Cloudbursts

by Thomas McGuane

  The sun rose high overhead and warmed the gravel bar. Jack’s arm was getting tired, and eventually he stretched out on the ground with his hands behind his head. The heat felt so good, and the river sounded so sweet this close to his ear. Let Tony catch all the fish, he thought; I am at peace.

  “How are you going to catch a fish that way, Jack?”

  Tony was standing over him. He hadn’t even heard the motor.

  “I’m not. Did you catch anything?”

  “No.”

  “See? You could have had a nice nap.”

  Tony sat down next to Jack on the gravel and glanced over at Hewlitt, who was carrying their lunch box from the boat to the shore. “You know what old Eldorado did before he was a wilderness outfitter? Guess.”

  “Lumberjack?”

  “Way off. He was a pharmacist.”

  “I’m surprised they even had them up here.”

  “This was in Phoenix.”

  Jack thought for a moment, and then asked, “Do you think he knows what he’s doing?”

  “No.”

  “Are we going to catch fish?”

  “It seems unlikely.”

  They were interrupted by a cry from Hewlitt, whose rod had bent into a deep bow.

  “Jesus. I didn’t even see him cast,” Jack said.

  The two men hurried over. Hewlitt glanced at them and said, “First cast! He just mauled it.”

  The fish exploded into the air and tail-danced across the river.

  “Looks like a real beauty,” said Tony grimly, his hands plunged deep in his pockets.

  After several more jumps and runs, Hewlitt had the fish at the beach and, laying down his rod, knelt beside it, holding it under its tail and belly. It was big, thick, and flashed silver with every movement as Hewlitt removed the hook. Tony and Jack craned over him to better see the creature, and Hewlitt bent to kiss it. “Oh, baby,” he murmured. Then he let it go.

  “What’d you do that for?” Tony wailed. The fish was swimming off, deeper and deeper, until its glimmer was lost in the dark. “We could have had fresh fish for lunch!”

  Their guide, in response, got right in Tony’s face. “Don’t go there, mister,” he said with an odd intensity. “You don’t want that on your karma.” Then he walked back to the boat and dragged the anchor farther up the shore.

  “My God,” Tony said. “What have we got ourselves into?” But Jack was simply pleased with everything.

  A few minutes later, he even made a possibly insincere fuss over the bologna sandwiches. “Is there any lettuce or anything?”

  “Doesn’t keep without refrigeration. Where do you think you are?”

  “The Aleguketuk. You already told me.”

  “Nice river, isn’t it?”

  “I wish it had more fish,” said Tony. “Although it’s obviously not a problem for you.”

  “Nyewp, not a problem.”

  As Hewlitt went to the boat to look for something, Tony said, “Ex–pill salesman.”

  “But fun to be with.”

  Jack had gone through times like this with Tony in the past: just be patient, he knew, and his friend would soon be chasing his own tail. It had already started. Tony had come unglued once when both couples had gone to a beginners’ tennis camp in Boca Raton—thrown his racket, the whole nine yards. Jack had just let it sink in with Jan, what she had done with this nut. He knew he shouldn’t feel this way: Jan had made it clear she regretted the whole thing, but he felt doomed to rub it in for the rest of their lives, or at least until she quit marveling over how fit Tony and Gerri were. He always suspected she included Gerri only as camouflage when she mentioned it. He’d seen this fitness language before: buns of steel, washboard abs, power pecs—all just code for Tony hovering over Jan like a vulture. And now, because Tony and Gerri were divorcing, Jack feared that further indiscretions might be on tap.

  Tony threw his bologna sandwich into the river. “I can’t eat it.”

  Hewlitt had his mouth full. “Plan on foraging?”

  Tony sat down on the ground, elbows on his knees, and held his head in despair.

  No other fish were caught that day, and neither man slept well that night. The next day a hard rain confined them to their tent; Tony read Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime in Golf, and Jack did sudoku until he was sick of it. The weather finally lifted in time for the third night’s evening fire, and Hewlitt emerged wearing only his long underwear to prepare the meal, which was a huge shish kebab with only meat the entire length of the stick. When it was cooked, Hewlitt flicked the flesh onto their tin plates, which were so thin you could feel the heat through their bottoms. Afterward Hewlitt recited a Robert Service poem—“There are strange things done in the midnight sun”—so slowly that Tony and Jack were frantic at its conclusion.

  “Where exactly was that drugstore you worked in?” Tony asked.

  Hewlitt stared at him for a long time before speaking. “A pox on you, sir.”

  Back in the tent, Jack asked, “Aren’t you concerned that he’ll confiscate the impregnated craft-shop dolls’ eyes?”

  “What difference does it make? They haven’t worked so far.”

  “Tony, it was a joke. Jesus, for a fancy doctor with a five-thousand-square-foot home on the golf course, you sure haven’t kept your sense of humor.”

  “Fifty-two hundred. Get some sleep, Jack. You’re getting crabby.”

  Jack had worked for the county all those years since the National Guard. In ’96 he had denied Tony a well permit for his lawn-sprinkling system, and Tony had never gotten over it. It was payback for the little nothing with Jan, he was convinced, even though in reality it was no more than a conventional ruling on the law, which Tony, as was often the case, thought should be bent ever so slightly. Jack had explained the legal basis for his decision without denying that it was pleasant seeing Tony choke on this one. Tony had put his hand in Jack’s face and said, “This is for surgery, not for holding a garden hose.”

  “You might want to tone down the square footage, if your time is limited,” Jack had replied. “That’s an awful lot of lawn.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about!” Tony had shouted back. “You don’t even have a lawn, you have fucking pea rock!”

  Hewlitt must have been throwing more wood on the fire. You could see the flare of the flames through the walls of the tent. From time to time, he laughed aloud.

  “Do you suppose he’s laughing at us?” Tony asked.

  “Things can still turn out. We have time.”

  “At least we got away together,” Tony said. “We used to do more of this. It’s important. It makes everything come back. We’re kids again. We’re who we used to be.”

  “Not really,” said Jack. “You used to be nicer to me.”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He wished he hadn’t said such a thing, and his throat ached.

  “What about Cancún in 2003? It didn’t cost you a nickel.”

  Jack didn’t know how to reply. He was in such pain. The tent fell silent once more. When Tony finally spoke, his voice had changed.

  “Jack. I don’t have another friend.”

  Jack wanted to make Tony feel better then, but it wasn’t coming to him yet. Tony was right about one thing: they were who they used to be. Jack was still doing okay in his little house, and Tony was still just as lonely by the golf course as he’d been by the meatpacking plant. He had to take it out on somebody.

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, there was frost on everything. Jack and Tony, arms stiff at their sides, watched as Hewlitt made breakfast and merrily reminisced about previous trips.

  “Had an English astronaut here for a week, just a regular bloke. Loved his pub, loved his shepherd’s pie, loved his wee cottage in Blighty.”

  Tony and Jack glanced at each other.

  “Took a large framed picture of the Queen Mother into space. Ate nothin
g but fish-and-chips his whole month in orbit, quoting Churchill the entire time.”

  Tony whispered to Jack, “There were no English astronauts.”

  “I heard that,” Hewlitt said, standing up and waving his spatula slowly in Tony’s face.

  “Did you? Good. Stay tuned. There’s more.”

  Hewlitt resumed cooking in silence. The silence was worse. He served their meal without a word, then went to his boat with his new bare face, and in his hand he grasped a handful of willow switches he had cut from the bank. With these, he scourged himself. It was hard not to see this as a tableau, with the boat and the river behind him and Hewlitt, in effect, centered in the frame. His audience, Jack and Tony, turned away to gear up for a day of fishing and standing with their rods at their sides like a sarcastic knockoff of American Gothic.

  Right out of the blue, Hewlitt stopped his thrashing and turned to fix them with a reproving gaze. “I’ve spent my entire life as a liar and an incompetent,” he said.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Eldorado,” Tony said, with poorly concealed alarm.

  “Bogus vitamins on the Internet? How about swingin’ doors and painted women?”

  “That’s all behind you, now.”

  “If only I could believe you!” Hewlitt cried.

  Tony was paralyzed by the strangeness of this, but Jack stepped forward and snatched the willow switches away. He got right in Hewlitt’s face.

  “How much of this do you think we can stand?”

  “Well, I—”

  “We’re not on this trip to hear about your problems. We don’t even know you. I came here to be with my friend because we need to talk. This is a freak show, and we shouldn’t have to pay for it. We thought we’d catch some fish!”

  This seemed to sober Hewlitt, who replaced his look of extravagant self-pity with one of caution and shrewdness.

  “I’m the only one who can get you out of here, son. No brag, just fact. You make me feel respected or you’re SOL. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you try backing this tank down a class-five rapid. That’s the only way home, punk, and I’m unstable.”

  “Jesus,” said Tony. “This is insane! This trip was my reward as a vassal of Medicare!”

  Hewlitt responded by pretending to play a violin and whistling “Moon River.” Jack raised a menacing finger in his face, and he stopped. Then Hewlitt was talking again.

  “How about you try going broke on eating-disorder clinics to wake up to find your wife still gobbling her food? Forty K in the hole and she’s facedown on a ham!”

  Jack turned back to Tony. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Hewlitt’s lament rushed onward. He had dug deep in his pharmacist days to throw a big wedding for his daughter, apparently; she had married way above their station thanks to her big blue eyes and thrilling figure. It was, in Hewlitt’s words, a hoity-toity affair with the top Arizona landowners, the copper royalty, and the developers, and Hewlitt’s caterer food-poisoned them all. Several sued, his wife and daughter blamed him, and in this way Hewlitt found himself at the end of his old life and the beginning of the new. He took a crash course in wilderness adventures at an old CCC camp in Oregon, graduating at the top of his class and getting a book on the ethics of forestry in recognition. Hewlitt seemed to think that this was all an illusion, that no one really cared about him at all.

  Tony and Jack maintained compassionate, respectful smiles throughout this tirade. By the end Hewlitt was so upset his cheeks trembled. When he finished, Jack raised an imploring hand in his direction, but to no avail: Eldorado Hewlitt walked past them and into his tent.

  “Doesn’t look like a fishing day,” Jack said.

  Once they were back in the tent, Jack stretched out on his sleeping bag, and Tony turned to grab a thick paperback from his pack, a book about zombies with the face of someone with white eyeholes on the cover. He slumped back on his bedroll, drew his reading glasses from his shirt, and was on the verge of total absorption when Hewlitt flung open the tent flap. Tony slowly lowered the zombie book.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” the man said, though there was no evidence of that. “I have to ask: What is your problem? ‘Old friends’? Is that what you are, ‘old friends’? Grew up together in the same little town? I know I have problems; I’m famous for my problems. I’m told by qualified professionals that I have ruined my life with my problems, but these few days with two ‘old friends’ have completely unnerved me. What did you two do to each other? Where is this bad feeling coming from? I’m terrifically upset, and I don’t know what it is. But it’s coming from you two, I’ve figured out that much. Can’t you work this out? You’re killing me!”

  Hewlitt hurled down the flap and left. Jack and Tony looked at each other, then quickly glanced away.

  “What was that all about?” Tony asked, unpersuasively.

  Jack said nothing. He had found his box of lures and was lifting one up as though to examine it. A blue frog with hooks.

  After a minute he got to his feet. He went out of the tent, looked around, and came back in with their rods. He made a show of breaking them down and putting them back in their travel tubes. Tony, staring determinedly now at a single page of his zombie book, barely lifted his eyes to this activity, which caused Jack to raise the intensity of it. He held up a roll of toilet paper in his hand. Tony couldn’t look at him.

  “Might as well take a shit. Nothing else to do around here.”

  Tony kept his eyes on the book and gave him a little wave.

  A short time later, the toilet paper flew back into the tent, followed by Jack. He slumped on his bedroll with a sigh.

  “I’ve got another book,” said Tony.

  “I hate books.”

  “No, you don’t. You loved The Black Stallion.”

  “I was twelve.”

  “So don’t read. Who cares?”

  “What’s the other book?”

  “Silent Spring.”

  Jack snorted. “Thanks a bunch.”

  Tony dropped the book to his chest. “Jack, what do you want?”

  “In the whole world?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’d like you to tell me in plain English what my wife saw in you.”

  Tony exhaled through pursed lips and looked at the ground. “We did this a long time ago. Either you shoot me or throw her out, but otherwise there’s nothing more to say. The whole thing is both painful and negligible to me, and kind of an accident and kind of ancient history. We have managed to stay friends despite my very serious personal crime against you. It is a permanent stain on my soul.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Jack said. “You don’t even believe you have one.”

  “Well, you do, and you’re innocent. I have a soul that is blemished by shame. All right? I’m not proud of myself.”

  Jack lay facedown on his bedroll, chin on laced fingers, and looked miserably toward the tent flap. He fell asleep thus, after a while, and so did Tony, glasses hanging from one ear. Hours later, they were awakened by the cooling tent and diminished light.

  Jack got to his feet abruptly, seeming frightened, and rifled through a pile of clothing until he found his coat.

  “You going to find us something to eat?” Tony asked.

  “I am like hell. I’m going to have a word with our guide.”

  Tony raised a cautioning hand. “Jack, we’re dealing with a very unstable—”

  “Well put, Tony. That’s exactly what I am, but I plan to do something about it. I’m upset. And it’s his fault.”

  “Jack, please—”

  But Jack had already gone. Tony slumped back with his hands over his face. It went through his mind that patiently putting up with Jack was an old habit. That’s what had started their mess. Jack had done something dumb—gotten drunk and driven his car on the railroad tracks, in fact, nearly ruining it—that had caused Jan and Tony, in an accidental encounter at the post office, to commiserate with each other, and the next thing they knew they wer
e in bed, bright sunlight coming through the thin curtains of the Super 8. It wasn’t anything, really, but Jan threw it into an argument with Jack the next year during the Super Bowl, and the half-life was promptly extended to forever.

  Jack came back in through the tent flap, slapping it open abruptly. He crouched down, staring at Tony. Then he said, “He’s dead.”

  Tony sat up. The zombie paperback splattered on the floor. He stood and walked straight past Jack, out through the flap, then came back in, kicking the book out of his way, and lay down again.

  “He sure is,” he said.

  “So what happened?”

  “He took something.”

  “Jesus. Did you see this coming?”

  “I thought it was an act.”

  “Is the food in there with him?”

  “He hauled it back up the tree. Where the bears couldn’t get it.”

  “Bears. Jesus, I forgot about bears.” Jack dashed out of the tent once more. When he returned, dangling Hewlitt’s gun by its barrel, he had a wild look in his eyes. Tony knew what it was and said nothing.

  “I’ll get a fire going,” Jack said. “We’ve got to eat something. Why don’t you get the food down and see what we’ve got.”

  Outside they felt the strangeness of being alone in the camp, the cold fire, Hewlitt’s silent tent. The boat meant everything, and separately they checked to see that it was still there. Tony ended up crouched by the fire pit, shaving off kindling with his hatchet, while Jack puzzled over the knots on the ground stake: the rope led upward over a branch, suspending the food supplies out of reach. Once the rope was free, he was able to lower the supplies to the ground and open the canvas enclosing them: steaks, potatoes, onions, canned tomatoes, girlie magazines, schnapps, eggs, a ham. He dragged the whole load to the fire and stood over it with Tony, not quite knowing what to do next.