If These Walls Had Ears Read online

  The whole family had gotten jobs, but Charlie was looking for a better one. Toward the end of that summer, he got a lead about a position in Hot Springs. It’s not clear today what the job was, but he was interested enough to go investigate. On Monday, August 16, he and Jessie and Jane drove the fifty miles to Hot Springs to get a sense of the town. August of 1937 was terribly hot in Arkansas. In fact, it was scorching all through the midsection of the country. The day the Armours made that drive to Hot Springs, the temperature in central Arkansas hit 96 degrees—with Arkansas’s usual stifling humidity. They took the black Chevy, which absorbed the heat. When they got back to Little Rock, they were all glad that trip was over. Even at almost 5:00 P.M., the thermometer still stood at 93 degrees.

  Jessie wanted Charlie to let her and Jane out at the duplex so they could start fixing supper, but they needed a twenty-five-pound block of ice. The icehouse was only a short distance away on Kavanaugh, close to where White City had been. Charlie dropped them off and went to get the ice. A few minutes later, he was on his way back home, driving east on Kavanaugh past Fillmore Street, Taylor Street, Polk. Then, on this very block that I’m driving down on my way back from taking Bret to school, Charlie ran into an unseen force that smashed his chest and squeezed his heart with a grip that made him blind with pain. He lost control of the car, which swerved across the oncoming lane and smashed into the utility pole—probably not this very piece of wood, but a pole that once stood where this one now stands.

  Half a block away, in the kitchen of the duplex, Jessie and Jane were starting supper when they heard fast footsteps on the front porch and a rapping at the door. Jane opened it, and a little neighbor boy was standing there. The color had drained from his face. “Come quick. Come quick!” he blurted. “Mr. Armour’s had a wreck and run into the telephone pole!”

  Jessie heard him from the kitchen and came running, banging the screen door against the wall as she hit the porch and tore down the steps. Jane lingered just long enough to call Fern at work and tell him something terrible had happened. Then she went out after her mother. As soon as they got to the front of the yard, they could see that a crowd had gathered on Kavanaugh. The black Chevy was smashed against a utility pole on the opposite side of the street from the direction Charlie was traveling. He was slumped over the steering wheel. As Jessie and Jane reached the crowd, they saw that a doctor they knew, a man named Thompson, had pulled over and was lifting Charlie from the wreck. The doctor placed Charlie on the ground. Jessie ran to her husband, but Thompson stopped her in her tracks. “He’s dead,” the doctor said.

  By the time I get to that part, I’ve passed the spot and am on my way back home to the house Charlie Armour never saw again.

  In 1938, Jessie moved back to 501 Holly. I like to imagine that, like Mark Twain’s Stick Style sanctuary, Jessie’s bungalow brightened and welcomed her with a moving eloquence. That can happen if you really love a house. You can step through the front door after an absence, even a brief one, and the room will light up as though it were a theater set. At that moment, you’re able to see your house in dual dimensions—one, through the eyes of a stranger coming into a warm and comfortable room for the first time; and, two, through the eyes of one lucky enough to call this place home.

  Though much had changed in Jessie’s life in the few long months since she had been away, this house rewarded her return with a comforting familiarity: the front porch with the creaky swing, the fireplace where so much popcorn had been popped, the elegant French doors, the well-worn rugs, the cozy breakfast room, the way the sun crossed the kitchen at certain times of day. If it had been summer, Jessie could’ve flung open the side doors and inhaled the sweet scent of Cape jasmine.

  Of the Armours, there were just Jessie and Charles here now. Jane and Pem had married during the time in exile and had rented an apartment downtown. But there were boarders, such as Annabelle, who were glad to have Jessie back. And Jessie was glad to have the boarders, a family she could mother. She served them meals again, and she did some sewing for Annabelle. During the weekdays, she continued working at the state hospital, overseeing preparation of the food for her less fortunate family there.

  At night, after supper, Jessie often retired to her bedroom to read, while Charles, now a restless twenty-four, disappeared with some of the boarders into the darkness, bound for any number of places where a young person could pass an enjoyable evening. But on many nights in 1938 and 1939, Jessie would not retire to her room, nor would Charles and assorted boarders go out in search of fun. There were many nights during those years when the radio pulled all of them into the living room to share the experience of impending catastrophe in Europe. Grim-voiced radio announcers told of Hitler’s Nazis in Czechoslovakia and of a Japanese pledge to support Germany. They outlined the jockeying of nations, the forming of pacts. On September 1, 1939, they reported Hitler’s military invasion of Poland. Two days later, they relayed the news that England and France had declared war against Germany.

  It was a war that would change the lives of many of the people listening in that quiet, comfortable living room at 501 Holly. But of that group, it would change no one’s life as much as it would that of young Charles Armour.

  Annabelle Ritter remembers that after England entered the war, Charles started talking about joining the Royal Navy. This war, he seemed to feel, went deeper than mere nationality, and he wanted to have his part in it. By 1940, when the United States was gearing up for the inevitable, Charles signed with the U.S. Navy. Jessie received the news stoically, the way she had taken so many other blows.

  Charles left Little Rock for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago, where he was to be molded into an officer. He and his commissioned cohorts in all the services in those days were often referred to as “ninety-day wonders,” a jab at the speed with which this country was turning out military leaders. But there was no choice—war was raging in Europe by now. Italy was in on the side of the Nazis, and France had fallen to Hitler’s troops. The British vowed to fight on alone.

  Sporting his new ensign’s bars, Charles came home for a few days before shipping out for good. He was a hero in the neighborhood. Of course, he was especially fawned over at 501 Holly, where his mother cooked his favorite meals and all the boarders listened to his tales of sea life—such as he now knew it. As the time came for him to go, he took a last good look at the house he had grown to manhood in. Then he boarded a train west, transferring to a troop ship bound for his duty station, a base in the Pacific called Pearl Harbor.

  For the longest time, no one was able to tell Jessie whether or not Charles and his ship, the cruiser Louisville, had even been in port the morning the Japanese attacked. After war was declared, Jane and Pem moved to Massachussetts so Pem could work on radios for the Raytheon Corporation. Jessie was alone now, except for her boarders. She pored over the newspapers, looking for any scrap, any hint, any information at all that she could cling to. She called the navy, and she wrote letters, but so did thousands of other mothers and wives and girlfriends. You had to send your letter to the fleet post office in San Francisco, which sometimes felt like putting a note in a bottle and dropping it into the sea. You had no idea whether your letter would get to anyone who even knew Charles Armour.

  The dates are fuzzy from this period, but finally, one day in what I believe was the spring of 1942, Jessie came home from work and found an official-looking envelope in her mailbox. It was from the chaplain on the Louisville. The ship had been at sea when the base was bombed. Charles had become sick aboard ship and they had put him ashore at a hospital in Manila, in the Philippines. The Japanese had captured Manila a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. As far as the chaplain knew, Charles had been in the hospital at the time Manila fell. That was the last anyone had heard of him. And that would be the last Jessie would hear for more than a year.

  It was a terrible way to live, not knowing whether her son was dead or alive. But if she had to go through this, it was good that she was b
ack in her own house. Our houses are where we go to find order and certainty against the disorder and uncertainty of the world at large. In our houses, we’re surrounded by familiar things, familiar people. We have our comforting routines. Jessie had her boarders and her job to keep her occupied. But she also did something interesting involving how she lived in her own house.

  One day, she announced that she was moving her quarters to the small, narrow pantry/porch behind the kitchen. This is where Beth and I keep the washer and dryer, and where the girls pretend to try to hang their coats. This is where Snapp eats, where we put our wine rack and keep canned goods. This is where the closet for the hot-water heater is, tucked beneath the stairs to the second floor. This is a room five feet wide and fifteen feet long, with the door to the backyard right in the middle, so any sleeping arrangements would have to be in half that space. Jessie placed a cot on that porch and moved in.

  In my family, the word cubbyhole was part of the lexicon, and I absorbed a concept of that word very early on. I say “a” concept because the dictionary defines cubbyhole somewhat differently from the way I think of it: “A snug or cramped space or room; a small compartment.” To me, those definitions sound vaguely negative compared to the cubbyholes I’ve known and loved. One old house I lived in as a child had a secret room behind the fireplace, and another tiny room beyond that; another had a trick closet, so you could enter in one room and come out in the closet of another; still another house had a space above one closet, with sliding door panels. To a young boy growing up in the Roy Rogers era, the dominant impression of these spaces wasn’t that they were cramped. It was, instead, that they were wonderful hideouts. Even as an adult, I’ve been charmed by such secret hideaways in houses I’ve considered buying.

  I’m sure Jessie would say that her little cubbyhole of a bedroom was a practical move, that it was more convenient to the kitchen. But I believe she was drawing the line around herself closer and tighter. In times of uncertainty, it’s helpful to keep life simple. You want just a few true things you can count on without thinking.

  A look at the newspaper each morning told her there were a lot of families with the same uncertainty she felt—or worse. Reading the Arkansas Gazette had become a different experience from the one it had been even as recently as the late 1930s. Back then, there were the usual stories about gangsters on the loose, but there was also a sense of fun, even with hard times just past and war in Europe on the horizon. There were splashy automobile ads every few pages. There were big store ads showing slinky evening wear, the hemlines hovering teasingly at midcalf. There were movie ads and announcements of big-band performances.

  Now the tone had changed. You still saw movie ads and lists of radio shows. There were still weddings and club announcements and funny papers. Downtown stores all had big ads showing what the well-dressed man and woman would be wearing at various seasons. Despite all that, the paper was grim. There were no automobile ads—Detroit couldn’t get rubber for tires. Even the clothes that were advertised featured practicality over glamour hemlines were shorter to save on material. The war dominated the news. Even the gossip columns dealt with the war: “Aimee Semple McPherson has a message for her followers: ‘Drive slowly and use less rubber.’ “

  No doubt a lot of people in Jessie’s situation turned to the second page of the paper first. At the top, inevitably, were photographs of young men in uniform under the headline MISSING IN ACTION, or, all too often, KILLED IN ACTION. These were local or state boys, some of whom may even have known Charles. The obituaries were on that page, too—long lists of the dead. At the end was a separate section headlined DEATHS OF NEGROES. It was a page you had to pore over while holding your breath.

  On December 7, 1942, a year after Pearl Harbor, the paper reported that a total of 42,635 U.S. fighting men were now missing in action. “Most,” the article said, “are presumed to be prisoners.”

  By this time, the effects of wartime deficits were really beginning to be felt in Little Rock. Because of gasoline rationing, streetcars were overcrowded. Sometimes they even had to pass up people waving to them from the curb. One large department store reported that it had sold out of walking shoes and had no idea when it would have new stock. Food stores were hanging SOLD OUT signs on coffee, lard, patented brands of shortening, butter, tuna fish, imported olive and salad oils, meat products, and dozens of other items. At restaurants, diners had become used to asking what was available rather than telling the waiter what they wanted. Beauty shops had begun requiring customers to bring their own hairpins. The variety of cosmetics was shrinking rapidly. Imported castile soap was no longer available. Lipstick now came in plastic containers.

  This was a time when Jessie’s home economics training came in handy. She knew how to stretch a dish. Efficiency and organization were also at a premium. You had to watch the food stamps and make sure you were using the right stamp from the right ration book. Every so often, the newspaper would publish a list: “Sugar—last day for No. 12 stamp in Ration Book 1; Coffee—first day for No. 23 stamp in Ration Book 1.” You wanted to use every stamp you had, and that took planning, organization. To let a stamp lapse was simply wasteful.

  Even though it was wartime, there were light moments. Late one night, Annabelle was sound asleep when her door suddenly swung open and the overhead light glared in her face. “Get up, Annabelle!” a voice said. “Someone’s murdered Gene Driver and thrown him in the front door!” Annabelle rubbed her eyes and began to realize that it was Jessie standing there. The Gene Driver she was talking about was a neighbor. From her little cubbyhole behind the kitchen, Jessie had been startled awake by a thud at the front of the house. Grabbing her robe and going to the door, she flipped on the porch light and there, in a clump by the doormat, was Gene Driver. He sure looked dead.

  Annabelle went and took a peek. While that was happening, Jessie called Miss Alice Ream across the street. Her brother was staying there, and he soon came over arid inspected the body—which turned out to be an inebriated Gene Driver. Some of his drinking buddies had dumped him on Jessie’s porch by mistake.

  At some point during the war, Jessie decided she could no longer serve meals to the people who stayed there. She told Annabelle that she was welcome to keep food for herself in the refrigerator. Annabelle appreciated it, but—well, she had something to talk with Jessie about. Her company, GMAC, had had to close down the Little Rock office because nobody was selling cars. The company had left one contact man there to keep in touch with the dealers, and Annabelle had stayed to work for the contact man. But there was nothing to do. Her days were empty, boring, depressing. After eight years at the Armours’, she had come to the hard conclusion that it was time to go back home to Mississippi.

  Jessie hugged her tightly. With Annabelle’s departure, Jessie was losing much more than a boarder.

  It was the spring of 1943 when word came from the navy that Charles was a prisoner in the Philippines. About that time, she also received the first of five cards that she would get from him over the next year. The cards, on a deep manila stock, bore as heading the imprint of the Imperial Japanese Army. They were form postcards. Using a typewriter with a spotty ribbon, Charles had been allowed to fill in the blanks or underline certain multiple-choice answers:

  I am interned at Philippine Military Prison Camp No. 2

  My health is— excellent; good; fair; poor.

  I am injured; sick in hospital; under treatment; not under treatment.

  I am—improving; not improving; better; well.

  Please see that Caroline and Art are notified. Take care of all my things. is taken care of.

  {Re: Family}: Hope you and Jane well. Please write to me and let me know how you are % Red Cross. Love to all. Dont worry.

  Please give my best regards to all of my friends.

  After all this time, even this strained missive seemed like a long, chatty letter. At least Charles was alive! All the neighbors came to see the card. This little rectangle of paper was a
real connection: Charles had actually held it in his hands. Now Jessie held it. She read and reread it a thousand times, always looking for some previously hidden clue to his condition. He was worrying, as usual—of course she would take care of his things.

  She received one other card from him that spring, then two more in the late falls and winter. The final card was slightly discomforting. In the form sentence reporting on his health, this time he had underlined fair. His worrying was also evident: “Wish I could have been with you for Xmas. Am looking forward to receiving a letter from you. Do not dispose of any of your property. Hope that you, Jane, Caroline are all well and that 1 will be with you again soon. Love to all.” On the signature line, lie had signed “Charles W. Armour.”

  Toward the end of January 1944, the Office of War Information released the shocking story of Japanese brutality during the Bataan Death March nearly two years before. The country was enraged. A few days after the revelations, Jessie picked up a new magazine and began to shriek: There was a photograph of the Death March, and she thought she saw Charles in the picture. Hysterical, she called Jane and Pem, who calmed her down. Later, the family decided it hadn’t been Charles, after all.

  Jessie scoured the news stories for names of people she could write to who might know something about Charles. Comdr. M. H. McCoy, stationed at Fort Blakely, Washington, answered in mid-April 1944. “I knew your son quite well and his health was good at the time I escaped,” McCoy wrote. They had met in Camp Number 1 and had then gone on to Camp Number 2 together. His recollection was that Charles had been on the “vegetable-gathering detail.”

  That appears to have been her last word about Charles for more than a year.