I’m about to make a big move on Krista when Heidi’s silhouette stamps a shape against a burgundy sky. Her right arm extends up with her palm down.
“Is she raisin’ a Hitler salute to Harry?” I mumble against Krista’s neck. Krista’s eyes are closed, takin’ me all in.
“That’s an American salute?” Harry asks Heidi.
Heidi’s image tells me Harry needs me, but my hands gain a mind of their own and glide up Krista’s shirt.
“It will be!” Heidi pronounces.
The answer jolts me and makes me suck Krista’s skin pretty hard. She jerks away and slaps me. “How dare you!” She dashes toward the car.
The burn on my cheek warms me up as I glide behind her. “Whacha so sore about?” At the car, I shrug my shoulders at Harry.
Heidi flips her wig when she sees Krista’s torn neck. “What happened?” Heidi screeches as she rushes into the car. “Take us home now! You’re a vampire!”
“What? A vampire?” I bare my teeth and hiss. “I kinda like that. Your little sis was sendin’ strong signals. Just tryin’ to roll with the punches.” Harry and I get into the car.
“At camp, our father says we will meet people like us, our equals,” Heidi growls. “Not a bunch of … your type.”
“Blood suckin’ vermin?” I finish her thought with a deep, crackly voice.
“Actually, Father wants us Nazified,” Krista mumbles. It’s clear she’s liquored four sheets to the wind.
KRISTA:
Longie’s Car. Hawthorne Avenue. Newark, NJ
My head flops onto Heidi’s shoulder when Yael whips the car around Clinton Place corner past the dark Hawthorne Avenue three-story apartments. It’s so dark because no one can afford to waste electricity in our neighborhood.
My stomach fizzes. I close my eyes. I feel the car slow. “Hey Al, Benny, Abie! Makin’ trouble?” Yael yells out the window. I open one eye and see Yael’s friends smoking cigars in front of the one and only lit place on the block—the candy store.
As the car rolls, knuckles bang against the metal roof, and I jolt like someone just brought a hammer down on an anvil.
Yael calls over to the others. “Hey, Maxie. Where’s Puddy?”
Heidi pushes my head off her shoulder. “Drop us here. Papa will murder us if he catches us with Jews.”
Yael pulls the car over. When we get out, the chatter of his rowdy friends pecks at my brain. But that doesn’t compare to the silence that explodes in my one hearing eardrum when my boyfriend Axel and his friend Frank appear out of the blackness with their gang. Their uniforms howl action. Everyone freezes.
The calm before the storm doesn’t last long. Like gray wolves joining forces, Yael’s smaller pack surrounds our German boys. The tension crackles like static electricity from a sock. This town could ignite. I’ve had too much to drink, but I have to admit, our own boys with their military air might have an edge.
“What are you doing with Jews?” Frank says. He pushes me toward Axel.
“Frank, I swear, it was Krista’s idea,” Heidi tattles.
Yeah, so what if it was my idea. One thing’s for sure. I’ll never forget this night.
Axel pinches my chin and inspects my neck. “You are drunk, Krista!” At least he’s screaming in my deaf ear, so I can’t hear his rubbish, and I don’t care if he thinks I’m not ladylike.
I want to tell him he’s controlling like my father and he’s got another thing coming if he thinks I’m gonna bow to him. But instead, I drawl. “Axel. You snow I don’t trink.” The world tips. Then my stomach gurgles and starts heaving all over Axel’s uniform.
Axel shoves me into Heidi. “Scram, you drunken whore.” He grabs Frank’s handkerchief out of his pocket and swats slimy chunks off his uniform.
Heidi drags me from the fuse that’s going to blow. From steps away, we watch it unfold like a handkerchief before a sneeze.
Axel squints his eyes at Yael. “Well, lookie here, Frank. If it isn’t a Newark Minuteman from the rally the other night.”
“You frickin’ Nazis!” Yael shouts. Even stone drunk I can see his blood bulge the vein in his neck. Behind him, his men punch their fists into their hands and rock from side to side.
In an empty second, I catch Axel’s eyes flick to Frank. Then, I hear the crack before I see it. Yael’s chin vaults off Axel’s fist.
The dark alchemy Yael was talking about ripples the six-pack under his wet shirt and detonates a chain reaction. As a thunderous sound like aluminum foil covering a Thanksgiving turkey shakes the sky above us, Yael lets loose a barrage of blows that should have knocked Axel, my future sovereign, from here to Weequahic High School.
But, Axel isn’t one to stand down. He bends his elbows and blocks Yael’s blows. Finding an opening, he clobbers Yael in the face. A part of me feels Yael deserves a few hits from Axel. After all, he shouldn’t have run his hand up my blouse.
As if someone higher up is orchestrating this battle, the next clap of thunder signals war between the gangs. I gulp the storm’s spicy-sweet down draft as the scene becomes a powder-keg rumble. Rain whips the bodies. The enemy camps don’t just want to hurt each other. They want to obliterate each other.
FRITZ KUHN:
German Biergarten. Newark, NJ
“Four liters of beer!” I shout to the German-dressed waitress. Today is Sunday. One of the many days Germans drink. And the best place to drink on Sundays in Newark, New Jersey is the German Biergarten.
“This is what democracy is all about, mein Freunde,” I tell Günther and the boys. Along with Axel and Frank, Günther sits with me at the freshly painted patio table. “Sharing tables, talking with our own, eating our food, drinking endless liters of beer.” The chill of winter is gone and I feel the future among my many German compatriots. Most are uniformed like us. Others have turned into good ole’ Americans hiding behind the American flag. They’ll learn!
“This, my boys, is choice,” Günther responds. He spreads his arms wide.
The wunderschöne waitress delivers our beer. She’s beautiful, but it took her long enough. I lift my stein toward the others and then gulp the beer down before she has time to step away. Tasting the first sip of my favorite drink never gets old. “Another round!” I say to the Fräulein whose Bavarian skirt flips up from a breeze as she walks away.
Frank gulps his beer. “Heidi and Krista barely made it home alive the other night,” he says, lifting his eyebrows like a gossiping teenage girl. Clearly, he’s itching to pat himself on the back for facing Zwillman’s gang. Maybe I should give him a break? Heck! I’ve been in his shoes before. After the failed coup attempt with Adolph, I remember trying to impress my father. In front of all his friends, he laughed. He said he was not surprised with the fiasco since I had always been a coward—the type of boy who threw snowballs with gloves on.
“What Frank means to report is that these were the same gangsters who wrecked the Bund rally the other night at City Hall,” Axel says to cover for his Freund. “They’re part of the Zwillman gang who are constantly causing trouble.”
“You mean the catastrophe in Union City?” I bob my head. “Now this is interesting news,” I say. “I hope the girls lambasted the schlagers for destroying City Hall.”
“Yes!” Frank says. “Heidi told them off good. She said they should respect