Small Great Things(58)

Zyklon B was a delousing agent; for it to be used as a gas would have required huge amounts and airtight chambers, neither of which were present at the camps.

There were no remains of mass murders at the camps. Where were the bone and teeth fragments? Where were the piles of ashes?

American incinerators burn one body in eight hours, but two crematoria in Auschwitz burned 25,000 bodies a day? Impossible.

The Red Cross inspected the camps every three months and made plenty of complaints—none of which mentioned gasing millions of Jews.

The liberal Jewish media has perpetuated this myth to advance their agenda.



By the next morning, the Hartford Courant would run an article about the neo-Nazi element that was infiltrating this community. Parents would be worried for their children. Everyone would be on edge.

That was exactly how we liked it. We didn’t have to terrorize anyone as long as we could scare the shit out of them.

“Well,” Francis said, as we were driving back to the duplex. “That was a good night’s work.”

I nodded, but I kept my eyes on the road. Francis had a thing about that—he wouldn’t let me drive with the radio on, for example, in case I got too easily distracted.

“I got a question for you, Turk,” he said. I waited for him to ask me how we could get top placement for LONEWOLF in a Google search, or if we could stream podcasts, but instead he turned to me. “When are you going to make an honest woman out of my daughter?”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. “I, um, I would be honored to do that.”

He looked at me, appraising. “Good. Do it soon.”

As it turned out, it took a while. I wanted it to be perfect, so I asked around on LONEWOLF for suggestions. One guy had gotten all decked out in full SS regalia to propose. Another took his beloved to the site of their first real date, but I didn’t think a hot dog stand with gay guys blowing each other in the woods was a terrific setting. Several posters got into a vehement fight about whether or not an engagement ring was necessary, since Jews ran the diamond industry.

In the end, I decided to just tell her how I felt. So one day I picked her up and drove back to my place. “Really?” she said. “You’re going to cook?”

“I thought maybe we could do it together,” I suggested as we walked into the kitchen. I turned away because I thought for sure she would see how terrified I was.

“What are we having?”

“Well, don’t be disappointed.” I held out a container of hummus. On top, I had written: There are no words to tell you hummus I love you.

She laughed. “Cute.”

I handed her an ear of corn and mimed shucking it. She pulled down the husk and a note fell out: I think you’re amaizing.

Grinning, she held out her hand for more.

I gave her a bottle of ketchup, with a sticker on the back: I love you from my head tomatoes.

“That’s pushing it,” Brit said, smiling.

“I was limited by the season.” I passed her a stick of margarine. You’re my butter half.

Then I opened the fridge.

On the top shelf were four zucchini propped up to form the letter M, three carrots creating an A, two curved bananas: r, r, and a piece of gingerroot: Y.

On the next shelf was a cellophane-wrapped package of chopped meat that I’d shaped into the letters ME.

On the bottom shelf was a squash with Brit’s name carved into it.

Brit covered her mouth with her hand as I dropped to my knee. I handed her a ring box. Inside was a blue topaz, which was exactly the color of her eyes. “Say yes,” I begged.

She slipped the ring onto her hand as I stood. “I was kind of expecting a Hefty twist tie after all that,” Brit said, and she threw her arms around me.

We kissed, and I hiked her up on the counter. She wrapped her legs around me. I thought about spending the rest of my life with Brit. I thought about our kids; how they would look just like her; how they’d have a father who was a million times better than mine had been.

An hour later, when we lay in each other’s arms on the kitchen floor, on a pile of our clothes, I gathered Brit close. “I’m assuming that’s a yes,” I said.

Her eyes lit up, and she ran to the fridge, returning a few seconds later. “Yes,” she said. “But first you have to promise me something. We…” She dropped a melon into my hands.

Cantaloupe.

—

WHEN I COME back from court and walk into the house, the television is still on. Francis meets me at the door, and I look at him, a question on my lips. Before I can ask, though, I see that Brit is sitting in the living room on the floor, her face inches away from the screen. The midday news is on, and there is Odette Lawton talking to reporters.

Brit turns, and for the first time since our son was born, for the first time in weeks, she smiles. “Baby,” she says, bright and beautiful and mine again. “Baby, you’re a star.”





THEY PUT ME IN CHAINS.

Just like that, they shackle my hands in front of me, as if that doesn’t send two hundred years of history running through my veins like an electric current. As if I can’t feel my great-great-grandmother and her mother standing on an auction block. They put me in chains, and my son—who I’ve told, every day since he was born, You are more than the color of your skin—my son watches.