Masters of Atlantis

by Charles Portis

  “You come to inquire of me?”

  “I come in all humility.”

  “It is well that you do so.”

  “What is it then that you propose?”

  “Whatever it is, you may be sure I shall perform. Austin? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, all right. How in the world are you, sir? What are you doing here in this red twilight? You’ve put on some weight, I see. You and Maceo both. Here, sir, I brought you a little necktie organizer. I don’t know what I would do without mine.”

  Popper gave no very good reasons for his long absence or for his failure to communicate with the Temple. He waved off questions about the recent past, explaining that he was still not free to discuss his intelligence work for the government. “It’ll all come out in thirty years, that secret stuff,” he said. He went on to say that he was now living in “a western city,” where he was happily married to an attractive older woman named Meg. Meg not only had money of her own but was a trained dietician into the bargain. All their meals were scientifically planned and prepared. She bought him a new red Oldsmobile every year. They had a town house, a cabin on the lake, and kept registered spaniels. For two years running they had been voted the cutest couple at their country club. On alternate weekends, when they were not entertaining guests at home, they distributed baskets of food, representing a nice balance of the four food groups, to poor people.

  “You’d love Meg, sir. She’s just a great gal. But hey, I’m talking too much about Meg and myself. I want to get filled in on you. How I’ve missed the old gang. You and me and Mr. Bates. Huggins, Maceo, Mapes, Epps. What would be the odds on putting together another team like that? You couldn’t do it these days. Tell me, sir, what’s new with you? Can you put me current? Who’s cutting your hair, by the way?”

  “Maceo.”

  “I know you used to like your temples left full but they do say the close crop is more sanitary. Tell me, how is Mr. Bates?”

  “He’s in a nursing home.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “His back was hurting and so they pulled all his teeth.”

  “Doing fairly well now?”

  “His back still hurts. He can’t eat anything.”

  “But coming around nicely? Getting proper care?”

  “They don’t turn him over often enough.”

  “He’s bedfast?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Gets up every day and puts on his clothes?”

  “Not altogether, no. Not every day.”

  “Off his feed, you say.”

  “No, he stays hungry. He just can’t chew anything.”

  “But his color’s good?”

  “Not real good.”

  “But otherwise fit? Has all his faculties? Takes an interest in community affairs?”

  “Not much, no.”

  “How I’ve missed the old Red Room. But you know, I don’t remember these recliners at all. What are all these big chairs for?”

  “They’ve been here for years, Austin. Mapes brought them in here and lined them all up for some kind of meeting.”

  “Good old Mapes. Such a useful fellow to have around. I hear he’s more or less running the show these days.”

  “Oh no, he’s gone. Mapes left us some time ago. He went off somewhere to go into radio work.”

  “Radio repair?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Not commentary.”

  “Yes, I believe it was his plan to talk on the radio. I can’t say I’ve ever heard him talking on the radio.”

  “What, Mapes at the mike? The big broadcast of 1952? I’m sorry, sir, I don’t see it. I see Mapes at middle-level retail management. I don’t see Mapes at the console with a bright line of patter.”

  “I may have it wrong. Do you still have your cockatoo, Austin?”

  “Blue jay. No, sir, he caught the flu and died, poor little fellow. Back during the war.”

  “You didn’t get another one.”

  “No, sir, I couldn’t very well get another Squanto. Besides, Meg won’t have anything around but blooded dogs.”

  “Look, Austin, your chair. I saved it for you. It hasn’t been moved. Your room is waiting for you too.”

  It soon came out that Popper’s visit was more than a social call. He had a plan. Life had been good to him, he said. His country had been good to him and Indiana had been good to him. Any number of people had been kind to him along the way, most memorably Mr. Jimmerson, who had taken him in when jobs were hard to come by, and who had launched him on the Jimmerson Spiral. Lately, in his prosperity, he had been reflecting on all this, and considering various ways of repaying the debt of honor. Direct handouts of money were not the answer. A shower of rupees in the street was always good fun but the gesture had no lasting effect. The solution he had hit on was political. Public service was the answer. His contribution would be to the cause of better government, whereby all would benefit. What he wanted to do was to help Mr. Jimmerson become governor of Indiana.

  It was a breathtaking proposal. “Governor?” said Mr. Jimmerson.

  “Yes, and I’ve already done a little spadework in preparation. You know Dub Polton, don’t you, sir?”

  Mr. Jimmerson made an effort of memory. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “The writer? Surely you’ve heard me speak of him. My old friend Dub? W.W. Polton, our Indiana author?”

  “No, I can’t place him.”

  “I’m surprised. Well, you can take it from me, we’re lucky to get him.”

  “Get him for what?”

  “You’ve probably read his Western novels without making the connection. Abilene Showdown? ’Neath Pecos Skies? Dub wrote those under the name of Jack Fargo.”

  “I don’t read many new books.”

  “Dub goes way back. He’s an old newspaper reporter. His first book was a WPA project called The Story of the Fort Wayne Post Office, 1840-1940. It seems to me there used to be a copy of that lying around here in the Temple.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “His first and, some people say, his best. My personal favorite is Here Comes Gramps! A humorous family memoir. You know how I like a light touch. Dub’s a real pro, and not a bad egg once you get to know him. He’s done it all. Humor, suspense, poetry, romance, history, travel—there’s nothing he can’t handle. He wrote So This Is Omaha! in a single afternoon. Did you ever read a detective story called Too Many Gats by a man named Vince Beaudine?”

  “No.”

  “That was Dub. Does Dr. Klaus Ehrhart ring a bell? Slimming Secrets of the Stars?

  “No.”

  “Dub puts that name on all his health books. How about Ethel Decatur Cathcart? I know you must have heard about her very popular juvenile series. All those Billy books—Billy on the Farm, Billy and His Magic Socks. The kids are crazy about them. Well, Ethel is Dub.”

  “I don’t know any of these people and I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Austin.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can see now that I’ve only confused you by throwing all these names at you. I just wanted to give you some idea of Dub’s background to show how fortunate we were in signing him up. He’s a very busy man and he doesn’t come cheap.”

  “Signing him up for what?”

  “For your biography. The campaign biography.”

  “Oh come now, Austin, I can’t run for governor.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know very well that as the Master of Gnomons I can in no way involve myself in politics. Pletho strictly forbids it.”

  “Partisan politics. Surely that’s the meaning of the rule. And a darn good rule too, if you ask me. But don’t you see, that’s what we’re out to change. The demagoguery and dealcutting. People are tired of these professional politicians who hog all the elective offices. Everyone trying to get his snout in the trough. I believe the people are ready for a scholar, who, at the same time, has proven executive ability. A man who won’t be in there just
to feather his own nest. The administrator of a great if little known empire. Why not Lamar Jimmerson for a change?”

  “No, no, it’s out of the question.”

  “Our problem is that you’ve been submerged here in the Red Room for so long. Our first job will be to put you on view in some way. Get you talked about. That’s where the biography comes in. Then we’ll line up some speaking engagements for you up and down the state. I’m telling you, sir, it can work. There’s a time to lie back and a time to strike. I know how these things are done. Our time to strike is now. What is it they say? The man and the hour are met.”

  Mr. Jimmerson became agitated. It was such an incredible business and yet he had to admit that he liked the idea of the biography, and, come to that, of being governor. Why not indeed? Governors had to come from somewhere and it was his impression that more of them were elected by default, grudgingly, as the best of a poor lot, than by any roar of general approval. Who was the current one? Biggs? Baggs? Boggs? Bugg? Megg? No, Meg was Austin’s wife and a fine woman too from all accounts. But were the people ready for a scholar? He thought not. They certainly weren’t ready for Gnomonism. But then it was not as though you had to meet some absolute standard of fitness; you just had to get a few more votes than the fellows who happened to be running against you at the time, each one defective in his own way. The country had been off the gold standard for years. You wouldn’t be running against George Washington, but only Baggs or Bugg. And Austin knew something about these matters. The swearing-in—that would be a grand moment. One hand on the Bible, the other raised, Fanny at his side. A solemn moment. Altogether a serious undertaking. Would he be a good and wise ruler?

  He said, “I just don’t know about all this, Austin. It’s all so sudden and new to me. I have so much unfinished work to do here in the Temple.”

  “You bet your boots you do and I’m not going to take up any more of your time today. May I offer a thought? Sometimes it helps to put our ideas down on paper. Why don’t you prepare a list of questions and we’ll get together on it soon. I want you to meet Dub and we’ll have to get the phone put back in. A candidate for governor will need a telephone.”

  LATER IN the week Fanny Jimmerson came to call. She too had a plan.

  “Where’s the boy?” said Mr. Jimmerson, who always put this question. It was not his practice to say the boy’s name.

  “He has his archery lesson on Friday,” she said.

  This was true enough, though any excuse would serve—a flute lesson, a head cold, his tummy hurt or he was having a tea party for his dolls and his baby owl. Jerome usually managed to beg off from these little day trips to Burnette. The gloom of the Temple frightened him. Maceo the black man frightened him. The fountain no longer gushed, no wading to be done there, and there were no children to play with, and no kittens, puppies or piglets to pet. His father, who, unaccountably, gave off wafts of a sweetish, tropical odor, something like that of a cantaloupe, frightened him too. When Mr. Jimmerson made an awkward attempt to embrace Jerome, the boy went stiff and arched his body so as to avoid touching the human tooth that hung from a chain across his father’s belly. A gift from Sydney Hen in happier days, this relic was a huge yellow molar that was said to have been extracted posthumously from the jaw of Robert Fludd, the great Rosicrucian.

  Fanny limped about the Red Room spraying disinfectant into the air. She spoke to her husband about his weight and about the dilapidated state of the Temple. There were stagnant pools of water in the yard, she said, and clumps of weeds that looked like cabbages. Things were falling into decay all around. Property values were plummeting in the shadow of the big elevated expressway that was cutting across the heart of Burnette.

  She complained about the rats, who could be heard pattering and scuffling in the walls, and about Maceo, who continued to turn her friends away from the Temple. She had sent some people along—an Episcopal bishop, some bridge players, a Miss Hine, a retired physician, a troop of Brownies—to look in on Mr. Jimmerson and Maceo had turned them away at the door one and all.

  “I don’t understand it. I should think you would enjoy a bit of company now and then. It’s not healthy, locking yourself away in here so you can eat pies and read all these monstrous books with f’s for s’s. Not a wholesome life, Lamar. I want to talk to you about Miss Hine and a new arrangement.”

  She took him out for a drive, then treated him to supper at a downtown cafeteria. He told her about Austin’s return.

  “Austin Popper? I thought he was killed in the war.”

  “He’s been living out West with his wife, Meg. She buys him a new car every year.”

  “Austin Popper! With that purplish bird on his shoulder! I haven’t thought of him in years!”

  “The bird passed away.”

  He explained about the biography and the race for governor.

  “Yes, that sounds like something Austin would cook up,” she said. “I must say I always rather liked him, but you couldn’t believe a word he said. Of course you’re not going to do it.”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “You know your own business best, Lamar, but I believe you will be making a great mistake if you go ahead with this.”

  “Nothing is settled. I do want to talk to that Polton fellow about the book. Austin is meeting with him now. He’s a well-known writer.”

  “Don’t misunderstand me. I think you would make an excellent governor. President, even. Well, perhaps not President. I’m just saying that grubbing for votes is not your work. The hurly-burly of it all. Indiana is not Atlantis.”

  Shinn’s cafeteria, their favorite eating place for years, offered good plain food and organ music. Quite a few unshaven bums were here tonight, Fanny noticed, more than last time, lingering over coffee and cigarettes and putting off the next move. Attracted, no doubt, by the blood plasma center next door, where they could always pick up a few dollars. The town was changing.

  The dessert trolley creaked to a stop at the Jimmerson table. Mr. Jimmerson looked over the colorful display. He reached for a cup of yellow custard and Fanny gently slapped his hand away. “No, Lamar, you’re quite mistaken if you think you’re going to have a sweet.”

  The elderly lady at the organ finished her recital. She rose from her bench, acknowledged the thin applause with a smile that was greatly out of proportion to it, then made her way across the room to the Jimmerson table. Fanny greeted her warmly.

  “Do sit down, Naomi, and have some coffee with us. How well you play. And look at you, always so well turned out. It’s not fair, you with your musical gift and your eye for clothes too. You make the rest of us look like frumps. Lamar, you remember Miss Naomi Hine, don’t you? She worked for me selling door to door until her legs gave way. Isn’t she the daintiest thing you ever saw? A perfect Dresden doll. But don’t be deceived, Naomi could put her little foot in the door with the best of them.”

  Mr. Jimmerson had seen this woman’s pale head smiling and dipping and swaying above the elevated bulk of Shinn’s organ but he did not remember having met her. “How do you do,” he said.

  “I’ve heard so much about you, Lamar,” said Miss Hine.

  Then Fanny got down to business and talked about the new arrangement.

  FOR ALL his jaunty prose, W.W. Polton was a glum little man. Everything he saw seemed to let him down in some way. He was so small that he wore boys’ clothes, little suits of a skimpy juvenile cut, the coats chopped off very short. He had the wizened walnut face of a jockey. He was rude. Time after time he cut Mr. Jimmerson short in his reminiscence. He had bad table manners and he scratched the parquet floors with the metal taps on his zippered, high-heel ankle bootlets. He drank one Pepsi-Cola after another, leaving behind him a trail of wet bottles atop fine pieces of furniture.

  Mr. Jimmerson, informed by Popper that the artist could not be held to ordinary standards of civility, tried to make every allowance for the fellow. He talked openly to Polton about the Gnomon Society, revealing all that he co
uld reveal to a Perfect Stranger, except on the subject of membership figures. In that area he was evasive. He described the workings of the Jimmerson Spiral and he talked of the high points in his life, of his dramatic meeting with Pletho Pappus in France, of the winning of Fanny Hen, of the flowering of the Society in the 1930s, of the Sydney Hen scandal and subsequent schism.

  Polton, however, had his own ideas about the shape and content of the book. He had his own vision to impose and he arrived at the Temple with his own title for the biography—His Word Is Law!—before he had even met Mr. Jimmerson. He proceeded to fashion the work accordingly.

  His methods of inquiry were odd, or so they seemed to Mr. Jimmerson. He rejected all suggestions from the subject of the biography and he refused to read any of the Gnomonic texts. Whenever Mr. Jimmerson ventured onto that ground, Polton cut him short. “Nobody wants to hear about those triangles, Jimmerson. Do I have to keep saying it?” Such structural matter as he needed in the way of names, dates and places, he gleaned from old scrapbooks and from direct interrogation of the Master.

  Mr. Jimmerson felt that the questions were all wrong. For one thing, Polton seemed to have the idea that Gnomonism had come out of the Andes. He kept asking about “your curious beacons and landing strips in Peru” and “the pre-Incan race of giants” and “the sacred plaza of Cuzco.” He pressed the Master about his “prophecies” and his “harsh discipline” and his “uncanny power to pick up signals from outer space,” a power which Mr. Jimmerson had never claimed to possess. At the same time Mr. Jimmerson had to admire the man’s virtuosity as a reporter, for in all these hours of grilling Polton took not a single note.

  Popper, meanwhile, as chairman of the Citizens Committee to Elect Mr. Jimmerson, had prepared a long statement for the press, announcing the candidacy. The statement ran to six sheets. WHY NOT MR. JIMMERSON FOR A CHANGE? was the heading. Directly beneath, in slightly smaller type, were two more questions: WHO IS MR. JIMMERSON? and WHERE DOES MR. JIMMERSON STAND? Below that there came thirty-six thick paragraphs of very fine type, with a check mark by each one, introducing Mr. Jimmerson to the public and purporting to give his position on this and that. It appeared to be the usual campaign stuff—leadership, the future, education, highways, no new taxes at this time—nothing that anyone could be expected to quarrel with or read through to the end. Not even Mr. Jimmerson, with his hearty appetite for black lumps of print, could finish it.