Come and See

I ordered these ultra-thin pads for post-urination dribbling yesterday. That wild teenage boy who ran the streets now doddering around with wet undies. When I think about all the ways I’ve been compromised it’s a wonder I still have the strength to brush my teeth. I am both the criminal and the scene of the crime. The judge, jury and hangman. Thank God I’m also the governor granting a last second reprieve. Leadbelly had his execution stayed because he sang and played so good, or maybe Huddie Ledbetter is simply too good a name to kill. I’d like to think I was spared so I could tell my piece of the tale, but maybe I’m just a strong motherfucker.

My father in-law’s sixteen-year-old life was saved because of his soccer prowess. In 1941 he volunteered for a work camp, so he could show the Nazis he was a good boy and ready to do his part. The work camp was called Sered and from there, men, women and children were transported to Auschwitz. There was a Jew in charge of the transport list and when Martin’s name was chosen, the camp commander looked at it and said, “He’s my left winger, you can’t take him.” The list maker answered, “There’s no one else to go,” to which the camp commander replied, “Then you go.” The list maker said “I’ll find someone else.” Martin told a story about everyone being rounded up and loaded into the train to Auschwitz, and in the desperate chaos he saw the most learned rabbi in the region, wandering the platform, crying out, “There is no God! There is no God! There is no God!”

I haven’t heard about my heart yet*, if you’re wondering. The link to the results I mentioned were just for a kidney test to make sure they could shoot me full of dye, but I am suffering with gout in my left foot that comes and goes and comes again, and I’m not even slurpin’ down oysters like Diamond Jim Brady. What’s astounding isn’t that we grow old but that we stay young and us sweet little children must deal with old people problems. Now I take bathroom breaks during recess, the foot I used for kickball glory, gone gouty.

Martin escaped the work camp when he was out collecting silkworms to make parachutes, and a long and improbable survival odyssey began. There was illness and kindness. He was hidden at a monastery by monks who turned out to be saints. By 1943 he had joined the Russian partisans, who would have shot him if they had found out he was a Jew. By then he knew that his parents were dead, gassed along with four of his siblings. His great moment for revenge came when a Nazi soldier was captured and tied to a tree for execution. These heinous, slaughtering beasts who had unleashed this awful madness and ground his family up like beef, and now one of them helpless, his chest and throat exposed. Martin took aim with the others but was unable to pull the trigger. I had a strange, vacant, barely verbal relationship with him, but I always respected him for that.

My son has a nose for great art and like a bloodhound on a manhunt can track down the fugitive. He invited me to a flick he had scoped out called Come and See, a 1985 Russian film that is considered a masterpiece but had somehow stayed off my radar. I couldn’t make it to the theater, so he went with his mom, but I watched the following night on the Criterion channel. It’s about the Russian partisans and it is one of the most startling movies I’ve ever seen. Personal and epic. Human and horrific. Magic realism, not “magic realism,” it has a dark fairy tale energy that makes it not just a record of history but a stunning work of art. The fucking Russians! They got a chip on their shoulder the size of the Ritz and boy do they know what to do with it. There’s heartache and there’s Russian peasant heartache and the two are not to be confused. For us, World War II was the crowning achievement of the “great generation” and 407,000 heroic service members were lost to the cause. For the Russians it was the annihilation of a generation, 10,000,000 soldiers gone and another 16,000,000 million civilians sacrificed to Hitler’s vision. Somehow, Come and See makes you feel that.

The lead of the film is a teenage boy from a small Belarusian village and as I watched, I couldn’t help but think of Martin out there in the woods, just orphaned and fighting for his life. The context of his adolescence the great moral battle of the 20^th century. I was so moved I had to pause to call my ex and say, “I can’t believe you were even able to watch this.”

I’m not sure what to do about this heart of mine and I don’t mean my aorta I mean that big red yearning thing. To be honest, I don’t always trust what it wants. It’s not just my pecker that dribbles, my heart does too and other people get stained, not just my boxer shorts. You think by now I would have learned to trust my gut, only I have a few guts and you never know which one the jukebox is going to play. When you’re as “poetic” as I am, time is your only ally. If the crazy shit in my head is still there after seventy-two hours, then I figure maybe it ain’t so crazy. We must learn to wait ourselves out or we’re truly fucked. At least I am.

It took a lot of guts to order those dribble pads and confess to myself that I’m late second act for sure and probably early third. There are some things about aging that are quite shameful, but for some reason telling all of you I’m a leaky old fool has been a joy.

*Just got news on my heart a moment ago. All clear. No adjustments needed.