Lancelot

perceived by everybody as somehow different—for one thing his eyes, there’s an inner light, he’s a creature of light. Look at him. His normal temperature is around 101. He actually glows. Most important, he is free. Everybody else is hung up—as in fact everybody is, you’re hung up, I’m hung up. Right? Sarah is a Joanne Woodward type—though Margot is actually a bit too young and good-looking—but she has never known what it is to be a woman. You know. Her husband, Lipscomb, is out of it too. He sits wringing his hands while the plantation goes to pot. She holds things together, makes a pittance at the library. He’s hung up. Everyone is hung up. The sharecroppers, black and white, are hung up in poverty and ignorance. The townies are hung up in bigotry and so forth. Not only is the stranger free, he is also able to free others. There is the sense about him of having come from far away, perhaps the East, perhaps farther. Perhaps he is a god. At least he is a kind of Christ type.
    â€œHe fulfills people. He fulfills the longing of the sharecroppers for their own land—he discovers that Raine’s, Ella’s, family owns the land. He reconciles black and white—who discover their own common humanity during the hurricane. He even gets to the sheriff (God, I wish we could have got Pat Hingle), who despite himself is tremendously moved by this glowing nonviolent vibrant creature—actually there’s a strong hint here of Southern sheriff homosexuality, right? He almost reaches Lipscomb, who has lost his ties with the land, nature, his own sexuality. He does reach Sarah. He walks into the library and while her mouth falls open, he simply goes to the bookshelf, takes down the Rig-Veda, and reads the great passage beginning: ‘Desire entered the One in the beginning.’ Then, again without saying a word, he takes her hand and leads her back into the stacks, where he takes her standing against the old musty books—Thackeray and Dickens and so forth—representing the drying up of Western juices. There’s a lovely tight shot of her face while she’s making love against a dusty set of the Waverley novels. Great? The stranger is the life-giving principle, the books are dead, everyone is dead, Thackeray is dead. Scott is dead, the town is dead, Lipscomb is dead, she is dead, or rather she has never lived. So what we are trying to get across is that it is not just screwing, though there is nothing wrong with that either, but a kind of sacrament and celebration of life. He could be a high priest of Mithras. You see what we’re getting at?”
    Something went wrong. Jacoby called for an Arriflex hand-held camera and his assistant Lionel couldn’t locate it. Jacoby came over to talk to Merlin. More or less automatically I held out my hand—not that I wanted to shake hands with him, but we know in the South that the real purpose of manners is to make life easier for everyone, easier both to keep to oneself and to avoid the uneasy commerce of offense and even insult. Either one shakes hands with someone or one ignores him or one kills him. What else is there? Jacoby ignored me. His bemused eye looked through me and past me. I do believe that he did not insult me but rather did not see me. In his absorption I was part of the town decor, one of them. Merlin noticed the oversight and was embarrassed, cleared his throat, did not know what to do. There’s the function of manners: that no one will not know what to do.
    I rescued Merlin by asking him how long they were going to work today. “Oh, late! Late!” cried Merlin cordially. “And thanks so much for putting us up”—looking to Jacoby to echo thanks but Jacoby only nodded vaguely. I escaped and went out through the back, the office of the librarian.
    Raine and Lucy and Miss Maude, the librarian, were there. Raine kissed me with every appearance of pleasure—what is she? actress? flirt? wanton? nice affectionate girl? Lucy followed suit somewhat absentmindedly. She was so frantic in her crush on Raine that she hardly noticed me.
    â€œIsn’t it exciting!” said Raine, putting her hands on my shoulders, rocking me a little, brushing knees. One knee came between my knees.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe hurricane!”
    â€œI don’t think it’ll get here.”
    â€œBut the light! Haven’t you noticed the peculiar yellow light and the