“Didn't you, um, fight communists?” I asked him, wanting to say kill but not quite daring. “In the Marines?” Harry nodded. “That's right” he said. “Communism threatens our way of life. So it's important to fight it.” We were at the front door, and he gently pushed me in ahead of him, into the smell of the fresh coffee that Doris, my adoptive mom, always had ready for Harry when he came home from work. She was not yet too sick to move, and she was waiting for him in the kitchen.

They went through their ritual of drinking coffee and talking quietly, as they did every day, and it was such a perfect Norman Rockwell picture that I would certainly have forgotten it almost instantly if not for what happened later that evening.

Doris was already in bed. She had taken to going to sleep earlier and earlier as her cancer got worse and she needed more pain medicine. Harry, Deborah and I had gathered in front of the TV set as we usually did. We were watching a sitcom, I don't remember which. There were many of them at the time that all could have been lumped together under the title of Funny Minority and the White Guy. The whole purpose of these shows seemed to be letting us all know that in spite of our small differences we were really all the same.

I kept waiting for some clue that this might include me, but neither Freddy Prinze nor Redd Foxx ever chopped up a neighbor. Still, everyone else seemed to enjoy the show. Deborah laughed out loud now and then, and Harry kept a contented smile on his face, and I did my best just to keep a low profile and fit in amid the hilarity.

But in the middle of the climactic scene, right when we were about to learn that we are all the same and then hug, the doorbell rang. Harry frowned a little bit, but he got up and went to the door with one eye still on the TV. Since I had guessed how the show would end and I was not particularly moved by artificial hugs of compassion, I watched Harry. He turned on the outside light, peeked through the eyehole, and then unlocked and opened the door.

“Gus” he said, with surprise. “Come on in.” Gus Rigby was Harry's oldest friend on the force. They had been best man at each other's weddings, and Harry was godfather to Gus's daughter, Betsy. Since his divorce, Gus was always at our house for holidays and special occasions, although not as often now that Doris was sick, and he always brought a key lime pie.

But he didn't look terribly social now, and he was not carrying a pie. He looked angry and frazzled, and he said, “We gotta talk” and pushed past Harry into the house.

“About what?” Harry said, still holding the door open.