The Silver Star

“Living with my grandpa is the best thing ever,” Danny announced to his sixth grade class. It was the last show and tell before summer break, so he’d saved the best for last. “He’s kind of old, so he doesn’t cook a lot, which is a good thing because he’s not very good at cooking and it means I can eat cereal instead.”

“Danny!” Grandpa feigned offense. But it was true.

The kids laughed. Maybe at Danny, maybe at his joke- he wasn’t so sure, but he liked laughing, so he smiled anyways. He surveyed the classroom and saw the only person that really mattered, staring back at him with bright blue eyes.

“We might eat Nutella and Ritz cracker sandwiches for dinner a lot now, but Grandpa was in the 761st tank battalion- they were an all black tank unit, and they fought against the Nazis in Germany and won. They liberated the Goon-skirk-shin concentration camp-”

Danny stumbled.

Grandpa nodded and patted his back. He looked at the girl and felt his words come back.

“And they captured a town in Belgium, it took two days to get it. And my grandpa’s tank got hit by the Nazis- the driver and the gunner got killed and my grandpa was hurt really bad and the tank was burning up. But he was brave! He dragged the commander away and saved his life, and then he saw another tank- they had got hurt too, so he ran out there through the gunfire and all the smoke and took control of the tank and manned the gun for a whole hour before they got reinforcements. And he got the Purple Heart and the Silver Star because he was so brave. And that’s why I’m really proud of my grandpa.”

Standing at Danny’s side in his full military uniform, adorned with medals and badges, Grandpa nodded and brought his hands out from behind his back to reveal the silver star, still in its case. He handed it to the first child in the row of desks to pass around. Danny’s heart thrummed with pride.

His medal was met with many ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’, but it was the ice cream sandwiches he passed around next that earned him the undying love of an entire class of sixth graders. He was already well known among the children, however. As ‘camp counselor’, he organized games of sheep and wolf or wiffle golf for the neighborhood kids in the open field across the street from his antique store. Grandpa Otis was much more popular among his peers than Danny ever was.

The class savored their ice cream sandwiches and asked Grandpa Otis polite questions as they waited for the final bell to ring. Danny made his way to the back of the classroom to sit next to her. Birdie Wilson.

“You did so good,” she stopped drawing to hold his sweaty hand under the desk and Danny felt miles ahead. None of these babies knew what it was like to be in love with a girl.

The bell rang. Danny grabbed both of their book bags before Birdie had a chance. She never seemed to understand that he wanted to carry her backpack for her and always fought for its custody.

(I would carry you anywhere Bridget, if I could

One day we can live alone together

In a big house in the wild-wood

And I will pick the heather

Out of your hair.

Love, Danny

Valentine’s Day, 1986)

Birdie let him carry the bags this time, so both arms would be free to wrap Grandpa Otis up in a big hug. He grinned and pulled something from behind her ear; a dazzling unicorn brooch.

“Happy summer, Bridget,” Grandpa beamed and pinned the golden ornament on her argyle sweater. She could barely speak, standing still in front of the classroom. “Danny picked it out for you.”

“It’s so beautiful,” she managed to creak, touching it with one finger. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She stood in between Danny and Grandpa Otis, holding their hands as they walked out to find Otis’ shiny station wagon, parked diagonally in the school lot.

Danny couldn’t be more proud as he squeezed into the antique-filled back of the car to sit with Birdie. She looked so beautiful with her long brown hair curled in soft ringlets, all pushed to one side to reveal the unicorn brooch on her left.

“You like it?” Danny sidled up to her.

“I love it,” she pecked him quickly, leaving the faint taste of Cherry Cola Kissing Koolers on his lips.

They’d kissed many times before. Danny still felt his heart flutter up into his throat every time.

Otis passed them two peach Snapples from the cooler in the passenger seat. He always had some treat ready for them, even for the 10 minute car ride back to the antique store and Birdie’s house next door.

Danny closed his eyes, held her hand, and sipped the ice cold Snapple. He was only twelve but he knew that life didn’t get much better than this, and these were the moments you had to really savor.

…

They dropped Birdie off with her mom- her father was still in jail and the pair had been happier ever since. She gave Danny one more kiss before he sprinted off to meet Grandpa, this time in the green pick up truck. They called it ‘The Pickle.’

“Let’s get our loot, Captain Dan!” Grandpa started up the coughing, sputtering Pickle. It was time to unload another storage unit- Danny’s favorite errand- because it meant he got to help Grandpa, and he loved helping, and he also got to look for treasures to bring back to Birdie. As long as it wasn’t too valuable, Grandpa would let Danny keep it. Besides, Birdie would never accept anything expensive, and she was most excited by Breyer Horses, art supplies, baseball cards, books, and old moth-eaten dresses anyways.

“Loot!” Danny shouted over the roaring engine and Beatles on the radio. Grandpa chuckled and drove as fast as the Chevy could manage- about 35 miles an hour.

And before McCartney was finished singing Hey Jude, they squealed into the facility’s lot, diagonal again in the parking space. Grandpa Otis might have been the greatest tank operator in the greatest war, but he never quite figured out how to park a car.

“Sergeant! Danny! Hello!” The owner, a grizzled Indian man, burst out from the office. They were regulars and he loved to see them.

“Hi Mr. Phillip!” Danny waved. He used to launch out of the truck and jump into a hug, but he figured he was too old for that by now.

Mr. Phillip produced a pack of Big League Chew for Danny and offered a beer to Otis, who politely refused.

“Just the keys,” Otis flashed a gold-toothed grin.

“Ah, next time, Sergeant Otis,” Mr. Phillip sighed and gave him the keys to unit 8. They had a strange, insistent relationship; Grandpa insisted on first names, Mr. Phillip insisted on Sergeant Decker. They met somewhere in the middle, just like they always did in their heated negotiations over delinquent storage units.

Danny squinted as they walked towards the unit, its serrated metal door reflecting the mighty power of the sun directly into his eyes.

Otis hummed their ‘good luck’ song: My Treasure, by Johnny Cash. Danny sang the words as Grandpa opened the lock.

My earthly treasures mounted

But when I counted through

I realized the only treasure I had overlooked was you…

Grandpa flung open the door with flourish, and they were blasted with hot air and the smell of musty clothes and wet books.

“Loot!” Grandpa cried. He was thrilled with the discovery of three beautiful Gibson guitars, a box full of early issues of Playboy, and a collection of Smith & Wesson guns. It was obviously owned by a man, filled with the beloved vestiges of bachelorhood.

Danny, who liked guitars, guns, and scantily clad women as much as the next boy, was most excited with a box labelled, “Mark Wilson: Photos.”

“Grandpa!” he yelled, throwing off the cover of the box, revealing hundreds- maybe thousands of printed photos. He held up a photo of Bridget as a toddler, wearing a pink dress and mary jane shoes, holding onto their family cat like an accordion. “This is Birdie’s dad’s stuff!”

Otis winced and scratched his grey afro. “Oh. Well… maybe some of her stuff is here. And you can bring it back.”

“Can I keep the pictures?” Danny begged. He held her heavy box of childhood tight against his chest. It was almost bigger than him.

“Of course, Dan. If you help unload all this stuff.”

“Thanks, Papa!”

So he did. They filled the bed of the pickup with taxidermy and guitar cases and boxes of pornography and old furniture. It was all stuff that Otis said ‘would move fast.’ It was a good buy, but he wished he hadn’t bought it. Mark James Wilson was a frightening presence in the neighborhood and Otis dreaded his return, even without having purchased his most beloved belongings.

The whole world is bigger, Otis remembered Birdie saying at dinner, when he asked her how she felt with her father behind bars. He agreed. It was like a dark cloud had lifted.

Danny rode back with the box in his lap, sorting through the first few pictures. Bridget as a baby, Bridget with her mom, Bridget holding that poor cat again, him and Bridget holding hands by the lake, Bridget getting ready for her first day of sixth grade. His heart filled with love. He imagined the photos in the future- at their wedding. Birdie had it all planned. She would wear a green lacy dress (she drew it many times, and Danny could picture her wearing it) and he would wear his Grandpa’s tan suit. They would hire a white horse to be the ring bearer and Birdie would braid flowers into its hair. He even imagined what she might look like, maybe a 100 years from now. All old and wrinkly like Grandpa but still just as pretty.

…

When the sign for Decker Family Antiques appeared, Danny sprang out of the car, unlocked the door to the shop, raced through the showcases of teacups and porcelain dogs, and closed himself in his room upstairs. Through the window he could see Bridget’s small yellow house and even smaller backyard, shining in the sunlight. Being neighbors was the greatest. Birdie came over for dinner- usually something like canned anchovies and crackers or burnt Spaghetti O’s- almost every night, and afterwards, they could talk on their short-range walkies all night long, staring through each other's bedroom windows.

Danny popped a piece of Big League Chew into his mouth and sat on a plump bean bag chair to look through all the pictures. He thought about making a photo album for her, as a gift.

There were so many photos of them together, playing soccer or hunting frogs. Some of them had dates written on the back. Danny felt blessed- nearly a whole childhood spent together with his true love, when most people had to wait decades to meet their soulmate. He had been afraid at first, four years old, orphaned by drugs, and moving in with his old grandfather above an antique shop filled with haunted dolls… but it had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, because he got to meet Birdie and eat ice cream for dinner.

He shuffled through all the photos scattered on top. The rest of the pictures were sorted and labelled alphabetically. He wasn’t sure what the labels meant, but the first one said, in angular, blocky letters,

Pickaninny.

All the pictures featured Danny. He liked the first few, mostly him and Birdie. But the picture with the couple on the tire swing in Grandpa’s backyard, sharing an ice cream from Grandpa’s magical cooler, had something written on the back.

Black boy and Bird, 1985.

He suddenly became conscious of his dark skin. Grandpa had told him it was something to be proud of, ‘a symbol of perseverance.’ But he felt strange and alien in his body now, just like the time he discovered hair growing in new places.

Flipping through the pictures, Birdie seemed to disappear. Danny realized he didn’t remember any of these pictures being taken- he remembered some of the moments, sure, but no camera had been present in his memory. Like when he’d streaked naked across the street on a snow-day dare at 8 years old. There was a picture of him, flailing his arms and laughing, bare buttocks contrasting against the bright snow. Sometimes, nobody was there at all in his memory. There was another picture, recent, taken through the window of their house. He was getting changed. Terror warped his stomach. He saw a close up picture of his sleeping face and felt stomach acid bubble up into his mouth. Danny was the type of child to wear thick coats in summer and refuse to look in a mirror, lest he see the horrors of his own adolescent body.

But there was someone, looking. Watching.

There were at least a hundred photos of him. An entire catalog of the sweet, the painful, the happy, and the awkward. A whole childhood that felt like safety and liquid sunshine filtered through a lens of darkness. It felt like the stranger danger lessons in school. It felt like someone poked and prodded and touched the most private of places; the memory.

Danny was shaking and crying now, but he couldn’t stop looking. Another label:

Short stop.

There were less pictures in this one. An all-American blonde boy, maybe 13. The pictures were wrong too, like the boy didn’t know they were being taken. The last one was dated 1985. The boy wasn’t in it. Just a patch of heather.

Patches.

This boy was younger. He was dressed in rags in almost every photo. Danny remembered when he went missing, the family were friends of the Decker’s. They put the dad and mom in jail. Grandpa Otis was fuming. He said they only put them away because they were poor and black- they wouldn’t ever hurt their son. The last photo was from 1983. Same patch of heather.

Tickle.

This was an older boy, probably 15 or 16. A redhead with acne scars all over his reddish, pale skin. 1983 again. Heather.

Number one.

This was the last section. Danny threw up ice cream sandwich and Snapple all over the carpet but he didn’t care.

Mark Wilson was in some of these photos, smiling. These were a little different. The boy wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a corpse.

Danny stopped looking. He felt like he wasn’t a boy anymore either but something else entirely.

A pickaninny. Whatever that meant.

“Papa,” he wailed. “Papa!”

Otis may have been old and bad at cooking. But he knew when his boy needed help. He raced up the stairs like he was holding off a German bridge again.

“Dan?” He swung open the door and saw his grandson crumpled on the ground next to a pile of brightly colored vomit and a smattering of photographs. “Oh, baby, what happened?”

He picked him up and rocked him, like he was four again and afraid. He’d cried almost every night for his mom back then.

He burst into tears. He couldn’t breathe anymore, not with the snot and the tears and the vomit all caught up in his trachea. Otis sat down on his Star Wars bed sheets, and held the boy in his lap. “It’s okay, Captain Dan. You’re alright, shhh. Did that little girl break up with you? I promise, there’s lots of others out there.”

“No,” he choked. “Papa, I think I almost got killed.”

His clenched fist unfolded. Two crumpled pictures tumbled out of it. Dan started crying again, out of shame. Otis straightened one out. It was the picture of his sleeping face, up close at night. The other was the sleeping face of another boy, Number One. But Otis realized quickly he wasn’t asleep.

“You’re a brave kid, Captain,” Otis hugged him tight. “You did a really good thing, letting me see these pictures.”

Before Danny knew it, he was in the passenger seat of The Pickle, still shaking and crying as Grandpa Otis drove them to the police station. There was no Snapple, and no stop at the storage units. But Grandpa sang to him the whole time and the sun was still there, even though it felt like it might be gone forever.

My treasure unmeasured (Captain Dan!)

But forsaken of the treasures that come from above

My treasure unmeasured (Captain Dan!)

But it don't hold a heart of the one that I love

Danny wept. He didn’t feel like Captain Dan anymore.

…

They talked with the police until it was almost dark out. Danny was back in his own body, drinking a warm coke the policeman had given him. His body still didn’t really feel like his anymore.

They picked up four cheesesteaks on the way back- Danny’s favorite. One for each of them- Danny, Otis, Birdie, and her mom.

Otis let Danny have a glass of champagne that night. Birdie too.

“Lord knows the kids deserve it,” Otis smiled at Birdie’s mother across from the dining table in the middle of their upstairs apartment.

He explained without much detail that Mark Wilson would never be coming back.

“Dan, you’re a real hero,” Birdie wrapped her arms around his neck while the adults were in the hallway, whispering. She planted another champagne and chapstick kiss on his lips. “Now we can be happy like this all the time. Without dad.”

She didn’t know the details. Dan didn’t want her to.

Otis came back from the hallway.

He expertly made something appear from behind Danny’s ear.

The Silver Star.