Thomas McGuane - To Skin a Cat

“What are you laughing at?”

“I just had a silly thought. I really can’t repeat it.”

At first, Bobby and Marianne love their little house, with its latticed understory and the gleaming bladderworts of its small garden. There are absolutely no fleas in the carpet, and the front window is free of decals that would violate the view of the Pacific.

In the morning, pretty, foggy light reveals Marianne carrying coffee and croissants up the wooden stairs; then, side by side in the bed, the two agree not to turn on the “Today” show.

“I can smell the ocean in the curtains,” says Marianne.

“That Barbara Walters is a real tire biter,” says Bobby. “Is she on that show?”

“Your bathrobe makes me laugh.”

“This marmalade was a good year.”

“I think so.”

“I want a book on the Tong wars. Those old Tongs had this town in knots. Underground tunnels, opium, captive girls.”

“Let’s go to Golden Gate Park today.”

Really, they should never have gone to Golden Gate Park. When they arrive at the casting pools, Bobby gazes at the well-dressed anglers with a certain terror.

“I would like you to note,” he says, “that there are no fish in those waters.”

“Those men are having a good time.”

“Oh, great.”

“It’s not symbolic, Bobby.”

When they get to the buffalo paddock and view the great mementos grazing in the coastal fog, Bobby says, “There you have it. The American West. I feel weak all over.”

Bobby seems serious. He demands they go to a drugstore. “I don’t feel so well.” They buy a thermometer and take his temperature out on the sidewalk: normal. He announces that his hematocrit is out of whack and that he must be losing blood.

“I absolutely know that the ratio of red blood cells to plasma is way off. I felt it the minute I spotted those buffalo.”

After the blood test, Bobby insists on the upper and lower GI series. The radiologist mans the machine in his lead apron while Bobby gulps barium. The radiologist slams plates in and out of the machine. Bobby feels at death’s door in his odd gown.

At length, the doctor says, “Your blood’s fine. Your mucosa patterns are exquisite. You’re fine. Good-bye.”

In the waiting room Bobby tells Marianne, “I’ve had a very close call. I’d like a nickel for every farewell speech I’ve composed. My life passed before my eyes, and I concluded, as anyone would, that there was not a minute to be lost. Let’s hit the streets.” Bobby takes Marianne down Maiden Lane and shows her Frank Lloyd Wright’s initials on a red tile. Then he buys her a pair of silver pumps with bright macaws on their sides. Marianne stretches her pretty legs to smile at her shoes. In Joseph Magnin, Bobby seems hypnotized as Marianne tries on silk dresses. His heart is racing.

They stop at a park bench on Union Square with delicatessen sandwiches and a bottle of red wine or, rather, Pagan Pink. They pass the bottle back and forth as though they were hunkered down in some railroad yard.

Marianne says, “I was engaged twice and ducked out both times. I’ve been worried about life passing me by. I thought if I got married, that would happen, and I would disappear without a trace.”

“I felt that when I saw those buffalo.”

“In college I saw that if I improved my mind, I would always be broke. Then came meat byproducts.”

“Now what?”

“Chance. And you, I guess.”

At the dinner table, Marianne is dressed in her new clothes, her eyes and lips darkened savagely. She wears the silver shoes. The two have sent out for veal piccata. Neither has eaten yet. It’s a matter of who goes for his gun first. Thin green candles burn, and the table is walnut. Bobby wears his Blake’s Hotel clothes: Levi’s, cowboy boots, chambray shirt, and a bottle-green velvet jacket.

“Let’s hit it.”

Despite the yearly deterioration of what used to be known as the passing scene into the current smarmy flux, Enrico’s Sidewalk Café remains a grand spot to view it, whatever it is. There are those who would argue that this is on the order of a front-row seat at a nose-picking contest. But Enrico’s customers don’t feel that way. In any case, Bobby and Marianne sit at one of the sidewalk tables, demand tall, frosty drinks, and join the others on the lookout. Marianne’s eyes fall naturally on a prosperous man in his forties, leaning on one hand and punching away at a calculator with his other.

Bobby would like to meet an astronaut. Marianne loves the breeze through her clothes. She has no interest in the kind of people who would leave a golf putter on the moon. Moreover, they would probably have to go elsewhere to meet astronauts. “Ever since you traded the bird to that Arab, we’ve been on the move.”

A prostitute wanders across the front of the café, her legs slightly in front of her. She glances at the man with the calculator. Bobby watches, then flags down the bartender. He orders second drinks for himself and Marianne, then addresses the bartender.

“Say, is that young lady — is she in the life?”

“You’ll have to ask her.” The bartender grins and leaves for the drinks, ignoring thirty imploring hands.

“Marianne, excuse me a sec.”

Marianne watches Bobby lope toward the prostitute. When he comes back, she wants to know what he said to her.

“Just got her name.”

“And?”

“Some idea of prices. I had to tell her, you know, that I was interested. Her name is Donna. Anyway, she said a hundred. You’re way prettier than she is.”

“Thank you,” says Marianne.

“Now what I’m thinking is, that guy over there with the calculator.”

Slowly and imperturbably, Marianne gazes at the man. She looks back at Bobby a moment and gets up.

“I’ll see you at home.”

Marianne starts off bravely in her silver shoes. From either end of the cafe, Bobby and the prostitute Donna watch Marianne sit down with the man, who smiles and puts the calculator in his pocket. Marianne sips his drink.

Suddenly, down Broadway, with Stetson hats and cameras, comes a mob of Japanese tourists. Bobby, whose heart is already pounding, panics as they flood the area between him and Marianne. He jumps up in complete fear and begins pushing through them. When he gets to the other side, Marianne and the man with the calculator are gone. He goes back to his table.

“Hey.”

Dazed, Bobby looks up. It’s Donna.

“What?”

“You get a price out of me, then send your trick to the guy. I don’t think that’s nice, ’n’ that. Can I sit down?”

“Yuh.”

“How many ladies you got?”

“Just one.”

“What’re you so depressed about?”

“Drinking these things in the sun.”

“I mean, your hands are shaking.”

“I’ve got Parkinson’s disease.”

“You want to stop by my place? You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

“Yeah, all right.”

They go up Broadway, past the Hotel Du Midi, the Basque restaurant, past the Chinese novelty shops, more or less in silence as Bobby continues to bear his stricken look; then up an alley to a stairway, a catwalk, and a door.

They enter a small neat flat with gridded outside light coming in from above, some books, and, sitting in a Mexican goatskin sling chair, a very bad-looking man named Chino, whose name, a nickname, comes from a correctional facility in southern California. His real name is Donald Arthur Jones. He waves with professional indolence but still manages to look dangerous. He says, “Hey, Donna. Look, am I in the way? Just say so. Who’s our friend?”

“I don’t know, baby. But you assured me Enrico’s was your spot. And this guy and his whore run off a customer on me about five minutes ago, which embarrasses me on your behalf.”