There was a Burger King just ahead, right on his route. Remembering that he had had almost nothing to eat for three days, he went in and ordered a milk shake and some fries. The milk shake, when it came, tasted amazingly good, and so did the fries. Before he left the Burger King he consumed two more milk shakes and another order of fries.
While he was eating it occurred to him that he must be experiencing what had once been called a nervous breakdown. That was what they had called it some years back when Sonny Crawford began to go crazy.
So far Dr. Carmichael had not mentioned a nervous breakdown—she had not even confirmed that she considered him to be depressed. Duane had no idea what she thought about his mental state, but he did know that he had ceased to be able to imagine a life that didn’t involve regular appointments with Dr. Carmichael. The visits were holding him together—at least that was how he felt. They had replaced walking, which had been what was holding him together for the last few weeks.
When Duane finished his meal he headed on back to the motel, walking along briskly for almost a mile. Then, between one block and the next, he ran out of steam, began to feel wobbly, and experienced such overpowering fatigue that he thought he was going to have to give up and call a taxi, even though the motel was now actually in sight, not more than half a mile to the west.
He sat for a time on a large concrete block that had apparently fallen off a truck and been left by the side of the road. There was a pay phone at the liquor store where he had bought the whiskey and ice, and the liquor store was only one hundred yards away, but Duane continued to sit. He told himself it was ridiculous to call a taxi to take him half a mile—besides, for reasons he didn’t understand, the principle of walking everywhere was still important to him. Something in him didn’t want to give up on the principle of walking—a principle he had evolved suddenly, for no clear reason.
Finally, after spending more than half an hour sitting on the concrete block, Duane got up and walked on to the Stingaree Courts. When he opened the door Shorty immediately went out to race around the parking lot. Duane fell on the bed. He had no memory of letting Shorty back in, but someone must have, because he was there in the early morning when Duane awoke. What brought him awake was the sound of sleet peppering the window of his room. He had slept too heavily to notice that the room had grown chill during the night. The sound of the sleet brought him wide awake—he felt fresh and energetic for the first time since his initial session with Dr. Carmichael. He went out into the cold dawn wind, letting the sleet pepper him for a few minutes. Maybe a cold snap was what he needed to put some spring back in his step.
While Shorty was indulging in another run around the parking lot Duane went back in and showered—only to realize, when he finished, that he had no clean clothes to put on. In his fresh, invigorated mood the lack of clean clothes was intolerable. He could put on his dirty clothes and walk through the sleety norther to the Wal-Mart but the thought irritated him, mainly because he hated going in large stores. His wardrobe was simple—for years, when his shirts or jeans began to fray, Karla simply bought him a dozen more of the same size and same brand. When, now and then, she attempted to spiff him up by buying something different, something she and the children considered fashionable, Duane simply ignored the purchases and let them hang in the closet until they found their way into one of the ambitious garage sales Karla staged every few years.
What especially irritated him at the moment was the knowledge that he had a closet full of warm, freshly ironed, neatly folded clothes in his home in Thalia, a mere twenty miles away. What he needed was for someone to bring him some of those clothes. He also had a houseful of children, each of whom made at least one trip to Wichita Falls a day, not to mention plenty of ex-employees who might be willing to bring him clothes.
Duane, unwilling to touch his dirty clothes, wrapped himself in a bedsheet and weighed his options. There were several people who could be persuaded to bring him clothes, but the one person he didn’t want to make the delivery was Karla. If Karla were ever to glimpse the Stingaree Courts she would have no doubt that he had flipped his wig. The smell of the water bed alone would provoke wild anxiety. Karla could not stand even the slightest bad smell. If a skunk wandered within one hundred yards of their house she smelled it and retreated into her sauna, where the smell couldn’t penetrate.
The one thing he didn’t want to do was call his house and risk getting Karla—calling the office seemed a far better idea. With any luck Bobby Lee might be there, and Bobby Lee enjoyed espionagelike activities. Sneaking into the house and making off with a few armfuls of Duane’s clothes might appeal to the criminal in him.
The sleet finally played out, but the day remained lowering and chill. Duane decided that his principal aim should be to get some clean clothes without risking Karla’s appearance at the Courts.
Finally, when 9 A.M. rolled around, Duane picked up the phone and called the office, hoping to catch Bobby Lee while he was still there, drinking coffee. The voice that answered when he dialed was none of the ones he had been expecting to hear—it took him a moment to realize that he had his daughter-in-law, Annette, on the line.
“Hello,” she said three times, before Duane responded.
“Well, hi,” he said. “You startled me. What are you doing in the office this time of day?”
“Working,” Annette said. “I run the office now, I guess you could say.”
“Gosh, that’s new,” he said. “What happened to Earlene and Ruth?”
“Dickie fired them last week and just sort of popped me into the job,” Annette said.
Duane was astonished. He had been so focused on his own problems that he had forgotten that he had put his son in charge of the oil company, a move that had already resulted in a complete turnover in office personnel.
“Fired them both?” he said, bemused.
“Yep,” Annette said. “Earlene had the files so screwed up it’s taken me four days to get them like they ought to be.”
“Filing was never Earlene’s long suit,” Duane admitted.
“Earlene didn’t have a long suit,” Annette said. “Now she’s thinking of suing Bobby Lee.”
“Suing him why?” he asked.
“Because he shot off his toe and it caused her to fall into the watercooler and get a scar,” Annette said.
What surprised him was how unsurprised Annette sounded. He had had it in his head that his whole family would have missed him by then and been frantic with worry, but evidently that wasn’t the case.
“How is everybody?” he asked. “I’ve been out of touch.”
“I know—we all thought you went on off to Egypt to see the pyramids,” Annette said. “The kids all expect you to bring them back mongo souvenirs.”
“I can’t go to Egypt yet, my passport’s expired,” Duane said. “I thought Karla knew that.”
“She may have just forgot—she’s in Santa Fe with Babe,” Annette said. “They got bored and awarded themselves a big shopping trip.”
Duane felt a little let down. He had been assuming that everyone missed him and was anxious about his whereabouts, when in fact nobody missed him, no one was worried; his family had just gone on with their normal lives, unconcerned that he had disappeared.
Annette even seemed a little impatient for him to get to the point of his call, which he did.
“I need to talk to Bobby Lee right away,” he said.
“He’s not here but he’s got his mobile,” Annette said. “Dickie got us all cell phones—you want Bobby’s number?”
“Hold on a minute until I can find a pen,” Duane said. “Dickie sounds like he’s jumped right into being a boss. First he fires the office staff and then he gets the roving staff cell phones.”
“Yes, and the best part is he’s sober as a judge,” Annette confided. “I can’t even get him to have one beer with me at night.”
“That’s fine news,” he said.
“Where are you, anyway?” Annette inquir
ed.
“Oh, I’m in Wichita Falls doing some chores,” he said. “I just need to ask Bobby Lee to do me a small favor.”
“Just call him—he’s out at rig two,” Annette said. “Or you can leave a number and I’ll have him call you.”
“No, that’s okay, I’ll catch up with him,” Duane said. “I think Dickie made a good choice when he picked you to run the office.”
“Well, thanks,” Annette said.
Then she hung up.
10
BOBBY LEE ANSWERED his mobile phone on the first ring, in his hungover voice. It was a voice Duane had heard hundreds of times, over the years. Usually he could even tell whether he was dealing with a whiskey hangover or a beer hangover—or maybe a woman hangover—just by Bobby Lee’s tone. Of course there had been no woman hangovers since the testicle operation, which narrowed the scope of inquiry just to whiskey and beer.
“You had a sound like you had a Jack Daniel’s evening,” Duane said, taking a wild guess.
“Fuck you—where are you anyway?” Bobby Lee asked.
“I’m not far away—why do you sound so unhappy?”
“I sound unhappy because I am unhappy and that’s because you abdicated your solemn responsibilities and now your son’s working us all to death,” Bobby Lee said.
“Where did you learn a big word like ‘abdicate’?” Duane asked.
“I learned it from a TV show about the King of England, that one that gave it all up for love,” Bobby said. “Just because I work in the oil fields is no reason for you to criticize my vocabulary. I know plenty of other big words that I don’t never use, because there’s no one in my life smart enough to use ’em to.”
“Could you do me a favor this morning?” Duane asked. “I need you to run into Thalia and bring me some clean clothes.”
There was dead silence on the line. The silence continued for some time.
“Are you still there?” Duane asked, finally.
“I’m here—why would I care if your clothes are dirty?” Bobby Lee asked. “When have you ever brought me any clean clothes?”
“It’s not much of a favor,” Duane said, ignoring the question. “Karla’s in Santa Fe, she’ll never know.”
“No, but Dickie will know—he might fire me for leaving my post,” Bobby Lee said.
“He won’t fire you—I’ll speak to him,” Duane said.
“Where is it I’m supposed to deliver your damn laundry?” Bobby Lee asked.
“The Stingaree Courts, on the Seymour highway, room one forty-one,” Duane said. “I need the clothes within the hour, if you don’t mind hurrying a little.”
There was another silence.
“What in hell are the Stingaree Courts?” Bobby Lee asked.
“Just a motel,” Duane said. “I’d just like some shirts and Levi’s and socks and underwear.”
“I was born a slave and I guess I’ll die a slave,” Bobby Lee said.
Two hours later, just as Duane was about to get irritated enough to call again, Bobby Lee knocked on the door. He wore his wraparound sunglasses, and, underneath them, a disgusted look.
“There’s a filthy little drug dealer in this motel,” he said. “The asshole tried to sell me speed.”
Duane, still wrapped in his bedsheet, went outside and got his clothes out of Bobby Lee’s pickup. When he came back in Bobby Lee was stretched out on the water bed.
“This water bed smells like catfish,” he said. “Why would you want to stay in a place like this?”
“I’m just staying here because it’s convenient to my doctor’s,” Duane said. “I can’t walk it from the cabin and back every day. That’s thirty-six miles.”
“Good point,” Bobby Lee said. “I doubt I’ll even walk thirty-six miles between now and the millennium.”
He got off the bed, got down on his knees, and sniffed the water bed.
“Catfish,” he said. “Wonder how it got in there.”
“Thanks for bringing my clothes,” Duane said. “I was bordering on filthy myself. Did anybody notice you taking the clothes?”
“Just Rag,” Bobby said. “Julie went to work in the bank and Nellie’s down in Arlington interviewing for a job on the Weather Channel. Here you are getting crazier by the day just as your kids are finally shaping up. I guess you must have been inhibiting them with your good behavior or something.”
The remark irritated Duane. He was paying a trained psychiatrist one hundred and ninety dollars an hour to figure him out and now Bobby Lee, who had never set foot in a college classroom, felt free to pop off about what had been the matter with his children all these years. What was even more irritating was that the comment might be more or less true.
“Seen Karla lately?” he asked.
“I seen her. She wanted me to be a snitch and snoop out your whereabouts but she didn’t want to pay me extra so I declined,” Bobby Lee said. “She said she was going to Santa Fe and look for a rich boyfriend.”
“That might have been bluff,” Duane said. “I have one more errand I wish you’d run for me while I’m getting dressed. I’ve been wanting to read this book by Thoreau but the bookstore’s kinda out of my way. If you’d run over and buy it for me I’d be much obliged.”
“Who’s it by?”
“Thoreau,” Duane said.
“Is that his whole name?” Bobby Lee asked. “I never heard of the man—or is he even a man?”
“Just ask the clerk for Thoreau,” Duane said. “They’ll know who you’re talking about.”
“They don’t if you’re asking about car books,” Bobby said. “I went in once to buy a book about a Porsche and none of the dumb fucks even knew what a Porsche was.”
“Why did you want a book about a Porsche?” Duane asked.
Bobby Lee shrugged.
“Why do you want a book by some old dude named Thoreau? Did he write a lot of books, or just one? I don’t want to drive all that way and come back with the wrong book.”
“Just ask them for the one about Walden Pond,” Duane said. “Try to get one that will fit in my hip pocket, in case I want to stop and read a few pages to break up my trek.”
“You sure have got picky,” Bobby Lee said.
Nonetheless, he did as requested—fifteen minutes later he was back with a paperback copy of Walden. It fit perfectly in Duane’s hip pocket.
“That drug dealer’s still there,” Bobby Lee said. “Now he’s offering crystal meth.”
“Leave it alone,” Duane said. “That stuff will burn out your sockets in about three days.”
“Yeah, but it might take my mind off my loss.”
Duane sighed. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Since you’ve been so helpful I’ll treat you to a free appointment with my psychiatrist. She might have something helpful to say about your loss.”
“How much is she an hour?”
“One ninety,” Duane said.
“You mean one hundred and ninety dollars an hour?” Bobby Lee asked.
Duane nodded.
“No thanks,” Bobby Lee said. “If I start in with her I might like it and then not be able to afford it.”
“Everybody loses something as they go along in life,” Duane said.
“Easy for you to say,” Bobby Lee said. “All you’ve lost is your mind.”
“Well, the offer’s open,” Duane said.
“You’re as bad as a Baptist,” Bobby Lee said. “You ain’t even been seeing that shrink but a week and you’re already trying to make converts. Bye.”
“Thanks for helping me out,” Duane said.
He stood in the doorway as Bobby Lee drove off. It wasn’t sleeting anymore, but the clouds still looked like snow.
11
HAVING THE CLEAN CLOTHES made Duane feel a lot better. After Bobby Lee left he took another shower, got dressed, and headed into town, the Thoreau book in his hip pocket. Just being neatly dressed seemed to renew his energies. He walked as easily and briskly as he had in his first days as a walker. br />
He also felt hungry. When he got to the pancake house he didn’t just toy with his food this time. He ate, nursed his coffee, and began to read. Mr. Thoreau announced immediately that he had lived alone in his cabin and earned his living by the labor of his hands for two years and two months, which convinced Duane immediately that he had the right book. He liked the part about people whose misfortune it was to inherit farms and cattle and houses and the like, responsibilities they didn’t seek and didn’t want. Though he hadn’t inherited anything, he knew exactly how it felt to be oppressed by possessions he didn’t want or need—the mere sight of the pile of junk in his own carport had played a part in his decision to park the pickup and start walking. When he came to the part about the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation he closed the book and left the pancake house—the few pages that he had read expressed exactly what he had been feeling or suspecting about his own life: that most of his work had been meaningless, much of his labor pointless, and the majority of his possessions unnecessary. He felt like the very man Thoreau described, the man who went through life pushing a barn ahead of him, and all that went with the ownership of a barn as well. His own three oil rigs and all that went with them took just as much pushing as a New England barn. What did he have to show for it? He wasn’t educated, he hadn’t traveled. He was in his sixties, and what had it all amounted to?