Thomas McGuane - Crow Fair - Stories

I’ve been out of the legislature for over a year, and it has not been the best thing in the world for our relationship, though I just hate to use that word. I served one term and made my values plain to the voters — respect for the two-parent household, predator control, and reduced death taxes for the family farm. When I ran for a second term, fringe groups twisted everything I’d said, and the net result was this Assiniboin half-breed named Michelle Red Moon Gillespie cleaned my clock, leaving her wigwam for the capitol in Helena while I, unwilling to resume my job as a travel agent, headed home to try to figure out what was next. I kept my office in town on the theory that something would come along, but nothing did. It allowed me at least to keep Ann at bay while I tried to think, and we went on referring to it as “my job.” Eventually, my weakened state was something she could smell, and once or twice I caught her regarding me in a way I never saw when she was frisking around the Governor’s Ball or any other time when I was a senator. We talked about the early days of our marriage, before the travel agency, before state politics, before we learned there would not be children. We were going to get the fuck out of Montana and buy a schooner. We even flew to Marina del Rey to look at it parked there among thousands of other boats that never went anywhere. I said, “You know, I just can’t see it.”

Ann said, “You’re not serious! I’ve heard nothing but schooner for the last five years!”

“It was only a dream.”

“I’ll give you dream. Don’t do this to me again.”

The captain came out of the cabin in a cloud of marijuana smoke to ask if we were interested. He said he was tired of life at sea and was going to carry the anchor inland until someone asked him what it was. There he would settle down, find himself a gal of Scandinavian heritage, and raise a family. He kept looking hungrily at Ann, then back at me with an expression that said, What’s she doing with you?

We flew home, and Ann began tap-dancing lessons. One day when I’d forgotten, she told me to flush the toilet immediately, adding, “In this matter, timeliness counts. I can’t be expected to review your diet at this remove.” That was one of the low points and yet another hint that my idleness was so complete that I no longer remembered to flush the toilet.

By way of placating my instantaneous loneliness in Ann’s absence, I decided to visit the Jewells and find out why anyone would get so involved in remodeling such a plain house, one probably built on the cheap to judge by the rusty stovepipe sticking out the top. Their place was so close, I almost didn’t need to drive, though I did so very slowly, without listening to the radio or anything else as I thought about why I was doing this at all. I figured that it was a bit like having a drink, just a matter of changing gears. I didn’t know why Ann would want to join the Clearys. Was she that bored? Did I bore her? I certainly wasn’t entertaining myself. So going to visit the Jewells was not just a matter of breaking the ice with inscrutable neighbors but, frankly, to get myself out of our settled cottage with its old trees and vines, even for a half-mile journey to what looked like remodeling hell a mile down the road. Would the Jewells peek at me through a crack of their front door and ask what I wanted? Would they pretend they weren’t at home? Either way it would be more interesting than killing time while I waited for Ann to return. A pleasant jolt of the unfamiliar ought to have been within my capacities. I might cook it up as an enchanting tidbit for Ann.

I felt newly alive as I looked for a place to park in front of the Jewells’ house amid the building supplies, camper shell, cat travel crates, cement mixer. Two things struck me: the drawn curtains and pirate flag fluttering from the pole in the front yard. Also, the manufacturer’s stickers on the plate-glass windows had not been removed. As I passed the upended canoe going to the door, several cats ran out, one climbing the only tree in the yard. When I knocked, the door opened so quickly as to confirm that I’d been observed.

“How did you find a place to park in all that junk?”

Jewell’s teeth were big for his face, or he was just too thin for them, but his smile was intense and welcoming all the same. We were nearly the same height, so his eager proximity was especially notable. I found myself leaning back. He was very glad to see me!

“I thought we’d never meet!” he cried. “Bruce.”

“Well, here I am!” I exclaimed, sounding exceptionally stupid. “Bruce.”

“You can say that again!” Was Jewell being ironic? The all-knowing look you get when you buy rimless glasses seemed at odds with his guileless enthusiasm. I was confused. “We don’t allow smoking,” he added. For just a moment I thought, Jewell was fucking with me, but the thought passed as I followed him into the house, his windmilling arms leading the way. That he was barefoot was not so remarkable given that he was at home, but it seemed at odds with his somewhat-spiffy attire, slacks and smoking jacket. Bruce was a little younger than me, and painted toenails might have been a generational thing I missed.

“What’s with the pirate flag?”

“Oh, Nell and I have a kind of game. I pretend I’m a pirate, and she’s a royal prisoner.” Jewell shifted into a guttural “pirate” voice: “You look after the old lady and I shall see to the daughters.”

“Is that Blind Pew?” I asked.

“Oh God, no. Anyway, at first we were going to be cowboys — here’s my study — and then astronauts. At the moment, it’s pirates, but who knows. Nell, thank goodness, has a private income. Being a programmer was more a matter of my personal dignity, but oh well, what’s the use of that? Life is short, don’t you agree, might as well enjoy it.”

Opening the door to the study, Jewell called out, Ed McMahon style, “Heeeeeere’s, Nell!” And indeed there she was in a prospect of piled Lego pieces, with a large picture of the finished model thumbtacked to the wall next to her: the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “She’s already done Big Ben. So, she’s ready to move up the Architecture Series. This one got a great review in Eurobricks, didn’t it, Nell?” Her face had no expression of any kind, and she was wearing a wash dress of the sort seen in WPA photographs. “We got sidetracked by the Royal Baby series when Kate’s little Prince George of Cambridge was commemorated with a fifty-five brick pram.”

“I want a baby!” boomed Nell.

Jewell seemed not to have heard and introduced us. Nell struggled to respond. There was something wrong with Nell, big-time. Retarded, I think, but healthy otherwise and rather pretty. She stood up and smiled, quite a nice smile, and said with extraordinary deliberation, “Hullo.”

Jewell said, “Why don’t I just leave you two for a moment and let you get acquainted.”

I instinctively turned as though to follow Jewell out the door, but it was gently closed in my face. Nell said, “We don’t serve drinks in here.”

“Ah.”

“But we do have healthful snacks.”

“Thank you, but I’m okay.”

“This puzzle is very time-consuming.”

She had a gentle, crooning voice that, once I absorbed its strangeness, was so soothing as to be almost hypnotic. She told me the puzzle didn’t really interest her and that before her accident she had seen the real Tower of Pisa and that hadn’t interested her, either. I began to ask what sort of accident, to which she answered preemptively, “bicycle,” before going on to tell how on Tuesday she got lost in the woods behind the house and that it didn’t bother her but it bothered “Bruce” and, because it had, she was sad all day, until “Bruce” made her pancakes with blueberry syrup and after that they were fine about the woods and what she was doing there.