Author's Note:
It's been a long strange year, one that is still testing our tolerances for one another's differences. To bring understanding, we are told to walk a mile in the other's moccasins. To write a character so different from myself, I looked at what I call my own "eeww" triggers. What makes me know, instinctively, that someone is so very different from myself as to seem incomprehensible - unnatural, even - to me? What if I were so unnerved by that feeling I felt compelled to take whatever steps I could to keep those different from myself out of my world?
I don't believe George Warren is an evil man. He's just an ordinary man born into an extraordinary time, doing whatever he can to get through it without going too far outside his comfort zone. His fears, like our own, have been shaped by his environment, and by how far, or how little, he chooses to expand his horizons. His beliefs, like our own, are born of his instincts. His life is defined by how much, or how little, he is willing to challenge them, and himself.
It was a difficult story. Maybe not a good one, but something I had to work through. I rarely write straight characters because I just don't get how they work. So I took my own instinctive bias, flipped it, turned it inside out, and came up with George Warren. A World War Two vet who believes himself untroubled until the changing world disrupts his own household.
This is a piece of historical fiction. There are uncomfortable attitudes depicted within it, and uncomfortable language to match. Our challenge as writers and readers is much like George's challenge, to deal with it and find a way forward. Tempting as it was to mold George into what I'd like him to become, I hope I left an ending where the reader may draw their own conclusions.
It's been a long strange year, one that is still testing our tolerances for one another's differences. To bring understanding, we are told to walk a mile in the other's moccasins. To write a character so different from myself, I looked at what I call my own "eeww" triggers. What makes me know, instinctively, that someone is so very different from myself as to seem incomprehensible - unnatural, even - to me? What if I were so unnerved by that feeling I felt compelled to take whatever steps I could to keep those different from myself out of my world?
I don't believe George Warren is an evil man. He's just an ordinary man born into an extraordinary time, doing whatever he can to get through it without going too far outside his comfort zone. His fears, like our own, have been shaped by his environment, and by how far, or how little, he chooses to expand his horizons. His beliefs, like our own, are born of his instincts. His life is defined by how much, or how little, he is willing to challenge them, and himself.
It was a difficult story. Maybe not a good one, but something I had to work through. I rarely write straight characters because I just don't get how they work. So I took my own instinctive bias, flipped it, turned it inside out, and came up with George Warren. A World War Two vet who believes himself untroubled until the changing world disrupts his own household.
This is a piece of historical fiction. There are uncomfortable attitudes depicted within it, and uncomfortable language to match. Our challenge as writers and readers is much like George's challenge, to deal with it and find a way forward. Tempting as it was to mold George into what I'd like him to become, I hope I left an ending where the reader may draw their own conclusions.
Remembrance Night, 1954
There were suitcases in the hall when George came home from work. Mary's, which had been in the back of the closet since David was born, and the little second hand one she'd bought for when the boys spent a weekend with her parents.
He didn't recall them making plans. They wouldn't have, not for Veterans Day. George's latest invitation to march with the VFW in tomorrow's parade had landed, as usual, in the wastebasket. His missing toes were none of their business.
"Fifteen minutes, George." Mary's voice came from the kitchen, along with the aroma of dinner. The clink of plates and silverware was the boys setting the table. George shed his coat and hat, leaving them on the hall tree, and loosened his tie as he went upstairs.
He changed quickly from shoes to slippers. He never went barefoot around the house, because of the boys. He didn't want them asking questions he didn't want to answer. None of that "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" crap.
What he'd done in the war was try his best to stay out of it. He'd opposed it from the start. America didn't need to get mixed up in Europe's problems. What Germany did with their own people was up to them. They'd all flocked to the Nazi Party, right? As for the Chinese and the Japs, let them blow each other to hell. Who cared? But George wasn't stupid. Defense might prove necessary, and he figured the air corps was his best bet. He played the odds, joining ROTC, and learning to fly while he was in college. He worked hard to get into grad school, stretching his educational deferment. While there, he courted Mary, timing their wedding so the marriage deferment kicked in when the college one ran out.
As a pharmacist with a degree in chemistry, he expected to be posted well away from the front, if he even went overseas at all. His luck held until Pearl Harbor happened. Though men were rushing to enlist, George found himself called up for flight training.
"Women can run the pharmacies for now," he was bluntly told. "We need pilots."
"Okay." George had no choice but to agree. "But I'm a married man with a baby son. How about the ferry service?"
"Got the WAAFs for that."
"You've got women flying?"
"Why not, they're building 'em. Pack your kit, soldier. You're going to Eighth Air Force, Bomber Command."
George hadn't thought about who would build the planes he might fly when the men were called to combat. The corporal's nonchalance gave him pause.
Though he stretched his training by qualifying as a navigator, he found himself in England within a year. Casualties at Bomber Command were high. Whenever George perceived a problem with a crew member, he bypassed the younger officers and went straight to the base commander. They especially locked horns the first time George saw a colored man flying a fighter.
"On top of all the other risks, you expect me to accept that?"
The man dismissed George's complaints. "I get it - you're miserable, and you want to get home to the wife and kids. So does everyone else, but they're not beefing about it. You want to get transferred home, shut up and fly your missions. As for the Red Tails, they've never lost a bomber."
George couldn't bring himself to believe these assurances. Reluctant and surly, he became a perpetual replacement, plugged in as co-pilot or navigator wherever needed.
"Dinner, George."
Mary's voice drifted up the stairs, and George shook himself out of his funk. Remembering all the crap he'd put up with in the Air Corps would ruin his digestion, and he could smell apple pie for dessert.
At least losing some of his toes had gotten him out of the military for good.
"George! Dinner! Or these boys won't leave you a crumb!"
He went downstairs carefully, and took his place at the table. "You made enough for an army."
"I made enough to get you through the weekend. I'm taking the boys and going to Mom and Dad's for a bit."
George looked at his wife. When had those baby blues turned to ice? And since when did he not have to growl at the boys to clean their plates if they wanted dessert? Mary had already sliced their pie before George was half through his roast. By the time George finished his own pie, the boys had cleared the table and Mary was halfway done with the dishes.
Ensconced in his easy chair with the TV and the newspaper, he heard the front door. Heard a car start. Mary dropping off the boys. When the late news ended, he turned off the TV and started upstairs. Halfway up, he turned and looked down into the hallway.
The suitcases were gone. The house was too quiet. Mary hadn't come back.
I'm taking the boys and going. . .
Puzzled, George went into the bedroom. There was a small tape recorder in the center of the bed, and a note on his pillow.
We're not coming back until you deal with this. Your ten years of promises have led to nothing but disappointment. I can't make excuses to the boys anymore. They don't believe them. Not after repeatedly being woken by these nightmares you insist you don't have. Listen to the tape, George.
"Like I wanna listen to myself snore." George meant to move the tape machine so he could sleep, but his thumb hit the play button. A volley of foul language spewed forth. Every hateful epithet and racial slur he'd ever learned, and what sounded like a few he invented in the heat of the moment.
And a hot moment it was, he realized, as he continued to listen. He was in the right hand seat of a B-17, cursing the young lieutenant in command as they wrestled the damaged bomber through a series of crazy maneuvers. He remembered her nose art, a femme fatale with blazing green eyes, raven hair crowned with stars. Lightning shot from her fingertips into the backsides of caricatures of Hitler and his Waffen SS.
Remembered asking, "Who the hell is Queen Titania?"
Raven-haired, green-eyed Lt. Carstairs laughed. "Queen of the Faeries. My ten times great-auntie. So go ahead and call me a fairy. It's true!"
In more ways than one, George recalled. Others could laugh. George was appalled.
For George, everything with that mission went wrong. The brazen Lt. Carstairs led the decoy group, going in without fighter escort. The weather was overcast, and the winds were against them, making them run low on fuel. The Luftwaffe rose to the bait, and without fighter cover they were sitting ducks.
Just as they nailed their target, the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter struck. Two engines flamed out right off, and continued to burn even after feathering the props. Hence the dangerous maneuvers.
George listened to the continued cursing, the memories coming thick and fast. The bomber held together through the climbs and dives that somehow put out the fire. Then George realized the lieutenant wasn't flying for home, but into the French Free Zone.
This unleashed a fresh set of curses. George figured his odds of survival were better as a POW, and wanted to bail out immediately. But that stuck up faggot wouldn't listen to reason.
George told him exactly what he thought of him and his fairy ancestors.
"I'm gonna send you down in flames so you can burn in hell!"
"George, stop it. Be quiet, George. George, wake up!"
Mary's voice, on the tape. Sounds of the boys whimpering with fright. His own voice, groggy with sleep.
"What's going on? What's wrong with the boys?"
"You've woken us all up. Again."
There was a series of clicks, then Mary's voice. "The preceding recording was made at approximately 3 AM, November 10th, 1954. George, if you are listening to this, you have until Monday to call me at my parents' house and tell me I'm not married to a murderer. If you haven't called by the time I've put the boys to bed, I'll assume you've no interest in your well-being, and therefore none in that of your family."
The tape unwound, flapping. George yanked the plug from the socket, knocked the machine from the bed and kicked it into a corner. How dare she pull such a trick on him? And what the hell did she mean about murder? Was a man supposed to be accountable for his dreams?
Any thoughts of sleep were now gone. He put on his pajamas, pulled on a warm robe, went down to the kitchen to warm up some coffee.
Sitting alone in the dark, he considered the nightmare. George didn't remember telling that nancy boy to burn in hell as he made his own escape. He remembered the sound of the one remaining engine fading into the distance. It didn't sputter and die. But then, as they were hastily gathering up their parachutes, they heard the sound of a distant crash. Saw a thin column of smoke rising above a forest.
As last man out, George expected questions about the missing lieutenant. None came. The farmer whose field they landed in was a member of the resistance. Thus began a long, miserable time of running and hiding, including a nightmare trek across the mountains. George's feet froze during the long marches, for fresh snowfall was the best way to conceal their movements from enemy patrols.
After being debriefed in Gibraltar, George was sent back to England for the amputation of his frozen toes. He was then sent home and given a medical discharge. He never heard from any of the other rescued crew. He never wondered what happened to the lieutenant.
He really did hope the little faggot was burning in hell. So what if he was the best pilot in the squadron? A guy like that, with no shame about what he was, he upset the natural order of life as George saw it.
Why, then, were his nightmares only about that mission? He'd had other close calls. Why did the fate of that nancy boy matter so much? Had the Queen Titania ever been found? He could probably find out, but not over the weekend.
He finished the coffee and went to bed.
In the morning he called Mary, trying to understand what she wanted.
"You're blocking something, George, and it's getting worse. Why won't you talk to Dr. Peterson, like I've been asking you for the past ten years?"
"Because I don't need a damn head shrinker! If I'd known you were studying all that wingnut crap I wouldn't have dated you!"
He didn't have to see his wife's eyes. He could feel the ice in the crackle of static on the phone line. "Mary, look, it's all in the past, okay? Can't you just leave it there?"
"No, George. How can I, when you bring it into our bed almost every night? And if you can't handle me asking about it, what will you say to the boys when they ask you? And they will ask you, if you keep waking them up. So you'd better deal with it."
"I can't do anything over the weekend. I'll call the VA on Monday. See if I can track down any of the others. But I won't make any promises."
"Neither will I."
George heard a sharp click, then static. Astonished, he realized his wife had hung up on him.
Monday came soon enough. George didn't bother with the VA. He had more important things to do than try to get sense from a pencil pusher in a government agency. Mary had probably come to her senses by now, anyway.
The house was dark when he came home from work. All his dirty dishes from the weekend were still piled in the sink. Upstairs, the bed was unmade, the sheets tangled and sour from his nightmares. He finished the last of the leftovers, feet up in his easy chair, watching the evening news.
He woke there, sweating. Remembrance had crept up on him. In his dream state, without Mary to wake him, he recalled details his conscious mind kept hidden from him.
The gut-wrenching fear as the Messerschmitt caught them by surprise, taking out two engines. That nance lieutenant barking out orders to the crew, and to George to feather the props. Then the insane orders to climb and dive, till the stubborn fires were finally starved out.
George could barely breathe, let alone speak. Not even when the lieutenant changed course, away from base. Logic said damage and low fuel would put them in the North Sea if they tried to make it home, but George's terror screamed they were going the wrong way.
A third engine became erratic. "Get everyone out, George. Get over the mountains into Spain, then to Gibraltar. I'll keep her going as long as I can. Maybe I'll catch up to you."
Then they were out, scrambling into hiding.
The room turned gray with dawn. George finally went upstairs. He showered, put on clean pajamas, and got into bed. Reaching for the bedside phone, he called the drug store manager, and woke him up.
"I'm sorry for the short notice, but I'm taking a couple weeks off. It's my wife. She's having a crisis, and I've got to get it sorted out."
The boss grumbled. George tossed off a few comments about hysterical women, smoothed everything over, and hung up. Then he rolled over and went to sleep.
Bright bands of light outlined the bedroom curtains when he next woke. If he'd dreamed, he couldn't remember it. After another shower, he got dressed and took himself out for breakfast. Then he drove to the local VA office. He figured he'd get better results if they couldn't put him on hold.
It took most of the afternoon, but George was relentless. Eventually he came away with the uncomfortable information that Lt. William Carstairs was still missing, presumed killed in action during November, 1944. In spite of the thorough debriefing, the Queen Titania had never been found.
George was about to ask to see the report when a thought occurred. An idea which shed a disconcerting light on his nightmares.
A peace time army would never have taken Carstairs. Perhaps the war had squelched the gentlemen's agreement to keep undesirables out of the ranks. But that didn't mean their contributions to the war effort had to be acknowledged. Maybe they didn't want that wreck found.
George went home, found his passport, packed a bag, and made an airline reservation. Heading for the airport before he could change his mind, he called Mary from the terminal.
"I know you think I'm already crazy, so just consider this the next step. I'm going to France. I went to the VA. That bomber was never found. I can find it. I'm not sure what else I'll find, but I have to face it. It's the only way to answer your question, and stop the nightmares. I think I know why I'm so angry at that flaming little queer, but I'm not ready to talk about it."
"When will you be home, George?"
"I've taken two weeks off from the pharmacy. I need some time to think, okay? I'll call you when I get home."
This time, George hung up before Mary could reply.
When he needed it, George's memory worked remarkably well. Armed with a rental car, map, compass, and a pair of sturdy boots, he was soon at the farm over which they'd bailed out ten years before. It hadn't changed much. Stepping out of the car and looking up into the overcast sky, he could almost see the lumbering Flying Fortress, only one propeller still spinning, disappearing beyond the forest.
But she'd gone down close enough for them to hear the impact. To see the thin column of smoke.
There.
George took a compass bearing, then got back in the car. Consulting the map he drove toward the forest. Yes. This was the right track. Queen Titania hadn't disappeared beyond these woods. She'd gone into them. He got as close as the roads would take him, then double checked his compass.
The moment he stepped beneath the trees, George decided he was out of his mind. But Mary already thought he was nuts, so what the hell? As if flying the B-17 himself, he did his best to follow the glide path.
The forest cooperated, leading him in the direction he needed to go. He walked on. Signs of serious damage, healed over, made him forget his maimed feet and press on. He found the site almost without realizing it.
The forest had broken and claimed Queen Titania. As she crashed through the trees, they fell in around her, hiding and protecting the Allied bomber from enemy eyes. Still, if you knew what to look for, she was there to be found.
The wings, torn away, lay at distant angles, miniature forests of fungi thriving in their perpetual shadows. A fox den occupied the tail section. Generations of stoats had transformed the fuselage into a sprawling warren.
A raven perched atop a thick, broken sapling which had peeled back the cockpit aluminum like the lid of a tin of sardines. The massive blue-black bird gave George the sort of glare only ravens can manage, as if, about to start reciting Poe, it found George unworthy of the effort.
Stripped of summer foliage, the tangled branches embracing the crumpled wreckage revealed the faded name and nose art, leaving George without doubt.
He had to trust the entanglement, climbing upward until he could look down through the tear. That tree had Billy Carstairs pinned at the controls, his broken, desiccated corpse held together by the remains of his flight gear. George felt a pang of fear as he scanned the body, until he saw the parachute. Billy's watch was still strapped around his wrist. The fleece lining of the flight gear was ravaged, no doubt now lining the nests of the forest animals.
The crash killed him. Not me. I just wanted out, but not in the middle of nowhere.
George imagined the scene as it must have been the following summer, at war's end. The forest healing itself, draping Queen Titania and her pilot in a green shroud. A quiet, peaceful place to rest, far from the destruction their bombs had wrought.
George got out his camera and started taking photos. When he thought he had enough to establish the identity of the body and the bomber, he made the long walk back to his car.
He reported the find to the US Embassy. Taking a room in the nearest village, he awaited the arrival of a military mortuary team. To his surprise, a military attache from the embassy arrived with civilian undertakers. George led them to the wreck.
"Did you find the dog tags?" he asked, as they painstakingly extracted the remains from the cockpit.
"Carstairs, William. First Lieutenant."
And you'll notify his family? See that he gets home?"
"I called San Francisco myself, but he's also got family in England. His uncle showed up last night. Big Royal Navy brass. I don't know who he called, but he sure lit some fires."
George felt some of the anger returning. "This kid saved our butts when we got hit. If you bums had looked for him after the liberation, you wouldn't be feeling scorched."
And yet, George felt this residual anger was not quite the same. Why was he now defending that degenerate? The idea he'd had while tracking down the records took firm root. Given this context, his anger made perfect sense. He booked a flight, packed his bags, and headed home. He had to talk to Mary.
For the first time since his marriage, he wondered if his wife still wanted to speak to him. The long journey was a torment. George could feel thoughts he didn't want to have twisting inside him. All the changes since the war were unsettling enough. He didn't need this.
But would the life he'd built for himself survive, if he refused to move forward?
To his great relief, Mary's car was in the garage when he finally reached home. Yet there was something different about the house. A glint of light, next to the front door which opened into the unused sitting room. Now, though, it had new locks, and a new doorbell next to a small brass plate.
Dr. Mary Warren, PhD
When had that happened? And what was going on in that unused room? George let himself in through their usual front door, which opened into the hall. Footsteps came toward him from the kitchen.
"Hello? Mr. Warren? I'm Mrs. Brodie. Dr. Warren's housekeeper. She told me to expect you, though she couldn't say exactly when. She'll be another thirty minutes in session, and then I'll serve tea in the living room."
George took his suitcase upstairs and dropped it on the bedroom floor. He'd been gone little more than a week, and somehow his wife had taken over. He remembered the harsh words he'd spoken when she'd suggested psychotherapy.
He hadn't known what she'd studied in grad school till after they'd married. When courting her, he hadn't cared. What use would a married woman have for a graduate degree?
Now it seemed she'd hung out a shingle and begun seeing patients. Even hired a housekeeper to take up the slack.
He heard that second front door open and close. The muted voices of the women drifted up. He heard the clink of china. He went down to the living room, took his place in his easy chair, and watched Mary. This stranger in his house, sipping tea, writing up case notes.
She closed the file, chose a sticky bun from the tray, and looked at him expectantly.
George pried his tongue loose. "You sure got busy, while I was gone."
"With both boys in school all day, I started taking on more patients. Borrowing Dr. Peterson's office space no longer makes sense."
"I didn't know you were licensed to practice."
"You never asked. I got my license after you got called up. How do you suppose we were able to keep this house, have all this nice furniture, on the pittance you sent from your military pay? You've never once thought about it."
"I'm thinking about a lot of things, now. Like why that kid made me so angry. I listened to that tape you made. I wasn't real happy about that, but I guess you had to do it. I never told the lieutenant to burn in hell. I never got a word out. I was scared right out of my mind. If he hadn't kept his head, known exactly what to do and talked me through it, none of us might have made it back. How does a guy like that do what he did, and I was all but frozen? That's why I'm so angry. It just isn't right, Mary."
"Perhaps what isn't right is the judgment you passed on this man, without knowing what he was really like."
"I knew what he was really like. Queer as a three dollar bill."
Mary shook her head. "I think you noticed something else. Something you don't want to admit is possible, because if you do, you'll have to change your mind. I do know how much you dislike change, George, but change is a necessary part of life."
"Is this your way of telling me you're going to turn our house into a loony bin whether I like it or not?"
George regretted his comment the moment he made it, for what flashed in Mary's eyes was more dangerous than anger. He tried again. "This isn't easy, okay? There are things that I just know in my gut aren't right, and that guy was one of 'em. I think that's why the army didn't look for that wreck. I don't know what the other guys said during debrief. I said I didn't know why the lieutenant didn't get out of the plane. I didn't tell them he meant to fly the plane as far from our drop zone as he could. I didn't want them thinking that nancy boy was some kind of hero. Maybe the others tried to say something, I don't know, but I'm willing to bet they all kept their mouths shut, because you don't turn a degenerate into a hero, okay?"
"But you don't believe the lieutenant was degenerate." Mary's voice was quite certain, and when George looked into her eyes, he saw the clear steadfast blue he'd been smitten by in college.
To his shame, he felt tears spill over. "I used to be so certain of everything. I knew how the world worked, and where I fit. But the day I saw Billy Carstairs dancing a tango with Solly Rosenfeld, it all went out the window. I knew they were queer soon as I laid eyes on them. Everything in me says that isn't natural. But if you'd seen those two, you'd have thought it was as natural as you and me. They were really in love. And I don't understand that, Mary. I don't like things out of place. I especially don't like people out of place. It bothers me.
"But there's something worse bothering me. I'm not sure how to put it."
"May I try?" George gave a tentative nod, and she continued. "Your pride took a hit when a man you assumed was worthless did things you know you couldn't have done. He not only sacrificed himself to save his crew, he went out on his own terms. Denied the Nazis their chance to torture and kill one more so-called undesirable. But you did the job you were put there to do. And you've come home, George. I think you've finally come home, at last."
"Do I fit here, Mary? I'm not sure anymore."
"Because you're working alongside women? Because you're seeing more customers who aren't just like us? You fought a war against fascism and oppression, George. You can't expect to be able to stomp it out over there, and keep it in place here. What sort of world do you want your sons to grow up in?"
"I want all the best for them, of course."
"What's your definition of that? I'll tell you what mine is, George. For them to be free to be themselves, whoever they turn out to be. For the last ten years you've been stuck in that nightmare, dragging us all in with you. I'm not going to have that. So I'm very glad you're starting to come to your senses."
"I'm still not sure what I'm coming to. I'm not at all comfortable with the idea that a guy like Carstairs would sacrifice himself to save the rest of us. But to leave him out there like it never happened, that's not right either." George sighed. "I owe you an apology. Not just for the nightmares. When we married the only thing that mattered was the deferment it gave me. When I played that tape, I realized I don't want to lose what we have. So I had to go find out what happened to him. All that stuff I said on the tape, that's my shame, Mary. All these years, I've tried to tell myself he got out, somehow. Went back to his boyfriend, maybe stayed in France where being queer isn't against the law. The last thing I wanted to know, for sure, was that he died in that wreck to give an ungrateful bastard like me the best chance to get home. I guess, in my nightmares, I wanted to kill him for making me feel that way. Because I would never have done what he did. I'm a selfish bastard."
Finally, Mary smiled. "That's true, George. But you're my selfish bastard. As for the ungrateful part, I think you're a bit too hard on yourself. If that last mission hadn't planted a seed of change in you, your subconscious wouldn't have led you back to it every night."
The doorbell rang. A few moments later, Mrs. Brodie came in with a telegram. "The messenger is waiting for a reply, Mr. Warren."
George took the Western Union form and read the invitation there. "Tell the messenger the reply is we accept." As the housekeeper withdrew, George gave Mary the gist of the message. "Admiral Roger Carstairs has invited us to fly to San Francisco for his nephew's memorial service. All expenses paid. You know, if we cash in the first class tickets and fly coach, we could take the boys with us. They wouldn't miss much school."
"What if they want you to give a eulogy?"
"I didn't know him well enough for that."
Mary raised an eyebrow at him.
George reconsidered all the things he'd just told her. His posture straightened. He got up and put a record on, pulled Mary to her feet.
"Dance with me."
"We haven't danced since. . ."
"Since I lost a few toes. But hey, if I can walk, bet I can tango."
He didn't recall them making plans. They wouldn't have, not for Veterans Day. George's latest invitation to march with the VFW in tomorrow's parade had landed, as usual, in the wastebasket. His missing toes were none of their business.
"Fifteen minutes, George." Mary's voice came from the kitchen, along with the aroma of dinner. The clink of plates and silverware was the boys setting the table. George shed his coat and hat, leaving them on the hall tree, and loosened his tie as he went upstairs.
He changed quickly from shoes to slippers. He never went barefoot around the house, because of the boys. He didn't want them asking questions he didn't want to answer. None of that "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" crap.
What he'd done in the war was try his best to stay out of it. He'd opposed it from the start. America didn't need to get mixed up in Europe's problems. What Germany did with their own people was up to them. They'd all flocked to the Nazi Party, right? As for the Chinese and the Japs, let them blow each other to hell. Who cared? But George wasn't stupid. Defense might prove necessary, and he figured the air corps was his best bet. He played the odds, joining ROTC, and learning to fly while he was in college. He worked hard to get into grad school, stretching his educational deferment. While there, he courted Mary, timing their wedding so the marriage deferment kicked in when the college one ran out.
As a pharmacist with a degree in chemistry, he expected to be posted well away from the front, if he even went overseas at all. His luck held until Pearl Harbor happened. Though men were rushing to enlist, George found himself called up for flight training.
"Women can run the pharmacies for now," he was bluntly told. "We need pilots."
"Okay." George had no choice but to agree. "But I'm a married man with a baby son. How about the ferry service?"
"Got the WAAFs for that."
"You've got women flying?"
"Why not, they're building 'em. Pack your kit, soldier. You're going to Eighth Air Force, Bomber Command."
George hadn't thought about who would build the planes he might fly when the men were called to combat. The corporal's nonchalance gave him pause.
Though he stretched his training by qualifying as a navigator, he found himself in England within a year. Casualties at Bomber Command were high. Whenever George perceived a problem with a crew member, he bypassed the younger officers and went straight to the base commander. They especially locked horns the first time George saw a colored man flying a fighter.
"On top of all the other risks, you expect me to accept that?"
The man dismissed George's complaints. "I get it - you're miserable, and you want to get home to the wife and kids. So does everyone else, but they're not beefing about it. You want to get transferred home, shut up and fly your missions. As for the Red Tails, they've never lost a bomber."
George couldn't bring himself to believe these assurances. Reluctant and surly, he became a perpetual replacement, plugged in as co-pilot or navigator wherever needed.
"Dinner, George."
Mary's voice drifted up the stairs, and George shook himself out of his funk. Remembering all the crap he'd put up with in the Air Corps would ruin his digestion, and he could smell apple pie for dessert.
At least losing some of his toes had gotten him out of the military for good.
"George! Dinner! Or these boys won't leave you a crumb!"
He went downstairs carefully, and took his place at the table. "You made enough for an army."
"I made enough to get you through the weekend. I'm taking the boys and going to Mom and Dad's for a bit."
George looked at his wife. When had those baby blues turned to ice? And since when did he not have to growl at the boys to clean their plates if they wanted dessert? Mary had already sliced their pie before George was half through his roast. By the time George finished his own pie, the boys had cleared the table and Mary was halfway done with the dishes.
Ensconced in his easy chair with the TV and the newspaper, he heard the front door. Heard a car start. Mary dropping off the boys. When the late news ended, he turned off the TV and started upstairs. Halfway up, he turned and looked down into the hallway.
The suitcases were gone. The house was too quiet. Mary hadn't come back.
I'm taking the boys and going. . .
Puzzled, George went into the bedroom. There was a small tape recorder in the center of the bed, and a note on his pillow.
We're not coming back until you deal with this. Your ten years of promises have led to nothing but disappointment. I can't make excuses to the boys anymore. They don't believe them. Not after repeatedly being woken by these nightmares you insist you don't have. Listen to the tape, George.
"Like I wanna listen to myself snore." George meant to move the tape machine so he could sleep, but his thumb hit the play button. A volley of foul language spewed forth. Every hateful epithet and racial slur he'd ever learned, and what sounded like a few he invented in the heat of the moment.
And a hot moment it was, he realized, as he continued to listen. He was in the right hand seat of a B-17, cursing the young lieutenant in command as they wrestled the damaged bomber through a series of crazy maneuvers. He remembered her nose art, a femme fatale with blazing green eyes, raven hair crowned with stars. Lightning shot from her fingertips into the backsides of caricatures of Hitler and his Waffen SS.
Remembered asking, "Who the hell is Queen Titania?"
Raven-haired, green-eyed Lt. Carstairs laughed. "Queen of the Faeries. My ten times great-auntie. So go ahead and call me a fairy. It's true!"
In more ways than one, George recalled. Others could laugh. George was appalled.
For George, everything with that mission went wrong. The brazen Lt. Carstairs led the decoy group, going in without fighter escort. The weather was overcast, and the winds were against them, making them run low on fuel. The Luftwaffe rose to the bait, and without fighter cover they were sitting ducks.
Just as they nailed their target, the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter struck. Two engines flamed out right off, and continued to burn even after feathering the props. Hence the dangerous maneuvers.
George listened to the continued cursing, the memories coming thick and fast. The bomber held together through the climbs and dives that somehow put out the fire. Then George realized the lieutenant wasn't flying for home, but into the French Free Zone.
This unleashed a fresh set of curses. George figured his odds of survival were better as a POW, and wanted to bail out immediately. But that stuck up faggot wouldn't listen to reason.
George told him exactly what he thought of him and his fairy ancestors.
"I'm gonna send you down in flames so you can burn in hell!"
"George, stop it. Be quiet, George. George, wake up!"
Mary's voice, on the tape. Sounds of the boys whimpering with fright. His own voice, groggy with sleep.
"What's going on? What's wrong with the boys?"
"You've woken us all up. Again."
There was a series of clicks, then Mary's voice. "The preceding recording was made at approximately 3 AM, November 10th, 1954. George, if you are listening to this, you have until Monday to call me at my parents' house and tell me I'm not married to a murderer. If you haven't called by the time I've put the boys to bed, I'll assume you've no interest in your well-being, and therefore none in that of your family."
The tape unwound, flapping. George yanked the plug from the socket, knocked the machine from the bed and kicked it into a corner. How dare she pull such a trick on him? And what the hell did she mean about murder? Was a man supposed to be accountable for his dreams?
Any thoughts of sleep were now gone. He put on his pajamas, pulled on a warm robe, went down to the kitchen to warm up some coffee.
Sitting alone in the dark, he considered the nightmare. George didn't remember telling that nancy boy to burn in hell as he made his own escape. He remembered the sound of the one remaining engine fading into the distance. It didn't sputter and die. But then, as they were hastily gathering up their parachutes, they heard the sound of a distant crash. Saw a thin column of smoke rising above a forest.
As last man out, George expected questions about the missing lieutenant. None came. The farmer whose field they landed in was a member of the resistance. Thus began a long, miserable time of running and hiding, including a nightmare trek across the mountains. George's feet froze during the long marches, for fresh snowfall was the best way to conceal their movements from enemy patrols.
After being debriefed in Gibraltar, George was sent back to England for the amputation of his frozen toes. He was then sent home and given a medical discharge. He never heard from any of the other rescued crew. He never wondered what happened to the lieutenant.
He really did hope the little faggot was burning in hell. So what if he was the best pilot in the squadron? A guy like that, with no shame about what he was, he upset the natural order of life as George saw it.
Why, then, were his nightmares only about that mission? He'd had other close calls. Why did the fate of that nancy boy matter so much? Had the Queen Titania ever been found? He could probably find out, but not over the weekend.
He finished the coffee and went to bed.
In the morning he called Mary, trying to understand what she wanted.
"You're blocking something, George, and it's getting worse. Why won't you talk to Dr. Peterson, like I've been asking you for the past ten years?"
"Because I don't need a damn head shrinker! If I'd known you were studying all that wingnut crap I wouldn't have dated you!"
He didn't have to see his wife's eyes. He could feel the ice in the crackle of static on the phone line. "Mary, look, it's all in the past, okay? Can't you just leave it there?"
"No, George. How can I, when you bring it into our bed almost every night? And if you can't handle me asking about it, what will you say to the boys when they ask you? And they will ask you, if you keep waking them up. So you'd better deal with it."
"I can't do anything over the weekend. I'll call the VA on Monday. See if I can track down any of the others. But I won't make any promises."
"Neither will I."
George heard a sharp click, then static. Astonished, he realized his wife had hung up on him.
Monday came soon enough. George didn't bother with the VA. He had more important things to do than try to get sense from a pencil pusher in a government agency. Mary had probably come to her senses by now, anyway.
The house was dark when he came home from work. All his dirty dishes from the weekend were still piled in the sink. Upstairs, the bed was unmade, the sheets tangled and sour from his nightmares. He finished the last of the leftovers, feet up in his easy chair, watching the evening news.
He woke there, sweating. Remembrance had crept up on him. In his dream state, without Mary to wake him, he recalled details his conscious mind kept hidden from him.
The gut-wrenching fear as the Messerschmitt caught them by surprise, taking out two engines. That nance lieutenant barking out orders to the crew, and to George to feather the props. Then the insane orders to climb and dive, till the stubborn fires were finally starved out.
George could barely breathe, let alone speak. Not even when the lieutenant changed course, away from base. Logic said damage and low fuel would put them in the North Sea if they tried to make it home, but George's terror screamed they were going the wrong way.
A third engine became erratic. "Get everyone out, George. Get over the mountains into Spain, then to Gibraltar. I'll keep her going as long as I can. Maybe I'll catch up to you."
Then they were out, scrambling into hiding.
The room turned gray with dawn. George finally went upstairs. He showered, put on clean pajamas, and got into bed. Reaching for the bedside phone, he called the drug store manager, and woke him up.
"I'm sorry for the short notice, but I'm taking a couple weeks off. It's my wife. She's having a crisis, and I've got to get it sorted out."
The boss grumbled. George tossed off a few comments about hysterical women, smoothed everything over, and hung up. Then he rolled over and went to sleep.
Bright bands of light outlined the bedroom curtains when he next woke. If he'd dreamed, he couldn't remember it. After another shower, he got dressed and took himself out for breakfast. Then he drove to the local VA office. He figured he'd get better results if they couldn't put him on hold.
It took most of the afternoon, but George was relentless. Eventually he came away with the uncomfortable information that Lt. William Carstairs was still missing, presumed killed in action during November, 1944. In spite of the thorough debriefing, the Queen Titania had never been found.
George was about to ask to see the report when a thought occurred. An idea which shed a disconcerting light on his nightmares.
A peace time army would never have taken Carstairs. Perhaps the war had squelched the gentlemen's agreement to keep undesirables out of the ranks. But that didn't mean their contributions to the war effort had to be acknowledged. Maybe they didn't want that wreck found.
George went home, found his passport, packed a bag, and made an airline reservation. Heading for the airport before he could change his mind, he called Mary from the terminal.
"I know you think I'm already crazy, so just consider this the next step. I'm going to France. I went to the VA. That bomber was never found. I can find it. I'm not sure what else I'll find, but I have to face it. It's the only way to answer your question, and stop the nightmares. I think I know why I'm so angry at that flaming little queer, but I'm not ready to talk about it."
"When will you be home, George?"
"I've taken two weeks off from the pharmacy. I need some time to think, okay? I'll call you when I get home."
This time, George hung up before Mary could reply.
When he needed it, George's memory worked remarkably well. Armed with a rental car, map, compass, and a pair of sturdy boots, he was soon at the farm over which they'd bailed out ten years before. It hadn't changed much. Stepping out of the car and looking up into the overcast sky, he could almost see the lumbering Flying Fortress, only one propeller still spinning, disappearing beyond the forest.
But she'd gone down close enough for them to hear the impact. To see the thin column of smoke.
There.
George took a compass bearing, then got back in the car. Consulting the map he drove toward the forest. Yes. This was the right track. Queen Titania hadn't disappeared beyond these woods. She'd gone into them. He got as close as the roads would take him, then double checked his compass.
The moment he stepped beneath the trees, George decided he was out of his mind. But Mary already thought he was nuts, so what the hell? As if flying the B-17 himself, he did his best to follow the glide path.
The forest cooperated, leading him in the direction he needed to go. He walked on. Signs of serious damage, healed over, made him forget his maimed feet and press on. He found the site almost without realizing it.
The forest had broken and claimed Queen Titania. As she crashed through the trees, they fell in around her, hiding and protecting the Allied bomber from enemy eyes. Still, if you knew what to look for, she was there to be found.
The wings, torn away, lay at distant angles, miniature forests of fungi thriving in their perpetual shadows. A fox den occupied the tail section. Generations of stoats had transformed the fuselage into a sprawling warren.
A raven perched atop a thick, broken sapling which had peeled back the cockpit aluminum like the lid of a tin of sardines. The massive blue-black bird gave George the sort of glare only ravens can manage, as if, about to start reciting Poe, it found George unworthy of the effort.
Stripped of summer foliage, the tangled branches embracing the crumpled wreckage revealed the faded name and nose art, leaving George without doubt.
He had to trust the entanglement, climbing upward until he could look down through the tear. That tree had Billy Carstairs pinned at the controls, his broken, desiccated corpse held together by the remains of his flight gear. George felt a pang of fear as he scanned the body, until he saw the parachute. Billy's watch was still strapped around his wrist. The fleece lining of the flight gear was ravaged, no doubt now lining the nests of the forest animals.
The crash killed him. Not me. I just wanted out, but not in the middle of nowhere.
George imagined the scene as it must have been the following summer, at war's end. The forest healing itself, draping Queen Titania and her pilot in a green shroud. A quiet, peaceful place to rest, far from the destruction their bombs had wrought.
George got out his camera and started taking photos. When he thought he had enough to establish the identity of the body and the bomber, he made the long walk back to his car.
He reported the find to the US Embassy. Taking a room in the nearest village, he awaited the arrival of a military mortuary team. To his surprise, a military attache from the embassy arrived with civilian undertakers. George led them to the wreck.
"Did you find the dog tags?" he asked, as they painstakingly extracted the remains from the cockpit.
"Carstairs, William. First Lieutenant."
And you'll notify his family? See that he gets home?"
"I called San Francisco myself, but he's also got family in England. His uncle showed up last night. Big Royal Navy brass. I don't know who he called, but he sure lit some fires."
George felt some of the anger returning. "This kid saved our butts when we got hit. If you bums had looked for him after the liberation, you wouldn't be feeling scorched."
And yet, George felt this residual anger was not quite the same. Why was he now defending that degenerate? The idea he'd had while tracking down the records took firm root. Given this context, his anger made perfect sense. He booked a flight, packed his bags, and headed home. He had to talk to Mary.
For the first time since his marriage, he wondered if his wife still wanted to speak to him. The long journey was a torment. George could feel thoughts he didn't want to have twisting inside him. All the changes since the war were unsettling enough. He didn't need this.
But would the life he'd built for himself survive, if he refused to move forward?
To his great relief, Mary's car was in the garage when he finally reached home. Yet there was something different about the house. A glint of light, next to the front door which opened into the unused sitting room. Now, though, it had new locks, and a new doorbell next to a small brass plate.
Dr. Mary Warren, PhD
When had that happened? And what was going on in that unused room? George let himself in through their usual front door, which opened into the hall. Footsteps came toward him from the kitchen.
"Hello? Mr. Warren? I'm Mrs. Brodie. Dr. Warren's housekeeper. She told me to expect you, though she couldn't say exactly when. She'll be another thirty minutes in session, and then I'll serve tea in the living room."
George took his suitcase upstairs and dropped it on the bedroom floor. He'd been gone little more than a week, and somehow his wife had taken over. He remembered the harsh words he'd spoken when she'd suggested psychotherapy.
He hadn't known what she'd studied in grad school till after they'd married. When courting her, he hadn't cared. What use would a married woman have for a graduate degree?
Now it seemed she'd hung out a shingle and begun seeing patients. Even hired a housekeeper to take up the slack.
He heard that second front door open and close. The muted voices of the women drifted up. He heard the clink of china. He went down to the living room, took his place in his easy chair, and watched Mary. This stranger in his house, sipping tea, writing up case notes.
She closed the file, chose a sticky bun from the tray, and looked at him expectantly.
George pried his tongue loose. "You sure got busy, while I was gone."
"With both boys in school all day, I started taking on more patients. Borrowing Dr. Peterson's office space no longer makes sense."
"I didn't know you were licensed to practice."
"You never asked. I got my license after you got called up. How do you suppose we were able to keep this house, have all this nice furniture, on the pittance you sent from your military pay? You've never once thought about it."
"I'm thinking about a lot of things, now. Like why that kid made me so angry. I listened to that tape you made. I wasn't real happy about that, but I guess you had to do it. I never told the lieutenant to burn in hell. I never got a word out. I was scared right out of my mind. If he hadn't kept his head, known exactly what to do and talked me through it, none of us might have made it back. How does a guy like that do what he did, and I was all but frozen? That's why I'm so angry. It just isn't right, Mary."
"Perhaps what isn't right is the judgment you passed on this man, without knowing what he was really like."
"I knew what he was really like. Queer as a three dollar bill."
Mary shook her head. "I think you noticed something else. Something you don't want to admit is possible, because if you do, you'll have to change your mind. I do know how much you dislike change, George, but change is a necessary part of life."
"Is this your way of telling me you're going to turn our house into a loony bin whether I like it or not?"
George regretted his comment the moment he made it, for what flashed in Mary's eyes was more dangerous than anger. He tried again. "This isn't easy, okay? There are things that I just know in my gut aren't right, and that guy was one of 'em. I think that's why the army didn't look for that wreck. I don't know what the other guys said during debrief. I said I didn't know why the lieutenant didn't get out of the plane. I didn't tell them he meant to fly the plane as far from our drop zone as he could. I didn't want them thinking that nancy boy was some kind of hero. Maybe the others tried to say something, I don't know, but I'm willing to bet they all kept their mouths shut, because you don't turn a degenerate into a hero, okay?"
"But you don't believe the lieutenant was degenerate." Mary's voice was quite certain, and when George looked into her eyes, he saw the clear steadfast blue he'd been smitten by in college.
To his shame, he felt tears spill over. "I used to be so certain of everything. I knew how the world worked, and where I fit. But the day I saw Billy Carstairs dancing a tango with Solly Rosenfeld, it all went out the window. I knew they were queer soon as I laid eyes on them. Everything in me says that isn't natural. But if you'd seen those two, you'd have thought it was as natural as you and me. They were really in love. And I don't understand that, Mary. I don't like things out of place. I especially don't like people out of place. It bothers me.
"But there's something worse bothering me. I'm not sure how to put it."
"May I try?" George gave a tentative nod, and she continued. "Your pride took a hit when a man you assumed was worthless did things you know you couldn't have done. He not only sacrificed himself to save his crew, he went out on his own terms. Denied the Nazis their chance to torture and kill one more so-called undesirable. But you did the job you were put there to do. And you've come home, George. I think you've finally come home, at last."
"Do I fit here, Mary? I'm not sure anymore."
"Because you're working alongside women? Because you're seeing more customers who aren't just like us? You fought a war against fascism and oppression, George. You can't expect to be able to stomp it out over there, and keep it in place here. What sort of world do you want your sons to grow up in?"
"I want all the best for them, of course."
"What's your definition of that? I'll tell you what mine is, George. For them to be free to be themselves, whoever they turn out to be. For the last ten years you've been stuck in that nightmare, dragging us all in with you. I'm not going to have that. So I'm very glad you're starting to come to your senses."
"I'm still not sure what I'm coming to. I'm not at all comfortable with the idea that a guy like Carstairs would sacrifice himself to save the rest of us. But to leave him out there like it never happened, that's not right either." George sighed. "I owe you an apology. Not just for the nightmares. When we married the only thing that mattered was the deferment it gave me. When I played that tape, I realized I don't want to lose what we have. So I had to go find out what happened to him. All that stuff I said on the tape, that's my shame, Mary. All these years, I've tried to tell myself he got out, somehow. Went back to his boyfriend, maybe stayed in France where being queer isn't against the law. The last thing I wanted to know, for sure, was that he died in that wreck to give an ungrateful bastard like me the best chance to get home. I guess, in my nightmares, I wanted to kill him for making me feel that way. Because I would never have done what he did. I'm a selfish bastard."
Finally, Mary smiled. "That's true, George. But you're my selfish bastard. As for the ungrateful part, I think you're a bit too hard on yourself. If that last mission hadn't planted a seed of change in you, your subconscious wouldn't have led you back to it every night."
The doorbell rang. A few moments later, Mrs. Brodie came in with a telegram. "The messenger is waiting for a reply, Mr. Warren."
George took the Western Union form and read the invitation there. "Tell the messenger the reply is we accept." As the housekeeper withdrew, George gave Mary the gist of the message. "Admiral Roger Carstairs has invited us to fly to San Francisco for his nephew's memorial service. All expenses paid. You know, if we cash in the first class tickets and fly coach, we could take the boys with us. They wouldn't miss much school."
"What if they want you to give a eulogy?"
"I didn't know him well enough for that."
Mary raised an eyebrow at him.
George reconsidered all the things he'd just told her. His posture straightened. He got up and put a record on, pulled Mary to her feet.
"Dance with me."
"We haven't danced since. . ."
"Since I lost a few toes. But hey, if I can walk, bet I can tango."