Free The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy Page B

humiliating confession. Isn’t that awful. And it is getting worse. Why am I like that?”
    â€œWhy say anything?”
    â€œI keep thinking that it must be possible to be with a person with things natural between us.”
    â€œA person? What person? I’m a person. Aren’t things easy between us?”
    â€œYes—because you’ve spoiled me.”
    â€œLike hell. Finish your sandwich and get back to work.”
    â€œRee, I’m not even a good dancer.”
    â€œYou’re good, but you’re lazy.”
    â€œNo, Can Can.” Or did she say Quin Quin?
    â€œSo now I’m getting old.”
    â€œNo, Ree. But in a particular relationship do you think it is one’s attitude or the other person who counts?”
    â€œWho is this other person?”
    â€œDo you remember what Will said yesterday?”
    â€œWill?”
    â€œWill Barrett? You know, the boy Poppy brought in.”
    â€œSo now it’s Will.”
    â€œDidn’t you like him?”
    â€œYou make him sound like Cousin Will from Savannah.”
    â€œWell.”
    â€œHoney, I’ve got news for you.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat boy is not well.”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œReally. And I can assure you there is nothing romantic about mental illness.”
    â€œBut he isn’t—”
    â€œWait. I suddenly begin to get it. I do believe that it is his symptoms which interest you.”
    â€œNo, I think he’s very nice.”
    â€œYes, I see it! You’re the girl who can’t talk. And he can’t remember. That makes you a pair.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo you’re going to remember for him and he’s going to talk for you.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOnly it’s more than that, isn’t it? You also believe you can help him.”
    â€œHelp him? Why does he need help?”
    Rita’s reply was not audible. They had gotten up and were moving away.
    He sat deep in thought until he finished his beer. My need for eavesdropping is legitimate enough, he said to himself, screwing up an eye. What with the ravening particles and other noxious influences, when one person meets another in a great city, the meeting takes place edge on, so to speak, each person so deprived of his surface as to be all but invisible to the other. Therefore one must take measures or else leave it to luck. Luck would be this: if he saw her snatch a purse, flee into the park pursued by the cops. Then he would know something and could do something. He could hide her in a rocky den he had discovered in a wild section of the park. He would bring her food and they would sit and talk until nightfall, when they could slip out of the city and go home to Alabama. Such a turn of events was unlikely, however.
    5 .
    The Vaughts liked the engineer very much, each feeling that he was his or her special sort of person. And he was.
    Each saw him differently.
    Mr. Vaught was certain he was a stout Southern lad in the old style, wellborn but lusty as anyone, the sort who knows how to get along with older men. Back home he would have invited the younger man on a hunt or to his poker club, where he was certain to be a favorite. The second time Mr. Vaught saw him, he took him aside ceremoniously and invited him to Jamie’s birthday party.
    Jamie—who, he was told, had a severe and atypical mononucleosis—saw him as a fellow technician, like himself an initiate of science, that is, of a secret, shared view of the world, a genial freemasonry which sets itself apart from ordinary folk and sees behind appearances. He lent the engineer a tattered offprint of a scientific article which was written by his brother and which he kept under his pillow. It was titled The Incidence of Post-orgasmic Suicide in Male University Graduate Students, and divided into two sections, the first subtitled “Genital Sexuality as the Sole Surviving Communication Channel between Transcending-Immanent