CHAPTER 26
There are things you shouldn’t be worried about when your punishment is at long last over and you finally get to ride your bicycle again—things like whether your bicycle will get stolen too or whether Betty Babcock might come barreling at you again in her yellow Roadmaster. But those were exactly the things that were on my mind as I rode my bicycle to work. As I’d promised Mama and Daddy, I obeyed every safety law, looked both ways before I pedaled across intersections, and, most importantly, stopped at red lights. Sheriff Hector Monk sailed by me in his patrol car and waved.
Thankfully, Matt was back at work when I arrived. Before helping him, I took my bicycle inside.
“Hi, Mr. Hunter,” I said. “I’ma park this inside the garage, if that’s all right with you,” I told him.
He rose up from the hood of the car where his head had been buried. “In case the bicycle thief makes a return visit?”
“Yessir, considerin’ what happened to yours.”
“Be glad to keep my eyes on it and my ears alert. You’re bein’ mighty safe on it now, ain’t you?”
“Awfully safe.”
He smiled. “Glad to know that. I would hate to have anything bad happen to a friend.”
“Friend? Thank you, sir.”
“I bet I know what you’re thinkin’ . . . but age has little to do with genuine friendship. Recipe for friendship is liking and trust. Respect gets mixed up in there too.”
I thought for a minute about Tink being one of my best friends and replied, “That sounds right,” parked the Schwinn in the corner, and headed off to do my work.
Matthew looked practically good as new, eyes clear and blue, and together we manned the station. He was finally letting me check the oil without him watching over me, and I was getting the hang of the tire pressure gauge too.
The sun was shining, and for an August day in Birdsong, it wasn’t too hot since the wind was blowing just enough.
Daddy was on the car lot, and it looked like he was about to make a sale. I was glad, because the night before, he’d promised Mama and me a weekend trip to Hilton Head if he did.
WHAT HAPPENED THAT evening began to convince me that Meriwether had really meant it when he’d called me his friend.
I was returning tools to the garage when I saw him. As usual, he was taking his lunch break, sitting propped against the wall.
“You in a hurry?” he asked.
“No. Kinda slow today. Plus, Matthew’s back.”
“Good. I have something to show you,” Meriwether said as he pulled out his wallet.
Wondering what it could be, I quickly settled in beside him.
“Picture of me and my tank crew in the 761st right before we got deployed,” he explained, and presented a black-and-white snapshot.
Five smiling colored soldiers in uniform stood beside a tank.
Meriwether’s face beamed. “That’s an M4 Sherman tank.”
I examined each face until I picked him out and pointed. “This is you, huh?”
“Yes indeed. You have a good eye.”
“Who are the others?”
One by one he identified them. “This man here was our commander. We called him Mozart, because whenever he had a break, his lips were on his harmonica, composin’, he said . . . Real name was Emmanuel Bowman, outta Denver, Colorado. The one salutin’ was a college boy named Vernon Morse from New Orleans, our ammunition loader. We called him Doc ’cause that’s what he aimed to be someday. Was all set to enter Meharry Medical College in Nashville but got drafted.” Meriwether’s eyes filled with water, but he didn’t cry. “He lost an arm and leg . . . and all his dreams. Of course, that there is me. I was the driver.”
“What’d they call you?”
“They called me Meri. Used to tease me with that kids’ nursery rhyme . . . ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ And this here is Fred Ratner, the gunner . . . We called him Rat for short. He was from Los Angeles. Died instantly right in front of me out there in the Ardennes Forest. We lost him and Mozart during the same battle on the same day.” He hesitated before continuing. “And that smilin’ fella is Charlie Denton, my co-driver. He was born in Alabama . . . Nicknamed him Custard on account of him havin’ yella skin.
“Charlie’s settled up in Michigan now, workin’ at the Ford automobile plant. Always after me to join him. Says he’ll have a job waitin’ for me. My wife, though, she’s not fond of the cold, and besides that, she has her church work here,” he remarked.
Meriwether Hunter studied the picture again and sighed. “Had some good times with those men, and, of course, very hard ones too. One thing I can honestly say about all of us: we were proud to serve our country.”
Right then, Patrick startled us. “Hey, y’all. Whatcha lookin’ at?”
We’d been so focused on the photograph, neither of us had heard him approach.
Hurriedly, Meriwether slipped the photo into the pocket of his coveralls. “Nuthin’ you’d be interested in,” he said as he stood and headed back to the garage. In his haste, he’d left a ripe peach sitting on top of his lunch bag.
Patrick, noticing the peach, called out, “Hey, uncle!” Then, remembering how I felt about him calling all colored men uncle, he glanced my way and asked, “What’s his name again?”
“Mr. Meriwether Hunter.”
“Hey, Mr. Meriwether Hunter . . . if you’re not gonna eat this peach, can I have it?”
Meriwether poked his head out of the garage. “Yes, Patrick.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
Patrick walked alongside me to the front of the station. “If you’re wonderin’ what I’m doin’ here . . . truth is I didn’t have nuthin’ else to do,” he said between taking bites from the peach. “Plus, my daddy said a grease monkey—that’s the same thing as a mechanic—is a good thing to be and I oughtta be over here learnin’ as much as I can even if I’m not gettin’ paid for it. And he also claims that just ’cuz your heart’s set on somethin’, like mine is on becomin’ a navy frogman, doesn’t mean it’s gonna really come true, so it’d be smart to learn somethin’ else if I can . . . and bein’ a mechanic is that somethin’ else. Whatcha think ’bout that?”
“I think it’s time for you to talk to my daddy.”
“Mornings okay with you?” Daddy asked him, when Patrick blurted out his proposal.
Patrick tugged on his swim goggles. “Sure. I spoze swimmin’ could wait ’til the afternoon.”
“Good—you can hitch a ride with me.”
And that was how Patrick Kelly became the unpaid apprentice mechanic at Jake’s and how he came to be with us that morning when the mostly right-side-up world of mostly quiet Birdsong, USA, for a while turned upside down.