People would always tell you how similar you and your mother are. You didn't really believe them. Somtimes, maybe, you were like her, the way you adjusted other people's shirts for them, she did that too. But your morals, well not even morals, just the way you lived your lives was different.

Tonight you know for sure you're different. She sold her bookstore. The beatiful little bookstore between the movie theatre and the drug store. The only thing other than the old ice cream parlor that wasn't run by a chain, and now it will be.

She smiled while she told the family at the dinner table.

It was the most sickening smile you'd ever seen.

It was the sort of smile that a villian's face wears as he's starting the laser that will vut the good guy in half starting with his penis.

It's driving you crazy. This is only the latest of the problems in your shithole life. There was the girl who just wanted to be friends, a whole year of silent admiration, wiped out in a sentence. There was the time you tried marijuana, just once, just to try it, and your parents found out. You weren't allowed to see friends for two months, not that that meant cancelling plans. And this shithole town, the one you've lived in all of your life. The same vacations every year, more of a chore than an escape, spending time in resorts with middle-aged, management-level golf players.

"I'm done with this shit." you decide. You've never attempted suicide before, but you have a general idea of how.

Pills, lots of pills... The bathroom.

Odd: The medicine cabinet is open, someone must have forgotten to close it this morning.
Even odder: The multivitamins are gone...
In your limited knowledge of biochemistry, 5000% of the recommended daily dosage of Iron, Vitamins Aardvark through Zebra, copper, zinc, uranium, whatever the fuck they put in those things, would be enough to do you in.

Maybe they're downstairs in the kitchen, someone might have brought them down by accident to take one with some orange juice.

Your mom is lying on the couch in the living room, next to the kitchen, you made enough noise coming down the stairs that she must be asleep.

"You'll be sorry" you think, and suddenly you remember what you're doing. It's a strange feeling, like when someone leaves you a gift on your desk, an almost paralyzing sense of confusion. Part of the magic of this world, you think, is that acts of kindness are that rare.

The vitamins aren't on the kitchen counter, or in the fridge.

I can't wait to go away to college, you think absently, then I'll at least have some controll over my life, even if that means a shit paycheck and an apartment with a shared bathroom. I wonder if I'll need to own a gun to protect myself... I'm not sure I could ever bring myself to kill someone... Oh wait, you think, yes I can, I was going to kill myself..

To kill myself. right. That's what I want to do. My mother sold out to big business, and I have no friends who care enough about me to call or invite me to anything.

so... I want to kill myself.

You look at your mom. She's the reason you're going to kill yourself. Her 'morality', her 'always looking out for you' which meant that you didn't get to go into the city to a concert with your friends, you would have needed a chaperone since it was at night. She's such a bitch.

She's also not breathing.

You watch her closely now. No, she's definitely not breathing. You found the vitamin jar too. It's empty though.

Maybe she didn't like the day's business transaction either. Maybe she felt like a hypocrite for punishing you for trying pot, when she'd done the same thing when she was a year younger than you.

You're more like your mother than you thought, apparently.

"Hitler kommt!" your teacher says. You've grown up in Germany, so you understand her: "Hitler's coming!"

What could he possibly want with your school? You're not a Jew, you're not a Gypsy, you're not g... well... There was that one time, but that was back in third grade you didn't know any better! But then... Hitler knows things. He has men who are paid to know things, and no fact is too tiny for it to be important to the great restorer of Lady Germany to her once shining glory. Any fact, if neglected, could become a menace to the Aryan race.

It was just third grade...

He's at the door now, and the teacher is brushing down her skirt, and checking her hair as best she can without a mirror. She looks to her purse, on her desk under the map of the world. She thinks about going for her lipstick, just a touch up, so she looks nice for him.

Briefly, ever so briefly, she thinks about that. "What if he wants me that way? Can I look too good? And what would I do if he did?"

She will stop herself midway through thinking "I wonder if he wears underwear..."


The classroom door opens. It opens inward so you can only see the outline of his head, in the light of the fluorescent light in the hallway. It looks like your uncle, the one who used to hit your cousin. He'd hit him and then he'd call him a 'fag.' You don't know what it means, but they took your cousin away for it. You saw it happen, since they live right next door, just a floor down in the apartment building. His mother cried, but his father, your uncle didn't cry.

"Warum nahmen sie ihn ein, Onkel?" --"Why did they take him, Uncle?" you asked.
"Wiel sie mussen." he said. "Because they must"


Your teacher just curtsied to him and he's coming in now. You hide under the desk. You've heard rumors about what Hitler does to boys who've seen other boys' penises. You don't know how forgiving he'll be. Even if you only touched it once, out of curiosity.

He's coming down the row. His boots click on the tile, exactly the way you'd imagine they would; it's what a soldier's boots are supposed to do. At the front of the class, he stops, turns around, and smile comes over his face. It's not a genuine smile, not quite. It's something he planned, and has taken out to use it. Something that can just as quickly be put away once its job is done.

"Wie geht's sie, Klasse?" -- How are you class? He asks.
"Danke gut, Herr Hitler." -- Good, thank you, Mr Hitler, they chorus back, some quietly, most looking down at their desks.

You can only see his boots from under your desk. They start moving again, he's coming back towards the door, but this time he's travelling through your row.

"Crud", you think to yourself. "He's going to see me, and then he's going to hurt me!" Your palms start sweating, your arms are shaking, and you're getting a little light-headed from trying not to breathe.

He'll probably chop your penis off, that must be what they do to guys who touch other guys. Just like the king who chopped off the robber's hand so he couldn't steal anymore, in the story yesterday.

When you come back from your theories, Hitler will have left, and your teacher will be standing next to your desk with a ruler. She will not touch your penis, but the ruler will leave a lasting mark on your hand.