Two Souls Indivisible Page 12

  The next morning Cherry complained that his shoulders were being crushed. Halyburton discovered that the stretcher was supposed to be elevated by six-inch legs, but the bar to lock the stretcher and keep the patient elevated wasn't working, so its sides were pressing in against the sunken Cherry. He felt as if he was being squeezed to death by his own body. Halyburton piled extra clothes beneath Cherry's shoulders, easing the pressure.

  "We're in a helluva mess now, Fred," Halyburton said, a line he'd occasionally use to lighten the mood.

  Cherry described the removal of the cast and the gasoline bath. Halyburton just shook his head as he said, "I can't believe they did that."

  Though now free of the cast, Cherry was in no better shape. He still couldn't move his arm, and all he had to show from the cast was a body pocked with sores—Halyburton counted nine.

  At least he was now receiving antibiotics and was no longer hallucinating, but the IV was no panacea. Unknown to Cherry, in the hospital a small tube had been inserted in his ankle, which could be hooked up to an IV line. Presumably this approach would spare a medic the difficulty of finding a vein in his desiccated arm, making transfusions easier. So the medic came to the cell, disengaged the IV, and inserted the line into the ankle tube. After he left, Cherry looked up at Halyburton and said, "Bubbles are going up my leg."

  Halyburton thought it could kill him, so he banged on the door and yelled for an interrogator. Not willing to wait, he pulled the line out of the tube, causing the fluid to pour onto the floor.

  The medic came first, and Halyburton, frustrated and angry, pushed him toward the door and demanded to see a doctor or interrogator. A guard retaliated and slammed Halyburton against the wall, but he got what he wanted. Eagle, the camp commander, came to the cell. Halyburton hadn't seen him since Heartbreak.

  "There's air in there!" Halyburton said, pointing to the tube. "You're going to kill Cherry!"

  According to Eagle, Halyburton should have been grateful that the Vietnamese had saved Cherry at the hospital. "Cherry almost died," he said.

  "Yeah, that's what I've been trying to tell you for a long time," Halyburton said.

  "Yeah, but you have a very bad attitude. You don't speak to guards and doctor that way."

  The following day another doctor came to the cell, cut an incision in Cherry's other ankle, and inserted a tube. This one, however, was never used, and soon both tubes were removed and the ankles bandaged, leaving two scars as permanent reminders of Vietnam's medical care.

  The new shoulder bandage created a different problem: it was too tight. "My arm is going to sleep," Cherry said. Halyburton investigated the wrap and decided he could do better. He unwound the bandage and for the first time saw the impact of the cast: two

  As an aviation cadet in 1952, Fred Cherry was often the only African American among his peers, but his piloting skills erased conventional prejudices against black fliers. Courtesy of Marion Godwin

  The cockpit was Cherry's ultimate refuge, allowing him to fly above the poverty and segregation of his youth. Courtesy of Marion Godwin

  Commissioned in 1952 as a second lieutenant, Cherry became a pioneer in the integration of the Air Force. Courtesy of Marion Godwin

  During the Korean War, Cherry performed a daring airborne maneuver when he used his wing tip to secure the landing gear of another jet. Courtesy of Marion Godwin

  With his adopted son, Donald, in 1955; Cherry was known for his perfectly creased clothes and sense of style. Courtesy of Marion Godwin

  In 1973 Cherry accepted his first light as a free man, at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

  Courtesy of Marion Godwin

  In 1981 the Air Force commissioned this portrait of Cherry, which now hangs in the Pentagon.

  Portrait by Harrison Benton

  Cherry's sister, Beulah, raised him as a boy and was his principal advocate when he was a POW. Here they stand with Air Force Colonel Clark Price during Cherry's return to Suffolk, Virginia. Photo by the Virginian-Pilot

  Katharine Halyburton, a fiercely protective single mother, taught Porter skills such as playing bridge, dancing, cooking, and sewing. Courtesy of Porter Halyburton

  Commissioned as a Navy ensign in 1964, Halyburton was grateful that the Vietnam War would give him an opportunity to see combat. Courtesy of Porter Halyburton

  Halyburton (left), standing on the flight deck of the USS Independence in August of 1965, admired his pilot, Stanley Olmstead, whose good looks, humble roots, and aeronautic savvy seemed lifted from a military recruitment catalogue. Courtesy of Betty Dyess

  For more than seven years, Marty Halyburton raised Dabney by herself. She sent this photograph to Porter when he was in captivity. Courtesy of Porter Halyburton

  Porter, Marty, and Dabney arrived at Atlanta's airport on March 9, 1973. Associated Press

  Supporters returned their Porter Halyburton POW bracelets, which were converted into a chandelier.

  Courtesy of Porter Halyburton

  Halyburton's gravestone now rests in his backyard. Photo by James S. Hirsch

  Halyburton and Cherry were honored at Davidson College in 1986. Courtesy of Davidson College

  long, "angry red" incisions cut across Cherry's shoulder. It appeared that the stitches had been removed, but fluid was leaking through the scars. The shoulder itself looked no different than before the surgery—which is to say, there was no shoulder. Where there had once been muscle was now a deep gorge, and Cherry still had no movement in his arm. It was evident to Halyburton that the doctors had tried to "reconnect" the arm to the shoulder but failed. He could also smell the gasoline.

  Cherry's toughness amazed Halyburton; it was a toughness born of many early hardships. He was not going to die in Vietnam because he had had plenty of experience surviving.

  The Cherrys' small wooden house, on a dirt road in the middle of corn and cotton fields, had no electricity or plumbing and little space, forcing several children to sleep in the living room. The roof leaked so badly that Fred would have nightmares of porous ceilings for the rest of his life. The family bought hundred-pound chunks of ice, chipped pieces off to refrigerate their food, then wrapped the rest of the block in newspaper to slow the melting. A coal stove warmed the kitchen in the winter, but there was no refuge from the summer's heat. The closest source of fresh water was a spring a half mile away, and Fred, riding his bike, carried home a splashing pail in each hand. When he woke up on Christmas morning, he found his own unwrapped shoebox with that year's treats: raisins, peanuts, an orange, an apple, maybe a little truck. Fred, knowing the family's meager resources, was grateful.

  With inadequate water, sewage, and plumbing in and around the town of Suffolk, disease was rampant. Tuberculosis, pneumonia, heart attacks, and infant deaths occurred at alarmingly high rates—two of Fred's siblings died as infants. Only thirty percent of black children in the area met the minimum health standards, according to a 1930 survey by the Virginia Department of Health. Dental care consisted of yanking out a rotting tooth, using black pepper to numb the pain.

  Both of Fred's parents were descended from slave families in North Carolina. His father, John, was one-quarter Cherokee and looked like an American Indian, with swarthy skin, straight coal-black hair, and a flair for storytelling. A laborer and farmer, he was always juggling several small jobs while looking for something better. He would wake up at two A.M. and walk ten miles to a fertilizer factory. Fred knew if his father came home early, he hadn't been hired that day; if he came home late, he'd worked. Either way, he did the same thing the next morning. After a while, the factory gave him a regular job, and he rode to work with another employee, who had a car.

  John also owned ten acres of land that grudgingly yielded corn, peas, beans, and potatoes, and Fred got an early taste of farming. At the age of five, he stood on his tiptoes to reach the crossbar of the plow as his father guided the family mule across the dry, hot fields; Fred hoped their work would produce a surplus. On those occasions, the entire family would
shuck peas and beans in the evening, pour them into pint-sized baskets, and prepare them for sale. The following day John would lift Fred out of bed at three A.M., wrap him in a burlap sack, and lay him on a mule-driven cart that now carried the food. On the four-mile trek to Suffolk, Fred would wake up beneath the stars and sit next to his father, sometimes eating strawberries that his mother had packed. A lantern attached to the cart illuminated the bumpy roads. Reaching Suffolk by daybreak, John would go from house to house, selling his baskets, as Fred rode the mule. If they sold their entire supply, they earned about five dollars; to celebrate, father and son would stop on the way home for a cookie or a soda and talk about what they would do on the farm that day.

  John Cherry died from hepatitis when he was fifty-two; Fred was only eleven. No pictures of him survived, so Fred, as an adult, did not have a clear memory of his face. The death jolted Fred, who could not imagine how his family would survive. In the end, the tragedy heightened the role of the two people most responsible for raising him—his mother and his oldest sister.

  His mother, Leolia, barely five feet tall, was known as "Miss Doll," a name that belied her strength and stamina in raising her own eight children plus a half-dozen grandchildren. She ran down chickens in the coop, then killed, cleaned, and prepared them for cooking. She worked many hours in the field, planting and pulling fruits and vegetables; then cleaning, preserving, and canning them. The family raised hogs, but when the smokehouse held no meat, she mixed chicken's feet into the rice for flavor. She made her own soap by boiling pig fat in a huge iron pot, mixing it with lye, allowing it to solidify, and cutting it into small blocks. At church, she used a washboard as a tambourine.

  Even in her sixties, she would race her teenage grandchildren across a field. She could read, though she never attended high school and never learned to drive a car. Her Apostolic faith, whose followers believe in the literal word of the Bible, shaped her life. Almost daily she attended a church service, prayer meeting, or Bible class. Because she believed that a modest appearance reflected pious devotion, she always wore dresses that fell below the knee and shunned makeup and jewelry. Dancing was forbidden; drinking, sinful; personal sacrifice, sacred. She did not buy new underwear for herself so she could save for Fred's college education.

  But she was also a tough country woman who punished her children for misbehaving, such as talking disrespectfully to an adult, cursing, or coming home late. She beat them with a switch or whatever was handy, once pulling an entire bush out of the ground and using the roots. "Better not run from me," she'd threaten the guilty party. She also kept a long-nosed, black .38 revolver in a paper bag, locked in a closet, and she was not afraid to fire it. If she thought she heard moonshiners in the woods or chicken thieves around the coop, she'd blast away. She also brandished the gun to enforce discipline. One teenage granddaughter, Joyce, living with her in the 1960s, attended a James Brown concert with a young man without asking for permission. It was a clear violation of the rules; the girls could not be with boys without adult supervision. Leolia grabbed her paper bag, marched to the concert, and found her mortified granddaughter. "Okay, let's go," she said. There was no need to show the gun. Leolia was in her seventies at the time.

  If his mother gave Fred strength, endurance, and character, his oldest sister, Beulah, provided him with opportunities and fueled his ambitions. The two siblings always had a special relationship. When Fred was born, his mother handed him to Beulah, who was nineteen, and said, "This baby is yours." Leolia still mothered her youngest child, but she needed help with so large a family, and Beulah was pleased to dote on her little brother.

  While Leolia bore the stamp of an earlier time, Beulah was thoroughly modern, a tall, sturdy woman who wore makeup, owned jewelry, and loved to drive. She was the first in the family to attend college (Fred would be the only other one) and was the only child to earn a master's degree. She worked in the Suffolk public school system for thirty-seven years, first as a teacher, then as a principal, and whether she was in school or at home, she demanded the use of proper grammar and respectful language.

  She married well. Her husband, Melvin Watts, came from one of the area's wealthiest black families. They operated a bus service, owned part of a popular beach in the Tidewater area, and had other real estate interests. One brother was a doctor and one was a lawyer, while Melvin was a successful farmer. Like Beulah's own father, he was a truck farmer—except Melvin owned at least four trucks, plus a tractor, and would sell his bounty of collard greens, string beans, radishes, spinach, watermelons, and cantaloupes to the merchants on High Street in Portsmouth. He bought Beulah a comfortable home in Suffolk with comforts she'd never had before, such as a telephone, lamps, a refrigerator, and upholstered furniture.

  The couple never bore their own children; they had a foster daughter, and they cared for their many younger siblings, nieces, and nephews. Beulah's strict rules and tough love were not welcomed by all. When a nephew fell behind on his mortgage payments, he asked Melvin if he could borrow $3,000. Melvin agreed but said Beulah had to give her consent. She refused. "It shouldn't have happened," she told him. He lost the house.

  The bond between Beulah and Fred solidified when he was thirteen and became bedridden with a mysterious illness. Beulah volunteered to have him stay with her, where access to a telephone and car could help in an emergency. On the way to her house, Fred's body folded in pain and he stopped breathing. Beulah raced him to the hospital, where he was treated for acute appendicitis. When he was released, he went to Beulah's home, where he lived until he left for college.

  The move meant one less mouth to feed for Fred's mother. More important, it put Fred under the supervision of two educated, financially secure guardians. Beulah did not want Fred to follow the path of his older siblings, who earned a living in various blue-collar or clerical jobs, consigning themselves to marginally better lives than those of their parents. Like his mother, she made him work hard, waking him up before dawn so he could load Melvin's watermelon truck, ride into town, and sell the produce to merchants. Beulah also pushed Fred to improve his schoolwork, discipline his mind, and prepare for college. She didn't badger him about his future but simply referred to it. "When you become a doctor..." she would say.

  Fred didn't complain. For the first time he had his own bed, dressed well, and was one of the few students at East Suffolk High School who had regular access to a car. He was also assured of regular paying jobs on Melvin's farm or in other family businesses. While he enjoyed some of the work—he sold beer one summer on the family's beach—he loathed the long hours on dry fields beneath the hot Virginia sun. Picking potatoes, string beans, and strawberries was monotonous labor, frustrating his desire to accomplish something significant. Pulling cotton was even worse because the thorns punctured his hands, causing him to develop the same calluses that both his parents suffered from. He enjoyed driving the tractor, but Melvin sprayed his fields heavily with insecticide, which mixed with the dust that would swirl around Fred's face and penetrate his nostrils. When he blew his nose, the mucus was black.

  Fred knew he didn't want to end up like so many of the sun-hardened farmhands around him, with coarse palms, stooped shoulders, and few pennies to save. He had learned how to hunt squirrels and trap raccoons and rabbits but knew it was no livelihood. And even though Melvin had enough money to send him to college, he did not want to be a doctor. Not at all. But he did have another idea, a notion more fantastic than anything even Beulah could imagine, a dream that, if realized, would be his ticket out of the Great Dismal.

  In 1936, when he was eight years old, Fred was standing in a cornfield when he heard a rumble in the sky. He looked up and saw a plane descending smoothly in the distance. It was a mesmerizing, inspiring sight—the power and grace of a machine soaring effortlessly above a world where even a sputtering car was considered a mechanical wonder. Fred discovered that the plane landed in a nearby Navy auxiliary airfield, so he began looking for more and tracking their flying
patterns. He trained himself to listen for the engines and amazed his friends with his ability to announce that a plane was coming before anyone could hear or see it. In school, he began making paper airplanes and winging them across the room.

  After America entered World War II, the training flights accelerated, and Fred stopped whatever he was doing when he heard them. He watched the planes fly in formation, then peel off in mock battles, then twist and turn, the sun glinting off their glass cockpits. The "big birds" flew so low, a mere hundred to two hundred feet above the ground, that the pilots would wave at Fred, who would wave back. He wanted to jump up and get right in; instead, he would race after the aircraft, running through the woods, toward the airfield, then lie in the grass and watch the planes land and take off. "I'm really going to do that someday," he told a cousin, who stared at him in disbelief.

  Plane crashes were common. Fred saw some himself, and he knew about others from the flatbed trucks that would cart pieces of the fuselage, wings, and other debris past his house. But the specter of death didn't bother him; if anything, it made the whole experience more exhilarating.

  He shared his dream with few people, fearing others might tell him straight out that he was wasting his time, that no colored boy was ever going to be allowed to fly such a machine. He began searching for newspaper and magazine articles about airplanes and combat flying, but only after the start of World War II could he confirm that his dreams of being a black combat pilot were valid. He read about the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the black pilots whose exploits drew extensive coverage in the black newspapers. He closely tracked their every move in the weekly Afro-American and the Norfolk Journal & Guide, which described the bomber-escort and ground-attack missions in North Africa, Italy, and Germany. Fred kept grainy pictures of planes and studied their curves, dimensions, and capabilities.