20/09/2009 Image – The House & The Stream » »

Heroes and Men

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 19/09/09

The boy sat on the blue carpet of his bedroom, in the midst of scattered toys that spread from wall to wall. He moved quickly in different directions, crawling, leaning, stretching to retrieve exactly the figures he wanted from the array. Immediately in front of him he created a phalanx of those he declared villains for the day — the transformer Optimus Prime with guns blazing, a mad-looking Joker from Batman: The Animated Series, the classic Universal Wolfman and Mummy, a Jawa from Star Wars and Angela from the comic book Spawn. He hesitated a moment, surveyed his collection heaped in concentric circles around him, and then rose to his hands and knees to reach a small, silver replica of the Terminator.

He thought about who would be his champions in this fight. One of the Ninja Turtles, a Ghostbuster — possibly Ray, Batman, Luke Skywalker, and Spider-Man.

It was a September Saturday afternoon, and the sunlight glowed through the white cotton curtains that billowed in the breezes wafting through an open window.

The boy glanced up, and froze, as he saw the chiseled face and figure of his grandfather standing motionless like a stone statue, studying him from the hallway just outside his door.

***

Henry Marks thanked the bartender for the bowl of ice. He slid his swollen, scraped, and bloody right hand into the midst of the barrel-shaped cubes.

“Another fight, eh?” Lonnie asked rhetorically, as he wiped up the counter and checked on the progress of a waitress who had paused at a booth filled with loud and drunk young men in the far corner of the room.

Lonnie was a massive man in his thirties. His distant past was a mystery, but he had been co-owner and bartender of this neighborhood pub in the territory of Northeast Philly for over ten years. He was known as fair and perceptive, and something of an idealist. He wore a different superhero T-shirt every day. At the moment it was Daredevil.

Henry Marks slouched a bit, and sipped his rare Żubrówka vodka using his left hand. He grimaced slightly, gazing at his short glass.

“You’re the only one who drinks that. Glad you pay for it, too, ’cause it costs a fortune. ‘Infused’ with fuckin’ what now?”

Henry grinned. They’d had this conversation before. “Buffalo grass. From the Białowieża Forest, once part of eastern Poland, now divided between Poland and Belarus. My grandfather introduced it to me. It was one of the forests he fought in, as a partisan during World War II.” At the thought of his grandfather, Henry felt a stab of pride and pain. He lowered his head.

Lonnie knew to step away at this point, down to the opposite end of the bar where he took an order from another patron. He briefly looked over his shoulder and focused on the mirror lining the wall opposite the customers’ stools. He gazed at the reflection of Henry Marks. A psycho or a hero, Lonnie thought, not for the first time.

***

The boy moved back on his heels, feeling overwhelmed as the giant figure of his grandfather moved towards him, scattering toys with his shoes as if they were autumn leaves. The man was unusually strong and physically fit, dressed in casual slacks and a button-down shirt. He was tall with tan skin. His thick shock of red hair had almost turned completely white. His brilliant blue eyes were like beams of light.

The man said nothing as he towered over the boy, who craned his neck upwards, swallowed once, and waited.

But then, the man’s demeanor softened and relaxed. He smiled with affection for his grandson. He moved some more of the action figures out of his way — taking care not to disturb the small collection that the boy had so carefully arranged — and sat down on the floor, cross-legged, as if he were in his teens and not in his mid-sixties. “Henry,” he said, “What are these things? Why do you play like this?”

Ten-year-old Henry shook his head, feeling confused, but not afraid. In fact, a little bubble of joy was dancing around in his chest as he realized his grandfather, Simcha Marks, had singled him out for attention, and was speaking to him and him alone.

***

Henry Marks finished his drink, set down the glass, and stared at the bottle with the rust-colored bison on the label that sat in front of him. He shook his head to indicate he was done, and Lonnie could put the Żubrówka back on the shelf. He carefully removed his hand from the ice — it hurt a bit, but the swelling had gone down. It was possible he got away this time without breaking any bones. He reflexively caught a glimpse of his face and torso in the mirror; once boyish features were roughened and uneven, shaped by years of violence and uncertainty.

“Are you staying in Philly?” Lonnie asked, having slipped back to retrieve Henry’s favorite vodka and put it up.

“No, moving on tonight, to my home territory in New Jersey, then on to New York,” Henry answered, drawing in a deep breath, straightening his shoulders, and exhaling slowly as if meditating.

An expression of worry and alarm flashed across Lonnie’s face, before he could take on that mask of cool and unflappable disinterest again. “That’s tough territory,” he said. “Hope you can make it back.”

Henry smiled. His gem-like blue eyes gleamed, filled with a dream, a dream of heroes and courage. “You know, Lon, I have my granddad’s luck. They can’t hurt me … too much….” he added, flexing his right fingers.

“Some would say you’re just a crazy vigilante,” Lonnie said like a joke, because he knew the drill, and knew the way of it, and understood most superheroes were never appreciated by the authorities.

***

The boy tried to answer his grandfather, tried to say something that would make sense. “They’re not just toys, Grandpa,” he said. “These are heroes and those are the bad guys….”

“When I was not much older than you, I didn’t have a toy robot with a gun, I was using an MP 40 submachine gun that I was lucky enough to find on a dead Nazi soldier. I was condemned to death in a ghetto called Nowogrodek, in Poland, and I escaped when everyone else in my family was lined up and shot. I was like you, I knew nothing. I was a pampered little boy living a good life. But I escaped into the woods, the Zabielovo and Perelaz Forests. I lived in other forests, too. I almost died but I was strong, and had the luck, and I survived. I joined others who had also escaped, Jews and gentiles alike, and we saved people from certain death, we fought evil. We did bad things too — we had to take supplies from innocent peasants and farmers in order to live. But we were heroes.” Simcha Marks stopped, his eyes locked on those of his young grandson, eyes that were his eyes born again.

Henry had never heard any of this before. “Grandpa, did all that really happen to you?” was all he could think to say.

Simcha Marks seemed to deflate, his body slumping under the burden of his memories, but his face retained a pleasant and kind expression as he regarded Henry. He reached out a hand and tousled the boy’s auburn hair. “I haven’t talked about it much,” he said. “I met your grandmother after the war, after I escaped from the Soviet army and found my way to the American Zone in Germany. Your father was born in a Displaced Persons’ camp, but we were all able to move here, to the United States of America soon after that.”

Henry looked at the diminutive plastic Batman and Spider-Man, Luke Skywalker and Raphael he had gathered in a pile beside him. He returned his attention to his grandfather.

The man said, “This will be our secret. I know a lot of things. I will teach you everything I know. There is a way to fight — we who survived the camps and the forests, we invented a special way to fight, and I will instruct you. I want you to remember, I want you to never forget, anywhere you are, everywhere you go — do not let injustice go unchallenged, do not let the bullies win….”

***

Henry Marks slipped off his seat with an easy grace. He stood over six feet tall, with a muscular physique. He wore battered jeans, and an oversized, stained gray jacket that he now zipped up for his encounter with a late-fall storm outside. He nodded at Lonnie, who retrieved Henry’s semiautomatic pistol and pack from behind the counter and handed these back to their owner. Henry quickly hid the weapon in a concealed holster, and slung the pack on his shoulders. He then saluted Lonnie, and the latter dipped his head once in farewell.

Henry walked past the small tables and chairs on his way to the exit. He continued to think about his grandfather, from whom he had learned so much. Whether or not the old man was a hero with extraordinary abilities, age had taken its toll and his luck had finally run out.

Henry pushed open the glass door; chilling rain and sharp sleet hit him in the face. As he stepped out into the darkness, his memories flashed-back to the night six years before when his grandfather — over eighty years old — came to the defense of a young man they found staggering down an alley, chased by three gangbangers. Henry had never seen anyone fight as hard as his elderly grandfather fought that night. Henry himself had tried desperately to protect and defend both the old man and the young victim, but in moments Simcha Marks lay beaten bloody and lifeless on the cold cement. It took only minutes after that for Henry to crush the skulls of his grandfather’s murderers.

The police, the district attorney, a grand jury, called him a killer. He hadn’t waited around for the trial.

Henry walked with his hands in his jacket pockets, the collar pulled up over his chin. The wind felt like icy sandpaper through his worn and dirty clothing. He tamped down the grief that still plagued him, and gathered up his anger. He had work to do, and a world of bad guys waiting for him.

***

The boy watched his grandfather rise smoothly to his feet. The man reached out his right hand, and young Henry lifted his own to grasp his grandfather’s fingers. He felt himself pulled up to standing. “Remember, not a word to anyone concerning what I have told you,” his grandfather said.

Henry said, “Okay, I promise,” and the man clasped each of the boy’s shoulders as if giving him a blessing. The boy then ventured, his voice almost a whisper, “But can I still play with my toys?”

Simcha Marks chuckled deep in his chest, the closest he ever got to laughter. “Play with them as long as you need to play, but there will come a time when you will have to put away your toys, and fulfill your destiny.” And he turned and carefully strode from the room, not looking down but not stepping on a single Transformer, Lego, model car, or plastic superhero.