Walker Percy - The Last Gentleman

“She wanted me to promise her something,” said Sutter, keeping a bright non-medical eye on the other. “Namely, that if she were not present I would see to it that Jimmy is baptized before he dies. What do you think of that?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“It happened in this fashion,” said Sutter, more lively than ever. “My father was a Baptist and my mother an Episcopalian. My father prevailed when Jamie was born and he wasn’t baptized. You know of course that Baptist children are not baptized until they are old enough to ask for it — usually around twelve or thirteen. Later my father became an Episcopalian and so by the time Jamie came of age there was no one to put the question to him — or he didn’t want it. To be honest, I think everybody was embarrassed. It is an embarrassing subject nowadays, even slightly ludicrous. Anyhow Jamie’s baptism got lost in the shuffle. You might say he is a casualty of my father’s ascent in status.”

“Is that right,” said the engineer, drumming his fingers on his knees. He was scandalized by Sutter’s perky, almost gossipy interest in such matters. It reminded him of something his father said on one of his nocturnal strolls. “Son,” he said through the thick autumnal web of Brahms and the heavy ham-rich smell of the cottonseed-oil mill. “Don’t ever be frightened by priests.” “No sir,” said the startled youth, shocked that his father might suppose that he could be frightened by priests.

“Well,” he said at last and arose to leave. Though he could not think what he wanted to ask, he was afraid now of overstaying his welcome. But when he reached the door it came to him. “Wait,” he said, as though it was Sutter and not he who might leave. “I know what I want to ask.”

“All right.” Sutter drained off the whiskey and looked out the window.

The engineer closed the door and, crossing the room, stood behind Sutter. “I want to know whether a nervous condition could be caused by not having sexual intercourse.”

“I see,” said the other and did not laugh as the engineer feared he might “What did your analyst say?” he asked, without turning around.

“I didn’t ask him. But he wrote in his book that one’s needs arise from a hunger for stroking and that the supreme experience is sexual intimacy.”

“Sexual intimacy,” said Sutter thoughtfully. He turned around suddenly. “Excuse me, but I still don’t quite see why you single me out. Why not ask Rita or Val, for example?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why, but I know that if you tell me I will believe you. And I think you know that.”

“Well, I will not tell you,” said Sutter after a moment

“Why not?”

Sutter flushed angrily. “Because for one thing I think you’ve come to me because you’ve heard something about me and you already know what I will say — or you think you know. And I think I know who told you.”

“No sir, that’s not true,” said the engineer calmly.

“I’ll be goddamned if I’ll be a party to any such humbug.”

“This is not humbug.”

“I will not tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Who do you think I am, for Christ’s sake? I am no guru and I want no disciples. You’ve come to the wrong man. Or did you expect that?” Sutter looked at him keenly. “I suspect you are a virtuoso at this game.”

“I was, but this time it is not a game.”

Sutter turned away. “I can’t help you. Fornicate if you want to and enjoy yourself but don’t come looking to me for a merit badge certifying you as a Christian or a gentleman or whatever it is you cleave by.”

“That’s not why I came to you.”

“Why then?”

“As a matter of fact, to ask what it is you cleave by.”

“Dear Jesus, Barrett, have a drink.”

“Yes sir,” said the engineer thoughtfully, and he went into the kitchenette. Perhaps Kitty and Rita were right, he was thinking as he poured the horrendous bourbon. Perhaps Sutter is immature. He was still blushing from the word “fornicate.” In Sutter’s mouth it seemed somehow more shameful than the four-letter word.

“I’ve got to go,” said Jamie.

“O.K. When?”

After leaving Sutter, the engineer had read a chapter of Freeman’s R. E. Lee and was still moving his shoulders in the old body-English of correcting the horrific Confederate foul-ups, in this case the foul-up before Sharpsburg when Lee’s battle orders had been found by a Union sergeant, the paper wrapped around three cigars and lying in a ditch in Maryland. I’ll pick it up before he gets there, thought the engineer and stooped slightly.

“I mean leave town,” said Jamie.

“Very well. When?”

“Right now.”

“O.K. Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you later. Let’s go.”

From the pantry he could look into the kitchen, which was filled with a thick ticking silence; it was the silence which comes late in the evening after the cook leaves.

But at that moment David came over for the usual game of hearts. Rita had taken David aside for an earnest talk. In the last few days David had decided he wanted to be a sportscaster. The engineer groaned aloud. Sportscaster for Christ’s sake; six feet six, black as pitch, speech like molasses in the mouth, and he wanted to be a sportscaster.

“No,” he told David when he heard it. “Not a sportscaster.”

“What I’m going to do!” cried David.

“Do like me,” said the engineer seriously. “Watch and wait. Keep your eyes open. Meanwhile study how to make enough money so you don’t have to worry about it. In your case, for example, I think I’d consider being a mortician.”

“I don’t want to be no mortician.”

He was David sure enough, of royal lineage and spoiled rotten. He wouldn’t listen to you. Be a sportscaster then.

Now he couldn’t help overhearing Rita, who was telling David earnestly about so-and-so she knew at CBS, a sweet wonderful guy who might be able to help him, at least suggest a good sportscasting school. Strangest of all, the sentient engineer could actually see how David saw himself as a sportscaster: as a rangy chap (he admired Frank Gifford) covering the Augusta Masters (he had taken to wearing a little yellow Augusta golf cap Son Junior gave him).

Jamie wore his old string robe which made him look like a patient in the Veterans Hospital. While Rita spoke to David, Son Junior told the engineer and Kitty about rumors of a Negro student coming on campus next week. It was part of the peculiar dispensation of the pantry that Son Junior could speak about this “nigger” without intending an offense to David. Rita looked sternly at Son — who was in fact dull enough to tell David about the “nigger.”

Sutter sat alone at the blue bar. The engineer had come in late and missed whatever confrontation had occurred between Sutter and Rita. Now at any rate they sat thirty feet apart, and Rita’s back was turned. Sutter appeared to take no notice and sat propped back in a kitchen chair, whiskey in hand and face livid in the buzzing blue light. The family did not so much avoid Sutter as sequester him in an enclave of neutral space such as might be assigned an afflicted member. One stepped around him, though one might still be amiable. “What you say, Sutter,” said Lamar Thigpen as he stepped up to the bar to fix a drink.

Kitty got Son off the subject by asking him what band would play for the Pan-Hellenic dance. Later Kitty whispered to the engineer, “Are you going to take me?”

“Take you to what?”

“The Pan-Hellenic.”

“When is it?”

“Saturday night after the Tennessee game.”

“What day is this?”