Aspirations III

For the record, this is one of my earliest stories, written in my off-duty hours as a 20-year-old U.S. Navy sailor stationed in Hawaii. Specifically, I was a Navy journalist, working in the Public Information Office at the headquarters of ComSubPac (Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet), on the subase in Pearl Harbor, which gave me access to the office at night and on weekends when I wasn't standing watches on the "quarterdeck" of the headquarters building every fourth night (four hours on, eight off, like at sea), which was part of the routine at SubPac. I was on a four-year enlistment in the Navy (four seemed to be the ruling number), and SubPac was my first duty station, where, in my spare time, I was setting out to become another Jack London or Ernest Hemingway. As Hemingway had done, I was starting out by writing as simply and directly as I could -- writing like Hemingway, in short.

Incredibly, this little story was eventually published, in an obscure, extremely "little" magazine called The Archer.

THE NEW GIRL

Gladys was next. She got up in front of the room and we all leaned back expectantly, waiting for the new girl to speak. She was the third person to give their speech, and so far the class had gone well. Miss Anderson was sitting on the edge of her desk, smiling at Gladys. Gladys looked scared.

"Ahhh . . . " Gladys said.

Miss Anderson smiled encouragement. The class waited.

"This is my first speech. I can’t remember anything."

"Did you prepare your speech?" Miss Anderson asked.

"Yes, but—"

"Well, then. Don’t be frightened. Remember to look at your audience and stand still and you’ll do fine."

She looked into our faces, eyes wide and frightened, sweeping the room, staring right at you so you had to turn away.

She was a big-boned girl, with big features. Her nose was large and her chin firm and square, with hair long and straight and clipped in bangs across her forehead. The whole face was coarse, like a man’s. And her body was a man’s body; the muscles stood out from her arms and her legs were thick and stout. "There’s a girl for you, Tommy," Jack had said to me, her first day at school.

"When I was a little girl my mother used to tell me . . . Ahhh . . . She used to say to me . . . Ahhh . . . and my father would always get mad and— "

"Stand still, Gladys," Miss Anderson said.

"Ahhh . . . "

Her face began working. She looked wildly about. She looked over at Miss Anderson and Miss Anderson smiled. She kept looking at us, looking through us, and everyone held their head down and glanced sideways at each other and grinned.

Miss Anderson was frowning now.

Gladys looked ready to cry.

The room was still. No one whispered or laughed, but they kept their heads down and looked sideways at each other and grinned. No one looked at Gladys.

"Ahhh . . . " said Gladys.

The room was heavy. A breeze drifted in through the two open windows in back of the room, smelling of spring and of the outside, lifting a paper from someone’s desk and clapping it down on the floor. Miss Anderson said nothing. The class continued to look down at their desks, but for a long time now there had been no grinning. I found myself reading the names etched in the wood before me: Phil. Jerry. Jo Anne. Cal & Janey. Once or twice I looked up, but then quickly returned to the names on the desk. I kept my head down, knowing the others were doing the same, wanting to look into her face, into the faces of those around me, wanting yet wanting not to, playing with my fingers and waiting. Finally a student dropped his pencil.

"Maybe you’d better sit down, Gladys," Miss Anderson told her.

Suddenly Gladys burst out crying.

"I knew it! I knew it this morning!" she sobbed.

The new girl returned to her seat and laid her head in her arms and continued to sob. Everyone looked at her and then at each other and then at Miss Anderson.

Miss Anderson called somebody else, and the class looked at him hopefully. Presently Gladys stopped crying but remained with her head cradled in her arms. Every little while someone would look over at her, unsmiling, then quickly turn back to the speaker.

The bell rang and we all rose and began filing out of the room. Miss Anderson went over to Gladys and laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder, talking softly.

The hall was airy and full of high school students, rushing past to their lockers. And there was nothing to do but join them.

1955