The Last Gentleman

“psychosexual.” It reminded him of the tough little babes of his old therapy group, who used expressions like “mental masturbation” and “getting your jollies.” It had the echo of someone else. She was his sweetheart and ought to know better. None of your smart-ass Fifty-seventh Street talk, he felt like telling her. “I was wondering,” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI love you. Do you love me?”
    â€œIf you don’t kill me. I swear to goodness.”
    He fell to pondering. “This is the first time I’ve been in love,” he said, almost to himself. He looked up, smiling. “Now that I think of it, I guess this sounds strange to you.”
    â€œNot strange at all!” she cried with her actress’s lilt.
    He laughed. Presently he said, “I see now that it could be taken in the sense that I say it without meaning it.”
    â€œYes, it could be taken in that sense.”
    â€œI suppose in fact that it could even be something one commonly says. Men, I mean.”
    â€œYes, they do.”
    â€œDid you take me to mean it like that?”
    â€œNo, not you.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œIt’s time for me to leave.”
    â€œYou’re going to Fire Island?”
    â€œYes, and you’re sleepy.”
    All of a sudden he was. “When will I see you?”
    â€œAren’t you coming to my birthday party Monday?”
    â€œOh yes. In Jamie’s room. I thought it was Jamie’s birthday.”
    â€œWe’re two days apart. Monday falls between. I’ll be twenty-one and Jamie sixteen.”
    â€œTwenty-one.” His eyes had fallen away into a stare. “Go to bed.”
    â€œRight.” Twenty-one. The very number seemed hers, a lovely fine come-of-age adult number faintly perfumed by her, like the street where she lived.
    6 .
    When his soil-bank check arrived on Friday, he, the strangest of planters, proprietor of two hundred acres of blackberries and canebrakes, was able to pay his debt to Dr. Gamow. Having given up his checking account, he cashed the check at Macy’s and dropped off the money at Dr. Gamow’s office on his way home Monday morning.
    Sticking his head through Dr. Gamow’s inner door at nine o’clock, he caught a glimpse of the new group seated around a new table. It didn’t take twenty seconds to hand over the bills, but that was long enough. In an instant he sniffed out the special group climate of nurtured hostilities and calculated affronts. Though they could not have met more than two or three times, already a stringy girl with a shako of teased hair (White Plains social worker?) was glaring at a little red rooster of a gent (computer engineer?). She was letting him have it: “Don’t act out at me, Buster!” The old virtuoso of groups heaved a sigh. And even though Dr. Gamow opened the door another notch by way of silent invitation, he shook his head and said goodbye. But not without regret. It was like the great halfback George Gipp paying a final visit to Notre Dame stadium.
    But that left him $34.54 to buy presents for Kitty and Jamie and to eat until payday Saturday. Sunday night he sat at his console under Macy’s racking his brain. What to give these rich Texas-type Southerners who already had everything? A book for Jamie? He reckoned not, because not even Sutter’s book held his attention for long. It was felt, fingered, flexed, but not read. His choice finally was both easy and audacious. Easy because he could not really afford to buy a gift and himself owned a single possession. Then why not lend it to Jamie: his telescope. The money went for Kitty’s present, a tiny golden ballet slipper from Tiffany’s for her charm bracelet.
    â€œI don’t have any use for it right now,” said he to Jamie as he clamped the Tetzlar to the window sill. “I thought you might get a kick out of it.” Not for one second did he, as he fiddled with the telescope, lose sight of Kitty, who was unwrapping the little jewel box. She held up the slipper, gave him her dry sideways Lippo Lippi look, tucked in the corner of her mouth, and nodded half a millimeter. His knee leapt out of joint. What was it about this splendid but by no means extraordinary girl which knocked him in the head and crossed his eyes like Woody Woodpecker?
    Jamie’s bed was strewn with neckties and books—three people had given him the same funny book