Walker Percy - The Second Coming

Distinguished. What could Kitty mean? Undoubtedly Kitty was making up her own bad but clear fiction and the always unclear tact. What could the housemother have meant? What was distinguished about a coed cheerleader and an addled ATO who didn’t know whether he was coming or going? Ah, suddenly he saw what Kitty meant. She meant now they were a distinguished couple, he with his silvery temples, she with her lithe branny brown arms and gold swatch of hair.

Kitty drew closer. “Stop giving me that Scorp look. It takes one to know one you know.”

“What?”

“You haven’t forgotten that we are both Scorps?”

“Scorps?”

“Scorpios.” She jostled him. “Don’t hand me that.” Perhaps he had not remembered everything. “Did you think I had forgotten your birthday? It’s next month, the day after mine, remember? Not that I needed to know. I could take one look at you, the way you stare right through people, and know you were a Scorp. And I got news for you, son.”

“What?”

“Pluto, who governs both the positive and negative aspects of sex, is at this moment entering his own sign, which happens to be our own sign.”

“Is that good?”

“Not good or bad as you damn well know. It all depends on the Scorps themselves. And I’m here to tell you one thing about one Scorp.”

“What?”

“I’m no longer the little gray lizard Scorp you once knew. You’re looking at a fully evolved eagle Scorp, with the well-known Scorp sexuality and only us Scorps know what that means.”

“I believe I am.”

“And as for you—”

“Yes?”

“Clearly you are somewhere in between, in transit. That’s fine — as long as you don’t forget one thing.”

“What?”

“What happens when two fully evolved Scorps get together.”

“What happens?”

“They can save a country. Or destroy it. Or have an awesome love affair. Hepburn and Burt Lancaster are Scorps.”

“That’s not—”

Kitty’s face came into his neck. “Actually, that’s not why I grabbed you.”

“Why did you grab me?”

“I wanted to tell you where I’m coming from.”

“Where are you coming from?”

“I’m fixing to beat Marion’s time. And it’s perfectly all right with Marion. She gave me permission before she died. In fact, it was her idea.”

“Beat Marion’s time,” he mused. “I haven’t heard that for a long time.” He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the tree, which had all but vanished.

He was trying to listen. Kitty was talking about what a good person Marion was, he was, she Kitty was. She was. He was. It was true. They were. Ah, what had happened to them all, all these good persons, all those good things Marion stood for, God, church, home, family, country? Why had he always felt glum when Marion spoke of these good things? What had happened to marriage? Why was not goodness enough for marriage? Why did good married couples look so glum? Old couples, young couples, thirty-five-year-old Atlanta couples in condos, sixty-five-year-old Ohio couples in villas, each as glum as if one had got stuck with the other at a cocktail party for two hours. Two hours? Ten years! Thirty years!

“What?” he said and gave a start. Kitty seemed to be talking about her daughter.

“Schizophrenics often are.”

“Are what?”

“Shrewd. Walter wanted to call the cops when she escaped but Alistair said that Allison is very shrewd in her own way — it’s true! — and that she’ll probably come back to Valleyhead.”

“Then you don’t know where she is,” he said absently. Now he knew why the girl in the woods looked familiar. She had the same short upper lip, the little double tendon below her nose pulling the lip into a bow and just clear of the lower. The first time he had seen Kitty on a park bench, lips parted so, he had wanted her mouth.

“Actually, I think I do. She has some hippie friends in Virginia Beach. Yes, I’m sure that’s where she is. Actually I think it might do her good. She’s no dumbbell. She planned the whole thing, swiped four hundred dollars from her father, and disappeared into thin air. I’m going to give her a few days and then go find her. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you mind having your old flame in your hair for a few days?”

“Ah no.”

There were three shells on the quilt of the Negro cabin where he was lying. The Negro boy had brought them, and even the one dead quail, and put them on the bed beside him. Some guide. What guide would retrieve empty shotgun shells? The Negro woman wiped the blood from his face with the clean damp rag. “You ain’t hurt bad. You just lay there until the high sheriff comes.” The room smelled of kerosene and flour paste. Fresh newspapers covered the walls. She leaned over him. The movement of the rag against his cheek and lip was quick and firm but did not hurt. “Your daddy be all right. Ain’t nothing wrong the good Lord cain’t fix,” the woman said. He turned away impatiently. “Where’s the shotgun?” The Greener lay on the other side of him. The guide had found it and brought it back. He broke the breech. There was a single shell in the right barrel.

Yet only now, thirty years later, did he do the arithmetic. One shell for the quail, two for me, and one for you.

Well well, he thought, shaking his head and feeling in his pockets for the Mercedes keys. He must have been smiling because Kitty gave him a jostle. “What’s the matter with you, you nut?”

To his surprise — yes! now he could be surprised! — a strange gaiety took hold of him. Something rose in his throat. What? Laughter. He laughed out loud.

“What are you laughing at, idiot?”

“Everything. Nothing. I’m sorry. What were you saying about ah—”

“Allison.”

“Allison?”

“My daughter, dummy. Allie.”

Allie. Yes. That was her name. That was Allie sitting on the stoop of the greenhouse reading the fat pulpy Captain Blood. Allie.

“I want you to meet her, talk to her, listen to her. I want her to get to know you. She can’t talk to people but somehow I know that she would talk to you. I can’t tell you how many times the thought has come to me that if only you had been there all along Allison would have been all right. And here’s the strangest thing of all. Sometimes I have the strongest feeling that you could be or ought to be her father — ha! fat chance, yet there is a slight chance, remember?”

“Remember what?” Had he forgotten something or had Kitty rewritten the entire book of her life? His eyes went unfocused on the white cloud.

“No, really, Will. There is something about her, about us, about Allison. We were together once in another life.”

“What?” He gave a violent start.

“I said — What are you smiling about, you nut?”

“Was I smiling?”

“Like a chess cat.”

“A what?”

“Like somebody had let you in on a big secret.”

“A secret. Yes.”

He looked at Kitty. In the corner of his eye he could see Leslie talking to the Cupps. She was nodding and frowning. They were arguing, he knew, about the after-rehearsal party. It was the custom for the groom’s family to give the party. The Cupps proposed to rent the Buccaneer Tavern at the Holiday Inn. Leslie looked sullen.

Kitty’s hand, he noticed, was on his arm. He gave a start. He had not been listening.

“Don’t forget,” whispered Kitty in his ear but not quite managing to whisper.

“What?”

“Three o’clock.”

“Okay,” he said absently.

“Isn’t it a shame that we waste so much time figuring out what we want,” said Kitty. “To think of the years—”

“Right.” Marion had wanted to serve God, eat, and to do good. Jimmy Rogers and the dentist wanted money. Kitty wanted what? him? his money? out from the dentist? He wanted what? Kitty’s ass? Death? Both?