Thomas Mcguane: The Cadence of Grass

IN MOST WAYS, old man Whitelaw’s funeral was just another scene in the family’s life. Paul Crusoe, estranged from Whitelaw’s daughter Evelyn, a strong young woman with black hair that hung straight to her collar, was led to his mother-in-law’s sitting room by Evelyn herself. Mrs. Whitelaw, who could act as oblivious as someone nearly blind, sat with Evelyn’s sister, Natalie, whom Paul viewed as a high-strung, nasty girl who once caused all his problems and who for her part despised him unstintingly. On the side table was a Stockman’s Journal and a CPR handbook. Natalie smoked and looked at Paul over her raised cigarette. The red hair was certainly not genuine.

Bill Champion, an old rancher and longtime partner of the deceased, looked in briefly. He was dressed for the occasion but the clothes belonged to an earlier era. His forehead was much paler than the rest of his face and his blue eyes were startling. From the cuffs of his jacket, once part of a suit, projected hands that looked too big. He exchanged a concerned glance with Mrs. Whitelaw, then left the family alone.

“Mother, you haven’t said a word to Paul,” Evelyn said with an anxious smile once Bill was gone.

“Oh, Paul,” said Mrs. Whitelaw, seeming to awaken, “you’re so considerate to have come.” Evelyn toyed with the porcelain birds and turtles on the mantel while keeping a watchful eye on her mother.

“It’s unfathomable,” said Natalie.

Mrs. Whitelaw turned slowly toward her.

“ I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Whitelaw blindly toward Paul. “Jim and Paul had so much in common, an adventurous spirit! So suspicious of everything too,” she said. “It made the rest of us or dinary people feel we were in a wonderf—”

“A wonderful play,” said Natalie.

“—ful whodunnit. But Paul, Father was much saddened by your divorce—”

“Saddened, illuminated, chastened,” said Natalie. “Where are we going with this?”

“I liked you better when you were on drugs,” Paul whispered to Natalie.

Natalie had recently graduated from rehab in Arizona, a pleasant milieu with celebrities arriving by helicopter.

“It was not drugs,” she hissed. “It was rage. Jus tified rage . In any case, I wouldn’t have otherwise flown a thousand miles to eat from a steam table, to share a room and to wear a breezy outfit that tied in back.”

“No worries,” said Paul. “It’s behind you now, mate.”

With feverish preoccupation, Evelyn tended to her mother, refilling tea and holding a tray of cookies at eye level. In truth, she was no more prepared for her father’s funeral than she’d been for his death. And both she and her sister would soon discover how incomplete his departure had been.

“What exactly are you doing these days, Paul?” Natalie asked. “Anything illuminating for Mother at this very rough time in her life?”

“I, I—”

“Ay-yi-yi-yi? Is this the Mexican hat dance?”

“I was doing a project with… a firm — underwriters, really — doing debentures pertinent to the lumber business, or the wood products business would be more like it….” Paul knew perfectly well, if too late, that Natalie was well informed in these areas.

“ Wood products debentures ?”

“Something of a by-product of the days with those stock pickers, you remember, the small-capital and emerging- nations guys that—”

“Paul, you have no job, have you?”

“Not at the moment. Not much of anything. A bit of a day trader. I hope to return to the bottling plant.”

Evelyn moved away in embarrassment, Paul’s eyes following her.

“I’m sure you’ll find something,” said Natalie, holding her cigarette to her mouth and relighting it. “And Evelyn,” she said, turning to her sister, “I was touched by your little grimace of sympathy, your pained embarrassment at all this unease . Paul, she still cares!”

Mrs. Whitelaw’s eyes seemed to search around the room for the source of the discord. “Natalie,” she said hopelessly, knowing there was never any cautioning Natalie, whose latest fear was that she had stopped emitting pheromones.

“Perhaps we both still care,” said Paul. A touching remark, made to comfort Mrs. Whitelaw in her widowhood since neither of them cared anymore at all. It was surprising, really, that Natalie seemed to take him seriously enough to go on challenging the idea. Evelyn occasionally noted a visceral inclination toward her estranged husband, though it was not at all unmanageable.

“But all that water under the bridge! The otherwise admirable but nonmeshing complexities of character, the lack of the children, the — evidently! — dimming prospects of a nonstarter in the workplace!”

She was rolling now and Paul had her in his sights. Natalie found it difficult to listen while others were speaking, and her attention darted among trivia — silverware, matchbook covers, her napkin — practically anything in order to avoid listening. Whenever she herself spoke, she fastened on the listener’s eyes, feeling that only absolute vigilance could prevent their attention from escaping.

“Natalie,” Paul interrupted, “when you were on drugs, at least there was the initial euphoria. Perhaps we were insufficiently appreciative of that during the days of rage when you sought to recapture the original high. And certainly we remained unaware of the depth of your situation until you installed the cat door at your apartment so as to receive packages from your connection without burdensome conversations.”

Natalie smiled at this recollection. “That was good, wasn’t it?”

It was a sincere question, and reluctantly Paul’s admiration of Natalie came back. They’d once had what she called quality sex, and perhaps its lingering tonalities were what now gave Evelyn such a lost look. She had been thrilled to be rid of Paul but would have preferred dumping him more felicitously than upon her own sister, who gave him an entirely too greedy welcome.

Mrs. Whitelaw, having fled the present scene into her own thoughts, capitalized on this first real pause to steer the conversation elsewhere, whether they liked it or not. The three of them knew ahead of time that what followed would be an analogue every bit as opaque as the most ancient aphorism.

“Explain this to me,” Mrs. Whitelaw said with a certain eagerness. “I read in the Chronicle that a boat speeding down the Sewanee River — the Sewanee River! — hit a wave made by a water-skier and flew right through the window of a second-story condominium! Paul, you tell the girls and me: How can these things happen?”

“Mrs. Whitelaw, I—”

“Surely you know Stephen Foster’s Way Down Upon the Sewanee River !”

Natalie left the cigarette dangling from her lips. “Mama, evidently times have changed way down upon the Sewanee—”

“How on earth does a speedboat fly into the second story of a condominium?”

“I don’t know,” Paul said as though genuinely puzzled. Actually, he was staring at the old Harry Winston choker bedecking Mrs. Whitelaw’s bosom, wondering how it would fare in a death tax appraisal. All of them thought Mrs. Whitelaw had finished her venture in analogies, but in this they were not correct.

“According to the same issue of the Chronicle, a chicken, a pet, escapes its hutch in Greeley, Colorado, and walks forty miles to the other side of Denver through traffic, strip malls, gas stations, parking lots, followed everywhere by rumors and news reports. At one point they had a helicopter looking for this chicken, and the owner, an older gal, a waitress, trudged and rode and followed the rumor trail until fate brought this chicken to bay in the parking lot of Blockbuster Video! There — and this just makes me want to bawl — it was reunited with the old waitress. Who was no dope, because before she even fed that worn-out bird which I saw on TV and which looked like a piece of rag, before she’d even given this poor broken little thing a dish of water, she sold the film rights to Hollywood! No wonder my husband was ready to go!”