Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

Ivan put a huge piece of steak in his mouth and all at once turned blue. Joe gazed at him a long time before noticing the color change, so great was his relief at the pause in his speech. The girl at the next table stared at Ivan.

“Is he all right?” she asked. “He’s blue.”

At that point, Ivan struggled to his feet and holding his throat, began making a sound like a seagull. Joe understood then that a piece of steak had lodged in his throat. Ivan started to stagger through the tables of diners before Joe could catch up to him. Joe knew the Heimlich maneuver and got behind Ivan, taking him around the waist below the rib cage and giving him as powerful a squeeze as his considerable strength would allow. Joe saw he had been successful even from this vantage point by the way the old Yalies jumped back from their tables. The thick bolus of beef, trailed by a yellow wing of vomit, flew across a couple of tables, and that was that. A dozen diners who had been seated were now standing, holding their napkins.

“Good as new!” crowed Ivan, returning to their table. But Joe could tell that he was deeply embarrassed. Suddenly, his thick frame in the latest fashions seemed less bold than sad. Ivan peered around from under his brows and saw that they were all still discussing him. He finally sat silent, smoldering, looking straight out at the diners now.

“That can kill you, y’know. Maybe those goddamn blue-blooded geeks don’t know that. Maybe coupon clipping has kept them from learning that,” he said in a piercing voice. Turning to Joe, he said, “Let’s get a drink and the check.” The waiter danced over at the first signal. He was able to make a minor modification of the bill and leave it immediately. Joe signed it and slipped it under his water glass.

“Ivan, the reason I came to town was to tell you, face to face, that I’m not going to do the project. I’m not going to work with you anymore.”

“I know, Joe.”

“Oh.”

“You told me a long time ago,” said Ivan, “that you were getting out of real art so that you could come to feel as replaceable as the next guy.”

“Yeah …?”

“Well, you were right.” Ivan got to his feet. “You’re replaceable. All the luck in the world to you, Joe.” Ivan was probably the closest thing to a real friend Joe had ever had. These words stung. Ivan stood up and went straight out, shedding his discomfort with every step. Joe rested his head in his hands, staring at a few square inches of tablecloth. When he lifted his head, he felt dizzy for just a moment. But when his eyes cleared, there was the girl at the next table.

“Join me for a drink?” she said. He looked at her clearly. She was beautiful.

“I’m sorry,” said Joe, “but I’m afraid I don’t know you.”

She looked at him and smiled. She said, “What a relief!”

Joe and Ellen sat in the park, across from the drinking fountains, under a great blue Norway spruce.

“What’s the problem?” Joe asked, brow furrowed in concern like some state-funded psychologist on autopilot. Ellen scrutinized him dubiously for a moment.

“I don’t honestly know,” she said. “But we’ve darn sure hit a fork in the road. Billy’s had a tremendous amount of problems. After you left, he went in the Marines. He just seems to want to ranch, period, out in the hills doing his thing. And me, I’m about as quick to show sympathy over this Vietnam business as anybody. But it’s not real cheerful, the way he goes about it. And like I say, he was in the Marine Corps and it seems to have started there. Being called maggots and stuff when they’re just kids.”

“Was he in some kind of combat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you still see him regularly?”

“We confine it strictly to matters concerning Clara. I don’t encourage him. I finally put one of those little observation holes in my door, like an apartment. I had to put it in there because of Billy. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything. My mother is seventy years old. She drives all the way in from the ranch to see me. I find myself looking at her through the little eyehole while she stands there with something she baked for me in her arms.”

“What about when you want to see Clara?”

“Are you asking why she doesn’t stay here with me in the apartment?”

“No, not at all,” said Joe. He could see she was getting angry.

“Don’t you think it’s a little small? Don’t you think I work hard enough?”

“No, I—”

“Have you ever heard of latchkey kids?”

“Yes, and that’s not at all what I was talking about,” Joe said. “I just thought this was a place I could see her. The ranch, with Billy and everything, isn’t ideal.”

“You’re just going to have to be patient,” Ellen said, then after a moment added, “I’ve still got an hour.”

They dropped Ellen’s books in the return slot at the library and went on with their stroll. Joe felt a strange tension in his stomach, the kind of thing that is communicated. They walked perhaps a block and the lack of a plan was creating enormous pressure.

“Let’s go to my place,” said Ellen quietly. It nearly paralyzed Joe. Her house was about three blocks away. Since he couldn’t quite speak, he tried subtly changing his course. He could see the shiny auburn top of Ellen’s head, the tan, freckled bands on the tops of her cheekbones. His agony lasted only the half a block of progress it took to confirm that that indeed was where they were headed.

A nerve-shattering cocker spaniel jolted toward them on four stiff legs attempting to turn itself inside out with a paroxysm of barking. They tried to ignore it, but the dog stole up from behind to bite. Joe turned around and kicked at it as the owner in a V-necked white T-shirt came out in the yard. “You want a cop?” yelled the owner. “Kick the dog and I get you a cop.” The dog yelped back to the owner as though injured. Joe kept moving, though he felt his posture had rather collapsed. “Go on,” bellowed the owner, “make my day!” But the next block took them into a quieter place where clothes billowed on a line and radios played merrily on windowsills.

The house Ellen lived in could be seen over neighboring rooftops a full block away. As they approached, it seemed to rise and enlarge.

“Come on up, it’s unlocked,” said Ellen. As she went up ahead of him, he was relieved to detect a lascivious thought at the angular motions of her hips under the cotton dress. What if I didn’t have a lascivious thought? he wondered. What if I only thought of that character I met in Miami who burst into an Irish brogue at the moment of penetration? What a relief I’m not thinking of her! The “character” he was thinking about had been fascinated by her own Irish heritage and, during lovemaking, had cried, “Joe me lad, give it yer all!” He had never really gotten over it.

All he could think of was the character with the Irish brogue. He clutched the handrail as Ellen disappeared into her doorway. Good Christ. If I blow this one, I’ll hang myself. I must turn into a wolf this minute or I’m lost; crude groping is the only thing that can get me beyond this impasse.

“Joe, what’s holding you up?”

“Something in my shoe …” He sat on the stairs with his shoe in both hands, shaking it madly. “Just slip out of your little things and I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said in a gruff voice.

Ellen reappeared on the landing. “You what?” Joe was close to the limits of his endurance. He felt the flood building.

He rolled stomach-down onto the steps and let the laughter burst through him. He felt desperate as it ripped across his mind like a fire. He felt Ellen sit beside him.