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

“What’s wrong with Victor?”

“You know what I mean. What would you do about the four hundred years?”

“I’d stop worrying about it and get on with it. To tell you the truth, I’m tired of hearing about the four hundred years.”

“You are.”

“Yes.”

“And if it were up to you?”

“If it were up to me, I’d get on with it. I could do better than Haiti.”

“That’s what we’re going to do, Doctor,” says Uru in a changed voice. He picks up his rifle and rises.

Victor grabs my arm. “I’ll take care of him, Uru. Like you asked.” He gives me a yank, pulls me close. “Goddamn, Doc, ain’t you got any sense?”

Uru seems to keep on getting up. He is at least six feet nine. “All right, Chuck. Let’s go.”

“Very well, but please let me tell you one thing.”

Quickly I tell them about my invention, about its falling into the wrong hands and the likelihood of a catastrophe. I describe the danger signs. “So even though your pigment may protect you to a degree, I’d advise you to take cover if you should sight such a cloud.”

Uru laughs for the first time. “Doctor, Victor’s right. You something all right. What you telling us is the atom bomb is going to fall and we better get our black asses back to the swamp?”

“Doc is not humbugging,” says Victor.

Uru takes a step forward. “Take him, Victor. If you don’t, I will.”

“Let’s go, Doc.”

“Where’re we going?”

“To headquarters.”

“Man, don’t answer his questions,” says Uru furiously. “When did he answer your questions? He knows what he going to get.”

Again Victor pulls me close. “Don’t worry, Doc. We holding you for ransom. Ain’t that right, Elij—, I mean Uru?”

The two look at each other a long moment. “Doc’s worth a lot to us, Uru.”

Uru nods ironically. “Very well. But I’m coming with you. I wouldn’t put it past you to turn him loose — after fixing him a toddy.”

“I ain’t fixing Doc nothing, but I might pick me up a 286 bottle,” says Victor, disappearing into the hall. I look after him in surprise. Victor doesn’t drink.

Uru waves me ahead of him with his rifle.

Victor is waiting for us at the armored Cushman cart. He’s got a bottle under his arm. In the golf bag behind him, among the irons, are two gun barrels, his — and mine! Victor doesn’t look at me. Uru pays no attention.

They take me to “headquarters,” which is located in, of all places, the abandoned rectory of old Saint Michael’s in the plaza. A good choice: its construction is sturdy and there are no windows to defend.

We drive through Paradise in the armored golf cart, I squatting behind Uru and Victor in the bag well. Victor drives. Uru keeps an eye on me.

Uru is feeling good. “Chuck, you have to admit that Victor here is a remarkable man. He still thinks he can get along with you chucks, sit down and talk things over.”

“That’s right!” says Victor sententiously. “You can talk to folks! Most folks want to do what’s right!”

“Uh huh,” says Uru. “They really did right by you, Victor. Here you are fifty years old and still shoveling dog shit. And Willard. Ten years with the U.S. Army in Ecuador and they’re nice enough to put him on as busboy at the club. I’ll tell you where right comes from — they know it, Chuck knows it, only you don’t.” Uru swings the muzzle of the M-32 into Victor’s neck.

“Ain’t nobody going to hold no gun on me,” says Victor, frowning and knocking down the barrel.

“That’s where they’re smarter than you, Victor. They don’t need a gun. They made you do what they want without a gun and even made you like it. Like Doc here, being so nice, sitting with your auntee. That’s where they beat you, Victor, with sweet Jesus.”

“What you talking about?”

“These chucks been fooling you for years with Jehovah God and sweet Jesus.”

“Nobody’s fooling me.”

“And what’s so damn funny is that you out-Jesused them.”

“What you mean?”

Uru winks at me. “Doc here knows what I mean, don’t you, Doc?”

“No.”

“He knows the joke all right and the joke’s on you, Victor. All these years you either been in trouble or else got nothing to your name, they been telling you about sweet Jesus. Now damned if you don’t holler sweet Jesus louder than they do. What’s so funny is they don’t even believe it any more. Ask Doc. You out-Jesused them, Victor, that’s what’s so funny. And Doc knows it.”

“Now Doc here is a Catholic,” says Victor. “But that don’t matter to me. I never had anything against Catholics like some folks.”

“I’m sure glad to hear that you and Doc have composed your religious differences,” says Uru, grinning.

“I don’t see how a man can say he doesn’t believe in God,” says Victor. “The fool says in his heart there is no God. Myself, I been a deacon at Starlight Baptist for twenty years.”

“Christ, what a revolution,” mutters Uru, eyeing a burning house.

While he and Victor argue religion, I notice something: a horse and rider, glimpsed now and then through the side yards of houses. The horse must be on the bridle path that runs along the margin of the links behind the houses. His easy trot just keeps pace with the cart. It is—!

— Lola! on her sorrel mare Yellow Rose. She could be out for her morning ride, erect in her saddle, hand on her thigh, face hidden in her auburn hair. Foolish impetuous gallant girl! Beyond a doubt she’s trailing me, out to rescue me and apt to get herself caught or killed or worse. Something else to worry about, yet worry or not and despite my sorry predicament I can’t but experience a pang of love for this splendid Texas girl.

As we leave the pines and head straight out across the deserted plaza, I sigh with relief. Lola is nowhere in sight. At least she has sense enough not to show herself. But what is she up to?

The Anser-Phone buzzes on my chest. Feigning a fit of coughing, I switch it off. Uru doesn’t seem to notice. Ellen is calling! Somehow I must reach her. At least she is well And Moira, my love! Pray to God the Bantus don’t search me and take my Anser-Phone. My heart melts with love and my brain sings in the musical-erotic sulcus when I think of Lola and Moira. How lovely are the daughters of men! If I live and love Moira, who’s to love Lola and how can I tolerate it? Same with Lola-Moira. And will Ellen stand for it in either case? Only one solution: I must live with all three.

Victor parks at the cloistered walk between church and rectory. Up the steps past the Bantu guard in a dirty white belted kwunghali stationed behind the concrete openwork (has he been here for weeks?) who salutes Uru with respect. He carries a Sten gun propped in his waist.

Time for one quick glance toward Howard Johnson’s: all quiet. The balcony is deserted.

Down the front hall of the rectory and through the parlor with its ancient horsehair nose-itching furniture. From his izinkhonkwani Uru takes out a key chain, unlocks the door to Monsignor Schleifkopf’s office and without further ado bumps me inside — with a basketball player’s hip-bump.

“Sweat it, Chuck,” says Uru, closing the door.

“Sorry, Doc,” says Victor as the latch clicks.

Try the switch. No lights, of course. No windows either, but a row of glass bricks under the ceiling mutes the July sun to a weak watery light like a cellar window.

The trouble is the room is as hot and breathless as an attic.

While my eyes are getting used to the gloom, I call in to Ellen. She and Moira are still in the motel, safe and sound but nervous.

“Chief,” says Ellen in a controlled voice. “The news is bad. We watched on TV. There is fighting on the highway.”