Part Two: Explaining It All While Exploring L.A.
“TINK” said the sign on the Berlin Wall. But…do ya, huh?
“What do you think of that?” Jeannie said, munching out on a Whopper. She was grinning, feeling quite smug and superior to her astonishing acquisition.
“I tink I heve zomehow trovelt into de futchore, Cheannie.”
He said that in a dead tone of voice, looking straight at her over his cheeseburger. She almost choked on her sesame-seed bun.
“How’d you pick up on that so fast?”
“I read de Koren. It poztulatez time trawel. Bot how een do voild iz it dot I heve zo trovelt? Chu most heve done ZOMETINK.
“Vy, chu heve cest a veetchcrovt zpell und brought me to here, een Loz Angelez, heven’t chu, mine dear. Chu are a vitch!
“Chu MOZT cest a new zpell to zend me beck HOM, und ZOON!!!
He said this as earnestly as he could through a mouthful of cheeseburger. He just HAD to return, lose, and get dead. Soon.
The thought of returning Hitler to WWII gave Jeannie some pause. She didn’t know how, yet, to send him back, and the warning in the Necronomicon against summoning a demon said that you might not ever get it go home again. Come to think, what WAS home for Adolf Hitler? Not Germany…not France…not Burbank…
“Owzdtria,” he stuttered, as if reading her mind. That startled her slightly. She’d never been to Europe and didn’t really know where Austria was, where anyplace was. How could she aim? She might be stuck with this old goat forever. And ever!!!
She took him for a drive, explaining what year it was, many details about the L.A. scenery, what she did for a living, what modern-day life was like. He listened quietly, interjecting with occasionally pertinent questions in a very thick Germanic accent.
They returned to her apartment. Jeannie threw some pillows and glanced doubtfully at her ten-year-old hammock.
“I don’t know where you could go to sleep tonight. I think I should look at the Necronomicon for spells to send you back.
“Meanwhile I have this big overstuffed couch…”
“Dot’s okay, zmall von, I yom uzed to zleepink mozt enyvere! Tee hee. Perhops you vill do me de honor uff lettink me meke BRAKVEZT for chu in de mornink.” He whipped off his hat, bowing deeply at the waist to Jeannie, and plopped it on the couch.
She woke to the sounds of bacon sizzling and coffee brewing.
Hitler had figured out how to run the coffee-maker, after some experimentation, managing not to break the pot. Apparently he was an early riser. Jeannie was typically up about noon.
He found her old boyfriend’s bathrobe and pulled it carefully about his portly, aging body. His black hair was standing up—ordinarily he greased it—as he carefully fried four eggs with the bacon. Hitler didn’t know from cholesterol.
“I cen’t belief dis lock, mine dear, I yom zo UZED to vartime rachunz. Dis iz de foist rail food I heve zeen in montz!”
That seemed odd. Hitler looked like such a fat ol’ geezer. He seemed almost ecstatically happy. He was a pretty large chap, not the usual slip of a kid Jeannie was used to dating in the theatre scene around L.A. He resembled, possibly, a grinning brick wall. Medium-sized. She was almost worried, and really.
He guided her over to the kitchen table, nicely pulling out a chair. Carefully, almost timidly, she took it. It wasn’t every day she had Adolf Hitler for a cook. He was very expressively happy, and dug into his breakfast with a will and a half.
“I don’ know VAT ve vill do mit dis zituachun, but vor now dis half-starved mon iz CONTENT. You even hoff frosh-sqveezed orench choice! Here, my dear, hoff some coffee. I mede it American!” It was okay, but there were quite a few grounds.
“You know about America?” Jeannie was growing comfortable. She started to lean back in her chair and relax a little.
In response, Hitler began to wolvishly smile, even though she’d already gotten completely dressed. She figured the thing to do was to keep him at a distance. She’d heard about his loose relations with his housekeepers. Tried to get them all pregnant.
“Jes, I ztody ven I vas een Vienna. I learnt all abot.”
“You can certainly handle yourself in a kitchen!”
“Tsh, I can hondle myzelv enyvere. Vat vould meke you tink oddervise? I am ze Chonzellor of Chermany! Dot izn’t notink, now, izn’t it?” His English was atrocious, but at least they could understand each other.
That was good. Tonight Jeannie would be going to dinner shift work at Bonabelle’s, which she did every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. That was all the hours she could get. He’d have to manage without her, somehow.
Not believing she was thinking what she was thinking, she briefly traced a thought about a new, rent-paying roommate. If she could get the old geezer a job…no way. That’s INSANE!!!
“After we’re done, I’ll look in the Necronomicon for a spell to send you home, Adolf. I guess you’re really eager, uh, to get back to the front and…and lose.” She almost felt sympathy.
“RAILLY?” Hitler gave her this unbelieving stare, smiling tightly through grit teeth, but she knew, and he knew she knew, and so he looked down at the table. “I hoff to loose? Vell, dot’s all right, yah. Chu know that, jes?” Jeannie chewed thoughtfully on her toast. She didn’t like to think of herself as a loser. Those were the other kind of people.
She asked Hitler for the jam, and he gently passed it, his pale hands no longer shaking with the cold. They were warm.
“Yeah, I thought you guys knew you were losers. It looked like you took it out on the Jews. I always wondered why you did that, but I guess it was that old impending Russian invasion from the revolution, there, that got you going. But I don’t know much about why all that happened. I only know you killed a lot of nice people and lost the war to America, Europe, and Russia.”
“Und Russia? Dot too…jes, dot FIGYORZ…ve vill loose EWERYTINK, den, my Liebchen? Dere vill be notink left for mine Chermany?” Hitler looked sad, but more amused than sad, as though the casual information that he was doomed didn’t disturb him much. In fact, he was starting to look at Jeannie in a sort of interested way, a look she summarily bounced back to him.
“Well, actually, it all worked out…you killed off a lot of people, but Jews are still around and doing really well here in America. They also have a country called Israel now. And “your Chermany,” there, was torn in two up ‘til recently; we split it with Russia, they got half and we got half. And it was like for a long time, twenty or thirty years, but they took down the Berlin Wall recently and put the country back together. There was some trouble over it, but it’s fine now. It’s OVER.”
Hitler was silent for a moment, smiled, and poured himself some coffee. He looked a little bit, with the hair…outlandish?
“I vas Auslander een Chermany, but dey mede me dere head. Now I zee enoff time has pozzt, I hoff becom a kind of dozt.
“It dozn’t modder, den, de tinks dot ve hoff done?”
Jeannie was silent in her turn, reflecting on that.
“Let me say…there just hasn’t been a lot of effect on my life…well, that’s not true. What you did really affected our lives over here. I can tell. It sort of influenced shallow things, like our cultural gimmicks and wardrobe color choices.
“My father made his bundle off the Armed Services right after Korea. That seems to be normal, but things haven’t been such a big deal after your war. All the wars have been small and isolated and local. Maybe because of the SIZE of WWII.
“A lot of people went into deep shit shock when they found all the bodies. All you people, the Nazis, went on trial, the Nuremburg Trials, for your war crimes. They said you committed some really bad atrocities, TORTURING people and suchlike.
“I don’t know about that. Did you?” Jeannie was sure.
Hitler tilted his dark head to one side, giving her an evil leer. “Und om I zuppozt to tail you if I deed?”
Jeannie sighed. “I don’t
remember that you personally ever got in any real trouble. They seemed to let you go. I heard two different, no three, different stories about how you died.
“First, I heard you died with your mistress, Eva Braun, in a blazing underground bunker behind your enemy lines. You burnt to a nearly unidentifiable crisp, but they could tell it was you ‘cause of your teeth. Dental records.
“The other stories I heard were that you died of a heart attack…come to think, there was a story you died of syphilis…and the last one was that you committed hara-kiri.”
At that strange notion Hitler sucked air through his teeth.
“MY. I neffer hoid vun mon hoff zo mony deats!” That thought seemed to brighten him up until he was laughing out loud. Jeannie remembered it was rumored he was the suicidal type, and sort of had a death fixation. Like hers. But, whyever did she have one? It was IN, but what for? The Black Identity?
Abortion. And all the gay shit. “Are we done? I’ll do the dishes. Why don’t you relax, and I’ll look up spells later?”
“Zhow me dis book, and I vill try to cozt de zpell myzelv.”
Jeannie was amused at the thought of Adolf Hitler doing witchcraft, but come to think of it, he probably was a witch.
Having done some studying, Jeannie has ascertained that a “witch” was merely a racially-mixed person with freckles and extra nipples on his or her body. Seeing Hitler up close, she saw that he had some freckles, and thus night happen to have the extra nipples as well. “Witch” was a term derived from ‘bitch.”
People though of you, in the Middle Ages, as an animal if you had freckles and extra nipples. Women were burnt at the stake for it, and their land was taken away by the Church.
Killing women, Moslems and Jews was no new concern for the Catholic Church. Hitler was just another recent aspect of this old phenomenon. The Church had been trying to destroy the Jews in Europe for centuries, giving up only recently. If they had given up on it at all…well, she had Hitler to contend with.
Finishing the dishes, Jeannie found him mumbling spells to himself like a devoted wizard, hurriedly searching out the proper incantations. He seemed more than a little put out by it.
“Dis iz a very ewil book, mine dear. I can barely read zom uff de Arabic pozzagez. It iz not charmink, und drips mit vile rezolve. Und I zee a part here vere I stond accuzed moch do zame vay…it zendz me to deepezt Hell.” He morosely blinked at her.
They were both curled up on floor pillows while Adolf tried out his own version of black magic. Nothing seemed to work.
After about an hour of trying, they gave up. Jeannie fixed them some more coffee, and Hitler decided to plot some battle strategy. The kind that might actually work, for a change.
“I fail az though convronted mit de zame zitchuazion az bevore,” he said, coughing into his hand. The temperature change to sunny L.A. was probably upsetting to his Nordic system.
“It doesn’t look like there’s a lot of hope to get you back, “ Jeannie said, wistfully. She glanced at him, bashfully looking away. “I feel responsible. Sorry. I don’t know what to do.”
“Do not be zorry, zmall von. Chu hoff only kept me vrom a loosink propozition, az chu zay, und perhops chu effen ztave off mine DEAT !!! Porhops ve can enchoy ourzelfz until…vait, here iz de spell. DIS von vill teke me home to mine VAR again!”
Jeannie eagerly reached over to the book, in the middle of Hitler chanting a spell, and accidentally turned a page, quickly interrupting him. That wasn’t a good thing to do!!!
Fire and brimstone, smoke and sulphur assaulted both of them, inundating their senses, practically burning down the apartment.
POP!!! Off in an alley, away on the street and in a car, Rudolph Hess, one of the nastiest of all Nazis, rematerialized.
He had that terrible look on his face, the one Jeannie barely remembered seeing in a photograph, a look of unadulterated hatred for all mankind. The Hun, the Evil One of Germany. And he was sitting, full-blown, in a red and black car parked by the curb.
After the smoke cleared, Jeannie and Hitler whewed, sweeping their hands back and forth in front of their faces. Jeannie opened a window. She saw the new red and black car but though nothing of it. “It’s a gorgeous day outside,” she wheezed.
Hitler, suddenly realizing he was wearing only a frayed old bathrobe, sullenly stalked off to Jeannie’s bathroom, collecting his clothes and donning them. He left off his swastika armband.
Without it, he seemed to be wearing a plain brown shirt.
“Dis vill hoff to do vor me, vor now. Ve vill go out, now, und check around dis pleze. I vant to zee de future voild. Chu vill teke me to zee it, leettle vun !!!” He glared at her.
Gulping, Jeannie agreed. She had enough gas to drive.
While showering, Jeannie reflected on the evil of the man she was hosting by accident. He was sort of a Moor, not at all a native German, and teamed with other descendants of one-time German invaders…Huns, Norwegians, and other Middle-Easterners like Jews, like himself perhaps…he had wrecked world-wide havoc. Millions of innocent people were dead because of him.
But she had him all alone here, without his NASTY crowd.
CRACK! The door was opened. She hadn’t locked it.
“LIEBCHEN! HARRY UP! I CANNOT ZIT AROND ALL DEY!”
God, that was startling! Jeannie hurriedly finished her shower, putting a towel around her and racing to her bedroom.
Hitler wasn’t looking, but he was laughing, and pacing around impatiently, like a caged lion. “HARRY!” he said in a voice that sounded like it had been scraped from the bottom of a whiskey barrel. “Let oz go EGZPLORINK!” Jeannie got her things.
The first place they hit up was a men’s clothing store.
“Good heavens,” the black sales clerk breathlessly intoned. “We look like a NAZI! Let me get you out of those DREADFUL clothes and into something DECENT!” This occurred promptly.
They found old Uncle Adolf a decent suit, priced at $150, and bought him slacks, a shirt and a sweater for about another $200.
Next, they visited a hair salon to lift his hair back off his neck. The Hispanic sartorial expert was aghast but fascinated by the mustache. “A genuine Kaiser mustache! I haven’t seen one of those in years! Gosh, that’s something. You’re brave to wear that! I’d never have the guts. Hitler was so…WICKED!!!
Adolf smiled as he requested a full shave. But just as the Mexie barber was about to razor off the infamous mustache. Jeannie burst into the hair salon. She’d been waiting outside.
“Hey! There’s some guy out here in a car. I was window shopping. He blew his horn at me. He wants to talk to you!”
Rising from the chair in his new suit, Hitler quickly went outside to talk to the strange gentleman.
“HEZZ! Rudolv Hezz ! Vatewer are chu DOINK here liwink een America?” This turn of events flabbergasted Hitler as he wiped globs of wet shaving cream off his aging, shallow, shadowy face.
Hess smirked at his surprise. God, he was an ugly cuss ! “I coult esk de seme of ju, but I just vanted to let ju know dat I yom here.” He pulled back out into traffic, leaving.
In a moment Jeannie rejoined Hitler. They both went back to her car, which also happened to be red and black. That kind of car was getting to be common anymore. Jeannie didn’t know why.
They went on a drive, Jeannie asking Hitler questions about the war and the death camps. That way, she got her hour, or so.
“Ve killt oz mony paiple es ve coult, ovter ve coax dem een dere. If not, do chu know how moch tyvuz und depteria der vould hoff been? Not to imachine all de zyphiliz from coitus if ve hed lef de vomen alife. Zo I hed dem kill almost ALL de vomen und children. Do chu onderstand dot does vere our enemiez?”
“NO, I don’t. I just heard about all the deaths and the bad atrocities.” Jeannie thought, I bet they could have avoided it.
“It iz wery bed, var. I vas een a var, jes. It’s never a goot tink. Hard voik, no revard, und if chu loose it iz d
eat.
“Chu tail me I yom goink to loose.” Hitler smiled eerily, as though tremendously relieved. “I yom glot een a vay. Chu know, ve VANTED chu Americans to com beck ower again. Dot vould push beck ROZZIA. Bot ven chu zaw me HOLDINK DE BOG, dot vas ven.”
Here, he looked significantly at Jeannie, who couldn’t help but shyly smile. “I hed lozt all hope. I suppose ve vere a lousy failure.” They were driving through a woodsy section up north, near Palm Springs, enjoying the scenery. It was something else Hitler hadn’t gotten a lot of lately, pretty scenery.
He’d chewed it up, tearing apart well over half the world.
“Well, I don’t know why you think you needed to do all that, or why you didn’t just appeal to the U.S. to help you.”
“I tink it vould be…vat chu vould call…a macho tink? Ve chust couldn’t bag chu vor halp. Chu hed trunzed us ZOUNDLY dorink Vorld Van Vun…dat vas vut did it to uz...did chu zee my het? I yom an ardtizt. I try to zay vat iz in mine hardt. Chu know how moch I hete de Chews.” Hate to choose? Choose WHAT?
“You seem to be a Moslem or something.” He about DIED !
“NO, do not effer zay dot abot me ! I yom NOT de voreigner !!! I yom a true full-blodded EUROPEAN ! NEFFER tink uff me dot vay !”
Jeannie drove on. “I think you sort of invaded Germany, there, Adolf. That name means “Noble Wolf” or something. What were you, revenge for the Indians?”
“I ceme op dere to zave Chermany from de Chews. Dey vere breetink like fliez op dere.” Jeannie sighed, expecting to hear a hate-ridden diatribe, but she was surprised at how gentle he was making his voice sound, “und ve vere koink to the flodded oot, ve Chvistianz. Dot vould ve wery bod vor os, ve vould heve no more home, no more Europe az it should be leeved in. Do chu know vat a vile relichun Chewdaizm iz?” Chewdiazm?
Jeannie had bothered to read the Bible and the Torah, and only knew that God was always trying to make a federal case out of the Jews. “I think God is really oppressive and sick-minded.
“Tell me, Adolf…do you think that you are God?”
Hitler, growing angry, clammed shut. For a moment Jeannie feared violence from him, but nothing happened. She drove on.
They both enjoyed their trip through the trees, Jeannie being very grateful that she hadn’t opened up a Canne of Worms. She didn’t need to hear ranting and raving, having gotten plenty from her father while growing up. They stopped at a restaurant.
“My homble apolochiez, Cheannie, I don’t mean to be zo wery opzetting. I vish I hed zometink more waluable to chu den mare Deutschemarkz. But I haff zeveral uff dese. Can ve exchenge dem zomevere?” Jeannie was grateful for the old man’s overtly polite resourcefulness. She’d expected a lot of anti-Semitic name-calling, but as soon as she’d looked uncomfortable he’d quit.
“I zuppoze der iz not anti-Chewish tought here een America?”
“Uh, a little bit, not nobody’s really out to get them.”
Hitler nodded his head thoughtfully. He seemed tired.
“Jes, dot iz az I tought. Chu vould not cere. VE cere ower dere. Not anymore? Dot iz…koot, porhops. Porhops not.