At Twilight's Wake

She doesn’t do it often, but when I’ve wallowed in self-pity just about enough, my friend Emily will chew my butt a little. “What would it take to make you happy?” she’ll sniff. “I’m serious. Exactly what would you have to do, what would have to happen for you to be satisfied?” Although my reply is usually flip and includes something about naked women and lewd Lithuanian midgets, her question is always a good one, and it usually sets me thinking.

There was a time, seemingly a long time ago, when things were, for one long deep moment, absolutely...perfect.

It was in the spring of my last year in graduate school. In the fall of the previous year those of us aspiring to Ph.D.’s were subjected to a week-long rite of passage called Preliminary Examinations. We spent three and a half years preparing for those hydra-headed horrors and our entire future careers hung in the balance. For those of us who passed, tradition demanded that we hold the most elaborate party of the year, inviting all the departmental faculty and graduate students for a grand spring blow out.

Now understand that this party was not a spontaneous and informal get together where a couple dozen people spent an hour chewing beer and swallowing pretzels. The planning alone took months. We commissioned our resident faculty gourmet to cook elaborate dishes. We purchased shopping carts of imported beer and exotic blended whiskey. We organized and reorganized our wardrobes for the big evening and hired bartenders and maids. It was like preparing for an invasion of a small foreign country. It has been said that luck is the residue of design, but sometimes luck is only the residue of luck. Our party that particular year fell on the night, almost the exact hour, that the American-Vietnamese cease fire agreement went into effect. It was time for the terror and the madness that had sucked the spirit out of my generation to stop.

The city was ablaze with porch lights of celebration and relief that evening as I excitedly drove to the building we had obtained for the party. My responsibility was to begin the “set up” and I was assisted by a tall willowy blond woman about my age whom I met for the first time that evening. As I unpacked food and drink, she finished some last minute vacuuming and straighting. Then she lit a fire in the fireplace and we sat together in front of it, enjoying the momentary lull.

Suddenly a great roar of church bells, probably every church bell in the city, pealed out. The hour of the armistice had arrived. The woman and I rushed to the front porch and, strangers though we were, we hugged and held each other and we cried.

Later that night I saw staid, conservative Dr. Dachowski dance with a handkerchief in his teeth. I saw crusty old Dr. Chambliss fish a joint out of his pocket, light it, and pass it among the senior graduate students as we sat on the steps of the front porch. I saw Dr. Matteson play the dulcimer and sing sad Gaelic folk songs.

It was a night I’ll always remember because at exactly that moment the future blended with the present and I was on the verge of real adulthood. I was with close friends who’d been with me through four years of academic hell— but were fellow survivors. My teachers trusted me enough to relax around me. And my country was finally at peace. It was one time when everything was absolutely, undeniably,...perfect.