The easiest way for my great -grandfather Kaiser
Adolf Hitler the Hohenzollern to keep me quiet
and not draw the attention of the man who drowned
me to the storage cupboard he was hiding me in
was to talk to me. So, after going through some
memories for something common to my situation
to talk to me about, he said. How about this
heat? It's hot, it's so fucking hot here, ooh,
I shouldn't swear, unbelievably hot. The hottest
day I can remember in Germany was when I had
to make a speech at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
There were tens of thousands of people there
and it was really hot and humid that day. Everyone
was fanning themselves and sweating. There was
that weird sticky sweet sweating mass of people
smell. But not like this, it's so hot here. He,
Kaiser Adolf, was 82 and still bizarrely muscular.
I had not been washed since my birth before sunrise
and I was laying in what turned out to be 100
degree heat until after lunch, over 7 hours and
was extremely smelly. Baked on birth grunge.
Kaiser Adolf was the first person to touch me
with any kind of normal human response after
my father Kevin left the hospital just after
early sunrise. I still have finger marks in my
chest that now match my own fingers that are
almost exactly the same as his from where he
performed CPR on me. My savior Adolf Hitler.
He was beautiful. The grunting thing started
panicking trying to talk to my gurgling mother
saying they had to be out of the hospital before
the next shift of staff arrived as they would
be real hospital staff. After a bit of a consult
and a half a brain panic they tried to find Kaiser
Adolf with a did you see where that old man went
with that baby. They were trying to focus on
something to get themselves on track to somewhere.
They had a quick look around, then decided to
just leave my mother then and split from the
hospital as fast as possible. Went downstairs,
got in their car, and left. Kaiser Adolf, my
great -grandpa, became more upbeat after they
left and we emerged from the cupboard, I guess.
He was quite chirpy. He had a go at washing me,
starting with trying to wipe the goop off my
face. Then looked at my hair and had a quick
wipe at it with a wet cloth or towel to see if
the goop would come off easily. It glued my little
newborn hairs down to my head like his iconic
old haircut from the 30s and 40s. he paused pulled
a face then gently squiggled my hair with his
fingers down my forehead and said the word frederick
he tried his best to wash me in a basic way talking
to me the whole time with the odd tiny giggle
even threw some baby or talcum powder on me to
try to help with the smell which by then had
migrated to him and then tried to wrap me up
he had several goes which either fell off or
were not great until he managed to secure me
in a wrap of sorts he then held me up and said
oh you must be hungry he then decided to head
towards my mother his motivation was clear he
wanted to have a stern chat with her about her
behavior attitude yelling and involvements he
walked towards her holding me safely he stopped
in front of her a contempt distance away she
was still trying to yell but just making screeching
squeaking gurgling noises he then very sarcastically
said would you like to breastfeed your baby mrs
webb she took a deep long snotty slobbering intake
of breath with her head oscillating from side
to side and screamed as loud as she could manage
no i'm not breastfeeding it then flaked it totally
and fainted to sleep absolutely exhausted with
a slightly fake sounding snore coming shortly
afterwards when the next shift of hospital staff
arrived he tried to politely and patiently explain
my mother was a freaking lunatic some of what
she had been yelling etc and that they should
be really careful the hospital staff took over
and he followed them around butting in making
suggestions he made sure they washed every part
of me every nook and cranny more than once my
ears toes fingers nails hair repeatedly they
weighed me measured me he insisted on more measurements
ankle hip and skull circumference length of big
toe length of elbow to wrist bone noting it down
in his notebook he then stopped did some calculations
with the numbers scribbling in his notepad and
wrote a final figure saying there he'll be around
six feet two he supervised it all in some way
including me being wrapped up and clothed a little
the natural normal course of events for the hospital
staff was to move on to filling in the registration
documents so after a chat they decided to try
to wake my mother up carefully and ask her if
she knew any details Someone went over to her
and made like they stood back and poked her with
a stick. Saying hello there Mrs. Webb, we have
registration documents, for your baby, to fill
in. She said, exhausted, oh okay. The staff member
asked, do you know what your baby's name is going
to be? She said, after a pause, oh yeah, Brian,
with an I, like his uncles. Staff member, middle
name. Judith, James, like his grandfather, grind
of the teeth. Staff member, and it's Webb obviously
Mrs. Webb. She said, yes, like the alien -human
hybrid in the movie Species. The staff member
asked, we have the registration documents here,
would you like to fill them in now, yourself?
She replied, oh, no. My husband Kevin can fill
those in for you if you like when he gets here.
I'm too tired. My father Kevin finished work
I think around 6 .30pm at Yarragan Dairy. He
was then taken to the local pub in Yarragan across
the Prince's Highway, both are still there, by
his workmates to congratulate him on the birth
of his first ever son, which he informed them
of when he got back to work from the hospital
well after 6am. They bought him drinks, gave
him cigars, chatted, bought spirits, had a laugh,
etc. He was there for around three hours. Adolf
decided it was getting late and he had to be
going before it got completely dark. He came
into the room and found me, gently picking up
my wrist and checking the name tag on it. Then
gently touched me whilst looking at me and talking
quietly until he got a smile out of me in my
sleep. He then said, oh, what do I say to a baby
I may never see again before returning to the
foreign country? He was quite chatty about it
and quite serious. Too many things to mention
here. don't worry be happy overtones through
it then said he had to leave because it was getting
really dark then suddenly stopped straightened
himself up and said a formal goodbye and left
kaiser adolf was the first person to pick me
up and hold me gently including up against his
chest with both hands and handle me with any
kind of normal human responses to a newborn baby
my father kevin had not at sunrise because he
thought he had missed my birth by minutes and
i was put next to the sink for a first attempt
to wash me off he did touch me talk to me show
normal responses and let me hold his thumb Kaiser
Adolf held me up against his chest, cleared my
airways, monitored my heartbeat, talked to me
to keep me quiet, washed me, tried to wash my
hair, powdered me, tried to wrap me up, and was
the first person to assume I was probably hungry.
My father Kevin arrived back at the hospital
around an hour after Kaiser Hitler the Hohenzollern
left, about 10pm. He was quite drunk, he was
never a problem in that state though, and completed
the registration documents for births, deaths
and marriages, Victoria, Australia. They were
collected, processed on the 26th of January,
1972 in a batch with others, and a record added
for my birth to the publicly available records.
I went home with my father Kevin G Webb and mother
Judith M Webb to 27 Campbell Street in Yarragan,
Victoria, Australia. The only biological child
of my two married parents to be registered and
go home in their custody from their entire marriage,
which ended in divorce in the Dandenong Family
Law Court in the late 1970s.