Nazi State

Monona County, Iowa 1995

The guy was wearing blue jeans, an army jacket, and a baseball cap. He took off his cap to reveal close-cropped graying hair. His face was lean and muscular, and his eyes were bright.

“Do you want me to strap in?” he asked as I buckled my seatbelt. I said yes, and as he hunted for the belt, he said, “Never use ‘em myself. I was in the paratroopers in the war, and I don’t like to use ‘em. If I’m on a plane, I want to sit in the back and not wear a seatbelt. If something happens, I want to get out of there fast. Ya know, they can’t force you to use one. Most plane accidents take place on landing or taking off, so what I do, I just go up to the first-class section.”

“You mean on a commercial airliner?” I asked, noting that he had put the shoulder strap over the wrong shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said, and then adjusted the strap after I pointed out the correct position.

The guy then started rapping about how he was going to Fargo, North Dakota, to join a pro-life church group called the Lambs of God. He said some of the head guys were in jail in San Antonio for trying to rescue babies: i.e., to prevent women from entering abortion clinics, most likely. He said, “They don’t like it in Texas when you go in and try to disrupt their industry. And that’s what abortion is – a baby-killing industry!”

He said he was a construction worker and had also worked in the steel trades in Pennsylvania, where he was from originally. I told him I was an editor, originally from Illinois.

“When I was in prison,” he said, “I met a guy who was a good writer. He’s originally from Germany, and he saw all his family killed by the Nazis. He wrote a book called Acquiescence to Slaughter. Yes, that’s the name, Acquiescence to uh . . . Slaughter. It’s about the state of things in America today. You can see a connection between a Nazi state and the way things are today.” [Here he is referring to Martin Wishnatsky, whose book is available at http://www.goodmorals.org/mw/13%20199110%20ATS.pdf.]

I thought of things Walker Percy had written or said about the connection between the Nazis’ ideas and practices of “purifying the state” and euthanasia, and present-day practices of abortion, but I didn’t say anything. This guy scared me some, and I wanted to get off the subject he was riding hard. Then, out of nowhere, he mentioned talking to Colleen Dewhurst, and that was my opportunity.

“Colleen Dewhurst! She was married to George C. Scott! You met her?” I asked.

“Hell, yes,” he said, “Right on a park bench in New York City. You’re liable to run into anybody down in the Village!”

“Ah,” I think to myself, “A former steelworker who has hung out in the Village and talked with Colleen Dewhurst. Pretty interesting."

“Hey, ya know,” I said, “I saw this great movie that Colleen Dewhurst was in—.”

“Queen of the Rebels?” he interjected.

“Nah, it was a movie where George C. Scott played a guy who used to drive a getaway car for the Mob in America, but he retires to Spain. The film opens with him driving a sports car . . . "

“The Last Run!” he says, “Yeah, I’ve seen it. It’s a good movie.”

“Yeah, well in that film Colleen Dewhurst plays a prostitute that George C. Scott visits when he gets restless, and also there’s another woman that he gets mixed up with. He actually had an affair with this woman and he dumped Colleen Dewhurst and married the other woman, whose name I can’t remember.”

“Trish Van Devere,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s it, Trish Van Devere!” I say. (Obviously I’m pretty excited at this point. I don’t often have such scintillating conversations on the road.)

“I remember her because she’s better looking than Colleen Dewhurst!” he says.

“Well,” I say, “I like Colleen Dewhurst.”

“Ah, she’s O.K., I guess,” he says. “I was standing in line to see Queen of the Rebels in New York, and I saw her sneaking in the, you know . . .”

“The back door?” I asked.

“Yeah, the back door!” he says, “I thought of accosting her, but I didn’t. Later on, when I actually met her, she struck me as being one of these types, ya know, they look down on you . . .” He makes a gesture of looking down his nose.

“A snob,” I say.

“Yeah, that’s it! A snob!” he says excitedly. “She was a snob!” he laughs.

NOTE: The name of the production was The Queen and the Rebels (a play).

. . .

From this we go into more movie talk. His favorites: Triumph of the Will, by Leni . . . what’s her name? "Eisenmueller?" I say. “Riefenstahl,” he says. “Yeah, and what about the 1936 Olympics?”

“Hmmm,” I say. “I thought maybe you meant that D. W. Griffith film about racism in America [Birth of a Nation].” “No, don’t know that one,” he says. “How about The Little Emperor, Chaplin’s last film? It’s great – he plays five different parts.”

(NOTE: He means The Great Dictator, in which Chaplin played the dual roles of a Jewish barber and the Hitler-like Adenoid Hynkel.)

“I’ve seen the part where he plays Hitler and dances around,” I say.

“You’ve seen the movie then?” he asks.

“Nah, just the part where he plays Hitler and dances around and stamps his feet.”

(NOTE from future self: Sounds like Trump.)

. . .