Behind the Times, Part 4

Behind the Times, Part 4 of 6

This story is dedicated to Laura (LadySmoker) for her kind words of
encouragement.


4.  Gimme Shelter

Once again, a world in slow motion.  His arm is still raising the flaming
Zippo, the disembodied cigarette moving gradually toward the flame.  Behind
him the running footsteps fade, cease.  In its place comes music, women
singing in close harmony.

"Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me…"

The air warms again.  Behind the cigarette the darkness melts and a woman
appears.  Blond. Young. Wearing a uniform.  Starched white.  A nurse.  With a
big red cross on her stiff cap.

Behind her are lights.  He is indoors again.  In a large room.  With tables
and chairs.  Black velvet curtains covers the windows.  There is a dance
floor, with couples dancing.  Most of the men are wearing uniforms.  Most of
the women are not.  A banner stretches along one wall:

U.S.O.

The cigarette meets the flame.  Grant’s arm is covered in khaki green.  He
glances down to see he is also in uniform.  Judging by the ribbons and
decorations, he is dressed as an officer of some sort, but he can’t decipher
the insignia.  He closes the lighter.

Click.

"Thanks, captain," the nurse said as she backed away from her light.  Well,
that settled that. It beats being a grunt.  He watched as she drew in
mentholated smoke hungrily, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a heroic  plume.
 About two thirds of the people in the club were also engaged in his favorite
bad habit.  Some even smoked while they danced.

The nurse completed her second drag and stepped closer to him, exhaling smoke
thickly.  Again, Grant delighted in the close proximity of a lovely smoker.

"Ah," sighed the nurse.  "You don’t know had good that feels."  The remnants
of her greedy inhale continued to escape her mouth and nose.  "With all the
cigarettes we’ve distributed in Europe, you’d think they could spare us poor
nurses a carton or two.  But, you boys come first."  There was no bitterness
or sarcasm in her voice, which he would have expected in his own time.  This
was a different era.

"Well, I’ll always be willing to share the kind gifts of the Red Cross with
the givers," Grant said, smiling.  He watched as she took another grateful
drag and sat at a nearby table.  She blew a generous quantity of smoke across
the table, scattering the last occupant’s ashes.  He sat down beside her and
pulled his pack.

Lucky Greens, he saw.  Hoorah!  Menthol has been invented!  He shook one
loose and lit up.  He placed the pack between them on the table for easy
access.

She turned to face him.  "So," she said, "How long have you been in London?"

"Not long, Miss…"

"Banning.  Nancy Banning."  Smoke punctuated her words, and she exhaled the
rest of her puff at his array of battle ribbons.  The smoke broke like the
tide against his chest, rising toward his face. He breathed deeply, taking it
all in.

"Banning," Grant said.  "Do you by any chance have a relative named Doris?"

"Why yes, " she said, looking up with surprise.  "That’s my mother.  She’s at
home in Chicago.  Do you know her?"

"We met one time…long ago."  Chicago, eh?  He should have figured…

Grant noticed a copy of the London Times on the table.  He glanced at it to
get the date.

February 11, 1945.

He looked for a headline, but the front page of the paper was filled with
what looked like classified
ads.  Odd…

"I hope you won’t have to stay long.  In London, I mean.  I’ve been here six
months, and its probably safer at the front."  Taking a last deep drag, she
stubbed out the cigarette and blew a wave of smoke across the table.

History was not his specialty, but Grant remembered that bad things had
happened in London toward the end of the war.  Very bad things.  "If it’s so
dangerous, perhaps you should…apply for a transfer?"  He had no idea how the
Red Cross handled such things.

"You sound like my mother," she said, reaching for his pack.  She helped
herself and he lit it for her, then took one for himself.  It was good to
taste menthol again!  Nancy spoke between bursts of exhaled smoke.  "She, my
parents, they’re rich, filthy rich.  My mother said someone she met at a
party told her to sell her stocks and buy land, back before the crash.  She
couldn’t imagine why I would leave the high life in Chicago for this ‘dirty
war.’  But I guess I needed to believe in something more than…just money."

And that was some party, Grant thought.  I’m her mom listened.  Grant fetched
two beers (50 cents each!  What a rip!), and they sat in silence for a while.
 Grant felt unreasonable happy just sitting, sipping the warm beer, and
smoking with her.  Between them they contributed more than their share to the
smoky, dim atmosphere.  Drawing heavily on the unfiltered Lucky, it seemed to
take Nancy four or five breaths to exhale all the smoke in her lungs, and
Grant loved the sight of every, cotton-white wisp which escaped her mouth and
nose.

Somewhere, someone dropped a new platter on the Victrola or whatever it was,
and a swinging number by Miller or Dorsey or another of those old guys began.
 Nancy jumped up and grabbed his hand.  "Let’s dance!"

She seemed so excited at the prospect that Grant didn’t have the heart to say
anything, but instead let her lead him to the dance floor.  Jesus, I don’t
know how to dance to this stuff! was his panicky thought, but Nancy knew and
he did his best to follow her…jitterbugging lead.  Soon, he found himself
catching on and began to enjoy himself.  Look at me, he thought.  Grant, the
hep cat.  All I need now is a zoot suit.

That’s when the lights went out and a painfully loud whine begun, rising in
pitch and volume to a steady scream.

Ah, Grant thought disjointedly.  They’re testing the tornado sirens….

"Air raid!"  an authoritative male voice shouted.  "Down to the shelters,
everyone! NOW!"

The next few minutes passed in a confused blur.  Grant was hustled out of the
club into chill air, across a pitch black street, and down a flight of stairs
to a bare, concrete room.  In minutes, the shelter was filled with people
from the club and elsewhere, elbow to elbow.  Grant looked around for Nancy,
but could not see her.  Perhaps she was in a different shelter.

 From above came a series of staccato booms, shaking the walls of the
concrete shelter.

"Anti-aircraft fire’s no good against the new rockets," an excited male voice
behind him said.  "They’re too bloody fast!"  As he finished speaking, a
massive whump! hit the shelter and the world tilted.  Grant felt his feet fly
from under him and he fell to floor with most of the others following suit.
 Plaster dust drifted down from the shelter’s low ceiling, and cracks were
now visible in the floor and two of the walls.

"Jesus, that was close!" said the male voice.  The sounds of the AA guns
resumed, but the shelter grew oddly still.  An air of dread anticipation
seemed to settle on the silent crowd.

Grant’s heart was pounding in his chest, an adrenaline rush telling him to do
something, do something now!  But there was nothing to do, nowhere to go.
 The crush of humanity in the small room seemed suddenly unbearable, and his
chest constricted with claustrophobia.

"Like sheep waiting for the slaughter!" Grant thought.  No way out!  It’s
either live or die, no control, nothing….

Suddenly he snatched his pack of Luckies from his uniform pocket.  "Anyone
want a smoke?" he shouted.

Fearful faces turned blankly toward his.  Smoke?  Was this Yank crazy?  The
words were plain if unspoken.

Grant continued to wave the pack around desperately.  Don’t feel guilty, he
told himself.  I don’t belong here.  It’s not my place to die here.  If these
people die, it’s because they’re already dead!
But I’m not!  I want to live!

A nearby voice spoke.  A child’s voice.  "I’ll take one, mister."  Grant
turned as best he could.  God  he thought as he spied the little girl who had
spoken.  She can’t be more than 12.  Don’t hesitate.  Already dead.  He shook
a Lucky loose, handed it to the girl.  No one else was paying them any
attention.  Find the lighter.  Where the fuck was it?  Here.  Here.  Steady
now.  She’s only 12.  Too young to die, but already dead.  The child took the
cigarette, placed it in her mouth, tilted her head back to reach the lighter.
 Open it now.  Thumb the wheel.  Missed.  Try again.  First time, every time.

Click.

Then the world ends.

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