The Glass Village by Ellery Queen

economics, you see, the Holy Book and the Pocketbook, in defense of either or both of which the good Puritan more or less cheerfully risked his life. Or to the John Endecott expedition against the Pequot Indians in reprisal for the murder of John Oldham, a simple exercise in revenge against the benighted heathen furriners—well, their skin color was different and they spoke English with an accent when they spoke it at all, which amounted to the same thing. As I recall it, they followed that up by wiping out the main Pequot settlement and massacring every big and little Pequot they could find. The Puritan is a mighty stubborn citizen when aroused.”
    â€œIn other words,” Johnny grinned in the darkness, “they were swine.”
    â€œThey were people. People with beliefs, some right and some wrong. More important—they did something, rightly or wrongly, about their beliefs.” The rocker stopped creaking. “Johnny, what do you believe in?”
    In the darkness Johnny felt the old man’s eyes groping for him.
    â€œNothing, I guess.”
    â€œA man has to believe in something, Johnny.”
    â€œI’m not a man, I’m a vegetable,” laughed Johnny.
    â€œSo you’re vegetating.”
    â€œIt follows, doesn’t it?” Johnny suddenly felt too tired to talk. “I used to believe in a great deal.”
    â€œOf course you did—”
    â€œIt was painful.”
    â€œYes,” said the Judge dryly.
    â€œI even did something about my beliefs. I lapped up all the noble sludge, shipped out to be a hero. I knew what I was fighting for. You betcha. Democracy. Freedom. Down with the tyrants. One world. Man, those were the days. Remember?”
    â€œI remember,” said the Judge.
    â€œSo do I,” said Johnny. “I wish I didn’t. Remembering is the worst pain of all. The trouble is, I’m not a successful vegetable. I’m not a successful anything. That bothers me a little. It would be nice just rooting in the sun, performing my little photosynthesis for the day, watching the animal life go by. But I’m like the rose in a story I read by Roald Dahl. When it was cut, it shrieked.”
    â€œGo on,” said the Judge.
    â€œYou like to listen to this stuff?” Johnny lit a cigaret; the flame trembled, and he snuffed it out quickly. “All right, I will. I think the first hint I got that I was going to be the missing link between the fauna and the flora came to me when I saw Hiroshima. Know anything about real fear, Judge? It’s the only hell there is. Hiroshima was hell on earth. Hell is a man’s shadow printed on the side of a building. It’s a radioactive bloodstream. It’s a kid with his bones lit up like a Christmas tree. There’s nothing in Dante that comes within a million miles of it.”
    Johnny smiled his queer smile in the warmth of the night. “So I came home. I felt out of sorts … out of touch with business-as-usual, but I put that down to the labor pains of readjustment. I really tried. I tried sitting in a law class again. I tried watching movies and TV commercials. I tried to understand prices going up and industry blaming it on labor and labor blaming it on industry. I tried to understand the UN. The one thing I didn’t try was Communism. I never fell for that crap. Some of the men did—I knew a fighter pilot who’d flown fifty-nine missions and came back and after a while joined the party, said there had to be hope somewhere. I was denied even that. I began to realize that there was no hope anywhere, at all. Then Korea. Am I boring you?
    â€œNo,” said Judge Shinn. “No.”
    â€œKorea, God help us,” said Johnny. “I was no hero that time. I just wanted to get back into something I knew. And all the time I was keeping my eye on what was going on outside that pustulated pimple on the hide of Asia. I saw nothing that stirred me in the direction of