Chapter 6: September 18, 1998: 5:00PM
A/N: This chapter is notable because it is the first one that had to be completely reconstituted from scratch. I was unable to recover or personally remember the date, time, or contents of this entry. Due to Chapter 5 and 7 both being set in 1998, however, I was able to figure out the year, as well as at least what two dates it had to be set between.
Calvin turned on the camera and sat back on his bed, messing with his blond hair a little.
"Well, I'm still alive. I'm still back at school. Life is still mostly shit for me. The only thing that really makes things any different from last year is that I'm friends with Andre now. I like how he's all into, like, World War Two and stuff. I don't mind that he likes Hitler or the Nazis, either. I mean, they teach you that those guys were bad, but were they bad? Were they really? Or is that just what the people who won the war fifty years ago want everyone to think?"
The blond teenager tilted his head to the left, thinking in silence for several moments. "I was reading this novel about what would've happened if Germany had won the war. Some guy called Harris wrote it." Calvin paused to hold up a paperback book with a gold swastika on the red front cover. "I liked it, I mean, it was interesting. I shouldn't have kept it face up in the basket-thing under my desk in English, though. I heard some other kids talking. We just got back and people think I'm a Nazi. Great."
Calvin laughed after a moment, shrugging. "Well, okay, I guess I kind of am. I mean, Andre says all these things about how Hitler and the Nazis were so cool and they had all the right ideas. And sometimes… actually, more than sometimes… I think he's got a point. I think the two of us would've been great Nazis. Andre says we should secretly call ourselves SS officers because that's what we would've been. He says we just weren't meant for these times, but if we'd been around back then and we'd been German, the Nazis would've appreciated us for who we are."
The camera continued to record as Calvin looked at the book again. "It's not like I really have anything against Jews. Or whoever. But Germany in 1964 in this book- it's like they're invincible. They're way ahead of where we were in the 1960's, and there's no hippies making them lose a war either."
Calvin grinned. "Andre says America would've won Vietnam if we'd just shot all the hippies. He says they made us lose, them and everybody else who wouldn't get with the program. He's probably right there, too. Andre usually is. Here's the thing… if Hitler had won, it wouldn't have been all bad. Germany would've been doing great, and this book- it has Hitler trying to ally with us, the United States. The SS detective guy and this American reporter in the book, they keep that from happening, but I don't think they should've. I wish the book ended with the Reich and America allying to finish off the Soviets. You know, so there's no more commie bastards."
Setting the book aside, Calvin went on, "I think the thing is, Andre has a point that there's people the world would be better off without. Sometimes I think the world would be better off without me. Like, I wouldn't be missed if I died right now. Okay- no, that's wrong. Andre would miss me. I'm like his only real friend. I have some casual friends, you know. People I hang out with sometimes. But not that much, and I don't trust them like I do with Andre. But Andre- I don't think he really has any friends at all besides me. He doesn't like people. Just me. What makes me so special I'm not really sure, but Andre says he can talk to me, I get it, I'm different. I've told him it's like that for me with him. It's why we're such good friends."
The blond youth suddenly straightened and put up his right arm in a perfect Nazi salute. "I swear to thee, Adolf Hitler, as Chancellor and Führer of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I vow to thee and those superiors whom thou shalt appoint, obedience unto death. So help me God."
Calvin laughed a little as he dropped his arm, grinning sheepishly at the camera. "I think that's in one of the first pages of the book here, or I found it in some book at the library at school. It's the oath that everybody swore when they joined any part of the SS. Andre loves all that shit because he says if the SS were around now, they'd let him get rid of all the fucking idiots at school. He says he'd… purify the school. Leave only the hot girls and a few smart guys, a few dudes worth leaving around."
Leaning back on his bed, Calvin smiled. "I sure like the sound of that. Seriously, like- that'd be so amazing. No more Richie Marcus, no more Brad Huff, no more Charlie O'Bannon. None of them. They'd just be… gone. Sent to the gas chambers, then the ovens. I'd spend every day fucking beautiful girls until my balls hurt." Calvin laughed, staring up at the ceiling. "Yeah. No more idiots and all the sex I can take. I'd let some people get gassed if I could have that."
Calvin lay on his back for a while, hands behind his head, lost in the fantasy.
"I think I mostly look like a nicer person than Andre. Because when he talks about who he'd like to get rid of, how he'd have all the fucking morons killed if he could, how Hitler had the right idea about all these different things- I understand. Like, I really, really do. I understand. And I think I agree, honestly. But even with that book people saw me with, you know, they don't think I'm a bad guy the way people think Andre is. Nobody likes Andre but me, it seems like. And Andre doesn't like anybody but me. Anyway, I mean, I have a lot of hate in me under… under all the nice-guy stuff. Rachel, you can just tell she thinks I'm some kind of nice guy who would just be the best boyfriend ever or something. But I'm just like Andre. Every time I see a good-looking girl I want to just fuck her like an animal."
The blond fell silent again, thinking.
"I think that most people aren't as nice as they look and act. Look- underneath it all, most people are fuckin' assholes. Seriously. The other day I was walking home from school and some kids I don't know drove by in their car and threw an empty bottle at me and Andre. It shattered at our feet and Andre just took off running after them. They laughed at him. He picked up some rocks and threw them and he cracked one of their plastic taillights but I don't think they noticed. I guess it's good he got to do that because he wanted to murder them. You should've heard some of the stuff he screamed. Anyway, those kids didn't know us. We didn't do anything to them. But they fucked with us because they could. And that's what I think it comes down to for most people. They'll do shit to you just because they can, and that's how the world is. People only want you around if you have something they want. Like, if I was really hot and muscular and stuff, and if I had money- okay, basically, if I was Brad Huff- girls would want to get in my pants because they want to see me naked and they want me to buy me nice stuff. Not because of who I am. Nobody fucking cares who you are."
Calvin sighed, running one hand through his blond hair, then the other. "Some days I just get so mad and I wanna- I don't know what I wanna do. A lot of nights I go to sleep and I don't care if I wake up again. But I keep on taking care of myself and staying out of trouble and acting 'normal', you know, whatever that means. I make sure no one can see what I'm really thinking or who I really am. I've honestly been doing that for a while, probably not even thinking about it. I just always felt like nobody would ever really understand me and the thoughts I have. Andre says I'm right about that. He says no one deserves to know. He says we're better than everyone else and all they wanna do is keep us down."
Clearing his throat, Calvin sat up on the side of his bed. "I'm gonna go bowling with Andre tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that, seriously. It's gonna be so fun. Nothing is ever boring with Andre. He's so smart, and for a guy who nobody seems to like he sure has an awesome sense of humor."
The blond teenager threw his hands up, suddenly exasperated. "How can nobody see it? I wanted to be Andre Kriegman's friend from the day I first saw him and went up and talked to him. He was kinda wary at first but we got past that. How can no one else but me tell what a smart guy he is? I just don't get it."
Calvin got up and picked up the camera, setting it on the bed and aiming it toward the dresser it had been sitting on. He went over to it and pulled a magazine out from under some neatly-folded clothes in the second drawer from the top. Turning around, he held it up and grinned.
"Andre got me this. Said he knew I liked reading. You can't buy these unless you're eighteen, so, I don't know how he got it, but seriously, I don't care. Andre's just awesome like that. I did some 'reading' in the bathroom late last night, and holy fuck did that feel good. Just when I was really starting to feel depressed again, Andre finds something that helps, and I didn't even ask him for it. Like I said- nobody but me seems to get how amazing a guy Andre is. We're gonna kick ass at bowling tomorrow."
"Calvin!" a woman's voice called from elsewhere in the house. "Come downstairs, dinner's ready!"
"Yeah, yeah, dinner, dinner!" a boy cheered, shoving the door open. Calvin jumped and quickly hid the magazine back in the dresser, slamming it shut while the smaller blond boy ran into his room.
"Eric!" Calvin yelled, "What did I say about coming into my room?"
"I forgot!" Eric said, continuing to run around. He noticed the camera and went up to it, putting his face up very close. "Hey, look, a video camera? Are you doing like a movie? Can I be in it?"
"No, I'm not, it's not even on!" Calvin exclaimed. He picked up Eric under the younger boy's arms, pushed open his closet door with his foot, and stuck Eric inside and shut the door. Immediately, the sound of two fists banging on the inside of the door began to be heard.
"Mom! Calvin put me in the closet again! Make him let me out!"
"Just come out of the closet, Eric!" Calvin called. "It's okay, we won't judge, just stop hiding in the closet, dude!"
"What? You put me in here! I can't even find the door handle!"
Calvin was holding a hand over his mouth, shaking as he tried to hold in laughter. "Uh, try jiggling the handle in there!"
"There is no handle in here, Calvin!"
"There's not? Are you sure?" Calvin asked, laughing so hard he could barely stand up.
"Calvin," a man's voice called from downstairs, "let your brother out of the closet and come down here for dinner."
"Eric doesn't wanna come out of the closet, Dad! I told him I won't judge!"
"Knock it off, Calvin, and let him out before dinner gets cold."
"Okay, Dad," Calvin said with some reluctance. He went over to the camera, picked it up, and held a finger to his lips, his eyes wide, silently saying, "Don't tell anyone." Then the recording ended as Calvin turned the camera off.
A/N: 5-26-2017. Completed another chapter, the first one ever in the process of writing this story that had to be rewritten without any help or hints from the original work. I feel like I did fine with it. Ultimately, this story is about Calvin Gabriel, him doing his thing and going through the process that leads him, in the end, toward Zero Day. So, when I have nothing recovered from the original chapter of a given number, I just make something up based on what year it is and what sort of frame of mind Calvin might be in given the events of previous and upcoming chapters.
The novel Calvin holds up and talks about reading is Fatherland by Robert Harris, a famous alternate history novel set in 1964, 18 years after the official end of an alternate World War II in 1946, where Germany won the war and Hitler remains in power long after his death in our timeline in 1945.
Calvin trapping his brother in the closet and then telling him "Try jiggling the handle!" and Eric's response "There IS no handle in here!" is a reference to the 2000 film The Emperor's New Groove.
With Chapter 6 out of 24 done, this story is now 25% of the way to completion.