When I arrived at Hank’s apartment it looked like no one was home. The lights were off and the curtains drawn. Jake’s were drawn also, but I could see the faint light of a reading lamp. As I climbed the stairs I strained to hear the sound of Hank’s television, constant and reassuring, but there was only silence. I crept over, feet bare, my heels still in my hand. When I tried the doorknob it turned. Hank had left it unlocked for me. I opened the door and padded inside.
I had to squint to see in the dark. A small sliver of light came from Hank’s bedroom. I pushed the door open. Hank was lying in bed, his breathing shallow. Beside him on the bedside table was a lamp emitting a glow so dull it barely illuminated his face.
I remembered the scene from Apocalypse Now when Martin Sheen confronts Marlon Brando at his compound in the jungle. All you can see is the top of Brando’s head, bald and glistening, the rest of his body obscured by the darkness. At this moment I felt like Martin Sheen, come to kill Brando while the natives danced outside. Brando had a hard life. His son Christian shot his sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend in Brando’s living room in Beverly Hills. Christian was convicted of manslaughter and Cheyenne hanged herself at her mother’s house in Tahiti. Everyone paid the price for the crime; everyone was punished.
All this raced through my mind as I watched Hank from the doorway. I wasn’t even sure he’d heard me enter. His mouth was wide open and facing the ceiling. His eyes were closed. I was about to leave, thinking with relief that he had fallen asleep, when I heard his voice in the darkness.
‘Sounded like you were having a fun night,’ he said.
‘I hope it’s about to get better, but I don’t like the chances.’
‘Close the door. Did anyone see you come in?’
The single lamp gave the feeling of being inside a cave. ‘The CIA were trailing me for a while, but I gave the cab driver a fiver to lose them.’
‘This is no time for jokes.’
‘You’re damn right it’s not. The fiver wasn’t enough so I had to blow him too.’
I sat on the edge of the bed, still squinting to adjust to the light, and Hank sat up. He was skinny but otherwise he appeared strong. As he pushed himself up on his arms, I could see the long thin scars of his suicide attempt running up his wrists like reeds on a riverbed, and I thought of Benji. The scars cut right through the blurred tattoo on his wrist, and I saw for the first time what the bandages at the hospital had been covering. In the middle of the tattoo the skin glistened wet and pink, probably infected. It looked like he had tried to cut it out.
‘What’s the crisis Hank?’
He pointed to the wall, as if that explained everything. Stacks of old newspapers were piled high in the corner of the room. So, the newspapers in the living room had never been thrown out, just moved into his bedroom.
‘What do you know about vigilantes?’ Hank asked.
‘That’s a hell of a fire hazard, Hank. You drop a lit cigarette and this place would go up like the Wicker Man.’
‘Not a bad idea. Fire would be clean, leave no trace.’
‘What do you mean vigilantes?’
‘What do you know?’
‘I don’t know a thing.’
‘You know a lot of things about a lot of pretty screwy stuff.’
‘If by vigilantes you mean people taking the law into their own hands, can’t say I’ve met many. Are you trying to tell me you’re Batman?’
‘I’m not the hunter, Hilda. I’m the hunted.’
‘No, you’re a paranoid old man. By the way, if you think people are out to get you, you shouldn’t leave the front door unlocked.’
‘It doesn’t matter now.’
I smoothed down his bed covers, tucked in the corners. ‘Well you seem perfectly fine to me, apart from the obvious dementia, so if you’re looking for someone to stick a pillow over your face you’ll have to find somebody else. Try Jake. He’d probably find killing you therapeutic.’
‘Shut your yapper and get me one of those newspapers,’ he said, pointing to the corner of the room.
‘Can’t we turn on a light?’
‘No lights. Just the newspaper.’
‘Fine,’ I said as I stood, ‘but if I trip and fall, I’m suing your ass.’
I walked over to the newspapers, kicking aside an empty beer bottle on the way. ‘Now I’m more scared of being crushed to death,’ I said, looking at the towering pile of newsprint in front of me. ‘Which one?’
‘Christ, the one on the ground. Do I have to draw you a map?’
I picked up the newspaper that was lying on the floor, separate from the others. It was the Los Angeles Times from last Saturday, the headline a spate of car-jackings in Long Beach. I threw it to Hank like a Frisbee. He rustled through the first few pages, found what he was looking for.
‘There,’ he said, jabbing at the article.
I snatched the paper back, scanned the article.
‘JWA charged in US,’ I read. ‘What are they? Your favourite band or something?’
‘Justice War Alliance,’ he said in a hushed voice.
‘You mean like the Justice League of America? Is Superman their leader too?’
Hank’s eyes lowered, drifting to something invisible on the bedspread, but I could tell he was just avoiding my gaze. I read the article again, this time more closely. Apparently some group calling themselves the JWA had been hunting down war criminals since the fifties and dispensing their own special brand of justice. It sounded like something from the TV show ‘Get Smart’, a vigilante organisation inflicting Indian burns and wedgies on the bad guys. But Hank was taking this very seriously. I could feel him watching me as I read, waiting for my reaction. I looked at him, my face blank, and I could see his disappointment. He’d been hoping this was the moment when all his ramblings and failed suicide attempt finally made sense, but I was only more confused. I put the paper down on the bed and kept looking at it, avoiding him.
‘So what?’ I said. ‘Sounds like an urban legend to me. Anyway, what’s it got to do with you?’
‘I’ve read the paper every day for nearly fifty years, looking for any mention of them. Last week a German was taken out on the freeway with a sniper rifle. The car crashed into the wall and when the cops dragged the guy from the wreckage they saw they had a goddamn homicide on their hands. They’d blown this guy’s brains all over his windscreen. I know it was them.’
‘Do you know what this guy did? Why the JWA were supposedly after him?’
‘He threw people against electric fences at the camps. To see what would happen.’
‘So he got what was coming to him.’
‘Some might say.’
‘Is this why you’re hiding out in here? Because you think some vigilante group is hunting you down? You’re a Holocaust survivor for Christ’s sake!’
Hank scratched at his arm where his tattoo used to be. His nails were jagged and cut into his tender skin, drawing blood to the surface. ‘I was only eight when I went into the camp. I wasn’t a Jew, or a homo, or even a gypsy. I didn’t have to be there. You know why I was there?’
I sat down on the edge of the bed, shook my head.
‘I was there because I was a stupid son of a bitch. Threw stones at the Nazis as they goosestepped into town. I still remember braining one right on the head. Four of them chased me down into an alleyway, picked me up and dragged me off. Threw me on the back of the wagon with the rest of them. No one saw it happen and, if they did, I guess they couldn’t have done anything anyways. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my parents.’
‘That was brave Hank,’ I said. I imagined a valiant young boy taking up arms against the invading forces, striking a blow while the adults were too complacent and scared to retaliate. Hank just laughed.
‘Brave, hell. I was just a little shit. Threw rocks at everything in those days. I’d had my ass beat just days before for throwing stones at the Hooper shop window.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’
‘Remember this ain’t no movie, Hilda. This ain’t no Schindler’s List.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Sometimes your life can turn on a dime just for some stupid shit you done. I get taken from my family because I’m a stupid, shit-head kid who doesn’t know any better. I didn’t deserve to be there. That’s how I felt anyway. I wasn’t part of the grand plan, I was just collateral damage. It made me angry. But not at the Nazis, no way. I was angry at the people in the camp. The other kids. The ones who were meant to be there. I kept away from them, sat on my own, ate with my back turned to them. I wanted to show that I was different, that it had all been a stupid mistake and that the guards would see that. They’d let me out and I could go back to my parents. But it didn’t happen. Days and weeks and months passed and still I was there. Soon I forgot what my parents even looked like.’
I didn’t know what to say. I was frozen to my spot on the bed, wanting to run away but desperately wanting to know the truth. All of Benji’s horrible predictions about Hank seemed to be coming true, all of Jake’s warnings. I tried to imagine what it was like for a boy in that situation, how he would feel, what he might do to survive.
‘At first it wasn’t so bad, all things considered. We got three squares a day and they put us to work. As the war dragged on things started to deteriorate. That’s when people started to disappear in the middle of the night. The guards made us fight for food. We’d stand in circles and kick the living shit out of each other, just to get a scrap of bread. I was a pretty good fighter but it was tiring. There was more food to go around when kids just disappeared. Poof!’
Hank threw his hands up, like a magician dispensing of a rabbit in midair.
‘Because I was quiet, and a loner, the other kids didn’t pay much attention to me. They didn’t know I was watching them. Didn’t know I was plotting against them. Like some stinking, slimy sewer rat. Like the worst kind of dog.’
I put my hand on his. ‘You were a kid,’ I started to say, but Hank cut me off, shaking his hand free.
‘Kids are cruel—is that what you’re going to say? Kids do the darndest things? I know what I was. I knew right from wrong.’
‘No you didn’t. You were a child in a concentration camp. How the hell would you know the difference between right and wrong? A whole country didn’t know the difference!’
The light in the room dimmed further, as the bulb of the lamp died. It was as if all the energy of the room was being sucked out by every word Hank said, as if the planet were growing darker just for us.
‘I started to watch them,’ he continued. ‘Listen to their conversations. Some of them were planning an escape. A girl called Mary, her brother Eli, and some other kid. They were always whispering in corners, hiding behind their hands. They were going to try to squeeze through the fence at night. I told the guards.’
He looked at me for a response. I stared at the bedspread. There were smears of blood from where his cuts had stained as they healed.
‘Mary, Eli and that other kid—they disappeared. The guards said I had done well. I got extra scraps of food and was allowed to take breaks while everyone else worked. It was a damn sweet deal. I started thinking about what else I could tell them. I spied on people. Looked for anything that would be worthwhile telling. If some kid stashed a crust of bread beneath his pillow for later, I made damn sure those guards found out about it, and the crusts became mine. But sometimes there was nothing to tell. Sometimes I had to make shit up. I got more crusts. More kids disappeared.’
Hank looked at his hands.
‘I’ve lost count of how many kids disappeared.’
A helicopter flew overhead and for a brief, astonishing moment the room was bathed in its spotlight. I remembered back to a history class where we watched a documentary about the Holocaust. All those stick-thin bodies piled to the sky, eyes wide and unblinking, flies on their faces. My reaction had been one of incomprehension: how could this have happened? I also recalled Benji’s reaction: he skipped out of class as if we’d just watched Bambi.
‘Man, if someone had tried to get me into a concentration camp I would have kicked their asses,’ Benji had said. ‘It would be easy to get outta there. Just steal the guard’s gun and shoot your way out.’
People loved to talk about what they would have done in a situation they have little understanding of. I knew I probably would have thrown myself on the fence, the easy way out.
Hank sat up, his posture stiffening as if he were bracing for something. ‘Then the war ended,’ he went on. ‘I got out, got to see my parents again. But it wasn’t the same. Nothing was. I left for America. I tried to forget. But the longer I lived the more it became clear to me what a terrible, terrible crime I had committed. The terrible thing I had done. When you become an adult, you look back on some of the shit you did as a kid and think, “Gee whiz, I was pretty messed up.” If you’re lucky you get the chance to correct some of those wrongs. You see the fat kid you never invited to any of your birthday parties, the pimply girl whose pigtails you pulled. You get to say sorry. Sometimes they accept your apology. For me, it’s too late for any of that. They are all dead.’
I understood some of what he meant. When I became friends with Benji it was partly because of a misguided sense of compassion. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who picked on, bullied or ignored the strange kid. I wanted to be the one who became his friend, who tore away at the inadequate exterior and found a diamond beneath. Looking back, I can see it was patronising to Benji, and misguided. Sometimes there isn’t a diamond beneath. But that’s not how I felt about Hank. I wanted to believe he was a victim of circumstance.
Hank said, ‘When I got to LA, those dead kids followed me around like an army. But they weren’t my protectors. I worked on movie stars’ swimming pools. I screwed beautiful women. I tried to forget any of it ever happened. But every time I saw a group of kids let out of school, there they were, Mary, Eli, all the nameless faces. I saw them everywhere. In the end it was easier to see them at the bottom of a bottle. Then I started to see them. The JWA. They were tracking me. I was as good as dead.’
All the elements came together, obscure pieces of a fatal jigsaw puzzle. ‘You think they’re coming after you? For what you did?’
‘Do you think they’d let a guy like me keep walking around? After what I did? It’s only a matter of time before those cocksuckers show up on my doorstep.’
I didn’t know if Hank was being paranoid or if there was some truth to what he was saying. Either way I knew where this was heading. Suddenly the suicide attempt made perfect sense. I knew Hank well enough to be sure that, if he had to go down, he was going on his own terms.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ I said. ‘This vigilante stuff sounds like bullshit.’
‘Like a movie star stabbing himself with a pair of scissors?’
‘That happened. Look it up. Vigilante groups running around offing people? I don’t think so.’
Hank looked away. His voice was tired, his breathing laboured. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m tired of living with it. With all this death. I’ve seen enough death to last me a lifetime.’
‘What about me?’
Hank reached out and touched my hand, and I started to cry.
‘It’s okay kiddo.’
‘Don’t make me say goodbye to you, Hank. I can’t say goodbye to people anymore. It’s killing me.’
‘Death ain’t so bad, Hilda. There are worse things.’
‘I won’t do it,’ I said. ‘I won’t do anything.’
‘Exactly. That’s exactly what I want you to do. Nothing. Just stay here until it’s done. I don’t want someone busting through the door and saving me like last time. Pain in the ass, that was.’
He reached over to the bedside dresser and grabbed something I hadn’t noticed before: a bottle of painkillers. Reaching down again, he pulled a bottle of vodka out from underneath the bed. ‘Can I have a minute?’ he asked. ‘I can’t swallow pills that well, ’specially if someone’s gawkin’ at me. I’d rather not choke to death.’
‘I won’t let you do this,’ I said, even as he screwed the lid off the pills. ‘I won’t let you.’ But then the pills were in his mouth and he was waiting for me to leave the room, and I did. I stood up and walked out. There was nothing else to do.
I went into the bathroom, the same bathroom Benji and I had taken photos in, tarnishing with our darkness what should have been a beautiful California day. We had called ourselves enthusiasts, but we were worse than that. We were rubbernecking at the accident on the side of the road, straining to see the blood and despair on the highway as mothers screamed for their children and lives were torn apart. We were tourists of human wreckage.
I looked at myself in the mirror, my stupid panda eye make-up and lipstick that was too red, my attention-seeking pink hair. I was pathetic. The bathroom filled with ghosts. Bernie Bernall, his scissors poised over his heart, tears on his cheeks. Benji with his camera, photographing taps and fixtures, sucking the soul out of the room. Then, worst of all, there was me. The pretender. I’d stared death in the face, seen it careen through my family as surely as the truck that smashed my parents’ heads from their shoulders. I wanted so desperately to show that I wasn’t scared. But I was. I turned on the tap and splashed water on my face, and as I did Hank called to me from the bedroom.
‘Hilda! Get back in here.’
I went back in and sat on the bed. Everything looked the same, Hank was sitting in the same position, the room was still dark, the sheets were still dirty. There was one difference. The pill bottle was empty. Hank closed his eyes.
‘Just another old dead guy,’ he said quietly. ‘If I was Cary Grant maybe somebody would give a damn.’
‘I give a damn, Hank. I’m your biggest fan.’
At that he laughed. ‘You’re a riot, kid. It’s been nice having you around. You can have my videotapes.’
‘People watch DVDs now, Hank. DVDs.’
‘Fine. Don’t have the videos. Christ.’
I laughed through my tears, wiped my nose on my wrist. Hank’s eyes closed a little, then opened again as if he’d been startled awake.
‘Get out would you,’ he said. ‘Can’t a man get any sleep around here?’