The only thing we have to fear

A short story in its entirety

News item: “Kari Lake, who’s running for Senate in Arizona, told a rally this week that it’s time for supporters to ‘put on the armor of God and maybe strap on a Glock just in case’.”

Doc’s casita looked like every beige bungalow in every retirement community in Arizona, endless suburbs surrounded by high stucco walls hiding the loneliness they fortified, revealing little to outsiders but an endless horizon of Mexican red tile roofs, American flags, satellite dishes and silence.

Every morning Doc, the retired widower, woke at sunrise, drank his black coffee, ate his microwaved oatmeal, doom scrolled his phone for Trump news and then started out for his daily walk down his driveway, following the same path, down the street past his next door neighbor Charlie‘s house, greeting neighbors along the way.

Doc and Charlie spent their days in their dimly lit living rooms watching news and war documentaries while eating microwaved meals, only venturing outside for walks, to rake their gravel and to view the sunset from their porches before returning to their worn recliners to watch their favorite news shows, searching for the daily outrage that would provoke both men to lie awake in their beds long into the night, posting on their phones their disgust for their fellow citizens, the idiots who were destroying their country far beyond their walls, beyond the mountains, beneath the vast starry sky they long ago forgot to gaze at in awe.

Unlike Doc, Charlie was hard of head and hard of hearing and happy to blast Fox News through his open front door all day and all night. Charlie assumed every neighbor, including Doc, was a FOX viewer who agreed with him about the persecution of Trump and Kari Lake and the millions of good Christian voters in Arizona who’d been robbed by “Let’s Go Brandon” Biden. Doc who hated FOX but told no one for fear of being shunned by all of his neighbors who were all die-hard MAGA-Republicans. Rather than confront Charlie he simply cursed the “ungracious son of a bitch”, kept his windows and door shut and gave up contemplating his beloved sunsets in peace. Doc’s late wife always said,”You’re too easy going, Doc.”

Neither man ever talked about politics. What was the point? Doc was happy to let them all assume he was one of them. Truth is Doc was afraid to let any of his neighbors know he thought they were “certifiably nuts”. That he feared what might become of his country. The country he’d fought for.

Charlie, living right next door, was their king. Charlie’s Trump bumper stickers, Trump flag, Trump yard signs, Trump banner and “THIS HOME PROTECTED BY SMITH AND WESSON” sign signaled to everyone no one was going to tread on Charlie by God.

Every morning when Doc walked past Charlie raking his gravel, he ached to asked the old man what America had failed to give him. When Charlie first moved in he had bragged to Doc he had a fat 401K and a nice pension and for a guy with a high school education Charlie had enjoyed a lucrative career in sales and not once did Charlie ask Doc anything about his life, his family or his military career. Charlie, the windbag, had a brand new giant pickup, an RV and a paid off casita and Christ, what on earth had Charlie been denied by his country to make him so afraid of gays and blacks and immigrants and good God, Doc always came around to realizing there was no point in challenging Charlie’s onslaught of fatuous wind, because he might as well talk to the high walls surrounding their stucco necropolis.

Doc texted his adult daughter it was like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” here in “Mar-a-Lago West”.

“LOL, dad.”

Doc, the fearless old Marine, was afraid to ever speak his mind. Doc would stand and listen and just smile whenever he got cornered by a neighbor walking their dog who wanted to stop and vent about illegals, Marxists or baby murderers.

All any of his neighbors knew about Doc was that Doc was a pleasant fella, an old veteran who liked fishing and watching Antiques Roadshow.

The day that all changed

Charlie heard Doc had gotten Covid back when Trump was President and, being a good Christian, Charlie knocked on Doc’s door. Doc tugged his mask up over his nose and mouth and opened his door. “Charlie!” Charlie concealed his annoyance at the sight of Doc’s damned mask. Why Doc needed to signal his virtue was beyond Charlie but what the Hell. Doc lied when he saw Charlie’s red MAGA hat. “Nice hat. New?”

“Yes sir. How ya’ doing, Doc?”

“Pretty Good. Sure am glad I got vaccinated.”

Charlie said nothing. What was the point in arguing with sheep. “Good for you, man. Listen, I brought you some Ivermectin. It-”

Doc winced. Ivermectin. What bullshit he thought as he smiled at Charlie’s “thoughtfulness” from behind his mask. “That’s nice of you, but I’m good Charlie.”

In that instant Charlie knew Doc was one of them, one of the haters he’d heard about on talk radio and had only ever seen on FOX news. God almighty. Doc was a “libtard”. An idiot. One of the sheep to be pitied. And feared. That flagpole with our flag on it in Doc’s front yard was a cover.

Doc thanked Charlie again, tugged his face mask tight, said, “Have a good day,” and as soon as Doc shut his front door Charlie turned around and walked down the path to the street and set about warning every neighbor, he encountered from that day forward that Doc was one of them, not one of us. Doc was a hater who hated America and Christians, Jesus, and Donald Trump. Probably a Jew. Definitely a Democrat. A baby killer. Didn’t seem to be a queer. Possibly a pedophile. You can’t be sure with them types. Did you see his electric car?

A year later when Biden was inaugurated seeing Charlie’s stone-cold contempt before turning away to rake his gravel was chilling. Like the look Doc had seen in Ramadi, Baghdad and Mosul from the Goddam insurgents. The fanatics. What had Doc said or done?

Charlie could not contain his seething hatred for Doc, the liberal living right there under his nose. A traitor willing to support a man who stole the election in their home state, scum happy to open our borders to murderers and to turn our children over to perverts and why in Hell was Doc destroying the country that Charlie loved?

When Trump called the insurrectionists “political prisoners” Doc could no longer laugh off anyone’s blind allegiance to treason. Doc, the old Marine who swore an oath to defend the Constitution, knew treason when he saw it. Doc no longer cared what his “goddamned neighbors” thought. What? Were retired “Proud Boys” going pull up in their golf carts and knock on his door? Was a deranged neighbor off his Prozac going to shoot him through his window? Break in his casita in the middle of the night and take a hammer to his skull like one did to Pelosi’s husband? Nodding off in front of his TV Doc would be startled awake by sounds outside his window. Javelina probably. Sounds down the hall? Was that his cat jumping off a table in the dark? Was that someone breaking in? Doc joked to himself. “Get hold of yourself. Freaking out over sounds that go bump for Trump in the night.”

Was his PTSD from Iraq getting the best of him? When would he get sick of being afraid? When would “grow a pair” and stick a “Biden/Harris 2024” bumper sticker on his car?

Every time he decided it was time to stand up for what he believed he backed down. Why risk the vandalism. The stares. Honks. Tailgating. How long before he'd be rear-ended in traffic? Or shot? That slimy little shit Kyle Rittenhouse got away with it.

Doc thought long and hard over his microwaved oatmeal. He weighed the pros and cons as he scrolled Trump news. What was he afraid of? Why did he hesitate? Was it because he was from OKC and couldn’t believe what he saw when Tim McVeigh, a vet just like himself killed all those people in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in his hometown back in ’95? Doc was sick of cowering before all the loudmouthed mini-McVeigh’s his suburb. Old irrelevant men who believed crazy shit yammering on about a civil war. Shaking their walkers, peddling lies and empty threats.

And no one knew when he lived down in the valley he volunteered with the Giffords campaign. That morning he growled at his bathroom mirror, “God forbid anyone out here should know. Christ, Doc, when did you become such a miserable chickenshit?”

That evening on the news Kari Lake told her supporters to strap on their Glocks.

“Good God.”

The next morning when he started out for his walk Doc looked over at Charlie’s yard and there was Charlie at the end of his driveway, raking gravel, wearing a holstered Glock. And that’s when Doc decided when he got back from his walk, he’d do it.

That evening Doc and his neighbor Charlie saw the news that Kari Lake had told her supporters to “Put on the armor of God and strap on their Glocks going into this election.” The next morning when he started out for his walk Doc looked over at Charlie’s yard and saw Charlie at the end of his driveway, raking gravel, wearing a new holstered Glock.

That’s when Doc decided when he got back from his walk he’d do it.

The development Doc lived in had no sidewalks and no above ground telephone lines and he liked the natural desert he and his neighbors lived among, the brittle bushes and creosotes that attracted the quail, doves and occasional coyote. Every morning on his walks through and around his neighborhood, which he nicknamed “Barrio BMW” he felt as though he lived close to the natural world, the only answer to the madness he saw on his endless news feed and on this morning when he returned from his walk he told Patton, “I have to do it. Telling folks to strap on a Glock. Good God. What kind of madness was that?”

Patton’s mewed response was not helpful. Doc’s companion, Patton, was a scrawny ragged old cat who adopted him one afternoon years ago and thanked him by leaving a gift of rodent parts in front of the sliding glass door to his back porch.

Doc’s hero was General Patton, a surly old warrior whose nickname was “Old Blood ’n’ Guts”. In honor of the cat’s generous gift of bloody pack rat guts Doc dubbed the cat Patton.

“Patton, you are no help. When am I ever going to stand up to these people? What am I afraid of? What’s that, Pat old boy? Everything? Kiss my ass, cat. Every Trumper in his burb is on edge. They’re mad as Hell.” Doc was pretty sure there was a gun in every other casita in Barrio BMW. They were always shooting their mouths off about kneecapping illegals. Standing their ground against the hordes of criminals that would be pouring over the wall of their gated Fortune 500 fortress at any moment. Constipated bullies. Shaking their walkers at straw men. Imagine telling those geriatric McVeighs to go out and buy Glocks. Jesus H Christ. Insane.

“I tell you, Patton. I’m going to do it. I’m going to put a “Biden/Harris/2024” sign in my yard. Every Trumper will pop their catheters. There’ll be a parade of golf carts in front of our home. Charlie will lead tours. I better keep you inside."

Watching the news of the Trump trial Doc thought to himself there was hope for America after all. At that moment the rat-a-tat-tat of a Gila woodpecker hammering away at the aluminum chimney on his roof made him jump, drop the TV remote and spill his coffee. “Goddammit.” He looked at his cat Patton, who looked back at him. “I know. I know. Get a hold of yourself, Doc.”

Next door Charlie was watching FOX news cover the Trump “show trial”. Charlie knew the Deep State was behind all of it. Freezing an old man like that in a shitty courtroom. Charlie imagined his neighbor Doc laughing at poor Donald Trump’s persecution. “What is wrong with those goddam liberals?” He threw his remote at his large screen TV and looked through his side window at the casita next door and cursed Doc. “I’ll bet the son of a bitch is a deep state Antifa agent. Or worse.”

On Saturday, while microwaving his oatmeal, Doc told Patton, “I’m done betraying my brother.”

Patton rolled on his back and mewed his approval.

Doc was referring to his older brother, Leo, the Charlie Company medic, the beloved brother who served two tours in Vietnam, won a Bronze Star, was killed one week before he was set to come home and who was a closeted gay man his whole too short life, fearful of being outed because it was the sixties and here in 2024 Doc betrayed him with silence every time his neighbors would denigrate homosexuals as deviants. Sick perverts. Turning our country into a Sodom and Gomorrah.

They weren’t fit to kiss Leo’s boots.

Doc supported local LGBTQ causes every chance he had. Secretly. As he explained it to Patton, "Wouldn’t want any of these old bastards down at the club house to find out I was woke. God, I hate that word.”

When his daughter teased him about being a sucker for underdogs he texted her back, “maybe it’s because I read the goddamn Bible. And as for my holier than thou neighbors who call America a Christian country I have seen enough of what religion can do to people up close and personal in Kandahar.”

Doc wasn’t sure what he was politically, but he sure as hell knew he wasn’t like Charlie. Old Charlie saw the world in stark black-and-white. The way Doc saw it, he knew the world was grayer than the hairs on his head.

And Doc thought Biden was a decent man doing a decent job. And in perilous times. Doc opened his laptop, found the site he bookmarked weeks before, hit “return” and ordered the goddam “Biden/Harris 2024” yard sign.

On Wednesday the sign arrived.

Doc opened the box, slid out the double-sided corrugated plastic sign, carried it to his front yard and after weighing where to place it, he began to feel foolish so he planted it in the center of his yard in front of the cluster of prickly pear from which his flagpole rose up. Where it could be seen by all who passed his home.

Charlie watched it all from his porch and muttered. “God help us.”

Thursday morning Doc pretended to look at his watch as he quickly walked past Charlie’s.

And rather than taking the same path home and risk seeing Charlie he looped through the neighborhood and return to his home through the back gate.

That entire day Fox News screamed out of Charlie’s house through his open front door, back door and every window. “Trump persecuted”. “Arizona indicts eleven fake electors.””They’re trying to silence you, the American people.”

At noon Doc checked his mailbox and found “Trump 2024” bumper stickers and flyers from various MAGA candidates crammed into it. “Thanks, jackasses.” On the way back into his house Doc tossed them all into his garbage dumpster. He shut his door, put a frozen pizza into his microwave and told Patton,”It’s already started.”

Outside a passing pickup with flags flapping slowed down. The driver honked.

Friday morning Doc went for his walk and there was Charlie, raking his gravel again.

And packing his Glock. Doc muttered, “Jesus” and tried reaching out. “Nice Glock.”

Charlie grunted. “Nice sign.”

Doc said matter of factly, “I carried one when I was in Iraq. 18-bullets in nine seconds. Fine weapon. Never jammed on me. I still have it.”

Charlie grunted.

Doc calmly shifted gears. ”You know, I was a volunteer for Congresswoman Gabby Giffords when…” Doc paused to drink in Charlie’s dumbfounded surprise at this revelation.

And then added, “You know she was shot by Loughner with a Glock.”

Charlie said nothing. What did Doc want him to say? Doc quickly broke the awkward silence. “Say, Charlie, I’m volunteering to be a poll worker in this upcoming election here in the county. Why don’t you think about signing up with me? It’s a couple of hours of community service…”

Charlie, done with wasting any more time, waved the idea away. “What’s the point? It’s going to be rigged. Your kind thinks you run the world. Not for long though. See you around.”

Doc and Charlie just stood there, a vast canyon between them growing deeper and darker by the minute. The way Charlie snarled, “See you around,” sounded ominous. Doc answered, “Have a good weekend.” And went on his way asking himself, “Was it time to move?”

Saturday morning Doc made his coffee, ate his oatmeal, put on his shoes, opened the front door, grabbed his keys and water, and looked out at his front yard and back at Patton. “Will you look at that! What the Hell!”

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