Author: Larry McMurtry
Category: Literature
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“Why are you dressing?”
“I’m going out.” He found the sock and sat on the edge of the bed to put it on.
“I hope you at least put some underwear on. Where are you going? Out where?”
“Just out. Away from your nagging tongue.”
“There’s nothing but prairie out there. You’ll get snake-bitten.”
“Snake-bit.”
“Oh, hell. Bitten by a snake. Or else lost. Why do you want to embarrass me by getting lost? I’ll probably have to hire a search party.”
“Just shut up,” he said. “I won’t get lost. You’re no one to talk to me about anything. You nag me and you don’t like to sleep with me. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You don’t even like for me to see you naked.”
Patsy had been holding a towel in front of her loins but she yanked it up and flung it at him. It draped over his shoulder but he shrugged it to the floor.
“There, I’m naked,” she said. “Peer all you like, you’re nothing but a goddamn voyeur anyway. An amateur voyeur. Take pictures of me if you want to. You think I’m frigid just because I don’t come the minute you want me to. I can do it fine if you just let me do it like I like to and not bother with me so much. Get out and get lost—I want you to. I don’t want you coming near me again.”
“I don’t know why I would want to. You always manage to make me feel I’m no good.”
“Shut up,” she said. “You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. What do you think I am, some kind of applause meter? Look at me!” And she stuck one leg out and pointed to herself. “See. I’m just a woman. I’m not equipped with any gauge that registers how great you are.”
“Let’s quit,” he said dejectedly. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
But Patsy felt wild and violent. She picked the Cosmopolitan off the floor and flung it at the wall of the room. “To hell with sex,” she said. “I wish I’d been a nun and never got involved with it at all.”
“Hush,” Jim said. He was putting on his underwear.
“I will not,” she said. “I’d rather never do it than have to fight about it every time. Phooey on the penis—people were nuts ever to worship it. I think I’ll write an article called ‘Phooey on the Penis’ and send it to that stupid magazine.”
“My, you’re witty,” Jim said. His voice was so wretched that it broke Patsy’s anger, though her bosom continued to heave.
She sighed and went over and put her head on his chest and hugged him. “You poor man,” she said. “What an unlucky day for you when you married me. How could you suspect I’d turn out soft and frigid? I’m sorry I talked so mean.”
Jim was relieved. Instead of going out he undressed again and they got back in bed and chatted and were friendly. “I wish we could forget about all this,” Patsy said, her head on his arm. “Maybe if we forget about it for a while we can start over and everything will work.”
“Maybe,” Jim said, but he had little confidence that it would ever work.
Then, all unexpectedly, only two nights later, their sexual fortunes changed for the better. Late in the afternoon they crossed Berthoud Pass—crossed it at a speed of two miles an hour, in reverse. The Ford was not at its strongest and refused to take the pass in second or even in low, and Jim had to resort to backing over, while behind them a string of cars and trucks waited and watched, the drivers surprisingly patient, even amused. Patsy felt the center of all eyes. It was very ignominious to have to back over a mountain, and had she not been nervous and scared she would have been angry.
“Fool! Idiot!” she kept saying. “Why can’t we get a new car?” She kept her dark glasses on and tried to look unconcerned and inscrutable. Jim tended grimly to his backing and ignored her. When they finally topped the pass he turned around and drove downward a few miles to a little mountain town, a sort of truckers’ village. Both of them were edgy—Jim had been a little scared too.
“I want a new car,” Patsy said. “I really insist. Our very life was in danger.”
“Nonsense,” Jim said. “You’re too cowardly. Besides, that must have been the highest pass in the Rockies. We just won’t come this way again.”
“I sure won’t, not in this heap of junk,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone else backing over. Most people have strong cars. You’re insanely stubborn, Jim.”
“You’re insanely bitchy,” he said, not yielding an inch.
They ate a silent supper, each determined not to weaken, but the little cafe where they ate was so unexpectedly jolly that they couldn’t stay low-spirited. It was bright and noisy and paneled in pine. The kitchen threw out good smells, and the place was packed with a score or more of loggers and truck drivers, a boisterous and devil-may-care group of men. It was hard to be depressed around them. The stew they had was excellent, and that helped too. When they stepped outside it was dark and very cold and they walked up the highway for a mile or more, smelling the pine trees and the mountains. They were so high that even the height itself seemed to have a smell. They were both shivering, and Jim put his arm around her.
“Those were the first actual loggers I’ve ever seen,” Patsy said. “They even wore plaid shirts, like loggers in books. I like this place, even if we did endanger our lives getting here.”
She took his hand and they walked back to their motel. Besides the cafe, there was only the motel, one filling station, and a drugstore that doubled as a bus depot. As they passed it a Greyhound bus pulled away and the faces of the passengers looked down at them enviously.
They went to the cabin and read awhile. Then, unable to resist the cold and the good smells, they walked back across the highway to the cafe and had pie and coffee. The cafe was as full as ever, and the men still as boisterous and jolly. Patsy became infected with happiness suddenly, in the way she sometimes did. The loggers kept looking at her, which caused her to flush, and she became very animated. Her eyes shone. She and Jim sat at their table for almost an hour, talking of old friends, rehashing parties they had been to in college, and reminiscing about their honeymoon. It had been to Bermuda and had not been especially successful, but in retrospect it seemed charmingly silly and nice to remember.
The cabin was ice cold when they got back. The bed had real quilts on it, the sheets too were very cold, and the darkness cold around them. They snuggled together, shivery and goose-bumpy for a minute. Jim slipped his hand between her cold thighs and Patsy eagerly opened her legs and then closed them to squeeze his hand against her. He had put it there for warmth, but to his surprise she wanted to be touched. He had ceased to believe that she would ever want him to touch her, but he did and she was immediately responsive and soon twisted her gown up. No sooner had they begun to move than the quilts became a problem, their shoulders were cold and their feet uncovered. The quilts had bunched in the center of the bed, but they were, for once, so warmly into the act of love that they could ignore the quilts. Patsy came more strongly than she had in months, her legs hooked over Jim’s, and they had both sunk almost into sleep when the cold brought them up from it. “We’re freezing,” he said. They hopped up by mutual consent and hurriedly straightened the quilts and tucked them in. Then they snuggled close again.
The next morning they woke early and huddled under the quilts for a long time, staring at the ceiling. It was very cold, and instead of smelling of air conditioning the cabin smelled of pine. Patsy, always a chatterer in the mornings, was unusually quiet and stroked Jim’s shoulder from time to time.
“We should live here,” she said softly. “Perhaps you could become a logger. I like the idea of your having something to do with logs. Cowboys are just about as wooden, and logs smell better.”
“Nope,” Jim said without elaboration.
Patsy looked out the window at the highway. Cars were going by. The sun had not yet risen above the peaks, and the mountains were gray, with white mist between the pines.
“I wasn’t really meant to ramble,” she said. “If we aren’t going to live here I ought
to go on back to Houston and wait there for you to finish your rodeo travels.”
“But it’s more fun with you along.”
“Not really. I get too ugly. Everything gets disorderly when you’re always moving. I lose control too easily.”
“You were never terribly orderly at home,” Jim pointed out. “You don’t especially like Houston, do you?”
Patsy sat up and bent to raise the window so she could smell the morning. The cold raised goose-bumps on her warm arms and breasts. “No, but I’m changing,” she said. “I’m ready to stop traveling.”
Jim reached up and pulled her back under the covers until only her ears and nose and forehead showed. “I want you close at hand,” he said. “It won’t be too much longer. We’re going back to the pro tour for a little while. I don’t think Sonny Shanks will bother us now.”
He cupped his hand over her groin and they lay quietly for another thirty minutes, watching cars and trucks go by and loggers in mackinaws going in and out of the cafe across the street. The mountains gradually took on definition. Patsy was not so sure about Sonny, not so sure about anything, but Jim’s hand on her made her feel warm and she was willing to let it all rest. Perhaps they had reached a turning point of some kind.
Soon he got her up and hurried her through breakfast, determined to get to Ogden on schedule. All day, as they drove through the Rockies toward Utah, Patsy sat in her corner of the car, watching the curves of the road, the sky, the valleys and mountains, toying now and then with the ends of her hair and feeling unusually quiet and still.
15
“STOP THAT,” Patsy said. “Stop pouring liquor into your glass like that. You act like you’re Humphrey Bogart or somebody, getting drunk in a movie.”
Jim continued to pour bourbon into the motel glass. He gave a good imitation of a hard-boiled actor getting drunk. “Alan Ladd, for your information,” he said.
“Why are you getting drunk? Now, of all times?”
“I’m getting drunk because we fight all the time,” he said. “If you want to bitch, fine—it’s your privilege. I want to get drunk. My privilege.”
Patsy was, indeed, in a flashing fury. She would have liked to stalk around the room, but there was so little space that her stalking made her feel ridiculous.
“If you weren’t an insane fool we wouldn’t be fighting,” she said. “Now quit drinking. You’re not a drinking type anyway. You don’t even like liquor. My god. We’re going to Laramie tomorrow. Your getting drunk is out of the question.”
“I’ll decide what’s out of the question,” he said. “You’re scared to get drunk yourself. It might affect your dignity or something.”
“Dignity!” Patsy yelled. “Dignity! When have I had any dignity to affect? Do you think it’s dignified for us to be sitting around in some crummy motel in some crummy town in Utah, yelling at one another. They can probably hear us in the Mormon Tabernacle.”
“You’re yelling,” he pointed out, sipping a bit more of his drink. “I’m just getting smashed.”
Patsy sat on the bed and clutched her knees. She was wearing old jeans and a green blouse. “You’re an abysmal person to bring me to this pass,” she said.
“Well, you’re abysmal too,” he said.
“You’re not taking that job, anyway.”
“I’ll take it if I want to.”
“If you take it you’re not getting near me again,” she said grimly.
“Oh, shut up,” he said. “I hardly ever get near you, anyway. Sonny Shanks does not have intentions in regard to you. If he asked me to work on his movie it’s because he knows I’m inexperienced and need a start. It would be a start. I don’t see why you’re so set against it.”
“Taking still pictures of some grade Z movie about rodeo is no start. I thought you had high ambitions. I will not have you working for that man. You should beat him up for what he did to me. Instead you make friends with him. He charms you a little and offers you a hokey little job taking pictures and you completely forget what he did to me.”
“He apologized! I haven’t forgotten. It was just a crazy joke. He was high, anyway. For god’s sake.”
“Don’t blaspheme,” she said. “It was no joke. If I hadn’t had my bathrobe on I’d have been tied up out there in my gown. No, no, no!”
“You can go to Houston. You want to, anyway. Besides, it may be a year before they’re ready to film. Why are we arguing about it now?”
“Sure, I can go to Houston,” Patsy said bitterly. “By then I’ll be aged. He’ll bring his well-preserved mistress around for you to ogle. What a life.”
“Isn’t it about time for you to burst into tears,” Jim said, snapping his fingers at her. “Argue argue argue, bitch bitch bitch, now it’s time for you to cry. You always follow up with tears.”
But when she did lie on the bed and cry for twenty minutes, he felt really bad and drank the glass of whiskey recklessly, and then two more, until half the bottle was gone. He hadn’t meant to get drunk at all, but he felt like he had talked himself out of an alternative. Patsy’s bare feet were toward him and it annoyed him that the soles were so dirty. She was always padding around barefooted. Then he ceased to notice. She wouldn’t speak to him, and the more he drank the less he cared.
The next morning he was deathly sick. It hurt him to open his eyes and he had to stop and vomit before he could get his socks on. Patsy felt that she had been cruel, though she still hated the idea of him working for Sonny Shanks. “You poor dope,” she said and did the packing for him. He crawled into the back seat of the Ford and was soon asleep again.
Secretly, Patsy was glad he needed to sleep. She liked to drive, and he seldom let her. He felt she drove erratically. They had spent the night in Salt Lake City. The little pass to the east of the city had a gray cloud on top of it. She was a little worried, but when she drove into it, it was not so bad, much thinner than the fogs of Houston. East of the pass the country soon began to smooth out and she pushed the Ford along at seventy-five. She loved to drive on a flat road with mountains in sight. The sky behind the mountains was very blue.
When she had driven about eighty miles she heard a loud imperious honking behind her and looked and saw that Sonny Shanks and his hearse were right on her bumper. The young cowboy named Coon was in front of the hearse with him. It annoyed and frightened her, but she reflected that he could hardly do anything on a public road, with Jim in the car. She wouldn’t let herself look in the rear-view mirror. Then suddenly the hearse was right beside her; she was so startled she almost swerved into it. She was wearing her sunglasses but despite them gave Sonny what she hoped was a severe and discouraging frown. He waved pleasantly and gunned the hearse on by. Soon it was almost out of sight ahead, and she could enjoy the drive again. But then she passed the hearse as it was stopped at a small roadside station, and then a few miles later it passed her again. Coon was driving, and as they passed, Sonny leaned out of the window and made gestures to the effect that he was deeply sorry about the affair in Phoenix. Among the gestures were some indicating that if she would let him ride a little way with her he could explain. Patsy frowned again and did her best to ignore the hearse and him, although her heart was pounding. Finally Sonny gave up and the hearse pulled away for good.
A little later she glanced up and saw the Tatums’ Thunderbird passing her, with Boots driving intently, her white hair blowing. She too had on sunglasses and didn’t notice who she was passing. The Thunderbird left the Ford behind so rapidly that Patsy was a little irritated. She tried to get a little more speed out of the Ford and it inched up to eighty, but just as it did Jim raised up as if by magic and said, “Slow down or we’ll throw another rod.” She dropped back to seventy-five and he went back to sleep. It was a relief, a little later, to come upon Pete Tatum, his trailer hitched to a black pickup, chugging along placidly at fifty. The road ahead was clear, so she pulled up beside him and honked. She felt like a member of a caravan. He smiled when he recognized her and quickly ma
de motions to the effect that they ought to stop and eat if the opportunity offered. Patsy nodded and moved on ahead.
The first decent-looking cafe she came to was in Green River, Wyoming, by which time she had gained several minutes on Pete. While she waited for him she studied herself in the rear-view mirror, combed her hair, and fished a blue headband out of her bag. Jim remained sound asleep, and she felt hungry, impatient, and a little nervous. She glanced at Jim but had no intention of waking him. His stomach would barely be in shape for dinner, much less breakfast. Besides, she wanted to eat a meal alone with Pete Tatum. In company he gave her the impression that she bothered him slightly, and she felt it was possible that if they had breakfast together the feeling would go away. Finally he drove up. His donkey Hercules was in the back of the pickup.
Patsy got out a little awkwardly and Pete came over and peered in at Jim. “Every other time I look in this car Jim’s lying there lookin’ dead,” he remarked. It was windier than it had seemed and the wind blew her hair across her eyes.
“He’s hung over,” she said as they went in. The cafe was log-cabin style on the outside but inside had the usual gum machines, truckers, and plastic booths. They took a booth, both of them feeling slightly awkward, and took refuge in the menus, which they pondered seriously. The drive and the altitude had whetted Patsy’s appetite and she ordered two eggs with ham. She wore a clean white blouse and looked so fresh and so happy that Pete could hardly bear to look at her.
“Guess what that idiot Sonny Shanks did,” she said. “He’s offered Jim a job on a movie he’s going to be in. I think it’s insane, but Jim wants to take it.”
“Too early in the mornin’ to talk about bad things,” Pete said. The sight of Patsy put him in good spirits. The waitress brought him coffee and her milk, and she drank and looked out the window, her chin on her palm and a strand of hair fallen across her cheek. From time to time she caught Pete looking at her, and then his gray eyes turned away and looked at the room or at his food. His look was always slightly wry, but she felt he did like her, after all, and it pleased her and embarrassed her. She ate with great concentration to cover her embarrassment. “Tell me about your job,” she said. “Do you really like being a rodeo clown?”