Walker Percy - The Moviegoer

We land near the fort, a decrepit brick silo left over from the Civil War and littered with ten summers of yellow Kodak boxes and ticket stubs and bottle caps. It is the soul of dreariness, this “historic site” washed by the thin brackish waters of Mississippi Sound. The debris of summers past piles up like archeological strata. Last summer I picked up a yellow scrap of newspaper and read of a Biloxi election in 1948, and in it I caught the smell of history far more pungently than from the metal marker telling of the French and Spanish two hundred years ago and the Yankees one hundred years ago. 1948. What a faroff time.

A plank walk leads across some mudholes and a salt marsh to an old dance pavilion. As we pass we catch a glimpse of the airman and his girl standing bemused at a counter and drinking RC Cola. Beyond, a rise of sand and saw grass is creased by a rivulet of clear water in which swim blue crabs and cat-eye snails. Over the hillock lies the open sea. The difference is very great: first, this sleazy backwater, then the great blue ocean. The beach is clean and a big surf is rolling in; the water in the middle distance is green and lathered. You come over the hillock and your heart lifts up; your old sad music comes into the major.

We find a hole in the rivulet and sink the cans of beer and go down the beach a ways from the children, to a tussock of sand and grass. Sharon is already in, leaving her shirt and pants on the beach like a rag. She wades out ahead of me, turning to and fro, hands outstretched to the water and sweeping it before her. Now and then she raises her hands to her head as if she were placing a crown and combs back her hair with the last two fingers. The green water foams at her knees and sucks out ankle deep and swirling with sand. Out she goes, thighs asuck, turning slowly and sweeping the water before her. How beautiful she is. She is beautiful and brave and chipper as a sparrow. My throat catches with the sadness of her beauty. Son of a bitch, it is enough to bring tears to your eyes. I don’t know what is wrong with me. She smiles at me, then cocks her head.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, son. I’m going to give you some beer.”

Her suit is of a black sheeny stuff like a swim-meet suit and skirtless. She comes out of the water like a spaniel, giving her head a flirt which slaps her hair around in a wet curl and stooping, brushes the water from her legs. Now she stands musing on the beach, leg locked, pelvis aslant, thumb and forefingers propped along the iliac crest and lightly, propped lightly as an athlete. As the salt water dries and stings, she minds herself, plying around the flesh of her arm and sending fingers along her back.

Down the beach the children have been roped off into two little herds of girls and boys. They wade — evidently they can’t swim — in rough squares shepherded by the deacons who wear black bathing suits with high armholes and carry whistles around their necks. The deaconesses watch from bowers which other children are busy repairing with saw grass they have gathered from the ridge.

We swim again and come back to the tussock and drink beer. She lies back and closes her eyes with a sigh. “This really beats typing.” Her arm falls across mine and she gives me an affectionate pat and settles herself in the sand as if she really meant to take a nap. But her eyes gleam between her eyelids and I bend to kiss her. She laughs and kisses me back with a friendly passion. We lie embracing each other.

“Whoa now, son,” she says laughing.

“What’s the matter?”

“Right here in front of God and everybody?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry! Listen, you come here.”

“I’m here.”

She makes a movement indicating both her friendliness and the limit she sets to it. For an hour we swim and drink beer. Once when she gets up, I come up on my knees and embrace her golden thighs, such a fine strapping armful they are.

“What do you think you’re doing, boy?”

“Honey, I’ve been waiting three weeks to grab you like this.”

“Well now that you’ve grabbed me you can turn me loose.”

“Sweetheart, I’ll never turn you loose.” Mother of all living, what an armful.

“All right now, son—”

“What?”

“You can turn me loose.”

“No.”

“Listen, big buddy. I’m as strong as you are.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I may not be as big as you are—”

“You are here.”

“—but I’m just as strong.”

“Not really.”

“All right, you watch here.” She balls up her fist like a man’s and smacks me hard on the arm.

“That hurts.”

“Then quit messing with me.”

“All right. I won’t mess with you.”

“Hit me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Hit me.” She holds her elbow tight against her body. “Come on, boy.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not going to hit you.”

“Come on hit me. I’m not kidding. You can’t hurt me.”

“All right.” I hit her.

“Na. I don’t mean just playlike. Really hit me.”

“You mean it?”

“I swear before God.”

I hit just hard enough to knock her over.

“Got dog.” She gets up quickly. “That didn’t hurt. I got a good mind to hit you right in the mouth, you jackass.”

“I believe you,” I say laughing. “Now you come here.”

“What for? All right now!” She cocks her fist again. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I just want to tell you what’s on my mind.”

“What?”

“You. You and your sweet lips. Sweetheart, before God I can’t think about anything in the world but putting my arms around you and kissing your sweet lips.”

“O me.”

“Do you care if I do?”

“I don’t care if you do.”

I hold springtime in my arms, the fullness of it and the rinsing sadness of it.

“I’ll tell you something else.”

“What?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t get you out of my mind. Not since you walked into my office in that yellow dress. I’m crazy about you and you know it, don’t you?”

“O me.”

I sit back to see her and take her hands. “I can’t sleep for thinking of you.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“We made us some money, didn’t we?”

“We sure did. Don’t you want some money? I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”

“No, I don’t want any money.”

“Let’s go down the beach a ways.”

“What for?”

“So they can’t see us.”

“What’s the matter with them seeing us?”

“It’s all right with me.”

“Ho now, you son.”

“You’re my sweetheart. Do you care if I love you?”

“Nayo indeed. But you’re not getting me off down there with those rattlesnakes.”

“Rattlesnakes!”

“No sir. We gon stay right here close to those folks and you gon behave yourself.”

“All right.” I clasp my hands in the hollow of her back. “I’ll tell you something else.”

“Uh oh.” She rears back, laughing, to see me, a little embarrassed by our closeness. “Well you got me.”

“I’m sorry you work for me.”

“Sorry! Listen, son. I do my work.”

“I wouldn’t want you to think I was taking advantage of you.”

“Nobody’s taking advantage of me,” she says huffily.

I laugh at her. “No, I mean our business relationship.” We sit up and drink our beer. “I have a confession to make to you. I’ve been planning this all week.”

“What?”

“This picnic.”

“Well I be dog.”

“Don’t kid me. You knew.”

“I swear I didn’t.”