Maggots and Milk

Maggots and Milk

Aisle four of the Piggly Wiggly was the least likely place for a flashback, but it happened just the same. While Henry browsed the colorful shelved foods and sundries, his motorized cart, with all its bells and whistles, died. Confident his doting daughter, shopping somewhere in the store, would eventually come looking for him, he had no choice but to wait.

Henry found himself simply content to be free of his apartment's confines. His daughter was a godsend since her beloved mother had passed, but a man Henry’s age had to be able to go it alone sometimes. He glanced down at the items in the metal basket fastened to the cart: prune juice, a frozen Salisbury steak dinner, boxed spaghetti, and three yellow bananas. He’d long since worn out the joke about not buying green bananas for fear he wouldn’t live long enough to eat them.

Henry had to chuckle, realizing the one ingredient missing for his best chance of survival was water. A person could only go a couple of days without water. He recognized once again that the worst part of getting old wasn’t losing his mind or his ability to do certain innate tasks. What he feared most of all, besides losing his daughter, was losing his freedom.

He leaned back on the headrest and lazily glanced along shelves chock-full of all sorts of things he’d never heard of. It astounded him how much had changed in his 95 rotations around the sun. Despite such progress, Henry remained grateful for the familiar. He was comforted by those few brand labels, as they appeared exactly as they had when he was just a child. His gaze eventually settled on a lone can of condensed milk with its all-too-familiar red, white, and blue original label, which read "Carnation."

There was no time to ponder why all the reminiscences Henry held so dear slowly seeped from his grasp, while the nightmares from his past he was so very desperate to leave behind engulfed him. Memories flooded over him with such force that his inner world drained of color, turning sepia and bitter cold. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and he saw his own ragged breath of condensation.

Henry was no longer in aisle four of Piggly Wiggly. He was across the deep, unforgiving Atlantic, over those blood-stained beaches and vast mossy fields, where bodies of his mislaid comrades decomposed alongside buried barbed-wired fencing, rusted rifle casings, and bomber parts. He was enveloped by an all-too-familiar smell of decay, sweat, and his own terror. Even after all this time, a war still raged on within him.

****

Winter, 1944, Nazi Germany: Henry was in the throes of a prison camp. His beloved B-17, Priority Gal, had been shot down and was already buried in some mountainside in Austria. After 33 combat missions in and out of Germany, and a year of imprisonment in Stalag Luft III, he no longer resembled a distinguished bomber pilot just one mission shy of going home, the handsome, pink-cheeked young’un he once was.

Beaten down physically and emotionally over the course of his internment, he went from the owner of a tall, chiseled physique to that of a limping, reedy teenager. At just 26, his face looked cored; the once smooth skin was etched with daily consternation. There was a constant ache in his gut, and his ribs jutted from his flanks like window blinds. Yet, it didn’t deter the lice that festered and feasted on his flesh. Henry came to understand and somehow accept the idea of survival of the fittest from a vermin’s viewpoint.

The occasional rations they received from the Nazis were dried or rehydrated with little sustenance or taste. As time dragged forward, trying not to starve to death or die from dysentery became Henry’s top priorities. In this world of war, food trumped money, every single time.

Experiencing joy in prison camp was like finding a pin in a haystack of needles. The Nazis took away all their rights and occasionally gave an iota back as a rare privilege. Once every few months, each compound received a couple of gallon drums of soup meant to feed more than 100 men. A hot meal was a real indulgence, and they added equal amounts of water to ensure everyone was fed. The aroma of boiling soup filled the air on those fortunate days, driving starving prisoners to near frenzy. Hunger aside, each spoonful of soup and noodles was savored through moans of pleasure. They wanted the experience to last, but they knew it wouldn’t.

The first time Henry was offered soup in prison, the warm broth nearly brought him to tears. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d eaten anything with flavor. At the time, several of the newbie prisoners, including Henry, were seated amongst the seasoned prisoners in the open area of the barrack where the soup boiled on a makeshift stove.

While Henry sipped his very first tin of soup, a couple of British prisoners, Cambridge University grads, were having a hushed conversation over their soup. The mumblings grew louder, and whispers spread amongst the crowd. All attention focused on the soup when one of the Brits, who had been studying entomology at university before the war, was sufficiently educated to identify the noodles as having not only two black specks on one end but also hair-like appendages along the sides. Upon closer examination, the scholar’s classification was indeed correct; the tiny white noodles were maggots.

“It’s protein, eat it, it’s good for you,” said the academic, and he slurped what was left of his soup. “Melted snow gives it a salty taste; you won’t even know the difference.”

Another seasoned Brit yelled, “I thought it was chicken!” This was followed by uproarious laughter.

After a slight hesitation, the newbies followed suit and resumed their conversations. No one ever discarded their soup, nor were there any leftovers. It went without saying that if they ever made it out alive, none of them would eat soup again without closely checking whether the noodles had eyes.

Soup was a distant memory when, during a mid-December blizzard, the door to Henry’s barracks swung open, and a Nazi soldier held a gun to his head and shouted, “Weitergehen!”

Henry was aware it meant move, but where he was being taken in two feet of snow was terrifying. With the prison camp just downwind from Dachau, captives didn’t need much imagination to wonder if their own extermination was next on Hitler’s agenda. It had been rumored that all American airmen, upon capture, were to be shot to death on the spot. Although Henry hadn’t personally witnessed anything of that sort, as the Russians pushed westward, there was no predicting what a loyal German SS soldier would do to earn Hitler’s favor.

There was only one explanation for him being singled out. When Henry was first captured a year prior, there was a three-inch piece of flak that found a weak seam in his bomber and had embedded itself deep in his right knee, which he knew to leave be, as it served as a cork of sorts. His SS interrogator claimed to be a taxi driver from Chicago but returned to his homeland of Germany to fight for Hitler. He planned to return to the US after the war, then nonchalantly and without preamble, yanked the flak from Henry’s knee and, for some odd reason, dropped it into Henry’s flight suit pocket, patted it, and said it was a souvenir for when he lost the war. Then, he poured lighter fluid into the wound before sending Henry to solitary confinement to await another day of interrogation.

Henry had hidden that pointed piece of metal as one would a precious gem. It represented his plane, his crew, his limp, his survival, and it thus far had eluded the guards. All he could think as he trudged through the knee-high snow was that someone had found it, and this was it for him, the end of the line. He was a dead man. The fear of the unknown at every turn was the worst part of any war.

Staying a step ahead of the soldier’s gun nudged into his back, they made their way to the headquarters building. The guard shoved Henry into a small inner office. He wiped the snow from his brows and lashes and focused, finding himself amongst a handful of other war-ravaged American prisoners. Much to his surprise, two German officers were distributing American Red Cross packages from the states. From home.

He’d heard of these special deliveries but had yet to be a recipient. A desk in the middle of the room held a few already-opened personal parcels, one of which was for him. With Christmas just ten days away, he had a touch of nostalgia. Even though his package had likely spent months en route, he received it just in time for a morsel of holiday cheer. The Nazis ransacked the parcels in their presence, then with smiles cold as zippers, begrudgingly gave them their leftovers.

Henry’s parcel contained a copy of Life magazine with a picture of President Roosevelt on the cover and a carton of cigarettes, but the guards confiscated them. What remained was his Ma’s homemade cookies, which probably turned to stone during their long journey, a small burlap sack of coffee beans - always a treat, but it was the last food item that felt like pay dirt- and a can of condensed milk.

Henry hadn’t drunk anything but rusty water in over a year, and the thought of coffee with cream caused a pure visceral reaction. He held his breath as the two guards tossed the can back and forth tauntingly. Bored after a few catches, one of the guards dropped the can into the box and shoved the parcel toward Henry. He caught it midair in a move of sheer desperation, to the sound of their jibes.

On his way back to the compound, he ate every crumb of the stale cookies. All the while, he felt the pitiful seduction of the coffee and cream. Somehow, willpower won out, and he decided to save the remaining treasures until Christmas.

In the days that followed, Henry found himself fantasizing about a hot cup of coffee made from real beans, with a splash of sweet milk, as though it was a romantic date with Judy Graland. During the regular roll calls at gunpoint, in the deep snow, even barefoot at three in the morning, the anticipation of coffee with milk warmed his soul and temporarily set aside his absolute hunger for freedom.

When Christmas arrived, there were enough beans to share cups of the hot beverage with several prisoners, but Henry knew the condensed milk wouldn’t go far. He kept the can a secret, to be shared with only a few of his close bunkmates. The four of them huddled over steaming cups of fresh brew, excited about their delicious prospect. The only dilemma was how they’d open the sealed metal can.

Deliberating their options, Henry remembered the hidden shard of shrapnel from his knee. He surreptitiously plucked it from the narrow crevice under his rotted-wood bunk. The shrapnel and a boot heel proved just the tools to puncture two small holes in the can.

All good things must come to an end, and much to Henry’s regret, when the first drops fell into his cup, he saw the liquid wasn’t white but yellow and watery in consistency. The milk had spoiled. They all released a moan of disappointment. Worse for Henry, the turned milk ruined a scarce cup of delicious black coffee. Yet, even as he sighed in utter defeat, he was grateful to have experienced the excitement leading up to that sacred holiday. The small connection with home. That was what captivity did to a person; it made one thankful to exist.

One of his closest bunkmates, an Australian paratrooper, lifted the Carnation can to his nose. Henry waited for his grimace at the sour odor, but instead he said in an eager whisper, “I’ll be damned. Liquid gold! Cheers, mates!” The can didn’t contain sour milk at all; it was filled with moonshine.

They behaved like schoolboys who’d discovered a pin-up magazine in the schoolmaster’s desk. Each sip went down smoothly, warming their raw stomachs. When the can was empty, Henry turned it over to discover a tiny, soldered hole in the bottom.

He knew Pop spent hours perfecting his plan, patiently draining the milky contents through a pinhole, then reversing the process and patiently adding the grain alcohol. Pop had then re-plugged the hole and innocently made his contribution to the parcel, its contents unbeknownst to the Nazi’s - and Ma, of course. Pop knew she’d scold him for including alcohol, but she’d never object to cream for the coffee.

It hadn’t taken much for the four of them to get flushed cheeks and giddy from the drink. More importantly, Henry had survived so many endless nights, existing in sleep’s antechamber of a foggy and hideous reality, but in the late hours on Christmas 1944, total relaxation overtook him, and the deep sleep he experienced was so wholly gratifying that freedom seemed almost possible.

Long after that Christmas Eve, Henry relished the idea that although Pop’s plan was quite risky, it was the exact result his dad had banked on. Henry took personal pride in knowing that back home in a rural coal-mining town in the mountains of Pennsylvania, his Pop had figured out a way to outsmart Hitler.

****

“Dad, wake up! Are you okay? I was so worried. What happened?”

“The darned battery died, Izzy. I didn’t. But while you’re here, can you grab me that can of Carnation milk on the top shelf up there? I’m in the mood for some sweet coffee.”