Ларри Макмертри - The Last Picture Show

All the neighborhood women began to come to see her, friendly and smug, but she herself scarcely ever went out—she only went to the grocery store. At times she felt dizzy and almost feverish. She discovered that she missed Sonny sexually, as well as in other ways. From time to time she tried playing with herself, but it didn't work very well. One night in a moment of bitterness she grasped Herman and tried to get him to play with her, but he jerked himself angrily away and she didn't try again. If Sonny was not coming back, there was no point in her wanting sex anymore. It was a door she might just as well close.

The nadir came one day in the grocery store, when she bumped into Jacy. Ruth was in an old dress, her hair was dry, and she had not bothered to put on makeup. Jacy was in shorts, tight at the thighs. Her bare legs were tanned and her hair shone. They passed one another in front of the pork and beans. Jacy had on sunglasses, but she took them off when she met Ruth.

"Why hello, Mrs. Popper," she said, grinning with delight. "Haven't seen you in the longest time. I thought you must have left town for the summer."

When Ruth got home she began to tremble. She carried the blue quilt across the hot yard and stuffed it in the garbage can. She could think of no reason why anyone should desire her or want to know her or touch her, and she did not expect to touch or make love to anyone she cared about as long as she lived. It was a terrible feeling, knowing she would never really touch anyone again. She lay on the bed all afternoon staring dully at the wallpaper and wishing there were some simple way to die. She tried to remember herself when she was young, tried to recall one time in her life when she had been as attractive as Jacy, but she couldn't think of one. It seemed to her she had always been old. There was no relief in blaming Sonny, because what was there to blame him for? Jacy was exactly the type of girl with whom boys were supposed to fall in love. She herself was just the football coach's wife.

chapter twenty-two

One Saturday morning Sonny came in from his tower and found Duane in the apartment, asleep on the couch. While Sonny was taking a shower he woke up and came groggily into the bathroom.

"How you doin,' buddy," he said. "It's a real drive from here to Odessa, especially if you don't start till after you get off work."

"Where's your car?" Sonny asked.

Duane took him downstairs and proudly showed him the car—it was a second hand Mercury, nice and clean. "Thirty-eight thousand miles on her," Duane said. "Runs like new. I like to drive it so much I thought I'd run home for the weekend."

Sonny was a little relieved. For a few minutes he had been worried that Duane's trip home might have something to do with his relationship with Jacy, Fortunately she was in Dallas that weekend, buying her college clothes.

Duane looked almost the same; except that he was browner. He wore shirts with the sleeves cut completely out, and his shoulders and upper arms were tanned almost black.

"You don't know what sun is till you live out on that desert," he said. "Them folks in Odessa don't even know it's a desert, they think it's God's country." He smoked a lot more than he had, but he was out of school and not in training, and it was natural.

The poolhall was always full of people on Saturdays. It was almost football season and football was what everybody wanted to talk about. The men were glad to see Duane and asked him what kind of football teams they had way out in west Texas.

"Wish you was back here, Duane," several said. "We could use a good fullback this year."

Such talk made Duane feel fine. He had always been very proud of being in the backfield.

When it began to get dark Sonny and he decided to drive to Wichita and drink some beer. They put on fresh Levi's and clean shirts and drove over in Duane's Mercury. He insisted that Sonny drive it.

"Handles wonderful," Sonny said. "Quite a change from that pickup:"

They started the evening at a place called the Panhandle Tavern, out on the Burkburnett highway. It was a good place to drink beer, but then nearly any place was. When they left there they stopped in at the big Pioneer drive-in and watched a steady stream of teen-age boys and girls circling around one another in their cars. Finally they went on to Ohio Street and drank in a big roomy bar the size of a barn. There were a lot of airmen there, dancing, playing the shuffleboard, guzzling beer. Duane and Sonny drank and idly watched the dancing.

It was pleasant for a while, and then for some reason it began to go wrong. An edge came into the evening. Sonny felt it long before anything was said. He kept drinking beer, but he didn't get high, the way he should have. He should have been comfortable with Duane, too—after all, they were best buddies—but somehow he wasn't comfortable with him at all. The pretty girls on the dance floor reminded both of them of things they didn't really want to remember.

"Still screwin' that old lady?" Duane asked casually. "Yeah, ever now and then," Sonny said. It seemed to him the best thing to say. Duane hadn't mentioned Jacy all day, but Sonny knew he must have been thinking about her.

"Seen old Jerry Framingham last week," he said. "He came through going to Carlsbad with a load of goats. Said he thought you and Jacy had been going together a little:"

"Yeah, we have," Sonny admitted quickly. "Once and a while we come over here and eat Mexican food or some-, thing. She's been kinda bored, waitin' for school to start."

He didn't look at Duane but he could tell that something was wrong. Instead of looking at Duane he looked around the room. There were jars of pigs feet on the bar. Bunches of glum airmen stood around with beer glasses in their hands. There was a jukebox, a Schlitz sign, and a clock that said Lone Star Beer underneath it.

"Way I heard it what you probably been eatin' is pussy," Duane said, his voice shaky and strained. "Not old lady Popper's, either."

"It ain't true," Sonny said. "Whoever told you that didn't know what he was talkin' about. Sure, I been goin' with Jacy, why not?"

He couldn't keep down a pulse of irritation with Duane for having kept so quiet about the matter all day. He had kept quiet about it too, but then it wasn't his place to bring it up.

"I never said I blamed you for it," Duane said. "I don't blame you much. I just never thought I'd see the day when you'd do me that way. I thought we was still best friends."

"We are," Sonny said. "What are you so mad for? I never done nothin' to you."

"I guess screwin' my girl ain't nothin' to you," Duane said stiffly.

"I haven't screwed her, but she ain't your girl anymore, anyway. Hell, you don't even live here anymore."

"Don't make no difference," Duane insisted. He was beginning to seem drunk. "She's my girl and I don't care if we did break up. I'm gonna get her back, I'm tallin' you right now. She's gonna marry me one of these days, when I get a little more money."

Sonny was astonished that Duane could be so wrong. He knew Duane must be drunk.

"Why she won't marry you," he said. "She's goin' off to school. I doubt I'll ever get to go with her agin myself, once she gets off. I never saw what it could hurt to go with her this summer, though. She's never gonna marry you."

"She is, by God," Duane said. "Don't tell me she ain't. She'll never let you screw her, that's for sure. Hell, I was just seein' how honest you was, I knew Jacy wouldn't let you screw her. You ain't that good a cocksman. You never even screwed Charlene Duggs, all the time you went with her."

Sonny didn't know what to say. He was amazed that Duane would bring up such a matter. It was unfair, and the more he thought about it the madder he felt.

"Course I didn't," he said. "You know why? Because you and Jacy had the pickup all the time on Saturday night. Nobody could have screwed her in the time I had left."