The Second Coming

He had a large high abdomen. From a wide black cartridge belt a heavy revolver in a holster was suspended. The belt crossed his abdomen just below its fullest part. The position of the belt and the weight of the pistol created in her a slight discomfort. She wished he would hitch up his pants. How old was he? Forty-five? Fifty-five? Sixty-five?
    She opened the spiral notebook.
    INSTRUCTIONS FROM MYSELF TO MYSELF ( PART 2)
    When you read this, you should feel better, rested at least and not so sore. Feel your jaw and your teeth. Are they sore?
    She felt her jaw and her teeth. They were sore.
    Your memory will not be good, but that varies. Test it. Do you remember your name?
    Only after I read it.
    Do you remember how old you are?
    Yes. No. Eighteen? Twenty-one?
    Do you remember how long you were in the sanatorium?
    Three years, I think. Or perhaps two. Possibly four.
    You will have forgotten most very recent events, but they should come back. You should now begin to remember events that happened long ago. What can you remember?
    I can remember skating on summer evenings. This coarse-grained sidewalk reminds me of it. I could feel the vibration come through the steel wheels and up into the bones of my legs. The concrete of the sidewalk on Prince Avenue was coarse. I would skate until it was dark enough for the lightning bugs to come out. The cement of McWhorter’s driveway was smooth and turning into it was like turning onto silk. The skate wheels were silent and my legs were still, yet I went raster and faster through the lightning bugs.
    Don’t worry. Your memory will improve. But even if it does not, it won’t matter a great deal. There is not a great deal that is worth remembering. What information you need you will find here or in your wallet.
    My own memory as I write this is far from perfect. There are, however, a few things of recent memory that you will need to know when you read this.
    One thing in particular is important. You will have to know it to know what to do next. Do you remember Miss Sally Kemp? Aunt Sally?
    No. Yes.
    She died. I found out this morning, a week before you read this.
    She left you her estate, which is much larger than anyone expected. In her will she said I was nice to her. This meant that I listened to her. Nobody else did. This is true. I, you, always listen closely to people.
    It, the estate, is some money (I don’t know how much), an island off the Georgia coast, and a piece of land with an old house on it, I think, near Linwood. Do you remember her joking about her island which was nothing but a sandspit and three pine trees and worthless unless the treasure Captain Kidd was supposed to have buried there was ever dug up and which nobody took seriously enough even to try, yet which you thought of often, not so much to get the treasure but to find it, to find a sign or a gold bug or a map?
    Treasure. Yes.
    Well, there’s no Captain Kidd’s treasure, but the Arabs want to buy it.
    The place near Linwood should not be far from where you are presently reading this.
    Find out where it is.
    Walk there.
    Move in.
    Take possession. It is yours.
    Live there.
    Don’t tell your parents or Dr. Duk where you are. They will find you soon enough.
    Don’t tell anybody where you are.
    Find a lawyer you can trust. This is a problem. I’ve thought about this a lot. Aunt Sally died at home, so the will will be probated (?) there. There will be the question of your legal competence and whether or not Mother and Father should be your guardians. I’ve thought about this a lot. You could just walk into the first lawyer’s office on the street. But it would be better to ask someone’s advice. You could ask a doctor. Go see a doctor with a minor complaint (muscle soreness—tell him you fell off a mountain, in a way you did) and ask him what lawyer he trusts.
    Don’t be angry at Father and Mother. They love you as well as they understand that word, or as well as most people love. Come to think of it, who or what do you “love”? Do you “love” them? What is “love”? I am saying the word aloud. It sounds like something dark and furry which makes a lowing sound.
    There is one thing you must not forget, or if you have forgotten, be reminded of it here and now. It is the discovery I made last week (you made? we made?). Do you remember?
    It took me (you? us?) all my life to make the discovery. Why so long? And then I (you, we) had