The Last Picture Show

by Larry McMurtry

  They were silent again, Sam the Lion thinking of the lovely, spritely girl he had once led into the water, right there, where they were sitting.

  “We ought to go to a real fishin’ tank next year,” Sam said finally. “It don’t do to think about things like that too much. If she was here now I’d probably be crazy agin in about five minutes. Ain’t that ridiculous?”

  A half-hour later, when they had gathered up the gear and were on the way to town, he answered his own question.

  “It ain’t, really,” he said. “Being crazy about a woman like her’s always the right thing to do. Being a decrepit old bag of bones is what’s ridiculous.”

  It had rained the week before and there were deep ruts in the dirt road. Sonny drove as carefully as he could, but Sam the Lion scratched his head and watched the speedometer nervously, convinced that they were proceeding at a reckless speed.

  “Did you know about me and Mrs. Popper?” Sonny asked suddenly, feeling that if he was ever going to talk about it the time was at hand.

  “Yeah, how is Ruth?” Sam asked. “I haven’t had a close look at her in years.”

  “Sometimes she’s okay,” Sonny said. “Sometimes she doesn’t seem to be too happy.”

  Sam snorted. “That’s probably the understatement of the day,” he said. “I figured her for a suicide ten years ago—people are always turning out to be tougher than I think they are.”

  “I don’t exactly know what to do about her,” Sonny said hopefully.

  Sam the Lion laughed almost as loudly as he had on the tank dam.

  “Don’t look at me for advice,” he said. “I never know exactly what to do about anybody, least of all women. You might stay with her and get some good out of her while you’re growing up. Somebody ought to get some good out of Ruth.”

  They pulled onto the highway and in a few minutes the fenceposts were going by so fast that Sam the Lion could hardly see them. He breathed as little as possible until they hit the city limits sign—then Sonny slowed down and he relaxed.

  “Say, was Duane along that night you all got Billy in the mess?” he asked. “I’ve been wondering about that lately.”

  Sonny was caught off guard and was completely at a loss to answer. He automatically started to lie, but because it was Sam the Lion the lie wouldn’t come out. He decided it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth, but the truth wouldn’t come out either. First the lie and then the truth stuck in his throat, and right in the same place.

  “I see,” Sam said. “Watch out, that’s Old Lady Peters backing out of her driveway up there. She thinks it’s still 1930 an’ she’s just as apt to back right in front of you as not.”

  He gripped the door handle tightly, prepared to leap out if necessary, but Sonny had seen the old lady blocks before he had and calmly, out of habit, swerved wide around her and coasted them safely up to the poolhall door.

  CHAPTER XV

  THREE DAYS AFTER the fishing trip, Duane got so frustrated that he beat up Lester Marlow. Jacy and Lester had gone to Wichita together three Saturday nights in a row, and Duane could stand it no longer.

  “I don’t care if it ain’t Lester’s fault,” Duane told Sonny. “Maybe if he has a couple of front teeth missin’ Mrs. Farrow won’t be so anxious to have Jacy go with him.”

  Sam the Lion overheard the remark and gave a skeptical chuckle. “The only person who’ll profit by that sort of reasonin’ is Lester’s dentist,” he said. “Maybe Jacy likes to go with Lester.”

  That was an incredible thing to suggest. Duane and Sonny were both flabbergasted.

  “You don’t think she wants to go with that fart, do you?” Duane asked indignantly.

  “Well, Lester ain’t entirely unlikable,” Sam replied, not at all flustered. “I don’t know Jacy well enough to know what she wants, but you’ve been blaming her mother all this time for something that might not be her mother’s fault. If I was you I’d investigate.”

  Duane stormed out of the poolhall, mad as he could be. He didn’t want to investigate, he just wanted to whip Lester, and about midnight that night, as Lester was passing the courthouse, Duane waved him down. Sonny was the only other person to see it.

  “I know you’re mad,” Lester said, as soon as he got out of the car, “but you needn’t be. All I’ve done is take her to dances. I’ve never even kissed her.”

  It was a shameful admission, but true: Jacy gave Lester absolutely nothing in the way of intimacies. She didn’t have to.

  “You took her to a naked swimming party,” Duane said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t kiss her.”

  “I didn’t,” Lester said, but at that point Duane hit him on the mouth. Lester swung a half-hearted blow in return and found himself sitting down—at least he found himself getting up, and he could only assume he had been knocked down first. The fight was well started and things were easier for him: he couldn’t feel himself being hit, and after three or four more licks Duane bloodied his nose and stopped fighting.

  “That’s just a taste,” he said. “Don’t you take her anywhere else!”

  Lester said nothing, and Duane and Sonny walked away. Not saying anything was something of a triumph, Lester thought. He had made no promises. He went across the street to the filling station and ran some water on his nose, thinking that in a way he had been ganged up on. Sonny had been there. It could even have been that he was not knocked down fairly—Sonny could have tripped him. On the way back to Wichita he concluded that Sonny probably did trip him, and instead of going to his home he drove out to a place on Holiday Creek where some of the wilder boys often gathered on Saturday nights. A lot of boys were there, sitting on the fenders of their cars drinking beer, and when they saw how bloody Lester was they were briefly impressed. What happened? they wanted to know.

  “Couple of roughnecks beat me up,” Lester said stoically. “You know, Crawford and Moore, over in Thalia. It was about Jacy Farrow. I would have done okay if one of them hadn’t tripped me.”

  “Those motherfuckers,” one of the boys said. “We ought to go over there and pile their asses.”

  “No,” Lester said gallantly. “I don’t want anybody fighting my fights.”

  “Aw, hell, it’d be somethin’ to do,” a boy said. “Besides we can get the Bunne brothers to do the fighting.” The Bunne brothers were local Golden Gloves champions, a welterweight and a light-heavy. They enjoyed fighting, in the ring or out.

  Lester didn’t try again to discourage them, but for himself he decided it would be best not to go back to Thalia. The boys took that in stride—they didn’t really like Lester much and were just as glad he stayed in Wichita. The nice thing about his getting beat up was that it gave them an excuse to drive to Thalia and watch a fight.

  The Bunne brothers were located at a Pioneer drive in, trying to make some girls in a green Pontiac. The welterweight was named Mickey, the light-heavy, Jack. They were glad to get a chance to go fighting: the girls were just a punch of pimply virgins who had run off from a slumber party in Burkburnett. A couple of boys elected to stay and work on them, but that still left seven raring to go. They piled in a second-hand Mercury and headed for Thalia, driving about eighty-five and laughing and talking. Saturday night had taken a turn for the better.

  After the fight with Lester, Sonny and Duane walked over to the café to have a cheeseburger. Duane really wanted sympathy, but Genevieve was not inclined to give him any.

  “No sir,” she said. “There wasn’t any point in your bullyin’ Lester—it ain’t his fault you can’t make your girl friend behave.”

  “You’re as bad as Sam,” Duane said bitterly. “Why Jacy would marry me tonight, if she had the chance.”

  Sonny got up and put a couple of nickels in the jukebox, hoping a little music would ease the tension. It didn’t seem to help much, so after a few minutes the boys left and drove out to the Y, a fork in the road about five miles from town. The fork was on top of a hill, and when they got there they sat and looked across the flat at the c
luster of lights that was Thalia. In the deep spring darkness the lights shone very clear. The windows of the pickup were down and they could smell the fresh smell of the pastures.

  They only sat a few minutes, and then drove back to town. When they pulled up at the rooming house the Wichita boys were there, sitting on the fenders of the Mercury.

  “There’s the Bunne brothers,” Duane said. “That damn Lester must have sent ’em.”

  Both of them were badly scared, but they didn’t want the Wichita boys to know that so they got out as if nothing were wrong. For a moment no one said anything. Sonny nervously scraped his sole on the pavement and the sound was very loud in the still night.

  Mickey Bunne came cockily over and broke the silence.

  “Hear you men beat the piss out of Lester,” he said.

  “I beat the piss out of him,” Duane said quickly. “Sonny wasn’t involved.”

  “That ain’t the way Lester tells it.”

  The other boys got off the fenders and began to edge around.

  “He probably lied about it,” Duane said. “I didn’t hit him over five times, anyway. I told him to stop going with my girl.”

  Mickey moved a step closer. “He said you both whipped him.”

  “You don’t really think it would take two of us to whip Lester, do you?” Sonny asked. “All he had was a bloody nose and a busted lip. If we’d both fought he wouldn’t have been able to drive home, much less tell lies about it.”

  The Wichita boys were momentarily silent, even Mickey. What Sonny said was obviously true: it didn’t take two people to whip Lester Marlow, and he hadn’t been damaged much, anyway. Most of the boys didn’t feel particularly unfriendly to Duane and Sonny, but that didn’t matter. There had to be a fight. The Bunne brothers wouldn’t go home without a fight. Fortunately Mickey Bunne was quick-witted and saw right away what tack to take.

  “Who whipped him don’t matter,” he said. “We don’t like you country boys tellin’ us who to go with and who to leave alone. We like to screw country girls once in a while.”

  Duane was getting a little nervous. “I didn’t tell him not to screw country girls,” he said. “I told him not to bother Jacy. He can fuck the whole rest of this town for all I care—I’m just tired of him botherin’ Jacy.”

  Mickey grinned. “Lester don’t bother her,” he said. “She laps it up. I seen her naked one time myself, out at Bobby Sheen’s. She ain’t bad lookin’. Who she really likes is Bobby Sheen—him and her played around all one night. I guess she’s about as much ours as she is yours. I may want to go with her myself some time, you can’t tell.”

  That was too much for Duane: he hit at Mickey, and the fight was on. It was not too bad for Duane, although Mickey beat him handily and knocked him down once. Duane was so mad he didn’t really feel the pounding he took. He was fighting for his girl, after all. Sonny was the one who suffered most. He wasn’t mad at all, and he wasn’t fighting for anyone in particular. Besides that, he didn’t like to fight and didn’t know how, whereas Jack Bunne liked it and knew how very well. It made for a painful beating.

  Fortunately the Bunne brothers knew when to quit. They were not looking for trouble, just for excitement. Sonny and Duane were both standing when they quit, although Sonny wanted very much to sit down. He had a pain in his ribs.

  “Well let’s go, men,” one of the boys said. “The deputy sheriff’s liable to come drivin’ by.”

  “We ain’t broke no laws,” Jack Bunne said, not even winded, but the boys all went on and piled in the Mercury. They whooped and laughed as the car pulled away.

  “Motherfuckers,” Duane said wearily.

  Sonny walked over and sat down on the curb. One of his ears was paining him severely, and he had caught at least a couple of hard licks in the rib cage. Duane came and sat down too. They were both too winded and depressed to say anything. It was enough just to sit. The town was very quiet. From the west, far out in the pastures, they heard some hounds, so far away that their braying sounded as thin as the yapping of puppies.

  “Why don’t we just take off an’ go someplace,” Duane said. “I’m sick of this town. You’re the only friend I got here, except Jacy.”

  “You mean go and stay gone?” Sonny asked.

  “No, just for a day or two. We could go to Mexico and get back by sometime Monday.”

  “Reckon the pickup would make it?” Sonny asked, welcoming the prospect.

  They got out their billfolds and counted their money. Saturday had been payday, and between them they had almost a hundred dollars.

  “We can make it on that,” Duane said. “Let’s go clean up.”

  A few minutes later Sonny vomited all over the bathroom, but once he got the mess cleaned up he felt much better. His ear was not throbbing so badly. They put on clean Levi’s and shirts and doctored themselves with aspirin, convinced they would both survive. The pickup didn’t have much gas in it and they had to stop in town and wake up Andy Fanner, who had a key to one of the gas stations.

  “Why you boys or-tant to go all that way,” Andy said cheerfully. “The water’s buggy in Mexico.”

  “We’ll just drink beer and tequila,” Duane said.

  “You need-ernt to tell me,” Andy said sagely. “I been there. You get the clap you’ll wish you hadn’t drunk nothin’. Where you goin’, Laredo?”

  The boys looked at one another. They hadn’t planned that far ahead; they were just going to Mexico.

  “Which is the best place?” Sonny asked.

  Andy wasn’t positive and he didn’t have a map, so they went back to the café and got one out of the glove compartment of Genevieve’s old Dodge. They took it inside to read it.

  “Good lord,” Genevieve said, when she saw their skinned-up faces. They explained, and she sat down in a booth with them. “You all can just have the map,” she said. “I ain’t going far enough away that I need to worry about getting lost, I don’t guess.”

  “Let’s go all the way to Matamoros, since we’re goin’,” Duane suggested. “I’ve heard it’s about the wildest.”

  “Matamoros suits me,” Sonny said, gulping his coffee. They could hardly believe such an adventure was before them, and they wanted to get away before something happened to stop it.

  Genevieve, however, was a little dubious. She followed them out to the pickup to see them off. The streets were empty, the streetlights shining palely. The stoplight blinked red and green all to itself.

  “This pickup don’t look so good,” she said. The boys were so eager that it made her strangely sad. “Have either of you ever been that far away before?”

  “Austin’s the farthest I’ve been,” Sonny said. It was the same with Duane, and Matamoros was almost twice as far as Austin. It made them all the more eager, but to their amazement Genevieve suddenly began to cry about something, right there on the street. Sonny had been just about to start the motor when she put her elbows on the pickup window and wiped away the tears with her hand. Both boys were stricken, afraid they were going to miss the trip after all.

  “Why don’t you boys take my car?” Genevieve sniffed. “You’ll never make it in this old pickup.”

  They were astonished. It was an unprecedented offer. Women were clearly beyond all understanding.

  “Naw, we better go in this one,” Sonny told her softly. She was looking off down the street—he had never noticed before, but she seemed lonesome.

  “We might wreck yours, an’ then where would we be?” he added.

  “Okay,” Genevieve said, hardly paying attention. Something made her breasts ache. “Wait just a minute.”

  She went in the café and got a ten dollar bill out of her purse. After she had wiped her eyes with a Kleenex she took the money outside and handed it to Sonny.

  “Hide that somewhere,” she said. “Use it when you don’t have anything else to use. I’d like for you to get back in time for your graduation.”

  Both boys assured her that the money was quite unnecessa
ry, but she pressed it on them anyway. “Sam’s up there sitting on the curb,” she said. “Guess he can’t sleep. You might go say good-bye to him.”

  The boys were glad of anything that would prolong the ecstasy of departure a few more minutes. Sonny backed solemnly into the empty street and turned toward the poolhall. Sam the Lion was sitting on the curb, scratching his ankles. Sonny drove right up in front of him and leaned out the window.

  “Better come go with us,” he said. “We’re headed for the Valley.”

  Astonished, Sam got up from the curb and came over to the pickup. He peered at the boys curiously.

  “Going to the Valley tonight,” he said. “My God.” He was touched by the folly of youth and stood with his foot on the running board a moment.

  “I guess the town can get along without us till Monday,” Sonny said.

  “I reckon,” Sam said lightly. “If I was young enough to bounce that far I’d go with you. Need any money?”

  “No. We got plenty.”

  “You can’t tell,” Sam said, fishing out his billfold. “Better take ten dollars for insurance. They say money kinda melts when you take it across a border.”

  The boys were too embarrassed to tell Sam that Genevieve had given them some already. They took the bill guiltily, anxious to be off. Sam stepped back to the curb and the boys waved and made a wide U-turn in the empty street. Genevieve was still outside the café and they waved at her too as they went by. She watched them, hugging her breasts. When they got to the stoplight it was red and they stopped, even though there wasn’t another moving car within fifteen miles of them. The light winked green and the pickup turned the corner and sped out of sight.

  Genevieve went over and kicked lightly at the front tire of her Dodge—to her the tire always looked low. The boys had made her remember what it was to be young. Once, before they had any kids, she and her husband Dan took off one weekend and drove to Raton, New Mexico. They stayed in a motel, lost twenty dollars at the horse races, made love six times in two days, and had dinner in the coffee shop of a fancy restaurant. She had even worn eye shadow. Romance might not last, but it was something while it did. She looked up the street and waved at Sam the Lion, but he was looking the other way and didn’t notice her and she went back into the empty café, wishing for a few minutes that she was young again and free and could go rattling off across Texas toward the Rio Grande.