I was getting ready to go be the best man in Budapest when

I had this overwhelming desire to call a former girlfriend

who was expecting her first child. So I did. The phone

rang and she answered. They were just getting home from

the hospital and her husband was still parking the car.

What happened was, the day before they were going to

induce labor, the baby’s heart stopped beating, so she had

to give birth to a dead baby.

Immediately, after the conversation, I called my friend

and he said, “you’re still getting on the plane, aren’t

you?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I need someone else to be me for a

moment.”

My friend paused and said, “Really?”

“Yes.”

“She’s young. She’ll have another.”

He howled down the phone and we agreed that I really am a

monster.

So I got on the plane and sat next to George, on his way

to paint portraits of churches after the death of his wife

and son. Here is where I stray from the facts, since his

daughter hadn’t died with her other brother his wife on

their way to a Thanksgiving celebration and was home

caring for her brain-damaged little brother. And yes,

George really was a Sunday school teacher. I don’t

remember what he did for a living, but it wasn’t selling

insurance. He really did say to me, “my wife died of a

failed liver, but I like to think it was a broken heart.”

He liked me because I was about his son’s age(late

twenties at the time). I related my story about how a

little old lady illegally crossed five lanes of traffic

(the T intersection of Carlton Hills and Mission Gorge)

and set me flying over the hood of her car. I did a full

Judo roll landing, came up on my feet, turned to the woman

and said, “Was that necessary?” True story, I shit you

not.  We talked about life and death and faith for a

couple of hours until I couldn’t stand it anymore, got up

walked to the back of the plane and with the help of a few

other intrepid souls proceeded to empty the plane’s liquor

supply. The opening line was an abbreviated list of what I

consumed on that flight. You could do that back in those

days.
We both had some time waiting for our respective trains(he

really was on his way to paint the one where he and his

wife were married) and we walked away from our luggage to

get some coffee and when we returned, one of his pieces of

luggage had been stolen. Mine was untouched.

From there I took the train from the Frankfurt airport to

Buhadpest and found myself on the way to one of Europe’s

more infamous attractions. Everyone in my cabin assumed

that as an American, I had some other agenda than a

wedding.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “we are on the actual tracks they

were on.”
“Well,” one of them replied, “Of course many of the tracks

were destroyed during the war and things grow old and are

replaced, but I am sure some are still the same.”
They debated among themselves if this was likely and the

general consensus was that it was not.
“Let me rephrase that,” I said, “we are on the same route

they took.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “that hasn’t changed. This is

wonderful. You Americans make a tourist attraction of it

for some reason. And now that you know, will you get off

like the others and go see this place? What do you think

now that you know?”
“First,” I said, “I am an American by choice, I’m English

by birth. And I used to live with the grand daughter of a

survivor. Don’t know if it was Bucharest or not.”
“Unlikely, unless her grandmother was very beautiful.”
I looked out the window, watched the country side and

thought about how I felt about it.
“Well,” I said, “at least they had a nice view.”

After the wedding I stayed on for a few days and

eventually relocated to a tourist hotel. Much to my

amazement the bride’s father knew exactly where I was

staying. I was impressed.
“He didn’t want to tell you,” his daughter said, “but this

building used to be Nazi headquarters. No one but the

tourists will stay there.”
“There is something sadly appropriate about my finding

this place.”
“Yes,” she said, “until one gets to know you, it is easy

to mistake you for a Nazi. For someone who doesn’t believe

in fate, you sure do get a lot of it.”
And so it was, I stayed at Nazi headquarters.

When I returned to the united states, I took a writing

class to shop my novel and was handed the assignment of

writing a play based on two people on an airplane

discussing life and death.
I wrote a piece based on the conversation between George

and myself. I couldn’t get the giving birth to a dead baby or the thought of laying there, constantly being prayed over by

Christians, out of my head.  It was full of compassion and human sympathy.
“What,” my other friend said, “is this shit? Have you lost

your mind? No one cares what you think. Wait a minute.

Someone actually said to you, “My wife died of a failed

liver, but I like to think it was a broken heart,” and you

didn’t laugh in their fucking face? What’s wrong with you?

Go back and rewrite it the way you really talk.
So I did.