“I’ve heard it,” Duane said.
“It’s about wives that don’t get enough because their husbands have gone to war,” Dickie said. “And this ol’ boy—he’s not very old—has to help them out of their suffering.”
“I didn’t know there was a war on,” Duane said. “Who are we fighting?”
“I just used that as an example,” Dickie said. “The same thing can happen even if there isn’t a war on.”
“Are you involved with a married woman?” Duane asked.
“I tell you what, loan me the pickup,” Dickie said. “I think I wanta go to Ruidoso, and this is a good place to start from.”
“Which married woman are you involved with?” Duane asked.
“It’s not necessarily just one,” Dickie said. “There’s more of them than you think who have that war-is-hell-on-the-home-front-too attitude.”
“Yes, I know,” Duane said. “Your mother’s explained that to me. So which two married women are you involved with?”
“Mrs. Nolan and Mrs. Marlow,” Dickie said.
Duane killed the motor.
“Say it again, just so I’ll know I’m not going crazy,” he said.
“Mrs. Nolan and Mrs. Marlow,” Dickie said. “I don’t know how it got started, but now Mrs. Marlow’s left her husband and Mrs. Nolan’s fixing to.”
“Do Junior and Lester know about this?” Duane asked.
“Yeah, because Billie Anne called them up and told them this afternoon,” Dickie said.
“You were in jail this afternoon,” Duane pointed out. “Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she even plans to forgive you.”
“This ain’t a good time to sit around and talk,” Dickie said. “I figured she’d just take all the dope money I got hidden and go to Fort Worth and buy clothes with it. But if she’s out here, it probably means she wants revenge.”
“You know, Ruidoso ain’t the worst idea in the world,” Duane said. “It might be a good idea to let the dust settle for a day or two.”
He stepped out of the pickup, and before he could even close the door, Dickie was in the driver’s seat and gone. The pickup spun around like a top, throwing up a cloud of dust that could be seen ten miles away. Duane walked through the dust cloud toward the basketball court. In a minute Shorty came racing along the road. Then he stopped and looked puzzled. His beloved master had returned, but where was the pickup?
“That’s okay, Shorty,” Duane said. “It ain’t the only pickup in the world.”
CHAPTER 17
AS HE WAS WALKING INTO THE GARAGE, DUANE heard shots from the backyard. He began to run, causing Shorty to grow excited and bark his piercing bark. Because of the ingenuity of Arthur the architect, it was necessary to run most of the length of a twelve-thousand-square-foot house in order to reach the backyard.
When he finally reached it, he saw that Karla and Billie Anne were in the hot tub, delicately sipping the quart-sized vodka tonics that Karla favored in hot weather. Minerva, shooting from a prone position, was trying to hit several balloons that floated over the new doghouse. The balloons were left over from the twins’ last birthday party. She was hitting them, too, popping the last one just as Duane trotted up.
“It’s about time you came home,” Minerva said. “Where’s that boy?”
“Gone to Louisana,” Duane said, lying with what he thought was passable casualness.
“I don’t guess he cares that he broke this girl’s heart,” Karla said.
Billie Anne didn’t exactly look like a tragedy victim. She giggled as she might if she had just had a nice swirl around Lake Kickapoo on water-skis.
“I like shooting this little gun,” Minerva said, still in the prone position.
Then she got up, laid the loaded gun beside Billie Anne’s quart-sized vodka tonic and sauntered back to the house. As she went in, Nellie came out, carrying Barbette under one arm and dragging Little Mike with the other hand. Little Mike was holding the pliers with which he liked to try to hit the cat.
Nellie wore a string bikini so brief that Duane felt embarrassed. The bikini would barely conceal a clitoris. Nellie, oblivious to his embarrassment, handed him Barbette and dropped Little Mike in the pool, pliers and all.
“They say the best way to teach kids to swim is just to drop them in the water,” she said.
Barbette cooed, as she often did when Duane was holding her.
Little Mike was not making rapid progress as a swimmer, though. The top of his head was all that was visible. Duane placed Barbette carefully on the deck and went over and fished him out. Little Mike still clung to his pliers. He began to trot toward the house. He had once been stung by a wasp and hated being outdoors.
“Guess what, Daddy, me and Joe got engaged today,” Nellie said as she sank into the hot tub. “Momma wants you to build us a house as a wedding present. It don’t have to be very big.”
“I think that doghouse would make a nice residence for a young couple just starting out,” Duane said. “It’s one of the few two-story doghouses around.”
He looked at Karla, to see what her mood might be. Her mood seemed to be noncommittal.
“I suppose you know that Dickie has wrecked two homes,” she said, without much outrage.
“Three,” Billie Anne said. “He wrecked ours too, and we hadn’t even started it yet.”
“I wouldn’t pay too much attention to rumors,” Duane said. “A lot of idle gossip gets gossiped in Thalia.”
“They carried Lester off to the quiet room today,” Karla informed him.
“Why?” Duane asked. “I talked to him this afternoon and he didn’t seem any nuttier than usual.”
“He went crazy and threatened to cut his own throat with a razor,” Karla said. “He said he’d had about enough.”
“He probably just felt like a day in the quiet room,” Duane said. “He won’t cut his own throat.”
“Junior Nolan was last seen buying shells for his deer rifle,” Karla added. “It ain’t deer season, Duane.”
“It’s Dickie season,” Nellie said cheerfully.
Duane picked up Barbette and walked across the sparse yard to where the bluff dropped off. The sun sank majestically toward the western plains, turning the lower sky golden as it sank. The sunset made the country seem beautiful, a transformation Duane loved to watch. Sundown brought with it a quality of peace that belied almost everything that happened during the day—not to mention the night.
He sat on the edge of the hill, his grandchild in his arms, and watched until the sun sank below the horizon and the first stars came out. It occurred to him often that he might have been happier if he had decided to be an astronomer rather than an oilman. Watching stars seemed a pleasanter way to make a living than watching roughnecks.
He indulged in a little fantasy in which he and Barbette were the last survivors of the human race. They lived peacefully, raising goats and watching lots of sunsets. In their world there was no adultery, no bankruptcy. Barbette grew up to be a sweet, beautiful young woman who wore respectable bathing suits.
The fantasy was soon nudged out of his consciousness by the knowledge that Nellie was apparently engaged to Joe. Duane had nothing in particular against Joe, not even the fact that he looked like a barrel of oil. His main objection was that he doubted Joe’s staying power.
The group had left the hot tub but not the deck, when he returned. Minerva had just come out with more quarts of vodka tonic.
“I didn’t know you were divorced from Hal yet,” Duane said. Hal’s staying power had run out during the honeymoon, apparently.
They heard a pickup coming.
“I bet that’s Junior,” Karla said.
“I think Junior’s cute,” Nellie said. “I wouldn’t even much mind marrying him.”
“Ick, I hate baldheaded men,” Billie Anne said.
“I knew a man who was bald everywhere,” Nellie said. “He didn’t have a sprig of hair on him.”
“Ick, that makes me sick just to thi
nk about,” Billie Anne said.
In a moment Junior Nolan, hatless and somber, walked into the yard carrying a .30-.30.
“It won’t do no good to hide him, I’ll get him eventually,” Junior said.
“Have a vodka tonic, Junior—I haven’t drunk much out of it,” Karla said, offering him hers.
Junior took the vodka gratefully.
“You can sue for alienation of affections,” Junior informed them. He sat down in a lawn chair.
“Of course you can’t sue a corpse,” he added. “But if he gets plumb away I can at least sue him.”
There was a click from the vicinity of the hot tub. Billie Anne pointed the .38 at Junior Nolan, who looked disconcerted.
“Don’t you threaten my fiancé, you old baldheaded horse’s ass,” Billie Anne said.
“Put the gun down, Billie Anne,” Karla said. “Little Barbette might have a trauma for life if you shot somebody right here by the hot tub.”
“Let’s all put the guns away,” Duane said, as soothingly as possible. “Let’s talk this over like civilized people.”
Having drawn a good bead, Billie Anne was reluctant to un-draw it. Junior hid his sunburned head in the vodka tonic and kept quiet.
“Billie Anne, don’t shoot him, it’s too horrible in prison,” Nellie said. “Remember that TV show we saw where the warden’s a lesbian?”
“First offenders don’t usually get too long a sentence,” Billie Anne said. “It would be worth it if it would save Dickie.”
“Save him? I thought you wanted to shoot him yourself,” Karla said.
“You folks got any steaks?” Junior asked. “I’d love a good steak. This thing’s had me torn up so much I can’t keep down but one meal a day and I normally have it about this time of an evening.”
“Well, it’s tore me up too, I know just how you feel,” Billie Anne said, laying the pistol down.
Duane quickly collected it and the rifle too. No one seemed to care.
“We could all go to the Howlers,” Karla said, referring to a steak house they frequently ate at. “Our steaks are in the deep freeze and we’d all be so drunk no telling who would get shot by the time they thawed out.”
“I’m so hungry I could eat one froze,” Junior said. The extent of his own hunger seemed to have just dawned on him. Karla took him by the arm and led him into the house.
“Minerva might let you have some pork rinds or something,” she said.
Duane followed them in.
“I got that centennial meeting,” he reminded Karla. “Maybe I could meet you at the Howlers later.”
Both Suzie Nolan and Jenny Marlow were on the Centennial Committee. Only that morning he had briefly thought that one or another of them might be his new love. He had felt inclined to flirt a little. Now, it turned out, both were his son’s girlfriends, and the possibilities of flirtation had been bashed.
Karla sent Junior on to the kitchen and stopped with Duane a minute.
“Duane, things are getting a little too unruly around here,” she said. “I guess it’s a good thing Nellie’s marrying Joe. Joe’s stable.”
“Joe’s dumb,” he said, but he didn’t want to argue about anything as ephemeral as sons-in-law. He put Barbette to bed. When he came back, Karla had already dressed for the steak house. She wore armadillo-skin boots, a fifteen-thousand-dollar concho belt and a T-shirt that read, YOU ME DINNER MOTEL.
“I hope this is a short meeting,” Duane said. “Order me a T-bone for about nine o’clock.”
“I feel sorry for Junior,” Karla said. “I think it’s real sweet that there’s one husband left who really loves his wife.”
“There’s probably lots of husbands who love their wives enough not to want them sleeping with Dickie,” he said. “Lester, for example.”
“I’ve got to get Billie Anne out of the hot tub,” Karla said. “She’s so drunk she could drown and never notice.”
“That T-shirt you’re wearing could give someone the wrong idea,” he said.
“Oh, hush, Duane,” Karla said. “I never see anyone with an idea.”
Duane washed his face, which was about all he had time to do. When he came out, Karla had changed the T-shirt to one that read, PARTY TILL YOU PUKE.
“Maybe they could have a double wedding,” she said.
“Who?”
“Dickie and Billie Anne, and Nellie and Joe,” she said.
“Dickie and Billie Anne aren’t speaking,” he informed her. “He was afraid to come in the house for fear she’d shoot him.”
“We could get worse as a daughter-in-law,” Karla said. “He could go off and marry somebody we don’t even know.”
“It must have been ten years since I’ve seen you wear anything I didn’t have to read,” Duane said, but Karla was ready to roll and was thirty feet down the hall by the time he said it.
CHAPTER 18
WHEN DUANE GOT TO THE MEETING, SONNY WAS the only person there. The meetings were held in a little meeting room that for some reason was painted the color of an egg yolk. Walking into it was like walking into an egg.
“What’s the news on Lester?” Duane asked. He felt a little guilty for having skipped out on the afternoon chat he was to have had with Lester.
“I think he’s just down at the hospital doing crosswords,” Sonny said. “He gets a little stressed out now and then.”
Sonny always dressed neatly, doing his own laundry every Sunday in his own laundrymat. He washed his car every Sunday, too, in his own carwash. But it seemed to Duane his cleanliness only exposed his sadness.
Looking at him, Duane wished someone else would show up at the meeting soon. He and Sonny had been friends virtually all their lives; the friendship still had its moments, but on a day-to-day basis their interest in one another had faded and they found it hard to make conversation.
“I guess the softball game must have gone into extra innings or the women would be here,” Duane said.
They heard a shuffling sound, and Old Man Balt shuffled in carrying an empty tomato-juice can. During the course of the meeting the can would gradually fill up with tobacco juice. Old Man Balt was a big chewer.
He was the oldest living citizen of the county, and looked forward keenly to the coming centennial. Apparently he had been the first citizen born in Hardtop County, and his hundredth birthday would be celebrated during the festivities. He had been made an honorary member of the Centennial Committee in hopes that he could help keep historical inaccuracies from popping up, but he had proven to be entirely useless where the county’s history was concerned.
For the past twenty years he had lived with his only surviving child, a woman named Beulah, herself in her late seventies. They watched soap operas and game shows all day long. Two decades of what Minerva called the little rays had obliterated all traces of the county’s history from the old man’s mind. The only thing he could remember from a hundred years of exposure to Hardtop County was that a building had somehow blown up in the twenties and killed a blacksmith.
But he was a lively old man, and would often spit and cackle throughout the committee meetings, finding humor where no one else found anything but boredom. It was as if, mentally, he was still tuned in to a game show.
“Here I am, boys,” he said. “What are we gonna meet about tonight?”
“Oh, the pageant, I imagine, Mr. Balt,” Duane said.
It had been decided that a pageant would be put on, to run for a week in the local rodeo arena. The pageant would depict the county’s history from the creation of the earth until roughly 1980.
There had been prolonged debate about what time span such a pageant should attempt to cover. Since for several million years the only action in the county had been geological, some were for omitting those slow epochs entirely. Others felt that just to leave out several million years left the pageant open to charges of superficiality, or lack of comprehensiveness.
The script of the pageant was the work of many hands, several of which had not
written a word. But the local churchmen—who felt that theology, not geology, should dictate the beginning—were not among the idle. A long skit based on Genesis was already in hand. Karla had been approached about playing Eve, but was not enthusiastic.
“If they think I’m gonna stand out in the rodeo arena naked and talk to a snake, they’re crazy,” Karla said, although at the time she was wearing a T-shirt that said, YOU CAN’T BE FIRST BUT YOU CAN BE NEXT.
Bobby Lee, an inveterate mocker of established truth, scoffed at the notion that the Garden of Eden had been located anywhere near Thalia.
“I think we oughta have a Hell-on-Earth skit,” he said. “If they’re holding the thing in August, it’s gonna seem like hell on earth anyway.”
“I could write a skit about how miserable it is to work all your life in the fuckin’ oil fields,” Eddie Belt said.
Debate still raged about how to handle other periods of history. Jenny Marlow felt that the skits should include the Boston Tea Party and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, although at the time those events took place only a few starving Indians inhabited Hardtop County.
“I know, but it’s all good background, and we’re part of America, just like Boston is,” Jenny argued.
Jenny soon wore them all down on that point—she generally managed to wear them down—and Sonny had even been persuaded to play Benjamin Franklin.
There was widespread agreement that as many wars as possible should be covered in the skits, and that the pageant should end with the boom of two years back. To end with the present recession would upset performers and audiences alike, since so many of them were being carried into bankruptcy by it.
More out of boredom than conviction, Duane argued against ending with the boom.
“I think we oughta build a replica of the bank and the last scene oughta be people shooting themselves or cutting their throats outside it,” he said. He found that he had acquired a fund of gallows humor since his debt had begun to grow.
Despite his pleas, a proposal to end the pageant with an oil-boom skit passed the committee with only one negative vote. The skit was to involve a gusher spouting colored water rather than oil. Duane had cast the negative vote.