“A Boy in Ohio”
“Johnny! Johnny, wake up!” Jean Glenn’s fourteen-year-old brother had never heard her voice like this before. There was another sound that followed her cries, one like a constant roll of thunder.
John rolled over in his bed, covering his head with his pillow and swiping in the air to shoo his sister away. “S’the middle o’the night, Jeanie, go back t’bed,” he slurred, “Jus’ a storm.”
“It’s them,” she cried, “They’re bombing!”
John sat straight up in bed, wide awake. “Why?!”
Jean shook her head, tears streaming down her face, “I don’t know!”
There was no mistaking it now that he was awake, the drone of plane engines and the concussive sounds of bombs falling. They’d heard it at a distance before, back when there were still Rumpublicans loyal to Albany in Ohio. Zanesville, not even twenty miles away, had been bombed more than once since fighting had broken out.
That was nearly a year ago, when they heard Douglas MacArthur announce a provisional government over the radio.
No time for waxing poetic, he thought to himself. John sprang from his bed, immediately throwing on the first pair of pants he could find over the boxers he slept in, along with his heaviest winter coat and the single pair of work boots he had. “Where are Mom and Dad?!”
His question was answered when his father appeared in the bedroom doorway. John Glenn Senior was a strong man, a man who’d served proudly in the Great War and founded a plumbing company. The Stock Market Crash of 1929, and everything that followed hadn’t eliminated the need for someone to lay pipes or snake drains. The Glenn Plumbing Company was one of the few businesses still standing in Muskingum County.
But now, John’s father did not look like a strong, proud man. He looked every bit as terrified as his children felt. John Glenn Jr. would never forget the ghastly terror on his father’s face illuminated by a flash outside the window.
“Basement! Now!” their father barked, and the two children heeded his orders.
Clara, their mother, waited at the top of the stairs, her hair still in curlers and housecoat still covering her nightgown. She placed a hand on each of her children’s shoulders, clinging to them with all the power in her slight frame. She guided them down into the foyer and then into the basement, the bombardment growing ever louder.
“Why is this happening?!” John cried, looking at his father. John Glenn Sr. was barely visible through the basement’s single bad bulb.
He just shook his head. “I don’t know, kid. I haven’t a fucking clue.”
The whole house shook, and dust fell from the low ceiling, and all John could do was throw his arms around Jeannie and his mother as the lights went out and the bombers roared.
Pale dawn sunlight streamed through the glass on the basement door. The Glenn residence was built on a hill, and the basement had one wall which exited at ground level. As John sat up, he found himself wondering when he fell asleep. Jean was still passed out, clinging to him, and his mother was the same, her head in his father’s lap, while the elder John simply sat against the wall of the basement, looking exhausted.
“Mornin’, Johnny,” he said quietly.
John looked around, and saw no obvious signs of damage to the basement, aside from some spidery cracks running down one wall. “Is it over?”
His father nodded. “Mm-hmm. Last bombs fell a couple hours before daylight broke, you’d all been asleep a while by then.”
“You been upstairs, outside?”
“Nah, not yet. Didn’t wanna wake you yet, but since you’re up, might as well get the girls awake,” he answered, before gently shaking his wife’s shoulder. “Honey, wake up. It’s okay, it’s over.”
John did the same for his sister, and once Mom and Jean were awake, the Glenns ventured upstairs. Glass littered the hardwood floors of the living and dining rooms from where the shockwaves had blown out the windows, and the curtains were little more than gossamer tatters. They fluttered limply in the cool April breeze. But otherwise, their home was intact.
The same could not be said for the neighbors. The Millers’ place across the street was little more than a pile of rubble whose shape hinted at once being a house, while the Desjardins’ house, located kitty-corner to their own, was a blackened husk of still-glowing embers wreathed in smoke. There was a crater in the Glenn family’s front yard, and twists of metal scattered throughout the grass was all that was left of the explosive that had missed their home by a mere thirty or so feet.
“God almighty,” Clara gasped as she took in the sight before her.
All John could think of was Annie Castor.
He’d known Annie all his life, literally could not remember a time without her, and had sworn up and down that he was gonna marry her someday. Imagine his thrill when finally, when he was a freshman and she a sophomore, she’d agreed to be his girlfriend. They’d been dating for more than six months, and he was terrified that she lay dead under a pile of rubble.
“Get dressed, all of you. Johnny, there’s some sheets of plywood in the garage, I’m gonna need your help getting them cut to size so we can plug up the windows,” John Senior said.
“Dad, I—” he began to object, but his father cut him off with a raised hand.
“I know, son, but we gotta take care of things here first. We’ll go check on the Castors as soon as we’re done, and then we can go make sure the company’s okay.”
“Okay,” John answered, nodding to himself and pressing down the growing panic in the back of his throat.
They had to cover the windows on the house’s entire front side, including in John’s room as well as the master bedroom. To make matters worse, water and electricity were completely out of service, jeopardizing the Glenns’ ability to keep what little fresh food they were able to get these days.
Just as the four of them were preparing to venture to the Castor residence a few streets over, a soft-skin cargo truck, painted in standard military green, rolled up outside of the Glenn residence. In the back of the truck were stricken-looking townsfolk, many of whom John recognized, but he did not see Annie nor her family. Exiting the truck was an officer, who marched up to them. Out of sheer reflex, John Senior snapped to a salute, which was returned by the interloper.
“Sir, my name's Captain Aaron Summers. By order of the Interim Military Administration for Central Ohio, the town of New Concord has been ordered to be evacuated after last night’s bombing due to infrastructural damage beyond our capacity to repair at this time. I need you and your family to pack your things as quickly as able, bringing only what is absolutely necessary, and we will relocate you to a temporary housing area in Columbus before reassigning you.” His voice was soft but left no room for argument.
“Do you… do you know why this happened?” Clara asked, her voice unsteady.
Captain Summers shook his head. “I’m afraid not, ma’am, but I can tell you that the air raid was carried out by the bastards in Albany. Anti-aircraft defenses managed to shoot down some of them, but those commie planes from Russia are built to take a beating, and they don’t care much about sending their men to die.”
“I see…” John’s father muttered, “Alright, Captain, just give us some time to get our stuff together.”
“But, Dad…”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to catch up with Annie and her family,” he said firmly, “wherever it is they’re taking us, Johnny. Now, we don’t want to hold these people up.” But John could see the uncertainty in the older man’s eyes as he spoke.
He did as he was told, quickly throwing a handful of outfits into a bag, alongside what few personal effects he could squeeze. Among them a photo of himself and Annie when they were toddlers, and another of his entire family at Christmas just before the war broke out. After that, he helped Jean with hers. After only fifteen minutes John Sr. locked the deadbolt on their front door, and the Glenn family was swept into the truck alongside their neighbors. They were bound for Columbus, and beyond that, some unknown destination that promised safety. Somewhere the government promised them they would be safe.
East Ohio smelled like hay and bugs during the springtime. The truck broke out into gasps at the sight of a large aircraft’s smoldering ruins near the edge of New Concord. One of the grunts riding in the back with them gave a humorless laugh. John’s blood ran cold.
“Yep,” the Captain said. His voice didn’t rise a note. “There’s one of the bombers who did this to y’all. He earned his place, alright.”
“Dad…” John whispered, “Dad, I know that plane. That’s not a Soviet bomber.”
“The hell are you on about, kid?”
John kept his expression as placid as he could manage. “You know I love planes, Dad. That isn’t a Soviet plane. It’s a Dornier Do 11.”
John Senior looked at him with confusion. “So?”
“The Dornier is a German line.”
John’s ears were ringing. He didn’t dare make eye contact with his father. The countryside was zooming behind the truck. A German line. What could that mean? Why would a German plane be shot down above New Concord? There were stories, of course. John was well-versed in the unfolding war’s details, at least as well as anyone could be. And of course, he knew planes. Russia was on the Rumpublic’s side, and the government Washington had the backing of Germany, Italy, Britain and the other great powers.
But mostly Germany.
Suddenly, John desperately wanted out. He wanted to climb out of the bed of the truck and make a beeline for Annie Castor’s. He wanted away from the soldiers, and away from all those people stuffed with him in the truck’s back. The government, bombing them? It didn’t make sense. They had nothing other than the house and the company. What was there left to bomb in Ohio that had survived the last six years to begin with? Just shops and farms and houses.
He felt squeezed. When he spared a glance at his father and mother, their faces were tired and hard like eroded stones. His sister was gnawing on her nails. Like most children of what followed the Stock Market Crash of 1929, John had an acute sense of helplessness, knowing full well what parts of the world his parents couldn’t control. And he knew, as he and his father dwelled on the implications of that plane being German, that once again the Glenn family’s destiny was far outside of its own hands.
They drove for another hour, surrounded by carnage from the bombing runs. John could only think one thought:
who would bomb us?
“Yankees,” he heard a soldier with a Tennessee accent saying to Summers, “I buy what command had to say. They’re out there, we just have to smoke ‘em out.”
Summers shook his head, paying no mind to the truck’s passengers. Just over the travel din, John made out his voice. “No. Rumpublicans are licked. We’ve got 'em on the run.”
The other man snorted. “Then why’re we here?”
That bothered Summers. “The Big Man knows what he’s doing. We’re here to keep the Rumpublicans licked, didntcha know? Do you doubt Mac or something?”
John Glenn rarely left his hometown. His family hardly had the means or the time to do it regularly, and it was not long until he had no idea where they were. It was close to the day’s zenith and the sun was beating down on his eyes and bare neck. He didn’t recognize a damn thing, and couldn’t make out any signs or landmarks that could help.
It was strange— like a peppering of destruction everywhere there were villages to be found. Jean wiggled her fingers around John’s hand and held on for dear life. She was squinting and had dirty sweat pooling on her upper lip.
We look like refugees, thought John. Like the floods of people that showed up in or passed through New Concord after the Crash, when John was ten. Or the mass movement and quiet, confused pandemonium that followed General MacArthur’s announcement.
There was a town racing into view. He couldn’t tell which, but it had buildings and military formations. John spied landing strips infested with planes, all facing northeast. There was a pit in his stomach. The town or whatever it was, had been transformed by war. There were tent sprawls stretching in every direction and buildings of all kinds being thrown up everywhere. Their truck wasn’t the only one racing in and out of it, either. The faces peeking out of the tents were dirty, tired, and care-worn. And afraid.
What are we in the middle of?
They stopped in front of a courthouse and John lurched into his mother’s back. That courthouse was the hub, the center of whatever was going on there. John saw soldiers and people alike, some dressed well and others clothed in rags while barefoot. They were all standing, talking idly or smoking. It looked more like a joyless holiday than taking shelter from Bolshevik raids.
Captain Summers climbed onto the truck’s roof and put his hands in the air. He reminded John of the stories of Moses speaking to the angry and tired Israelites, under the oppressive desert sun. “Folks— you’ve been brought here by the orders of General Hugh Johnson. You’ve been brought here because your own government, the people you elected, sided with the enemy.” A woman three heads to John’s right had a baby in her arms. The baby had kept quiet for the entire voyage, squirming in the sun but otherwise not making a sound. It was like it was used to being on the road. But when Summers spoke, it squalled. “The government in D.C., operating under the National-Corporate structure, is workin’ quickly to deal with threads within our borders. As you all know, the reds have been on the move. We’re lockin’ ‘em down as fast as we see ‘em, and in this last week there’s been a silent insurgency through most of Ohio. You’ve been moved away from your homes and properties as a safekeeping measure. This is a temporary war measure, this processing center we've brought you to. I wish there was more I could say. You’ll be housed and fed during your stay here, to the best of our abilities, and the Army’ll put down whatever’s going on out there in short order. Okay? Now you’ll be staying in barracks.” He and all the soldiers seemed to be smiling tightly. “File in.”
At first, John was confused as to what they meant. File in where? But, in the corner of his eye, he saw them: the barracks looked like cabins that had been thrown together sometime in the last few hours. His mother burst into tears when she saw them.
Barracks, he thought.
Me and my sister are living in the barracks.
And the “barracks” were lined with bunks. There was this fresh, irritated disgust on his father’s face. After the dozens of Ohioans the soldiers had mopped up file in, John saw his father’s hands curl around Jean’s shoulders. Living in a shelter, even for one day, was one of the few humiliations the Glenns thought they would be exempt from. Inside, there were rows of bunks.
Not enough, thought John. The Glenns hunkered down on the first two beds they saw.
They spent the rest of the day in silence. John did his best to entertain Jean while his parents whispered fifteen feet away. He didn’t hear a word of it over the noise the other refugees were making. He didn’t need to, to get the point. All he could do was think about Annie Castor and her family, a pit of dread growing in his throat. He wanted to see with his own eyes, whoever had bombed people that didn’t have enough food in their bellies to hurt someone if they wanted to.
It was a German line. The Dornier was a German line.
Some kind of worker, a nurse with a broad face and dull, brown hair handed out soup and bread for dinner. John was sitting on his bunk, and leaned forward to get on his feet. The mattress creaked under his weight, and he fell straight on his ass.
John broke the fall with the front of his wrist, which hurt like hell. But it wasn’t a splinter he’d landed on the wrong way. It was something metal. A tiny skewer, or maybe a pick. John’s hand was a little bloody. He wiped it on his shirt and shoved the thing in his trouser pockets. The Glenns ate chunky soup and crunchy bread together without saying a word. After that, John went exploring while his mother talked with some neighbors of theirs, the Cunningham family. He didn’t expect to find Annie hiding somewhere among the other refugees, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt. It gave him time to think, too.
That night, the Glenns had little better to do than go to sleep and hope there’d be more information in the morning. John and Jean were lying back-to-back, facing in opposite directions.
Jean blurted: “Does anything in this country go right?”
That drew a chuckle from their father. “You were real, real small the last time I was prepared to answer that.”
John waited hours and hours and hours with his eyes wide open, until he could feel Jean’s breathing grow even and all was quiet other than the soldiers outside. And when they too got quiet, he made his move. He certainly had no intention of running back home without his family. John just wanted to look, to go outside and see what he could learn.
As he’d suspected, there was a lock on the door a little smaller than his fist. John held it in place with his fingers and slid his needle into the bottom, his heart thumping in his throat. His fingers were aching when it finally popped open.
John slowly and gently kneed the doors open, shoving the skewer back into his pants. He was hit in the face with starlight and cool air. It almost made him miss the figure ten feet to his right.
She was a dainty woman under thirty. She had dirty, blonde hair and a rifle that glistened in the moonlight.
“You’re not supposed to be out here.” John realized she was a guard.
She’s going to shoot me, thought John, who didn’t have time to scream, run, or charge her.
“Hey! Hey! Hell are you doing, Parker?”
It was Captain Summers. The woman put her gun back into the resting position. “He got out,” said Parker blithely. Summers shook his head. “Jesus Christ. This kid can’t be far above fourteen. Bitch. Why’d you leave it unlocked, anyway?”
Parker looked at him like an insolent schoolgirl. Summers’s expression, who was wearing spectacles and his uniform, softened. “Don’t go nowhere, but when shift’s up, get Clyde for early mornin’ duty, wouldya?”
That woman went back to her station and stared at the sky, rifle slung over her shoulder. Summers closed the doors. “Now son, why’d you try and leave?”
John shrugged, his nerves going crazy. “Just wanted to get out.”
Summers nodded. “Of course. Yeah, no, nobody’s too happy about this. Any of this.” He paused. “Don’t try and make it harder than it needs to be. Go back in there, go back to sleep, and in the morning we’ll have things for you to do.”
Apparently Summers guessed what John had to say back. “Work. Like I said, nobody’s happy about any of this. These measures we’re takin’, we’re takin’ ‘em just to keep everything together until the storm blows over. And as long as you’re here, I’m afraid you’ll have to earn your keep.”
“My family are plumbers by trade,” said John, his mind glued on that Dornier that caused all of this.
“Oh yes,” said Captain Summers. “You’ll be of great service to your country.” He smiled. “Americans always do best when they’re under fire and workin’ to advance a great cause.”
John slunk back into the barracks, a small handful of people awake and staring at him. Summers and Parker waited outside, and later in the night he heard new locks being installed. He curled up next to Jean and went to sleep a few hours later.
The Natcorps, to consolidate their control over Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states, extensively targeted the civilian population in a short-sighted bid to destroy leftist resistance and keep a consistent source of manpower. John Glenn and his family were one of countless to be interned during the war.
