Fall 1958
My dog tag weighed almost nothing. Made of tin, it hung on a beaded chain. Embossed letters announced my name, my address, and my religion. When the atomic bomb landed, they would know who I was and where to bury me. That was what my teacher told the class on a Wednesday morning. My tag listed the address of the orphanage and my assigned religion: Roman Catholic.
For all I knew, I was Episcopalian or Jewish. There were Jews who had grey eyes like mine. I saw them walking back and forth on the boardwalk. Striking grey eyes shielded by dark eyebrows. If it were up to me, that’s what I would be: Jewish. Like Beverly and Arnold.
Jews were smarter than other people. In my 12 years, I had already learned that fact. They could figure out what you were going to do before you did it and trick you, too, if you weren’t paying attention. Four slices of rye bread could cost a nickel or a dime—depending on how many fingers leaned on the scale. You could buy two sour pickles for a nickel or four for fifteen cents, if you weren’t careful.
I watched Beverly at the skeeball arcade, her magical fingers dispensing nickels to the players. She’d reach into the register and scoop out a handful of nickels. “Usually, I get it on the nose,” Beverly told him. “One dollar’s worth of nickels. I can tell by the weight. Here, try to do it.” I leaned over and grabbed a handful of nickels, then began to count them.
“You’ve only got 16,” Beverly said. “I can see that already. But that was a good try.” Beverly was sweet to console me. Yes, Jews were smarter, especially the boardwalk Jews who ran the arcades and the rides.
I sat in class watching my teacher’s back. Mrs Twining’s flowered dress swayed as she wrote on the blackboard, swirls of pink and purple petunias dancing in the chalk dust. Her handwriting was round and even.
What to do in case of an atomic bomb attack, she wrote in her perfect letters, turning to ask the class a question. “What would you do if there was an atom bomb warning?” she asked me. There was no avoiding her penetrating eyes. Framed by wire eyeglasses, they stared at me, waiting for my reply.
“I’d hide under my bed,” I said, trying to give her a serious answer. That was a pretty safe thing to do, wasn’t it? I’d hidden under there plenty of times when I was in trouble for not cleaning up my room or for forgetting to do the laundry. If you lay very still, your body rolled against the wall, it was a cool and comforting spot, especially when the floral quilt draped over the mattress, protecting you from prying eyes.
Mrs. Twining winced as I spoke. She didn’t like my answer. “Hiding under your bed won’t save you,” she said, turning to Sally for a better response. Sally was busy doodling in her notebook and she didn’t look up at first. Then, feeling the heat of Mrs. Twining’s gaze, she put her pencil down and tilted her chin in the teacher’s direction.
“I’d hide in the bomb shelter,” Sally said, making a “this-is-the-answer-she-wanted” face at me. Sally was always trying to make me feel bad. We both lived at the orphanage, but she was Miss Goodie Two-Shoes, the little girl Mrs. Hutchinson would have had if she had ever married, which she hadn’t.
I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to marry her. She was just too mean. At least, she was too mean to me. She’d always find a spot on one of the dishes I washed or a speck of dust on the top of the bookcase in the library, after it was my turn to clean it. Nothing I did pleased her.
“Joey, can’t you get anything right?” she would say at least a hundred times a day. Her voice changed completely when she talked to Sally. “Beautiful job,” she said, touring the kitchen after Sally cleaned up. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
Mrs. Twining must have conferred with Mrs. Hutchinson because she treated Sally the same way. “The bomb shelter,” she said, “now that’s the right answer. Do we all remember what a bomb shelter is?” Everyone’s hand went up, except mine. I wasn’t even going to try.
Once a month, we held practice drills. There was a warning siren from the fire station in the middle of town. A loud wail announced Be on the alert. We kids marched single file down the stairs into the basement, where we put on helmets and crouched on the floor. The shelter was cold and damp. I fingered my dog tag, feeling the raised letters like a blind person. There was a sharp spot at the top of the capital letter J which always snagged my T-shirt. Another rough spot on the G for Gibbons.
I was third on the line, behind Bobby and, unfortunately, in front of Billy—who could be counted on to cause trouble. He poked me in the back twice. “Watch your step,” he said. “If you don’t, a rat might bite you.” He snickered and closed his mouth so that I could hear his top molars bang into his bottom ones. A few seconds later, he pinched my hand hard. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked. I nodded my head and inched away from him.
Mrs. Twining gave us our instructions. “Don’t talk. Don’t whisper. No giggling,” she said. “Wait for the all-clear siren—two long wails—before you stand up. Anyone who fools around will end up in detention.” The threat of detention hung over our heads. One false move and you’d be forced to stay after school writing “I promise to behave during a bomb shelter drill” 2,000 times before Mrs. Twining would release you. The torture could go on for two weeks.
We discussed The Bomb often. The Russians had one. And they would blow us all up—if we didn’t get them first—that’s what we kids thought. We all had our plans, just in case we had to evacuate. I had a shoebox ready to go. Inside were my two best shooter marbles, a red flashlight and four extra batteries, a small canteen, two chocolate bars, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, a deck of cards, a pocket knife, a ball of string, a notepad, two pencils and five dollars. Sally inspected my box and laughed. “That stuff won’t save you,” she said. Her shoebox contained two pairs of white socks, a pink lipstick, a mirror, and a box of animal crackers. She promised to share the cookies with me—if I shared my chocolate bars.
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