Walker Percy - The Second Coming

“I bought the thing which is called a block-and-tackle. I tied the ropes on the chimneys which have shoulders like steps.” Listen to me talking good, she thought. Perhaps in order to talk all you need to do is do something, then explain what you have done. “Tomorrow the stove will go from here to there.”

He stood, hands in pockets, looking up at the stove from under his eyebrows as if it had descended from another world.

“How?” he asked.

She did not reply.

“What—?” he began and stopped.

He is in some kind of distress, she thought.

After a moment he said: “You got that thing up there all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“How are you going to get it over there?”

“It’s downhill.”

“I know, but—” He stopped.

“Yes?”

“Ah, why do you want it over there?” He sounded as if he had a hundred questions and picked this one at random.

“To keep warm.”

“You’re going to put it in the greenhouse?”

“Yes. What type of stove do you call it?”

“It is a cook stove.”

“Does it burn wood?”

“Yes.”

“Will it both keep me warm and cook?”

“Yes. It also has a water tank.”

“Then it will have hot water?”

“If it gets cold water and then you feed it wood.”

She clapped her hands without smiling. “The climb is underway.”

“Yes, right. The climb may be underway, but”—he turned toward her, shoulder turning with his head, but did not quite meet her eye—“you see, it has pipes which you connect with a plumbing system. And I don’t believe—”

“I can bring water down from the rock.”

“Well, yes, you could if—”

“Do you have my dossier?”

“Your what? Oh, you mean how do I know about you?”

“You look like you know about me.”

“I know something about you.”

Her eyes tell. Forehead muscles pushed her eyebrows down into a shelf. Then he had come from her parents.

“Then the word came from the bloard.”

“Bloard?” He didn’t know what she meant. From the board? the broad? blood? blood kin? bloody broad? All these?

What she meant was board and bored, meeting of her father’s board which was boring because it bored into you.

“Look. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“No no. Naw.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m going to get a golf cart from the club and a trailer and a couple of men and we’ll put the stove where you want it.”

“Oh no.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because there I will be with people having put the stove where I want it. And that’s the old home fix-up which is being in a fix. Then what? The helping is not helping me.”

“I see.” After a while he said: “You mean you would rather do it yourself.”

“The arrangement is the derangement. When the arrangement is arranged, then you know what the ensuement is.”

“No, what is the ensuement?”

“The ensuement is: then I am with the arrangement.”

“Yes, I see that. But does that also mean that you can’t accept anything from anybody?”

She tightened her arms around the brown bag. “The contents are intense and also tense.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of the thanks. After thanks come blanks.”

“Not necessarily. The avocados are yours. You don’t owe me any thanks. But if you did thank me, it wouldn’t take anything away from the avocados. They wouldn’t become blank. They’re solid.”

“That is not the climbing question.”

“What is the climbing question?”

“When are you going to leave?”

“Oh.”

“You see.”

“What?”

“The feelings are more than revealing.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. Yes, you may have hurt my feelings a little, but maybe not as badly as you think. At any rate, it is not an awful thing. I’ll leave so you can enjoy the avocados.”

“It’s not you.”

“You mean it’s not that you dislike me but you don’t know how to get rid of me and that makes you nervous. What if I don’t leave? Yes, it’s a problem sometimes. I developed an art of moving people out of my office. It was a matter of placement of chairs and of getting up and moving in such a way that the other person moves in front of you and finds himself at the door without knowing how he got there.”

“Le cool is coming soon,” she said, gazing around.

“Le cool? Yes, fall is upon us.”

“Le dad is no better than le doc and what are you in le plan?”

“Well, I don’t know. But I wasn’t trying to be your father or your doctor.”

“Understanding can also be a demand. De man. Le mans.”

“Yes. I guess you are fed up with people trying to understand you. And I guess I was sounding like — who? De man. What man is that, I wonder. I’m making you nervous. I’ll be going.”

“Yes, I have to go also.” She hugged the bag. “They’re mine when you leave.”

“They’re yours now.”

“But I cannot inspect them with your inspection.”

“I understand. Very well, I’ll leave so you can inspect them.”

“Okay then.”

She waited. Why didn’t he leave? It is difficult to talk to people, to stand around wondering what to say and what to do with your eyes. Maybe it is easier to be crazy than to put up with people’s pauses. Suppose he didn’t leave.

He left. Whew. She began to think of topics of conversation in case he should come again.

Later the dog walked toward the chestnut fall, sat, and cocked his head.

The man was getting up from a log where he had been sitting (watching her?). He began to walk and fell down. She hurried to help him but he was up quickly, brushing himself off.

“What happened?” She took his arm and was thinking not so much about him but about herself, the sudden weakness at the pit of her stomach when he fell, her heart still racing. What happened to me? she meant.

“I fell down.”

“I know that. But why?”

“I don’t know. Lately I tend to fall down.”

“That’s all right I tend to pick things up. I’m a hoister.”

“We’d make a twosome.”

“Don’t joke.”

“All right.”

Was that the world’s secret then, that you have to joke all the time? Is that how you live?

The man was sitting on a polished chestnut log, one arm stretched over his knee, hand open. He seemed to be looking at the barbed-wire fence. Now he stood and putting his hands in his pockets bent over them as if he were cold.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. I—” He looked at his watch. His brown smooth hand still had tooth marks from the dog. She could not take her eyes from his hand.

“I love—” she began.

“You love what?”

She loved his hand.

“Is it time and if it is, time for what?” she asked.

“Time? Yes.” He was gazing at the fence in an absent staring way. He broke away, blinked. “Yes. I have to be somewhere at five-thirty.”

“I don’t.”

“I know. This is your home.”

“Where is your home?”

“Over there.” He nodded toward the one-eyed mountain.

“You own a home on the mountain?”

“I own the mountain.”

“Okay. Then go home.”

“Right.” They were both startled by her command. He left.

She watched as he stepped through the fence, paused, then went quickly through. Now, standing and facing her from the golf links, he seemed to feel freer, as if the fence allowed a neighborliness.

“Perhaps you would not mind a suggestion,” he said.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Do you know what a creeper is?”

“Virginia creeper?”

“No no.” If he could have smiled, she thought, he would have smiled. “No, it’s a little platform on wheels which mechanics lie on when they work under cars.”