The Thanatos Syndrome

decided to become a woman, but not entirely seriously. Having failed at marriage, she has succeeded in farming and doctoring and has discovered that succeeding at anything is a trick, a lark. She’s enjoying herself. She is also exhilarated by my failure and disgrace. Now she can “take care” of me with her brisk tugs and brushings. We are kin; I am old enough to be her father, yet she’s more like a mother, might any moment spit on her thumb and smooth my eyebrows. She feels safe and can give herself leave with me.
    She cocks her head. “Are you coming out to Pantherburn this afternoon?”
    â€œIf you want me to.”
    â€œDo you remember coming out to Pantherburn years ago and examining my uncle? and committing him to Mandeville? when he was hiding out in the woods or the attic and wouldn’t talk to anyone?”
    â€œYes. How is he?”
    â€œHe’s all right. I remember how you talked to him and got him to talk. I remember how you listened to him. You looked as if you knew everything there was to know about him.”
    â€œAs it turned out I didn’t, did I?”
    She cocks her head. “You know what?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI think you got yourself in trouble on purpose.”
    â€œWhy would I do that?”
    â€œI think you wanted out of here, even if it meant going to prison. It wasn’t bad, was it?”
    â€œI’m glad to be out. I’ve got to go now.”
    â€œI know. To Father Placide about your old friend Father Smith.”
    â€œYou seem to know what’s going on around here.”
    â€œAnd you seem not to.”
    â€œMaybe you’d better tell me.”
    â€œAbout Bob Comeaux? He wants Mrs. LaFaye’s place, her horses and probably her money, and will even take Mrs. LaFaye to get them.”
    â€œYou told me that. What does he want from Father Placide?”
    She explains patiently. “It’s no secret. Bob Comeaux wants to buy old St. Margaret’s—you know, where Father Smith’s hospice is, or was. He wants it for a private nursing home, a real moneymaker, you know. Actually that building would be a marvelous investment. Imagine a hundred nuns living out there! And it just so happens the hospice has folded up and Father Smith has too, he’s not at all well. The bishop would like to get rid of it, he needs the money. Placide would like to get rid of it so Father Smith can come back and help him with the parish. You’re supposed to talk Father Smith out of the fire tower and into coming back to St. Michael’s. Then the bishop can sell the place to Bob Comeaux and everybody will be happy. Do you understand?”
    â€œNo.” I am thinking about the déjà vu. I think I know what it was about. It was about cars, women, girls, youth, the past, the old U.S.A., about remembering what it was like to be sitting in a car with a girl swiveled around to face you, her bare knee cocked up on the vinyl, with four wheels under you, free to go anywhere, to the Gulf Coast, to Wyoming. It, the déjà vu, came from the smell of hot Chevy metal and vinyl and seat stuffing tingling in the nostrils and radiating up into the hippocampus of the old brain and into the sights and sounds of the new cortex, which gathers into itself a forgotten world, bits and pieces of cortical memory like old snapshots scattered through an abandoned house.
    I rise. She takes hold of my lapel again. “You come on out to Pantherburn later. I have something to show you. I know you can come. Your wife’s gone.”
    I laugh. “I’m not surprised. You know everything else.”
    â€œYou don’t have much luck with women, do you?”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œNothing. Only that you could use somebody right now to look after you.”
    â€œAnd you’re going to look after me.”
    â€œSomebody had better.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    â€œYou’re a mess. Look at you. You may be smart, but you’re a mess.”
    â€œThat’s true.”
    â€œEat your BLT. I put it and the Coke in your car.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œEat.”
    She grabs my lapel again, both lapels. We are almost face to face.
    â€œYou’re coming out to Pantherburn later?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’ve got an idea.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHow many cases have you got of this—ah—syndrome?”
    â€œOh, a dozen, I guess.”
    â€œCould