Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

“Who will substitute for you?”

“An old lady who doesn’t make the kids work. It makes me look like a bum.” Somehow, Joe got the truck into a wild slide going down a steep grade into a gully. The truck turned backward at about sixty miles an hour. “This is really making me moody,” said Ellen. They plunged into a grove of junipers and burst out the other side in a shower of wood and branches. Some of the foliage was heaped up against the windshield and it was a little while before Joe could see where he was going. The vigilantes were still bringing up the rear in a cloud of dust. One of them dropped back, a plume of steam jetting from the radiator.

It was hopeless. He couldn’t outrun them in this evil, weak farm truck. All he wanted was a brainless chase that could last for weeks. He stopped, backed and turned around. Deadrock was visible in the blue distance. The machines advanced toward him. “You’ve really got a bee in your bonnet,” Ellen said.

“Shut up, you stupid bitch, you rotten crumb.”

“I see ,” said Ellen. “The idea being that I got you into this?”

Joe said nothing.

“After the big rush, I am now a ‘stupid bitch.’ This may be the first serious conversation we’ve had since we met. Are you telling me that it is possible I could mean more to you than pussy or golf lessons? Let’s have it, Joe. I could actually rise in your esteem to the status of ‘stupid bitch.’ Oh, this is romantic. I had really misjudged the depth of feeling around here. And I’ve gone back to my husband when I could have enjoyed these passionate tongue-lashings.”

At the approach of massed cars and trucks, Joe just stopped. Twenty vehicles wheeled all around them and skidded to a halt, dumping a small crowd of armed civilians, the State Farm agent, a mechanic still in his coveralls, a pharmacist in a white tunic of some kind, a couple of waitresses. They were still pouring out and a few guns had been displayed, when Ellen threw open her door and cried, “This is all a terrible misunderstanding! It was supposed to be a joke!” She climbed out of the truck. One of the mechanics, in coveralls and a gray crewcut that showed the crown of his head, came to the truck and held a gun to Joe’s temple. Joe looked over to see Billy Kelton emerging from a Plymouth Valiant he should have recognized. “A complication,” Joe said. “Here comes Billy.”

“Son,” said the man in the crewcut in a startlingly mild voice, “this is where she all comes out in the wash.” Joe had a sudden feeling of isolation as Ellen walked over and joined her husband at a distance from the cluster of people and vehicles. Billy shoved her away from him and began to walk toward Joe’s truck. Joe wondered what the shoving meant, in terms of a margin of safety, of an exploitable ambiguity.

“That’s Billy,” said Joe’s guard. “He’s getting ready to have a fit.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Do? He’s going back to Vietnam!”

The mechanic smiled like a season ticket holder. The blood beat in Joe’s face. Joe thought that was the time to grab the gun but he just thought about it with a kind of longing, knowing he wouldn’t have any idea what to do with it.

Billy came over with a bakery truck driver at his side, a blond-haired man with long sideburns and an expression of permanent surprise. “Something to tell the grandchildren, ay?” Billy said to the mechanic. “Get him out for me, would you?”

The mechanic opened the door and dragged Joe out. He and the man from the bakery held his arms, shoving him up against the car. Billy got so close, Joe could only focus on one of his eyes at a time. But it was enough for Joe to recognize that Billy didn’t have his heart in this. Twice he had punched Joe years ago and apparently that was enough. “Time is hastening, Joe. You need to cut it out.” Billy turned and spoke to the others. “You guys can go.” They hesitated in their disappointment. “Go on,” he said more firmly. They began to move off. “The show is over,” he said, making what Joe considered an extraordinary concession.

“Is that it?” asked the mechanic.

“That’s it,” said Billy without turning back. “Ellen, take my car back to the house.”

“He really didn’t do anything, Billy.”

“Probably not. Just go on back now with Vern and them.”

Ellen moved away from them. A breeze had come up and the clouds were moving overhead rapidly. The air was cold enough that the exhaust smell of the vehicles was sharp. Billy turned to Joe once more. “We’ll just let Ellen go on back to town with Vern and them. If she goes, they’ll all go. They’re upset because they couldn’t lynch you. You and your family sure been popular around here. All them boys banked with your dad.”

“Which one is Vern?” asked Joe without interest.

“Fella with the flattop.”

“Oh.” Joe’s eyes drifted over to Vern, who was returning reluctantly to a car much too small for him. Joe couldn’t see how he could even get in it. But he elected not to report this impression.

“Let me drive,” said Billy, opening the door to get in. Joe slid over.

“The keys are in it,” Joe said with a sickly smile.

Billy was wearing old levis and wingtip cowboy boots nearly worn through on top by spur straps. He smiled at Joe and started up the truck. Joe could see that the cars and trucks which had followed them were almost out of sight now. As the various members of the community who had come out to help returned to town in their cars, something went out of the air. Joe said, “I saw on the news they’re having a potato famine in Malibu.”

“I don’t have too good a sense of humor today, Joe.”

They drove on, and Billy was a careful driver. They took the road that went around to the south, which eventually connected to the ranch. “Am I the biggest problem you’ve got, Joe?” They both followed with their eyes a big band of antelope the truck had scared, all quick-moving does except for one big pronghorn buck who rocked along behind in their dust cloud.

“Not really.”

Billy sighed. Joe looked out the windshield but saw nothing. Joe remembered one time he and Astrid were dancing to the radio and she called him “sweetheart.” She had never called him that before and never did again. Everything takes place in time, Joe thought, wondering why that always seemed like such a heartbreaking discovery.

Suddenly, Joe wanted to talk. “My old man used to say, ‘If you ain’t the lead horse, the scenery never changes.’ Now it looks like I might lose the place. I need to get out front with that lead horse. I feel like I’ve been living in a graveyard.”

Billy looked at him. Joe watched Billy deeply consider whether or not the fraternization was appropriate. It was clear that there was insufficient malice in the air to warrant this drive on any other basis. What a day we’re having here, thought Joe.

After a resigned sigh, Billy started to talk: “When I come home, I pretty much come home to nothing. Except that we already had a kid. And then we got married. Old man Overstreet never let me forget I come into the deal empty-handed, just had my little house. He always introduces me, ‘This here’s my son-in-law Billy. He runs a few head of chickens over on the Mission Creek road about two and a half miles past the airport on the flat out there.’ Never will let me forget. And I ought to punch you but I can’t really. Life used to be so simple.”

It was a long way around. It seemed as if the mountains toward Wyoming stayed the same size ahead of them, sharp shapes that curved off toward the Stillwater. You could be under traveling clouds and off toward the mountains the clouds would seem stopped. And the mountains looked like a place you’d never reach. On top of that, nobody seemed to want to get there much anyway. Billy must have felt Joe look over because he turned on the radio only to get the feverish accordion of Buckwheat Zydeco shouting out the bright nights of New Orleans. He turned it off and said, “I want to go back to work.”