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“Nicht vergessen.”

A gnarly old Jew with a hairy mole on his chin the size of a chancre belched raw garlic at Skylar McDonald, seated under the canopy at Shangri-La. Skylar decided to ignore him.

“Lampshades the Nazis made, out of human skin,” nagged the Jew.

“Leave me alone! ” swore Skylar, banging his fist on the table, bringing the young, pretty waitress who promptly asked him if he wanted another Tuborg.

“You mistake my meaning,” said the Jew. Seated at the adjoining table, he bent almost to the floor in a two-minute coughing fit. “The point is, they never caught on as industrial production, not the soap, not the lampshades. The manufacturing process proved entirely too labor intensive.”

Handing the waitress a blue food coupon, Skylar fled the Shangri-La. Only to succumb to the realization that the old man’s explanation was now seared into Skylar’s consciousness for all eternity. What a fool he’d been to think he could seat himself— unescorted— at a public watering hole without being badgered by some malcontent! Never again! Tomorrow, he’d buy one of those green and white buttons from the Manhattan Holocaust Museum that said “Never again!” He’d do it first thing in the morning.

 

“Nicht vergessen.”

Where had Ogilvie heard that? it seemed to come at him from out of the woodwork. At work, at home. A whisper. A thought. Half formed. What did it mean, anyway, “don’t forget”? Never forget what? Ogilvie wasn’t sure. He wished he had someone to talk to about it. Lisbet. He needed to consult Lisbet. He missed staring into her Carolina blue eyes. He missed exploding into his underpants like a geyser. But she had moved and left no forwarding address. She was gone. Who knew where? Ogilvie didn’t even know if she still lived in the city.

“Nicht vergessen.” Don’t forget. Everybody was an authority these days regarding World War Two… in Europe. Hitler, the Nazi war machine, the Reichstag fire, the Vilna ghetto, the camps: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka… Hermann Göring. Nuremberg. Enough! Instead, Ogilvie made himself into an expert on the war in Asia. Pearl Harbor. The rape of Nanking. The occupation of Manchuria, which the Japs called “Manchukuo.” The Bataan Death March. Iwo Jima. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima. “Fat Man,” the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Allied occupation of Japan after the war. Occupational currency in Peso denominations.

“Hitler’s most intimate friends called Eva Braun ‘the Angel of Death,’ ” Stuart Clarke would say, quaffing a microbrew at the bar in the Birdland nightclub. Disco balls hanging from the ceiling bathed the patrons in a shifting kaleidoscope of colored light.

“One thousand five hundred Japanese soldiers had their heads cut off by the Sea Dayak headhunters of Borneo,” Ogilvie shot back, smug in his encyclopedic brilliance. “The natives prized Japanese skulls for their roundness, straight black hair and gold teeth.”

“Militarily, the firebombing of Dresden did not hasten the end of the war by a single day,” claimed Stuart Clarke.

“The hulks of sunken Japanese warships still litter the roadway at Subic Bay,” Ogilvie informed him.

Life was good.

 

The body was never recovered, but intuiting what had befallen Zim Bobway, Chestnut Hill arranged for the burial of an empty casket with full military honors. She had “Died in the Line of Duty” chiseled on his headstone. Forty New York City policemen attended the funeral, although the Socialist mayor complained “He was no cop! I thought he worked on the railroad.”

“All the live long day, chief,” answered the mayor’s executive assistant, a dapper fellow who may or may not have been gay.

Zim’s ghost, transparent as a shroud, haunted the grave, murmuring the epitaph Zim would have preferred:

*****          *****      I WAITED BUT NOBODY CAME      *****          *****

 

Skylar found Lisbet so easy to talk to. She was such a good listener! Just sitting there staring into his eyes. Listening. He found he could tell her anything. “I remember what it was like in the old days,” he reminisced. “When I was young… er, younger… We used to march in the streets chanting ‘Ask yer dad, ask yer mama! What d’we want? Get rid of Obama!’ We never actually accomplished anything, but IT SURE FELT GOOD!” Blushing, he laughed.

“You can feel good now,” Lisbet suggested, kicking off her shoes.

” ‘Scuse me?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Move your chair, silly! ”

Skylar moved his chair.

 

“You putrid piece of gefilte fish!” Chestnut ranted, stamping her right foot impotently. Skirting the wreckage of a U.S. Army MQ-5B Hunter drone splayed across the tracks, she wiped her forehead with a tissue and reached for an e-cig. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??? I don’t have time for this. I have to get to a Senate confirmation hearing for the person nominated to become the new manager of the Metro station in Bethesda!” The GPS on her smartphone watch indicated they were stranded somewhere on the Purple Line, adjacent to East West Highway, whatever that was.

Once upon a time, she simply would have called the White House and gotten choppered out of there. Ha! What a joke that had become. Even when Congress budgeted for the presidential helicopter fleet to maintain stand-by status, Chestnut had taken her fair share of abuse from exasperated air traffic controllers, thank you very much. “Ma’am, I can slot you in for 7 p.m. tonight,” they always claimed. And that was on a good day! Restricted air space, priority was given to ambulance helicopters, the presidential entourage, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, drones belonging to foreign embassies and whatever else the NSA decided to cast aloft at any given moment. Since Washington, D.C.’s traffic congestion was now ranked # 1 in the nation, automobiles were out. Chestnut was reduced, like 60% of the folks, to riding the Metro. When it ran.

Climbing laboriously around the front car of the train after tapping the metal wheels with a tire iron, clank, clank, clank, clank, Sol the white train driver said, “Madam, I do find your attitude somewhat offensive. Perhaps others are putrid pieces of gefilte fish, but not I! If you cut me, do I not bleed? No man is an island, cut off from the main. A bird in the hand can feed a family of five. Mankind is creative, but only God can make a Metro station. Better to be proud and right than not to be right at all.”

“Okay, already,” seethed Chestnut. As of this moment, Sol was still the only white Metro employee she had ever met. “Just fix the damn train!”

 

Wearing Giorgio Armani and working for an airline in the business of leasing executive jets, Ogilvie introduced Skylar to his wife. The cocktail party was a little stuffy, but everyone pretended to be having a good time, so as not to insult the host, who, after all, was the Sultan of Dubai. Ogilvie had wanted a little Asian beauty with whom he could cuddle. Someone to adore. Instead he found himself married to a female Hirohito. Within a week, she had gotten him to parley his railroad career into a lateral transfer to the airline industry. Sporting Vandyke facial hair, a shaved head and padded shoulders, this new Ogilvie was on the up escalator.

 

Sometimes people are their own worst enemy. Just ask the folks in what used to be Iraq or Syria. So when Skylar got a text message from his brother Maurice    * FYI – YR NEIGHBORHOOD UNDER ATTACK BY JIHADIS INVADING HOUSE BY HOUSE. EVACUATE! M. * Skylar was inclined to listen and obey. Less so his mom.

“I don’t hear any gunfire,” she groused.

“Don’t worry,” Skylar assured her. “You will!!!”

“This is my home. I have a right to live and die in my own apartment, not get shipped off to some refugee camp run by UNHCR.”

“Oh, you’ll die in your home, all right,” Skylar promised, rushing around like a madman, grabbing essentials: five gallon jugs of water, flashlights, batteries, blankets, sheets, plastic utensils, paper plates, canned goods, toiletries. His smart phone. His tablet. Identity papers. “GET PACKING!” her shouted at his mom. Who dawdled. Until she really did hear gunfire. One street away.

“They should get the local police or the National Guard to protect this part of Manhattan,” she suggested crabbily. “We pay our taxes!”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

“Using profanity doesn’t make your case any stronger,” she insisted, even as Skylar dragged her to the SUV. “You elect a Socialist president,” she bitched, “and look what happens! Anarchy.”

“Please, please, please move your ass!” Skylar pleaded, pulling on her arm.

They drove three blocks before getting caught in traffic. “We’re going for a walk,” Skylar declared, breaking out the backpacks.

“I’m too old for hiking. I’ll sit here until the traffic clears. There! Look. The cars are moving again already.”

“No, they’re not. Now come on!” Skylar raged. Pedestrians were hitting each other with their fists, others were screaming along the sidewalks, someone waved a handgun, there was a shot, and people started running in a wild-eyed panic. The noise grew deafening, the dust choking. Hmm, thought Skylar, this must be The Big Apple! He pressed his mom against a soot-covered building, shielding her with his body. White-faced and trembling, she looked every one of her 73 years. “We should have voted Republican,” she observed.

The populace wasn’t totally defenseless. Every few blocks, there were stormtroopers from PayPal— paid by the bullet to fight— who engaged the jihadis in bloody little skirmishes that were no less deadly for being limited in scope.

Drones filled the sky, chattering like lawnmowers, eyeing everyone with spooky turret cameras.

Suddenly, Skylar and his mom were surrounded by jihadi rebels wearing camo and green headscarves. The rebels carried a mixture of captured M-16’s and AK-47’s. Amazingly, some semblance of order re-established itself. At gunpoint, people stopped in their tracks, silently staring. Including Skylar. A flamboyant, bearded fellow— shades of Che Guevara— a little older and paunchier than the rest, eventually came marching down the sidewalk. Accosting Skylar, he demanded, “Nu, bro? Who are you???”

“Skylar McDonald,” croaked our hero, desperately pulling out his wallet. Which almost got him shot dead by the nervous young militiamen.

“Man,” sighed their commander. “Don’t ever make any sudden moves. Man!”

“Yeah, um, sorry,” Skylar acknowledged sheepishly.

Ignoring Skylar’s proffered documents, the bearded rebel commander pulled out his handgun and marched up the sidewalk, shooting people in the head. “Free enterprise!” he announced. “We’re letting the market decide!”

“Oh, hey, what d’ya want?” called a Wall Street type in a dark blue suit, white shirt, silk tie and brown Gucci casuals, carrying a briefcase. “Are we talkin’ money here? If ya let us all go, I got a caseful. It’s all yours, brother… Sir.”

“Please!” said the commander, gesturing. “Approach.”

As soon as the broker got within ten feet, the rebel leader raised his gun and shot him between the eyes. Disillusioned, people began running for the nearest street corner. Amidst the ensuing carnage, the commander returned to Skylar and his mom. “How old are you, granny?” he asked.

“I’m 73!”

“To what do you attribute your longevity, madam?”

“Clean living and pure thoughts!” insisted Mrs. McDonald.

“This is true?” the commander asked Skylar incredulously.

“It makes it fucking Hell to live with her,” Skylar conceded.

Greatly amused, the rebel leader appointed a three-man detail to escort Skylar and Mrs. McDonald to a U.N. assembly point two blocks away. As soon as they were out of earshot, the three young men robbed Skylar and his mom of all their valuables. They let them keep their food, water and papers. Reaching the corner of 47th Street and First Avenue, they said, “Okay, you go!”

“Here?” asked Skylar, pointing. “There?”

“Yeah! Move ass! U.N. There!” replied the young men, losing patience.

Skylar and his mom rounded the corner and joined the throngs of people approaching the olive green trucks, khaki uniforms and blue helmets of the United Nations forces.

 

Getting acclimated to the camp, a tent city built on mud flats by the municipal dump, Skylar couldn’t believe how beautiful some of the young refugee girls were. They struck him as dumb as blocks of wood, but Skylar still wanted to fuck the daylights out of them. I must be traumatized by the war, he decided, resolved to get as much poontang as humanly possible. He wasn’t alone. Eating him up with their stares, some of the young ladies seemed to share his passion.

It took forever, but eventually, order was restored. Skylar and his mom got to return home to their apartment. All the food in the refrigerator was rancid, of course, due to power outages, but mercifully, their place hadn’t even been pillaged by marauders.

 

With palsied hand, Skylar wipes the sweat from his forehead and fingers the remote. This is it! No going back now, boy. Pluto Kratz is about to speak. On national television. From the suburbs north of Richmond, Virginia. “The end of the age of mysteries” as the pundits call it. All of it about to come to an end. Skylar pushes the red “power” button on the remote. An ad for cornflakes is followed by an ad for robotic lawnmowers. Skylar realizes he has the wrong channel. Eventually, he finds the infinitely pleasing, benign, kindly avatar of Pluto Kratz, beaming beatifically at him from the enormous screen. The use of enhanced imagery and pulse modification fills Skylar with an almost celestial sense of warmth and well-being. Sighing contentedly, he sinks into an armchair to listen, an idiotic grin puckering the corners of his mouth.

“My fellow Americans! I speak to you today about our common destiny. That which joins our great nation, rather than those petty issues which divide us. I am not concerned about myself. For me, a bowl of gruel, a copy of the Koran and maybe a bottle of vodka a day and I am good to go. I’m liberal that way. I’m not Hugh Hefner, I grant you, but Allah made both alcohol and virgins. We shouldn’t be afraid to enjoy our share of worldly pleasures.

“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about America! What plagues us now is chiefly a lack of vision. In the midst of street fighting with rampaging jihadists, war atrocities, starvation and a host of other human foibles, we need focus. Yes, it’s good to have water to drink, but you also have to know to what purpose the drinking of that water is to be put! Not all of life consists of quenching one’s thirst, I can assure you!

“Which brings me to the union of our military-industrial complex and civilian life. A streetcar, here in Goochland County, linking the Arthur C. Clarke Industrial Park in the northwest to the Goochland Civic Center in the south. Symbolizing, as it does, progress in human affairs. Technologically as well as culturally. This billion dollar project will create new jobs in the entire greater Richmond area! It will pave the way for growth at almost cancerous levels. It will attract commerce from every corner of our glorious planet! It will generate revenue for schools, old folks’ homes, public restrooms and other amenities previously unheard of here in Goochland. The last true oasis of human progress!

“By the year 2040, this project will have paid for itself twice over! Florida and California will lie under four feet of water, Arabia will be one endless desert, Asia will be an equatorial flood plain. The good news is, Goochland will experience economic growth and a favorable tax structure. I, Pluto Kratz, would sooner quit my job as a leader of men than burden the taxpayers of this great state with some underhanded, money-grubbing boondoggle. That I would never do!!! For me, the grandeur of the enterprise is way sufficient. Envision what we’re talking here: A 42-mile inter-county streetcar line along Route 250, linking Zion Crossroads in Louisa County to Short Pump in Henrico. With a 28-mile branch line north along Route 522 from Gum Spring to Cuckoo. IT CAN BE DONE!

“Commitments I have made to contractors in America and steel companies in Germany are wholly separate from this phenomenal undertaking. In scope. In character. In total. Those signed documents of economic responsibility have only a peripheral relationship to the monumental concept of the Goochland-Louisa-Henrico Counties Commercial Streetcar Public Transportation System.

“Wow! Double wow! Long may it thrive!

” ‘What does he want? What is he doing?’ I hear them whispering behind the scenes. THIS IS WHAT I WANT. The disarming of America’s Armed Forces, the dismantling of our school system, the dismemberment of our university education have all led inexorably toward this exemplary goal. Ein Volkstram, a people’s streetcar, a mode of transport as pleasing, fulfilling and unique as it is worthwhile. That’s all I want! The best for everyone! Until such later time as I get some other bee in my bonnet and propose something else.

“Thank you and goodnight.”

 

*****                    *****                    The End                    *****                    *****