Velva Jean Learns to Fly by Jennifer Niven Page A

devil out of Pearl Harbor, and instead of going to Warner Brothers I started heading east. And this time I rode on troop trains—that’s what they call them now because the only ones riding them these days is soldiers. We had to stand five deep.”
    We walked for almost a block without saying anything. Then I said, “You know, Linc and Beach and the Deal boys signed up.” I held my breath. I thought, Don’t you tell me you’ve signed up too, Johnny Clay Hart. I looked up at his hair, which was cut just like a soldier’s.
    He said, “What about the great Reverend Harley Bright?”
    “I don’t know.” I didn’t tell him about all the letters from Harley that were still coming every couple of weeks—less often now—hidden away, unopened and unread, under my bed in Mama’s old suitcase.
    Johnny Clay was staring at me out of the corner of his eye. “You did the right thing by leaving. I mean, in some ways I can’t believe you actually left him, Velva Jean. But in some ways, I can’t believe you stayed with him so long. I’m pretty goddamned proud of you, little sister. That took some real guts to do what you did.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around. “Hell, to do what you’re doing. You got yourself a job. You got yourself a place to live. You got yourself some friends.” He whistled. “Yes, sir.”
    I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t. It was hard to think of how far I’d come when I still had so far to go. I almost never could see it for myself. I didn’t think I’d done a single thing yet that earned my leaving. We walked for a while like that, both of us looking ahead, not talking, me trying not to cry, him whistling a song.
    Then he said, “Everyone’s signing up, Velva Jean.” My chest got tight because I knew what was coming. He took my arm and put it through his, trying to make us best friends again. He held tight to it so that I couldn’t get away. He said, “The day after Pearl Harbor, when I was supposed to be at Warner Brothers, I went to the recruiting office in downtown Los Angeles and I mean to tell you the place was jumping. The only table without a line was the one for the paratroopers. There was this man in uniform standing by himself. Sergeant Briggs. Behind him was a poster of a paratrooper jumping out of a plane with his parachute open. ‘Swoop Down on the Enemy like a Falcon from Above,’ it said. ‘Don’t Walk into the Fight—Jump!’”
    I wished I could close my ears because I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
    “I saw this article in Life magazine that said paratroopers are the toughest. Briggs said being one ain’t for sissies. It’s only for the bravest men. Before you’re even allowed to jump, you go to ground school where they train you to jump, and after you’ve learned to jump they train you to fight when you’re on the ground. The pay is good—fifty dollars more a month than anyone else.”
    He stopped then and looked around him. He said, “Hey now. Where’s the Opry?”
    I pointed off in the direction of the War Memorial. My finger was shaking.
    He said, “Let’s see it. I guess you’ve already been.”
    I nodded but didn’t say anything about Roy Acuff or what it felt like to be there after all these years, because he would want to hear all those things and I was mad at him.
    He said, “I want to see the show while I’m here.”
    I said, “It’s twenty-five cents for a ticket.” I thought: Who cares, Velva Jean? What does it matter?
    He said, “I’ll tell you something else I want to do while I’m here, and that’s learn to fly an airplane. I can’t stand this waiting around. I’m going to make the most of my time till they call me up for training camp. I figure I’ll learn to fly, and then after I do I’ll learn to jump, and by the time they call me up I’ll be ahead of everyone.”
    We started for the Opry, crossing the street just in time to miss the trolley car, which almost ran us over. We