by Dan Walsh
Finally, an adult. Two in fact. Both women. They were dishing out watery soup from a tall silvery kettle to a line of anxious children all holding little white bowls. A few children in the foreground sat at a wooden table spooning away. Were these the same children that were in the first three pages? Jack wasn’t sure.
He turned the photograph over and read the words:
Das bin ich, das dritte Kind in der Schlange. Ich vergesse , der das Foto nahm. Vielleicht 6 Monate nach der ich eine Waise. Alle in diesem Foto sind Waisen.
Okay, he didn’t expect that. Looked like German, which likely meant the date in the picture wasn’t during The Depression, after all. It was more likely in Germany after World War II. Rachel had taken German in college, but he wasn’t sure how fluent she was and didn’t want to bother her with this. Then he remembered Google Translate. Rachel had told him it wasn’t always accurate but you could often get the general idea of something using it.
Bringing the photo to his laptop, he opened the program, selected German and typed the words into the left box exactly as they appeared. As he did, these words appeared on the right box in English:
That's me, the third child in line. I forget who took the photo. Maybe 6 months after I become an orphan. All in this photo are orphans.
Jack turned the photo over and focused on the third child in the soup line. It was hard to tell his age. Maybe eight, maybe ten. He had light brown hair, parted to the side. He wasn’t looking into the camera. His eyes focused like lasers on the lady’s hand dishing out the soup.
Although there wasn’t a name on the picture, now it was something real. Not just a smattering of miscellaneous photos, but someone’s collection. Holding the photo in one hand, he browsed through the pages he’d already seen, comparing those pics to the loose photo. The boy wasn’t in every picture but in most of them. Jack started to recognize some of the other children, as well. Perhaps they all lived in the same orphanage. As with the loose photo, the little boy never looked into the camera. And he pretty much had the same look on his face in each one. Serious and sad.
Well, that would make sense now, wouldn’t it? Considering what he’d just read on the back of the photo. The boy had become an orphan six months earlier. His whole world had been shattered. Not just with the loss of his parents but likely his childhood home. He had probably been relocated to a different city. Jack had read about this situation. There were hundreds and thousands of orphans in Germany after the war. In some ways, the effort to rescue them included a desire to rescue their souls.
All of Europe had just suffered through a Second World War foisted upon mankind by the German people. Everyone agreed…everything that could be done must be done to make sure this never happened again.
It was decided, the minds and hearts of these orphaned children had to be redirected toward a brand new way of thinking, on every level. Germany needed a clean slate, a fresh start. These orphans were seen to be part of that solution, but only if they could be raised with a brand-new set of values. Relocating them to different cities helped accomplish that goal. All ties to the past had to be severed. A new day was dawning for Germany. Or so that was the hope. Judging by the looks on these children’s faces, they weren’t buying any of it. Not yet anyway.
Something else Jack had noticed in these pictures confirmed another thing he’d read. These German orphans were all mixed together. Whites of Aryan blood bunked together with surviving children from the concentration camps. Poles, Czechs and other Slavic children were also part of the mix. Leading up to the war, the Nazis had tried to create a master Aryan race, whites only need apply. Jack could clearly see the blending together of all these people-groups in the faces of these orphans. And none of them seemed to struggle with each other in the least. They were all bonded together in the simple struggle for survival.
He was so tempted to pull some of the photos off the pages to see what else he could learn from what was written on the back. They would add so much more to this little boy’s story.
Maybe there was a way.
What if he took a picture of each page? That way, he’d make sure he glued all the photos back in their proper places. He would only pull off those that came away easily, without tearing the page. It could work.
He was just about to try with the pics on the first page when he realized…he didn’t have any glue. Maybe he could pick up some when he went to the store. Just then, the alarm sounded on his phone. He looked at the screen and remembered. Rachel. The store. Dinner.
That’s what he should be doing right now, not playing around with this old photo album. He slipped the loose photo back in the crease of the page, got up and slid the photo album back in its place on the shelf.
As he walked toward the dinette table, intending to write out a list of things he needed, his foot caught the edge of that stupid floorboard again. “O-o-w-w,” he yelled. He sat on the edge of the couch and took a look at his foot. He’d scratched it but it wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t thinking of bringing the throw rugs in from outside just yet, but maybe he should reconsider.
Then he looked down at the floorboard again. No wonder it had lifted up. It wasn’t nailed down. He couldn’t see if the other end was properly fastened; it was under the recliner. But maybe that’s all it needed, a couple of nails. He had seen a toolbox in the pantry when he’d gone looking for the broom. He could probably fix this in a few minutes. Glancing at the clock, he realized he didn’t have a few minutes. He’d have to do it later.
Just out of curiosity, he pushed down on the board to see if it would lay flat. It didn’t want to go down, but he knew with a couple of nails and a good pounding it’d behave. He also noticed when he pushed down on it, how loose it was. He grabbed the end with his fingertips and lifted.
“Well, look at that,” he said aloud. It came right up. The end under the recliner mustn’t be nailed down, either. He slid the board out of place and set it on the floorboards beside it. It revealed a long, thin dark hole. Jack knew there wasn’t any cellar. The cabin was built a few feet off the ground, had a crawlspace underneath. That’s probably what he was seeing.
But why would this one floorboard not be nailed down? And why was it a different shade than all the others? He looked at the clock again. Better worry about this later. On the off chance the owner or Mr. Bass came by while Jack was gone, he quickly set the board back in place.
16
Sergeant Joe Boyd responded to the radio call. “I’ll get this one, Sandy.” He already heard the location of the convenience store and was only half a mile away.
“I thought you were off this afternoon,” Sandy replied. “What are you even doing listening to the radio?”
“I’m already out this way. Checking on a cabin out here by Lake Sampson.” He got his lights flashing and whipped his unmarked car around. “Thinking of renting one for the family the last two weeks of summer. This a real 2-11?”
“The store owner called it a robbery,” she said. “No guns involved. Sounds to me like some college kids are making a ruckus. A little hard to understand him. Some kind of accent, maybe Indian.”
“Are they shoplifting?”
“I don’t think so. I asked him to stay on the line, but he already hung up. I could hear yelling in the background. Want some back up, just in case?”
“Might as well. It’s probably nothing. But send who’s ever closest here. Tell them not to kill themselves or anyone else getting here. I’ll call in when I get there if anything’s urgent.”
“Will do.”
Boyd knew the guys pretty good by now. Someone would want in on this. He’d been here in Culpepper just over a year now. Except for that one major bit of excitement right in the beginning with that crazy conspiracy-experimental drug-multiple murder-shootout ordeal at the university, things had been relatively quiet. No, make that super-quiet. Too quiet for him. At least compared to his sixteen-plus years in Pittsburgh.
But Kate loved it here. The kids even more. And he had t
o admit, Boyd’s blood pressure liked Culpepper, too. His GPS said the convenience store was right up on the left just around this curve.
And so it was.
As he pulled into the parking lot, he could see the “ruckus” had moved outside. A short dark-skinned man with jet black hair was standing by the doorway—likely the store manager or owner—holding the glass door open with one hand and pointing toward three males in the parking lot with the other. They looked like college kids. Two of them even had “Culpepper” written on their T-shirts. It looked like the one without the T-shirt, the tallest one, had just thrown something in the dumpster. One of the kids with a school T-shirt was capturing everything on his cell phone.
Great, just great, Boyd thought as he got out of his car. Everyone involved looked at him.
“You see? You see what I have to put up with?” the owner yelled. “Arrest him! The tall one. Arrest them all.”
“Arrest us?” the tall one yelled back. “You’re the one who should be in jail. Selling crap like that in your store.”
Boyd walked toward the owner. The three boys came a little closer. The one recording everything took a few steps back, holding his phone up about head high. He kept checking the screen. Boyd guessed to make sure everybody fit in the picture. He’d been seeing a lot more of these smart phones showing up at calls, especially with the college kids. Get it on video, no matter what. Everyone wanted to be the next thing that goes viral. “Could you please put that away?”
“I got a right to do this,” he said. “I’m not breaking any law.”
The kid was right. Stupid, but right. “Well, keep it out of my face.”
“I’m nowhere near your face.”
Boyd shifted his focus toward the main issue. “Okay, what’s going on here?” The Indian guy and the tall college kid started talking on top of each other. Boyd put up his hand. “Okay stop! One at a time. I’ll hear both of you, so don’t interrupt. You first,” he said to the owner.
The owner took a deep breath. “I’m in my store, minding my own business when these three young men walk in. They don’t look like trouble. I smile but they don’t smile back. I look outside, see their car, see they have gotten gas. They all go to the cooler, open the doors. They are picking out their drinks. Then they all come to me, set their drinks down on the counter.”
“Could we skip to when the trouble starts?” Boyd said.
“I’m getting there. It’s the next thing. I ask them, will that be all? The tall one says, no, that will not be all. He points to a jar on the counter filled with little red flags.”
“Confederate flags,” the tall student said.
“Yes,” said the owner. “Little Confederate flags. I ask him if he wants one and tell him the price. He yells at me that he doesn’t want one and asks why I’m even selling these in my store. I tell him, some people like them.” He looks at Boyd. “What can I say? We are in Georgia. It’s the truth. Some people do.”
“Well they shouldn’t want them, and you shouldn’t sell them,” the student yelled. “They’re racist flags. Everybody knows that now. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“Wait your turn,” Boyd yelled back. “Go ahead, sir. Finish what you were saying.”
“See how he talks to me? It was louder than that in the store. He says to me, you of all people should understand what that flag stands for. I’m thinking, what does he mean, me of all people? Does he think I am black? Is he that stupid? Can he not see I am from India, or at least somewhere in the Far East? So I tell him, this flag means nothing to me, or to my people. It’s just a flag. If he doesn’t want it, no one is forcing him to buy it. But that is not enough for him.”
“What were his two friends doing while this was going on?” Boyd asked.
“They were just nodding in agreement to everything he said, except this one with the phone. He took it out and starts to record everything.”
Boyd started to figure out what was going on.
“The boy, the tall one,” the owner continued, “he says, this flag is a racist flag. It offends him and the overwhelming majority of Americans. I tell him, well, obviously not everyone.” The store owner smiled. “I make a joke, try to ease the tension. But he gets angry. More angry. Then he looks at his friend taking the video, as if to say, make sure you get this next part.”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
“That’s what it looked like to me. Because next, he grabs all the flags and pulls them out of the jar. He knocks the jar off the counter, and it shatters all over the floor.”
“That was an accident. I didn’t mean to knock the jar over.”
“Then he starts walking toward the front door with all the flags in his hands. I yell at him to stop, where are you going? He says he is doing me a favor, since I don’t have the courage to do it myself. Then he walks right out the door with the flags, his two friends right behind him. I yell at them to stop, but they keep going. That’s when I picked up the phone and dialed 911. I run outside and find him standing there in the parking lot, holding all the flags and giving some kind of speech about racism and injustice.”
“To who?” Boyd said.
“To no one. There is no one here at the store but us. He is talking to the phone. He is doing all this for a video.”
“Where are the flags now?” Boyd said.
“In the dumpster…where they belong,” the student said.
“He threw them in there after he finished his speech. It happened just before you drove up.”
“Did they hit you or hurt you in any way?” Boyd said to the owner. He shook his head no. “Did they take anything else besides the flags?” No, again. Boyd looked at the college student. “Let me guess, you didn’t pay for these flags, right? You just walked them out the door.”
“And right into the dumpster. I wouldn’t pay a nickel for that crap.”
Boyd looked at the owner. “What’s the value of the merchandise he took?”
“There were fifty flags. I’m out a hundred-and-fifty bucks. I don’t know what the jar costs.”
“Interesting,” Boyd said. “And I don’t suppose you want the flags back? I mean, we could just take them out of the dumpster.”
“No, I don’t want them back. They are ruined. The dumpster is full of garbage. We just threw out all our outdated food last night. I can’t sell them now.”
“I’m assuming you want to press charges.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s all I needed to know.” He took out his handcuffs, turned to the college student. “Turn around. Put your hands behind your head.”
“What, you’re arresting me? For what?”
“For shoplifting, for starters.”
“I didn’t shoplift anything.”
“The law says you did. You took this merchandise out of the store without paying for it, and you threw it into the dumpster. And since the value of the merchandise you destroyed is over one hundred dollars, I gotta take you in.”
“I can’t believe this. This is ridiculous.” The student looked at his friend holding the smart phone as he put his hands behind his head. “You getting all this?”
“Every bit.”
“This obviously racist cop is arresting me,” the student said staring right at the phone, “for simply standing up for the rights of the oppressed. That’s all I’m doing here, taking a stand against racism, and this racist symbol this store owner is selling for a profit.”
After Boyd finished handcuffing him, he turned toward the kid with the phone. “Okay, videotape this.” He looked right into the screen. “My name’s Sergeant Joe Boyd. I’m a detective with the Culpepper PD. What I’m arresting this young man for has nothing to do with racism. It has to do with stealing and destroying property that is not his. I’m not a racist now and never have been. I’ve been a cop for seventeen years. Some of my close friends are African-American. A few have even saved my life. I’m from Pittsburgh, so this Confederate flag has no meaning for me. Far as
I’m concerned, the Civil War ended a hundred and fifty years ago. When it was going on, my ancestors didn’t even live in America, let alone own slaves. This store owner is from India. Pretty sure he never owned any slaves, either. He has a right to sell this flag, if he chooses. And you all have a right not to buy it.”
He turned toward the kid in handcuffs. “You even have a right to share your opinion with the store owner, respectfully. You can even tell him it offends you and that you wish he wouldn’t sell it. But that’s where your rights end. What you did next is a crime. And if I recall, you could get up to twelve months in jail and pay up to a one-thousand dollar fine, even for a first-offense.”
He looked back into the camera. “So, go ahead and keep filming if you want. I doubt this little stunt of yours has a chance of going viral. It’s way too boring.” He looked up to see two cars entering the parking lot, one of them a patrol car. “Oh look, your chauffer has arrived.” The other car was a shiny blue BMW sedan.
It looked familiar.
17
Jack enjoyed the way his BMW handled these winding roads. So tight. It was tempting to just let it go, let it drive the way it wanted to. Made him wish this trip was longer than fifteen minutes. His GPS lady informed him his destination was right around the next curve. As Jack pulled into the convenience store, it was obvious a little excitement was underway. There were two police cars, lights flashing. One was unmarked. One man dressed in regular clothes was handing off a college student in handcuffs to a uniformed patrol officer.
Wait a minute, the first guy looked like Boyd, Sergeant Joe Boyd. It was him. Jack pulled into an open parking place and got out. Looked like three kids from the University. One of them was filming everything. The patrolman helped the handcuffed kid get in the backseat of his car. “Sergeant Boyd,” Jack called out.
