Character feature: Oscar Hole-in-the-Day
The best friend and comrade-in-arms to the Kristoffersen brothers
Name: Oscar Hole-in-the-Day
Characteristics:
Tortured
Loyal
Friendly
Gentle, yet capable of extreme violence
Darkly humorous
Background & Appearance: A member of the Ojibwe people, Oscar was abducted from his family home at six years old by state Indian Agents and sent to a boarding school/assimilation school in Vermilion Lake, Minnesota. Oscar kept running away from the school but was caught and severely beaten each time. To get him to stop speaking Ojibwe, the instructors would make him and his classmates chew lye soap and blow bubbles, burning and scarring the inside of his mouth.
Such schools extensively utilized an “outing” program that retained students for the summer and involuntarily leased them out to white homes as menial laborers. That's where Oscar picked up the art of making alcohol. The family to which he was leased made whiskey and gin. The old man took Oscar under his wing and taught him how. It becomes a skill he relies on heavily as an adult, especially as Prohibition reaches a fever pitch.
As a Native American, Oscar isn’t considered a U.S. citizen. He can’t vote. No one will hire him for anything but day labor. Still, when the country entered the war, he eagerly enlisted in the U.S. Army to prove his mettle and heed the call to service. But even repeated acts of gallantry on the battlefields in France (one of which left him with severe vocal scarring from a German gas attack) did little to garner him respect or acceptance among his comrades. His superior officer frequently assigned him to burying bodies, cleaning latrines, repairing duckboards, and exterminating rats.
The Kristofferson brothers met him early in the American campaign and struck up a lasting friendship. They often exchanged rations. Oscar was especially fond of coffee with sugar and was always eager to trade his rations of chewing gum and tinned jam to get it. The three men shared many a lukewarm can of Maconochie stew while huddled under a canvas tarp, avoiding the rain or waiting out an artillery barrage. Now, with the war over, the three men are inseparable.
Oscar’s voice is deep and raw, guttural and ragged from gas exposure in the trenches. He could best be described in all features as sturdy—sun- and wind-weathered, broad-featured and broad-shouldered. He wears a heavy wool greatcoat from his time in the service.
Motivation: Oscar is convinced he should have died during the war and so lives every day as though it may be his last. He spends almost every waking moment drunk to quiet the demons in his head.
Habits: Alcoholism and insomnia.
Pet peeves: Teetotalers, those who think French beer is good, and those who would hurt or threaten his “comrades” (Niklas and Kessler).
Get to know Oscar better in Black Cordite, White Snow, available February, 2024.