There’s an old song by Three Dog Night about “I’ve never been to heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma.” In the case of my neighbor, Fritz, it’s exactly the opposite. Literally, he has died and at least knocked on heaven’s door, but never gone to Oklahoma. He has, however, been to Arizona, California, and Nevada (twice). He won $2,000 playing baccarat at Circus Circus and subsequently lost three grand at Little Darlings, a seedy strip club where he claims he was mugged by management after questioning why every girl in the all-nude revue was wearing cheap Halloween masks in February.
His home smells like a library. He is seated with a Luger semi-automatic pistol on the end table. A Mauser rifle rests against a display case holding his collection of Viking ship models and German beer steins. He's wearing a sweat suit and a plethora of jewelry, including a gold Odin's hammer pendant and a silver ring fashioned into an SS Totenkopf death's head. One entire wall in his study is stocked with Hitler-Jugend memorabilia, belt buckles, armbands and merit badges.
He introduces his wife as Barbie. "Like Klaus Barbie [the Nazi war criminal], not Barbie the Jew-made doll." Barbie is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, her husband explains in a whisper, as she totters aimlessly around their cluttered home wearing a flower-print housecoat and matching slippers.
"Hi there, Barbie, show us how high is the snow in the Alps," Fritz suddenly calls out in a thick German accent. Barbie stops on a dime, spins toward her husband, and thrusts up her right arm in a sieg-heil salute.
"That's my girl," he says with a grin.
Fritz claims he had an aneurysm in the mid ‘90s for which he underwent an experimental operation. His body temperature was lowered to 60 degrees, his heartbeat stopped, and his brain waves flattened. The doctors call this time “standstill.” Fritz, however, claims he can describe in detail the events that transpired while he was both clinically dead and brain dead, including verbatim conversations in the operating room and the unique details of the intricate surgical instruments used to drain blood from his cranium.
He will draw you a picture of the Midas Rex bone saw from memory if you ask.
He will engage in fisticuffs with anyone who disputes the pretense that the mind is separate from and higher than the functioning of the brain.
He contends that Mussolini stored all the gold the Nazis looted from Spain and Portugal in the Vatican and, after the war, the Catholics let the Nazis escape to South America dressed as priests on jets. He knows exactly where the treasure is buried in the cellar. He will draw you a map if you’d like.
Fritz also claims he joined the Hitler Youth when he was ten years old, an allegation that is almost certainly false. Fritz was born in January 1939. While the compulsory membership age of the Hitler Youth was lowered to 10 near the end of the war, the Hitler Youth was disbanded in 1945 when Fritz was only six.
How does this impact the credibility of his assertion that immortality is conferred on humankind through natural law alone, rather than by an omnipotent, monotheistic deity? The world may never know.
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2 comments:
Interesting, not hair metal but you are a writer at heart! I wonder what inspired your interest in writing because I adore the way you write. It reminds me of my literary hero's, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, and the like. Its all in the description, the imagery, and the subject matter. As a matter of fact, maybe even, James Baldwin, one of (if not the best) American writers.
The Midas Rex Bone Saw just happens to be my favorite surgical instrument. Kudos!
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