Cold War

The radio announcer intoned dramatically, “…President Truman called Soviet actions in Berlin an act of undeclared war, adding that the United States and its allies did not yet need to respond with guns. ‘We are going to keep the people of Berlin alive by flying in whatever they need — even if that means diverting every aircraft of the Air Force and calling up our Air Force reserves…’”

J.B. Baronowsky started and looked over at the car radio in shock. Surely, they wouldn’t do that? He was just six weeks away from his wedding and two months from starting his first real job after graduating from college. The last thing he needed was to be yanked out of his life and sent overseas again. But he couldn’t worry about that now. His father had collapsed at work and his mother had asked him to come home at once.

Home was an aluminium-sided, single-story house that differed little from a trailer beyond sitting on cinder blocks rather than wheels. It looked like all its neighbours, except that the tiny backyard was enclosed by a high, linked-wire fence to keep the family dog in and the neighbourhood strays out. J.B. stopped his car in the driveway, stepped out and walked in through the unlocked back door.

“Mom!” he called anxiously as the screen door chinked shut behind him. He stood in the kitchen crammed with counters, cupboards, appliances, and a tiny table. It was stifling hot and smelled of apple pie.

J.B. continued to the little living room beyond. Only the familiar worn-down sofas, low coffee table and oversized radio greeted him. The crackling sound of music wafted from the speaker, but there was no sign of his mother. He called out, “Mom!” again, and then added his younger brother’s name too. “Stan?” Still no response.

J.B. turned towards the narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms and was relieved to see his mother coming out of the master bedroom. She called his name at the sight of him and then fell into his arms with a heartfelt, “Thank Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

“I got here as soon as I could,” J.B. answered. “Is Dad all right? Where’s Stan? What happened?” 

“The doctors say it was a heart attack,” his mother explained. “He’s lucky it happened on the shop floor. Other workers saw him collapse and shouted for the factory doctor, who called the ambulance at once. They got him to the hospital in less than an hour and by the time Stan borrowed a car to drive me there, the crisis was over. I stayed all night —”

“You mean this happened yesterday and you didn’t call me until two hours ago?” J.B. interrupted her.

“I didn’t want to call until I knew what to say. You couldn’t have helped. He was in the hands of God and the doctors.”

“Well, I could have held your hand, Mom!” J.B. reminded her.

She stroked his face with a finger as she gave him a tired but sincere smile. “I know, Jay, but Stan was with me, and I really wasn’t thinking all that clearly. I can’t remember much of what happened, just feeling confused and frightened until I was able to talk to the surgeon. He was a very nice man, and he said your dad is going to be fine. He just needs rest—”

“He’s not gonna like that,” J.B. predicted, but he also smiled with relief.

“Well, I’m not so sure. He had a pretty bad scare. He told me that he thought he wasn’t going to make it. He started worrying about not having life insurance and talking all kinds of nonsense.”

“And they still sent him home so soon?” J.B. asked in disbelief.

“It’s what your dad wanted. He told me we shouldn’t be paying fancy hospital bills just for him to lie around in bed, and the doctor said it was fine, so long as I keep him quiet. Stan and I got him home and put him straight to bed. That’s when I called you. Stan’s taking the car back to your sister Sue. She and Barb will drop by after dinner.”

J.B. nodded absently, not concerned with his younger siblings. “Is Dad on any medications?”

“Yes, I’ve got it all written down, but he’s been sleeping like a baby.”

“Can I go look in on him?” J.B. asked, glancing down the narrow hall. 

“Yes, of course! He heard you come in and wants to see you. Meanwhile, I’ll check on the pie before it burns. You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?”

“You bet!” J.B. had moved into a house in Ann Arbor with four other college students after he was discharged from the Army Air Corps and resumed his studies at the University of Michigan. It had been much more convenient for classes, libraries, labs and dating, but he missed his mother’s cooking.

At the door to the master bedroom, he knocked once and called. “Dad? It’s me. Jay. May I come in?”

A gruff voice answered, and J.B. poked his head into the parental bedroom. His father was in bed wearing his pyjamas. His hair lay in enough disarray to reveal the growing bald spot on his skull that he usually tried to cover up with careful combing. As J.B. entered, he tried to sit upright, but his son pushed him back down with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Just lie still, Dad.” J.B. pulled the chair from his mother’s vanity closer to the bed and dropped onto it. “Mom says you had a bit of a scare, but you’re going to be OK.”

“That about sums it up,” his father admitted, adding, “thanks to the Blessed Virgin who always hears your mother’s prayers.” He crossed himself with a glance towards the bright-coloured print of Mary with the baby Jesus in her arms. Then with a change of tone, he added more belligerently, “But thank God for the United Autoworkers’ Union too. If this had happened before the last strike settlement, I’d have been out on my ass and God knows how we’d have paid the hospital bills.”

“Now don’t go worrying about the bills, Dad. Just focus on getting well—”

His father wasn’t in the mood to be hushed. “All very well for you to talk, but Stan’s gonna be a senior this fall, and if he doesn’t screw up his grades, he’ll be going to college next year. He’s not entitled to GI-Bill benefits like you, so I gotta pay for him myself. I promised your Mother I was going see you boys through college and a promise is a promise.” 

J.B. liked the firm way his father said that; it showed that no matter how shaken he’d been by the medical setback, he’d lost none of his determination. In answer, however, he soothed, “Don’t you worry about Stan’s college tuition, Dad. I’m going to be earning enough to help with that.” 

“I don’t want you paying for your brother!” the older man countered frowning, “I’ll do what’s right by him. I just wish he’d take school a little more seriously. He’s not good at it like you were.”

“Oh, at his age, I wasn’t all that good at school either. Don’t you remember? It was the good ol’ Army Air Corps that taught me how to study. I wanted those wings so bad, I was willing to knuckle down. I’m not sure I told you in my letters, but more than half the guys washed out in training. A lot of them failed on the written exams, not in the cockpit. It put the fear of God into me when my best buddy, who was a hotshot pilot, got thrown out of flight school and sent to train as a radio tech because he screwed up on the navigation test. After that I had my nose to the books, believe me!”

“You never wrote about that,” his dad told him, “And I probably never told you how proud I was of those wings either. I wanted to parade you up and down the factory floor when you came home.”

“Mom practically did!” J.B. reminded him, laughing at the memory of his mother showing him off to neighbours and family on every possible occasion during his short home leave before deployment.

“I thought you might want to keep flying after the war,” his dad noted with an intent look that seemed to demand an explanation.

“Yeah, you’re right, Dad. I did want to keep flying — along with about 10,000 other ex-Army Air Corps pilots. There just aren’t enough civil aviation jobs to go around. I figured, if I couldn’t fly the birds, maybe I could design them. Which was why I wanted that job over at the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center, MARC, so badly. It would have meant not just being around planes but also learning about cutting edge aeronautical technology and maybe even a chance to go on test flights.”

“That’s the job Patty wouldn’t let you take, wasn’t it?” J.B.’s dad asked rhetorically; he was too ill to bother disguising his disapproval.

“That’s right,” J.B. admitted. His fiancée Patty came from a rich Irish Catholic family and her father was a VP at General Motors. She’d grown up in big houses in nice neighbourhoods and she’d had a fit when she learned the salary MARC was offering Jay. She argued that J.B. “deserved” much more, although he suspected what upset her most was that the job came with subsidised housing in Willow Run Village. Patty flat out refused to live on the workers’ housing estate, and J.B. had no choice but to turn the job down. J.B. could partially understand Patty’s point of view, but his parents were offended that she thought a starting salary the same as J.B.’s dad and a house nicer than their own wasn’t good enough for her. The fact that Willow Run was so close to Ypsilanti had made the job doubly appealing to his parents and doubly unattractive to his fiancée. Patty wanted more distance from her soon-to-be in-laws. J.B. had been caught in the middle.

“And you turned down that job with Douglas Aircraft, too, didn’t you?” the elder Baronowsky pressed his son.

“That was in Chicago, Dad. Mom didn’t want me taking it any more than Patty did. That’s history now. Patty’s Dad got me fixed up with a great job in the Truck Division of General Motors with a starting salary of $70 a week. That’s $3,600 a year — $200 more than Douglas was willing to pay me.”

“Yeah, except it’s designing trucks, not airplanes like you wanted.”

J.B. frowned. His father had put his finger on the sore spot, and he didn’t like being reminded of it. He was glad that his mother interrupted by putting her head into the bedroom to say, “J.B., come have some pie before it gets cold, and let your dad rest before dinner.”

J.B. told his dad they could talk later and followed his mom into the kitchen. He squeezed himself into the chair behind the table, and his mother shoved a piece of still-steaming pie at him. With the edge of his fork, he cut into the flaky crust sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. His mother leaned back against the kitchen counter, waiting until he’d put a big piece of pie in his mouth before remarking, “Jay, while I’ve got you sitting down and listening to me, I wanted to talk to you about your wedding.”

“Yeah?” he mumbled with his mouth full.

“Well, I don’t see why everything has to be so fancy. A reception at the Detroit Yacht Club, of all places! Your dad is going to have to rent a tuxedo, and your sisters and I need to make new dresses—”

“Barb and Sue aren’t going to mind doing that,” J.B. pointed out, thinking his sisters would be delighted to have an excuse.

“Well, that’s all very well for you to say, but now your dad is on sick leave at half pay!” his mother reminded him sharply, and J.B. winced. She was right, of course. He just found it impossible to dampen Patty’s enthusiasm for a big wedding. In the circles she moved in, all the girls had big weddings, and she’d been dreaming and planning for her “big day” ever since (and probably before!) they got engaged this past spring. J.B. tried to mollify his mom. “You’re right, Mom. I’m sorry. Maybe Patty could lend Barb or Sue something—”

“Not on your life, Joseph Bartholomew Junior! We’re not taking any charity from your fine-and-dandy bride-to-be. We’ll make do. I’m just saying…Well, I’m just saying what I think, that’s all.” She turned away and started rinsing off the things in the sink.

J.B. stood and put his arms around her. Resting his chin on her head, he said. “Come on, Mom. Give Patty a break. She’s just excited and a little full of herself at the moment. You should be glad I’m marrying a Detroit girl. Remember how you worried I might get my head turned by some ‘foreigner’ while I was stationed in England?”

His mother snorted eloquently. “As if I could forget those horrible years when you were overseas! I haven’t listened to the news since your dad took ill, but before his heart attack, the radio talked non-stop about this crisis in Berlin. I’m scared stiff this could blow up into a new war — and then you’ll be right back in it thick of it, flying against the Reds instead of the Nazis.”

“Don’t worry about that, Mom,” J.B. reassured her. “President Truman isn’t going to let it come to that.”

“I hope you’re right. Your dad and a lot of other folks seem to think we’ve got to stop the Reds, but I don’t see why our boys need to risk their lives to help a bunch of Nazis. If you ask me, the Russians and Germans deserve one another.”