Passage

“Surprise? Thunderbolt, is more like it. The U.S. of A. just sitting there, mindin’ her own business, and blam! No declaration of war, no warning, no nothin’. I’ll never forget it. It was a Sunday, and I was reading the funny papers. ‘The Katzenjammer Kids,’ I can still see it. I look up, and in comes the lady from two doors down, all out of breath, and says, ‘The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor!’ Well, none of us even knew where Pearl Harbor was, except my kid sister. She’d seen it in a newsreel at the movies the night before. Desperadoes, that’s what was playing. Randolph Scott. And the very next day, I went downtown to the navy recruiting center and signed up.”

He paused momentarily for breath, and Joanna said quickly, “Mr. — Ed, what made you volunteer for the project? How did you find out about it?”

“Saw a notice in the recreation center at Aspen Gardens. That’s where I live. And then when I came in and talked to the doc, I thought it sounded interesting.”

“Had you ever been involved in a research study here at the hospital before?”

“Nope. They put up notices all the time. Most of them you have to have some special thing wrong with you — hernias or can’t see good or something, and I didn’t, so I couldn’t be in ’em.”

“You said the project sounded interesting,” Joanna said. “Can you be more specific? Were you interested in near-death experiences?”

“I’d seen shows about ’em on TV.”

“And that was why you wanted to participate in the project?”

He shook his head. “I had more than enough near-death experiences in the war.” He winked. “Tunnels and lights, let me tell you, they’re nothing compared to seeing a Zero coming at you, and the machine gun you’re supposed to be firing jams. Those damned 1.1 millimeters, they were always sticking, and you had to have a gunner’s mate crawl underneath ’em with a hammer and unjam ’em. I remember one time Straight Holecek, we called him Straight ’cause he was always drawing to inside straights, well, anyway, he—”

No wonder Richard had been reluctant to have her question Mr. Wojakowski with Amelia coming in a few minutes. He’d moved around to stand behind Mr. Wojakowski. She glanced up at him, and he grinned at her.

“…and just then a Zero dived straight at us, and Straight gives a yelp and drops his hammer right on my foot, and—”

“So if it wasn’t NDEs you were interested in, what was it about the project that interested you?” Joanna asked.

“I told you I served on the Yorktown,” he said, “and let me tell you, she was a great ship. Brand-new and bright as a button, and real bunks to sleep in. She even had a soda fountain. You could go in there and order a chocolate malted or a cherry phosphate, just like the drugstore back home.” He smiled reminiscently. “Well, after we hit Rabaul, they put Old Yorky, that’s what we called her, on patrol duty down in the Coral Sea, and for six weeks we just sat there, playing acey-deucey and bettin’ on whose toenails’d grow the fastest.”

Joanna wondered what this had to do with why he had volunteered. She had a sneaking suspicion there was no connection at all, that he simply used any opening anybody gave him to talk about the war, and if she didn’t stop him, he’d go right on through the Battle of Midway.

“Mr. Wojakowski,” she said. “You were going to tell me why you volunteered for this project.”

“I am,” he said. “Well, so anyway, we’re sitting there twiddling our thumbs, and by the end of a week we were bored as hell and couldn’t wait for the Japs to dive-bomb us. At least it’d be something to do. Speaking of dive-bombing, did I ever tell you about what Jo-Jo Powers did at Coral Sea? The first time out his squadron doesn’t hit anything, all their torpedoes miss, and so he’s getting ready for his second run, and he says, ‘I’m going to hit that flight deck if I have to lay my bomb on it myself,’ and—”

“Mr. Wojakowski,” Joanna said firmly. “Your reason for volunteering.”

“You ever been over to Aspen Gardens?”

She shook her head.

“You’re lucky. It’s just like being on patrol duty in the Coral Sea, only without the acey-deucey. So I thought I’d come on over and do something interesting.”

Which was an excellent reason. “Have you ever had a near-death experience yourself, Mr. Wojakowski?”

“Not till the doc put me in that doughnut thing all hooked up like Frankenstein. I’d always thought that tunnel and light and seeing Jesus stuff was all a bunch of hooey, but, sure enough, there I was in a tunnel. No Jesus, though. I still say that’s a bunch of hooey. I saw too much stuff in the war to put much stock in religion. One time, at Coral Sea—”