Walker Percy - The Second Coming

(That was because I thought I was supposed to and did not know how not to listen or what would happen to a person if one got up and went away.)

— and it was a good two weeks after she died that Ludean, the old nigger maid the two of them had had for twenty years, brought it over to me, this old metal Crailo candy box with a piece of ruled paper inside and about three lines in Miss Sally’s handwriting — the paper wrinkled from having been balled up once just before being thrown away, because Ludean was cleaning up Miss Sally’s room and you know how niggers like those old candy boxes to keep things in—

(Now how in the world would Docky know anything about niggers and Crailo candy boxes?)

— I still don’t know how Ludean had sense enough to save it but there it was, carefully uncrumpled and smoothed out, saying: Being of sound mind I hereby leave all my worldly goods to my dear little friend, Allison Hunnicutt Huger. What had happened of course was that she and Grace had had a fight and she had changed her will, so Grace should have gotten it but we’ll take care of Grace — so there it is, a perfectly good holographic will dated last month and I’m mainly thinking that it’s funny because it will screw up her lawyer who is sitting there with probably six previous wills in his safe — you know what I would do with lawyers, don’t you?

Yes, we know, Tiger, said her mother. We have to leave in ten minutes.

So I’m thinking mainly it’s funny and certainly no big deal since her worldly goods consist of only two items she was always joking about: her grandfather’s poor little old dirt farm on the side of a mountain which she used to say was so steep the mule had to grow longer legs on one side to plow it, and the other, a sandspit of an island off Georgia which had two pine trees and whose only value was the treasure Captain Kidd was supposed to have buried and nobody had ever found.

(Yes, and that’s one reason I’d listen to her — I’d see myself on the island with a map, climbing up one tree and sighting through the other. It wasn’t even the treasure I liked but the island and the idea of something being hidden there and finding it through a geometry of pine trees.)

So all this time she had been paying her taxes and talking about her dirt farm and her island and nobody had been listening but Allie. How about that?

Get to the point, Walter. I’m leaving, said her mother.

Okay. The point is, to make a long story short, that her poor little old dirt farm is eight hundred acres next to the Linwood golf course and her sandpit of an island is over two thousand acres, more of a wilderness than Cumberland which you’ve heard of, and that the Arabs have already offered two mill one for it. That’s getting to the point, isn’t it.

Two mill one? said Dr. Duk.

Two million one hundred thousand dollars, Doctor.

(How about that, Doc?)

Silence. Sounds only of fingers drumming on wood — Dr. Duk’s on his desk? — and bird scratching feed — painted bunting? Docky, you’ve plumb forgot the birds, haven’t you?

You said get to the point, didn’t you, Mrs. Huger? said Dr.Duk in a new voice, a deeper richer crisper voice. Well, Allison is the point, isn’t she? Clearly you have much to think about but equally clearly we can agree on one thing, can’t we? That no matter which of your plans seems more feasible when Allison is well enough to leave here — assuming she is well enough but as I don’t have to tell you, Dr. Huger, there is no such thing as a guarantee in either dentistry or psychiatry, is there? But we can agree that no matter what comes to pass, we will bear any burden, pay any price, to do what is best for Allison. Right?

(Jesus, Docky, first Nixon, now Kennedy?)

You got it, Doc. That is certainly true of us. I gather you have the same concern for Allison.

You better believe it.

(Not bad, Doc. You almost got it right.)

Okay, said her father. Now have we got our ducks in a row?

Ducks? said Dr. Duk suspiciously. He knew people called him Dr. Duck.

One, you do what is right for Allie medically. Go ahead with your treatment. Two, meanwhile we’ll all three do what is right for Allison legally. Three, Katherine and I will come up with a long-term plan, maybe a place for Allie in Linwood, maybe a place at home, maybe we’ll take over your Founder’s Cottage for family sessions or whatever — is the place for sale, by the way? Anyhow, we’ll see—

Again the meaning of the words went away and there was only the feint and parry of the voices, and then the goodbye sound of words swerving together before going away. Chairs scraped. They were on their feet.

There was not much time, not more than two or three minutes. That was enough, because she knew what she wanted to do.

No, there was plenty of time, as it turned out. They were still talking in the office when she reached the parlor, the tone of their voices rising but not quite reaching the penultimate breakpoint of goodbye. She figured she had another thirty seconds. And she did, time enough to reach her father’s pink-crinkly jacket still carefully draped over the back of her wooden chair, from it take out the blue-leather passport-size wallet she knew he used when he wore a jacket and from it four of the one-hundred-dollar bills she knew he took on a trip (You know what I would do with American Express?), and was out and down the hall and halfway up the stairs so quickly and yet so silently that she could hear their voices as the inner door of the office opened.

In her bathroom she folded the bills lengthwise once and put them under the loose leather lining in one of her slippers. Then she lay on her bed and waited for her parents to come tell her goodbye.

After they left she sat at her window, head wedged in the corner of her wingback chair, took out her notebook, and began to write.

NOW THAT HE WAS making his weekly visit to the nursing home his wife’s money had built, he realized that he was doing exactly the same things he did when she was alive, taking the same route through the gleaming halls, even visiting the same patients. The only difference was that instead of pushing Marion ahead of him in her wheelchair, he had Jack Curl the chaplain in tow.

But something was different. Ordinarily Jack Curl would have distracted him. All his life he had waited on people, tuned in on them, attended them. Now for some reason it didn’t matter.

As Jack Curl talked, Will Barrett stood in the hall moving his head a little to make the bright sunlight race like quicksilver around the beveled glass of the front door. He seemed to remember halls, the hall of the hospital where his father stayed in Georgia, the hall of the hospital where Jamie died in Santa Fe. How odd, he thought smiling to himself, that then I didn’t know what to do with myself and now I do. The only time I knew what to do was when something bad happened to somebody. Disaster gave me leave to act. Between times I didn’t know what to do. Now I know.

Now he remembered that after he had gone to find the Negro guide and sent him for the sheriff, he had returned to his father lying in the pin-oak swamp. He sat down beside him to wait. The man’s eyes opened. His father did not speak but in his eyes there were both sorrow and certitude. Now you know, the eyes said. I’m sorry. I was trying to tell you something and I didn’t. Now you’ll have to find out for yourself. I’m sorry.

Very well, he thought. I found out. Now I know what to do.

“What?” he said. Jack Curl had asked him something.

“I said what I remember about Marion was the way she not only knew about all the patients but the help too. You were wonderful with her. I’m so glad you’ve continued her wonderful idea of inviting patients to your home. She’d have liked that. This week it’s Mr. Arnold’s turn, isn’t it? Do you remember how she always asked about the janitor’s grandchildren — by name? Now I’m the janitor. She’d have liked that too. Do you remember?”