Friday, November 03, 2006
Parallels
-If you want to look nice and be considered as one of Herr Hitler’s
little boys,you’ll keep that suit clean today!
It was Sunday after church and the Germans were due in tomorrow.
Mr Mixte,the Republican committeman had already brought the brochures
to our Starr Street house in New Haven,and we learned some German.
The Japanese takeover of the Western part of the country was further
along,and they had freed the camps with great fanfare. The Journal-
Courier showed a six-column photo of a Mr Tagaki accepting the
keys of the first Nash Automobile from a Los Angeles dealer.
My father had been warned that being a Democrat was like being
a bolshevik and the Fuhrer hated them as much as Jews.
-Roosevelt! Betray your class and therefore the country,and then lose the war!
But I can’t approve if you were one of those boys,however.
Mixte was referrerring to breaking some shop windows on Oak Street,where the
furniture stores and delis were. And painting swastikas.
I smiled and he smiled,so I breathed again.
My Dad had changed his registration to Republican. That helped me too.
-Boys will be boys! he told Mr Mixte.
-We do want some zest to them,of course. Dr Goebbels is clear on this.
We had his poster in the hall. Presses couldn’t print enough Hitlers.
There was a waiting list.
(This was the parallel universe. The war turned out differently in this reality,
of course. One shared event was that my Dad did switch to Republican
after Colonel Nickerson came back to the firm and told him he
goddamn better.
Both my sister and I became Republicans and married same.
Hitler is outsized in myth. Not quite the absolute monster.
No man is. I know he smiles,though,staring over the boundary
between universes. But that’s just theory.)
-If you want to look nice and be considered as one of Herr Hitler’s
little boys,you’ll keep that suit clean today!
It was Sunday after church and the Germans were due in tomorrow.
Mr Mixte,the Republican committeman had already brought the brochures
to our Starr Street house in New Haven,and we learned some German.
The Japanese takeover of the Western part of the country was further
along,and they had freed the camps with great fanfare. The Journal-
Courier showed a six-column photo of a Mr Tagaki accepting the
keys of the first Nash Automobile from a Los Angeles dealer.
My father had been warned that being a Democrat was like being
a bolshevik and the Fuhrer hated them as much as Jews.
-Roosevelt! Betray your class and therefore the country,and then lose the war!
But I can’t approve if you were one of those boys,however.
Mixte was referrerring to breaking some shop windows on Oak Street,where the
furniture stores and delis were. And painting swastikas.
I smiled and he smiled,so I breathed again.
My Dad had changed his registration to Republican. That helped me too.
-Boys will be boys! he told Mr Mixte.
-We do want some zest to them,of course. Dr Goebbels is clear on this.
We had his poster in the hall. Presses couldn’t print enough Hitlers.
There was a waiting list.
(This was the parallel universe. The war turned out differently in this reality,
of course. One shared event was that my Dad did switch to Republican
after Colonel Nickerson came back to the firm and told him he
goddamn better.
Both my sister and I became Republicans and married same.
Hitler is outsized in myth. Not quite the absolute monster.
No man is. I know he smiles,though,staring over the boundary
between universes. But that’s just theory.)
