by Walker Percy
Stepping out into the silvery rain, I notice a Bantu squatting cross-legged atop the Joy screen, looking toward the Center with a pair of binoculars.
The carillon has jumped back to Christmas.
Silent night,
Holy night
18
Moira sits on the bed reading Cosmopolitan. Damn, I wish she wouldn’t! I brought Rod McKuen and some house and home magazines for our weekend at Howard Johnson’s, but no, she has to bring Cosmopolitan. Why? Because of Helen Gurley Brown, her favorite author. She’s reading an article of Helen’s now, “Adultery for Adults.” Damn! For years now Helen has been telling girls it’s all right to screw anybody you like.
But what if she likes Buddy Brown?
I hand her House and Garden. “You shouldn’t read that stuff.”
“Why not?”
“It’s immoral.”
She shrugs but takes House and Garden. “You didn’t mind my reading it before.”
“That was before.”
“What’s wrong with my reading it now?”
“Everything.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s a matter of intention,” I begin, but she’s not listening. Something in House and Garden has caught her eye.
“I can’t decide which I like better, the new look or the Vermeer look.”
“What is the Vermeer look?”
“You know—Dutch doors with the top open, everything light and airy, tile.”
“Very good.”
“Myself I’ve always been partial to the outdoor-indoor look, green leaves in the kitchen, a bedroom opening to the treetops.”
“We had that.” I sit on the foot of the bed.
“Don’t you love this kitchen?”
“Yes.”
Moira must have had a nap. At any rate she’s rosy and composed, her old thrifty self. Cross-legged she sits, lower lip curled like a thick petal. Above her perfect oval face, a face unwounded, unscarred, unlined, unmarked by sadness or joy, the nap of her cropped wheat-colored hair invites the hand against its grain. My hand brushes it. My heart lifts. I am in love.
She’s the girl of our dreams, Americans! the very one we held in our hearts as we toiled in the jungles of Ecuador. She is! Sitting scrunched over and humpbacked, she is beautiful despite herself, calf yoga-swelled over heel, one elbow propped, the other winged out like a buzzard for all she cares. Prodigal she is with her own perfection, lip tucked, pencil scratching her head. She holds herself too cheap, leaves her gold lying around like bobby pins.
My throat is engorged with tenderness.
Planning a house she is, marking the margins of House Beautiful. She’s beautiful too. A bit short in the limbs, I’ll admit—I can stretch a hand’s span from her elbow to her acromium—but perfected as it were in the shortening. Her golden deltoid curves in in a single strong arc, a whorl of down marking its insertion. Now she turns a page and supinates her forearm to hold the spine of the magazine: down plunges the tendon into the fossa at her elbow. Sweet fossa. I kiss it.
“See how the prints of the casual pillows pick up the daisies in the wall tile.”
“Yes. I have any number of casual pillows at home.”
“I like casual living.”
“Me too.”
“Could we do the whole house over?”
“What house.”
“Your house.”
“Sure.”
“I think I’ll collect Shaker tableware. Look at these.”
“Very good. But I thought you were going to raise banties.”
“I am. But my great-grandfather was a backsliding Shaker who got married.”
“Is that so?”
“Here is something else I love: simple handcrafts.”
“I do too.”
She puts down her magazine, rises to stretch, sits in my lap.
“You are good enough to eat,” I say and begin to eat her kneecaps, which are like beaten biscuits. My fiery scalp begins to pop hawsers.
“You’re just like my Uncle Bud,” says Moira, burying her face in my neck.
“I know.”
“Only I like you better.”
“You’re a lovely girl.”
“What do you think of my taking up tennis at the club?”
“You’d look lovely in a tennis outfit.”
“I want to join a book club too.”
“There is a poetry club in Paradise.”
“I love poetry,” she says and recites a poem.
There was a girl in Portland
Before the winter chill
We used to go a’courting
Along October hill.
“Very nice.”
“It’s always had a special meaning to me.”
“Why?”
“Because we used to live in Portland, West Virginia.”
“I’d like to take you down October hill.”
“You look just like Rod McKuen, only stronger.”
“Younger too.”
“Wait a sec, Chico.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Next door. To get my sachet.”
“Ah. Hm. Actually I don’t … I didn’t mean … I …”
“Don’t worry. I’ll fool the battle-ax.”
“Battle-ax?” I say wonderingly.
She turns at the door, dimpling.
“Aunngh,” I say faintly. Segments of a road map drift across my retina, crossroads, bits of highway, county seats.
Sitting slouched and poetic, as gracefully as Rod, I wait for Moira before the winter chill.
What I need is a nap, I tell myself, and fall asleep immediately. Do I hear Moira come and go while I am dozing?
19
“I quit, Dr. More,” says Ellen. “Now. As of this moment. I no longer work for you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” I fix a toddy, lie on the bed, slip a quarter into the Slepe-Eze, and close my eyes.
“Of all the shameless performances.”
“Whose?”
“Not yours. I don’t blame you nearly as much as them.”
“You don’t?” Taking heart, I open one eye.
“Chief,” says Ellen, concerned, “what’s the matter with your eye?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“It’s almost closed.”
“Probably hives.”
“My goodness! It’s awful.”
“My throat is closing too.”
“Wait, Chief! I’ve got a shot of epinephrine in my bag.”
“Good.”
I watch with one eye while she gives me the shot.
“At least, Chief, I give you credit for honorable intentions.”
“You do?”
“I think you’re confused and exhausted.”
“That’s true.”
“Anyhow, I don’t blame men as much as women.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes.”
“Your eye is opening. Now, Chief.”
“Yes.”
“We have to be clear on one or two things.”
“Right,” I say, cheering up. I’ve always taken delight in her orderly mind.
“First. Do you intend to marry?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You really don’t know?”
“I really don’t.”
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
“Yes.”
Why do I take such delight in answering her questions? I remind me of Samantha, who used to come home from school letter-perfect in her catechism and ask me to hear her nevertheless.
“Why did God make you?” And she’d answer, faking a hesitation, slewing her eyes around to me to gauge the suspense. She liked for me to ask and for her to answer. Saying is different from knowing.
“Are we going to go back to work?” asks Ellen.
“Yes.”
I look at my watch.
Ellen takes a damp washrag and scrubs my mouth with hard mother-scrubs.
“Tch, of all the shameless hussies.” She scrubs mother-hard with no mercy for my lip. “My word!” She grabs my shirt.
“What now?”
“They even pulled your shirttail out.” Hard tucks all around.
“Thank you.” The sugar in the toddy is reviving me.
“Now. What are the plans?” “Here are the plans. In five minutes, as soon as I finish my drink, I’m going over to the high ground of the interchange. I’m taking the carbine and I’ll be within sight and range of this balcony and these windows. From that point I can also see the swamp, the Center, the town, and Paradise. I know what to look for. It should happen by seven o’clock. If you need me here, wave this handkerchief in the window. And shoot anybody else who tries to come in.”
“Right, Chief.”
“After I leave, you can collect the others and bring them in here.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll blow their noses and tuck them in. We’ve handled worse, haven’t we?”
“Yes.” I look at her. “And, Ellen.”
“Yes?”
“You won’t leave without telling me?”
“No. But wait.”
“What for?”
“I’m going to fix you a sandwich to take with you to keep your strength up.”
“Where are they?”
“Who?”
“The girls.”
“Next door—in Miss ah Rhoades’s room. All of a sudden they’re thick as thieves.”
“Hm,” I say uneasily. What are they cooking up between them?
In a pine grove on the southwest
cusp of the interstate cloverleaf
7:15 p.m. / JULY 4
AWAKE AND FEELING MYSELF AGAIN, which is to say, alert, depressed-elated, and moderately terrified.
My leg has gone to sleep. One eye is closed either by sleep or by hives. Albumen molecules dance in my brain.
It is almost dark, but the sky is still light. The dark crowns of the cypresses flatten out against the sky like African veldt trees. A pall of smoke hangs over the horizon, marring the glimmering violet line that joins dark earth to light bowl of sky. The evening star glitters like a diamond next to the ruby light of the transmitter.
No sign of a sniper.
Three windows are lit at Howard Johnson’s. The girls then are safe and sound and waiting for me.
Closer at hand a smaller column of smoke is rising. It is coming from a bunker off number 12 fairway which runs along the fence bordering the interstate right-of-way. The links lights are on, sodium-vapor arcs concealed in cypresses and Spanish moss, which cast a spectral light on the fairway and big creeping shadows in the rough.
Two police cars are parked on the shoulder. A small crowd stands around the bunker, gazing down.
Forgetting about my leg, I shoulder the carbine, stand up to start down the slope, and fall down. The exposed leg between shoved-up pants and fallen-down socks is ghostly and moon-pocked. I touch it. It feels like meat in the refrigerator.
I wait until the tingling comes and goes.
The smoke is coming from the sandtrap under the bunker. Charley Parker, the golf pro, stands watering the sand with a hose.
P.G.A. officials run back and forth between Charley and his official tower, which also holds camera crews and floodlights. Players watch from their carts. One player, swinging his sand wedge, stands beside the bunker.
There are people from the Center and town. I recognize Max Gottlieb, Stryker, a Baptist chiropractor named Dr. Billy Matthews; Mercer Jones, a state trooper; Dr. Mark Habeeb, a Center psychiatrist; Elroy McPhee, a Humble geologist and a moderate Episcopal Knothead; Moon Mullins, a Catholic slumlord and Pontiac dealer.
“What do you say, Doc,” says Charley as if we were teeing off on an ordinary Sunday morning. But I notice that his hand is trembling and his jaw muscles pop.
“All right, Charley. What are you doing?”
“Do you hear what that goddamn P.G.A. official said to me?”
“No.”
“He said there was no rule in the book to cover this so I have to put the fire out.”
“No rule to cover what?”
“A ball in a burning sand trap.”
“Is that what’s holding up the game?”
“I got to put the son of a bitch out!”
“I don’t believe I’d do that.”
“Do what?”
“Put water on it. It will only make it worse.”
“I got to put it out. The sand is on fire.”
“How could the sand be on fire? It’s a Heavy Sodium reaction, Charley.”
“What would you do about it?”
“Clear the area. The smoke contains Heavy Sodium vapor and could be extremely dangerous, especially if a wind should spring up.”
Charley makes a sound. With the thumb and forefinger of his free hand he flings something—tears?—from his eyes.
“What’s wrong, Charley?”
“What’s wrong,” repeats Charley. He gazes sorrowfully at the sand trap into which he directs the stream from the hose in an idle ruminative way, like a man pissing into a toilet. “The greatest event that ever happened to this town, to this state, the Pro-Am, gets to the finals, forty million people are watching on stereo-V, nine out of the top ten all-time money-winners and crowd-pleasers are on hand, half a million in prize money has been raised, the evangelistic team has arrived, the President himself plans to play a round tomorrow—and what happens? The goddamn bunkers catch on fire.”
“You mean more than one?”
“All of them, man!”
“That figures,” I say absently. “Charley, it’s not the sand that’s burning and the water will only—”
“Don’t tell me the sand is not burning!” cries Charley, dashing tears from his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “Look!”
Fortunately a brisk breeze from the north is blowing the smoke straight out to the swamp.
“Mercer, do you have a bullhorn in your car?” I ask the state trooper.
“What do you want with a bullhorn, Doc?” asks Mercer in the easy yet wary tone of an experienced policeman who is both at his ease in an emergency and prepared for any foolishness from spectators.
“I’ve got to warn these people about the smoke. Will you help me clear the area?”
“Why do you want to do that?” asks Mercer, inclining his head toward me carefully.
“Because it contains noxious sodium particles, and if the wind should shift, we could have a disaster on our hands.”
“We have oxygen in case of smoke inhalation, Doc.” Mercer looks at me sideways. He is wondering if I am drunk.
Stifling an impulse to recite the symptoms of Heavy Sodium fallout, I adopt the acceptable attitude of friend-of-policeman encountering policeman on duty and accordingly line up alongside him.
“Things pretty quiet this evening, Mercer?”
“More or less.”
“Any other ah emergencies?”
The trooper shrugs. “An incident at the Center. A little civil disorder at the club.”
“Haven’t the Bantus taken over Paradise?”
Mercer clears his throat and cocks his head in disapproval. There: I’ve done it again.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“What would you say?”
“There have been reports of vandalism at the old clubhouse, some shots fired, and a house or two burned on the old 18 and out on the bluff.” Mercer’s cheek is set against me. Only our long acquaintanceship draws an answer from him. Do we really have to talk, Doc?
I sigh. “One more question, Mercer, and I’ll let you alone. Is there any news about the President and Vice-President?”
“News?” asks Mercer, cheek stiff.
“I mean, have there been any attempts on their— Have any incidents occurred?”
Mercer’s eyes slide around to me, past me, to the carbin
e, which I had forgotten. It is crossing his mind: what is nutty Doc doing with a gun and do you suppose he’s a big enough fool to—no. But didn’t Dr. Carl Weiss, another brilliant unstable doctor, shoot Huey Long?
“Not that I’ve heard. Been hunting rabbits, Doc?”
“Yes.”
“With a thirty ought six?”
“As a matter of fact, a sniper has been shooting at me the last couple of days.”
“Is that right!” says Mercer in a sociable singsong and swings his arms. “I’m telling you the truth unh unh unh!”—as if snipers were but one more trial of these troubled times.
Max Gottlieb, Ken Stryker, Colley Wilkes, and Mark Habeeb, all but Habeeb still wearing their white coats, stand leaning over the fence, their hands in their pockets. They have the holiday air of hard-working scientists who have been distracted from their researches and lean on windowsills to watch a street accident.
They gaze down at Charley Parker, who is still watering the bunker. Charley is conferring with a member of Cliff Barrow’s evangelistic team on one side and an Amvet on the other. The former wears a Jesus-Christ-Greatest-Pro armband, the latter an American flag stuck in his overseas cap.
The scientists greet me affably and go on with their talk. Not far behind them Moon Mullins and Dr. Billy Matthews stand silently. The sight of them makes me uneasy.
“The cross and the flag,” Ken Stryker is saying.
Colley nods. “A nice example of core values and symbol systems coming to the aid of economics.”
“The most potent appraisive signs in our semiotic,” says Dr. Mark Habeeb.
Colley asks him: “Do you know Ted’s work in sign reversal in Gorilla gorilla malignans? You take a killer ape who responds aggressively to the purple rump patch of a baboon. He can be reconditioned by using lysergin-B to respond to the same sign without aggression, with affection, in fact.”
“Peace!” says Habeeb, laughing. “Maybe we could use electrodes here, Max.” He nods toward the trio in the bunker.
But Max only shrugs. His mind is elsewhere.
“Right, Tom?” Habeeb turns to me.
“I couldn’t say.”
“Come on, Tom.” Habeeb persists, nodding to the crowd. “You’re perceptive.”
“Perceptive? I perceive you are suffering from angelism,” I say absently.
“Cut it out, ha ha. I was talking about the behavior over there.”