“…shadows”

I’m a child of the Cold War. In my young life nuclear annihilation was an everyday possibility. The current fears are not new to me. I remember well an unscheduled air raid drill. It was spring 1958. In that era the winter soil in New York was frozen solid from January to March. Not so for decades. The earth abides.

One of the first warm days. Was playing in the backyard. The ground soft enough to dig. Left to their own boys dig holes. Perhaps a species memory of our time as prey to large animals. ‘Hide…cover your tracks and keep quiet!’ Species boy digs. I was hiding from Leopards 20,000 years gone. 

Safe from Leopards but not Bears. 

The Tupolev Tu-95, NATO code name ‘BEAR’. Both sides in that strange time relied on such to deliver A-Bombs. On that day it seemed to my mother, that the Bears had finally come hunting. What happened was a frightful blur…but I well remember it. An unscheduled drill. 

Air Raid Alert sirens shrieked across peaceful Brooklyn. I was later told that drivers stopped their cars in the middle of the street and ran for shelter. Others went past stop lights trying to get home. Target: the Brooklyn Navy Yard where we built our aircraft carriers.

Adult voices yelling in tones I’d never heard before…fear. Our neighbor Mrs. Holder screaming…yes screaming. This for Mr. Holder who was in their garage to come into the house! Adults with fear in their voices. I had never imagined never heard never dreamed such was possible. 

We’d normalized terror into something we could live with. Took it for granted. Till that day. A quiet Saturday morning. Reality broke through the dream. We were moments from being carbonized shadows seared onto walls. 

Blur…I’m playing with the toy truck, and crane I’d got for Christmas. At last able to use it in real dirt. My mother was busy doing Mommy things in the house. There’s a kind of music we make as we go about our routines. She was making comforting Mommie music. It drifted out to the yard where I played. All was safe. All was well.

The storm door window shatters as my mother kicks it open flying down the steps of the porch which my carpenter uncle Lee had built. I looked up heard Mrs. Holder scream for her husband. Other adult voices with that new thing in them…fear. My Mommie had an expression I’d never seen. One of a mother whose only point only reason for living was to protect her baby. Her cub.

Daddy was at work my sister, and bother were at my aunt’s house. We were alone. Alone at the end of the world. I’m scooped up held tightly so tightly. I remember trying to say, “…I can’t breathe”.  We’re up the steps through the house down the cellar into the little storeroom. The door is slammed I’m stuffed into the corner my mother’s body atop me. She’s protecting me with her own life. Protecting me from the gale of fires about to descend on the City. I remember confusion crying. My mother was speaking. …maybe praying. 

After a time …‘All Clear’.

The language of adults is strange to children. They don’t get all the words but get the emotions. In the aftermath of ‘the day’ mommies on the block spoke in low tones. …daddies silent. Like all children I just went on. Children do. They can adjust to anything. Wars concentration camps poverty murder they can witness and take it. I even forgot about that day. For a lifetime it slept at the bottom of my memory. Till now.