CHAPTER 3

February, 1971

Frank Harmon got in his new Lincoln and angrily slammed the door. He was sweating under his heavy Botany 500 sport coat and even his eyes felt hot with rage. He had just come from her lawyer’s office. The divorce was now final.

He wondered anew if he had ever really loved Paula Lansbury. They had dated briefly before he had gone off to Korea and when he had returned she was waiting. And he had felt adrift. She was a model, young and beautiful and she would look good on his arm. And it had worked – for several months, at least. And then the horrific truth had settled on him. He had married the wrong person. Actually, it was even worse than that. He had married.

Franklin Alexander was born the third child of six to the Harmons of Stockton on January 22nd, 1925. Frank and his siblings benefited greatly from having a loving mother; their father was, of course, a typically stoic and undemonstrative man of the time. But Emily Harmon doted on her children and loved her husband, Bill, deeply. And he may have never said it but she knew he loved her. As the Depression came to California, the Harmons, of course, felt it but Bill managed to stay employed in the city’s canning industry. In this relatively stable environment, little Frankie grew into a gentle, loving child. He got along with his brothers and sisters and idolized his father watching him from a discreet distance.

The Harmons were definitely blessed by Bill’s ability to draw a regular paycheque from the Stockton Food Processors cannery on Waterloo Road but only Bill knew what the work was like. With thousands of migrants arriving in the area each day, wages dropped steadily as did the quality of the working conditions. Bill may have noticed the intense competition for jobs and the desperation in the eyes of some of the men he encountered but he was the type to just keep his head down and work. And then the union got involved.

The Agricultural Workers Organization swept in to the region with promises of taking up the workers’ cause and demanding for them higher wages and better working conditions. Bill tried to maintain his non-involvement but he also received the mute message from his co-workers; you were either for them or against them. The night of April 22, 1937, was a hot one. With the children in bed, Bill finally confided in his wife. He told Emily of the unrest at his workplace. She listened gratefully and tried to quietly calm his fears and reassure him. Before they went to bed, they had shared a warm and lingering look. Old Bill Harmon had even returned his wife’s gentle smile.

The next day at work, more than just the weather was hot. The unrest in the atmosphere was palpable. Bill learned that a strike had been called and longshoremen had joined workers from the canneries resulting in one massive group of picketers. Bill heaved a troubled sigh; “why can’t they just leave me alone to work?”. The local sheriff had formed a posse and together with the California Highway Patrol they served as escort for the first spinach trucks arriving at the gates of Stockton Food. 850 picketers surrounded the first truck and began dumping the produce onto the ground. The posse promptly lobbed tear gas bombs and fired on the picketers with shotguns at point blank range.

Late that afternoon, after the police had left the modest Harmon home, Emily Harmon sat staring blankly. The oldest of her children – though stunned themselves – slowly moved towards her and placed their hands on her, as if fearing she would topple. The youngest Harmon children watched, not understanding but sensing something had irreversibly changed. 12-year-old Frank stood back alone. He felt a heat behind his eyes and the odd sensation of a bottomless chasm opening in his chest.

CHAPTER 4

Back in his Lincoln, Frank recalled that sensation. When times had been toughest for him, something in him returned to that moment in the family shack in Stockton. Now he looked out the window and smirked, making a short, laughing snort in his throat. While he had never deeply analyzed what that day in 1937 had really meant to him, he knew it had set the course for his life.

He had been called to service in the waning days of World War Two. As he hugged his mother at the station, they shared the silent look they often did when the absence of Frank’s father was keenly felt. Emily knew that among her kids Frank had worshipped his father the most intently. What would Bill say on a day like today?

It wasn’t until Korea, though, that Frank had seen any real combat. Weeks before shipping out, he had met Paula. They had felt a connection and had made some vague promises to each other before Frank left. He carried her picture with him but more than that he carried with him a hope that – if he made it home in one piece – maybe, hopefully, the two could build a life together.

And then there was Roger Watson. When Frank discovered that Roger hailed from Stockton as well, the two had become buddies and would talk endlessly of the old days back home and made plans for when they returned to the world. Young Roger reminded Frank of his youngest brother, Tom and Frank had taken Roger somewhat under his wing. In the fall of 1951, Frank and Roger got separated from their unit during the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in the hills of North Korea. Frank could tell from the fear in Roger’s eyes that he was counting on Frank to get them both back to safety. They had made some progress when suddenly things went south. A brief skirmish with the enemy resulted in Roger sustaining a bullet wound to his leg. He was able to hobble along though and Frank began to be cheered with the thought that they would make it back to their unit sustaining only minimal damage. Roger’s injury was minor enough that he would survive and maybe even earn a ticket home. The two had spotted their unit in the trees beyond a clearing.

“Can you make it, Roge?”, Frank asked, “just across this clearing”.

“No problem”, Roger answered, “just like returning the punt for a touchdown”.

Frank smiled. The two men rose from cover and prepared to dash across the clearing. Frank heard a noise and noticed Roger was no longer standing next to him. He turned and, hearing a whizzing sound go by his left ear, looked at Roger on the ground. Frank knelt back down. Roger looked at Frank with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Roger, what’s the matter?”, Frank asked. Then Frank noticed Roger’s helmet. Roger grabbed Frank’s collar as blood began to run down his forehead. Frank looked at the crimson stain and then looked back into Roger’s eyes. Frank started to say something but Roger made a strangled sound in his throat. Frank watched the lights go out in Roger’s eyes.

Frank stared at the water as the ship slowly pulled into port. Paula had said she’d be waiting. But he felt nothing. He knew he would have to make a go of it, though. And besides, maybe life with Paula might save him from his thoughts and fears. From his troubled dreams. From the course his life had taken since the death of his father. In his mind he saw Roger’s eyes again, as he often did. The image always took him to that moment in the yard when he was a child playing with his kid brother, Tom. The two boys had been goofing, acting like the kids they were, when suddenly Frank had felt such affection for his brother – for his family, for his home, for his life – that he had spontaneously thrown his arms around Tom’s neck.

The Frank Harmon that returned from Korea was decidedly not that happy, loving boy. He looked up and spotted Paula. She waved. He grinned and waved back. Maybe, he thought. Hopefully.

Now, almost twenty years later, he sat enraged, gripping the Lincoln’s steering wheel with white knuckles. Their marriage had known a little over two good years and Frank had been encouraged. But he soon began to look sightlessly out over the horizon. Paula could not see what he saw and could not know what his thoughts were or what his life had been like. She came from a prosperous middle-class family and she was young, nine years younger than Frank. It came almost suddenly. The two stopped spending time together. Frank would stay out nights. He used his personality to advantage and became a successful realtor. He began to move in circles populated by a certain type of woman. Frank was mildly surprised to learn that many of these woman desired him and he began to seek solace, understanding and escape in a variety of beds. But he could never give himself to anyone. What was the point, he would think. Subsequently, he never found what he wanted – what he needed – in any one woman. Even the few that seemed to genuinely care he brushed aside. Finally, after years of separate beds and separate lives – and no children – Paula bitterly pulled the plug.

Frank could see the desolate, merciless line heading back from this moment. “Nothing”, he said aloud to himself, finally, “just…nothing”. With that, he started his big Lincoln and savagely pulled at the gear shift.

---

While this is a work of fiction, it is based on characters and scenarios created by Jo Heims for the 1973 Universal picture Breezy.