My name is Michael Tate.
Following a recent trip to Cincinnati where I carried out an assassination, (well-deserved, I thought) life here on the farm has been quiet.
It is now the height of summer, dry and hot and there are few things that require doing as the tobacco is growing its way to harvest in the fall and the grass is growing too slowly to require cutting for hay right now.
Marian, the mail lady, has retired and her place has been taken by a younger lady who has not yet become sufficiently acquainted with the people on her route to engage much in conversation if she happens to be dropping the mail at the same time that the recipient is near the mailbox. She’ll warm up soon enough as the people hereabouts are awfully difficult not to get to know... and like.
John Nash still waves whenever I’m outside and he happens to be passing in his truck, which is now a brand new gold-colored Ford F‑250 and has just pulled into the driveway.
John occasionally stops by and shares a cup of coffee. I think he is sometimes trying to be overly friendly as his way of continuing to say thanks for the little job I did for him in Cincy. He also apparently knows that there is always a pot of coffee handy, even if I have to heat it in the microwave to get it to a decent, drinkable temperature. John likes his coffee hot as do I, which is why I almost always drink mine from an insulated cup, to keep the heat as long as possible. Guess that’s why I usually order iced tea when dining out because restaurant coffee served in ceramic cups always seems to get lukewarm way too quickly. And John and I both drink our coffee black without the accouterments of sugar or cream. It seems almost sacrilegious to add such items to a cup of coffee when there are so many types of coffee available to sample. I once asked John if he would like some amaretto coffee and I thought he might physically attack me for even suggesting such a thing.
John is a good man and a good neighbor. I daresay that I could ask almost anything of him and he would do it without thinking.
During this visit, he felt comfortable enough to reveal to me the event in Vietnam which caused so many subsequent problems for him, problems which mostly ended after my trip to Cincinnati.
“Michael, I’ll never be able to repay you for the Cincinnati deal, but I wanted you to know what Wegner was blackmailing me over. I think you’ve earned the right even though I’ve never told even my wife the whole story.
“In Vietnam, I was a member of a platoon which had just undergone and survived a VC encounter during which eight members of the platoon had been killed and another 13 wounded. I got through the fight mostly unscathed, but all of us were boiling mad over our losses. What was left of the platoon, hauling our wounded and dead with us, entered a nearby village where we rounded up five men of the village who we suspected of being informers for the VC. The five were being interrogated by the senior member of the platoon, a staff sergeant. The platoon leader, a lieutenant, had been one of those killed in the skirmish.
“The five villagers, each of whom was bound with cable ties and kneeling on the ground during the interrogation, were apparently reluctant to answer any of the questions being put to them. “Finally, the sergeant told five of us to stand in front of the kneeling men, one-to-one and he ordered us to shoot the man in front of us in the head. I was one of those five soldiers. I was subsequently court-martialed, found guilty of the charges against me, and given a general discharge — which hampered my ability to find a meaningful job after I was shipped home. I have never been able to live down the shame of gunning down civilians, innocent or not, and the court martial. Wegner threatened to let all this out, not only to my wife but to my employer as well.
“I’m afraid that if Rachel knew, it would destroy our marriage.”
I naturally told him that they would never hear it from me.
After the coffee, John claimed he needed to get on home and I walked him out to his truck. As he pulled out of the driveway, I noticed that LeAnn, the new mail carrier was pulling up. She saw me approaching and called out, “Afternoon, Mr. Tate. Got another hot one today.”
LeAnn had not yet become comfortable at simply addressing me by ‘Michael’. I waved as I came closer.
“LeAnn, I sure wish you’d call me Michael,” I said, smiling. “Calling me ‘Mr. Tate’ sure makes me feel old.”
“Reckon I’ll get used to that eventually, Mr., uh, Michael,” she responded. “Bear with me.”
“I’ll have to agree with you about the weather,” I continued. “Guess you have to expect that in July in Kentucky.”
“Guess so,” she replied. “But I sure wish we’d get some rain. Looks like your tobacco could use a good soaking too.”
“Yeah, but I let Nelson worry about that. After all, he gets all the profit from it. I guess he’s seen enough summers to know whether the crop is going to be a good one or to survive a dry spell.”
Nelson is my next-door neighbor and takes care of all the crops on the place since I’ve never adapted to being a real farmer.
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LeAnn handed me a small bundle of mail and said “Guess so. Well, you have a good day,” as she slowly pulled away.
“You, too,” I half-shouted as the sound of the mail truck began to drown out my words.
The mail package contained several bills and advertisements from regional department stores, the weekly supermarket flyer, and an envelope with a return address of 1301 Olive Street, St. Louis, MO 63103.
It was only later that I discovered that this address was the main library in St. Louis, but letters with no name attached to the return address usually meant a commission for a job.
This one proved to be no different.
