"What do you say, Frankie?" sings out Francis in his newly acquired Philadelphia slang into the cool twilight of spring in the Laurel foothills.
"Not much, you?" Frank replies in his minimalist way, flashing a rare broad smile as they grasp hands in the back yard.
"So what have you been up to little brother?"
The twins were back home in Hopwood for their mother's fiftieth birthday celebration in the spring of 1943. It had only been seven years since they went their separate ways, but it felt like a lifetime after such an entwined youth. Their father had been in prison most of that time, but now he was starting over in Wheeling, sixty-three years old and blackballed by most of the family.
The ex-convict wasn't eligible for fighting, but men under forty-five were signing up in droves after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Those married and with children were initially excluded from the draft, but single men were required to register whether or not they had dependents.
"Little by nine minutes," laughs Frank moving to stand like they were often made to as children, their profiles darker than the dusk to their mother peeking out the kitchen window. "Look who's taller now!"
"Don't evade the question, Bro," Francis asserts as he dodges the back-to-back pose.
"A docker down in New Orleans, a mechanic for Speed, now a trucker for Beatrice and our little boy."
"Your Beat sure sounds like she beats my work at the Naval Shipyard, but I'm fixing to sign up for the Air Force," a rare frown crossing his countenance.
"That little girl down at Fairchance needs you here," laments Frank swiping at the moisture beading up in his eyes.
"Her mother doesn't, so, as Pop used to say, you gotta do what you gotta do."
No comments:
Post a Comment