McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (41 page)

 
          
 
When I woke again we were well past
Oklahoma City
, bearing down on the Texas Panhandle. Cindy
didn't offer to surrender the wheel—she didn't even acknowledge my waking. She
was on a little driving high of her own, keeping her foot down and letting the
Cadillac eat up the road. We were far beyond the trees now, on the high plains.
There was nothing between us and
New Mexico
but road and sky. The sun had just gone
down and the plains were shadowed and somber, with vapor lights just beginning
to wink on in the yards of ranch houses. Far to the south a patch of yellow
light indicated a small town.

 
          
 
"Getting tired?" I asked.

 
          
 
"No," Cindy said. "I like this.
I want to drive all night."

 
          
 
"It won't take all night," I said.
"We're almost there."

 
          
 
"I ought to go visit my folks
sometime," Cindy said. "They won't leave
California
."

 
          
 
"Why not?"

 
          
 
"Because they like
California
," she said, as if it were a stupid
question.

 
          
 
"I'd like to meet them," I said.

 
          
 
But Cindy was interested in driving, not
talking. However, she proved to have one thing in common with Belinda, namely a
tendency to the quick fade. I noticed the fade just as it began and got her to
stop at a motel on the west edge of
Amarillo
. She had become sleepy so suddenly that she
went to sleep at the wheel while I was registering at the motel. The minute we
got in the room she fell on the bed in a deep sleep, without even having
brushed her teeth. I ordered myself a steak from room service and watched a
little TV over her sleeping form.

 
          
 
Just as the steak came a call of nature woke
her. She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth thoroughly, and came back to
the bedroom just as I was about to eat my steak.

 
          
 
"Can I have a bite?" she asked, and
proceeded to eat the whole steak, fat, gristle, and all, plus the rolls and
most of the salad I had ordered.

 
          
 
"Didn't you even order any milk?"
was her only comment. I ordered some, as well as another steak. I told them to
rush the milk, so Cindy could drink it before she went back to sleep. In a
sense she wasn't really awake, she was just stoking her body after a long day's
drive. Long before the second steak came she was in bed in her T-shirt,
sleeping soundly.

 
          
 
When I awoke the next morning she was watching
me solemnly, so solemnly that it made me a little nervous.

 
          
 
"Hi," I said, since she was watching
me.

 
          
 
"Did you try anything last night?"
she asked.

 
          
 
"No," I said. "You went right
to sleep."

 
          
 
"I still thought you'd try," she
said.

 
          
 
"I don't know why I came on this stupid
trip," she added, looking miserable. "I think you're in love with
that hippie."

 
          
 
"The trip is to get boots for your exhibition,"
I said. "It's not stupid at all. This is where the boots are."

 
          
 
"What's the
point,
if you're not even gonna try anymore?" Cindy asked. It was clear she was
in the grip of a major attack of insecurity. I got her to turn her head so I
could kiss her. I didn't expect matters to go very far, but Cindy was
interested. I hadn't really expected to get to make love to her again, and the
fact that I got to filled me with relief. I became very enthusiastic, but Cindy
didn't, particularly. She had encouraged the lovemaking, but she herself was in
neutral. I figured that had to change soon— Cindy was too selfish to cheat
herself out of a nice early morning orgasm—but I was wrong. I had one and she
didn't, which immediately depressed me.

 
          
 
"I don't understand you," I said.
"I guess this is a stupid trip."

 
          
 
"I don't see why you always want to
argue," she said. "I'm starving. If you ate a good breakfast you
might feel better."

 
          
 
We got up and showered together. Cindy had a
little rubber thing with prongs that she used to massage her scalp. After she
had massaged hers she massaged mine, assuring me that my hair would be
grateful. She used a lot of shampoo—streams of foam coursed down our bodies.
She was apparently in an excellent humor, whereas I was in a real depression.
My emotional life was becoming ever more surreal, and it had always been
surreal enough. So far as Cindy was concerned, we were perfect pals. I was even
a pal with sexual privileges, perhaps even sexual responsibilities. She didn't
want me not to try, nor did she really want me to succeed.

 
          
 
Meanwhile, she was hungry. The only shadow on
the morning was that the newspaper dispensers outside the coffee shop did not
dispense The New York Times. The best she could do was The Wall Street Journal.
While she made her way through the Journal she consumed two eggs, a breakfast
steak, and several glasses of milk. I was eating pancakes with syrup and
butter.

 
          
 
"No wonder you're so grumpy, if you eat
stuff like that,” she said. "Your body needs protein."

 
          
 
"I don't believe in protein," I
said. "I think it's a myth, like vitamins. I don't believe in nutrition,
in fact. I think it's all a myth."

 
          
 
Cindy greeted that little outburst with silent
contempt, finishing her steak. She put on her sunglasses and insisted on
driving. The sunglasses made her seem doubly inscrutable, but I could tell from
her mouth that she was rather happy. We sped south, over the Staked Plains, and
in not very long were in Clovis, New Mexico, with Fort Sumner the next stop
down the road. As we were passing out of Clovis Cindy used the car phone to
check her service.

 
          
 
"Are you sure?" she asked, with a
slight frown. Then she hung up. I felt better immediately. Spud hadn't called.

 
          
 
Cindy reached over and took my hand.

 
          
 
"Are you sure that woman isn't a
hippie?" she asked.

 
          
 
"She's not a hippie."

 
          
 
"Why'd she leave her husband?" she
asked.

 
          
 
"How come you're so interested?"

 
          
 
"Don't berate me," she said.
"Just answer my question."

 
          
 
"Her husband was a spoiled rich
boy," I said.

 
          
 
She thought that one over for a while.

 
          
 
"That's good," she said. "He'll
probably get her back.”

 
          
 
"I doubt it," I said.

 
          
 
"He probably will," Cindy said.
"It's harder to leave a rich person."

 
          
 
"Is that your philosophy of life?" I
asked.

 
          
 
She didn't answer, but she kept holding my
hand. It was a beautiful day, with high fleecy clouds racing over
New Mexico
. It all seemed to be strange preparation
for a visit to Uncle Ike Spettle.

 
          
 
"It's a good thing we left town,"
Cindy said.

 
          
 
She didn't elaborate, and I didn't answer.

 
          
 
It was just past
midday
when we pulled into
Fort
Sumner
, passing a big antique shop that functioned
as a kind of homemade Billy the Kid museum. We stopped at a little cafe on the
main street and ate lunch. Cindy consumed her third steak in less than twelve
hours.

 
          
 
"That's your third steak in twelve
hours," I pointed out.

 
          
 
"So what?" she said. "Did you
expect me to ask them for veal nioise?" She was slightly belligerent, in
her insecurity.

 
          
 
The waitress at the cafe was named Myrtle. I
knew her slightly, from past visits. She was a big rawboned woman who took life
lightly. This last was an uncommon trait in eastern
New Mexico
, at least in my experience.

 
          
 
"Seen Uncle Ike today?" I
asked,
when Myrtle brought up two orders of peach cobbler
and a little pitcher of cream to pour on them.

 
          
 
"Yeah, he come in and gummed on a
doughnut awhile," she said. "I don't see what keeps the pore old
sucker from starvin' to death. He hasn't had a tooth in his head since 1956 and
he won't wear his dentures 'less he's on the TV."

 
          
 
"What sort of mood's he in?" I
asked.

 
          
 
"Bad," Myrtle said. "Hoot's
been beating him at dominoes, day after day. Uncle Ike ain't won in two weeks.
Losing always makes him feisty. He peed in the street three times last week—I
don't know what we're gonna do with the old sucker."

 
          
 
As we were about to cross the street to the
little domino parlor where Uncle Ike spent his days we heard my car phone ring.

 
          
 
"Answer it," Cindy said. "It
might be my service."

 
          
 
I didn't think it was her service, and I was
right. It was Coffee.

 
          
 
"Where are you?" she said. "You
never call me anymore."

 
          
 
"I’m in
New Mexico
," I said. "Fm very busy but I'll
call you a little later."

 
          
 
Cindy was standing two inches away, listening
to every word.

 
          
 
"I’m very disappointed in you.
Jack," Coffee said. "You used to call."

 
          
 
"Well, Fm very busy," I said.

 
          
 
"Oh, you always are, now," Coffee
said, with a heartbreaking little crack in her voice. "You used to treat
me with kind respect, but now you treat me awful."

 
          
 
I wanted to deny that I treated her awful, I
wanted to tell her I’d come and see her, I wanted to ask her why she sounded so
unhappy, but I didn't want to do any of those things with Cindy two inches
away, waiting with palpable annoyance for me to get off the phone.

 
          
 
"I'm just trying to make a big buy,"
I said. "I'll call you when I can."

 
          
 
Coffee sighed. She put her whole strange
little heart into the sigh.

 
          
 
"I thought I could count on you,"
she said. "I thought you'd be the one who was always nice."

 
          
 
I was beginning to think it was time to get
rid of the car phone. It was bringing me nothing but awkwardness.

 
          
 
"Coffee, will you just wait," I
said. "I'll call you when I can. It's not the end of the world."

 
          
 
"How would you know?" she said.
"It might be."

 
          
 
Then she hung up.

 
          
 
"Why do you let her call you if you're
divorced?" Cindy asked immediately. As we crossed the street she put her
sunglasses back on, a signal that she was very annoyed. Two cowboys in a pickup
stared at her as they went by, and then made a U-turn in order to come back by
and stare at her again.

 
          
 
"The fact that you've divorced somebody
doesn't mean you stop knowing them," I pointed out.

 
          
 
"It would if I did it," Cindy said
with finality.

 
          
 
After the windy brightness of the street the
little domino parlor was cool, dim, and dark. Only three people were in it:
Uncle Ike, a man named Hoot who looked older than Uncle Ike but was thirty-five
years younger, and a man they called Junior, who might have been in his late
sixties. They were concentrating hard on their play and we did nothing to
disturb them until Hoot started to shuffle the dominoes.

 
          
 
"You're a goddamn cheater," Uncle
Ike said, addressing Hoot. "That's how come you're winning."

 
          
 
"I'm smart is how come I'm winnin',"
Hoot said.

 
          
 
"Well, I've known a lot of smart men that
was domino
cheats
," Uncle Ike said. Of the three
he looked much the most alert, and was also the most spiffily dressed. He had
taken long ago to wearing a clean white shirt every day, and to polishing his
boots once a week, just in case a TV crew from
Clovis
or
Albuquerque
happened to wander in hoping to get a few
shots of him on his home ground. His shirt was starched to such
a crispness
that it crackled when he moved his dominoes. In
contrast, both Hoot and Junior were dressed in dirty khakis. They both wore
oily dozer caps, whereas Uncle Ike had on a neat, small-brimmed Stetson.

 
          
 
Uncle Ike had originally been of a fair
complexion, but 110 years in the wind and sun of
New Mexico
had gradually
freckled
him to an unusual degree. He consisted of layer upon layer of freckles,
overlapped and interwoven into a mosaic so thick that he seemed actually to be
brown, rather than fair. What was left of his hair was snow white. When we came
in his teeth were out, resting beside his elbow on the domino table.

 
          
 
"It's Jack," Hoot said, recognizing
me. "I guess he finally got marrit."

 
          
 
Uncle Ike swiveled around at once to inspect
my wife, and took a good long look at Cindy. His blue eyes had not lost any of
their keenness. He looked mostly at her nipples, which were puckered from our
walk across the cold street. He snapped his gums a few times, reflectively.

 
          
 
"Air you his wife?" he asked Cindy.

 
          
 
"Un-uh," Cindy said, not very
impressed with the domino parlor or the three men in it.

 
          
 
"I guess you're from
Hollywood
then," Uncle Ike said.

 
          
 
"Wanta make a motion picture about me? It
wouldn't be the first chanct I've had to be in a motion picture."

 
          
 
"Howdy, Uncle Ike," I said.
"You're looking feisty."

 
          
 
"He peed in the street three times last
week," Hoot remarked. "They're gonna put him away if he keeps that
up."

 
          
 
"Who's gonna do the puttin'?" Uncle
Ike asked belligerently. "I doubt they'll send in the National Guard just
because I took a piss."

 
          
 
"If that fat deputy ever gets the cuffs
on you they won't need
no
National Guard," Junior
remarked.

 
          
 
The threat of arrest did not seriously
interest Uncle Ike. He had not yet taken his little blue eyes off Cindy's nipples.

 
          
 
"How much is she gonna pay me to be in
the motion picture?" he asked, addressing me. "If it's just a talk
show I ain't interested. Get enough talk show business right around here."

 
          
 
"She's not from
Hollywood
," I said.

 
          
 
Uncle Ike worked his gums several times.

 
          
 
"Air you a libber?" Uncle Ike said.
Cindy had definitely caught his interest.

 
          
 
Cindy didn't reply. She was waiting for me to
begin negotiations for the boots, that and nothing more.

 
          
 
"You'll be right at home around here, if
you're a libber," Uncle Ike said.

 
          
 
"Yeah, Myrtle's a libber," Hoot
said.

 
          
 
"She's always been sassy," Uncle Ike
said. "That woman's sassed me about enough."

 
          
 
"She may sass you some more, before she's
through," Junior said.

 
          
 
"Somebody ought to take and break a bed
slat over that woman's noggin," Uncle Ike remarked.

 
          
 
"I wish you'd hurry up," Cindy said,
to me.

 
          
 
"This lady's got an art gallery," I
said. "It's in
Washington
,
D.C.
She's gonna put on a big exhibition of
cowboy boots in about a month. We thought maybe you'd loan us the Kid's boots
for a week or two, if we made it worth your while."

 
          
 
"Okay," Uncle Ike said, without a
moment's hesitation, surprising us all.

 
          
 
"I guess he's finally gone round the
bend. Junior," Hoot said.

 
          
 
Though surprised, I was not immediately
euphoric. From the way Uncle Ike was staring at Cindy I knew he had something
up his sleeve.

 
          
 
"Well, great," I said. "It's
just like we'll be renting them for about a month. How much do you want?"

 
          
 
"I always did want to go to
Washington
,
D.C.
," Uncle Ike said. "Hell, ol’ Geronimo got to go. All
them
old mangy Indian chiefs got to go."

 
          
 
"A hunnert and ten and all he wants to do
is
travel," Hoot said.

 
          
 
"
Whose else
boots was you gonna get for your show?" Uncle Ike inquired.

 
          
 
"Well, maybe Pancho Villa's," I
said.

 
          
 
"I never cared for Mexican boots,"
Uncle Ike said.