Thomas Mcguane: The Cadence of Grass

“Still, Mrs. Whitelaw,” said Paul, who had rarely been this mentally bankrupt, “there’s so much to be thankful for.”

“Oh, Paul,” said Natalie with contempt and pity as Mrs. Whitelaw belly laughed and pulled a handkerchief from her reticule with which to undampen her eyes.

Evelyn, looking on, recalled feeling that Paul Crusoe had never really been ready for this family. This sort of customary byplay between Paul and the sisters was nothing new and not nearly as resonant as it would become after Jim Whitelaw’s will was read. For now, they lived on in a fool’s paradise, brought together as a family by the apparently complete lack of feeling for the deceased.

Earlier, at the funeral itself, Mrs. Whitelaw, seated next to Paul during the long and tiresome service, wanted to know a few things about him; sotto voce, like a conspirator, she seemed not to be thinking about her husband at all.

“Were you a Boy Scout, Paul?”

“No.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered when you were young, of course, but the Boy Scouts are in hot water with the queers. It was in the Chronicle . Can you tell me briefly, Paul, why your marriage to Evelyn failed so suddenly? And be sure to make it brief.”

“It wasn’t sud—”

“It was the lack of children, wasn’t it?”

“Actually, we—”

“I have no right to make these sorts of guesses, Paul. Other people’s lives, even your own children’s, are a com plete mystery.”

“Actually, we bo—”

“What’s that?”

“We bored each other!”

“Don’t raise your voice to me, Paul. Do you need money?”

“Not yours.”

“Whatever could you mean by that?” Mrs. Whitelaw turned her attention to the service. “Isn’t there going to be some sort of music?”

“I have no idea.”

Paul’s mother, Dr. Edith Crusoe, a Westernist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, chose this moment for a quiet arrival. She was not to stay for long. Indeed, she remained in her mackintosh, whose wide lapels rose around her ears as she sat quizzically regarding the coffin, her face lively and discontented. She murmured something that caused Alice Whitelaw to smile in modest gratitude, nodded rather formally to her son and snubbed Evelyn entirely.

Evelyn understood that had Dr. Crusoe not found something thematic in the funeral, something emblematic about low rainfall, say, she wouldn’t have come at all. Evelyn surmised that as her father had owned a bottling plant Dr. Crusoe may have viewed him as an oligarch of moisture hoarding, and she imagined the passage wherein the descendants of mammoth hunters are bludgeoned into an ecological black hole by waves of coercive white men on horseback wielding Coca-Cola bottles. Partisan hyperbole had made Dr. Crusoe not just a professor but a public intellectual in the Northern Rockies, but Evelyn’s views of her were unreasonable. She had never married and Paul was her only child. When the priest began to speak of the deceased and the meaning of his life, Dr. Crusoe rose sharply to her feet and departed, the crown of her head barely visible above the lapels of her coat.

The priest addressed his remarks to the coffin. Having not listened to anything until now, Paul and Mrs. Whitelaw found this completely baffling. Evelyn was discomfited to recognize in the sermon whole passages from that year’s Farmers’ Almanac .

“I see where they’ve made another movie about the Titanic ,” said Mrs. Whitelaw.

“That’s right,” Paul said, his eyes widening.

“What can they possibly add?”

“This time it floats,” he said wearily.

“Oh, Paul, I find your humor rather extreme.”

“Pay attention to your husband’s funeral,” he snapped. Mrs. Whitelaw looked at him, then suddenly crumpled and began sniveling into her handkerchief.

“This is what it feels like to be doomed,” she said miserably.

“Oh, Mrs. Whitelaw, I’m so sorry.”

“You will look after me, won’t you, Paul?” Later he would wonder if her remark contained some premonition.

“Yes, Mrs. Whitelaw.”

“I was doing so well, so detached—”

“Yes.”

“Remarkably well, in view of circumstances. Now it is all falling, falling, falling, falling.” Knowing that it would be only a short time before Mrs. Whitelaw was on the muscle again, Paul attempted to hold and comfort her, a dismal exercise. “What a shame we’re losing you to our family, Paul. I’m glad Jim wasn’t quite aware of it, he was so enfeebled toward the end, always with a hat on his head. Never wore a hat during his life unless it was dangerously cold out, but at the end it was always these awful red watch caps. He looked homeless. Perhaps when people reach that point they are homeless, aren’t they, Paul? Are they finished up there?”

It looked as though they were. The priest had just finished saying something and had clasped his hands. It must have been something very good about heaven for him to chance such a puckish demeanor. But no, good God; he was addressing Mrs. Whitelaw, who hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “I hope my words weren’t inadequate, Mrs. Whitelaw. I remember Jim’s opinion on long speeches all too well.”

She gazed at him as though he were a pesky employee.

“That’s not just Jim,” said Mrs. Whitelaw with sudden authority. “That’s the way the whole world feels.”

The family was obliged to meet over and over again just to understand how the estate was to be probated because the last will and testament of the deceased was a “minefield,” according to the attorney who drafted it. The daughters were so fixated on the attorney’s dramatic hairdo that they often couldn’t remember his name, but they recognized the will as pure Sunny Jim Whitelaw, attempting to bind his family to his wishes from beyond the grave. Alice was bequeathed a living from the bottling plant, of which Paul was appointed president and chief operating officer, at a handsome salary. Not a guaranteed red cent for anyone else. A provision, however, existed for the alteration of the conditions thus imposed. Should Paul and Evelyn cancel their plans for divorce, the profits of the business could be shared among all family members, or it could be sold and the proceeds divided. In any event, while it wouldn’t make any of them wealthy, a degree of comfort and security was probable if, as the obnoxious attorney suggested, they behaved themselves. Natalie’s husband, Stuart, said that the will reminded him of the Iron Maiden. Natalie called it proof of her father’s hatred and emitted penetrating howls in the chambers of the probate judge. Stuart gave her a calming shoulder rub. Evelyn exhaled and said, “Ooh, boy,” as her intention to divorce Paul was the single greatest act of defiance she had ever directed at her father. Paul had, through the confidences of Sunny Jim, known all along that if he stayed in the marriage, stayed in the family business, he could be reasonably expected to keep his trap shut. He had a copy of the will and put the cash-flow schematics in his wallet as though they were real money. Alice Whitelaw said that she felt secure and offered loans to her children. Knowing what a cheapskate she was, this provided scarce comfort to anyone; and when Paul gave her a congratulatory pat on the back, Evelyn heaved a sigh of heartfelt disgust.

The probate judge, a decent old man with snow white hair, found himself agitated by all the ill will and complication in this family. While offering them formal best wishes and the ongoing availability of his advice, he quietly and desperately hoped he never saw these people again, then darted off like a fugitive, describing the situation to the first colleague he ran into as “a chandelle off a shithouse.”