Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot Read online

  Bruce and Andrea knew that Lafayette was in the “Cajun Heartland”—territory originally settled by the Acadian French who were booted out of Nova Scotia in 1755 when they refused to swear allegiance to the British. But they had no idea that the intensely Catholic French Cajun culture was still sunk so deep. The descendants of the Cajuns took the pre-Lenten bacchanalia very seriously. New Orleans was world famous for its Fat Tuesday festival, but Lafayette had its own riotous pride. In Lafayette no one delivers the mail on Fat Tuesday. The schools close for a week, and for five days the main streets are blocked off two and three times a day for the elaborate parades.

  After the heavy-duty cleaning, stalled traffic, and the pressure of tricky timing, the Leiningers were all exhausted by the time their moving van arrived early on Monday, March 5. Still, Andrea sent Bruce off to work—she would handle the unloading and placement of the furniture by herself. No need to have Bruce underfoot as well as James. She had planned exactly where she wanted everything placed.

  But even her supercharged energy had to give out. She simply couldn’t be everywhere at once. She kept losing track of her son. She had told James to stay inside the house while she directed the movers. But the twenty-three-month-old tyke, who was still in diapers, slipped out of the house while the moving men brought in the cartons and furnishings—the door had been left open.

  Andrea was like a shortstop, directing the moving men and plucking James out of the hedges and off the lawn, and finally—the last straw—out of the moving van itself. When she began to imagine her little guy crushed and bleeding under someone’s boots or a dropped sofa, she knew it was more than she could handle. That’s when she called Bruce on his cell phone and told him to get right home.

  Bruce’s boss, who was also under pressure because of the massive work attached to their company’s going public, grudgingly agreed that Bruce’s place was at his wife’s side.

  Things sort of settled down over the next few days. Neighbors showed up with welcoming pots of food and baskets of flowers and lists of where to shop and which drugstores were open on weekends and evenings. It was a mellow moment after a bumpy entrance to their new home.

  And life went on. Andrea kept intensely busy putting the finishing touches to the house. Bruce was working fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hours a day.

  It was not until Wednesday, March 14, nine days after moving in, and a few days after the Mardi Gras fever had passed, that Andrea found time to shop for the matching towels she needed for the bathrooms. She headed for Bed Bath & Beyond, thinking that James would be fine in his stroller and that they would also get an introduction to the normal downtown life of Lafayette, without the parades and food vendors and tourist madness.

  It was a bright day and she was in a happy mood, the feeling of strangeness in a new town beginning to soften. As they walked to the bathroom fixture store, they passed a craft and toy store, Hobby Lobby, where she noticed a display outside—bins filled with plastic toys and boats.

  “Oh, look,” said Andrea, plucking a small model propeller-driven plane out of the bin. She handed it to James, who studied it. “And there’s even a bomb on the bottom,” she exclaimed, hoping this toy would distract James enough for her to browse comfortably for towels.

  But what James said—this little child in diapers—made her stop cold in her tracks. James looked at the toy plane, turned it upside down, and proclaimed, “That’s not a bomb, Mommy. That’s a dwop tank.”

  Andrea had no idea what a drop tank was. It was only when she got home that night and talked it over with Bruce that she learned that it was an extra gas tank that airplanes used to extend their range.

  “How would he know that?” she asked Bruce.

  Bruce shook his head. Maybe James noticed that there were no fins on the tank—a bomb would have fins.

  But how would he even know that?

  “He can’t even say ‘drop tank,’” she insisted. “He said ‘dwop tank.’ He can’t even say ‘Hobby Lobby’—he says ‘Hobby Wobby.’ How would he know about a drop tank? I never heard of it.”

  It was bewildering, but not anything to worry about. Not yet—not before the nightmares began.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHILE THE BAD DREAMS rattled their nights on West St. Mary Boulevard that spring, and in the fuzzy aftermath of the discombobulating move, no one in the Leininger home was thinking too clearly. Too much work and too much worry and not enough sleep were leaving both Bruce and Andrea a little dazed and a little battle happy.

  By late May they decided that they needed a break—some distance from the “haunted house” in the White Oaks subdivision. They planned to drive the four hundred miles to Dallas, where the extended family was already assembling to celebrate Memorial Day, along with a birthday. Hunter, the first child of Andrea’s youngest sister Becky Kyle, would turn four on Monday, May 28. Andrea and Bruce were also eager to see Becky’s younger child, Kathryn, known as K. K., who was three weeks older than James. The two toddlers, both still in diapers, still drinking out of a bottle, and still trying to figure out who was who, had a lot in common.

  Becky’s house was in Carrollton, a plush suburb on the northern lip of Dallas. But it was too small to pack in all the incoming Leiningers and Kyles, so Bruce and Andrea decided to stay at a nearby motel. (Another factor doubtless went into this decision—a vagrant thought, not openly expressed—that James might have another midnight outburst, which would make this holiday unpleasantly memorable.) So they rented a suite at Amerisuites, where they would have their own kitchenette and a pool and wouldn’t be underfoot in the Kyles’ busy household.

  Still, first things first: they had to get out of Lafayette and into Dallas. The logistics of a Leininger move are strictly military. The planning stage includes firm timetables, crack discipline, and unwavering phase lines—that is, if left up to Bruce.

  The day before the launch, (D minus 1), all bags must be packed and inspected. The tires of the 1994 Volvo 850 Turbo checked for exact pressure. The gas tank topped off as if the family were heading out into an unchartered wilderness. Clocks and watches synchronized for the early start. Briefings held so that each member of the unit is on the same page.

  However, as in all such complex operations, life gets in the way. Bruce’s careful plan began to fall apart early on Saturday, May 26 (or, as referred to by the other family foot soldiers, D-day). First, Andrea’s morning shower took a little longer than allowed for in the operational plan. And then she had to have her coffee. And then James needed a fresh diaper and a bottle. All the while, Bruce sang out the hour—every five minutes—and tapped his foot. In the end, they left closer to nine, rather than the planned H-hour of eight a.m.

  No big deal, said Andrea.

  The trip itself—measured and timed to take a maximum of seven hours—had built-in rest stops. In Shreveport, the Leiningers pulled into a familiar and notoriously slow Burger King. The delay set off a low-grade grumble in Bruce, which lasted until they hit Texas.

  Passing into Texas had a strangely soothing effect on the Leiningers. For one thing, there was that huge welcome sign: a twenty-foot hollow star that looked like a big cookie cutter. At the first sight of it, they would all sing out, “Welcome to the lonely star state!” It was a ritual by now, calling it “the lonely star.” Of course, it was supposed to be “Welcome to the Lone Star State,” the Texas nickname—but somehow James got confused the first time he saw it, and Andrea thought his mistake so cute that they stayed with his version. That big sign would forever set off for the Leiningers, “Welcome to the lonely star!”

  When they finally got to Dallas, Bruce suggested that Andrea visit with her sister (all that catch-up Scoggin talk—not that they didn’t talk by phone every day), while he took James to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum. It was, after all, the Memorial Day weekend, an appropriate time to go look at old warplanes. He had taken James there before, and the child had loved it.

  In fact, just turning around in the car and looking in the b
ackseat confirmed the wisdom of such a visit. There was James, strapped into his seat, clutching one of his favorite toys: an airplane.

  Some months ago, James had been wild about big trucks. He’d played with them all the time. But from the first moment that he looked out a car window and spotted an airplane passing overhead, his heart lifted to the skies. Airplanes became his new obsession. Because of that, Bruce decided that a trip to the James Cavanaugh Flight Museum would be the perfect father-son outing. Bruce bought him a promotional video of the Navy’s Blue Angels acrobatic flight team, which James almost wore out. He never got tired of watching it or playing with his toy airplanes. After that first visit, no more trucks, only airplanes.

  That first trip to the museum back in February was a honey. At the time, the family was still (just barely) living in Texas; Bruce was hopping back and forth between his job in Lafayette and his home in Dallas. Every other weekend he’d make the eight-hundred-mile round trip. Andrea, living alone with James, badly needed a break. She was run down, not yet recovered from one of those loopy household accidents that strike like thunder. It had happened in mid-January. James had gone into the upstairs bathroom and turned on the hot water in the tub. Andrea heard the noise and ran upstairs and lunged across the toilet to grab her toddler before he scalded himself, and in the process, she twisted a back muscle, aggravating an old injury.

  It was bad. The former dancer had a weak back to begin with, but now she couldn’t even straighten up or walk. And she couldn’t begin to carry James down the stairs. Bruce was in Lafayette, so she called her mother, Bobbi, who lived about ten minutes away. Her mother arrived with a heating pad and a couple of Vicodin tablets (leftover from a tooth implant) and told her to take it easy. And then she left.

  But James still had to be watched and fed. Andrea crawled up the stairs with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich clenched between her teeth. Since she could hardly stand or walk, it was the only way she could make it to the upstairs nursery. It took her many sessions with a chiropractor to straighten out her back. But she was a dancer and used to pain, and filled with grit.

  She kept managing alone, with Bruce coming home every other weekend to help out. Nevertheless, she dreamed of a long, blissful afternoon in a beauty parlor, being pampered and primped, having her nails clipped and polished and her hair washed and set—not having to keep that sentry eye out for her child’s safety.

  And so, a month later, on his last weekend home before they all moved to Lafayette, when Bruce offered to take James off her hands for the day, Andrea leaped at the offer.

  Bruce wanted the day to be something special. He thought little James ought to have one more powerful memory of Dallas—something to remind him of the beauty and charm of the city. They would spend an hour at the air museum, then go for lunch, then maybe walk around downtown to drink in one last taste of Dallas, then head home. That was Bruce’s plan.

  Bruce had been to the Cavanaugh several times. Whenever they had guests come to Dallas, he would take them to see the old planes from World War I and World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. The planes were all so shiny and fresh—gleaming there on the hangar floor, all in flyable condition, just waiting for a pilot.

  James was eager to go. On the drive, Bruce babbled away about all the great things he would see, but James didn’t need convincing. He was quietly eager. And then, amid an industrial clutter, the museum popped up. The first thing James saw was an old F-104 Thunderchief sitting behind a roped barricade. It looked so casually glamorous, sitting there on the tarmac, as if someone had just parked a jet fighter while they went in for cigarettes.

  James shrieked when he saw the plane.

  The ticket office was right next to the museum gift shop, and James spent a lot of time browsing among the toy airplanes. It took Bruce the purchase of the Blue Angels video “It’s a Kind of Magic” and a toy plane to get him out and into the display hangars where they kept the real planes.

  The planes were tall and majestic behind the rope barriers, and James’s eyes glowed with appreciation. Security was never an issue at the museum, which was seldom crowded, and so there were no guards. And Bruce had a hard time keeping James behind the barriers. He pulled to get closer to the old World War II Mustangs and Spitfires and Wildcats.

  “You’re not allowed in there,” warned Bruce. But James plainly was struck powerfully by something he saw out there on the hangar floor, and he stood there openmouthed with wonder. Bruce started to move on to the next hangar, where they displayed the more modern jets, but when he looked down, James was not with him. He had gone back to keep looking at the World War II planes. He was mesmerized.

  “Now, come on, James,” said Bruce, taking his son’s hand.

  And then James screamed. It was the piercing shriek of an enraged child. No, something even stronger. A thwarted child. A child in some form of unfamiliar woe. Not like a spoiled kid who couldn’t get his way—more like a kid who desperately wanted to express himself clearly but was unable.

  Bruce, who normally didn’t give in to such antics, was perplexed. Finally, he tried to drag James to a new exhibit, and the child still resisted. There was something eerie about this, something that Bruce could not fathom.

  And so they revisited the World War II planes twice, three times, and a trip to the museum that was supposed to last an hour turned into three.

  “I don’t wanna go,” brooded James.

  “Yes, but we can’t stay here forever,” replied Bruce. “What about some lunch?”

  James shook his head.

  “Ice cream?”

  The only way that Bruce could get him out of that hangar was to promise to take him to a working airfield where they could watch the planes take off. “We’ll go to Addison Airport,” he said, which was on the grounds of the museum and where there were Cessnas and corporate jets coming and going all the time. No lure of food or treats would budge James. Just the promise of live takeoffs.

  When they got back home, he spoke to Andrea about it, tried to explain why it was unsettling, but only managed to sound as if he was complaining about the difficulty of handling James. Of course that wasn’t the point, but he didn’t know what the point was.

  Now, three months later, on Memorial Day, they went back to the air museum. Again James was all but spinning with excitement. Like a puppy, he pulled Bruce. Outside, they ran into an old guy who said, “That little boy sure is excited. Well, I get excited every time I come here, too. During World War Two I flew an airplane just like one they have inside.”

  It turned out the old guy was Charles R. Bond Jr., who flew a P-40 with the Flying Tigers. He gave James a gift, an Angel pin, and went off to keep another appointment. It was an odd encounter; Charles clearly recognized a kindred spirit in James.

  This time Bruce had a camera, as if he might capture on film some wisp of whatever James was experiencing, and he took pictures of his son standing and pointing at the WW II aircraft. But the child’s intensity was not something that could be caught on film—an excitement so fervid that Bruce realized you had to be there to feel it.

  They went back to Becky’s house, where everyone was busy fixing up for the party. The theme was “Thomas the Tank Engine.” The kids all splashed around in an inflatable pool, and there was a piñata in the front of the house, with Andrea keeping watch to see that no one fractured anyone else’s skull. The bizarre museum experience folded quietly into the happy memories of the trip.

  And it was a splendid trip; it revived the exhausted Bruce and Andrea. On the last morning before they returned to Lafayette, Bruce and James and Andrea lay out in the sun at the Amerisuite pool, and in that small moment, with the family together and quiet, it felt like a mini vacation.

  On the drive back to Louisiana, they stopped in Shreveport again for lunch, but this time they went to McDonald’s. There was an indoor play center, and James was given five minutes to play. Bruce had to climb in and pull him out after ten minutes.

  As he drove away
, Bruce thought, it wasn’t like the museum. The jungle gym was a toy, and James behaved like a child with a toy. The Cavanaugh had been different—there had been no playfulness there.

  Up until now, neither parent had made a connection between James’s obsessive fascination with airplanes and his bad dreams. Clearly there was a great contrast. James took to airplanes with such pure gusto, such tireless enthusiasm, that it didn’t seem possible that the terrible dreams had anything to do with his love of airplanes. One was deeply disturbing—terrifying. The other was a wholesome delight. It didn’t seem possible that something so enjoyable could have anything to do with something so scary.

  Of course, later on they would see that the dots were there all along (the deep passion at the museum, the obsession with airplanes), but just now, en route home from Becky’s house, lulled by the warm feelings of their holiday, no one in the Leininger family was connecting those dots.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JUNE 1 was a bright, sunny day, but not for Andrea Leininger. It was two days since they returned from Dallas. There had been no bad dreams at the Amerisuite, but there James had slept between them on a king-size bed. Both parents had been lulled into a kind of breathless optimism by their undisturbed, peaceful rest over the long weekend. But this turned out to be like a long pause between hiccups.

  Now back in his own bed, James was again screaming in his sleep. The nightmares had resumed.

  But that wasn’t the only reason Andrea was so upset on this Thursday, a warm, sweet morning with the breath of summer in the air. What was troubling her was something much more prosaic, something every parent faces sooner or later: that she would have to give up her precious James, separate herself and leave her only child with complete strangers. It had all seemed so harmless, so routine when she first agreed to it. She had enrolled James in Mother’s Day Out, a once-a-week preschool program for toddlers at the Asbury United Methodist Church, where the Leiningers had just become members. What could be more innocent? A preschool program run by the church and staffed by carefully screened personnel.