by Eva Conrad
When the War is Over
Arlie McIntosh was a veteran of the War of 1812. He had grown old and grouchy, and had learned long ago to dampen the pain of having a ball lodged in his hip with spirits. On a good night it was his habit to find an audience and tell war tales and pioneering stories, drinking until his speech became slurred and he began to slump over in his chair, at which point someone would kindly take him home to whichever wife was waiting patiently there to put him to sleep.
It was a chilly October night in 1887, and Arlie, who was expecting his twenty-fifth child with his seventh wife, Genevieve, limped into Yowell’s Tavern for a drink. Sam Yowell poured him the usual while he settled in at the bar with one hip and leg on the stool, the other hip and leg anchoring him. Arlie took one shot of whiskey in a gulp, and then began sipping the second. He stared into the amber liquid in the little tumbler, thinking of something or someone far away. Sam Yowell watched Arlie for a few seconds and determined that Arlie was having one of his sentimental nights.
Sam washed tumblers and dried them with a dirty-looking rag. Arlie looked from side to side and said “You fellas finished putting up your hay?” Sam smiled and shook his head. It was going to be one of those evenings with Arlie.
“Sam, pour these boys a drink. You know ol’ Fedder here fought beside me,” said Arlie, gesturing to his left with his head and hand. “Probably saved my life.” Arlie’s bright blue eyes glistened with emotion. “If my Genny has a boy we’ll name him after you, Fedder, we’ll name him after you.”
Arlie was quiet for a few minutes. “Need another drink, Sam,” he quipped, finally, waving his slender, long arms in the air expressively. “And so do my friends.” Sam poured the shots and set them down on the bar. Arlie looked up at him. Sam recognized the pain and sadness in Arlie’s eyes. Sam’s father had carried that same sadness back from Antietam. Time would tell, however, that Sam’s father had fought on the wrong side.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance Mr. Fedder,” said Sam, offering his hand. Raymond and Buddy Holbrook, who were sitting at a table, cast Sam an odd look. He winked at them.
“And this is my brother Alvin,” said Arlie, gesturing to his right, “but you know him. Alvin here was in the lawyering business, but now he’s just an old farmer, like me. We both are just old farmers now.”
Sam cast a nod in Alvin’s general direction. “Sir,” he said, “my daddy told me you were the fiercest lawyer in the land.”
“Well, he was,” said Arlie, nodding. “Made case law several times. Now Sam, your daddy, why he was a corporal, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sam.
“Yes,” echoed Arlie; his eyes grew still and cloudy, and he sat still for a while.
“I killed twenty men, Sam,” said Arlie in a whisper, as if in confession.
“Yes, sir,” replied Sam.
Arlie leaned back a little and shut his eyes. The whiskey was kicking in now, deadening the pain. Bees swarmed in his head.
“The Reverend told me before he died that I was forgiven, and that I did what I had to do.”
“Yes, you did, Captain. And I thank you for doing what you had to do,” said Sam, looking down as he wiped spilled whiskey from the bar.
“So did your father, Sam,” said Arlie, his eyes still closed.
“Yes, sir, he did,” said Sam, his eyes stinging as tears spilled into them.
“Just so you know that, son,” said Arlie, gently placing his hand over Sam’s and staring into Sam’s eyes preternaturally, “and try to forgive him. And when you get angry thinking about him and how he was, forgive him again. The war doesn’t ever really end.”
Sam pressed his lips together. “Yes, Captain,” he said.
Later that evening, when the bar was empty and Arlie had been carted home, Sam sat down at a table to rest for a moment. Arlie had eventually abandoned his imaginary friend and brother at the bar to take the stage and tell about how he met his first wife, a Chocktaw princess, and how he killed a bear with nothing but a dull knife in Tennessee, and about the time he stole a pie from someone’s windowsill and ended up in stocks. Fine stories, they were, immensely entertaining and told by a man with superior storytelling skills.
But now, in the emptiness and quiet, Sam remembered what Arlie had said to him, and how Arlie’s blue eyes had pierced him, strengthening the words the old man had uttered. Head in his hands, Sam wept. His father had never been right after the war. He’d come home drunk and yelling and slapping everyone in the house around. Sometimes he would disappear for days at a time, falling into delusions that he was still fighting, hiding from the enemy in the underbrush. Later, when Sam was sixteen, his father had an accident with his gun, thereby promoting Sam to man of the house.
It was no accident; it was suicide and everyone knew it, but the whole town pretended for the sake of Sam and his mother and brothers.
Sam sat at the table, weeping, and forgave his father for the first time.
