CHAPTER SEVEN JASPER
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Jasper
According to the news, every day brought fresh victories, and the war seemed all but won, but Cora learned the true story from reading the letters the guys sent home.
They talked about losing friends in bloody, frightening, deadly battles, and barely making it out alive.
Her heart sank to think of any of them finding out about those German prisoners sashaying around town wherever they pleased, treated like some kind of long-lost cousins.
It certainly wouldn’t be Cora who told them.
Instead, she wrote letters about planting tomatoes and about Sister Candice Harvey singing off-key just as loud as you please at church, and Pastor Glen complaining she and Momma didn’t come regular enough when he knew Momma only had a few Sundays off.
She tried to write to all four of them every week.
Even Lee, who’d stopped writing to her after she’d finally told him about marrying Roscoe.
She longed to hear from him again. Instead, she had to content herself with scraps of second-hand stories from his uncle Drew.
She’d taken to checking in with him every month for Lee’s news.
It was Jasper who wrote back the most. Reading his letters was like having him whisper his stories in her ear.
She felt him in every word, just as rascally as he ever was.
Lee’s letters had been the same. He’d poured a piece of himself into each line, till she almost felt he was sitting right beside her.
Benny didn’t write like that, and neither did Roscoe.
With them, it was like they’d been warned so hard not to write anything that could give away army secrets that they could barely think to say anything at all.
They wrote cramped, constipated notes, mostly about the weather, which sounded like they could have been written by anybody.
Cora sat on the couch with her latest treasure. A letter from Jasper. She drew her legs up to her side and flattened his letter on her lap, settling in to read. In his spiky scrawl, he wrote:
Dear Cora,
I can’t tell you where I am exactly, except to say that I’m in Italy, and I can’t tell you what I’m doing, except that it will involve fighting the Germans, since the Italians threw in the towel.
I wish the Germans would too so we could end this mess and go home.
What I wouldn’t give for some home cooking.
I dream about biscuits and gravy. Believe it or not, a few days ago we were in a kitchen in a village I can’t tell you about, and this one cat, Smilie, made something that was almost grits, but yellow.
We’re starting to thaw out from the cold I told you about.
Smilie could handle it since he’s from Detroit – even if he can cook down-home food – but the rest of us have been freezing our keisters off.
They should have trained us on how to pull a trigger with frostbit fingers.
We could’ve hit more of them wily Jerrys if they had.
After what went down in February that I won’t tell you about, me, Bull Man and Creek started doing some shooting practice on the side.
We were making decent progress, until our jackass of a CO ripped into us for wasting ammunition.
Can you believe that? I’m on latrine duty now. I’d have liked to target practice his
cracker ass, but we’re supposed to be on the same side. At least, that’s what they tell me.
We’ve had some new fellas join the Buffalo Soldiers 92nd.
An all Japanese-American regiment has shown up to fight alongside our Negro regiment.
What you’re thinking right now is exactly what all of us were thinking when we clapped eyes on them, and they clapped eyes on us.
If they put us together, we’ve got some grade-A bullshit coming our way.
That’s why Bull Man and Creek and me went for that extra practice.
The 442nd, that’s the new guys, mostly keep to themselves and we keep to ourselves, but I met this one guy, Kenji, who’s hot into jazz and especially Duke Ellington, and you know how I feel about the Duke, so we hit it off pretty good right from the start.
Anyway, after Pearl Harbor, freedom-loving Uncle Sam stuffed him and his family in a camp for being from Japan.
Did you know we did that? I’m telling you, America and the Nazis dance to the same band.
And that cat still volunteered, even with his family stuck back in that stinking camp.
He reminds me of Lee. Too optimistic for his own good.
Anyway, whatever plan they’ve got going, I hope it happens soon.
Waiting around thinking about it is straining my nerves and nothing good comes from that.
Like that time me and Lee booked to play the Oleander Club, and I got so worked up waiting on the day that by the time it came I couldn’t play to save my life, and I squeaked like a greenhorn amateur.
Man, oh, man, what I wouldn’t give to be squeaking at the Oleander.
Well, hug my momma for me and holler at all the folks back home. Take care of yourself and I’ll try to do the same.
Jasper
Cora tucked the letter into her handbag and headed out to the car. Whenever she got one from Jasper, she drove straight over to share it with his momma who was eager for every scrap of news.
At Momma Mae’s apartment building, cars crowded the narrow parking lot, and when Cora started up the stairs, Sister Hammond stepped out and eyed Cora’s empty hands. ‘I thought you might have brought your cornbread,’ she said, as Cora approached.
Cora bunched her forehead in confusion and looked past her into the darkened room. Half a dozen church ladies buzzed around Momma Mae. Sister Candice tried to hand Jasper’s momma a plate of food, but the woman shook her head and pushed it away.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Your aunt Teen didn’t tell you yet?’ Sister Hammond said. ‘We couldn’t call you ’cause you don’t have a phone.’ She said it with a kind of defensiveness that was nearly an accusation. ‘We called your aunt Teen at the school instead, and she was going to get over to you to tell you.’
Cora looked back at Momma Mae, her slumping form, her hung-low head. Sister Delores put arms around her, and she saw from behind how Momma Mae’s shoulders jerked and bounced. Cora’s hand slipped to Jasper’s letter in her bag as her mouth went dry.
‘Poor Momma Mae,’ Sister Hammond said. ‘That woman gave birth to four babies, with Jasper the only one to survive the growing up, and now this.’
Cora took a step back, shook her head, clutched the letter harder.
‘You should let her know you’re here,’ Sister Hammond said, reaching for Cora’s arm and drawing her back in.
She had to fight the urge to turn and run. Her eyes pricked with tears and a ringing started up in her ears, high-pitched and persistent. ‘I just got his letter,’ she said, trying to make it not true. She drew it out like proof of life.
‘I’m sorry, Sugar. I know you two were close friends.’ Sister Hammond slipped her thick arms around Cora and patted her back. The gesture of kindness felt suffocating.
Cora pushed away from her, holding the woman back at arm’s length.
‘They sent a telegraph with some pretty words about how he went honorably and in the line of duty,’ she said. ‘Near about broke her.’ She sized up Cora’s growing distress and leaned in close to tell her in a firm whisper, ‘She needs us to be strong for her, you hear me?’
A lump in Cora’s throat grew to a ball that crushed her voice, keeping her mute. She swiped at teary eyes as Sister Hammond took her arm and guided her over to face Momma Mae.
Jasper’s momma’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and the smile she always wore for Cora was gone. Cora took her hands, and the woman gripped her back so tight, Cora thought she might leave a bruise.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Cora said.
Momma Mae’s face scrunched up in pain and anger as her lips trembled. Her voice, when she spoke, was a battered shell, twisted with heartache and agony, like only a mother knows. ‘They done killed my son.’