Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 by Penny Publications Page A
Authors: Penny Publications
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or the deaf-mute, either, as I recall. That's... that's fucked up. And that's also on me and Deke, I guess. Dammit." He slurped some more coffee. "Did you say 'Hitlers'?"
I smirked despite myself. "Yeah: Adolf and Adolf Hitler; senior and junior."
Old Taylor stitched his brows. "Adolf Hitler's dad was named 'Aloysius,' or something like that."
"They weren't father and son; they were identical cousins." It was so weird that he didn't know this, because it was the weirdest thing
about
the Hitlers—it was the sort of thing that kindergartners knew.
"Then why were they senior and junior?"
Now it was my turn to stitch my brows. "Because they were born, like, fifty years apart. How can you not know this?"
"How can you believe in 'identical cousins'? That's a crazy thing to believe in. How many 'identical cousins' do you know? That are different ages?"
"I don't know!" I hissed shrilly. "I think the Hitlers were the only ones! Fifty-six million corpses; do you think the world can
handle
more identical cousins?!"
The waitress glided in to refill our crappy coffees. She made a point of making eye contact with me. "Is everything okay, honey?" she muttered.
"Yeah, it's fine; my dumb cousin didn't take his pills today."
The waitress shifted her gaze to Old Taylor.
"I like beans," he said in a
Rain Man
voice, "Beans with ketchup."
The waitress shook her head and left.
"Listen: Before the FBI program, when we were just in the Department of Ag, Deke and I really
did
nick the spare keys to the lab, and really did come back at night, and really
did
go back in time to kill baby Hitler. But I'm gonna tell you the truth:
No one
can kill baby Hitler—"
"I could kill a baby Hitler," I said.
"Are you Jewish?" he asked. I squinched my face, because it was a crazy question, like asking "Are you Wampoaneg." I'd never even been to one of those re-enactor Jewish cultural festivals. "No."
Taylor shrugged. "Mostly it's Jewish people that insist they could kill baby Hitler—for obvious reasons." He said it so casually—
Jewish people
—like he just saw Jews every day, munching bagels, walking their dogs, waiting for the school bus, cleaning leaves from their gutters. Not just doing reenactments of traditional Jewish rituals for bored high schoolers on field trips, or singing Jewish folk songs in the mostly empty auditoriums at community college diversity fairs. Jewish doctors and Jewish lawyers and Jewish garbage men, Jewish drunks, Jewish fry cooks, Jewish astronauts. This shadow culture, all of these Jews in Taylor's alternate timeline. How crowded it seemed.
Taylor slurped his coffee. "Anyway, we tried, me and Deke. I personally tried four different times. But Hitler is a really charismatic baby."
And then Old Taylor—who really was just Taylor—explained about how he and this Deke guy tried to kill one of the Adolf Hitlers. Taylor said he'd brought a dry-cleaning bag each time, intending to throttle the future Chancellor of Germany in his Austrian crib. But no matter how quiet Taylor was, standing there with his pen-light clamped between his teeth, raising up his bag, the littlest Hitler had always woken up. Every time. Probably, if that baby had cried, Young Taylor would have just stifled it out of reflex, and the story'd be over: In a snap our world would have been just lousy with left-handed, dreidel-spinning gay Communist performance artists.
But Baby Hitler didn't cry. He looked up at Young Taylor with big, round, ice-chip blue eyes and cooed and gurgled and reached out for Taylor to lift him up out of his crib and play.
And Taylor just wasn't Hitler enough to wrap a dry-cleaning bag around the happy chap's toothless smile—even if that happy chap was bound to murder millions upon millions of equally happy chaps. Those piles of tiny corpses were cold abstractions out in the future—or, for Taylor, back in the past—and the Baby Hitler was a live, healthy, happy baby stretching up as hard as he could to just almost set
I smirked despite myself. "Yeah: Adolf and Adolf Hitler; senior and junior."
Old Taylor stitched his brows. "Adolf Hitler's dad was named 'Aloysius,' or something like that."
"They weren't father and son; they were identical cousins." It was so weird that he didn't know this, because it was the weirdest thing
about
the Hitlers—it was the sort of thing that kindergartners knew.
"Then why were they senior and junior?"
Now it was my turn to stitch my brows. "Because they were born, like, fifty years apart. How can you not know this?"
"How can you believe in 'identical cousins'? That's a crazy thing to believe in. How many 'identical cousins' do you know? That are different ages?"
"I don't know!" I hissed shrilly. "I think the Hitlers were the only ones! Fifty-six million corpses; do you think the world can
handle
more identical cousins?!"
The waitress glided in to refill our crappy coffees. She made a point of making eye contact with me. "Is everything okay, honey?" she muttered.
"Yeah, it's fine; my dumb cousin didn't take his pills today."
The waitress shifted her gaze to Old Taylor.
"I like beans," he said in a
Rain Man
voice, "Beans with ketchup."
The waitress shook her head and left.
"Listen: Before the FBI program, when we were just in the Department of Ag, Deke and I really
did
nick the spare keys to the lab, and really did come back at night, and really
did
go back in time to kill baby Hitler. But I'm gonna tell you the truth:
No one
can kill baby Hitler—"
"I could kill a baby Hitler," I said.
"Are you Jewish?" he asked. I squinched my face, because it was a crazy question, like asking "Are you Wampoaneg." I'd never even been to one of those re-enactor Jewish cultural festivals. "No."
Taylor shrugged. "Mostly it's Jewish people that insist they could kill baby Hitler—for obvious reasons." He said it so casually—
Jewish people
—like he just saw Jews every day, munching bagels, walking their dogs, waiting for the school bus, cleaning leaves from their gutters. Not just doing reenactments of traditional Jewish rituals for bored high schoolers on field trips, or singing Jewish folk songs in the mostly empty auditoriums at community college diversity fairs. Jewish doctors and Jewish lawyers and Jewish garbage men, Jewish drunks, Jewish fry cooks, Jewish astronauts. This shadow culture, all of these Jews in Taylor's alternate timeline. How crowded it seemed.
Taylor slurped his coffee. "Anyway, we tried, me and Deke. I personally tried four different times. But Hitler is a really charismatic baby."
And then Old Taylor—who really was just Taylor—explained about how he and this Deke guy tried to kill one of the Adolf Hitlers. Taylor said he'd brought a dry-cleaning bag each time, intending to throttle the future Chancellor of Germany in his Austrian crib. But no matter how quiet Taylor was, standing there with his pen-light clamped between his teeth, raising up his bag, the littlest Hitler had always woken up. Every time. Probably, if that baby had cried, Young Taylor would have just stifled it out of reflex, and the story'd be over: In a snap our world would have been just lousy with left-handed, dreidel-spinning gay Communist performance artists.
But Baby Hitler didn't cry. He looked up at Young Taylor with big, round, ice-chip blue eyes and cooed and gurgled and reached out for Taylor to lift him up out of his crib and play.
And Taylor just wasn't Hitler enough to wrap a dry-cleaning bag around the happy chap's toothless smile—even if that happy chap was bound to murder millions upon millions of equally happy chaps. Those piles of tiny corpses were cold abstractions out in the future—or, for Taylor, back in the past—and the Baby Hitler was a live, healthy, happy baby stretching up as hard as he could to just almost set
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