The Second Coming

her thumbs with her tongue and smoothed his eyebrows. He was going to town.
    8
    Mr. Arnold and Mr. Ryan were lying in bed watching Search for Tomorrow. A curtain was drawn around the third bed. It seemed best to wait for a commercial break before putting his question. When it came, he turned down the volume and spoke fast.
    â€œExcuse me, but this is important.”
    The two men gazed at him.
    â€œ YOU fellows want a job?”
    They gazed at each other.
    â€œI have some property and I want it developed right,” he said, talking fast, so he wouldn’t interfere with Search for Tomorrow. “I want well-built log cabins, enough land for privacy, and gardens, and at a price young couples, singles, and retired couples can afford. Not two hundred and fifty dollars maybe but less than twenty-five thousand. Mr. Ryan here has the know-how about financing, subdividing, contracting, and so forth. And he has the crew. Mr. Arnold has the building technique. What I want is for Mr. Arnold to work with Mr. Ryan’s crew and teach them how to notch up a cabin, perhaps with more modern methods. I have plenty of timber, creek rocks, and flagstone. I’ll handle the legal work. I figure we can build and sell cabins on ten acres of land and come out fine at twenty-five thousand.” The commercial was almost over. “What do you say?”
    The two old men looked at each other.
    â€œWhereabouts we going to live?” asked Mr. Arnold.
    â€œWherever you like. Here. Or Mr. Arnold could notch up a cabin for the two of you.”
    â€œWhat, me live with that old peckerwood?” said Mr. Ryan.
    â€œHail fire,” said Mr. Arnold.
    â€œLook, I don’t care where you live. I’m making you a proposition. This is a good deal all around. We’ll incorporate—that’s one thing I know how to do—and share the profits. What do you say? Mr. Ryan, can you still get a crew?”
    â€œSlick, Tex, Tomás, and Vishnu came by to see me last week. All of them said they wished they still worked for me.”
    â€œTwo of them looked like gypsies, the other two looked like women,” said Mr. Arnold.
    â€œThey may look funny,” said Mr. Ryan, “but they can outwork niggers. How am I going to get around?” He slapped the flat sheet where his leg should have been. “I’m missing two feet and one leg.”
    â€œAny way you can. You figure it out.”
    â€œThey make cars now you can drive with your hands,” said Mr. Ryan, answering his own question.
    â€œThere you go. The corporation can afford one,” said Will Barrett. “Mr. Arnold, are you willing to teach this crew what to do?”
    â€œAll they got to do is watch me and keep out of my way. What land we talking about?”
    â€œThe Kemp property, over by the country club.”
    â€œThere’s plenty of good timber there. All you got to do is keep me in logs—and somebody to pick up on one end.”
    â€œYou willing to use cement chinking instead of river clay and hog blood?” Mr. Ryan asked the silent TV screen. Neither of the men seemed to notice that Search for Tomorrow was playing without sound.
    â€œI chinked a house on Dog Mountain with cement. Ain’t nothing wrong with cement. You just bring your boys and keep me in straight logs. We going to need some boys to get the roof up. It takes several to mortise and peg the peaks. I can’t climb no roof but I can show them how to split shingles and put the sap sides together. You going to need a forty-five-degree angle on your roof and a halfway lap to keep out leaks.”
    â€œYour roof? Whose roof?” asked Mr. Ryan. “I’ll show you some composition roofing that comes by the roll,” Mr. Ryan told the TV, “but it looks real good. I think you’ll like it. It saves labor. You’re talking about splitting shingles by hand, I mean Jesus Christ.”
    â€œIt sounds like tar paper but I’ll look at it.”
    It was a good time to leave. He turned up the volume on Search for Tomorrow.
    There was a commotion around the third bed. The curtain was pulled back. Two orderlies were trying to get an old woman onto a hospital stretcher. The woman was sitting on the edge of the bed and crying. She was no larger than a child but her ankles, clad in men’s socks, were as thick as small trees. A great vessel moved in her neck in a complex out-of-sync throbbing. Her eyes were glossy and