With those words the unannounced visitor crossed the threshold. He was in his early twenties with very short sandy-blond hair and an ugly bruise on his left temple. He wore a peach-and-white checkered short-sleeved shirt over a white undershirt. His blue jeans were stiff, ending at silent white sneakers. I already knew he was a white boy by the spin of his words.

“You always just walk in on people like that?” I replied.

“The door was unlocked,” he said. “I said hello when I came in.”

He took another step and I sat back again. His empty hands hung loose at the sides.

“I’m Rawlins. Who’re you?”

He took another step, saying, “Craig Kilian.”

One more step. It felt as if he was going to walk right up on my desk.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Mr. Kilian?”

The offer seemed to confuse the young man. He looked to his left, identified the walnut straight-back chair. After a moment he went through the necessary movements to sit himself down.

“You just out the military, Craig?”

“Uh-huh. You say that ’cause’a my crew cut?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

There was a haunted look in Kilian’s eyes that would have probably still been there if he hadn’t been walloped upside the head. All through World War II I’d encountered soldiers from both sides of the battlefield who had that look, who had been shattered by the din of war.

Craig took a pack of True cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Plucking out a cancer stick with his lips, he drew a book of matches from the cellophane skin of the pack. He lit up, took in a lungful of smoke, and exhaled.

Then he gave me a quizzical look and asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

I did mind. I’d been trying to quit for a couple of years. But there was something about Craig’s glower that made me want to give him some leeway.

Watching him suck on that cigarette, I was reminded of an early morning in October 1945. It was outside of Arnstadt, Germany, and I was on guard duty after a long night of heavy rains. The war was just over and so we weren’t as sharp as we had been in battle. My brand was Lucky Strike. As I smoked I was wondering what it would be like to go back home to Texas after outflanking and outfighting the white man, and becoming friendly with his women too.