The Second Coming (37 page)

So he had looked thirteen years old when he had driven West with his father in a new Buick convertible. It took a week. It was the summer after the “hunting accident,” as it became known. His father wanted them to be pals. But there was nothing to talk about. He didn't want to be anybody's pal. His father put the top down and drove faster and faster. The hot desert air roared in their ears. All day every day they drove in silence watching the center stripe on Texas highways and out old U.S. 66 for a thousand miles, two thousand miles, in silence while the boy watched girls in lonesome towns like Kingman and Barstow and squeezed his legs tight for the good feeling and speculated in amazement and hope that it would come to pass that there was a connection between girls and the good feeling. What wonders the future held in store! In silence they watched the bats fly out of Carlsbad Caverns at dusk and in silence rode the mules down into the Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Lodge. While the father drove ten, twelve hours a day, he slept on the back seat and between times sat up and gazed at the girls in Holbrook and Winslow and in the desert gazed at himself in the mirror. What a sly handsome lad you are. What the world must hold in store for you. What? Anything you want. Girls, money, God, fame, whatever you want. On they drove, faster and faster, roaring at ninety miles an hour through Needles, Arizona, where the heat lay puddled like mercury on the pavement. For a week he slept and gazed. His bowels did not move. In Los Angeles they did not see Chester Morris wearing a straw hat and driving down Hollywood Boulevard in a Packard convertible. Ross Alexander was dead. Groucho Marx was alive. Back East they roared in silence, the hot air singing in their ears, the man's gaze fixed on the highway, the boy's on girls or the face in the mirror then as now betrayed and victorious and sly. Even the man knew now they couldn't be pals.

Well then, does anything really change in a lifetime, he asked the sly sidelong-looking Andrea del Sarto in the Mercedes mirror? No, you are the same person with whom I struck the pact roaring out old U.S. 66 through the lonesome towns and the empty desert. You don't ever really learn anything you didn't know when you were thirteen.

And what was that?

All I knew for sure then and now was that after what happened to me nothing could ever defeat me, no matter what else happened in this bloody century. If you didn't defeat me, old mole, loving father and death-dealer, nothing can, not wars, not this century, not the Germans. We beat the Germans, nutty as we are, and now drive perfect German cars, we somewhat frazzled it is true, and shaky, but victorious nevertheless.

Ah, but what if the death is not in the century but in your own genes, that you of all men are a child of the century because you are as death-bound by your own hand as the century is and you of all men should be most at home now, as bred for death as surely as a pointer bitch to point, that death your own death is what you really love and won't be happy till you have, what then?

Then we'll know, won't we?

Grinning and shivering on the back seat thirty years later, teeth clacking, this raddled middle-aged American sat in his German car in the mountains of North Carolina hugging himself and making shoulder movements like a man giving body English to a pinball machine except that he was thinking about J. E. B. Stuart and Baron von Richthofen and World War II and fighting the Germans, which he had not done. Instead, he took two quick drinks from the gold-lined silver jigger and waited until the warmth bloomed under his ribs and the shaking stopped.

Something occurred to him. Excitedly he jumped out of the car and, paying no attention to the cold drizzle which had started up again, paced back and forth beside the silver Mercedes, smacking his arms around his body and now and then kicking the Michelin radials. If the girl in the greenhouse a few hundred yards away could have seen him, she would have shaken her head. Though it was she who had been the mental patient and he the solidest citizen of the community, early retiree, philanthropist, president of United Way, six-handicap golfer, surely it was he not she who was deranged now, who, after holing up in a cave for two weeks, now paced up and down the parking lot of the Linwood Country Club in the predawn darkness, kicking a German car, while sane folk snored in their beds. Now he snapped his fingers and nodded to himself, for all the world like a man who has hit upon the solution to a problem which had vexed him for years.

Ha, there is a secret after all, he said. But to know the secret answer, you must first know the secret question. The question is, who is the enemy?

Not to know the name of the enemy is already to have been killed by him.

Ha,
he said, dancing, snapping his fingers and laughing and hooting
ha hoo hee,
jumping up and down and socking himself,
but I do know. I know. I know the name of the enemy.

The name of the enemy is death, he said, grinning and shoving his hands in his pockets. Not the death of dying but the living death.

The name of this century is the Century of the Love of Death. Death in this century is not the death people die but the death people live. Men love death because real death is better than the living death. That's why men like wars, of course. Bad as wars are and maybe because they are so bad, thinking of peace during war is better than peace. War is what makes peace desirable. But peace without war is intolerable. Why do men settle so easily for lives which are living deaths? Men either kill each other in war, or in peace walk as docilely into living death as sheep into a slaughterhouse.

Why do men walk like sheep straight into the slaughterhouse? Why are people content to stand helpless while their lifeblood is drained away?

Men in this century are no different from the Jews at Buchenwald who did not give themselves leave to resist death.

I know your name at last, he said, laughing and hooting
hee hee hooooee
like a pig-caller and kicking the tires, and you are not going to prevail over me.

Old father of lies, that's what you are, the devil himself, for only the devil could have thought up all the deceits and guises under which death masquerades. But I know all your names.

Here are the names of death, which shall not prevail over me because I know the names.

Death in the guise of love shall not prevail over me. You, old father old mole, loved me but loved death better and in the name of love sought death for both of us. You only kissed me once and it was the kiss of death. True, death is a way out of a life-which-is-a-living-death. War and shooting is better than such a peace. But what if there is life?

Everybody has given up. Everybody thinks that there are only two things: war which is a kind of life in death, and peace which is a kind of death in life. But what if there should be a third thing, life?

Death in the guise of Christianity is not going to prevail over me. If Christ brought life, why do the churches smell of death?

Death in the guise of old Christendom in Carolina is not going to prevail over me. The old churches are houses of death.

Death in the form of the new Christendom in Carolina is not going to prevail over me. If the born-again are the twice born, I'm holding out for a third go-round.

Death in the guise of God and America and the happy life of home and family and friends is not going to prevail over me. America is in fact almost as dead as Europe. It might still be possible to live in America, said the nutty American dancing in place in old Carolina.

Death in the guise of belief is not going to prevail over me, for believers now believe anything and everything and do not love the truth, are in fact in despair of the truth, and that is death.

Death in the guise of unbelief is not going to prevail over me, for unbelievers believe nothing, not because truth does not exist but because they have already chosen not to believe, and would not believe, cannot believe, even if the living truth stood before them, and that is death.

Death in the guise of the new life in California is not going to prevail over me. Marin County and the Cupps are not going to prevail over me. But what if the Cupps and Marin County should prevail? Then the Germans and my father are right and war is better than peace, true death better than the living death. But it will not prevail over me because I know the names of death.

Death in the form of isms and asms shall not prevail over me, orgasm, enthusiasm, liberalism, conservatism, Communism, Buddhism, Americanism, for an ism is only another way of despairing of the truth.

Death in the guise of marriage and family and children is not going to prevail over me. What happened to marriage and family that it should have become a travail and a sadness, marriage till death do us part yes but long dead before the parting, home and fireside and kiddies such a travail and a deadliness as to make a man run out into the night with his hands over his head? Show me that Norman Rockwell picture of the American family at Thanksgiving dinner and I'll show you the first faint outline of the death's-head.

God may be good, family and marriage and children and home may be good, grandma and grandpa may act wise, the Thanksgiving table may be groaning with God's goodness and bounty, all the folks healthy and happy, but something is missing. What is this sadness here? Why do the folks put up with it? The truth seeker does not. Instead of joining hands with the folks and bowing his head in prayer, the truth seeker sits in an empty chair as invisible as Banquo's ghost, yelling at the top of his voice:
Where is it? What is missing ? Where did it go? I won't have it! I won't have it! Why this sadness here? Don't stand for it! Get up! Leave! Let the boat people sit down! Go live in a cave until you've found the thief who is robbing you. But at least protest. Stop, thief. What is missing? God? Find him!

Ross Alexander left his happy home in Beverly Hills, saying: I'm going outside and shoot a duck.

You gave in to death, old mole, but I will not have it so. It is a matter of knowing and choosing. To know the many names of death is also to know there is life. I choose life.
Hee hoo hee heee hooeee.
He was shivering and dancing in place, hands in pockets like an Irishman doing a jig. Is it possible that a man in the last half of his life can actually learn something he didn't know before? Yes!
Ha hee hooee.

Death in the form of death genes shall not prevail over me, for death genes are one thing but it is something else to name the death genes and know them and stand over against them and dare them. I am different from my death genes and therefore not subject to them. My father had the same death genes but he feared them and did not name them and thought he could roar out old Route 66 and stay ahead of them or grab me and be pals or play Brahms and keep them, the death genes, happy, so he fell prey to them.

Death in none of its guises shall prevail over me, because I know all the names of death.

Having pronounced this peculiar litany, he hopped into the car, lay down on the back seat, covered himself with the lap robe, stuck his nose in a fragrant crease of leather, and went to sleep.

This is what is going to happen.

In the very moment of sinking into a deep sleep he had, not a dream or a flight of fancy, but a swift sure unsurprised presentiment of what lay in store.

Thirty years earlier the child knew that something was going to happen, and that the something was all he ever wanted or needed to know, and that it only remained for him to wait for it to happen and to settle for nothing less until it did.

What was the something? Women? War? Or victory in life? Death?

Thirty years passed. He had women, war, and victory in life.

But nothing changed. Thirty years later he knew no more than he knew in Dalhart, Texas, squeezing his legs together and looking at girls.

Yes, but you have just discovered again what you knew all along, that something is going to happen.

This is what is going to happen. All at once he knew what had happened and what was going to happen.

He found himself in a certain place. It was a desert place. Weeds grew in the sand. Vines sprouted in the rocks. The place was a real place. Its exact location could be determined within inches by map coordinates, ninety-one degrees so many minutes so many seconds longitude west, thirty-three degrees so many minutes so many seconds latitude north. He had been there forty years earlier. Then the place had not been deserted. It was a spot near a stream which ran through a meadow. The spot was in a springhouse on the stream where crocks of milk and sweet butter used to be stored. D'Lo still liked to keep her own buttermilk there because it was not far from her house, which had no refrigerator, and she could pick it up on the way home. She found him there in the cool darkness watching reflections of light play against the damp masonry. Boy, what you are doing down here? I been looking all over for you, it's your dinnertime. (He didn't answer.) Now you come on up and eat with D'Lo. (He didn't answer.) Don't you remember how you always used to sit with D'Lo in the kitchen while they ate in the dining room? And when you had your spells, you'd come running in the kitchen and jump up in my lap and put your head right here? Sometimes I'd hold you all day. (No, I don't remember.) You come on here, boy, and let D'Lo hug you. You po little old white boy. (She hugged him but he didn't feel anything except that he was being hugged by a big black woman. What's this about big black loving mammies?) You poor little old boy, you all alone in the world. Your mama dead, your daddy dead, and ain't nobody left in the house but you and me. (That's not bad. He thought of the novelty of walking home from school in the afternoons to the big house empty except for D'Lo shuffling around in her flattened-out mules. Strange! But not bad.) Sweet Jesus, what we gon do? (One thing we gon do, D'Lo, is you gon turn me loose.) He stiffened. She was angry. He knew she would be. He already knew enough about people to know what displeased them. He knew how to please people, even black people. He was everybody's nigger. He was even the niggers' nigger. (Her lower lip ran out. There came across her face the new peevish black-
vs.
-white expression—for a second he saw that she wasn't sure he hadn't stiffened because of the new white-
vs.
-black business. She let go.) You poor little old boy, you don't know nothing. You don't even know what you need to know. You don't even know enough to know what you ain't got. (She wasn't angry now. He knew she wouldn't be.) But don't you worry, honey. You all alone in the world and you gon be alone a long time but the good Lawd got something special in mind for you. (He has?) Sho he has. (How do you know that?) Because he got the whole world in his hand, even a mean little old boy like you. (How do you know that?) Because, bless God, I know. You laughing at me, boy? (No, D'Lo.) You full of devilment but you messing with the wrong one this time. Now you get on up to the kitchen and we gon have us some pork chops and butter beans and then we gon set down on the back porch and listen to the radio. (Well, it beats sitting on the front porch and listening to Brahms.) What you say, boy? (Nothing.)