alias Kraut a Braji Short Tale

alias: Kraut

  A Braji Short Tail Tale

  P.S. Wright

  Copyright 2011 P.S. Wright

  .

  He hated that line on the forms. It was a simple question. It was an insulting question. It glared at him and dared him to answer honestly. The first question on every form... Name: Kraut. Actually Spigoli. Technically, Waldheim. Maybe someday, Kraut Parsonoczo. But legally it was John Doe. And it galled him.

  The sixteen year old scrubbed at his fresh crew cut and shifted his feet. He wanted to appear comfortable and confident in his new brown suit. Kraut saw it in the eyes of the social worker whose case was docketed just after his...he looked like a skin head. Him! He rubbed the small tattoo on his right hand and wiped sweat on his pants leg.

  The Judge seemed bored. Maybe, Kraut thought, he remembered the last couple times they had appeared in family court. "You want to be called what?"

  "Kraut."

  The judge squinted and tugged at his lip. He glared at the blonde boy with the Goodwill suit. "Kraut Doe?"

  "No. Just Kraut." A line of sweat tickled his back as it ran to join the spreading stain at his waist line.

  The judge looked at Pappy. Pappy gazed back coolly. "Like just Madonna, just Cher?"

  Kraut felt the heat spreading over his face. "Yes." But he meant no. He wanted to say he did not want to change who he was. He wanted others to recognize who he was. A scream built up in his chest and threatened to burst from his throat. He felt the muscles in his legs bunching in preparation to run. As long as Pappy stayed, Kraut could remain and not make jokes, or pretend drunkenness, or, or...scream.

  The judge tapped his pencil.

  His friend Davey was in the hall. They played in the hall, running Davey's Tonka trucks along the sick green wallpaper and four-wheeling down the squeaky stairs. It was cold in the hall without his jacket. But momma would beat him again if he came back in too early. He always ran and played loudly which David's grandfather disapproved of. When he ran, he felt warmer. When he yelled, he could not hear momma and her visitor. Anonymous doors ran the length of the hallway, one after another, like soldiers on parade. Nobody bothered to put numbers or names or cute little welcome signs on the doors on the Jewish side of town. Mostly people knew where everybody lived, and those that did not had no business there. The social workers, narcs, shakedown men, insurance peddlers who sold fear...the bare and paint peeling doors did not welcome them. The monster trucks crashed down the stairs and bumped a box belonging to the new tenant.

  Davey was always hesitant; he held back. But his friend saw no reason not to enter. The door propped with a box was his invitation. He knew Davey would shadow him into the apartment so ignored his whining.

  A row of green and red lights, flickering needles and shiny knobs and buttons called out to Davey from behind the glass door of the stereo stand. But next to it a glass topped table, covered with chocolate crumbs surrounding an open package of Oreos, drew his complete attention.

  He pushed the whole cookies into his mouth, though he was already gagging on them. Unable to cram another in, he took a double handful and more in between so that he was forced to hold them to his chest to retain them. This left him no means to get the morsels to his mouth, even if he could chew those already there. He had just decided to attempt swallowing the cookies whole when a man's strong voice thundered in his ears.

  He discovered the physiological fact that two, on and one-half inch diameter cookies will not simultaneously slide through the gullet of a young child. But they will fit neatly into the opening of his trachea and there form a vacuum plug. It was several "Who do you think you are?" and "Who told you...?" later that the man noticed an odd blue tint to the little boy's cheeks.

  With his one strong arm Jack Parsonoczo bent the child over and whacked him soundly on the back. A brown lump of former Oreo cookie, gooey and slobber covered, dropped at their feet. Laughing, the neighbor slapped him again on the back, this time gentler. "If you're gonna break into my apartment, play my stereo, with too much bass by the way, and eat my cookies, you gotta at least tell me your names."

  He wiped his mouth and shrugged.

  "I'm David Gabriel Sharpe." Davey shouldered between them, stuck out his hand, and tried to look grown-up and not at all scared out of his wits and ready to pee his pants.

  "And you are?"

  A heart beat's hesitation. "David Gabriel."

  "Uh-huh. You're David Gabriel. And you're David Gabriel. Okay, what do they call you hellions? Got a nick-name or something?"

  "Davey."

  "Davey."

  "Uh-huh. Well tell you what. From now on, you're the Jew-boy. And you," He pointed to the blue-eyed, blonde boy who was busy licking crumbs from his fingers. "I'm gonna call Kraut."

  The boys looked at each other and back to the man. Kraut grinned.

  The judged drummed his fingers on the papers stacked in front of him. "There's a birth certificate here that says your name is Karl Ernst Waldheim."

  Kraut's hand went automatically to the scars in his hairline, barely detectable to his calloused fingertips.

  Pappy saved him from answering. "Mr. Waldheim is my foster son's biological father, your honor."

  "So why not keep your real birth name?"

  Kraut opened bleary eyes and realized he had fallen asleep between hearings. His state appointed lawyer pursed his lips in disapproval and indicated the judge with a nod. Kraut squared his shoulders, stood, and stumbled over his own feet. The judge did not look pleased. "If you're through with your acrobatics, can we get on with the hearing?"

  Kraut concentrated on keeping the courtroom vertical in his vision. It was sliding disconcertingly into the diagonal with every movement of his head. His stomach threatened to empty itself on the yellow tile.

  "You have been charged with disturbing the peace, Drinking Under The Age, Burglary..."

  "I was tired. I wasn't stealin' nothin'."

  "Not to mention scaring that old man nearly to death. You have also been charged with Carrying a Concealed Weapon..."

  "It was a pry bar. I used it to open the window."

  "If you interrupt these proceedings one more time, you will be held in Contempt of Court, young man."

  "Eat me."

  The judge remained remarkably calm. In retrospect Kraut thought the judge had probably dealt with annoying and disrespectful drunks hundreds of times. In a small town the judge heard juvenile cases, small claims, traffic... it all came across his desk sooner or later.