Courtesy Patrol

I’ve been doing courtesy patrol

since I applied for conscientious

objector status last summer.

They had to find something

for me to do that didn’t involve

the missiles or any other

types of weapons.

So instead of a rotating duty roster

with a different driver every night,

I have the job every other night.

Works for me while I await

a decision on a discharge

for conscientious objection.

Works for Sergeant Carpenter,

cuts his duty roster in half.

In the afternoon I go get a jeep

checked out from the motor pool.

Take it over to the MP office

at nineteen hundred hours.

Pick up an NCO or an officer and

drive into the medieval city of Ulm,

birthplace of Albert Einstein,

site of the Munster, the tallest

Gothic cathedral in the world.

We’re supposed to cruise around

the town, make sure no personnel

are getting into trouble or need help

with anything. Courtesy patrol, right?

Bar fights, public drunkenness,

that sort of thing. Not once

in all four months I’ve been

doing this, have we needed

to do anything like that.

And if we actually did see

something happening, we have no

actual powers, if we find a problem

we’re supposed to call the military police

and let them deal with it.

I like driving around the old city at night.

Look at the Munster cathedral,

the 13th century houses.

Albert Einstein’s childhood home.

But one circuit around the city is all

the nightly duty officers ever want to do.

They might have this duty once a year

and what they want to do is go over

to Schillerstrasse behind the train station.

Park the jeep where they can watch

the prostitutes who wait in their cars

for customers. You can’t see

anything going on in the cars,

they drive into the back of a dark

parking lot or take their tricks

to a hotel or their personal rented rooms.

But I guess it’s some kind of thrill

for the watchers, imagining and

commenting on what is happening

in those cars. Two minutes, ha ha, ha

So this night was the usual,

I pick up a sergeant, one that

I actually know, and a lieutenant,

make a quick drive around town

then head for Schillerstrasse.

It’s a week before Christmas, cold.

Damp pavement glistens under

the few streetlights.The breath

of pedestrians look like steam.

Fortunately the heater in the jeep

I got this afternoon is semi- functional.

Because the canvas top and doors on a jeep

don’t do shit to keep out much cold.

So we park across the street, up a little ways

from where the prostitutes wait in their cars.

Not much action tonight. Maybe it’s the weather.

The window on a sporty Opel coupe across the street

rolls down and a slender hand beckons towards us.

It’s Rita, my friend of a few months since

I started doing this Courtesy Patrol.

I tell the Sarge, I’ll be right back and quickly leave

the jeep before he has a chance to say anything.

Rita is smiling, says Good Evening, Mark.

She says Frohe Weihnachten,

Merry Christmas, I have something for you.

She reaches under her seat and hands

me a small green cardboard box.

Home made, please enjoy them.

Danke schön! I have a present for you,

shall I bring it tomorrow night? Are you working?

She says, Sure, tomorrow, I’ll finish by eight, okay?

I hope it’s my favorite Scotch?

Of course it is, only the best for you, schatzi.

When I get back to the jeep.

Sarge says, What the hell is that!

The lieutenant says, Who the fuck is she? A whore?

I open the box, Christmas cookies, want one?