I have a friend named Tommy who used to be the proprietor of the popular record store in town, called “Die Schallplatte”. The shop was next door to the old shoemaker and a small white Bistro on the corner, called the “Wolkenkratzer”. We still see each other now and then, as it is we live in the same village. Back then we used to meet at the “Adler Klause” (some country and western bar) on Friday nights to watch the floor show, namely drunken 4 Service guys doing god knows what they were trying to prove. It was great entertainment. Well, Tommy asked me if I knew a guy named Muhlenschulte. I laughed and replied, “Yeah I know that psycho. I don’t know what it is about people that work there too long but they’re all totally mental.”
“They’re all like that?” he asked amazed.
“Unfortunately, each in their own deranged way, but don’t ask me why. I like to keep my private life far away from there, the further, the better.”
”Good god, even working with that lot would be too much for me.”
”No worries, be just as crazy or paranoid as them and they won’t suspect a thing”.
We laughed wholeheartedly, then Tommy proceeded to relate his encounter with the notorious one.
Muhlenschulte had invited him to his apartment for coffee and cake. The first thing that struck Tommy was a huge poster of Hitler above the stack of stereo equipment. As if this wasn’t despairing enough, that huge top-grade sound system was solely there to listen to endless Hitler speeches.
“Oh boy, I imagine you didn’t stick around for long”
“Yeah, looked at my watch and said something about an appointment I had completely forgot”
Well, years later after the crazies all left, there’s Muhlenschulte in our Legion branch acting like the last true Canadian on earth. He tries to engage me with the question if I’ll ever return. “Return where?” I queried back, “I’m a German citizen”. He looks at me shocked, then says, “but I thought you were such a devout and patriotic Canadian”. I looked at him with a smirk, “Maybe what you thought, but I don’t recall you ever asking. As for back, my family’s here. My father is British. His father ran away from Hatfield because he wanted no part of the Cecil legacy. My mother is from Selesia. Her home no longer exists and I never had one, so I guess this discussion has ended.”
Yes, I never saw him again after that. Which is just as well.
The other Nazi nuisance was Partenheimer, always on my case about some political thing or another. What a fit he’d have when I get myself a Kebap at the local Turks. It wouldn’t matter how many times I told him to go fuck himself, that these were friends with all due mutual respect. It would really burn him up when we gathered over a samovar of tea to discuss what the town was up to. I really don’t see what this jerk’s obsession was with me, but I was glad when I no longer had to deal with the legion, leaving his lot stuck in some delusional no-man’s land between here and nigh. Perhaps enjoyed too much privilege in their elitist diplomatic status, that they had to keep up the stigma with pathetic shit like the Canada House and the Old Bastards Club. Man, isn't life a bitch when you've run out of peons? Sometimes it amazes me what people like that try to project, like I'm just some extension of their obvious tunnel vision. Well, they're probably all gone down that tunnel now, so it's not like I really missed anything.
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