Throw a Nickel on the Grass: "...And You'll Be Saved."

By Norman Phillips

Rick North has never spent much time on reflection. For twenty-five years, he has immersed his body and soul in the US Air Force as a forward-looking, self-assured officer. Yet in Norths early life, there were no absolutes. Now, as he lies in a hospital bed in Southeast Asia, the victim of a futile war, he begins to contemplate his past as he is carried further and further away from the only life he has known.

Raised by illiterate Polish grandparents, North develops the independence and insatiable curiosity that eventually leads him on an adventurous journey through World War II, where he flies in the Italian campaign and transforms into a steely-eyed, decorated fighter pilot. As he rises in the ranks to colonel, he edges closer to bureaucracy and some of its leaders, dimming his once idealistic views. But after he reluctantly volunteers for the Vietnam War, he is shot down in Laos and saved in a daring rescuean event that alters his life forever.

Based on a true story, Throw a Nickel on the Grass shares one mans incredible and challenging journey through life and war, and his ultimate discovery of true happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466969322

Norman Phillips

Norman Phillips was raised by illiterate Polish grandparents. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps and eventually became a decorated fighter pilot in World War II. He was a parachutist and mountain climber. He was shot down in Laos in 1968 and, after a high-speed ejection and a hair-raising rescue, retired from the Air Force. He then earned a BFA and MFA and taught sculpture at the University of Massachusetts for nineteen years. He started writing about ten years ago and is the author of Throw A Nickel On The Grass

Book preview

Throw a Nickel

on the Grass

. . . and you’ll be saved.

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Norman Phillips

© Copyright 2012, 2015 Norman Phillips.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-6890-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-6891-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-6932-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922124

Trafford rev. 01/21/2015

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North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

fax: [phone]

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

BOOK 1

THE ADOLESCENT

Chapter 1    Chelsea

Chapter 2    New York to Brookton

Chapter 3    Sophomore Year

Chapter 4    Mary Marshall

Chapter 5    Junior Year—Hurricane

Chapter 6    Alice

Chapter 7    Dancing

Chapter 8    Valentine’s Day

Chapter 9    The Quabbin

Chapter 10    The Senior Year

Chapter 11    Graduation

Chapter 12    Vought Sikorsky

Chapter 13    Army Air Corps

BOOK 2

ON TO WAR

Chapter 1    The Atlantic

Chapter 2    Oran

Chapter 3    Naples

Chapter 4    Twenty-Seventh Fighter Bomber Group

Chapter 5    Combat

Chapter 6    Ciampino

Chapter 7    Rome

Chapter 8    Corsica

Chapter 9    The Game

Chapter 10    Southern France Invasion

Chapter 11    The Riviera

Chapter 12    Back to War

Chapter 13    Back to Italy

Chapter 14    Home for Christmas

Chapter 15    The First Challenge

BOOK 3

Chapter 1    VE Day

Chapter 2    The Christmas Party

Chapter 3    Man and Wife

Chapter 4    Bitburg

Chapter 5    The Staff Officer

Chapter 6    The Thud

Chapter 7    Korat, Thailand

Chapter 8    Bang!

Epilogue    (1954-1958)

Endnotes

An amazing story of triumph over adversity, this book will keep you interested and excited from beginning to end. Rick is a product of the adventurous spirit of our American youth. I’ve had the pleasure of flying and serving with such outstanding leaders in peacetime and combat. Rick portrays the very best in spirit, courage and leadership."

"Fighter pilots are a special blend of skill,daring and patriotism.

Rick exemplifies the best of the breed."

Carl G. Schneider

Maj Gen USAF (Ret)

This is a stimulating book written by a proud member of America’s Greatest Generation. The author’s stirring life story with its mixture of both common and extraordinary life and death experiences, offers an informative insight into what leadership, service to country and independence of mind and spirit is all about. This book is a fun read that entertains, but its lessons will enlighten for a life time.

Pete Peterson, former ambassador to Viet Nam

Norman Phillips tells his own story through the experiences of Rick North. His is a story for all of us, from a generation which is quickly passing.

Judith D. Ward, PhD

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Tom Newman, who threw a nickel on the grass for me on May 30, 1968, and to all the others who weren’t so lucky.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Nancy Eichhorn who lit the fuse that started my writing. She not only inspired me to write but has always encouraged my efforts. My wife Mary North Phillips allowed me to use her maiden name for Rick, my doppelganger, and she has given me much appreciated editorial help. For that and for the years of tolerance of my adolescent behavior, I thank her again and again.

Prologue

E ach of our lives is unique. It is filled with experiences, emotions, successes, failures, and unrequited needs to find the reasons for it all. I want to share with my readers about a life chock-full of hair-raising events, challenges, shortcomings, profound enthusiasms, and, finally, attempts to understand and explain to myself why it all happened the way it happened and how it ended.

After reading Other Colors by Orhan Pamuk, I was inspired to write this prologue to explain myself to the reader through my story. The protagonist, Rick North, is based on someone I know best—me. That does not mean that I know me, but rather, I asked myself questions about myself, and the answers revealed an emerging character that I named Rick North. Choosing a fictitious name made it easier for me to describe the events that actually happened. Everything that Rick North does in this story I have done in my life. Some names have been changed and some details of combat missions and conversations are fictional because although I can remember what was important, I could not reproduce the accurate dialogues between characters or details of the events described. People and events in this story are, to the best of my knowledge, true.

I’ve tried to reveal Rick North’s youth and memories of events that passed in his time in history. I have shared events that have slipped by like pages of a calendar, now discarded. Some of those pages are inscribed with my first memories of the 1920s till now, 2012.

If you look back at the events that made headlines during that long stretch, you’ll see the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the Great Depression in the thirties, the Second World War in the forties, the Cold War and Korean Conflict in the fifties, and the southeast Asia debacle in the sixties. I’ve chosen to end this volume with the story of Rick North’s harrowing escape from Laos after his F-105 went down in flames in 1968, an event that actually happened to me. Life for Rick did not end at that point. He retired from the air force, went to college, and later taught sculpture at a state university. He was last seen squirreled away in a book-lined study, writing this book.

I’ve named this book Throw a Nickel on the Grass based on the title of a song well known by many of the fighter pilots I flew with. It’s a song we often sang at the bar, drinks in hand, and it is one of the many fighter-pilot songs that evoke the absurdity, fatalism, and defiance that all are part of being one of a special breed of humans; at least, we fighter pilots think we are.

Throw a nickel on the grass,

save a fighter pilot’s ass.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,

Throw a nickel on the grass

and you’ll be saved.

BOOK 1

THE ADOLESCENT

CHAPTER 1

Chelsea

O n a warm June day, the morning sun streamed through the tall windows of a room in the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston. Col. Rick North was stretched out on a hospital bed in that room. He was bare-chested, both arms immobilized in cocoons of plaster and gauze. Yesterday, Colonel North had been delivered to the naval hospital on a stretcher after a series of long flights from his home base in Thailand. He had injured both arms and one leg after ejecting at high speed from a burning F-105 hit by a 37 mm cannon shell in Laos.

Today, at seven fifteen in the morning, the routine hospital activities were under way. Nurses, doctors, aides, and corpsmen bustled about, their voices subdued. Colonel North lay there drowsy and daydreaming. He heard the metallic clattering of a cart in the corridor. The sound evaporated his dreamy, drug-induced mood, and he scowled. The clattering got louder and then stopped. A moment later, a short Filipino corpsman with a cheerful smile walked in carrying a breakfast tray with a plate of eggs, a carafe of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a plate of toast. He put it on a table, which he swiveled across Colonel North’s midriff. The colonel was hungry, and the spread looked good.

There you are, sir. Scrambled eggs with bacon, juice, and coffee. The corpsman turned and started to walk away, but then he paused, looked over his shoulder, and said, Let me know if you need anything else, sir.

He was gone before Colonel North even smelled the coffee. He lay there seething while the eggs, toast, and coffee grew cold. He could have stopped the corpsman and ordered him to feed him, but his stubbornness invited a chance for confrontation. His gut roiled, and he said to himself, That stupid bastard! Can’t he see I’ve got plaster on both my arms? I’ll be damned if I ask for anything from these bastards! Jesus Christ, do these guys even know that we’re fighting a war? And if a full colonel gets this kind of treatment, what in hell can the poor grunts expect? What a war! Well, it’s all behind me now. I’m damned lucky to be here.

The breakfast cooled, almost matching Colonel North’s glacial mood.

Things gradually quieted down around him. He again heard the clattering of a cart in the corridor, and he couldn’t wait to rip into one of the staff. It wasn’t like Colonel North to play the part of an ass-chewing colonel, but his frustration took over.

The cart stopped, and the smiling corpsman strode in. He paused at the colonel’s bedside and looked at the breakfast tray straddled across his midriff. He frowned and then jerked his head back and grimaced like a parent whose child was holding up a bleeding finger. Didn’t you feel like eating your breakfast this morning, sir?

"How in hell do you suppose I can eat with both of these arms in casts? Now get off your dead ass and get me a hot breakfast! And you stay here and feed it to me this time!"

The corpsman looked startled; wide-eyed, he snapped to attention, and, in a flash, lifted the breakfast tray and stepped back. His expression looked as if he’d been caught stealing apples. "Yes, sir! I’ll be back in a jiffy, sir!" He scurried out of the room and brushed past a nurse coming in, carrying a clipboard. When she heard the cart skittering wildly down the hallway, she paused and looked at it speeding down the corridor. She turned back and walked toward Colonel North, shaking her head back and forth, a big grin on her face.

What’d you do, Colonel? Bite him?

Colonel North stared out the window. He scowled and turned to the nurse. She wore the gold leaf of a lieutenant commander and was the head nurse. He looked her up and down and, through tight lips, said, Commander, what does it take to get out of here and back to the air force?

"You have to be able to walk to the hospital executive office and have your clearance signed, sir."

She was trying hard to conceal a smirk; her lips didn’t seem to be able to decide what they should do. Her expression told Colonel North that nurses of her rank didn’t like to be challenged by patients.

Well, Commander, you get me the damned paperwork, and I’ll do it!

She frowned at him, raised her eyebrows, lifted her head, and pushed her jaw forward. A smug, skeptical look grew on her face, and she said, Yes, sir!

She about-faced and left the room, saying to herself, Phew! That is one pissed-off colonel!

Colonel North was still an air force colonel even though he had been ripped out of that role when he became a hospital patient. Stripped of his duties and responsibilities, he was no longer a commanding fighter pilot. That life screeched to a halt. He had thrived in the fast-moving military life and always looked forward, but now what? Tranquilized by the ministrations of his keepers, his mind was free to wander and to wonder. How did he come to be where he was? He began to look back and then further back.

He rifled through his military career—all the things he did and places he’d been. Memorable faces popped to the top. He relived the joy he felt when he commanded the Twenty-Second Fighter Squadron—World War II with the thrills of combat flying scrolled by, and he remembered an earlier time, bursting with pride when he got his silver wings and became a commissioned officer. The only thing he wanted then was to stick with it and keep reaching out for those brass rings that flashed by, offering a never-ending ride on that flying merry-go-round. He was an air force officer, a combat-seasoned fighter pilot, nothing more. There was no room in that life for doubt, confusion, or failure. But that whirling carousel stopped when he was blown out of the sky, and for the first time, he began to think about life’s complexities.

He looked back at the image of the self he knew. Why was discomfort oozing into his identity? Could it be that the stigma of fear lurked in the shadows of the confident person he saw in the mirror every morning? There had to be something else.

Colonel North hadn’t thought much about his beginnings, but now he remembered how eager he was to join the fight during World War II. He remembered feeling that he had to throw himself into the fray because it was the right thing to do. After the war, he served as a flying officer, doing his best and rising in rank. How did he do it, and what came before?

Now he had time to try to understand what had gone by. He thought of all the places he’d been, the things he’d done, and the women he’d known. For the first time, he began to think of things he hadn’t done and things that were part of him but hadn’t drawn his attention.

This was a chasm that he had to cross so he could connect with his beginnings. Periodic doses of medication detached him from the present, and he slipped into dreamy states. His mind wandered to brilliant autumns in New England, to idle hours in the summer sun at the lake, and to lie on the beach talking with his pals and to look at the girls. An earlier recollection surfaced, one that he’d never thought about.

Could it have been when I was only nine or ten? But the name Margaret Downs Clark came up. It wasn’t precisely clear. It had to have been before I was in the sixth grade because I moved to New York after the fifth grade, and I remember Margaret was a classmate in elementary school.

It’s interesting how certain early memories stay etched into our brains. He remembered holding his hand out, palm up, and the teacher whacking it several times. That stinging punishment was for throwing snowballs at classmates during recess. He remembered the look and smell of the boys’ room where he urinated against a slate wall; a trough of running water at the bottom washed the urine away, and toilets had a tank of water above and a pull chain to flush it.

He saw himself trudging up South Street to school, passing street gutters filled with burning leaves. He remembered the Thanksgiving pageant and his role as an Indian wearing a feathered, beaded headdress. It must have been around that time that Margaret and he had interacted. He still remembered how she looked—the rubber band that wound several times around a lock of her brown hair, holding it away from her face; the space between her front teeth; and her bright smile. She was an active and robust girl. He smiled to himself when he recalled the cold days at recess when they all lined up along the school’s brick wall with one of them in the corner. They all pushed toward the corner, squashing the first kid until he or she couldn’t stand it and would pop out and go to the end of the line. The game was called squeeze the lemon. Margaret pushed, shoved, and laughed like all the boys. It was like a flashback, but now he saw her showing him how Indians walked. It must have been when he showed up at the Thanksgiving pageant decked out in Indian garb. He heard her say, When Indians walk, they put their toes down first like this. And she raised her knees with each slow step and planted her foot down, toes first.

She made an indelible impression on him. He remembered becoming self-conscious—conscious of who he was and who he wanted to be. Margaret sat behind him in school, and when she was looking, he pretended he was a member of a secret gang and wrote messages in code on paper tightly folded into a wad and not revealing from where or to where they came or went.

To impress her, he stood on the street in front of the school, doing semaphore signals to an invisible conspirator at the bottom of the hill. It was the first time he saw someone who awakened a desire he hadn’t felt before. After he moved to New York, he often strolled by her house during summer vacations, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but he never saw Margaret again.

He snapped out of his daydream when he heard a voice. Got to change your sheets this morning, sir. Can I help you into your chair? I see you’ve been going to the bathroom on your own, so I hope you don’t mind. Colonel North turned and saw the young Puerto Rican corpsman walking toward him. He was followed by a female attendant whose pert features almost assuredly originated in the Emerald Isle. Her figure wasn’t the least bit constrained in the baggy, styleless hospital toggery, and her bouncy vitality drew his gaze.

No. I can get up by myself. My balance is pretty good on my good leg.

The female glanced at him and continued talking to the corpsman, wildly changing the bed linens.

So, Emil, you went up to Revere Beach yesterday, huh?

Yeah, I miss the beach. I come from Culebra, and we got nothin’ but beaches all around that island.

You told me you were from Puerto Rico. She stopped folding the sheet.

"Yeah, I know. That’s ’cause no one knows where Culebra is. It’s a small island close to Puerto Rico."

Oh, so what’d you do up at Revere?

"Wha’ choo tink. I went swimming, but Jesu Christo, that water was like ice!"

She laughed, No one goes swimming in the ocean ’till the Fourth of July! You gotta let the water warm up.

Colonel North lost track of their conversation, but their talk about swimming opened a memory from his high school days. He recalled that day in March when he and Al Dubois skipped school and went swimming because it was the first day of spring. The river still had ice on it. Now, that was cold! he chuckled when he remembered reading the weekly Brookton News. It was the first day of spring and Rick North and Al Dubois celebrated by going swimming.

A tight-lipped smile spread on Colonel North’s face, his head went back and forth, and he thought, Yep, as usual., Al and I were out there before anyone else.

OK, sir, your bed’s all made up. Need any help, sir?

Colonel North muttered, No thanks. I can do it on my own.

The corpsman’s eyes glanced at the casts and watched him hop nimbly on one leg and climb onto his cot. The corpsman darted to his bedside and adjusted the sheets. He looked at Colonel North; his expression became tender, and his eyes moistened. As he walked away, he looked back and said softly, I wish you a speedy recovery, sir.

Colonel North came out of a dream, and, for a moment, didn’t know where he was, and then he saw a nurse and a corpsman standing at his bedside. The nurse bent over and whispered, We’ve got to draw some blood, sir, from your leg ’cause we can’t get at your arms.

Colonel North recognized where he was and said, Fine. Have at it.

The corpsman lifted the sheet and studied the colonel’s ankles to find a visible vein. He then took a syringe and bent closer.

Jesus! That hurt! Colonel North thought, but he hardened his look at the technician and didn’t let on to his discomfort. He couldn’t shake off thinking that he was on the receiving end of some inter-service rivalry or a victim of a bad attitude that some enlisted troops had toward some officers. He had seen such officers who were nothing but martinets. Lying there, more or less helpless brought on all kinds of thoughts. He wondered if he was getting paranoid but brushed that notion aside.

Before he was shot down, Colonel North hadn’t spent much time on self-reflection. For twenty-five years, he had immersed his body and soul in the Air Force and had become a forward-looking, self-assured officer. He had always done what was good for the service and rarely thought about himself. A colonel’s life in the Air Force was a black-and-white world with no shades of gray. Failures demanded remedies, and changes had to be made. Yesterday’s failures were turned into today’s resolutions. Colonel North’s early life wasn’t like that. In it, there were no absolutes, at least not for him. Now, his inner self seemed to become more important. As the weight of duty lightened, Colonel North began to reflect more on his past and those memories softened the hard edges he had put around himself.

Just before lunch, the Puerto Rican corpsman danced into the room. He was smiling and had a paper cup in one hand. Mornin’, sir. How are you doin’? I have your codeine here. You can take them now or wait a bit if you’re not hurtin’ too much. He put the cup on the nightstand and poured water into another paper cup.

Rick glanced at his name tag and said, I’m fine. Thanks, Emil.

Emil’s eyes brightened when he heard his name, and his smile became wider.

Commander Gerber says you are going to be leaving here for the air force hospital at Westover.

Yeah, I thought I ought to get out of here and get back to the air force.

I’ll be sorry to see you leave, sir, but if that’s what you want, you should get it.

Emil gently tipped the cup with the codeine pills into Colonel North’s mouth and then held the cup of water to his lips so that he could wash down the pills. Gradually, the pain dissolved. He fell asleep and his dreams took off in a swirl.

CHAPTER 2

New York to Brookton

R ick dreamed that he was floating over a familiar landscape. Below his wingless flight, the rolling hills of northeastern America scrolled by. He flew over a valley with a town spread on both sides of a winding river. It was a small New England mill town; its tree-lined streets were beginning to show the seasonal outburst of color. The town was quiet, and cars rolled by silently. It was during the depression years before the war; Hitler’s convulsive rise to power had not yet touched its citizenry. Through the trees, three tall steeples reached up into the sky as if their Catholic priests competed to get closer to God. On Sunday, most of the town’s people went to Mass in those Catholic churches. St. Agathe’s was on the east side of town. French was spoken there. Polish was the language in St. Mary’s, and in the center of town, at St. Patrick’s, the sermons were in English. Small congregations of Protestants attended a variety of smaller churches on the north side.

Brookton was an orderly town filled with first—and second-generation immigrants. They lived in well-defined neighborhoods and worked together under a congenial umbrella that gave the town a distinctive and cohesive character.

The wind stream that had carried the youthful Rick away in his dream was like an errant dust devil that dropped him on a dark, empty road not far from this town. It was four thirty on a cool autumn morning. A half hour earlier, in that dream, Rick had alighted from one of those trucks that cruise back and forth between the cities on the east coast. The talkative driver who picked Rick up in Meridan, Connecticut, said he was a Navy veteran of World War I. He drove a truck because he didn’t like working for bosses, but driving a truck at night was lonely. He was a tough, streetwise man who didn’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but when he saw Rick at the roadside, his fatherly instinct surfaced. He hit the brakes and stopped. He leaned across the seat to the side window and yelled, Hop aboard, kid! Where are you heading?

To Brookton Mass, sir.

Rick clambered in. The driver shifted gears, and the truck cruised down the highway. He glanced sideways casually and sized up his passenger but didn’t say anything. After a few miles, he grabbed a stained mug hanging on a hook attached to the dashboard. He handed it to Rick and said, I swiped this one from a joint in New Haven last summer. Been drinking from it ever since. That metal cup on the thermos gets too damned hot. Fill ’er up for me, son. Rick picked up the battered green thermos he’d put on the floor when he climbed into the cab. He could barely hold the huge thermos. He unscrewed the metal cup, pulled out the cork, and poured the steaming coffee into the mug.

The man reached out a beefy grimy hand, took the mug, raised it toward Rick, and nodded his head. Nice to have you aboard, skipper. Between sips, the driver glanced at Rick, who was sitting with his hands folded between his knees, staring ahead.

What’s a kid like you doin’ on the road at this time a’ night? The driver dropped his head and darted a questioning look at Rick.

Oh, uh, I’m going to visit my grandmother. Uh, she’s sick.

The driver nodded slowly, his mouth made a silent Oh, then he turned to Rick, closed his mouth, and hummed an Mmmm still nodding his head slowly as if he understood. After that, neither of them said any more.

The truck rumbled through Hartford then Springfield. The towns and the road signs at intersections became familiar to Rick, and he anticipated the end of his journey.

Did you say you were going to Brookton? the driver asked.

Yes, sir.

Well, I’ll have to let you off in Palmer at the corner where the road to Brookton connects.

That’ll be fine, sir, Rick said. It’s only nine miles to Brookton from there.

Fifteen minutes later, the truck stopped at the Brookton intersection. Rick was reluctant to leave the warm cab and the cheerful man, but he opened the door and began to get out. Then turned to the driver and said, Thanks an awful lot for the ride, sir.

You were good company, fella. An’ say hello to your grandma. I hope she feels better. He looked at Rick and smiled in a knowing way. Rick slammed the door, waved, and the truck rolled away.

The early morning silence and the cool air outside enveloped Rick. He shivered and zipped his jacket up to his chin. He stood looking at the dark and silent little houses tucked behind low bushes. There were no signs of life.

Too early for people to be going to work, Rick thought. Maybe about six thirty. He started walking to get warm; his ears alert for the sound of a car. There was only silence and the soft padding of Rick’s sneakers on the black road. Walking felt good. He got warm and forgot about the lack of traffic.

There’ll be a car sooner or later, he thought. In the meantime, he walked. The streetlights of Palmer drifted back, and there were fewer houses on the outskirts. Rick strode down the dark road that rose and fell and bent this way and that. Time passed; only once did a car purr by. Rick bent toward the oncoming headlights with a big smile on his face while he pumped his thumb toward Brookton. No luck.

He watched the taillights disappear around a bend in the road. The sound soon faded. Oh well, that’s the way it goes.

Ahead, the road sloped down and disappeared into a thin bank of fog. Rick’s brisk stride carried him into the foggy hollow. Cool damp air drifted around him. The smell reminded him of predawn mornings at the lake. But there was something else here; it smelled swampy. He sniffed again. Skunk cabbage! he thought, That was it! Rick remembered wandering by places where the damp earthy smell hung low in the still night air over swamps and ponds that often bordered the narrow country roads. He thought about the city: paved streets, traffic, smells of garbage, exhaust fumes, bakeries, hot dog venders, and noise. This wasn’t anything like that. There was none of the confusion of city life out here.

Rick quickened his stride, breathed deeply, and swung his arms like a marching soldier. Rick’s gait lopped off miles with no strain. Only one car came by in two hours, and it didn’t even slow down while he was thumbing vigorously. When he finally saw the outlying streetlights of Brookton in the distance, he stopped looking for cars and began to think of the predawn, nine-mile hike as a feat—something he could brag about later.

Rick turned into the alley between two houses and onto the path that led to his grandmother’s house. He heard the town clock strike the seventh hour. The neighborhood was stirring to life. He stepped up to his grandparents’ door, and without knocking, walked in as he had always done when he lived there. Grandma was standing in front of the huge, black, wood-burning stove with a frying pan in her hand. She was startled to see her fourteen-year-old grandson standing in the doorway. She put the pan aside quickly, wiped her hands on her apron, and said, Scad przyszedles? (Where did you come from?)

Z Nowego Jorku. Nie chce juz tam dluzej mieszac. (From New York. I don’t want to live there anymore.)

Her face relaxed. The wisdom she learned over many years told her to step away from more questions. She looked at Rick fondly. Czy jestes glodny? Mam tu omlet z grzybmi z cebula, lubisz to prawda? (Are you hungry? I have a mushroom omelet here—with onions. You like that, don’t you?)

It was warm in the kitchen. He nodded and sat down at the table. The shiny, patterned oil cloth felt cool and damp and smelled new. Grandma put a plate in front of Rick and then slid the omelet out of the pan with a wooden spatula. She took out a huge loaf of bread from the breadbox on the shelf by the sink, and with a long, worn, and very sharp knife, sawed a thick slice from the loaf she cradled in her left arm. Rick had always loved Polish bread with its thick chewy crust and caraway seeds. He slathered it with the unsalted butter that Grandma always used.

Grandma watched Rick. He noticed her slight frown and questioning gaze and knew that she had sensed that something was wrong.

Czy twoya wie, ze jestes tutaj? (Does your mother know you’re here?) she asked.

Nie, Myszlem wczorajszej nocy, (No. I left last night,) he mumbled.

The door to the upstairs opened, and Grandpa came into the kitchen. He stopped, and his head went back and forth between Rick and Grandma, and his eyebrows went up. Rick looked at his familiar lean frame, the shock of black hair graying at the temples, and the stern face that belied the kind, gentle man he was.

Mlody czlowieku, skad przyszedles? (Well, sir. Where did you come from?) he asked.

Rick’s Grandma answered quickly. He came from New York. His mother doesn’t know he’s here. Call Billy and tell him Rick’s here, and tell him to go to a telephone and tell his sister that her son is with us.

Grandpa clumped back up the stairs, and a moment later, Uncle Billy dashed into the kitchen, buttoning his shirt. Grandma quickly told Uncle Billy that Rick’s mother didn’t know he was here. Billy caught the drift and raced out of the kitchen to find a telephone. His strides faded down the path, and Grandma and Grandpa sat and watched Rick devour his breakfast. The warm glow from the stove, a full belly, and his grandma and grandpa nearby made Rick feel that he had arrived. He felt at home.

Later that day, after riding all afternoon on a train, a much-relieved Annette North found her son with her mother, Mary Zagorski. She resigned herself to Rick’s stubbornness and arranged his enrollment in Brookton High School. The next day, while returning to New York on the train, she consoled herself with Rick’s compliant promises that he’d come to New York for the Christmas and summer vacations.

Rick was born in Brookton and had lived there with his grandparents until he finished the fifth grade. When he was an infant, his mother had left him with his grandparents after she divorced his father. In those days, divorce was looked down on and a divorced woman with a child had a difficult life. Brookton was a small, New England town. Everyone knew something about their neighbors and gossiped. The only jobs for uneducated women like his mother were housecleaning or work in the cotton and woolen mills. Neither of those appealed to Annette, a gutsy, strong-minded woman. She did what she thought was best for her and her precious son, left him with her parents and moved to New York where she found work as a waitress.

After Rick finished the fifth grade, his mother considered him old enough to be a latchkey child and brought him to New York to live with her and Ed North. Rick noticed at an early age that Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Billy called Annette your mother but never called Ed your father. Ed acted more like a casual friend and stayed in the background. Rick remembered the vague and confusing answers he got whenever he asked his grandparents or Uncle Billy questions about his father. Despite that, Rick never felt stranded or unloved. There was always the shadow of parental absence, and he filled that lack of connection with independence.

After Rick was brought to New York, he found out that Ed wasn’t his real father when he saw letters from Ed’s mother that were addressed to Edward Lavin. Rick surmised that Ed had adopted Annette’s last name to conceal her divorce. Ed did all the things that a father does for a son. He bought him a baseball glove, roller skates, a bicycle, a BB gun, and just about anything a kid would want, but he never put parental pressure on Rick. Ed was a hardworking, kind, and generous man, but, unfortunately, after Rick figured out the deception, he couldn’t accept him as his father. He took Ed for granted and didn’t appreciate him until it was too late.

Rick was a bright child and liked school. He had good teachers in Brookton. When he started sixth grade at PS 150 (Public School 150) in Queens, he was tested and placed in RA-6, a rapid advance class for precocious youngsters. Rick soon had a pack of friends. There were the twin Young brothers, who ricocheted off each other and anyone else who got in their way. Little Carl Opitz showed Rick the chemistry laboratory he had in a closet at home, and Johnny Henderson, an unflappable compulsive cartoonist, gave Rick a comic book that he had created. Rick would never forget Judith Tuvim, who later became Judy Holliday—famous on stage and screen.

He passed to the seventh grade at PS 125. Rick’s independence began to interfere with school. He began to skip school and spent his lunch money on afternoon movies. He never felt guilty about his truancy, but he didn’t want his mother to know, so he filched a key to the mailbox, intercepted the school’s reports, wrote notes to excuse him, and forged his mother’s signature.

School bored Rick. He did well in some classes but failed others. He had to repeat grade 7B, the second half of the seventh grade; other than that, junior high went by in a blur. The only things he remembered were Mr. Parry, a science teacher, and an infatuation he had for a girl he used to see in the school corridor. Rick never forgot what he learned in Mr. Parry’s science class. He absorbed and understood the physics of friction, gravity, inertia, air, and hydraulic pressure. It gave him a foundation for future years. The girl had bright blue eyes, flaxen hair, and her blouse swelled with promise. Although Rick never got up the nerve to talk to her, he carved her initials into his desk and circled them with a heart.

After the ninth grade, Rick was assigned to Newtown High School. The city’s schools were bursting with children, and Newtown was no different. Thousands of students were scheduled into morning and afternoon sessions. Rick’s sophomore class started at 12:35 p.m. and finished at 6:00 p.m., and then he rode a trolley for half an hour to get home! For Rick, the school was too big. There were too many students, and it was too far. He hated it! After three weeks of trudging back and forth between school and home, Rick had had enough. He confronted his mother and complained about having to go to Newtown.

"Why don’t you want to go to school there?"

"First of all, I don’t like getting out of school at six o’clock, and who ever heard of school starting at 12:35 p.m.? And then I’ve got to ride that trolley for half an hour, and there’re just too many kids in that school, Mom. I went down to the gym today to try out for the swimming team. The place was just crawling with thousands of kids. The coaches were all blowing whistles. Everybody was milling around. I just walked out!"

"But you have to go to school, and Newtown is a good school, son."

"Well, it’s too big. I don’t want to go there, and I won’t go there."

"All the schools in New York are big. This city has millions of people in it, and I know it’s hard for you son, but that’s the way it is for everyone," she pleaded because she wanted him to be happy here in New York.

I’d rather go to school in Brookton. Grandma won’t mind.

The discussion got heated, and Rick became more obstinate. His stepfather, Ed, finally stepped in and told Rick that he’d have to go to Newtown whether he liked it or not.

"I’m not going to that school, and you can’t make me! You’re not my father!"

Ed restrained himself but spoke firmly, shaking his finger at Rick. "Your mother wants you to go to that school, and that’s where you’re going! Now get to bed. I don’t want to hear anymore about it! If you keep acting like this, things are going to have to change around here!"

Rick stomped off, fuming. He slammed the door and went to bed. He lay there stewing, and when he was sure his parents were asleep, he dressed quietly, and walked out of the apartment. He took the elevated train to its last stop on the Pelham line. Rick remembered that Route 1 passed close to the Pelham elevated train station, and he knew that from there it went to New Haven and then connected to Route 5 to Springfield. Rick stuck out his thumb and that’s the way he got to his grandparents’ house.

Rick didn’t feel his life was disrupted when he returned to Brookton. It was only interrupted. A few weeks earlier, in August, he had been to Brookton on summer vacation, hanging around the town’s swimming pool with the local kids. Those kids were drawn together because they were too young to think about their differences, and there were no parents steering them because they thought they knew what was best for their kids. They yelled first names and nicknames at one another, and it didn’t matter if you were a Kasinski, Kelly, Deslaurier, or a Smith. The only thing that mattered was how much fun you were and how good you were in the water.

Rick was at home in the water, and he was a strong swimmer. Kibby, the pool supervisor, encouraged him to join a swim team that he was organizing. Rick and Boo, for Barbara, were standouts on that team. Rick trained hard and won local competitions. Boo had a great backstroke. No one could keep up with her. Rick liked her, and they became leaders in that school of fish. They both had a joy for life and shared the innocent curiosity for what was yet to come. And of course, he was a boy, and she a girl, and they were both young.

Barbara was the first girl Rick kissed, and for the rest of that summer, he could think of nothing else. After they found each other, they clung together under the pine trees while new sensations sparkled through their bodies, and their thoughts reached to the heavens for answers.

Barbara was part of the reason that Rick wanted to go to school in Brookton, but to be fair, he would have hitchhiked to Brookton even if she wasn’t in the picture.

CHAPTER 3

Sophomore Year

R ick felt good about moving back to Brookton. There were fewer than four hundred students in the high school, and Rick was absorbed into the sophomore class. He was elected class treasurer, and within a few days, he was in the middle of a clique of active and popular peers. They were cheerleaders, members of the Pep Club, teacher’s children, and athletes. Most of them lived in the part of town up the hill and close to the school. It was where professionals, teachers, and white-collar workers lived. Their homes had deep porches surrounded by lawns and were nestled on quiet tree-shaded streets. Factory workers didn’t live there. Rick lived where the factory workers lived—on a street of multifamily tenements with no lawns or shady porches.

In those days, boys wore neckties and jackets to school, and Rick always looked sharp because his mom wanted her son to be well dressed so she scrimped to buy him stylish clothes. She knew that he’d stand out and didn’t want him to be considered one of the lower class.

Rick felt like he was being bathed in constant applause at school. All the teachers knew his name, and the students took an interest in him He liked being near Barbara, and it was fun walking to school and meeting classmates. Those glorious autumn days in New England cast a spell on Rick North. It was so much better than city life, he thought.

Unlike the experience he had when he wanted to get on the swimming team at Newtown, he didn’t have to try out to get on the football team. It simply happened on a day in October, shortly after he started his sophomore year. Rick and his childhood pal, Pickles, were hanging around the football field, watching the team practice. Pickle’s elder brother, Rudy, played on the team. During the practice, one of the backs kicked a ball that went down the field and bounced off to the side. Rick ran after it and scooped it up.

Hey, Pickles. Watch this heave! he said.

The ball sailed across the field and over the head of the kicker. Coach Higney saw where it came from and trotted over to Rick and Pickles, his whistle bouncing on his sweat shirt.

Hi. You’re the new boy in school, aren’t you? he asked.

Rick, thinking he was going to be chewed out, said, Yes, sir. I’ve been here for about a week.

Why don’t you come out for football? He looked at Rick and then Pickles. Both of you.

Uh-h-h, I’ve never played, so I didn’t think— Coach Higney interrupted him.

Well, you sling that ball pretty well. What do you say? Want to put on a uniform?

Sure!

Come to the gym after practice, and we’ll suit you up. You too, Pickles. Coach Higney trotted back to the team.

Rick had never played tackle football, but he had played a lot of touch football on concrete playgrounds in New York and had developed a good throwing arm. That was what Coach Higney saw.

The next day, outfitted in old, battered equipment, Rick and Pickles were added to the third string. After school, he trotted with the team through the side streets of Brookton, wearing a numbered jersey, shoulder pads, and swinging his helmet. Rick relished the amused and approving looks of the townspeople as he went to and fro from the practice field. It made him feel important.

Rick and Pickles became part of the Brookton High team that overran opponents and had a winning season. Rick and Pickles were still growing and filling out, but Coach Higney needed them—most of his team was graduating in June. Pickles’s brother, Rudy, was their star running back and big Al Duchene, a farm boy who tipped the scales at two hundred and five pounds, was the fullback. The line was made up of tough Polish and French Canadian guys who reveled in smashing their adversaries. Pickles and Rick liked being on the team, but neither of them was obsessed with the game. Pickles never took football, or anything else seriously, and Rick didn’t lust for the crunching body contact that could have made him an outstanding football player, but he threw the football better than anyone on the team. He often substituted for one of the backfield players and played in enough games to earn a letter that he wore on a white sweater his mom sent him.

After football practice on a Thursday afternoon, Rick was standing in the locker room shower under a soothing torrent of hot water, soaping himself and thinking, No practice tomorrow . . . game Saturday . . . shit! History test tomorrow. I should’a read the book. He turned off the shower, reached for his towel, and suddenly heard the snap of a damp towel and felt a sting on his butt. He turned just in time to see Pickles duck behind a locker, trying to suppress a giggle.

Caught you in there daydreaming. Thinking about Barbara?

Rick walked closer to Pickles and lowered his voice. No, you asshole. I think I’ll skip school tomorrow. Wanna come?

Yeah. To hell with school. I’ll meet you by the library after eight o’clock. They’ll all be gone up the hill by then.

That was the first time Rick skipped school at Brookton High, and it wouldn’t be the last. On some of those radiant October days when they weren’t playing football, he and Pickles often skipped school and hiked to the hills surrounding Brookton. After school, while most of their peers had close parental supervision and stayed at home doing homework, those two always found something better to do. They were curious, adventurous, and independent. Rules didn’t control their lives. If they did or didn’t do something, it was because they could or couldn’t do it, not because they should or shouldn’t. They were quite a pair! They could be depended upon to do the unexpected.

One Sunday, they hitchhiked to Springfield to see Gary Cooper in Beau Geste. After the movie, they started back to Brookton. It was a chilly afternoon, and they’d been waiting and walking for almost an hour with their thumbs out, but no one stopped.

"We’re never going to get a ride, Rick. It’s Sunday night, and everybody’s at home," said Pickles.

"Yeah, we should have started earlier, and I wish I’d worn a jacket. I’m getting cold," said Rick.

They were on the outskirts of the city and walking on the highway leading to Palmer where the road to Brookton intersected. They passed a block of small stores, all closed except for the dimly lit drugstore on the corner. There were lights shining in the apartments above the darkened storefronts, and cars were parked on the street bumper-to-bumper. One was double-parked. Pickles spotted that one and poked Rick.

"Hey, that’s an Olds just like my brother Joe’s. He let me drive it a couple of times. Look, Rick, it’s got doctor’s plates! Let’s see if he left the keys in it."

Pickles ran across the street, looked over his shoulder, and waved at Rick.

"Come on!"

Pickles looked up and down the street, acting casual. He glanced in the driver’s window. Rick trotted across the street and joined him.

Pickles pointed, Look! The keys are on the seat! Come on, let’s take it for a ride. Without waiting for an answer, Pickles opened the door and climbed behind the wheel. Rick scampered to the passenger’s side, glanced around and got in. Pickles put the key in the ignition and started the car. He fumbled with the gear shift, and with a giggle and an impish look on his face, they drove off.

There was always a first time for everything, and this was the beginning. When that pair decided that they were going to drive, they did. They were both under sixteen and didn’t have a license and didn’t own a car but that didn’t stop them!

Pickles went down a side street, circled the block, and turned toward Palmer. Rick was nervous and kept glancing over his shoulder expecting to see a police car following, but he didn’t see one and relaxed a little. They cruised down the road, and the city fell behind.

Rick laughed, Boy, I bet that Doc’s wondering where he left his car!

Yeah, that’s what he gets for leaving the keys in it, right?

"You said it! What are we going to do with it? We can’t park it in Brookton."

We’ll find a place to leave it. The cops will find it and give it back.

When they got to Palmer and turned toward Brookton, the excitement had worn off, and now they worried that they’d be caught with the car.

Where are we going to ditch it, Pickles? We’re getting close to Brookton.

Let’s take it on that road to Thorndike. There ain’t any houses there, an’ we can dump it in a good spot.

Pickles turned onto a tree-lined side road and stopped. Rick had seen movies where cops dusted for fingerprints at a crime scene, and his hyper imagination took hold. Before they got out, Rick wiped the door handles, steering wheel, and gear shift. They scrambled out holding the door handles with handkerchiefs and clicked the doors closed.

That’ll do it. Let’s get the hell out of here! Rick whispered.

They trotted to the highway, but every time a car passed, they ducked into the bushes lining the road. When the car went by, they jumped out and started trotting. Pickles finally got winded and stopped. Phew! This is far enough, Rick. Let’s try to get a ride.

Rick was still a little wary, but he went along with Pickles.

Yeah, we’ll just walk along like nothing happened. Finally, a car stopped for the two smiling faces pumping their thumbs. The driver dropped the boys off in Brookton, and once they were on the familiar streets of their hometown, their teenage insouciance came back. I’d give anything to see the look on that doctor’s face when he can’t spot his car! Rick said.

Yeah, that old fart will think he’s losing his brain. Pickles slapped his head.

They laughed and joked about the caper. Rick strolled down the street, hands in his pockets, whistling as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Pickles looked at Rick, a sly smile grew on his face, and when Rick looked at him, he broke into laughter and couldn’t whistle. The memory of that event stayed with them for several days, and whenever their eyes met, their eyebrows went up and down knowingly. It was their secret.

Autumn faded, and the streets were filled with rustling leaves, and the evenings were becoming cooler and the days shorter. Rick’s classmates faded as well. They had to study and get to bed early, but Pickles and Rick, untethered by parents, stayed loose and free. Rick rarely spent an evening at home. It was only a place to eat and sleep. He had no romantic images of home life like that Norman Rockwell magazine cover, showing a dad sitting in a comfortable chair with glasses perched on his nose. Rick’s stepfather, Ed, was often sitting just like that in his mother’s apartment in New York, but that image didn’t stick because Rick never accepted him as his father. And in his grandparents’ house, there weren’t any books or anything else to read because Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t read and didn’t speak English. They didn’t even own a radio! Uncle Billy had a small one that he kept in his room to listen to ball games. Rick still remembered that when he was in grade school, a terrible accident happened to Uncle Billy. He had a child, a toddler, and she fell into a tub of hot water, was scalded, and later died. His wife spiraled down into insanity and had to be confined in a mental hospital. After Uncle Billy’s marriage dissolved, he began to drink heavily, but drunk or sober, he was cheerful and kind to Rick and always had the nickel or dime that Rick needed for the Saturday matinee at the Casino.

Rick liked staying out late, and the later, the better. Grandma went to bed early and locked the front door, but she didn’t mind being roused from sleep when Rick pounded on the door to get in, and she never scolded him for coming home late.

Rick’s home life suited him even though he didn’t have parents close by—Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Billy, and Aunt Celia were kind, nonjudgmental and seemed awed by Rick’s cleverness.

The last class on Friday, the end of October, finished at 1:20 p.m. Rick thought, What a relief! He glanced at the students’ bulletin board as he walked down the corridor. The notice, No Football Practice Today. Game Tomorrow caught his eye. Pickles joined him and said, Hey, Rick, whaddya say we go down to Sawyer’s and swipe some apples.

No. I can’t. I told McCluskey that I’d meet him at the tennis courts this afternoon. You go ahead and save me a couple. I’ll see you later.

Pickles shuffled away, turned, and said, See you on the bus tomorrow.

Rick fell behind a stream of students leaving school. He darted to the side and took the six stairs in one leap and ran across Church Street by the monstrous old oak tree near the stone wall and into the park. Ahead, the tall grass swayed in the breeze. The field was dotted with trees displaying autumn finery. Radiant red maples, yellow birches, orange oaks, and never-changing evergreens rose from the golden expanse that sloped down toward the river. The air was aglow, but in the shade, it was cool, portending leafless days and soon to come snow-blanketed ground.

When Rick saw Ray Henley, he slowed down and walked beside him.

Hi, Rick. Coming down to the big meeting?

Yeah. McCluskey talked me into it. I didn’t have too much interest in it, but what the hell.

Yeah, I think Ruth pulls his strings. I think he’s got the hots for her.

I thought she was Boudreau’s girl.

Uh-huh, she is, but Bill can’t keep his eyes off her jugs.

Rick noticed Ruth soon after he started school. She had the self-assured poise of a good looker, and her father was the superintendent of schools. But that’s not why the boys looked at her. The parts of her that stood out were the parts adolescent boys first notice on girls. She and Judy were at the center of the lively core of sophomores. Judy was the pep club’s spark plug and the star of the girl’s basketball team. She was the kinetic one. You noticed her first. Ruth was quieter, less demonstrative, and more aware of her feminine abundance. She had a way of looking at other students that made you think she was scheming—that she knew something that you didn’t know. With her reddish-brown hair, easy smile, a few freckles, bright wit, and those jugs! Well, there she was. There were about a dozen of the gang siting on benches or sprawled on the grass near the courts. Judy was talking to them.

How many of you are going to the game tomorrow? Judy looked at Rick and went on. I know Bill, Rick, and Ed will be there, warming the bench, but the pep club has a bus too. Who’s going to go? Most of the gang raised their hands.

Great! We’ve gotta make ourselves heard tomorrow! Heads went up and down in agreement.

Ruth raised her hand. Can I say something? After next week’s game, let’s have a Halloween party up in my barn. I know Halloween is on the thirty-first. That’s Sunday, but we can do the party on Saturday, OK? Several heads nodded, and Rick heard someone say, Great idea, Ruth. Ruth had a carriage barn in her backyard. The family