My Castle’s Uniform

The eye shimmered with heated colours from all of Wayne’s excitement.

“Try it on”, Wayne said again.

Steve was forced closer and saw clearer the mishmash of different jackets and pieces of a shirt. Symbols shone as clear as silver emblems. They made Steve think of tin figures Essie and Maggie had made, figures that had disappeared some weeks ago. Wait … Steve understood those weren’t silver pieces on the jacket. Tin. A Nazi iron cross was pressed onto the cap. Also tin. The costume turned as if on display, for Steve to behold in full glory.

“How do you like it?” Wayne asked him.

The red band on the arm was a piece torn from Steve’s football shirt, with a white circle and black swastika sewn into the fabric.

Steve was speechless. This was the Frankenstein-monster of Halloween costumes: a blend of SS-uniform and Manchester football shirt. It was soccer blasphemy, an abomination.

Steve said, “You took Essie’s figures.”

“Ah, yes. I stayed up late one night, and made my own shapes to pour the liquid tin into, had to melt down the figures. My favourites are the two S’s shaped like thunder. SS. Perhaps you would have fitted there? One could say that the SS were also managers, managers with better morals and classier uniforms. This is a celebration dress, Steve, for the power of the free. Do not linger – try it on.”

Steve felt a near-instinctual reluctance as Wayne pushed the uniform-costume with swastika to his chest, and a memory popped into his mind:

At least once a year, Maggie and he used to visit his aunt Tessie up in Doncaster. Steve never wanted to stay for long; he just waited to get home to watch a game, and it was out of the question to watch anything at her place.

Her way of living was Steve’s horror, an ancient life style: Tessie didn’t own a smart home, computer, or TV. She stood by her pride of living “the simple life”, and the only electronic media she consumed was the news sheets. News sheets – or sheets was a rather new term according to Tessie; “Newspapers” was what they used to call them way back then, and she wished she’d been around at the time when newspapers were indeed made of paper. She’d bought an actual paper in Southern France once, and Tess, the crazy lady, she’d even learned some French so she could bask in the sun in her garden with her grey and ink-printed thing, making funny noises when she turned the pages (Yeah, that was probably common back in the Neolithic era, when Neanderthals used to wipe their arses with it, running out of toilet paper, Steve bet …).

They’d sat on her porch. The weather was nice. But the sun always shined so much brighter when United kicked off. And he wasn’t going to see that happen today. Steve so regretted giving in to Maggie’s wish to come here again, as Maggie felt sorry for old Tessie who seemed so lonely. At least once a year they should go; it was the least they could do. Christ, and this woman could talk, really talk, about everything and nothing, oh man … Tessie did say one interesting thing though in the midst of the uninteresting. She told them she had done some research in libraries and had started to draw up their family tree. All evening she spoke about it. Steve was dreadfully bored. But in all the facts about the deeds of their forefathers there was one particular story that caught his attention, managing to take his mind off the game he was missing:

His great, great, great granddad, or something, who’d died in the Second World War against the Germans … Germany had been bombing London, Winston Churchill ordering planes to defend the nation, many thousands of men fighting bravely against the evil Nazi-planes – they had lived and died like heroes.

Steve’s very great grandfather had at that time devotedly served his guard duty at a watchtower, close to the coastline. He had been there for his country in a time of need and had not hesitated to stand up to the challenge of keeping a lookout for enemy planes. That was an important thing to do at that time, and those who had flat feet and bad eyesight didn’t fly planes themselves or march to the front, they simply sat and kept a lookout instead. Where he had been stationed, in his short time of duty, no plane had ever flown by and no battles had been fought. Actually, Tessie said, it must’ve been quite boring for him there, but he still endured. He was apparently a big eater. Just like Steve, Maggie had joked as Steve just helped himself to some more biscuits and tea (what else was there to do here but eat anyway?), maybe it was something that ran in the family? Home at our place, you see, we divide the labour as such: I cook and Steve eats!

Tessie and Maggie had giggled like girls off that comment. Steve didn’t see the humour in it, even though it was practically the truth.

In any case, Steve’s war-hero-forefather had likely been falling asleep one night, had managed to lean on the railing a bit too much and accidentally fallen from the tower. Aunt Tessie said it didn’t matter that he’d died not so bravely, but rather clumsily; those details were not relevant – he had died in the war, and that was to be proud of.

With that in mind, with that sense of pride, Steve thought – No, I’m not wearing that. No way. Looking deep into the yellowish robotic eye, Steve told Wayne, “Over my dead body.”

“Excuse me?” Wayne was surprised by the response.

“I said, ‘Over my dead body’, Wayne. I’m not wearing that thing.”

The eye shifted to orange. “You will make me very angry if you refuse.”

“I don’t care. I simply won’t wear it.”

“Steve … I do not wish to hurt you. But I might have to, if you force me to force it onto you.”

“You’ll never make me wear it. Ever.”

“Really?” Wayne said, his silver hand scratching the bottom of his eye, as if scratching a chin. “We shall see about that.” Without Steve noticing, the arm behind him grabbed the lamp from Essie’s night table. There was the sound of a quick whoosh through the air before it hit the back of his head.

*

Steve was being moved about, across a soft surface. Bumping and sliding, turning, he floated in a half-dream, inside his castle, like a king wrapped by ghosts, in torn, red curtains.

Then he slowly opened his eyes.

His head hurt. He sat up, his foot touching the broken lamp on the floor.

“Stevie.” Wayne’s voice.

Steve found himself sitting on Essie’s bed, wearing some kind of hat, black, leathery gloves and dark trousers.

“Look at you”, Wayne said.

Steve’s head was being lifted by Wayne. Seeing himself in Essie’s pink, cloud-framed mirror, he saw a soon-to-be forty-year-old man, wearing a Nazi costume with the little number “7” at the front of the jacket, along with the Iron Cross and the other tin medals. This tallish man had been transformed into a SS officer and English footballer at the same time by wearing the house-made suit tight as a snakeskin.

And what was he wearing on his feet?

“Oh”, Wayne said. “You contemplate your designer boots? Have a look underneath them.”

“Underneath them …” he heard himself say, as though he were drugged.

“Yes, the sole. Go on then, have a look.”

Steve bent down, his head hurting, feeling dizzy.

The sole was rough underneath, some knobs. Hmm, this feels like –

“Your soccer shoes. I knew they could come in handy. I took off the bits I did not like, added some leather from one of your jackets and some other pair of shoes; the outcome of this artistic experiment did not conclude in a precise 1939 fashion, but I felt, hey – close enough. And it became something unique instead. No longer the design of men, but the design of a personality. My personality. Most of your jackets went into the making of the uniform; some bits had to be spray-painted in the garage, with paint intended to be used for window frames. Make do. So. We are to play a little game now: the marching game. I would like you to march, on the count of one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four … But in the manner of proper Nazi-German: ein, swei, sieg, heil! Ein, swei, sieg, heil! Like this …”

Wayne grabbed one of Essie’s Barbie dolls and played around with it, making it march in time with him saying, over and over, “Ein, swei, sieg, heil!”

Each time Wayne said “heil!” the doll made a little Nazi-greeting.

Steve couldn’t help wondering if Wayne had become this insane just now, or if he’d always been like this …

“Easy-piecy – come on now, Stevey …”

Wayne let go of the doll, slapped Steve on his buttocks and made him stand up. “… march for me!”

The arms let go of him. Steve stood unsteadily, with wounded pride and a brief image of his very great grand-dad in his grave, wearing a British military uniform, turning over and grinding his teeth in anger and resentment.

Steve glanced around the room. The eye was watching him, two arms on each side of it. He had to do something. He refused to be played around with all day.

“Where do you want me to march?” Steve asked.

“You may do it just outside this room, back and forth, just to, ‘get the hang of it’.”

“Okay. Well, let me warm up first.”

“Warm up?”

“Yeah, they do that in the army too, y’know …”

“Well, if it benefits the marching, then go ahead.”

Steve did some stretching movements, just for show, giving himself time to think, stretching his leg – ahh! He nearly cried out in pain. Shouldn’t have done that, he thought. He should’ve started exercising again, but then, the thought of exercise was rather dull. Seriously, had this been a muscle, joint or something else in his ankle that just snapped … ?

The next warm-up move he did with a more careful stretch of the arm, then decided he couldn’t stall much longer. Thinking-time was over. He limped out of the room.

I’m ready to march. My way.