'39 Studebaker At Sunset

Sam glanced at the rear-view mirror. No one. This road had little traffic anyway, but they were going to make it. He squeezed his fiancée’s hand. “We’re going to make it, sweetheart.”
Gloria’s eyes shone. “I know we are Sol, I mean Sam. It’s wonderful we could use the car. You haven’t told me yet how you managed that, but I don’t care. Just being with you and getting to marry you before the army ships you out, is all I wish for.”
 
They were within ten minutes of Listowel. The last rays of sun streaked across the late afternoon January sky as they entered the small town, crowded with vehicles and pedestrians. The tension in Gloria’s grip had to be excitement. He tried downplaying his own quivering nervousness, thankful her brother agreed to meet them and be a witness.
 
They pulled into a parking spot and hopped out. Gloria didn’t even wait for him to come around and open her door, but met him at the front of his father’s 1939 Studebaker and took his hand. The brisk wind whisked them up the steps and into the building. They patted down their hair, hurrying along the hall to the door marked Registrar.
*
Sol worked in his father’s suit and shoe shop for five years after completing high school with first class honours. He’d have liked to go on and train as an engineer or architect, but his father wouldn’t hear of it.
 
Sol’s wages were turned back into the shop “for the future” his father said. “I have a business. You are my son, and a good Jewish son at that. I know you will do well, and we’ll soon find you a suitable Jewish wife. With the war, many refugees are coming to this country.”
 
Sol rolled his eyes. His father knew he was in love with Gloria Nobleton and had been for some time. What future did he have if he couldn’t marry her? He pressed hard on the pedal of the sewing machine, raising the pitch and increasing the thumping as the needle stabbed through layers of fabric.
 
“We are fortunate that our family arrived here well before that hateful man in Russia sold out to that lunatic in Germany. Praise be to the Lord. Count your blessings, my son. We are of the race that is blessed to be a blessing, through our Father Abraham. Go and open the big box in the back room and get those suits steamed before you begin the shoe repairs.”
 
Sol, reluctant to go against his father’s wishes at first, hoped against hope his father would change his mind about Gloria. But his father had dug his heels in. He even purchased a new car so the family could travel to the synagogue in Owen Sound, the only one in the county, perhaps in three counties. The car’s Balsam Green exterior glistened in the sunlight. The odour of newness sprang from the cream-coloured upholstery as the family piled in every Sabbath.
 
When arriving in their new homeland as a young lad of six, Sol had embraced the life in Canada. As a youth, hockey, racing, and swimming helped him make friends easily. The woodsy scents and fresh air of the outdoors invigorated the boy and stimulated him as a youth to strive for success.
 
At seventeen, the dark-haired, bright-eyed Gloria Nobleton, Gentile, had met his eyes with an innocent glance, capturing his heart. They hung around with the same group of friends, neither wanting parents’ discouraging words to fall upon them. They skated the ponds in winter, watched each other’s teams play baseball, hockey, or basketball. They attended the town theatre productions and musical nights.
 
They made plans. One summer’s evening behind the store when the crickets sang, and the river bubbled along, and the warmth of the day’s sun emanated from the red bricks of the buildings, Sol’s father discovered them embracing. His father’s treatment of Gloria at that moment had Sol cringing, but it only strengthened his determination to make her his wife.
*
Things carried on much as they had been until a story of unrequited love circulating at the time, set Sol Salinger on the path to become Sam Dawson, take his sergeant’s exams, and propose to Gloria. All would have gone against his father’s wishes.
 
Sol first heard the story of Elmer McDougall during an illicit drinking party after drill exercises at the armoury. In Owen Sound, or Dry Gulch as it was known, the hall offered practice in a few things strictly outside of military maneuvers. The principal of Sol’s former high school was not opposed to the boys practicing to control the effects of alcoholic beverages, and once a month he loaded the young men aboard an army truck and drove them to the city for militia exercises.
 
Then the principal would wait around while a doctor gave advice in keeping disease-free when in the company of young women overseas. All the while, they practiced the agreed duty of learning to hold their liquor, with the sanction of those men who had served in the Great War. These men knew the desire to drink horrible visions of death into obscurity would be the lads’ strongest temptation.
 
During one of these raucous sessions, Sol heard the sad story of McDougall.
“He didn’t have much of a life on that farm. It were poor land, hilly and stony an’ probably ne’re should ‘ave been cleared. Elmer’s father had an accident, leaving him unable to do much of the farm work. Elmer had been seein’ the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. He’d even asked for her hand and they planned on getting married.
 
Story is, when Elmer’s mother found out, she put a stop to it. ‘You get back there and break it off, right now,’ she had demanded. Apparently, Elmer trudged back and broke it off.”
 
“That’s a lot of control. Why didn’t he refuse? He was an adult, wasn’t he?” One of Sol’s friends turned and looked directly at Sol.
 
“Not a day under thirty. The mother used guilt and some corrupted sense of family obligation.”
The prickly heat crept up Sol’s back and neck. He had a younger brother. His father didn’t need him in the store. He drained the glass, slamming to on the table.
Sol’s friend elbowed him. “Good lesson for the rest of us, don’t you think, Sol? A lost opportunity at love, and now McDougall is a lonely old man.”
 
Sol caught the wink another friend flashed at the storyteller.  He loosened his collar. “I’ll not be another Elmer, don’t worry.”
*
Men were being called up to enlist from everywhere. A farm boy he knew was whisked off to some unknown secret location. Several joined the Grey and Simcoe Forrester’s Regiment. When Sol received his naturalization papers with his new “Gentile” name, he stroked the document smooth­­––his new identity. They assigned him to the Perth Regiment. The army had agreed it would be safer not to have a Jewish name.
 
Immediately, he appeared at the Listowel registrar’s office to pay for a marriage licence. It shouldn’t have surprised him he had to stand in line to do so. Others had had the same idea: marry and take her picture with you to get you through the war. When he appeared in uniform, his father shooed him out the door of the shop. “You work for the army now.”
 
Sam arranged the day with Gloria and her brother. She had a friend who worked in Listowel to act as a witness. On the day, Sam opened his father’s garage doors disregarding the squealing and grinding. It was not unusual for him to borrow the car stored blocks away from his father’s business, yet he glanced from side to side, up and down the street.
 
He pulled as close to the snowbank as possible. Gloria came hurrying down the steps of her parents’ house, dragging a large suitcase. He slipped it into the back seat, they climbed into the front, and snuggly embraced.
*
At the Listowel train station, Sam scanned the crowd until locking eyes with Gloria. Weaving between tearful and joyful reunions, Sam’s eyes never left Gloria’s. They gripped each other’s shoulders, their four-year old son wide-eyed beside them. Sam drew Gloria into an ardent kiss on the lips, released her, and squatted to meet the dark-haired Ben.
 
“You’re my dad?”
 
Sam threw his head back and laughed. “I’m your dad,” he said, then scooped him up. Gloria talked and talked. Sam squeezed her close. Linking elbows, they walked to the apartment. A smiling Sam patted his belly after devouring Gloria’s home-cooked meal.
 
He slipped out to the garage where the ’39 Studebaker sat gathering dust. He wiped off a fender down to the still new shine. He grinned. They’d made it.