Last Gentleman and The Second Coming

by Walker Percy

  Isn’t your father a doctor, Allie?

  She shook her head.

  A dentist, right. He could afford it. Maybe they taking you out.

  She shrugged.

  You could make it, babe. You’re a smart cookie and you know how to get along if you wanted to. How come you don’t try?

  She shook her head.

  I saw them coming in, all dressed up. They must be passing through.

  She shrugged.

  Talk to me, babe.

  Okay, Kelso. (She jumped. Her voice sounded strange.)

  Kelso laughed. I know why you don’t talk. You so scared, you can’t talk. I’m so scared I eat all the time. Now that’s something. I’m so scared I get stiff so they’ll buzz me. You’re so scared you play dumb so they’ll buzz you. Maybe we’re crazy ha ha. But you’re crazy like a fox. Come here, babe, I’ll give you a hug.

  Kelso gave her a hug.

  You think I’m pretty, Allie?

  She nodded and smiled.

  You’re pretty too, honey. You’re going to make it.

  She smiled and gave Kelso a hug.

  Kelso, you are right about my parents. They were going somewhere. To a party evidently. Her mother was aglow in the drab little parlor next to Dr. Duk’s office, tan skin glowing (and unbranny) against creamy linen, real old-fashioned linen with irregular weave, gold streak in her hair swept straight across her forehead, giving as always the effect of dash and motion even when she was still, gold aglow at her ears and wrists. Even sitting still she shimmered. Gold glinted. Her father in his candy-striped seersucker smiled and nodded, crouched in his chair, feet drawn under the chair and springing slightly. The two of them blew in like tropical birds. Dr. Duk in his tacky double knits and me in my T-shirt and jeans look like inmates and, she fancied, smell slightly sour.

  They were going to a party but they came mainly to see her, they said. They had plans for her. They argued about the plans. There was this pleasant sense of plans being made for her, like her mother putting her on a plane for summer camp: now here’s your money and here’s your schedule and here’s what you do during the three-hour layover in Atlanta . . .

  Then there was this disagreeable feeling when they changed the subject from her to the party. They talked about Will Barrett. Talk about me. Make plans.

  One thing I must do: get past the point where I need other people to make plans for me.

  I’ll tell you whose party it is, Alistair, said her mother.

  Somehow her mother had managed in three visits to get on a first-name basis with Dr. Duk. They were buddies. She too was a bird-watcher and had enlisted him in her Christmas bird count. Dr. Duk: nodding and smiling, straining every nerve, blood rushing forward to his face, to keep up with this dashing exotic person—his buddy?

  It’s a very dear and old friend, said her mother.

  An old boyfriend, said her father absently, grinning his eye-tooth grin, feet springing under him.

  It’s Will Barrett, said her mother. You know the Barretts of Linwood-Asheville?

  She could tell by the way her mother hung fire ever so slightly, eyes flicking, that she was waiting for Dr. Duk’s reaction.

  You mean—! said Dr. Duk, straining forward another inch.

  Yes, Will married a Peabody. They own the joint. She died. Now he owns the joint.

  The joint? said Dr. Duk. All the grass, eh?

  (Jesus, don’t try to make jokes, Docky Duck. You’re much better in your listening-doctor position, legs crossed, thigh hiked up as a kind of barricade, gazing down at your unlit Marlboro as if it were a Dead Sea scroll.)

  Yeah, all the grass, Alistair. They own the whole joint, half the country, the mills, the hotel. And that rascal Will! Not only did he marry a Peabody, he also made it on his own, from editor of the Law Review, straight into the top Wall Street firm, one of the Ten Most Promising Young Attorneys, early retirement, man-of-the-year here—I mean, he did it all! I should have known better—but he was always out of it when I knew him—little did I realize what was going on behind that absentminded expression. Just wait till I get my hands on that rascal! So who do I end up with? Old blue-eyes here. But he’s cute. Aintcha, hon?

  Her mother leaned over and poked her father under the ribs.

  There was Dr. Duk straining every English-Pakistani nerve to catch on to the peculiar American—or were they Southern?—ways of this dashing woman, her odd abusive banter about her old boyfriend (!) in the presence of her husband (!), who sat there grinning and not paying attention, getting her hands on that rascal (!). It’s a long way from Dukhipoor, Doc. But he laughed and kept up as best he could, looking only slightly beleaguered.

  Knock knock, Doc.

  The party is for Will’s daughter, who is getting married to a wonderful boy, said her mother, an architect from Stanford, who happens to be the best man in the entire country at restoration. And guess where they’re going to live, honey?—in the old Hunnicutt house next to us! And guess—

  She stopped listening until they began talking about her.

  They began to argue about something. She heard her name and pricked up her ears.

  They were arguing about the plans for her future.

  Kelso, why are they suddenly interested in my future?

  Her mother had plans for her.

  Her father had different plans for her.

  They argued about the plans. She was amazed and pleased. There were plans for her!

  The pleasant feeling came back. They argued angrily, but the anger was between them and not toward her. Dr. Duk once again in the familiar territory of ill will, relaxed, hiked up a thigh, took out a Marlboro.

  Her mother’s plan (her mother: sitting bolt upright now, leaning forward, hand open to Dr. Duk, eyes fine): I want Allison to come home with us, Alistair. Not to your old room, honey. I know you don’t want that, but listen to this. Jason Cupp is restoring downtown Williamsport. We have a chance to buy the old Hunnicutt place for a song. Jason and Leslie will live there and restore it. And guess what’s out back? Remember? The old carriage house. It’s so lovely, the old bricks weathered and worn into scoops outside and down to cobblestones inside. You can move in in three weeks. Wait, dear! You haven’t heard the best part. We’re also converting the old Atlantic Coast Line railroad station into, guess what, a community art center! Painting, music, plays, you name it. And guess who we want for our music director? It wasn’t my idea. The board wants her.

  The Board or Aurora bora? she said.

  Boring or beautiful? said Dr. Duk, looking at her with a smile (they were after all two of a kind, she and Docky, compared with these exotic outsiders). I think beautiful.

  She skipped three grades, said her mother. She was the youngest girl ever to enter Mary Baldwin. She won the music prize her sophomore year and gave a concert her junior year, the only time it’s ever been done.

  Yeah, I was smart. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I forgot the words. Forgot the Schubert, blew the Wolfe. I stood still and looked at them. Time passed. People looked away. They were embarrassed. Not only embarrassed but frightened and hateful. Who are you, you bitch, to do this to us when we didn’t want to come here in the first place? What to do? Leave. Check out. Went off the stage, straight out the fire-escape door, into the street, and right on out of town.

  Clink clunk. As I see it, said her mother, all the ingredients are there: she’ll be at home among family and friends, she’ll have her own lovely little place. But what’s most important she’ll be working at something she’s good at and something we need—she’s wonderful with children. And just to be on the safe side, we could all fly up here every weekend to check in with you. What do you think, dear?

  Nnnnaaaahrgh.

  Yes. Well, I agree, honey, it must come as quite a shock. But think about it. What do you think, dear?

  If I think about it, all I can think of is those scooped-out bricks and those cool dead colonial blues and grays and me lying in a closet with the shakes.
<
br />   But what she said aloud was: Things though loose can be jammed nevertheless. Blue is for you but the instigation of color is climbing on the Sirius me.

  What? said her father. What did she say? he asked her mother.

  I know, dear, said her mother, aglint and fond.

  Her father’s plan (her father, hitching forward and putting one forefinger on the other forefinger): No, Doc, no way. Allie is not ready to leave your care. (Why were they all of a sudden making these plans?) But I don’t see why she should be cooped up here. What do you say to this: a house, her own house, here in the neighborhood, under your wing, so to speak, close enough so she can take part in groups and crafts and so forth. The nicest place money can buy. What’s money if you can’t make your kid happy? As a matter of fact, we saw one of these chalet-duplex-condos this morning which would be perfect.

  For you to come up and play golf, said her mother. But if we restored the Hunnicutt house—

  So you could be national secretary of the Dames, said her father, smiling back to his eyeteeth, feet springing under the chair.

  Now Walter, said her mother.

  She could see that Dr. Duk was just beginning to see that her father smiled all the time and that all his expressions, even frowns, occurred within the smile. For example, now he was grinning angrily, not smiling.

  She used to work for her father, as assistant to the dental hygienist, after she flunked life and had come home but before she curled up in a closet. He had passionate and insane views on every subject. She was certain that one reason he had taken up dentistry was so he could assault helpless people with his mad monologues. In he’d come, smiling and handsome, hands scrubbed pink, breath sweet with Clorets, and while she kept the patient’s mouth dry with a suction tube, he’d stuff the same mouth with hot wax and crowns and fillings and fingers and then he’d come out with it: “What’s wrong with Mao?” or “What’s wrong with Franco?” or “Do you know what I’d do with them”—striking coal miners, hippies, queers, niggers, Arab sheiks, Walter Cronkite, George Wallace (yes! a hick, a peckerwood), media Jews, Miami Jews (but not Israelis!), Ronald Reagan (yes! a two-bit actor), Roosevelt (!), Carter, Martin Luther Coon, Kennedy, Nixon (yes! a crook), the Mafia, Goldwater (yes! he runs Arizona with Mafia help), J. Edgar Hoover (yes! a homosexual fascist punk). He liked General Patton. He had seen Patton eight times. “You know what I’d do with all of them? Line them up against that wall and go down the line with my BAR”—he grinning and boyish all the while, she embarrassed for him (was that her real sickness, that she was embarrassed for everybody? and for a fact everybody did so badly!), the patient’s eyes rolling. “You want to know my philosophy? Shape up or ship out. If the cat keeps crapping on the rug, the cat goes—that’s all! If the cook sasses me, the cook goes. What’s wrong with that?”

  What do you think, Allie? her father asked her. You take the top of the chalet. There’s a room in the back with a balcony and the damnedest view you ever saw. Well?

  Wif you? Wiv view? she heard herself say.

  Why did she sound so crazy around her parents? Because no matter what she said or did, her mother would make her own sense of it and her father wouldn’t like it. So it didn’t matter what she said. It was like being alone in a great echoing cave. There was a temptation to holler.

  A view! said her father. You wouldn’t believe the view!

  Interesting, said Dr. Duk, safe behind his thigh and therefore more able to conceal himself. You thought she said with view, meaning room with view. But thought I heard with you, meaning praps she might have some reservations about living with you. With you both. With yall.

  Dr. Duk smiled, pleased with himself. He could talk Southern.

  They all looked at her.

  She shrugged. She didn’t know which she meant or whether she meant anything.

  Dr. Duk’s plan: I think yall are overlooking one little thing. Both plans are excellent. But the fact remains that Allison is not quite herself yet—though she is clearly making progress, progress toward a decision to have something to do with us. My own feeling about Allison is that she knows a great deal more than she lets on. Right, Allison?

  Wraing.

  You see, said Dr. Duk. What she said was halfway between right and wrong. She’s afraid to commit herself. My own wish is that she have a final little refresher course of treatment.

  I don’t think she needs any more shock treatments, said her mother. There’s nothing wrong with Allison except that she’s an extremely sensitive person who is more subject to tension than most people. So am I! Tension! That’s the enemy. She gets wound up just like me. You know what I do? Stretch out and tell my toes to relax, then my knees—they do it!

  You want to know what I think it all comes down to, said her father to the world around, looking at no one in particular. It all comes down to accepting your responsibility. Once you do that, you got it made.

  Shape up or ship out, she thought. Right. I’m shipping out.

  This little refresher course is my own contribution, said Dr. Duk. I’m reading a little paper on it in San Francisco. My finding is that a refresher course of six treatments in selected cases is even more effective than the usual thirty.

  No buzzin cousin. It was her voice but it sounded like a radio with a bad volume control.

  They all looked at her.

  She herself will tell you, said Dr. Duk, that after receiving my own modified ECT, she feels better, relates better to people and her environment, speaks freely, eats better, sleeps better.

  Fried is crucified, said the radio.

  They all looked at Dr. Duk, she too.

  Dr. Duk smiled down at his little Dead-Sea-scroll Marlboro. Allison is giving us her own theory of why ECT works—which is as good as any, to tell you the truth. Namely that going through the ordeal of ECT is a kind of expiation for guilt. Having expiated, one naturally feels better.

  Guilt? said her mother, arching her back so suddenly that gold shivered and glinted. Guilt for what?

  That is something we might well get into, said Dr. Duk. Now. How does this grab you? I wonder if you two would be interested in coming up, participating in some family sessions. Some studies have been done on the subject and are quite promising. Come to think of it, I might just mention that our Founder’s Cottage here is available and you might consider that in lieu of the chalet—

  Look, Doc, said her father. He was on his feet and for the first time unsmiling. It made him look queer. White showed in the smoothed-out crow’s-feet. Taking off his new pink crinkly jacket, he draped it carefully over the back of the wooden chair. Now he faced them unsmiling but nodding, hands resting lightly on his hips (seeing himself, she knew, as General Patton surveying the mess at Kasserine Pass). Let’s get this show on the road, Doc.

  Show? said Dr. Duk, turning to her for translation.

  She translated: you and them but not me.

  That’s right, Doc. We got some business to talk over that Allison is not interested in. Could we talk in your office?

  Oh, said Dr. Duk. He rose in some confusion. Okeydoke.

  You know what we do at home, Doc, when we have a little problem, said her father. I call a conference, around the dining-room table, after Dinah the cook leaves. I believe in getting it all out on the table. Then we take a vote.

  Then the chairman decides, said her mother.

  Chairman? Again Dr. Duk asked her.

  Of the boring board.

  In the confusion of ushering them into his office, Dr. Duk got crossed up between wanting to please her father, wanting to get the show on the road, wanting to rent (or sell?) the vacant Founder’s Cottage, and forgot about her. Dr. Duk smelled the money, Kelso said. Your folks must have struck oil, babe. He forgot to call McGahey to come get her, forgot even to send her back to her room. They all forgot her.

  Alone in the parlor, she felt good. She had been given leave, sanction, through omission. She felt like a child left at the movies and forgotten. She could see the best
part again.

  No sooner had the office door closed than she knew what she would do. Her father wanted to get down to business with Dr. Duk—bidness he called it—and the business had to do with her. Therefore it was her business.

  It, the moment of the closing of the office door, was the beginning of her freedom. As she sat alone, it crossed her mind for the first time in her life: What if I make the plans for me? What then? Is there an I in me that can start something? An initiating I, an I-I. What if I had left the black maid hanging out clothes, broke off the conversation and left, would it have killed her? Would my embarrassment kill me? Perhaps not.

  Why of all places, in this sour little parlor, should it have come to her, not only that she could make a plan but the plan itself? She knew what to do and how to do it. All her life she had watched people do things. She knew that Dr. Duk would be sitting behind his desk in the casemented bay. A Nikon camera fixed to a tripod stood next to him. One window, the one with the feeding station, was always cranked open in good weather. If an evening grosbeak or a goldfinch showed up, Dr. Duk could snap the camera by moving his hand only an inch or so to a remote-control device. Sometimes he kept the shutter switch in his hand. If she was talking to him and he heard a bird alight behind him, his eyes did not move from her face yet he seemed to be looking through the back of his head. A thick tree-sized pittosporum smelling of bitter bark covered window and feeding station.

  Under the station was a space, a little leafy room where one could sit in comfort on a limb of pittosporum.

  3

  Tuesday the man came again. Again it was she who saw him before he saw her. She was in the shadow of the rock filling a Clorox jug from the tiny waterfall. The dog rumbled and his spine hairs went stiff as boar bristles.