To Skin a Cat

by Thomas McGuane

  “Which was?”

  “Hawk sales,” says Bobby. The traveler doesn’t show his bafflement.

  “Now what’re you going to do?”

  “Kind of an escort service,” says Bobby.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Arranging for girls.”

  “I see.”

  “Does that offend the heck out of your sensibilities?”

  The traveler goes ha-ha-ha and says, “No, I just wish you had one with you.”

  Pause. “I do.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “You want her?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Let her figure it out. Hey! That’s what they’re for.”

  “What’s it cost?”

  “You be the judge. Seat Twelve-A. Wake her and tell her the deal is history. I’ll keep your place until you get back.”

  The traveler rests his head in deep thought and then says, “Okay.”

  The traveler gently awakens the beautiful sleeping Marianne.

  “I’m Jonathan.”

  “Hello.”

  “I’ve been speaking to your gentleman friend.”

  “And?”

  “He said to tell you that we’ve come to an arrangement. May I sit down?”

  Utah.

  Jonathan sits and kisses Marianne full on the lips. She neither yields nor pulls away. He slides his hand up her dress.

  “May I ask you what you think you’re doing?”

  “I should like to interest you … in love.”

  “Do you do this with all the passengers?”

  “I just thought—I—”

  “I know, Bobby told you he was a pimp. It’s his way of passing the evening.”

  “I’m very sorry,” says the traveler, rising. “But I must tell you, you left it a little ambiguous yourself.”

  “Please go back to your seat.”

  Bobby sits alone, his head against the rest, tilted back, in intense thought. He thinks he can make out the lights of Salt Lake City, but his view is abruptly interrupted by a sharp, open-handed slap across his face.

  “May I have my seat?” the maritime lawyer inquires.

  “Of course.”

  Not till the Ramada limo service does Marianne make mention of the odd event on the 747. She says, measuring her words, “Next time you do that, I’m going to go for it. So think about that.”

  “I’m going to be decent or know the reason why. My ears are ringing.” Earnestness floods Bobby’s face. He could cry.

  “Like how?”

  “I’m going to find us a good little house with a garden and a view of the sea. I’ll get you books on Jane Austen and, for me, Ernest Hemingway. We will make war on meat byproducts by elevating our minds. There will be days when we view paintings or relax at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.”

  A woman realtor named Jane Adams, who seems distinctly San Franciscan, shows them a hidden gem with a sea view above the Presidio. The city cascades at the feet of Bobby and Marianne. Jane Adams notes that it’s a little bit of heaven for a young couple. Bobby gapes at her ass.

  “We’ll take it. We’ve got a couple of books to read and no telephone. Plus, we’re looking for a small business together, something with no overhead.”

  Jane Adams laughs, directing her face across the city to the high seas.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “I just had a silly thought. I really can’t repeat it.”

  At first, Bobby and Marianne love their little house, with its latticed understory and the gleaming bladderworts of its small garden. There are absolutely no fleas in the carpet, and the front window is free of decals that would violate the view of the Pacific.

  In the morning, pretty, foggy light reveals Marianne carrying coffee and croissants up the wooden stairs; then, side by side in the bed, the two agree not to turn on the “Today” show.

  “I can smell the ocean in the curtains,” says Marianne.

  “That Barbara Walters is a real tire biter,” says Bobby. “Is she on that show?”

  “Your bathrobe makes me laugh.”

  “This marmalade was a good year.”

  “I think so.”

  “I want a book on the Tong wars. Those old Tongs had this town in knots. Underground tunnels, opium, captive girls.”

  “Let’s go to Golden Gate Park today.”

  Really, they should never have gone to Golden Gate Park. When they arrive at the casting pools, Bobby gazes at the well-dressed anglers with a certain terror.

  “I would like you to note,” he says, “that there are no fish in those waters.”

  “Those men are having a good time.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “It’s not symbolic, Bobby.”

  When they get to the buffalo paddock and view the great mementos grazing in the coastal fog, Bobby says, “There you have it. The American West. I feel weak all over.”

  Bobby seems serious. He demands they go to a drugstore. “I don’t feel so well.” They buy a thermometer and take his temperature out on the sidewalk: normal. He announces that his hematocrit is out of whack and that he must be losing blood.

  “I absolutely know that the ratio of red blood cells to plasma is way off. I felt it the minute I spotted those buffalo.”

  After the blood test, Bobby insists on the upper and lower GI series. The radiologist mans the machine in his lead apron while Bobby gulps barium. The radiologist slams plates in and out of the machine. Bobby feels at death’s door in his odd gown.

  At length, the doctor says, “Your blood’s fine. Your mucosa patterns are exquisite. You’re fine. Good-bye.”

  In the waiting room Bobby tells Marianne, “I’ve had a very close call. I’d like a nickel for every farewell speech I’ve composed. My life passed before my eyes, and I concluded, as anyone would, that there was not a minute to be lost. Let’s hit the streets.” Bobby takes Marianne down Maiden Lane and shows her Frank Lloyd Wright’s initials on a red tile. Then he buys her a pair of silver pumps with bright macaws on their sides. Marianne stretches her pretty legs to smile at her shoes. In Joseph Magnin, Bobby seems hypnotized as Marianne tries on silk dresses. His heart is racing.

  They stop at a park bench on Union Square with delicatessen sandwiches and a bottle of red wine or, rather, Pagan Pink. They pass the bottle back and forth as though they were hunkered down in some railroad yard.

  Marianne says, “I was engaged twice and ducked out both times. I’ve been worried about life passing me by. I thought if I got married, that would happen, and I would disappear without a trace.”

  “I felt that when I saw those buffalo.”

  “In college I saw that if I improved my mind, I would always be broke. Then came meat byproducts.”

  “Now what?”

  “Chance. And you, I guess.”

  At the dinner table, Marianne is dressed in her new clothes, her eyes and lips darkened savagely. She wears the silver shoes. The two have sent out for veal piccata. Neither has eaten yet. It’s a matter of who goes for his gun first. Thin green candles burn, and the table is walnut. Bobby wears his Blake’s Hotel clothes: Levi’s, cowboy boots, chambray shirt, and a bottle-green velvet jacket.

  “Let’s hit it.”

  Despite the yearly deterioration of what used to be known as the passing scene into the current smarmy flux, Enrico’s Sidewalk Café remains a grand spot to view it, whatever it is. There are those who would argue that this is on the order of a front-row seat at a nose-picking contest. But Enrico’s customers don’t feel that way. In any case, Bobby and Marianne sit at one of the sidewalk tables, demand tall, frosty drinks, and join the others on the lookout. Marianne’s eyes fall naturally on a prosperous man in his forties, leaning on one hand and punching away at a calculator with his other.

  Bobby would like to meet an astronaut. Marianne loves the breeze through her clothes. She has no interest in the kind of people who would leave a golf putter on the moon. Moreover, they would probably have
to go elsewhere to meet astronauts. “Ever since you traded the bird to that Arab, we’ve been on the move.”

  A prostitute wanders across the front of the café, her legs slightly in front of her. She glances at the man with the calculator. Bobby watches, then flags down the bartender. He orders second drinks for himself and Marianne, then addresses the bartender.

  “Say, is that young lady—is she in the life?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.” The bartender grins and leaves for the drinks, ignoring thirty imploring hands.

  “Marianne, excuse me a sec.”

  Marianne watches Bobby lope toward the prostitute. When he comes back, she wants to know what he said to her.

  “Just got her name.”

  “And?”

  “Some idea of prices. I had to tell her, you know, that I was interested. Her name is Donna. Anyway, she said a hundred. You’re way prettier than she is.”

  “Thank you,” says Marianne.

  “Now what I’m thinking is, that guy over there with the calculator.”

  Slowly and imperturbably, Marianne gazes at the man. She looks back at Bobby a moment and gets up.

  “I’ll see you at home.”

  Marianne starts off bravely in her silver shoes. From either end of the cafe, Bobby and the prostitute Donna watch Marianne sit down with the man, who smiles and puts the calculator in his pocket. Marianne sips his drink.

  Suddenly, down Broadway, with Stetson hats and cameras, comes a mob of Japanese tourists. Bobby, whose heart is already pounding, panics as they flood the area between him and Marianne. He jumps up in complete fear and begins pushing through them. When he gets to the other side, Marianne and the man with the calculator are gone. He goes back to his table.

  “Hey.”

  Dazed, Bobby looks up. It’s Donna.

  “What?”

  “You get a price out of me, then send your trick to the guy. I don’t think that’s nice, ’n’ that. Can I sit down?”

  “Yuh.”

  “How many ladies you got?”

  “Just one.”

  “What’re you so depressed about?”

  “Drinking these things in the sun.”

  “I mean, your hands are shaking.”

  “I’ve got Parkinson’s disease.”

  “You want to stop by my place? You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  They go up Broadway, past the Hotel Du Midi, the Basque restaurant, past the Chinese novelty shops, more or less in silence as Bobby continues to bear his stricken look; then up an alley to a stairway, a catwalk, and a door.

  They enter a small neat flat with gridded outside light coming in from above, some books, and, sitting in a Mexican goatskin sling chair, a very bad-looking man named Chino, whose name, a nickname, comes from a correctional facility in southern California. His real name is Donald Arthur Jones. He waves with professional indolence but still manages to look dangerous. He says, “Hey, Donna. Look, am I in the way? Just say so. Who’s our friend?”

  “I don’t know, baby. But you assured me Enrico’s was your spot. And this guy and his whore run off a customer on me about five minutes ago, which embarrasses me on your behalf.”

  “Gimme your name.”

  “Bobby Decatur.”

  “Donna, get Bobby the pictures.”

  Donna takes a stack of Polaroids off the bookshelf and sets them on the table.

  “C’mere, Bobby,” says Chino. “C’mere and sit next to me.” Bobby does; it looks like a piano duet. Bobby looks through a stack of pictures of a man who has been maimed with a knife. Chino begins to speak in a comically deep voice.

  “This man took a girl to Enrico’s. This girl was in the life. They turned a few dollars. This is what he got.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “In some ways. Now this was done with a Buck folding knife, which is very nice for an off-the-shelf knife. It’s stainless steel, and though it’s difficult to sharpen, it will hold an edge indefinitely. Lately, I have my knives custom-made for me in Lawndale, California, by a man who is a craftsman, perhaps even an artist. What is the catch? A two-year waiting list. He’s the only man in the world who can make me wait. So for a while I made do with the off-the-shelf folding knife like some nimrod, Bobby. Donna, show Bobby the Lawndale masterpiece.”

  Donna fetches an ivory-handled dagger.

  “Bobby, with one motion I could throw your insides halfway up Russian Hill. So why don’t you and Mrs. Scumbag find some fast-food place that would form a more suitable background for your talent and her looks.”

  “I saved the best part,” says Donna. “The john she picked up was a cop.” This, thinks Bobby, has become extremely sordid.

  All the way to jail, Bobby says, “Oh, God, God, God. Oh, God.” But gradually he draws himself together and does the right thing under the circumstances by posting a bond. Once they’ve gotten into a cab, Bobby attempts to alleviate the chill between himself and Marianne.

  “I want to go to the Imperial Palace,” he says. “Or any restaurant with integrity and a serious kitchen. I don’t want some fluorescent-lit noodle pavilion. I want a fine old Chinese restaurant like the Imperial Palace.”

  “You God damned son of a bitch.”

  “Yes. That’s what I thought you were thinking.”

  But they go anyway and fit themselves into the darkness of the restaurant among the silk paintings, cloisonné, and velvet panels. There are long-stemmed roses on the table. Bobby raises his drink and bravely pronounces the following:

  “At least you didn’t have to go through with it.”

  “Are you joking? The cop had me before the arrest. I thought I was making us money. I thought it was what we wanted.”

  The waiter arrives.

  “Oh, please no, Marianne. My God, I—let me order for both of us. Waiter! We shall each have Eight Precious soup. I want squab Macao, and my wife will have Five Willows rock cod with loquats, kumquats, and sweet pickles.”

  The waiter departs. Bobby says, “I’m just stricken. I’m heartbroken.”

  “I thought this was your fantasy, asshole! And I’m not your wife.”

  “Oh, right, hang that one on me.”

  “Since we met, I broke up with my fiancé, I left a good job, I was raped in an Arab jet, jailed, and taken to a Chinese restaurant.”

  Silence. What a dreadful summation, thinks Bobby.

  “Is that all you have to say for our romance?”

  “Bobby, that is what has happened!”

  In the dark hole of their bedroom, Bobby and Marianne watch television.

  Bobby says, “When I’m desperate, I love Johnny Carson.”

  Marianne says, “When I’m desperate, I love Walter Cronkite. Besides, Johnny Carson is supposed to have a monster coke habit.”

  “Let’s plant a garden tomorrow.”

  By midmorning, Bobby has spaded a loamy spot in the backyard. Marianne cultivates on her hands and knees. Bobby is a handsome zombie.

  “If we could just make one thing grow,” Bobby says. “Well, it would make a difference.”

  “What kind of seeds did you buy?”

  Bobby fishes the packets from his shirt pocket. “Radishes, peonies, watermelon, and what’s this? Some kind of banana or something.”

  “Well, you can count on the radishes. Give me those.”

  “You can’t have a garden with just radishes.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Bobby? That’s nothing to get upset about. Let me see these. That’s summer squash, Bobby, that’s not a banana. Can’t you see that?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Don’t you want to have a garden?”

  Bobby and Marianne are lucky enough to join the happy browsers at Ghirardelli Square, a place well known for the character of its great chocolate candies, which make one’s fillings ring like a carillon. Bobby’s usual propensity not to be normal seems far away today, and he holds Marianne’s hand in blind euphoria, dr
iving not a few walkers from the crowded sidewalk. It has come time for him to explain it all to Marianne.

  “This is one of those places where people pretend that there is no unhappiness. There can be unhappiness at Fisherman’s Wharf but not at Ghirardelli Square. At Fisherman’s Wharf, though you may bump into Joe DiMaggio, that still does not prevent you from toppling into the sea. But here you will never meet anyone bad or have anything happen to you.”

  “There is no unhappiness at Neiman-Marcus,” Marianne replies. “Many cities have little areas of no unhappiness. Even the Russians are beginning to build them.”

  “Marianne, I’m lucky to have such a smart girl.”

  By the time they get home again, Marianne is filled with a cheerful interest in making something of Bobby’s banana garden, while clouds have once more settled on Bobby’s face. In fact, he’s soon indoors unwrapping his Smith and Wesson from an oily rag on the walnut surface of the dining-room table. He loads every chamber with the gleaming copper-and-lead bullets, snaps the cylinder back, and puts the gun in his pocket.

  “Babe, I’m going to the store. Back in an hour.”

  Bobby scrutinizes the customers at Enrico’s until he finds the hooker Donna. He speaks affably to her, even though she greets him as “the new kid in town.”

  “Hey,” he says. “I guess my girl and me stepped all over everybody’s toes. Which we didn’t mean to do. I just wanted to say I sure was sorry. So, this is me saying sure am sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Chino came down pretty hard on you.”

  “Yeah, he did. But he was right. I was gonna stop by and tell him he was right.”

  “Well, he’s there.”

  “Should I just fall by?”

  “Let me tell him you’re coming.”

  Bobby takes this opportunity to leave enough money at the bar to keep Donna drinking until he sees her again. Donna returns from the pay phone. “I told him how you were feeling. He said stop on by. Chino said he don’t hold no grudges if you don’t. But I should warn you: he’s after your lady.”

  Bobby heads up the familiar alley, climbs the fire escape, and on the landing is greeted by a really charming Chino, the former Donald Arthur Jones.

  He says, “I understand that you are here to prove that you are a gentleman.”