Eleven

As the weeks passed, Mrs. Sullivan grew used to seeing my ugly face at the door. But she didn't seem to like me any better. Or trust me. I swear to God I half-expected her to check my pockets every time I left her house.

Strange as it sounds, no matter how his mother felt or what she said about me, William seemed to like me. Even more strange, considering how different he was from my old buddies Toad and Doug, I liked William. In fact, he was the only friend I had in Grandville. No matter how much I tried to horn in on Langerman's gang, none of them warmed up to me. They made it pretty clear I was a no-good Northerner, a damn Yankee. The only good thing was, they got tired of fighting me. Instead they just ignored me. Which in some ways was just as bad. Maybe even worse.

One Thursday in April, William and I were in his room, making model airplanes. He was much better at it than I was. The tissue paper stuck to my fingers, the balsa wood struts broke, the fuselage I built was lopsided, and the wings kept falling off. My P-47 wouldn't have been any threat to the Luftwaffe, that's for sure. But William's looked ready to shoot the Krauts out of the sky.

While we worked, we listened to the radio. Suddenly "The Green Hornet" was interrupted by a news flash so terrible neither William nor I could believe it. President Roosevelt was dead. A cerebral hemorrhage. At Warm Springs, Georgia. 4:35 in the afternoon.

We stared at each other, speechless. FDR had been president our whole entire lives. He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't.

"Maybe it's a hoax," I said, "like that radio show about the Martians invading earth. The War of the Worlds'—remember that?"

"Nobody'd joke about FDR dying," William said, but he let me change the radio station just in case I was right.

I turned the knob from one end of the dial to the other, but the same news was on every station. It was no joke. FDR was dead. Our new president was Harry'S. Truman. How could that be? Why, the war wasn't even over. How could we beat Hitler and Hirohito without FDR?

William stared at the radio. Tears ran down his face. "I can't believe it," he whispered. "I can't believe it, I just can't believe it." He was clutching his plane so tightly the balsa frame snapped like tiny gunshots.

"Me, either." I jumped to my feet. "I have to go home, have to tell Grandma."

I passed Mrs. Sullivan on the stairs. For a second, I thought she was going to hug me, but she ran past, rushing up to William.

At home, Grandma was sitting alone by the radio, weeping. I lingered in the doorway, hoping she'd notice me, maybe invite me to sit with her and mourn the president, but if she saw me she gave no sign. I went up to my room and lay down on my bed. It was like God had died and there was nobody to protect us from our enemies.

At dinner that night, Mama got into a fight with Grandma. It started when Grandma said, "I haven't felt grief like this since your father died, Virginia. It's as if FDR were a member of the family, someone I knew personally."

Mama shrugged. "If you ask me, we're better off without him. That New Deal of his almost ruined this country."

Too shocked to say a word, I stared at Mama. How could she say such awful things about the best president we'd had since Abraham Lincoln? Especially on the very day he died?

Grandma leaned across the table, her face fiery red with anger. "How can you say something so stupid, Virginia? The New Deal brought us out of the Depression. If it hadn't been for FDR—"

"Bunk." Mama looked Grandma in the eye. It was the most life she'd shown in a long time, but it was for the wrong cause. "Not everyone shares your liberal ideas. Roger says—"

Grandma's face turned even redder. "I don't give a damn what Roger says. I won't hear his name mentioned in this house!"

Mama glared at Grandma. "I'll say his name as often as I like! Roger's my husband!"

"And a fine one he turned out to be. Just look at you. Seven children and no way to provide for them. You haven't got the sense of an alley cat!"

Bobby started to cry and Ernie joined in, but Victor and June just sat there, staring first at Grandma, then at Mama, and then back again at Grandma. They looked as scared as I felt.

But Mama didn't pay us any mind. She went on hollering in Grandma's face as if somebody had just pulled a gag off her mouth. "You and Daddy always hated Roger. You said he was no-good poor white trash, you said he'd never amount to a hill of beans."

Grandma leaned toward Mama, her eyes gleaming with spite. "I was right, wasn't I?"

Mama fished a letter out of her dress pocket and thrust it at Grandma. "Read this. Roger's got a good job at a defense plant in Bakersfield. He's working overtime so he can bring us out to California this summer. He's quit drinking, Mother."

Stunned speechless, I gaped at Mama. Surely she hadn't forgotten what a liar he was.

Grandma glanced at the creased and re-creased piece of paper lying beside her plate. From the look on her face, you'd think she was contemplating a dead rat. "I don't believe a word of it, Virginia."

Mama threw her napkin on the table and got up so fast her chair turned over. "You'd better believe it. Come July, we'll be on our way to California. All six of us."

Snatching the letter, Mama left the room. Bobby ran after her but the rest of us stayed put, too shocked to move.

"Is Daddy coming here, Grandma?" June whispered.

"That man wouldn't dare cross my threshold," Grandma said. "If he did, I swear I'd shoot him full of buckshot with your grandpa's old hunting rifle."

Grandma began clearing the table. June followed her out to the kitchen. I heard her say, "You wouldn't really shoot Daddy, would you?"

"I doubt he'll give me the chance," Grandma said.

Not long after I went to bed, I saw William's flashlight blinking SOS. Save Our Souls, our special signal to talk. Easing up my window, I pressed my face against the screen so I could hear him.

"Do you think FDR died because he had polio?" William asked.

"Don't you remember what the man on the radio said? FDR had a cerebral hemorrhage. It didn't have anything to do with polio, William."

"That's what Mother said, but still..." William's voice trailed off as if he wasn't convinced. I guess if I'd been in his shoes, I'd have been scared too.

"I bet worrying about the war killed him," I told William. "It wore his brain out. That's why he got the hemorrhage."

William thought about that for a while. "Do you think we can win the war without him?"

"I hope so," I said, "but it's a shame he won't be here to see us do it. It doesn't seem fair. Him missing the parades and the celebrations."

"Maybe he'll see everything from heaven," William said slowly. "FDR and all the men who died in the war. They'll look down at Earth and they'll be happy we won."

I knew William was picturing his father up there with the president and the angels and God, so I nodded as if I agreed. It was nice to think of all the dead soldiers strolling along streets of gold, laughing and telling jokes the way they used to before Hitler and Hirohito came along and ruined the world.

But to tell you the truth I'm not sure I believe in heaven. It's a swell idea but hard to picture. Why would God be so mean to people while they're alive and then give them cities of gold after they die?

Just then Mrs. Sullivan hollered, "William, turn off that flashlight and go to bed. You have all day tomorrow to talk to Gordon."

William shone his flashlight up into the sky like a searchlight and I pretended to machine-gun a couple of Messerschmitts. Ackety-ackety-ackety. Die, evil Nazi, die!

After William shut his window, I went back to worrying about the old man. I wished I could have found the words to tell William what he was really like and how much he scared me. But I doubted William could imagine a boy being afraid of his own father.

To keep from thinking about the old man, I tried reading a comic book. When that didn't work, I tried daydreaming about hopping a freight and heading for the Gulf Stream waters and the redwood forest. I even tried counting backward from a hundred, a trick Stu once taught me.

But every time I shut my eyes, I saw the old man behind the wheel of his old black car, driving east, the morning sun in his eyes, a stubble of whiskers on his chin, a whiskey bottle in the glove compartment. Getting closer every day. Bringing misery with him like an extra passenger.