He stopped, closed his eyes, and bowed his head just a little, imagining their wedding day, while Julie danced and twirled. She was twenty feet away from Mick when she heard the low rumbling.
“Mick?”
Mick didn’t hear her as he spoke excitedly, “we can rent one a them stretch limousines! Or maybe even get a horse-drawn carriage. My daddy’s friend Buck got one…”
“Mick? What is that?”
“…prolly get it real cheap and I don’t know if I should wear a black or a white tux. What do you think? Black or white?”
“Mick!” Julie screamed as the Russian Mil Mi-24 gunship that had just passed over the Sparrows’ house beat a course directly toward them. As Mick opened his eyes, the helicopter gunner already had them in his sights.
“Run, Mick!”
Mick burst into a sprint and headed for the store, following Julie, who had already started to run. As the gunner opened fire, Julie darted under a large apple tree and took cover behind its sturdy trunk. Mick continued to sprint to the rear entrance of Calef’s where Winston had only recently filled his truck bed with crushed stone. But Mick couldn’t outrun the helicopter or its large-caliber bullets. The gunner fired, missing Mick, corrected his aim, fired again, and Mick fell dead. Julie ran back to him, but he couldn’t be saved. Before she could begin to mourn her loss, the helicopter turned back toward her. Julie, her hopes and dreams dashed, stopped and stood her ground in defiance of the enemy, expecting to suffer the same fate as Mick. Strangely, the helicopter just flew over and back the way it came, headed south to the columns of PLA soldiers that marched quickly toward Johnsonville.
Gone with the Wind
By the time May and Winston settled into the apartment, it was past ten o’clock. Last-minute adjustments delayed their slumber, like finding the safest location for the oil lamp and shifting supplies so there was a clear path to the “bathroom,” setting up Amadeus’ food and water bowls in the barn in the corner closest to the door to their apartment, and Winston remembering that he had forgotten his Ruger .22 and bullets in the upstairs closet, but when they finally did settle down, the apartment was remarkably comfortable. The tiny space was dark and warm, and after a few minutes, May asked Winston to turn off the oil lamp because even at its lowest setting it brightly lit the room. They lay there for about an hour or so, their senses adapting to the moans and creaks of Medusa’s planks.
“It’s kinda like campin’,” Winston said it a soft voice that still sounded too loud for the apartment’s confined space.
“When have you ever known me to enjoy camping?”
“I didn’t say we’d like it.”
“I’m worried about Amadeus.”
“He’ll be fine,” Winston comforted her. “He’s got food and water and he’s as resourceful as ever. I left the outside door open a little for him.”
“But what if he can’t find the food and water?”
“As long as there’s a supply of chipmunks out in them woods, he’ll be just fine. And I ain’t never gone a day without seeing at least a dozen of the furry things scurrying about.”
A mortar round exploded somewhere off in the distance. Winston thought that it sounded like a thunderclap, which, ironically, could be comforting to those who enjoyed thunderstorms. Winston was that type of person, finding comfort in the maelstroms of life. May was not. Her body softly trembled. Winston shifted his position so his back was against the cold steel of the hurricane shutters that lined the apartment, and spooned her, his head propped up with a hand, his mouth to her ear.
“Close your eyes and I’ll tell you a story,” Winston said.
“Ooh, I like your stories.”
“I remember the first day I laid eyes on you. At the ol’ Fox Theater in Atlanta where I got a job takin’ tickets at the box office. It was January somethin’ 1969.”
“It was January fifteenth. A Wednesday. And you were…”
“Now May, this is my story.”
“Sorry.”
“I was takin’ tickets. It was the thirtieth anniversary of Gone With the Wind…”
“Technically, it was the twenty-ninth anniversary ’cause the movie was actually released in 1940. It was filmed in 1939.”
“Hush, now.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Are you tellin’ the story or me?”
“Go on.”
“It was my first day on the job and the film festival was runnin’ for five days. Now I remember. It was runnin’ from Wednesday ta Sunday with matinees on Saturday and Sunday. I was goin’ ta Georgia Tech. It was the second semester of my second year.”
“And I was still a senior in high school.”
“Yeah, goin’ ta that highfalutin Woodward Academy jes’ ‘cross town. You were like an angel to me when I saw you, floatin’ down the road, dressed in them bell-bottom jeans and with that crazy head a hair a yours.”
“Really, Winston? Crazy?”
“You paid the admission and handed me yo’ ticket stub. I tore it in two and our fingers touched a little when I handed yo’ half back to you. I remember yo’ fingers were warm. And soft, unlike anythin’ I’d ever touched in my life. And you said, ‘thank you, Mr. Winston,’ and vanished inta the crowd. I wondered how you knew my name and it drove me crazy that I would never see you again. I looked for you afta the show, but I had ta help with the clean up. How did that pretty little thing know my name, I wondered all night and the next day…
“Then, on Thursday, it was a miracle. There you were again. I took yo’ ticket and you went inside. This time, you smiled at me an’ said, ‘thank you, Mr. Winston.’ I was intoxicated, but I didn’ know what ta say and I couldn’t exactly desert my post. And then you were gone again.”
May smiled as Winston continued. “I was hopin’ ta see you again on Friday, and lo and behold, there you were. This time, before I handed you back your ticket stub, I asked, ‘how do you know my name?’ You said, ‘cute accent, Mr. Winston,’ and then pointed to my nametag. I felt so dumb, but that’s what you do to me. You make me stupid. Then you turned back at me and said…”
“Yes, I’ll be back again tomorrow, Mr. Winston.”
“I’ll be back again tomorrow, Mr. Winston. The next evening came, but you never showed up. I was so broken-hearted that I contemplated not goin’ into work that day. In fact, I wasn’ even scheduled ta go ta work that day, because Saturday was ma day off. I was just gon’ cover fo’ a white kid said he needed the day off. But I wen’ in and there you were. Before we were even opened, there you were. Waitin’ fo’ me. You said, ‘my name is Maybel, but everybody calls me May,’ and you hung out yo’ hand. I shook it like we were negotiatin’ somethin’. I said, ‘Winston.’ You said, ‘I remember,’ and then you asked, ‘aren’t you gonna ask me out on a date, Mr. Winston?’ But before I could answer, you said, ‘I like the movies.’
“And so the next day we went to the movies to see Gone With the Wind. As we were sittin’ there waitin’ on the movie ta begin, I asked what was so great about it that you had to come an’ see it five days in a row. I’ll never forget what you said to me. You said, ‘I just like how the south loses.’ May, I couldn’t stop laughing ta save ma life. A year later, we were man and wife.”
“…”
“Good night, my love. Sleep well.”