Broing Out With Hitler
By Ned Hepburn
Hitler suddenly felt a little cold. It was an early Autumn afternoon in 1938.
“Gert, have I been doing it all wrong?” Hitler asked. Hitler really wanted to know. He felt like everyone was against him.
“Maybe I’ve been going about this whole thing all wrong,” he said, throwing a rock at the lake, “Maybe, just maybe, I should have taken out the part about eliminating the Jews. I mean, who am I to talk about a blonde haired, blue eyed people? I’m a short guy with a build like an orange on top of a basketball. I’m like, really, really regretting that part about brutally smiting an entire people for no reason. That was a bad idea. Can we stop that?”
Gert, too, threw a pebble into the lake. The two men had been sitting there for hours.
“What makes you say that?” said Gert.
“I mean, they’re good people,” said Hitler, “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, I’d just gotten out of THE WORST breakup and I was drinking and I got carried away in a beer hall and I mean, hey, here I am.”
Gert remembered Hitler after Samantha had broken up with him. Hitler had refused to leave his room except to buy cigarettes and liquor. Gert shook his head.
“Addy, really,” he said.
“You know I hate being called that,” said Hitler.
“Called what?”
“Addy.”
“Oh.”
“Carry on.”
“Well I mean, Hitler, people are people. Sometimes you lose your keys. Sometimes your girl breaks up with you and you get drunk for a couple of years before rising up as a political star during a very bad time. Sometimes you orchestrate your will over others and take control of an entire country. And I mean, who HASN’T done that, am I right? And I mean, bro, sometimes you commit genocide. Sometimes your name will forever be synonymous with hatred and mass murder forever. Sometimes you’re so incredibly reviled that you take a style of facial hair out with you, condemning anyone who wears it as so they may be associated with you.”
Hitler picked up a small, flat rock and skimmed it over the lake. It sank after skipping four times. The sun was going down. They would have to go inside soon.
Gert continued, “But that doesn’t mean that you weren’t a person who got bummed out about breakup and emo shit just like everyone else. I mean look at your haircut. How emo is that. Don’t tell me you didn’t spend most of your years out of college wanting to be a painter. What is more emo than a struggling artist?”
Hitler lowered his head and shook it. Gert could tell he was losing him.
“But Hitler! Hitler! Cheer up! You’re just misunderstood! If people got to know the real you they’d see that, yes, you are a mass-murdering-genocidal-fuckhead, sure, but WHAT a mass-murdering-genocidal-fuckhead! Which other mass-murdering-genocidal-fuckheads do you know that can be such great dinner party hosts? Dude, you’re cool, man. You’re cool. Don’t let Samantha get to you. Besides,” said Gert, lighting a cigarette, “That shit was, like, eight years ago.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Hitler.
“Cigarette?” said Gert.
“Sure, man,” said Hitler. “Thanks for being a good friend. I can be a total dick sometimes.”