12

The Woods in the River

Günter wasn’t really going anyplace, anyplace soon, no place to speak of, as he moved within the water—and the water moved him, here and there: around this and around that; barely moving, hardly moving at all, within a small radius, possibly in a square of less than twenty square feet: within a circle of the square: it might have seen to an onlooker as if he was walking in water—it might have, had it there been someone there to watch, which he wasn’t, it was just movements though—half-deaths: death before death you could say, before drowning: and drowning slowly: had someone seen him, it would have looked as if he was, not swimming, rather walking on foot, moving with the little modesty he had left, yet walking nevertheless: however, he was not, not doing that—so it looked: the fatalist can be held by curiosity or pessimism, sheer inertia is what it was, and the rope: the rope, and if there was anyone watching, that is what was creating his inactivity. Günter kept moving in that aura of decorum—water with its stillness above his head, as the prevailing night kept creeping over him: Hell had its hale over his head, so he said, to himself, like a vampire bat, wide-eyed and cold faced, ready to suck out his blood, as if it was venom; like a spider weaving a web to sink his wading, his water-walk—his heavy feet. Yet it seemed he was becoming calm as a portrait now.

If anything, it was all to too much for the old man, the old man thought himself merely its champion, if not he would have at one time thought so, why not now. It was to too long in this gloom and doom and the vampire crypt was closing. He was not a man to go along with the status go, a laser-far situation, anything, everything was his previous outlook. He was a champion, to know that that he was the cities champion, his daughter knowing that the he was the city champion, the Stonewall Jackson of St. Paul, the J.J. Pershing of the 20th Century, the solid stone monument called the Sphinx he saw in books, that’s who he was—and his daughter knowing that, and his mother who might have known that, was gratifying; no: it was a flag of courage, something to die for, a flag to carry. It was really him; stubborn him, like his mother, like his mothers father, like him.

He—he being, the old man Günter, did more than that, more than one knew, he was a hero of sorts—he himself, bought up plots of land throughout the inner city and sold them on time, that is lay-way-plans: to friends, working friends, not lazy ones: friends that could not afford a down payment for a house; people that banks would not lend money to—like his friend Wally, Tony’s son who came back from WWII; Anatolee, he knew well, he was from the old country like him, and a mans word was his character, his soul, a hand shake was all that was needed—the old style, the old breed: a good reputation was better than gold, that was his thinking

Omaha Beach— [June 6, 1945—POW]

Private First Class Wally Sillivk, it seemed every one in the Army spelled his name differently [Sillvk, Silluk, Silvic, and so on and so forth], said his goodbyes to his father Tony, and was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. He was, was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe’s France); he and 200,000 other troops, American and British. The pathfinders had already left, the men who were to light up the way for the drop zones of paratroopers and gliders, infantry. This, this indeed would be remembered as D-Day. Back home, back in America, his sister Elsie was with her new child Edward, she was without husband, and working at the munitions plant. Her father was taking care of his restaurant, Tony, and they, Tony and Elise, like the rest of the world was holding their breaths to see the outcome of this Second World War [WWII].

H-hour, the assault troops were crunched in Coast Guard boats [LCA’s] racing for shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the side lines. Mountains of waves hit his boat on all sides, as they received direct hits from the Germans ashore, thus blasting in flames, mounds of flames: flames flames flames many boats before they even got to shore were blasted, and were covered with fire, an inferno, ablaze. Never made it back home, it was their hearse.

You could see weapons being held over their head: the soldiers trying to make it to shore, holding them high over their heads; gear on their backs, drowning: too much, too heavy and to too long carrying them in the waves and flames, and fire overhead, all struggling just to get ashore, whereupon, Germans would be waiting for them: ambush, ambush, it was like an ambush. Many would die, and be wounded before the day was over: before the battle really started, many, so many had died. What if someone would had said: I’m not firing, and a chain reacting resulted in no one firing: God sent, but I think God this days said: “So be it!” And it was as it was.

Men from the 4th Division, at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then, then came, came the Artillery—one could hear the German made shells ‘88s’, explosives among the troops still rushing out of the waters onto the beaches.

General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and own Omaha Beach, the reason? who knows. Wally fell to a shell, it blew, and he flew, flew several feet in the air, the lower section of his leg now off, blown off, off from upper part of the knee. He would be a POW for the rest of the war; it was a rough day. Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day. By dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Wally was pulled off Omaha by the enemy, and put into a concentration camp.

The only thing Wally would remember of that day for a long, very long time was Father Edward Waters’s words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.

Mississippi Shanty

he even tried to give his son-in-law a four-plex (apartment house) free: can you believe that: free: but, out of laziness, spite and pride, he refused it, bar, accepted a lesser dwelling, a rough wooden hut, a shanty, on the levee along the Mississippi: one he would not have to collect rent from its tenants, for there would be no tenants nor would he have to cut the grass: the lazy sonofabitch. The old man never argued it was or it wasn’t to be; perplexed he was, but notwithstanding, he let well enough alone: lest he cause trouble for his grand kids, and he wanted them to have a smooth upbringing. You only get so many breaks in a life time, if you pass them up, well, that is that, and then don’t expect another.

He’d believe in asking a man twice the same thing, a man says no, is a man’s no. As well as is his yes, a yes, mans yes. If pride is in the way, then again it is his concern to deal with it: to go look for integrity: once found, he than can move on; once more it is a mans duty to deal with it learn about stupid pride vs. God’s good pride, not to boast it, to make it a pedigree and part of his personality, it was to be distinguished like a disastrous fire. If he couldn’t put it out, then he’d learn the hard way. For is it not so, pride always comes before tragedy, destruction; and so with that person, he’d just get out of the way—and so he did, he did what he believed in

if a person had seen Günter in Rice Park, which was in the middle of the city (in the downtown area of St. Paul, Minnesota), you would have thought he belonged to the new generation coming about. In a city that was as concretive as a Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Church that is. He was part of the fate that was turning the city into a landmark, the one Mark Twain visualized when he had come upriver and stayed a few days in the late l880’s, and had nothing but praise for the remarkable construction projects going on in the city. The old man was a planner, an accomplisher. If he was to give his life: what would he pass on? Perhaps opportunity in some way; a chance for her, and her husband to redeem themselves; what would his daughter become, greater than he; that was never the question, but it would be nice. If he would have continued with his accomplishments would he own the city in another twenty-years, and if so, was this better to pass onto a dead daughter? He knew a live dog was better than a dead lion. Should he live that long, was a question to reckon with. Again, it was never a part of his mind-set, it was him, looking at his life now, seeing he had done all he could, all God had given him, he did: he did it as best he could, would he had done it better: if he could, he would have. It was like the parable, where Jesus gives each man so many gold pieces and tells them to go and make more money with it, and he did just that. He didn’t hide it like one man did, like his son-in-law was doing by not taking the gold he offered, that is, not allowing him to help him by giving him a rental property: to make life easier for his daughter and grandchildren. Should the time come, and come it will, it always doses: should the time come, and all things have their way of coming around the circle of life, it will be a question he will have to answer.

One life, one soul, has the same value as the next person, be it in India, Egypt, or America: so was his way of thinking, the old mans way of deduction. Should a king die and a peasant, what’s the difference if you can’t take nothing with you to the grave; if you got to give up [wakeup] at the gates, all you got at the gates is yourself, your character, your memories: be it at heavens or hell gates: what’s the difference who you are, or were: whatever you got you leave it behind. And so in his watery cell, he was no more than a naked peasant standing at the gates—one of the gates—heavens gates, or ready to stand at the gates, as his body was turning into a soft white cloud of mush, of nothingness, his muscles giving its last once of strength to its cells. What was the big difference was his character that was the core of his soul, his spirit that is what Jesus would look at, he assured himself. That is where it all ended up, when all was said and done: so he believed anyhow. This was all a stage show, that’s all, to see how you performed. Oh, he wasn’t complaining, for it would not be a returned act to perform—thank God, at least a physical one, and he appreciated his creation. But no one ever said it was forever on earth: everyone knows it is time limited. Time like a vapor from a fire, a flicker in the fire, and then it’s all over, that is all he was, he told himself.

‘Graves are for the living, the dead don’t need them,’ he once told someone that, I think his mother told him that, and he repeated it, and he told somebody, but couldn’t remember know who he told for sure. Graves only sit in the cemetery, winter after winter, people walk by, its cold, the leaves fall in autumn, the summer heat burns up the ground, and you know nothing of it. And seldom do people visit you: don’t even walk by your grave stone and glance. And if you are in hell, you could careless who glanced at your grave stone: and if you are in heaven, I doubt you’d want to come visit it again anyhow, what for, leave that old broken body where it lay: leave it where it lay. If you were a ghost, well, that might be another story.

He was a learned man, got his MA at the University of Minnesota; he had studied psychology, a minor in English. But made his money in Real Estate; war took him to Europe, the Great War. As these thoughts went through his third-eye: his minds-eye, he ended up staring ahead of himself, with a dim, soften gaze, a few reflections in the shadows he noticed: yet continued staring, staring, and staring as if in a trance; stillness filled his intent look. His mind was unmoving now, almost, if not already, in a coma: he put his breath on hold, thoughts subsiding, he put his left hand on his cold chest, a tingling came, through him, on his cold-wet chest, around him he now was aware, without seeing around him, he was aware, he now could see ghosts: vibrations filled the light-shadows, his 3rd eye, his brow was awaken to the transparency of life. They were just there, maybe those who had just died, maybe not. Shapes, figures, they had figures and shapes. He told himself, no one would believe me, if I had someone to tell this to: he said to himself. And it wouldn’t matter if they believed him anyway—he told himself. He believed a man was a man who said what he had to say, not what would save his position, not what others wanted him to say. That made the a difference, if not the difference

(Günter—still in the water, now has gone back to his youth, as he sinks to the bottom of the Mississippi River: thinking about growing up in St. Paul, his brother, an old school friend, his old school and home attic; and he remembers Psalm 46: 1-2 ((‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ;”))

See Dennis' books and travels at http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

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