“The Cemetery”
A Mort Laitner Short Story
Online, I read the headline in the Middletown Times Herald-Record,
“Local Rabbi Receives Threatening Email.” I frowned.
The story was datelined April 27th—Rock Hill, New York.
Rock Hill rested not far from my old Woodridge stomping ground. Located a few miles north of Rock Hill was the hamlet of Glen Wild. A community so small that its mini- temple never had a rabbi. But it did possess the Glen Wild Cemetery. A cemetery where the dead mingled with nature. Their graves covered in red, yellow and orange maple leafs or white snow or mourners rocks. Their graves trampled on by deer or squirrels or skunks. A cemetery that the Jewish residents from five towns (Mountaindale, Woodbourne, Fallsburgh, Woodridge and Hurleyville) found their final resting place. A cemetery located on a deserted country road.
Slowly, I mouthed the words in the article as if I was learning to read:
Sunday morning at 10:31, Rabbi Alan Feuerman of Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor received the following email:
Hitler was right! You belong in the ovens! Even your dead must suffer! No one can protect your cemeteries! The authorities are not going to protect you! Get you’re fat Jewish asses to Israel! Raus!
Rabbi Feuerman reported the threat to the New York State Police Department as well as the Sullivan County Sheriffs Office. Local authorizes said they have commenced an investigation. The Sheriff Bob Jones called the email sender, “A disturbed coward.” The police are asking anyone with any information concerning this email to contact their offices.
The bitter taste of disgust ran across my gums. This was history repeating itself—back to the 1930’s. Back to the days when the Klan dressed in white robes, burned crosses planted in the dark soil of the Catskill Mountains.
I remembered the photos of the overturned headstones in Philly and St. Louis. I recalled reading books on how the Nazis took Jewish headstones for the construction of roads. I remembered pictures published in those books of Hebrew names, stars of David, Shabbat candles carved into the cold granite stones covered with black swastikas.
My grandmother, my grandfather and my uncle—all survivors of the Holocaust—were buried in the Glen Wild Cemetery. My friends and neighbors rested in peace in the Glen Wild Cemetery.
I knew the cops would not protect the cemetery. They would have more important crimes to solve. I knew the latch on the gate of the cemetery was never locked. I knew no surveillance cameras would be focused on the burial plots. I knew no mourners or guards would be there grabbing stones that covered graves to throw at the vandals. I knew there were no cardboard signs nailed to trees saying, “VANDALS WILL BE SHOT AND QUESTIONED LATER.” And I knew I would protect my deceased loved ones.
I owned a rifle, a night-vision scope, a LED flashlight and I—as a retiree—I had the time to send these anti-Semitic bastards to their graves.
I bought the gun, the scope and the ammunition at a gun show in Florida. No questions asked. No paper trail.
I remembered reading how Murder Inc. (Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel) took care of this disease in Sullivan County in the 1930’s. They injected the bastards racist-infected bodies with multiple doses of bullets, cemented their legs together and threw their bodies into the deep end of Lake Kiamesha. These Klan members disappeared and were never heard from again.
These gangsters understood the old Yiddish adages: If you want to solve a problem, correct it yourself. Don’t expect others to fight your battles for you. Talk is cheap and inaction expensive. Actions have consequences.
There methods got results. And now 80 years later a new generation had to be immunized. These 1930’s hoods were guardians of the living; I would be a guardian of the dead.
So on April 28, at 3:00 pm, I packed my knapsack with provisions: a large thermos of coffee, a box of yodels, and three ham and cheese sandwiches, 20 rounds of ammunition and a high-beamed LED flashlight. Parking my car in the woods, I hiked with my rifle slung over my shoulder. I praised the founding fathers for having the foresight to understand the need for citizens to have the right to bear arms. For two miles I fought the branches and rocks, as I made my way to the cemetery.
I studied the cemetery grounds, looking for the ideal hiding spot. I found a tree stand that hunters used during deer season.
I climbed into the stand and tried to make myself comfortable and invisable. I checked my iPhone to make sure it was on silent mode as Nino Rota’s, Theme from The Godfather played in my head . As day retreated to dusk, I scanned the grounds for invaders. Perched 10 feet above the ground, my bones ached from lack of movement. But this wooden platform allowed me to possess the visual edge and element of surprise over these vandals. I loaded the rifle and clicked off the safety,
In the darkness I felt the spring chill touch the tip of my nose. I sipped the caffeinated coffee, munched down a sandwich and ate a pack of Yodels. All evidence of my presence, (wrapping papers and Baggies) found their way back into the knapsack. As the chocolate and whipped cream flavors of the yodel melted in my mouth, my fingers rubbed and warmed a bullet.
At 8:30 pm, I heard the muffler of a truck approach the cemetery. The driver had turned off his headlights and coasted to the edge of the cemetery. Two males exited the truck. One was six feet tall and the other about five and a half feet.They sounded drunk. They laughed and cursed my ancestors. ” When this hits the papers, we’ll scare the shit out of kikes in this town.”
Through the night-vision scope I observed that in their hands both men carried spray paint cans and flashlights. Rifles were slung over their shoulders.They both wore black: jeans, jackets, hats, boots and woolen face masks. Only their white teeth reflected the moonlight.
As they approached the gravestones they kicked, shoved and cursed until the stones laid lopsided on the ground. They spray painted the stones with the insignia of the SS, or a swastika or the word “KIKE”.
In the cold air all sounds were amplified. I heard laughter, the sound of a zipper opening and urine splattering on cold dead stones. As the taller man relieved himself on the fallen headstone, I decided, “He’ll be the first to go.”
In revulsion my trigger finger flexed. I focused my eye on the scope’s cross hairs, aiming for the bridge of the tall one’s his nose. I inhaled and slowly exhaled as I gently pulled the trigger. I watched his head explode as his hands fell away from his privates. While the shorter man now covered in blood screamed in disbelief, a round entered his opened mouth and sliced through his neck.
In seconds the woods returned to silence. I smelled the rifle shots. Aiming my flashlight on the ground, I picked up the two spent rounds and deposited them in my knapsack.
I hiked the two miles back to my car. I drove toward the town of Kiamesha. By 1:00 am, I rowed into the middle of Lake Kiamesha. Threw my rifle, scope and knapsack into the dark blue water. The knapsack sunk like a cannon ball falling off the deck of a pirate ship, for I had filled it with ten stones I had taken from the top of headstones.
Two days later, while online I read the headline in the Middletown Times Herald-Record:
“Two Men Murdered in Glen Wild Jewish Cemetery While Committing Acts of Vandalism”
I stopped reading and asked myself, “Had I solved the problem?”
“Had I sent the right message?”
I closed my eyes and smiled.
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