Walker Percy - The Last Gentleman

He sat down under a billboard of Johnnie Walker whose legs were driven by a motor. He puts his hands on his knees and was careful not to turn his head. It would happen, he knew, that if he kept still for a while he could get his bearings like a man lost in the woods. There was no danger yet of slipping: jumping the tracks altogether and spending the next three months in Richmond.

It was then that he caught sight of Kitty coming from the hospital, head down, bucking the eternal gale of the side streets. He knew only that he knew her. There were meltings of recognition about his flank and loin. He wished now that he had looked in his wallet, to make sure of his own name and maybe find hers.

“Wait,” he caught her four steps down the IRT.

“What? Oh.” She smiled quickly and started down again.

“Wait a minute.”

“I’ve got to go, ” she said, making a grimace by way of a joke.

“Please come over here for a moment. I have something to tell you.” He knew that he could speak to her if he did not think about it too much.

She shrugged and let him guide her to the bench.

“What?”

“I, ah, thought you might do me a favor.” He looked at her hard, groping for himself in her eyes. If he could not help her, hide her in Central Park, then she could help him.

“Sure, what?”

“You’re going in the subway?”

“Yes.”

“I just came out. To see, ah—” He knew he would know it as soon as she thought it. She thought it. “—Jamie.”

“Good. He’ll be glad to see you.” She eyed him, smiling, not quite onto whatever roundabout joke he was playing and not liking it much.

“I changed my mind and decided to go back downtown.”

“All right.” But it was not all right. She thought he was up to some boy-girl business. “What’s the favor?”

“That I ride with you and that you give me a punch if I miss my station.”

“What?”

“Do you know where I live?”

“Yes. At—”

He touched her arm. “Don’t tell me. I want to see if I know when I get there.”

“What’s the matter — oh”—all joking aside now, eyes black as shoe buttons. She saw he was sweating.

Oddest of all: strange as he felt, having slipped six cogs, the engineer knew nevertheless that it was a negotiable strangeness. He could spend some on her. “Nothing much. Will you do as I say?”

“Yes.”

Above them, Johnnie Walker’s legs creaked like ship’s rigging.

“Let’s go.” He started straight out, not waiting on her.

“That’s the wrong subway,” she said, catching up with him. “I’m taking the IRT.”

“Right.” It was like a déjà vu: he knew what she was going to say as soon as she said it.

They rode in silence. When the train came to the first lights of the Columbus Circle platform, he rose. “This is it,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, watching him sloe-eyed.

“Thank you,” he said, taking her hand like a man’s, and left quickly.

He stopped at a gum-machine mirror to see how he looked. There was nothing much wrong. His face was pale but intact. But when he straightened, his knee gave way and he stumbled to the edge of the platform. The particles began to sing.

A hand took his. “This way,” said Kitty. Her hand was warm and grubby from riding subways.

She led him to a bench on an arc of the Circle. It is strange, he thought, musing, but love is backwards too. In order to love, one has not to love. Look at her. Her hand was on his thigh, rough as a nurse. She made herself free of him, peering so close he could smell her breath. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re pale. Your hand is so cold.” She made a slight movement and checked it. He knew she had meant to warm his hand in her lap.

“As long as you are here, will you go over there and buy me a glass of orange juice?”

She watched him drink the juice. “Have you eaten anything today?”

“No.”

“Did you have supper last night?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember to eat?”

“I eat when I get hungry. I don’t remember that I have eaten.”

“Are you hungry now?”

“Yes.”

They walked to the automat on Fifty-seventh Street. While she drank coffee, he ate four dollars’ worth of roast beef and felt much better. I’m in love, he thought as he drank his third glass of milk.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with you,” she said when he finished.

“That’s right.”

“What will you do now?”

“Go home and go to bed.”

“You work at night?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“There’s one more thing—” he said.

“What?”

“Write your name and telephone number on this.”

She smiled and did so but when she looked up and saw him she grew serious. “Oh.”

“Yes, I need somebody to call. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes.”

The sicker I am, the more I know, he thought. And the more she loves me. “Suppose I need to call you at three o’clock in the morning and say come to Weehawken.”

“Call me.” Her face clouded. “What about next month?”

“What about it?”

“I’ll be in Spain. In Torremolinos.”

“Write it down.” After she wrote it, he asked her. “Now what if I call you over there?”

She looked at him, taking a tuck of lip between her teeth. “Do you mean it?”

“I mean it. You’re the one I’m going to call.”

“Why me?”

He drew his chair closer to the corner of the table and put his hand in her lap. “I’m in love.”

“You are,” she said. “Oh.”

“I’ve never been in love before.”

“Is that right?” Keeping a wary eye on him, she turned her head toward the empty automat.

“Hold still,” he said, and leaning forward put his mouth on hers before she closed it. She held still from the habit of ministering to him. She was helping him. But hold on!

“Good Lord,” she said presently and to no one.

“I never thought it would be so simple,” said he, musing.

“Simple?” She was caught, betwixt and between being a girl full of stratagems and a rough and ready nurse.

“That you are in love and that there is time for it and that you take the time.”

“I see.”

“Let’s go to your house.”

“What for?”

He kissed her again.

She tucked the corner of her mouth and began to nod and slap the table softly.

What he wanted to tell her but could not think quite how was that he did not propose country matters. He did not propose to press against her in an elevator. What he wanted was both more and less. He loved her. His heart melted. She was his sweetheart, his certain someone. He wanted to hold her charms in his arms. He wanted to go into a proper house and shower her with kisses in the old style.

“What do you do when you also have breakfast?” she asked him.

“What? Oh,” he said, seeing it was a joke. “Well, I’m not joking.” He’d as soon she didn’t make Broadway jokes, gags.

“I see you’re not.”

“I love you.”

“You do.” The best she could do was register it.

“Let’s go to your house.”

“You said you worked last night and were going to bed.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“I think you need some sleep.”

“I need very little sleep.”

“You’re pretty tough.”

“Yes, I’m very strong. I can press 250 pounds and snatch 225. I can whip every middleweight at Princeton, Long Island University, and the Y.M.C.A.”

“Now you’re joking.”

“Yes, but it’s true.”

“You weren’t so strong in the subway.”

“I blacked out for a second.”