Some of the pessimistic ones say, “Golden State in ’48—Bread line in ’49”—mostly cause it rhymes well I think.—April 24, 1945
“I love the first barbeque of the season,” I said.
“Me too!” Caleb shouted.
The smell of barbecue wafted in from the backyard where Ric was cooking. I spread the blue-and-white checkered cloth over the dining table and put a stack of plates at the end. In the kitchen, I started pulling things from the fridge.
“Here,” I said handing the kids bowls of chips, salsa, macaroni salad, and condiments.
“Grandma and Grandpa will be here in a few minutes,” I said. “And you know Grandpa; he’s never late when food is being served.”
“Hello?” Dad hollered as he and Mom came through the front door. “Anybody home?”
The kids laughed. I did too.
“I was just saying that you are never late if food is involved,” I said.
“Well, that’s the truth,” my mother said.
Dad was already at the table nibbling on chips when Ric came in from the backyard with hamburgers and hotdogs stacked on a long white serving dish.
“Dinner’s served,” I announced as the kids swarmed the table.
“Sorry it’s not steak, Dad,” Ric said glancing at me. “Karen insisted on hamburgers.”
“Well, I love a good hamburger,” Mom said. “There’s nothing better than the first barbequed burger in the spring.”
Dad and Ric exchanged glances. They liked their steaks.
After dinner, the boys went out to play while Danielle and Grandma sat on the porch swing. Clearing off the table, I made trips back and forth to the kitchen. I was so focused on getting the food off the dining table before Cocoa decided to make a meal of it that I hadn’t noticed Dad. As I pulled the tablecloth off, I saw him.
Instead of following the family outside, he’d made himself comfortable in the living room, sitting in the recliner. Finding a quiet moment in our house was rare. As I moved into the room, he asked a question before I even had a chance to sit down.
“You didn’t find any clues in my letters about Okinawa, did you?” Dad asked.
“No,” I said.
A few weeks had passed since we’d talked about his breakdown. And to be honest, I’d been avoiding the subject of Okinawa altogether. This time I hadn’t told him about rereading the letters surrounding that period of time. I was surprised that he was the one to bring it up. I didn’t think he had even thought about it. I was wrong.
“I didn’t find anything,” I said.
“Your mom said it figured that the first thing I remembered after waking up in the hospital was a pretty blonde nurse,” Dad laughed.
I laughed too.
“She doesn’t know the half of it,” he said in a soft voice. “I remember lots of things. It comes back in bits and pieces.”
“Like what?” I asked, taking the pillow beside me and hugging it.
“Well,” he started, “I remember that when I woke up I was in a hospital room. And there was this nurse who was sitting in the corner reading something. I can’t remember if I said something or what, but she looked at me and rushed out into the hallway and called the doctor. The doctor came rushing over to my bed. He asked me if I remembered what I had been doing before coming to the hospital. I told him that I had been copying code on a ship off of Okinawa. The doctor was about to ask another question but these two marines were at the door. They had sidearms, pistols in holsters, and they pulled them out.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. I’m not kidding,” Dad said. “They didn’t wave them around or anything, just kept them pointed at the floor. Anyway, one of them told the doctor that I could not talk about what I’d been doing. The doctor said that he was just trying to see if my mind was okay. So then the doctor took out his stethoscope and started to do a regular exam and they put their guns away. The marines stayed outside my door all the time, but from then on, the doctor only asked me how I felt for the rest of the time I was there.”
He seemed to be thinking, so I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, and my hand was all bandaged up,” he said. “The nurse unwound that ball of gauze ’round and ’round, and when she was done, there were just a bunch of scrapes and scratches. A lot of bandage for nothin’.”
“How long were you in the hospital?” I asked.
He looked down for a bit and then looked around.
“I just don’t know,” he said.
“Do you think it was like a few days or a month?” I asked.
“Probably not as long as a month. I just don’t know. Maybe a few days or a week. I just don’t know.” His frustration was visible now.
“What else do you remember?” I asked.
“Well, I remember that this guy—I can’t remember if he was a doctor, or what, but he kept telling me that I wasn’t going to remember any of this. He said it over and over, and I felt like he was trying to brainwash me into believing it. It made me try even harder to remember. Then one day someone came to me and said I was going back to the barracks and to my old job. A Navy car came and picked me up. I just went back to a normal life, like nothing had ever happened. I had just started a new job right before I was sent to Okinawa. So I went back to that job.”
“Did you ever see the guys you worked with at Okinawa again?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “And I didn’t care to either. My mind was pretty much blanked out because of what happened to Mal. I was with him when he died. I should have contacted his folks. I should have told them that he didn’t die alone. But I never did. I regret that.”
He looked out the window.
“Looks like rain,” he said.
Just then, Caleb ran in the house.
“Mom,” he said excitedly. “There’s a storm coming. Come on, come on!”
Caleb jumped up and down and finally pulled me by the hand.
“Come on, Dad,” I said. “You get to experience what the Alaniz family does when there’s a storm.”
I pulled the blankets off the back of the couch and joined the rest of the family outside under the cover of the porch. Snuggled on the porch swing and the wicker chairs, we waited for the pounding rain and silently wished for a show of lightning. Bolts of lightning caressed the blue-gray sky and thunder brought shrieks of awe. Then something caught my eye. It was Dad. He hadn’t followed us to the porch. He stood on the other side of the picture window. His eyes were locked on the horizon in the distance. The storm came and went and he never moved.
The letters I was reading now, after he was sent back to base, were so far removed from the trauma he’d experienced. That could mean one of two things: either he was faking every letter, making it sound like everything was great, or his mind had already begun the arduous task of burying what was too painful to bear. I suspected it was the latter.
April 6, 1945
Dear Folks,
I’m an early bird today. I went to breakfast a few minutes ago—for first time in a couple of months. Had soft bacon, scrambled eggs (powdered), and bread with butter and jam, plus coffee & cereal if you want it and figs for dessert. It was all too much for me.
Rain is pouring down now—looks like an all day siege but may let up. What I hate about this rain is that the mud is so bloomin’ sticky. Just like glue—you can’t shake it off or hardly scrape it off. Guess I’ll just stay in today & write & study a bit more. Supposed to muster (roll call) about now but it’s raining so hard I expect a “delay muster” call in a minute. If not we’ll all float over I guess—it’s just outside my tent anyway.
Got paid 36 bucks yesterday. That’s about what I usually get—$72 a month clear. Getting my overseas pay now. That’s not bad money. Sure can’t seem to save any tho. Things are so expensive if you want to do much that it runs into money sometimes on liberty. A cab is usually $1.50 out to Waikiki—of course you can start up on a jammed bus for a dime if you want to stand in line. Then a steak with all the trimmings for a real meal amounts to two bucks—on the other hand for 50 cents you can eat a couple hamburgers and a glass of pineapple juice which is just as filling. All depends on the person—what you spend I guess. Wanted to save enough to have the flivver painted but may yet—I’m still here.
That’s all for now. Write.
Love, Murray
April 9, 1945
Dear Folks,
Well I didn’t get on liberty today—kind of got changed around in my set-up here. About 20 of us unassigned men got assigned to various jobs around the base just to keep us from loafing too much. My job is helping in the storeroom. That is my permanent job as long as I’m here. And I don’t like it. As far as work I don’t do any more than I ever did. Can come back to my tent (about half a block away) any time I want to wash clothes or something. But doubt if I’ll be able to get off Sundays like before, unless my liberty day just happens to fall on that day. Do have a little better liberty set up. Get out once every six days instead of eight as before. All in all the change doesn’t amount to anything—doesn’t change my status any as far as future goes. Anyway—now I go on liberty tomorrow. They seem to kind of leave it up to me about my glasses so guess I’ll see if can get an appointment again about next Thursday or Friday. Never do today what you can put off ’til tomorrow.
Show tonite is “Dr Wasaill” with Gary Cooper. Think it’s kind of gory—may not go. Well a hard days work has made me hungry. Better hunt for the chow line.
Love, Murray
April 11, 1945
Dear Folks,
Well, back from liberty again—which is the only new thing that’s happened and ever does happen. Did nothing of importance except got a new pair of shoes in town ($7.35). They are softer than the regular Navy issue and thicker leather sole. A little different design but then it doesn’t matter about that and it’s a bit of a change at least. Really got in to town in a hurry this time—then of course on Sundays will really have a reason to get there early—things are jammed and I can’t get there in time for church ever—still up to my old tricks. I hop on a trolley and ride to the end of the line and back. Still have a few new ones to see yet. Really can get around the island now. It was sure a mess at first but now I’m practically an old timer.
Most of the working class natives talk sort of a pidgin English that’s hard to understand at first but you get used to it.
You know—one thing that amazes me is the price of houses around here. You never see one advertised in the pages under ten thousand and they run usually around twenty to thirty thousand and many a lot more, and not really nice houses either. I saw one something like yours yesterday (they show pictures quite often) for $18,500!
Hope you start receiving the paper soon if you haven’t already. The want ads and local news will tell you a lot that I never think of.
For some unknown reason—they tell me I have a liberty again tomorrow. Every five or six days now. Still haven’t done any work. I’m getting my letter writing done on the job. It’s a good thing because I’m way behind on the letters and also in my studies. Got a swell book yesterday that you might be interested in Gerry? It’s “Your Wings” by Jordanoff. It cost three bucks and tells how to fly with all rules, regulations and air navigation, even parachute jumping—just everything and it’s simple too. It has a cartoon or two on nearly every page like Walt Disney’s stuff which makes it really interesting. It’s a big book—will take quite a while to read it.
I’ll send it home for safekeeping when I finish it. Kind of wanted to be prepared just in case.
Write soon. Love, Murray
The job my father went back to after being in the hospital was not difficult. You could hear it in his letters. Was he given such a job because he was fragile? Was someone looking out for him, trying to make things easy on him because he’d had a breakdown after his friend died in his arms? Someone with a mind brilliant enough to break a complicated code probably wasn’t expected to break emotionally or mentally. But my father’s brilliant mind had broken. And so his work in naval intelligence was over.