Velva Jean Learns to Fly (24 page)

August 30, 1943

Dear girls,

Well, I’m back in Monongah, and I still can’t believe I’m here. Peggy is happy to see her mama, and it’s amazing how much she’s grown. She’s as tall as Sally, but of course that’s not too tall, is it?

I hope you all will write me the news, because even though I’m not there I want to know what you’re doing and what’s going on. How are things developing with Lieutenant Whitley, Mudge? Is he paying any attention yet? How much money have you added to the cuss pot since I’ve been gone, Paula? Have you heard from your bugler, Hartsie? Has Sally stopped talking and chewing gum in her sleep? Has she got a date yet with her redhead?

Tomorrow Peggy and I are going to the picture show to see
Song of Bernadette
starring Jennifer Jones, who’s almost as pretty as Hartsie. I can’t wait for the day when I can go see Barbara Fanning, alias Eloise Mudge, in pictures. Then we’re going to eat supper at the diner and maybe do some shopping. I’m going to have to figure out how to fill my days now that I’m not up at six and going from the mess to the classroom to the flight line. You should see me trying to walk like a normal person! I’m still marching wherever I go.

I miss you all. You’re the best group of girls I’ve ever known.

Love,

Loma

September 1, 1943

Dear Velva Jean,

I hope you’re happy. I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. I’m almost bald from the stress of being away from you. The guys all say I’m worthless on the flight line. Just about the only thing I can do these days is play the damn bugle, but instead of reveille or taps I start playing “Keep on the Sunny Side.”

Is it strange to say I miss you? Probably. I know we didn’t get much time together in the scheme of things. So forget I said it.

But I do.

Love,

Ty

September 3, 1943

Dear Ty,

We have a cross-country trip coming up, to Blythe, California. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s on the books, but I thought maybe, just maybe, I could see you. How far is that from Ontario? Will you come?

Please?

Love,

Velva Jean

September 6, 1943

Dear Velva Jean,

Hell yes, I’ll come to Blythe, wherever the Sam Hill that is. Are you kidding? I’d go to the goddamn moon, girl.

Love,

Ty

TWENTY-EIGHT

J
uárez, Mexico, was the divorce capital of the world. Mudge said this was where everyone went, even movie actors like Hoot Gibson, the rodeo champion, and his wife, Sally Eilers.

On September 7, Paula and me were scheduled for a cross-country to the Army Air Forces base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. We were flying together in the AT-17, or Bobcat, but this time we weren’t taking an instructor along. Alamogordo was about one hundred miles northeast of Juárez, which was just over the border from New Mexico and Texas. We figured we could make our trip, and on the way back we could stop in Juárez and get me a divorce. I knew it might be a serious matter, flying a military plane out of the country during wartime, but I didn’t care what they did to me. I needed to be beyond the keep, and I figured I would rather be locked in an army prison than stay married to Harley Bright.

Paula was flying when we ran into an electrical storm just after we passed over the New Mexico border. We were above the rain and above the clouds, but there was lightning on all sides of us. I stared out the window and saw what looked like flames. I sat straight up and thought: The wing is on fire. The engine’s on fire. We’re going down. I was going to have to die Mrs. Harley Bright.

Paula shouted, “Do you see it? Saint Elmo’s Fire?”

I said, “What?”

“Saint Elmo’s Fire! The flames outside. It looks like ball lightning, but it’s not. It’s an electric discharge that happens during thunderstorms, usually over the ocean. Sailors use it to travel by.”

I stared out the window and watched the flames dancing. They were spindly and delicate, like miniature lightning strikes. They looked like tree limbs covered in bright-white ice. I thought, They’re helping me find my way.

We lost our bearings and overshot Alamogordo, landing at the first airfield we saw. As far as we could tell, we were somewhere north of Albuquerque. As we came in, we could see that the airfield was really some sort of huge, sprawling compound built on a sandstone mesa in the middle of what looked like a desert of other mesas. The land went on for miles—flat scrubby desert ringed by mountains—and as we got nearer to the ground we could see that barbed wire ran around it, sometimes just two or three feet high, like it was made to keep in cows or horses, and sometimes as high as nine or ten feet. There were armed guards stationed in a tower and along the fence, and as Paula took us in I said, “They’re aiming their guns at us.”

She said, “Who is?”

“The guards.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

“Jesus, Hartsie, where are we?”

“I don’t know. Some sort of military base?”

As soon as we landed, bumping down onto the flat of the desert, the guards ran for us, guns out and pointed in our direction, and yanked us out of the plane. Two young men in beige pants and white shirts—one of them with a shock of dark hair that stood straight up, the other skinny and balding with big, round glasses—stood frowning at us. They were the only ones that weren’t in uniforms.

The dark-haired one said, “Where are you coming from?” He made it sound like we were out for a joy ride, like maybe we’d stolen this plane and were just flying it around for fun.

The rain was pouring and thunder boomed in the distance. There was a lightning strike over one of the mesas, and then another. Even though it was hot as an oven, I started shivering. Paula said, “Texas.” But it was hard to hear her over the thunder.

The guards surrounded us then, and we took off our helmets. One of them said, “It’s just a couple of girls.” I didn’t like the way he said it, like this meant we couldn’t be dangerous or important.

Paula said, “We’re WASP trainees from Avenger Field in Texas. We were headed to Alamogordo.”

The balding man with glasses said to the dark-haired man, “Jackie Cochran’s girls.” He had a strange accent.

The dark-haired man said, “A little off-base, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me see some ID.”

We pulled out our ID badges and handed them to him. I was good and mad by now because I was wet as a sponge, standing there in the pouring rain, thunder booming all around us, guns pointing at us from every angle.

He said, “Do you know where you’ve landed?”

Paula said, “No, sir.”

“You’re in Los Alamos.” Los Alamos was at least 250 miles north of Alamogordo. I was trying to think of an airfield in Los Alamos. Just like he read my mind, the man said, “You’ve just landed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.”

The balding man said, “Feynman.” It sounded like a warning.

That was all they said, but by not saying anything, by the guards and the guns and the barbed wire, I knew there was more to it than that.

Even with the storm crashing around us, we were told we couldn’t overnight at the lab. The officer in charge, Colonel Martin Hascall, offered to send someone back to Avenger with us, or at least down to Alamogordo. We sat in a private office in one of the low, ugly buildings that was built into the desert. It was Paula, Colonel Hascall, and me. One of the other guards had come in and brought us food.

I said, “We’re not heading back to Sweetwater yet. We’re on our way to Juárez, Mexico.”

He said, “Mexico? No. Never land in Mexico, because they’ll put you in jail and not let you out.”

I said, “I have to go to Mexico.”

Paula said, “She’s getting a divorce.”

I said, “Paula.”

She said, “Maybe he can help us.”

We both looked at Colonel Hascall. He said, “You can’t get this divorce any other place?”

I said, “It takes too long.”

Paula said, “Juárez is the divorce capital of the world.”

He said, “Among other things. It’s also the prostitution capital, the drug capital, the murder capital.”

I said, “We just need to go for one day, just long enough to get me divorced. You don’t understand, sir. I need to be beyond the keep.”

When the storm died down, Colonel Hascall sent us to Alamogordo with two of his men, Gene Gilbert and Roger Keil. We called Avenger Field to check in, to let them know where we were and that we’d be home the next day. Then, after spending the night at the Alamogordo base, we set off for Juárez with the sergeants.

We landed at noon, just over the Texas border, near El Paso, at Fort Bliss, and from there the four of us drove to Juárez. Sergeant Gene Gilbert was in his late twenties, tall and blond and pale as a ghost, with bright blue eyes and red-framed glasses. Sergeant Roger Keil was a head shorter, dark as a gypsy, and built like a freight train. He was my age.

We were stopped at the border where we showed our IDs and the guards let us through after Sergeant Gilbert told them we were only there for a day and that we’d be leaving by nightfall. The guard said, “Welcome to Mexico. Watch out for those two girls. Don’t let them out of your sight. And be back before dark.”

I felt a thrill go through me. I’d never in my life been outside the United States, and here I was in Mexico. I suddenly felt as far away as the moon from my family up on Fair Mountain and Gossie in Nashville.

Gene Gilbert was driving and Roger Kiel sat next to him. Up in the front seat, Sergeant Gilbert was talking about what we should do and how we should act when we got out of the car. He said, “I want you girls to hold our hands and stick close to us.”

I felt another thrill as I imagined a place so dangerous that girls couldn’t be out alone. I couldn’t help it—the thrill was the same kind I felt when I thought about prisons or crazy people or walking through the woods at night, watching out for haints.

Sergeant Gilbert said, “The divorce should take a couple of hours at most. We’ve got a buddy that came down here last month, and it only took him an hour.”

I looked at my door and tugged on the lock just to make sure it was in place. I looked across at Paula’s, and it seemed to be pushed in. I wanted to see Juárez, to see the whore ladies and bad men and murderers walking the street, but I also didn’t want them in the car with me.

We drove through downtown, and Paula and I stared out the windows at the old crumbling buildings and donkeys and painted ladies. I counted at least twelve murderers as we headed for City Hall. I grabbed Paula’s hand and squeezed it. She said, “Shit, Velva Jean.” Then to the boys: “I’m glad you fellas are with us.” I thought she had her eye on Sergeant Keil even though he didn’t say two words.

“Much obliged,” said Sergeant Gilbert.

To keep my mind off the sagging store awnings and the trash in the street, the chickens running wild, and the balconies crowded with men drinking tequila, I thought about all the things I would write to Johnny Clay in my next letter. He would be sick with envy when he knew I’d come here.

Then I looked around me—really looked—and the closer we got to City Hall, the sadder I felt because Juárez was a sad, dirty place, and this was where my marriage was ending. I thought about how it began—about the pretty little church up on Fair Mountain that Daddy Hoyt founded, and Reverend Nix asking me if I took Harley Bright as my husband while my family watched. I thought about my white dress, the one that had belonged to Aunt Bird, and the Balsam Mountain Springs Hotel, where we danced under the stars and ate lime-pepper steak.

I started to think about Harley and got a creeping feeling in my heart. Right now he was probably sitting up in Devil’s Kitchen at his house or at the Little White Church. He might be at Deal’s buying more sugar for his daddy’s moonshine or preaching a revival down by Three Gum River. He might be sitting in his mudroom writing a new sermon or rocking on the porch with Pernilla Swan. And here I was in a car with two strangers and a girl he didn’t even know, in another country—a dirty, dangerous place that smelled like whiskey and farm animals—about to end our marriage.

We pulled up in front of City Hall, which looked like a grand old Spanish castle. Sergeant Gilbert opened my door and Sergeant Keil opened Paula’s, and we took their hands and walked up the steps. My heart was thudding in my chest, and I suddenly felt like I might faint right there. Sergeant Gilbert stopped and said, “You okay, Velva Jean?”

“I’m okay, sir.”

He laughed, looking down at his hand holding mine. He said, “Gene.”

He helped me on up the steps and to the front door and inside, Paula and Roger Keil leading the way. Roger asked one of the armed guards who was stationed just inside where we should go. The guard pointed down the hall, and I let myself be dragged along, not feeling my feet or my legs anymore. The only thing I could feel was Gene’s hand around mine, pulling me forward.

We walked down the hall and turned a corner and then another corner and suddenly we were in a big room, and there was marble everywhere and cracks in the floor and in the walls. I looked up at the ceiling and there were cracks there too, and I wondered what had caused them. There was a line of people and we stood in this and waited.

Paula said, “If the girls could see this.”

Avenger Field felt as far away as Fair Mountain. I wondered what Mudge and Sally were doing right now, and I thought of Loma and wondered how it felt to her, being a wife and mother again. Soon I wouldn’t be a wife anymore. I would be an ex-wife, and I thought this was a horrible word, like
boogeyman
or
rickets
. Now, and forever after, I would be Harley Bright’s ex-wife. I would be divorced. Just like I was half an orphan. All bad words that meant I was scarred and used up, just like an old pair of shoes or a coat no one wanted anymore.

I could hear one of Harley’s sermons in my head: “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives.”

When it was my turn in line, I stood at the counter and before I could even say why I was there the man handed me a stack of paperwork. He said, “Fill this out and pay five dollars.” His accent was thick. He had coal-black hair and a bushy mustache. He said, “Bring back here when done.”

I’d brought fifty dollars with me because I wasn’t sure how much it cost to get a divorce and I didn’t want to go all the way to Mexico and not have enough money. I counted out five dollars, and thought I would have paid all fifty if that was what it took. Then we sat down on a bench where there were other men and women filling out forms. Roger handed me a pen, and I started to read.

The form asked for everything from my name to Harley’s to when we were born to where we were from to when we got married and where. There were four pages, and I filled them out as best I could. When it asked what Harley did for a living, I wrote “preacher.” It didn’t ask what I did, but I wrote in “wife’s job: pilot.” The last question said, “What is the reason for your divorce?” And instead of giving you space to write, it gave you five things to choose from: “abuse, infidelity, mental instability, criminal behavior, abandonment.”

I thought about all the reasons I was here in Juárez filling out these forms when I’d thought, six years ago, that I would be married forever. There wasn’t room for all the reasons, and none of the five choices fit. I finally checked “abandonment” because that was how I’d felt for a long time, even if Harley hadn’t ever gone off and left me like my daddy did.

The words played in my head over and over, like a record:
What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

Let no man separate.

Let no man separate.

I signed the papers and then I stood in line again, and when it was my turn I gave the forms to the same man, who said, “Come back in three hours.”

And that was that. I looked at Paula and Gene and Roger and suddenly felt ashamed that these three people who I barely knew had to see me like this, here in the Juárez, Mexico, City Hall, asking for a divorce from my husband.

I said, “Thank you all for being here.”

Paula threw her arm around me. She said, “What say we go get a drink?”

We spent the afternoon at a place called La Fiesta Supper Club. It was still early, but we walked inside and they sat us at a little table near the dance floor. The Supper Club was swanky and bright—a million different colors, palm trees in the corners, lanterns in blue and pink and orange hanging from the ceiling. The waiters wore red and there was a large dance floor with a stage.