The Thanatos Syndrome

by Walker Percy

  Mrs. Brunette is busy putting articles back in her purse, Mr. Brunette helping her with one hand, the other fiddling with her hive hairdo—just as any faculty husband-and-wife team might behave at any faculty meeting.

  Van Dorn, seated on the top step, surveys his staff with a demeanor both equable and magisterial, a good-natured and informal headmaster munching on a Snickers bar, but headmaster nevertheless.

  Sheriff Vernon “Cooter” Sharp is a genial, high-stomached, vigorous man who affects Western garb, Stetson, Lizard-print-and-cowhide boots, bolo tie with a green stone, cinch-size belt and silver conch buckle, and a holstered revolver on a low-slung belt like Matt Dillon. He is noted for his posse of handsome quarter-horses from his own ranch, which parade every year in a good cause with the Shriners, clowns, and hijinks rearing cars to raise money for the Shriners’ hospital. He and his posse are famous statewide and are invited to many events, including Mardi Gras parades.

  Now he’s taken off his hat again to wipe his forehead with his sleeve, but left on his amber aviation glasses, and is looking around, surveying the peaceful scene with the same queer, for him, expression of gravity and solemnity and here-we-go-again rue. He’s shaking his head, mainly at me.

  “What we got here, Doc?” he asks, not offering to shake hands.

  The two young deputies are standing at ease, hands clasped behind them, pudding-faced and bored.

  “Sheriff Sharp, I want you to arrest Dr. Van Dorn, Mr. and Mrs. Brunette, Coach Matthews, and Mrs. Cheney for the molestation and sexual abuse of children.”

  “Oh me.” The sheriff sighs and, nodding mournfully, catches sight of Mrs. Cheney. “Doc, we been that route.”

  “Do it, anyway.”

  “Hi, Lurine,” he says to Mrs. Cheney, giving a little wave, hand at pistol level. “How you doing?”

  “Hi, Cooter,” says Mrs. Cheney, fingering buttons, eyes still downcast.

  “We have evidence, Sheriff. Vergil, did you—”

  “I showed him the pictures, Doc, but he wouldn’t hardly look at them because he says they are not admissible.” Vergil is taking the photographs out to show them again.

  Sheriff Sharp waves him off. “They neither here or there. Y’all know we’ve had a regular epidemic of pictures like that all over the pa-ish. It’s terrible. I hate to think of little children seeing stuff like that. But I’m here to tell you we’re cracking down. On drugs too. And minority crime.”

  “You don’t understand, Sheriff,” I say patiently. “That’s not the problem here. What we’re talking about here are criminal molestation and photographic evidence.”

  “The thing is, Doc,” he says, turning to face me but not looking at me, looking anywhere but at me—he can’t stand the sight of me!—“we got a problem here.” I’m the problem.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Doc, as I told you, we been this route before,” he says wearily, pushing up his amber glasses and rubbing his eyes. “The same charges have been brought before against those same folks before—” He nods toward the Brunettes, a loving couple. “They were dismissed then for lack of evidence and they’ll be dismissed again—those pictures ain’t worth a dime, and now you’re also wanting to charge Dr. Van Dorn here and Coach Matthews, who won state last year in triple-A—and even this little lady”—he stretches out a hand toward Mrs. Cheney—“who has done more to he’p people than anybody you can name, people you know, children, your children, Doc, old folks, Miss Lucy’s mamma—I don’t know, Doc.” He is shaking his head in genuine sorrow. “To tell you the truth, Doc, you the only one we got a warrant for. We got a pick-up order on you from Dr. Comeaux yesterday. Now I wasn’t going to bother you, Doc, since I been knowing you and your family for a long time. But it looks like you hell-bent on—”

  “Now you listen here, Cooter,” says the uncle, who, I see with some dismay, is hopping from one foot to the other in a peculiar fashion, coat flapping open, “I was here so don’t tell me what I saw. These folks all crazy as hell. You know what that little lady and the Coach were—”

  “You just hold it, Hugh Bob,” says the sheriff, holding out a hand but not bothering to look at the uncle. “You just watch your mouth when you talking about Lurine—Mrs. Cheney. Ever’body knows you were pestering her when she was staying out at Pantherburn with Miss Lucy’s mamma, your sister, before she died.”

  The pudding-faced, flat-topped deputy leans over to say something to the sheriff.

  “Weapon?” says the sheriff. “What you talking about, weapon? You got a weapon, Hugh Bob?”

  The uncle opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, the deputy simply lifts the uncle’s coattails and extracts the Colt Woodsman from his jacket pocket.

  The sheriff, again overcome with sorrow, accepts the gun, sniffs the muzzle.

  “This weapon has just been fired, Hugh Bob.”

  “It sho has.”

  “Who at?”

  “Him.” The uncle nods at Coach, who appears lost in thought, studying his palms, which are open on his knees. The sheriff walks around him, looking him over. The other side of his head is not bleeding but is encrusted with a maroon clot.

  “Coach?” he says, peering down at him. He stands up, hands on hips. “What in the hell did you do to him, Hugh Bob, shoot him in the head?”

  “Just his ear,” says the uncle, not displeased.

  “What in the hell—check that shotgun, Huval,” he says to the younger, balder deputy.

  Huval checks the Purdy. “Two shells, one recently fired.”

  “Where else did you shoot him?” asks the sheriff, moving the game table back and stepping past Mrs. Cheney to get a good look at Coach.

  “Hi, Cooter,” says Mrs. Cheney, giving him a pat as he passes.

  “Did that man shoot you?” he asks Coach.

  Coach pooches his lips in and out and says, “Hoo hoo hoo.”

  “This sucker has brain damage,” muses the sheriff. “Thanks to you, Hugh.”

  Across the table, Mr. Brunette begins to stamp with one foot.

  “What in the hell did you do to him, Hugh Bob?”

  “I had to shoot him,” says the uncle, beginning to hop again. “He was coming at me and he would have gotten away.”

  “What—in—the—hell—” begins the sheriff, turning first to me, then, thinking better of it, beseeches Van Dorn, who is still sitting, rocking to and fro, on the top step.

  “Sheriff Sharp,” I say, rising, “I can explain everything. But right now I really think it would be a good idea if you would arrest all these people, examine the evidence, both these photographs and Dr. Lipscomb’s medical evidence of abuse before any more children are harmed, in which case I hold you responsible. In fact, I insist on it.”

  The sheriff slowly rounds on me, stepping clear of the table— Mrs. Cheney gives him another pat as he passes—plants feet apart, hand on hips. “You demand of me.” He cups an ear. “Doctor, did I hear you say that you demand of me?”

  “I didn’t say demand.” Now he does look straight at me, all the Western cantering-posse geniality suddenly sloughed—we’re back to his old, flat-eyed, bulged-vein sheriff’s anger. He hates my guts! We’re back in the sixties, where we’ve always been, he the true Southerner, I the fake Southern liberal—the worst kind. He could be right.

  “Let me just remind you, Doctor, of two little facts, one of which you may be aware of, the other you are evidently not.”

  “All right.” Nothing is more menacing than an old-style, soft-voiced Southern sheriff.

  “You’re the felon here, Doctor, not them, you heah me? You’re the one I arrested and convicted two years ago of selling drugs. You the one went to jail, not them. Two.” He holds two not fat but big and long fingers in my face. “I have a telex in my office as of last night from the ATFA people to pick you up on the parole violation. You heah me, Doctor?” The cold rage of lawmen is never not present and never less than astounding. I’ve never seen even enraged paranoiacs get as angry a
s policemen. Slowly he folds his fingers, making a fist with a Masonic ring as big as a brass knuckle. He could easily hit me. Slowly the fist descends until his thumb hooks on to his Texas belt. “So I tell you what let’s me and you do, Doctor. Let’s you and me go on out to my car and go up the road a piece to Angola. Then we’ll see about your old friend Hugh Bob here and take care these other good people—if I can find out what you done to them.”

  “Sheriff, I ask you for the last time and in your own best interests to arrest these people and hold them at least for investigation. Otherwise I fear I know what is going to happen. As for the warrant to pick me up, I’ve already been to Angola and am presently out on a pass. If you like, please call Warden Elmo Jenkins in the federal detention unit.”

  “If I like—You fear—You mocking me?” Smiling, he comes close. He hates everything I do. He hates my seriousness more than sass, the hatefulness translating into a kind of familiarity. He comes up close as a lover, actually touching me with his stomach, like an enraged coach bumping an umpire—but more erotically. “If I like—I’ll tell you what I like, Doctor. I’d like it if you would get going right through that door.” He reaches for the door.

  “Whoa!” says the uncle, not attempting to block the sheriff at the door but craning past him. “Look ahere, Cooter,” says the uncle, hopping from one foot to the other. “Let me tell you—”

  The sheriff, aware of a commotion behind him, slowly turns, holding out a staying hand to me.

  Mrs. Cheney has meanwhile risen from the couch and, approaching the sheriff, turned her back, lifted her skirt, and now in one quick practiced motion, or rather, several in rapid succession, lifted her skirt, snapped down her panties—teddies? they’re long, lavender, and loose-fitting—and presents to Sheriff Sharp, mooning him in the saucy way sorority girls do in certain film comedies, hands on knees, head cocked friskily around.

  She backs into him.

  “What?” says Sheriff Sharp, rearing a bit. “Hey!”

  Mrs. Cheney reaches behind her and with a sure instinct and sense of direction takes hold of him. Then, finding him clothed, she seizes his hands in hers and places them on her hips, under hers, to assist her movements.

  “What?” repeats the sheriff, looking right and left as if to call people to witness, but then thinks better of it, and in a lower voice, speaking to the top of Mrs. Cheney’s head, “Jesus, Lurine,” and in an even lower voice utters (I think): “Later, girl.”

  There is a growling above.

  Coach and Mr. Brunette are still in their “bachelor” postures of submission—Coach, head bowed, studying his palms, contenting himself with a single stomp of his running shoe; Mr. Brunette, one elbow crooked over his head, laying it over to allow Mrs. Brunette to groom him.

  “Would you look at that woman,” whispers the uncle to Vergil, the uncle at first rapt, then hopping and poking an elbow into Vergil’s side.

  But Vergil, arms crossed, eyes monitored, permits himself no more than a single, unsurprised shrug. There is no telling what white people—

  The two deputies, trapped between amazement and stoicism, both advance and retreat, stretch forth hands to help, pull them back. They cannot bring themselves to look at each other.

  Mr. Brunette is exploring Mrs. Brunette’s thigh with an un-lewd finger, simply poking up the fabric of her skirt along her stocking as a child might look under a curtain in hide-and-seek, Mrs. Brunette simply allowing it through a lack of attention. The skirt reaches her waist and Mr. Brunette takes an interest in what is indeed a complex business—not panty hose, as one might expect, but stockings suspended by garters from a girdle of scalloped black lace at her waist—garter belt?—this rigging of straps and lace overlaying a bikini, that is to say, a single transparent tape and a small snug triangle of black lace.

  Both Coach and Mr. Brunette have grown more excited but seem at a loss, like the two deputies.

  Mrs. Cheney presents to the sheriff again.

  From above comes the sound of hollow pounding, like kettledrums. The growling deepens to a roar ending in a sharp barklike sound, aaargh. Everyone looks up, even Mrs. Cheney. Van Dorn is lunging back and forth behind the balcony rail as if he were caged, then comes swinging down the staircase until, halfway down and with both hands on one rail, he vaults clean over and, projecting himself in an arc more flattened than not, clears Mrs. Cheney and lands squarely on Sheriff Sharp’s back, bearing him to the floor, where he falls to biting the sheriff’s head, thumping, shrieking, roaring all the while.

  There are other screams, mostly from the women but also from the sheriff.

  The two deputies leap to the sheriff’s assistance, but succeed in little more than pulling and tugging at Van Dorn. Van Dorn is biting Sheriff Sharp’s head and neck.

  “Vergil, Uncle, come here!” I motion to them above the din.

  One of the deputies, the older flattop, giving up, stands back, unholsters his revolver. He bumps into the uncle directly behind him. Vergil is on one side of him, I on the other. The deputy looks up at Vergil, then over to me.

  “Put the gun up.”

  He puts the gun up.

  “You want me to grab him, Doc?” says Vergil, nodding at Van Dorn, who is still atop the sheriff, biting and scratching but not doing him serious harm, I think.

  “Okay, do this.” I pull Vergil and the uncle close so they can hear over the din. “Vergil, you stay here to see that nobody gets hurt. Don’t let Van Dorn put his arms around the sheriff and squeeze him. You’re the only one strong enough to handle him. Uncle, you go get a dozen Snickers—shoot the machine if you have to. I have to get the women out of sight. Mrs. Cheney! Teddies up!”

  Van Dorn has knocked off the sheriff’s hat and is biting the top of his head.

  Mrs. Cheney, who in fact has shrunk away from the fight, elbows looped over her head, arms flailing, is only too glad to have something to do, pulls her teddies up. I take her by the hand and Mrs. Brunette, who is no problem, who in fact is as docile as can be, her dress falling in place over her complex undergarments as she stands, take them both into the bathroom, reassuring them with nods and pats, close the door behind them. “Stay, ladies!”

  Coach and Mr. Brunette are still excited, forgetting their submissive bachelor status. Coach is stamping with both feet, pooching his lips and making, I think, his hoo hoo sound, all the while looking around for Mrs. Cheney.

  Mr. Brunette, standing, nattering, exposes himself, pulls down his mostly shot-away trousers, takes hold of himself, and starts for the stairs—looking for Mrs. Brunette? to become the new patriarch?

  I grab Mr. Brunette, pull him toward the pantry, holler “Snickers!” to Coach as we pass. He follows willingly, loping along, stamping both feet.

  The uncle has an armful of Snickers, having broken the glass of the dispenser.

  The bachelors are content for the moment to gorge on Snickers in the pantry.

  The women are quiet in the bathroom.

  With the women out of sight, Van Dorn subsides, leaves off biting the sheriff, and instead cuffs him about in the showy, spurious, not unfriendly fashion of professional wrestlers. It is no problem to lure him away from the sheriff altogether with the Snickers. I tuck the candy in his coat pocket as one might do with a visiting child, head him for the pantry with a pat. Van is quite himself for an instant, noodles me around the neck with an ol’ boy hug. “Thanks for everything, Tom,” he says in husky, unironic, camaradic voice. “Thanks for everything, Tom.” But before I can answer, he’s clapping with his fingers, and off he goes, stooping and knuckling along to the pantry for more Snickers.

  In no time at all, with the women out of sight, the sheriff is back in control, helped up and brushed off by his deputies, and has put on his hat to cover his bleeding head.

  He too thanks me, shaking hands at length, with a sincerity which seems to preempt apologies. “I sho want to tell you, Doctor,” he says, keeping hold of my hand without embarrassment, “how much I apprishiate your profes
sional input with this case. I mean, we got us some sick folks here! I may be able to handle criminal perpetrators of all kinds and some forensic cases—I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the subject, in fact—but when you get into real mental illness such as this”—he nods toward the deputies, who are keeping an eye on the pantry and bathroom, from which issue no longer roars and great thumps but smaller, happier sounds, squeals, clicks, and a few stomps—“I leave it to you, Doc.” He gives my hand a last pump.

  “Thanks, Sheriff. I’ll leave them to you.”

  “We’ll need you and Miss Lucy—all y’all, in fact—to come down and give affidavits.”

  “Sure thing.”

  We part as co-defenders of the medico-legal and criminal-justice system.

  I am always amazed and not displeased by the human capacity—is it American? or is it merely Southern?—for escaping dishonor and humiliation, for turning an occasion of ill will not only into something less but into a kind of access of friendship. Both the sheriff and Van Dorn, as they pass, transmit to me by certain comradely nods, ducks of head, clucks of tongue, special unspoken radiations.

  Handcuffs and restraints are not necessary. The faculty and staff of Belle Ame troop past in more or less good order, even a certain weary bonhomie all too commonplace after too-long, too-boring faculty meetings.

  The uncle, Vergil, and I watch in the doorway as the squad cars leave.

  “You want to know what I think of that bunch of preverts and those asshole redneck so-called lawmen—I mean, which is worse?” asks the uncle.

  “No,” I say.

  “Why don’t I make sure Lurine, Mrs. Cheney, gets home safe,” says the uncle.

  “No.”

  Vergil says nothing, gazes speculatively at the sky as if it were another day in the soybean harvest.

  I look at my watch. “I have to go. Here’s what I suggest. I don’t think anybody feels like fooling with the pirogue. Let’s go to my car, take Claude and that other boy, Ricky, over to Pantherburn. I’ll drop you. Tell Lucy the situation so she can call the Welfare Department, state police—she’ll know—to take over out here until the parents can come get their children. Lucy can bring Vergil back to pick up his pirogue. Let’s go.”