Walker Percy - The Second Coming

“What?”

“Let’s stay together. I do not wish to leave you again.”

“Me neither. I, that is, you.”

“Me too.”

“Well well,” she said later. Her back and legs were strong as a man’s. “That was not in the book either.”

“What book?”

“The pine-tree book. Or the picture book.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” he said.

“What?”

“Let’s get a house and live in it.”

“Okay. Can we make love like that much of the time?”

“As much as you like.”

“For true?”

“For true. Would you like to marry?”

“Uh, to marry might be to miscarry.”

“Not necessarily. I’ll practice law. You grow things in your greenhouse. We can meet after work, have supper. We can walk the Long Trail or go to the beach on your island. Then go to bed irregardless.”

“Perhaps crash in a shelter?”

“What?” he said, laughing. “Crash?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.”

“It is a good regime. Perhaps with you to marry would not miscarry. Is it legal to do this at four o’clock in the afternoon?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Now I know what was wrong with four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“It would be nice to have two children and walk to school with them in the morning.”

“Yes,” she said.

They stayed in bed all day and all night except for meals, loving and laughing, frolicking, exchanging many a kiss and smacks on the ass while carts creaked outside and maids tapped on doors with keys. Frowning, she peered closely at his cheek and squeezed a blackhead. He straddled her thighs and rubbed her back, sore from hoisting, pressed his thumbs in the two dips at the bottom of her spine, marveling at how she was made. Each tended to the other, kneading and poking sore places. She examined him like a mother examining a child, close, stretching skin, her mouth open, grabbing hair to pull his head over to see his neck, her eyes slightly abulge with concentration, checking his cave wounds, picking at scabs. When her eyes happened to meet him, they softened and went deep. Eyes examining are different from eyes meeting eyes. As she would say, a look at a book is not a look into a look. Then she smiled and flew against him again. Her supple bent-back strength and coverage astounded him.

7

She had brought his razor from the greenhouse. It felt good to shave.

After they dressed, they ate a huge breakfast of grits and bacon and scrambled eggs in the Buccaneer Tavern, came back to the room and opened the drapes to the morning and the Smoky Mountains, which humped up like a blue whale in the clear sky. He sat her down across the round black woodlike table.

“Let’s get down to business.”

“Oh, look at you in your dark suit.”

“Yes?”

“You look nice around the neck and head.”

“Thank you. You look good all over.”

“Come here,” she said.

“I’m here.”

“You’re nice here around the ears, too.”

“Thank you.”

“Let’s go to bed.”

“But we’re dressed.”

“Undress.”

“Okay.”

Afterwards she said: “Good gosh.”

“Yes.”

Again at the table he said: “Now ah—”

“The business.”

“Yes. Let us speak of one or two things.”

“Right.”

It had come to pass, for reasons which neither could have said, that he now knew what needed to be done and could say so and she could heed him, head slightly cocked, listening carefully. She looked like a survivor on the mend. Could it be that her thin face was already fuller?

“Here is what I intend to do,” he told her, “and what I hope you will wish to do. If you do not wish to do so, will you tell me?”

“Assuredly.”

“I propose that we marry. Wait. I don’t think I am saying this right.”

“No.”

“Perhaps I’d better ask you.”

“Very well.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

“It is possible that though marriage in these times seems for some reason to be a troubled, often fatal, arrangement, we might not only survive it but revive it.”

“Yes, we could survive and revive it.”

“I presently have very little income of my own. I’m not counting Marion’s estate, which I inherited from Marion but which I won’t use. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it — figure out what Marion would want — something. Therefore, I shall be working. You own valuable property. I propose that for the present we rent or buy a garden home. They are somewhat like motels but not unpleasantly so. You need to get out of that greenhouse and eat better. Garden homes are convenient and have pleasant views. We shall need a place to live until we build a house. I’ll look up the Associate at Emerald Isles and give him a job making home loans. He’ll be sick of isometrics and TV.”

“What’s wrong with staying here?”

“Nothing. But we might need more than one room eventually.”

“That’s true. Let’s come back here every weekend.”

“Okay. Now you might wish to finish your greenhouse and develop your property here or on the island — perhaps build log cabins on ten- or twelve-acre plots. I have two friends, one a contractor, the other a cabin notcher, who though old and maimed can still do excellent work, I think. It would be a pleasant business.”

“Yes. I think I want to finish my greenhouse and perhaps build others against the same ridge and make use of the same warm cave air.”

“A good idea. It could be an excellent business.”

“If I could find enough men to work for me, any men who are willing, old men. But that’s impossible.”

“No, I know some good men. Old men but good.”

“Do you know what a head of lettuce costs at the A & P?” she asked him.

“No.”

“A dollar and fifty cents.”

“Is that a lot?”

She looked at him. “Yes, and three small tomatoes cost a dollar. I could make money.”

“Yes. I also have another friend who is an excellent gardener but has nothing to do but water pine trees.”

“Hire him. I have a friend at Valleyhead I would like to get out. She would be glad to work for someone who can tell her what to do. She needs that. Moreover, she’s a good bookkeeper.”

“Can you tell her what to do?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. As for myself, I think I’ll resume the practice of law in a small way if my health will permit it. I have an incurable mental condition but it can be controlled as long as my pH is okay.”

“How is your pH now?”

“Fine.”

Actually, his pH was up again. Fewer hydrogen ions were zipping around the heavy alkaline molecules sweet with memory and desire. Perhaps a slight case of Hausmann’s Syndrome was better than none at all.

“I am sure of it. There is nothing serious wrong with you.” Frowning, she leaned over and took hold of his flank in her rough holster’s hand. It was odd how she was like and unlike Kitty. “Our cases are similar. Nowadays many psychosomatic conditions can be cured. I was reading in the National Observer at the A & P about the supremacy of mental attitude over physical conditions.”

“Yes. Whatever it is, I think it is under control. I can feel it going away.”

He did feel good. The twisting in his head now felt like a scar contracting. Did he imagine it, or wasn’t his brain lesion shriveling like a crab in acid? There was a feint smell of smoke high in his nostrils and the sinuses in front of his brain.

“Another thing,” he said. “What do you think of our having a child and enrolling him or her in the Linwood elementary school?”

“I think well of that.”

“I could drive him to school every morning and he could ride the school bus home.”