The Late Child

by Larry McMurtry

  “Mom, did we land on the moon?” Eddie asked, when he was awake enough to notice that they were on a train at night, in an eerie place.

  “No, but it would be more fun if we were on the moon, honey,” Pat said.

  “At least we’re only fifty miles from Oklahoma,” Neddie reminded them. “The air will be smelling sweeter, pretty soon.”

  “I never thought I’d be in Texas,” Laurie said. She was a little nervous.

  “Well, I don’t think we are in Texas,” Eddie said. “I think we’re on the moon. I hope we see some moon people pretty soon.”

  Iggy began to race up and down the aisles of the little train, yipping his loudest.

  “He doesn’t like the moon,” Eddie observed. “He wants to return to earth because there is no dog food on the moon. Can you blame him?”

  “I can blame him for making that noise, I got a hangover,” Pat said. “There must have been something wrong with that vodka—I don’t usually get this hung over on six or eight drinks.”

  Harmony felt like she had jumped out of the plane, just like in her fantasy, only instead of landing on a peaceful country road somewhere she had landed at a weird place that was a little like a place on another planet. The train seemed to be taking them along an endless track, under the bright white lights. The only other people who had been on the train at all were two or three Asians who gave Iggy strange looks.

  “I think those Asians wanted to eat Iggy,” Eddie remarked, after they got out.

  “Airline food probably got to them, if they flew all the way from China,” Pat said. “Even a rat terrier might look good if you’d been on a plane that long.”

  The train finally stopped, Neddie’s Visa card was not maxed out, and soon they were all piled into a blue Cadillac—since it was a late hour Neddie decided to splurge—and racing up a freeway toward Oklahoma. Eddie, wide awake, suddenly remembered that his Aunt Pat had called Iggy a rat terrier. He demanded to know why.

  “Because he’s the kind of dog you keep around the house to kill rats,” Pat said.

  “That’s not very nice,” Eddie said. “Iggy doesn’t kill rats.”

  “Just because he hasn’t yet doesn’t mean he wouldn’t if he got the chance,” Pat said.

  “He wouldn’t, because he would want it to be his friend,” Eddie said.

  “Just don’t mention the Discovery Channel to me right now, Eddie,” Pat said. “If you do I’m going to scream and jump out of this car.”

  “Discovery Channel, Discovery Channel, Discovery Channel,” Eddie said, grinning.

  “Oh, Eddie, why do you have to call my bluff when I’m hung over?” Pat said. “Couldn’t you let your old auntie win, just once?”

  “Discovery Channel, Discovery Channel,” Eddie said.

  8.

  When Harmony opened her eyes her father was looking at her through the window of the rent car. The window was down—she could smell the prairie breeze that Neddie was so fond of. Her father was bending a little, his elbows on the door of the car. He was looking at her over the frame of his old spectacles, with his kind eyes. He had on a blue, short-sleeved work shirt; his arms were deeply freckled from the sun. When he looked at her Harmony remembered that no one’s eyes were as kind as her father’s.

  “How are you, darling?” her father asked—behind him stood her parents’ house. Part of the lawn had been mown, and part was shaggy. The freshly mown grass smelled sweet.

  “Oh, Daddy, Daddy,” Harmony said—a flood of tears came out. She tried to reach through the window and hug her father, he tried to reach through the window, but it didn’t work, the window was too small. Finally she got out of the car and let her father squeeze her in his thin arms. He was so skinny she could feel his ribs when he squeezed.

  “Dad, you’re skinny, do you eat well?” Harmony asked, when she stepped back a little, to look at him. She thought she smelled a whiff of whiskey on his breath.

  “You aren’t drinking, are you?” she asked, before he could speak.

  “I just drink when I’m mowing the lawn—boredom,” her father said. “If I have to follow a dern lawn mower around and around, I’d rather be drunk when I’m doing it.”

  “Daddy, what if the mower cut your foot off?” Harmony asked—she was having paranoid fantasies.

  “Oh well, that would be the end of me if I cut my foot off,” her father said. “Ethel would just let me die. She can’t remember nine-one-one anymore, you know.”

  “She can’t?” Harmony asked.

  “Nope,” her father said. “We had a grease fire in the kitchen yesterday and I yelled at her to call nine-one-one. She dialed her sister in Altus and talked for twenty minutes. If the fire truck hadn’t been passing by on the way back from a grass fire there wouldn’t be no house for you to come back to, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, Aunt Etta?” Harmony asked. “What did she talk to Aunt Etta about?”

  “Menopause,” her father said. “Smoke pouring out the windows and she took the Portaphone and went to the bathroom and talked about menopause.”

  “Momma’s in her eighties,” Harmony said. “What’s so interesting about menopause?”

  “The way she sees it, she ain’t never paused,” her father said. “I paused, but she didn’t. That’s been one of her main topics of conversation for the last forty years.”

  “What about Aunt Etta—did she pause?” Harmony asked.

  “Etta’s crazy as a bedbug, always has been,” her father said. “I have no idea what her feelings are on the subject of menopause.”

  “How about Uncle Mo?” Harmony asked—it was amazing how good the green grass smelled. Mowing part of it seemed to have released more smell into the air.

  “Oh, Mo’s dead—died back in ’seventy-four, I think it was. I remember the year because he died not long after Billy got arrested for the first time. I remember your mother stopped by the jail and left Billy some bacon before we drove over to Altus for Mo’s funeral.”

  Harmony felt a twinge of guilt—Aunt Etta had made her cookies and let her stay up late, long ago in her girlhood. Now Uncle Mo, who took the screen off the bedroom window in their farmhouse so he could spit tobacco out it, had been dead for nearly twenty years and she herself had not been aware of it. She wondered what Aunt Etta would think if she sent her a sympathy card twenty years late—maybe it would be a case of “Better late than later,” a saying that was a favorite of Gary’s. In Gary’s case it was a useful saying because he was always late. But Aunt Etta was not Gary—she might take offense that Harmony had waited twenty years to acknowledge the passing of her husband. It was one more example of Harmony not being too good at keeping up family ties.

  “Sty, get in here, what are you two doing standing down there and what business does Neddie think she has renting a Cadillac?” her mother yelled, from just outside the back door of the house. Harmony waved at her mother—she seemed tinier, but she was wearing lipstick. Eddie had come outside with his grandmother. He suddenly spotted a small box turtle, making its way through the new-mown grass—he ran right over to it. Iggy ran with him and began to yip at the turtle, employing his fiercest yip.

  “Mom, can I pick it up?” Eddie yelled. “I want it to be my pet—it’s very small.”

  Before Harmony could answer, Eddie picked the turtle up and held it off the ground as high as he could, which wasn’t very high. Iggy continued to yip, between jumps at the turtle.

  “Mom, Iggy’s jealous, what do I do?” Eddie yelled.

  “Put that filthy thing down, don’t you know old turtles tinkle on little boys, where was you raised, anyway?” Ethel said.

  Eddie glanced at her as if she might be a troll he had happened to meet—actually, his grandmother was not much larger than a troll—and brought the turtle to his mother.

  “It hasn’t peed yet,” he said. “Hi, Grandpa.”

  “Get up here, I ain’t coming there,” Ethel yelled. “My shoes will get wet in that wet grass and the toes will curl up.”

/>   “Ethel, the grass isn’t wet,” Sty informed her. “We’re in a drought—that’s why there was a grass fire yesterday, over at the Hilburn place.”

  “Oh hush, my shoes would curl up,” Ethel said. “Tell Eddie to put that filthy turtle down.”

  “It is not filthy, it’s my pet,” Eddie yelled at his grandmother. He employed almost as much force as he had used on the airplane, when he was trying to get his aunts to stop bickering.

  “Even if it was filthy we could wash it with the hose,” Sty said, winking at Eddie. “I wonder why womenfolks want everything to be so clean.”

  “Well, I don’t know why,” Eddie said, pleasantly. “Maybe we should wash my turtle off with the hose anyway, Grandpa. Maybe he’s a little filthy, inside his shell.”

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Sty said, with a wink at his daughter. “Then let’s have a big breakfast and then let’s go fishing, how’s that strike you?”

  “Well, it doesn’t strike me but it interests me,” Eddie said. “Will we scuba dive and look at the fish before we catch one, Grandpa?”

  “No, we’ll just drop a hook in the water and hope for the best,” his grandfather said.

  “Get that boy out of that wet grass, he’ll have chiggers up to his neck,” Ethel yelled, still standing on the back step.

  “She can’t get it through her head that it’s a dry year,” Sty said. “A chigger would starve in weather like this.”

  Then he looked at Eddie.

  “Scuba diving wouldn’t work because the water’s too brown,” he said. “A fish could be two inches from your nose and you wouldn’t see it—water’s too brown.”

  “Well, you can’t see through brown and besides we have no scuba equipment,” Eddie said. He went off with his grandfather to hose down the turtle. Iggy had worn himself out, from leaping and yipping. He tagged along behind Eddie and Sty, looking like a tired little dog.

  “Now where are they going?” Ethel asked. “Neddie’s about got the pancakes ready.”

  “Momma, they’ve gone to wash the turtle,” Harmony said. Despite what her father said, the new-mown grass was a little wet. Probably the moisture was dew. She remembered that in her girlhood the grass had been very dewy in the mornings. She could look out her bedroom window and see the sunshine sparkling on the dew, almost every morning. On the way to the school bus she would carry her socks and shoes in her hands, until she got to the road. Even in those early years her mother had been worried that even a little bit of moisture would make shoes curl up.

  “Your hair’s a mess, want me to make you an appointment with Barbara?” her mother asked, just before they hugged. Harmony had to bend over to make the hug work—her mother had always been short but now she seemed even shorter. Why is it always my hair? she thought, trying to remember a homecoming that had not begun with her mother making a comment about her hair—usually a negative comment, too. Even in the days when she had had really beautiful hair it had never been beautiful enough for her mother, or, at least, it had never been done the way her mother thought it ought to be done. The first words out of her mother’s mouth were always an offer to get her a quick appointment at the beauty parlor in Tarwater.

  “Who’s Barbara?” Harmony asked, just to have something to say.

  “Well, she does me and Neddie,” her mother said. “Pat’s stuck-up, she goes to some fancy place in Tulsa where they charge forty-eight dollars just to ruin her looks.”

  “Mom, can’t we eat first, we drove all the way from Dallas,” Harmony said.

  “Suit yourself, but Barbara’s hard to get, she ain’t the best hairdresser in Tarwater for nothing,” Ethel said, in an annoyed tone. She had never liked to have her suggestions disregarded.

  “Where’s that old fool taking that boy?” she asked, peering across the yard. Her eyes seemed a little faded; Harmony knew that she should try to remember that her mother was really old, although she was neatly dressed and clean as a pin.

  “I think they just went to wash Eddie’s turtle,” Harmony reminded her. “After all, you were the one who said it might not be clean.”

  “It ain’t Eddie’s turtle, it’s just a turtle that happened to be passing through the yard,” Ethel said. “Turtles give you warts and they pee on you too. Turtles belong outside.”

  “Well, it is outside,” Harmony said. “They’re just washing it.”

  “You shouldn’t be letting that little boy keep any critter he happens to pick up,” her mother said, still peering with her vague old eyes around the yard.

  “Mom, Eddie’s not in his home right now, he needs a pet for security,” Harmony said. “We’ll just put it in the car or somewhere until we get a place.”

  The problem with that was, she already had a feeling that she didn’t want to get a place, at least not a place near enough by that her mother could criticize her hairdo every time she saw her.

  But, through the screen door, she could smell Neddie’s pancakes, they smelled so good it made her hungry. She had to resist the impulse just to pick her mother up like a doll and carry her into the house.

  “I can’t see Sty at all, I must have put on the wrong specs today,” her mother said. “I have to watch him though.”

  “Mom, why? He’s perfectly safe, he just went to wash a turtle off with the hose,” Harmony said.

  “That’s all you know—he’s got a girlfriend in Bartlesville,” her mother said. “If I don’t keep him in sight he’s off and gone.”

  Harmony was a little shocked; she didn’t know why. With her mother being so critical it wasn’t that hard to imagine that her father might want a woman who was a little less critical, at least to be his friend.

  “Momma, could we just go eat?” she asked. She felt it might be best to skirt the issue of her father’s other woman, if he had one—at least it would be best to skirt it until after breakfast.

  “No point in telling you about it anyway, you always side with the man,” her mother said, looking her over closely. Harmony knew her mother was looking her over from the hair down, finding nothing to please her along the way. For one thing, she wasn’t wearing nail polish, a choice that wasn’t going to sit well. Her mother was a firm believer in bright red nail polish.

  “Mom, you didn’t want me to be a feminist,” Harmony reminded her. She had always had trouble thinking of anything to say when her mother made wild accusations. She didn’t remember her childhood very well, but she did sort of remember siding with her father, most of the time. After all, he was the nicer person—why not side with him?

  “He’s taken up with some old hussy at the nursing home in Bartlesville,” her mother said. “I have to hide the pickup keys or he’ll be gone for a week at a stretch, leaving me with the chickens to feed and the pigs to slop. I’m too well mannered to be slopping pigs at my age. I think I got a right to resent that kind of stuff, but that don’t make me a feminist. I don’t even know what a feminist is—bra burners, I guess you mean.”

  Harmony looked down toward the old barn—once it had been red but now it was gray; the prairie breeze Neddie was so fond of had slowly peeled the paint off the family barn. A few cows were standing around idly, but she couldn’t see any pigs. Quite a few chickens milled around in the chicken yard, which was about halfway between the house and the barn.

  “Let’s go in, you don’t want to hear my troubles, you never have,” her mother said, with a sigh. “Sty may be off to Bartlesville, I don’t see him anywhere. I’ll call Barbara right now and see if she can work you in at the beauty parlor.”

  Harmony followed her mother inside—the ceiling and one of the walls had been smoked black as tar. The smoky smell was still very strong.

  “As you can see, this house nearly burned up,” Pat said. “Looks like the time’s finally come to hire Mom and Dad a cook.”

  “That time came about twenty years ago,” Neddie remarked. She was sitting in a chair, smoking. She seemed more content, now that she was home where she could smell the breeze.

&nbs
p; Seeing how black the kitchen was made Harmony wonder if her parents were really capable of looking after themselves. Her father looked perfectly spry, but the kitchen was perfectly black, too.

  “I can run off any cook you two can hire,” her mother said, sounding determined. “I ran off the last one and I’ll run off the next one, too. Nobody’s cooking for me in my house, while I still got two hands and two feet.”

  “How about two eyes, Momma?” Pat asked. “If you had any vision I imagine you could have seen that that frying pan was on fire. This kitchen’s still so smoky it ain’t fit to eat in.”

  “Well, I had on my wrong specs yesterday,” Ethel said. “Don’t you ever put on the wrong specs?”

  “No,” Pat remarked.

  “I wear specs,” Neddie said. “If you’re so blind you can’t tell your daughters apart it might be time to think about retiring from the kitchen.”

  “You two shut up about that grease fire,” Ethel said. “I was frying Billy his bacon and just looked off for a minute. Anybody can look off for a minute, while bacon’s frying.”

  “If you’d looked off another minute we’d be living in the yard,” Sty said, coming in the back door. “I think it’s time to hire a cook myself. Not only would it be safer, it might be better grub. At least it would if the new cook could cook at all.”

  Eddie, Iggy, and the turtle came in behind him.

  “I’ve decided to name my turtle Eli, after my friend Eli,” Eddie said. “Grandpa washed him and now he’s clean.”

  “I don’t like animals in my house, much less reptiles,” Ethel said. “You need to learn to mind your grandmother. This is the first visit we’ve ever had and let’s start it off right by leaving all the animals and reptiles outside.”

  Eddie regarded his grandmother silently, as if she were a different order of being, one that required prolonged and careful study.

  “Animals belong outside, that includes dogs,” Ethel continued, emphatically.