I started thinking about the Civil War. In Confederate towns, like Valdosta where my mother was raised, families, fiancées, waited years to see their loved ones. And because all of the men had left, they had no choice but to wait; they had to cling only to sporadic notes about geography and frostbite and where was God in that great death. And in those flimsy camps of young boys and old men, a letter was hard to come by. Like their women wondered about gangrene, didn't those men wonder about another suitor, visiting from the mountains?
In later wars, those fears were more rational. When writing from Laos, a soldier knew some pacifist could be wooing the girl whose picture faded inside his helmet. A deserter in 1862, living in the mountains, sneaking into town to cuckold a loyal soldier, was all but impossible. The Confederate infantry should've concerned themselves only with self-preservation, but men can't control those jealousies and fears.
What is striking to me is the length of time apart. I don't know how many years those men spent in trenches. And then some returned, and I'm sure the reunion was more frightening than any pain of absence. Did their women wait? Are their parents still vibrant and capable of driving the plow? Has the town grown—is it full of transients and broken windows?
I've written letters, not many, and since Vietnam the world has changed even more. I'm returning home in three weeks. It's been a long absence, but not like six months, not like years of war. I bought a postcard today. Like a soldier, I'm afraid of things changing.
What brought all of this to mind was a story, a true one.
In Valdosta, not long after the war, an elephant rampaged through the streets. The Chief of Police made a posse, and after a night search they found and killed her in a field. Veterans of the war were old but still alive. I imagine some of them sat on their porches while that African monster trumpeted past.
After combat, and distant spouses, they surely thought they had understood fear. But like their letters, the world is so unknown. A marauding elephant is not an adulterous wife, is not the Spencer repeating rifle. I imagine, on their porches, they remembered the fears of infidelity, of other men—resurfaced by a new terror. Did they shake and cry? Did their women, old now too, dismiss how bothered their husbands seemed by the enraged animal? "Strange things happen," the women might've said, starching a shirt while the veterans paced and groaned.
"Can't you see," the men might've said back, "the world is crazy?" The women might have glanced up from the wash, and the men remembered these were their prizes of war, the reason they fought. "What do I have to say to you for God's sake, dear? I never forgot about you."
