Last Gentleman and The Second Coming

by Walker Percy

  His body swelled. It occurred to him that it would be pleasant to take her hand and hold it against him. He turned his back on the others. But before he could take her hand, she laid both hands on him and tugged him playfully roughly into the corner beyond Marion’s Louis XV secretary. As they went past, Kitty’s hand went out to touch one of the brilliant enamel-like decoupage panels. Hand and eye made one swift appraisal. “My God, would you look at that,” she said absently to no one and in a different voice.

  “Now, old dear friend Will, my first and only love. Oh, it’s so good to see you. Do you remember Central Park?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a dummy I was. I should have taken you up. But you were always so vague. I never knew when you were going to wander off in one of your funks.”

  “Taken me up on what?” he said absently, watching the tree. The room was closed up in a cloud, a white room whited out by a white cloud, but no one seemed to notice.

  “Ha ha, haa haa. Don’t give me that, son,” said Kitty, coming even closer.

  “All right.”

  Maybe he had “proposed” to her. In any case, he saw that Kitty had made over her past life in her head so that it became as clear and simple as a movie. He had proposed to her and she had turned him down. If she had taken him up, it was possible for her to think she would have been happy. But she hadn’t and so her life had been screwed up. If only—But even an “if only” is not so bad if it is simple. Regret can be enjoyed if it makes sense. The difference between them was that the older she got the more sense her life made. Yet she was not altogether serious in her swaying and swooping against him and her “if onlys.” The seriousness showed in her quick sure appraisal of the Louis XV secretary, the split-second touch-and-look. She knew what she wanted. What did she want from him?

  The tree grew dimmer. Some of the leaves came off and blew straight up. There must be an updraft from the gorge.

  “What a good-looking couple we made, Will!”

  “We did?”

  “Do you remember what my housemother told me at school?”

  “No.”

  “That you and I were not only the best-looking couple she had ever seen but the most distinguished.”

  Distinguished. What could Kitty mean? Undoubtedly Kitty was making up her own bad but clear fiction and the always unclear tact. What could the housemother have meant? What was distinguished about a coed cheerleader and an addled ATO who didn’t know whether he was coming or going? Ah, suddenly he saw what Kitty meant. She meant now they were a distinguished couple, he with his silvery temples, she with her lithe branny brown arms and gold swatch of hair.

  Kitty drew closer. “Stop giving me that Scorp look. It takes one to know one you know.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t forgotten that we are both Scorps?”

  “Scorps?”

  “Scorpios.” She jostled him. “Don’t hand me that.” Perhaps he had not remembered everything. “Did you think I had forgotten your birthday? It’s next month, the day after mine, remember? Not that I needed to know. I could take one look at you, the way you stare right through people, and know you were a Scorp. And I got news for you, son.”

  “What?”

  “Pluto, who governs both the positive and negative aspects of sex, is at this moment entering his own sign, which happens to be our own sign.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Not good or bad as you damn well know. It all depends on the Scorps themselves. And I’m here to tell you one thing about one Scorp.”

  “What?”

  “I’m no longer the little gray lizard Scorp you once knew. You’re looking at a fully evolved eagle Scorp, with the well-known Scorp sexuality and only us Scorps know what that means.”

  “I believe I am.”

  “And as for you—”

  “Yes?”

  “Clearly you are somewhere in between, in transit. That’s fine—as long as you don’t forget one thing.”

  “What?”

  “What happens when two fully evolved Scorps get together.”

  “What happens?”

  “They can save a country. Or destroy it. Or have an awesome love affair. Hepburn and Burt Lancaster are Scorps.”

  “That’s not—”

  Kitty’s face came into his neck. “Actually, that’s not why I grabbed you.”

  “Why did you grab me?”

  “I wanted to tell you where I’m coming from.”

  “Where are you coming from?”

  “I’m fixing to beat Marion’s time. And it’s perfectly all right with Marion. She gave me permission before she died. In fact, it was her idea.”

  “Beat Marion’s time,” he mused. “I haven’t heard that for a long time.” He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the tree, which had all but vanished.

  He was trying to listen. Kitty was talking about what a good person Marion was, he was, she Kitty was. She was. He was. It was true. They were. Ah, what had happened to them all, all these good persons, all those good things Marion stood for, God, church, home, family, country? Why had he always felt glum when Marion spoke of these good things? What had happened to marriage? Why was not goodness enough for marriage? Why did good married couples look so glum? Old couples, young couples, thirty-five-year-old Atlanta couples in condos, sixty-five-year-old Ohio couples in villas, each as glum as if one had got stuck with the other at a cocktail party for two hours. Two hours? Ten years! Thirty years!

  “What?” he said and gave a start. Kitty seemed to be talking about her daughter.

  “Schizophrenics often are.”

  “Are what?”

  “Shrewd. Walter wanted to call the cops when she escaped but Alistair said that Allison is very shrewd in her own way—it’s true!—and that she’ll probably come back to Valleyhead.”

  “Then you don’t know where she is,” he said absently. Now he knew why the girl in the woods looked familiar. She had the same short upper lip, the little double tendon below her nose pulling the lip into a bow and just clear of the lower. The first time he had seen Kitty on a park bench, lips parted so, he had wanted her mouth.

  “Actually, I think I do. She has some hippie friends in Virginia Beach. Yes, I’m sure that’s where she is. Actually I think it might do her good. She’s no dumbbell. She planned the whole thing, swiped four hundred dollars from her father, and disappeared into thin air. I’m going to give her a few days and then go find her. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you mind having your old flame in your hair for a few days?”

  “Ah no.”

  There were three shells on the quilt of the Negro cabin where he was lying. The Negro boy had brought them, and even the one dead quail, and put them on the bed beside him. Some guide. What guide would retrieve empty shotgun shells? The Negro woman wiped the blood from his face with the clean damp rag. “You ain’t hurt bad. You just lay there until the high sheriff comes.” The room smelled of kerosene and flour paste. Fresh newspapers covered the walls. She leaned over him. The movement of the rag against his cheek and lip was quick and firm but did not hurt. “Your daddy be all right. Ain’t nothing wrong the good Lord cain’t fix,” the woman said. He turned away impatiently. “Where’s the shotgun?” The Greener lay on the other side of him. The guide had found it and brought it back. He broke the breech. There was a single shell in the right barrel.

  Yet only now, thirty years later, did he do the arithmetic. One shell for the quail, two for me, and one for you.

  Well well, he thought, shaking his head and feeling in his pockets for the Mercedes keys. He must have been smiling because Kitty gave him a jostle. “What’s the matter with you, you nut?”

  To his surprise—yes! now he could be surprised!—a strange gaiety took hold of him. Something rose in his throat. What? Laughter. He laughed out loud.

  “What are you laughing at, idiot?”

  “Everything. Nothing. I’m sorry. What were you saying about ah—”

 
“Allison.”

  “Allison?”

  “My daughter, dummy. Allie.”

  Allie. Yes. That was her name. That was Allie sitting on the stoop of the greenhouse reading the fat pulpy Captain Blood. Allie.

  “I want you to meet her, talk to her, listen to her. I want her to get to know you. She can’t talk to people but somehow I know that she would talk to you. I can’t tell you how many times the thought has come to me that if only you had been there all along Allison would have been all right. And here’s the strangest thing of all. Sometimes I have the strongest feeling that you could be or ought to be her father—ha! fat chance, yet there is a slight chance, remember?”

  “Remember what?” Had he forgotten something or had Kitty rewritten the entire book of her life? His eyes went unfocused on the white cloud.

  “No, really, Will. There is something about her, about us, about Allison. We were together once in another life.”

  “What?” He gave a violent start.

  “I said—What are you smiling about, you nut?”

  “Was I smiling?”

  “Like a chess cat.”

  “A what?”

  “Like somebody had let you in on a big secret.”

  “A secret. Yes.”

  He looked at Kitty. In the corner of his eye he could see Leslie talking to the Cupps. She was nodding and frowning. They were arguing, he knew, about the after-rehearsal party. It was the custom for the groom’s family to give the party. The Cupps proposed to rent the Buccaneer Tavern at the Holiday Inn. Leslie looked sullen.

  Kitty’s hand, he noticed, was on his arm. He gave a start. He had not been listening.

  “Don’t forget,” whispered Kitty in his ear but not quite managing to whisper.

  “What?”

  “Three o’clock.”

  “Okay,” he said absently.

  “Isn’t it a shame that we waste so much time figuring out what we want,” said Kitty. “To think of the years—”

  “Right.” Marion had wanted to serve God, eat, and to do good. Jimmy Rogers and the dentist wanted money. Kitty wanted what? him? his money? out from the dentist? He wanted what? Kitty’s ass? Death? Both?

  Kitty’s face had gone solemn. Her eyes were shining.

  “You will help me with Allison?”

  “Sure,” he said absently.

  “The child hasn’t learned that she has to get in touch with her feelings before she can get well. When things don’t go just right, she thinks she has to crawl into a hole. Or hit the road, change, move, go.”

  “Yes,” he muttered. “Sometimes you have to go. Get out. I’ve done that.”

  “You? You’ve never copped out. You were a good husband. Marion told me.”

  “Actually I wasn’t. Did she tell you what I did last year?”

  “No.”

  “One Sunday after church Marion sent me to town for some booze. We were entertaining Bertie and some of his Palm Beach pals. It was not that I couldn’t stand Bertie and his pals, though in fact I couldn’t. In fact, I don’t know exactly why I did it. Instead of going to the liquor store I went to the bus station and took the first Trailways. A week later I found myself in Santa Fe. You know who I was looking for? Your brother Sutter.”

  Kitty made a face. “What was he doing?”

  “He was sitting in an imitation adobe house watching M*A*S*H. He would only talk to me during commercials. He was working in a V.A. hospital for paraplegics and had one more year to go before his pension. After a while I left. I don’t think he noticed.”

  “Sutter is a mess,” said Kitty absently and took hold of him, coat, shirt, flank, and gave him a hard pinch as a mother might. “Don’t forget,” she said. “Three o’clock. The summerhouse.”

  “What? Oh. No. I won’t forget.”

  7

  Leslie looked up at him briefly and went on with her argument with the Cupps. No, it was Leslie and Jack Curl who were arguing. Or rather Jack Curl who was listening, pale as a ghost, as Leslie said: “Okay, big deal. First you have the Book of Common Prayer, then the green prayer book, then the red book, then the zebra book, then the interim book—and that was all I ever heard you and Mother talk about. Big deal.”

  As he watched Jack Curl, who was smiling and frowning and had opened his mouth to say something, he heard himself say: “Am I not also a member of the wedding?”

  No one paid attention. Leslie’s face was heavy with dislike, her lower lip curled. The Cupps were still smiling but their teeth looked dry. Mr. Arnold pointed his finger at his open mouth. He was hungry. Jason sat listlessly, big hands dangling between his legs. They were all angrier than he thought. Were they arguing about religion or the rehearsal party?

  “Very well,” said Will Barrett, clearing his throat. “It seems I am not a member of the wedding.” When no one answered or looked at him, he cleared his throat again. “Okay. I have one suggestion before I leave”—when he said “leave,” Leslie looked up briefly and nodded ironically—“to go on an errand. It is this. It is my understanding that according to custom and the book of etiquette we are not supposed to have the rehearsal party here in this house, though as Marge and Ed well know, it would please me to do so. If Ed and Marge wish to give the party at the Buccaneer Room of the Holiday Inn, it is quite all right with me. After all, one place is as good as another. If, however, there is some dissatisfaction on this point, may I suggest as a tertium quid, ha ha, that if Ed wishes me to, I can put him in touch with Arthur at the club and the two of them can work out what they want. It is done all the time and it will cost Ed so much it will take his mind off his Mercedes.”

  “There you go,” said Ed, cheering up.

  Leslie held up both hands. “Now hear this, folks,” she said, taking off her glasses and folding the stems. Her hazed eyes went from one to another. She nodded grimly. Her thin lips curved in satisfaction. She looked like Barbara Stanwyck in that part of the movie where she tells everybody off. “Number one, there is not going to be a rehearsal party for the simple reason that there is not going to be a rehearsal. The reason there is not going to be a rehearsal is that there is not going to be any ceremony to be rehearsed. Since when do you need a ceremony for two people to come together in the Lord? Number two. As for this book I keep hearing about, the only book I go by is the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Number three. The only reason Jason and I are here at all is because you want us to be. We love you all dearly and wish to please you but we cannot compromise our beliefs. Number four. As far as such quaint customs as ‘giving the bride away’ is concerned, forget it, folks. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Daddy, but nobody can give me away because I’ve already given myself away, to the Lord and to Jason. Number five. As far as a priest is concerned, an intermediary between God and man, no hard feelings, Jack, but the Gospel commands us to call no man father.”

  Jack Curl opened his mouth to everyone. “Father? Nobody calls me father. Who here calls me father?”

  But no one answered. Everyone seemed sunk in thought. Only Mr. Arnold tried to say something but his lip blew out. He pointed a finger straight into his mouth. Across the room Yamaiuchi was leaving fast with a tray of empty bloody-Mary glasses. Will Barrett called to him and made a motion. It was possible for Yamaiuchi, whose eye had not quite met his, to pretend he hadn’t heard him. He called to him again. He knew that Yamaiuchi heard because his ears fluttered even closer to his glossy head, but he did not turn around. It was rare for anyone but Marion, who had hired him and sent him to forestry school in Asheville, to give him orders. For this reason it now became possible for Yamaiuchi to pretend not to hear him.

  For some reason this made him angry with a quick hot anger. He lost his temper. He had not been angry or surprised for thirty years—no, once before, when Kitty’s brother was dying and the stupid nurses wouldn’t do anything—and in the very instant of feeling the anger rise in his throat, he remembered that it was with exactly the same sudden rage his father had turned on the bl
ack guide. His father, known as a nigger-lover, cursed the guide like a nigger-hater.

  He, Will Barrett, meant to say: Get your ass or perhaps even get your yellow ass (his father said black ass) over here, but he felt the room go silent and felt himself shrug and laugh as Yamaiuchi wheeled with the tray. He beckoned to him. Yet even now the Japanese looked for the briefest instant in Leslie’s direction, decided she wasn’t boss, and came over, smiling angrily.

  “Bring this man a plate of food,” he said, pointing to Mr. Arnold, who was pointing a forefinger straight into his mouth.

  “Y’sah,” said Yamaiuchi. “The buffet is urready.” Again his eye slewed toward Leslie. Was he saying, I’d rather take orders from her?

  “Do it now,” he said, smiling angrily. He was genuinely puzzled: I wonder why this Japanese is playing this game, calculating decimal points of insolence.

  “Y’sah.” Yamaiuchi bowed, two degrees too far, and left.

  Someday I’m going to hit that little grinning bastard, he thought, drive him right into the ground with both fists.

  An instant later he thought with amazement, where did that rage come from? I could have killed him. My father could have too: he could as easily have shot the guide as he shot the dog.

  You’re one of us, his father said.

  Yes, very well. I’m one of you. You win.

  Where does such rage come from? from the discovery that in the end the world yields only to violence, that only the violent bear it away, that short of violence all is in the end impotence?

  8

  He gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror, turned his head, touched his cheek like a man testing whether to shave. Presently his face canceled itself. The bright-faceted forehead went dark, the deep-set eyes began to glow, the shadowed pocked cheek grew bright. The mirror, he noticed, did not reflect accurately. It missed the slight bulge of forehead, the hollowing of temple which showed in photographs. Even when he turned his head, his nose did not look snoutish as it did in a double mirror.

  Something stirred in him. He looked at his watch. In three minutes Kitty would slip out into the cloud. When he thought of her standing in the summerhouse, hugging herself, wrapped in fog, he smiled. Then she would sit on the damp bench, straddling slightly, her thighs broadening and filling the creamy linen skirt. Yes, it was in her, not in a mirror, he would find himself. Entering her, he would be answered, responded to, delineated. His life would be proved by her. She would echo him, print him out, trace his shape like radar. He could read himself in her.