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“Several other squads had been drafted to take a few remaining rats’ nests just to the north of where we were. A few weeks had gone by and I snuck off every chance I got to show the picture around. Something inside burned. I don’t know what. Maybe nothing more than righteousness, if I may be so bold as to claim it.
“Every prisoner we took in. I held the drawing up to him, trying to force the pieces to fit. The curve of his eyebrows, the way his earlobes went straight into his head rather than dangled. Free as opposed to attached, a doctor once told me. Anyways, his were attached. Sharp point to his nose but his nostrils flared. She said he snorted. That sound was a trigger for her, I guess. She’d hear it in her memory and curl up. Some Kraut snorting. Lord save us.
“But those squads that cleared the rats’ nests, they came back with a good bunch of yellow bellies who just dropped their rifles where they were and stood, arms reaching for the damn sky. What a bunch of pussies.
“Word came back real fast that our boys were marching a line of Krauts into camp. Said the line was as long as the Mississippi but smelled twice as foul and only spoke Pig Latin. So I waited. Bargained with another private to take my duty and I’d take his in the midnight shift so I could be there. Drawing in hand. Of course, I had Bessie, my BAR in the other.”
Browning Automatic Rifle. Good man.
Willibald leaned back in his seat, smiled just enough to betray how smug he was in his moment, and said, “Our boys marched one hundred and nineteen Krauts back into camp. The man I wanted was number one hundred and ten.”
“No doubt you had him arrested for war crimes.”
“I donkey kicked him outta the line while hollerin’ rapist. Bastard hit the mud and tried to scurry away from me. Crawlin’ on all fours. The way he did a lot of things, I suppose. The other Krauts just froze stiff, probably worried that we were gonna treat them the same way we had heard they had treated the Jews or whatever.
“Anyway, some officer came chargin’ up, wantin’ to know what I was doing. I showed him the drawing, told him about the woman and all, pointed to that guy. Kraut started to cry. A bunch of Johnnys had come over, some to corral the Kruats and some to see what it was and if’n they could get in on it. The brass looked back and forth, back and forth.
“Looked at the Kraut and said lemme see your chin. You see, the French gal told me he had one of them clefs in his chin, deep as a canyon. The Kraut didn’t want to show off his chin at all, and a lot of people thought that was guilt, pure and simple. But I had heard the snorting. He’d been snorting since he come walkin’ by, the pervert. And I said so.
“I think I was the first to fire, but by the end there was so damn many of us who did it’s impossible to tell. Anyone who didn’t know what was happenin’ took cover. Thought Hitler himself was leading a charge against us. Lord save us I got in a world of hurt over that killin’. But I never apologized. And I got the right man. No time in the brig either, I might add. Right is right. For me, that proves it.
“Richard, this world is fucked up, and the greatest and worst thing God ever did was give us free will. That Kraut used his to destroy a woman’s life, and I used mine to make it so he couldn’t do it again. Does that make me evil?”
“No.”
“I never felt that way. ’Course, the wife, she used her free will to ignore the question the one time I asked her ’bout it. I decided not to think too hard on what her answer mighta been.”
“Probably just moved that her husband wanted to defend the honor of a woman he’d never met. You went the extra mile for that French gal.”
He laughed. One good hack. “Yeah. Sure.” He drifted off for a while, said, “Yeah, sure,” once or twice more.
Finally, while looking elsewhere, he said quietly, “Sometimes I worry I set somethin’ in motion that day. While that Krau
t earned the execution, I do admit what I did was out of line for what we as civilized people would call ‘justice.’ I worry whatever I set into motion that day...it waited patiently just like I did as that tour of prisoners came into camp. It waited patiently, and fucked me royally tonight.”
“Nah,” I said, weak as it was. Truth be told I started ticking off the laundry list of things I had done which came around to give my wife cancer.
He didn’t say anything in return, and we just sat there for quite some time and pondered how we may have killed our wives.
7
Just before five a.m., Monday
A few hours’ sleep is all that will come.
It’s all I have time for anyways. I get up and turn on the stove burner. Make coffee the old fashioned way. Bottle of whiskey, spike the joe. Morning’s first cigarette. I splash some water in my face and set my weapon down on the table. Take it apart. One hand begins to wipe down the cylinder and barrel, the other dials Howard Michigan’s home telephone line.
His cell phone and business numbers have voice mail. His home line has no such thing. It rings. He forgot to disconnect, just like I told him. On ring seven he picks up.
“Richard, you filthy cocksucker—” his voice crawls along the line like it’s the first thing he’s said in an eon. Husky and thick with sleep, I can just see him on the other end slowly rubbing his forehead where a migraine is sprouting.
“Hey, I had a dream about you.” My first words of the day as well, deep and tired.
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Don’t you want to hear my about my dream? It was nothing gay. Remember when I was a rookie and you’d have me hang out in the patrol car while you’d run inside and fuck somebody’s wife? Well, in my dream I was in the car but it was a Zamboni for some reason and you were selling vacuums and then out of nowhere monkeys—”
“Goodbye, Richard.”
