Pretty Boy Floyd

by Larry McMurtry

  Most nights now, Beulah and Bradley headed for the honky-tonk, while Bessie and Rose stayed home.

  “If you was to steal him, I doubt you’d keep him long,” Bessie replied, giving Bradley a black look—it was one thing to be a good brother to Charley; it was another to go hoofing with his brother’s girlfriend every night or two, while Bessie stayed home with the kids. In this case, two of the kids had whooping cough, so there was no question of her going.

  Bessie didn’t allow herself to get too mad, since Rose was so helpful and so nice. Rose didn’t ask if she could help; she just pitched in, and she was competent, too. Rose could cook just about anything. Bradley had even come to prefer her flapjacks to Bessie’s, which was okay with Bessie. She had cooked enough flapjacks to last her two lifetimes.

  “I think Bessie’s mad and trying not to show it,” Beulah commented, as she and Bradley bounced along the dirt road toward the honky-tonk.

  “Not likely,” Bradley said, in his dry way. “She shows me plenty of mad. She’s got ways to express it that you wouldn’t know about.”

  Beulah grinned. “Tell me about ’em,” she said. “I might want to use ’em on Charley, if he ever shows up again.”

  It had been two and a half months since Charley had been to see Beulah. She had long since lost patience, but she was still recovering from her head wound, and didn’t feel confident enough to leave. Sometimes, just walking along, she would begin to lose her balance and would go teetering off at an angle, until she hit a fence, or a building, or another person—whatever happened to be in the way.

  Despite persistent questioning, Bradley refused to go into detail about Bessie’s acts of revenge.

  “If I was to talk about how mean she is to me in private, it’d spoil the evening,” he said.

  In fact, he had begun to look forward to his little outings with Beulah, though there was nothing to them but drinking and some hugand-shuffle on the dance floor. Going out with Beulah was a relief from the real problem he had to cope with, which was his mounting passion for Rose, the quiet sister. He and Rose had exchanged a few glances—no more—but an ache was there, in Brad. Some nights, it was all he could do to keep from sneaking down to the girls’ room, and crawling right on top of Rose Baird. There was just something about her that he liked.

  Meanwhile, his wife was getting more sour by the day. Part of him wished Charley would come and take the girls away, since it would ease the home situation. But part of him didn’t want anything of the kind. That part kept wanting to sneak down to the girls’ room, and crawl on top of Rose.

  The honky-tonk was a tar paper shack that had once belonged to an old Cherokee chief who possessed the ability to coax tumors out of people. He could also coax them out of horses, but rarely out of dogs or other livestock. Seventy-five or eighty of the tumors the old Indian had coaxed out were lined up in Mason jars behind the counter that served as a bar. The names of the folks or the animals the tumors had come out of were written on the lids of the jars, though most of the people had long since died of other causes. In any case, the honkytonk was a rowdy place where most customers had something better to do than sit around puzzling over names on jars full of tumors.

  Beulah danced frantically almost from the moment she stepped into the doorway, mainly to keep her mind off the tumors. She didn’t like having to entertain herself in a place where there were parts of people in Mason jars, as if the parts were string beans, or stewed tomatoes. She could just as well have been getting drunk in a speakeasy in St. Louis, or Kansas City, where there were well-dressed stiffs with money in their pockets, as opposed to greasy roughnecks with big smears of oil all over their clothes.

  But oil had been discovered in the next county, not six miles away, which is why the old Cherokee’s shack had to be quickly converted into a honky-tonk. The oil came and then went, and those who were off the mark quickest with honky-tonks raked in the most profit.

  At some point in almost every drunk, Beulah would lose her high spirits. They would spiral down, like a bird that had been winged. Sooner or later, she’d end up staring drunkenly at Bradley, who would be staring drunkenly back.

  “Why don’t he come, Brad?” Beulah always asked. “Why does he just leave me sittin’ here, if I’m his girl?”

  Brad loved dancing with Beulah. She could outdance Bessie six to one. But he had begun to dread the part of the evening when Beulah looked at him with her big, brimming eyes, and asked him why Charley didn’t come. Bradley didn’t have the heart to tell Beulah that Charley was back with Ruby, living in Fort Smith. Bessie knew it, and so did Rose, but no one had the heart to tell Beulah, not while she was so wobbly from her head wound that she was apt to go wandering through mud puddles, or walk in front of cars. The funny part was, her wobbling didn’t affect her dancing—Beulah would wave her arms and kick up her heels with the best of them, way better than any woman who was apt to show up at Daddy Jim’s honky-tonk, near Akins, Oklahoma.

  “That Charley, he’s a rambler,” Bradley said, his standard description. It was true enough, too. Beulah might pine, but one day Charley would show up, smooth as custard, and Ruby, wherever she was, would be the one pining for a while.

  Just as Bradley was about to suggest a little more hug-and-shuffle, a roughneck standing right behind Beulah gave Brad a challenging look.

  “I hear they raised the bounty on that murderin’ brother of yours,” the roughneck snarled. “For three thousand dollars, somebody’ll bag him like an old fat coon.”

  A second later, the man hit the floor. Bradley wasn’t large, but when he fought, he uncoiled like a spring. He hit the man so hard he felt like he had jammed his own knuckles halfway down his fingers.

  The man was out, cold as a mackerel, but before Brad could stop her, Beulah whacked the man herself with the chair she had been sitting in.

  “Hey, gal!” Daddy Jim yelled. “Don’t be usin’ my furniture for no club, that chair’s for sittin’.”

  Daddy Jim wasn’t fond of Beulah. Despite his profession, Daddy Jim had a Baptist streak in him, and he could tell from looking at Beulah that she didn’t conform to the Baptist creed.

  This time, though, Daddy Jim had miscalculated. Beulah was in such a high fury that she kicked the counter over, spilling several drinks, and came after him with the chair.

  “You old gut!” she said. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

  “I own the place, don’t I?” Daddy Jim said, trying to grab the chair. He had always been confounded by female anger; he rarely mustered a solid defense, and this occasion was no exception.

  “Who cares?! I’ve seen noodles that would make a better dick than yours would,” Beulah yelled. Then she dropped the chair, and began to grab jars of tumors off the shelves and throw them at the crowd.

  “Shit, she’s throwin’ them cancers at us!” one roughneck hollered.

  Nobody left, though. Daddy Jim was unpopular with the oil crowd—he had the only honky-tonk within easy driving distance of the oil fields, and because of this advantage, he kept his prices high.

  Beulah only threw five or six of the jars, and none of them hit anybody. The roughneck Brad had slugged was still out cold, and he wished he had a tub of ice water to soak his fist. It was going to be hard to plow with his knuckles jammed.

  Once Beulah got her steam up, it was slow to subside. She stalked around the room for a few minutes, looking for somebody to kick. Most of the roughnecks could hardly wait to get back to the fields so they could repeat her remark about the noodles. It was the opinion of some that Daddy Jim’s reign had ended—he would never be able to live down a remark like that. Speculation was that he would have to move at least as far as Waurika to enjoy any peace.

  By the time Beulah and Brad made it home, Beulah had gone to sleep, her head on Brad’s shoulder.

  It didn’t help Bradley’s spirits to see Bessie standing on the porch, waiting, when they drove up.

  “Hi, hon,” he said, when he stopped. “Beulah had a little too
much to drink.”

  Bessie just looked at him, silent as the night.

  7

  “Maybe I’m just homesick!” Charley yelled. “Can’t I be homesick, like anybody else?”

  “How can you be homesick for Tulsa?” Ruby yelled back. “You never lived in Tulsa a day in your life. You can’t be homesick for a place you never even lived!”

  “I’m homesick for Oklahoma! The town don’t matter,” Charley explained. “I just want to be back in Oklahoma. What’s so bad about that?”

  “If I have to make you a list, I’ll make you a list, you dumbbell!” Ruby said. “The banks in Oklahoma put up that three-thousand-dollar reward for you—that’s the biggest reason right there!”

  “Aw, honey, you know they’ll never catch me,” Charley said, though with diminished conviction. “I’m way too slick for the Oklahoma bulls.”

  “What if there’s one that’s slicker than you, Charley?” Ruby asked. “All cops can’t be as dumb as you think they are, or they’d never catch anybody.”

  “Sure they would,” Charley protested. “A lot of crooks are dumb, too. Plenty of ’em are dumber than the cops.”

  “Charley, I like it here!” Ruby protested. “This is the first nice house I ever lived in. Dempsey’s in a good school, and folks in the neighborhood think we’re respectable. I can sleep through the night most nights and not wake up in a cold sweat, worrying about you.”

  Charley looked out the window. He had a lump of hurt and anger in his chest the size of a basketball. Ruby never wanted to do anything he did. All he had to do was make the simplest proposal—like moving to Tulsa—and in five minutes, he’d stirred up a fight. He never won the fights, either. Ruby had been the smartest girl in her class in Sallisaw. She could outargue him by a wide margin, and she always did. The thought of being agreeable and letting him make the big decisions never seemed to occur to Ruby. He was the husband; he made the living—why couldn’t he make a decision once in a while?

  “Charley, you and George robbed so many banks in Oklahoma that the bankers doubled the insurance rates,” Ruby reminded him. “They’re laying for you there. Why can’t we stay here in Fort Smith and live a peaceful life?”

  “We can, if you don’t care about me being happy,” Charley said, looking mournful. “I’m from Oklahoma, I ain’t from Arkansas. I want to live in my own state. Can’t you understand that?”

  Ruby had been in the process of scrambling eggs when Charley suddenly came downstairs, took his seat at the table, and with a big grin on his face, announced that they were moving to Tulsa. The news shocked her so that she had stopped making breakfast. All that was on the table was coffee, and Dempsey would be down any minute, ready for some food. With a sigh, she let the argument drop, and scrambled the eggs.

  Charley promptly added fuel to the fire by announcing to Dempsey that they were moving to Tulsa in two weeks.

  “Why, Daddy?” Dempsey asked, as shocked by the sudden news as his mother.

  “Well, because we’re from Oklahoma,” Charley explained. “Why live in Arkansas if you’re from Oklahoma?”

  “Daddy, I got friends!” Dempsey said. “I don’t wanna leave my friends, they’ll miss me.”

  Charley hadn’t meant to reveal that he’d already rented a house in Tulsa. He intended to hold that revelation for a while. But when both his wife and his son decided to be stubborn and selfish, he lost his temper and blurted it out.

  “I don’t care what either of you want, I make the decisions in this family—I’m the man!” Charley asserted. “I took us a house yesterday, and it’s a nice house. Nicer than this one, for that matter.”

  Dempsey dropped his forehead onto the table, as he sometimes did when he was sad. He didn’t cry, but he didn’t lift his head, either.

  “Aw, now he’s gonna be a crybaby!” Charley said, annoyed that his whole family was determined to be as uncooperative as possible.

  “Don’t say those words! I ain’t no damn crybaby!” Dempsey protested, lifting his head.

  “See there, now he’s cussing,” Ruby said.

  “This is the goddamnedest situation I ever heard of!” Charley said, throwing down his napkin.

  When they heard his car roar out of the driveway, Dempsey and Ruby looked at one another, shrugged, and sighed.

  “Eat your sausage, honey,” Ruby said. “You don’t want to be late for school.”

  8

  Later in the day, in a speakeasy outside Tulsa, Charley managed to locate Whizbang Red. Since Charley found out that Whizbang was in love with George, there had been no commerce between them. But in the lull between bank jobs, George was off doing the rodeo circuit again, and Red, so far as Charley could tell, was leading a lonely life.

  He felt a little guilty because he knew he should have been visiting Beulah, not Whizbang. But if he did visit Beulah, she’d stick to him like wallpaper and beg him to take her away, which he couldn’t do, not yet. He felt the need of some solid advice, or at least some relaxed company, and Whizbang fit the bill.

  “If it was me, I’d move Beulah to Tulsa and leave your family where they are,” Whizbang advised. “Your family’s happy, and Beulah’s not. Why move the happy ones?”

  Charley knew that made sense, but it still wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. There seemed to be days when nobody in the world wanted to give him the answer he wanted to hear. He’d think of something sensible, and then everybody he knew would jump on him, and give him a million reasons why it wasn’t sensible. Tulsa was a big town; he would be as safe there as he was in Fort Smith. Why not move?

  “At least you got money in your pocket, honey,” Whizbang said. “Look at me. I’m down to about six dollars, and old worthless George ain’t doing a thing about it. He’s off riding broncs, which he’s a bit too old to be doing if you ask me.”

  “I’m mad at him, too,” Charley said. “He’s just as hardheaded as you women. What makes everybody so hardheaded this time of year?”

  “Living,” Whizbang said. “Want a little nooky, hon?”

  Charley did, for some reason; but he felt awkward.

  “Aw, Red, I don’t know,” he said.

  “What if George shows up?”

  “What if he does?” Whizbang said. “Nooky’s nooky, and I’m down to six dollars.”

  “No, you ain’t,” Charley said, handing her a hundred-dollar bill. “I meant to give you this when I came in. This house is a shack, and it’s drafty. Go get you a nice, warm hotel room. You oughtn’t to be working in no shack this time of year.”

  “It beats that tent in Seminole,” Whizbang reminded him. “I hate to take your money like this. You sure you ain’t horny?”

  “I need to go see Ma,” Charley told her. “I ain’t seen her in a while. I was meaning to use you as my mother today, but I guess it ain’t your job.”

  “I had a tyke once—you didn’t know that, did you, Charley?” Whizbang asked. She had a sad look in her eyes, a sadness that went beyond the weariness that was always in her face—except when she looked at George Birdwell, her true love.

  “Boy or girl?” Charley asked.

  “Boy,” Whizbang said. “He’d be about the same age as your boy Dempsey. He died of rheumatic fever in Burkburnett.

  “I never did have no luck in Texas,” she added.

  After a little while, Charley got up and left.

  9

  When he got to the farm, Charley discovered that his mother’s favorite nanny goat had given birth that morning. It was so cold she had herded the nanny and the four little goats into the kitchen to keep warm.

  “Goats ain’t especially good mothers,” Mamie told her son. “This one’s never had much interest in her offspring. If I left her out tonight, she might wander off looking for a billy and let these little mites freeze.”

  “Aw, I doubt she’d be looking for a billy this soon,” Charley said. The kitchen was warm, and it was good to be home. He felt like going up to his old bedroom and having a little nap. I
t seemed like he had driven all over Oklahoma, looking for someone who would agree with him about something. Now he was at his mother’s house, still looking.

  “She might look for a billy so she could butt him,” Mamie said. “She’s ornery. Sometimes she’ll butt, just to butt—I’m the same way.”

  “I guess that means I’ll have to step lively or I’ll get butted myself, is that it?” Charley asked.

  “That’s it,” Mamie said, looking her son right in the eye. Despite all that had happened, he looked so young to her that it was all she could do to resist him.

  “What have I done now?” Charley asked. “I come by hopin’ there’d be a bite to eat.”

  “You can eat,” Mamie said. “There’s a ham bone on the stove, and some spuds. While you’re picking at the ham bone, I have a little bone of my own to pick with you.”

  Charley sighed: argument everywhere. He dished himself up some spuds, and a big slice of ham. If he was going to be chided, it might as well be on a full stomach.

  “You need to get those young women away from Bradley,” Mamie told him bluntly. “Your brother’s a married man.”

  “Ma, that’s why I took ’em there,” Charley protested. “Beulah got shot in the head. She needed a quiet place to rest up.”

  Charley had given little thought to the situation since delivering the girls. But all of a sudden, he began to feel uncomfortable. He knew Beulah was very sweet on him, but he also knew she was a flirt.

  “You mean Beulah’s after Brad?” he asked.

  “No, the other one’s after him,” Mamie said. “The quiet one.”

  “Rose?” Charley asked, shocked. This news silenced him.

  “Rose?” he said again, after a moment. “Rose never bothers anybody.”

  “Be that as it may, you need to get them out of there,” Mamie said. “Bessie Floyd will only tolerate so much, and when she gets tired of it, some fur is going to fly.”