The Last Gentleman

engineer and Kitty about rumors of a Negro student coming on campus next week. It was part of the peculiar dispensation of the pantry that Son Junior could speak about this “nigger” without intending an offense to David. Rita looked sternly at Son—who was in fact dull enough to tell David about the “nigger.”
    Sutter sat alone at the blue bar. The engineer had come in late and missed whatever confrontation had occurred between Sutter and Rita. Now at any rate they sat thirty feet apart, and Rita’s back was turned. Sutter appeared to take no notice and sat propped back in a kitchen chair, whiskey in hand and face livid in the buzzing blue light. The family did not so much avoid Sutter as sequester him in an enclave of neutral space such as might be assigned an afflicted member. One stepped around him, though one might still be amiable. “What you say, Sutter,” said Lamar Thigpen as he stepped up to the bar to fix a drink.
    Kitty got Son off the subject by asking him what band would play for the Pan-Hellenic dance. Later Kitty whispered to the engineer, “Are you going to take me?”
    â€œTake you to what?”
    â€œThe Pan-Hellenic.”
    â€œWhen is it?”
    â€œSaturday night after the Tennessee game.”
    â€œWhat day is this?”
    â€œThursday, stupid.”
    â€œJamie wants to go somewhere.” He was thinking gloomily of standing around at a dance for seven hours drinking himself cross-eyed while Kitty danced the night away. “Where do you want to go, Jamie?”
    But Jamie wouldn’t tell Kitty.
    â€œSon asked me to go with him,” said Kitty.
    â€œIsn’t he your nephew?”
    â€œNot really. Myra is no kin. She is Poppy’s stepdaughter by another marriage.”
    â€œYou still can’t go with Son.”
    â€œWhy not!” she cried, widening her eyes. Since she had become a coed, Kitty had given up her actress’s lilt for a little trite sorority cry which was made with her eyes going away. She wore a cashmere sweater with a tiny gold sorority dagger pinned over her breast.
    â€œI’m telling you, you can’t.” It actually made him faint to think of Kitty going anywhere with Son Junior, who was a pale glum fornicator, the type who hangs around the men’s room at a dance, patting himself and talking about poontang.
    â€œWhy not? ”—eyes going away again but not before peeping down for a glimpse of her pin.
    â€œHe’s a bastard.”
    â€œShh! He likes you.”
    He did. Son had discovered through intricate Hellenistic channels that the engineer had been a collegiate middleweight and had not lost a fight. “We’re strong in everything but boxing,” he had told the engineer, speaking of the Phi Nu’s campus reputation. The engineer agreed to go out for boxing and golf. And during some hazing horseplay Son had told one of the brothers to take it easy with this one—“he can put your ass right on the Deke front porch with a six-inch punch.” And so he had attached himself to the engineer with a great glum Greek-letter friendship.
    Now once again Son came close, sidling up and speaking at length while he twirled his Thunderbird keys. It was the engineer’s bad ear, but as best he could tell, Son was inviting him to represent the pledge class at a leadership conference next summer at the fraternity headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. “They always have outstanding speakers,” Son told him. “This year the theme is Christian Hellenism.”
    â€œI really appreciate it, Son,” said the engineer.
    â€œLook, Kitty,” he said when Son drifted off. He took off his own pledge pin. “Why don’t you wear mine?” It was a great idea. He had only recently discovered that being pinned was a serious business at the university, the next thing to an engagement ring. If she wore his pin, Son wouldn’t take her to the dance.
    â€œWill you take me to the dance?”
    â€œYes. If Jamie doesn’t veto it. I promised to go with him.”
    â€œDon’t worry about Jamie.”
    As he watched, she pinned his gold shield to the same lovely soft blue mount, oh for wantonnesse and merrinesse, thought he tenderly and crossed his good knee over bad lest it leap through the card table.
    Jamie punched him. He was angry because they were not paying attention to the game of hearts (here is my heart, thought the engineer