Who knows what their Grandmother wants on her birthday?
My brain scrambled over what I couldn’t guess.
Our cousin helped—Charlie Chaplin movies.
I could get the film from the school library.
bring down my dorm projector for the party,
surprise her with the film of the Little Man she loved.
The Great Dictator or The Gold Rush or Modern Times?
Of course my Jewish grandmother hated Hitler.
My Step-Mother helped, kept Grandmother busy
as I hid the projector under a cloth, like a perched falcon.
Finally, came time to reveal the present as I whipped off the cloth
and all gasped—no one ever gifted a live birthday movie.
I let the film silently speak for itself.
The Little Tramp mocked Der Fuhrer.
Grandmother squealed and clapped her wrinkled hands.
I was pleased to see I had struck a chord.
But a few scenes in, Aunt Harriet Taylor,
the Falcon-Hater, jumped up, switched on the lights
and shouted: Shut that horrid man off!
The entire party glared at Aunt Harriet
who had cut up the falcon emblem off her son’s jacket,
hating his Club she thought was lower-class, Un-American,
flushed the scissored pieces down the toilet.
A Chaplin hater too her words sprang out:
He’s a Communist, hated our country,
How could you, you…anti-VietNam War hippie
spoil her birthday? And you know he was gay.
Who broke the silence? Not I said the little Red student.
With a flick of her wrist, Grandmother pointed at me to turn it on.
Harriet stomped from the room. No one turned their head.
In a few years, that awful war was over.
Originally published in Lit Shark Magazine