.
Timmy smelled his first impression of his new home. Nanan used vanilla oil to polish her furniture and the calming odor of vanilla permeated the entire house. While his eyes adjusted to the light that only gave a hint of the interior contents, Timmy was already favorably disposed. The living room stretched across the width of the house so the immediate impression was one of spaciousness. The middle of the room was dominated by a large radio near the wall flanked on each side by comfortable chairs, each with a lamp standing behind. A sofa, side tables, a desk and chair, and a hassock were the only other furniture. Timmy was pleasantly impressed. He had never lived in a house with so much unused space. The hardwood floors, the restrained wallpaper, and the lack of a light hanging down on a cord in the center of the room seemed to him to be signs of luxury.
He heard his grandfather call, so he hurried through to the back stairway and went up to a room where his grandfather was standing.
"This will be yours, and the bathroom is just down the hall," Peter said. "You get cleaned up, and I'll meet you down in the kitchen."
Timmy sat on the edge of his bed and ran his hand gently over the bedspread. This would be the first bedroom of his own he could ever remember. Timmy blamed himself for his frequent changes of residence. He accepted the universal conclusion that he was a bad boy, a troublemaker, a bully. Every authority figure, except one, had told him that, over and over. The problem was that Timmy could not understand why. True, he accepted every challenge, he defended himself every time he could, he tried to learn and follow the rules each group of children he encountered formed for themselves, yet, it never seemed to make any difference. No matter what, it always seemed that he was at fault. It wasn't that he liked to fight; actually, he hated it. It meant failure; it meant that he had not managed to fit. Sometimes he thought he was just too stupid to avoid fighting. Only one adult, Father O'Kane, at St. Theresa's Parochial School, had ever talked to him as if he were not guilty.
"So you beat up that bully, Dennis Dougherty, did you? It will do him a world of good!"
"I didn't mean to ..."
"You mean you didn't mean to beat him up?"
Timmy certainly didn't mean that, but he didn't know why he had to fight in the first place. He had tried to join a group of boys during recess and they had laughed at him for wearing knickers, or for wearing knickers that obviously didn't fit. The elastic around the bottoms had long since been stretched to the point where the legs would not stay up just under his knees, and the pants themselves, several sizes too large, were bunched up around his waist. No one else wore knickers in the first place, but they were the only pants Timmy had.
After the taunts, Timmy had tried to walk away with dignity, but Dennis had shoved him in the back so violently that he had gone down. Encouraged by the sounds of obvious approval from the other boys, Dennis had kicked him when he tried to get up. Timmy had no choice; he proceeded to batter Dennis into a crying lump.
"I mean," he said as carefully as he could, "that I didn't mean to fight. I only wanted to ..."
"Yes child, I understand."
Timmy was not punished that time.
Other than that one instance, everyone, his father, uncles, aunts, teachers, principals, and even, once, a policeman, told him he was a little barbarian, a mean, bad boy. For no matter who threw the first punch, the irrefutable argument that things were fine before he came would point him out as the culprit. And Timmy believed them. All the evidence was on their side.
The last school year, when he had been in the third grade, had been a nightmare. In all, Timmy had transferred four times, to three different grammar schools in New Orleans. Always the pattern was the same. Timmy would excel in class, or he would wear worn-out, oversized clothes to school, or "something" would come up to point him out as different, then he would be challenged as a freak, a show-off, or a ragamuffin, and he would respond. He would be first suspended, and when he returned, challenged again and no matter what the circumstances, he would be expelled. Then his aunt, or cousin, or whoever he was staying with would complain to his father that he was underfoot all day and his father would place him somewhere else.
His school records had "troublemaker" written on them, so he was partially condemned before he actually went to classes. There seemed to be no end to it. When he had his last fight, the principal had suggested Reform School, a euphemism for a children's prison, so Alcide, with Peter Ryan's agreement, had determined to get him out of the New Orleans school system altogether. That was the reason he was now at Papaw's, in Baton Rouge.
All the way up from New Orleans, as he sat between Joe and his father in the truck, both men told him how important it was for him to take advantage of this fresh start, to keep out of trouble, to "not fight" no matter what.
"You get in trouble again, Timmy," his father had said, "and I can't just pick you up right away. So you keep your mouth shut, and keep your hands in your pockets."
Timmy had taken this advice to heart, and was determined to try his hardest. He knew he needed to fit somewhere; he needed friends to fill the emotional vacuum in his life. If it meant being pushed around, he had promised himself, if it meant being laughed at, even if it meant he would have to let others steal his lunches, or schoolbooks, or anything, Timmy was determined to control his temper and not be labeled a troublemaker anymore.
The next morning, Timmy sat on the curb in front of his grandfather's house and watched the same group of children playing Red Rover on the lawns across the street. The new clothes Nanan had bought him felt stiff and strange. "Go out and play," she had ordered. "And remember, no fighting!" So Timmy had gone outside, silently. He felt a bit of the usual resentment that rumbled in him on these kinds of occasions. Don't fight, she said, as if he was always looking for a fight. And then she says, go out and play, as if all a person had to do was just go outside and start playing. She didn't know how it worked. He had to be invited. Any eight-year old boy knew that. But she didn't know she was making him confront the people who could be just as easily his tormentors as his friends. So, with much apprehension, he had walked out to the street and sat on the curb and watched eight children, mostly his own age, while they played Red Rover, a game he had always thought was for sissies.
Today there were five boys and three girls, and Timmy quickly understood the pattern of unwritten rules they followed. When a boy was called to "come over," he had to run at the clasped hands of two boys, if possible. Girls, perhaps because there were so few of them, ran anywhere they liked. It was a silly game to begin with, Timmy thought, but he found he really wanted to play, or more realistically, he wanted to be included in the group no matter what they were playing.
"George, you come on home," a hefty contralto yelled down the street from his right.
Timmy looked in that direction and saw a large black woman, with an apron on, standing in the street and looking at the playing children. "But Mama...."
"No 'Buts.' You come home right now!"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Red Roverby Robert R. Dozier Copyright © 2011 by Robert R. Dozier. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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