BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
1942
Steve sat quietly, hands tucked in his lap in the poorly-lit theater. For about 20 minutes, the white sheet had broadcasted war propaganda: little boys pulling dirty red wagons missing wheels, collecting scraps of metal for the war effort, soldiers hiding in ditches, clutching helmets to their heads and rifles to their chests, the sound of bombs exploding and tanks firing seemingly unnecessarily loud in Steve’s ears. A booming voice described the terrors soldiers faced in the battlefield, and it was so graphic and in so much detail that Steve felt he was there to fight with them. He almost forgot what he went there to see in the first place. Steve was mesmerized by the scene, like the way unwanted tears swell up in…