Battle Fatigue by Mark Kurlansky Page A

shoulder. It doesn’t hurt him very much except when Rocco is pitching. Karl never has enough sense to get out of the way. He seems to think it would be unmanly to dodge a pitch. Besides, he likes being hit because it means he can go to first base and he knows that he would never be able to hit a single. He isn’t a very good base runner and he almost never scores. His running has improved a little since I got him to get rid of those weird sandals and get some cleats.

    I thought things would start going well for Karl once soccer season began. But something terrible happens. We are walking to school together, and just before we enter the school yard I see Tony Scaratini just standing there, smiling. Tony doesn’t smile very much and when he does it is never good. As we approach he raises two fingers to his smirking upper lip as though they are Hitler’s mustache, thrusts his other hand straight into the air, and shouts, “ Sieg Heil! ”
    It is the Nazi salute. He is calling Karl a Nazi. What difference does it make? Tony Scaratini is the biggest jerk in the school. Everybody knows that.
    Except maybe not the two kids by the gate to the school yard who seem to think that Tony has made a great joke and are now doing the same thing. More and more kids join in. We are surrounded by dozens of boys mocking Karl, making fun of him for being German. Karl just looks at the ground and keeps walking.
    The same thing happens on the way home from school and on the way to school the next morning. It happens twice every day. Mr. Shaker seems to see it. You can never tell with him but he is standing in the doorway of the school watching kids make fun of Karl, calling him a Nazi and shouting “ Sieg Heil! ” Looking at Mr. Shaker, I think he is very angry. As I get closer I can see that he is shaking a little bit.
    â€œIt isn’t fair, is it, Mr. Schacter?” I say, thinking for once there is something we can agree on.
    Mr. Shaker’s eyes look like he can see for hundreds of miles. All he says is, “Who can say what is fair after what they did?”
    I want to say that Karl hasn’t done anything, but I am late and have to get to my homeroom. At my locker there is a group of boys giving Nazi salutes and telling Nazi jokes. Stanley is there and he laughs uncomfortably at the jokes.
    â€œIt isn’t fair,” I say. “Karl didn’t do anything.” But the other kids just laugh. And then Stanley, still smiling and looking uncomfortable, says, “Ah, Aramis, have you gone over to the Cardinal’s side?” And he looks around for approval but the other kids ignore him because they do not understand. I do, of course. The Cardinal was the Musketeers’ enemy.
    Karl isn’t going out for soccer. He wants to spend as little time at school as possible. I tell him that it might make a difference if he did well at a sport but he only says, “It’s not even an American sport.” He is right. Playing soccer better than everyone else would be like wearing weird clothes or having an accent.

    Dickey Panicelli has moved up from go-karts. He is working on a big eight-cylinder engine in an old green-and-white Chevy, black grease smudged on his white T-shirt, his long sandy hair falling in front of his eyes as he leans over.
    â€œDickey, did you ever notice the way they treat Karl?”
    â€œThe German exchange student—” He says more, but he revs his engine and I can’t hear it.
    â€œBut it’s not fair, don’t you think?”
    The engine shouts, covering Dickey’s voice for a few seconds. “… the whole problem with Germans. They can’t stand up for things. My father says that if a few Germans had stood up and said Hitler was wrong there would not have been a World War II.”
    â€œBut I thought it started because of Pearl Harbor.”
    I can’t hear his answer. So is that it? Not standing up against something wrong