Lee

by Tito Perdue

  He went on, his mind asleep. In his time, the caddies were persistently black; now, two white ones were lolling on the green. He disliked them at once—partly for their listless expressions, partly for the radio they had with them. Nothing more galled him than the sight of gum chewing, unless it were the vision of a mouth hanging open in ignorance. One boy was doing both.

  “Hey!” (He put on his ferocious expression). “How come you fellows aren’t in school?”

  He had expected them to come to attention, but they seemed scarcely to notice. He would never understand this decade.

  “What?”

  “How come you aren’t in school?”

  They snickered.

  “Whatever turns you on.”

  “Yeah, if you can’t handle it.”

  Lee goggled then, suddenly, opted to change his tact. “I used to go to school here. Years ago, of course.”

  “That right? Tell us about it.”

  “Yeah,” said the other. “Like why don’t you go do your thing somewhere else?”

  It was a pale youth, one of the most detestable, outside of a major city, that Lee had ever yet seen. He worked quickly now. The boy’s mouth was open, Lee filling it with cane. The other youth was the larger, until Lee caught him on the neck. How quietly it went! How easily they crumpled! He had one boy trying to roll out of range, the other seemingly in prayer. As to pity (so-called), he had eschewed all that long ago; he also struck the radio. Far away a man was jumping up and down, or simply playing golf . . . In truth, Lee wasn’t absolutely sure any of this was happening, whether he was merely reading about it or merely writing it down.

  He remembered turning, coming back for one last strike, then hobbling off indignantly to the creek. In the past, he used to tarry here for hours in search of balls; now he saw he could use it for escape. Moreover, he had utmost gratitude that the ravine was as deep as it was—no one could see which direction he chose. Judy was gone (his own fault); it happened each time she heard the sound of cane on bone.

  He ran well for his age, even with shoes full of water. (He had always acknowledged that ordinary people had every right and reason to try and trap him if they could, and that if he with his brains could not stay free, he deserved whatever might follow.) Besides, the quality of his pursuers was falling off by the day.

  He came out into a woods so littered with papers and plastic it seemed as if the entire town had come down one by one to cast their ballots of contempt. There was a washing machine, a tire, and close by, a condom hanging on a thorn. He went on, probing with his stick, and finally stepped out into a quiet street that he recognized. A woman was working in her garden.

  She had on shorts and a straw hat; a glass of ice tea perched on the arm of her patio chair. Lee turned and then, putting on an air of frailty, began nodding in shy approval at her crop of flowers. He was old, slow—this was what they liked! He could have asked for a largesized loan and gotten it. Across the road another old man, this one with genuine palsy, was watching in envy.

  “Mighty fine-looking flowers you’ve got there, mighty fine!” He dottered.

  “Why, thank you!” She loved it. She was Southern, and this was genteel stuff. He had a vision of two corpses on the green.

  “Would you like to sit down? It’s so warm.”

  “Much obliged.”

  She was soft, a mere pastry. Half his age she was, yet he could still have outrun her and outjumped her—while as for things of the mind . . . He was interrupted by a screaming ambulance in great speed; inside it were two orderlies who themselves needed the cane.

  Eleven

  HE GOT UP AND STRODE ABOUT the room. The window offered a framed picture of what appeared to be a Chinese scene, with coolies in the lane. Fall was coming in, no slightest doubt. He could sniff it gathering in Pennsylvania where (he envied them) the leaves were turning brown. Suddenly, it hit him he must be up and off to school again, hastening lest he be late.

  Instead, he sat listening to the actual children, some of them chirping, all of them loaded down with books and apples. He saw one who might almost have been the Judy—wide-eyed, serious, taking it hard. Next was a boy with glasses that were almost as thick as Lee’s own. Lee leveled at him, concentrating, trying to infuse him with a little of his own incredible strength. In fact (Lee wanted to puke), it was a plain-faced bland twit, tomorrow’s businessman, who finally went up and took the girl’s hand (Lee wanted to weep). And now all he could see was the backs of heads, a three-foot-tall race of the small kind bobbing off to death.

  He went down and stood a moment in the “tea room” door where three monads at separate tables were squinting at one another through narrowed lids. Faces! To him they were so much more ugly than mere genitalia. He did espy a plate of yellow eggs, wonderful stuff, trembling, edged about with bacon, as well as several pints of milk.

  He seated himself in dignity. It never failed with these hirelings, as if they had never witnessed anyone making use of leftover foods. He liked grits, black toast and buttermilk. Cows he avoided, so as not to become one. It was a good coffee, if not yet as hot as he wanted. Half an hour later he believed himself finished; indeed, he was actually in process of rising when the waiter tried suddenly to make off with the waffles and honey.

  He trekked heavily up the stairs, not daring to open his mouth lest the honey flow. The sun had put down a big square patch with all the colors in it, now crawling in ever so sinister a fashion toward the door. His books—it pleased him to see they were getting their meed of air and light at last. For some, of course, it was too late; they had taken on the color of old cabbage and gave off a smell.

  He could remember when it had been hurtful to engage in reading, destroying his eyes, whereas now he needed only to touch any certain volume for all its contents to come flooding back. Five fingers had he, one for each of the world’s great epochs. Gibbon—he had only to nudge this by accident for the most amazing scenes to come tumbling out and begin climbing toward the ceiling in piles of emperors and gods. To him, nothing was exciting anymore unless it was old, written on paper, and joined to the memory-world. Life, actual life, life in the round, life—long ago he had turned his back on all that and, indeed, everything else unfolding pointlessly in a sphere of four billion producer-consumers, now shortly to be five. One time, he believed, men and women had been important—when they were thousands. In any case, with him “real time” had pretty much come to an end in the Truman age.

  Next Hodgkin, eight volumes, greater by far, to his thinking, than Gibbon himself. He also had a treatise on the Euboean coinage, four volumes needing four days to be removed from a certain northern library in a certain northern county. These were big books these, while squeezed in between, in shyness, stood Henry Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Grammar—he had almost forgot it. Lee came closer, using not finger but eyelash, and finding that it tickled.

  He liked to pile up his books and lie in them. Who read the most books, and read well, it seemed to him, to that person belonged the world. As for the little people, those who did things, carrying out activities, they were good only for doing things and should be disqualified from reproducing. He wanted a small world of sublime people, that matters should be managed as in a great school, with upper students and lower, the rest as slaves. He preferred the old tyrannies, a land without “rights”; to his thinking, no one had rights who had not written a fine book. But most of all his admiration went back to Justinian II, he who had ruled and ruled well, ten years worth and five without a nose. Or Empress Zoe—she never learned about life till life was old.

  Twelve

  HE WOKE, AND THEN HE HAD to spend the first three hours in ministering to himself. It wasn’t the first time he had seen himself in the mirror in this guise, so like a Hindu in diaper.

  He was able to manure—it came upon him suddenly from one of the stars. This, precisely, was the material he adored to be free of, asterisk-shaped chunks that had lain in him for years and with moss flourishing about the g
irth; it was the clearest evidence yet that he was but a man so far, and so far no god. He cried out, half in joy and half in pain. Blood was brighter in old age, also thinner; it splattered in the bowl. Had it been a public toilet, he would have left it on display; instead he flushed three times to get it out of mind and out of memory.

  Next, he tended his rash, a hateful condition with kernels and milk-white heads yearning to explode. Also, his finger was growing back wrongly, so wrongly indeed that it must look very horrible to anyone who saw it beckoning in his or her direction. He had a bit of a headache moreover—he was never entirely free of them. This one was a minor affair the size of a pea. He had had very little sleep, two tenuous episodes with long stretches between. In truth, he was outgrowing his body, and these miseries were but to prepare him for leave-taking. He thought back with admiration on the young Chatterton, he who had done his leave-taking at age seventeen, full of bitter regrets for having delayed so long.

  He had set aside this whole day for reading, now he found he was not in the spirit for it. This breeze of autumn . . . He could feel a tremendous sadness coming on. He needed time, time for cleaning up his mistakes, for having started Greek at five instead of fifty, and for having cleaved even more tightly to the divine Judy when she was yet tangible. Suddenly he started up, dashed to the bureau, and began fumbling about in a panic for the matches.

  She came, but older by twenty years than she had ever been in life. Never had he seen her in this state.

  “Judy?”

  He moved about her in a circle, viewing from various angles. She was of the proper height certainly. Now he came close enough to sniff her hair. No further doubt, moreover she was smiling. She had come a long way apparently; there was a leaf in her hair.

  “Judy, Judy, where have you been? In the anti-world all this time?”

  She nodded.

  “Is it far?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “And could I come too?”

  “Are you keeping up with your studies?” (The voice was deep for one so short; it always had been.)

  “Yes! You bet! I’m always thinking, always.”

  “That’s good.”

  “More than ever.”

  “Good.”

  “All the time.”

  “That’s very good. And did you get any wisdom?”

  He looked down.

  “Never mind, that’s alright. No, really.”

  “I’ve been killing people.”

  “And you’ll have thousands and thousands of years, for wisdom and everything else too.”

  “You say so. But is it really true, Judy?”

  “Oh yes! And more than that!”

  “And books made of glass—is that true? To be read six and seven at a time?”

  She laughed in great merriment and then, a gesture from the old days, tested his forehead with her palm. Only now did he fully realize it, that she was in Mycenaean dress. He saw her glance at the clock.

  “No! Don’t you want to lie with me for a while?”

  “We’ll have thousands and thousands . . . ”

  “But will we be able to lie out in the field, like we used to do?”

  She laughed. “Well . . . approximately like that.”

  “‘Approximately.’ Alright what’s it like over there, I need to know now! Now!”

  “You’ll like it, I promise; especially will you like it.”

  “Because of the books?”

  She laughed. “Yes. And much else besides.”

  “But why can’t I come now? Now!”

  “Oh! you know very well. Because there’s still so much to be learned.”

  “I already know it all!”

  “Not altogether, no. For example, there’s a man in Munford—forgive me, Lee—who knows more than you!” (Again, she looked to the clock.)

  “Wait! I’ve been wanting to ask . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  He had forgotten what he wanted to ask. “What Munford man is that?” (He could feel his gorge rise at the thought of it.)

  She laughed merrily. How handsome she was in chlamys and tiara! Outside a car was moving past, radio at full blast. She had still the most pleasant shape—he wanted to hold her.

  “Wait! Can’t we lie down for just a little? Till you count to ten?”

  She smiled, already fading somewhat about the edges.

  “Judy! Tell me, will we be young?”

  “More than young.” She came up, squeezed him, then . . . was gone! Instead of Judy, he found himself pressing at the blank wall.

  Thirteen

  IT WAS SMELL OF BOOKS THAT PULLED him to the library, a two-mile distance through buildings and in and out of the post office where he dallied over certain posters. The streets were virtually empty; two months ago it had been heat: now, apparently, they feared the possibility of cold. Someday would come the last summer and last cold, as ingenious new diseases swept the land.

  He turned in at the building. He then approached the desk and the librarian herself, whom he abhorred upon first sight of her. Never read a book, this one—one need only look at her. And belligerent! He saw all: Not only was she keeping the books in tight sequestration, but she was mutilating them in her spare time.

  “Pardon, might I apply for a library card?”

  Her mouth tightened. Clearly, she wanted to reject him on the spot, but unable to find grounds for it, she took out a form and slapped it down. He had to take off his glasses and bend down close for the tinier print.

  Information they wanted, far, far more of it than he was likely to give. Finally, he turned it back, expecting to be graded; instead, she slipped it in a drawer.

  The building was deep and ran down into an angle where he had never dared to go as a boy. He went there now. He saw a woman who was knitting, her legs too short to hit the floor, while another was splashing happily through a scandal magazine. This is what they loved—the immoral activities of the rich! He didn’t know whether to snort or allow his gorge to rise. The collection itself was not hopelessly bad, not until he got to the fiction and actually opened one of the things. Truly, this was amazing: 500 pages of fill. Now he saw the trouble—a portrait of the author herself on the cover. Some of these people actually seemed to imagine they could stand in the same circle with Wolfe and the others, as if the period of integrity had not all long ago passed over into mere publicity and busyness. He wanted to puke. Here, in a country like this, the commercial motive had long since eaten all the rest.

  He passed on, into the disused region where history was stored. This was garbage too, most of it—mere academic-career writing, and shelf after shelf of America’s poor paltry two minutes of record and middling personages. Jefferson! This is what the world needed, a new biography of Jefferson. He could fly by all this in perfect safety, to Europe next, where he slowed, and then halted. He knew for a fact the fourteenth century had a hundred years in it, whereas here were only two thin books. Small wonder they could not recall this century if they could have so easily forgotten the 1950’s. It was not till the fifth century that he really began waking up. His good eye fell on Salvian first, a timorous-looking little volume that hadn’t seen the light since . . . Suddenly he descried two stripes on it where the woman had been carrying out her punishments.

  He possessed one version already; nevertheless, he made the decision now to salvage this one as well. It was his luck that one of the women glanced up to catch him at it. He scowled, at the same time dropping back under the staircase among Greece and Rome. At once he spotted old portly Herodotus, a good man; Lee found himself smiling back in return. Indeed, they knew each other well, Herodotus and Lee; one because he had seen Egypt when the pyramids were young, the other because in dreams he had seen them turned to dust. He smoked, teetered, drew back yet more deeply under the staircase. Really, he ought not come to libraries, Lee, not with a fever like his for all that was old, gone, past, legendary, written on paper. He wanted an old world getting older, a scarce population get
ting scarcer. His mind flew back to predemocratic times, when the wise of the world knew to treat the masses for what the masses were. Suddenly, he plucked down volume one of Herodotus and opened by divine chance precisely upon the False Smerdis section wherein the Nearer East found itself in great uproar. (He called the chance “divine” inasmuch as only yesterday he had seen a man downtown who struck him as having the very features and very limp of Smerdis himself.) Now it all came flooding back—Smerdis, the insane Cambyses, etc., etc. This was real stuff, real, and quite altogether in a higher category than the nonromantic, or rather, antiromantic tendencies that had followed so hard upon the heels of the—to Lee’s thinking—rubbishy “Renaissance” and even more rubbishy, which is to say even more rational, “Age of Reason,” properly so-called. Himself, he loved romance, romance only. He knew this about his century: no romance. And never will there be any, where majorities hold sway. Therefore, Lee stood ready at all times to throw the last five centuries quite away.

  The next range was to have been on the Assyrians and whatnot; in fact, there was nothing whatsoever. Three times he went to the wall, feeling, taking off his glasses. Not only were there no books, no shelves to put them on! Lee cursed; he had to cross an aisle, a domain of cookbooks on one side and dieting on the other. The librarian was facing him, while at the same time, barking over the telephone. He approached cautiously and then, with all his courtesy, which was considerable, lay a diet book under her nose.

  “I’d like to borrow this, please.”

  She snorted. “I’m sure you would.”

  “I would, yes.”

  She went back to work.

  “May I?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “How can that be?” (Clearly, she was enjoying it.)

  “First, your application has to clear. Second, you ..

  “‘Clear?’”