Spencerville

if there was any inscription at all, it should read:
Dedicated to the Cold Warriors,
1945–1989
?
Thanks.
    But this war ended, he thought, not with a bang, but a whimper, and the transition from war to peace was mostly quiet and unremarked. There was no cohesiveness among the Cold Warriors, no sense of victory, no pomp and ceremony as divisions were deactivated, ships decommissioned, bomber squadrons put out into the desert. There was just a fading away, a piece of paper, a pension check in the mail. In fact, Keith thought, no one in Washington, nor anywhere, even said thank you.
    But he was not bitter, and, in fact, he was very happy to see these events transpire in his lifetime. He thought, however, the government and the people should have made more of it, but he understood his own country, and understood the innate tendency of the American people to treat war and history as something that usually happened somewhere else to someone else, and was, at best, a nuisance. Back to normalcy.
    Time to chop wood. He pruned the old oaks around the house, gathered up the branches in a pull cart, and took them to the sawhorses. He cut, split, and stacked.
    Aunt Betty had stopped by, and so had some of his distant relatives. The Mullers from the next farm to the south came by, and so had Martin and Sue Jenkins from the farm across the road. Everyone brought something in the way of food, everyone seemed a little awkward, and everyone asked the same questions—“So, you stayin’ awhile? Miss the big city yet? Been downtown? Seen anybody?” And so forth. No one had asked what was on their minds, which was, “Are you nuts?”
    Keith got a cold beer and took a break on the front porch. He stared at the lonely farm road and watched the fields and trees moving in the wind. Butterflies, bumblebees, and birds. Then a blue and white police cruiser came by. They came by once or twice a day, he figured, maybe more. It occurred to him that, if by some miracle Annie drove up, there could be a problem. He thought about getting word to her through her sister, but he felt foolish doing that and didn’t know quite what to say.
Hi,
I’m back and being watched by your husband. Stay away.
    Obviously, her husband would also be watching
her.
But, most likely, she had no intention of stopping by, so why worry about it? Whatever was going to happen would happen. He’d spent too many years manipulating events, then worrying about his manipulations, then trying to discover if his manipulations were working, then doing damage control when things blew up, and so forth and so on. “Be alert, be on guard, be prepared. Do nothing.” Sounded like good advice. But he was getting itchy.
    *     *     *
    The following morning, Keith drove to Toledo and exchanged the Saab for a Chevy Blazer. The Blazer was dark green, like half the ones he’d seen around, and it blended well. The dealer secured Ohio plates for him, and Keith put his Washington plates under the seat. He had to send them back to where they came from, which was not the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
    Late in the afternoon, he started for home. By the time he reached the outskirts of Spencerville, it was dusk, and by the time he reached the farm, long purple shadows lay over the farmyard. He passed the mailbox and turned into the drive, then stopped. He backed up and saw that the red flag was up, which was odd because he’d gotten his mail that morning. He opened the mailbox and took out an unstamped envelope addressed simply “Keith.” There was no mistaking the handwriting.
    He drove the Blazer around to the back of the house, so it couldn’t be seen, got out, and went inside. He put the envelope on the kitchen table, got a beer, put it back, and made himself a stiff Scotch and soda instead.
    He sat at the table and sipped his drink, poured a little more Scotch into it, and did this a few times until he looked at the envelope again. “Well.”
    He thought about things, about her:
They’d had a
monogamous and intense relationship for two years in
high school, then four years of college, and they’d grad
uated Bowling Green State University together. Annie, a
bright and enthusiastic student, chose to accept a fellow
ship at Ohio State. He, bored with school, restless, and in
any case not in a financial position to do graduate work,
chose not to apply to Ohio State. He did follow her to
Columbus, but before the summer was over, he was swept
up in the draft as soon as the