Moving On

by Larry McMurtry

  Teddy was making dead for the street and showed no sign of slacking off. His uncut brown hair bobbed on his head. Emma had to increase her pace. Her behind swayed, her elbows waved. It was a little funny and Patsy and Tommy watched with amused absorption. It was like a race between an ungainly giantess and a fleet midget, and it ended between the little strip of sidewalk and the street, with Teddy being grabbed just as he was breaking over the curb. It was as if Emma’s instincts had set her in motion at the last practicable moment. An old lady passing in a Volkswagen had already swerved desperately for refuge, for once Teddy got his speed up he gave the impression of being a movable object more dangerous than in danger. Emma swept him up, both of them very red in the face and flushed from their run. The knot in her hair had come loose. She was embarrassed by the old lady, whose VW had died as if in terror at the streaking approach of Teddy. Emma was also angry, as Patsy and Tommy could see, but Teddy was a bundle of chortles at the effect of his dash, entirely merry, as if it had been a great joke on everyone, a marvelous little performance he had given the world out of the bounty of his young heart. Patsy, at the top of her perch, was won by his giggles even at a distance of thirty yards. Emma was too, rather quickly. She put him down and they trudged back together, the giantess and the midget, both content and looking remarkably alike. Emma kept her hand on Teddy’s head, just in case. Tommy’s expression turned to one of quiet contempt.

  “When do you think Teddy will die?” he asked, looking at Patsy coolly. Patsy was shocked.

  “Goodness,” she said. “Why do you ask? Not for a very long time, I should hope.”

  “Well, I should hope not, either,” Tommy said. “Because he’s my brother.”

  Patsy looked at him, slightly aghast. She had had a similar thought about Jim, only the week before, and remembered it. There were moments when she felt a kind of dark rapport with Tommy Horton.

  “He would probably like heaven very much,” Tommy said, looking at her innocently. “Daddy says Teddy’s the kind of kid who makes a hit anywhere.”

  Emma and Teddy returned within earshot and Tommy slid down the slide and regarded them a little sternly.

  “You never spank that kid,” he said.

  Emma’s neck was sweaty. “It’s because I hate to bend over,” she said. She swooped Tommy up as she had Teddy and tried to swing him into the giggles, but with no success. He merely gave a formal smile and when he was put down went over and tried to trip Teddy. Teddy walked around the trip and sat down in the sand-pile. He had had his fun and was ready to ignore them all.

  “The one advantage of kids is that they take your mind off husbands,” Emma said, fanning herself ineffectively. It was only ten in the morning but the park was already hot.

  “Do they take husband’s minds off you? If they do I’ll have to take a lover or something, just to have someone to talk to.”

  “Well, you knew you were marrying a brooder,” Emma said. “At least Jim isn’t mean. He’s just kind of boring sometimes. Frankly.” And she glanced up at her friend.

  Patsy was not offended. One of the things she loved about Emma was that she said the things other people were too polite to say.

  “He’s not really boring,” she said weakly, not sure whether she meant it or not.”

  “You’re not very borable,” Emma said. “You’re too lively to notice whether a man is boring or not. You could even live with Flap and not be bored.”

  Flap was Emma’s husband; Patsy was caught somewhere between amusement and horror at the thought of living with him. “I’d rather hang myself than live with Flap,” she said. “Frankly.” Then she giggled.

  Emma looked up and laughed. “Let’s take these brats and get some ice cream,” she said. “The heatstroke hours are approaching. There’s no basis for friendship like a mutual dislike of one another’s husbands, is there?”

  Patsy climbed lightly down and went over to the sand-pile to pick up Teddy. She seldom handled other people’s children, but she thought she ought to start practicing and Teddy was easy to pick up. “Ready to go?” she asked.

  “Um,” he said and with a winning smile dribbled a handful of sand down the neck of her shirt.

  “Oh, Teddy,” she said. She had to set him down and try to shake the sand out of her bosom.

  “But you do like Jim, don’t you?” she asked, once they had the boys in the Ford. “I don’t see how anybody could really dislike Jim.” She was only faintly insecure.

  “I like him better than you like Flap.”

  “Flap has his charms,” Patsy said. “I like him a lot. I just think it’s inconsiderate of him to go around trying to seduce me and other women at parties, with you right there.”

  “Not as inconsiderate as it would be if he did it with me not there,” Emma said reflectively. “I don’t take all that too seriously. I think he just likes to feel people up. It makes him feel deliciously guilty, or something.”

  Patsy dropped it. She knew from experience what a persistent feeler-upper Flap was, but, like Emma, she could never take it seriously enough to get really furious at him. Flap knew it. He was an appealing guy, in a baggy, disheveled way. He and Emma were alike in general rumpledness and seemed to get on fine.

  They took the boys to a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor and stood looking at the hampers of ice cream. “I think I’ll have something I haven’t had,” Tommy said. “Is coffee an adult flavor?”

  “Very adult,” Emma said. “Coffee pecan, how about?”

  “Okay,” Tommy said, hopping around the room. Teddy began to hop too, his hair bobbing.

  “I’m going to have something major while I can,” Patsy said and ordered a banana split. The boys were amazed. Teddy stopped hopping and looked at the split with solemn wonder while Patsy ate. The chocolate cone Emma gave him began to drip over his hand and onto his sneakers.

  “Eat, Teddy, eat,” Emma said. She herself was having chocolate chip.

  Teddy turned and began to hop away, but kept his eyes on Patsy’s split as long as possible. He ate and hopped, leaving a small trail of chocolate across the white floor. The attendant, also white, looked on with weary disgust.

  “I suppose you have to get used to messes,” Patsy said. Tommy was demonstrating the virtuosity of his own licking compared to the slovenliness of Teddy’s. He sat at their feet licking skillfully and turning his face up to them for admiration.

  “Not a drop on me yet,” he said.

  “You’re a master licker, old boy,” Emma said, reaching down to pat his head. “That brother of yours is a slob.”

  “No one likes slobs, Teddy,” Tommy said when Teddy hopped by. But Teddy smiled a chocolaty smile at his mother, as if to say, Nonsense, mine is the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of earth too. Emma smiled back.

  “You could use some messes,” she said to Patsy. “When I first knew you, you were the most orderly person I knew. You even made your bed before breakfast—I remember that well. You’re not nearly that bad any more. One good messy kid and you’ll be human, with any luck.”

  “I did like order,” Patsy said. “I wonder why I don’t care so much, any more. I guess that trip we took convinced me order is hopeless, or something. I haven’t been the same since we came back.”

  It was true—she was becoming what her mother would call shiftless. Once she had made beds promptly and done grocery shopping early and kept the apartment spic; but lately, since the trip, she had developed an inclination to do as little as possible. She liked to lie in bed in the morning eating oranges and listening to records, Bob Dylan or the Swingle Singers or the Supremes, while she read the morning paper. By the time Jim woke up, the sports section of the paper would be soaked with orange juice and there would be orange seeds in the bed.

  “You could eat your damn oranges on the want ads,” he said. “I like to read the sports pages.”

  Out of the window she could see the green back yard and the great branching trees and a back-yard glider and the brilliant flowers that
a Negro gardener watered and cared for while the Whitneys were away in Mexico. She could feel the day’s moist heat gathering, see the sun begin to filter through the trees and strike the screen, and she felt more and more a liking for just lounging in bed. She had magazines too and had got the first two volumes of Frazer out of the Rice library, and she liked just reading and eating oranges and listening to records, and if she felt active she could always walk the few blocks to Fleming Park and there would be Emma and the boys, most likely.

  She had even developed an attack of immodesty, and since the nights were breezeless, heavy, and hot, she had taken to sleeping without her gown. She found that she had just as soon be nude as not, and a time or two in the mornings she had felt distinctly like making love, something in which Jim had apparently lost all interest. Once when she felt sexy she had rested on her elbows, watching him sleep for a while, and had picked a little lint out of his navel and then shyly slipped her hand down inside his underwear and held him for a while. He grew hard, and it was exciting to feel it happening. She wanted him to wake up, but it was still quite early and when he did wake up he merely raised on one elbow suddenly and looked at her as if she were a stranger and said, “Turn that loose, I’m sleepy,” and went back to sleep. He had sat up most of the night reading Rose-mond Tuve, on Flap’s advice, preparing for his new career as an English scholar. Patsy took her hand away and sniffed and then cried, dripping tears onto the orange-juice-soaked ads, for he had always wanted her to be bold and sexually explorative and she had tried and been rebuffed and she didn’t think she would ever feel like trying again. Later, when Jim awoke, he was conscience-stricken and chagrined with himself. He tried to apologize and explained that he had been dreaming, but explanations didn’t help. Nor did it help that night when he made love to her and took elaborate, overconsiderate pains about it. The little pip or response she finally had seemed not worth the sweat and effort, and Jim must have felt so too, for after that he let her alone. When the doctor told her she was pregnant she was grateful for whatever night it had been in Wyoming or Utah or Colorado. She had ceased to be sure she would get another chance.

  Emma was happily munching her brown cone, and Tommy had licked his down to the rim and was licking inside the rim as far as his tongue could reach, and Teddy had grown tired of hopping and of his cone too and had abandoned it in a chair. He was walking in rapid circles around a penny gum machine, giggling at himself. Emma got up and found some napkins, gave one to Tommy, and caught Teddy by the suspenders of his overalls. She swabbed his face more or less clean as he spun his wheels and giggled and tried to continue circling the gum machine. Emma had heavy calves and rather heavy ankles and her old blue sneakers were very ragged. Her mop of hair came down again while she was wiping Teddy’s face. Watching her handle the boys made Patsy feel strangely envious. She was twice as pretty as Emma, and at least as bright, but still she envied her friend her general know-how. Without meaning to, Emma made her feel that she was behind in some way—behind in life.

  Once he was released Teddy trailed over to Patsy clucking his tongue. He stopped in front of her and held out his hand. “Um,” he said, nodding brightly toward the banana split.

  “Moocher,” Patsy said. “Wait a minute.” She was spooning up the sweet brown and pink syrup from the bottom of her split dish.

  “Um,” Teddy said again, peering approvingly at the syrup and opening his mouth.

  “Moocher!” Patsy said again, giving him a spoonful.

  “Of course you have to give me a taste now,” Tommy said, popping up and smiling politely.

  “Of course,” Patsy said.

  “I also get a penny if he gets a penny,” Tommy reminded her. It was her custom to give them pennies when they saw a gum machine.

  Patsy wiped her mouth and dug in her purse. She presented them with pennies and they raced to the gum machine, Tommy winning. “Yellow,” he said with a satisfied air and popped his into his mouth.

  Teddy’s was black and rolled through his hand and bounced across the floor. He followed, set himself to pounce on it, missed, set himself again, missed again, and finally captured it when it rolled into one of the sticky puddles his dripping ice cream cone had made. “Urn,” he said, holding it up for inspection before he popped it into his mouth.

  Emma had been watching the whole business studiously. “You boys are shameless,” she said. “Let’s be going.”

  They got in the Ford and Teddy crawled up behind the back seat to capture an old flashbulb that Jim had overlooked.

  “Well, gee, I feel like crying,” Emma said and actually sniffed. “You’re pregnant and I’m not. You’ll probably make a better mother than me too. I’m really a wretched mother. The other day I whopped Teddy twice as hard as I meant to because he wouldn’t use the potty when I wanted him to. I was awful.”

  Patsy was amazed. She couldn’t imagine Emma hitting Teddy too hard. “Maybe you were just overwrought,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Of course I was overwrought,” Emma said. “I’m always getting overwrought.” She turned in the seat to see how the boys were taking the conversation. They weren’t. Tommy was laboring to tie his sneaker and Teddy was gazing placidly out the window.

  Patsy suddenly noticed that a driver in a blue Cadillac was zooming backward up the street in her direction. She swerved to the side and tried to honk, but she could never hit the horn when she wanted to. “Stupid woman,” she said, not realizing until the Cadillac backed past her that the woman driving was her Aunt Dixie. “Hey,” she said and tried to wave. But her aunt was apparently backing toward a restaurant, almost a block behind them, and did not notice Patsy. The cars coming down the street hung steady for a moment, as if incredulous, and then swerved to the left or the right. The Cadillac backed between them, never slowing down.

  “That’s my aunt that you’ve never met,” Patsy said. “If we had had a wreck I could have introduced you.”

  Emma had turned to watch the Cadillac. “She’s not even looking out the window,” she said. “She’s just using her mirror. That’s very against the law.”

  Tommy and Teddy perked up. “Why does your aunt break the law?” Tommy asked.

  “She doesn’t know there are laws, I don’t think.”

  “Does she break God’s laws or people’s laws?”

  “Both,” Patsy said, but Emma was exasperated by the question.

  “People’s laws, for god’s sakes,” she said. “You’re too bright for your age, young man. Your daddy’s been talking to you again.”

  “No he hasn’t,” Tommy said. “Gina talks to me. She says if you break people’s laws the cops get you but if you break God’s laws the devil gets you. The devil lives a few feet under the ground. There’s such a thing as the devil’s dodo too.”

  “Ick,” Patsy said. “What will I ever tell mine about things like that? I used to have strict beliefs but something’s happened to them. I don’t know what I believe. My morals will probably be the next to go.”

  “Atheistic professors,” Emma said. “The devil is not a few feet under the ground, Tommy.”

  “Uum,” Teddy put in, very negatively, shaking his head. The concept of the devil was clearly not to his liking.

  “How deep then?” Tommy asked.

  “Who knows?”

  “At least four thousand miles,” Patsy said. “It’s eight thousand miles through the earth and if he lives anywhere it’s at the center of the earth, which would be four thousand miles. You boys are safe.”

  “Um,” Teddy said affirmatively. He was glad to hear it.

  “How can I be sure?” Tommy asked.

  “Believe Patsy,” Emma said. “She knows more about the devil than Gina does. She’s read a great many books.”

  The Hortons lived in a large rather rickety unpainted garage apartment on West Main. When Patsy stopped in front Tommy tried to crawl out the back window, but the glass wasn’t rolled down all the way and he had trouble. Emma yanked him out and h
e and Teddy ran up the driveway, past the family’s old white Nash Rambler.

  “Let’s go somewhere without them,” Emma said. “We never really get to talk. If I had any money we could go shopping.”

  “We could go looking,” Patsy said. The Hortons’ brokeness always discomfited her a little.

  “The new graduate students have come in,” Emma said. “If there are any lively ones Flap will bring them home. Maybe we can all go eat Mexican food or something. We might even get drunk. I need a party.”

  Patsy waved at Flap, who was standing in the garage in Levi’s and a white tee shirt fixing his bicycle. “Okay,” she said, willing but not enthusiastic. Emma trudged off after the boys, still trying to knot her hair, and Patsy drove away, relieved to be alone. An hour with the Horton boys always made her appreciate solitude. Jim was away when she got home. The apartment was cooler than the outdoors but still warm and humid. She took off her sweaty shirt and stood in the bathroom in her bra and shorts looking at herself in the shaving mirror and musing on how she would look when she was large. It was hard to imagine. That evening when it got cool she meant to walk to the library and bring home some books on it all.

  2

  “YOU COULD HAVE BEEN a little more polite,” Patsy said, coming out of the bedroom. She was still in her bra and shorts.

  “I was polite,” Jim said. “What was I supposed to do, ask him in for a drink?”

  “You could have asked him if he wanted a drink of water. He walked all the way up those stairs. Who’s the package for?”

  “For you, of course,” Jim said, handing it to her. “It’s from Miri. For a minute I had hopes it would be my Cambridge Bib.”

  Miri was her younger sister, in school at Stanford. Patsy tore into the package and discovered that it contained a sort of psychedelic shift, very bright and long and rather fetching. She shook it to see if there was a note from Miri but there wasn’t, and she put it on.