Thomas McGuane - Nothing but Blue Skies

He put a Lean Cuisine in the microwave and turned it on. He switched on the radio, always set on the oldies station, and found, to his satisfaction, a Youngbloods retrospective in progress. The crooner Jesse Colin Young seemed to speak directly to him from the darkness while he opened his mail. What’s this? Eastman Kodak was going to buy the rest of Amerilite Diagnostics Ltd.? I didn’t even fucking see that coming! Weren’t these the pukes that said, ‘Keep it simple, stupid’? Frank hated the sense that if he took his eyes off these birds for so much as a day, they pulled something on him.

The phone rang.

“Mr. Copenhaver?”

“Yes?”

“This is Gladys Pankov from the city planning office. I also represent the Preservation League in my capacity as planner and secretary.”

“Right?”

“I was wondering — is this possible? — if you could clarify something for me about the Kid Royale Hotel. We had hoped that some program for its restoration were in place. But we’ve just received the oddest notice at the planning office.”

“Okay, now I’m with you. My mind was elsewhere. Kodak is on some kind of acquisitions tear. Now, yeah, okay, uh … no, that’s no longer the plan.”

“It’s not?”

Frank thought he knew what was coming. “Are you calling to tell me that exciting new grants are now available for this kind of work?”

“No, actually, I was running down a rumor.”

“It’s going to be a chicken ranch,” said Frank sharply.

“Yes, that was it. Well, just a couple of questions, then. Did you know that one of the rooms was the suite of William Tecumseh Sherman?”

“Sure, the guy that killed all the Indians. That’s a big room all right, hold a lot of chickens.”

“Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill stayed there, George Armstrong Custer, three of the original Vigilantes —”

“If I’m not mistaken,” Frank interrupted, “they’re all dead. So, there’s plenty of room for the chickens. Look, I hate to be short with you, but I’m nuking a cannelloni.” He got off the phone and felt his scalp. He thought about Gracie. It would be tempting to rage against women. Endless destruction around the world. Back to Helen, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth. Mad scientists. He investigated his paper. Poinsettia white flies devastate two agricultural counties in California. Is it men who are so crazy about poinsettias that they want to mail them to friends in California? Blaming the victims? The victims are lovely California vegetables with lethal bugs lodged in their vitals. They and their consumers, people from — one of Frank’s favorite phrases — all walks of life.

That night when he lay down, instead of thinking about his loneliness or $$nence of certain foreclosures, he thought about the gap between short-term and long-term interest rates, the yields on two-year Treasury notes. Frank Copenhaver was sinking into a chicken-driven destiny. If he could just get back on his feet, he was going wide open into biotech firms. Their names helped him drift off: Regeneron, MedImmune, Genentech, Alkermes, Glycomed, Isis …

Mike was there at daybreak. He brought Frank his paper and some breakfast from Hardee’s in a nice white bag with a hot slick spot on its side. Frank was still in the shower, letting the hot water stream against the stiff back of his neck while he made several plans for the day. He could see out the window the swimming shapes of cars in the street, and when he finished his shower, he rubbed a small circle in the steam and looked below the house to see who was parked there. It was Mike’s Country Squire. For some reason, looking out over the town from this perspective, he thought how much more interesting it would be if they were involved in a war here — tanks in the streets, partisans lobbing grenades into cellars or, best of all, the lust to wipe everything out and start over again. This need for a war was pretty basic, he suspected. His lousy little town had never had one. The closest it had come to a siege of Vicksburg were a few slapping matches around election time.

So, Mike was here. Mike had never taken a big chance and he would never take a big fall, but he had his virtues. He was a deeply loyal person, blindly loyal, a beautiful trait in a country whose salad bars sold lettuce by weight, a country whose true spiritual leader was Benedict Arnold. Frank could never get in a schoolyard fight when Mike was around; because if he should lose, Mike, big and fat and strong already, would jump on the victor and pound him to a pulp. At another time, Frank would have to have the fight all over again, this time collapsing under the blows of a deeply indignant adversary. Mike was straight and clear regarding Gracie. It was part of having an opinion about everything, and every opinion a function of team spirit. He was a Copenhaver and she was a treacherous flooze.

By the time Frank got downstairs, Mike had made bacon and eggs to go with the stuff from Hardee’s and had put everything on the table. He was feeding himself with one hand and holding an open hand to the chair opposite him for Frank to sit down.

Frank sat. “My teeth are fine,” he said. “I’m sure that’s why you’re here.”

Mike gave him a mirthless grin as if to say, “Very funny, Frank.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

“They’re a little sensitive to cold, but that’s not so unusual.”

“Frank —”

“I had that onslaught of cavities spring before last, and a little gum recession.”

“Frank —”

“You let that flossing go for one day and it might be a long time before you get back to it. Then what do you have? Bleeding, sore gums, the prospects of —”

“Frank, please stuff something in your fucking mouth.” Silence from Frank. “Thank you. Now, didn’t I make you a nice breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t I a nice brother, with your well-being always in mind as a fellow Copenhaver?”

“Yes, you are, Mike. And I have come to accept your dogged conservatism as a desire to build a world on the basis of those models we once shared together: Lego, Lincoln Logs and the immortal Erector Set.”

“You’ve lost none of your acid wit, I see,” said Mike. “The acid may be rising in proportion to the wit, but it’s still pretty much all there.”

“I appreciate that. Compliments haven’t been showering of late.”

“It’s really no wonder. It’s hard for people to look on at an innovative businessman who abruptly decides to commit economic suicide.”

“Are you referring to risk management here?” asked Frank.

“I’m referring to the talk of the town.”

“You haven’t seen how it’s going to turn out.”

“How’s it going to turn out, Frank?”

“A chicken in every pot, for one thing.”

“Yeah, I just heard about that one. Frank, do you realize I love you?”

“Thank you, Mike.”

“It occurred to me that perhaps you have concluded no one loves you.”

“I suppose I had had that thought, Mike,” said Frank. “But thank you for loving me.”

“You know, just because some opportunistic whore sees a brighter light over somebody else’s driveway doesn’t mean you have to give up on having a coherent life.”

“Mike, please.”

“And think about your beautiful Holly.”

“I do. But that’s not simple either. You know she’s been seeing Lane Lawlor.”

“I knew that. But so what? She’ll come around.”

“I hope so. And so will I. Yes, my boy. Rest your little head. I’ll come out of this thing in a blizzard of deposit slips.”

“Frank —”

“I know.”

“Frank —”

“I know, I’m doing what I can. There’s a slight fog over the target, sure to clear.”