He was torn between action and inaction, between waiting and doing. His Army training had taught him to act, his intelligence training had taught him patience. "There is a time to sow and a time to reap," said his Sunday school teacher. One of his intelligence school instructors had added, "Miss either of those times and you're fucked."
"Amen."
Keith finished the last faucet and paused to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.
He'd accepted an invitation to attend a Labor Day barbecue at his Aunt Betty's house a few miles away. The weather had been good, the steaks were terrific, the salads were all homemade, and the sweet corn, which ripened long before the field corn, was fresh off the stalk.
About twenty people had shown up, and Keith knew most of them or knew of them. Men his own age, not yet fifty, looked old, and this gave him a scare. There were a good number of kids there, too, and the teenage boys seemed interested in his having lived in Washington, and they all wanted to know if he'd ever been to New York. His years of living in Paris, London, Rome, Moscow, and elsewhere in the world were so far removed from their frame of reference that no one seemed curious about those places. Regarding his job, most everyone had heard his parents say that Keith was in the diplomatic corps. Not everyone understood precisely what this meant, but neither would they have understood his last job with the National Security Council; in truth, after over twenty years with Army Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the NSC, Keith himself understood less of his job description with each transfer and promotion. When he'd been an operative, a spy, it was all crystal-clear. Further up the ladder, it got foggy. He'd sat at White House conferences with people from the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Net Assessments Group, the National Security Agency — not to be confused with the National Security Council — and ten other intelligence groups, including his former employers, the Defense Intelligence Agency. In the world of intelligence, overlap equaled maximum security. How could fifteen or twenty different agencies and subagencies completely miss something important? Easy.
The waters may have been muddy in the 1970s and '80s, but at least they were all running in the same direction. After about 1990, things got not only muddier but stagnant. Keith supposed that he'd been saved about five years of confused embarrassment. His last assignment had been on a committee that was seriously considering implementing a secret pension plan for former high-ranking KGB officials. One of his colleagues described it as "a sort of Marshall Plan for our former enemies." Only in America.
Anyway, the Labor Day barbecue ended with a twilight baseball game on a jerry-built diamond in Aunt Betty's yard. Keith had a better time than he thought he would.
The only real awkwardness was as a result of the presence of three unattached women: a third cousin, Sally, unmarried at thirty years old and a hundred and seventy pounds or so, but sweet, and two divorced women, Jenny, with two children, and the unfortunately named Anne, no children, both in their late thirties, both nice-looking. He had the distinct impression they weren't there for the homemade salads.
In truth, Jenny was cute, tomboyish, played a good game of baseball, and was terrific with the kids. Kids and dogs were often better judges of character than peers were, as Keith had learned.
Jenny had informed him that she did light housecleaning to make extra money and to call her if he needed help. He told her he would. In fact, around these parts, a man in his forties who'd never been married was cause for some concern, as well as the subject of speculation regarding his adequacy or orientation. Keith had no idea of what Jenny thought in this regard, but he gave her credit for wanting to find out.
In some odd way, however, since he'd returned, Keith felt he was supposed to be faithful to Annie Baxter. He had no problem with this and wouldn't have had it any other way. On the other hand, he felt it was prudent to show some interest in other women lest people start thinking about Keith Landry and Annie Baxter. So he'd taken Jenny's phone number, thanked his aunt, said his good-byes, and left them to their speculations. He'd had a nice Labor Day.
Keith was about to go up to the attic when the front doorbell rang. He looked out the window and saw an unfamiliar car, a gray compact of some sort. He went to the door and opened it. A middle-aged man with a drooping mustache stood on the porch, a folded umbrella in his hand. He was slightly built, wore wire-rim glasses, and had a fringe of long brown hair around a bald pate. The man said, "The war was obscene and immoral, but I'm sorry I called you a baby killer."
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?"