try to tell anyone. It's a way of neutralizing domestic terrorists."
I was literally speechless.
Finally, what I ended up saying was, "We're not terrorists."
"You blow shit up. People get hurt. You're terrorists. If you used kittens and balloons to distract cops from acquiescing to corporate hegemony, or whatever, I'd call you sweethearts. But you don't. Even your Twinkie gag isn't harmless: Your plan is to pre-murder billions and billions of people. And it's not gonna turn out as tidy as you think. You can't even imagine how pear-shaped this is gonna go. Let me tell you the parable of Too Many Hitlers."
He was somber, but what he'd said was so left-field I had to smile. "Okay. Sock it to me." That made him smile.
"Back when I first did this, I did it with a guy named Deke. It's sort of a long story, but we'd both run off from this job at a tablet factory in Tennessee—"
"Pills?" I asked, thinking it was maybe a drug-slave thing. I mean, that happened. Or I assumed as much. It didn't seem far-fetched.
He shook his head, chuckling, "No; they're a kind of computer. Little ones you can carry around, with no keyboards—listen, we don't have time for me to give a guided tour of the future. They're little computers and everyone is going to love them. What matters is that Deke and I bailed on that job and ended up in China, and our jobs in China were in a lot of ways crappier than our job in Tennessee, but China was also a lot less... morally compromised. So it was better."
"Okay."
"But we still felt pretty bad about this one thing we'd done in Tennessee—not even exactly done; a thing we'd let happen."
My stomach dropped. Things a middle-aged guy confesses to "just letting happen" when he was in his twenties—those are never good things.
"So we decided we'd stop the Holocaust."
I guess I had a look on my face, because he set down his mug.
"Just real quick: How many people did Hitler kill? Off the top of your head."
"Fifty-six million," I said. It was a dumb question, like "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?" Old Taylor's jaw dropped, which I took to mean
How stupid is this bitch?,
and I sort of went off. I'd just had a semester-long course on Genocide and Persecution in the Modern World, and so all the numbers were right at my fingertips: "The Hitlers started out by exterminating all 11 million Jewish persons in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but after they got their process in place they expanded the project to include 4.2 million communists—both outside and inside the USSR—5.2 million homosexuals and bisexuals, 415,000 transgendered people, 12 million mentally ill Aryans—including at least 2 million learning-disabled children—3 million barren Aryan women, anyone of mixed heritage—"
I stopped because Taylor was shuddering. At first I thought he was holding in the giggles, but then I heard his tears pattering onto the cheap paper placemat, where they made warped little pockmarks.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly as he smeared at the tears with his jacket sleeve. "You..." I didn't really know what to say. "C'mon; please don't be so broken up," I said softly.
"You don't have to apologize for feelings. It's okay to be past this macho crap."
Old Taylor laughed and sniffed mightily. "Listen, kid: I was
born
when
everyone
was past the macho crap. My
mom
and
dad
grew up listening to
Free to Be... You and Me."
He snorted again, rubbed his eyes, then blew out a long breath. "I'm crying because that's my fault. When Deke and I
started
trying to stop the Holocaust Hitler only killed eleven million people—" I started to correct him;
a lot
of people only thought of the Hitlers as killing eleven million folks, because of those
Schoolhouse Rocks
public service announcements from when we were kids, the ones that were always playing during Saturday morning cartoons—but he held up his hand.
"I know, I heard you; I meant eleven million
total;
six million Jews, five million everything-elses. No program for barren ladies
I was literally speechless.
Finally, what I ended up saying was, "We're not terrorists."
"You blow shit up. People get hurt. You're terrorists. If you used kittens and balloons to distract cops from acquiescing to corporate hegemony, or whatever, I'd call you sweethearts. But you don't. Even your Twinkie gag isn't harmless: Your plan is to pre-murder billions and billions of people. And it's not gonna turn out as tidy as you think. You can't even imagine how pear-shaped this is gonna go. Let me tell you the parable of Too Many Hitlers."
He was somber, but what he'd said was so left-field I had to smile. "Okay. Sock it to me." That made him smile.
"Back when I first did this, I did it with a guy named Deke. It's sort of a long story, but we'd both run off from this job at a tablet factory in Tennessee—"
"Pills?" I asked, thinking it was maybe a drug-slave thing. I mean, that happened. Or I assumed as much. It didn't seem far-fetched.
He shook his head, chuckling, "No; they're a kind of computer. Little ones you can carry around, with no keyboards—listen, we don't have time for me to give a guided tour of the future. They're little computers and everyone is going to love them. What matters is that Deke and I bailed on that job and ended up in China, and our jobs in China were in a lot of ways crappier than our job in Tennessee, but China was also a lot less... morally compromised. So it was better."
"Okay."
"But we still felt pretty bad about this one thing we'd done in Tennessee—not even exactly done; a thing we'd let happen."
My stomach dropped. Things a middle-aged guy confesses to "just letting happen" when he was in his twenties—those are never good things.
"So we decided we'd stop the Holocaust."
I guess I had a look on my face, because he set down his mug.
"Just real quick: How many people did Hitler kill? Off the top of your head."
"Fifty-six million," I said. It was a dumb question, like "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?" Old Taylor's jaw dropped, which I took to mean
How stupid is this bitch?,
and I sort of went off. I'd just had a semester-long course on Genocide and Persecution in the Modern World, and so all the numbers were right at my fingertips: "The Hitlers started out by exterminating all 11 million Jewish persons in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but after they got their process in place they expanded the project to include 4.2 million communists—both outside and inside the USSR—5.2 million homosexuals and bisexuals, 415,000 transgendered people, 12 million mentally ill Aryans—including at least 2 million learning-disabled children—3 million barren Aryan women, anyone of mixed heritage—"
I stopped because Taylor was shuddering. At first I thought he was holding in the giggles, but then I heard his tears pattering onto the cheap paper placemat, where they made warped little pockmarks.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly as he smeared at the tears with his jacket sleeve. "You..." I didn't really know what to say. "C'mon; please don't be so broken up," I said softly.
"You don't have to apologize for feelings. It's okay to be past this macho crap."
Old Taylor laughed and sniffed mightily. "Listen, kid: I was
born
when
everyone
was past the macho crap. My
mom
and
dad
grew up listening to
Free to Be... You and Me."
He snorted again, rubbed his eyes, then blew out a long breath. "I'm crying because that's my fault. When Deke and I
started
trying to stop the Holocaust Hitler only killed eleven million people—" I started to correct him;
a lot
of people only thought of the Hitlers as killing eleven million folks, because of those
Schoolhouse Rocks
public service announcements from when we were kids, the ones that were always playing during Saturday morning cartoons—but he held up his hand.
"I know, I heard you; I meant eleven million
total;
six million Jews, five million everything-elses. No program for barren ladies
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