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The Mercy Killing: A Love Story by Richard Brautigan

by Walker Percy

This is a beautiful hut where Rima and I live in Mexico.

I am lying here with Rima looking at the air roots of the banyan tree, which honor the air and the earth they are rooted in. The banyan tree is like a cathedral.

I can see one of Rima's breasts. Incredible! Her yellow hair is entangled in the hammock like the banyan air roots. Fantastic!

Rima and I run an art gallery for American artists living in Mexico who can't sell their art anywhere else. We live and keep the paintings in a large 'dobe room which is nice and simple.

Shy people bring us their paintings. Rima and I dress in a simple friendly way. We smile. People feel better when they see us.

A little old lady from Sausalito brings us a painting of an old Mexican dozing in his serape under a sombrero. His hands are gnarled. She hands it to me as if it were the "Mona Lisa".

I accept it reverently. "What a wonderful painting! We don't have a painting like this in the entire gallery!"

She smiles for the first time in 40 years. Her painting is as precious to me as it is to her. All paintings are precious. There is nothing that is not precious.

One day another old lady came to see us, driving up in a Mark III. She is not poor. She is rich. She is not shy. She is not a painter. She is Rima's mother from Portland. Not nice! On the contrary. Bad! She does not like the paintings or Mexico or the banyan tree or me. She wants Rima to come back to Oregon and finish out her junior year abroad from Gonzaga U. She threatens to cut off Rima's monthly check. Besides that, she has a great flaming red tumor of the jaw and a voice like erupting Popocatepetl.

"Gee, Rima," I say. "We've got to do something."

"Yes", says Rima. "She's got to go. She is suffering and is causing others to suffer. We would be doing her a favor to --"

"Yes, but we can't have it done in Mexico. It's against the law. We'll have to cross the border."

So we took Rima's mother to Los Angeles. I did not like Los Angeles. The basic theme of Los Angeles is old folks and Pontiacs. The air smelled of old folks and Pontiacs.

At the ecological-medical center the doctor agreed that Rima's mom was a drag on herself to say nothing of others. The Mark III wasn't doing anybody any good either.

"That'll be $250," said the doc.

I only had $200. I slipped him the 200. He shrugged and took it. He was tired but dedicated-looking.

Even Rima's mom agreed. She gave me the keys to the Mark III and got in the wheelchair. She is nice after all.

"WOW," said an intern, catching sight of Rima who is 40-20-40. The nurses in the hospital were beautiful but Rima made them invisible.

I took Rima's hand. We went out into the California murk like lost children.

We are back in Mexico under the banyan tree. A shy little old lady from Michigan City, Ind., brings me a painting of the Taxco cathedral. I take it as reverently as if it were El Greco's "Toledo".

"We've never seen a painting like this," I tell her.

She smiles. She is happy. I have made her happy.

Rima smiles from the hammock. I see one of her breasts. Fantastic!


The New York Times Book Review (June 6, 1971)