3rd Place Fiction

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Prompts: Amusement Park 

Locket 

“I never meant to..” 

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Henni, by Judith Hegewald

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Buck Private Henni Goldhauser and I became instant friends when he snapped his tent half to mine. We were raw U. S. Army recruits from much different backgrounds, he from “Joy-zee” City, New Jersey and I from a pig farm in rural Alabama. Notwithstanding, we hit it off instantly. My rather reserved disposition and slow southern drawl was a perfect contrast for his anxious nature and snappy Yankee brogue. I'd never known someone who talked so fast, switching in lightening speed from one witty thought to another. Sometimes it was difficult for me to keep up. 

At Camp Campbell, Kentucky, in every drill we marched in formation side by side, shoulder to shoulder, struggling to keep step. Pushed to the limit by our superiors, Henni's sense of humor would surface at just the right time to buoy me up. When the strain of my limited abilities was wearing thin, particularly when I doubted if I was ever going to pass off the rope climb evolution and obstacle course, he would grin and mumble a quip that only I could hear, and it would crack me up.  

Henni was Jewish; borderline reform, he said, and I admitted to being a lukewarm Baptist.  When I received a Christmas box from home, I divided the crumbled cookies and fruit cake with Henni. When his parents sent him a Hanukkah box, he shared his rugelach and challah with me. I definitely got the better end of the deal.  

After months of the government attempting to morph our weak frames into fierce warriors, the day came when orders arrived. I immediately began to dread being separated from Henni. We had weathered the storm of basic training and had become good buddies, only to be faced with having the  friendship severed due to a bureaucratic decision about the allocation of troop strength and military 

readiness.  

Soldiers crowded into the mess hall tent, settling in nervously, wedged together on the hard benches and waiting in anticipation. As our names were called out we stood at attention and received our manila envelopes. I hesitated for a moment before opening mine, wondering how my world was going to change in one breath. Henni lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “The 34thInfantry Division!” he cried out. “What about you?” he asked. “Hurry up; open it!” I slipped out the orders and gasped. Henni looked over. “Hey! You, too!” He laughed. The entire hall was erupting with hundreds of men, excited, concerned, jostling with each other over the Army's decisions for their  futures and for which we had no control. After a few moments, when the newness had settled in, the mood became somber and then stone quiet as our Commanding Officer stepped to a podium. His message was brief: Europe was on fire. Great Britain was at war, and that is where we were heading.  

Luckily, Henni and I were assigned to the same unit. Our friendship would be the one true  constant amid a sea of change. Our ship deployed from Brooklyn, New York and sailed smoothly, for the most part, across the Atlantic. The danger of U-Boats detecting us raised everyone's anxiety, finding us leaning on the ship's railing and staring at the water, searching for a sign, and waking at night with every unidentifiable sound. Henni made light of it with his New Jersey humor, coping in his own way; I was scared to death.  

We disembarked in Northern Ireland into a throng of mostly Irish ladies who were curious to see if Americans were all as tall as John Wayne, and surprised that most weren't. Before stepping off the ship, each soldier was given a helpful indoctrination booklet—Pocket Guide to Northern Ireland.  The country had already been caught up in the war for two years and was experienced with limited rations and making do. Some in the crowd were overheard muttering the “Yanks were over-paid, over-sexed, and over-here.” But the Yanks loved the attention and fostered it with American chocolate and gum.  

Henni had a girl. He showed me a small photo of the two of them sitting side by side on a log,  her head resting on his shoulder as they gazed across a lake. It had been taken the day before his deployment to boot camp. “We met an amusement park, Coney Island, in Brooklyn. My buddies and I were strolling along the boardwalk when I saw this young lady trip on something and hit the ground. I rushed over and helped her up. Man...one look at her and my heart exploded. I never meant to “fall”  for her so quickly, pardon the pun. I gave her a gold locket with my photo inside. She said she'll love me forever, and I believe her,” he said, smiling and slipping the photo back into his breast pocket.  “When Jewish people say I love you, they mean it.” He asked if I had someone back home and I said that I used to, but she liked my brother better. We had a painful laugh about that.  

The training continued at our new duty station. Always on the ready, was the motto. England's Prime Minister was wrestling over how to deal with Germany, and after months of anticipating our uncertain future, the order came. It was time. The invasion of France. 

Everyone was immediately restricted to the base. Knowing this, Henni and I decided to sneak a quick trip into Belfast to purchase postcards. It would prove to be a devastating decision. As he stepped off the bus onto the crowded pavement, a bullet hit him in the chest and he dropped to the ground. I desperately tried to save him, pressing my hand on the wound and begging him to just hang on, but he slipped away. A group of men tackled the shooter as he bolted and ran. “Bastard!” someone charged at him. The police later claimed he was a deranged troublemaker and well known to the department. M. P.s were summoned and immediately took charge. Henni and I were immediately returned to base where I expected to be court marshaled, but for some unknown reason I was spared. 

 War had suddenly become real. Over time, and by the grace of God, our campaign helped bring peace to Europe. It was a hard fight and I was one of the lucky ones who made it home. I had left a young man, but returned aged and emotionally spent. It was Henni who had helped me survive to the end. When I was down, I'd remember that funny Yankee chatter and how he always carried me  

along.  

Years have passed and yet I still miss my friend. I've often thought about the pain his parents undoubtedly suffered over their son's death. He was their only child. Henni said his father, a barber, was so loving to him and his mother, and envisioned adding a second barber chair after Henni returned.  Sometimes I think about catching a train to Jersey City to meet them and just talk about Henni and what a good man he was and how much I admired him. That day when Henni died the light in my soul went out, and I can only imagine that it did the same for them. And then Shayna, Henni's girl. He said her name meant “beautiful” in Yiddish. I can only imagine how her life must have changed when she received the crushing news. She said she'd love him forever and I've often wondered if she still does.  

Marriage hasn't happened to me yet, as my mom often reminds me. Maybe some day down the road. My former girlfriend broke up with my brother and found her happiness with a 4-F guy I know who runs a truck stop.  

Upon returning home, I felt restless. Too much peace and quiet and stirring memories to suppress. With the G. I. Bill available, I decided to take classes at the State trade school and earned a certificate in agricultural mechanics. Dad and I started a repair business on our pig farm and it's going well. We often work late, readying a piece of equipment that we promised would be repaired by a certain time. It was on one of those nights, while I was under a combine that a voice gently called out my name. I rolled out and saw a woman with long dark hair and an angelic face gently smiling down at me. She asked, rather timidly, if I was Quinn Tillman who knew Henni Goldhauser. I got to my feet and hesitated, taken aback, not having heard my friend's name in years. “I am. Yes,” I answered.  “My name is Shayna Abelman. Henni and I were sweethearts.” 

“Shayna, yes!” I was stunned. “He told me all about you. He showed me a photo of you taken by a lake.”  

Shayna smiled. “When Henni wrote to me he said very nice things about you, and I thought   

you might be interested in knowing what he said and how he felt about you. He said you were the best friend he had ever had. In his letters he said he often called you Shiney because he said you were from Shiner, Alabama and also because your heart shines.” 

This was so unexpected. Tears filled my eyes and my emotions swelled. I couldn't speak.  Shayna continued. “Henni also wrote that you were very smart, and that hidden behind that slow Alabama drawl you had what it takes to be a strong leader. I thought you might like to know that as well. He had so much respect for you. You befriended him, a Jew, who even in the military can be difficult. But you didn't care at all, he said. Sometimes we wonder how other people see us, and I just thought you might like to know how he saw you.” 

I was so taken aback that this was happening, all I could manage to utter was “Henni was one of a kind; a very good man.” 

“Yes, he was,” she said.  

I could see the tenderness in her eyes. The love was still there. 

“That's all I wanted to say,” she smiled, and reached out to shake my hand. “My husband is waiting in the car. We were just passing through on our way to Florida.” She reached into her jacket pocket. “I want to give you this. Henni would approve.” It was a worn photo of two sweethearts sitting on a log by the lake. 

“Thank you. Thank you very much.” There he was. Henni was right. Shayna was special. Shayna's decision to find me after all this time to share the things Henni had written was such an incomprehensible act of generosity that I'll probably never understand, which convinces me that my buddy still feels that he needs to look after me, to buoy me up, again, through another obstacle course.  I couldn't help but smile. Shaking her hand goodbye was like touching Henni, as if his love for her passed through to me. She belonged to someone else now and had a curious husband and three anxious children peering out the window of an idling station wagon. Her life had moved on, perhaps not the  

way she had envisioned, but sometimes we have to plan a new future. Private Goldhauser would have wanted her to find happiness. He was like that, and somehow his sweetheart sensed how difficult it must have been for me to lose him as well. 

Death isn't goodbye, someone important once wrote. I think Henni would want me to tuck him away in my heart for safekeeping and then reach out to find another tent half. Perhaps the Korean War veteran who came by yesterday looking for a job could be a good place to start.