Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  “Guess we ought to take in the picture show,” Sonny said. “Tonight’s the last night.”

  “A good thing, too,” Penny said, overhearing him. “Picture shows been gettin’ more sinful all the time, if you ask me. Them movie stars lettin’ their titties hang out—I never seen the like. The last time I went I told my old man he could just take me home, I wasn’t sittin’ still for that kind of goings on.”

  “Yeah, we might as well go,” Duane said, ignoring her. “Hate to miss the last night.”

  They went to the poolhall and Sonny got his football jacket too. Then they angled across the square to the picture show and bought their tickets. A few grade-school kids were going in. The picture was an Audie Murphy movie called The Kid from Texas, with Gale Storm.

  “Why hello, Duane,” Miss Mosey said. “I thought you was done overseas. Hope you all like the show.”

  The boys planned to, but somehow the occasion just didn’t work out. Audie Murphy was a scrapper as usual, but it didn’t help. It would have taken Winchester ’73 or Red River or some big movie like that to have crowded out the memories the boys kept having. They had been at the picture show so often with Jacy that it was hard to keep from thinking of her, lithely stretching herself in the back row after an hour of kissing and cuddling. Such thoughts were dangerous to both of them.

  “Hell, this here’s a dog,” Duane said.

  Sonny agreed. “Why don’t we run down to Fort Worth, drink a little beer?” he asked.

  “My bus leaves at six-thirty in the mornin’,” Duane said. “Reckon we could make it to Forth Worth and back by six-thirty?”

  “Easy.”

  Miss Mosey was distressed to see them leaving so soon. She tried to give them their money back, but they wouldn’t take it. She was scraping out the popcorn machine, almost in tears. “If Sam had lived, I believe we could have kept it goin’,” she said, “but me and Jimmy just didn’t have the know-how. Duane, you watch out now, overseas.” Outside the wind was so cold it made their eyes water.

  Sonny insisted they go in the pickup. He knew Duane would go to sleep on the way back and he didn’t want the responsibility of driving the Mercury. The wind shoved the pickup all over the road, but the road was still a lot better for their spirits than the picture show had been. Rattling out of Thalia reminded them a little of the time—it seemed years before—when they had gone to Matamoros. As soon as they reached a wet county they stopped and bought two six-packs of beer. The cans spewed when they were opened and the smell of beer filled the cab.

  By the time they crossed the Lake Worth bridge they had gone through a six-pack and a half and were feeling okay. Soon they came to the Jacksboro highway bars and Sonny pulled off at a place called the Red Dot Tavern. Inside, a lot of tough-looking boys with ducktails were playing shuffleboard, and a couple of women with dyed hair were sitting at the bar with their middle-aged sweethearts. The ducktails looked at the boys belligerently, but no direct challenges were offered.

  “All we can do here is get drunk and get whipped,” Duane said. “Let’s see what the prospects are on South Main.”

  They drove slowly around the courthouse—the only courthouse they knew that had a neon American flag on top—and parked far down Main Street, where the bars were. The wind whipped around the big granite courthouse and cut right down the street, as cold as it had been in Thalia. The boys went in a hash house and had some chili and crackers to fortify themselves, then let the wind blow them down the street to a bar called the Cozy Inn, where a three-piece hillbilly band was whomping away. One middle-aged couple was dancing, and a few more were sitting in the booths or at the bar. The barmaid, a friendly old woman in her mid-fifties, wiped off their table with the end of her apron and then brought them some beer.

  “Where you boys from?” she asked. “Thalia? Ain’t it windy up there? I wouldn’t live that close to the plains for nothin’. My oldest sister lives out in Floydada.”

  In a few minutes the band ended its set and the three young musicians straggled off to the rest room to relieve themselves.

  “Maggie, you sing us a couple,” one of the older customers said.

  The barmaid didn’t much want to, but the other couples took up the cry and finally she went over and picked up a guitar, shaking her head and deprecating herself.

  “I ain’t much of a singer,” she said, but she strummed a minute or two and sang “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” Everyone thought she was real good, the boys included. Her voice was rough but strong—it filled the Cozy Inn better than the three sideburned young honky-tonkers had. She sang like she meant every word; it was not hard to believe that she had run afoul of a cheating heart or two somewhere in her life. After that she sang “Making Believe,” and would have put the guitar down and gone back to the bar if Duane hadn’t gone up and stopped her. He liked her singing.

  “I’m goin’ off to Korea tomorrow, ain’t no tellin’ when I’ll get to Fort Worth agin,” he said. “Sing one more.”

  “Why sure, if that’s the case,” the woman said. “Both my boys was in the service. I was right proud of ’em.”

  “These is for the soldier boys,” she announced, not wanting the rest of the crowd to think she was singing out of vanity. She sang “Filipino Baby” and everyone applauded loudly; encouraged, she finished with “Peace In The Valley” and went back to the bar to draw someone a Pearl. Sonny felt suddenly depressed. The old barmaid had reminded him that he wasn’t in the army. It seemed a fine thing to be going off to Korea and Sonny wished very badly that he could go. When the band came back the boys left and stood on the cold street a minute, both slightly wobbly from the beer.

  “We sure ain’t findin’ no women,” Duane said. “Want to look some more or do you want to take the easy out?”

  “It’s too cold to prowl much,” Sonny said.

  With no more ado they turned up the street toward the easy out, a whorehouse called The New Deal Hotel. It was about the nicest whorehouse in that part of the country, but a little expensive on that account. Since it was Duane’s last night the boys decided to splurge. When they got to the hotel a bunch of high-school boys from Seymour were standing on the sidewalk shivering, trying to get up the nerve to go inside, It was easy to tell they were from Seymour because of their football jackets.

  “Yep, it’s a whorehouse all right,” Duane said. “You boys coming up?”

  “How much do they charge?” one boy asked, his teeth chattering. “We’re afraid to go up for fear we ain’t got the money.”

  “They start at about ten bucks,” Duane said, and the boys’ faces fell. They had been hoping for five.

  Sonny and Duane went on in and up the green-carpeted stairs, leaving the Seymour boys to count their money. The madame was a quiet, polite woman who looked and dressed like the saleswomen in a Wichita Falls department store. Sonny’s girl was a polite, thin-nosed brunette from Corsicana, named Pauline. Everything was splendidly comfortable in the New Deal: the rooms were warm, the beds wide and clean, the carpets good. The girls were pleasant, but so efficient that afterward it seemed to Sonny that he and the girl had barely touched. Before he was even thawed out he and Duane were going back down the green stairs, each ten dollars poorer and neither much less horny.

  They Seymour boys were all gone, the streets almost empty. While they were walking back to their pickup the city street-sweeper chugged by and Sonny remembered Billy and hoped Miss Mosey had seen he got home out of the cold.

  “Well, I guess the next piece I get will be yellow,” Duane said philosophically.

  By the time they got back to the Lake Worth bridge, he was asleep. Sonny didn’t care—he enjoyed the drive, and was in no hurry. With the wind blowing against him he couldn’t make much time, but he didn’t need to. North of Jacksboro he stopped the pickup and got out to take a leak, and Duane woke up and followed suit. It was about five o’clock when they pulled into Thalia. The posterboards in front of the picture show were naked. It seemed to Sonny it would have b
een better to have left some posters up, even the posters to The Kid from Texas.

  “Got about two hours till bus time,” he said, when they were at the rooming house. “Want to go down and have some coffee?”

  “Yeah,” Duane said. “Wait till I go in and get my gear.”

  In his uniform Duane looked a lot different. When he got back in the pickup he casually handed Sonny the keys to the Mercury. “Here,” he said. “Why don’t you look after that car for me?”

  Sonny took the keys, embarrassed. “Your Ma don’t need it?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t want her drivin’ it, no better than she can drive. You might help her run the groceries home, if you have time.”

  Sonny didn’t know what else to say. In the warm café they both got a little sleepy and ended up playing the jukebox to keep awake. Genevieve wasn’t there. Her husband had gone back to work in August and she had hired a girl named Etta May to work the night shift.

  When the bus pulled up out front, both boys were glad. Sitting and waiting was hard on the nerves. The bus driver came in to have a cup of coffee and Sonny and Duane walked across the street to the yellow Continental Trailways bus. The wind made their eyes water, and took their breath—they had to turn their backs to it. Duane leaned his dufflebag against the front of the bus.

  “Hear anything from Jacy?” he asked suddenly, since there was just two minutes left to talk.

  “No, not a thing. She hasn’t been back to town since August. I guess she just stays in Dallas all the time.”

  “I ain’t over her yet,” Duane said. “It’s the damnedest thing. I ain’t over her yet. That’s the only reason me and you got into it, that night. Reckon she likes it down in Dallas?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Sonny said. “Maybe she does. Reckon you and her would have got it all straightened out if I hadn’t butted in?”

  “Aw no,” Duane said. “They would have annulled me too, even if we had. You all never even got to the motel?”

  “No,” Sonny said.

  The bus driver came out of the café and hurried across the street, tucking his chin into his shoulder so his face would be out of the wind. Duane picked up the dufflebag and he and Sonny shook hands awkwardly.

  “Duane, be careful,” Sonny said. “I’ll take care of that Mercury.”

  “Okay,” Duane said. “See you in a year or two, if I don’t get shot.”

  He got on and waved quickly from the window as the bus started up. A ragweed skated across the dusty street and the bus ran over it. Sonny put his hands in his pockets and walked back across the street to the pickup, not feeling too good. It was another one of those mornings when no one was there.

  Twenty-Six

  OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN THALIA, BILLY MISSED THE PICTURE show most. He couldn’t understand that it was permanently closed. Every night he kept thinking it would open again. For seven years he had gone to the show every single night, always sitting in the balcony, always sweeping out once the show was over; he just couldn’t stop expecting it. Every night he took his broom and went over to the picture show, hoping it would be open. When it wasn’t he sat on the curb in front of the courthouse, watching the theater, hoping it would open a little later; then, after a while in puzzlement, he would sweep listlessly off down the highway toward Wichita Falls. Sonny watched him as closely as he could, but it still worried him. He was afraid Billy might get through a fence or over a cattle-guard and sweep right off into the mesquite. He might sweep away down the creeks and gullies and never be found.

  Once, on a Friday afternoon, Miss Mosey had to go into the theater to get something she had left and she let Billy in for a minute. The screen was disappointingly dead, but Billy figured that at least he was in, so he went up into the balcony and sat waiting. Miss Mosey thought he had gone back outside and locked him in. It was not until late that night, when Sonny got worried and began asking around, that Miss Mosey thought of the balcony. When they got there, Billy was sitting quietly in the dark with his broom, waiting, perfectly sure that the show would come on sometime.

  All through October, then through November, Billy missed the show. Sonny didn’t know what to do about it, but it was a bad time in general and he didn’t know what to do about himself either. He had taken another lease to pump. He wanted to work harder and tire himself out, so he wouldn’t have to lie awake at night and feel alone. Nothing much was happening, and he didn’t think much was going to. One day he went to Wichita and bought a television set, thinking it might help Billy, but it didn’t at all. Billy would watch it as long as Sonny was around, but the minute Sonny left he left too. He didn’t trust the television. He kept going over to the picture show night after night, norther or no norther—he sat on the sidewalk and waited, cold and puzzled. He knew it would open sooner or later, and Sonny could think of no way to make him understand that it wouldn’t.

  One cold, sandstormy morning in late November Sonny woke up early and went downstairs to light the poolhall fires. Billy was not around, but that was not unusual. Sonny sneezed two or three times, the air was so dry. One of the gas stoves was old and he had to blow on it to get all the burners to light. While he was blowing on the burners he heard a big cattle truck roar past the poolhall, coming in from the south. Suddenly there was a loud shriek, as the driver hit the brakes for all he was worth—the stoplight was always turning red at the wrong time and catching trucks that thought they had it made.

  Sonny went back upstairs and dressed to go eat breakfast. He couldn’t find either one of his eye patches and supposed Billy must have them. It was the kind of morning when a welding helmet would have been a nice sort of thing to wear. The sky was cloudy and gritty, and the wind cut. When he stepped outside Sonny noticed that the big cattle truck was stopped by the square, with a little knot of men gathered around it. The doctor’s car had just pulled up to the knot of men and the old doctor got out, his hair uncombed, his pajamas showing under his bathrobe. Someone had been run over. Sonny started to turn away, but then he saw Billy’s broom lying in the street. By the time he got to the men the doctor had returned to his car and was driving away.

  Billy was lying face up on the street, near the curb. For some reason he had put both eye patches on—his eyes were completely covered. There were just four or five men there—the sheriff and his deputy, a couple of men from the filling stations, one cowboy, and a pumper who was going out early. They were not paying attention to Billy, but were trying to keep the truck driver from feeling bad. He was a big, square-faced man from Waurika, Oklahoma, who didn’t look like he felt too bad. The truck was loaded with Hereford yearlings and they were bumping one another around and shitting, the bright green cowshit dripping off the sideboards and splatting onto the street.

  “This sand was blowin’,” the trucker said. His name was Hurley. “I never noticed him, never figured nobody would be in the street. Why he had them damn blinders on his eyes, he couldn’t even see. What was he doin’ out there anyway, carryin’ that broom?”

  “Aw, nothin’, Hurley,” the sheriff said. “He was just an ol’ simpleminded kid, sort of returded—never had no sense. Wasn’t your fault, I can see that. He was just there—he wasn’t doin’ nothing.”

  Sonny couldn’t stand the way the men looked at the truck driver and had already forgotten Billy.

  “He was sweeping, you sons of bitches!” he yelled suddenly, surprising the men and himself. They all looked at him as if he were crazy, and indeed, he didn’t know himself why he had yelled. He walked over on the courthouse lawn, not knowing what to do. In a minute he bent over and vomited by one of the dusty, stunted little cedar trees that the Amity club had planted. His father had come by that time.

  “Son, it’s a bad blow,” he said. “You let me take care of things, okay? You don’t want to be bothered with any funeral-home stuff, do you?”

  Sonny didn’t; he was glad to let his father take care of it. He walked out in the street and got Billy’s broom and took it over to him.

&
nbsp; “Reckon I better go try to sell a little gas,” one of the filling-station men said. “Look’s like this here’s about wound up.”

  Sonny didn’t want to yell at the men again, but he couldn’t stand to walk away and leave Billy there by the truck, with the circle of men spitting and farting and shuffling all around him. Before any of them knew what he was up to he got Billy under the arms and started off with him, dragging him and trying to run. The men were so amazed they didn’t even try to stop him. The heels of Billy’s brogans scraped on the pavement, but Sonny kept on, dragged him across the windy street to the curb in front of the picture show. That was as far as he went. He laid Billy on the sidewalk where at least he would be out of the street, and covered him with his Levi’s jacket. He just left the eye patches on.

  The men slowly came over. They looked at Sonny as if he were someone very strange. Hurley and the sheriff came together and stood back a little way from the crowd.

  “You all got some crazy kids in this town,” Hurley said, spitting his tobacco juice carefully down wind.

  By the time Sonny got back to the apartment Genevieve was there. She was crying but when she saw Sonny she made herself quit. She stayed for about an hour, made some coffee, and tried to get Sonny to cry or talk or something. He wouldn’t. He wandered around the apartment, once in a while looked out at the gritty sky. Genevieve saw it was going to take some time.

  “Sonny, I got to go to the café,” she said. “People keep eatin’, come what may. Come on down when you feel like it. Dan’ll be glad to pump your leases for you when he comes in this afternoon.”

  Sonny didn’t know what he would feel like doing that afternoon, so he didn’t say anything. When Genevieve left he turned on the television set and watched it all morning: it made a voice in the room, anyway.