The Second Coming (2 page)

No, he did fall down, because he seemed to see and smell the multicolored granules of chemical fertilizer scattered in the bent Bermuda.

I wonder, he said to himself nose down in the bent Bermuda, what would my life have been like if I had had four years of Ethel Rosenblum instead of four years of a dream of Ethel Rosenblum—and the twenty words between us:

“How you doing, Ethel?”

“I'm doing fine, Will. How are you?”

“Fine. Did you have a good summer?”

“Fine. I didn't do a thing. Well—”

“Well, I'll see you, Ethel.”

“Yeah, I'll see you, Will.”

Ethel, give me your hand. I know a place.

On the other hand, how could his life have turned out better if things had fallen out otherwise between him and Ethel Rosenblum, for had he not succeeded in his life in every way one can imagine? The only sign of something wrong was that he was thinking about a girl (and a place) whom he had known in high school thirty years ago.

What if he and Ethel had followed their inclinations, assuming she was of like mind (and she might have been! On commencement day after she had given her valedictory and he his salutatory, he had taken her small hand in his and told her goodbye.

She had held his hand for a second and shaken her head and said in a fond sorrowful exasperation: “Oh, Will—!”), and fallen down together in the Johnson grass or wherever, whenever—what then? Would he have been better off? Would he have become more like the young people and not so young he saw in town who lay about at their ease, good-humored and content as cats but also somewhat slack-jawed and bemused, who looked as if they could be doing the same thing ten years from now and not discontented then either—would he have been better off? Who knows?

At least he probably would not be falling down on golf courses and recalling odd bits and pieces of the past.

Lately he remembered everything. His symptom, if it was a symptom, was the opposite of amnesia, a condition as far as I known unnamed by medical science.

Everything reminded him of something else.

A whiff of rabbit tobacco in North Carolina reminded him of Ethel Rosenblum and a patch of weeds in Mississippi.

An odd-shaped cloud in the blue Carolina sky reminded him of a missing tile in the Columbus Circle subway station, which marked the spot where he often stood to catch the Eighth Avenue Express to Macy's. The tile had been broken out except for a strip at the top, which left a grayish concrete area shaped like Utah.

Yes, he must have fallen down in the fairway, for now Vance had him by the arm in some kind of expert doctor's double grip which holds you erect without seeming to.

“That was quite a shot.”

“Did you see the ball?”

“It's a gimme. I been meaning to talk to you.”

“Okay. Talk.”

“Not here. Come see me at my office.”

“Why?”

“I think something is wrong with you.”

“Why?”

“People don't fall down in the middle of the fairway.”

“I was thinking of something.”

“You thought of something and fell down.”

“That's right.”

“You been acting a little off your feed. You worried about anything?”

“No.”

“Did those sleeping pills I gave you help?”

“Yes. No, I didn't take them.”

“You haven't been with us for some time.”

“Us?”

“Us. Your family, your friends.”

“How's that?”

“You don't say anything. And what you say is strange.”

“Such as?”

“You asked me if I remembered a movie actor named Ross Alexander. I said no. You let it go at that. Then you asked me if Groucho Marx was dead. Then you asked me if the tendency to suicide is inherited. Do you remember?”

“Yes. You didn't answer.”

“I didn't know. Are you feeling depressed?”

“No.”

“What were you thinking about a minute ago after you hit that three-wood?”

“I was thinking about a girl I once knew.”

“Then I'll stop worrying about you.”

“Let's putt out.”

“Okay.”

“No, wait.” And again he went into one of his spells, a “petty-mall trance” his doctor friend called them. They were sitting in the cart. He sat perfectly still for perhaps five seconds, which was long enough for the doctor to smile uneasily, then frown and lean over the seat to touch him.

“What is it, Will?”

“I just realized a strange thing.”

“What's that?”

“There are no Jews up here.”

“Jews?”

“I've been living here for two years and have never seen a Jew. Arabs, but no Jews. When I used to come here in the summer years ago, there used to be Jews here. Isn't that strange?”

“I hadn't thought about it. Hm.” Dr. Vance knitted his brow and pretended to think but his eyes never left the other's face. “Interesting! Maybe they've all gone to Washington, ha ha.”

“Come to think of it, how many Jews are left in the state of North Carolina?”

“Left? Have they been leaving? I hadn't noticed. Hm.” Again Dr. Vance frowned and appeared to be searching his memory.

“Think about it. Weren't there Jews here earlier? You're a native.”

“Well, there was Dr. Weiss and Dutch Mandelbaum in high school who played tackle.”

“They're not here now?”

“No.”

“You see.”

“See what?”

“You know, my wife, who was very religious, believed that the Jews are a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“A sign of God's plan working out.”

“Is that so?” Vance's eyes strayed to his wristwatch. He pretended to brush off a fly.

“But what about the absence of Jews? The departure of Jews?” he asked, looking intently at the doctor until his eyes rose. “What is that a sign of?”

“I couldn't say.” Vance looked thoughtful. “Hm.”

It is not at all uncommon for persons suffering from certain psychoses and depressions of middle age to exhibit “ideas of reference,” that is, all manner of odd and irrational notions about Jews, Bildebergers, gypsies, outer space, UFOs, international conspiracies, and whatnot. Needless to say, the Jews were and are not leaving North Carolina. In fact, the Jewish community in that state, though small, is flourishing. There were at the last census some twenty-five synagogues and temples, ten thousand Jews with a median income of $21,000 per family.

The foursome finished the round without further incident. He sank his putt, a ten-footer not a gimme, for an eagle three, won both the fifty-dollar Nassau and the press bet, some two hundred dollars in all, took much good-natured kidding from his friends while they drank and rolled poker dice in the locker-room bar, a cheerful place smelling of sweat, bourbon whiskey, and hemp carpeting and dominated by a photomural of Jack Nicklaus blasting out of a sand trap. In all respects he seemed quite himself, though a bit absentminded, but smiling and nodding as usual—so normal indeed that his doctor friend gave no further thought to his “petty-mall trances.” After all, a golfer who cards a seventy-six can't be too sick.

Surely, though, all is not well with a man who falls down in the fairway, and finds himself overtaken by unaccountable memories, memories of extraordinary power and poignancy. But memories of what? Of the most insignificant events and places imaginable, of a patch of weeds in Mississippi, of a missing tile in a gloomy New York subway station, of a girl whom he had not thought of since leaving high school!

2

IT WAS A FINE SUNDAY
morning. The foursome teed off early and finished before noon. He drove through town on Church Street. Churchgoers were emerging from the eleven-o'clock service. As they stood blinking and smiling in the brilliant sunlight, they seemed without exception well-dressed and prosperous, healthy and happy. He passed the following churches, some on the left, some on the right: the Christian Church, Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of God in Christ, Church of Christ in God, Assembly of God, Bethel Baptist Church, Independent Presbyterian Church, United Methodist Church, and Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church.

Two signs pointing down into the hollow read: African Methodist Episcopal Church, 4 blocks; Starlight Baptist Church, 8 blocks.

One sign pointing up to a pine grove on the ridge read: St. John o' the Woods Episcopal Church, 6 blocks.

He lived in the most Christian nation in the world, the U.S.A., in the most Christian part of that nation, the South, in the most Christian state in the South, North Carolina, in the most Christian town in North Carolina.

Once again he found himself in the pretty reds and yellows of the countryside. As he drove along a gorge, he suffered another spell. Again the brilliant sunlight grew dim. Light seemed to rise from the gorge. He slowed, turned on the radio, and tried to tune in a nonreligious program. He could not find one. In the corner of his eye a dark bird flew through the woods, keeping pace with him. He knew what to do.

Pulling off at an overlook, he took the Luger from the glove compartment of the Mercedes. As he stepped out, he caught sight of a shadowy stranger in the mirror fixed to the door. But he quickly saw that the stranger was himself. The reason the figure appeared strange was that it was reflected by two mirrors, one the rearview mirror, the other the dark windowglass of the Mercedes door.

He smiled. Yes, that was it. With two mirrors it is possible to see oneself briefly as a man among men rather than a self sucking everything into itself—just as you can see the back of your head in a clothier's triple mirror.

He gazed down at the wrist of the hand holding the Luger. Light and air poured into the wrist. It was neither thick nor thin. Who can see his own wrist? It was not a wrist but The Wrist, part of the hole into which everything was sucked and drained out.

He fired five times into the gorge. The sound racketed quickly back and forth between vertical cliffs of rock. Firing the Luger, he discovered, helped knock him out of his “spells.” But it did not work as well as before. He shot again, holding the Luger closer and firing past his face. The sound was louder and flatter; a wave of hot air slapped his cheek. The gun bucked, hurting his bent wrist. He held the muzzle against his temple. Yes, that is possible, he thought smiling, that is one way to cure the great suck of self, but then I wouldn't find out, would I? Find out what? Find out why things have come to such a pass and a man so sucked down into himself that it takes a gunshot to knock him out of the suck—or a glimpse in a double mirror. And I wouldn't find out about the Jews, why they came here in the first place and why they are leaving. Are the Jews a sign?

There at any rate stands Will Barrett on the edge of a gorge in old Carolina, a talented agreeable wealthy man living in as pleasant an environment as one can imagine and yet who is thinking of putting a bullet in his brain.

Fifteen minutes later he is sitting in his Mercedes in a five-car garage, sniffing the Luger and watching a cat lying in a swatch of sunlight under the rear bumper of his wife's Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud three spaces away. During the six months after his wife's death, the Silver Cloud had occupied its usual space on the clean concrete, tires inflated, not dripping a single drop of oil. Not once had he been able to bring himself to think what to do with it.

Beyond the big Rolls, almost hidden, crouched Yamaiuchi's little yellow Datsun.

Absently he held the barrel of the Luger to his nose, then to his temple, and turned his head to and fro against the cold metal of the gunsight.

Is it too much to wonder what he is doing there, this pleasant prosperous American, sitting in a $35,000 car and sniffing cordite from a Luger?

How, one might well ask, could Will Barrett have come to such a pass? Is it not a matter for astonishment that such a man, having succeeded in life and living in a lovely home with a lovely view, surrounded by good cheerful folk, family and friends, merry golfers, should now find himself on a beautiful Sunday morning sunk in fragrant German leather speculating about such things as the odd look of his wrist (his wrist was perfectly normal), the return of North Carolina Jews to the Holy Land (there was no such return), and looking for himself in mirrors like Count Dracula?

At any rate, within the space of the next three minutes there occurred two extraordinary events which, better than ten thousand words, will reveal both Barrett's peculiar state of mind and the peculiar times we live in.

First, as he sat in the Mercedes, Luger in hand, gazing at the cat nodding in the sunlight, there came to him with the force of a revelation the breakthrough he had been waiting for, the sudden vivid inkling of what had gone wrong, not just with himself but, as he saw it, with the whole modern age.

Then, as if this were not enough, there occurred two minutes later a wholly unexpected and shocking event which, however, far from jolting him out of his grandiose speculations about the “modern age,” only served to confirm them. In a word, no sooner had he opened the Mercedes door and stepped out than a rifle shot was fired from the dense pine forest nearby, ricocheting with a hideous screech from the concrete floor at his foot to a
thunk
in the brick of the inner wall. A vicious buzzing bee stung his calf.

Later he remembered thinking even as he dove for cover: Was not the shot expected after all? Is this not in fact the very nature of the times, a kind of penultimate quiet, a minatory ordinariness of midafternoon, a concealed dread and expectation which, only after the shot is fired, we knew had been there all along?

Are we afraid quiet afternoons will be interrupted by gunfire? Or do we hope they will?

Was there ever a truly uneventful time, years of long afternoons when nothing happened and people were glad of it?

But first his “revelation.” As he sat gazing at the cat, he saw all at once what had gone wrong, wrong with people, with him, not with the cat—saw it with the same smiling certitude with which Einstein is said to have hit upon his famous theory in the act of boarding a streetcar in Zurich.