Thomas Mcguane - Nobody's Angel

Jack Daniels, if you please!

Knock me to my knees!

“Dan, triple up on that, would you?”

“Sure about that, Pat?”

“Damn sure. Got troubles.”

“Well, get the lady back.”

“Never had the sonofabitch. I’m just panning for gold.”

“Beats wages. Beats havin’ your thumb up your ass.”

“You haven’t dragged that triple up to me yet.”

“Not going to.”

“Oh dear …”

“Come back tonight when there’s some company to drink with.”

“Oh, piss on it. Is that how it is?”

“That’s how it is. You’re on the allotment.”

“Well, goddamn you anyway.”

“See what I mean?”

“Go fuck yourself.” The front of Patrick’s brain was paralyzed with anger.

“Tried all my life.”

“Good-bye, Dan, you sonofabitch. I’ll see you.”

Patrick pulled off into the IGA parking lot, suspended in the heat against distant mountains with a special, silly desolation. He got out and walked toward the automobiles, four rows deep, clustered around the electric glass doors with labels protecting the unwary from ramming their faces.

He squeezed between a new low Buick with wire wheels and a big all-terrain expeditionary station wagon when suddenly a great malamut — German shepherd crossbred cur arose behind the glass to roar in Patrick’s ear. He thought his heart had stopped. Then his head cleared. He leaned inches from the window: fangs rattled against the glass, spraying the inside with slobber. Patrick looked around and crawled up onto the hood, growling and knocking his own teeth against the windshield wipers. The monster tore around the interior in an evil frenzy, upending thermoses, a wicker picnic basket, a jerry can, clothing, backpacking gewgaws and a purse. Patrick clambered over the car until the beast’s eyes were rolling; then he went inside to buy a six-pack, feeling happy among the pregrown ferns, vanilla extract and Mexican party favors. The summery youngsters seemed especially healthy as they gathered around the newest rage — alfalfa sprouts — heaped cheerfully next to the weigh-out scale, plastic bags and wire ties. As if to confirm his good fortune, he went through the six-items-or-less line with nobody in front of him but without having had any success in guessing the identity of the dog owner. So he sat on the curb and tipped back a can of Rainier while he watched the expedition vehicle. He felt a criminal tickle at the base of his neck.

In a moment an extraordinarily well groomed couple came out with one bag and a magazine, the man in the lead, and went straight to the car. He opened it, yelled “MY GOD!” and quickly shut it. The beast arose once again in the windshield, revealing a vast expanse of whitening gum, and sized up his owners.

“Are you sure that’s your car?” Patrick called out in a friendly voice.

The husband whirled. “Absolutely!” he shouted. His magazine fluttered to the pavement.

“I’d let that old boy simmer down,” Patrick suggested unoffendably. The wife pertly noted that sled dogs were a little on the high-octane side.

“I can see that!” Patrick cried like a simpleton.

Something about that challenged the husband, and he pulled open the door of the car. The rabid sled dog shot between the two and landed huge and spraddled in front of Patrick, gargling vicious spit through his big, pointed white teeth.

I must be close to death, thought Patrick, feeling the Rainier run down the inside of his sleeve. I always knew death would be a slobbering animal, I knew that in Germany and I knew that upon certain unfriendly horses bucking in the rocks. It is every last thing I expected.

He did not move his eyes. The owner was coming up slowly behind the dog, murmuring the words “ Dirk, easy, Dirk ” over and over. And death passed by like a little breeze: Very slowly the lips once more encased the teeth while Dirk, double-checking his uncertain dog memory, seemed to lose his focus. The owner reached down and gently seized the collar with a cautious “Attaboy.”

“Buddy,” said the owner, “I feel real bad. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“I’d like some money,” said Patrick.

“You what?”

“Money.”

“How much money?”

“Enough for one Rainier beer in a can. And you buy it. With money.”

The owner returned Dirk to the all-terrain vehicle. His wife waited, not wanting to go in there alone. The husband headed into the store, and Patrick gestured to her with the rest of his six-pack. He made her a toothy grin. “Want a beer, cutie?”

No reply.

In a few minutes, the Rainier appeared in Patrick’s vision. He took it without looking up. “That fucker needs a sled.”

“He’s got one,” the owner shot back.

“I mean your wife.”

No fist swung down to replace the Rainier in his vision. All Patrick had to watch was the slow rotation of a bright pair of hiking boots; there was the sound of cleated rubber on blacktop, the door, the V-8 inhalation and departure. The high lonesome will never be the same for them, thought Patrick, however Dirk might feel. The sky will seem little.

I’ve been through quite an experience, perhaps the number-one Man-Versus-Animal deal for many years here in the Rockies. But I better get myself under control before it’s lights out. God has made greater things to test us than ill-tempered sled dogs; God has made us each other.

WHEN PATRICK WAS FIFTEEN AND IN NEED OF REASONS TO stay in town late, he invented a girl friend, whom he named Marion Easterly. Claire reminded Patrick of Marion. Marion was beautiful in mind and in spirit. He pretended to be hopelessly in love with Marion, so that when he rolled in at two in the morning, he would claim that he and Marion had been discussing how it was to be young and had merely lost track of time. His parents, vaguely susceptible to the idea of romance in others, bought the Marion Easterly story for a year. Patrick had typically been up to no good in some roadhouse. He created a family for Marion: sturdy railroaders with three handsome daughters. Marion was the youngest, a chaste and lively brunette with a yen for tennis and old-fashioned novels about small-town boys in knickerbockers. When Patrick got locked up, Marion was never around. So gradually his parents began to view her as a good influence on their son. If he would just spend time with Marion Easterly, the disorderly-conduct business would fade, boarding school would seem less obligatory and Patrick would grow up and become … a professional.

In July, Patrick roped at the Wilsall rodeo, then joined the rioters in front of the bars. He’d tied his calf under eleven and was considered quite a kid, one who deserved many free drinks right out on the sidewalk. Patrick and his friends sat on the hoods of their cars until the sun collapsed in the Bridger range. By three in the morning he was back at the ranch, careening around the kitchen, trying to make a little snack. He banged into a cabinet, showering crystal onto the slate floor. A pyramid of flatware skated into fragments. He dropped the idea of the snack.

Patrick’s mother and father popped into the kitchen in electric concern. Patrick reeled through the fragments in his cowboy boots, crushing glass and china noisily. He looked at them, his mind racing.

“Marion is dead,” he blurted. “A diesel. She was going out for eggs.” His parents were absolutely silent.

“I just don’t give a shit anymore,” Patrick added.

“You can’t use that language in this house,” his mother said; but his father intervened on the basis of the death of a boy’s first love. Patrick waltzed to his room and passed out.

After ten hours of sleep ruined by guilt, booze and the presence of all his rodeo-dirtied clothes, Patrick awoke with a start and was filled by a sudden and unidentified fear. He cupped a hand over his face to test his breath, then smeared his teeth with a dab of toothpaste. He ran to the kitchen to clean up his mess; but he was too late. He really was.