The Last Picture Show

by Larry McMurtry

  “Nothin’,” Duane said.

  Sonny knew better. “Well what is it?” he persisted. “You feel bad?”

  For a moment Duane considered telling the truth, but then he decided not to.

  “I’m worn to a frazzle,” he said. “That California’s hard on a person.”

  They were living over the poolhall, Billy with them, though Genevieve had kept him while the seniors were gone. Returning to the poolhall was a little strange, particularly since Sam the Lion wasn’t there. If he had been there they would have shot some pool and had a great time telling him all about the trip. It would have picked everyone’s spirits up. As it was, the poolhall was quiet and empty, and there was not a great deal to do.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  WHILE THE SENIORS were in California a great scandal rocked Thalia. All the mothers were agreed that it was the very worst thing that had ever happened in the town: John Cecil was fired from his teaching job for being a homosexual.

  The scariest thing of all, the mothers thought, was that it was just by a happenstance that he was found out. If it hadn’t been for Coach Popper’s vigilance and his interest in the welfare of the children, nobody would have know about Mr. Cecil, and a whole generation of young innocents would have been exposed to corruption.

  The gist of the matter was that Mr. Cecil had persuaded Bobby Logan to take a summer-school course in trigonometry, in Wichita Falls high school. Mr. Cecil was going to summer school himself, at the college there, so he drove Bobby over to his class every day. That seemingly innocent arrangement was enough to arouse the coach’s suspicions. He had been planning to have Bobby work out in the gym every day during the summer, so he would be in good shape when football season came. It was a pleasure to work with a fine young athlete like Bobby, and when Bobby told him about the trigonometry class he was angered.

  “Why goddamn,” he said. “You mean you’re gonna sit in a damn schoolhouse all summer when you could be workin’ out? What kinda shit is that?”

  Bobby was a little embarrassed. “I’ll have to have trig to get in a good college,” he said.

  “Trig my ass,” the coach said. “I can get you a scholarship anywhere and you won’t need to know a fuckin’ thing.”

  He raged on, but Bobby was determined, and that night, thinking it over, it came to the coach in a flash: Cecil was a queer.

  He didn’t say anything to Ruth about it because it wasn’t a thing to talk to women about. The next morning he happened to be standing around the filling station and he mentioned his suspicion to some of the men. They were sitting on piles of old tires, chewing tobacco and discussing masculine matters, and all of them agreed with the coach right down the line.

  “Hell yes,” one said. “Whoever heard of a man teachin’ English. That’s a woman’s job.”

  “Oughta see the school board about it,” the coach said sternly. The idea got quick support.

  “By God, if you don’t I will,” Andy Fanner said. “I got two boys in that school.”

  “Well, I tell you, men,” the coach said, squaring his shoulders with purpose. “I hate to cost a man his job, but if there’s anything I hate it’s to see a goddamn homasexyul messing around with a bunch of young kids. I got too much respect for the teachin’ profession to put up with that.”

  It turned out the coach didn’t have to say a word to the school board. Some of the men went home and told their wives and the wives called the school board president even before they began to call one another. The school board president was a Pontiac salesman named Tom Todd. When Tom was fourteen years old he had been seduced one night at a family reunion by a male cousin from Jonesboro, Arkansas, and he had felt guilty about it ever since. He went right into action and that very night they got John Cecil before the board and fired him.

  All Mr. Cecil could say was that he hadn’t done anything to Bobby, or to anyone else. He was stunned and guilty looking though, and the board knew they had their man. They didn’t question Bobby Logan because his father didn’t want him to know what homosexuality was yet. If it had already happened to him his father preferred that he didn’t realize it.

  Mr. Cecil went home and tried to explain to his wife what a terrible mistake had been made. “Why I’ve never even touched one of my students,” he said.

  “Oh, they wouldn’t have fired you if you hadn’t,” she said. Then she screamed and ran across to the neighbor’s house and then screamed again and ran back and got the two girls. She didn’t return that night, but the next morning she got some of her stuff and headed for Odessa in Mr. Cecil’s car. Her sisters lived in Odessa.

  Ruth Popper found out about it the night Mr. Cecil was fired. The coach was in an unusually good mood that night and was propped up in bed reading an old issue of Sports Afield—there was a fishing story in it he had read at least fifty times.

  Ruth could not sleep with the light on, and was reading the Reader’s Digest. She lay flat on her back, and Herman noticed.

  “Prop up if you’re gonna read,” he said. “It ain’t good for your eyes to read laying down.”

  She obediently tucked a pillow under her head, and as she did, noticed that Herman was looking at her in a very satisfied way. Suddenly, to her complete surprise, he reached under the cover and rubbed her in rough, husbandly fashion.

  “I guess tonight there’s a lot of women in this town glad they ain’t in Irene Cecil’s shoes,” he said. “I feel awful sorry for Irene.”

  “Why?” Ruth asked. “I’ve always felt a little sorry for John.”

  “You would,” the coach said, abruptly removing his hand. “I guess you’d like to be married to a queer. The school board fired him tonight. Me and some other fellers found out about him an’ took some action. He’ll never teach in this part of the country again.”

  Ruth didn’t credit her hearing. “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Why didn’t you know it, honey,” he said, gruffly condescending. “I could tell that feller was queer as a three-dollar bill—been thinking it for years. Reason I never spoke up sooner was because I never noticed him actually botherin’ with any of the kids. When I saw he was after Bobby, I knew it was time to put a stop to it. That’s one boy I don’t intend to see messed up.”

  He farted gently into the sheets and went contentedly back to his fishing story.

  Ruth wanted not to be there; not to be anywhere. She wanted to hug her knees with shame. Then gradually the shame was replaced by a dull, hot feeling inside her that soon filled her completely. Before she even recognized it as anger it had taken possession of her, and with no warning she swung her feet around in the bed and began to kick Herman furiously and as hard as she could. She kicked the magazine he held clear across the room and her bare heels caught him in the ribs and groin. The coach was so surprised he didn’t know what to do. He tried to catch her ankles but he couldn’t seem to and she continued to flail at him with her feet until he hastily got out and stood uncertainly by the bed, not sure what was happening to his wife.

  “Here, now, here,” he said. “You gone crazy? What’s the matter with you?”

  “You!” Ruth yelled, sitting up in bed. She was beside herself and meant to pursue him out of the house. “You’re the matter,” she said, her voice shaking. “You fat… you fat…” she didn’t know what to call him. Looking around wildly, she saw the open bathroom door. “You fat turd!” she finished, a little lamely.

  The two of them were both stunned. Quiet fell on the room. Ruth was panting, but since the coach had got beyond the range of her heels she had lost the urge to chase him. He would have liked to sit back down on the bed, but Ruth looked too strange and dangerous for him to risk it. He knew it would mean a fight if he got near her, so he stood where he was and scratched himself nervously. He would never have believed his own wife could look so dangerous.

  “I never done nothin’,” he said finally. “What if I did fart?” It was the only thing he could think of that might have made her mad.

&nbs
p; “Oh, Herman,” Ruth said. Her legs were trembling and all the strength had gone out of her.

  “You got John Cecil fired.”

  “But he’s a goddamn queer,” the coach said righteously. “He needed it.”

  “Then how about you?” she said. “Who roomed with Bobby in Fort Worth, John or you? You think I don’t know about things like that? Now you’ve ruined John’s life.”

  The coach’s mouth fell open. He felt tired and went over and sat down on the couch, fumbling with his undershirt.

  “Why Ruth, you don’t think nothin’ like that,” he said. “Nobody in this town would believe that. I’m the football coach!”

  “Don’t yell at me,” she said. “I know what you are.”

  Herman looked at her solemnly. “I sure don’t know what to think about a wife like you,” he said, not at all belligerent.

  “We’re even,” she said. “I don’t know what to think about a husband like you, either. Marriage is a bad joke, isn’t it.”

  She saw that she could rip him wide open if she said the right mean things, but she didn’t really have the energy and it didn’t seem worth doing.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  “You’re going to sleep on that couch from now on,” she said, throwing his pillow across the room.

  “Hell I am,” the coach said, getting up. “Hell I am.” But he picked up the pillow and stood holding it.

  “You are,” Ruth said, switching off the bedside light. “There’s some sheets in the bathroom.”

  “Goddammit, I ain’t gonna sleep on this couch,” Herman said. “It’s gonna take more than your kicking to keep me out of my own bed.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” Ruth said. “Maybe I’ll call the school board and get a few things off my chest.”

  Her calm voice infuriated the coach, but it frightened him, too. She was clearly an unstable woman. He felt like kicking hell out of her, but instead he went and got some sheets and made a bed on the couch, feeling like a martyr. She didn’t deserve it, but the manly thing to do would be to give her a night to cool off. It seemed to him that his mother must have been the last good woman who had ever lived.

  The next day Ruth went to see John Cecil, hoping to comfort him. It occurred to her that he might be hungry, so she took what was left of a banana-nut cake she had baked the day before and walked over to the Cecils’ house. The porch was dusty and the morning paper lay in the flower bed where the newspaper boy had thrown it. John took a long time to answer her knock.

  “Hello, John,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  He looked tired and a little sick, and she felt silly for bringing the rich cake. He had on a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up unevenly.

  “I’ll just put this on the cabinet,” she said awkwardly, moving past him with the cake. She got to the kitchen just in time to see a little pot of asparagus boil over—John had put too much water in the pot. “Oh, goodness,” he said. She turned the burner off and he sponged off the stove. Curiously, the event seemed to lift his spirits a little.

  “That’s exactly the kind of bachelor I make,” he said.

  He pulled up a kitchen chair for Ruth to sit in and they looked at one another directly for the first time since she had entered.

  “What are you going to do, John?” she asked. He seemed such a kind man, and she realized at that moment that they had lived three blocks apart for fifteen years without really becoming friends.

  He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with both hands. “I’ll just have to do what I can for Irene and the girls,” he said. “I’ve got a friend who runs an Indian reservation in New Mexico—maybe he’ll let me teach out there. If that don’t work out I guess I can go back to Plainview and work in my brother’s grocery store. When you’ve messed up your life the way I’ve messed up mine it doesn’t much matter.”

  “But you didn’t mess it up,” Ruth said. “My husband messed it up. I’ll never forgive him for it. If anybody needed to be fired for… what they fired you for, it was him.”

  John Cecil looked at her with astonishment. “Oh, you don’t mean that, Ruth,” he said, after a moment. “Why Herman’s the football coach.”

  She saw that he didn’t believe her, and knew that Herman had been right. Nobody, not even John Cecil, would believe her, and in truth she didn’t even know for sure herself what Herman was. She just felt sad and uncertain and wanted to cry.

  “But you’ve even got two kids,” she said. “We don’t have any kids, and we never will.”

  John chuckled. “It’s kind of amazing to me that me and Irene had the girls,” he said. “I guess it just don’t take much enthusiasm for people to have two kids.”

  Suddenly Ruth wanted to be home, away from John Cecil. His sadness was so heavy that just being with him made her feel the weight, made her own limbs seem heavier. She made an excuse and left quickly, glad to be outside.

  The next day John Cecil left Thalia for good, to go back to Plainview to his brother’s grocery store. The job on the Indian reservation hadn’t worked out.

  When Sonny returned from the senior trip, Ruth and he discovered that they were famished for one another. The first afternoon he stayed so long that, while they were dressing, the coach’s pickup drove into the driveway. It was something they had dreaded and been frightened of for months, but just then they felt so calm and comfortable with one another that they were not even scared. Besides, the coach customarily spent ten or fifteen minutes carefully putting away his fishing equipment. Sonny quietly finished dressing and went in the living room, so he could go out the front door as the coach came in the back. Ruth, wearing only her panties, folded the quilt and took it to the cedar chest in the hall closet, where it was kept. She was still a little excited, still a little warm. She picked up her dress and went into the living room—the late sun was filtering through the Venetian blinds and Sonny was peeping out of one window, watching the garage. Ruth came up behind him, slipped her arm around his waist and rubbed his stomach. When he realized she was still almost naked he turned with a smile and lifted her breasts. She put the dress on and Sonny buttoned it in back.

  “I love you,” she said. “You must treat me right from now on.”

  He didn’t reply, but when they heard the back door open he kissed her lightly and walked blithely away, down the front sidewalk.

  Herman was in the kitchen, poking around in the cabinet trying to find some Mercurochrome to put on a skinned hand. He could never find things like that when he needed them. Ruth stood in the door a moment, watching him fumble in the cabinet, and her mood was so good that she felt a moment of fondness for him. All he really needed of her was an occasional small kindness.

  “I’ll find that,” she said. “How was fishing?”

  For three weeks she continued to make his bed on the couch, and he accepted it, bewildered. Every night he thought he would think up a way to get his supremacy back, but every night the task proved too much for him and he decided it wouldn’t hurt Ruth to have one more night to cool off.

  In fact, he needed only to wait. Ruth found that she didn’t like to sleep alone. She slept better with a body next to hers, even if it was Herman’s. For a night or two she fought with herself, determined to keep the advantage she had gained, but she just felt more and more restless and decided finally that it was a silly way to keep an advantage. The next evening, when she was changing the pillowcases, she put Herman’s pillow back on the bed. Without a word being said, he came too.

  CHAPTER XIX

  SUMMER SHAPED UP very well for Sonny, but very badly for Duane. The first thing Sonny did was quit his job with Frank Fartley. He then hired on as a roughneck with Gene Farrow. He liked driving the butane truck better, but doing it full time gave him no chance to be with Ruth, whereas if he roughnecked at night he could count on spending the whole afternoon with her. Coach Popper was away fishing almost every day. Ruth was becoming happier every day, and was a lot more fun to
visit than she had been. She and Sonny both lived for the afternoons.

  Duane, unfortunately, had no one to make his days worthwhile. True to her word, Jacy had cut him off cold. Once in a while he saw her driving through town, her sunglasses on, the top of her convertible down, her bare arms tanned from all the hours she spent lying around the country club pool in Wichita. Such glimpses made him ache with desire, but ache was about all he could do. He spent most of June futilely trying to get her to talk to him on the phone—usually she just hung up, but the few times she didn’t hang up were even worse.

  “Why don’t you go back to Mexico,” she said once. “I guess girls are just easier to please down there.”

  “Just go with me once more,” he kept saying. “Just one more time. You can at least see me.”

  He was convinced that if he were actually in her presence for a few minutes all her craziness would go away and they could be in love again.

  Jacy knew how he felt, and repeatedly refused to see him. The whole town knew he was desperate to get her back, which suited her fine. After a month had gone by she put a stop to the calls.

  “You find somebody else to pester,” she said. “I’ve got a new boy friend now and I can’t be talking to you.”

  “Who?” Duane asked, confused. The blow was unexpected.

  “Lester Marlow,” Jacy said. “I guess I’ve just been wanting to go with Lester all along and didn’t realize it.”

  Duane hung up, went downstairs, and threw three pool balls against the back wall of the building as hard as he could, knocking out three big hunks of plaster and scaring Old Man Parsons almost to death. Old Man Parsons was a retired hardware salesman who looked after the poolhall during the day.

  That night Duane told Sonny that he was leaving town—he had already packed his suitcase.

  “There’s not a goddamn thing to stay for,” he said. “I’m goin’ to Midland. All the roughnecks say you can get a job out there anytime. Jacy’s goin’ with Lester, why not leave?”