Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins - The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World

“Very small.”

“And if he did recover, what are the chances he’d return to his former mode of behavior?”

“Very large.”

“Do you recall his former behavior?”

I am silent.

“Allow me to refresh your memory, Doctor.” Again Buddy flips through the chart. “These,” he explains to the amphitheater, “are progress reports during the last year of the patient’s residence at the Golden Years Senior Citizen Settlement in Tampa. I quote:

“‘The subject has not only refused to participate in the various recreational, educational, creative, and group activities but has on occasion engaged in antisocial and disruptive behavior. He refused shuffleboard tournament, senior softball, Golden Years gymkhana, papa putt-putt, donkey baseball, Guys and Gals à go-go, the redfish rodeo, and granddaddy golf. He refused: free trip to Los Angeles to participate in Art Linkletter III’s “the young olds,” even though chosen for this trip by his own community.

“‘Did on two occasions defecate on Flirtation Walk during the Merry Widow’s promenade.

“‘Did on the occasion of the Ohio Day breakfast during the period of well-wishing and when the microphone was passed to him utter gross insults and obscenities to Ohioans, among the mildest of which was the expression, repeated many times: piss on all Ohioans!

“‘Did in fact urinate on Ohio in the Garden of the Fifty States.

“‘Was observed by his neighbors on Bide-a-wee Bayou to be digging furiously with a spade on the patio putt-putt, defacing same. When asked what he was digging for, he replied: the fountain of youth.’”

More titters from the student roosts.

Buddy goes on:

“‘Despite extensive reconditioning in the Skinner box, the patient continued to exhibit antisocial behavior. This behavior,’” Buddy hastens to add, “‘Occurred before his stroke last month.’”

“If he had a stroke,” I say.

“If he had a stroke,” Buddy allows gravely. “Well, Doctor?”

“Well what?”

“What would you do with him?”

“Discharge him .”

“To suffer another thirty years?” asks Buddy, smiling. “To cause other people suffering?”

“At least he’d have a sporting chance.”

“A sporting chance to do what?”

“To avoid your packing him off to Georgia, where they’d sink electrodes in his head, plant him like a carrot in that hothouse which is nothing more than an anteroom to the funeral parlor. Then throw the Euphoric Switch—”

“Doctor!” interrupts the Director sternly.

“Aaah!” The students blush at the word funeral . Girls try to pull their dresses down over their knees.

Buddy flushes angrily.

The Director is angrier still.

“Doctor!” He levels a quivering finger at me, then crooks it, summoning me. Craning down, he croaks into my ear. “You know very well that the patient is present and that there is no guarantee that he cannot understand you.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I hope — indeed I have reason to believe — that he does understand me.”

The Director goes off into a fit of coughing. His eyes bulge glassily. Handkerchiefs fly in and out of plackets in his coat. The students are in an uproar. Cheers from the Knotheads, boos from the Lefts.

“This is too much!” The Director throws up both hands. Now he’s grabbed me, hooked me with his claws like the ancient mariner. “It’s my mistake, Doctor,” he croaks. “My putting you on patient-staff status. I beg your pardon. It is only too clear that your illness does not yet permit you to function.”

“I can function, sir,” I tell him, speaking into his great hairy convoluted ear. “You’ll see.”

“Be careful, Doctor!” The powerful old hands squeeze my arm by way of warning. “Proceed!”

Mr. Ives’s bright monkey eyes have begun to snap again.

“I repeat,” I say to the back rows. “If Mr. Ives is going to be referred to Happy Isles of Georgia, which is nothing but a euthanasia facility, he has the right to know it and to prepare himself accordingly. And he has the right to know who his executioner is.”

“I warned you, Doctor!” The Director is on his feet and shouting. “Perhaps you’d better go back to the ward, to A-4.”

“Yes sir,” I say. Perhaps he is right.

The students, struck dumb, gaze at me, gaze at each other.

“Sir!”

It is Buddy, advancing toward me, hands clasped behind his back. He holds one hand up to quiet the uproar. The other hand is still behind him. “Sir!”—to the Director, in a loud voice. “I submit to you, sir, that you are mistaken!”

“Eh?” The Director cups his ear.

“Sir, you do an injustice both to Dr. More as well as to your own clinical judgment!”

“Eh? How’s that?”

“Your first decision about Dr. More was quite correct. Your confidence in him is not misplaced. His illness does not in the least interfere with his functioning. In short, sir, I submit to you that his odd behavior today cannot be laid to his illness at all. The truth is—” Buddy, quick as a cat, steps behind me, embraces me with one arm, with the other hidden hand claps a mask over my face. His grip is like iron. There is nothing to do but squirm and, at length, gasp for breath. Three, four, five seconds and Buddy flings one arm up like a cowboy bulldogging a steer. He holds the dial aloft for all to see, presents it to the Director like the bull’s ears. “Point three percent ethyl alcohol. The truth is Dr. More is drunk as a lord!”

Relieved laughter from the students — along with the gasps. At least they recognize a familiar note of buffoonery.

Even the Director looks relieved despite himself.

“Fun is fun,” he announces to no one in particular. “But The Pit may be getting out of hand.”

Moira has shrunk even farther into the tunnel.

Unbuckling my physician’s bag, I take out my modified lapsometer. Buddy makes way for me, giving my arm a friendly squeeze, handing me on to the patient with a reassuring smile. You see, his smile tells the students, it’s all in the spirit of The Pit. More and I are not mad at each other.

“Your patient, Doctor.” Your witness, Mr. Burger. Twenty years and Ham Burger never won a case.

“Thank you, Doctor, but I don’t want the patient. I want you.”

A beehive murmur. Buddy holds up both hands.

“It’s all right!” he cries, smiling. “Turnabout is fair play. Dr. More is going to diagnose me. Why not? He is going to measure, not my blood alcohol, but my metaphysical status. The device he holds there — correct me if I’m wrong, Doctor — is the More Quantitative-Qualitative Ontological Lapsometer.”

Laughter from the left.

“Qualitative-Quantitative,” I correct him.

More laughter from the left. Consternation from the right benches. Stony stares from my colleagues. But the Director’s glossy eyes bulge amiably — at least he is relieved to see the tone change to the acceptable medical-farcical.

Moira is all but invisible. Have I lost her?

“Be my guest, Doctor,” says Buddy, presenting his bald brown crown to me.

With Buddy standing at ironic attention, arms folded, I do a quick diagnostic pass from cortex to brain stem. Over the top of his head I catch a glimpse of Dr. Helga Heine’s bare thighs crossed on the aisle, and far above in the shadows, Art Immelmann, who is standing like a bailiff in front of the swinging doors. Working up Buddy’s brain stem now, I focus moderate inhibitory dosages over the frontal cerebrum and, letting it go at that, step back. It is enough, I calculate, to inhibit the inhibitory centers and let Buddy be what he is.

Buddy does not move. “Is that all, Doctor?” he asks in his broad stage voice. “How is my metaphysical ontology? Or is it my ontological metaphysics?”