Texasville (31 page)

Also, whenever he raised his eyes, he noticed that everyone at his table, as well as the three women at the courthouse table, were looking at him. They instantly looked away when he looked up—all except Charlene Duggs, who didn’t try to pretend she hadn’t been looking at him. Charlene continued to look at him, with what seemed like sympathy. The others, before they glanced away, all seemed expectant. They wanted him to start a sexy conversation. They wanted him to make a joke about Bobby Lee’s hat, or Eddie Belt’s little cinnamon-toast mustache.

Mainly, as he read it, they wanted him to initiate something that might relieve the boredom or anxiety they each lived with. They weren’t picky. They’d follow any move he wanted to make, but they wanted him to be the one to make the move.

Duane felt a sullen impulse to deny them what they wanted.
Why should he always have to be the starter-upper? Let someone else start something up, for once. Let Janine do something besides practice eye contact. Let Jenny do something besides dump insecurities at people’s feet.

He kept resolutely silent, nursing his sense of unfairness. He was more deeply in debt than anyone in town. His kids caused more trouble than anyone else’s kids. His wife spent more money than anyone else’s wife. His employees were at least as lazy and incompetent as anyone else’s employees. Why, with those things to worry about and more, did he also have to provide lively conversation for anyone who happened to straggle into the Dairy Queen? He wasn’t the president of the town, or the master of ceremonies of the Dairy Queen.

He determined not to say a word, to force one of the others to show at least a whisper of initiative. It was bad enough that he was president of the Centennial Committee and would be held responsible if the glorious celebration was a fiasco—as there was every reason to suspect it would be. Just once, he didn’t intend to be the one who came up with the first move.

Silence lengthened. Bobby Lee and Eddie Belt, who would instantly begin an argument if they happened to arrive in the office at the same time, seemed to have become mutes. Bobby Lee grinned idiotically from beneath his sombrero. Duane remembered that Nellie had broken up with Joe Coombs. He tried to push dark thoughts from his mind. Surely Nellie couldn’t have succumbed to Bobby Lee, after resisting him almost daily since she was fourteen.

Silence spread like a winter cloud across the Dairy Queen. Jenny took out a mirror and cautiously studied her new makeup. The women from the courthouse had the stoic look of people who were about to attend the funeral of someone they had scarcely known.

Only Abilene, secure in his vanity, was unfazed by Duane’s refusal to bring life to the party. Soon he finished his meal and sauntered out, his sunglasses in place and his toothpick held at a jaunty angle. He was followed by the big, unhappy-looking girl. Abilene didn’t so much as glance at Duane. He and his date got in the Lincoln and left.

“He didn’t even hold the door open for her,” Lavelle observed,
but the remark failed to ignite much feminist rage. No one expected Abilene to be nice.

“I don’t doubt he made her pay for her own cheeseburger, too,” Lavelle added. “I hate to think there’s men that won’t even pay for a stupid cheeseburger.”

“He’s always been loose with his mouth and tight with his money,” Duane said, feeling that Lavelle deserved at least a little help.

Out the window he saw a large blue pickup bounce off the highway, and immediately felt a sense of relief. Karla was on the prowl in her Supernova. He felt a rush of admiration for his wife—perhaps even love. Karla might have her flaws, but when she showed up something would happen. She was not loath to initiate conversations, or fights either.

The Supernova slowly circled the Dairy Queen, observed by all. Everyone perked up a little. Karla was just sizing up the crowd, seeing if there was anyone there she was feeling particularly friendly—or perhaps particularly unfriendly—toward. In a minute she would walk in, ready to rev up on coffee and get things crackling. The ladies from the courthouse took out their mirrors and looked at themselves.

To everyone’s surprise, Karla didn’t come in. After circling the building she drove off a little distance and then backed up, rapidly and expertly, braking to a stop a few inches from the rear bumper of Bobby Lee’s pickup. In a flash she jumped out of the Supernova and disappeared from view.

Duane glanced at the happy Bobby Lee and noticed that he had stopped looking happy. In fact, he had turned pale beneath his stubble.

“What’s she doing to your pickup?” he asked Bobby Lee.

“I’m just hoping for the best from all this,” Bobby Lee said weakly. “I’m just hoping it will all work out for the best.”

Karla reappeared and reached into Bobby Lee’s pickup, to take it out of gear. Then she tapped on the window of the Dairy Queen. Everyone looked. Karla gave Bobby Lee the finger. There were gasps from a few wheat harvesters who hadn’t left for Saskatchewan yet—they were unaccustomed to local ways.

Then Karla jumped in her Supernova and raced away, dragging Bobby Lee’s greasy little pickup like a puppy on a leash.
When Karla whipped onto the pavement the little Datsun bounced a foot or two in the air and landed on its side. Karla kept accelerating. Showers of sparks flew everywhere as she dragged the small pickup up the highway.

Duane decided the dark thoughts he had had regarding Bobby Lee and Nellie were almost certainly accurate thoughts.

Of all the spectators, Eddie Belt seemed most unnerved by the sight of a pickup being dragged up a highway.

“Oh, shit, look at what that woman’s doing now,” he gasped.

To everyone’s astonishment, he grabbed the sugar jar, tilted his head back, and poured a thick stream of sugar directly into his mouth.

Duane burst out laughing. He decided he loved his wife, after all. Who else could scare Eddie Belt so badly that he would start drinking sugar straight from the jar?

CHAPTER 45

J
ENNY
M
ARLOW WAS THE FIRST TO SPEAK.

“What’d you do that for?” she asked Eddie.

Eddie wiped sugar off his lips and took a sip of water.

“I thought I was gonna black out,” he said. “The sight of that poor little pickup made me feel real weak. She drug that little thing off like a calf to the branding fire.”

He began to be embarrassed by what he had done. Everyone who had been looking at Duane was now looking at him.

“It was like I went into shock, you know,” he said. “My insides just felt real mushy, all of a sudden. Sugar’s the best thing for shock, they say. It just goes right into the bloodstream.”

Bobby Lee seemed to be in shock himself, but not so far in that he enjoyed seeing Eddie seize all the attention.

“It wasn’t even your pickup,” he said. “It was my damn pickup. I guess if she’d have drug off your pickup you’d have died on the spot.”

“I might have,” Eddie admitted, too weakened to take offense.

Duane got up and looked out the window. Karla was dragging the pickup straight through town. Cars and trucks were whipping to the side of the road, their drivers unnerved by the strange spectacle.

“It’s the only pickup I got, too,” Bobby Lee said, his spirits falling even lower.

“I wonder why she’s so mad at you,” Duane said.

“I have no idea,” Bobby Lee said. “She’s just one of those kind of women that can always find something to be mad at.”

“You mean like your wife, Carolyn?” Duane asked. Carolyn was known to be a woman of temperament, and the same people who knew her to be a woman of temperament knew Bobby Lee to be a man of easy virtue. Most people thought Carolyn had done a good job of keeping him cuffed more or less into line for the last twelve years.

“Yeah, Carolyn’s another of them kind of women,” Bobby Lee said. “Ever’ woman in this stupid town is the kind that can always find things to be mad about.”

Beneath his sombrero he was looking more and more depressed.

“They just mow you down like you was grass,” he added.

“It’s true,” Eddie Belt said, agreeing with his colleague for the first time in years.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Nellie, does it?” Duane asked.

“Yeah, ’cause we’re getting married,” Bobby Lee said in a toneless voice.

Duane laughed. It was exactly what he had expected to hear.

“I think what this town needs is one of those boards like they have in stock exchanges,” he said. “Only instead of telling stock prices it would just keep up with divorces and pregnancies and who’s married to who, or expecting to be. We could put it on the courthouse lawn and give some kid a nice summer job, changing the names around every day.”

“Summer job?” Charlene said. “Year-round job, you mean.”

“That’s right,” Duane agreed. “It would have to be kept current. Otherwise, after a month of two, quite a few women wouldn’t even know what their last names was.”

“Duane, you get some silly ideas,” Janine said, standing up.
‘I’ll always know what my last name is because I wouldn’t change it if I got married fifty times.”

“Don’t worry, there ain’t fifty men in the universe crazy enough to marry you,” Eddie said, his old bitterness flaring up.

Janine seemed amused. “Too much sugar causes irreversible brain damage,” she said as she walked past him.

“I was under the impression you and Nellie both are already married,” Duane said to Bobby Lee.

“We are but nothing’s forever,” Bobby Lee said.

“It’s good you’ve got that attitude if you’re marrying Nellie,” Duane said. “Nothing’s for much more than a month with Nellie.”

“He’s wrong anyway,” Lavelle said. “Dead is forever.”

She made a little gun of her finger and pointed it right between Bobby Lee’s eyes.

“Bang,” she said.

Charlene Duggs gave them all a pleasant smile before following her friends outside.

CHAPTER 46

D
UANE TOOK
B
OBBY
L
EE TO THE OFFICE AND LEFT
him with Ruth.

“Why are you leaving him with me?” Ruth asked. “I’ve got better things to do than look after men who wear sombreros.”

“I know, but Karla stole his pickup,” Duane said. “I don’t have anything else to do with him.”

“Go in Duane’s office and go to sleep,” Ruth commanded. “It’s dark in there.”

Bobby Lee, who seemed numb, docilely went in the office and shut the door.

“Could I impose on you to figure up Abilene’s hours and give me a check for what we owe him?” Duane asked. “I can’t tolerate him any longer.”

“Who’s gonna run that rig?” Ruth asked.

“I am,” Duane said. “It beats brooding.”

He found some overalls in a closet and put them on. Ruth looked at him as if he were a wayward boy, but held her tongue.

On his way to the rig he passed Los Dolores. He had been
toying with the idea of stopping to pay his respects to Shorty, but he saw Dickie’s pickup parked out front and decided not to stop. He didn’t feel much shock or surprise at seeing Dickie’s pickup there.

Shortly after passing the house he noticed a tiny dust cloud in his rearview mirror. A small blue blur was racing down the road after him. Duane stopped and opened the door. In a moment Shorty raced up and jumped in his lap. He seemed ecstatic to be back.

“Nobody told you to leave in the first place,” Duane said, but Shorty wasn’t listening. He lay on his back and wiggled, adding a few hundred hairs to the substantial blanket that was already there. Then he looked at Duane guiltily, as if expecting to be beaten with the work glove.

“Forget it, Shorty,” Duane said. “Worse things can happen than losing you.”

As he approached the rig he heard the familiar sound of gunshots. The roughnecks, happy to be collecting eight fifty an hour for loafing around, were shooting at beer cans with their .22s. Their faces fell when Duane drove up.

He worked them steadily all day. About six, Abilene drove up. Shorty hated Abilene and began to snarl. Duane stepped off the rig floor long enough to hand Abilene his check.

“Your services are terminated,” he said.

Abilene looked contemptuous. “You’ll be a bankrupt son-of-a-bitch before the summer’s over, anyway,” he said.

Duane went back to work. He felt rather good. He had not forgotten how to work, and being at the rig was a nice change from sitting around the office trying not to irritate Ruth.

As he was driving back past Los Dolores, toward town, Shorty began to whimper and look unhappy. He even went so far as to scratch at Duane’s leg. Duane stopped the pickup and held the door open. In a second Shorty was out. He trotted off toward the house.

“She might go back to Europe, and then where would you be?” Duane said, but Shorty didn’t look around.

Going through town, Duane stopped at the Kwik-Sack to buy a six-pack. He thought he might look in on the twins, too. He expected to see one of them handling the cash register, but
instead Sonny was in his old place, watching TV. Duane looked in the storeroom but neither the twins nor their effects were there.

“Did Karla come and get them?” he asked.

“Jacy came and got them,” Sonny said.

Duane thought that one over for a minute.

“She’s in for some fun and games, then,” he said.

“They’re very nice kids,” Sonny said. “They’re just full of mischief.”

“Mischief, plus homicidal tendencies,” Duane said, though it always made him feel good when someone complimented his children.

“We sold about four hundred dollars’ worth of centennial souvenirs today,” Sonny said. “Maybe this thing’s going to be a success after all.”

He spoke in a cheerful tone, but he had a downcast look. Duane had been studiously not asking him how he felt, but it occurred to him that everyone else was probably tiptoeing around the issue of Sonny’s illness, and that perhaps Sonny found that depressing.

“How’s your brain problem?” he asked.

“Well, I got some pills,” Sonny said.

“Do they work?”

“Oh, well,” Sonny said, “I don’t see movies in the sky and I haven’t lost my car lately. I guess that’s an improvement.”