Wouldn’t that be the Holocaust or something?
She'd heard about the Holocaust and the Nazis and all, remaining largely unimpressed. Every year abortions ended the lives of two or three million fetuses… At least. So WHAT?
Flipping back to the front of the book, she found it to have been written over five centuries ago, well before the Holocaust took place. But there it was, a kind of reference to it. That's funny. Must be a coincidence. No, it says some more about it.
“The author of these works will be a devil, trusted by no man, an unalterably evil soul. Surely he will spend infinity in the farthest reaches of the demonic abyss…” Why, Jeannie wondered, after my abortions and all the other junk that goes on in the world… does it even began to matter?
Musing, she decided to search for a copy of this later book.
What was it called? She racked her brains, not getting any answer, and went to discuss it with her Jewish friend Phil at the Wiccan bookstore. “Itchy-Witchy Books.”
“Mein Kampf. That’s what that book is titled. You want me to order you a copy? There's these scary people who reissue stuff like that, I think just to keep us all informed. Sure, I’ll get you a copy.” She had one in her hot little hands in exactly two weeks. The cover was red and black, like her car.
It wasn't much. But there was a chilling feeling of raw evil that sort of seemed to thrillingly emanate from it, moldy old tome that it was. Gee, Hitler sure used gutter language.
He couldn't seem to say anything straight, or keep to one topic for very long. Maybe because it's poorly translated from the German, Jeannie thought, in all ridiculous fairness. She’d heard Hitler was originally an artist, not a writer. Drew buildings. Weird. It sure rambled inconclusively.
There was this article Jeannie remembered from the National Geographic called “Exploring the Holocaust,” and in it there was this very weird photograph of Hitler. She went to her magazine pile, hauling it out to look at it.
Maybe it was the weirdest photograph ever taken, she thought; she hadn’t seen many that enigmatically meaningless.
It's black and white. In it, Hitler is wearing a grey World War I flying ace cap, like he's pretending to be the Red Baron or something, and is looking away from the camera, for once.
Instead, he's peering deeply, and possibly reflectively, into an empty paper bag. An ordinary brown lunch sack, and he's looking way for away into it for no apparent reason.
The first time Jeannie had seen this photo, maybe back in junior high school, she thought he was feeling momentary sympathy for the starving. She'd always thought the Nazis deliberately became and portrayed themselves as evil, she didn't know why, and she thought he was showing himself off as a ratty old clown in that shot, sort of vaguely apologizing for his killer role.
As if the starving in Europe and Russia meant something.
Right then and there, caught in that mood, with deep bags under his eyes and all his impending age showing, he seemed to be pretty downer. Like he was trying to FEEL that deprivation.
Jeannie herself had never gone hungry a day in her life except for the sake of dieting, willing to starve for her waist.
Taking the pictures of Hitler, the copy of Mein Kampf and the Necronomicon over to her impromptu, home-assembled altar, she laid them down around it, near the picture of a sitting, skinny, Middle-Eastern, nearly white, clear-skinned saint. It seemed to touch something in her mind for a moment, another photograph she had seen many long years ago, one that somewhat perplexed her.
She leafed through the Necronomicon for a magic spell, figuring she had all the necessary items to cast a really wicked piece of mischief. There was a twilight glow in her apartment, lending diabolical onus to the moment. As long as she dressed in black, why not dabble in black magic? What did she have to lose?
The Necronomicon finally provided her with…oh, my golly gosh…the spell for the summoning of a demon. That ought to be pretty good! Too bad it wouldn't really work, and nothing would happen. She’d chant it anyway, half-heartedly, just to see that it doesn't work, that death is permanent and there is no such thing as magic in the world.
She chanted it in the nearly Spanish words she didn't understand, guessing at the accent from listening to Hispanics.
It was such a shock to see the grey shape slowly take form in her easy chair, gathering together as she held back her screens.
At first, while she chanted, the hush surrounding her wasn't very impressive. Heavy traffic outside was over with; rush hour was dying down. At the strange suctioning sound, like something pulling in from another realm, grew LOUDER and LOUDER!!!
Glancing down the page, as the grey shape coalesced, large and ominous in her chair, she read the translated English words:
“In the summoning of a demon, you are at odds to determine the demon’s home after summoning, as it may not want to return to its former realm. Only a very strong spell will return it…”
GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…POP!!!
Well, there he was. Snoopy flying ace cap and everything.
Adolf Hitler. Just about as she’d pictured him. Sitting up in her padded chair, squashing two rattan dollies. Frowning.
Long ago, when she’d been finding out about the ways of the world, there’d been her first exposure to the Miss America Beauty Pageant. That was one of the pivotal events that turned her into a radical feminist, into a follower of the eclectic rather than the mainstream. Knowing she was too short to be in it.
One of the rules in the pageant was that the finalists had to answer a weird question. “If you could choose someone to have an hour-long conversation with (they never did say why it was only an hour), who would you talk to?” In a kind of frustrated angst, Jeannie has decided, since she was short, and since that was the only thing that kept her from the scholarships offered in that very Aryanesque contest, she was not going to be able to afford college. Clearly, it might as well be Adolf Hitler.
Hitler it was! “Vo izt diezer? Ver zum Teufel ez Zie? Vaz soll nun verden?” Jeannie never saw a guy look that shocked.
“Oh…wow…can you speak any…English?” He blinked.
“Anglisch? Anglisch? Vas iz dis heppenink? I don’t onderzstand. Ver iz mine car? Ve were koink…WHO ARE CHU?”
In that kind of commanding mood, she’d been exhibiting for many years now, without questioning what impossible events were happening, Jeannie got up to pour the strange old man a cup of her best herbal tea. She forced it into his frightened, shaking hands. As she put it here, she got a good look at this infamous, startled face, which altered slowly as he saw who and what it was handing him his drink. His expression didn’t soften…much.
“VAIT…chu are FOOLINK me…dis iz HALLUZINACHUN…chu pot zomtink een dot ZOCK…vat iz dis tea? Vere iz mine VAR?
“I VAS CHUST EEN A VAR! Vat iz dis heppenink NOW?”
Startled, he stopped ranting and raving to stare down the tea, taking a sip, an almost human expression crossing his face.
Eerily, he emanated cold, as though he’d just been outside in a very chilly, wet place. There was water on his shoulders and hat, rain spattering’s. His clothes were military and very heavy, meant for cold hard weather, insulating. He was shaking in confusion, not cold, though. He must have been used to it…
This was an at least fifty-year-old man, or a forty-year-old that sure looked it. Or, was it a man? The spell has been one to summon demons. Was this a devil, only looking like Hitler?
Who was it, really? His trembling was starting to slow down.
“Tail me who chu are, pretty leettle goily, und vere it iz zoddenly dot I yom. Dis iz not vere I vas, and dot iz not wery kosher oltogedder, iz it?” He seemed to look at her accusingly, but it was a touch wistful, his expression. She was startled at the emotional depth in his dark eyes. They were almost foggy.
They were sunken, rather piggy, hard to see in the midst of his flushed face. But they were bright, searching Jeannie’s face and the apartment for answe
rs to his more obvious questions.
After a pause, he commented that the tea was good. “Wery!”
Jeannie, highly amused, smiled fearlessly into his amazingly placid and harmless-looking face. The old monster wasn’t about to panic at this new development in his peculiar life, she guessed, and she was timing the moment, smiling and staring into his eyes, being a very sharp girl, a very well-managed young lady, when a certain single thought would surely cross his mind.
In fact, she mused to herself, scared a little, she wondered which thought would cross his mind first. She knew which two thoughts would surely creep in. Which one would occur first?
There he goes. He starting to think it. That he’s dead.
The bemused, frownish stare crossing his face lit him up startlingly, almost turning them one shade lighter. It was only a trick of the fading light. He started to stammer, “I heven’t, surely, I cannot heve gone dere. I rainember no bomb!”
So that was the one he thought first, she sighed. Yeah. Heaven and Hell. We’re peaceful, don’t hurt a flea, only abort our helpless children, over here. Yeah. We never give it a second thought. I just pulled this old chap off a potential mine field. That’s the first thought he thunk. Should I let him?
She really winced at that. She meant, let him think the thought. But God, what an old geezer it was. Check the nose.
He was searching her costume for information, noticing the black color, seeming to fall back into himself a little.
“Not really what you were expecting an angel to wear, is it?”
She didn’t feel very happy about being fooled by the magic spell. She’d never expected it to work. And she knew from reading that Hitler was sort of a lecherous type. It had been neck and neck, she thought, the first thought and the next one.
She was waiting for that raking glance. She looked at him frankly. It was almost intimidating, because…it wasn’t there.
“Vat iz chor neme, yonk ledy, und vere can I get to a phone? I most to zneak off here, I think I heve blecked out.”
His voice was surprisingly charming, no shock really, considering he was probably an Austrian; they’re all very charming and quaint. At least the Jewish people
Jeannie knew from Austria were that way. He leaned forwards imploringly in the chair. “I MOZT heve a…phone. It iz EEMPORTENT!!!
“Pleaze, teke me to a PHONE! Und tell me, vere in dis voild EM I? He was practically wringing his hands. He wanted home!
Jeannie laughed, rocking back on her overstuffed pillow.
Seated where she was comfortable, she had strange old Hitler well-ensconced in a bamboo Hawaiian curve-back chair. He made quite a comical sight, and in spite of the tea he still emanated cold. Almost in a supernatural manner. She slurped her tea.
“You just relax, old man, and let me take your coat. You’re in America, not headed back to the war-time front.
“It’s too late. World War II is long over. You’ve lost.”
“I HEVE? Vell, my dear, dot iz ez egzpected, but dot CENNOT BE !!!” His voice sunk to a low guttural, sort of a moan.
Jeannie detected a dragging sorrow in him, an ache sort of like a thousand-ton weight. She thought she’d better watch feeling sorry for him. She’d been with guys who tried to make her feel sorry for them, and was used to them, but that wasn’t what was in his tone. It sounded like genuine pain.
“I MOZT get beck to vere I vas und continue our recent qvest vor zustenunze or dere vill be…bed problemz.” He looked at her in a way that was almost scary, that would have frightened her if she hadn’t been the sort that faced unusual situations.
She would have to get him to listen to reason. HITLER? ! ?
“Are you hungry? We can go out to McDonald’s and get a hamburger. I see you still have your paper sack. Why don’t we go out and put a burger in it?” She smiled coquettishly.
Over the years she’d grown to be very good at keeping her distance while offering the malevolently hungry their food.
Not used to people disobeying him, Hitler froze. He shook the bag, crumbled it. “No, I most…I HEVE to be…oh, vat iz hall dis? Dis cennot DO!!! I yom surely DEAT und…vere?”
“AMERICA. Like I said. You’re in Los Angeles, California. Wake up, old man. You might be stuck here to stay!”
Numbly, he let her take his heavy jacket. It was decked with gold medallions and symbols, the German eagle and little pieces of odd jewelry. Underneath, he was wearing a brown shirt and a swastika armband. Dressed as a typical, boring old Nazi.
They’d have to get him other clothes. Even in L.A. he’d attract attention…waitaminute, she still had her old ratty unisex oversize pullovers from the fat lady shirts craze.
“Hang on and I’ll get you some real clothes. You’re gonna have to take off all that weird junk you’ve got on and dress like you’re normal. Maybe you’d better shave that mustache.”
As a waitress, Jeannie was used to dealing with “any weirdo customer you could imagine.” Hitler, nonplussed, did nothing but give her tragic dog-like looks as she got him to stand up.
“Here’s a shirt…I’ll turn my back while you change.”
Adolf simply put the oversized shirt on over his other clothes. He sighed, raising his arms out to his sides and then plopping them down. “Wery vell, my Liebchen, I yom raidy vor vatewer it iz dot chu are propozink. Vere iz it ve are koink?”
Jeannie donned her black coat. “OOT!!!”
Taking him downstairs, they trekked to her car. Hitler, startled VERY awake and scared, kept gawking all around him. “I know all uff Chermany like de beck uff mine hend. UND I DO NOT KNOW DIS PLAZE! VAT een tonder IZ?” He was starting to give up, but brightened when he saw the messy insides of Jeannie’s car.
“An American car! How VONDERVUL! Ve really are in America! Chu can drive?” He couldn’t get over it, babbling constantly.
“Marwelous! Fontastique! Ve are koink out to a reztaraunt?”
Jeannie explained to Hitler— “can I call you Adolf?” “Shore, if I can call chu Cheannie, Liebchen, “—that she didn’t have a lot of money, and so they were going to a take-out place called the Burger King, where they could get food quickly.
Hitler settled down, nodding as if he knew what she was talking about, but he looked plenty shocked as events unfolded.
Jeannie drove up to the window and swiftly ordered two burgers through the microphone. In a couple of minutes, they had their food. Casually, she pulled them over to a parking space.
Woody Allen Makes A Scary Sandwich - Horror Pastiche, Stories & Poems Page 17