The Sharecropper Prodigy (16 page)

             
I suddenly had a thought, too. I knew one of the first things Ben would do would be to write a letter to Rachel to tell her of his good fortune. But I had decided this letter would have a co-writer. There were a few things I wanted to tell her as well. Ben’s dreams were beginning to come to fruition and I decided it was time that some of mine did too.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

              ‘Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.’ 
I was at work and didn’t get to hear the address President Roosevelt delivered to congress. Ben, along with many of the students at Morehouse, had gathered in different locations where there were radios and listened. I knew what I needed to do. What I had to do. Many of the other workers had already walked off the job and gone down to the nearest recruiting office to sign up. The United States had declared war on Japan and was sure to enter the war in Europe where the German’s had invaded Poland two years before, causing Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany. We knew it was just a matter of time until we would join our allies.

             
I knew that as soon as I announced my decision to Ben and Abby, that Ben would insist on going too. There was no way me and Abby were about to let that happen. First of all, he was too young and wouldn’t be accepted, unless he lied about his age, which he might try to do. Ben was as honest a person as I knew, but he loved his country, despite the inequities his race had to endure on a daily basis. But above all that, Ben needed to finish his education worse now than ever. This war might drag on for a long time and the country would need the brightest minds it could find. I had no doubt Ben was one of the brightest minds. Ben had accomplished in a little over a year what it took the average Morehouse student three years to do. He would graduate in just over a year with a BS. in physics and a minor in psychology. He accomplished this in half the time it took the average student and had already been promised a scholarship for post-graduate studies form the finest colleges in America. Dr. Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse, had tried to encourage Ben to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship, saying he had no doubt he would be successful.

             
That afternoon, when we had finished supper and were sitting around the table talking about the recent events, I told Abby and Ben my plans.

             
“I don’t want you to go Tom,” Abby said, “but I know I would be wasting my breath trying to dissuade you. I suppose everyone who has someone joining our armed forces has people who love them and don’t want to see them in harm’s way. But I know we need all the able young men we can get to defend our country from those who wish to destroy us. I just want you to know I won’t stop praying for you until you’re safely home. You and Ben have become family to me. Losing either of you would be like losing a….well, like losing my own son.”

             
I thought of Abby as more of a sister than a mother, since she was so beautiful and looked so young, but I couldn’t remember a time when I felt like I was more loved.

             
“I know I’m too young by two years, but if I can convince them I’m eighteen, I’m goin’ too,” Ben said convincingly.

             
“No you’re not, Ben, and I don’t even want you to mention it again. And don’t try to go behind my back, either. I’ll tell them down at the recruiting office to be on the lookout for you and tell them you are lying about your age and to spread the word.” I knew the threat was meaningless and Ben was too smart to fool, but I made it anyway.             

             
“And why would you do a thing like that and deny me the honor of serving my country?” Ben asked in an irritated tone.

             
“Because there will be plenty of volunteers to do the fightin’”, I said. “We’re gonna need all the brilliant minds we can get on the home front to come up with new technology. You’re one of the brightest young minds in the country, Ben, though most of the country don’t know it yet. I won’t see you throw it away. I’m sure Abby feels the same way.”

             
“I certainly do,” Abby said, “and Tom is exactly right. You need to use your talents where they will be the most useful. I don’t mean to make it sound like Tom is not intelligent, because he
is
a very intelligent young man. But minds like yours, Ben, are so rare we can’t afford to jeopardize them on the battlefield. Tom knows what I mean and doesn’t take it personally.”

             
To my surprise, it didn’t take a lot of argument to get Ben to change his mind, or at least act as though he did. I guess he decided we were right and he would be much more useful as a civilian. Germany and Japan had highly developed technology when it came to weaponry. I had no doubt we would defeat any country that dared oppose us. But it was going to take brilliant men and women working non-stop back home. After being victorious in WWI, our country had become somewhat complacent and allowed ourselves to let our guard down.

             
“If there is one bright spot to this tragedy,” Ben said, “it’s the fact that we are gonna need every able bodied man in this country either in the military or in some type of support manufacturing jobs back home. This may be what finally puts an end to this depression, although war is expensive and the money we spend will run our national debt to staggering amounts if this war is prolonged and fought on several fronts, like I believe it will be.”

             
“Do you think we will get involved in the troubles in Europe? Abby asked.

             
“We’ll have to,” Ben replied. “We’ve already declared war on Germany The people in this country have been against it, but everybody’s sentiments will change now that we’ve been attacked with such ferocity. Hitler should have been stopped a long time ago. Neville Chamberlain should have learned from history that you can’t reason with a mad man like Adolf Hitler. If Churchill had been prime minister five years earlier, Britain and it’s allies might have been able to nip the thing in the bud.” Ben got up from his chair and walked to the kitchen window. “Roosevelt used the attack from the Japanese to garner support for the war in Europe. He did the right thing, too. We should have
already
been involved and trying to help our greatest ally. Nobody wants war, but you can’t let a despot like Hitler just keep goin’ unchecked. The world has never seen a man with such evil ambitions as his.”

             
I looked at Ben in amazement. “How in the world can you excel in your studies, especially at the pace you are going at it, and find the time to keep up with everything that’s goin’ on in the world.”

             
“I don’t have any choice,” Ben answered. “What good is having all the knowledge there is in science and mathematics, if the tyrants of the world take away your freedom to use them. Why do you think this country has advanced beyond any other in history, when we are still just an infant compared to great empires that lasted hundreds of years like the Roman Empire and the British Empire? There is only one reason. Freedom. Freedom to think and to express ourselves without fear of retribution from a centralized and obtrusive power. James Madison and the other framers of our constitution were geniuses. They were the wisest men besides Jesus Christ and Solomon who ever lived. They foresaw all the possible ramifications of letting government get too much power, so they added the Bill of Rights as the first ten amendments. The second amendment is what I like to call the worst case scenario.
The right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed.
A lot of people don’t realize what their true intentions were. I believe the founders saw the potential of a government reaching too far and becoming too powerful at some time in the future, and knew the only way the citizens could retaliate and have any kind of recourse was for them to be armed. Armed and informed. Our form of government was designed and will only work for a well informed and educated people. Why do you think it was illegal to educate slaves? Because knowledge is liberation, that’s why. That’s the reason that schools in the south are still segregated, too. They still think an educated black man is a threat to their way of life.”

              Ben was on one of his rolls and there was no stopping him now. He had already assumed his favorite posture he used when he was lecturing. It was the same one he’d used that day in my Uncle Joe’s store when he was dressing down Charlie Stone and the other men.

             
“When Alexis de Tocqueville came to this country from France in 1831, he was mesmerized by how much the common person knew. Anybody who had finished two years of schooling could read and comprehend what they read. Even a mountain man, in the most remote frontier, could read a newspaper and could tell him, at least in rudimentary terms, how our government worked. Especially when it was going too far and was doing something they felt was infringing on their freedoms. One of the reasons he decided to visit was because he or nobody else in Europe could believe that a country that had been around less than fifty years was already equal, if not superior, to the European countries that had been established for centuries. When he saw the passion the citizens had to stay educated and informed, he knew right away that was one of the primary reasons we were able to advance as quickly as we had.”

             
Ben paused for a moment, knowing he had just delivered an unsolicited lecture when the focus was supposed to be on my getting ready to leave. He looked at me as if he were a little bit shamed.

             
“I apologize, Tom,” he said. “This evening is not about me. It’s about you, and I’m monopolizing the conversation.”

             
“That’s okay, Ben,” I said laughing. “I learn more when you are giving one of your passionate lectures than I would in a month in the classroom.”

*****

              I didn’t sleep much at all that night and it had little to do with my anxiety of what lay ahead once I’d taken the oath to defend my country. That’s what should have dominated my thoughts, but it wasn’t. I knew there was something I had to do before I went down to the United States Marines recruiting office. If I didn’t do it I knew I would regret it the rest of my life, which may not be a long time, considering where I was most likely going. I decided to leave first thing in the morning. For all I knew, I would be mustered in and sent to boot camp immediately once I’d signed up, so the marines would have to wait for at least a couple of days.

             
I hadn’t confided to anybody about what I had to do, but would have to tell Ben in the morning. I thought about just telling him I had to go back home and say goodbye to my Aunt Mary Kate and Uncle Lee, which would have been the truth. I
was
going to see them, but that wasn’t my primary reason for wanting to go home. I had to tell Rachel Winston how I felt. How I had felt for most of my life. I had thought about sending her a letter or even calling her on the telephone to ask permission, but decided just to show up in person and lay it all on the line. I didn’t expect anything in return from her, but I felt like I would explode if I didn’t get this off my chest. I knew she was home because Ben had talked to her on the phone the day before and she told him she was on Christmas break from The University of Alabama.

*****

              Ben wasn’t surprised in the least when I told him my plans the next morning. “I knew you loved that girl,” he said. “Anybody with any sense at all could see it written all over your face when you saw her. You always acted like you had two left feet and you lost your ability to speak anytime she was around. You might want to work on the speech thing while your on the bus.”

             
“How do you think she’ll react?” I asked him. “Has she ever said anything to you about me?”

             
“She’s a woman, Tom. There ain’t no telling how she’ll react. As far as what she’s said about you, she’s probably as guarded on the matters of the heart as you are. As close as her and me are, that’s one discussion we never ventured into. I will tell you that she always talked about you bein’ a gentleman and that she thought you would go places because you were such a hard worker.”

             
“That sounds like something she would say about her brother,” I said, suddenly feeling like I might be making a mistake.

             
“There’s only one way you will ever know,” Ben said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Get your ass on the bus and go. I would give anything if I could go with you, but I have finals today and tomorrow.”

             
I couldn’t help but laugh when Ben told me to get my
ass
on the bus and go. Ben very seldom ever swore, though I don’t consider the word
ass
swearing. But it was about as close as Ben ever came.