Cloudbursts

by Thomas McGuane

  Faucher was surveying the hills to the east. “Don’t worry about me overstaying my welcome,” he said. “I’m quite considerate that way.”

  “Farthest thing from my mind,” Briggs said.

  “Do you have an answering machine?”

  “Yes, and I’ve turned it on.”

  “A walk would be good,” Faucher said. “We’ll teach those fools to wait for the beep.”

  “I want you to see the homestead cemetery. It’s been fenced for eighty years and still has all the old prairie flowers that are gone everywhere else. I have some forebears there.”

  They followed a seasonal creek toward the low hills in the west where the late-morning sun illuminated towering white clouds whose tops tipped off in identical angles. The air was so clear that their shadows appeared like birthmarks on the grass hillsides. Faucher seemed happier.

  “I was glad to get out of Boston,” he said. “It was unbelievably muggy. There was a four-day teachers’ demonstration across from my apartment, you know, where they go ‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, we don’t want to’—whatever. Four days, sweating and listening to those turds chant.”

  Briggs could see the grove of ash and alders at the cemetery just emerging from the horizon as they hiked. About twice a summer, very old people with California or Washington plates came, mowed the grass, and otherwise tended to the few graves: most homesteaders had starved out before they’d had time to die. These were the witnesses.

  As they came over a slight rise, a sheet of standing rainwater was revealed in an old buffalo wallow; a coyote lit out across the water with unbelievable speed, leaving fifteen yards of pluming rooster tails behind him. Erik gazed for a moment, and said, “That was no dog. You could run a hundred of them by me and I’d never say it was a dog. Not me.”

  At the little graveyard, John said, “All screwed by the government.” He was standing in front of his family graves, just like all the others: names, dates, nothing else. No amount of nostalgia would land him in this sad spot. “Cattle haven’t been able to get in here since the thirties. The plants are here, the old heritage flowers and grasses. Surely you think that’s interesting.”

  “I’m going to have to take your word for it.”

  “Erik, look at what’s in front of you,” Briggs said, more sharply than he intended, but Faucher just stared off, not seeming to hear him.

  Needle-and-thread, buffalo, and orchard grass spread like a billowing counterpane around the small headstones, but shining through in the grass were shooting stars, pasqueflowers, prairie smoke, arrowleaf balsam, wild roses, streaks of violet, white, pink, and egg yolk, small clouds of bees, and darting blue butterflies. A huge cottonwood sheltered it all. Off to one side was a vigorous bull thistle that had passed unnoticed by the people in battered sedans; hard old people who didn’t talk, taking turns with the scythe. They looked into cellar holes and said, “We grew up here.” No sense conveying this to Erik, who mooned into the middle distance by the old fence.

  “I could stand a nap,” he said.

  “Then that’s what you shall have. But in the meanwhile, please try to get something out of these beautiful surroundings. It’s tiresome just towing you around.”

  “I was imagining laying my weary bones among these dead. In the words of Chief Joseph, ‘From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.’ Who was in the house last night? I hope they weren’t looking for me.”

  “That was my neighbor and his wife. They stopped by for a beer.”

  “Well, you know your own society. This would seem very strange in Boston.”

  * * *

  —

  From the alcove off his bedroom, which served as his office and which contained a small safe, a desk, a telephone, and a portable computer, he could look through the old glass windows with their bubbles and imperfections and see Erik sitting on the lawn, arms propped behind him, face angled into the sun like a girl in a Coppertone ad. Briggs was negotiating for a tiny community in Delaware that was being blackmailed by a flag manufacturer for tax abatement against purported operating costs, absent which they threatened to close and strand 251 minimum-wage workers. A North Carolina village that had lost its pulp mill wanted the company, and if Briggs worked as hard as he should, one town would die.

  He explained this to Faucher as they drove to town for dinner. Faucher made a bye-bye movement with his hand and said Hasta la vista to whichever town it was that had to disappear. But it was otherwise a nice ride down the valley, mountains emerging below fair-weather altocumulus clouds, small ranches on either side at the heads of sparkling creeks. A self-propelled swather followed by ravens moved down a field, pivoting nimbly at the end of each row, while in the next meadow, already gleaned, its stubble shining just above the ground, a wheel line sprinkler emitted a low fog on the regrowth. A boy in a straw hat stood at a concrete headgate and, turning a wheel, let a flood of irrigation water race down a dusty ditch.

  Town was three churches, a row of bars, a hotel, and a filling station. Each church had a glassed frame standing in front, the Catholic with Mass schedules, the Lutheran with a passage from the Bible, and the Evangelical with a warning. The bars, likewise, had bright signs inviting ranchers, families, sportsmen, and motorcyclists respectively. Different kinds of vehicles were parked in front of each: old sedans in front of the ranchers’ bar and pickup trucks in front of the video arcade and next to the hotel some foreign models from Bozeman and Livingston. The clouds were moving fast now because of high-altitude winds, and when Briggs parked and got out of the car, the hotel towering over him looked like the prow of a ship crossing a clear-blue ocean.

  Faucher scanned his menu vigorously. “My God, this all looks good and will look even better after a nice cocktail.” He was a vampire coming to life at sundown; with each drink pale flames arose beneath his skin.

  They ordered from a ruddy-faced girl who seemed excited by every choice they made, especially the Spanish fish soup with which they both commenced. She had a Fritz the Kat tattoo on her upper arm, which Faucher peered at over the top of his menu. John asked for a bottle of Bandol, and when the candles had been lit, he thought the way lay clear for Erik to make himself plain. Erik looked down at the table for a long moment, absentmindedly rearranging his silverware. He sighed and raised his eyes in self-abnegation. “I feel right at home here,” said Erik. “Talk about your fresh start!” Briggs remained quiet and didn’t take the bait.

  The mayor came to the table with the vibrant merry hustle with which he drew all attention to himself. Briggs introduced him to Faucher, smiled patiently, and did not rise but stared at the mayor’s fringed vest. Following a local convention, the mayor asked John when he had gotten back.

  “I’ve been back about five times this summer,” said John, “from Tanzania, Berlin, Denver, and Surinam.” He was always exasperated at being asked this question.

  The mayor held his head in his hands. “Surinam! Never heard of it! Denver, I’ve heard of! What’s in Surinam?”

  “Bauxite.”

  “Baux—”

  “Pal,” said Faucher, “give it a rest. We’re trying to eat.” He made a shooing motion and the mayor left; Faucher raised his eyebrows as he asked Briggs, “How can we miss him if he won’t go away?”

  The last time Briggs had seen him, Faucher had been insuring marine cargo out of a nice office on Old Colony Avenue in Boston and doing rather well, especially in the early going, when Everett Hoyt had tipped him off to opportunities with far-ranging classmates. Now, Faucher said, he was an investment adviser at a tiny merchant bank in Boston, a real boutique bank. He liked meeting his people in St. Louis Square on warm spring days (he had a key) to lay out the year’s strategy, clients who were charmed by his arrival on a Raleigh ten-speed. For a long time he had made cavalier decisions about his clients’ investments, but now, in harder-to-understand times, they trusted him less and obliged him to chase obscure indices across the moonscape of U.S. and foreign equities. He vowed to deepen his m
ystery. He kept a hunter-jumper at Beverly and dropped into equestrian talk to baffle the credulous, using terms like volade and piaffe and volte to describe the commonplace trades he made (and commissioned), or comparing a sustained investment strategy to such esoterica as Raimondo d’Inzeo’s taking the Irish Bank at Aachen on the great Merano. His own equestrian activities, he admitted, consisted in jumping obstacles that would scarcely weary a poodle, in company with eight- and nine-year-old girls and under the tutelage of roaring Madame Schacter, a tyrant in jodhpurs married to a Harvard statistician. To his clientele, yachts and horses were reassuring entities, things to which one’s attention could turn when times were good.

  Faucher said, “John, I’ve got to tell you, nothing makes me happy anymore. I need new work. I want to be more like you, John. I need a gimmick. You get the time-zone watch from Sharper Image, and the rest is a walk in the park. Whereas my job is to reassure people who are afraid to lose what they have because they don’t know how they got it in the first place. John, it’s not that I mind lying, but I like variety, and I’m not getting it.” His face was mottled with emotion Briggs found hard to fathom. “I desperately wish to be a cowboy.”

  “Of course you do, Erik.”

  “That family”—Faucher pointed conspicuously toward a nearby table with a rancher, his wife, and their three nearly grown children—“has been here an hour, and they have never spoken to each other once. Don’t people here know how to have fun?” The family was listening to this, the father staring into the space just over his plate, his wife grinning at a mustard jar in fear. “We do that when we hate each other,” Faucher said.

  “I don’t think they hate each other, Erik.”

  “Well, it sure looks like it! I’ve never seen such depressing people.”

  Marjorie proceeded from the bar with a colorful tall drink. She was wearing a red tunic with military buttons over a short skirt and buttoned boots, hair pulled tight and tied straight atop her head with a silver ribbon. Briggs was glad to see her; she looked full of life. She said, “May I?”

  Briggs got quickly to his feet and drew a chair for Marjorie, steadying her arm as she sat. Faucher looked very glum indeed. He said in an unconvincing monotone, “Sorry I missed you this morning. I understand you cooked a marvelous breakfast.”

  “It filled us up, didn’t it?” she said to Briggs.

  “All we could eat and no leftovers,” Briggs agreed.

  “What’d you do with the rental car?” Faucher barked.

  “In front of the bank, keys under the seat.”

  Faucher lost interest in the car. “Not like I’ll need it,” he said with a moan.

  The ranch family stood without looking at one another, obliging at least two of them to survey the crown molding. The father glared at Erik and dribbled some coins to the table from a huge paw while his waitress scowled from across the room. Karaoke had started at the bar, and a beaming wheat farmer was singing “That’s Amore.”

  “Can I get a menu?” Marjorie asked, craning around the room.

  “Has it possibly occurred to you that we’re having a private conversation?” Faucher said.

  Marjorie stopped all animation for a moment. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She looked crushed as she arose. Briggs tried to smile and opened his hands helplessly. She gave him a little wave, paused uncertainly, picked up her drink, and then turned toward the bar and was gone.

  Briggs’s face was red. “I’m surprised you have any friends at all!” He was practically shouting.

  “I only have one: you.”

  “Well, don’t count on it if you continue in this vein.”

  “I suppose it made sense for me to make two changes of planes plus a car rental to have you address me with such loftiness,” Faucher wailed. “I came to you in need, but your ascent to the frowning classes must make that unclear.”

  After dinner, they had a glass of brandy. And then Marjorie appeared at the karaoke and managed to raise the volume as she belted out “Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song,” followed immediately by a Cher imitation, pursed lips and slumberous eyes. “I Got You Babe”—she directed various frug moves and Vegas gestures in Faucher’s direction.

  Feeling under attack, Faucher urged Briggs to call for the bill and pay it promptly. “I can’t believe how quickly things have gone downhill,” he said, as if under mortar fire.

  Marjorie followed them out of the bar. She was so angry she moved in jerks. She walked straight over to Briggs and said, “You think you’re above all this, don’t you?” Then she slapped him across the face, so astonishing him that he neither raised a protective hand nor averted the now-stinging cheek. “You want another one?” she inquired, lips flattened against her teeth.

  “I think I’ll hold off,” Briggs said.

  “Ask yourself what Jesus would do,” Faucher suggested.

  Marjorie whirled on him, and John hurried away toward a boarded-up dry-goods store where he’d parked; Faucher joined him. When they got to the car, they looked back to see Marjorie’s friends restraining her by the arms theatrically. A cowboy with a goatee and jet-black Stetson stared ominously as their car passed close to him on the way out of town.

  “Don’t drive next to them, for Christ’s sake!” Faucher said. “The big one is about to come out of the bag!”

  Faucher mused as they drove south into the piney hills and grassland.

  “People have become addicted to hidden causes. That’s why you were the one to get slapped. They’ve been trained to mistrust anything that’s right in front of their eyes. That woman was a turnoff. Everything reminded her of family, like it was a substance. Not the family or my family but just family, like it was liverwurst or toothpaste. You can’t imagine the difficulty I had preserving the pathetic taco I was trying to sell as an erection in the face of all that enthusiasm for family. I told her she was amazing, and that seemed to take all the wind out of her sails. Oh, John, my path has been uneven. I’ve made so many enemies. Some of them intend to track me with dogs.”

  “Outlast them.” Briggs listlessly watched the road for deer.

  “I hope I can. Really, I’ve come here because you never quite give up on me, do you?”

  “We’re old friends,” Briggs droned.

  “Perhaps once I’m a cowboy, you’ll invest your remarks with greater meaning. Anyway, to continue my saga: I knew the noose was tightening; charges were being prepared. But I had been so nimble over the years at helping my clients improperly state assets for death taxes that they saw the wisdom in dropping all complaints against me.”

  Erik had moved in with his daughter and harassed her with dietary advice until she drove him to the bus station. Settling for a year in Waltham, he lived on the thinnest stream of remaining Boston comforts that shielded him from free-falling disclosure of his curiosity-filled investment days. He might have stayed, but the only job he could find was teaching speed-reading with a primitive machine that exposed only a single line of text at a time, gradually accelerating down the page; that didn’t appeal to him. He went back to Boston to “clean some clocks,” but important inhibitions were gone and he crossed the line, running afoul of the law at several points, especially attempted blackmail. Nevertheless, he survived until a client—with whom he had reached a mutually satisfactory settlement exchanging forgiveness for secrecy—died; and that brought snoopy children into Faucher’s world, followed by investigators, and “Net-net, I’m on the run.”

  * * *

  —

  Just before sunrise, Briggs heard Faucher calling to him. He climbed the stairs, pulling on a sweatshirt and his shorts, and entered the guest room. He found Erik kneeling next to the window, curtains pulled back slightly. He gestured for Briggs to join him.

  In the yard below, two men stood smoking next to a vehicle with government plates. The smoke could be smelled in Erik’s room as he stared hard at them. “They’re here for me, John,” he said. “I can’t believe you’ve done this. Now I’m going to jail.”
/>
  “You know perfectly well that I didn’t do this,” Briggs said. But nothing could prevent him from feeling unreasonably guilty.

  “Judas Iscariot. That’s how I shall always know you.”

  They carried Faucher away. Briggs ran alongside in an L.L. Bean bathrobe pouring out offers of help, but Erik waved him off like a man shooing flies.

  * * *

  —

  The weather began to change, and the high white clouds that had remained at their stations for so long moved across the horizon, leaving ghostly streaks in their place. One quiet afternoon, while John looked at the casework that was to follow the demise of the town in Delaware and the new prosperity of the town in North Carolina—mine mitigation in Manitoba, bike paths, a public swimming pool, a library wing in exchange for ground permanently poisoned by cyanide—the phone rang. It was Carol, bringing news that Erik was going to prison. He had been ruinously disagreeable in court, which inflated the sentences to which his crimes had given rise. She aired this as another grievance, as though little good could be extracted from Faucher now. “You were with him, John, why didn’t you help him?”

  “I didn’t know how to help him. We were just spending time together.”

  “You were just spending time together?”

  “I’m afraid that’s it. I feel I wasn’t very perceptive.”

  “You have my agreement on that,” said Carol. “He left you literally eager for imprisonment. You had a chance to put him back on his feet, and you let him fall.”

  “Well, I don’t know the facts. I—”

  “You don’t need to know the facts. You need to listen to what I’m telling you.”

  “Carol, I don’t think you understand how tiresome you’ve become.”

  “Is that your way of commiserating with me?”

  “Yes,” Briggs said simply. “Yes, Carol, it is.”

  * * *

  —

  At times, John worried there was something he should have done. The whole experience had been like missing a catch on the high trapeze: the acrobat is pulling away from you, falling into the distance. Or perhaps the acrobat is pulling you off your own trapeze. Neither thought was pleasant.