Spencerville

It was getting dark now, and the rain still fell. Keith said, "Nearly everyone I knew sat on this porch at one time or another."

"You know, Keith, we're not even old, and I feel like we're surrounded by ghosts."

"I know what you mean. Maybe we shouldn't have come back here, Jeffrey. Why'd you come back?"

"I don't know. It's cheaper than Antioch. We're not financially comfortable. We forgot about money in our zeal to produce little radicals." He laughed. "I should have bought defense stocks."

"Not a good investment at the moment. You working?"

"Tutoring high school kids. So's Gail. She's also on the city council for a dollar a year."

"No kidding? Who the hell voted for a pinko?"

"Her opponent was caught in a men's room." Keith smiled. "What a choice for Spencerville."

"Yeah. She'll be out of office in November. Baxter's got it in for her."

"I don't wonder."

"Hey, watch that guy, Keith. He's dangerous."

"I obey the law."

"Don't matter, my friend. The guy's sick."

"Then do something about it."

"We're trying."

"Trying? Aren't you the guy who tried to topple the United States government once?"

"That was easier." He laughed. "That was then." Moths beat against the screened windows of the house, and the rockers creaked. Keith popped open the last two beers and handed one to Jeffrey. "I don't understand why you both left cushy teaching jobs."

"Well... it got weird."

"What got weird?"

"Everything. Gail taught sociology, and I taught Marx, Engels, and other dead white European males who are now dead for sure. I sat there in my ivory tower, you know, and I couldn't see what was going on in the real world. The collapse of communism sort of caught me by surprise."

"Me, too. And I got paid to avoid surprises."

"Did you? You some kind of spy?"

"Go on. Your heroes had feet of clay. Then what?" He smiled. "Yeah, so I didn't know if I should rewrite my lectures or rethink my life."

"I hear you."

"Anyway, my classes were not well attended, and whereas I was once in the vanguard of social thought, I found myself bringing up the rear. Christ, I couldn't even get laid anymore. I mean, maybe I'm getting too old for the undergraduate women, but... it's more a head thing than physical. You know? Also, they've got these rules now, whole pages of rules on sexual conduct... Jesus Christ, they tell you you've got to get a verbal go each step of the way — Can I unbutton your blouse? Can I undo your bra? Can I feel your breast?" He laughed. "No joke. Can you imagine that when we were undergrads? Christ, we just got high and fucked. Well, you didn't, but... anyway, Gail got a little behind the times, too. Her potential students all signed up for Feminist Studies, Afro-American History, Amerindian Philosophy, New Age Capitalism, and stuff like that. No one takes straight sociology anymore. She felt... sort of establishment. Jesus Christ, has the country changed, or what?"

"Antioch might not be representative of the country, Jeffrey."

"I guess not. But, jeez, there's nothing as pathetic as an old revolutionary who doesn't get it anymore. The revolution always eats its own. I knew that thirty years ago. I just didn't expect to be on the take-out menu so soon."

"They sack you?"

"No. They don't do that. Gail and I just woke up one morning and made a decision. We quit on principle. Stupid."

"No. Smart. Good. I can't say the same for myself. I wish I would have done what you did. But I got axed."

"Why? Cutbacks?"

"Yup. The price of victory is unemployment. Ironic."

"Yeah, well, but you won. Now I can't look forward to a socialist paradise on earth." He finished his beer and crushed the can. "Politics suck. They divide people."

"I told you that." Keith sat silent for a while and thought about what Jeffrey had said. He and his childhood friend had lived different lives and believed in different things, and apparently had nothing in common by their senior year in college. In reality, they had more in common than they knew.

They'd been little boys together, they'd played in the same schoolyard, and left for the same college the same day. Each considered himself an honest man and perhaps an idealist, and each probably believed he was doing the best he could for humanity. They'd served in different armies while others stood aside. But, in the end, they'd each been misled, used, and abused by different systems. Yet here they were old Spencerville boys, sharing too many beers on the front porch. Keith said to Jeffrey, "We've both been left in the scrap heap of history my friend. We're useless relics who both lost the war."

Jeffrey nodded. "Yeah. Can we get the next thirty years right?"

"Probably not. But were not going to make the same mistakes."

"No but the past clings to us, Keith. Word got out that Gail and I are Reds, which isn't really true, but it hasn't helped the tutoring business. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Join a church? Go to Fourth of July picnics dressed in red, white, and blue? Register as Republicans?"

"God forbid."

"Right. We're still radicals. Can't help it."