Ларри Макмертри - The Last Picture Show

Billy was lying face up on the street, near the curb. For some reason he had put both eye patches on-his eyes were completely covered. There were just four or five men there -the sheriff and his deputy, a couple of men from the filling stations, one cowboy, and a pumper who was going out early. They were not paying attention to Billy, but were trying to keep the truck driver from feeling bad. He was a big, square-faced man from Waurika, Oklahoma, who didn't look like he felt too bad. The truck was loaded with Hereford yearlings and they were bumping one another around and shitting, the bright green cowshit dripping off the sideboards and splatting onto the street.

"This sand was blowin'," the trucker said. His name was Hurley. "I never noticed him, never figured nobody would be in the street. Why he had them damn blinders on his eyes, he couldn't even see. What was he doin' out there anyway, carryin' that broom?"

"Aw, nuthin', Hurley," the sheriff said. "He was just an ol' simpleminded kid, sort of returded-never had no sense. Wasn't your fault, I can see that. He was just there-he wasn't doin' nothing."

Sonny couldn't stand the way the men looked at the truck driver and had already forgotten Billy.

"He was sweeping, you sons of bitches!" he yelled suddenly, surprising the men and himself. They all looked at him as if he were crazy, and indeed, he didn't know himself why he had yelled. He walked over on the courthouse lawn, not knowing what to do. In a minute he bent over and vomited by one of the dusty, stunted little cedar trees that the Amity club had planted. His father had come by that time.

"Son, it's a bad blow," he said. "You let me take care of things, okay? You don't want to be bothered with any funeral-home stuff, do you?"

Sonny didn't; he was glad to let his father take care of it. He walked out in the street and got Billy's broom and took it over to him.

"Reckon I better go try to sell a little gas," one of the filling-station men said. "Look's like this here's about wound up."

Sonny didn't want to yell at the men again, but he couldn't stand to walk away and leave Billy there by the truck, with the circle of men spitting and farting and shuffling all around him. Before any of them knew what he was up to he got Billy under the arms and started off with him, dragging him and trying to run. The men were so amazed they didn't even try to stop him. The heels of Billy's brogans scraped on the pavement, but Sonny kept on, dragged him across the windy street to the curb in front of the picture show. That was as far as he went. He laid Billy on the sidewalk where at least he would be out of the street, and covered him with his Levi jacket. He just left the eye patches on.

The men slowly came over. They looked at Sonny as if he were someone very strange. Hurley and the sheriff came together and stood back a little way from the crowd.

"You all got some crazy kids in this town," Hurley said, spitting his tobacco juice carefully down wind.

By the time Sonny got back to the apartment Genevieve was there. She was crying but when she saw Sonny she made herself quit. She stayed for about an hour, made some coffee, and tried to get Sonny to cry or talk or something. He wouldn't. He wandered around the apartment, once in a while looked out at the gritty sky. Genevieve saw it was going to take some time.

"Sonny, I got to go to the café," she said. "People keep eatin', come what may. Come on down when you feel like it. Dan'll be glad to pump your leases for you when he comes in this afternoon:'

Sonny didn't know what he would feel like doing that afternoon, so he didn't say anything. When Genevieve left he turned on the television set and watched it all morning: it made a voice in the room, anyway.

About the middle of the afternoon he began to feel like he had to do something. He had the feeling again, the feeling that he was the only person in town. He got his gloves and his football jacket and got in the pickup, meaning to go on out and pump his leases, but no sooner had he started than he got scared. When he passed the city limits signs he stopped a minute. The gray pastures and the distant brown ridges looked too empty. He himself felt too empty. As empty as he felt and as empty as the country looked it was too risky going out into it-he might be blown around for days like a broomweed in the wind.

He turned around and drove back past the sign, but stopped again. From the road the town looked raw, scraped by the wind, as empty as the country. It didn't look like the town it had been when he was in high school, in the days of Sam the Lion.

Scared to death, he drove to Ruth's house. It was broad daylight, mid-afternoon, but he parked right in front of the house. The coach was bound to be in school. Sitting in the driveway was the coach's new car, a shiny red Ford V-8. The Quarterback Club and the people of the town were so proud of his coaching that they had presented him with the car at the homecoming game, two weeks before.

Sonny went slowly up the walk, wondering if Ruth would lot him in. He knocked at the screen, and when no one answered opened the screen and knocked on the glass-paneled front door.

In a moment Ruth opened it. She was in her bathrobe—that was about all Sonny saw. He didn't look at her face, except to glance.

"Hi," he said.

Ruth said nothing at all. She was surprised, then after a moment angered, then frightened.

"Could I have a cup of coffee with you?" Sonny asked finally, lifting his face.

"I guess," Ruth said, her tone reluctant. She let him in and he followed her through the dark, dusty-smelling living room to the kitchen. They were awkwardly silent while she made the coffee. Neither knew what to do.

"I'm sorry I'm still in my bathrobe," Ruth said finally. "It gets harder all the time to get around to getting dressed." But then, as she was pouring the coffee, anger and fright and bitterness began to well up in her. In a moment they filled her past the point where she could contain them, and indeed, she ceased to want to contain them. She wanted to break something, do something terrible. Suddenly she flung Sonny's coffee, cup and all, at the cabinet, then she flung her own, then flung the coffeepot at the wall. It broke and a great brown stain of coffee spread over the wallpaper and dripped down onto the linoleum. Somehow the sight of it was very satisfying.

"What am I doing apologizing to you?" she said, turning to Sonny. "Why am I always apologizing to you, you little ... little bastard. For three months I've been apologizing to you, without you even being here to hear me. I haven't done anything wrong, why can't I quit apologizing. You're the one who ought to be sorry. I wouldn't be in my bathrobe now if it hadn't been for you—I'd have had my clothes on hours ago. You're the one that made me quit caring whether I got dressed or not. I guess just because your friend got killed you want me to forget what you did and make it all right. I'm not sorry for you! You would have left Billy too, just like you left me. I bet you left him plenty of nights, whenever Jacy whistled. I wouldn't treat a dog that way but that's the way you treated me, and Billy too."

Sonny was very startled. He had never thought of himself as having deserted Billy. He started to say something, but Ruth didn't stop talking long enough. She sat down at the table and kept talking.

"I guess you thought I was so old and ugly you didn't owe me any explanations," she said. "You didn't need to be careful of me. There wasn't anything I could do about you and her, why should you be careful of me. You didn't love me. Look at me, can't you even look at me!"

Sonny did look. Her hair and lips looked dry, and her face was paler and older than he had remembered it. The bathrobe was light blue.

"You see?" she said. "You shouldn't have come here. I'm around that corner now. You ruined it and it's lost completely. Just your needing me won't bring it back."