2020 Gave Me Hitler

Of course 2020 would give me – a liberal Ashkenazi Jew with a Ruth Bader Ginsburg tattoo – the gift of ghost Hitler sitting at the foot of my bed. It’s not like I was expecting a visit from RBG herself, because the woman deserves some damn rest, but I don’t know. I would have gladly greeted a host of other specters taken from us in just this year alone. John Lewis, Chadwick Boseman, hell…I’d take James Lipton just to hear that sexy voice of his again (we all have our kinks). And yet, here we are. A dumpster fire of a man for a dumpster fire of a year.

As I sat up against my headboard and put my glasses on, he stared at me expectantly. If he were a fully-formed human, I might’ve been unnerved by it. But in his translucent spirit state, he seemed fragile, like a piece of tulle that could tear in a light breeze and float away at any moment.

“Vut do you vant to know?” he asked me, waiting.

I took a minute to think. I wasn’t sure how much time I’d have with him, so I didn’t want to take too long to brainstorm. That said, this seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity to either A, get some invaluable insight I could share with the world or B, lay down an epic burn.

I went with option B.

“Who hurt you, sweetie?” I quipped in the same voice that Kristin Wigg uses on Rose Byrne in Bridesmaids, but G.H. (Ghost Hitler) didn’t seem to register the jab. His stoic expression was unchanged.

“Ze pain I’ve experienced in my life pales in comparison to ze pain I’ve caused so many. It is irrelevant.”

I opened my mouth, about to respond with “no shit, Sherlock,” but paused. Both because I realized it would be an insult to the Bohemian detective I love so much to give his namesake to G.H., and also because I wasn’t sure if what he’d said was true. Given the ascendency of Trump and his Nazi 2.0 followers, it actually seemed quite relevant. In order to prevent a modern-day monster that could rival his level of depravity, don’t we need to know how Hitler became Hitler?

So I followed up with “Sure, but you asked me what I want to know...and that’s the only question I’ve got.”

To this, G.H. let out a long sigh of nothing because ghosts can’t breathe, and while I quietly relished in being responsible for his exasperation, he continued.

“I have vhat you vould call ze…Daddy issues? I just vanted to paint pictures of ze petunias and get ze hugs and ze kisses. But fazah beat me and told me my passions vere vorthless. So, I left home and learned to embrace Germany - ze fazahland instead of my own fazah - and it embraced me back. From zat point on, I rejected all who rejected me and became crueler zen my fazah ever was.”

I sensed I’d just opened the door for a pity party and some revisionist history, so I pushed him further. “But what about free will? Plenty of people have shitty childhoods and they don’t all become genocidal maniacs.”

“Zis is true. But perhaps I vas a bit chemically imbalanced? You know, I had ze grand delusions, ze hypochondria, ze paranoia and probably ze Syphilis. I also had a lot of tummy troubles.”

I started to laugh. G.H. looked puzzled.

In that moment, I realized he was right. No amount of psychologizing could definitively rationalize him – once a behemoth, now just a shadow. No amount of backstory could excuse his atrocities either. Any attempt to understand him is for our own comfort – we simply don’t want pure evil to exist in this world; we need an answer for him. But the truth is that sometimes monsters are created, sometimes they’re born and other times maybe it’s a mix of both. No matter how it happens, though, the result is always the same - pain and suffering that simply cannot and should not be explained away.

As he waited for me to say more, I reached for him instead, making like I would take his hand to offer support. But just as he moved it toward mine, I quickly pulled away and pantomimed combing my hair with the swag of a 50′s Greaser.

“Too slow, motherfucker.” I said, and then purposefully gave him the finger on my RBG side. Not very creative, I know - but it felt good. I delighted in the surprise and anger I saw flash upon his face before I laid back down and got under the covers.

I aggressively fluffed my duvet and watched as he blew right out the window, like a delicate snowflake with a tiny stupid mustache.