Mother remembers his Prospero at the Civic Theatre. He lived here years ago. The only time I saw Robert Lansing act was on the TV show where he played the wing commander and flew B-17s. All I remember now are the shots in the cramped cockpit with the flights of bombers in the background. Most of the action took place on that tiny set, two seats and the man in the turret, aft, always moving as the actors talked or rocked from the flak or were riddled by “bandits” or feathered the number three engine.
Robert Lansing visited our high school and talked about acting. He said there was a method that allowed him to use his past experiences in new situations. He said he was afraid to fly. He told us this standing in the middle of the gym floor, targeted in the cross hairs of the time-line.
In the stores downtown, there are bowls of lemon drops and cherry drops next to the cash registers. The merchants have broken into some of the supplies of the bomb shelters in the basements of their stores. They found that the water had soured years ago in the tins. The candy is sweet even though it is over twenty years old. They say the candy and water have been replaced in the bomb shelters. “No sense letting anything go to waste,” they say. Every time you buy something, the person running the register will say, “Have some candy.” And then they will mention where the candy comes from.
The small drums the candy came in are being used as wastebaskets. They are painted drab. Sometimes, the stenciled CANDY has been crossed out. The Civil Defense emblem can still be seen — the pyramid in the circle, pointing up to the sky.
Grandfather saw Bob Hope in the coffee shop of the Hotel Anthony. He showed him the clipping he had been carrying around for years, the one about Mother dancing in Bob Hope’s show. Grandfather said that he wished Bob Hope could be home for Christmas but was grateful that someone did what Bob Hope did.
In the fall, the wind turns the trees to silent puffs of smoke.
Grandfather wants to know why I want to be a poet. He shows me a clipping of Eldon Lapp, who goes to our church. There is a picture of Eldon in his flight jacket and soft hat. During the war, Eldon was shot down over Germany. Before his capture, he lived for months in the Black Forest. He survived that long with the aid of another flyer who had been trained as a Boy Scout and had been in Germany during a world jamboree. This flyer knew all the tricks — how to fish with a line and makeshift hook, how to conceal a trail, how to secure a camp, how to read signs. Eldon swore then that if he got out of this alive he would dedicate his life to scouting.
“That’s vocation,” Grandfather says to me.
The Kiwanis Club sponsors airplane rides all summer. Taking off from Baer Field, the tour flies over most of the city. I saw the Wayne Knitting Mill’s tall smokestack, Wayne built right into the bricks. I flew by the elevators, followed Main Street downtown and circled the courthouse. Then over the Old Fort, looking defenseless, and the filtration plant with the ponds. I followed the Maumee from the three rivers downstream, sweeping by the old Studebaker plant, Zollner Piston, all the wire-and-die works, Magnavox. Then banking up the bypass, north, over the shopping centers and malls and their parking lots, over Eckrich and the campus, to my house.
I could see my house. I knew it even from the air. There were people in the front yard I did not know, looking up, shielding their eyes, waving.
Grandfather, all you can see are the contrails. The plodding lines of the bombers and the lyric corkscrews of their escort. It is how this city chooses to die. Daylight raids, everyone is watching. This is the American Way. To see it coming. The bombs are inverted exclamations at the beginning of their sentence.
I can hear the planes looking for the city each night. I keep my eyes closed as they fly over the house. Their engines pulse like the sirens. It is a patient sound. And I wait too.
I wait for them to drop the flares, or for a few of them to come in lower. We did not ask for this. They fly by overhead. You can hear them, but you cannot see them. They are showing no lights. Low clouds. No stars.
They go on, on some heading to the west. But they will be back later. Then, further east, there will come the panting sound, almost comic, as they drop the bombs randomly, hoping to hit something, and then, empty, go back to where they came from.
Tarsk and Hartup have been taking aerial photographs for years. All the merchants and the schools, each new mayor, every public place has one of their pictures. Sometimes the picture is of one building and at other times of whole blocks. There are calendars, too, that everyone gets from Lincoln Life. In Mike’s Car Wash people will try to find their house in the picture that hangs in the lobby while their car is being dried. Every day Tarsk and Hartup fly over the city taking pictures — but no matter what picture you look at, someone will always point out what is missing, or what has since disappeared.