Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [100]
Finally, General Arnold, whom I never met, sent a special B-25 to San Francisco to fly Pete and me to Long Beach, and together we went home.
THOUGH IT WAS a very different moment, when my family met me as I stepped off the plane I couldn’t help think of the time I’d come home from the Olympics. I immediately ran up and hugged my mother. She had never lost faith that her boy was alive, and now she was beside herself. I guess most mothers are the same way, though many sons and husbands never came back. I hugged my dad and sisters, too. Everyone cried with joy, and I knew that my brother was the inspiration behind my parents’ determination to never give up hope. Even Chief Strohe of the Torrance Police was there, his police-car siren wailing in the background. But on the ride home there was more awkward silence than exuberant chat. I told no exciting stories of talented teammates, fine food, or stealing a Nazi flag. My only accomplishment had been staying alive.
We turned onto Gramercy Street and stopped in front of 2028, the white frame house I remembered so well. When I wasn’t having nightmares about strangling the Bird, I had dreamed often about relaxing on the living room sofa while my mother’s heels clicked on the blue-and-white checkered kitchen linoleum, and of watching as she prepared dinner.
Suddenly, I tensed up and shivered; none of it seemed real. I wanted to go in but I was afraid. What if the reality didn’t match up with my dreams? Would the house be the way I’d left it? Pretty much, I discovered, except for the fireplace. “An earthquake shook it to pieces,” my mother explained. But the bed in my room was freshly made, waiting for me.
Soon the phone rang and rang, and the house filled with friends, city officials, and photographers. Every time I turned around a flash-bulb blinded me. Voices rose and fell like ocean chop. My body grew numb and my mind disoriented.
What’s the matter, Louie? You’re home. There’s Mom, crying—stop crying, I’m here, it’s okay, that death certificate you got is not worth the paper it’s printed on, don’t worry…why don’t I feel anything?
I heard a voice in my ear: “Look in the kitchen, Louie.”
Another voice: “How about a picture, Louie?”
I sleepwalked through it all, dimly aware of the expectant grins on the faces that constantly surrounded me. In the kitchen I saw a dinner of gnocchi and ravioli, steak, risotto, sosole, and biscotti cooking on the old green-and-white Roper stove—all of which I’d described time after time to Phil and Mac on the raft. I also recalled painful memories of so many meals taken at the huge white table Dad had made with his bare hands, my head bent over my plate in sullen silence. Now fancy bottles of every description covered the table. Liquor—that was fine.
My mother picked up one bottle and showed it to me. “The man across the street brought this one the day you were declared missing,” she said. “He said he didn’t drink but he’d have a drink with you, from this bottle, when you came home.”
Many bottles, all expressions of faith that I was alive, were labeled with the name of the donor. “Even after the death certificate arrived,” my mother cried, “the bottles kept coming.”
I looked away and on another kitchen counter saw cookies baked by my sister Sylvia, in the form of letters that spelled WELCOME HOME LOUIE.
In the living room, more pictures and flashbulbs and voices. Finally, I broke away and wandered aimlessly through the house and out the back door to the garage. To my surprise, I found my 1939 Plymouth convertible inside. At least my parents hadn’t sold it. As I ran my hand over the smooth wax job and patted the hood, my reserve gave way and the dam burst. I rushed back inside, crying. Soon, everyone was in everyone else’s arms.
At dinner I was too nervous to eat everything my mother had