When the Light Goes

by Larry McMurtry

  He caught another perch and decided he was tired of fishing.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “I’m hungry—where do you want to eat?”

  “Pat’s,” Duane said.

  Pat’s was a steak house in the nearby town of Seymour. It was run by a woman named Pat who believed in smearing her steaks with lots of butter. Duane ate a T-bone and then ate another—an indulgence that caused both Pat and Bobby Lee to lift an eyebrow.

  “Has somebody been starving you, honey?” Pat asked.

  “No, but somebody’s been feeding me a lot of fish,” he allowed.

  “His arteries are all blocked up,” Bobby Lee explained. “He must be feeling suicidal or else why’s he eating two steaks?”

  “I doubt it will hurt him—my steaks are lean meat,” Pat said.

  “How lean’s all that butter,” Bobby asked.

  “It’s just that everything tastes better with a lot of butter on it,” Pat explained.

  On the way back to the crappy house Bobby Lee kept looking at Duane.

  “You had to sneak off to eat those steaks, didn’t you?” he asked finally.

  “Spoken like an old sneaker-offer.”

  “If you have to sneak off to eat red meat I don’t know what to think about your new relationship.”

  “Nobody asked you to do much thinking about my new relationship,” Duane pointed out.

  “I know, but I like to imagine that your life is better than my own,” Bobby Lee said.

  “Karla always said it was dumb to suppose that other people’s lives are better than your own,” Duane said. “Her opinion was that most people are about equally miserable.”

  “Is Annie Cameron miserable?”

  “No—I don’t think she’s miserable,” he said.

  “Then that shoots Karla’s theory all to shit—don’t it?” Bobby Lee said.

  Duane’s eyelids had began begun to feel heavy.

  “Hope you don’t mind if I take a nap,” he said.

  “Let me ask you a question, before you nod off,” Bobby Lee said. “It’s pretty personal. I wouldn’t want you telling anybody I asked.”

  “Just ask it—I need my nap pretty soon.”

  “Do you think Viagra would work for a man with only one ball?”

  “Gosh,” Duane said. “I don’t know. How would I know?”

  Then he immediately began to wonder if Viagra would really work for a man with two balls and a few clogged arteries. He had seen plenty of Viagra ads and yet had never applied them to his own situation, which was the situation of a largely impotent man in love with a woman much younger than himself.

  “Gosh,” he said again, wondering how he could have entirely missed the possibility that this well-known remedy for erectile dysfunction might be able to improve his own performance with Annie Cameron.

  “Let’s make a secret pact,” he suggested. “I’ll try it if you’ll try it. Maybe one of us will get lucky.”

  “Maybe both of us will get lucky,” Bobby Lee said. “I just feel I ought to be doing a little better with Jenny than I am in the here and now.”

  “I know the feeling,” Duane said.

  47

  WHEN HE LEFT the lake Duane went straight to his doctor and asked about Viagra. His MD was a middle-aged woman named Hunnicut, who immediately handed him a bunch of free samples.

  “It seems to work for some people,” Dr. Hunnicut said, with a sigh. “Unfortunately it didn’t work for Freddy, except once. It’s a good thing I’ve got a healthy sense of humor.”

  Duane knew that Freddy was Dr. Hunnicut’s husband—they had met once or twice at barbecues. Freddy had never seemed happy—he was a moper.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me about the once?” the doctor said, with a wry smile.

  “I’ll bite, I guess,” Duane said.

  “If you’ve seen the commercials you might have noticed the small print about what to do if you have an erection that lasts four hours or more.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “That’s right. Freddy usually couldn’t get it up with a fork lift, but he took his Viagra for a while and came up with one of those four-hour erections.

  She cackled at the memory—then she sighed.

  “I sometimes think the sexual organs were put there to keep the human race humble,” she said. “They’ve certainly kept me humble.”

  “What’d Freddy do about the long hard-on?”

  “Went to the ER and got a muscle relaxant—Freddy’s easily embarrassed. I don’t think he’ll ever get over that experience.”

  “I hope it don’t happen to me,” Duane said. “That would be too much of a good thing.”

  “Just go to the ER, if it happens. They see two or three cases a night, even here in stodgy Wichita Falls.

  “It’s amazing how reluctant people are to give up on sex,” she added. “It feels good and, if you’re married, it appears to be free.”

  “It’s not really free, though, is it?”

  “Not really,” the doctor said.

  48

  DUANE LEFT his Viagra samples on the kitchen counter. He wanted Annie to see them the minute she walked in. He didn’t want her to think he was complacent about their halting, partial sex life.

  She did notice them the minute she walked in.

  “Well, my, my,” she said, giving him a light kiss. “Viagra the wonder drug. Savior of old farts who can’t get it up.”

  “Like me,” Duane said.

  “I wonder—I wonder.”

  “You wonder what?”

  “It may be a blessing that you have a little bit of erectile dysfunction, if that’s the phrase.”

  “Doesn’t feel like a blessing to me,” he said.

  “Yeah, but keep in mind that I’m really just a beginner,” she reminded him. “I’m a beginner who needs to go slow. I may need the slightly impaired approach.”

  Duane listened.

  “If you’d been all rampant and just poked your big dick into me like most men would have I might have hated the experience, and thrown you out.”

  Duane just listened.

  “It’s complicated, right?” she said, kissing him again. “But I’m on your side—or maybe it’s our side—and I have a little surprise for you too.”

  “What?”

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a video in a white case.

  “It’s a how-to video. I’ve already checked out the couple and they’re beautiful. They’re nothing like the actors in those grunty porn movies.”

  There was a picture of the instructors on the cover of the video. They were in a close embrace.

  “Let’s take a shower and let’s eat some linguini and let’s watch this video,” Annie said. “I may want us to try some of the things they do if that’s okay.”

  “I can’t wait,” Duane said.

  49

  THE MINUTE THEY SLIPPED The Techniques of Intimacy into the VCR and an attractive, naked couple faced them, smiling, Duane knew that Annie’s response to sex was about to change.

  “Where’d they find those two?” she wondered. “Are there people who apply for jobs as sex instructors, or what?”

  “I wonder about that myself,” Duane said.

  “I think his dick’s shorter than yours,” she said. Even though the young couple on the screen were just standing there Annie’s breath had become a little raspy. They sat on the couch, Duane in an undershirt and briefs, Annie in a robe.

  “Those two could be our next-door neighbors,” Annie said, “if our next-door neighbors just happened to be really nice-looking sex instructors.”

  A female voice introduced the couple as Jane and Jim and said a few words about sexual fulfillment being the key to a happy marriage. The voice spoke of the pleasure bond, and stressed that ignorance of the techniques of intimacy could damage what might otherwise be a happy relationship.

  Then Jane took Jim’s penis in her hand and cupped his scrotum—an erection soon appeared, allowing Jane to
demonstrate the proper way to put a condom on your partner. The dangers of unprotected sex were stressed, and AIDS came in for a brief mention.

  Then Jane and Jim were in bed, kissing. The voice intimated that intimacy should be enjoyed slowly—couples who hurried often failed to achieve a full response.

  “She means coming,” Annie said. She gripped Duane’s cock, a little too tightly.

  Following the kissing Jane and Jim paused to give the viewer a brief anatomy lesson: here, in Jane’s case, were the labia, here the entrance to the vagina, here, above, just a little white speck, the clitoris—and, as for Jim, here were the glans penis, the testicles, the scrotum.

  “I wish they’d do it,” Annie complained. “I don’t need this whitebread anatomy stuff. I know where my cunt is.”

  Then, before Annie could complain anymore, Jane and Jim began to have intercourse, slow at first but then more vigorously.

  “Look how hard her nipples are—this is the real thing,” Annie said. “Oops, he came out.”

  Jim had come out, but was quickly reinserted by Jane. Annie began to breathe more heavily. Jane and Jim had been using the missionary position, but then, suddenly, Jane put her legs against Jim’s shoulders.

  “Oh shit, that’s hot, I wanta do that,” Annie said. “You want to turn the TV off and do it?”

  “Let’s watch a little more, they might do something even wilder,” Duane said. Jane’s white legs were widely splayed beside Jim’s straining body. Annie’s breath was hoarse. Duane put a hand on her and discovered that she was wet—far better lubricated than she had been the day he tried to enter her.

  But meanwhile, on the screen, Jane had turned over, her butt elevated, her face in a pillow. The calm voice mentioned that some couples liked an anterior approach, an approach sometimes known as doggy style. There hung Jane’s swollen pudenda—she reached around under herself, to guide Jim in.

  “I want to do that—I want to do that right now,” Annie said. “It seems so degrading but it’s hot, isn’t it?”

  Duane didn’t answer. On the screen Jim’s balls were slapping against the back of Jane’s thighs. Duane slipped two fingers into Annie. The passage was tight, but not as tight as it had been the night before.

  Then Jane and Jim demonstrated a woman-superior position, which did little for Annie.

  “I don’t like seeing her boobs bounce like that,” she said.

  The woman-superior was followed by a side-by-side position which allowed Jane to stroke Jim’s penis as it went in and out of her. Jim, for his part, was rubbing the sheath that hid Jane’s clitoris.

  “The clitoris ought to be bigger—no wonder guys sort of miss it,” Annie said.

  Duane realized that he had a full erection. Annie was on her back, her bathrobe fully open. Duane urged her to lift her legs and rest them against his shoulders. When he began to push into her, Annie gritted her teeth for a moment. “Just be real slow,” she said.

  Duane obeyed, though he knew that if he went too slow he might lose his erection. He pushed on in, slowly, as Annie squeezed her eyes shut and panted heavily.

  “It’s too tight,” she said. “You must have the biggest fucking dick in the world.”

  Finally he was completely seated in her, something he had feared might never happen. He moved a little, not much—just a little in and out—when, to his surprise—he had not expected it to happen for weeks, if ever—Annie came, in a series of hard jerks in which she pounded her pelvic bone against him. She cried out three times. Then she gasped and gasped, as she drew in long breaths. On the screen Jane had Jim’s prick in her hand and was about to demonstrate the technique called fellatio. Duane found the remote and switched off The Techniques of Intimacy—it had served its purpose. Annie, still gasping, her chest heaving, had gone limp.

  Duane felt a sudden tiredness. He stayed in Annie as long as possible, although one of his legs began to throb.

  “More goo,” Annie said, giving him a light kiss, as he slipped out.

  “You got me to come—I love you,” she added.

  “The video helped,” Duane pointed out.

  “I still think I might go for that anterior stuff—I may want you to fuck me doggy-style,” she added.

  Duane felt a terrible tiredness, and the pain in his leg grew sharper. His heart was racing.

  “Doggy-style’s gonna have to wait,” he said.

  “Why, honey? Why can’t we do it now?”

  “I may have overdone it,” Duane admitted. “I don’t feel right. I think I may need an ambulance.”

  “Oh my God—okay, okay. One fuck and look at you,” Annie said.

  50

  THREE MONTHS after he underwent triple bypass surgery at Wichita Falls Regional Hospital, he and Annie Spence Cameron were married, in a house belonging to her parents, in Patagonia, Arizona.

  Annie’s three sisters were present, but not her parents—they were yachting in the Greek islands and chose not to interrupt their trip.

  Except for Jack, reportedly in Ecuador, all Duane’s children and grandchildren came, though his daughters, by this time, had decided that they hated Annie.

  That winter Annie’s parents gave her the Patagonia house as a wedding present. Annie had taken Duane there as soon as he was able to travel. They walked every day in the desert. At night they sat by wood fires. The area abounded in quail and dove. Annie was an excellent wing shot. Sometimes they had quail for dinner, sometimes dove. Annie was not squeamish about dressing small game.

  Their house was on a hill, in sight of Mexico. Duane spent most of his days on the long deck, covered in an old blanket if it was nippy. Even when it was nippy it was sunny. He liked to sit on the deck, looking toward Mexico. Annie was in and out, checking on him. She and Dickie had formed a futures trading company, which involved a great deal of computer time for Annie. Evidently they were successful. One day Annie told him she was worth three million dollars, which was about the most Duane had ever been worth, and then only in the boom.

  In Duane’s eyes Annie seemed to grow more beautiful month by month. In his eyes she was perfect. Where he was concerned, her attention never faltered.

  Yet, within the good order of their marriage, there was a sadness. In Duane’s view he had only survived the operation in a technical sense—someone lived and breathed within his body but was it he? He never again felt that he was quite who he had been, but he didn’t try to explain this to Annie, his lovely, sparkling wife.

  Annie’s sadness—well, he didn’t really know what Annie’s sadness was about. They sometimes tried to joke about their sex. Annie’s first orgasm had very nearly been his last orgasm—indeed, his last anything. Both of them were aware that he was a wounded man—his doctors told him to be careful for a while, not to overdo. But it was hard not to overdo when you had a wife as young and responsive as Annie. Sometimes, cuddled by the fire, Duane would arouse her with his fingers—she would have a little climax and bite his shoulder. Once casually naked, now she was modest, likely now and then to expose a breast but not her cunt. When Duane tried to persuade her to let him put his mouth on her she shrugged him off.

  “It’s just that you’re way down there—too far away. I’d rather hold you,” she said. “And you know how I am about tongues, anyway.”

  He had, for some reason, let his Viagra samples lie. But after a time Annie prodded him into trying it.

  “All couples have some problems,” she said, maturely. “Just take your pills. In a year or two you might be as good as new.”

  In the spring after his operation Annie had to go to Davos, Switzerland, to a high-level conference involving the petroleum industry. In the weeks before her trip she worried and fussed constantly about leaving him.

  To reassure her he told her he might take a trip too, over to Thalia, while she was gone. He told her he would take the drive in easy stages and be waiting for her in Patagonia when she returned. The night before her departure she almost canceled her plans, but Duane persuaded her to go
on. He promised her he’d meet her in Patagonia when she returned.

  Reluctantly, she left.

  Duane almost didn’t make his trip. It was so pleasant to sit on Annie’s deck and enjoy the fine sunlight that he almost talked himself out of going home.

  Then an emptiness began to assail him—it came whenever Annie was gone. Sometimes, even if she just spent a day shopping in Tucson or Phoenix he felt the emptiness creep in. Annie was due to be away ten days. He didn’t want to sit and struggle with the emptiness that long, so he got in his pickup one day and drove along the I-10 to E1 Paso, where he spent the night in a comfortable downtown hotel. He was still six hundred miles from Thalia but he didn’t care. The lights of Juárez, Mexico, glittered in their millions just across the Rio Grande Bridge—he liked to look at the lights and at the people crossing the bridge, but he was not tempted to visit Juárez himself.

  The next day he eased on east, through Midland-Odessa, the service towns for the gritty Permian Basin oilfield—one of the great fields of the world. There was a little Petroleum Museum that he had often visited but the emptiness was assailing him—he thought it best to keep on driving. Rather than arrive in Thalia at night he stopped for the second night in Abilene, one hundred miles short of his goal.

  Without Annie’s bounce and vigor he felt lonely and unmotivated. What had made him think he wanted to go to Thalia anyway? His big house had long since been sold, his old office demolished.

  But he had come that far—he got up early and went on.

  It was a windy day—a norther was blowing and fine dust swirling in the streets. In his memory of the town where he had spent so much of his life dusty days were the norm, still days the exception.

  He thought he would visit the Marlows first—when he knocked on the door Jenny opened it with a crutch. She had a big cast on her right leg but she was cheerful and gave Duane a big hug and a kiss.

  “Bad driving finally caught up with me,” she said. “A damn flock of wild turkeys flew across the road, causing me to drive straight off into the Little Wichita River—luckily it was nearly dry at the time or I’d have drowned.”