Thomas Mcguane: Gallatin Canyon

The bar’s manager, Jerry Warren, who was small, ingratiating, and somehow like a frog in a polo shirt, sidled up to the table. Olivia knew him.

“In September,” he said, “I’m going to Ireland—”

“Are you Irish?” Briggs interrupted.

“No, to hike the Ring of Kerry, hike all day, booze till two, feel up German girls—”

Briggs glanced at an expressionless Olivia.

“—and visit ring forts or the odd castle. The brochure promises your money back if you don’t, like, burst into spontaneous verse by Day Two, though I expect most of the poetry ends up being directed at your raincoat.” He rested his hand on the table, then slowly extended a forefinger. “Next round’s on me.”

“The trouble is, when you just want to get to know someone,” Olivia said, with surprising volubility once Warren was gone, “there’s no such thing as neutral ground. Like just now, people come up and assume. . But, well, here’s another round.” She raised her face in gratitude to the barmaid. “Jerry always tells me his travel plans, no matter how late it gets. He has some crazy jet-lag remedies you ought to hear. By the next morning, I can hardly remember what they were.”

“It’s five o’clock,” the barmaid said. “You’re entitled to all of this you want.”

When she was gone, Olivia said, “I suppose we did start before five. That woman at the farmers’ market, she must’ve had someone in mind.”

“Funny way to figure out who.”

“Or she was just, you know, revisiting the experience.”

“Anyway, that’s how we met!” But this didn’t feel right, so Briggs added, “Neighbor.”

After thinking about this, she asked, “Have you noticed that out in the country neighbor is a verb?”

This struck Briggs as a sudden move away from intimacy. Five o’clock had brought a crowd big enough to elbow up to all surfaces — not just the bar but the walls — and the air of day’s-end ebullience was infectious to Briggs, who was a loner, and tired of being one, but seemed unable to do anything about it.

“It’s kind of aggressive, isn’t it?” he said. “Usually about how someone failed to neighbor.”

“Yes.” She sighed. “And the speaker always makes you think that he neighbors even while he’s asleep.” She covered Briggs’s hands with her own. “How ’bout you?”

“I don’t do a lot of neighboring,” he said.

Olivia took this in somberly. “I must strike you as desperate,” she said. The tone had changed, and her smile was slack.

“You do not.”

“Thank you.”

She had nearly finished her complimentary double, and Briggs, on his third shell of draft, realized that she’d put away six shots of whiskey, which suddenly seemed to be sinking in; the slow movement of her eyes beneath lowered lids, which he had first taken for flirtatious warmth, now appeared to be the start of some narcosis.

“That Ring of Kerry thing doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?” she said into space.

“Oh, I’ll bet it’s beautiful there.”

“But just getting through a wet day to end up in a pub. . Is that the reward? And where did he get that about German girls?” Only now did she look up at Briggs.

“He was probably trying to entertain us.”

Olivia looked surprised. “Oh! Well. Now I’ll be grateful. I’m so dense.” At that moment, Warren passed their booth. “Hey, Jerry! That was great,” she called out.

He stopped.

“What was great, Olivia?”

“About the ring of German girls in raincoats.”

Jerry glanced at Briggs before moving on. “If I can just get through this drought,” he said, as he plunged into the crowd.

“What does he mean ?” Olivia asked. “I’m missing connection after connection.” She gestured for another round. The barmaid waved back, and Olivia commented, “I really like her, but she’s a huge slut. Ready for another?”

“I don’t know if I can drink more beer. My teeth are floating.”

“Your teeth are—?”

“I’m bursting with beer.”

“Maybe you should drink something more concentrated. Beer’s mostly water. I wish alcohol came in the same size as an aspirin. You just wear out your digestion trying to cop a buzz. And this stuff”—she pointed—“tastes like kerosene. Your teeth are floating! That’s a scream.”

Briggs didn’t feel comfortable doing more to prevent the arrival of another round, but when she’d finished it, he wished he had.

“Olivia.”

“What.”

“You okay?”

“Where are we going with this?”

“I thought you were about to faint.”

“Oh, how wrong you are.”

Briggs caught Jerry Warren’s eye and made a writing gesture with his right hand on his left hand. Warren winked his understanding, and Briggs turned back to Olivia. “Let’s get outside while we have a little of this day left,” he said. He could tell that this was heard from a great distance. He stood up to enforce the suggestion and then thought to extend a hand, which Olivia took as she got to her feet and quickly leaned against him.

“Going to have to do it like this, aren’t I?”

“Not a problem. Out we go.”

Briggs escorted her through the front door so deftly that their exit was barely noticed. The one woman who stared was told by Olivia, “No worries,” in an Australian accent. Once outside, the heat hit her and she began to topple. Briggs had to take her around the corner to find a quiet spot. “I want to help you here, Olivia. You’re having a bit of trouble with your balance.”

“How did I let this hap -pen? A little birdie says it’s time for me to scoot,” she said. With her hands at her shoulders, fingers fluttering outward, she did the birdie.

“How about if you let me drive you home?”

“ Bor -ing.”

“I’m afraid I require it. Where is your car?”

“A, we identify make and model.”

“Can you do that for me? And parking place?”

She looked left and right. “You know, John Briggs, I’m going to flunk that test.”

“No problem. We’ll go in mine.” He helped her into his twenty-year-old sedan. She told him they’d be lucky if the jalopy made it to her house. The car had old-style seat belts, and fastening hers across her lap produced from Olivia a languorous smile. “There!” he said briskly, to undo the smile, then went around to his side, got in, looked over at her amiably, and turned the key.

“Doesn’t look like you’re going to try to take advantage of me.”

“Nope.”

“It wouldn’t be hard. All aboard!” She imitated a train whistle.

They headed north and, just as they left town, she said, “Hey, there’s my car!” But then she was uncertain. It didn’t really matter to Briggs, unless she turned out to be right in wondering whether his car would make it. They were halfway to her house before she spoke again. She said, “Ooh, boy, this is a bad idea.”

Grassland spread in either direction all the way to the horizon. From the west, a thunderstorm, zigzagged with wires of lightning, was moving swiftly toward them, until the road ahead began to darken with rain.

Briggs drove without trying to talk until they reached Olivia’s town. She pointed out various turns and landmarks, letting her hand fall back onto her lap each time. The trees formed a canopy above the street where she said she lived, a street on which either invidious competition or the boundless love of property had prevailed in the form of one perfect lawn after another, and hedges that seemed to have been purchased in sections. At length, she said, “This is it, with the red shutters. Who else has red shutters? Nobody. Just us. Has red shutters. Have red shutters.”