Pacify

pacify
verb, transitive. To quell the anger, agitation, or excitement of. To soothe or calm. To bring peace to a country or warring factions, especially by the use or threatened use of military force.

The last time Gail saw Sandy was early spring semester in 1969. That was when the other girl decided she could no longer stand to be buried in the Midwest, away from her high school friends, and especially away from her boyfriend. She dropped out, halfway through freshman year, and returned to Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

It seemed as if Sandy's departure from Ohio had pulled the pin from a grenade. As soon as the weather began to warm, students all over the country began to abandon their college classes and protest on campuses and in the streets. Each incident fueled the conflict. A month before classes were scheduled to end, the deaths of protesters at Kent State made the state of affairs all too real. After a few tense days, Gail's university closed early

She walked all over campus during the last two days students were permitted to gather their belongings and pack up their dorm rooms. She endured catcalls from construction workers on the steel skeleton of the dormitory they were erecting. She scanned the rooflines of the classroom and administration buildings, looking for evidence of snipers. There was a rumor that the university president had requested help from the National Guard to pacify any uprising the students might foment. She saw no one on the roofs. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Sandy called from Alexandria early that summer. She was unhappy about having to live with her parents again while she figured out what she wanted to do. Gail's sympathy was limited. She had her own problems. Her father had laid down the law after she came home: if she wanted to return to school the following September, she would have to come up with the money to pay her tuition and room and board herself. Gail was working in the kitchen of a hamburger place near the mall, wearing a mustard-colored uniform that reeked of fryer grease, her hair in a net. She hated the job, but was doing her best to get used to it. She had no choice but to keep it and save everything she earned.

Years later, Gail still wondered whatever became of Sandy. That phone call was the last contact she ever had with her.


Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.