Track 61 by Eve Karlin

Author:Eve Karlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Grete’s heart wasn’t in it.

“Look around and try to find bits of rubber, any kind!” she chanted with waning enthusiasm. Women plodded toward the subway in chunky heels and utility suits of jackets with wide shoulders and nipped waists that could be mixed and matched with skirts for myriad looks on the cheap. Businessmen with newspapers tucked under their arms hurried down the stairs. Most were fatherly types who wore their hats forward to hide receding hairlines. The younger men had more severe impairments: a pronounced limp, thick glasses, or a distracted tic. They fit the classification 4-F, Grete noted sadly. She was sympathetic to the shame of being marked unacceptable.

A gust of air blew trash up the stairs as a train screeched into the station.

Earlier that morning, when Grete and her partner Rose, another Salvage for Victory volunteer, set up their donation box on the northwest corner of Seventy-ninth Street in front of a church, the caretaker was hosing down the sidewalk and the awning provided ample shade. Hours later, the pavement had dried, sun was encroaching on their cover, and they had collected precious little. Rose had decorated the cardboard box with a drawing of a garden hose, easily mistaken for a snake, and a doughnut-like tire. She had inscribed the other sides with encouraging slogans: Throw Your Scrap in the Fight! Get in the Scrap!

Few had taken heed.

“Hurry up and bring them in, if you want to help us win!” Rose bellowed. Rose was short and curvy with a sassy voice that belied her size.

The previous Friday, Roosevelt had announced a two-week drive to collect scrap rubber lurking in discarded footwear, toys, and tires. Fala, his adored terrier, had contributed his favorite ball. Joe DiMaggio donated his baby’s rubber pants.

Happy to escape the stifling confines of the salvage depot, Grete had set out believing that any donations collected that day would contribute to dozens of airplanes. An hour later, she had revised her estimate down to a single airplane, then spare parts. Her optimism lasted another hour, after that, duty kicked in, followed by disappointment. The girls retreated to a thin band of shade. Grete peered into the box. She and Rose had managed to collect a clump of rubber bands, half a sink stopper, and a leaky hot water bottle.

“Maybe we’d have better luck outside an apartment building,” Rose suggested, pointing across the street at the Apthorp, a fortress-like home to the rich and famous that straddled an entire city block.

Grete admired her perseverance. Rose had explained, while she and Grete set up, that she was from a shtetl on the Ukraine plain at the base of the Carpathian Mountains. She was also Jewish. Grete suspected they had been paired together for that reason. They had little else in common. Rose’s father had served in the Czech army in a horse artillery regiment. Her mother had been raised in a village without running water or electricity and had never attended school, though since their arrival in America she had taught herself to read and write in English, Rose added with pride.

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