The Moviegoer - Walker Percy [86]
On Mardi Gras morning of the next year, my Uncle Jules suffered a second heart attack at the Boston Club, from which he later died.
The following May, a few days after his fifteenth birthday, my half-brother Lonnie Smith died of a massive virus infection which was never positively identified.
As for my search, I have not the inclination to say much on the subject. For one thing, I have not the authority, as the great Danish philosopher declared, to speak of such matters in any way other than the edifying. For another thing, it is not open to me even to be edifying, since the time is later than his, much too late to edify or do much of anything except plant a foot in the right place as the opportunity presents itself—if indeed asskicking is properly distinguished from edification.
Further: I am a member of my mother’s family after all and so naturally shy away from the subject of religion (a peculiar word this in the first place, religion; it is something to be suspicious of).
Reticence, therefore, hardly having a place in a document of this kind, it seems as good a time as any to make an end.
The day before Lonnie died, Kate took a notion to pay him a visit. Ordinarily I pick her up at Merle’s office, drop her off at her stepmother’s and drive downtown where I transact a few odds and ends of business for her, my aunt, at Uncle Jules’ office. But today we have only to walk across the street from Merle’s office to Touro Infirmary.
I had my doubts about Kate’s idea. It was an extravagant womanish sort of whim, what I call privately a doubling, or duplication: like the time she took a notion to fly to Dallas in a state of rapture and hear Marian Anderson; it sounded to her like the sort of thing one might well do. I don’t mean she worries about what is the fashionable thing to do; no, it just sounded like a good thing to do—what one does under the circumstances if one is the sort of person who etc etc—so she did it. Also: she had not seen Lonnie since the onset of his illness and although I tried to prepare her for the change, she was not prepared.
Afterwards in the street, she went stumbling ahead of me, knuckles in her mouth and blind with tears.
“Oh my God, how dreadful.”
“I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“It was like a blow in the face.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That poor little boy—he’s so hideously thin and yellow, like one of those wrecks lying on a flatcar at Dachau. Why is he so yellow?”
“He’s got a hepatitis.”
“How can you be so cold-blooded? Are you going to be thick-skinned and bumptious like a medical student? How I hate that! He’s dying, Binx!”
“I know.”
“What was that he whispered to you?”
“He told me he had conquered an habitual disposition.”
“What is that?”
“He also said you were a very good-looking girl.”
“He breaks my heart!” We walk in silence. “And his poor parents. Did you see the way Mr. Smith stepped out into the hall and dashed the tears from his eyes like a countryman?”
“Yes.”
“It is so pitiful.”
She stops to blow her nose. Her heavy gunmetal hair is separated by a wide ragged part. I kiss the thick white skin of her scalp. “You are very good-looking today.” In the past year, she has fattened up; her shoulders are sleek as a leopard.
Kate is horrified. “Please don’t.” She plucks at her thumb. “There is something grisly about you.”
“I have to find the children.” When Lonnie took a turn for the worse early this morning, my mother had to bring all the children with her, all but Jean-Paul. They’ve been sitting in the car since eight o’clock.
Thérèse catches sight of me and sticks her sharp little face out the window. “How is Lonnie?” she asks, trying a weaving motion.
“He is very sick.”
“Is he going to die?” Thérèse asks in her canny smart-girl way.
“Yes.” I sit around backwards to see them. Kate smiles in at them and stands a ways off. “But he wouldn’t want you to be sad. He told me to give you a kiss and tell you that he loved you.”
They are not sad. This is a very serious and out-of-the-way business. Their eyes search out mine and they cast about for ways of prolonging the conversation, this game of serious talk and serious listening.