The Last Gentleman

one’s needs arise from a hunger for stroking and that the supreme experience is sexual intimacy.”
    â€œSexual intimacy,” said Sutter thoughtfully. He turned around suddenly. “Excuse me, but I still don’t quite see why you single me out. Why not ask Rita or Val, for example?”
    â€œI’m asking you.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know why, but I know that if you tell me I will believe you. And I think you know that.”
    â€œWell, I will not tell you,” said Sutter after a moment
    â€œWhy not?”
    Sutter flushed angrily. “Because for one thing I think you’ve come to me because you’ve heard something about me and you already know what I will say—or you think you know. And I think I know who told you.”
    â€œNo sir, that’s not true,” said the engineer calmly.
    â€œI’ll be goddamned if I’ll be a party to any such humbug.”
    â€œThis is not humbug.”
    â€œI will not tell you.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWho do you think I am, for Christ’s sake? I am no guru and I want no disciples. You’ve come to the wrong man. Or did you expect that?” Sutter looked at him keenly. “I suspect you are a virtuoso at this game.”
    â€œI was, but this time it is not a game.”
    Sutter turned away. “I can’t help you. Fornicate if you want to and enjoy yourself but don’t come looking to me for a merit badge certifying you as a Christian or a gentleman or whatever it is you cleave by.”
    â€œThat’s not why I came to you.”
    â€œWhy then?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact, to ask what it is you cleave by.”
    â€œDear Jesus, Barrett, have a drink.”
    â€œYes sir,” said the engineer thoughtfully, and he went into the kitchenette. Perhaps Kitty and Rita were right, he was thinking as he poured the horrendous bourbon. Perhaps Sutter is immature. He was still blushing from the word “fornicate.” In Sutter’s mouth it seemed somehow more shameful than the four-letter word.
    7 .
    â€œI’ve got to go,” said Jamie.
    â€œO.K. When?”
    After leaving Sutter, the engineer had read a chapter of Freeman’s R. E. Lee and was still moving his shoulders in the old body-English of correcting the horrific Confederate foul-ups, in this case the foul-up before Sharpsburg when Lee’s battle orders had been found by a Union sergeant, the paper wrapped around three cigars and lying in a ditch in Maryland. I’ll pick it up before he gets there, thought the engineer and stooped slightly.
    â€œI mean leave town,” said Jamie.
    â€œVery well. When?”
    â€œRight now.”
    â€œO.K. Where are we going?”
    â€œI’ll tell you later. Let’s go.”
    From the pantry he could look into the kitchen, which was filled with a thick ticking silence; it was the silence which comes late in the evening after the cook leaves.
    But at that moment David came over for the usual game of hearts. Rita had taken David aside for an earnest talk. In the last few days David had decided he wanted to be a sportscaster. The engineer groaned aloud. Sportscaster for Christ’s sake; six feet six, black as pitch, speech like molasses in the mouth, and he wanted to be a sportscaster.
    â€œNo,” he told David when he heard it. “Not a sportscaster.”
    â€œWhat I’m going to do!” cried David.
    â€œDo like me,” said the engineer seriously. “Watch and wait. Keep your eyes open. Meanwhile study how to make enough money so you don’t have to worry about it. In your case, for example, I think I’d consider being a mortician.”
    â€œI don’t want to be no mortician.”
    He was David sure enough, of royal lineage and spoiled rotten. He wouldn’t listen to you. Be a sportscaster then.
    Now he couldn’t help overhearing Rita, who was telling David earnestly about so-and-so she knew at CBS, a sweet wonderful guy who might be able to help him, at least suggest a good sportscasting school. Strangest of all, the sentient engineer could actually see how David saw himself as a sportscaster: as a rangy chap (he admired Frank Gifford) covering the Augusta Masters (he had taken to wearing a little yellow Augusta golf cap Son Junior gave him).
    Jamie wore his old string robe which made him look like a patient in the Veterans Hospital. While Rita spoke to David, Son Junior told the