Thomas McGuane - Driving on the Rim

“When you say ‘this country’—I thought you were from around here.”

“I’m based out of Snyder, Texas, or I was. No airplane. Did you hear what the Cubs did yesterday?”

“I didn’t, but why would you be way up here from Snyder, Texas?”

“Well, it’s a job where you have to travel according to the season if you want to make a living at it. Still pays peanuts. My first love was horses. When I was a girl, I went around with two canes pretending I had four legs so I could be more like my horse. Don’t let me forget the radio. A doctor. Has that been a nice life?”

“I had a kind of foster father who was a doctor. I might have been trying to please him. It was a decision I made when I was very immature, but its effects have been long-lasting.” We were really sailing along now! I would have done well to realize that unchecked impulses were not far behind me. Filling in the biographies, it was so good and there was definite excitement in the air. “I gather this is not the easiest country to be a…”

“Ag pilot. That’s what we call ourselves, ag pilots. Well, mostly I’ve sprayed in flatter country. I sprayed peas in Michigan, not too bad if you don’t hit a tree. Cotton in Texas, citrus in Florida and California, rice in Texas, sprayed cotton big time around Snyder. That’s where cotton went to get away from the boll weevil. Then the boll weevil followed it there. But yeah, it’s not the safest job in the world.”

“The risk of crashes…”

“The chemicals. You mix a lot of chemicals. The chemicals get in the cockpit, too. I mean, we’re not really part of the environmental movement, if you know what I mean. That bothers me. I’ve done other kinds of flying. I could go back to that if I got another airplane. You’re lucky. It’s all in your head…”

“I guess. What little there is.”

“The trouble is, most flying jobs are boring. For a long time I towed banners, and that was just awful. South Florida. Flying almost at stall speed pulling a big long one that says BEST BUY or FIND IT IN THE YELLOW PAGES or FLAT LINE SPORTS BAR, that sort of thing. Ten hours sitting an arm’s length from the exhaust pipes relieving yourself in adult diapers. And I’ve pulled some doozies. The worst one was HOT CHICKEN WINGS AT HOOTERS EVERY WEDNESDAY. We had to do it as a combination billboard and letter banner because they wanted to include a girl with large breasts on the billboard portion. When we stacked it on the ATV to launch it, the pile was so big I never believed we’d get the whole thing airborne. Seriously, my choice is to be down in the trees and power poles, jumping hedges, landing and taking off on dirt roads. You could say that’s where the romance is.” I didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing. Now she wanted to go get her car.

Everything about her had a dangerous iridescence, doubtless for me alone; for Jocelyn, a simple question, as for all women, could be sorcery. Thoughts went through my mind like “fumbling for the keys” and “lost highway.” I said, “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

“Take this.” She handed me the day pack. “I’ll wind her up here. I’ve already logged out with the staff, but I’ve got to get a move on. I’m meant to be at the Billings Airport by one.” I didn’t get the chance to ask her where she was flying. I supposed back to Texas. I almost got the feeling she was flying the coop, and I wished I’d had a chance to consult first with Dr. Aldridge, who had gazed upon her with inappropriately hungry eyes.

There were two decrepit old fellows waiting for their appointment; no nurse was at the desk and I sat down to wait, and listened. They were having some kind of a disagreement, in high-pitched, annoyed voices.

“I honestly did the best I could to make a happy home.”

“You did like hell. You boozed your way right into the spin dry, you did. Lost your family, you fuckin’ idiot.”

“Now, now, that’s just your slant.”

If one of these men was the older of the two it was the one in the ragged but voluminous coat, from which he extended a hand, like the last days of Pope John Paul, in a gesture of peace. The other took it, and after a pause their conversation resumed about the five-dollar box of Cheerios they’d both seen that morning at IGA. “It was big, I’ll give you that. But still.”

Jocelyn came into the lobby, carrying a battered purse, wearing a baseball cap and gold earrings, jeans and a thin, tailored white blouse that emphasized her pretty figure. She was on a cane and used it with athletic dispatch. “We roll.”

She directed me to the small airfield southwest of town on a road that was almost too much for my Oldsmobile, whose oil pan felt like an extension of my own viscera. Looking around the car, Jocelyn said, “I thought medicine paid better than this.”

“It’s a ride.”

“I guess. Go over that cattle guard and just follow the two-track into the pucker brush and you’ll see it, little flat mesa hangs out over the creek bottom.”

I glanced over and found her eyes, in no hurry to glance away. I reached for her hand, which she put in my lap like something I’d misplaced. “Oh, Doctor.” There were several ways to look at this remark, the first being that I had misjudged the situation. Jocelyn smiled at me, but there was a bit of amusement in it. She raised her cane and gave it a little shake in my direction.

A grass airfield ended at the mesa edge, where a bedraggled windsock hung from an unpainted steel pole. A coyote dug for gophers in the middle of the field and trotted off at our arrival. All that remained was an anonymous rental car glinting in the sun. In other words we had arrived and something would have to change.

Jocelyn asked, “How much time should I allow to get to the Billings airport?”

“Hour and a half, to be safe.” I pulled up next to the sedan.

“Then I’d better keep moving along.”

“Where are you going?”

“Where am I going? I’m going to the Billings airport.”

“I mean where are you flying to?”

“I’m not. I’m picking up my mechanic. He’s going to help me drive to Texas. This is his car.” I had the disquieting sense that she was making this up: she was talking too fast.

“Oh,” I said, as though landing on the heart of the matter. “I thought it was a rental car.”

“No, no, it’s his car. I flew the ag plane up and he was supposed to meet me when I was done. I got done sooner than I thought.”

“I’ll be darned, I thought it was just a rental car.” I couldn’t have been more of a fool. She smiled compassionately at my confusion and slung her pack out of the car. She came around my side and kissed me on the cheek just as I was coming to my senses.

“I’ll call you if my whole life changes,” she said. “Maybe we can have dinner.”

“Please do. I’m crazy about you.” My face was red.

She laughed out loud and got into her car. “Who knows? You in the book?”

“I am.”

I watched her pull away. I offered a wave, but looking at her receding rearview window, I saw no hand raised in my own direction. A sort of twist went through me of something akin to embarrassment, though there was no one there to be embarrassed in front of. I did wonder if several days of unspecified eagerness had contributed to my outbreak of foolhardiness, or if I’d wished for something I really needed. It was no mystery to me, who had seen the various results, some soon after, some decades after, of the unexpected electricity between people. One of my patients was an infantryman who had fought in the Second World War and returned to Seattle to a job cooking in a café. In 1946 the cashier, a young woman from eastern Washington who had come to Seattle during the war, dropped a roll of nickels, which burst on the tile floor. The infantryman and the cashier knelt to gather them up, and fifty years later the old couple were my patients. Surely something of lesser magnitude had happened to me, but there had been some sort of event at the crash site, and I think it was no more than seeing a small curve of forehead between the edge of her helmet and the slight rise of flesh where her ear disappeared inside the gear. In my embarrassment, I tried to come up with something more substantial and barely resurrected the shape of one nostril! I was like a picnic ant on two square inches of anonymous flesh. Fool!