Just Kiss Me One Last Time, Brian Hesse [top 10 non fiction books of all time txt] 📗

close enough to feel his warmth merge with mine.

 

“I heard what just happened with your friend,” he stated looking away so as not to cause any more undo embarrassment.

 

What a polite and considerate man I thought to myself. Does he not know that not only the immediate past was blurred by his arrival, but the entire past and infinite future is obliterated into nothingness with just his presence.

 

“Oh that,” I stated, trying to brush it off like I did not know what Jurgen was talking about when he called me a fag. “That was nothing. That was just Jurgen being his usual dumb self.”

 

We sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity but was only a matter of minutes. I was not taken off guard by the realization that with anyone else in the world, such a silence would be maddeningly unbearable, but with him, I could sit in silence forever.

“You know Karl, I was awake every time you visited me at the hospital.”

 

My heart continued its rapid thud beating a hole through my chest like a hammer. Could he possible of heard me whisper how I loved him? Could he possibly know how my heart ached for him through long cold nights of confusion, passion, and rage?

Before I could speak, he continued, “Its not safe to talk here. Follow me.”

 

We did not walk too far, just to the other end of the park. Here next to a white porcelain bird bath is an old wooden park bench. Nothing in this park is very much cared for and the bench reflects the changing priorities since the end of the war. Grass grows wildly where at one time was neatly trimmed to just the proper aesthetic height. Trees grow until limbs are brushing unnaturally against the disproportioned grass, where at one time, a gardener gave great care with his art of trimming and pruning. This bench, once painted a brilliantly bright red, now peeling paint like a leper peeling patches of skin from a diseased and frail body. None of that mattered. We were alone, in an isolated part of the garden, and my dream was about to come true.

 

“I heard you Karl. I heard you profess your love for me. I have a confession. I was of the mind to grab your throat and squeeze as tight as I could feeling the righteousness well up inside me, like a good German doing his duty.”

 

He paused, giving me enough time for the tears to well up behind my eyes. I am alone, I thought to myself. Is there no one else like me in this world?

 

He continued, “But then I felt your touch Karl. I felt your soft caring hands glide across my skin. No revulsion at my wounds came from those beautiful hands Karl. I realized that I was beginning to fall in love with you.”

 

He came closer to my lips with his. I could feel the warm moistness of his mouth touching mine before we even touched. He placed his hand on the back of my head and pulled my closer until our lips finally met. He held me there for a long time, as I drifted into a euphoria, I never thought existed in such a concrete world of hatred, war, and prejudice. I will never forget that moment, as well as, the ending of that moment, because all things are impermanent. Happiness as well as sadness have the seeds of destruction sown into their very fabric.

“Hey faggots!” came the voice of Jurgen Schneider from across the park.

 

“Yea, here we go. Gonna kill some fags today,” came another familiar voice. This was the voice of Peter Luther. He is about my age, seventeen, but built like a concrete house. His days, since I can remember, have consisted of lifting bales of hay from sun up to sun down. I am not even certain if Roland could take them.

 

“Run Karl,” stated Roland, as he gave me a light push off the tattered bench.

 

“I’m staying with you, I replied,” noticing the strain of concern in my voice. I was not concerned for my own safety. ALL I could think of was him.

 

He grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me quickly on the lips and said, “I can take care of them. I will come for you later. Its not worth getting yourself hurt. Now go!”

 

I reluctantly began to run in the direction of the oncoming boys. I looked back as I was running and watched as Roland gave a right hook to Jurgen’s face. As if in slow motion, I could see a spray of blood with what looked like tiny white shards flying through the air, as Jurgen laid motionless on the grass. I ran some more still watching the fight and tripped, feeling my legs elevated off the ground. My head hit something hard and sharp sending stabbing pain into my vibrating skull. I picked myself up feeling dazed by the blow to my head. Warm sticky blood trickled from my head causing thick clots to form in my disheveled hair. I looked and saw Peter lying next to Jurgen, both motionless in the red stained grass. I immediately changed direction staggering toward Roland, now sitting on the decrepit park bench. He looked back at me giving me a signal with his right arm to stay back. It was apparent that his left arm, the arm I delicately bandaged and re bandaged in the hospital all those many months before, was injured again and hanging heavily to his side. I stopped just in time to see three policemen in the standard blue buttoned uniform and spiked helmet running toward Roland. I ran like a coward. I ran because I knew that although homosexuals were not persecuted in public, the dreaded paragraph 175 was in force, and gay prisoners did not fair well in German prisons. Is this the last time I would see him? My heart ached at the thought.

 

You see, all happiness and all sadness end abruptly.

 

Chapter IV Betrayal: The First of Two Accidental Murders

 

So, I ran and ran, and didn’t stop until my lungs burned with each inhale of stale city air. My mind raced, filled with the customary adrenaline-fueled narratives of doom and gloom. Head bent below my waist, hands on my knees, and stagnant air locked inside my burning lungs, visions raced through my mind. I saw the police already at my house speaking to my Father.

 

“Well sir,” stated the Reich officer, with head held low in embarrassment, “I’m sorry to report that your son was caught kissing a man in the park.” Now he places his spiked helmet on his head, straightens his body, and puts on a face of stern German professionalism and continues, “I’m sorry to say that he is violation of paragraph 175, and will have to face a German court.”

 

You see, everyone knows about paragraph 175. Enacted on May 15, 1871, paragraph 175 makes sex between two men illegal. This is something every German boy learns by ten years of life in either school or by his tutor. It doesn’t seem to dawn on people that if a law like this was thought of by lawmakers, then homosexuality is not some strange freak occurrence. We wouldn’t make a law against stealing if only a handful of people in the world were caught stealing. No, we create laws to prevent behavior and actions that make the government and the church afraid. But I was not engaging in such philosophical masturbation as I was gasping for life’s breath on the corner of Ada street and Wilhelm Avenue. I was watching a sad movie play out in my mind. A movie that features the shame of my Father, my brother, and my possible detention. For what? For falling in love. For experiencing my first innocent kiss? For being human?

 

With frightful visions of prison and shame stabbing my brain, I ran home. I made a heroic decision to tell my Father the truth. Maybe if he hears it from me, he can look into my eyes, seeing his own, and having mercy on his flesh and blood. Not only his flesh and blood, but those of my Mother, the woman he once loved in life, and now mourns in death.

 

A description of my running up my flats stairs is not necessary. Just think of a dog trotting down the street in the middle of July with swollen tongue hanging off the side of its mouth, dripping watery saliva in anticipation of a cool drink. I burst through my door like a madman, “Dad, the police are comi….

I was stopped dead in my tracks by my brothers’ firm grasp on my sweat soaked undershirt. I long discarded the heavy sweater I wore that day to the park.

 

“Don’t say a word Karl, I’m doing the talking,” he stated, as he dragged me into the small dimly lit room we shared as a bedroom. But I mainly stayed there alone. My brother was four years older than me and spent most of his time active in a local political party, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). The NSDAP is a newly formed right-wing political party made up mostly of unemployed soldiers, young folks looking for a cause, and basically anyone with a taste for radicalism and violence. The party, as I was told, was based out of Berlin and headed by a young orator by the name of Adolf Hitler, but this is as much as I know. Anyway, my brother Hans is a member of the brown shirted group, and never home. I guess after the war, even our large city feels like sitting in a cardboard box.

 

“Karl, I know about the park,” he continued. I felt his grasp get tighter and his eyes narrow into those of a great tiger ready to pounce.

I had to act fast. Roland wasn’t here to protect me, and I am far from a man of violent action. I said, “Hans, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but how can I tell anyone something like this in this town?” I allowed my self-pity and defeat to rise steadily to my eyes. His grasp loosened, and his gaze returned mine with that understanding only known between siblings.

 

“Karl, I’m not mad at you. I know you were hypnotized by that queer. We have been told about such things by our party leader Hermann Mayer.”

 

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Hypnotized? Did he say hypnotized? What’s next I thought, is he going to throw me naked in the shower and scrub me with lye to get the infection off me. The rage welled up inside me like a volcano ready to spew forth its fiery death. But I resisted the urge to fight ignorance with even more ignorant aggression. I felt sorry for my brother. My family could only afford for one of us to have tutored lessons. He is nothing more than the product of a youth spent learning on the street.

But I couldn’t resist at least a little jab at his deluded mind.

 

“So, what are you going to tell me next Hans. Huh…maybe that the Jews are turning everyone gay.” I started to laugh, closed my eyes, and waited for the punch, but nothing came accept laughter. He is laughing. I can’t believe it. I opened my eyes and noticed that although he is still gripped tightly on my shirt, he was smiling and laughing.

 

“Karl, I don’t believe everything I hear from the party. The Jews are nothing like the rats depicted in the party newspaper. But what you are doing is different. The new Germany will need babies. Lots of babies to replace our losses on the front. There is no room for those who cannot contribute.”

 

“So, Hans, will you turn me in to the police. Will you turn me over to your brown shirted stormtrooper buddies?”

 

  “No Karl, but we are going to the police station. You are going to tell them that