Spencerville

Landry settled back in his seat and paid attention to his driving. He liked the feel of the open road, and the Saab handled beautifully. The car's unusual shape attracted curious attention when Landry passed through the small towns and hamlets of western Ohio, and he thought he should probably trade it in for less of a conversation piece when he took up residence in Spencerville.

The cornfields stretched as far as the deep blue sky, and here and there a farmer had planted soybeans, or wheat, or alfalfa. But mostly it was corn: field corn to fatten livestock and sweet corn for the table. Corn. Corn syrup, cornstarch, cornflakes, cornmeal, corn, corn, corn, Landry thought, to fatten an already fat nation. Landry had been in a lot of famine areas over the years, so maybe that's why the sight of the heartland's bounty made him think of fat.

"For amber waves of grain," he said aloud. He noticed that the crops were good. He had no vested interest in the crops, neither as a farmer nor as a man who held crop futures. But he'd spent the first eighteen years of his life listening to everyone around him talk about the crops, so he noticed them wherever he was, in Russia, in China, in Somalia, and now, coming full circle, in western Ohio.

Landry saw the sign for Spencerville, downshifted, and took the turn without braking, causing the Ford Taurus behind him to try the same thing with less acceptable results.

On the horizon, he could see a water storage tower and grain silos, then later, he could make out the clock tower of the Spencer County courthouse, a sort of Gothic Victorian pile of red brick and sandstone built in a burst of turn-of-the-century enthusiasm and boosterism. The courthouse was a marvel when it was built, Landry reflected, and it was a marvel now — the marvel being that Spencer County had once been prosperous enough and populated enough to finance such a massive edifice.

As Landry drew closer, he could see most of the town's ten church spires, catching the light of the setting sun.

Landry did not enter the town but turned off onto a small farm road. A sign reminded him to watch out for slow-moving farm vehicles, and he eased off the accelerator. Within fifteen minutes, he could see the red barn of the Landry farm.

He had never driven all the way home before but had always flown to Toledo or Columbus and rented a car. This drive from the District of Columbia had been uneventful yet interesting. The interesting part, aside from the landscape, was the fact that he didn't know why he was driving to Spencerville to live after so long an absence. Interesting, too, was the sense of unhurried leisure, the absence of any future appointments in his daybook, the dangling wire where his government car phone had once sat, the unaccustomed feeling of being out of touch with the people who once needed to know on a daily basis if he was dead, alive, kidnapped, in jail, on the run, or on vacation. A provision of the National Security Act gave him thirty days from time of separation to notify them of a forwarding address. In fact, however, they wanted it before he left Washington. But Landry, in his first exercise of his rights as a civilian, told them tersely that he didn't know where he was going. He was gone but not forgotten, forcibly retired but of continuing interest to his superiors.

Landry passed a row of post-mounted mailboxes, noticing that the one with the Landry name had the red flag down, as it had been for about five years.

He pulled into the long gravel drive, overgrown with weeds.

The farmhouse was a classical white clapboard Victorian, with porch and gingerbread ornamentation, built in 1889 by Landry's greatgrandfather. It was the third house to occupy the site, the first being a log cabin built in the 1820s when the Great Black Swamp was drained and cleared by his ancestors. The second house had been circa Civil War, and he'd seen a photo of it, a small shingled saltbox shape, sans porch or ornamentation. The better looking the farmhouse, according to local wisdom, the more the husband was henpecked. Apparently, Great-Grandpa Cyrus was totally pussy-whipped.

Landry pulled the Saab up to the porch and got out. The setting sun was still hot, but it was dusty dry, very unlike the Washington steam bath.

Landry stared at the house. There was no one on the porch to welcome him home, nor would there ever be. His parents had retired from farming and gone to Florida five years before. His sister, Barbara, unmarried, had gone to Cleveland to seek career fulfillment as an advertising executive. His brother, Paul, was a vice-president with Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Paul had been married to a nice lady named Carol who worked for CNN, and Paul had joint custody of his two sons, and his life was governed by his separation agreement and by Coca-Cola.