Thomas McGuane - Driving on the Rim

Time was running out, and we needed to add a little something to our fling to raise its tone, so we made dinner reservations at a nice waterside restaurant and skipped lunch. I think we both knew that if we ended up at a quality restaurant with leisurely service and candles on the table, but had no appetite and little to say, we would be in for a very uncomfortable ride. I was pretty much over the sex and acted about like a pump jack in an Oklahoma oil field, prepared to perform day and night with my mind elsewhere. It made absolutely no difference to Shirley, adding to my disquiet at being something of a tool.

Looking over her menu, Shirley grabbed my forearm in hilarity. “I should order red snapper! Get it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” I did, but I didn’t want to let on. But I asked her if she’d tried the planked pork.

“Ha ha ha.” Then when I ordered a steak, she said, “Good God!” and ordered grouper, and another round. I was very pleased with the effect of the drinks. At first, sitting across the table, Shirley seemed aggressive and worried, her blond streaks symmetrical as the marks on a tiger, the way her nostrils flared when her mouth was closed, all worrisome. But the cocktails cast a spell, like the gauzy shots in the old tearjerkers, so that by the arrival of my sprawling T-bone I was in love. Even though I recognized that in this case love was a Russian import made from potatoes, it was enough to believe in for the time being. I reached under the table to put my hand in her pants as she grinned absently at the grouper. “I’m going to tell the waiter what you’re doing.” I withdrew and went at the steak with knife and fork like a drummer boy. The booze was rushing back and forth between my spine and my brain.

We couldn’t wait to get back to the room. We had dined with such languor that the waiter was startled when we abruptly asked him for our bill and to “make it snappy.” I don’t know what chemical combination had us in such a rush, but nothing was happening fast enough for us. I had such trouble getting the key into the lock of our room I was afraid Shirley would fly off the handle. Looking left and right while I struggled, she had already begun unbuttoning her clothes. I wasn’t handling the pressure and resorted to kneeling in front of the doorknob to sight in the key. Inside, the phone was ringing. Once the door opened, Shirley shot past me to grab the ringing telephone. Phone call no good. I remained on my knees as I listened to Shirley from the doorway. I smiled at several hotel guests as they passed. I heard her say, “I was just about to call you… I already thought of that. Is there a problem?” This question was the last thing Shirley said for quite a long time, then, “I don’t think there’s any need to speak to him… I don’t understand why you’re insisting, why you find it so important, except for your ongoing need to have everything your own way… Very well, Karl.” She held the phone against herself, her face drained of all color, and said to me, “He knows. He and Audra have gotten together. He told me not to come home.” I arose and crossed the room awkwardly, as my feet had gone to sleep.

“Hullo?” Then I was serenaded by Karl and Audra, “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” quite briefly, as they really didn’t know the words beyond those of the title, which they repeated. Then Karl alone on the line, in a barely recognizable voice, flattened by hate, telling me I should never have tried this with a lawyer. Addressing me as “Loverboy,” he asked me if I had “tried all the holes”; when I failed to answer he said, “How d’you like the smell?” Then, “I know you’re still on the line.” I confirmed that I was.

I said, “Karl, we wish you all the luck in the world. I hope you enjoy Audra. I know I did.” I could feel this one fall as though into a dark well. I hung up.

Shirley demanded to know exactly what Karl had said to me; I thought mentioning the holes was out of the question and so I said, “He wanted to know how I felt about the smell.”

“The smell! What smell?”

“I guess your smell.”

“I hope you told that sonofabitch I don’t have a smell.”

“I thought it would be best if I just didn’t say anything.”

“Maybe so. Never wrestle with a pig. You both get covered with shit and the pig likes it. My smell! He’s gonna pay for that one. When I get through kicking his ass, he’ll never get up.”

Shirley was gnawing the inside of her cheek, her eyes slewing around the room. Suddenly her face went calm. “You and Audra, eh? That could help.” In the little time remaining, we tried to enjoy ourselves in bed; the effort held no appeal. Shirley asked if she was as good a lover as Audra, and when I reminded her that I made up the whole thing about Audra, she jumped out of bed and shouted, “Don’t you dare say that!” We drifted off fairly early in our room overlooking a canal and a golf course. I awakened in the middle of the night to see Shirley standing, just her silhouette, in the dark window that gave onto the balcony. I then went back to sleep until outboard motors in the canal woke me up. Shirley was gone. I knew she was headed north.

Since she left me without enough money to get back to Ohio, I was obliged to stay in the room making frantic calls to anyone I thought could arrange transportation. In the end, good Dr. Eldon Olsson, way out in Montana, extended his credit card, and I was free to go. I had a lot of explaining to do, but Olsson said he’d seen through Shirley in the seventh grade when he had a crush on her, and if this was what it took to liberate his old friend Hanson, it was certainly cheap at the price. This did not incline me to help Shirley with a made-up story about Audra, but I was never asked and all my imaginary rehearsals for undermining her cause came to nothing. She didn’t need my help; she made off with half of Karl’s estate anyway, and five years later Audra got the rest.

I’ve lost track of Shirley, who lived in Florida for many years. I saw her later at Dr. Olsson’s funeral, but by that time she was back in her hometown, residing in an assisted-living facility. Before addressing the issues having to do with finding new lodging and staying out of the witness box, I felt I had to absorb the full impact of this unsavory life episode, one that left me unnecessarily cautious in matters of ardor. This was too bad because I was an affectionate person who fell in love easily and might have brought greater enrichment to my life if I hadn’t always smelled a rat at the pleasantest times. Karl seems to have made the most of things in his own buttoned-down, impervious way. The following I learned from Eldon Olsson: after Karl lost the fine old family house and was living in a downtown condominium, he befriended the representative of Ton Yik Tailors who came through annually measuring businessmen for suits. On successive visits, the friendship deepened and Karl went to Hong Kong, where he met the consortium of clothiers, which took him on as legal counsel for their growing U.S. activities. Karl married a Chinese girl and only came to the States on business. “He finally found happiness,” said Dr. Olsson, adding, “I hope the same for you, Doctor.”

I HAD BEEN BACK FOR ALMOST A YEAR, a practicing physician in my hometown, without making it clear to the community that I had entirely escaped my formerly anarchic ways. I don’t think anyone doubted my skills or my commitment as a doctor, but I continued to demonstrate social deficiency and poor judgment. I guess I wasn’t quite ready for rules-and-regulations just yet. Twice one week, I had gone out to the reserved parking lot to see an almost familiar figure standing there irresolutely, not looking my way, not occupied with anything, but somehow giving the impression that I was why she was there. I was startled by a voice at my window. “I wonder if I could trouble you for a ride. My sister left without me.” I turned to face a young woman, attractive but for the anomaly of penciled-in eyebrows, unusual on someone this age. There was a familiarity about the way she grasped the window of my car. I would have known her if she’d worked at the clinic. Her pleasant smile playfully suggested that she saw right through me, promising preliminary banter, something I noticed once she was in the car and I could see her tanned, shapely arms. She wore bib-front overalls and a T-shirt that said, DO NOT RESUSCITATE. Her dark hair was cut short. She said, “Clarice.”