Portable Childhoods Read online

  He’d seen a mall with a huge Barnes and Noble by the freeway. Maybe they’d have the new Andrew Holleran. But just before the turnoff he saw a wooden sign that said Palmetto Antique District, with an arrow pointing to the left. He smiled. Willy’s kind of place. He turned and followed the signs.

  He parked the white Plymouth Neon in a lot at the back of the first antique mall. The asphalt was hot, even through his shoes; the pavement shimmering at the edges. He stopped to dig the sunscreen out of his carry-on in the trunk. Irish heritage. He was so fair that he freckled after five minutes in the sun and burned after ten. He walked into the mall smelling faintly of coconut.

  The air-conditioned mall—200 DEALERS!—was filled with small stalls, six-by-six cubicles of Depression glass cheek to jowl with Victorian lithographs on one side and vintage TV lunchboxes on the other. A speaker blared scratchy Big Band music. He browsed aimlessly, not really sure what he was looking for, but knowing he hadn’t found it yet. Something vintage, something that would tickle Willy’s fancy.

  He window-shopped at a fairly brisk pace up the north side of Palmetto Avenue. Two out of every three shops specialized in antiquey antiques—delicate porcelain cups, fussy velvet lampshades, windows full of over-dressed dolls with zombie eyes. He stopped in one store to look through a case of hundred-year-old novels, his particular mania, but didn’t find anything he couldn’t live without.

  He’d planned to cross at the corner and check out the shops on the other side. If nothing looked promising, he’d head back to the Barnes and Noble. But as he waited for the light to change, a lone antiQues sign in the next block caught his eye, and he continued on.

  The store had no other identity, just a street number in peeling gilt letters on the transom over its front door. A bell chimed overhead as he entered the musty room. It smelled stale. No air-conditioning. The windows were grimy with dust and age; everything that wasn’t directly under one of the buzzing fluorescent lights had a sepia tint to it.

  He looked around. Wooden cases, some glass-fronted, lined the walls. Above them paintings and a few large, fading photographs covered most of the cracking plaster up to the ceiling. The rest of the room seemed more like an upscale surplus store than an antique shop: cases full of knives, battered metal helmets, swords, uniforms with full regalia.

  That might be treasure for some collectors, but definitely not for Willy, who was into retro, collectibles. Michael started to leave, then saw a stack of framed photographs leaning against a cabinet toward the back of the store. Willy adored those old group shots—1922 graduations and annual picnics at midwestern shoe factories. It was worth checking out. He skirted a glass-topped case of dusty, vaguely distasteful objects: a leather pouch of dental instruments, a photo of a Civil War autopsy, a small, curled whip. He shivered when he saw the first swastika.

  A high black cap with silver lightning bolts. A brown uniform shirt with a red armband. Suddenly they were everywhere. Twisted blood-red crosses, vivid against white porcelain cabochons, inlaid into the hilts of daggers; silver swastikas embossed on the corners of photos, more of them on the uniforms of the men with their outstretched, rigid arms.

  Michael felt a rising disgust. The atmosphere of the store seemed to surround him like carbon monoxide from a defective furnace, invisible, insidious. He didn’t want to be there. But as he turned in the narrow space between cases, he came face-to-face with a locked glass cabinet, its shelves only a few inches deep.

  A cracked leather rectangle, the size of a luggage tag, wood-burned with the word CHARLESTON. A typewritten sign below it said “1861. SLAVE AUCTION TAG. A$300.” Next to it, two scraps of felt were propped up in a paper-lined cigar box. The yellow star, its six points outlined in black, had the word JuDe in the center. The lines and the letters were off-center from the contours of the felt; it had been badly printed or cut. The pale pink triangle was identified by another typewritten sign: “NAZI HOMOSEXUAL BADGE, ca. 1935. $75.”

  Michael stared at the small piece of pink felt, once worn by a man like him. Or Willy. This one looked like it had never been used. Mint condition. It was perfectly flat, had never conformed to the rounded shape of a human arm. No needle holes pierced its periphery; it had never been sewn onto a sleeve or torn off by a souvenir hunter.

  He looked at it appraisingly. Willy taught a Gay Studies course and had books full of black-and-white pictures of these things. And they were all over the Castro, in bright pink neon, on bumper stickers and shot glasses. But Michael had never seen a real one. It had to be rare.

  It was an odd present. On the other hand, it was perfect for Willy, and a lot more personal and hand-picked than some book he’d just grabbed at Barnes and Noble. Plus it wouldn’t seem too extravagant. It was just a little piece of felt. Seventy-five dollars was lot more than he’d intended to spend, more than he could really afford, but that was good, he thought, under the circumstances.

  He walked back to the cash register at the front of the store. When the old guy in the greasy Marlins cap put down his Tom Clancy paperback, Michael handed him a credit card.

  Coming off the pedestrian walkway in the United terminal, Michael spotted Willy in the cocktail lounge next to Gate 47. A pint of some sort of dark beer was at his elbow, and his laptop was open in front of him. He had his reading glasses on and was staring at the screen, stroking the graying hairs in his dark beard, deep in thought. And he was wearing the Hawaiian shirt that Michael had given him for his birthday. That was a good sign.

  Michael stopped and watched him for a minute, smiling affectionately at the familiar face, then took a deep breath. They had some serious talking to do.

  He put his carry-on on an empty chair and rested his hand on Willy’s shoulder. “Hey.”

  Willy looked up. “Hey.” His voice had a wary tone to it, and he wasn’t smiling. “You didn’t call me back last night.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I got back to the room late and didn’t want to wake your mom.” He sat down and arranged his jacket on the chair, hoping that his voice hadn’t given anything away, buying himself a few seconds to figure out what to say next.

  “I’ll get you a beer. They’ve got Redhook ESB on tap.” Willy signaled the waitress then fidgeted with his coaster. Neither one of them said anything until the beer arrived.

  “Look, I’m really sorry,” Michael began. “I was nervous. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off.”

  “I knew you were nervous. I’ve been there. I was trying to help.”

  “I know. That was the thing. You’ve done papers. You’re almost finished with your book. Sometimes I feel like you’re always one step ahead of me.”

  “It’s not a competition,” Willy said quietly.

  “Yeah, well, I guess it was for me. I didn’t need any help, you know?” Michael shook his head. “It sounds stupid now, but I wanted to be the big guy.”

  Willy smiled, just a little. “So, big guy. How did it go?”

  Michael’s shoulders sagged in relief. Willy was smiling. It was going to be okay. He hadn’t realized until just that moment how afraid he was that he’d really blown it.

  “It went okay. I was a wreck the night before but…” Michael let his voice trail off. The night before was a minefield. He had really blown it there. He could never let Willy know that. He took a sip of beer to regroup. “…but it went well. I got all the way through, and didn’t drop anything or swear like a sailor in front of the dean. How was Betty?”

  “About the same. She’s down to three bridge games a week, and she made me the worst steak I’ve ever had in my life. Shoe leather with a-1 sauce.”

  Michael laughed. “We had that at the banquet last night. Must be a local dish.”

  They looked at each other and Willy reached across the table, covering Michael’s hand with his own. “Truce?”

  “Truce.” Michael added his other hand to the pile and squeezed Willy’s gently. “I even brought you a peace offering. I stopped at an antique strip on the way here and found a l
ittle something.”

  “Vintage?”

  “Thirties, if it’s genuine.” He reclaimed his hand and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  Willy took the postcard-sized plastic sleeve that held the scrap of pink felt and stared at it for a few seconds, his face paling in recognition. He tipped the felt out onto the palm of his hand.

  “Jesus. Where did you find this?”

  “In a grubby little shop run by a guy who has a penchant for things German. I wandered in because it said ‘Antiques.’ Creepy place.”

  “I’ll bet.” Willy looked down again at the triangle in his hand. Michael couldn’t read his expression, but he didn’t look too happy.

  “It’s kind of a weird present, I know, but…”

  “No, it’s amazing. Really. I’m just a little stunned. It’s so…ordinary. Maybe it’s because I know what people did with it.”

  Michael shuddered. He’d never heard Willy’s voice sound like that. Willy saw his expression and nodded.

  “Want the five-minute lecture? Himmler started sending gay men to Dachau in the early ’30s. He had the power to arrest a man for almost anything. If I smiled at you. If you had my phone number in your address book. If you subscribed to the wrong magazine, the Gestapo came to collect you. No trial. You’d be loaded into a cattle car, sent to a camp, and you disappeared. No one would dare ask what happened to you. That was just inviting the Gestapo to knock again. One book estimates that more than fifty thousand of us died in the camps.”

  “Gas chambers, right?”

  Willy shook his head. “That would have been kinder. Getting a pink triangle meant slave labor in a quarry or the cement works, until you starved to death. But I think I’d choose that over being the guinea pig for the castration experiments. The Nazi doctors thought they could eliminate homosexuality by making sure we’d never breed. They tried anything: surgery without anesthetics, lethal doses of hormones, carbolic acid injected directly into testicles. Almost no one survived.”

  “God, I had no idea.” Michael felt nauseated by what he’d heard. He pushed away his half-empty beer glass.

  “Not very many people do.”

  They both stared in silence at the piece of felt resting on the tabletop. “We should go,” Willy said finally. “They’ll be boarding our flight in a few minutes.” He slipped the triangle back into the plastic sleeve.

  “If I’d known all that, I wouldn’t have bought it.” Even in the plastic atmosphere of the airport bar, the thing gave Michael the creeps, and he suddenly realized he didn’t want to take it home. He reached for it, but Willy pulled it away, just an inch.

  “No,” he said. “When we get back, I’ll donate it to the Gay Historical Society, if that’s all right with you. Maybe it’ll remind people how much we take for granted, how lucky we are.”

  Michael thought for a minute, then nodded. Willy slid the plastic sleeve into a zippered pocket in his black nylon laptop case and laid a ten-dollar bill on the table for the beers.

  The red-eye back to San Francisco was only about half full. Michael had a window seat and Willy stretched his six-foot-three inch frame out into the aisle as they waited for take-off.

  “Grab me a pillow and a blanket?” Michael asked, yawning.

  “Tired?”

  “Yeah, 6:30 breakfast meeting.” He’d actually been up all night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep after he’d left Simon’s room around midnight. He propped the pillow behind his head. “You don’t mind?”

  “Nah. I’ve got a book. And some notes to type up.” He patted Michael’s arm, a gentle reassurance that made Michael smile and his stomach churn with fresh guilt.

  He managed to stay awake long enough to have a Beck’s from the drink cart and decline both the chicken and the lasagna entrees. He fell asleep somewhere over Mississippi to the rhythmic sound of Willy’s fingers clicking on the keyboard.

  It’s cold. Bitter, bone-numbing cold. The wind tears through the cotton ticking of his pants, and wet snow seeps through the thin cardboard soles of his shoes. It’s after midnight. They are standing in the parade ground, hundreds of thin, shivering men in striped jackets, in lines outside the wooden barracks. No one knows why. No one asks. No one says a word, moves a muscle.

  Last night a man named Stefan stumbled out of line when his leg fell asleep. The Hauptscharführer hit him with the butt of a rifle, knocking him to the ground, then kicked him to death, his blood melting a small patch of snow around his head.

  Michael was once horrified by these things, but no more. Now they are common. Now he is only glad he is not Stefan, and he is not certain of that. Stefan is gone, but Stefan may be warm, somewhere. Stefan’s bowels are not liquid, Stefan’s stomach is not in constant spasms from hunger, from dysentery, from fear.

  The Obersturmführer arrives, wrapped in his long wool coat, his thick gloves. He walks along the line of men, his high black leather boots crunching in the snow. As he walks, he looks at a typewritten list, points with his stick, sneering out the names: “Ass-fucker Rudi Bucher. Ass-fucker Horst Mueller. Ass-fucker Josef Dorfen.”

  Michael waits motionless, watching the emaciated men step slowly out of line, begin to shuffle through the snow. He watches as the capo shoves them to the left, not toward the railroad siding and the quarry, but toward the medical building.

  He was afraid before. Now he is terrified. He has heard the screams in the night. Silently he prays to a god he no longer believes in to spare him. Take someone else. Anyone. Not him. Not him.

  And then he hears the Obersturmführer call out, “Ass-fucker Wilhelm Klein.” Michael starts, as if it were his own name, and watches helplessly as Willy steps out of the line. His head is shaved, like all the others, and his eyes are deep, dark circles sunken into his face. He looks so naked without his beard.

  He shuffles by, looking at the ground. When he passes, Michael wants to reach out, but doesn’t move. He lowers his own eyes and cannot look at him.

  Willy stumbles and the Obersturmführer hits him on the shoulders with his stick. Michael can see Willy’s face contort with pain. In that same moment, he sees him look up, and the light from the open door of the medical building illuminates his widened eyes for just a moment.

  Michael hears Willy shout “No!” and watches him break out of the line and begin to run clumsily toward the fence and the barbed wire and the dogs. The silent air is shattered with a single shot. Willy falls face down into the snow.

  Three more shots. The prone body jumps with the impact of each bullet. Michael wants to run over and cradle Willy’s head in his lap. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t shift his feet or blink his eyes or cry out, even when the capos come and drag Willy’s body to the ditch, tossing it on top of the others.

  Michael woke from his nightmare with his heart racing and his nails digging into the seat rest. His eyes stung with tears. He reached over to take Willy’s hand, but the seat was empty. No Willy. No laptop. No carry-on.

  He tasted bile in his throat, panic. Calm down, he told himself. Willy’s just gone to the bathroom. He’ll be back in a minute. But why would he take his stuff?

  Five minutes passed. Ten. He’d never felt so scared, so alone. He unbuckled his seat belt, tumbled the blanket onto Willy’s empty seat, and walked down the aisle to the bathrooms. The plane was dark, just a few scattered reading lights. Most people were sleeping. A few looked up, annoyed, as he passed by. One bathroom was empty, the other had its OCCUPIED sign engaged. He tapped on the closed door, and whispered loudly. “Willy?”

  There was no answer for a second, then the door opened and a blonde woman in a United uniform stepped out.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  He tried to sound calm. “I woke up from a nap, and my friend’s not in his seat. I thought he might be back here.”

  The stewardess shook her head. “I haven’t seen anyone.”

  He felt his panic rising, and tried to control his voice. “Could yo
u page him? Willy Cline?”

  “Is it an emergency, sir? Everyone’s asleep.”

  Michael didn’t know how to answer.

  “Why don’t you return to your seat. I’ll check with the other flight attendant. After all, people don’t just disappear from a 737.” She smiled professionally, then took his arm and walked him back to his seat.

  She continued up to the front of the cabin. He could see her talking, watched the another woman consult a list, shake her head. Michael broke into a cold sweat.

  The stewardess walked slowly back to his row. Her brow was furrowed. Annoyed or confused. Michael couldn’t tell. She leaned over Willy’s empty seat and spoke in a whisper.

  “Sir? I’m afraid Seat 13-C was never assigned. There’s no one named Cline booked on this flight. Are you all right?”

  Michael couldn’t answer.

  “Well, why don’t you just go back to sleep?” she said, then walked slowly back up the aisle.

  Michael watched her retreating back. There was some mistake. The list was wrong. She’d missed the name, misspelled it as Kline, with a K. People did that all the time. “Wait, wait,” he called, but if she heard him, she didn’t turn around.

  Michael’s shoulders sagged helplessly. He turned to the window and looked out into the black, featureless night. No clouds. No lights below. As if the world had disappeared completely.

  He pressed his face against the cold plastic. “Willy?” he whispered softly, and began to cry.

  Without turning his head, he groped for the edge of the blanket to wipe his eyes. His fingers touched the seat cushions, felt a scrap of fabric. He pulled it into the light and stared at it, shivering uncontrollably.

  The pink felt triangle was dirty, stained with patches of dried blood. And perforating its edges were ragged holes, as if it had once been sewn on with a large, blunt needle.

  The Feed Bag

  DAD BOWLED on Monday nights

  and Mom was a lousy cook

  (she knew it)

  so we’d go out

  to the Feed Bag: