Hogan's Heroes
by Grant Young
Things have not been going well for me. I was laid off my job and I am nearing the end of my unemployment benefits. It really knocks the wind out you when you are laid off. At first I had "pounded the pavement" looking for work, but after four months I could see the economy was still bottoming out and I had no chance of finding any job. Now I just stay in my apartment and watch Television every day, all day. I keep the drapes drawn shut making my living room dark as a tomb as I sit mesmerized by reruns of Hogan's Heroes. Those clever prisoners of war sure could pull the wool over their German captors. I particularly liked Colonel Hogan's ability to make Colonel Klink look like an idiot.
"That's not how it happened."
I ignored the voice coming from the side of the room. Lately I had been hearing voices and intended to complain to the manager about neighbors talking too loudly. This voice was familiar. I wondered if my brother was coming up the outside stairs while talking too loudly. I listened for the knock at the door which never came.
"None of these guys fought in WWII."
"What?" I said nervously as I looked around to see who was talking.
"A lot of these guys were Jews who fled Germany."
"What are you talking about?" I shouted as I leapt to my feet.
"Robert Clary who plays Corporal LeBeau was sent to Buchenwald with 12 other members of his family in 1942 because they were Jewish. Clary was the only survivor. Werner Klemperer, who played Colonel Klink, and his family were Jews who fled the Nazis in 1942. John Banner, who played the lovable Sergeant Schultz was born to a Jewish family in Vienna and fortunately was in Switzerland when the Nazis annexed Austria so he wasn't sent to a death camp. Leon Askin, who played General Burkhalter, was also born to a Jewish family in Vienna and fled the Nazi in 1940. His parents were not so lucky and were killed at the Treblinka extermination camp."
Have I completely gone of my rocker? Who or what was talking to me remained hidden. As I looked around the room I saw a shadowy figure grinning back at me. He was sitting in a room that extended out of my apartment, as if the laws of physics had been suspended.
"Now let's look at this logically. Sergeant Kinchloe played by Ivan Dixon was black. There were no blacks serving in combat units during WWII. And Bob Crane was in high school during WWII."
I listened as the shadowy figure went through his laundry list of reasons why Hogan's Heroes was improbable. When you watch a movie or television you have to suspend disbelief in order to buy into the story being told. When you watch television 18 hours a day you give up disbelief altogether. Nothing is real but what the one eyed monster tells you is real. This new tenant in my apartment was telling me that the television was lying to me. My TV was all I had. It was becoming my best friend, mentor and because I had the adult channel it was becoming my lover. Even though I was subsisting on food pantry Peanut butter and tomato soup I was warm and secure in my apartment. I could look out into the world anytime I wanted by switching on CNN. Who cares what the local weather is when you never go outside. And I had my friends, LeBeau, Kinchloe, and Newkirk to keep me company.
"It's not real and you know it."
"SHUT UP! You're the one who is not real. You're the liar. You're the one trying to ruin everything."
The day's last episode of Hogan's Heroes was coming to an end but sleep eluded me. I considered watching reruns of Gilligan's Island but images of Ginger and Mary Ann would be too arousing. I could watch Fox News and see what the new lunatic fringe was up to but that usually shot my blood pressure up.
"You could go outside."
Yeah, that's it. I could go outside. Outside I would see... nothing. There was nothing for me anymore in the "real world". Outside was death by separation from my beloved Television set.
"Hey, just who the hell do you think you are telling me I can go outside?"
I looked around the room and saw no one. Flicking on the light I saw myself in the huge mirror tiled wall to my right. In the mirror was my doppelganger telling me how to live my life. He was grinning at me. Snickering at me. And finally he was laughing out loud, holding his belly as he pointed at me. I threw my boot and the mirrors shattered into a thousand razor sharp pieces. Something in my mind also shattered. It was as if the mirror was a blue print for my mind that caused me to be stuck in this homemade hell.
"Are you still there?"
This time the voice was coming from me. I was alone in my living room. Very alone. Suddenly it felt like it was time to go outside so I walked down to the coffee shop on the corner. Everyone was eating and talking and acting out their life's dramas. I realized that they were all two dimensional, like the characters on Hogan's Heroes. They could not clearly see one another. It was as if each person was a television screen playing a different show. Whether it be a drama, or a sit-com, or the news, everyone was merely parroting reality. Inside my mind a scream started to build until it erupted like a volcano.
"JUST SMASH THE MIRROR!"
Like an episode of the Twilight Zone everyone stopped talking, turned and looked at me, then turned back to their conversations without missing a beat. I could only smash my own mirror.
Grant continues to write stories from the tall corn of Iowa while dreaming of escaping the heat and the snow and taking up residence in a tropical paradise. Contact Grant.
