The street was clear as John pulled up to a two-story house with a separate garage. Memories flooded back as he pulled into the garage next to a faded yellow VW Beetle, ghosts of a thousand projects and conversations. He puffed a cigarette and walked out of the garage and over to the steps of the side door. The door was open and unlocked, some things never changed it seemed. Before he entered through the kitchen door, he put out the half-smoked cigarette on the heel of his boot.
John walked into the kitchen, taking in the sight of the walnut cabinets against the seafoam tile countertop. Everything was exactly as he remembered, right down to the smell of coffee and Pall Malls. Walking through the archway into the living room, John saw his mother sitting rocking in her chair, working a crossword puzzle. She was smaller and grayer than when he had left. Everything in him wanted to say something, anything, to announce his presence. The words caught in his throat and stayed there until his mother spoke.
“I wondered when you would make it home,” She looked up from the puzzle and grinned at her prodigal son.
“Better late than never, I guess,” he replied with a smile.
“Well, I always figured you would come back when you were ready. Your father wasn’t too happy. Then again, he was going through some issues with work and all,” his mother paused for a moment, looking at the clock. “Come to think of it, your father should be home for his lunch break about now.”
John felt the pit of his stomach tighten, a sensation that he grew accustomed to before enemy contact. It was just like the feeling of the two men at the service station, a feeling of anxious malice mixed with existential doubt. Many times, before, over the phone or in letters, John had tried to explain what had happened over there. Many times, he had been stopped by the nature of the game he played in the jungle. Many times, his father couldn’t understand what he had been through and couldn’t say a word about it.
The door opened to a medium-built man, to John’s shock, in a pale blue jacket and a post office patch on the shoulder. It was a departure from the last time John had seen his father, in a navy police uniform, gun on his hip, and a silver badge.
“Nora, might wanna keep the cans up here tonight, Marty’s out,” he said, dropping an empty leather satchel by the door. He looked up and went silent. Standing before him was a man, taller than him, with long brown hair and a beard. Dressed in travel-worn clothes that looked two sizes too big. But those eyes. Those soulful brown eyes that defiantly ran off to the recruiting depot. That was his boy, all grown up and standing in the living room.
“H… hey dad,” John struggled to say.
“I’ll leave you two boys to talk,” Nora said, walking out of the room, smirking as she tapped John’s shoulder.
“Been a while boy, heard you were down in North Carolina last I heard from you,” he said with an even tone
“That was ‘bout three, four years ago,” John’s anxious feeling crept back into his throat.
“Teachin’ at that Kennedy school, right?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Kinda like what you did in ‘Nam?” The question hung in the air like a bomb ready to blow.
“Dad, I…” John was cut off by the sound of a door slamming and the stomps of a flustered young woman storming through the living room.
“I’ll be in the garage, no, I don’t want to talk about it,” she blurted out, pushing through the back door. John pointed a finger toward the kitchen and shot a look of curiosity to his father.
“Boy trouble, think you might could go take care of it?” his father said from behind the newspaper. John didn’t say a word but turned and walked out after his sister. Last time John had seen her, she had taken a bus to San Angelo with their aunt to see him. She was seventeen then and he was freshly put back together.
Sneaking out toward the garage, he could hear his sister’s voice ring out with another voice replying in kind.
“God damn it Billy, I saw you and Karen at the Pi Gamma social, I know what that was, and I…”
“You didn’t see anything babe, honest, it was Karen being Karen, she got a little snockered,” Billy pleaded.
“And Midge, what about her, and Dierdra, I saw you, fish bowl and everything, I thought you were gonna…”
“Look, I’m a man Sarah, you understand that, they didn’t mean anything to me, but there’s only so much waiting I can do, you know.”
“You’re a bastard Billy,” her voice shook as she struck him in the jaw. John grinned, seeing that his baby sister was standing up for herself. Sarah turned, storming out of the garage when Billy took chase. John knew the look of Sarah’s pursuer and stepped in.
John turned the corner and stepped in between his sister and Billy, catching him with an open right hand to the chest, pinning him to the wall of the garage. John pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and puffed smoke in his face.
“Listen here youngblood, I’m only gonna say this once, whatever you do to her, I’ll do to you, you dig?” John growled low, “So maybe you just take off and become a ghost.”
“The hell you gonna do about it, hippie, y… you ain’t so tough,” Billy defiantly said. John took a long drag off the cigarette, blowing the smoke out of his nostrils. Like a flash, John dropped Billy on the ground with a single hit to the gut.
“Now pick yourself up and head back home, don’t talk to Sarah, or anyone else from this house again, you got that?” John watched as Billy stood up and wheezed, stumbling out of the garage and down the street. John followed the youth with his eyes until they were met by his father’s own gaze. The feeling of dread sunk deep in John’s gut as the adrenaline began to subside.
“Beer?” his father said, extending the open Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle, “Been wanting to do that for damn near a month,”
“What stopped you?” John asked.
“Your mother, mostly, and Marty Jacobs is president of the Homeowners Association, pretty sure I’d never hear the end of it,”
“You ain’t gonna arrest me, are you?”
“Hell, son, I quit the police back when you joined the Army, walked out and joined the post office, had better hours.”
Edited and Reviewed by Zoe Carter
