Thomas McGuane - Crow Fair - Stories

Jack rubbed his hands together eagerly and said, “My God, it’s like Chef Boyardee!” Tony rolled his eyes at this and smiled at Hewlitt, whose surprisingly mild and beardless face had begun to fascinate him. The beard, it was explained, was something Hewlitt cultivated for sportsmen’s shows: he hated beards.

“I’m not ashamed of my face,” he said. “Why would I hide it?”

Hewlitt had already eaten, and so Jack and Tony sat down at the table while he headed off toward the trees. Halfway through the meal, Jack noticed the man making slow, strange movements. Tony, thoroughly enjoying this breakfast, which was miles off his diet, hadn’t looked up yet.

Finally Jack said, “I think the guide is having some kind of a fit.”

Tony glanced up, mouth full of unsaturated fats.

“No, Jack, that’s not a fit. That’s Tai Chi.”

“Like in the Kung Fu movies, I suppose.”

“No.”

They continued to eat in a less-pleasant silence until Hewlitt bounced over and joined them. Tony smiled as though they were old friends and asked, “Chen?”

“Uh-uh,” said Hewlitt.

“Yang?”

“Nyewp.”

“I’m out of ideas,” Tony admitted modestly.

“Wu,” said Hewlitt, in subdued triumph.

“Of course,” said Tony. “What was that last pose?”

“Grasp-the-Bird’s-Tail.”

Jack listened and chewed slowly. He let his eyes drift to the other side of the river: an undifferentiated wall of trees. The water seemed so smooth you’d hardly know it was moving at all if it wasn’t for the long stripe of foam behind every boulder. Invisible behind the branches, a raven seemed to address the camp.

Fried eggs on a metal plate. Jack ate more cautiously than usual: Tony was always on him about his weight. But then Tony was a doctor, and Jack felt he had his well-being in mind despite the often-annoying delivery. It was pleasing to notice these signs of old friendship, such as they were. Jack knew he should take better care of himself, and he had complied when Tony had wanted him to give up the cigarettes. It had been hard, and they were never completely out of his mind. In an odd way, that had been his own gesture of friendship, despite Tony’s main argument having been that financially Jack really couldn’t afford to smoke.

Tony was telling a story to Marvin that Jack already knew. He’d heard it a hundred times.

“We went on vacation to Mexico one year, and I brought back these little tiny superhot peppers to cook with. We had Jack and his wife, Jan, over for dinner one night, and I told Jack what I just told you, that these were the hottest little peppers in the world. Well, Jack, he’s had about five longnecks in a row, and he says, ‘Nothing’s too hot for me!’ right before he puts a spoonful of them in his mouth. Buddy, that was all she wrote. Tears shoot out of his eyes. His face turns … maroon. His head drops to the table, and what do you think he says?”

“I don’t know,” said Hewlitt.

“He says, ‘Why is it always me?’ ”

Hewlitt stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “What’s the punch line?”

Tony’s face fell with a thud. Hewlitt got up to feed the fire.

“Our host doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor,” Tony said, when the man was gone. Jack just smiled at him.

There were a lot of Italians around the meatpacking plant, and that’s where Tony’s people had settled. He had come a long way. Jack’s family was cattle, land, and railroad: they’d virtually founded the town but hadn’t had a pot to piss in for generations. Gerri liked to point out that half of her and Jack’s relatives were absolute bums, which generally made Jack’s wife respond that Tony’s family was right off the boat. Nobody crossed Jan: she wasn’t witty; she was angry. He may be a doctor to you, but he’s a wop to me. Jack was fundamentally too fragile for this kind of badinage, unfortunately, because he had to admit that Tony and Gerri were far less snippy when Jan was around. She’d say to Jack, “You want respect, you better be prepared to snap their heads back.” Or she’d put it the way Mike Tyson did: “Everybody’s got an attitude until you hit them in the face.”

Jack’s roots in town were so deep that he thought that Jan’s bellicosity was just a result of having grown up somewhere else. She was from Idaho, for crying out loud. This was before he found out Jan had had a slipup with Tony back in the day, while Jack was off doing his time with the National Guard.

When Tony and Gerri took them to New York to see Cats , that’s when it really hit the fan. Tony had made a big thing about Cats winning a Tony Award, which Jan thought was such a hoot because Jack had no idea what a Tony Award was. He’d thought Tony was flirting with Jan again, with his so-called humor. Jack and Jan moved to their own hotel, leaving the room Tony had paid for empty. In their new room, Jan went on the defensive and blamed alcohol for the flirtation. She seemed to think that with this citation, the issue was settled. Jack didn’t buy it, but he’d never been willing to pay the price for taking it further. Instead, he absorbed the blow. Having Tony know he just took it was the hardest part.

But somehow the problem between the two of them evaporated when they were back in town. “New York just wasn’t for us,” Tony said, amiably, and Jack accepted this gratefully. Jan, however, twisted it around; she took it to mean that she and Jack just weren’t good enough for New York.

“Who wants to go there anyway?” she’d say. “All those muggers, and that smelly air!”

Meanwhile her slipup was consigned, once again, to history. Full stop. Jack couldn’t stand any of it.

They all pitched in to tidy up the camp, and then they headed for the boat. It was tied to a tree, swinging in the current; a cool breeze, fresh and balsamic, was sweeping up the river. Hewlitt carried a Styrofoam chest — their lunch — to the shore and put it aboard. Fishing tackle had been loaded in already.

A moment later the three men climbed in, and Hewlitt started the engine. Once he was sure it was running properly, he stepped ashore and freed the painter from the tree, sprang aboard again, and turned into the current. Tony said, “This is what it’s all about.”

Jack nodded eagerly and then felt a wave of hopelessness unattached to anything in particular. Maybe catching a fish, maybe just the day itself. Hewlitt gazed over the tops of their heads, straight up the river. He seemed to know what he was doing.

He had looked more competent when he’d still had the beard. Now he looked like a lot of other people. God was always portrayed with a beard — for Jack it was impossible to picture him without one, even if he strained to imagine what he assumed would be a handsome and mature face. The only time you ever saw Jesus without a beard, he was still a baby. Tony had grown his own beard right after med school. Sometime later Jan had told Tony that he needed to get rid of it; that was one of the worst arguments Jack and Jan had ever had. Jack had said it was for Gerri to say whether or not she liked the beard, since it was her husband. Jan said that a person was entitled to her own opinions.

“Who taught you to cast?” Tony said. They had started fishing.

“You did,” Jack replied.

“Obviously you needed to practice.”

Jack just shrugged it off. He was still getting it out there, wasn’t he? Maybe not as elegantly as Tony, but it shouldn’t have made any difference to the fish. The casting was just showing off. It seemed to have impressed Hewlitt, though, because he took Tony upriver to another spot, leaving Jack to fish where he was, even though nobody had gotten a bite. Jack thought it was probably a better spot, this new one, and of course it was perfectly natural that Hewlitt would take Tony there, since it was Tony who was paying for the trip. Nevertheless, after another hour had passed, he felt a bit crushed and no longer expected to catch a fish at all. He thought, None of this would be happening if I had more money.