A Helping Hand

It was a morning near the end of summer in 1944, and Dayton Street was crowded with children of all ages playing. With the war on, gasoline was rationed and new automobiles weren’t being built, so there were only a few parked along the curb and only an occasional one slowly making its way down the street.

Girls, nine and ten, were jumping rope and playing hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of Steger’s Grocery Store. The walk was wide there, and allowed the girls enough room even to play double-dutch. Teenage boys were playing relieve-you, using the street’s full length, and full of unbounded energy, cut across people’s lawns and leaped over their hedges. Younger boys in front of a frame house in the middle of the block were shooting marbles. Others at the corner were playing in the dirt with small celluloid cars. They had made roads by pushing the dirt and smoothing it with used Popsicle sticks.

The weather was exceptionally warm, and so damp that it caused the children’s clothes to cling to their bodies and limbs. It was a palpable moist air, tinted by minute particles of soot contained in the smoke that curled upward in dark columns from the chimneys of the defense plants. Playing children seemed suspended in the grayness; walking adults seemed to carry it on their backs like an inescapable penance. All the girls wore shorts. All the boys were without shirts.

Sandra had just put on her roller skates and was waiting for her girl friend to join her when she noticed the new boy who had moved into the first floor apartment across the street. He was sitting alone on his front steps. As she studied him, she sensed an appealing aura of need around him. Unlike the other boys, he was wearing his shirt, and although Sandra could still tell he was noticeably skinny, she also saw he had likeable features, short brown hair, and the whitest skin she had ever seen on a boy.

Sandra removed her skates and crossed the street so she could walk by him and get a closer look. The boy glanced up as she passed, and Sandra also saw he had a sad face with a small mouth, narrow nose, and blue eyes like two magic pools. From that moment, Sandra knew she wanted to be friends with him, and she turned around, walked again toward where he was sitting, and said, “Hi, what’s your name? Mine’s Sandra.”

Without lifting his head, he quietly said “David.”

Sandra waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t. Not sure what to say herself, she re-crossed the street and put on her skates. She tightened them with the key she carried around her neck on an old shoelace her father had taken from one of his high work shoes. Then her friend came and they skated on the street until lunch time.

That afternoon, Sandra again saw David sitting alone on his front steps. More than ever, and for unknown reasons, she wanted to be his friend. So she crossed the street, sat down next to him, and said, “Hi,” in a soft voice. “Remember me? I saw you this morning and asked you what your name was?”

David didn’t answer.

“Nice day isn’t it?” she said, hoping a change of subject might get him to talk.

But it didn’t. Again David didn’t answer.

“Don’t you like me?” Sandra asked, puzzled.

He still didn’t respond.

“David, please talk to me. I want to be friends,” Sandra said

David continued to look down in silence.

“Did you see me and my friend skating this morning? We like to skate.”

David said nothing.

“We skate almost every day.” Sandra continued. “Sometimes we skate even after supper until the street lights go on. Do you want to skate with us? I’d like you too.” She paused. “Yesterday we skated all day. Come on, skate with us.”

“No,” David said firmly.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to,” he answered

“Why?”

“… ‘Cause.”

“That’s no reason. Why don’t you want to skate with us?” Sandra persisted.

“I don’t know how to skate,” David said hesitantly and began to cry.

“Oh, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I’ll teach you,” Sandra said quickly, surprised by the sudden flow of tears.

David’s crying became worse. Then he looked at Sandra, his eyes wide, “I heard the guns again last night when I went to bed. They were louder than last time.”

“Guns?” Sandra said, without any idea of what he was talking about. “What guns? I didn’t hear any guns. What kind of guns did you hear?”

“Big ones…big ones like they’re using in the war…the kind that kill people. I thought they could only be far away…across the ocean. My mother said the guns I heard were at Fort Sheridan. She said the soldiers practice at night by shooting out over Lake Michigan.”

Between sobs, David continued. “When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed about my dad. I saw him lying in the sand on a beach. His hand was gone; his leg was missing; I couldn’t see his face but I knew it was him, and I knew he was dead. Smoke and fire were everywhere…and there were explosions…and…and terrible noises…like the guns I heard last night, only louder.” He paused. “I want my dad back. I want him to come home,” David said.

“Where is your father?” Sandra asked, trying to comfort him. “Did he go away?”

“He’s dead. My father’s dead,” he exclaimed in a broken voice.

“He can’t be! He can’t be dead,” Sandra said. That’s not possible! You must be wrong.”

“He’s dead,” David said. “I know he’s dead. My mother told me he’s dead, and she was crying. A letter came yesterday, telling us he’s dead. He was killed on a beach far away.”

“Oh, David, I’m so sorry,” Sandra said, touching him gently on the shoulder. “What a terrible thing to happen. I’m really sorry, David.”

They sat together silently for awhile, and David’s sobbing gradually became quieter. “I want my father back,” he said. “I want him back so much.”

“He’s with the angels now, David,” Sandra said, quietly.

They continued to sit in silence, then David slowly lifted his head and looked at Sandra. She saw his face as if for the first time. The rims of his eyes were red, and tears still marked his cheeks, but around his mouth a weak smile had formed. Sandra saw all this and felt an unfamiliar emotion as well. A slight tightening of the muscles in her stomach followed, also completely new but strangely friendly and desirable.

Sandra slowly reached for David’s hand and softly squeezed it.