Nora and Jimmy

A Grand Love Affair

the beginning

By

RD Larson

As the train began to leave the station the young soldier looked back at the platform. A woman in a gray skirt and blue sweater stood with her arms were wrapped around her body in protection. Jimmy watched until he could see her no more.

Her husband or boyfriend must be on the train, and she's missing him already. She's afraid he'll be killed or something worse, that their love will die. Jimmy closed his eyes. Not even his mother came down to see him off. When you're the next to the youngest of five brothers, one more going off to war is just another day of grief.

" Why make it worse," his mother said. "You're like Sammy, another of my baby boys, both going off to try to make war. You men, you boys. It's all about fighting. Why? Why see you leave? Why did I have you boys? Not to die in some war!"

He had no answer and kissed her pale, wet cheek. Now in the train on his way to boot camp, he tried to think if it had always been about fighting. Over food maybe, they had fought. But never against each other. Not ever, even though they fought any outsider like ferocious wild animals. Jimmy sighed. His mother was right in a way. It was a man?s point of view, the view of a larger world, and an idea of abstract belief in the might of right. Maybe women didn't have the same view.

He got up and walked the length of the train and back again. The jostling men and boys--he could tell the difference--seemed to be strangers, but the truth was they were mostly from his hometown. Chicago was a big city. Not one face was familiar in any way. He sank down into his seat and stared out at the farm fields passing by.

Jimmy lay back in his hard seat. Troop trains were just cargo carriers, just moving men from one place to another. A mess cook came around with bags of day-old doughnuts but he didn't care. He didn't care what he ate since he was hungry all the time. Ate anything, anything at all. Somewhere between Chicago and New York he dozed off. He hadn't traveled and wanted to look out but the only lights were well off the train route so he missed nothing.

The next morning as he sat watching the daylight calling him toward the east, the same mess sergeant went around with buckets of oatmeal and gallons of milk. Strong hot coffee too. For the first time Jimmy missed his mother. At home there'd be homemade jam for toast and a couple of rich eggs from their own hens. He ate two helpings of the mush and drank three cups of coffee before sitting back to watch a changing view.

As they got closer to New York the towns got closer and he noticed some backyards were up against the tracks. A woman hanging clothes waved at the train. Jimmy thought of the woman in the train station.

Who was she? Did she belong to a man on the train? He tried to erase the thought of her, knowing full well he would never make a move on another man's girl.

Someday, somehow there'd be a girl for him. . .that girl . . . that very girl .