Thomas McGuane - Crow Fair - Stories

“Oh?”

“Yes, I think so. I’m quite sure of it.”

“It’s your call, Szabo. But there’s something about me you don’t know.”

“I’m sure that’s the case. That’s nearly always the case, isn’t it, Barney?”

Some ghastly revelation was at hand, and Szabo knew that there would be no stopping it. “But I’d be happy to know what it is, in your instance.”

Barney gazed at him a long time before he spoke. He said, “I am a respectable person.”

Szabo found this unsettling. Clearly, it was time to have a word with his mother. He asked her out to lunch, but she begged off, citing the new smoking rules that, she said disdainfully, were “sweeping the nation.” So he took her to the park near the river. Her size had been reduced by tobacco and her deplorable eating habits. She scurried along briskly, and any pause on Szabo’s part found her well ahead, poking into garden beds and uprooting the occasional weed to set an example. They found a bench and sat. Mrs. Szabo shook out a cigarette by tapping the pack against the back of her opposing hand, then raising the whole pack, with its skillfully protruded single butt, to her lips. There the cigarette hung, unlit, while she made several comments about the weather and dropped the pack back into her purse. Finally, she lit it, and the first puff seemed to satisfy her profoundly.

“How did you find David?”

“Fine, I think. The way I get to see him down there … it’s uncomfortable. Just a big empty room.”

“Is he still angry?”

“Not that I could see.”

“He was such an angry little boy.”

“Well, he’s not little anymore, Mom. He’s got big muscles.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t misuse them. He got that attitude from your wife. The nicest thing I can say about her is that she kept on going.”

“She married a decent, successful guy.”

“What else could she do? She didn’t have the guts to rob a bank.”

“You forget what David was like before his problems. He didn’t have an attitude. He was a nice boy.”

He could see she wasn’t listening.

“Barney said you told him he was no longer needed.”

“He knew it was temporary from the start.”

“Well, he’s certainly got my place pulled together. My God, what a neatnik! And he made me insure the Russell, which I should have done a long time ago. He thinks that David’s in this pickle because he got away with murder while he was growing up.”

“What? He’s never met David!”

“Barney’s a very bright individual. He doesn’t have to know every last thing firsthand.”

“I think his views on how Karen and I raised David would be enhanced by actually meeting David.”

“Why?”

“Jesus Christ, Mom.”

“Of course you’re grumpy. Barney does so much for me, and you want me all to yourself. Can’t you just relax?”

Telling people to relax is not as aggressive as shooting them, but it’s up there. The first time Barney had driven the tractor, he’d nearly put it in the irrigation ditch. Szabo had cautioned him, and Barney had responded, “Is the tractor in the ditch?” Szabo had allowed that it was not. “Then relax,” Barney had said.

There was nothing like it: leaning on his shovel next to the racing water, the last sun falling on gentle hills crowned with bluestem and golden buffalo grass, cool air rising from the river bottom. Moon grazed and followed Szabo as he placed his dams and sent a thin sheet of alpine water across the hay crop. The first cutting had been baled and put neatly in the stack yard by Barney. The second cutting grew slowly, was denser in protein and more sought after by owners trying to make their horses run faster. All the way down through this minor economic chain, people lost money, their marvelous dreams disconnected from hopes of success.

Once winter was in the air, Szabo spent less time on his property and made an effort to do the things for his business that he was most reluctant to do. In November, he flew to Düsseldorf and stayed at the Excelsior, eating Düsseldorfer Senfrostbraten with Herr Schlegel while pricing robotic plasma welding on the small titanium objects that he was buying from him. The apparent murkiness of Germany was doubtless no more than a symptom of Szabo’s ignorance of the language. He wondered if all the elders he saw window-shopping on the boulevards were ex-Nazis. And the skinheads at the Düsseldorf railroad station gave him a sense of historical alarm. After a long evening in the Altstadt, Szabo found himself quite drunk at the bar of the Hotel Lindenhof, where he took a room with a beautiful Afro-Czech girl, called Amai, who used him as a comic, inebriated English instructor, her usual services being unnecessary, given his incapacity. Since Szabo appeared unable to navigate his way back to the Excelsior, Amai drove him there in return for the promise of a late breakfast in the Excelsior’s beautiful dining room. Afterward, she asked for his address so that they could stay in touch once he was home.

From Germany, Szabo flew directly to Denver. He slept most of the way and awoke to anxiety at the idea that this was probably the last visit he would have before David was released. In the chaotic year that preceded his son’s confinement, he had never known what David was doing or to what extent he was in danger; in the last weeks of his marriage, he and Karen had admitted to feeling some relief, now that David was in jail, simply at knowing where he was. Perhaps it was that relief that had allowed them to separate. Yet Cliff’s prompt appearance had aroused Szabo’s suspicion: he sensed that California had beckoned while his marriage was still seemingly intact.

David was warmer toward his father this time but more fretful than he had been on the previous visit. Szabo understood that David was probably as afraid of his impending freedom as Szabo was on his behalf. He seemed, despite the muscles, small and frightened, his previous sarcasm no more than a wishful perimeter of defense. And the glow of anger was missing. Szabo wondered if jet lag was contributing to his heartache. He hardly knew what to say to his son.

“In two weeks, you’ll be in California,” Szabo said.

“That was the plan.”

“Is it not anymore?”

“Mom and Cliff said they didn’t want me. I’ve got to go to Plan B.”

“I’m sorry, David. What’s Plan B?”

“Plan B is I don’t know what Plan B is.”

“What made your mom and Cliff change their minds?”

David smiled slightly. He said, “I’m trying to remember how Mom put it. She said that a new relationship requires so many adjustments that introducing a new element could be destabilizing. It was sort of abstract. She left it to me to figure out that I was the destabilizing new element. Then Cliff got on the phone and said that unfortunately closure called for the patience of all parties.”

“Did you say anything?”

“Yes, Dad, I did. I told Cliff to blow it out his ass.”

Szabo could have taken this as evidence of David’s unresolved anger. Instead, he enjoyed the feeling that they were in cahoots. “How did Cliff take that?”

“He said he was sorry I felt that way. I told him not to be. I told him I didn’t feel anything at all.”

They were quiet for long enough to suggest the inkling of comfort. Finally, David said, “Tell me about Barney.”

“Barney! What about him?”

“Why did you send him here to see me?”

Startling as this was, Szabo did not react at first. He was quiet for a long and awkward moment. Then he asked quite levelly, “When did Barney show up?”

“While you were still in wherever. He said you sent him.”

“Not exactly. Perhaps, based on our conversations, Barney thought it might be something I wanted him to do.”