Thomas Mcguane - Nobody's Angel

“But what is it?”

“I’m looking for a reason.”

“I’m looking for a reason too.”

“How did Tio take to the wall of hookers?”

“Not at all.”

“ What? Incidentally, where is he?”

“Right outside this window. He’s trying to read my lips. He’s shoveling the walk. No. Where was I? Oh, right, he wouldn’t have anything to do with them. He stayed upstairs and watched Johnny Carson. They made quiche Lorraine and I had to clean up the mess.”

“Well, I really never saw why we were bringing your husband three hookers.”

“And it bothers you …”

“I think so.”

“It bothers you in a way you can’t quite put your finger on?”

“That’s it,” he said.

“I can answer that for you. Despite that it was a gesture which I thought would best help him to see how I thought he was treating me, the main thing you’re worried about was whether or not it indicated some lingering passion between Tio and me.”

“The crowd jumped to its feet as his teeth soared into deep left.”

“What?”

“It’s fair.”

“What’ve you been smoking, son?”

“I ain’t smokin. I can barely get out of my own tracks. My foot is stuck in the spittoon. I can no longer sneak up. They can hear the spittoon ringing from a mile out. By the time I get there, all that’s left is tracks. And you can’t smoke tracks.”

Thus another one seemed drain-bound.

In the beginning was sadness; immediately after that was sadness-for-no-reason; and beyond that was the turf of those for whom the day-to-day propositions for going on at all seemed not at all to the point. Patrick, the tank man, took the middle ground: He didn’t know why he felt as he did.

Why do I feel as I do?

She hung up on him. A dangerous lip-reader was shoveling her walk.

Heart Bar

Monday

Dear Mother,

Well, things are still in kind of a wreck around here. I have not been feeling entirely right about my behavior and I think that Dale was correct in saying that that rests upon my shoulders. Still, with us, all was not as it should have been. And I can’t help but think that Mary paid the biggest part of the price. I’m not saying anybody killed her. But couldn’t we have done a better job? I mean, it was quite hard to find anybody to talk to around here. It still is. Grandpa is about as chatty and agreeable as ever.

I don’t know what Mary had. I had Marion Easterly but she was invisible. Afterwards I had soccer and my tank. But these things don’t add up always. I met Mary’s close friend of the Cheyenne persuasion and I couldn’t help but thinking he had done rather more for her than her family.

He met her in a whorehouse where she had a job.

Also, I don’t think Dad’s airplane stunts, including the whopper in the end, were that funny.

I’ve been thinking about throwing in with more oil-type people, one in particular, as this high lonesome plays out right after its use in calendar photos, funnies and radio serials. I’ve met a nice girl.

I’ve found a lovely flat for the Granddad. There’s a sign-language study center next door and a monorail to the emergency room. His movie hopes run higher than ever. I’ve persuaded him of the need of a regular physical, as well as a long hard look at the daily stool. I think he’s listening up pretty fair.

Well, this is no more than an apologetic valentine to you and Dale. Tell Andrew that I feel very strongly that he will never find an arrowhead.

Think of us!

Love,

Captain Fitzpatrick

“TIO?” PATRICK HELD THE PHONE SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM HIS head.

“How’s Patrick?”

“I’m fine.”

“What can I do you for?”

“You know when we talked earlier?”

“Yes,” said Tio. “Sure do. But we finished that conversation.”

“Well, not entirely.”

“Yeah, we did. Now, don’t y’all be stupid. I’ve got to ease up on this beast with my rocks and sling. So don’t go to jumping me out with some Yankee love of truth. Guy in my position needs to exact some teeny form of retribution without resorting to a bunch of bald statements and unusual self-righteous Yankee speeches, calling me up in the middle of the day with y’mouth hanging open, this man-to-man horseshit, which you have my invitation to give back to the Army.”

“I can’t understand this.”

“Myself!”

“How does it turn out?”

“You just shake and it’s snake eyes time after time. They’re loaded.”

“Meaning what?”

“You never answered me about Claire.”

Patrick was not used to this form of evangelical yammering, if indeed anyone was. The best gloss of Tio’s speech he could come up with went: There are things one doesn’t say; in which case, they had just had a rather traditional moment together, man-to-man, in vacant splendor.

IN TIMES OF GREAT TRIBULATION, A VISIT TO MARION Easterly often seemed important. Mary claimed that Marion had been his greatest love, that no one would ever equal her in Patrick’s eyes. But Patrick was sure that they had been apart long enough now, that the Miss Palm side of Marion had sufficiently diminished and that his new and real love for Claire was deep enough that a chat with Marion wouldn’t do all that much harm.

Marion was living with a Lutheran clergyman on Custer Street. They had a white marriage and a view of the mountains. An irrigation overflow babbled through the childless lawn. Or, rather, a trout-filled brook. Anyway, babbled.

“Heck,” said Patrick. “You’re only a hop, skip and a jump away from Loretta’s place.”

“I know, but I’d be afraid those little dickenses would … ensnare me!”

“You could be right.” Patrick had made a big Dagwood sandwich. He was trying to eat this three-decker in the fetal position without getting mayonnaise on the bed.

He told Marion that he was in love. He told her that his lady was married to a man of the oil. He mentioned that they had gone all the way and that he thought that the man of oil knew this. Marion raised her hands to the sides of her face, pretty as a picture. “Oh, oh,” she exclaimed. “I fear very much for you at the hands of this person of oil.”

In the afternoon Patrick expelled two West Coast coyote hunters from the ranch. They had started out on the Mojave, hoping to set a record that would make one of the gun magazines. They were, respectively, a Sheetrocker and a Perfataper. They had been taking amphetamines for four days and had nearly filled their powerful Land Cruiser with dead coyotes. The Sheetrocker did most of the driving, while the Perfataper stood through a “shooting station,” which was kind of a sun roof. He had a two-sixty-four magnum and his best lick was blasting. They were four pelts shy of the record and were just working their way east, broadcasting the squeals of dying rabbits from speakers mounted behind the grill. They hadn’t had a good day since the Wasatch range in Utah. They were losing weight, running out of money and pills. The Sheetrocker said that he just wanted to touch one off. And the Perfataper said not just one; we’re taking a hard run at the statistics.

“Well, your dead-rabbit record is scaring my horses.”

“So?”

“And you’re on my land.”

“So?”

Patrick thought about mayhem; but again, that could cheat him of Claire. He directed the coyote hunters up to Tio’s ranch. The yellow Land Cruiser rolled off and in a moment began spitefully broadcasting the deathsqueals of the rabbits again.

Patrick wondered why he had sent them to Tio’s ranch. It was not to create further trouble, certainly. Searching his mind, he decided that it became impossible to call over there again; and just maybe he could elicit some response with these yo-yos in the Jap land-gobbler.