Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World by Walker Percy

Author:Walker Percy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 0312243111
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1971-05-29T07:00:00+00:00

2

Five minutes to eleven. Time for a last visit to the men’s room. Why am I so nervous? The Director has to be on my side. Else how would Art Immelmann have found out about my invention?

Speak of the devil. A man takes the urinal next to me though there are six urinals and mine is at the end. I frown. Here is a minor breach of the unspoken rules between men for the use of urinals. If there are six urinals and one uses the first the second man properly takes the sixth or perhaps the fifth, maybe the fourth, tolerably the third, but not the second.

This fellow, however, hawks and spits in the standard fashion, zips and pats himself and moves to the washstand, again the next washstand. In the mirror I notice it is Art Immelmann, the man from the Rockefeller-Ford-Carnegie foundations who looks like a drug salesman.

“Well well, Doc.”

When I turn to speak, I notice another minor oddity. In the mirror, which reverses things, there was nothing amiss. But as Art adjusts his trousers, I notice that he “dresses” on the wrong side. He dresses, as tailors say, on the right, which not one American male in a thousand, ask any tailor, does. In fact, American pants are made for left-dressing. A small oddity, true, but slightly discommoding to the observer, like talking to a cross-eyed man.

“Well, Doc,” says Art, turning on the hot water, “have you thought about our little proposition?”

“It’s out of the question.”

“May I ask why?”

“I wouldn’t want my invention to fall into the wrong hands. It could be quite dangerous.”

“Don’t you trust the National Institute of Mental Health and the Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations?”

“No. Besides, my invention is not perfected yet. I haven’t finished with it.”

“What’s not perfected?” Art bends his knees, mambo style, and combs his hair like a sailor with quick alternating strokes of comb and hand.

“My sensors won’t penetrate melanin pigment in the skin.”

“Hm.” Art wets his comb. “You mean your MOQUOL doesn’t work on darkies?”

“No, it doesn’t.” I look at him with surprise. Darkies?!

“Anything else wrong?”

“Yes. I don’t yet have a therapeutic component. As it stands, my device is a diagnostic tool, no more.”

“I know.” Art goes on riffling his flat-top with a wet comb. Is he trying to make it lie down? Some hairs stick up like a wet airdale’s. “What would you say, Doc, if I told you your invention has the capacities and is incremental for both components?”

“Eh?”

“That the solution to both the melanin problem and the therapeutic problem is under your nose.”

“Where?”

Art laughs. “You know all I’m good for, Doc? I’m a coordinator. You’ve got the big ideas. I’m a tinkerer. In fact, I’ve got a little gadget right here that would fit your device—”

“Excuse me. I’m late. I’ve got to—”

“We’d make a team, Doc! All you got to do is sign the funding application!”

“No.”

But we say goodbye and shake hands agreeably enough. His is curiously inert, as if all he knew about shaking hands he had learned from watching others shake hands.

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