Ларри Макмертри - The Last Picture Show

Jacy sat on the hospital bed and they kissed some more and talked about how wild it would be being married. Life seemed almost too crazy to be true.

The next day they unbandaged Sonny's eye. It wasn't that he couldn't see anything out of it, it was just that all he could see was fog. It was like being inside a cloud. He could tell when people moved around, but he couldn't tell who they were until they spoke.

"Could be a lot worse," the doctor said. "We'll see how it responds before we do anything else."

They gave him a black patch to wear over his eye and told him to come back weekly for checkups, but Sonny hardly listened. Marrying Jacy was all he could think of, and he thought about it on the ride back to Thalia, while his father drove.

As soon as they got home Sonny took the extra eye patch the doctor had given him and showed Billy how to wear it. Billy was tickled to death. Because Sonny did it, he thought seeing out of only one eye was a great way to see, and from then on he wore the spare eye patch whenever he went out to sweep the town.

chapter twenty-three

Jacy was dead serious about getting married: the day after Sonny left the hospital they drove to Wichita and got the license. They had to wait three days, so to be doing something Sonny quit his roughnecking job and arranged for a new job pumping leases, something he could do with one eye. The rest of the time he just stayed around the poolhall thinking about sleeping with Jacy. The prospect helped take his mind off his eye.

Jacy spent the three days imagining the effect her marriage would have on her parents and on the town. Everybody was curious about Sonny's eye, which made it absolutely the ideal time to run off with him. Her folks would simply have a fit. Probably they would call the police and have them arrested and torn out of one another's arms, but at least they would have been married and everyone would know it.

Friday afternoon, when it actually became time for them to run away, she wrote her parents a quick note:

Dear Mama and Daddy—

I know this is going to be a shock to you but I guess it can't be helped. Sonny and I have gone to Oklahoma to get married—I guess it will be in Altus. Even if he is poor we are in love. I don't know what to say about college, I guess we'll just have to talk about that when we get back. We are going to Lake Texoma on our honeymoon and will be home Monday. I guess I will live at the poolhall until we find someplace else to live. Even if you don't like Sonny now I know you will love him someday.

Jacy

She left the note on the cabinet, propped up against a box of crackers. Gene found it when he came in from work three hours later. Lois was in Wichita that day and returned late. When she came in, Gene was pacing the kitchen floor, obviously distressed. He handed her the note.

"Oh, goddamn her," Lois said. "I can't believe it."

"Well, we got to get going," Gene said. "I want to catch 'em. Even if we can't get 'em before they marry we can sure as hell get 'em before they go to bed. That way we can get it annulled with no trouble."

"Why bother?" Lois said. "I suppose we could get it annulled anytime—that's what money's for. Why don't we just let her do the getting out—you know she won't stay with Sonny ten days. I just hate to think of what she'll do to him in that length of time. If we don't get that little bitch off to college she's going to ruin the whole town."

Gene was so upset he couldn't take what Lois said. He turned and slapped her, but it was a light, indecisive slap.

"You just change your clothes," he said, shoving her in the direction of the bedroom. "I said we're going to get 'em and by God that's all there is to it. What do you mean calling my daughter a bitch? You're her mother, ain't you?"

"I don't see what that has to do with it," Lois said, but she didn't feel like arguing. She felt sorry for Gene, and pity always made her feel wretched. She already had visions of a horrible scene somewhere in Oklahoma. She stood in the doorway and heard Gene call the highway patrol and ask them to stop Jacy's car. When he hung up he seemed to feel better. A man should react to such an event in a certain way, and he was doing what he should.

"I won't have her living over no poolhall, not even for ten days," he said. "Hurry up and get changed, and don't call my daughter a bitch again."

"No promises," Lois said. "You know what she's doing as well as I do, Gene. She doesn't give a damn about Sonny, she just wants to hurt us and get a little attention while she's doing it. What is that but bitchery?"

"Well, she comes by it honest," he said, looking his wife in the eye. "I know right where she gets it."

Lois merely nodded. "I'm sure you do," she said. She obediently went into the bedroom and put on more somber clothes.

Sonny and Jacy, meanwhile, were off on the realest of adventures: running away to get married. Jacy had an expensive suitcase and enough clothes to last her a week, while Sonny, who owned no suitcase, had a canvas overnight bag and an extra pair of slacks hung on a hanger in the back seat. They were in the convertible, and Jacy drove. Sonny didn't yet trust himself to drive on the highway with one eye.

Jacy was wearing a lovely white dress she had bought at Neiman's the week before, to wear to fraternity parties. She had some new sunglasses, and drove barefooted. It was great fun to be running away to get married—both of them were delighted with themselves. All Sonny had to do was lean back and watch Jacy and imagine the bliss that was going to be his in only a few hours. It was a bright, hot day and there were drops of sweat on Jacy's upper lip. Neither of them minded the heat, though. They stopped in Lawton and had milk shakes, probably the last milk shakes they would ever have as single people. Both of them were hungry and they sucked up every milky drop.

Then they went on to Altus, a popular place for getting married. It was late afternoon when they arrived—Sonny stopped at a filling station and asked where they might find a justice of the peace. "Why there's one right up the road," the attendant said. "What part of Texas you all from?"

They told him and drove on. It turned out to be absurdly simple to get married. The justice of the peace lived in an old unpainted frame house and came to the door in his khakis and undershirt.

"Been having myself a little snooze," he said. "What part of Texas y'all from?"

He surveyed their license casually, got a pencil, licked the point, and filled in what he was supposed to fill in. Sonny would have preferred him to use a fountain pen, since pencil erased so easily, but he didn't say anything.

"I better go get Ma to witness," he said, belching. "I guess I could put a shirt on too, if I can find one."

"Get many marriages up here?" Sonny asked, to be polite. "Not as many as I'd like," the J.P. said. "Not like I used to when we was a Christian country. Used to be people feared God, but not no more. I don't marry half as many kids as I used to—fornication don't mean nothing anymore. Kids nowadays fornicate like frogs, they don't never think of marryin'. What decent ones is left is mostly hifalutin' kids, church weddin's and recepshuns and such as that. Ma! Got some customers."

An old woman wearing a sunbonnet and gray work gloves came in from the backyard. She was a thin little woman and looked tired, but she nodded politely. "Pardon this getup," she said. "I was out gettin' the last of my black-eyes. Garden's just about gone for this year. What part of Texas you all from?"

The old man had wandered out, but he came back into the living room buttoning a khaki shirt over his belly. He stuffed the shirttail unevenly into his pants and shuffled over to an old pigeonhole desk to find his service.