Thomas McGuane - Driving on the Rim

“I’m afraid so.”

“You were there.”

“I was.”

She took away the cigarette. “I don’t want details.”

“Of course not.”

“My only child. My boy. I don’t know what the matter with him was. Do you?”

“I wish I knew.” I promised myself to give no hint of what a vicious little bastard Cody was. “There’s nothing stranger than our own children.”

“Do you have kids?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say that?”

“Well, I—”

“That’s a doctor’s job, isn’t it? To have some half-assed comment on every aspect of life.”

Since it was she who was suffering, I simply agreed. “That does seem to end up being part of our job. I’m not surprised you’ve seen right through it.”

“I wish I hadn’t. I wouldn’t mind being comforted. Even if it’s phony. I’ve got a great big hole right in the middle of me. Smoke?”

“No. Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean to show bad manners.” She gestured weakly toward her son’s headstone with the cigarette. “Deal like this doesn’t help your manners. To have good manners, you have to give a shit, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, sometimes I do. Depends. Obviously I didn’t do the greatest job in the world with Cody, but I didn’t mean for it to be like that. I loved him with all my heart. He didn’t know who his dad was, that didn’t help. I wasn’t a whore, I was single. It’s not the same thing. But them other kids, their moms, it might have been they was jealous.” She ground the cigarette out in the dirt and ran her finger around the inside of the turtleneck.

“Crazy.”

“I mean, I know who was starting it. I went to PTA and read their attitudes. Once I figured it out, I went after the husbands, and believe me they was ready. I only did it for the boy. I was on a mission. Those moms, they brought it on themselves. Which I should of never did. Everything got worse for Cody. I guess the facts show he had it in for women. Wise commentary, please.”

“I think you’ve already said it.”

“I ain’t said shit. Why don’t you fill in the blanks? You’re the doctor. Where’s the bullshit when you need it?”

I could have skipped the bullshit, also known as wise counsel, and told her how I urged her son on. I could have said, “Good riddance,” but I didn’t have the guts. Furthermore, this conversation had acquired a squeamish intimacy. But I was at the scene, and she knew that: couldn’t change it. I did try asking her where she worked. She said, “I don’t.”

“Oh.”

“I’m a homemaker.” With this, she began to laugh, loudly and at length. “I married one of the husbands. The ex lives alone. My husband thinks it’s a good deal. He writes ‘thank you’ on every alimony check.”

It began to dawn on me that it was possible Deanne could handle the truth. If I told her the truth, maybe I could change my plea to not guilty, yet I was unsure that I could do it. When she found out my part in her son’s death, I would face her at last: I would be shriven. I would begin to pay for my sins.

I tried the idea four days later. I had a meeting with Throckmorton scheduled for late afternoon, and I was milling around doing errands, paying bills, walking to the post office. I spent an hour reading magazines while a chip was removed from the windshield of my increasingly unreliable Oldsmobile 88. Jays and pigeons were getting all the bird food I put out, so I bought a special feeder for thistle seed that would serve the smaller birds, the finches, titmice, white- and rufous-crowned sparrows, wrens, and nuthatches that had been run off by the bruisers who sprayed sunflower shells around my lawn. I installed a bracket intended for hanging plants above deer level but in sight of my bedroom, hung the feeder, went over to Boyer Street and knocked on Deanne’s door. Her husband answered, and I was surprised to see that it was the owner of the grain elevator, Jerry Perkins, who I knew slightly but cordially. “Jerry,” I said, making no secret of my surprise. He smiled and drew the door back invitingly.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “Deanne said she’d seen you.”

I was in the hallway, the door closed behind me, before I learned Deanne was out. Jerry was a warm and forceful guy and before I could arrange to come back, he had me out on his enclosed back porch drinking coffee and admiring his own arrangements for feeding birds and his heated birdbath for winter. “That sucks them in more than the feed ’long about January.” Jerry was such a big, powerful brute, bulging in his blue dashboard overalls, that his enthusiasm for birds seemed remarkable. His widow’s peak of close-cropped red hair and his big hands made everything he said emphatic.

“What a coincidence,” I said. “I’ve just bought a hundred pounds of Nijer seed. It’s in the backseat of my car.”

“They’ll go right through it. That’s about all the company you have, isn’t it?”

“Pretty quiet.”

“Think you’ll get off?”

“I don’t know.”

“I assume you’re innocent.”

I laughed mirthlessly. “I’m waiting to find out.”

“You’re waiting to find out?”

“I mean, they’ll let me know, I guess.”

“I’m not sure I’m following this,” said Jerry.

“I mean it’s anybody’s guess how these things turn out.”

“What I’m trying to say,” said Jerry, “is I hope you know the facts here, because they’re going to bang you around in court and you need to be ready.” I had the sense Jerry was lecturing me.

“I’m ready.”

“Well, good.” He got up and opened the glass louvers to let more air in. “Just be careful. There’s always bad shit waiting to get a guy. Deanne said she seen you,” he said again. I wondered if he meant to emphasize it particularly.

“That’s right, I—”

“I don’t suppose she’ll ever get over that punk.”

I thought for a minute, then said, “It’s tough.”

“He wasn’t but eight or nine when me and Deanne got together. He was a mean little punk then. I swear before God I did my best to knock it out of him.”

I was stumped but struggled to reply. “Not much luck?”

“I made him work at the elevator when he wasn’t at school. Had him load grain, cake, salt, whatever, in trucks. He could work like two men, I’ll give him that. He was just a little kid, but he worked like a Georgia mule. I don’t know what he wanted. I couldn’t stand the sight of him. Had to go. Can I get you something?”

“I’m fine, thanks. What do you mean he had to go? I thought he was a hard worker.”

“I told you: I couldn’t stand the sight of him. How did we get on this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You seen Deanne at the boneyard. That was it. I knew you discovered the situation there with Clarice. What a mess. And she was a good kid. One of them kids gets beat up by every man she meets. You could just feel it around her. Spend an hour with Clarice and you’d want to boot her in the ass and never know why. It was something about her.”

I saw Clarice a lot and never felt any such thing, but I thought not to mention it. It was clear by now that my connection to the deaths was provoking Jerry to fill me in on the background, though I was growing less inclined to hear it, something he didn’t notice.

“What about a beer?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself. The deal is, I give up a lot for Deanne. I was married to a Callagy from up the Shields. They had ten sections of grass and a thousand acres under sprinklers. It was a money deal and I walked away from it because Deanne was good-looking and a ton of fun, but Cody come with the package. My ex had a good income at the courthouse and even though she weighed over two hundred she carried it well. Carried that suet like a champ. Everyone agreed she carried it well. Since Deanne married me she hadn’t done shit-all, but she’s exciting and keeps a great house and, hey, I love her to death, but the Cody years was an inch short of a deal breaker. I’d be lying if I told you I was sorry he’s gone. It’s too damn bad he took Clarice with him, but if it hadn’t been him it would’ve been someone else. She was that kind.”