a year later

I spent New Year's Eve, 1999, and the dawn of the new millenium about 15 miles from here with a guy who calls himself a Christian patriot. By that he means a white supremacist who believes that the U.N. is in league with the devil and U.S. presidents to put us all in concentration camps and take our land away and return it to the wild. He thought that this movement would begin on Y2k. I told him I didn't believe anything would happen, and I would spend the moment with him to prove it.
He sat with an AK-47 leaning up against his chair as we watched TV. We saw the ball drop in Times Square when it was still 11:00 in Missouri. My friends covering the event for Time called me from Times Square. Nothing was happening.
In disbelief, he got on the phone, calling people around the U.S. Any roads closing? power grids shut down? troop movements? police actions? black helicopters? Nothing.
To his credit, he claimed to be happy.
To my credit, I didn't say I told you so.
He didn't like the story I wrote about him at all, and the last time I called him he said he wasn't ready to see me.
If he knew I had bought a place in the next town a decade later, he would faint. Assuming he hasn't had his land taken away by the U.N.