by Walker Percy
Indeed, one of the covites, the stranger with Jason McBee, has come from Carolina as a kind of emissary. He allows that he wishes to shake their hands in friendship. He does. They drink. The mountain men hunker down. The others sit down. The Carolinian has come to propose a political alliance.
An alliance of whom against whom? the Captain wants to know.
Of us against them.
Who’s us?
I’m talking about us rat cheer.
You mean us white folks?
You got it.
No blacks?
No way.
Jews?
We’re talking Caucasian. Look at them over there, he says, nodding toward the five Jews.
What about them?
They’re conspiring.
Conspiring? Conspiring to do what?
Take over.
They’re not conspiring. They’re arguing. How about the Catholics down there?
We’re talking American. No foreign potentates.
America? What America? There is no America.
Us. American and Christian.
I see. The Captain takes another drink from Jason McBee’s fruit jar and seems to fall into deep thought. Then he begins to laugh.
The others look at him in astonishment. When he catches sight of their faces, he laughs all the harder.
Presently Jason McBee asks him: What you laughing at, Captain?
Nothing much, says the Captain. I was just thinking: Jesus Christ, here we go again.
Below, the old abbot, now withered as a stick, turns from the altar to face the people.
ABBOT: Lord, have mercy on us.
PEOPLE: Christ, have mercy on us.
ABBOT: Lord, have mercy on us.
One of the hippies on the hillside shakes his head. I never did like Sunday, he says. “Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.” Softly he sings an old twentieth-century song:
On the Sunday morning sidewalks
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
Makes a body feel alone
And there’s nothing short of dying
Half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping city sidewalks
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.
Let’s move on, he says to his comrades. They do.
The Captain rises creakily, takes a pull of the golden liquor.
“I got to get back to the cabin,” he says to no one in particular. “Jane will be looking for me. I got a pig in my smoker. I use pecan for smoking. Beats hickory.”
One day, in New Ionia or Tennessee, as the case may be, a message is received on the Copernicus antenna, evidently sent many times, for, after it was recorded, it was repeated again and again. Its source was nothing else than an ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence), the first after all these hundreds of years of monitoring.
Question: Where would you rather be when the message is received—
(1) Tennessee?
(2) New Ionia?
The Message:
Message to Star: G2V, r = 9.844 kpc, 0 = 00°05'24'', 0 = 206°28'49'' (our sun)
Planets: a = 1.5 × 1013 cm, M = 6 × 1027 g, R = 6.4 × 108cm, p = 8.6 × 104, p = 3.2 x 107 s (the inner planets of the solar system)
Repeat. Do you read? Do you read? Are you in trouble? How did you get in trouble? If you are in trouble, have you sought help? If you did, did help come? If it did, did you accept it? Are you out of trouble? What is the character of your consciousness? Are you conscious? Do you have a self? Do you know who you are? Do you know what you are doing? Do you love? Do you know how to love? Are you loved? Do you hate? Do you read me? Come back. Repeat. Come back. Come back. Come back.
(CHECK ONE)
*The adventures recounted here owe something to Walter M. Miller’s extraordinary novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, from which I have borrowed Leibowitz and the state of Utah.
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copyright © 1983 by Walker Percy
cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1636-1
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
Table of Contents
(1) The Amnesic Self
(2) The Self as Nought
The Self as Nought (II)
(3) The Nowhere Self
(4) The Fearful Self
(5) The Fearful Self (II)
(6) The Fearful Self (III)
(7) The Misplaced Self
(8) The Promiscuous Self
(9) The Envious Self
(10) The Bored Self
(11) The Depressed Self
(12) The Impoverished Self
A Semiotic Primer of the Self
(13) The Transcending Self
(14) The Orbiting Self
(15) The Exempted Self
(16) The Lonely Self
(17) The Lonely Self (II)
(18) The Demoniac Self
A Space Odyssey (I)
(19) The Self Marooned in the Cosmos
A Space Odyssey (II)
(20) The Self Marooned in the Cosmos