May 7^th, 2012

Without my request, Terrence contacted Danny via The Geek.  There’s no one else you would have called in this heated moment.  Danny picked up.

“Danny!  Where are you?!” I blurted out.

“Across the street, training with God’s creatures in the wilderness of Franklin Park.  Why are you so emotional?”

“Get over to the community center.  Ripps just saw video footage of the handyman destroying Linda and is on his way to seek revenge.  But he doesn’t realize he’s walking into a much bigger fight than he bargained for.”

“Oh I’ll make sure this fight is real big…big enough to be seen from space.  And it won’t be no bargain.  It will incur a great debt on our enemies.  I’m on my way.”

“Thanks Danny.”

Terrence ended the call.  I turned my head to him, “Find Future Queer, I mean Fred.  Tell him to meet us at the community center.  I’m heading over there now.”

***

Despite running in loosely tied work boots, Ripps made it down to the center in impressive time.  Although the moment was full of serious anger and intensity, there was a thin layer of humor with Ripps’ entrance.  Too impatient with the automatic door’s pace of opening, he plowed through the doorway before the door fully opened, causing the door to comically jerk back and awkwardly turning him sideways against his furious will.  Ripps looked at the door and screamed “FUCK YOU!!!” and then shoved it with both hands as if he were shoving an impudent geek into the lockers.

This bombastic entrance caught the attention of the woman at the receptionist window.  She yelled something that was meant to detain Ripps but it had no effect.  Ripps sprinted across the foyer area and ripped open a door.  Standing in front of him was Lily.  It took her little time to turn into a raving lunatic when she saw Ripps.  She probably felt her plans cracking apart and would do anything to prevent total disintegration.  With surprising strength in both body and voice, she screamed, “YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!!” and grabbed RIpps’ neck so hard, her nails drew blood from his neck.  Ripps was authentically amazed as he gasped for air and felt blood run down his neck.

His amazement turned back to an even greater anger.  He grabbed Lily’s wrists and quickly pried her hands from his neck and threw her arms back, causing them to hit the wall behind her.  Ripps grabbed her neck, slammed her against the wall, lifted her from the ground, and demonically shouted, “HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?!!”  Lily’s face only expressed shock.  This quickly turned to fear and then relief as Ripps dropped her.  Ripps stormed off and after a few moments of regaining her composure, Lily ran off in the opposite direction.

After a couple minutes of a frustrating search, Ripps found the source of his fury.  In the far side of the same large room where the children were to have their play, was Carl the handyman.  He was standing in front of the curtains on the stage.  Ripps’ anger still burned bright but it was now accompanied by a certain degree of focus.  He stared at his recently discovered enemy.

“You’re going to sleep with the geeks, bro.”

Unfortunately, Ripps’ focus was not enough to allow him to see how odd it was that his enemy, a handyman, should be standing alone on a stage in front of some curtains with no tools.

“I don’t think so.  I ain’t too tired.”

As Ripps started to walk towards the stage, he stopped.  Someone was pulling the curtains apart.  As the curtains separated, six elderly-looking people were revealed.  Ripps said, “Old geeks don’t scare Ripps.”

One by one, the elders removed their disguises, revealing they were youthfully dangerous.  It would be a lie to say that Ripps was not disappointed at this turn of events.  As he stood pondering his next move, the door behind him opened.  In walked Danny with the War Doll in tow, carrying a large radio (although since the War Doll was resting on Danny’s chest underneath his jacket, perhaps this statement should be reversed).  Danny was used to working alone and being outnumbered so the combat odds before him caused no monumental alarm.  Danny let the door slam behind him before he spoke.

“Hello Ripps.  Mind if I dance with your dates?”

“Sure thing, Danny, but they ain’t my dates.  I would never bring a geek to the prom.”

Danny unzipped his jacket and as he did, the folded body of the War Doll fell down so the War Doll, in all of his standing glory, faced people he would soon surely have the pleasure of injuring.

“Well I’d still like to dance with them anyways.  But we can’t dance without music.”

Without removing his eyes from his adversaries onstage, he pressed play and placed the radio on the floor while it played loud, almost thunderous, soulful music that was clearly engineered for aggressive dancing, music that was adorned with what seemed like an infinite number of wonderful little beats and syncopations that gave a combat dancer so many opportunities to punch and kick in an equally infinite number of combinations.

Perhaps under normal circumstances, Danny’s entrance would have created an undeniable pause in his adversaries but having just removed grey wigs and cardigan sweaters, the young punks had already accepted a less than conventional confrontation.  Being more emotional and bull-headed, Ripps charged in.  He went for Carl.  During his approach, for good measure, Ripps clotheslined one of the punks that had already ran off the stage.  Carl slowly jumped off the stage and soon found himself locked in with Ripps, causing them to look like a two competitors in a WWF match.

Danny walked in at a leisurely pace.  He preferred to not make the first move.  The odd, agitated, sometimes nervous energy of his foes is something he welcomed.  He liked to look at them and learn.  This was “combat foreplay” and he indulged in it, especially when outnumbered.  There was something to be said, as in Danny’s case, for being outnumbered but showing no remorse or fear in such a situation.  Such a cool response would often conquer his enemies before the fight began.  With one of the punks being semi-unconscious on the floor thanks to Ripps brutal blow, there were five others that circled around Danny.  Danny was impressed with how steady and confident most of them were.  He then locked eyes with one that seemed not to have the heart for this encounter.  Danny looked at him with such horrifying purpose that the young man’s face trembled.  With great authority, Danny spoke and stepped toward him, “Pain is forever!”  The young punk became so afraid that he sprinted away in the opposite direction without looking and ended up running into a wall at close to full speed.  Danny was not above disposing of one of his enemies in such ways.  Of the four that remained, one seemed a little affected by the display while the other three were unmoved.

***

Ripps’s battle was setting up to be less elegant, a battle more about strength than finesse.  Although fat, Carl quickly proved to be quite strong.  In fact, both were surprised at how strong the other was.  They kept hold of each other as they circled.  The look of their encounter was one of an angry dance.  Suddenly, with brilliant power, Carl twisted Ripps’ body against the direction they were circling and slammed him to the floor.  Before Ripps could recover, Carl threw himself on top of Ripps who was now laying on the floor stomach first.  The fat and strength of Carl was crushing and nearly caused Ripps to black out.

Carl began to laugh at Ripps as he drove his knee into Ripps’ back.  The humiliation stung Ripps and defeat felt close at hand.  But then Ripps began to see saw dust lightly fall from Carl’s hair as he laughed.  Ripps convinced himself this was the dust of Linda which helped him access a brand new, industrial-strength rage.  Ripps managed to get his hands to either side of his chest with palms facing down.  He then closed his eyes and pretended he was bench pressing a large pull-out sofa (something he had done multiple times).  Slowly but undeniably, Carl felt himself rise from the Earth.  When Ripps’ arms were extended, he expeditiously brought his legs underneath him and then pushed up and back, causing Carl to slide off his back.  Ripps was sure to give a healthy backwards kick like a horse to Carl’s face upon his descent.  This blow was a comical affair but physically and psychologically damaging.

***

The music playing on Danny’s radio was just getting good.  The song playing was “Living in America” by James Brown.  It was one of those rare songs that never grew old or stale for Danny.  It really made him excited to be kicking someone’s ass in America.  Anytime he became distraught by American politics or dumb American drivers or a long line at the Post Office, Danny would play that song to remind himself of the simple pleasures that made America a wonderful thing (like black coffee and a hard roll).  Danny could be down on the ground getting kicked in the ribs but when that glorious horn section made their presence known, Danny would feel like a million dollars after taxes.  The song’s affiliation with Rocky IV also elevated the song’s status for him and made it even more fitting in the arena of combat dancing.

Right around the time James started singing about super highways that run coast to coast, two of the punks rushed at Danny from opposite sides.  With the elegance of Fred Astaire, Danny simultaneously spun and moved himself a half step backwards.  When his body was nearing 270 degrees of rotation, he reached out in opposite directions, grabbed an arm of each invader and guided them into a violent introduction with one another.  While those two fell to the floor, Danny took a moment or two to shake his hips and punch to the beat.  With the lightness of a bird filled with helium, his feet slid and stepped to the beat and towards the more aggressive-looking chap of the two that remained on their feet.  Danny allowed the young man to swing away, half-connecting a couple punches that stung but only strengthened Danny’s resolve.  Danny knew exactly where he was within the song.  He felt the great series of beats approaching, “…and somewhere on the way, you might…”  Here they were and Danny had put his enemy right where he wanted him: “…FIND-OUT-WHO-YOU-ARE!”  Each word matched a heavy beat which in turn matched a quick potent punch to his enemy’s face.  And right as James Brown let out one of his trademark screams, Danny kicked the fourth and final fool in the stomach just as he mustered up the courage to approach Danny.

***

Ripps walked towards Carl who was on the floor and feeling foggy from Ripps’ horse kick.  Remaining on the floor, he scrambled back towards the stage in a way that made Ripps think he was trying to retrieve something.  Carl brushed aside a pile of newspapers that were on the floor, grabbed something underneath and swung around to face Ripps.  Ripps stopped his pursuit and was staring at the distasteful end of a nail gun.  Carl held back the catch release trigger with his free hand and fired off two three-inch nails.  One passed through the edge of his neck, creating a nasty gash and the other caught him in the shoulder.  It went deep enough that he felt it make severe contact with his bone underneath.  Ripps screamed in pain.  Carl smiled and took aim at Ripps face.  He fired once.

***

The first two that Danny welcomed to the floor moments earlier were back on their feet.  Understanding they would have little chance of eclipsing Danny in a hand-to-hand encounter, they chose now to use knives.  They approached Danny cautiously.  Right at that moment, Danny and his attackers were blinded by a light so bright it could only be described as other worldly.  This light was paired with strange electrical sounds.  One of the vandals took advantage of the confusion and lunged at Danny with his blade.

***

Ripps thought the bright light was his death.  But when he heard the distinct sound of a nail entering wood, he became confused.  The light subsided and inches from his face was Linda.  Although he could not see it, stuck into the opposite side of his beloved piece of lumber was a nail whose destructive destiny was frustrated by one of the hardiest wood products known to man.  Holding Linda to his right was Fred.  He was smiling although his eyes remained quite serious.

“Future…Queer?” was all Ripps could utter.

“Yes, Ripps…and a friend I happened to pick up during my travels.”

Ripps gingerly grabbed Linda.  He turned her over to find a nail stuck into her.

Whether Carl crapped his pants or not will thankfully never be known but his expression would lead one to believe he did.  He dropped his nail gun and ran for the door as fast as his girth allowed.  Fred was gone in literally a flash.  Ripps grabbed Linda with two hands and threw her with all his might.  She sailed furiously through the air, end over end, like a propeller.

***

Fred reappeared next to the War Doll, picked him up, and left again in a flash.  Expecting to feel Danny’s flesh with his knife, the vandal’s knife came into contact with a different material.  It felt like an armored pillow.  Whatever it was, it stopped the knife completely.  When the light evaporated, the attacker could not believe what he saw.  The War Doll was being held by two hands that belonged to a body that stood behind Danny.  Another flash and the mysterious figure behind Danny was gone.  The War Doll was pinned against Danny’s chest by the knife.  Danny struck each side of his attacker’s neck with the sides of his hands.  The knife fell to the ground and Danny kicked him in the chest so hard that he left the ground for one delightful moment.  The other knife bearer soon found himself the sufferer of an instant migraine as the War Doll’s head crashed into his head.  Danny heard the doors opening.  He looked over.

***

As I opened the door, I saw Carl running towards me.  Before I could even react, I heard the sound of wood hitting bone.  Carl’s head shook and his eyeballs went on vacation.  He fell to the floor, revealing Linda on the floor behind him and further in the distance, Ripps stood with blood coming out of his neck and shoulder.  He grimaced as he pulled the nail out of his shoulder.  A large number of police officers flooded in behind me and began “securing the scene” or whatever you call it when they handcuff and arrest people.

Detective Sean Mitchells walked into the gym as Danny and Ripps briefed me on their experiences.  Sean was a black man in his mid-40’s.  A little over six feet, the detective work allowed him to gain a little weight and grow some character-adding patches of grey in his temples.  He informed us that Lily had been arrested.  Although we practically served this case to him on a silver platter, he showed no bitterness or pride issues.  He was grateful and so were we to have the freedom to do what one great man thought we should do.  I had known Detective Mitchells for several years and he was one of the first people I approached when assembling my team.  He was happy to work with us as long as we played by certain rules.  This mission was our first one and both of us agreed it was a success.

During the course of all the action, Terrence incredibly provided Detective Mitchells and I with invaluable information.  In an absurdly short amount of time, pulling data that was and was not for public consumption, and with Terence’s pristine guidance, “The Geek” almost immediately constructed an undeniable pattern within the Jopman organization.  On numerous occasions, they had built factories on land that was purchased for little money, in situations that seemed to reek of “distressed sales”.  In a handful of them, there were corruption cases surrounding Jopman’s property acquisitions but there never seemed to be enough evidence or the desire of pursuit.  One of the things that made this case different was that Sean was armed in advance with this knowledge and instantly applied the precise pressure points of knowledge, truth and guilt upon Lily at her most vulnerable point (that point being right when Sean stormed through the front doors, flanked by so many officers) and coaxed a whopper of a confession out of her almost immediately.

We more or less figured it out by the time the wench opened her mouth but Lily gracefully filled in a few details.  The short of it is that Jopman wanted to construct a factory where the center now stood.  As they had done previously, a shadowy figure somehow connected to Jopman decided to approach someone of importance in the community center and made a proposal: do whatever you must to close down this center, we will buy it for a low price, and you will be rewarded financially for your efforts.

Unfortunately, unsuccessful attempts were made to carry this investigation to the very core of Jopman but as is often the case, such a large powerful organization is protected by thick walls consisting of money, powerful people, brilliant lawyers, and genius sinister minds.  Jopman was able to contain this loss and had no problem writing it off.  The bastards probably figured out a way to turn it into a desirable tax write-off.  It would have been wonderful to simply send Fred through time to gain advantageous knowledge of Jopman that could help undo the firm but the Time Travel Code of Ethics would not allow it.

Speaking of Fred, he was nowhere to be seen.  This is exactly how we needed it to be.  The lower our profile was the better.   After assisting Danny, Fred vanished.  The only one that really caught a good glimpse of him was Carl.  Watching Carl trying to explain Fred to his arresting officers was more entertainment than I could bear.

Fred took an enormous risk in doing what he did.  It showed how incredibly talented of a time traveler he really is.  Popping in an out of certain point of time with lots of moving targets is more dangerous than cave diving.  And jumping in right next to a living, mobile thing is more dangerous than hang gliding in the stormy atmosphere of Jupiter.  And to make matters more complex, he had to override Juan, his supercomputer, to even gain access to such a jump.  Of course, there’s also the grilling he is sure to receive from his superiors for such actions.  This caused great concern for me but Fred assured me he would be able to “win the day” as it relates to this matter.  Danny did not need to be told of how large of a sacrifice this was.  He is quite in tune with the warrior code and can sense great sacrifice practically before it happens.

Ripps also acknowledges sacrifice but I had a talk with him to make sure he realized just how special this sacrifice was since Fred clearly knew of Ripps’ homophobic tendencies.  I don’t think Ripps was ready to hang out at gay bars but he at the very least became more accepting and friendly towards Fred which was a positive start.  Maybe Ripps would have lived if he got shot in the face with a nail but he was most appreciative he did not have to find out.  He was even more appreciative to have his favorite inanimate object returned to him.

December 11^th, 2010

When I moved in, there was not much work to be done.  I had been unknowingly getting the house ready for my arrival for the past five years.  With that said, there was one major renovation that needed to be done – the disco kitchen.  I began work on it a week after my arrival.  When I pulled the refrigerator out, I noticed a letter with my name taped to the wall.  I sat down at the table and read it.

Dear Chris,

We often don’t have the luxury of choosing how we die or the amount of time we have left once we know the end is near.  If God gives me an encounter with you right before my time, then you’ll already know the contents of this letter.

By now you’ve taken over The Castle!  Congratulations…and you’re welcome.  I know you well enough to know you’re saying thank you right now but you don’t need to thank me.  I need to thank you.  As it turns out, you can’t take it with you.  By “it”, I mean wealth and possessions.  Sure, I could have given it to a distant relative or a charity but I’ve watched you closely for the years that I’ve known you and I can tell that you will end up being the best investment I’ve ever made.

I also know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t waste time in remodeling the kitchen.  The ancient nature of the kitchen and my refusal to update it has caused many a grimace for you, I’m sure.  Knowing this, I knew I had discovered the perfect hiding place for this letter.

Something else I’ve known about you is that you’ve wondered about the Nazi dagger.  You’ve known there’s a great significance behind it but you could sense I didn’t want to discuss it so you tactfully left it alone.  I would have rather told you the story behind it in person.  I’m not sure why I didn’t tell you earlier.  Perhaps it is because the lesson it holds should be the last lesson I give you.  Delivering the lesson in this manner ensures it is the last lesson I give you.

During the late winter and early spring of 1945 in Germany, I was part of General Patton’s renowned 3^rd Army.  The pace at which we gobbled up enemy territory and soldiers was comparable of that to an out of control forest fire after a long drought.  Although success seemed to come easily during this time, there was one mission that failed miserably.  On the evening of March 26, under the command of Captain Abraham Baum, about 300 of us went 50 miles behind enemy lines.  Our mission was to free the prisoners of Camp Hammelburg.  At first, this sounds noble but we weren’t given enough men for the job.  Our Lt. Colonel wanted his entire command to go but he was overruled.  We also weren’t given enough maps.  Along the way, we had to stop and ask the locals where to go!  But the biggest kick in the proverbial pants was our reason for going.  Although he never admitted it, General Patton’s biggest motivating factor for this mission was to free his son in law who was located in Camp Hammelburg.  I’m guessing this was why he made this mission secret and didn’t tell Eisenhower about it.  All of us were happy to free Allied troops.  We just wanted to go about it in the right way and for the right reason.  Even if we were undermanned and underequipped, most of us would have been happy to attempt the mission as long as it wasn’t for one man’s personal reasons.  Over three hundred set out, thirty-two were killed and only thirty-five made it back.  I was one of those 35 (eventually).

I have since made my peace with this event but at the time we were being ambushed by German troops in Höllrich, I was confused and angry and felt my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers were being wasted in an ill-planned mission.  As we regrouped on a nearby hill, I thought how these poor prisoners we “rescued” would have been safer had they remained in the camp.  Just after dawn on March 28^th, we formed into a column and tried to head back.  The German’s attacked us with brutal force, so much so that Captain Baum gave his last order of that mission: every man for himself.

Did I ever mention I was a good runner?  I ran a 4:22 in the mile in college.  I wish someone timed my retreat that day; I must have set at least an American record for the first mile.   As fast as I went, I remember seeing death all around me.  I recall seeing a fragile, ill, malnourished prisoner gunned down with no remorse as he attempted an escape.  It was horrific.  Never before that moment or after had I seen man in such a despicable, soulless, and evil form.  Its impact on me was immediate.

I must have ran five miles deep into a forest before my body gave way to exhaustion and emotion.  I kept seeing that prisoner being shot to his death as he tried to run.  I think he was Serbian.  He was wearing a gray uniform.  He was probably my age but the harsh conditions he endured cruelly aged him.  When we first arrived at the camp, we actually fired at the Serbian section, thinking they were German soldiers in their gray uniforms.  What must have been going through this man’s mind as he died?  Was he cursing the Americans for being a bigger threat to his life than the Germans?  Was he thinking how if he stayed in the prison, he would have survived?  Maybe he was glad it was over.  The more I thought, the more I cried.  The more I cried, the angrier I became.  The sadness eventually left me but the anger did not which is unlike me.  Anger typically leaves me before too long.

I sat against a tree for about an hour.  At some point I looked down and realized I had no weapons or food or water on me.  They must have fallen off during my retreat or perhaps I got rid of them as I ran to increase my speed; I can’t remember.  I then heard the sound of twigs breaking somewhere behind me so I slowly peered around my tree and saw somebody about 30 yards away running perpendicularly to my position.  I focused in on them and could see it was a German officer.  He looked as tired if not more so than me.  Judging by his direction, I don’t think he was running from my battle.  My guess is that he was retreating from some other battle.

I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to follow him.  With each step, my anger accelerated.  I didn’t realize it at the time but this man was progressively becoming the answer to all the pain and frustration I had just endured over the past two days.  He had a German uniform on.  That was his sin.  That was the only reason I needed to hunt him.

But one large problem prevailed.  I had no weapon and he had at least a dagger and a pistol.  I continued to follow him from a safe distance, stopping when he stopped, scavenging for berries and water when he did.  I was not trained for such a maneuver as this.  I didn’t know how to survive in the wild like this.  Thankfully, my prey did and I mimicked his actions.  It was ironic that the man I intended to kill was unknowingly keeping me alive.  At one point, I noticed that this whole time I had been running in the opposite direction of the line I should have been trying to cross but I was obeying the call of a misplaced revenge, not logic.  I was amazed with the amount of focus my anger provided me.  It gave me patience.  It gave me energy even though I did not sleep for three days.  It told me the moment had to be just right for me to attack.  His guard had to be let down.  I thought that the first night would provide me an opportunity to take his life but it did not (neither did the second night).  Even at night this man would not stop and sleep as I thought he would.  He would rest a little but kept going.  He avoided people.   At first I wondered why.  Can’t he walk up to any house and ask to spend the night?  He’s in his own country.  Then it dawned on me: he may be viewed as a deserter.  But that still didn’t explain why he didn’t sleep.  Why was he in such a hurry?  Where was he going?  The moment I had painfully been waiting for finally arrived.  It was about two days after the chase began.

It was cool and sunny.  I could see my breath but at the same time, it somehow felt like it was going to be a warm day.  We must have moving east at that moment because the sun was low and almost blinding me.  The woods we made our way through were about to end.  From what I could tell, a field laid beyond them.  This unknown enemy of mine stepped into the field and stopped.  From behind, the sunlight surrounded his figure and made him look on fire and for the first time, powerful.  He was doing something but I couldn’t tell what it was.  As I moved closer, I could see he was clearly distracted by something he saw.  Whatever he was looking at was down a slight hill and out of my view.

It appeared my moment had arrived.  I was now closer to him than I had been in the past two days.  I could now see details about him that I had not been able to before.  There were several tears in his gray uniform and his black boots looked like an alligator mistook them for beef jerky.  Dirt and grass stains covered him to the point it looked like he had rolled his way to this point.  His uniform was beyond wrinkled, beyond crumpled.  It looked like a newspaper that someone had crumpled up and sat on for a month.  He perfectly paralleled the state of the German army at that point in time: once glorious and pristine but now reduced to a dirty frightened animal on the run.

I crept up to him closer.  Thankfully there was a decent wind that blew some leaves around that masked any sound I made.  I could see he had some sort of sheathed dagger on his left hip and a pistol on his right.  I thought at such a moment I would pause or hesitate but I did not.  My anger which had not abated in the slightest over the past two days kept me motivated and confident.  More even, my anger allowed me to come up with a plan of attack in the time it took me to make my final ten-foot approach.

His left hand was up near his face.  I couldn’t tell if he was waving at someone or shielding his eyes from the sun.  From behind, I wrapped my arms around his waist, allowing my hands to join at his dagger on his left hip.  With my left, I gripped the sheath of the dagger and with the right, I drew the blade out.  I was now being blinded by the sun but it didn’t matter, I had the advantage and was doing everything by feel.  By the time he started to react, my left hand was now travelling up to his throat while rendering his left arm useless, keeping it pinned up high.  I grabbed his throat hard with my left hand which stunned him as I now sunk the dagger deep into his abdomen.  I knew little of exactly where a lethal strike would be so once the blade was in, I moved it around a great deal.  He still resisted but I could feel his strength diminishing.  I said nothing and he said nothing.  I took the knife out and stabbed him again in each lung.  As his body slid down mine, I snatched the sheath and it ripped off his hip.  I put the dagger back in the sheath and held it in my right hand.

I looked down the slight slope and now I could see what he was looking at: a young girl of about seven.  She stood more still than any of the inanimate objects in my field of vision.  She was about 40 feet away from me.  I too now stood with absolutely no motion.  Who was this girl?  Her expression of blank shock did not lend me any clues.  After some time, my victim’s hand moved slightly.  The young girl looked at it and her face was now expressing confusion and a pain that not even the greatest actor could mimic.  I looked down at my enemy who stopped moving and appeared to be dead.

I had killed a man who was simply trying to come home to his daughter.

I stepped back and tripped.  My eyes filled with tears.  I got back on my feet and between the sun and the tears, I could hardly tell where I was.  I shut my eyes forcefully to try and remove some of the water.  I ran away from the sun and the little girl.

After a mile of running, I stopped and finally noticed that I still had the dagger in my hand.  It was strange that I didn’t simply throw it down.  I carried it with me the rest of the way.

I eventually made it back to camp and to many smiling faces.  When they asked where I had been, I told them I was lost.  I told no one the truth.  My fear was that I would have been congratulated for my efforts or worse, received some promotion or medal.

So why didn’t I dispose of the dagger in the woods?  Why did it keep it among my other war memorabilia for the rest of my life?

To be honest, I don’t know why I held on to it on my way back in the woods.  Some force overrode my mind and commanded me to hold onto it.  After I returned from the war, I realized why I needed to continue holding onto this grotesque instrument.

As God’s “chosen” creatures, we have two very great powers.  The first is to take and the other is to give.  We need to take a little to survive but often greed and rage and all of their cousins cause us to take far beyond our needs.  Suddenly, our desire to take becomes a destructive, cancerous force that will kill all around it and ultimately the host.  To give, however, is to create.  There are practically no limits to giving.  To give is to exercise one of the most underrated traits of all time: humility.  To be humble is to remove the focus from yourself and to become part of something greater than yourself.  Ironically, the more you give and the less you concern yourself with yourself, the more powerful you become.  Those that take try to fill an abyss that simply cannot be filled and sadly miss out on the greatest power of all: the beautiful power of not just belonging to something greater than themselves but becoming that very thing that is greater than themselves.

That day in Germany, I took.  Some would say it was okay because it was during a war and I killed an enemy.  Or it was a Nazi and all Nazis are evil and deserve death.  There is no argument I encountered that made me feel at peace with taking that man’s life that day.  Believe me, I’ve gone through all the possible arguments of why it would be okay to kill that man and none have brought me peace.  What did bring me peace was using that terrible, dark moment as a motivating force to always do the opposite of what I did that day.  When I looked at that knife, I no longer saw the evil forces of the Nazi movement or the life that it allowed me to take, I saw it as a reminder to give and create.

I do hope you don’t have to go through what I went through to learn about the beauty of giving.  I hope this story is enough.  Everything I have observed about you tells me you understand this vital lesson.

You can throw the knife away, if you want.  It is pretty disturbing!  Moreover, it has served its purpose.

Yours,

TAP

I put the letter down.  I also put my tools down for the rest of the day.  That was a big episode to digest.  I started to walk towards James’s Gate in efforts to find something that would help me digest.  It was time to medicate as I ruminate.  As I waited for a hole in the traffic on Washington Street that would allow me to cross over, l realized that I was standing next to Doyle’s.  Someone stopped their car to let me cross but I looked at Doyle’s, looked back at the courteous driver, waved the nicest “no thank you” I could muster, received a slightly annoyed look, and then headed into Doyle’s.

As I sat at the bar and sipped my stout, I read over parts of the letter again.  Damn, that was intense.  For some reason, my mind was able to form a picture of this little girl that I never met in my mind.  Her hair was dark and long and parted on one side.  It had a little wave to it.  Her eyes were dark too.  She was in a white sleeping gown but quickly threw on some shoes that she didn’t tie so she could run out to greet her father once she saw him.  She ran out of her house and towards this man that she was overjoyed and relieved to see.  “It was over”, she must have thought, “and now I no longer have to worry about my father.”

And then, unknowingly, Thomas Aloysius Pemberton stepped in and with one move that took a few seconds to execute, killed a man and probably ruined the life of an innocent girl (not to mention the rest of her family).

Perhaps this is why he never had children.  I never asked why he didn’t have children and he never offered it up but I think it’s safe to say what the reason was.  Knowing Mr. Pemberton, he most likely and sadly thought that he didn’t deserve to have children.  A life alone would be his penance for this deed.

Elsa!  The German lady from the funeral!  That is the young girl Mr. Pemberton is referring to in his letter.  It didn’t hit me until my third beer but when it did, I tried my best to recreate the moments from the funeral.  I closed my eyes very hard, put my hand to my head and re-watched all the scenes from that day in my mind that involved Elsa.  But why would she be at the funeral?  It made no sense that Elsa was the one from the letter but I just knew it was.  When I opened my eyes, the bartender was looking at me.  I gave him a small wave to let him know I was alright.  I chugged down the rest of my beer and left.

I needed an answer to Elsa’s presence right away.  I called Frank Rosenberg.

“Hi Frank.  This is Chris.”

“Chris!  Great to hear from you!  How are you making out with the house?”

“Great.  Lots of work to be done but great.  Um, Frank, I apologize if I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong but why was Elsa at the funeral?”

Considering how great Frank was with words, the silence my question created was something to behold.

I continued, “I found Mr. Pemberton’s letter.  He told me what happened in the war…about the German soldier and her daughter.  I just can’t understand why…unless TAP somehow helped…”

I could tell Frank was smiling. “You know TAP well enough to know the kind of man he was.  That kind of man would do everything in his power to repay such a large debt.  TAP knew it could never be repaid but he decided to die trying and this is why Elsa was at the funeral.”

“But how has he been helping her?”

“Between you, me, and the wall…he sent her money.”

“That must have been an awkward process to initiate.”

“Well, Elsa thought the money was coming from some German military benefit thing that very few families qualified for.  TAP spent a decent amount of time and money figuring out how to make it look legitimate, how to make it look like the German government was paying the surviving members of a family some sort of military life insurance that the fallen soldier had.  He even paid some German shoe salesman he met in the war to pretend to be her dedicated account rep so if she had any questions about the payments, she would call the number on the letter, thinking she was calling some government employee when in fact she was talking to a guy that owned a shoe store in Munich.”

“Wow…and that worked?”

“It did for many years until she found out the truth.  The shoe salesman died unexpectedly one day.  Before the news even got to TAP, she happened to call the shoe salesman with a question, something she rarely did.  A relative of the deceased picked up the phone and essentially told her the man she had been dealing with regarding her payments was a shoe salesman and not a government employee.  Confused, she did a lot of digging and found out where the payments were coming from.”

“Did she call him?  Was she angry?”

“She had no idea who Thomas Aloysius Pemberton was so she actually flew over with her husband to find out who the source of this mysterious money was.  I remember the day she showed up to our office, looking for TAP.  Their encounter was unlike anything I’ve ever seen or will again.  Even though they saw each other for a few seconds, years before, it took them a fraction of a second to recognize each other that day in our office.  Elsa literally collapsed and had to be reminded to breathe by her husband.  The short of it is that they somehow became friends after all this.  They had this unlikely, eerie bond that lasted through the years.  It’s strange but the two of them coming together helped them both recover from an old psychological wound.”

“I don’t know what to say, Frank.”

“I’d be worried if you did know what to say after a tale like that.”