Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

But the painting was still mysterious; it had not changed. “The only painting I’ve ever understood,” said Joe’s father after he had showed it to his son. “Too bad it’s fading.” The delicacy of shading in the overlapping white hills, rescued from vagueness by the cheap pine frame, seemed beyond the studied coarseness Joe’s father leveled at everything else.

It was a matter of dragging an old davenport across the room and bracing it against one corner of the fireplace. He stepped up onto one arm, then to its back and then up onto the mantel. He turned around very slowly and faced the wall, to the left of the painting. By shuffling in slow motion down the length of the mantel he was able to move himself to its center.

There was no picture. There was a frame hanging there and it outlined the spoiled plaster behind it. It could have been anything. It was nothing, really. Close up, it really didn’t even look like white hills. This of course explained why it had never been stolen. Joe concluded that no amount of experience would make him smart.

His father must always have known there was nothing there. The rage Joe felt quickly ebbed. In his imaginary parenthood, he had begun to see what caused the encouragement of belief. It was eternal playfulness toward one’s child; and it explained the absence of the painting. It wasn’t an empty frame; it was his father telling him that somewhere in the abyss something shone.

He was driving a little too fast for a dirt road, tools jumping around on the seat of the truck and a shovel in the bed beating out a tattoo. He was going to see Ellen, sweeping toward her on a euphoric zephyr. He knew how intense he must look; and he began doing facial exercises as a preparation for feigning indifference. The flatbed hopped across the potholes. Antelope watched from afar. “Hi, kiddo,” he said. “Thought I’d see how you were getting along.” He cleared his throat and frowned. “Good afternoon, Ellen. Lovely day. I hope this isn’t a bad time.” He craned over so he could watch himself in the rearview mirror. “Hiya Ellen-baby, guess what? I’m gonna lose that fucking ranch this week . YAAGH!” A sudden and vast deflation befell him and he slumped in the front of the truck and slowed down. When he got to the schoolyard, the children were gone and Ellen was walking toward her old sedan in her coat.

She saw Joe and walked over toward him. She said, “Well, what do you know about that?”

“I wanted to see you,” said Joe.

“Here I am.”

“Have you been thinking?”

“About what? My phone bill? My cholesterol?”

“Your phone bill.”

“I think about it every time I lift the Princess Touchtone to my ear. Incidentally, my husband and I are anxious for you to know how happy we are to have worked everything out. I realize I’m kind of repeating myself. But it seems we have to do that with you. Joe, I don’t want to be this way.”

“Can we take a short drive?” Joe asked.

“How short?”

“Five minutes.”

“I guess it can be arranged,” said Ellen and climbed in. Joe noticed how closely she followed the rural convention of going from an amorous interest to a display of loathing; in the country, no one broke off an affair amicably. Ellen looked out at the beautiful fall day, directing a kind of all-purpose disgust at falling aspen leaves. This was the sort of thing Astrid never put him through.

Joe drove back toward town and quickly approached its single stoplight; he was heading for the open country to show her the white hills, both the painting and the ones beyond, and explain enough about his life that he could, if necessary, close this chapter too.

“Where are we going?” Ellen asked in alarm. “Stop at this light and let me out.” The light began to turn red. Ellen tried the door handle. Some pedestrians had stopped to look on. Joe ran the light. Ellen pushed the door open and shouted, “ Help !” and Joe hit the gas. The bystanders fluttered into their wake. He watched in the rearview mirror as they started to go into action.

“We’ll just take a little loop out toward the Crazies and I’ll drop you back at the school. What in God’s name caused you to yell that?”

“I wanted to be dropped off. Joe, you have to learn to take hints a little better than you do.”

“I’m going to show you something and we’re going to talk.”

“About what? My husband and I are back together. We have resolved our differences. We’re happy again. We’re a goddamn couple, got it?”

“Why did you lie to me about Clara?”

She studied him for a moment in a shocked way. Then he saw she wouldn’t argue.

“Billy and I had hit this rough spot in the road.”

“I still don’t follow you.”

“It was Daddy’s idea actually. He had worked it out on the calendar. I have to admit, it wasn’t that far-fetched. But he’s got that big bite missing from his ranch and he kind of put two and two together.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Whatever.” She turned to him suddenly. She made little fists and rolled her eyes upward. “You don’t need to understand me. Billy knows everything there is to know about me , and he loves me .”

Joe wished he had time to think about this. She had a point. It was about lives that were specific to each other. It wasn’t about generalities. It wasn’t about “love.” “Love” was like “home.” It was basic chin music.

Joe drove along slowly, as though adding speed would only substantiate the appearance of kidnap. Since he was pouring with sweat, he now merely wished to add a few amiable notes and get Ellen back to the schoolyard. This had all turned into something a bit different from what he had hoped for. At that very moment, he began to realize how much he wished he had Astrid advising him right now. She would say something quite concrete like “Hit the brakes” or “Don’t do anything stupid. That way nobody will get hurt.”

“Here they come,” said Ellen.

“Here comes who?”

“Look in the mirror.”

A small motorcade had formed a mile or so back; a cloud of dust arose from them and drifted across the sage flats. Joe picked up speed but couldn’t seem to widen the gap. Perspiration broke out on his lip. “Are you going to clear this business up with that mob, if they catch us?”

“Let me get back to you on that,” said Ellen with the faintest smile. Ellen had become so strange. It was more than indifference — it was a weird fog. He imagined her thinking how badly she wanted to get shut of this jackass and back to the husband and daughter she loved. This perception reduced Joe’s account to virtual sardine size. He felt too paltry to go on taking the wheel.

He flattened the accelerator against the floor. The truck seemed to swim at terrific speed up the gradual grade toward the hills. A jack rabbit burst onto the road ahead of them, paced the truck for fifty yards and peeled off into the sagebrush. Nothing Joe did seemed to extend the distance between himself and the cluster of vehicles behind.

“Have you been doing any fishing?” Ellen asked.

“I really haven’t had the time.”

The truck skidded slightly sideways.

“Somebody said there’s a Mexican woman staying with you.” So that was it. A bird dove at the windshield and veered off in a pop of feathers.

“An old girlfriend,” Joe said candidly. “It’s a very sad thing. She couldn’t stick it out. She’d had enough, and she was very patient in her own way. If she’d lied to me more I’d be with her today.”

Ellen mused at the rocketing scenery.

“I’ve got a teacher’s meeting in Helena,” she said wearily. “On Tuesday. That’s another world.”