Thomas McGuane - The Sporting Club

“Piggy,” said Stanton, “I’ve watched you.”

“I’ve watched you,” Quinn said, “through an unrewarding month.”

“Come own,” said Earl, joining them. “Eat something!”

“I couldn’t possibly, Earl,” Stanton said. Earl had a substantial gobbet on the end of his cooking fork. He looked upon Stanton with devotion. “I have to watch Quinn and see that he doesn’t get artificially elated.” Lu giggled and pushed her baby fingers into Quinn’s ribs. Stanton looked at her and Janey turned away.

Five minutes later, when the sound of the motorcycle had stopped without the machine’s reappearing, Quinn tilted the can up precisely so that the acrid beer ran thinly over his teeth. He could see Lu over the arc of the can. He tried: “You want to see if we can find Bobby and the other one?” One of those timed silences that try the heart followed.

“Okay.”

The spoor of the Harley was clear down the face of the hill; feather-shaped blades of earth turned up, smashed twigs and ferns down to a broad skid mark in soft ground and a place where the rear wheel had dug in half a foot and the exhaust had scorched and withered the foliage behind. Lu made downhill use of Quinn’s arm and when he kissed her hotly she ran her hands up and down him in three-foot swipes saying, “Darling!” But when he tried to delay she insisted they press on. Quinn wasn’t interested. So Lu took the lead, scouting forward into the brush ahead where the trail was still clear, bulled and busted through the tag alders downward. Now the light was quite diminished because the trees behind were west of them. The trail leveled into dried-out lowlands and a meadow of dead cattails waving stiffly in the slight wind. It looked as if the motorcycle would have been easy to manage here; the soil was flat and the cattails easy to batter down. But as though from violent impatience, the skid marks had become reckless, prolific and the cattails were slashed and battered in every direction. Twenty feet along this trail and they began hearing voices. Lu going ahead waved for silence from the already silent Quinn. He closed in alongside her and they went along Indian fashion, choosing their footing among the dry and broken stalks. In a moment, the twilight glinting of the huge motorcycle was visible through the vegetation and there was the smell of leaking gasoline harsh and unnatural in the decay of the lowland, the smell of which was sweet as yeast. Five more feet brought them the scene: the motorcycle slouched in chromium enormity, its wedge of finned cylinder heads in a calligraphy of shadow, exhausts sweeping back to the goiter bulge of mufflers and stopping at clean, beveled ends. On the great seat the fat girl knelt, naked, and holding the handlebars. Her throat was a curving arch, her face which was that of a sympathetic Irish policeman, implored the sky in silence. Her breasts were small but her stomach, full and pendant, hung toward the mirroring fuel tank of the machine. Bobby stood to one side of the clearing, also naked, smoking a cigarette and squinting in thought, holding the cigarette up close in front of his face. Presently, he stooped and rubbed it out, walked to the motorcycle and crouching on its footpegs behind her, sexually assaulted his companion who managed to keep her balance holding on only one-handed while the other hand was plunged deep into her full head of hair. She nickered.

“Now!” said Bobby, and she swung down one enormous leg adroitly, thrust the kickstarter and, as the machine roared, swung the leg back to kneel on the seat and, letting the engine return to idle calmly, crooned into the treetops.

“Now razz the pipes!” The fat girl twisted the throttle, the engine raged and Bobby’s bony frame flailed in an uncanny hucklebuck. “Now first gear!” She moved a lever, crooning. Bobby flailed. “Now pop the clutch!” Two great tulips of flame expanded suddenly and the motorcycle lurched into the brush with its strange burden, roared maniacally and died, presumably crashed or fallen over. Quinn hadn’t the heart to follow. Lu was sitting on the ground rocking back and forth and moaning. Quinn intuited that the performance had not been inspirational for her; and, perhaps, that was it: no kisses! The redeeming thing to do, he thought, would be to give her a small, fond, almost sibling, kiss. He did so and her jaw seemed to fall open a foot. Lu’s little dimpled hand was in his fly, jerking his private adroitly until it was revealed and mouthed swiftly as an hors d’oeuvre. A moment later her outer garments were in a pile and the plump little highschooler sat in real stag magazine underwear, French thrust bra and net panties with sewed-on dominoes. Then, even these were gone too. She had small, smeared breasts and, legs apart, slight ridges of flesh gathered at her hips. She hauled Quinn in, already drawing and counterthrusting with a learned voracity that caused in the confused young businessman an orgasm he thought would roll his spine like a cloth window shade. Afterward, when he sat staring, he saw Lu behind a low bush ten feet away. Only her face showed smiling sleepily; he heard a delicate whiz in the leaves. When she came back he watched her dress.

“Jimmy,” she said, bending over insanely and feeling the ground for something misplaced, “I have something to tell you.”

“You weren’t a virgin,” Quinn said.

She stood up. “Why did you know that? You can’t always tell that.”

“I was just talking,” Quinn said in the same stunned voice.

“My mother always told me to sit tight until Mr. Right popped the question.”

“I sure didn’t pop any questions.” Quinn laughed.

“Who said you were Mr. Right?” Lu tied the angora collar around her neck. She gave Quinn a little hug and said “Darling!” peremptorily. They headed for the barbecue again.

* * *

“James,” Stanton said, “you be second.”

“What for?” Bobby and the fat girl were eating grilled meat with lazy stupefied movements, both sitting on the motorcycle. Quinn wondered how they beat him back.

“Earl here called me a raunchy mother and I had to challenge him to a duel.”

“I’m ready to roll!” said Earl Olive. “Come own.”

“Don’t fall for it,” Quinn told Earl. “I’ve been shot in the face, in the chest, in the throat. He never loses.”

“He’ll lose this time.”

“No he won’t. I promise you.”

“I have handled virtually every type of pistols. Come own.”

He started off, Stanton skipping beside him. Quinn followed. Janey passed him and joined Stanton, glancing back reproachfully at Quinn who wondered if it was for not having been more effective against Stanton. Then suddenly Lu took his hand in her baby fingers. She looked up with yearning and said, “Before, I was down in the dumps. Now I feel real excellent.”

“That makes me feel good,” Quinn said. She pressed her face to his arm a moment.

“Know what else? You’re cute. Know that? You’re cute as a bug!”

* * *

Quinn watched the loading of the guns, a pair of drab English horse pistols of the eighteenth century. When Stanton said that the wax bullets were only to indicate the winner, Quinn went into details; and when Stanton poured double charges Quinn argued. Olive was not impressed. Quinn warned Olive to protect himself and then began the counting. At ten, Earl Olive whirled into a gunfighter’s posture, feet wide apart, crablike, left arm crooked out parallel to the ground, the gun low and forward and the face thrust toward the elegant Stanton in fatal invitation. He fired just an instant before Stanton who, Quinn now well knew, held his fire. Stanton, left hand on his hip, was untouched; he then shot and connected with Earl Olive who screamed and whirled, holding his face. The pistol slipped from between his hands and fell onto the floor spinning. Earl’s hand came down from his face. His nose was broad and bleeding. He began to stalk Stanton who, without looking at him, carefully hung the horse pistol in the cabinet, turned back as Earl Olive swung wide, missing him, lunged and missed again as Stanton danced away. When Earl Olive recovered himself, Stanton jabbed out flat, leaning very slightly forward at the waist, the right hand crimped up close, and centered Earl Olive’s face with a terrible sound. Olive groaned and swung wildly. Stanton stepped into the blow, taking it on the shoulder in order to swing deeply and heavily into Earl’s stomach so that he went right down onto the hard floor, his wind knocked out, making his lungs rake to regain it. Earl Olive lay in complete physical defeat, the side of his face pressed against the floor, his knees drawn up, his hair splashed out from his still head. Quinn’s ears rang and he went to the stairs. He looked back at Vernor’s wondering face, his hands plunged deep in his pockets. He felt then that Stanton was only bad.