Fall Down Seven. C. E. Edmonson

      As the Whizz slowly read the article on Corregidor, I looked through the window at a landscape of fields that stretched to the horizon. The sky above was as blue as the skies in San Francisco were gray, the weather having cleared as we passed the steep hills east of the city. The fields were still brown this early in the spring, but the planting was underway. I watched a tractor move across a field. As it turned the earth, it threw up a great cloud of dust that hung motionless in the still air. A flock of crows trailed behind, fluttering down in twos and threes to feed on the suddenly exposed insects. This looked like a feast they enjoyed every spring.

      The news from Corregidor hadn’t surprised me, simply because it was the same as the news on the previous day and the day before that. The fortifications were being continually bombed from the air and shelled by artillery. Food was in short supply. The garrison would not be—could not be—reinforced. The troops could surrender of course, but the allied soldiers who had surrendered at Bataan, according to the other story in the Chronicle, had either been massacred or were being worked to death as slave laborers. By the Japanese, of course.

      The saddest part was that I had no reason to doubt the facts of the story. Japan had invaded China in 1931, a decade before Pearl Harbor, and advanced over time to occupy most of the country. The atrocities their armies heaped on defenseless Chinese citizens had been reported on for years.

      The soldiers on the train grew rowdier as the bottle went around for the second time. Their tones sharpened, and the word “Jap” echoed through the narrow car. They laughed a lot too—hard laughter, the laughter of bullies who knew their victims couldn’t fight back.

      Across from me, to my great relief, Mom began to straighten as though she’d made a decision—the only decision available. Her head came up, and she leaned toward us.

      “These are bad men,” she told us. “You mustn’t listen to them.”

      A good idea, but really hard to do because they were determined to disturb us. That was their goal. At one point they began to sing a popular tune, “It’s Taps for the Japs,” at the top of their lungs. A few minutes later, the conductor made his way up the aisle. He looked at the bottle, then from man to man.

      “You need to calm down. You’re disturbing the other passengers.”

      “The Japanese disturbed us pretty good at Pearl Harbor,” the loudest of the soldiers declared.

      “You know where we’re going?” another soldier asked. “We’re headed to Fort Benning in Georgia for special training. Then it’s off to Germany.”

      The conductor looked directly at us. An older man, his papery-white skin fell in soft folds along the sides of his neck. He didn’t seem any happier to be in our presence than the soldiers did, as if he’d been somehow soiled by our very existence. Nevertheless, he had a job to do.

      “Fellas,” he finally said, “I don’t want no trouble on this train. If I get another complaint, the sheriff’s gonna be waiting at the station when we reach Sacramento.”

      The soldiers did calm down a bit after that. Better still, they got off at Sacramento an hour later. I was hoping we’d seen the last of them, but they came back ten minutes later, and they had another bottle with them. Miraculously, they became more somber as they drank. Sooner or later they’d be off to fight, and they knew it.

      Two hours later we stopped at a small town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Most of the passengers had left the train in Sacramento. The rest, including the soldiers, were asleep. I was trying my best to join them, only my eyes wouldn’t stay closed. I knew the soldiers would still be there when I woke up. I knew the next day would be a repeat of this one. Helpless is one of the worst feelings in the world, but that’s exactly how I felt. I couldn’t disguise myself, nor could I become invisible. People would see and judge me without my ever speaking a word. And there was nothing I could do about it.

      Suddenly, the door at the far end of the car opened and a man entered, then closed the door behind him. He began to walk up the aisle toward us.

      I shook Mom awake. “Someone’s coming.”

      Mom turned to look then said, “It’s the porter.”

      Only then did I recognize the man who’d pushed the snacks cart along the aisle after we’d boarded the train in San Francisco. He walked straight up to us and took our luggage down from the rack.

      “Come with me,” he said.

      Charlie woke up at that moment. “What? What?”

      I felt like screaming out loud. Hadn’t we been put through enough? Now we were about to be evicted, dumped on a train platform in some town in the middle of nowhere. And with no explanation either. The porter simply marched off, our bags in hand, leaving us no choice except to follow.

      We trailed behind like whipped puppies, but not to the platform. The porter led us to the car from which he’d come—a first-class car. He opened the door to a private compartment and put our bags on the luggage rack. Several blankets lay on the seats. A plate of sandwiches rested on a small, fold-out table.

      “Y’all be more comfortable here, I believe,” he said.

      The oddest part was that his grave expression didn’t change. The man’s full lips might have been molded from clay, and his firm jaw remained steady. His dark eyes stared straight ahead.

      “Holy cow,” the Whizz said. “This is great.”

      Mom had other ideas. “I’m so sorry,” she said with a little head bob. “We don’t have first-class tickets.”

      “Don’t you worry. This time of year, the line runs pretty quiet. Ain’t but one compartment in use.” Then he smiled for the first time, a broad, mischievous grin that might have come from the Whizz. “Be right amusin’ tomorrow morning when them soldiers wake up to find you among the missin’.”

      “What about the conductor?”

      “Ol’ Simon? Bein’ as he’s already on probation for drinkin’ on the job, I don’t ’spect he’ll make no trouble. Fact, right now as we speak, Simon’s in the first-class compartment behind us, drainin’ a bottle of gin.”

      “What’s your name?” I asked as he retreated to the door and the train pulled out of the station.

      “Amos,” he said, tipping his hat. “Enjoy your trip on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Satisfaction guaranteed.”

      Charlie was at the sandwiches before the door closed. I can’t say I was far behind. Even Mom ate. Afterward, I wanted to ask her why Amos had helped us, but I thought I knew the answer. That sign in San Francisco—the one about this being a white man’s neighborhood—excluded Amos and his fellow porters too.

      What really mattered was my relief. I felt like I could breathe again. I felt as if I might float off the seat and hang in the air. Mom too. I could see it in her eyes. I wasn’t surprised when her practical side re-emerged. After we finished eating, she locked the compartment door, kissed each of us, and turned out the light.

      The Whizz and I knew what she expected, but we didn’t go to sleep right away.

      “Hey, look,” the Whizz said. “Snow!”

      We’d been climbing the Sierra Nevada