NAZI PARTY POOPER
I
tried scrubbing the letters off for days. I even resorted to grinding my
knuckles damn near to bone against my cell wall. It was no use. Once my flesh
scarred over, the letters were still in place, solid and clear to make out. I couldn’t get the horror of it all out of my
mind. Where did the nightmares begin and end? What would be expected of me now?
The only thing I could be certain of was that
the Nazis obviously had more power in the prison than the average inmates behind
its bars. This was evident in the change
of my treatment after my so called initiation. My usual meals would be
delivered with double portions, I was given new books to read, and my time in
the yard each day was extended by half an hour.
I
felt uneasy by all my new found liberties.
I knew better than to view them as a reward, but more as an allowance. Unfortunately,
in prison, all allowances are loans that almost always come with a large set
interest. If I could have stopped the
deposits of forced gratitude, I would have, but I was more, so to say, in the
position of the white safari explorer being so generously overfed by the native
tribal cannibals, happy with the idol like worship, all the while being fattened
for the pot.
In
the passing days I didn’t talk or come in contact with any of the known Nazis
in the prison. I figured that they would
at least come up to me in the yard, but to my confusion, they acted as if
nothing had changed. In fact, I tried to
approach a group of skins at the yard bleachers and they rose with the same
hostel stance of that they would show to an approaching nigger. I was clearly unwelcome.
I
steered clear of both blacks and whites for the week to pass and figured it
best to just go on about my sentence without asking questions. One night, reading in my bunk, I could hear
the distant rumble of a coming storm. I
had a sick feeling that night in my gut that they would send for me, and sure
enough, they did.
Like
clockwork, the power went out again, but it felt more as if it had been cut by
switch and not the result of the storm.
I was wide awake and ready for what was to come, or at least I thought I
was ready. I could hear the footsteps of
two guards coming down the block. I knew
they were coming for me. A chill danced down
my spine when I saw that both guards where in uniform, but had white pointed
hoods placed over their heads.
“On
your feet inmate!”
I
rose from my bunk as they unlocked my cell door. I was sure that they would
enter my cell or put me in cuffs, but the second my gate was open they marched
off into the dark uncertainty.
I
knew that I was to follow. Making my way through the night block, my pace fell
short of the guards and I lost them to the forward darkness. I reluctantly caught
up to them where they were waiting for me, standing in the same emergency
spotlight of the dark folding room that I was directed to last time.
“He
wants to speak with you now.”
They
pointed at an open doorway at the far end of the folding room. It was the entrance
to a block that the inmates called La Paloma. Somehow pigeons were getting into
the block and shitting all over the place. The fowl infestation had been going
on for decades and the prison did nothing to stop it. The cells of La Paloma are
mostly filled with crazies. Guys that
should be in mental hospitals line the block, writing their prophetic delusions
out in bird shit on cell walls.
La
Paloma is also grounds to “The Nest”, a five by five foot solid steal solitary
confinement cell at the very end of the block. It has no windows, or bunks, and
is completely empty aside from a steal toilet with no seat lid. When I stepped into the hall, I had a
dreadful fear that “He” would be in the Nest.
I walked the long corridor that reeked of mildew newspaper and pigeon
waste. Inmates incoherently screamed and reached out for me through the bars of
their cells with white and gray shit covered hands. It truly felt like a passage to Hell.
The
two guards followed a few paces back, leaving me no way to go, but
forward. I reached the Nest. The door
was open.
“Get
in!”
One
of the hooded guards shoved me forward; the other quickly slammed the door
behind me. In a pitch black panic I
searched the confines of the cell.
Banging on all four walls, almost filling as much space as the darkness
around me, I quickly exhausted my strength, soon finding my efforts curled up
into a corner. I was alone in the cell,
I was certain of it. That is when, clear in my ear, I heard a voice. A voice in
the Nest that I was sure to be alone in. A voice with a German accent.
“You
know, Adolf Hitler’s secret hideout in Obersalzberg was called the Kehlsteinhaus,
better known to the American troops as the Eagle’s Nest.”
I
jumped to my feet, violently swinging and reaching into the dark. Nothing.
“Who’s
there?”
“Though,
this pigeon nest I’m afraid, would not be to the artistic taste of the Fuhrer.”
“Who
are you?”
“You
know who I am Mr. Blake.”
“What
do you want from me?”
I
could feel the breath on the hairs of my ear as he whispered,
“I
simply want to have a little chat.”
I
swung my fist in the small confined space, only hitting air.
“How
are you doing this? Where are you?”
He
laughed,
“Do
you smoke Mr. Blake?”
Just
then, a flick of a match, the cell wash bathed in light where I could see in
the opposite corner of me, a blond haired man lighting a cigarette. Just as
quickly he shook the match and darkness superseded the light. I rushed to grab at him, but my hands found
only the cold steal wall. Not even the cherry glow of this cigarette remained,
but the cell was quickly filling in smoke.
“Where
the fuck are you?”
“Do
you not remember me Mr. Blake?”
“Yeah,
you’re the Nazi fuck that told me to return to my cell after the little KKK tea
party you and your Hitler youth put on for me, right?”
“Yes,
but do you not recognize more to me?”
“No,
should I?”
“I
would certainly hope so. We shared such a dynamic moment, you and I.”
“I
don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.”
Cigarette
smoke filled the cell, so much that I could barely breathe.
“Maybe
this will jar your noggin.”
In
the smoke, a red haze of light illuminated over the toilet the corpse of a Nazi
officer, hunched over, filled with bullet holes.
I
had seen tons worse than the devil back in the war, but the sight of a dead
blonde head German boy on the shitter was the one that never found peace in my mind.
Now here he was, flesh incarnate, give or take. I couldn’t tell if my heart was stopping or
starting in my panic as his corpse, just a few feet from me, raised its head
and said,
“Do
you know how long I sat on this toilet after you killed me Mr. Blake? How long,
I rotted with flies that would eat my shit, then land on my lips and lay their
maggot larva to feast on my decomposing tongue? How can you kill a man and then
leave him in such a way and not remember his face?”
A
fly flew from out of his mouth and landed just below my left eye. I reacted the
only way I knew how, with anger and hostility.
“Fuck
you Nazi scum!
Trying
to fight the fear, I kicked my right foot into his chest. With all my weight
behind it, my leg sunk knee deep within his rib cage, collapsing into the
hallow maggot eaten cavity that was his torso. The Nest went dark just as I acted out,
bringing light to the sensation of wet and cold from my shin down. Losing my
balance, I reached forward to find the top of the steal toilet, and my foot
lodged in the bowl. The German had vanished with the light. God damn foot was
stuck.
“Do
you want to know a secret?”
I
stood still with my leg stuck in the toilet, questioning my own sanity. In all
the hells I’ve traveled, this would be the worst. I listened in the darkness.
“A
Nazi sympathizer is no better than a Nazi, agreed Mr. Blake?”
I
didn’t answer.
“What
if somebody, unknowingly supported the Nazi movement? What if somebody, without
intention, was single handedly responsible for extending the reign of the Third
Reich? Would this person not be guilty of the horrific acts that they
unintentionally extended?”
I
jarred my leg free from the shitter and fell back into a corner. I couldn’t
understand what the German was getting at.
“Perhaps
I am being too broad with my approach Mr. Blake. Let me give you another point
of view to start from. What if a soldier was only following orders? What if a
soldier committed genocide to spare himself from almost certain death?”
“I’d
say he was a fucking coward!”
“Yes,
you’re right! You’re right I’m afraid. He would be a coward. But, this is easy
to decide with a well fed belly and mind. Starve a man of knowledge by feeding
him only propaganda of hate, and fill his stomach with the honey and milk of
delusion, and he soon becomes nothing more than a coward at the teeth of
hysteria.”
“Bullshit
you gutless motherfucker!”
“Funny
you should say such words Mr. Blake, for now it is my shit and guts that you
must take from if you are to survive. You are now at the mercy of a Nazi, Mr.
Blake. You can take from me and survive, or refuse and perish, but I must
assure you Mr. Blake, you will sympathize with me before you leave this Nest
and you will see the hate that makes you as I.”
“Hate?
As you?”
“Yes
Mr. Blake, the hate that makes us as dead as we are alive, and as alive as we
are dead.”
His
rotting corpse reappeared over the toilet, motionless. This time the Nest went
silent; all except for the buzzing of flies. I didn’t know it at the time, but
I wouldn’t hear the Germans voice or be leaving the Nest for another sixty
days.
