Texasville

by Larry McMurtry

  “Okay, you can stay your whole life with me,” Karla said, blowing on her coffee.

  “Jacy says Dickie is one of the sweetest boys she’s ever met,” she added.

  “How’d she happen to meet him?”

  “He sells her marijuana,” Karla said. “He started the week she got back and never said a word to us about knowing her, the little rat.”

  Karla wore an unhappy little frown. Duane felt sad. Last night they had been happy for an hour—back in love, almost. They had both awakened feeling cheerful. Yet already cheerfulness was proving hard to sustain.

  “How come you’re depressed?” he asked.

  Karla shrugged. “Because I just figured out the bottom line,” she said.

  “What is the bottom line?”

  “Men are scared of me,” Karla said. “That’s the bottom line. They don’t like it that I’m smart.”

  She paused, still frowning.

  “Shit, they don’t even like it that I’m pretty,” she said. “They think they do but it scares them. I don’t know which scares them most, that I’m pretty or that I’m smart.”

  “Well, you’re both,” he said.

  “I know, but so the bottom line is that men act like they want me but then they run,” Karla said.

  Duane reached over and began to massage the back of her neck. The muscles were as tight as a drum.

  “I’m not scared that you’re smart and pretty,” he said. “I like it that you’re smart and pretty.”

  Karla tilted her head back against his hand.

  “That’s right, Duane,” she said. “You’re the only one who isn’t. That’s why I married you and that’s why I’m still around.”

  He massaged her neck until the muscles loosened a little and then got dressed and drove to Wichita Falls to see Dickie.

  Dickie was lying on the couch with his shirt off, reading a volume of the World Book Encyclopedia.

  “What are you reading about?” Duane asked.

  “I’m reading about Italy,” Dickie said. “I might move there.”

  “Why, ain’t there enough dope around here to suit you?” Duane asked. He felt his anger rise. It was unreasonable and he tried to control himself. It was not a crime to read about Italy, or even to move there, and yet he felt an urge to grab the boy and shake him.

  “It has nothing to do with dope, I just need to get away from Billie Anne,” Dickie said, without looking up.

  “You just married her,” Duane reminded him.

  “Stupidest thing I ever did, too,” Dickie said.

  Duane felt his anger rise more rapidly. It was as if he had poured beer in a glass too quickly. Unless he acted instantly it was going to overflow the glass. He had to suck it off quick.

  A second later he knocked the book out of Dickie’s hand and yanked him off the couch. The boy looked surprised, but he rose quickly, so quickly it caught Duane off balance. He threw a punch but then found himself on the floor. Dickie had thrown one first. When Duane got up, Dickie grappled with him and managed to shove him out the screen door. In the yard Duane realized that he was in a fight with his son—and not only that, he was losing. He threw two punches and they both missed. Dickie was too quick. Duane felt tired, although the fight had not been happening for more than a minute. He looked at Dickie and saw that the boy was crying, although he still had his fists clenched.

  “Stop it, Daddy,” Dickie said. “Please stop it.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Duane said, breathing hard. “I think I better stop it.”

  His anger had passed and he felt a deep, crushing sense of shame. He had attacked his own son, and for no reason—or at least for no reason that was clear.

  “Dickie, I’m sorry,” he said. “There was absolutely no reason for me to behave that way. I’m real sorry.”

  He went back in the house and sat down on the couch. Apologizing had not helped much. He felt that he could no longer trust himself. Never in his life had he done anything so troubling. He had never before attacked one of his own children. He was trembling, and felt that he might be sick at his stomach.

  “You’re white as a sheet, Daddy,” Dickie said. “Are you sick or something?”

  Duane couldn’t think of what to say. What was the matter with him?

  “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Dickie asked.

  “No, I just feel a little queasy,” Duane said.

  “I’ll bring you a Dr. Pepper,” Dickie said. “It’ll help settle your stomach.”

  While Dickie was getting the drink Duane looked around the room and noticed that the furniture didn’t seem to be smashed. In fact the house looked rather orderly. Dickie, looking nervous and worried, came in and handed him the Dr. Pepper.

  “I thought you smashed all the furniture with a tire iron,” Duane said.

  “Who told you that?” Dickie asked.

  “Billie Anne told your mother,” Duane said.

  Dickie shook his head. “She lies every minute of the day,” Dickie said. “If I’d even tried to come in the house with a tire iron she’d have shot me five or six times before I could move. All I did was kick a lawn chair and break my toenail.”

  Duane felt silly on top of guilty. Besides attacking his own child, he had also assumed the worst about him. That Billie Anne might be lying had never crossed his mind.

  “Well, I owe you another apology,” he said. “I should have known you wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “She’s a good liar,” Dickie said. “She can fool anybody. She fooled me or I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’m even afraid to sleep in the same bed with her. She keeps a loaded gun in her hand all night.”

  “Mrs. d’Olonne thinks I should just leave,” the boy added. “She says that’s the only thing to do if you’re living with somebody you’re scared of. She’s had to run from a couple of men herself.”

  “Mrs. who?” Duane asked.

  “Mrs. d’Olonne,” Dickie said. “I think that’s how you pronounce it. She’s a real nice lady.

  “You know, Jacy,” he said, seeing that his father still looked puzzled. “She says I can go live in her house in Italy if I want to.”

  Dickie grinned shyly.

  “I think she wants to fix me up with one of her daughters,” he said.

  Duane had stopped trembling, but he felt weak.

  “Did you and Mrs. d’Olonne really go together once?” Dickie asked. It was obviously something he was deeply curious about.

  “We sure did,” Duane said. “We went steady in high school.”

  “She’s shown me pictures of her daughters,” Dickie said. “The oldest one is just my age.”

  “Pretty?” Duane asked.

  “Better than pretty,” he said. “She’s just flat beautiful.”

  Duane got up and retrieved the World Book that he had knocked across the room.

  “Italy sounds like a fine idea,” he said. “You’re young. You oughta get out and see the world. You don’t have to make the oil patch your whole life.”

  “It’s been your whole life, though,” Dickie pointed out.

  “That’s my limitation, it don’t have to be yours,” Duane said. “Besides, I got sent away to war when I was your age. That’s different. I wasn’t offered any choice, and all I wanted to do was get back here alive.”

  They sat for a while, not speaking.

  “Why does Billie Anne lie?” Duane asked.

  “She just likes to,” Dickie said. “She believes her own lies, too. She’s gonna have a shit fit when she finds out I got Mrs. Marlow pregnant.”

  “Have you been seeing Mrs. Marlow again?” Duane asked.

  “No, just Mrs. Nolan,” Dickie said. “Mrs. Nolan’s more relaxing.”

  “It’s not real smart to get too many women in love with you at the same time,” Duane pointed out.

  “That’s what Mrs. d’Olonne says,” Dickie said. “I’m gonna try to stick to Mrs. Nolan for a while.”

  “Does Jacy know about Mrs. Marlow be
ing pregnant?” Duane asked.

  “Sure, I tell her everything,” Dickie said. “She gives real good advice.”

  Duane found it astonishing that his wildest child, whom both Karla and he regarded as totally beyond their control, had been eagerly getting his advice from Jacy for several months.

  “What does she think you ought to do about the baby?” he asked.

  “Wait and see if it looks like me or Mr. Marlow,” Dickie said. “She says you can’t trust married people to tell the truth about their sex lives. She says even if they claim they never do it they probably do it once in a while.”

  Duane finished his Dr. Pepper. He tried to sort out the complexities that he faced, plus the ones his son faced, plus a variety that people he liked or cared about faced. The more he thought, the more the complexities seemed to form intricate knots. Finally he just went blank. It was as if he had added one too many appliances to an electrical circuit. The circuit blew. He sat on the couch, sucking on an ice cube, aware only that it was pleasant to be with Dickie. That in itself was a surprise. Since Dickie was Jack’s age, when they had often gone hunting or fishing together, it had rarely been pleasant to be with him.

  “When would you be going to Italy?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Dickie said. “Mrs. d’Olonne says I can live at Los Dolores while I make up my mind. She don’t want me to stay around here and get shot by Billie Anne.”

  “Would that girl really shoot somebody?” Duane asked.

  “She shot two different people in Arizona in one fight,” Dickie said. “Her boyfriend and his new girlfriend. They didn’t die, it was just flesh wounds, but then they were in a moving car when she started shooting.”

  “Did you tell your mother about that?”

  “No, Billie Anne never showed me the newspaper clippings until yesterday,” Dickie said. “No charges were filed. I guess it’s wild over there in Arizona.”

  “Why don’t you put a shirt on and get your shaving stuff,” Duane said.

  “Where am I going?”

  “You’re going home until we sort a little more of this out,” Duane said. “Then if you want to go to Italy or move into Los Dolores, that’s fine.”

  Five minutes later they were on their way to Thalia.

  CHAPTER 48

  AT HOME THEY FOUND BOBBY LEE MOROSELY scrambling some eggs.

  “You burned the bacon,” Duane observed.

  “That’s because Karla’s damn stove is so complicated it could take an engineer just to cook bacon on it,” Bobby Lee said. “Hi, Dickie.”

  It was true that the stove was complicated. The cockpit of a jetliner had only a few less dials. Nonetheless, Minerva had mastered it in a few seconds.

  “Where’s Minerva?” Duane asked.

  “She went down to live with Jacy,” Bobby Lee said. “Everybody else did, too. I wish she’d invite me.”

  Bobby Lee seemed to have been crying. His scraggly beard had tears shining in it.

  “Did Nellie already break your heart?” Duane asked.

  “Yes,” Bobby Lee said. “Now she don’t wanta run away with me this week.”

  “Why not?” Duane asked.

  “Jacy’s teaching her to cook pesto,” Bobby Lee said.

  “What’s that?”

  Bobby Lee shrugged. “Spaghetti,” he said.

  “It’s not spaghetti, it’s pasta,” Dickie said.

  “Since when did you become an I-talian?” Bobby Lee asked, looking annoyed.

  In seconds the scrambled eggs had turned as black as the bacon. Bobby Lee, embarrassed, snatched the frying pan off the stove and rushed to the door. He flung the black, smoking eggs out on the deck.

  “We got a perfectly good garbage disposal,” Duane pointed out. Richie hadn’t put it in, either. He had seen to that.

  “I thought Shorty could eat them,” Bobby Lee said sheepishly.

  “Shorty lives with Jacy,” Duane informed him.

  “Hell, everybody does, it looks like,” Bobby Lee said. “We’ll all starve to death if we don’t get somebody around here who can work this goddamn stove.”

  “I can work it,” Dickie said. “Sit down and I’ll cook you some breakfast.”

  Bobby Lee browsed in the fridge until he found a raspberry Popsicle; he sucked unhappily on it while Dickie quickly fried more bacon and scrambled more eggs.

  Duane found a note on the cabinet from Karla saying she had gone down to Jacy’s and would see him at the pageant rehearsal. It all seemed odd to him: within the space of two days his whole family, including his maid and his dog, had vanished into Los Dolores. He didn’t feel alarmed. It might well be for the best. It was just unexpected.

  The heartbroken Bobby Lee was soon eating a hearty breakfast.

  “Nellie said she was gonna learn to cook and become a chef in a restaurant,” Bobby Lee said.

  That news was also unexpected. So far in life Nellie had rarely been able to make herself a bowl of dry cereal without something going wrong.

  “Mrs. d’Olonne likes to teach people to cook,” Dickie informed them.

  “I hope she teaches Carolyn then,” Bobby Lee said. “A pig would get indigestion if it had to eat Carolyn’s cooking very long, and I’ve been eating it for twelve years.”

  “What made you think Nellie would run off with you anyway?” Duane asked.

  “It’s always been my dream,” Bobby Lee said, his eyes reddening.

  “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” Dickie said, looking alarmed.

  “Why not, my life’s mint,” Bobby Lee said.

  However, instead of crying, he had another raspberry Popsicle for dessert.

  “If Little Mike comes back and finds you ate all his Popsicles, I don’t know what we’ll do with him,” Duane said.

  Dickie left the room for a minute and returned with two pistols, a .357 Magnum and a small .22 automatic. He sat at the kitchen table and loaded them. Bobby Lee seemed alarmed.

  “Why are you loading guns, is a dope war coming down?” he asked.

  “No, but Billie Anne could be coming down anytime,” Dickie said. “I want to be ready.”

  “If you’re so scared of her, why in hell did you marry her?” Duane asked.

  “I was just bored,” Dickie said. “It gets too boring around here. Half the people in Thalia probably got married because they were bored.”

  “Or else horny,” Bobby Lee said.

  “All I do when I get bored is buy two-story doghouses,” Duane pointed out.

  Nobody had an answer to that. Dickie idly rotated the chamber of the .357 Magnum. Bobby Lee regarded the weapon with some apprehension.

  “If that gun went off accidentally it could make a big hole in somebody,” he said.

  He noticed a tiny speck of green on his plate and pushed it around with his fork.

  “What’d you put in them eggs?” he asked. “They tasted different. Good, but different.”

  “Just some herbs,” Dickie said.

  “Herbs!” Bobby Lee said, with a look of alarm. “Why’d you put herbs in my eggs? I like plain old eggs.”

  “I guess you liked those,” Dickie said. “You ate every bite.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t like foods from other states,” Bobby Lee said. “I just like plain old Texas food.”

  “Herbs grow in Texas,” Dickie said.

  “I never seen one growing around here,” Bobby Lee said. He seemed near panic.

  “I have bad dreams when I eat things that ain’t from Texas,” he said. “I bet I have terrible dreams tonight. You drug dealers are all alike. You don’t care what you put in people’s food.”

  “Calm down,” Dickie said. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Better yet, go to work,” Duane said. “If you work all day you’ll be too tired to have a dream, good or bad.”

  He looked at Dickie, who looked very young. The boy promoted his own macho image so successfully that it had even fooled Duane. Sitting at the table, he looked like a nice, shy teenager.


  “What’s a herb anyway?” Bobby Lee asked. “You shouldn’t trick me like that, Dickie. You know I get the dry heaves real easy.”

  “You can’t have the dry heaves with eggs and bacon in your stomach,” Dickie pointed out.

  “I’ve read about herbs but I can’t remember much about them,” Bobby Lee said. “Don’t they give you visions of God and stuff?”

  “That’s mushrooms” Dickie said. “Certain mushrooms.”

  “We can sit here and talk about herbs all day or we could go do an honest day’s work,” Duane said.

  “Let’s go, I’m ready,” Dickie said. “If Billie Anne comes after me at the rig at least there’ll be witnesses.”

  “Why would Nellie want to be a chef in a restaurant?” Bobby Lee asked. “She never had no ambition at all. It’s taken me all these years to get her in the mood to run away with me.”

  “Go to work and don’t brood,” Duane advised.

  “I like to brood,” Bobby Lee said. “What else is there to do around here except brood and feel sorry for yourself?”

  “Well, there’s a centennial to put on, for one thing,” Duane said. “And rehearsals start tonight.”

  CHAPTER 49

  AT 6 P.M., THE HOUR WHEN PAGEANT REHEARSALS were supposed to get underway in the rodeo arena, the summer sun was at its most vicious angle. A high of 108 had been registered that afternoon, and the thermometer had not dropped much off the high.

  Only one car was parked in the huge gravelly parking lot behind the arena when Duane arrived. It belonged to Lester Marlow, who sat in it dressed in a suit and tie. He had parked facing the sun. Duane drove up beside him but did not park facing the sun. He got out and walked around to have a word with Lester, who was sweating as a man might who wore a suit and had a hundred and eight degrees of sunlight pouring directly in on him. He looked very hot.

  “If I open my mouth to say hi, I might drown in my own sweat,” he said.

  “Turn your car around,” Duane suggested. “You won’t be as hot. Better yet, get out and let’s go sit in the shade.”

  It occurred to him that if Lester had enough common sense not to park facing the sun, or even to take his coat and tie off, he might well not be indicted on seventy-two counts of fraud.