Ларри Макмертри - The Last Picture Show

When Ruth awakened she did not want Sonny to leave. She felt entirely comfortable, and she wanted to touch him, play with him, have his hand on her. After that, she never used the dream again, but she kept it in her mind as a safeguard, and even though she still sometimes missed, having the dream was a great reassurance.

In the weeks after Ruth's breakthrough the two of them became very close and comfortable. Once Sonny quit worrying about her response or lack of response, he found her much more pleasant to be with, and there were even afternoons when he visited her, not to make love but just to talk, hold hands, or watch television.

Only one problem arose, and that was one they had been expecting: the town knew about them. A couple of the housewives who lived along the alley compared notes, and in a few days the town knew. Sonny worried about it a lot, Ruth hardly at all.

"What do you think the coach would do if he found us?" Sonny asked one day. Ruth was sitting on the quilt combing her brown hair. She had decided to let her hair grow longer. "Probably shoot us both," she said lightly. "He's always glad to have an excuse to use his deer rifle."

Sonny mused on that and decided she was right. "What do you think we ought to do about it?" he asked.

"I don't know," Ruth said, puckering her mouth at him happily. "Why don't we buy a new quilt? This one's about had it."

The next day she got one, for sentimental reasons also blue.

chapter twelve

One night in mid-March Sonny woke up too early—around 3:30 A.M. The first thing that occurred to him was that Sam the Lion would be asleep. Sam the Lion had made his decree of banishment stick, and, though Sonny had endured it as best he could, he had about reached the point where he could endure it no longer. It occurred to him that if he got dressed and went down to the café Genevieve might let him sit and talk awhile. A cold March norther was blowing and the warm blankets were hard to leave, but the chances were he would have to leave them in an hour or so anyway, to make an early butane run.

Genevieve was sitting in one of the booths, reading an old issue of the Ladies' Home Journal . To his immense relief she looked delighted to see him.

"Come on in here," she said. "I'm not going to throw any bottles at you."

"Could I have a cheeseburger?" he asked quickly. One of the worst parts of the penalty had been eating at the drive-in, where the cheeseburgers were half raw and the tomatoes soggy.

"You can have two if you want them," she said, and she made him two while he sat nervously in the booth. When she brought them in he swallowed the first one in only five or six bites.

"Quit eating so fast," Genevieve said. "You've lost weight. Even if it was a terrible thing to do to Billy, I'm on your side."

Sonny was grateful. "I couldn't talk them out of it," he said. "It was Leroy's idea."

"Where was Duane?" she asked.

It was a ticklish question. Duane had gone right on using the café and the poolhall, just as if he hadn't been along. It was a sore spot with the other boys, and a few of them wanted to tell Sam the Lion about Duane's part in it. Thinking about it made Sonny uneasy.

"He was there," he admitted. "Just don't tell Sam:"

"I figured he was," Genevieve said quietly. "He just didn't have the decency to own up and take his punishment. He probably got just as big a kick out of it as Leroy did."

Sonny was embarrassed and kept eating cheeseburger. Nobody had ever criticized Duane in front of him before—for no reason that he could think of life was becoming more complicated.

"Well, I won't say no more about it," she said. "That's between you and him. But you've got to make up with Sam, that's for sure. I won't have you eating at that drive-in anymore. He misses you and he'll make it up if you do it right. He knows you too well to think you really went out of your way to upset Billy."

"How's Dan?" Sonny asked.

"Coming along. He's well enough to be contrary." Sonny began to relax. The café was just the same; the jukebox, the booths, the high-school football schedule pinned on the wall. Genevieve cradled the coffee cup in her hand and stared at the frost-smoked windows.

"I've gotten into something else," Sonny said tentatively. She was the only person he could think of that he might be able to talk to.

"Got a new girl friend?" she grinned, and then she suddenly remembered the gossip. Until that moment she had not taken it at all seriously.

"I guess I have," Sonny said. "Not a girl friend, a lady friend. It's Mrs. Popper." He didn't know whether he was glad to have the secret out, and Genevieve was not sure at all that she was glad to have received it.

"Ruth Popper?" she said, amazed. "How do you mean, Sonny? Have you been flirtin' with her like you do with me, or is it different?"

"It's different," he said. "It's ... like in a movie."

She saw that he was watching her face, dreadfully anxious to know what she thought about the news.

"I don't know what to think about you," she said. "Quit lookin' at me that way. This is an awful small town for that kind of carrying on, I can tell you that. You can't sneeze in this town without somebody offerin' you a handkerchief."

"Coach Popper don't care nothin' about her," Sonny said. "I don't see why he should care."

"He cares about himself, though-and about what people think of him. He owns a lot of guns, too."

Sonny looked so young and solemn and confused that after a moment it all amused her and she chuckled. He looked far too confused to be into anything wicked.

"All right," she said. "I won't say no more about it. You're a man of experience now, you don't need my advice anyway."

Sonny didn't know about advice, but he was glad to have her approval, however he could get it. He had some pie and chatted about lesser things until the streets outside were gray with a cold dawn. Genevieve got up to tend to the coffee maker.

"I better go on," Sonny said. "Sam's going to be coming any time."

"You stay," Genevieve said, not even turning around. Sonny didn't like the idea, but he didn't have long to worry about it. In a few minutes the café door opened and Sam the Lion and Billy stepped inside. Sam had on his old plaid mackinaw, his khakis, and his house shoes. When he saw Sonny he opened his mouth to say something but Genevieve cut him off.

"Don't say a word," she said. "I won't have him eating at that drive-in no more. He can apologize like a civilized person and you can listen to him."

When Billy saw Sonny his face brightened and he went right over and sat down by him. He had forgotten all about the bad night, and didn't remember anything bad that Sonny had done. Sonny turned his baseball cap around backward for him.

"I'm sorry," Sonny said, when Sam the Lion came to the booth.

"Scoot over," Sam said, a little embarrassed. "If Billy can stand you I can too." He sat down by Sonny and ordered his sausage and eggs. Sonny was so relieved that he couldn't think of anything to say, and Sam the Lion was so relieved that he couldn't keep quiet. There was the basketball team to talk about, a disgraceful, hapless basketball team that hadn't come within thirty points of winning a game. Sam the Lion gave it hell, and continued giving it hell as the café filled, as the cowboys and the truckers came in, blowing on their cold hands. Soon smoke was rising from a dozen or more cups of Genevieve's coffee. Sam the Lion poured his in a saucer and went on talking while the two boys, not listening, happily ate their breakfasts.

chapter thirteen

It was in the early spring, when Sonny was really beginning to get in touch with Ruth, that Duane really began to get out of touch with Jacy. He forgave her for going to the nude swimming party in Wichita, but somehow they were never as comfortable with one another as they had been before that happened. The thing that bothered Duane most was that, instead of going to Wichita less and less, Jacy was going more and more. It got so he was lucky if he spent one Saturday night a month with her. Time after time she drove off to Wichita with Lester Marlow, always, she said, because her mother insisted. Duane raged and stormed, but he never quite got up the guts to have it out with Lois. Instead, he decided to concentrate on getting Jacy to marry him as soon as they graduated. He knew she had her application in to several fancy girls' schools, and he realized that if she got away to college he would have seen the last of her. His only chance was to marry her sometime during the summer, while she was still at home.