the party

They give him a party, now that’s back home from the war – and in one piece, “Let’s all drink a toast.” It is a gala affair, by mid-sized town standards. Beer. A nice dinner at one of the nicer restaurants. A cake, later, at home, while everyone sings, “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow,” because, well, that’s what someone started singing. But it’s two hours later, now, and everyone is gone and he’s alone in his bedroom, the bedroom he had as a boy, with everything still the way it was, and instead of feeling at home, he feels an anger well up, deep inside, which is from where his anger always seems to come. And he knows at whom it’s directed, or mis-directed. At them. All of them, at the party, at his party. He knows it’s not fair to be upset with them, but he is, nonetheless, because they do not know, he knows, that he never will come home. He can’t come home, anymore, though they act as though he should, and did, and he is maddened by their ignorance. He decides he can’t stay, it is best that he leave, and he quietly grabs a few clothes and goes. He does not know where to go, but he will find it, the place, he knows. Maybe not soon, but someday. His name is Allen Joseph Walker. You maybe meet him, someday, or perhaps you already have and didn’t know it.