The Second Coming (34 page)

“About what?”

“About money. I'll pay you back.”

“I don't worry about money. Money worry is not instigating.”

“No, it's not. You'd better go.”

She enjoyed her errands.

Straight to the bus station, where she found the silver Mercedes. Though she wanted to try the keys and practice starting the car, she decided not to. Someone might see her. She would do her errands, wait until dark, and drive to the country club.

Nobody saw her.

What pleasure, obeying instructions! Then is this what people in the world do? This is called “joining the work force.” It is not a bad way to live. One gets a job. There is a task and a task teller (a person who tells you a task), a set of directions, instructions, perhaps a map, a carrying out of the task, a finishing of the task, a return to the task teller to report success, a thanking. A getting paid. An assignment of another task.

She clapped her hands for joy. What a discovery! To get a job, do it well, which is a pleasure, please the employer, which is also a pleasure, and get paid, which is yet another pleasure. What a happy life employees have! How happy it must make them to do their jobs well and please their employers! That was the secret! All this time she had made a mistake. She had thought (and her mother had expected) that she must do something extraordinary, be somebody extraordinary. Whereas the trick lay in leading the most ordinary life imaginable, get an ordinary job, in itself a joy in its very ordinariness, and
then
be as extraordinary or ordinary as one pleased. That was the secret.

On to Western Union, which was part of the Greyhound bus station. As she wrote the message she tried not to make sense of it. The telegram cost $7.89. When the clerk read the message, she said to him casually but with authority: “Straight message, please!”

“Right,” said the clerk, not raising his eyes.

Victory! She had made it in the world! Not only could she make herself understood. People even understood what she said when she didn't.

It was a pleasure spending her money for him. Why? she wondered. Ordinarily she hoarded her pennies, ate dandelion-and-dock salad.

She sat on her bench but in a new way. The buildings and the stores were the same but more accessible. She might have business in them. Le Club was still there, its glass bricks sparkling in the sun. A cardboard sign in the window announced a concert by Le Hug, a rock group. What a pleasure to have a job! Smiling, she hugged herself and rocked in the sun. Imagine getting paid for a task by the task teller! Money wherewith to live! And live a life so, years, decades! So that was the system. Quel system!

A real townie she felt like now, bustling past slack-jawed hippies, moony-eyed tourists, blue-haired lady leafers, antiquers, and quilt collectors.

When she went into a building, the dog stayed on the sidewalk paying no attention to anyone until she came out. He showed his pleasure not by wagging his tail but by burying his heavy anvil head in her stomach until his eyes were covered.

There was no way to see Dr. Battle except to sign a clipboard and wait her turn as a patient. She had to wait two hours. She liked him, though he was too busy and groggy from overwork and thought she was a patient despite her telling him otherwise, sizing her up in a fond dazed rush, not listening, eyes straying over her, coming close (was he smelling her?). His hand absently palpated her shoulder, queried the bones, tested the ball joint for its fit and play. Unlike Dr. Duk he didn't bother to listen, or rather he listened not to your words but your music. He was like a vet, who doesn't have to listen to his patients. There were other ways of getting at you. He saw so many patients that it was possible for him to have a hunch about you, a good country hunch, the moment you walked in the door. Better still, it was possible for her to subside and see herself through his eyes, so canny and unheeding, sleepy and quick, were they.

Well then, how did she look to him? Is my shoulder human? He cocked an ear for her music. The fond eyes cast about to place her, then placed her. She was classifiable then. She was a piece of the world after all, a member of a class and recognizable as such. I belong here!

He looked at her boots. “You just off the trail?”

“Well no, though I've been walking quite a bit.”

“And you're feeling a little spacy.”

“A little what?”

“Spaced out.”

“What's that?”

“Are you on something or coming off something?”

“What?”

He didn't seem impatient with her dumbness. “Okay,” he said, counting off the questions on his fingers. “Are you taking a drug? Are you taking the pill? Are you coming off the pill? Are you pregnant?”

“No to one and all.” How would he treat her madness? ignore it, palpate her shoulder and tell her to lead her life? Would she?

“Okay, what's the trouble, little lady?”

“I'm fine. What I was trying to tell you was—”

“You look healthy as a hawg to me.”

“—was to give you a message from—” She wanted to say “from him.” What to call
him
? Mr. Barrett? Mr. Will? Will Barrett? Bill Barrett? Williston Bibb Barrett? None of the names fit. A name would give him form once and for all. He would flow into its syllables and junctures and there take shape forever. She didn't want him named.

Sluggishly, like a boat righting itself in a heavy sea, Dr. Battle was coming round to her. He began to listen.

“From who?”

“Your friend Barrett,” she mumbled. The surname was neutral, the way an Englishman speaks of other Englishmen.

“Who? Will Barrett? Will Barrett's out of town,” he said as if he were answering her questions.

“Yes.”

This time his eyes snapped open,
click.
“What about Will Barrett?”

“You are to come see him this afternoon when you finish here.”

“What's the matter with him? Is that rascal sick?”

Rascal. The word had peculiar radiations but mainly fondness.

“No. That is, I think he is all right now. He is scratched up and bruised and his leg is hurt but he can walk. This is in confidence. He doesn't want anyone to know about this message.” It was a pleasure to talk to another person about him.

“In confidence?” For a second the eye went cold and flashed like a beacon.

“I have not kidnapped him,” she said.

He laughed. “All right. Where is he?”

“He is at my—” My what? “—place.”

“Oh. So.” He cocked his head and regarded her. It was possible for her to go around behind his eyes and see her and Will at her place. “Well, I'll be dog. How about that? Okay. What's with Will? Has he got his tail in some kind of crack?”

She frowned and folded her arms. “He went down into Lost Cove cave, got lost, came back up, and fell into my place.”

Though it was true, it sounded odd, even to her.

“Fell?” he said.

“That's what I said. Fell. Flat fell down into my place.”

“He fell into your place from a cave,” said the doctor.

“That's right.”

The doctor nodded. “Okay.” Then he shook his head. “He shouldn't be doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“He doesn't take care of himself. With his brain lesion he won't—” His eyes opened. “All right. This is as good a chance as any to throw him down and look at him. Where is your place?”

“You know the old Kemp place?”

“Yes. Near there?”

“There. That's my place.”

“There is nothing left there.”

“A greenhouse is left.”

“You live in the greenhouse?”

“Yes.”

“Will is staying in your greenhouse?”

“Yes. He fell into the greenhouse from the cave.”

“He fell into your greenhouse. From the cave. Okay.”

It pleased her that Dr. Vance Battle did not seem to find it remarkable that the two of them, who? Will and who? Allie, Will and Allie, should be staying in the greenhouse. Only once did he cock his head and look at her along his cheekbone. Will and Allie? Williston and Allison? Willie and Allie?

“It is a matter in confidence,” she said. In confidence? Of confidence? To be held in confidence? Her rehearsed language had run out. She didn't know where to put
ofs
and ins. It was time to leave.

“Right. Tell that rascal I'll be out this afternoon. We'll throw him down and have a look at him.”

Right, she repeated to herself as she left. I will tell that rascal.

5

Why does the sun feel so good on my back, she thought as she sat on the bench counting her money.

Why am I spending all my money, she wondered at the A & P as she paid $44.89 for two rib-eye steaks, horse meat for the dog, two folding aluminum chairs with green plastic webbing, and a cold six-pack of beer. What am I celebrating? His leaving? He's leaving. Is he leaving?

What would she do when her money ran out? Shelter and heat were free, but what about food? She could hoard hickory nuts like a squirrel and perhaps even catch the squirrels and eat them. No, she needed money.

It was necessary to get a job.

“Excuse me,” she said to the fat friendly pretty checkout girl after waiting for the right moment to insert the question, the moment between getting her change and being handed the bag. She had rehearsed the question. “What are job opportunities here or elsewhere?” She had watched the checker and noticed that she was the sort who would as soon answer one question as another.

“I don't know, hon. I'm losing my job here at Thanksgiving when the season's over and going back to Georgia and see if I can get my old job at Martin Marietta. Then you know what I'm going to do?”

“No.”

“I'm going to grab my sweet little honey man of a preacher, praise the good Lord every Sunday, and not turn him loose till Christmas. He's no good but he's as sweet as he can be.” The other checkers laughed. She noticed that her checker had raised her voice so the others could hear her. Her checker was a card. Yet she saw too that her checker was good-natured. “Why don't you go back to school, hon?” the checker asked her. “You a school girl, ain't you?”

“Ah, no, I—” Then that is what people do, get a job, go to church, get a sweet honey man. All those years of dreaming in childhood, of going to school, singing Schubert, developing her talent as her mother used to say, she had not noticed this.

“What can you do hon?” the checker asked her.

“I can do two things,” she said without hesitation. “Sing and hoist.”

“Hoist?”

“With block-and-tackle, differential gears, endless-chain gears, double and triple blocks. I can hoist anything if I have a fixed point and time to figure.”

“Honey, you come on down to Marietta with me. I'll get you a job. They always need hoisters.”

She saw that the checker meant it. Then there was such a thing as a hoister. Then why not consider it: hoisting great B-52 bomber wings to just the right position to be bolted to the fuselage. (People were friendly!)

“You think it over, hon.”

“I will. Thank you.”

How good life must be once you got the hang of it, she thought, striding along, grocery bag in her arm, folded chairs hooked over her shoulder.

Consulting her list—I have a list!—she went to the library and, sure enough, found a book on hydroponic gardening. List completed!

Though it was not dark, she walked straight to the Mercedes, unlocked the door, pitched groceries and chairs inside, and drove off as easily as a lady leafer headed for the Holiday Inn.

The tape player came on, playing Schubert's Trout Quintet. Her eyes widened. The sound came from all around her. It was like sitting in the middle of the musicians. The music, the progress of the trout, matched her own happy progress. I'm going
along
now, I'm going
along
now, went the happy little chord. It was as if she had never left the world of music and the world of cars, hopping in your own car and tooling off like Schubert's trout. What a way to live, zipping through old Carolina in a perfect fragrant German car listening to Schubert on perfect Telefunken tape better than Schubert in the flesh. How lovely was the old world she had left! Hm, there must have been something wrong with it, what? Why had she gone nuts?

Because he wasn't there? No, it wasn't so simple. She could make it now, with him or without him. But think of life with him there beside her in the Mercedes! Or in her greenhouse. He would remember for her if she forgot. She would hoist him if he fell. Now she knew what she did not want: not being with him. I do not want him not being here.

But what if he left?

She parked the car at the country club and dove into the woods before some official questioned her.

Why was she so happy now? Because like the checker she hoped for a sweet honey man? No. Because she hoped to get married? No. Married. The word made her think of the married leafers up here, mooning around, fed up with the red leaves and each other. What if they married?
Married.
The word was a flattening out, a lightening, and a rolling up. Rolled up tight in a light-colored rug. And a winding up and a polishing off. In short, stuck like her mother and father. On the other hand, the thought of marrying him made her grin and skip like a schoolgirl. Marrying. What an odd expression. Marrying. Is it merry to marry or marred? What if we marry? What if we marry?—she sang to the music of Schubert's Trout. She'd not forget these words. Other marriages might get screwed up but not theirs. Hm. Look at these old couples gazing at the lovely scarlet Smokies with the same glum expression. She? She could look at a doodlebug with him and be happy. With him, silence didn't sprout and looks didn't dart. What happened after you got married? Do you look at each other and say: Well, here we are, me and you, what'll we do, tea for two? Then was she happy because she was going to surprise him with a steak dinner? Not exactly. Then was she happy because it is a pleasure to carry out a task assigned by a task assigner? Yes, in a way. She looked forward to reporting to him everything she had done. While the doctor examined him, she could cook the steaks, put the beer under the waterfall to keep cold, fix avocado salad with Plagniol (goodbye dandelion-and-dock), unfold the chairs, upend two big pots for tables, open the mica door of the firebox to see the wood fire. What about wild shallots with the avocados? Should she invite the doctor for supper? No.