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

“Humbug, that’s what’s going on.”

“Has anybody bothered you?”

“Who’s going to bother me?”

“Then why are you scrubbing the bathroom floor in your best clothes?”

“My car won’t start and I can’t call a taxi. My phone’s dead.”

“Is that all?”

“What else?” She is sitting straight up, smoothing her waist down into her hip, wagging her splendid calf against her knee.

“I mean, have you noticed anything unusual?”

“People running around like chickens with their heads cut off. You’d think a hurricane was on the way.”

“What people?”

“The Bococks down the street. He and the children threw their clothes in the boat and drove away.”

“Boat? Oh, you mean on the trailer. Is that all?”

“What else? Then this trash backs up a truck to the Bocock house.”

“Trash? What trash?”

“White trash. Black trash. Black men in yellow robes and guns.”

“You mean they moved in?”

“Don’t ask me!”

“Or did they take things and leave?”

“I didn’t notice.”

I sit on the tub thinking. Mother dips brush into Clorox.

“Mother, you’re leaving.”

“Leave! Why should I leave?”

“I’m afraid you’re in some danger here.”

“There’s not a soul in the neighborhood. Anyhow Euclid is here.”

“Eukie ain’t worth a damn.”

“I can’t leave. My car won’t start.” I see she’s frightened and wants to leave.

“Take my car. Or rather Ellen’s. Take Eukie with you and go to Aunt Minnie’s in town and stay there till you hear from me. Go the back way by my house.”

“All right,” says Mother distractedly, looking at her wrinkled Cloroxed fingertips. “But first I have to pass by the Paradise office and pass an act of sale.”

“Act of sale! What are you talking about?”

“Then I’m coming back and stay with Lola. Lola’s not leaving.”

Dusty Rhoades, Mother tells me, had come by earlier, argued with the two women, had an emergency call, and left.

“You mean Lola’s over there now?”

“She won’t leave! She’s a lovely girl, Tommy.”

“I know.”

“And she comes from lovely people.”

“She does?”

“She’s the girl for you. She’s a Taurus.”

“I know.”

“Ellen is not for you.”

“Ellen! Who said anything about Ellen? Last time you were worried about Moira.”

“She doesn’t come from the aristocratic Oglethorpes. I inquired. Her father was a mailman.”

“My God, Mother, what are you talking about? There were no aristocratic Oglethorpes. Please go get your things.”

My mother, who sets no store at all by our connection with Sir Thomas More, speaks often of her ancestor Sieur de Marigny, who was a rascal but also, she says, an aristocrat.

I give Eukie my father’s twelve-gauge pump gun loaded with a single twenty-five-year-old shell.

“Eukie, you ride shotgun.”

“Yes suh!” Eukie is delighted with the game.

“If anybody tries to stop Miss Marva, shoot them.”

Eukie looks at me. “Shoot them? Who I’m going to shoot?”

“I don’t know.” Euclid is sitting opposite Mother, holding the shotgun over his shoulder like a soldier. “Never mind.”

Off they go in the Toyota, facing each other across the tiller.

Lola, in jeans and gingham shirt, is hoeing her garden at Tara, A straight chair at the end of a row holds a.45 automatic and a cedar bucket of ice water with a dipper. Her shirttails are tied around in front leaving her waist bare. The deep channel of her spine glistens.

I lean my carbine against the chair.

“What are you planting?”

“Mustard.” Lola jumps up and gives me a big hug. “You’re so smart!”

“Smart?”

“Yesterday. I didn’t know you were a genius.”

“Genius?”

“In The Pit. Lola’s so proud of you.” She gives me another hug.

“Do you think you ought to be here by yourself? Where’s Dusty?”

“Nobody’s going to mess with Lola.”

“I see.” I fall silent.

“Did you come to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Well? State your business.”

“Yes. Well, I don’t think you ought to stay here.” It’s where she should stay that gives me pause. Lola sees this.

“And just where do you propose that I go?”

“Into town.”

She commences hoeing again. “Nobody’s running Lola off her own place. Besides, I doubt there is any danger. All I’ve seen are a few witch doctors and a couple of drug-heads.”

“There was another atrocity last night.”

“Nellie Bledsoe? I think P.T. got drunk and let her have it with the shish kebab.”

“I’ve been shot at twice in the last hour.”

“Tommy!” cries Lola, dropping the hoe. She takes my hand in her warm, cello-callused fingers. “Are you hurt?” she asks, feeling me all over for holes.

“No. He missed me.”

“Who in the world—?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s a Bantu.”

Lola slaps her thigh angrily. Eyes blazing, she places her fists on her hips, arms akimbo. She nods grimly. “That does it.”

“Does what?”

“You stay here with Lola.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I have, ah, other responsibilities.” Such as two girls in a motel room, but I can’t tell her that.

“Such as?”

“My mother.”

“Very well.” She waits, searching my eyes. She’s waiting for me to ask her to stay with me. When I don’t, she shrugs and picks up the hoe. “Don’t worry about Lola. Lola can take care of herself.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“I can’t leave my babies.” She nods toward the stables.

“You mean the horses? Turn them loose. They’ll be all right.”

“Besides that, I’ve just laid in one thousand New Hampshire chicks.”

“Chickens, mustard greens. What are you planning for?”

“I think we’re in for a long winter and I’m planning to stick it out here.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugs and mentions the possibility of civil disturbances between Knothead and Leftpapas, between black and white, etcetera. “So I think the safest place in the world is right here at Tara minding my own business.”

I nod and tell her about my fears for the immediate future, about the mishap that befell my lapsometers and the consequent dangers of a real disaster.

Lola listens intently. It is beginning to drizzle. Suddenly taking my hand in hers, warm as a horn, and picking up her gun, she leads me impulsively to the great gallery of the house, where we sit in a wooden swing hung by chains from the ceiling.

“Tommy,” she says excitedly, “isn’t it great here? Look at the rain.”

“Yes.”

“Dusty’s leaving. Let’s me and you stay here and see it through, whatever it is.”

“I’d certainly like to.”

“You know what I truly believe?”

“What?”

“When all is said and done, the only thing we can be sure of is the land. The land never lets you down.”

“That’s true,” I say, though I never did know what that meant. We look out at six acres of Saint Augustine grass through the silver rain.

The great plastered columns, artificially flaked to show patches of brickwork, remind me of Vince Marsaglia, boss of the rackets. He built Tara from what he called the “original plans,” meaning the drawing of David O. Selznick’s set designer, whose son Vince had known in Las Vegas. Once, shortly after I began to practice medicine, I was called to Tara to treat Vince for carbuncles. Feeling much better after the lancings, he and his boys sat right here on the gallery shying playing cards into a hat from at least thirty feet, which they did with extraordinary skill. I watched with unconcealed admiration, having tried unsuccessfully to perfect the same technique during four years of fraternity life. I also admired the thoroughbreds grazing in the meadow.