Ларри Макмертри - The Last Picture Show

It had rained the week before and there were deep ruts in the dirt road. Sonny drove as carefully as he could, but Sam the Lion scratched his head and watched the speedometer nervously, convinced that they were proceeding at a reckless speed.

"Did you know about me and Mrs. Popper?" Sonny asked suddenly, feeling that if he was ever going to talk about it the time was at hand.

"Yeah, how is Ruth?",Sam asked. "I haven't had a close look at her in years."

"Sometimes she's okay," Sonny said. "Sometimes she doesn't seem to be too happy."

Sam snorted. "That's probably the understatement of the day," he said. "I figured her for a suicide ten years agopeople are always turning out to be tougher than I think they are."

"I don't exactly know what to do about her," Sonny said hopefully.

Sam the Lion laughed almost as loudly as he had on the tank dam.

"Don't look at me for advice," he said. "I never know exactly what to do about anybody, least of all women. You might stay with her and get some good out of her while you're growing up. Somebody ought to get some good out of Ruth."

They pulled onto the highway and in a few minutes the fenceposts were going by so fast that Sam the Lion could hardly see them. He breathed as little as possible until they hit the city limits sign-then Sonny slowed down and he relaxed.

"Say, was Duane along that night you all got Billy in the mess?" he asked. "I've been wondering about that lately." Sonny was caught off guard and was completely at a loss to answer. He automatically started to lie, but because it was Sam the Lion the lie wouldn't come out. He decided it wouldn't hurt to tell the truth, but the truth wouldn't come out either. First the lie and then the truth stuck in his throat, and right in the same place.

"I see," Sam said. "Watch out, that's Old Lady Peters backing out of her driveway up there. She thinks it's still 1930 an' she's just as apt to back right in front of you as not."

He gripped the door handle tightly, prepared to leap out if necessary, but Sonny had seen the old lady blocks before he had and calmly, out of habit, swerved wide around her and coasted them safely up to the poolhall door.

chapter fifteen

Three days after the fishing trip, Duane got so frustrated that he beat up Lester Marlow. Jacy and Lester had gone to Wichita together three Saturday nights in a row, and Duane could stand it no longer.

"I don't care if it ain't Lester's fault," Duane told Sonny. "Maybe if he has a couple of front teeth missin' Mrs. Farrow won't be so anxious to have Jacy go with him:'

Sam the Lion overheard the remark and gave a skeptical chuckle. "The only person who'll profit by that sort of reasonin' is Lester's dentist," he said. "Maybe Jacy likes to go with Lester."

That was an incredible thing to suggest. Duane and Sonny were both flabbergasted.

"You don't think she wants to go with that fart, do you?" Duane asked indignantly.

"Well, Lester ain't entirely unlikable," Sam replied, not at all flustered. "I don't know Jacy well enough to know what she wants, but you've been blaming her mother all this time for something that might not be her mother's fault. If I was you I'd investigate."

Duane stormed out of the poolhall, mad as he could be. He didn't want to investigate, he just wanted to whip Lester, and about midnight that night, as Lester was passing the courthouse, Duane waved him down. Sonny was the only other person to see it.

"I know you're mad," Lester said, as soon as he got out of the car, "but you needn't be. All I've done is take her to dances. I've never even kissed her."

It was a shameful admission, but true: Jacy gave Lester absolutely nothing in the way of intimacies. She didn't have to.

"You took her to a naked swimming party," Duane said. "Don't tell me you didn't kiss her."

"I didn't," Lester said, but at that point Duane hit him on the mouth. Lester swung a half-hearted blow in return and found himself sitting down—at least he found himself getting up, and he could only assume he had been knocked down first. The fight was well started and things were easier for him: he couldn't feel himself being hit, and after three or four more licks Duane bloodied his nose and stopped fighting.

"That's just a taste," he said. "Don't you take her anywhere else!"

Lester said nothing, and Duane and Sonny walked away. Not saying anything was something of a triumph, Lester thought. He had made no promises. He went across the street to the filling station and ran some water on his nose, thinking that in a way he had been ganged up on. Sonny had been there. It could even have been that he was not knocked down fairly—Sonny could have tripped him. On the way back to Wichita he concluded that Sonny probably did trip him, and instead of going to his home he drove out to a place on Holiday Creek where some of the wilder boys often gathered on Saturday nights. A lot of boys were there, sitting on the fenders of their cars drinking beer, and when they saw how bloody Lester was they were briefly impressed. What happened? they wanted to know.

"Couple of roughnecks beat me up," Lester said stoically. "You know, Crawford and Moore, over in Thalia. It was about Jacy Farrow. I would have done okay if one of them hadn't tripped me."

"Those motherfuckers," one of the boys said. "We ought to go over there and pile their asses."

"No," Lester said gallantly. "I don't want anybody fighting my fights."

"Aw, hell, it'd be somethin' to do," a boy said. "Besides we can get the Bunne brothers to do the fighting." The Bunne brothers were local Golden Gloves champions, a welter weight and a light-heavy. They enjoyed fighting, in the ring or out.

Lester didn't try again to discourage them, but for himself he decided it would be best not to go back to Thalia. The boys took that in stride—they didn't really like Lester much and were just as glad he stayed in Wichita. The nice thing about his getting beat up was that it gave them an excuse to drive to Thalla and watch a fight.

The Bunne brothers were located at a Pioneer drive-in, trying to make some girls in a green Pontiac. The welter weight was named Mickey, the light-heavy, Jack. They were glad to get a chance to go fighting: the girls were just a bunch of pimply virgins who had run off from a slumber party in Burkburnett. A couple of boys elected to stay and work on them, but that still left seven raring to go. They piled in a second-hand Mercury and headed for Thalia, driving about eighty-five and laughing and talking. Saturday night had taken a turn for the better.

After the fight with Lester, Sonny and Duane walked over to the café to have a cheeseburger. Duane really wanted sympathy, but Genevieve was not inclined to give him any.

"No sir," she said. "There wasn't any point in your bullyin' Lester-it ain't his fault you can't make your girl friend behave:'

"You're as bad as Sam," Duane said bitterly. "Why lacy would marry me tonight, if she had the chance."

Sonny got up and put a couple of nickels in the jukebox, hoping a little music would ease the tension. It didn't seem to help much, so after a few minutes the boys left and drove out to the Y, a fork in the road about five miles from town. The fork was on top of a hill, and when they got there they sat and looked across the fiat at the cluster of lights that was Thalia. In the deep spring darkness the lights shone very clear. The windows of the pickup were down and they could smell the fresh smell of the pastures.

They only sat a few minutes, and then drove back to town. When they pulled up at the rooming house the Wichita boys were there, sitting on the fenders of the Mercury.

"There's the Bunne brothers," Duane said. "That damn Lester must have sent 'em."

Both of them were badly scared, but they didn't want the Wichita boys to know that so they got out as if nothing were wrong. For a moment no one said anything. Sonny nervously scraped his sole on the pavement and the sound was very loud in the still night.