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

“Yes. Mother. Right But Mother, you know, has her own ideas ha ha. No, Mother is in town and safe. Lola was at Tara and alone. I made her come.” I jump up and turn on the air-conditioner. “With all the racket at the church, I doubt if anyone could hear this.” Sinking down on the foot of the bed. “I could use a drink. I’ve been shot at, locked up, pushed around.”

Ellen comes around instantly, sits behind me, begins probing my scalp with her rough mothering fingers. “Are you hurt, Chief?”

“I’m all right,” I say, noticing that Lola is eyeing me ironically, thumbs hooked in her jean pockets.

“Quite a place you have here, Tommy,” she says.

“Yes. Well. Now here’s where we stand, girls,” I say, rising and pacing the floor wearily. I am in fact weary but there are also uses of weariness. “I’m afraid we’re in trouble,” I tell them seriously because it is true but also because there are uses of seriousness. The three girls make me nervous. “As I believe all of you know, there is a good chance of a catastrophe this afternoon, of national, perhaps even world proportions. You asked about my mother, Ellen. Here’s what has happened.”

Everyone is feeling serious and better. The air-conditioner blows cold fogs into the room. Hands deep in pockets, I pace the floor, eyes on the carpet, and give them the bad news, reciting the events of the day in sentences as grave, articulate, apocalyptic, comforting as a CBS commentator. Now swinging a chair around, I sit on it backward and give the girls a long level-eyed look. “And that is by no means the worst of it. No,” I repeat as somberly as Arnold Toynbee taking the long view. “As I also believe each of you also know, the Bantu revolt may be the least of our troubles.”

“You’re speaking, Chief,” says Ellen, “of the danger of your lapsometer falling into the wrong hands.”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid it’s already happened, Chief,” she says as gravely as I.

“I’m afraid it has.”

“And what you fear is both a physical reaction and a psychical reaction, physical from the Heavy Salt domes in the area and psychical from its effect on political extremists.”

“That is correct, Ellen.”

The room is silent save for the rattling of the air-conditioner. Outside, like distant artillery, I can hear The Drummer Boy again.

Rumpa-pum-pum …

Lola is sitting on the end of the other bed, cleaning her automatic. Moira lies behind her, flat, knees propped up, gazing at the ceiling.

“I’ll fix you a drink, Tom. Where’s the fixings?” says Lola.

“In there.” I nod toward the dressing room.

“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news too, Chief.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the last message I got from Dr. Immelmann. Just before you came. On the Anser-Phone. Chief, how could he use the Anser-Phone? He didn’t have a transmitter and he had no way of knowing our frequency.”

“Never mind,” I say hurriedly. “What did he want?”

“He said to tell you — now let me get this straight.” Ellen consults her notebook. “To tell you that the program was third-generational and functional on both fronts; that he’s already gotten gratifying overt interactions between the two extremes of the political spectrum, and that you would soon have sufficient data for a convincing pilot. Does that make sense?”

“I’m afraid so,” I say gloomily. “Is that all?”

“I saved the good news, Chief,” says Ellen, frowning at Lola, who is at the bar fixing drinks. “He also said to tell you — and this I wrote down word for word — that he’s been in touch with the Nobel Prize committee in Stockholm, each member of which he knows personally, apprising them of the nature of your work, and that they’re extremely excited about it. Chief, isn’t the Peace Prize the big one? Anyhow, he’s cabling them a summary of the present pilot and he closed with the cryptic remark that you should prepare yourself for some interesting news when the prize is announced in October. Does any of this make sense, Chief?”

“Yes,” I say, frowning. “But October! What makes him think there’ll be anything left in October? The damn fool is going to destroy everything.” Then why is it I wonder, that a pleasant tingling sensation spreads down the backs of my thighs?

“Here’s your favorite, Tom Tom.” Lola hands me a drink.

“Did she say ‘Tom Tom’?” Moira asks Ellen.

I’ve tossed off the whole drink somewhat nervously before it comes over me that it is a gin fizz. Oh well, I’ve got anti-allergy pills with me. The drink is deliciously cool and silky with albumen.

“What are we going to do?” wails Moira, opening and closing her thighs on her hands, like a little girl holding wee-wee.

“Why don’t you go to the bathroom?” suggests Ellen.

“I will,” says Moira, jumping up. “No, I’ve just been. I have to go to the Center to get my things.”

“Right,” Lola agrees instantly. “And I have to get my cello.”

“No no,” I say hastily. “You can’t, Moira, you have everything here you need. I mean everyone has. I’ll get your cello for you, Lola.”

“But my Cupid’s Qui—” says Moira, coming close.

“Yes!” I exclaim, laughing, talking, hawking phlegm all at once.

“Her Cupid’s what?” asks Lola.

“Moira, like the rest of us,” I tell Lola, “didn’t know we’d be stuck here.”

“And besides, I can’t wear the things you brought!” Moira is in tears and is apt to say anything.

“What things?” asks Lola.

“I, ah, laid in some supplies as soon as I had reason to suspect the worst.”

“In a motel?” Lola’s fist disappears into her flank.

“It’s a logical shelter for an emergency,” says Ellen, “because it’s convenient to town, Center, and Paradise.” Ellen is defending me!

“Right,” I say, hawking and, for some reason, dancing like Ken Stryker. I hand my empty glass to Lola.

“If I may make a suggestion, Chief,” says Ellen briskly, “I think we ought to find out exactly what is going on before we do anything.”

“Absolutely right!” Ellen is a jewel.

Ellen turns on the old Philco. “It’s a bad color and 2-D but it gets the local channel — the one over your house, Chief. In a minute they’ll have the news.”

Lola takes my glass to the bar.

No one ever had a better nurse than Ellen.

On comes the picture, flickering and herringboned, of green people in a green field under a green sky. There is a platform and bunting and a speaker. The speaker has a ghost. The crowd mills about restlessly. “Hm, a Fourth of July celebration,” I tell the girls — until all at once I recognize the place. It is the high school football field on the outskirts of town, not three miles from here!

The camera pans among the crowd. I recognize faces here and there: a conservative proctologist, a chiropractor, a retired Air Force colonel, a disgruntled Boeing executive, a Texaco dealer, a knot of PTA mothers from the private school, an occasional Knothead Catholic, and a Baptist preacher sitting on the platform. The speaker is the governor, a well-known Knothead.

Nearly everyone waves a little flag. The crowd is restive.

A reporter is interviewing a deputy sheriff, a good old boy named Junior Trosclair.

“We cain’t hold these folks much longer,” Junior is telling the reporter.

“Hold them from doing what?”

“They talking about marching on the federal complex.”

“Why are they doing that, Deputy?” asks the reporter, already thinking of his next question.

“I don’t know,” says Junior, shaking his head dolefully. “All I know is we cain’t hold them much longer.”