The only thing we have to fear

A short story

Part Three: The Final Chapter

Doc’s sign was gone.

“Will you look at that?! My ‘Biden/Harris’ sign’s gone! Son of a bitch. Can you believe it? Somebody took it! Who would take our sign?”

Doc looked at Patton expecting an answer. “Cat, you are no help.” Doc tugged on his T-shirt, slipped on his shorts, and pulled on his shoes. “I’ll order another sign. I’ll order a hundred if I have to.” And then he strode out the front door slamming it behind him. “I’m going to find out what happened.”

Charlie, armed with his Glock and sarcasm, saw Doc emerge and shouted from his porch with a tone of surprise, “Sign’s gone! What happened to it?” He didn’t say, ”Change your mind about Sleepy Joe?”

Doc stopped where was and heard his wife. He could see her standing on their porch saying, ”Doc. Honey. Don’t do something you’ll regret. He’s not worth it.”

Charlie wondered what Doc was doing just standing there. Counting to ten? Waiting for orders from Soros? “Calm down, Doc. I don’t have it.”

“Bullshit,” Doc muttered. Doc could never bear being told to calm down. Doc was done. He marched through Charlie’s front gate, up to the old man who gulped and stumbled back. Doc looked him in the eyes and quietly said, “Ever serve, Charlie?”

Charlie cleared his throat, stared at the “Semper Fi” tattoo on the old man’s wrinkled neck and pulled his “Make America Great” cap down to shade his eyes while he thought of a hundred ways to excuse himself and go back inside. He knew where this was going. Charlie was born in Lubbock, spent his whole life in Lubbock working for Lubbock Wholesale Beer Distributors until he retired and moved next door to this goddam liberal. Just because Doc had gone to college and traveled the world he thought he was better than everyone else. Charlie never served. So what?

“No, I never did, Doc. Why don’t you calm down?”

“Uh huh. Arlington. The National Cemetery. Ever been?”

Charlie hadn’t. He’d seen pictures. He wasn’t stupid. He squinted at the sun, shook his head and lied. “I seen it.”

“I was there last week, Charlie. Buried my grandfather. 99-years old. He was at Omaha Beach when he was 18.” And then in a voice so quiet Charlie could barely hear him Doc whispered, "Those men at Normandy fought in 1944 to liberate Europe from the same damned fool tyranny you are blindly backing in 2024. You know we’ve been neighbors a long time and we were pretty good friends, Charlie, but can you tell me something?”

Charlie gripped his Glock as Doc moved closer. “How it is you can back a draft dodger who called the dead soldiers buried there ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’? Are my brother and my grandfather losers, Charlie?” Doc was inches from old Charlie’s cringing face. “My uncle was a POW, Charlie. Tell me to my face he was a loser. Was John McCain a loser?”

Charlie wanted to shout “Yes, he was a loser!” but instead he watched Doc calmly rolled up his sleeve exposing what was left of his maimed left arm.”You heard what your man Trump said about the wounded?" In the bright Arizona sunlight Doc’s upper arm, scarred by war, looked like pink sinews of ground hamburger tethered around bone. From his elbow to his shoulder.”Should this old wound keep me out of military parades?”

Charlie sighed a deep exasperated breath. “You know Trump never said any of that. Not one word. Those are all media lies. Those Generals were lying.”

Doc sighed a deep exasperated breath. “Always an answer," thought Doc. He felt the ghost of his wife tugging him away from this fruitless pointless exchange back to the house.

As he stepped back, Charlie said, “Doc, we all saw your sign. Our whole neighborhood knows you drank the Kool-aid. None of us can believe you’re supporting that senile old crook. He stole the election. We are not gonna let it happen again. I am not gonna let it happen again. Not if I can help it. Not this time. I love this country too much. I believe you’re standing on my property.”

Doc bit his lip, nodded, turned, headed back to his house and wondered where this was heading. Doc’s head spun as he cricled the news of the day. “And they want to give that mad man Trump immunity? Jesus! Elect me President and I’ll use my immunity to kill every last of those right-wing Nazi assholes and get away with it.” Heading to his recliner he passed a framed picture of his smiling wife from a memorable camping trip. Doc acknowledged you can’t think anything out of earshot of a spirit. Especially not a military wife who was always looking out for you.

“Baby, I know, I know. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.”

That afternoon Charlie was blasting FOX so loud Doc felt like he might as well be an attache at the American Embassy in Havana being bombarded with a head splitting sonic attack. When he didn’t lower the volume at sunset Doc called the police to lodge a noise complaint about Charlie’s sonic warfare. Through his blinds he saw the police pull up, knock on Charlie’s door and talk with the crazy bastard. When the cops left Charlie’s casita his house went silent. And dark.

Doc slipped into bed, said “Good night” to Patton and savored the quiet. It wasn’t long before he fell into his favorite recurring dream, home from some insane conflict, it wan’t clear where or when, striding across a foggy airfield into the arms of the most beautiful girl he ever loved.

Before America went insane.

The next morning Doc thought maybe it would not be best to ever walk past Charlie’s house again. Take a different route. But, as Doc told Patton over oatmeal, “It’s just not in my nature to back down, old man. Only a fool would be afraid of the old farts living in this FOX news fantasy land. Right, old boy?” Patton wandered between Doc’s legs as he got up to set down a fresh can of cat food. “As if I was the target of a fatwa issued by these fascist Trump fatheads. You’ll protect me, won’t you, Patton? You old fur ball.”

Doc dug through his closet, found his old Kevlar vest, struggled to remember the combination to his dusty gun safe, opened it, holstered the Glock he had carried in two third-world war zones, petted Patton goodbye and walked down to the street where he saw Charlie, looking older than he felt, standing on his front porch, a frail old fool patting his Glock.

As Doc got closer he could see the Charlie was different. Charlie was looking at Doc with the fiery burning hatred of the religious fanatics Doc had seen in the backwaters at the edge of the world. The zealots who’d stare at Doc from behind their barricades dead certain he was not a human being, but an infidel they’d be happy to send straight to Hell. After they beheaded him and burned him alive.

The old veteran who’d survived blind alley bushwhacks in Baghdad, ambushes in the hills of Afghanistan and worse, said to hell with it, and headed out for his morning walk. “No one is going to intimidate this American. Not in my America. Not any one.”

The End