To his dismay, but not to his surprise, Annie began to cry. The shower was still on. The warm water sluiced over them as she cried. While he had his arms around her he got a half erection—Annie felt it poke against her.
“Hey—are you horny again already?” she asked.
“Not too,” he said. “But here I am in a shower with a beautiful naked woman, and these things happen. Dicks are just apt to get hard when there’s nakedness involved.”
Annie did not seem particularly reassured, but they wrapped themselves in big towels and went to bed on the futon. Annie held him very close.
“Yeats has this poem, you know,” she said. “‘Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop.’ Ever read it?”
Duane shook his head.
“It’s got a great last thought,” Annie said: “‘Nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.’
“I had my gyno do her thing with my hymen and all, but I’m still going to have to be rent, someday, you know. I hope it’s you that does it.”
“I hope so too,” Duane said.
39
ABOUT MID-MORNING Dickie knocked. Annie had long since gone to work—Duane was watching an international soccer match on cable. He had never fully understood soccer but he liked to watch it anyway. The flow of movement up and down the green field relaxed him—he never got that much caught up in the score itself.
Duane had not been to his office in several days, although it was only five minutes away. He had no real part in the life of his oil company, anymore, and saw little reason even to check in.
“So are you living here now, Dad?” Dickie asked, surveying the dim apartment in which there was not a lot to see.
“Yep,” Duane said. “I have a housemate who seems to like my company.”
“Housemate?” Dickie asked, politely. Duane liked it that his son didn’t challenge the term, as his daughters would have. For them cohabitation meant sex—that was that. But Dickie was more tolerant, and, also, more finely calibrated.
“Housemates so far,” Duane said. “Not quite neutral but not quite lovers either. I love Annie but I feel like an old man.”
“I think it’s that you’re a sick man,” Dickie said. “You ate too many cheeseburgers, and now you need to let them fix your heart. Once that’s done you may get randy again.”
“Maybe, but even if that happens I may still feel too old for Annie.”
“The girls think she’ll marry you for your money, although I hear her family has a lot more money than we do.”
“The girls are skeptical, like their mother.”
“I wouldn’t let their opinion bother you,” Dickie said. “Where you’re concerned there couldn’t possibly be anyone good enough for you.”
He was fiddling with his cigarette lighter, a sign that he was nervous.
“What do you really want to talk about?” Duane asked.
“Thalia,” Dickie said. “Annie’s finished over there, and Earlene retires next month. Jessica’s run off from Bobby again, leaving him a broken man. He’s put his house on the market.”
“Uh-oh . . . where’s he thinking of living when his house sells?”
“Lake Kemp—he’s still got that shack, you know,” Dickie said. “It’s just a crappy house with a floor. I guess he means to retire and sit out there and watch teenage girls waterski.”
“If Annie’s through in Thalia what does that mean? Am I about to lose my housemate?”
“Doubt it—whatever’s happening or not happening, you’ve taken her mind off Indonesia. I’ve given her a big office and offered her a big raise.”
“To do what?”
“Reconnaissance,” Dickie said. “She’s always picking up tips from the petroleum industry Web sites. I got no patience with the computer stuff myself, but it’s how money gets made in the oil business today.”
“I ought to put our house up for sale,” Duane said. “Would that bother anyone, you think?”
“Maybe Willy,” Dickie said. “Willy’s about the only grandkid with any attachment to Thalia. I was going to take our usual box at the rodeo next week, but it turned out that there are no Moores left who want to sit in a box at the rodeo.”
“Not even you?”
“I’d go if I was here, but Annette and I are going to the Keys next week. I want to catch me a big fish.”
“I think what you’re saying is that it’s time to close the Thalia office,” Duane said. “I’m sure you’re right. I’ll drive over this afternoon and see if there’s anything in it I might need.”
“You might find a few pictures—otherwise it’s already cleaned out.”
“Do you like Annie?” Duane asked.
“I do like her—I hired her,” Dickie reminded him. “And if you and her become more than housemates, I’d like that too. I don’t really care what my sisters think.”
“Thanks,” Duane said. “Ever hear from your brother Jack?”
“I hear of him, not from him,” Dickie said. “He’s in Ecuador.”
Dickie went out, closed the screen door and started to leave. But then he thought for a moment and came back inside.
“I meant it when I told you I liked Annie,” Dickie said. “But even if I didn’t like her—even if I thought she was a conniving cunt who was only after your money, I’d still be in favor of her staying with you, Dad.”
“Why?”
“Because she might keep you alive,” Dickie said. “Without her I think you’d die.”
Then he left.
40
THE WEATHER was cooling. When he got ready to go to Thalia he considered, for a moment, riding his bicycle. He even rolled the bike around the courtyard of the apartment building a few times—then he put the bike away. He couldn’t imagine himself riding a bicycle all the way to Thalia again, although he had ridden it in August heat the day he came back from Egypt. It had been a form of locomotion that had felt good for a while, but now it merely felt impossible. When he gave up on the notion he felt tired.
But when he drove south in his pickup he felt okay. Maybe when he got to Thalia he’d visit a bit with Lester Marlow, the retired banker with whom he had shared a lot of what might be called ups and downs. Maybe he would even pay his old cabin a visit, and stop off for a few minutes at the Asia Wonder Deli. He might even drive to Lake Kemp and see if Bobby Lee was already moved in to his insubstantial home.
All he took from his old office were two photographs—one of him holding up a large bass he had caught at a lake in East Texas; the other of himself and Bobby Lee, in oil-splattered overalls, standing by the best well they had ever brought in, 1,600 barrels a day. That had occurred in 1977. And after that, what?
When he left the old office and locked it he remembered how worried Karla had been the day they had rented it, forty years ago. The rent was $150 a month—they worried that they might not be able to pay it—and there had been times when Duane could only cover the rent with poker winnings. Twice he had pawned his deer rifle and, at their lowest ebb, even pawned Karla’s wedding ring.
Then things picked up. They brought in a few good wells—they learned how to operate economically. Three years after they rented the building, they bought it outright for $13,000. Ten years later they were prosperous enough to build the big house, which cost $60,000 and made them, unofficially, the richest family in Thalia, Texas.
The boom came and they learned to play tennis. They took trips to the gambling casino in Bossier City, Louisiana. The bust followed the boom but they weathered it, losing only one of their three rigs to the bank.
Children came, grandchildren came, and, rapidly, life passed. Karla head-oned with the milk truck. The kids and grandkids mostly moved to North Dallas. Dickie conquered his addiction and ran the company well. Jack roamed the earth. Duane walked a few years, then bicycled a couple. Now he was back in a pickup and the old Thalia office was closed.
When he walked out of the office he took only the two photographs and a yellow-handled pocketknife he had left
in a drawer many years ago. It had just been a plain office—he had the feeling that he might be leaving it for the last time, yet all he could summon was a feeling of indifference. There should have been a big swell of emotion, like there was at the end of some movies; but in fact he had never particularly liked the office—it was drafty in the winter and the air conditioners rattled loudly all summer. He supposed he should have felt something like John Wayne felt as he left his post for the last time in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon—but he didn’t. He stood on the porch for a minute, watching the thunderheads scuttle across the south plains.
Then he got in his pickup and left.
41
TWO BLOCKS from his office there was the big house. Duane started to drive past without stopping, but then he changed his mind and looked the house over for a few minutes. Already it seemed to him that it was becoming a sagging ruin. It needed reroofing, that was obvious. The woodwork needed painting. The plumbing was eroding.
Duane didn’t want to go into the big house, but he was tired of having it on his mind. He got out and walked into the garage. He found an empty cardboard box, tore it up, and nailed part of it to one of the stakes that he used to tie up tomato plants. Then he wrote “For Sale By Owner” on the box with a Magic Marker. He wrote the drilling company’s phone number on the box and drove the stake into the ground with a brick, hammering it into the soft dirt where tomatoes once had grown.
When he drove off he felt better. His hope was that the house would sell immediately.
Then he eased along two blocks west and stopped in Lester Marlow’s driveway. Lester was sitting under a big shade tree, wearing only a bathing suit and a pair of flip-flops. It was the warm part of the day. Lester was shooting at several rows of dominoes that he had lined up on a nearby card table. The object of the game was to hit the lead domino and have it knock down the row. But Lester, despite careful aim, could not seem to hit the lead domino. Sometimes he didn’t hit anything. Other times he hit the card table. Once in a while he hit a domino, which, somehow, fell in isolation.
“Hi,” Duane said. “I just put my house up for sale.”
“Why would you think I’d want your house, you louse,” Lester said, jocularly.
“Just kidding,” he added. “I just happen to remember that you built that house the year they put me in jail for embezzlement.”
“You were only in jail one night,” Duane reminded him. “And in county jail at that.”
“You don’t forget jail, though,” Lester said. “I was worried all night that someone might try and cornhole me.”
“Why, there was nobody else in jail at the time—I bailed you out, remember?” Duane reminded him.
“I know you’ve been a loyal friend,” Lester said. “But I doubt that anyone will buy your house. Why would anyone who could afford a house like that want to live in Thalia as it is today?”
“He might if he was a drug dealer—be close to his work,” Duane said.
Lester laughed mirthlessly and emptied his BB gun at the table with the dominoes. Not a single domino fell.
“How’s Jenny?” Duane asked, referring to Lester’s attractive, long-suffering wife.
“She’s probably out at Lake Kemp, consoling Bobby Lee,” Lester said. “Jessica’s run off with another meth dealer.”
“Why does Jenny need to drive all the way over to Lake Kemp to console Bobby?” Duane wondered.
“Well, she likes to console people and she can’t console me because I have inconsolable angst,” Lester said. “Bobby Lee just has common misery.”
“You’re not suggesting a romance between Jenny and Bobby, I hope?”
“I wish they would have a romance—be good for both of them,” Lester said. “Hell, it would do me good too. Jenny and I’ve got nothing left.”
They were silent for a moment, brought up short by contemplation of the muddle life had turned out to be.
“Did you close the office too?” Lester asked.
“Yep. Dickie’s moved us to Wichita Falls.”
“This whole town might as well move to Wichita Falls,” Lester said. “There’s really no reason for it to be a town anymore.”
“Good point,” Duane said.
When he drove away Lester was reloading his BB gun. Duane, not for the first time, wished he had not decided to visit his old friend, Lester Marlow.
42
DUANE FELT his spirits sinking—a direction they often took when he lingered in Thalia too long. He thought a milk shake might divert, or at least delay, a depression, so he pulled into the drive-thru at the Dairy Queen and, to his surprise, found himself being waited on by a cheerful young woman the color of a plum.
He had been a customer of the Dairy Queen since the day it opened, and had never been served by a nonwhite before. He smiled at the girl and she smiled back—that too was a novelty at the Dairy Queen, where the level of hospitality had never been especially high.
It might be, Duane thought, that fast food in the Thalia area was falling under Sri Lankan influence, which could only be a good thing.
He was just turning onto the dirt road that would have led him to the Asia Wonder Deli, when a familiar car, with a familiar woman in it, came racing toward him in a cloud of dust.
The woman was Jenny Marlow, and the car was surely one of the oldest surviving Volkswagens in the county, if not in the world.
Duane waved and Jenny braked. He pulled to the side of the road, got out, and strolled over to offer Jenny a kiss on the cheek. She wore a cutoff T-shirt; her bony shoulders and freckled arms were bare. For some reason he had always been attracted to Jenny’s bony shoulders.
“Running the back roads again, are you?” he asked. “I hope you’re not peddling meth.”
Jenny chuckled. “No,” she said. “I just can’t resist the crab rolls at the Asia Wonder Deli. Want one?”
“Actually I was headed for the Asia Wonder Deli myself,” Duane said. “It’s about the only reason to drive this dusty old road.”
“Agreed,” Jenny said. She had prominent front teeth—another thing about her that Duane had always found attractive.
“I hear you’re nursing Bobby,” he said. “That’s a saintly thing to do.”
“I’m not doing it in a saintly fashion, though,” Jenny said, “Bobby Lee and I are one another’s last resorts. We’ve been one another’s last resort for longer than I care to remember.”
Duane had no comment on that. There was more than one way to be someone’s last resort, he knew. Just having a cheerful woman to say hello to you at the post office every morning for forty years would be a good kind of last resort. And if, occasionally, a little sex was involved, then so much the better.
“I hope you took the trouble to visit Lester,” Jenny said. “We never see you now but you’re just about our oldest friend in this slipping-down town. I’d be hurt and so would he if you showed up in Thalia and didn’t come to see us.”
“Jenny, I’ll always come and see you—next time I’ll bring Lester some BBs for his airgun.”
“That’s nice for Lester, but what will you bring me, honey?” she asked.
Jenny had always been bold in speech—the two of them had flirted for many years but he didn’t remember that it had ever gone past flirting—though he wasn’t entirely sure. During the heady days of the boom, in the 1970s, he was often drunk and had been led into brief amorous affairs with two or three women—encounters that now were a blur in his mind. Had he slept with Jenny Marlow once or twice? He knew Karla had disliked her, on no better grounds than her suspicion that Duane was attracted to Jenny’s bony shoulders and big front teeth. Did they or didn’t they? It was one of those questions he would probably never know the answer to.
“You could bring me a hard-on, someday,” she said. “I wouldn’t look askance at it, if you were to. I’m driving lots of these long country roads and not getting very damn much.”
“That might be easier said than done,” Duane allowed.
J
enny grinned her toothy grin. “I was mostly teasing,” she said. “But I wasn’t entirely teasing.”
“I guess there’s such a thing as waiting too long,” Duane said. “Bobby Lee ain’t gonna drown himself is he?”
“Good news on that front,” Jenny said. “Jessica got busted in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, with a station-wagonful of drugs. Bobby swears he won’t bail her out this time, and if he won’t nobody will. Maybe we’ve seen the last of Jessica for a while.”
“I hope so—I guess I’ll mosey along and get my crab puffs,” Duane said.
“Don’t forget my present, next time you’re over,” Jenny said, grinning at him.
Then she tooted her horn and drove off.
Duane wondered if she had meant what she said. More likely, he thought, she was just pulling his string.
43
DUANE TRIED not to look at the litter in the bar ditches as he drove out toward his cabin. Once, the trash in the bar ditches made him angry—he was highly incensed by the general slovenliness of the people who drove the road: cowboys, roughnecks, hunters, drug dealers had once angered him so that he spent hours each week doing his best to patrol the ditches and remove the trash. It had given him what Honor called focus, and he worked at it industriously for more than a year.
He had only been away a rather short time, but it seemed to him that the volume of debris was much higher than it had been when he left for Egypt. What that probably meant was that more meth dealers were using the road for their nocturnal cooking of this cheap and deadly drug.
The sight of the trash—bottles, cans, plastic sacks, a wash tub with a hole in it—annoyed him as it always did but he went on to the cabin without picking up any of the trash. The trash would have to wait until after his operation—he fully meant to clean it up, but not until after he had rid himself of the strange fatigue that made his limbs feel so heavy.
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