Crowam 281

I contemplated telling this story. I never thought of myself as much of a storyteller. I never thought of myself as much of anything, really. I hated talking about myself, thinking it was rude to gloat all the time. I mean, who the hell wants to hear somebody else brag about how grand they are?

But this story, well, this is different. It’s not so much about me. It’s really about how a bunch of kids survived the clutches of a madman.

I was never religious, to tell you the truth. I never had anything against God. I just never met him. But after my time spent at Crowam No.281, I came to realize that there is great unspeakable evil in this world. That there is this duality of good and evil that comprises human existence.

I never understood why people do bad things. What drives them to bring pain and suffering to others? The unspeakable horrors the human mind can devise is truly terrifying. Yet somehow, amidst the horror, breathtaking beauty can be created that made the duality of good and evil crystal clear.

It began several years ago in London, England. It was a few years after the end of World War II. My dad was an American bomber pilot stationed with the RAF in England, flying bomber missions behind enemy lines in Europe. He flew B-17s. The workhorse of the European theater. The plane could take a beating and still bring her crew home. My dad flew twelve missions over Europe before getting shot down.

The Air Force didn’t provide many details, other than the fact that there weren’t any remains. Those Kraut bastards must have really torn that plane to shreds for there to be nothing left. I got all broken up when my dad died. I didn’t want to know anything from anybody.

My mom was something special. The sweetest woman you’d ever meet. She died in a bad car accident shortly before the war started. My mom rarely drove my dad’s Buick. It was a hot July day in New York where you could fry an egg on the fire escape. My dad was sick with a summer cold. She insisted on driving to the store to get some medicine. Even though my dad told her not to, she didn’t enjoy being told what to do. This caused my parents to get into plenty of arguments.

A few hours went by and my mom still wasn’t home. My dad and I were worried. We heard a knock on the door. I got to it before my dad. I opened the door to find a tall police officer standing at the entrance of the doorway. His intimidating presence loomed over me. The mood in the living room became ominous the moment the cop stepped inside the sanctuary of our home, which I thought was impervious to the reality of the outside world. My dad grabbed me and pushed me aside. “Are you Mr. Hudson?” The officer asked.

“Yes,” my dad said, blocking the door.

“I’m afraid your wife’s been in an accident,” the police officer said.

When we got to the hospital, my dad made me wait in the lobby. I remember this old man who sat across from me. He stared down at the white ceramic tile floor. A nurse approached him. I couldn’t hear what the nurse said; he just nodded his head, got up, and walked away. Whatever the nurse told him, he accepted it for what it was, as if he knew what she was going to say.

Boy did I hate waiting in that lobby. A nurse with curly gray hair approached me. “Would you like anything?” she asked.

“No thanks,” I said.

Behind the nurse was a hallway, where a few doctors and nurses performed their rounds. My dad exited out of the last doorway on the left. Like that old man, his head was limp and he stared at the floor as he walked down the hallway. He took his time, ignoring the doctors and nurses who got out of his way. He sat down next to me. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes watery. I could tell he was crying. I never saw my dad cry before.

It made me feel insecure scared. “What’s wrong, dad? What happened with mom?” I asked.

He gazed at me with somber eyes. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to have to be strong for me little man.”

“What?” I said.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes.”

I sprinted down the hallway. “Jake!” My dad yelled. I ran as fast as I could to the end of the hallway. I almost reached the doorknob before my dad yanked me by my shirt and pulled me to him. “I want to see mom!”

“You can’t.”

“Please, I want to see her.”

“She’s gone, Jake.”

“Let me go!” I began punching my dad until my arms were too tired. I wrapped my arms around him and cried. That was the only time in my life my dad let me cry. I suppose he would’ve felt like a hypocrite if he got all tough on me after I caught him crying. Sometimes, a man can only take so much before he breaks down.

That day has been recycled in my mind like a damn movie. I wish I could have taken a knife and carved out that moment from my memory. It never went away. Sometimes I hated my mom for leaving us. I even hated my dad. It was irrational and juvenile, but as a young kid trying to make sense of the world, it was the only way I knew how to react.

Since my mom’s death, I’ve felt this burden, this otherness, consuming me, distracting me from my own life. My dad and I did our best to move on. Baseball was great way to keep our minds off of things. We used to go to all the Yankee games, watching Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio play centerfield, wearing that number five.

My dad would point out into center. “You see who that is? That’s Joe DiMaggio.”

Before the war, I was different. I was your average kid who read comics and played ball, hoping to one day play for the Yankees. The otherness was still there, but it became a part of who I was. When the war started, things were never the same.

Since my mom was dead, my dad made arrangements to have me shipped with him to England when he began flight training. He had some experience flying crop dusters and mail planes back in the day. I wasn’t too excited about going to England.

The urge to cry took hold of me. I figured I could get away with it, seeing that I was a kid that had lost his mom. But I was wrong. My dad nearly knocked my head off. You should have seen him.

“What the hell are you crying about? Act like a man!” He never yelled at me much, but he sure did get sore when I was about to bawl. I made sure never to cry in front of him again.

Anyway, I went to England, since there really wasn’t any extended family for me to stay with back in New York. My grandparents were dead and my aunt was in California working as a clown in the circus. Can you believe that? The damn circus. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against clowns or anything like that, but it just doesn’t seem like a good profession to get in to. I mean, just imagine for a second if somebody asked you what you did for a living and you said that you were “a clown?” The person would think you were a nut.

But everyone has their calling, I guess. The world wants clowns and somebody has to do it, I suppose. After my dad died, the Air Force took it upon themselves to decide I wasn’t old enough to be on my own. I was thirteen at the time. Yea maybe I was a kid, but I could have taken care of myself. I thought I was tough, that I could take on the world. I certainly wasn’t interested in being raised by a family of strangers.

I bounced around from one orphanage to another. I got kicked out of all of them. You see, I don’t really like people telling me what to do. I’m kind of like how my mom was. My dad wanted me to join the air force when I became of age, but hell, I would have been kicked out in a heartbeat. Just imagine me standing in line in some barracks having some drill sergeant bark orders at me. I would have laughed right in the guy’s face. No kidding, I would have.

I didn’t give a damn about nobody but myself. I just wanted to be eighteen and get out of dodge. I wanted to go back to the States. I didn’t like England much. Many of the buildings in London were damaged or destroyed from the war. In some parts, you would have thought the world ended. It might as well have. I never understood war. I guess people just can’t work out their differences. Don’t get me wrong. Hitler was a son of a bitch and all. There are lots of sons of bitches out there. Some worse than others who deserve to get theirs. Maybe that’s what war is about, to give some son of a bitch what he deserves.

Bouncing around from one orphanage to another, I just kept to myself. I was looking out for me. All the other boys would brag about how they were going to get the best parents in the world,
yada yada yada
. I couldn’t have cared less.

I wasn’t interested in getting adopted. I had parents once and they left me. One in a car accident, the other one blown to pieces all over Europe.

Losing my parents toughened me up. I got into fights. Some won, some lost. I guess that’s what life’s all about. There was this one fight I got into with a seventeen year old. I was only fourteen at the time. The kid was enormous. Probably was over six feet tall. I was playing ball out with some of the other boys and this kid just walked on over, took the baseball, and threw it over the fence.

I got so ticked off that there was no hesitation on my part. I just walked over and began wailing on him. I just kept throwing my fists hoping to hit something. I landed a few punches. He landed one on me that I’m still feeling to this day. He knocked me straight to the ground. The kid could have downright killed me.

The nurse said I was unconscious for ten whole minutes before I woke in the nurse’s office. “Did I win?” I asked the nurse.

“I’m afraid not,” the nurse replied.

You’ve got to hand it to the British, being proper and all. I felt embarrassed to talk to them at all. They speak like they’re a thousand times smarter than me, and they probably are. It’s not like I’m dumb. Just street smart. I hated going to school, reading all them textbooks filled with nonsense written by a bunch of dead people.

The teachers always used to ask me questions, like this one teacher that looked like he was as old as Moses. The poor guy looked like he was about to croak. “Who was Queen Elizabeth’s most trusted advisor, Mr. Hudson?”

Now how the hell was I supposed to know that? Who did he think he was? I just shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Then he started to get all fancy on me. “ You don’t know? Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss.”

That got my blood boiling. I grabbed the damn textbook and threw it clear across the classroom. I thought the old man was going to croak right then and there. The whole class rioted.

The old man damn near scared me for a moment. He grabbed his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. Thought I killed the guy.

It wasn’t long before I got kicked out. I certainly had the habit of getting into trouble. I just couldn’t help it. Being told what to do by a bunch of adults wasn’t very appealing to me. They just went through the motions, shoving us kids in a bunch of dormitories, feeding us, and hoping some gullible jerks would take us away.

I remember I was out in the schoolyard of some slum of an orphanage outside of London. I was sitting on the schoolyard steps, just minding my own business. This kid was walking around by himself with this yoyo. He whipped it and flung it in the air with meticulous precision. He could have been a yoyo maestro for all I knew. A few of the older boys decided to pick on the poor bastard. The kid was goofy looking and was as thin as a rail. They wailed on him. They threw him to the ground and kept punching him till he got a bloody nose.

None of the adults came in to help, not even the school’s headmaster.

After they were done with him, they walked away with his yoyo. I don’t know why I didn’t do anything. I mean, it’s not like I wanted to see the kid beat up or anything. The kid got up and wiped the blood and snot off of his face. “Were you there the whole time?” He looked at me with a mixture of sadness and wonder.