Last Gentleman and The Second Coming

by Walker Percy

  Cars of tourists drove slowly up and down the street. It was the height of the red-leaf season. Some of the cars had four women passengers. A few had five. There were no cars with four or five men. The sidewalk was as thronged as a shopping mall, with women dressed in dresses as if they were going to a party, with older men in jackets and caps, with young people in jeans, with hikers carrying backpacks of brilliant blue or yellow or scarlet. A cloth banner with purple lettering Go Wolves! was strung high across the street.

  Many cars had bumper stickers. Wasn’t this something new?

  One sticker on a truck read: DO IT IN A PICKUP. Do what? she wondered. Surely it didn’t mean “doing it.”

  Another sticker read: I FOUND IT. Found what? she wondered.

  Suddenly she gave a start and shuddered, then frowned as if she had remembered something.

  She was sitting on a bench in the sun between The Wee Shoppe: Chockful of British Isle Authentics and The Happy Hiker Trail Gear and Camping Equipment. Next to The Wee Shoppe was a Gulf station with a clean restroom. There she had changed clothes, washed her face, and found a dirty plastic wallet-size Gulf calendar for 1979. How old was it? What year was it now? Across the street was a barbershop with two chairs, a man barber and a woman barber. Next to the barbershop was the Twin Cinema, an old frame movie theater cut in two. A movable sign on the sidewalk displayed posters of movies. The posters were old and tattered.

  Her own clothes she had purchased earlier in the day from less expensive stores down the hill: new jeans stiff and blue, a gray Orion man’s work shirt size 14½ neck and 30-inch sleeves, a camouflage war-surplus jacket, thick white cotton tube socks, short lightweight moccasin-toed boots. Her feet felt good in the socks and boots.

  Her clothes had cost $49.23. For $4.98 she had also purchased from an army-surplus store an Italian NATO knapsack which was made of khaki and was nothing like the iridescent nylon backpacks but small and lightweight, just big enough to hold the smallest sleeping bag she could find plus a few other items such as a Boy Scout knife, a Scripto pencil, a pocket notebook, a comb, a can of neat’s-foot oil, a box of candles, and a small bag of food. Although there was a wine-and-cheese shop and a natural-food store down the street, she had gone to the supermarket and bought a wedge of American cheese and a small loaf of rye bread.

  The pleasant encased feeling of the socks and boots on her feet made her think of something. This is the first time I have worn a shoe or a boot or anything but bedroom slippers in—how long? Three years, I think.

  Many of the young people on the sidewalk wore T-shirts stamped with the names and crests of universities: Stanford, Ohio State, Tulane. Some of them seemed too young to be in college. Some too old. It was hard to tell. Were they fifteen or twenty-five? She felt like an old person to whom all young people look the same age.

  As the jacket warmed in the sun, it gave off a pleasant smell of dry goods and gun oil. Perhaps it was the can of neat’s-foot oil, which she had unscrewed and taken a sniff of. From the deep pockets of the jacket she removed several articles and lined them up on the bench beside her: the can of neat’s-foot oil, five candles, the spiral notebook, her wallet, the calendar, her driver’s license, and a map (Picturesque Walks around Linwood). She looked at the calendar and the date of the expiration of her driver’s license. She made a calculation. Her driver’s license had expired at least three years ago, no doubt longer.

  She gazed at the photograph on the license. She read the name. Earlier in the Gulf rest room she had looked from the photograph to the mirror then back to the photograph. The hair was shorter and darker in the photograph, the face in the mirror was thinner, but it was the same person.

  She uttered her name aloud. At first it sounded strange. Then she recognized it as her name. Then it sounded strange again but strange in a different way, the way an ordinary word repeated aloud sounds strange. Her voice sounded rusty and unused. She wasn’t sure she could talk.

  A youth wearing a Michigan State T-shirt sat down on the bench next to her display of articles. He looked good-natured and dumb. She decided to practice on him.

  “Michigan State,” she said. It came out not quite as a question and not quite as a statement. “You—?” This sounded more like a question.

  “Oh no. Linwood High. I play for the Wolves.”

  “The Wolves. Oh yes.” She noticed the banner. “Yes, but is that permitted?”

  “Is what permitted?”

  “The Michigan State T-shirt.”

  That was a slight blunder. For a moment she had imagined that there might be regulations preventing unauthorized persons from wearing university T-shirts, perhaps a semi-official regulatory agency. In the next instant she saw that this was nonsense.

  But the youth did not see anything unusual. “You can get them for three and a half from Good’s Variety.”

  “Are the Wolves—?” She paused. She was making two discoveries. One was that you didn’t have to talk in complete sentences. People didn’t seem to need more than a word or two to make their own sense of what you said. The other discovery was that she could talk as long as she asked questions. Making a statement was risky.

  “If we win this one, we’ll be state champs, single A,” he said.

  “That’s—” she said and stopped. But he didn’t notice. He must have been waiting for somebody, for suddenly he was up and on his way.

  “Have a nice—” he said, but he turned his face away.

  “What?” she asked in a very clear question. “Have a nice what?” But he was gone.

  At first, after she had changed her clothes and sat on the bench, she had watched passersby to see if they noticed anything unusual about her. They didn’t or at least gave no sign of it. She had felt like Rip Van Winkle coming down into town after a twenty-year nap. Surely dogs would bark at her and children would hoot and throw rocks. But nothing happened. She began to feel reassured. Only her hair felt like Rip’s. It was heavy and long and still damp after the rain, weighing on her head and falling down inside her collar. It was too thick for her pocket comb. Her scalp itched.

  Three women had gone into the barbershop and sat in the chair of the woman barber and got haircuts. One got a shampoo. When the third woman left, she felt confident enough to cross the street, open the door of the barbershop, go directly to the empty chair, and sit down.

  “How you want it, honey?” asked the woman barber.

  She had rehearsed what she was going to say. Or ask. “Could you cut it first, then wash it, then dry it?”

  “Okay, honey. But how you want it?”

  Brief panic. Then she saw something. “Like hers?” Though she had wanted to make a statement, her voice rose in a question.

  “Like hers?”

  She nodded toward the movie poster on the sidewalk. The poster showed an actress with blond hair pulled to one side. The movie was Three Days of the Condor. It must have been an old movie. The poster was faded and torn. Perhaps the theater was closed.

  “You got nice thick hair. You’d be a honey blonde like her if you stayed out in the sun.” The barber was a big mountain woman. She said nahce for nice and hahr for hair. The strong hands felt good on her scalp as they grabbed her heavy hair. She felt better every time a hunk of it was sheared off and hit the floor. The feel of the woman’s fingers on her scalp made her eyes stare. A wall of glass bricks across the street glittered in the sunlight. A sign above the door written in script read Le Club.

  When the woman barber finished, she swung her around to face the mirror and held a hand mirror behind her the way the man barber did for his customers. The steel base of the chair was ringed by windrows of dark blond hair.

  Now she did look something like the actress except that her hair was cut higher in back, like a boy’s, and showed more of her neck.

  “Nice.” She risked a statement. “Could you wash it now?” She noticed a basin.

  “Come on over here, honey.” The woman’s eyes slid past her. “Don’t I know you? Have you
been working here summers?” The woman barber couldn’t quite place her. Her unfashionable clothes made her look like a local. On the other hand, perhaps she talked like a tourist.

  The woman barber’s eyes reminded her of something she had forgotten. Strangers often thought they knew her. Was it her ordinary good looks or was it a way she had of listening to people and following them like a good dancer that made her seem familiar?

  “You from around here?”

  “No, I’m from—” She stopped. “Oh, by the way, what is today?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “October—”

  “Twenty-second.”

  She didn’t dare ask the year.

  After the shampoo she sat on the bench again. Her hair felt good, light and warm in the sun.

  From the pocket of her jacket she took out the red spiral-bound notebook and opened it. At the top of the first page was written in blue ink and in her hand the following:

  Date: October 15

  Place: Room 212, Closed Wing, Valleyhead Sanatorium

  Below, printed in capital letters and underlined, was the following:

  INSTRUCTIONS FROM MYSELF TO MYSELF

  What followed was written in her ordinary script: As I write this to you, I don’t remember everything but I remember more than you will remember when you read this. You remember nothing now, do you? I know this from experience. Electroshock knocks out memory for a while. I don’t feel bad. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I’m sick. But they think I’m worse because I refuse to talk in group (because there is nothing to say) and won’t eat with the others, preferring to sit under the table (because a circle of knees is more interesting than a circle of faces).

  I, that is, you, but for the present as I write this, I—am scheduled to be buzzed early Wednesday morning. This is the beginning of the sixth (I think) course of electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, known hereabouts as buzzing.

  I am writing this in my room in the closed wing (you may not remember the room when you read this on October 22, but it will come back), from which there is no escape, else I’d be long gone.

  After you get buzzed Wednesday, you’ll be in recovery. The adjacent hall leads to the back door, which opens into the service yard, where the bread truck arrives about 11 a.m.

  You may not remember this when you come to (about 9 a.m.). Your jaw will hurt and your teeth will be sore from the mouthpiece. You will be conscious but still paralyzed from the Anectine (curare), lying there bright-eyed and still, like a parrot shot by the poisoned arrow of a pygmy’s blowgun (which you have been). You’ll be drowsy from the Brevital and your mouth will be dry from the atropine. You’ll be dressed in nothing but your hospital gown. But they like you to go back to your room under your own power, so you’ll wait on the stretcher until you can make it to the cubicle. You’ll have time—at least an hour. Nobody is going to bother you—they’re too busy buzzing the others. In the cubicle you’ll find your pj’s, robe, and slippers. But there will be something new. You will find this, this notebook open to this page, on top of your clothes where you can’t miss it. You will read it because there will be nothing else to do for a while and because you will not have entirely forgotten that you wrote it. There will also be the blue skirt and sweater (the only clothes thin enough to ball up and stuff into the pockets of the robe). Between the skirt and sweater you will find the wallet with four hundred dollars in fifties (a little anxiety here: somebody could swipe it while you’re buzzed).

  As you read this, it will not be entirely new to you—it will be like remembering a dream. But if you did not read it, you would not remember what you, I, had decided to do.

  You are now sitting in the cubicle and reading these words. You have time. They don’t expect you to walk back to your room for a while.

  The cubicle, you will notice, has two doors, one opening into recovery, the other opening into the hall.

  Ordinarily you leave by the hall door, turn right, and return to your room.

  Do not do this.

  Do this. Put on your pj tops and skirt and slippers. Pull on sweater. Pull out pj collar—it looks something like a blouse. Do you remember our trying this? These slippers have heels and look something like loafers.

  Leave robe in cubicle.

  Put wallet and notebook in skirt pocket.

  When you feel strong enough, look out into hall. If it is clear, leave, turn left, not right, to back door, go out and straight across service yard to big laurel next to water tank.

  Sit under it and far enough back to be out of sight.

  Wait for the bread van.

  The driver will deliver the bread and spend at least ten minutes inside with McGahey (I think you might remember this). He’s got something going with McGahey. The sliding panel door will be on your side (the laurel’s side).

  Walk straight into it. Do not go to the rear, where the bread cartons are, but toward driver’s seat. Next to partition is some kind of carton (not bread) which is there every trip—perhaps a carton of paper bags. Do you remember studying the truck through the binoculars? I think there is enough room between carton and far wall.

  He will make several more deliveries, the last one in Linwood at the Red Bam (I got this from McGahey).

  When you see him unload the last carton, you count to thirty and go out too.

  I can remember Linwood but I cannot remember whether I could remember it the last time I was buzzed. It varies. One time I couldn’t remember my name for a week. When you get out you may know exactly where you are and what to do. But you probably won’t. So I’ll tell you.

  Go down the hill to K-Mart and Good’s Variety. Buy clothes and articles (see list below).

  Go back up hill to Gulf station. Change clothes in rest room.

  Check into Mitchell’s Triple-A motel one block east. Don’t worry about not having car or suitcase. You will have knapsack and they’re used to it. Pay in advance. Check your driver’s license to be sure you remember your name. Sometimes I, you, forget after a buzz.

  Take a hot bath. Eat and sleep for twenty-four hours. You’ll be very hungry after the buzz (remember?) and tired and sore. You’ll feel like a rape victim in every way but one.

  I wonder how you’re feeling now. It varies so much, remember?

  There will also be something good about having gone through the bad experience, the buzzing, for the last time and having survived—the bad maybe even being the condition of the good, I don’t know. Like that man who crawled out of the plane crash in West Virginia last summer, remember? Everybody else dead or dying and he with a cut lip and, realizing he didn’t even have to crawl, not knowing what he was doing, not even remembering it later, simply walked away like a man getting off a streetcar, walked into the woods. They found him hours later two miles from the plane sitting on a highway culvert calm as you please, but saying nothing. In a state of shock, they said. Sitting there blinking and only mildly bemused. Yes, but also, in another way, in his right mind, as if he had crossed a time warp or gone through a mirror, no, not gone through, come back, yes, the only question being which way he went, from the sane side to the crazy side like Alice or back the other way. They took him to the hospital, sewed up his lip, and let him go. Do you remember thinking about him getting on the bus and going on into Huntington, and walking home, hands in his pockets (no suitcase)?

  The only question is how the buzz job will go this time, how much of the feeling will be bad, the real done-in rape-victim feeling, and how much of the feeling of the good, the survivor.

  STOP YOUR CUBICLE READING HERE. CONTINUE YOUR READING AFTER YOU’VE RESTED IN LINWOOD AND FEEL STRONG.

  A bareheaded policeman stood on the corner. Feeling stiff, she rose, stretched, and walked down the block a short distance. Her knapsack was hanging from the back of the bench. From time to time she turned to keep it in sight. Leaving the bench was for her a foray. The bench was home base. She could venture halfway down the block, keeping the knapsack in sight, before turning ba
ck. The knapsack was for saving her place on the bench. Could one “save a place” on a public bench? She couldn’t remember. Soon it was possible for her to observe people as well as clothes. Though she could still not be certain of their ages, she began to notice that there were two kinds of people. There were those who had plans, whose eyes and movements were aimed toward a future, and those who did not. Some youngish people, that is, between twenty and thirty-five, sat on the sidewalk in silence. Though they sat or lay in relaxed positions, time did not seem to pass easily for them. They looked as if they had gone to great lengths to deal with the problem of time and had not succeeded. They were waiting. What were they waiting for?

  Another group of people, older and better dressed, stood at the window of a real estate office looking at photographs of homes for sale, mountain cabins, expensive condominiums. They talked, took notes, compared prices. Their eyes glistened. In their expressions she could see the pleasure of the prospect of moving, of the exhaustion of the possibilities of an old place and the opening of the possibilities of a new place. Perhaps they lived in places like Richmond or Atlanta or Washington. Undoubtedly they had plans to buy a mountain cabin for vacations or a condominium for retirement. They had plans and the plans took up their time.

  It was as if she belonged to both groups. It was not clear which was better off or which she would join if she had the chance. It seemed that she had plans for the immediate future, but she didn’t know what to do with the rest of her life.

  The old tightness came back and clenched under her diaphragm. She turned back to the bench. For her, too, it was a question of time. What would she do with time? Was there something she was supposed to do?

  Her body was sore. Her arms and legs hurt, one side of her jaw was swollen, her ribs felt as if she had taken a beating. But there was also the feeling that she was over the worst of it. Perhaps, she thought, it was like the pain one feels after being in a fight and winning. It was the kind of soreness the sun cures. The bench and her position on the bench had been arranged so that the morning sunlight hit the sore parts of her body. She felt like a snake stretched out on a rock in the sun, shedding its skin after a long hard winter.