When the Men Were Gone Read online

  Mr. Redwine never talked about Mit, though I know the memories of his only child are never too far away, and every death, whether associated with war, disease, or emotional struggle, affects Mr. Redwine in a personal way.

  “Morning,” I said as I entered his office, a room with space for nothing more than a desk and two chairs, identical to mine just one door down.

  He had a copy of the daily newspaper on his desk. A photo with a story about Burl swept across the top of the front page, a reminder that Brownwood had become a bit of a dichotomy, depressed during the week and bustling on weekends, when families visiting soldiers stationed at nearby Camp Bowie filled the local hotels, including the twelve-story Hotel Brownwood, the town’s tallest building.

  A few years earlier, President Roosevelt had launched Camp Bowie, a military training site that housed thousands of American soldiers and thousands of German POWs just a mile outside of Brownwood. It was a city within itself. Seldom if ever did the men venture into town, but for occasions when out-of-town family members had come to visit. With its high walls and higher security, what took place within its walls was a mystery to the folks in Brownwood.

  Still, despite the robust weekends, to the locals, Brownwood was a bit of a ghost town, much like so many other small towns since that December day in 1941. Wally’s Drugstore, Hank’s Appliances, Kramer’s Bakery. Wally, killed in France. Hank, killed in Italy by friendly fire during a training drill. Kramer, a prisoner of war.

  “When will it end, Tylene?” Mr. Redwine asked.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t find the words. I walked to the reception desk to pour myself a cup of coffee. Just above the coffeepot and taped to the wall was a typed version of the varsity football schedule, a reminder of our annual anticipation—second only to Christmas—where on fall Friday nights we meet at our town’s single largest gathering spot: our football field. During the week, neighbors might be fierce competitors in business and classmates may jockey for grades, but not on those Friday nights, when the worries of life are washed away come kickoff. When our sons and brothers do battle for our collective pride and honor, we become one.

  Still, with no coach, no team, and no season, I could not find it within myself to tear the schedule down. I had a feeling no one could.

  Shortly after I left Mr. Redwine’s office, I went to check on Moose Pecorella, a young man I’d hired for a three-day plumbing job at the school. Moose was a veteran. He had served in the National Guard for little more than a year and had been honorably discharged when he took shrapnel to his right hip. It left him with a limp and an inability to work at the cotton plant. Word around town was he had taken to drinking, but only in the privacy of his home, a place he’d inherited from his grandparents. It also was known about town that the war had left Moose fighting demons. He seldom shaved; his face looked worn and his hair unkempt. Still, he knocked on doors and handed out scribbled notes with his name, home address, and handyman abilities listed on them, making it clear to nearly half the town that he’d clean up if given a reason to. Despite his hardship, he was a fine young man with good intentions and a good heart. Though he had yet to secure full-time work, no one in town turned a back on him. He made his living doing odd jobs. That’s how he ended up at Brownwood High that morning.

  He was beginning day two of his three-day commitment when I found him lying on his back, on peeling red-and-white checkerboard linoleum, beneath a water fountain on the second floor. He had taken it apart and was halfway through the process of reassembling it.

  “Discovered the cause of the foul taste,” he said as he sat up. “Some pretty nasty rust. I also replaced a couple pipes that can be melted down. Still clean and good enough to donate. Will you be at the Boy Scout salvage drive tonight?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  For a moment, neither of us spoke.

  “I’m sorry about Burl, Miss Tylene. I know you and Miss Mena are good friends.”

  In truth, Mena was like a sister to me, more so than even Bessie Lee, who had left home when I was so young. I’d first met Mena when she sat across from me in fifth grade and had asked to borrow my eraser during arithmetic class. Actually, I was in fourth grade; she was in fifth, but Miss Trez taught two grades in one classroom, the only classroom in the school that had to combine grades to accommodate the overflow of children ages nine and ten. I was the new girl in school, having arrived from Zephyr that summer. Mena was pretty, and everyone admired her. She was tall for her age—nearly five feet, six inches—and had light-brown wavy hair that flowed to her shoulders. When we met that fall, she had a best friend, a girl with a name I’d never before heard—Coral, Coral Moon. Coral’s family moved to College Station during the Christmas break, and I guess I filled in for her, because after that, Mena and I became inseparable. We double-dated a time or two during high school, played flute together in the high school orchestra, and even started out in college together, until she married and dropped out after our freshman year. I was her maid of honor, and later, John and I were Burl’s godparents. Moose knew Mena and I were good friends. What he didn’t know was that her pain was my pain.

  “Seems every day brings more heartache, more sadness, Moose.” And then the bell rang, and the hallway swelled with students scampering from one class to the next.

  I headed back to my office, and like always, I passed the trophy case. I’d passed it hundreds of times over the years, but I had never stopped to look at it, to examine it and reminisce, until that day. And when I did, I saw Moose, his toothy grin front and center in the 1941 football team photo. I saw Shorty Wilkerson and was taken back to my childhood. I saw Alex Munroe, a classmate and lifelong friend who had gone on to referee college football games. I scanned the trophies and the photos and was reminded of why I have always loved this time of year. The hope of a good season, the enthusiasm of the student body, the unifying of an entire town.

  My father had introduced me to football while we were still living in our old Zephyr home. In 1909, nine years after I was born, we left Zephyr, part of Brown County fifteen miles southeast of Brownwood, the county seat. We had moved in with my mother’s parents on a vast Brownwood farm that had been in the Gray family for generations. After my grandparents died, we took over the farm and raised dairy cows. The land was also crawling with pecan trees, and I knew once the first pecan fell to the ground that football season was around the corner. It also meant homemade pecan pies, my favorite.

  When late summer rolled around, all I needed was to hear my father say, “I saw a nut on the ground this morning,” and I’d bust out of the kitchen’s screen door, grab a bucket off the back porch, and scramble to the first pecan tree I could reach, singing the Brownwood Lions’ fight song all the while. Still singing, I’d crawl on my knees and gather up pecans. I’d toss aside the nuts with cracks—those weren’t good enough for my mother’s homemade pies, but I knew they’d make a swell snack for the critters looking for a bite to eat. Sometimes, when my sister was in town, she would gather nuts with me, but she was close to a dozen years older, had married young, and had no interest in scraping her knees. Bessie Lee preferred to help Mama bake the pies. I enjoyed the baking, too, but gathering the nuts was just as fun. The briars and weeds beneath the trees didn’t bother me. I considered a scraped knee a sign that a good pie would soon be on the way.

  Once I had a bucket full of pecans, I’d haul the nuts to the house. Sometimes the bucket was so heavy, I’d crawl on my knees and push it. When I’d approach the porch, my dad would shout at the bucket, “Where’d you leave Tylene?” He claimed he couldn’t see me. I’d shout from behind the bucket, “I’m back here, Daddy!” I can’t remember if I thought he believed the bucket had left me behind or if I just played along with him. In either case, it was always good for a laugh. I’d gather pecans daily until I had harvested enough for my mother and the ground beneath the trees was mostly bare.

  Shortly after I’d begun gathering the nuts, football season would arrive, and fath
er-daughter time would begin. Daddy time. Mama’s pies. Football. I particularly recall the 1912 season opener when my father and I rode my favorite horse, Joe Drowser, an aging, mild pinto, to the football game. I could tell Dad was wondering why I was wearing an old bulky jacket that had long before belonged to Bessie Lee. He had taken one look at me, and his brow furrowed. It wasn’t an angry look; it was a confused one. After all, it was probably near a hundred degrees outside. He didn’t ask any questions. When we got to our seats in the stands, I pulled out two wrapped slices of pecan pie, one from each jacket pocket.

  “Why am I not surprised, Petunia?” he said.

  “Had no place else to stash them, Daddy. Want a piece?”

  He laughed and shook his head. Told me to enjoy them. I ate one slice during the first half and the other during the second.

  I wanted to smile at the memory as I walked back to my office, but because I was so concerned about the status of this football season, I couldn’t.

  WHEN I GOT home late that afternoon, I found John sitting at the kitchen table. Before the war had begun taking a toll on a few local industries, especially the automobile, it was rare to find him home before supper had been prepared. But in the last couple years, work at the shop had come to a near crawl, so John was getting home much earlier. Gas and rubber had been rationed because of the war, and fewer cars had remained drivable. What sustained the business was John’s contract with Vern McSorley, a close family friend, who owned a fleet of trucks used to deliver milk throughout the state. Occasionally, John would threaten to close up shop and get into the hotel business, a bustling local industry during those war years because of the Camp Bowie population. He often referred to a popular five-bedroom boardinghouse opened by a local war widow for use by visiting families of Camp Bowie soldiers as a model for his new venture. But I knew he never meant it; he loved working on cars.

  Still, lately, when I’d arrive to find John already home, he was typically poring over the bills. That was what he was doing that evening. And he was in a panic—his arms crossed against his chest, whether standing or sitting, had always been the giveaway. When I’d see him that tense, I’d rub his shoulders for a moment, which would inevitably lead him to packing away the bills and putting on an optimistic smile, just as he did that night. So as I warmed up a leftover chicken casserole—I had to eat quickly so as to return to the school for the Boy Scout’s salvage drive—I mentioned that I, too, had to pay the monthly bills on behalf of my parents, who had been visiting Bessie Lee the past six weeks in south Texas. My father’s ranch hand, Enrique Montano, was overseeing the family property. Enrique had been working for my father for many years, and I had no worries of the ranch’s care. John and I also talked about the fond memories brought on by my stop at the trophy case.

  “Brownwood hasn’t canceled a football season since 1918,” I reminded John. World War I was the reason. I was a senior in high school, and I clearly remembered the principal quoted in the newspaper at the time saying that canceling the season had been a mistake.

  “I wish there was something I could do to prevent it from happening again,” I said.

  “There is,” John said. “And it’s been on my mind near constantly since Coach Francis left.”

  “What is it, John?” I asked. “What’s been weighing so heavily on your mind?”

  “Last night, when Walt and I were closing the shop, don’t know why, maybe it was the creeper Walt was putting away after sliding out from under a DeSoto, but I got to thinking about how you and I met. You ever think about that?”

  I had just lifted the fork to my lips, but I stopped and began to laugh.

  I was fourteen years old when I heard through the grapevine that John’s Automotive Garage was looking for a bookkeeper. John had graduated from Brownwood High a year earlier. He worked throughout high school as an auto mechanic. I knew of John only because he had once stopped by our family ranch to work on my father’s truck. At the time, John had no garage, so he went from house to house fixing cars, polishing them up, and getting them back on the road.

  I had heard that John was frugal and that when he graduated, he had the money to buy a dilapidated gas station once owned by a fellow named Leo Bernard. It had flourished under Leo’s ownership for quite some time. But when Leo had died two years earlier, no one in his family had the skill or the desire to keep the station running. So it sat, a home for mice. Occasionally armadillos would visit, but John said that even they didn’t stay for long. John told me the place was as filthy and inviting as an abandoned outhouse. Rusted gas pumps, spiderwebs with too many dwellers. And lots and lots of dirt. But despite the smells and the mildew, John said he had a vision. He bought the place from Leo’s family and converted it into the most popular garage in Brownwood.

  I had just completed my freshman year of high school when I arrived at John’s Garage. I found John. He was tall, dark-haired, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had linebacker biceps exposed by his short-sleeved coveralls. He was looking under the hood of a black 1914 Chevy truck, the left side of the hood open, resembling an accordion as it folded over onto one side.

  “I hear you’re looking for a bookkeeper,” I said. “I’m Tylene McMahan. What does it pay?”

  John turned to me, grabbed a rag, and began wiping his hands.

  “Fifteen cents an hour,” he said.

  “I hear the mechanics make thirty.”

  John stared as if wondering where this was going. “I need a bookkeeper. I got no need for a mechanic.”

  “I’ll do it for the extra fifteen.”

  “I’m not sure you know how to keep books. Why would I give you an extra fifteen? Besides, I don’t have it.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. I looked around. The place was nice. There were plenty of cars, and the workload looked like it would keep John busy for months.

  “I can do the books. I’ll start now, but with the extra fifteen.”

  John looked dumbfounded.

  “I’ll give you an extra two.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Five.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Seven.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Tylene, I can’t afford you.”

  I turned and slowly began to walk away. I’d gotten as far as the garage door when John shouted, “Twelve.”

  I stopped and turned back. “Where’s my office?”

  Three years later, John and I began dating. Late into my senior year, I was still doing the books and getting close to high school graduation. John had hired two more mechanics, doubling his total to four. He had expanded the garage to meet the demand, and he had all the finest equipment.

  One afternoon, when the men were out to lunch, my curiosity had gotten the better of me. I lay down on the flat thing the men used to slide underneath the cars, something they call a creeper. I slid myself under, just to see. Wow. What a mess of stuff. Fascinating.

  I lost myself in the maze of metal. So focused, I never heard a sound. Then I saw shoes. Boots, to be exact. John’s boots. I recognized the worn black leather that rose above his ankles, the top of the laces untied.

  “Tylene,” John said softly. “I need to ask you something.”

  I slid out from under the car, still lying flat on the roller thing.

  “I’ve been thinking,” John said. “We’ve known each other for almost four years now. Been dating the last year. You’re getting ready to graduate. I’m thinking we might want to get hitched. What do you think, Tylene? How about getting married?”

  I stared at him. Then I slid back beneath the car.

  I whispered from below the chassis. “No.”

  I could see his boots pacing.

  “Tylene, I have the business. It’s going great, and I have at least enough money to buy us a house. I can take care of you. Just think about it, Tylene. Take your time. You don’t have to answer now. I can wait until you roll out from under the car. By the way, why are you under the car?”

  “John, m
aybe someday,” I said, knowing John could see only my feet, which were covered in peach-colored heels, the kind my friends would say were worn by first ladies and princesses. “You know I only took this job to save for college. I don’t need to be taken care of. I’m going to be a teacher, remember? I have things to do before I think about getting married.”

  Eleven years from the day we met, we married.

  Now, together in our kitchen, John again left me dumbstruck.

  “Will you do it, Tylene? Will you coach the boys? I think he would have wanted you to.”

  “Are you crazy?” I asked. I was so stunned I didn’t even think to laugh at the outlandish suggestion. I grabbed John’s empty plate from the table, picked up my own, and got up to put them in the sink. As I began to prepare the soap and water for cleaning, I turned back to John, who had gotten up and was standing right behind me.

  “You better cut down on your exposure to gas fumes,” I said. “It’s doing a number on that brain of yours.”

  “Tylene, I’m serious.”

  “John,” I said, shaking my head. I placed my palms on the sides of his face and kissed him gently on the lips. “It’s official. You’ve plumb lost your mind.” I turned back and continued washing the dishes. Without looking back, I said, “You do know there’s one problem, one huge problem, right?”

  “The lady thing. I get it,” he said. “But you can do it, and you know that as well as I do. Hell, you could coach the Longhorns to a national title if they’d give you a chance.”

  I could feel the passion in his voice, so I turned toward him. He looked into my eyes as sure as he ever had. “Coach? Grease monkey? What’s the difference, Tylene? No one knows you better than I do, and I say do it. I know you can, and, after a few days, the whole dang town will know it, too.”

  “Grease monkey?” I asked.

  “I knew you tinkered on a few trucks.”

  He was right; I had.

  “Let’s leave it at grease monkey, John. I’ll find our football coach.”