"Look, Harry, I don't wanna here nun yur shit 'bout how we gotta "do this", or gotta "do that". Shit gonna werk itself out juss fine withouts any help from you, OK? People gonna do what people gonna do."
"How very COVID of you," I replied.
I've never told this story of when I was a kid. Looking back, what a frivolous time that was, when we could afford to waste time pretending the important was unimportant and the unimportant was important. Sort of like heatedly contesting a call on a tennis court while artillery flies over from an encroaching war. Ignore what's incoming at your peril. I guess it's always been like that, artillery is just getting closer now.
Jerilyn Hink's Dad sought to impress me. This must have been somewhere around when I first started high school. Don't know why he felt this need as I was sitting in the living room waiting for Jerilyn to get ready to go out with me. I'm sure he sensed I was feeling vulnerable before a date and as we all know, waiting is the hardest part. So he starts in.
"I was in Patton's Third Army in World War Two." OK. I hadn't seen the Patton movie at that time but knew enough that he spoke of a legendary force. I was yet to participate in any world wars, though. Score one for the home team. Don't remember much after that though I do remember thinking the history buff in me would of loved to of seen any memorabilia he had. But, alas, he did not offer and I didn't want to give him the opening. But I also got the feeling of a person trapped in time, that the war was his life and, returning home, his life was his war. I shuddered a bit, never looking at a world War II movie the same again. There were no victors.
The illusion of victory
Following year is when I got my godawful paper route. Seven day a week ball and chain but the pot of gold I got in return made it worthwhile. To get your money the onus was on the poor bastard carrier. You paid for the papers up front then got your profit on the back end, going house to house on your route collecting cash. I got such money from Rudolph Hessen at 1025 Mary Ellen street. That's a fucking address I'll never forget.
Privately, I called him "Adolph" as a joke on his German nationality. First few times it didn't register, then the pebble under my mattress got me to thinking. He's about the same age is Jerilyn's dad and I get from Adolph that same cold streak feeling. But he would have been on the other side with that thick German accent of his. But if he's over here and everyone's good with it and America is all shiny and new like we always claim, he couldn't have been a bad guy. Or if he was, he saw the error of his ways and became a nice, safe, greedy capitalist like the rest of us. I mean, he always paid me his paper bill on time (not the case with all my customers!). How bad could he be?
That was my metric for the time, anyway. All I wanted was girls.
But that feeling of inadequacy that Jerilyn's dad made me feel still irked me so I decided to open up to ol' Rudolph and pick his brain on his WWII experience and then at last I'd have a trump card I could finally play on Patton Third Army dude. The reply I got to my stumbling question was not what I expected.
"You see this movie Chinatown?"
At that time I'd never heard of Roman Polanski's masterpiece. Sure as hell didn't sound like a WWII movie! I replied in the negative.
Then he quotes this line: "Most people never face that at right time and right place, they are capable of anything."
The way he said that last word put the fear of God into me. It's the main reason I've never related this incident before. That was not something I wanted to face, either. What sort of sinister urges were lurking in me as I lusted after Jerilyn's oh-so-hot legs? God knows my desires overrode my guilt. But did that guilt make me a Nazi??
He was studying my face for my reaction. I didn't dare dig deeper. Then he gave me a crooked smile with those coffee stained teeth of his. "You want to know what I did in war? I was camp guard."
Years earlier - when I thought Hogan's Heroes was an accurate depiction - I checked out a book from the school library to read how we kicked German ass. All I recall of that book was the jaw-dropping feeling of horror I'd witnessed when finished. No way in hell I wanted to hear about his "camp" experiences. My little fucking plan blew up in my face.
I got out quick as I could though I felt Rudolph's eyes spying on me every inch of my escape. I gave up the paper route just so I'd never have to see him again. Only later, safe and alone, did I explore the feeling of that encounter further.
I tried to convince myself that maybe he mean prisoner-of-war camp. "The Great Escape" in keeping with the movie theme. But no one speaks like he did, emphasizing the word camp, unless he meant one of those camps. God damn him! Why is that beast roaming around free? He took a piece of my innocence.
Later, I took it even further. Things would happen over the years to trigger that hidden moment. I did get up the nerve to watch Chinatown in college and about jumped out of my skin when I heard the line Rudolph referenced. Other various episodes tested my stubborn blind eye. Only in the most solitary of moments did I ponder the atrocities committed. "Most people never face that at right time and right place, they are capable of anything." I could still hear that same Germanic cadence clear as day. At first, I wondered why he'd even share that with me, maybe he was even making it up. Then it hit me. He was as alone as I was when thinking of it - only more so.
These are the kind of mind worms that can invade you when you don't ever face yourself, susceptible to the most baseless of rumors. Rudolph was a miserable fucker no matter how badly I wanted to paint him with American made happiness. Out on my own, I discovered that dream to be a nightmare. The worst in us still wants to make life a tennis game, arguing over line calls as if they were life and death (and vice versa). But ugly reality keeps seeping in and it won't stop until it's all the way through. We're giving permission for people to be Nazis again. Maybe that's why ol' Rudolph smiled - he knew it'd come down to this.
No comments:
Post a Comment