"The Death of a Man Named John"

Chandler Ryd

"It sure gets lonely out here, don't it?" Sam said.

"Sure does," John agreed. His finger traced the photograph in his hand once more.

"You miss ‘er?" Sam asked. The question was just to keep silence from settling in to burrow and lay eggs of nervousness in their hearts.

"Yup," John sighed. "Sure do." He never took his eyes off the photograph. His index finger perpetually wore down the top-right corner with absent-minded rubbing. Sometimes he would receive compliments on his wife’s beauty as other pilots walked past John’s bunk. He closed his eyes and recalled every inch of the photo—from her dazzling white dress to his tuxedo with the rose pinned on the lapel, from his newly ordained best-friend standing between them with a Bible to his older brother on the left acting as the best man to which every other best man would be measured, and of course not forgetting his high-school football coach sitting in the front row, witnessing his quarterback marry the best cheerleader the school had ever seen, and then were his parents sitting right next to Coach with Mother dabbing her eye with Fathers handkerchief. It was the perfect wedding.

Then three weeks after the marriage, John went to fly bombers in the Pacific. After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, no good pilot could sit at home. No—even his wife told him he should fight. A real man fights for his country.

“You’d be the biggest piker in all a’ Bama  to stay home ‘steada fightin like yah ol’ man did,” she had said on the day after the wedding.

Oh, my lovely Mary, John thought of his wife, Why dontcha just wanna run away with me? Forget the War, we can serve our country another day.

And yet here he was, flying bombers to defend his home. John hadn’t seen Mary in five months. The wedding band on his finger grew looser and looser with each passing day. Maybe the extra space between his finger and the ring was due to the extra exercise he was getting. Or maybe it was because of the beautiful young nurse he had begun to appreciate.

“You ready for the raid tomorrah?” Sam asked. Again, the question was to keep silence out of the air.

John scoffed. “Not at all, Sam. Not at all.”

Suddenly the bunkroom door burst open. Typically-smiling James Doolittle walked in without a tooth showing.

“You boys rest up tonight,” Doolittle said. “You’re gonna need it like a fish needs water tomorrow. Tokyo ain’t gonna know what hit it.”

The cabin fell into silence as The Hornet hit a wave and the aircraft-carrier rocked a little.

Doolittle turned to Sam. “Why don’t we go out an’ look out over the waves as the sun goes down?” The implied words were: “Why don’t we see the sunset for the last time in our lives?” “You can come too, John,” Doolittle said.

“Naw,” John said. “I like the quiet every once in a while.”

Doolittle shrugged as he and Sam left the bunkroom.

Not more than a minute later, the pretty nurse, Eve, snuck in.

“You alone?” Eve asked.

John nodded. He slid his wedding ring into his pocket.

“You don’t need to hide it like that—I know you’re married. But like you said, you’ve been around me longer than you’ve been around your wife. And a man has his needs.”

John shrugged. “I don’t feel as bad when I take it off.”

John hated his addiction to Eve. He liked Eve and worshiped her body, but he hated what she brought. In spite of his longest efforts, he couldn’t make it more than a week without her—she was running in his blood.

“You ready for tomorrow?” she asked.

“Do I look like I’m ready to die?”

“You’re not going to die tomorrow. You’ll land in China, just like Doolittle says.”

John scoffed. “Naw, you know those B-25’s ain’t gonna make it all the way. We’ll be out of fuel and jumpin’ from chutes ‘fore we get to China. We’re dead men walkin’.”

Eve locked the door and they had their little secret in the bunkroom. Afterwards, Eve slinked out and left John in silence once again.

Guilt. Just last week John had told himself he would never as much as look at her again. Eve was sin personified with voluptuous curves. And once John bit into the Apple, he hadn’t the strength to resist biting again.

“Tell your wife,” Sam had said to him. “I’ve been stuck like that before—the only way to fix it is to confess to your wife and pray to God she doesn’t leave you. Then pray to God that He’ll forgive you. And He will.”

Guilt. Sam was right. Guilt. John was a failure. Guilt. His wife would hate him.

John’s gut was knotted so tight he couldn’t sleep, and he curled up to make the knot seem smaller. This wasn’t his first sleepless night—John lost track of how many times now he stared at the wall as Sam soundly snored above him.

A man has his needs. Sometimes he just gotta deal with the knot and acknowledge his needs ‘steada bustin’ his fingers tryin’ to untie it. But he knew those words were not true. And so he didn’t sleep—too scared to tell his wife but too alone to resist Eve the next time she came around. Although, he bitterly thought to himself, I won’t be around for next time anyway.

The sun came up slowly and the raid started quick. Sam was the pilot and John sat in the seat beside him.

“You ready yet?” Sam asked John before take-off.

“Not at all, Sam. Not at all.”

The plane took off without incident, and John was relieved to leave Eve behind him. He watched the crimson waves splash beams of light across the horizon, and was glad for that horizon.

“There’s a radio in the back,” Sam said. “I can fly while you talk.”

“Tell your wife,” Sam had said back before take-off. “I’ve been stuck like that before. I’ve been stuck like that before...”

“She deserves to know,” Sam continued. “You can’t die as a man unless you’ve got your integrity.”

John turned to Sam. “You got any family left back home?”

Sam smiled a sad smile. “After my wife died, they all seemed to disappear. All but my nephew. He wants me to come back someday with a good story. But other than that, they’re all gone.”

“Well,” John scoffed. “You might have a story after all.”
"She's gonna hate you for it, most likely," Sam added. "My mother used to say that if people hated you for something, you were probably on the right path."
John nodded. "I'd ruther die an honest man than a lyin' hero. But it still doesn't help the butterflies."
"If you live--" Sam's voice trailed like a rabbit.
"Then I won't have to wait as long to tell her in person."

The radio operator was surprised to see John standing before him, hand outstretched with a strong face. He stood tall.

Sweat from nowhere made John drop the radio once before he was able to hold down the button. Secrets aren’t kept easily on a boat—and even more so between the members of a bomber-crew. The men knew what was transpiring.

“David?” John spoke through the receiver. “David, I know you’re back on the Hornet on the other end of this radio. David?”

Pause.

“Yeah, John?”

“Tell my wife—” John caught his voice in his throat. “Tell Mary—tell her everything.”

“Everything? Even about the aff—”

“Yes.” Tears rolled down John’s cheeks. “Even about the affair.”

Silence from both the radio and the flight-crew.

“I’m—I’m sure she’ll be glad you told her.”

"No," John shook his head. "No she won't." He set down the radio and clicked back into his seat.

A B-25 bomber-crew consists of five men. David, the radio-operator back on the Hornet, had a notepad with all five names written upon the yellow paper. At the top of the list, he scribbled John.

Sam piloted the plane over Tokyo. The bombs fell just as they were supposed to, and the plane ran out of fuel just as John predicted.

“You ready?” Sam asked. The plane was falling out of the sky, with John and Sam the only men who hadn’t yet jumped. Their parachutes were strapped to their backs.

John scoffed. “This time, maybe I have to be.”

Then he jumped.

***

Maybe the pacific can stand to hold another drowned pilot—a pilot with integrity. Maybe a wife can't stand to hold her dead, lying, cheating, damn-you-to-hell husband, who was honest and ruined her perception of him. Maybe she will hate him. Yet maybe she will keep that picture on the mantle and memorize her dazzling dress and his tuxedo with the rose-lapel, remember his best-friend for a priest and brother for a best-man, and maybe she will even remember the football coach sitting beside his parents with his mother dabbing her eye with a handkerchief.

Maybe she will learn to forgive him.

John could have died a hero. Or, he could have died a human.