Ode to a friend

Excerpt from my memoir about a friend with a home much like mine.  I met him in the 6th grade.

When I Was German is available on Amazon and Smashwords:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FM254KM

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LakeValleyRoad

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            Andrew was the friend who understood.

                        Andrew’s mother came from Germany, too.  She was younger than my mother, but she remembered the war.  She was from the other end of Germany, from Hannover, in the far north.  A Prussian, my mother said, even though Andrew’s mother wasn’t really a Prussian.  Bavarians called all northerners Prussians.  Andrew’s mother sounded more German than my mother.  She sounded so German it was funny.  She laughed about it too.  She couldn’t say Chicken.  Instead she said Shicken.  And then she laughed.  She didn’t care.

                        Andrew’s mother lost her father in the war, too.  He went down in a boat that was sunk on its way to Africa.  He was going to fight in the Afrika Korps, but he never made it.  Instead of drowning in sand and dust, he drowned in water and salt.

                        Andrew understood, because he was German, like me

                        Andrew’s father was also No Good.  He drank a lot of booze and was drunk a lot.  He was from Yugoslavia, a Slav, like my old man the Russian.  He fled from Tito, he washed dishes in Italy and Paris and then he came to America.  He got Andrew’s mother pregnant and then he married her.  Andrew’s parents fought all the time.  His father wrecked the house, he wrecked cars, and he wrecked his jobs.  Andrew’s father did construction for a living.  He was young and he still worked, he wasn’t a lazy bum like my old man, but even though he worked he was still No Good.  He got drunk and ruined his work; people wouldn’t pay him and there was no money coming into their house.  Andrew’s mother had to go out and get a job.  Andrew’s father was a very smart man, though; he studied medicine in Yugoslavia but he had to flee the country.  He couldn’t get into school in America, so he had to fix houses and paint them to support his family.  He did a good job, too, when he was sober.  But he was miserable thinking he could have been a doctor.  He couldn’t stop drinking and wrecking everything.  He hit Andrew’s mother and he hit Andrew too.  He didn’t hit Andrew’s little brother Matt, because Matt was his favorite.

                        Andrew was German.  His mother lived through the bombs and the raids.  His father was No Good.  There was screaming and fighting in his house all the time.  They had no money, they had very little food and couldn’t afford heat in the winter.

                        Andrew understood.

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