Nighthawks

Manhattan
12 December 1941

Here’s a story.

I park down the road a piece and take a walk through deserted streets. Down the main road
buildings are closed. It's like they know what’s about to happen.

It's been five days since Pearl Harbor got hit and a day since the Krauts declared war.
Everything is tense.

Some room lights are still on overhead. A woman in silhouette pulls down a blind.

As I approach the diner I can see the green and yellow glow of neon signs.

Rumor has it that city wide blackouts are coming. But for now the bars and diners stay open. It
allows people to cope.

Phillies is the only place open for a couple of blocks. It’s always been my favorite, being one of
the only places around to serve booze with your eggs.

There’s a state of fear among the people. Nobody knows what comes next but they know it's not
good.

I open the door and Sid is there drying glasses behind the counter. He looks the same. Five foot
eight, bald, with a little white cap on.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Stop the presses,” Sid says.

“The intrepid reporter has returned home, pen in hand. How long has it been Sam? You’ve been
out of circulation too long.”

I laugh. “Don’t you think I’ve heard these all before Sid?

“Surely not the circulation bit, that’s my own.”

“I’ll have a beer.”

“Sure,” Sid says “What brings you back to town?”

“Well, I’ve come home for Christmas.”

“Of course. I’d forgotten. You know your dad was in the other day talking about you.”

“Yeah? Only nice things I hope.”

“Sure, he said he was looking forward to seeing ya. He stayed and had a nice big plate of eggs
and bacon too.”

Sid knows everyone, he’s run the place for about as long as I can remember. In fact, even
longer than that. His Dad was Sid also. His son is too, but they don't talk. Old Sid might be
running the show for longer than he planned.

There’s an older guy sitting at the counter perpendicular to me. He looks broken at the neck,
which hangs low over a glass of whiskey with a big lump of ice in it, like he’s gazing into a
crystal ball.

I can tell he’s not here to meet anyone, he’s too far gone. He’s got a full head of curly black hair
on top. Heavy set sort of guy who looks defeated.

He wears a work shirt with a tattered blazer. All the factory workers do when they head out at
night. The bombing has brought everyone together. All American. And the diners are some of
the primary locations for this unification.

“How goes it?” I say to the guy.

“It goes.”

“And what brings you here tonight?”

“Oh don’t mind me, just drowning my sorrows.”

“May I ask what about?”

“My boy”

“What about him?”

“He’s enlisted. This morning. They’ll ship him out in a few weeks. Told me and his mother he’d
do it last night. She’s a wreck. Keeps asking why he did it . . . He’s in law school for Christ’s
sake.

“I see. Well he’s one of many.”

The newspapers show hundreds of young men backed up around city blocks waiting to sign on
the dotted line, all over the country. It looks like someone holding up the line at the kissing
booth.

“I went the first time,” he says. “One and done, it was supposed to be. But it was a pack of lies.
Fight for freedom. Freedom for who? For them to do it all over again, with our sons. I’d go with
him if I could, instead of him. But I’m too old and fat now.”

He gets choked up.

“He says.. He says he wants to be like his old man.”

I don’t say anything, but reach over and give him a pat on the shoulder. If his kid doesn’t enlist
now the draft will soon get him anyway. And me.

But I tell him the kid’s probably going to be fine, that the Japs have bit off more than they can
chew and that the Brits are giving the Germans what-for.

“You think so?”

“I do.” I don’t, but I’m not in the business of crushing men’s hopes.

In fact, I’m paid to lift them up.

In June we issued a story about a gung-ho British mission into Nazi-occupied France. The Brits
parachuted into an airfield with tommy guns and hand grenades, overpowered the guards and
destroyed some 30 planes. The whole team made it back to Britain alive on torpedo boats, with
40 German prisoners in tow. Exciting stuff.

Only problem, it was completely made-up. A fake. It wasn’t just us circulating it either.
In reality, all intel coming back from the frontline says it’s getting ugly out there.

I feel a kinship with this old guy at the counter. A vague dread for him and his son who I’ve
never met and likely never will. But that’s all. I drink enough these days to not feel much of
anything.

My new friend stretches and says “I gotta use the john.” He makes his way over to the restroom
and disappears inside.

I stand and think about the old men who sit around tables and plan wars over cups of warm
coffee.

Sid comes back and starts chatting.

 ***

She walks into the room looking like Kay Starr with longer hair. Wavy hair and pale skin, about 5
foot 5 with a flat chest she isn’t shy about. Long legs and a European fashion sense. Her mother
is French.

We hug and I help remove her coat and drape it across the back of a nearby stool.

Together we lean against the counter and she says “Hey Sid, how are you?” and he says “Better
than I deserve Alison, better than I deserve.”

I ask her about work.

She’s with the government now. A nurse stationed in an army examination hall.

“I check them all over and give the green light to sign their lives away. We turn almost nobody
away even when perhaps we should.”

“Is that so?”

“We’ve been told to overlook a lot of things.”

“You think I’d make it through?”

“Sure, you haven’t let yourself go too much.”

“I’m no Lew Ayres.”

She laughs. “He’s just an actor.”

“And I’m just a reporter. Anyway it's every young man’s dream to meet an attractive nurse. At
least you send these boys off with a smile”

“Well I feel more like the Grim Reaper.”

Then she asks me about my work.

Do I have the inside scoop?

“You must know something, with all your connections?”

“Not a lot, I’m too low on the totem pole for that kind of thing.”
“Come on Sam,” she says. “Nothing at all?”

“Alright then.”

So I tell her what I told the other guy. That there’s been spooks working in the papers, pumping
out stories to gin up a war.

She isn’t impressed. “Who says?” she says.

“Me...and others.”

“It seems fanciful,” she says.

“You’d be surprised.”

“I would.”

It’s true, but not worth debating. A bunch of screaming Japs flying planes into US ships was
what dragged us into the war, it’s true, but the bed was already made. Ready for America’s
brave and stupid young men. It was because they were fools that they were so brave. They
couldn’t imagine the consequences.

The Brits had worked overtime for years getting the country’s leading newspapers to swing
public opinion in support of joining the fight.

Canadian and British reporters showed up in greater numbers as Churchill started to get out of
his depth. Some of us had suspicions.

But still, with 2,000 of our best and brightest now wrapped in blankets, that demands a
response.

“Anyway, I’m too cynical to get anywhere in news. Or too lazy,” I say.

“Do you still write your own stuff?” she goes “You were very good.” She means fiction.

“When I get time.”

The irony was I had thought newspaper work would help me write better. I’d moved from the
photography department. Put down the camera and picked up a notepad. But now I never had a
chance to do either.

“When you write that Great American Novel, I want a specially signed copy.”
She has a small smile. She’s always supported my writing.

“Of course, you’ll get the first.”

Just then the tail end of a Hank Williams song fades out. Some Glenn Miller piece is up next. I
can’t think of the name of it. It’s upbeat.

Our eyes meet. It’s one of Allison’s favorites. She laughs.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s dance.”

“No no, we really shouldn’t.”

“Come on, why not?” I stand up and put my hand out to her.

We do a clumsy foxtrot for a minute or so.

“People are watching,” she says.

“It’s only Sid,” I say. “There’s nothing he hasn’t seen.”

I feel her breath on my neck. We continue to dance like that for a while. I remember the name of
the song. Tuxedo Junction.

“This is silly,” she says.

“No it's not, it’s good.”

She pulls away and looks up at me. “Could we sit down? I’m feeling dizzy”

“Alright then.” So we sit at two stools around a small circular table and don’t say anything for a
while.

I ask about her family, and she asks about mine.

Her folks are well, but frightened about the war. Mine are the same.

“And are you?” she asks.

“Am I what?”
“Afraid.”

“Sure, who wouldn’t be?”

“I hope everything is going to be ok.”

“Me too.”

……..

“What is it that you want, Sam?”

“I want to be part of your life again.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know.”

Silence.

“I didn’t mean for it to end like that.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine.”

My chest is tight. The room gets smaller.

I have that feeling you get in the presence of a woman who was once romantically available to
you, but is no longer.

“Look I’d better not stay too long, Tom will start to worry.”

“We don’t want that.”

She looks around the room. I do too. My new friend still hasn’t returned from the restroom.

“We come here a lot actually. It’s our favorite place.”

“It was always your favorite.”

She seems not to hear me.

“He seems able to put up with me,” she laughs “Even at my wildest.”

“Well that is an achievement.”

I know she’s trying to make me feel small, and I don’t like it.

I don't know his name and won’t ask. Nor what he looks or acts like. That way I can pretend like
we’re still together.

We sit in silence for some time.

“You know you hurt me when you left.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know if I could love again.”

I left her because of what she wanted from me. It was too much. And I left town for the money.
That wasn’t too much. But I’d give it all back.

And had I been seeing anyone?

“No.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Well nothing serious.”

“Just for fun, then.”

“Yeah, just for fun.”

I feel foolish. I’ve run out of things to say.

After some time she gathers up her coat and it looks like she’s about to leave. My stomach is in
knots. It’s not how I planned at all.

“You’re going?”

“Yes, it’s getting late.

“I’ll walk you to the door” I say. We both stand up and I watch as she pulls on her coat.

“It’s raining outside” she says, looking out the window. “Well the car isn’t far anyway.”

I go with her to the door.

“Tell your parents I said hi,” she says.

“I will.” I won’t.

I lean in to try and give her a kiss, but she turns her head away with a sad smile.

“Goodbye,” I say.

“Goodbye, Sam,” she says, and walks right out the door. I feel a gust of cold come inside. I
watch her get into her car and recede into the night.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.

I walk back to the counter and sit down. “Same again?” says Sid. I nod. He goes out the back
somewhere and I’m alone. Bing Crosby sings “White Christmas” in the background.

I laugh.

If I’m to see the folks before they head to bed I’ll need to leave soon. They’ll have the fire going.
Mom will have put our old stockings on the mantel.

I look around at the photos on the wall. Then at the room. The big man is still gone. I wonder if
he’ll ever come back.

The music stops.