Thomas McGuane - Panama

“Did Catherine stay on the other day after I left?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but it was kind of nothing, kind of flippant, kind of see-you-next-time.”

“Everybody was confused after you nailed yourself up. I wasn’t impressed with that particular lulu by the way.”

I don’t know what I cared to do at that moment. I really hadn’t come for any but the described reasons. Which was not to say that Marcelline wasn’t a leggy, otherworldly beauty, trailing her dubious dreams and pastel whoredom like a pretty kite.

When she picked up the phone, it seemed it could have been for anything. But she called Catherine. I felt immediately embarrassed, as though I had stressed the acquaintanceship with Marcelline into something I hadn’t any right to. She told Catherine that I’d come over and been most, even more than, distinctly, a gentleman; but how would it be, now be honest, if she and I did get it on. It was perfectly all right with Catherine and I cannot pretend that that didn’t hurt my feelings. I was worrying over things I hadn’t cared about in years.

“Having it happen like this,” I said, still staring at the now inert and cradled black phone, “is flat strange.”

“I’ve got a nice little cunt you’re gonna be just crazy about.”

“Fine, if I can. For years, I have to tell you, the only thing that excited me was to have someone fake an orgasm.”

“Do you have a problem?”

“Just with suddenness.”

“How about with guys?”

“I don’t with guys.”

“Scares you?”

“It’s not there. Or I’d act it out. But I’m glad somebody likes it, so a possibility doesn’t go to waste.”

She was sitting in front of me, and put her hand up inside herself thoughtless as she talked. I considered the wonder of the things that befell me, convinced that my life was the best omelet you could make with a chain saw.

Marcelline tugged her top off and really started fooling with my mind. She loved herself and that just does it to me, pride of that kind.

She put some music on— Tejas by Z Z Top, I think, something hard — stood up, and slid out of the rest of her duds. I was transfixed, all my general views gone, everything withering to make room for the present, the furious rifle vision which riddles everything, that madhouse of what seems like a good idea at the time.

I had come with the flowers in addition to my usual maladies, been touched, and now found myself just as addled as thrilled. My mental focus left like water for her to swim in; and suddenly we were on the floor and she was slipping away and I’m thinking, I can settle this. And then I thought about Catherine and how it could be when it was with someone you loved. This was the girl from the storm cellar.

She said, “You’ve got premature ejaculator written all over you.” I glanced into mid-air.

I felt completely there for it; but the feeling of the inside of her ran up spreading through me like swallowing hot soup upside down. I looked down, as I do, and thought, as I am afraid I do, that she couldn’t get away. But she had some little movement that ought to be against the law. And I was grateful, wondering where my old vanity had gone, when it was always my benificence that I thought was on the line, not these glorious collisions. The earlier theater between Marcelline and me evaporated and it all grew dead serious; and probably, objectively, maybe even a trifle grotesque, as in knotty and wet and uncoordinated.

About then Catherine walked in.

She said, “I’m just so sorry but I can’t help it and I don’t know but I’m hurt.” And began to cry. I rolled back. Marcelline stood up, that preening quality gone so that she looked a little gawky with defeated breasts and foolishly decorated cheeks. As for me, I felt elegant. I hadn’t forced or even thought about the possibility of this disclosure except when hurt at her handing out permission. Now I was flattered and happy and wanted to take these lovely women to dinner and use my genius, which I have, to make them happy.

“Do you feel betrayed?” Marcelline asked Catherine.

“It’s just that this spastic cocksucker was once my old man and I’ve got some reactions left.”

I said, “I love you.”

“Well, I can’t begin to process that.”

Marcelline said, “He’s all right to fuck.”

“Yeah,” said Catherine, “I tried it and you shut up about it. There’s something inside of him nobody can face.” I wanted to know what that was, though I suspected that my enormous evasions had culminated in some ghastly suck hole. Still, I had faced a lot. The occupational hazard of making a spectacle of yourself, over the long haul, is that at some point you buy a ticket too.

Marcelline looked distressed. She said, “I feel like sewing it shut.”

“I just had to go and spoil it,” said Catherine.

“He’s been real wholesome. You could take him anywhere.”

“Ever see him with his teeth out?” Catherine asked.

“Huh-uh.”

“Take your teeth out, champ.”

I did.

Marcelline said, “Jesus Fucking Christ.”

Catherine shouldn’t have asked me to do that. I was tempted to get creepy. I feel not the same with my teeth out and I look frightful and as if I had nothing to lose.

Catherine headed for the john and Marcelline sat in front of me and touched my legs. Catherine shouted, “Get your hands off him. If necessary, I’ll ball him.”

“Don’t say ‘ball’!” said Marcelline.

“Please be friends,” I said.

“We are, in spite of you.”

“I didn’t try to make trouble.”

“Cath, we had your blessing,” said Marcelline.

“I know, sweetie, but I wasn’t here and my mind was acting up and now the animal knows I’m still carrying this torch.”

“Why shouldn’t I know?”

“Because depraved perverts misuse personal information.”

“Would it help if I put my clothes on?” I asked.

“No, think of yourself as an Arab tent boy. Oh, you are a lovely man.”

“He is.”

“But finally you’re not good. You don’t like people, you like mobs. You’re a lovely mob-loving rotter.”

I ruefully watched Marcelline dress. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ve lost interest. Why don’t you all let me be for now. The both of you, ándale! Call me from El Paso.”

So then, Catherine and I were walking down the street again like old times and I was happy. Even the bus fumes smelled good. A filling station had become a Cuban sandwich shop overnight and I was vastly charmed by that. And it seemed bracing that Marcelline had thrown us both out, the little whore.

“Well, how did you like it?”

“Whussat?” I asked absently.

“The nooky.”

“Oh, good, great, very nice indeed.” I was running this on savoir faire. Catherine was irate and I was completely happy over it. “You seem displeased. It’s a trifle.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Every Thursday this marine biologist and I meet and fuck around the clock. Are you happy for me?”

“I’ve been murdered.”

Here was one of my vices, but I’m bored without them.

Catherine was strong and smart. I loved her and she was the only thing I couldn’t have. I knew that what she claimed to see inside me was actually there. She is not a liar. I am both a liar and a forgetter. Moreover, I feel it in there, a streak of something that’s never gotten any satisfaction.

I used to believe that if I really blew my gourd with ladies, such things would be worked out in little-theater form. Somebody called it the twitching of three abdominal nerves. Who knows.

I was carrying her down the street in my arms with my tongue in her ear. She made me put her down. I took out my teeth and gaped at pedestrians. It was all like before and I had a girlfriend.