The Last Picture Show

by Larry McMurtry

  They left Altus in a high good mood and drove back to Lawton, where they stopped to eat. In Lawton, for some reason, Jacy began to feel a little depressed. A strange thought occurred to her. They were in the parking lot of the restaurant where they were going to eat, so they kissed for a while, as newlyweds should. While they were kissing Sonny got excited and fondled her in a place in which he was very interested. It was all right for him to do it, of course, but a little later, while she was in the rest room of the steak house, it occurred to her that maybe her parents wouldn’t have the police arrest them after all. Maybe they would just wash their hands of it and go on watching television. It might even be that they thought she ought to live with Sonny, since she had married him.

  That was a very sobering thought: to think that they didn’t love her enough to want to keep her from living over a poolhall.

  Thinking about it took away her appetite, and though she tried to appear gay she really only picked at her fried shrimp. They ordered beer with the meal and drank it self-consciously. It occurred to Jacy that even if her folks sent the cops they might miss them in the dark, or they might even get to the motel before the cops started looking. The thought depressed her more and more.

  Sonny noticed that marriage was making Jacy a little nervous, but he supposed it was just worry over her parents. He was sure she would calm down once they got to Lake Texoma. But the strange thing was, the closer they came to the lake, the more nervous she became. He scooted over next to her and patted her leg, but that just seemed to make her more edgy.

  When Sonny scooted close to her Jacy really began to feel funny. She realized suddenly that she just didn’t want a wedding night with him at all—she had been wrong to think she did. She didn’t know whether she even wanted to kiss him anymore or not. Kissing someone who just had one eye was kind of creepy.

  Then, just outside Madill, a cop stopped them and everything changed completely. Jacy ceased to feel the least bit nervous.

  “What part of Texas y’all from?” the patrolman asked, holding out his hand for Jacy’s license. He flashed a flashlight in their faces.

  “Newlyweds, ain’t you?” he said, when they told him where they were from.

  They admitted it.

  “Well, better follow me in,” he said. “I think somebody’s lookin’ for you.”

  “But we ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Sonny said. “Ain’t we got a right to get married? How can you arrest us, just like that?”

  “I ain’t arrestin’ you,” the patrolman said, peeling a stick of chewing gum. “I just want you to come with me, till we find out. I don’t have no idea what you’ve got a right to do.”

  “I guess we better follow him, honey,” Jacy said. She turned to Sonny and kissed him promisingly. “I’ll just be heartbroken if my folks have done this,” she added, kissing him again lightly as she put the car in gear.

  The patrolman led them to a jailhouse in Madill. He didn’t put them in a cell or anything, but they had to sit in the jail for almost two hours and that was almost as depressing as being in a cell. Jacy realized she was tragically in love, and clung to Sonny tightly. They even got in some nice kissing, but in a way it was depressing, at least to Sonny. Jacy’s folks were in Lawton and were coming after her. He couldn’t figure out the justice of it.

  “I thought anybody had the right to get married,” he said, several times. The patrolman had gone on about his business. There were only two people besides themselves in the whole jail: one was a prisoner and the other was a redheaded jail-keeper named Elmer.

  “Well you might have the right and you might not,” Elmer said. “I couldn’t say. I ain’t gonna hold no gun on you, but if you leave you’ll just get caught agin. You might as well wait here as anywhere. If you’re thirsty we got a Coke machine you’re welcome to use.”

  While they were waiting the sheriff came in, a fat, white-headed man. He took one look at them and concluded they didn’t have any right to do anything.

  “Kids, we really oughta lock you up,” he said. “Running off from home, making your parents chase all the way up here. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

  Sonny didn’t either, but he knew one thing for sure: he was never going to get to sleep with Jacy. They would never be together in an actual bed, not for a whole night or even part of a night. Somehow his whole life had worked out to keep that one thing from happening, and it was the one thing he wanted most of all. He was not at all sure he would ever get to make love to anyone he cared about, much less to Jacy. In the hot little jail lobby, sitting on the one bench, he couldn’t even remember why he had ever thought he would get to sleep with her.

  It disappointed him terribly and made him feel a little sick and very tired. About ten o’clock Elmer let the one prisoner come in and watch the late movie with him on the jail’s old Magnavox TV. That was what they were all doing when Lois and Gene arrived. Sonny was so tired by then that he wasn’t even scared of Gene, even though Gene started yelling at him the minute he stepped through the jailhouse door.

  “You’re fired, you whelp!” he said. “What do you mean, runnin’ off with my daughter, tellin’ her she’s gonna live over a poolhall?”

  He would have gone on, but Elmer cut him off.

  “Just take him out in the yard to bawl him out, Mister,” he said. “I can’t hear this movie if you bawl him out in here.” It was a Randolph Scott movie, and they had all been sort of enjoying it.

  As they went out the door Jacy clung to Sonny, crying bitterly. Mrs. Farrow said nothing at all, but Gene was still mad as cats.

  “I’ll bawl him out all right,” he said. “Think I worked like a dog all my life so my daughter could end up over a poolhall?”

  “We was gonna get another apartment,” Sonny said, though they had not actually given the matter much thought.

  “I bet you was,” Gene said. He grabbed Jacy by the arm and jerked her away from Sonny. “Where’s your car keys, hon?” he asked.

  Snuffling, Jacy fished in her purse and handed them to Lois.

  “It’s a hell of a note,” he said.

  “Oh shut up and take her home,” Lois put in wearily. “I’m tired of this.”

  “You bet I will. You take her car. So far as I’m concerned Sonny can walk.”

  He led Jacy to the Cadillac, got in, and spun the big car off, throwing up dust in the unpaved road that ran by the jailhouse. Lois and Sonny were left standing in the jailyard, by a little cedar bush. It was very quiet all of a sudden, the moon white overhead.

  “I would like to apologize for all this, Sonny,” Lois said. “It wasn’t my doings. So far as I’m concerned you have a perfect right to anything you could get out of Jacy, but I can tell you right now that wouldn’t have been much.”

  Sonny didn’t know what to say. He felt awfully tired, and Lois noticed it.

  “You’re welcome to ride back with me,” she said. “In fact I’d enjoy the company. I can understand how you might not want to, though. If you don’t just say so and I’ll give you some bus money.”

  Mrs. Farrow didn’t seem so bad, and Sonny was much too tired to enjoy the thought of waiting for a bus. “I believe I’ll ride with you,” he said.

  They started back over the same road that Sonny had just driven with Jacy. Mrs. Farrow drove fast, but there was no sign of the Cadillac ahead of them.

  “Gene’s probably driving ninety,” she said. “I bet he’s telling Jacy it was all my fault and his, for not loving her more or something.”

  Sonny didn’t know whether he napped or not, but soon they were almost back to Lawton. The wind whipped Mrs. Farrow’s hair about her face just as it had Jacy’s, when they were driving up. To the west, toward the plains, there were low flashings of lightning and the rumble of thunder. Somewhere over near Frederic it was raining. Sonny noticed that Mrs. Farrow had a little flask that she drank from now and then.

  “Here,” she said, holding it out to him. “Have a little bourbon—you can have the re
st of it, in fact. I’ve got to drive. It might pick you up.”

  Sonny took the flask and sipped from it. The whiskey was very sharp on his tongue, but he kept the flask and continued to sip, and after a time he felt a vagueness spreading through him that was almost comfortable. He was surprised to find Mrs. Farrow so likable.

  “Not much of a wedding night, is it?” she said. She grinned at him, but it was not an insulting grin.

  “No, not much of one,” he said.

  “Let me tell you something you won’t believe, Sonny. You’re lucky we got her away from you as quick as we did. Even if you had got to a motel room she’d have found some way to keep from giving it to you. God knows how, but Jacy would have thought of something. You’d have been a lot better off to stay with Ruth Popper.”

  Sonny was startled. “Does everybody know about that?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Lois said. “It sounded like a good thing to me. You shouldn’t have let Jacy turn your head.”

  “She’s prettier,” Sonny said. “I guess I shouldn’t have though. I don’t guess I can go see Mrs. Popper any more.”

  “I shouldn’t imagine. I wouldn’t have you back if you’d left me for Jacy, but then you never know. I’m not Ruth.”

  They turned south out of Lawton. The bourbon was going down easier and easier. In the west the lightning flashes were closer together, and in the moments of light they could see heavy clouds low over the plains.

  “I hope we don’t have to put this damn top up,” Lois said. She found herself moved by Sonny’s youth. He held the bourbon flask very carefully and looked almost comically young. Giving way to an impulse, she reached over and touched his neck. It startled him a great deal.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “I guess I just felt motherly for a second. Or maybe I felt wifely, I don’t know. It’s strange to have a married daughter who wouldn’t go through with her wedding night.”

  Sonny looked at her curiously and she smiled at him, an honest, attractive smile, as she kept stroking the back of his neck lightly. He drank more bourbon and watched the intermittent lightning yellow the plains. He felt as though life was completely beyond him.

  In a little while they crossed Red River, the slap of their tires echoing off the old stone bridge abutments. The water in the channel was shallow and silvery.

  “Anyhow, I know why Sam the Lion liked you,” Sonny said, and it was Lois’ turn to be startled.

  “Sam?” she said. “Who told you he liked me? Genevieve?”

  Sonny nodded. Lois was silent for a moment. “No, it was more than that,” she said. “He loved me, honey.”

  They were silent almost to Burkburnett, but Sonny noticed that Lois kept wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands.

  “I get sad when I think about Sam for long,” she said in explanation, her voice unsteady. “I can still remember his hands, you see. Did you know he had beautiful hands?”

  They passed by Shepherd Field, with its flickering, rotating airplane beacons and its rows of dark narrow barracks.

  “I think he was the only man in that whole horny town who knew what sex was worth,” Lois said, her voice a little hoarse. “I probably never would have learned myself if it hadn’t been for Sam. I’d be one of those Amity types who thinks bridge is the best thing life offers womankind. Gene couldn’t have taught me, he doesn’t know himself.”

  Then they were coming down on the lights of Wichita.

  “Sam the Lion,” Lois said, smiling. “Sam the Lion. Nobody knows where he got that name but me. I gave it to him one night—it just came to me. He was so pleased. I was twenty-two then, can you imagine?”

  Then suddenly her shoulders began to shake and she did a strange thing. She wheeled the convertible off the highway in a screech of brakes and stopped on the hill across from the auction barn. She scooted across the seat and grabbed Sonny’s arms, tears running down her face.

  “But you know somethin’,” she said, her whole body shaking. “It’s terrible to only find one man your whole life who knows what it’s worth, Sonny. It’s just terrible. I wouldn’t be tellin’ you if it wasn’t. I’ve looked, too—you wouldn’t bu-lieve how I’ve looked. When Sam, when Sam… the Lion was seventy years old he could just walk in… I don’t know, hug me and call me Lois or something an’ do more for me than anybody. He really knew what I was worth, an’ the rest of them haven’t, not one man in this whole country….”

  She lay against Sonny’s chest and cried very hard, her face hidden. He put his arms around her and waited. He felt so tired that he could be calm through anything. After a while Lois’ body quit heaving. She slipped her hand inside his shirt and touched his chest, and when she finally sat up her face was quite calm. In fact there was something almost gay in her face.

  “Hey,” she said. “I like you. I don’t know if you know what I’m worth or not, but I sure like you and I should like you to have a nicer wedding night than Jacy could ever have given you. I’ll take you someplace right now and we’ll see to that. Okay? You’re not scared of me, are you?”

  “No,” Sonny said, though he was. But he was glad to go with her, scared or not; he would have gone with her anywhere, just to see what she would do next, what crazy thing life would bring next. Lois got back behind the wheel and drove to a big motel on the Henrietta highway, one Sonny had passed many times. He had certainly never dreamed he would be going into it with Jacy’s mother, on his wedding night.

  Lois paid for a room and got the key. They were right at the back of the court, and she had a little trouble getting the key in the lock. “Gene and Jacy are home now, wondering why we’re driving so slow,” she said. She went in and Sonny followed her. She turned on a small bed light and raised her hands to her throat to unclip a black necklace she wore.

  “We’ll let ’em wonder,” she said. “I’ll tell them we had a flat and had to get it fixed in Lawton. It’s amazing how many good excuses there are.”

  She was undressing, gracefully and without embarrassment, but she stopped a moment to set the bed lamp on the floor. Her breasts were bare—she was the first full-breasted woman Sonny had seen naked.

  “I like a little light but I don’t like it in my eyes,” she said.

  With the lamp on the floor the room was mostly in shadow. As Sonny hesitantly undressed, Lois came and stood quietly by him, smiling, occasionally reaching out to stroke his shoulder or arm or chest. “Shy young men are lovely,” she said, smiling. He thought her breasts were what was lovely. When they lay on the bed he quickly reached to caress her, but Lois caught his hands and held them for a moment in the valley between her breasts. She raised up on one elbow, her face just above his, and touched him lightly with her lips before she spoke.

  “No, no, now,” she said. “You’re scared to death of me. Your muscles are all tight.” She put her hand on his arms, then on his thigh muscles. Sonny knew they were tight.

  “You’re scared of me because I’m Lois Farrow,” she said. “I’m rich and mean, all that. What everybody thinks of me. But that’s not true for you. I may be that way with a lot of men because that’s what they want and deserve, but it’s still not true. Sam… the Lion knew I wasn’t any of that, and I want you to know it too. See my hand? It’s not like that, and hands are what’s real. Put yours right here on my throat.”

  Sonny did—her throat was warm, and she lowered her face and kissed him. After a while she took his hand off her throat and played with his fingers, kissed them. She kissed him and played with him until he began to play too. He relaxed and became as serious and playful as she was. She seemed really glad to be with him, crazy as it was. What surprised him most was the lightness of her movement—her body was heavier than Ruth’s, yet she seemed weightless, so light and easy that they might have been floating together. He came right away, without remembering her at all, and it was only a little later, when he did remember, that he wondered if he had come too soon. She seemed secretly pleased, even delighted, and she took his ha
nds again. They played a little more—Lois continued to touch him lightly with her lips or her fingers.

  “You’ve got a big inferiority complex you ought to cure yourself of,” she said.

  A little later she spoke again. “It’s not how much you’re worth to the woman,” she said quietly. “It’s how much you’re worth to yourself. It’s what you really can feel that makes you nice.”

  Dressing, she looked at her watch. “God, it’s two,” she said. “I guess I better tell them we had a flat and had to walk to Lawton.” She giggled a little and raised her arms to lower her slip over her head. “The excuse never sounds quite so good afterward,” she added lightly. She walked over and asked Sonny to button her dress, and then watched him strangely while he put on his shirt.

  “Your mother and I sat next to one another in the first grade,” she said. “We graduated together. I sure didn’t expect to sleep with her son. That’s small town life for you.” She grinned and stroked his chest again as he buttoned his shirt.

  “What will we be?” he asked, when she stopped at the poolhall to let him out.

  “Very good friends for a long time,” Lois said. “Even I couldn’t get away with taking on my daughter’s ex-husband on a regular basis. They’d have me committed. Why do you look so sad? You’re fine, Sonny.”

  “I was just thinking of Mrs. Popper,” he said. “I guess I treated her terrible.”

  “I guess you did,” Lois said.

  He sat in the car a moment longer and then looked at her gratefully. He started to speak but Lois slipped partly across the seat and covered his lips with her palm. When he closed his mouth she took her palm away and kissed him.

  “Don’t ever say thank you to a woman,” she said. “They’ll kill you if you do. You let the ladies say thank you.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE NEXT MORNING Sonny woke up feeling in love with Lois Farrow, but by the time a long week had passed he was back to missing Jacy and wishing he had been able to stay married to her. One night at the café Genevieve told him Lois had asked her to tell him they had taken Jacy to Dallas and would stay there with her until school started. The news did not improve his spirits.