Nelson DeMille - Spencerville

Keith smiled in recognition of the voice. "Hello, Jeffrey."

"Heard you were back. Never too late to apologize." He put out his hand, and Keith took it.

Keith said, "Come on in."

Jeffrey Porter took off his raincoat and hung it on the peg in the big foyer. He said, "Where do we start after all these years?"

"We start by me saying you're bald."

"But not fat."

"No, not fat. Left-wing, Bolshevik, bed-wetting comsymps are always skinny."

Jeffrey laughed. "I haven't heard those sweet words in two decades."

"Well, you came to the right place, pinko."

They both laughed and belatedly embraced. Jeffrey said, "You look good, Keith."

"Thanks. Let's get a few beers."

They went into the kitchen and filled a cooler with beer, then carried it out to the front porch and sat in rockers, watching the rain, drinking, each thinking his own thoughts. Finally, Jeffrey said, "Where have the years gone, Keith? Is that a trite thing to say?"

"Well, it is and isn't. It's a good question, and we both know too well where they went."

"Yes. Hey, I really was a little rough on you back there."

"We were all a little rough on one another back there," Keith replied. "We were young, we had passion and convictions. We had all the answers."

"We didn't know shit," said Jeffrey, and popped open another beer. He said, "You were the only guy in high school and at Bowling Green who I thought was nearly as smart as me."

"Smart as I. Actually smarter."

"Anyway, that's why I was so pissed that you were such an idiot."

"And I never understood how a smart guy like you bought the whole line of radical bullshit without thinking for yourself."

"I never bought it all, Keith, but I mouthed it."

"Scary. I've seen whole countries like that."

"Yeah. But you bought the whole line of patriotic flag-waving shit without much thought."

"I've learned better since then. How about you?"

Jeffrey nodded. "I learned a lot. Hey, enough politics. We'll wind up having another fistfight. What's the story? Why are you here?"

"Well, I got sacked."

"From where? You still with the Army?"

"No."

"Then who sacked you?"

"The government."

Jeffrey glanced at him, and they fell into silence. Keith watched the rain falling in the fields. There was something very special about watching the rain from a big open porch, and he'd missed this.

Jeffrey asked, "You married?"

"Nope. You ever marry that girl?.. The hippie with hair down to her ass that you met in our senior year?"

"Gail. Yes, we got married. Still married."

"Good for you. Kids?"

"No, too many people in the world. We're doing our part."

"Me, too. Where're you living?"

"Here. Moved back about two years ago as a matter of fact. We stayed at Bowling Green for a few years."

"I heard. Then what?"

"Well, we both got fellowships at Antioch, and we both got tenured and taught there until we retired."

"I think if I'd spent one more year on or around a campus I'd have blown my brains out."

"It's not for everyone," Jeffrey conceded. "Neither is the government."

"Right."

"Hey, have you seen Annie since you've been back?"

"No." Keith opened another beer.

Jeffrey watched his old friend and classmate, and Keith was aware of the eyes on him. Finally, Jeffrey said, "You can't still be messed up about that, can you?"

"No."

"I've run into her a few times. I keep asking if she's heard from you, and she says she never had. Funny how we were all so close... those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end..."

"We knew they would."

Jeffrey nodded. He said, "I've asked her to stop by and have a drink with Gail and me, but she keeps putting me off. I was hurt at first, but then I got to know a little about her husband. He's the fuzz-fuhrer — you know that? Anyway, I saw them at some hospital charity thing at the Elks Lodge once, and Annie was charming, like Annie can be, and this Nazi of a husband was watching her like he was about to make a drug bust — you know what I mean? This Neanderthal was getting himself worked up because she was talking to men — married guys, for Christ sake, doctors, lawyers, and such. She wasn't doing anything really, and he should have been thrilled that his better half was working the room — God knows, he needs all the good public relations he can get. Anyway, he takes her by the arm, and they leave. Just like that. Hey, I may be a socialist and an egalitarian, but I'm also a fucking snob, and when I see a well-bred, college-educated woman putting up with that shit from — where you going?"

"Bathroom."

Keith went into the bathroom and washed his face. He looked in the mirror. Truly, he'd been blessed with the right genes and didn't look much different than his pictures from college. Jeffrey, on the other hand, was barely recognizable. He wondered how Annie looked. Jeffrey would know, but Keith wasn't about to ask him. Anyway, it made no difference what she looked like. He returned to the porch and sat. "How'd you know I was back?"

"Oh... Gail heard it from somebody. Can't remember who." Jeffrey went back to the other subject. "She looks good."

"Gail?"

"Annie." Jeffrey chuckled and said, "I'd encourage you to give it a go, Keith, but that bastard will kill you." He added, "He knows he got lucky, and he's not about to lose her."

"So, Antioch, home of the politically correct crowd. You fit right in there."

"Well... I guess I did. Gail and I had some good years there. We organized protests, strikes, trashed the Army recruiting station in town. Beautiful."

Keith laughed. "Terrific. I'm getting my ass shot off, and you're scaring away my replacement."

Jeffrey laughed, too. "It was a moment in time. I wish you could have been with us. Christ, we smoked enough pot to stone a herd of elephants, we screwed with half the graduate students and faculty, we..."

"You mean you screwed other people?"

"Sure. You missed the whole thing fucking around in the jungle."

"But... hey, I'm just a farm boy... were you guys married?"

"Yeah, sort of. Well, yeah, we had to for a lot of reasons — housing, benefits, that kind of thing. It was a real cop-out — remember that expression? But we believed in free love. Gail still claims she coined the expression 'Make love, not war.' Nineteen sixty-four, she says. It came to her in a dream. Probably drug-induced."

"Get a copyright attorney."

"Yeah. Anyway, we rejected all middle-class bourgeois values and sentiments, we turned our backs on religion, patriotism, parents, and all that." He leaned toward Keith and said, "Basically, we were fucked-up but happy, and we believed. Not all of it, but enough of it. We really hated the war. Really."

"Yeah. I didn't think much of it either."

"Come on, Keith. Don't lie to yourself."

"It wasn't political for me. Just a Huckleberry Finn thing with guns and artillery."

"People died."

"Indeed they did, Jeffrey. I still weep for them. Do you?"

"No, but I never wanted them to die in the first place." He punched Keith in the arm. "Hey, let's forget it. No one gives a shit anymore."

"I guess not."

They each had another beer and rocked. Keith thought that in twenty years they'd have lap blankets, drink apple juice, and talk about their health and their childhood. The years in between the beginning and the end, the years of sex, passion, women, politics, and struggle, would be fuzzy and nearly forgotten. But he hoped not.

Keith said, "How many of us from Spencerville were at Bowling Green? Me, you, Annie, that weird kid who was older than us... Jake, right?"

"Right. He went out to California. Never heard from him again. There was that girl, Barbara Evans, quite a looker. Went to New York and married some guy with money. I saw her at the twentieth class reunion."