P.N.ZOYTLOW

Attila’s Lament

Excerpt from P.N. Zoytlow’s forthcoming and more extensive interview with the famous Hun.

I met up with Attila, quite by accident, at a highway convenience store in Idaho, en route to Miles City, Montana, to be the graduation speaker at a high school graduation. He was staring at the pump, which dispensed the usual three grades of petrol. The vehicle he was driving, a rental, did not require Premium, but he was filling the tank with it just the same. I wanted to be helpful, so I told him that he could get by with 87 Octane and save a few dollars. He waved a flyer in my face. 

” I don’t want to be late, so I use the top grade. Now you know.”

I read the flyer and learned on the spot where he was going and who he was–Attila! I also knew that he was using an outdated calendrical system and was not due in Miles City for another few days. He was on Julian time, and Montana was not. Simple. I assured him he was in good shape to make it on time. Why not take in the nearby National Park (Yellowstone) on the way?

( I should point out that there will be those scoffers who doubt that this was the genuine article, namely Attila the Hun, and how could that be? The answer lies, of course, in the fusion of several widely misunderstood concepts, namely wormhole theory, time compression, and warp speed.)

And I should also like to mention that he, Attila, was dressed unlike any image of him you probably saw in the history books. Running shoes, tan Dockers pants, an oxford cloth shirt, and a white Clemson hoodie zipped open. He was clean-shaven and wore a white ballcap without any logo. I am telling you that you would never guess he was a barbarian leader capable of terrorizing Western Europe with his Hunnic hordes. He’s as handsome as a men’s store mannikin. 

Convinced and grateful that he was no longer in a rush to reach the commencement, Attila invited me to a cup of coffee in the cafe attached to the fuel stop. We parked our cars met in a booth facing the highway.

“What’s your message to the high school grads,” I asked him. He fished around in a briefcase I had not noticed before and waved a paper for me to see. Its title was “Cultural Appropriation and Misrepresentation: Why Today’s Youth Needs to be Aware.” He saw I was puzzled. “I know what you’re thinking, that this is hardly the thing for high school graduation in North America. And you would be right! They think I will speak on the usual boilerplate topic like “What Youth Must Achieve for Self and Nation.” I accepted their invitation on false pretenses. I don’t care about these graduates, but I do care about setting the record straight.”

“You mean the stuff in Wikipedia? Maybe I can help you with that.” 

“I doubt it. Anyway, with most of that stuff, I don’t have a problem. You know: battles, extortion, marriages. Mostly true. Even that fateful event in 453 when I died of a nosebleed on my wedding night. Very true. My fault, too. But let’s skip that.”

Attila ordered buttered whole-wheat toast and a hot chocolate.

“Comfort food?” I asked. 

“Yep.”

“Is your full name Atilla Flagellum Dei and you come from where?”

“Wrongo! You people are so stuck in your identity needs. First name, last name, Social Security number, and so on. If you insist, my Pa’s name was 

Mundzuk. Does that make me Mr. A. Mundzukson of Pannonia? No, a last name would have deprived me of the clout my first name has achieved. Think of how Mr. Mundzuk brought his “hordes” (never an army) to the gates of Paris and so on. About as impressive as saying that ‘Mr. Attila Mundzuk arrived at O’Hare on Delta today. So, no, if I am to be anyone, it has to be Attila the Hun, Scourge of God.”

“Are you a Hun?”

“Yep. And a lot of other stuff, too. I attracted a lot of the lumpen of what you call Eastern Europe. We had Ostrogoths and Bulgars, too. Anyone could join up if they shared our goals.”

“Which were?”

“Make a goulash of the Romans, or a hash, whichever? And that “scourge” business! Let me tell you; I had been dead some years before I figured it out. For the record, I was a bit interested in Christianity or even Judaism. There were no Muslims then, so I was strictly curious about the god or gods of existing religions, but only if they had some traction in Europe. Well, truth be told, the Jews were not high in the charts, but the Christians had already messed with the Romans so, what if I posed as a Christian? I sent out some feelers but was turned down. And years later, they gave the green light to Clovis Merovech, a Frank guy. Why not me? 

No! I was designated as the Scourge! You know what a scourge is? It’s a whip! The Big Shots said god sent me to be his whip to lash bad Christians.”

Attila closed his eyes and shook his handsome head.

“Because you were a barbarian?”

“Now, come on!” But I’ll get to that if I have the time.”

“Can I order you another buttered toast? On me.”

Attila nodded, but I had yet to see him smile.

“This ‘Scourge’ thing–which I was not, is just a label which paints me as the worst of the worst. There were plenty of Christian chieftains who did worse things than I ever dreamt. I mean, the slaughtering, the butchering, the burnings, the defenestrations, the drawing, the quartering, the beheadings, the bashing of heads, the cannibalism, the flaying, crucifying, the drowning, the hot irons and the….”

“You made your point, but you must have done some of that, yes?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment and dipped his toast into the tepid cocoa. The butter fled the toast and formed an oily scum over his drink.

“Only this, we fought, we sometimes slaughtered, and I think I once bashed a guy’s head in and poked around a bit. But that is it. I’ll bet you can read a lot about me, but not about any particular torture devised by me. Think of some of your recent leaders, the ones who started that Iraq war, and what do you get? Water-boarding. Right? But who has heard of an ‘Attila” method? By the way, Cheney and that sort have been designated to the ‘Right of Attila the Hun.’ What can that mean? We had hordes and charisma, that’s it. And we got along just fine.

“Let’s go back to the Scourge of God business. Just another name for Satan. And that was me. Christians used me as a bad penny, a scapegoat, and the author of all evil. But that was not me! I even met with Pope Leo, and we chatted about this and that most pleasantly, so I got out of Italy, which was a nice gesture. Would Satan have done that?”

Attila was looking at his watch, a medium-priced French model. He was going to leave. He had made his point about “misrepresentation” but not about “cultural appropriation,” which could only mean motorcycle clubs with Hunnish motifs, mostly imagined. [For a further discussion of Huns, see my Field Report #8]

“Attila, do you recall any jokes that you and your people enjoyed back in the Fifth Century?” We did not joke around much except a few one-liners about Romans, like this one if I can remember it. 

You know-how for a while, the letters S P Q R were carved in stone all over the Forum? Well, what does it stand for? Smart People Quit Rome.”

I was embarrassed, such a dumb thing, and my embarrassment grew when he guffawed until his cheeks were wet with tears. “Okay, not so good, maybe. What do you expect with a joke that’s 1500 years old? But here’s another: 

“Attila (that’s me) wakes up and hears his wife starting a fire in the hearth. She calls to him, “Whadda ya want for breakfast, hon?”

Abruptly, Attila got up, shook my hand, and departed. I could find no news item on the graduation at Miles City. Either the event was cancelled or there is a news blackout. Or it was merely not news at all.