Joni, Underway by Kelly Oram & Jonathan Harrow

Author:Kelly Oram & Jonathan Harrow [Oram, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, drama, contemporary
Publisher: Bluefields
Published: 2015-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

Four of us were crammed into the forward berth. Gordon lay on his bed, watching us, but without strength to speak. Murray, Reid, and I sat on the other bed. I was only with them in order to avoid Jim and Yvonne, who were likely to want to make small talk with me, and try to cheer me up. And Megan always watched me with this calculating look, as if she were trying to figure me out. I was starting to get that feeling again, like I was “the project.” Reid was the only one who acted no differently toward me, so I mostly just followed him around.

At that moment, his phone was recording.

“In 1941, I finished the seventh grade,” Murray said. “I’d been put ahead one year. June, 1941, I ran away to Uncle Baird’s, and late June I ran away again. The reason I ran away that second time is, I heard Aunt Ida talking to Uncle during the night, and she was saying, ‘Well, what are we going to do? We’ve got work for Willard, and he’s old enough to do it, but Murray is really too young, we don’t really need him.’ So I ran away again, and I took up with an old man—or rather, he took up with me, because I could run down a chicken. And we would bake the chicken with clay—you make a ball of clay out of the chicken, and put it in the coals of the fire. And when it got baked, you’d pull the clay away, and the feathers and skin come off. We’d salt it with salt that I went up and begged for from the lady whose chicken we’d stolen. And she even said, ‘Well, here, I’ll give you a piece of pie.’ I said, ‘Can you give me one for my friend?’ And she gave me one for him, too. So here we’re eating her pie, and her salt, and her chicken.”

Reid laughed. “Already bumming at twelve years old.”

“Oh, yeah. That was just the beginning.”

“So, 1941. That was the start of World War II, then.”

“Right.”

The room got quiet. Reid considered something. Murray whittled at his wood block. Finally, Reid plunged ahead with, “You were in the Korean War.”

“Ten years later.”

“I think we’ve talked about pretty much everything else in your life but that.”

“Probably.”

It was quiet again. I could tell Reid didn’t want to pry, but he wasn’t going to let it go so easily, either. After a long moment, Murray said, “You know what they call the Korean War?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“They call it the Forgotten War. Maybe it’s best that way.”

“Why’s it the Forgotten War?” Reid asked.

“Because. Tell me everything you know about it. Go ahead.”

Reid blinked. Once. Twice.

“Uh-huh. Ironic, though, calling it the Forgotten War, because us that were in it, we’d sure love to forget some things.”

“That’s where you met Gordon?”

Murray wasn’t going to answer. I saw him glance at Gordon, and Gordon made a slight gesture with his finger. I guess the gesture was encouraging, because Murray jumped in: “14th Infantry, 25th Division.

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