To understand Vance, one would only need to look into his pockets. I'll bet a horse that you can usually find eight to ten of his timid fingers, tucked away as to avoid any altercation or strongly held stance.

He can be easy going and wholly enjoy himself while in this penguin pose. Double over laughing with two hands slid into his front pockets. Vance is not a stranger to the array of emotions and opinions held below the surface, yet any onlooker would wonder who or what shamed him into this meager posture.

I observe him strolling around the monuments when he stopped before the long, obsidian wall of the Vietnam war memorial. He looks tense and perturbed. And in his pockets I could see the knuckled imprint of clenched fists.

His past precisely-selected moments of tense silence resonate with me now: the returning soldier, the speaker on domestic violence, our classmate losing his mother to cancer — all moments we all had something to say afterwards, but not Vance. He never shared about his veteran father, except to discourage boisterous opinions on War. Mention of it would boil his blood and churn his stomach. I see that clearly now.