Under Lock and Key

38: Additional Adversaries

Chapter 38: Additional Adversaries

Lee Clarke, June 18th, 1950, Crescent City

11:50 am

Elbow to elbow with the men on either side of me. All of us eating quickly, not just because we have such a short time to eat, but because we're so hungry after working timber for almost five hours.

It's a larger space than our cafeteria at school. That room was meant to hold only sixty boys. There's over 100 men in here at one time. It's old but serves its purpose, with high ceilings criss-crossed with wooden beams and long long tables, covered with stains from years past. Wooden benches made from our own stock of course, with a few stand alone chairs. My ass is sitting where many men have sat before. Back four generations. I can't even imagine how many stories were told here, and I can't help but think about how most of the men who told them are long gone, turned to dust in the ground.

Today's lunch is a thick cream gravy, studded with some meat, over bread slices. I have no idea what animal the meat is from, but it's there and much needed. There are multiple pitchers of water all along the table, that are filled and refilled often by a few of the men who work in the cook house. We sweat so much that water tastes like the best thing ever.

Looking around at my crew, sitting together, bolting our food, it's as if I'm still in Neverland, but the Lost Boys grew up. Grew up to be old men. Or maybe, I'm not a Lost Boy any longer.

Maybe, now I'm a pirate.

Most of the men are older. When the draft started after Pearl Harbor, when Michael enlisted, men with families were not allowed to join the fight. Some of the men here also had injuries related to our work, missing digits, chronic back pain, some hearing loss that disqualified them when they wanted to enlist.

There's a few men, closer to my age, who were young enough that they weren't able to fight, but not as many as there were in the past. When I was a kid, almost everyone who lived in Crescent City expected to work for the Pomroys. But I think things are changing. A lot of families encourage their children to get less dangerous jobs, and young people themselves were made aware of the wider world during the war thanks to radio broadcasts and newspapers. There is more of a wish to leave our tiny community and see new things that they could otherwise only imagine.

So, it's not hard to imagine my crew as Captain Hook's underlings. The adults playing the role of villains in a children's story. I distinctly remember Lewis reading to us that part. Every part, really. It felt so relatable in the strangest way to our little dorm family. But also because of the play the littles worked on.

A night I'll never forget. Sitting with Kelly's arms around me, watching the performance together. Glen. My best friend. I remember how Stan's eyes never left his brother, dressed in Shirley's blue nightgown. Herman's shiny angel wings. His sweet face as he held up his jingle, shaking it steadily, playing a perfect Tinkerbell. Little Bobby the pocket watch around his neck, crawling on all floors, the creepiest crocodile anyone could imagine.

My Donny. A strong and brave Peter. I wonder, what's Donny doing right now? He's... thirteen? Fourteen? How tall is he? Is he happy?

"Alright there, Clarke?"

"Yeah, just daydreaming." I go back to wiping my gravy with a slice of bread. It is filling. "This is pretty good." It tastes like wallpaper paste, but I'm trying to get them talking.

Grunts of agreement from some of the others nearby.

"I like the cornbread and gravy. Or once, do you remember Logan, when Cookie was experimenting and we got turkey and cranberry and stuffing and pumpkin pie on a sandwich? The strangest thing, you'd never think it would be good, and it was ..." The man to the left of me closed his eyes, remembering it, humming in appreciation.