The thing of it: I ended up in front of the Medical Commission of the ASSENTIERUNG with prospectives from the country.

  ASSENTIERUNG was one of those words used by my mom, who as a young girl in Galicia had been a subject of Emperor Franz Josef.

  Despite her pedigree she could not shake certain Austrio-Galician words:

  Heavy hiking boots were BERGSTAIGERS.

  A cheap bar that had a license for liquors was a PROPINCIA.

  And the army’s fitness for service review was always and forever ASSENTIERUNG.

  Because I was completely uninterested in three years service in the People’s Army, I simply ignored the first summons, throwing it in the trash.

  Additionally, things had worked out in such a way that I did not have the right Party recommendations so had not registered for university.

  Eventually Tufta, the neighborhood militiaman, caught up with me.

  Don't call him a cop, the Communists teach that "cop" is an imperialist term. Cops beat up black people in American cities. Cops sprayed fire hoses at blacks in America. This was a citizen’s patrol. Precinct by precinct, block by block, and our citizen was Tufta.

  Tommy Dorsey’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” was playing on the radio.

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  I was just another who laughed at romance. I said it was not for me

  Knock. Knock.

  Then you made your entrance, and right at a glance, I knew it was meant to be.

  I opened the door.

  He stood there, waving a paper.

  -This order says I'm obligated to take you to the recruitment commission on the late schedule.

  -Uh huh.

  -It’s like this. I have to lock you up.

  -Is that so?

  -Yes, you’ll spend the night at the station, and in the morning I’ll escort you.

  I’m getting sentimental over you, I thought I was happy, I could live without love, now I must admit love is all I’m thinking of.

  -You’ve had enough problems on my account, even if only because, after all, today you had to wait several hours to finally nab me, I explained. This time you can be 100% sure that you’ve got my RSVP. After all you know me.

  Tufta knew me quite well. He once confided in me that as a militiaman, from a criminal side he had no issue with me… but from the political-moral side, as it were—better left unsaid.

  Naively, he suspected that some shadowy power had whisked me to the West, which in his head was crawling with American training campa for sabotage and espionage. There, after thorough programming I could’ve been appropriately equipped and sent back.

  On his mission, Tufta was insistent, nosy. He tried watching me. My friends. The girls who came by the apartment. He asked the neighbors about me. He eavesdropped.

  One thing was comforting. Tufta was trying to figure me out as an American spy all by himself, counting very much on the untold Pandora’s Box that would pour forth incessantly when he unmasked me.

  On the other hand, Tufta was also trying to hedge. If suddenly there were some unrest or war, thousands like him could get hanged. Then the authentic American spy he didn’t out might save him from otherwise lowly death.

  He agreed that I could come on my own, and left.

  Won’t you please be kind, and just make up your mind that you’ll be sweet and gentle, be gentle with me, because I’m sentimental over you.

  -Ass.