Eva’s Marionettes

by Patrick Best

Lives can be shattered like clay pots. No matter how much time and care is put into their molding and glazing, each one can be broken into tiny pieces. That is the way it was for Johannah the ballet dancer, Gabrielle the pianist, and Eliana the opera singer. They had plans and dreams, and they were happy and content when they were kidnapped from their homes in Paris by SS officers the night of June 24, 1940. They were personally selected by Adolf Hitler to become members of what may be the most secret club the world has ever known. All three were Jews.

The club’s name came from an offhand remark made by Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, after their first of many performances at a party in The Berghof, Hitler’s vacation residence in the Bavarian Alps. Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress, took great pains to ensure that the remarkably talented women, who would live in a guarded and locked room in the cellar for the next four years, put on an unforgettable performance for The Führer and his special guests. She selected their clothing, their hairstyle, and even the songs and dances they would perform for Goring, Goebbels, Himmler and other distinguished members of the party.

“I am quite impressed with your lovely Jew marionettes, Eva,” Goebbels said to the amusement of The Führer and others within earshot. From that day forward they were known to Hitler and his inner circle as Eva’s Marionettes.

They were instructed to only perform pieces by Richard Wagner during their first show. "We have a special treat for you," the Führer announced as he smiled and spread his arms wide. The uniformed men with their milky white faces and slicked back hair lifted their chins and grinned at their leader as they gently cupped the elbows of their wives and mistresses. "Our Jew girls will be performing Wagner this evening. You will be amazed by the beauty that our nation's greatest composer can inspire... even from Jews"

The audience erupted in laughter.

The performance that evening was so wonderful that the audience members quickly forgot that others just like Eva's Marionettes were being starved, shot and gassed in concentration camps scattered all over Germany and the rest of the occupied nations in Europe. Hitler thought of the Jewish girl named Stefanie that he'd been obsessed with as a teenager in Linz, Austria, and for a brief moment, while Eliana was singing, he even wondered if Himmler's "Final Solution" might need to be reconsidered. It was a fleeting thought that went away when the music stopped.

+

“It is amusing to me that Eva has requested that three Jews be present in our final hour,” Hitler said flatly. “I’m sure some would say it’s even poetic.” He was sitting on the small couch in his personal study in the Führerbunker next to his wife of less than two days. The two had pistols on their laps and a cyanide capsule in the palms of their left hands. The Russian forces were less than block away. They were preparing to commit suicide together.

Gabrielle, Johannah, and Eliana were huddled next to each other near the closed steel door on the other side of the same small room.

“There are no poems to describe the depths of our love, my dear Führer,” Eva said as she caressed the side of his face with the back of her hand. He closed his eyes tightly at her touch. He wasn’t overcome with warm feelings for her. Her display of affection in front of the Jewish women had simply embarrassed him. But he did not pull away this time.

“Thank you for your loyalty and devotion, Eva,” he said, nodding in her direction.

+

The same day Johannah became the club’s first member, Serge Lifar, the famous Russian dancer and director of the Paris Ballet, told her that he planned to make her “the youngest Prima Ballerina in the history of the world”. He had been her teacher and mentor since she’d joined the company at age 10. She was six months shy of her 18th birthday and still living at home when the SS soldiers burst through her parents’ front door. They had just started dessert.

Johannah watched in horror as a soldier not much older than she shot her father as he sat in a chair beneath an oil painting of her in an arabesque pose. She remembered her mother fainting as a needle was shoved into her daughter’s thin pale wrist. Then everything went black.

+

Johannah, Gabrielle, and Eliana were still wearing the matching pink silk dresses they’d been instructed to wear for Hitler’s wedding in the early morning hours of the day before.

“I have a gift for you,” Eva said as she leaned forward and picked up a piece of paper from the coffee table. She extended her hand toward the women who had been at her beck and call for nearly five years. They had served as her entertainers, her dress-up dolls, her confidants, and, finally, her bridesmaids.

“I knew from the moment I met the Führer that we were destined to be together forever. Even when my heart ached because he didn’t come to see me or call me for months, I knew there could be no one else in this world for me,” Eva moaned to them on countless occasions. Johannah, Gabrielle, and Eliana would feign pity and grief for her during those moments, but they felt neither for her. The pain and suffering the object of Eva’s affection had caused them would never allow it.

Gabrielle accepted the piece of paper on behalf of the others and held it up so Johannah and Eliana could read it, too. The note was brief, but the words made a meteoric impact. They recognized the looping and feminine handwriting as Eva’s, but it was signed at the bottom by Adolf Hitler. It said that upon the death of The Führer and his wife, Eva Hitler, the Jewish prisoners named Johannah, Gabrielle and Eliana were to be escorted out of the Führerbunker to beyond the Reich Chancellery garden and released.

"You can go home to your families now," Eva said. Her lips were trembling and in her eyes were filled with tears. "Everything will be good again."

+

Gabrielle started playing piano by ear when she was three years old. Her parents were respected members of the Paris Orchestra, but Gabrielle’s talents far exceeded those of her violinist father and flutist mother. She could play the complete works of Beethoven by the age of 13. And she had earned enough money from her concerts and recordings to purchase a two-story apartment near the Eiffel Tower when she was 20. Her two older sisters and an artist friend named Thomas were at her new home celebrating her good fortune when the German soldiers stormed through her front door.

“We need you to come with us, Gabrielle,” an SS officer said in perfect French. He was holding a pistol, but it was resting leisurely against his thigh. “Someone thinks you are a very special Jew.”

“What is this all about?” Thomas asked as he stood defiantly in front of his three female companions.

The SS officer stepped forward and shot Thomas in the left temple without hesitation. “Die fairy Jew!” one of the machine gun-toting soldiers shouted gleefully. Gabrielle was grabbed by her shoulder-length curly brown hair and dragged through the ever-growing puddle of blood around the head of her dead friend. Her sisters were handcuffed and kicked to the ground by two soldiers who now wore their guns strapped to their backs.

“Your prissy Jew friend is a bit out of his head, don’t you think?” the officer whispered to Gabrielle.

“Fuck you, Nazi beast!” Gabrielle spat. She believed the officer was killing her when he plunged a syringe into her neck. She welcomed the darkness when it came.

+

After reading the letter that promised their freedom, the women who’d spent four years living like caged canaries at The Berghof – and the last three months in the Führerbunker – looked up at the faces of their wardens.

“I have one last request,” Eva said with a pleading smile. “I would like for one of you to take my pistol and shoot me… if the cyanide fails to work. I don’t trust myself to do it, and I don’t want my dear Führer to be left with yet another responsibility.”

Eva stood again and held out the brown wooden handle of her small pistol in the direction of the women. Eliana did not hesitate to accept it.

“So you will do it, Eliana?” Eva asked with appreciative tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” she replied. “I will do it.”

“Thank you,” Eva said as she returned to the couch. With a look of melancholy satisfaction she placed the cyanide capsule in her mouth and looked once more in the direction of her gray and dejected husband. As Eva’s eyes began to roll back into her head and her body began to clench in convulsions, Eliana lifted the small black barrel.

"You don't deserve to take your own life," she spat as she pulled the trigger.

Blood erupted from the right side of Adolf Hitler’s head, spraying the wall and couch with the dark red liquid that pumps from the heart of even the world’s most evil man. His own pistol clattered on the floor as his forehead came down on the coffee table.

+

When SS soldiers kicked their way into Eliana’s home in their black uniforms and shiny black leather boots, she was putting her two-year-old son into his crib. Her husband had been in his study reading a novel when she rose from her chair and tiptoed up the stairs with their toddler in her arms. Her husband, a physician and aspiring novelist, joked to her that morning that if he could write as well as she could sing he would never have to pick up a stethoscope again. Eliana had laughed and replied, “If I could heal people like you, I would never wake up with a sore throat again.”

At 25, Eliana was the oldest member of Eva’s Marionettes. In the years before the war and the birth of her only child, she had travelled throughout Europe performing in the world’s most prestigious opera houses. She had received standing ovations in Vienna, Amsterdam, Milan, and London. She had not left Paris since the war had begun, and she believed she would be content if she never left it again.

She had believed an automobile had crashed into their house when she first heard the breaking glass and splintering wood of the front door being knocked off its hinges. When she ran to the balcony to investigate, her husband was running up the stairs toward her, his eyes wide, his mouth shouting loud and sharp words that sounded like a braking train mixed with a lion’s roar. Soldiers with gritted teeth and skull and crossbones on their hats lifted their guns and fired repeatedly into her husband’s legs and back. She watched as the love of her life twisted and jerked in agony until he crumbled into a lifeless pile of blood-soaked clothing and tattered flesh.

Her initial impulse was to run to his aide, but she didn’t need to be a doctor to know that there was nothing she could do to help him. The cries of her awakened child reached her ringing ears just as she noticed the men in the black uniforms leaping up the stairs toward her, their boots making bloody footprints on each wood plank they touched. She struggled to break free, but their hands were like steel talons on her arms.

The last thing she remembered about that night was seeing her son’s tear-streaked face as he cried and screamed for her while they were being carried out of the house.

+

Eliana continued to point the gun in the direction of the dead man she knew was responsible for the death of her husband, and so many more. Johannah buried her face into her hands and wept as Gabrielle slowly plucked Eliana’s fingers away from the pistol’s grip.

When Gabrielle tossed the gun toward the bodies of Adolf and Eva Hitler, she noticed that it bounced one time on the couch then spun around in an almost elegant, artful way before it lay still on the flower-printed cushion next to Eva’s leg.

They heard footsteps approaching the room, and for a moment Gabrielle thought about going to retrieve the weapon she’d just thrown away. When the door opened, Hitler’s over six foot tall SS adjutant, Otto Günsche, quickly entered the room with his own pistol drawn. His muscles seemed to be fighting to break free of his black uniform with each movement he made. He barely glanced at Eva’s Marionettes as he walked by them toward the couch. He stopped in front of the coffee table and stared down at the leader he’d served and revered since 1933.

When he turned around, Gabrielle was holding out the paper that Eva had given her before she bit into the cyanide capsule. He stared at the words for several seconds then he looked around the room like he’d just caught a glimpse of the ghost of his dearly departed Führer.

“As you wish, my Führer,” Günsche said as he looked coldly into Gabrielle’s eyes. “It is over, isn’t it?”

+

When Johannah, Gabrielle, and Eliana woke up, the first thing they saw was a grotesquely fat man in a sand brown Nazi uniform waving smelling salts in front of their noses. The women were tied to wooden chairs that faced the largest picture window any of them had ever seen. Through the glass they could see a breath-taking view of the snow and tree-covered Alps.

“Isn’t the view beautiful, ladies?” the fat Nazi said in French. “My name is Dr. Theodor Morell.”

“What have you done with my son?” Eliana asked.

A door opened behind them. The doctor’s face brightened and he immediately gave the straight-armed salute the women recognized from newsreels about the Nazis. “Welcome, my Führer!” the man shouted. The words echoed in the huge room.

“I see Eva’s gifts have arrived,” a cheerful voice said in German from behind the women. All three were fluent in the language, something Adolf Hitler knew before he’d ordered his SS henchmen to collect them. “I trust they were delivered in good condition.”

“Yes, my Führer, perfect condition,” Dr. Morrell gushed. “Not a scratch.”

“I will make sure Himmler’s men are given something special for their restraint,” Hitler said as he walked past the bound and seated women toward the giant window. “We shall have a small ceremony on their behalf.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Dr. Morrell replied as he wiped sweat from his forehead with a yellowed handkerchief. “You are so good to our boys, my Führer.”

+

When Günsche returned to the room he told them it was time to leave the bunker. They walked through the door and into the area where they had given their last performance the day before. A crowd of mourners had gathered – Joseph and Magda Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Heinz Linge, Traudl Junge, Erna Flegel, Rochus Misch – and many were weeping, their heads bowed, shoulders moving up and down. Bormann was holding the letter Eva had written and Hitler had signed. He lit it on fire with his lighter as Günsche and the women advanced toward the stairs.

When they exited the Führerbunker they could hear the sound of fighting in every direction. Explosions and machine gun fire were constant and close. The air was filled with smoke, and the trees and sky and buildings looked like they were covered with the ashes of a million cigarettes. They held each other’s hands as they followed the lumbering giant Nazi through the overgrown Reich Chancellery garden.

As they ran down the streets of Berlin past the bombed out buildings and abandoned cars they cried and laughed and cried again. They thought about their loved ones and whether they'd been kept alive as the Nazis had promised. Eliana's son would be seven years old now. She imagined him riding a bicycle with his father in a park. She knew that was impossible because she had watched the soldiers murder her husband. Eva had once told her that her boy had been taken to her mother's home, and that he was under the watchful eye of SS soldiers that would not let them be harmed. Eliana forced herself to believe her. It was the only thing that kept her from attempting to escape or take her own life. All three had stories they told themselves. They had no photographs from their past lives, so stories and dreams became their most precious possessions.

Eva's Marionettes' strings had been cut, and they were free in a city and world that knew nothing about where they’d been or what they’d done. They knew full-well that they may not make it to see another day, but they were alive and Hitler was dead. And in that small way, they had just won the war.

Dave’s Last Call

A Dialogue-Only Short Story

By Patrick Best


WARNING: This story is not for young readers. You might also want to skip this one if you're offended by crude language that's commonly used by meth heads.

Hello?

Billy?! This Billy Warren?

This is Bill Warren. Who’s this?

Hey Billy! What’s up, man?! This is Dave Messer. You member me?

Of course I remember you, Dave! How are you? God, it’s been a long time.

Hell yeah it has! Eight years. Believe that shit? Eight years?

Has it really been that long? Gosh, I guess you’re right. I was 14 and still living in Tilly Ridge the last time my dad drove me over. You still over in Berryville?

Yep. Still here, unfortunately. We were close back in the day, wasn’t we? Me, you, Cheryl, Tim, Ally and little Shane. We were tighter en hell.

Yeah, we were definitely tight. I still think about you guys all the time. How are Cheryl and Tim? And your mom? How’s everyone doing?

Whoo. Ah, let’s see. Where do I start? Well, Cheryl had a baby last year.

Are you serious?!

Baby girl named Cali. Had her last May. Cali is short for California. Member how she used to go on about how she was going to move to California when she growed up?

Oh my gosh! Yeah, I totally remember that!

Well, she got knocked up by this dude from over in Enterprise and named her daughter California instead. Ain’t that some funny shit?

That is pretty funny. Everything okay with them?

Yeah, she’s doing good. The dude that got her pregnant is named Trent. He’s an alright guy, I guess. Cali looks a lot like Cheryl and Mama, thank God. Trent ain’t exactly Bradley fuckin Cooper, if you know what I mean. He’s nice enough though, so…

They get married?

Not yet, but that’s the plan. They might as well be married though. They’re livin in a trailer together outside Montgomery somewhere. It’s close to where Trent’s workin. I haven’t gone up there to see the place, but Granny says it’s nice. Trent’s a welder. Went to school for it in Dothan. I hear he makes like 22 an hour. Believe that shit? $22 an hour for weldin?

That’s not bad. What about Tim? How’s he doing? Last time I saw him he was letting his hair grow out long and he’d just gotten both of his ears pierced.

He’s still got the long hair and the earrings. He’s alright, I guess. He was going to the community college, but he dropped out like an idiot. He’s working at a Jiffy Lube right now changin oil and shit, but he’s lookin for something else. I tried to talk him out of quittin school, but he said he wasn’t into it anymore. When Mama died he pretty much stopped going to classes anyway.

Wait. What? Your mother died? Oh my gosh. What happened, Dave?!

She got in a bad car wreck last year. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. 

Me too. No, I haven't heard anything about it. 

You probably won’t believe me, but she’d been clean and sober for nearly two years when it happened. No booze. No pills. Not even a joint. Cold fuckin turkey. She even got a job at the Bank of Berryville as a teller. She told me they were talkin about gettin her into doing loans for people. Houses and cars. The whole deal.

I can’t believe she’s dead, Dave. I’m just... Jesus, man, I'm so sorry.

She was doin real good, Billy. Really gettin stuff back on track.  She was still livin with Granny to help with the bills and stuff, but she was doin real good. I was prouder than hell of her. She started datin this dude named Charlie that she met at the bank. Said he was a customer that came in every couple of days to make a deposit or whatever. They hit it off and started goin out and what not, but come to find out, the dude wasn't divorced from his wife.

Oh man. No, really?

Yep. Broke Mama’s heart big-time. She was in love. He was the first guy she’d been with since she’d gotten sober, so that probably had somethin to do with it. She was goin to AA meetings and the whole deal, and they’d told her to stay out of romantic involvements until she got her head right. She did until she met that dude. She fell hard. She’s always been like that, you know? Quick to fall for people.

My mother always said that Carol was one of the most tender-hearted people she ever met.

She never met a stray dog she didn’t want to bring home. That’s what Granny always says. The Charlie dude just called her on the telephone and told her he’d decided to go home to his wife and children. Just like that. One day they’re talkin about getting married, the next day he’s going home to his wife and kids. What kind of shit is that?

That’s terrible, Dave. What a jerk.

I know, right? Granny said Mama started cryin and throwin shit all over the house. She said she thought she’d gotten her calmed down, but when she went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, Mama ran out the front door and drove off in her car. Tim came home high as a kite that night and Granny bout knocked his head off. They tried to call me, but my phone wasn’t charged or I hadn't paid my bill or somethin. I don’t remember. But, anyway, they got into Granny’s car and drove all around town trying to find her. They ended up drivin up on the wreck around midnight. Tim told me he knew it was Mama before he even saw her car. Felt it, you know? She’d run off the road and hit a pine tree going like 80 miles an hour. She’d gone straight from Granny’s house to the liquor store and bought a pint of vodka and a two-liter of Mountain Dew.

God, Dave. I’m really sorry. I loved your mother.

I know, man. I miss the hell out of her.

I’m sure you do.

That motherfucker showed up to the funeral, too.

Who? Who came to the funeral?

Charlie. The dude that went back to his wife and kids. Took everything Tim had in him to stop me from stompin his ass right out there in the cemetery. He was cryin and actin like he was the one who lost someone. Can you believe that shit? He was cryin.

I don’t know what to say, Dave.

I told him to take his sorry ass down the motherfuckin road. I told him to go home to his family and stay the hell away from ours. I told him he was the reason we was puttin our mother in the God damn ground.

What did he say?

He didn’t say shit. Fucking coward. He just got into his car and drove off. He could tell I wasn’t fuckin around. He knew that if he didn’t leave, I was goin to put his sorry ass in a casket, too.

When did this all happen?

Last March. March 19^th is the day she died. We buried her on the 21^st.

I wish I would have known. I would have come down. God, Dave. This is really awful news.

It’s alright, Billy. I know you were doin your thing. Your grandfather told me you’re about to graduate from college and go off to law school.

Yeah. I’m finishing up here in a couple of months. I start at Emory in the fall. You talked to my grandfather?

Yep. Just a few minutes ago. That’s how I got your number. I called his office. He membered me right off. We moved out of Tilly Ridge 12 years ago, but he still membered me.

Of course he remembers you, Dave. You, Tim and Cheryl practically lived at his house when you were little.  

Man, why the hell haven’t we stayed in touch? I mean, we were all so damn close. Runnin the streets. Ridin bikes. Playin ball in Ally’s yard. Member how we used to go down to that stream and catch crawdaddys and tadpoles and shit? That was fun as hell.

Heck yeah, I remember. You were the master of catching crawdaddys.

That’s right! You were fine with the tadpoles and minnows, but you never didn't like touchin the crawdaddys, did you?

Nope.

Member that time Shane stood on the bank and peed on your head? You member that shit? You chased his little ass all over the woods. Member that shit, Billy? I laughed so damn hard I bout pissed myself.

I remember. If he wasn’t so young I probably would have beaten him to a pulp. He was what? 5 or 6 then?

That sounds about right. I think we were 10. So he was probably 6. It wasn’t long before Mama moved us over to Berryville to live with Granny. Have you seen them lately? Ally and Shane?

I saw them a few months ago. When I went to visit my grandfather.

They doin alright?

They seem to be doing really well. Ally joined the Marines. She just happened to be home on leave when I was in town. She looks great. Seems to really like it.

Wait. What?! Ally joined the God damn Marines? Are you shittin me, dude?!

No, I’m totally serious. She said she wanted to get out of Tilly Ridge, and joining the service was the fastest way she could think of making that happen.

So little Ally is fuckin jarhead? I wouldn’t have guessed that shit in a million years. I could see her growin up and bein a nurse or something like that. But never a jarhead. They call girls in the Marines, jarheads, right?

I think so. I’m not really sure.

Ho-ly shit, dude. That’s crazy! How bout Shane? You gonna tell me he’s a cop or some shit like that?

Shane’s a senior in high school. He’s on the football team and he’s really good, Dave. Really good. You wouldn’t recognize him. His arms are as big as my legs. He’s been offered scholarships by Georgia, Alabama and Florida State. Isn’t that crazy? Little Shane’s going to play college football.

Whoa. That’s… that’s crazy. I member holding him down and ticklin him til he’d start cryin for Ally to come help him. Member when we used to do that?

That wouldn’t happen anymore. He could do that to us now. Probably both of us at the same time.

I bet. Well, damn dude, that’s cool as hell to hear. I’m proud of him.

Me too. I’m really sorry to hear about your Mama, Dave. How are you holding up? You okay?

Not really, Billy. Not at all, to be perfectly honest with you.

I’m sure it’s been tough.

I’ve been meanin to call you for a long time. But I figured if I didn’t do it this mornin I might not ever get the chance.

What do you mean?

I mean I won’t be makin calls to any old friends after today.

Why? What’s going on?

Well, I guess I need to just go ahead and tell ya. I hate to do it because we're having such a good talk, but I really feel like have to tell ya now.

Tell me what?

I killed a dude last night, Billy.

What? What are you talking about, Dave?

I shot a guy named Shawn in the head with a shotgun last night. Boom... and he's dead.

Why would you do something like that, Dave? Are you serious? Are you messing with me, Dave?

I’m serious as a God damn heart attack, Billy. Shot him right in front of Martin’s Convenience Store in Berryville. You member that place? We went over there and got Slurpees a couple of times when you came to stay with us.

Wha…? What are you talking about? You really killed someone? Who? Shawn?

Some black dude named Shawn. I don’t know his last name. Never met him before last night. I feel terrible about it, but there’s nothin I can do now. He’s dead and I killed him. I’m fucked - plain and simple. My life is just as over as his.

Why would you do something like that? I mean… you shot him? For what?

I don’t know. Cause I was fucked up, I guess. I’ve been fucked up bout every day since Mama died. I mean I really went after it after she died. I hooked up with this dude that sold anything and everything, and he turned me on to crystal and shit’s been bad ever since. You ever smoked that shit?

What the…? Dave, this is insane.

Have you ever smoked it?

Crystal meth? Hell no, I haven’t smoked it, Dave! Are you crazy?

Good. Don’t ever fuckin try it. I'm serious. It’s like you’re in heaven when you first take a hit, but you go straight back down to hell when the buzz wears off. 

You were on meth when you did it?

Yeah. I’ve been doin crazy shit the last six months - breaking into houses and cars. Hell, I stole some of Granny’s jewelry three weeks ago and sold it at a pawn shop.  You believe that shit? That ain’t me, Billy. I would never take anything from Granny if I was in my right mind.

Jesus, Dave. This is bad, man. Real bad.

I know. I haven’t been the same person since I started on that shit. Granny knew I stole her stuff, but she didn’t call the police on me. I wish she would’ve now.

How…? Why did you kill this Shawn guy, Dave? Shawn, right?

Yeah. Shawn. Like I said, I don’t know his last name. I’d been over at this one dude’s place for a couple of days smokin and drinkin and gettin with this girl named Mary. We were both gettin with her. Me and the other dude. To be honest, I don’t even member where I met her. She went to go buy cigarettes while me and the other dude were on his back porch shootin at cans and shit with a shotgun he had. He kinda lives back off the road a bit so you can shoot without worryin about neighbors and shit. All I could think about the whole time we were shootin was how much I could get at a pawn shop for that shotgun. I’m tellin you, crystal will really fuck up your thinkin, Billy. Don’t ever start doin it.

What happened to the Shawn guy, Dave? How did it happen?

Okay… so Mary comes back to the house with the cigarettes and says, I am never going to that fuckin store again! Every time I go up there some stupid motherfucker talks shit to me. I had just taken a hit off the pipe so I was feelin fuckin good, man. Pumped up like a damn superhero or some shit. I bet I don’t weigh 130 pounds soakin wet right now, but I was feelin like the fuckin Incredible Hulk.

130 pounds? Are you serious? You weighed more than that when you were 13.

I’m tellin you, man, this shit don’t fuck around. I look like a damn skeleton right now. I’d hate for you to even see me. My teeth are all jacked up. I'm telling you the shit is bad.

Oh Jesus, Dave. So then what happened?

I said to the Mary chick, Who was talking shit to you? And she said, Some nigger named Shawn that I went to school with. He’s always sayin some shit to me, she said. This really pissed me off. You would have thought I was some kind of KKK dude or somethin. I was runnin around the house screamin nigger this and nigger that. And you know me, Dave. I ain’t like that. I ain’t never any problems with black people. I’ve hung out with just as many black kids as I have white ones. We all did, you know?

Right. So what happened? Tell me what you did.

Right. I member I was holdin the shotgun in my hands when I was runnin around the house.  I yelled at Mary and told her to go get back in the car. I told her we were goin to go back to that God damn convenience store to find that nigger. I’m sick of it, I member yellin. The dude whose house we were at tried to stop me, but I pointed the shotgun at him and told him to back the fuck off. Can you believe that shit?  I was totally tweaked out, Billy. Tweaked the fuck out. He could tell I wasn’t screwin around, so he went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Jesus.

I know. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him, too. I grabbed my pipe and me and Mary got in her car and started ridin toward town. We hit the pipe one time on the way up there. We didn’t talk the whole way. Not one fuckin word. The convenience store wasn’t but about two miles off, so we were there in like three or four minutes. That’s Shawn, the Mary chick said right when we pulled up. He’s the tall one in the red hat, she said. He was like 6’4” or somethin. How tall are you now, Billy?

6’2”

Yeah. Then he must have been like 6’5” or 6’6”. Tall sumbitch. He was standin next to this real fat dude that looked kinda like Fat Albert.  When I saw them standin there, the first thing that popped into my head was Hey, they look like Fat Albert and Bill from the Fat Albert cartoons. Member that old cartoon, Billy? Fat Albert?

Yeah, I remember it.

Well, the headlights were beamin in their faces. The Shawn guy… he shielded his eyes and did this little twistin thing with his fingers. He was tryin to get Mary to turn off her headlights, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

But she didn’t do it. She just left them on and I sat there for a second staring at those two guys through the windshield. Fuck you, Shawn, she kept saying over and over. The next thing I know I’m jumpin out of the car pointin the shotgun at the Shawn dude’s head. He backed up toward the front of the store. There was one of those stand-up cardboard things behind him in the store window of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Some kind of drink ad or something, you know?

Right.

I was holdin the barrel of the shotgun about four inches away from his head. I was shakin real bad, so the barrel was movin all over the place. Man, what you doin with that gun in my face, man? he said. Why you pointin that shit at me? he said. I could hear Mary yellin in the car. She hadn’t gotten out of the car, but she must have rolled down the window cause I could hear her like she was standing right next to me. What you gonna do now, stupid sumbitch? she yelled. What you gonna do now motherfucker? The Fat Albert dude had his hands up and I could tell he wasn’t no older than 15 or 16. He was wearin a Berryville High School t-shirt. That’s where I graduated from, you know? Go home, fat ass, I yelled at him. He looked sideways at the Shawn dude and then started bookin it through the parkin lot. You like talking shit to white girls? I said to the Shawn dude. You ain’t such a badass now, are you motherfucker? I could tell he was scared because he kept swallowin. His Adam’s apple was movin up and down like he was drinkin a big glass of water or somethin. His arms were straight out like he was doin some kind of cheerleadin thing, too. Man, I’ve known Mary since we was in the 5^th grade, he said. Shut your fuckin mouth! I said. Just cause you know someone doesn’t mean you can talk shit to them anytime you want. He looked at me like I was crazy. Confused. Then he said, Look man, I don’t know what you’re talkin about. I didn’t say shit to that girl. She’s just pissed off at me because I broke it off with her last month. I ain’t got no beef with you. I just came up her to meet one of my homeboys. That’s it.

Wait. What? The Mary girl was his girlfriend?

I don’t know what they were. Like I told you, I just met her a few days ago. I really don’t know if they were boyfriend, girlfriend, fuck buddies or what. All I know is that the Mary chick started really screamin then. Fuck you, Shawn! Fuck you! She said it about 10 times. Then he started yellin back, No, fuck you, crazy bitch! You just mad cause I don’t want to be with your crackhead ass no more. Then she said somethin like, I don’t want to be with you because all you like to do is hang out with your dumbass friends. Then he said, All you want to do smoke rock! I ain’t got time for that shit! Then boom.

What?! Boom?! What did you do?

I pulled the trigger. 

No, Dave! No! Why would you do that?!

I don’t know, Billy. I just did it. I don’t even member tryin to pull the trigger. Next thing I know there’s blood everywhere. All over the window. All over me. All over the concrete. The dude’s face was gone. I mean, gone, Billy.

Jesus, Dave. Oh Jesus. God, no. Why, Dave? Why?!

I don’t know why I did it. It was like a reflex or somethin. That Mary chick jumped out of the car and started screamin, but I couldn’t understand a word she was sayin. I walked around to the driver’s side of the car, threw the shotgun in the backseat and threw it into reverse The last thing I saw in my mirror was Mary runnin down the middle of the road after me. She had blood all over her hands and she was screamin and hollerin for me to stop. She looked like somethin out of fuckin horror movie or somethin.

Jesus. Where are you right now, Dave?

I’m at a buddy’s place. He doesn’t know anything about it yet. I parked my car behind his house last night, and we smoked until we ran out early this mornin. He’s passed out now, so I’m just drinkin and callin people. I already called Cheryl and Tim and Granny. Told them everything except for where I was. Then I called you. I haven’t talked to your ass in eight fuckin years, but you’re the person I wanted to talk to after I finished talkin to my family.

I want to help you, Dave, but I don’t really know how. This is bad, man. Really, really bad.

There’s nothin you can do, Billy. It’s done. I’m done.

Jesus, man. I’m... I don’t know.

We were good friends weren’t we, Billy? I mean, we had some damn good times back then, huh?

Yeah, Dave. Really good.

Those were the best days of my life. All of us together. I’d do anything to go back for one day so I could feel that way again. Light and young. That’s what I miss. That feelin. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I know.

I feel heavy now. I feel like I’ve got, you know, like anvils on my shoulders are some shit. You know those things the Coyote used to try and drop on the Roadrunner.  Anvils?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

One fuckin day. That’s all I really want.

What are you going to do, Dave?

I guess I’m just gonna wait here til they find me. I still got… one, two, four beers left. I’m going to drink these and wait til I hear sirens.

Then what?

I don’t know. That’s what I been thinkin about since my buddy crashed. I feel really bad about shootin that dude. I thought about killin myself, but I’m scared of goin to hell. I even went and grabbed the shotgun out of the car. But I can't do it. Ain’t that some stupid shit? I killed a dude for no damn reason, but I’m afraid of goin to hell for killin myself. That don’t make sense, does it?

It makes perfect sense. Don’t think like that. What did your grandmother say?

She told me to turn myself in. She said the Lord would forgive me and that she’d always love me. I kind of wish she would have screamed and yelled at me. I think I would feel better it she was pissed instead of hurtin. Ya know?

I… I can’t believe you… I can’t believe this has happened, Dave.

I know, man. But it is what it is.

You want me to talk to anybody? Call anyone for you?

Do you have Ally’s number?

I think I have it somewhere. Yeah.

I want to call her, too. I want her to know I still think about her. I still think about y’all all the time, ya know?

I still think about you, too, Dave. You and Tim and Cheryl. All the time. Dammit, Dave. I would have… I mean, what the hell were you thinking?

I wasn’t thinkin, Billy. The crazy thing about all this is that we probably wouldn’t have talked for another eight years if I didn’t shoot that dude. Isn’t that fucked up?

Hold on. Let me see if I can find Ally’s number.

Wait. Hey Billy?! Billy?!

Yeah?

Don’t worry about it. I hear sirens comin this way. Wait a second. Yeah, they’re rollin up. It's on like Donkey Kong, Billy.

I hear them. Oh God, Dave. What now?

I’m goin to down this last beer and go outside. Do me a favor and give Ally a call? Tell her that I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to call her, too. Tell her I love her. And Shane, too, alright?

What are you going to do with the shotgun, Dave?

Tell Shane I said to keep hittin them weights and playin ball.

Dave. What are you going to do with the shotgun?

Good talkin to you, Billy. Don't worry about me, man. I need to go. I don’t want the cops to bust down my buddy’s door or anything.

Dave! Don’t do anything stupid! Just go outside and do what they tell you. Okay?!

You were my best friend, Billy. I'm glad you’re doin good.

Dave?! Dave?! You there? Dave?!

It's difficult for me to read a lot of the stuff I wrote in my teens and early twenties, but I am still quite fond of this poem. “The Barn” was published in a tiny literary publication when I was 21, and, along with a couple of so-so short stories and a few not-so-stellar poems, it helped me get my hands on some scholarship dough I needed to stay in college. I found the original copy (typed on a word processor!) in a stack of old papers in our storage unit today. I remember I'd been watching a lot of CNN's coverage of the Persian Gulf War the night I wrote it.

The Barn

By Patrick Best

For at least twelve of his eighteen years
I silently guessed his wishes
When he blew out the age wicks.
I believe I was correct on eleven.

I pleaded for weeks on end
For him to settle for working the back fields.
But just like our damn weather
He needed to be black and blue and rain.

His father came by, to talk
Sadly proud of the sacrifice he’d made for a noble cause.
I wondered whether he’d rather have his son
Than the embarrassed nods and silent applause.

In the hay filled loft I hid
From the news, I avoided it with distance.
Just yesterday, it seems, were fishing all day
Without a nibble, but content with long friendship casts.

The swaying oak moved shadows amongst the stacks.
I peeked gingerly about, hoping he’d startle me,
That it had all been a prank
And we’d both fall in laughter at his cleverness.

But all I found was musty gray straw,
Dusty, and loud as my thoughts.
Dead, sharp from the blade’s sweeping angle,
Scraping my bare legs raw.

It was probably a lone bullet from a young gun,
Maybe even a farmer like me.
Forced to take my friend’s life
Because of where his acreage lay.

His falling and the sun’s
Brought a sorrowful darkness to the barn.
The same place where we took joy
In discussing changing, evolving dreams of the future.

The barn was also the last place I saw him
With his uniform creased and hair prickly neat.
We hugged and were photographed at the celebration
Wearing big toothy smiles that said “Never end.”

The Mourning Writer
 

By Patrick Best

I write alone in a room
With the door tightly locked.
A chair pushed under the knob,
The entrance securely blocked.
I wish I would have remembered
To bring back a hammer and nails
When I went to get a pen
For writing large and small details.
It'd be so nice to work
Without the sun up in the sky.
I hear the voices clearer
When only darkness fills the eye.
I get precious little time
To string together fractured thoughts.
And I float with hostile sailors
Who tie word ropes into knots.
It’s hard to leave my muse
When she finally wants to dance.
But an engine’s vulgar roar
Slipped in and broke her trance.

Winter

By Patrick Best

The long, frigid breath
Of earth's darkest season
Comes and goes
With wicked rhyme and reason.
It howls like a beast
As it stirs up the dead.
It's turned trees into monsters
In scary stories I've read.
Makes chimney smoke dance
To the beat of teeth chatter.
Sings snakes off to sleep
And makes northern birds scatter.
It freezes on frowns
With a skin-tightening sting.
It whispers sweet-nothings
To make ears ache and ring.
It chases home children
To their blankets and fires.
Still burns in their chests
As they thaw and perspire.
Turns tiny still pools
Into mirrors of ice.
The broken bones of the careless
The cold magician's steep price.

11/22/2013

by Patrick Best

Unless you’ve been in a coma - or in solitary confinement without access to television, radio or the internet - you’re probably aware that today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of President John F. Kennedy. I have seen the footage of the assassination so many times, I sometimes feel like I was in Dallas that afternoon as Jack and Jackie rolled through downtown in the midnight blue convertible and Lee Harvey Oswald pointed and fired his rifle from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. The frames from the The Zapruder film are so ingrained in my brain that it's like they’re a horrible childhood memory I can’t seem to shake... even though I wasn't born until 1970.

Countless movies, television shows and books have been inspired by what occurred on this day half a century ago. My favorite writer, Stephen King, recently wrote a great novel called “11/22/63” that explores whether traveling back in time to stop tragic events from occurring - like the murder of a popular President – would really make the world better for the people living today. Would terrorists have flown airplanes into the World Trade Center if JFK would have made it back to the White House safe and sound on 11/23/63? Would we all be riding around in solar-powered flying cars if he would have lived to flash that winning smile for the remainder of his term? Or would going back and stopping Oswald from pulling his trigger be the finger that pushes over a wobbling domino that begins a terrible chain reaction that leads to something far worse than Osama bin Laden? We’ll probably never know.

Today is my wife’s birthday, and I’m thankful to say that I’ve celebrated twenty-five 11/22s with her. I used to think that having your birthday fall on the day that Kennedy was killed was almost as bad as being born on Christmas morning, but now I think it’s pretty cool. The date is super easy for people to remember, and you don’t get the shaft on presents like the folks who share their special day with Jesus.

Even if I could slip down through the rabbit hole, back to the time when Dallas was known as the “City of Hate”, and stop the 24-year-old dweeb who forever draped a black veil over today’s box on America’s desk calendar, I just couldn’t do it. Believing that “bad things happen for a reason” could just be a coping mechanism for the living, but, if the butterfly effect theory (“one small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state”) is true, it’s possible that if President Kennedy wasn’t killed on this day in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 wouldn’t have been signed, The Beatles wouldn’t have recorded “The White Album”, Neil Armstrong wouldn’t have taken “one giant leap for mankind”, the Berlin Wall wouldn’t have been torn down and I would have never met a beautiful, smart, funny and honest girl named Susie Pierce.

There’s no doubt that November 22nd will always be most recognized as the day America lost its 35th President, but it will be eternally celebrated by this guy as the day my Susie Best. Happy birthday! I love you!

Jim and Tammy Faye, The American Dream and Chiclets

 

By Patrick Best

On the way home from work this afternoon I noticed that the same broken and battered piano bench I'd seen this morning was still sitting on the shoulder of the highway. It must have fallen off the back of a truck and its owner decided it wasn’t worth going back to pick up when he looked into his rearview mirror and saw it flipping and splintering down the road. He probably considered himself lucky that the formerly musical chair didn’t crash through the grill of some soccer mom’s minivan and cause a 20-car pileup. The walnut-colored bench rested on its seat with its two remaining legs pointed toward the sky in a way that made me think about the nights I spent at the First Assembly of God Church in Ozark, Alabama in the early 1980s. The men and women at that church would reach their arms high into the air - straight as arrows - and rhythmically open and close their hands while Rev. Merle Nation did his best to fill them to the rim with “the spirit of the Lord”.

The First Assembly of God’s congregation was mostly made up of blue collar guys who wore clip-on ties with short-sleeve shirts and had a little grease under their fingernails no matter how hard they scrubbed them, and plump women who wore too much makeup and sent weekly checks for ten dollars to The PTL Club, c/o Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. I was a regular visitor of the church on Wednesday nights with my friends, Skip and Bill Nicks. Skip and Bill's mom and step-dad didn’t fit the aforementioned physical descriptions – she was a pretty, thin blonde woman in her early thirties, and he was a balding middle-management type who wore starched dress shirts and khakis - but I do remember their livingroom TV being tuned into The PTL Club on a regular basis. I’m sure at least a little of their hard-earned money made its way to the “Pass The Loot” headquarters in Charlotte, NC before Rev. Jim got sentenced to 18 years in prison (he only served five) for stealing millions of dollars from his adoring flock. 

It wasn’t unusual for the folks at the First Assembly of God to speak in tongues with their eyes rolled back in their heads (this totally freaked me out) and for Brother Nation to heal the sick by putting the palms of his hands on the foreheads of the afflicted and shouting “Be healed in the name of Lord!” Most of my experience with worship services up to that point had been at mild-mannered Methodist churches, so I wasn’t used to the fainting, crying and yelling that went along with most of Brother Nation's services. He was an ex-Marine like my father and he preached in a way that always reminded me of the guys I watched every Saturday on Georgia Championship Wrestling. “There will be fried chicken and mashed potatoes served in the fellowship hall after the service!” was delivered in the same fervent tone as “Jesus Christ will be returning soon, so you better get right with the Lord!”.

There were moments when I would get just as caught up in the theater of Brother Nation as I did in the matches between Tommy “Wildfire” Rich and the evil Austin Idol. He could put a verbal can of whoop ass on Satan that I’m sure would have impressed even “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. While they held services on different days, the messages I got at the First Assembly of God and from those TV wrestling matches were pretty much the same: No matter how good you are, or how many times you win a gold belt, you always need to be on the lookout for a bad guy who’s standing in the shadows with a metal folding chair in his hands. 

I would be lying if I said I went to that church for the sermons. I went because I got to spend more time with my friends and several of the older church ladies always brought delicious cakes and chocolate chip cookies. Wednesday night services became especially important some time in 1983 when a girl named Lucy Herman started letting me French kiss her in the holly bushes that lined the side of the fellowship hall. Skip would stand next to the light pole at the corner of the building while Lucy and I made our way through a little gap between the branches and prickly leaves. Lucy would always rip the corner of a packet of Chiclets she had in her pocket and pour a bunch of the tiny pieces of fruity bubble gum into her mouth before we’d start making out. She would lean against the building’s brick wall where just enough light would break through the bushes so I could see the outline of her face and the occasional sparkle of her rarely open eyes.

Skip's job was to be our watch-out and to whistle the song “Dixie” if he saw a grownup headed in our direction. He chose that tune because it was the song the horn on the General Lee (Bo and Luke Duke’s car from the show the Dukes of Hazzard) played, and he was a fanatical fan of the show at the time. He actually got a bicycle horn for Christmas one year that played that song. The day that ridiculous little megaphone-looking monstrosity stopped working was one of the happiest moments of my life up to that point. On the rare occasion that Skip did whistle Dixie, Lucy and I would freeze and try not to make a sound until he signaled the coast was clear by yelling the “Marco!” part of the Marco Polo swimming pool game. I’m not sure why we had a different signal for “it’s safe to go back to making out”, but I’m pretty sure that was my idea. I was 13, so cut me a little slack.

Lucy and I didn’t talk much during the few months of our tryst. I don’t remember many conversations that included more words than “hey” or “what’s up?” before or after our awkward make-out sessions. Something brought us together for those 10 minutes or so per week in the bushes, but it had very little to do with verbal communication. Whatever it was, it faded for Lucy as soon as we hit the 9th grade – she moved on from behind the holly bushes with me to riding in pickup trucks with boys who had facial hair and wore camouflage t-shirts. I stopped watching wrestling and going to church on Wednesday nights around that same time, but it did take me a while before I could pass a pack of Chiclets on a convenience store shelf without my stomach feeling like it was in one of Ric Flair’s famous figure-four leglocks.

Some names have been changed to protect the innocent.