Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  “You better not tell one soul, either,” she said. “You just pretend it was wonderful. And wear your slacks when we go to supper tonight—I think we’re going someplace nice.”

  She stood naked, hands on hips, conscious that her nudity embarrassed Duane a little, and thoroughly pleased that it did.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” he said again. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “If you say that one more time I’ll bite you,” Jacy said.

  When Winnie Snips and the other girls piled into the room an hour later, pale with curiosity, Jacy was sitting in a well-rumpled bed with only her pajama tops on, staring out at the bay. The evening fog was coming in.

  “Oh gee,” Winnie said. “Tell us about it, Jacy. What happened?”

  Jacy looked languorously around at them, calm, replete, a little wasted even.

  “I just can’t describe it,” she said. “I just can’t describe it in words.”

  The very next day, to Duane’s immense relief, the seduction happened after all. Jacy insisted he take her for a walk to show everyone how much they wanted to be alone, and while they were walking down Geary Street, holding hands in case anyone from the class should see them, Duane suddenly felt himself return. They were just outside a cheap hotel, and without hesitation he seized his chance.

  “Come on,” he said. He had Jacy in the lobby of the hotel before she even knew what he meant. An old lady in a blue-flowered silk bathrobe registered them without comment and took five dollars from Duane. In the creaky cage of an elevator he kissed Jacy hungrily and fondled her breast, conscious that all was still well below. Jacy was skeptical and didn’t return the kiss, but there was something rather adventurous about being fondled in an elevator—Winnie Snips would faint if she heard of such a thing.

  Their room was tiny, with green walls, an old-fashioned bed, and a narrow window that looked across Geary Street to a one-story nightclub with a dead neon sign outside. Duane wasted absolutely no time—he was taking no chances with himself. He was out of his clothes by the time the door closed, and he tugged Jacy toward the bed, pulling rudely at her skirt. She shrugged loose and went to the window to undress at her own pace.

  “If you can’t wait you can jump out this window,” she said. “I don’t think it will work anyway.”

  Duane was not certain it would either, and waited nervously. The room was chill and Jacy had goose bumps on her breasts. As she lay down she looked at Duane casually—men were certainly strange. All she really expected was something tickly, but Duane surprised her horribly. He didn’t tickle a bit, but instead he did something really painful. At first she was too startled to move, and then she yelled out loud. Someone in an adjoining room kicked the wall indignantly. “Quit, quit,” she said—it was intolerable. Duane was much too thrilled to quit, but fortunately he didn’t take long. Jacy was at her wit’s end as it was.

  She got gingerly out of bed, meaning to take a hot bath, and discovered that the little room didn’t even have a bathroom in it, just a lavatory. “There must be one down the hall someplace,” Duane said, but she wouldn’t let him go look for it. She felt strange and wanted to leave. All the way back to the motel she kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting to see a trail of blood on the sidewalk behind her. Duane was walking happily along, infuriatingly proud of himself.

  “Oh, quit prissing,” Jacy said. “You needn’t think I’m going to take you back just because of that. I don’t think you did it right, anyway.”

  “Sure I did,” Duane said, but he wasn’t really positive, and he brooded about it during the remainder of the trip. They did it twice more, once in the motel in San Francisco and one in Flagstaff, Arizona, on the way home. Duane was confident he was doing it right, but for some reason Jacy didn’t swoon with bliss. She only allowed it twice more because she thought Bobby Sheen would like it if she had a little more experience. The whole business was far from delightful, but she supposed that was probably because Duane was a roughneck. In Flagstaff it went on much too long and she got exasperated and told him off once and for all.

  “You never will learn,” she said. “I don’t know why I went with you so long. I guess we have to keep on being sweethearts until we get home, but that’s gonna be the end of it. We’ll just have to think of something big to break up over.”

  Duane just couldn’t understand it: he was more dejected and more in love than he ever had been. Jacy was bending over to slip her small breasts back into their brassiere cups; she had never looked more lovely, and he could not believe she was serious about breaking up. He tried to talk her out of it, but she went over to the motel dressing table and combed her hair thoroughly, looking at herself in the mirror and paying absolutely no attention to him.

  The rest of the way home, across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, he tried to think of ways to make her realize that they had to stay together. He was sure her disaffection would only be temporary. Jacy was thinking how glad she would be to get home. She had even decided there was no point in making a big production of breaking up: she was sick and tired of the seniors. As an audience they were not worth bothering about. When the bus finally pulled into Thalia late one June afternoon she didn’t so much as tell Duane good-bye. She was tired and went right over to her parents’ Cadillac while her father got her bags. Lois was watching her shrewdly.

  “I see you got enough of him,” she said quietly. “That’s that.”

  “I’m just not interested in saying one word about it, if you don’t mind,” Jacy said.

  Watching them drive away, Duane felt a little sick at his stomach. He realized Jacy had meant what she said: she was really done with him. It was very confusing to him because he had always thought you were supposed to get whoever you really loved. That was the way it worked in movies. It was all he could do to carry his suitcase to the pickup.

  Sonny had merely endured the return trip, sitting in the back of the bus watching the desert go by. He had paid Duane and Jacy as little attention as possible, and it was not until he and Duane got in the pickup in Thalia that he noticed his friend was depressed.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, surprised.

  “Nothin’,” Duane said.

  Sonny knew better. “Well what is it?” he persisted. “You feel bad?”

  For a moment Duane considered telling the truth, but then he decided not to.

  “I’m worn to a frazzle,” he said. “That California’s hard on a person.”

  They were living over the poolhall, Billy with them, though Genevieve had kept him while the seniors were gone. Returning to the poolhall was a little strange, particularly since Sam the Lion wasn’t there. If he had been there they would have shot some pool and had a great time telling him all about the trip. It would have picked everyone’s spirits up. As it was, the poolhall was quiet and empty, and there was not a great deal to do.

  Eighteen

  WHILE THE SENIORS WERE IN CALIFORNIA A GREAT SCANDAL rocked Thalia. All the mothers were agreed that it was the very worst thing that had ever happened in the town: John Cecil was fired from his teaching job for being a homosexual.

  The scariest thing of all, the mothers thought, was that it was just by a happenstance that he was found out. If it hadn’t been for Coach Popper’s vigilance and his interest in the welfare of the children, nobody would have know about Mr. Cecil, and a whole generation of young innocents would have been exposed to corruption.

  The gist of the matter was that Mr. Cecil had persuaded Bobby Logan to take a summer-school course in trigonometry, in Wichita Falls high school. Mr. Cecil was going to summer school himself, at the college there, so he drove Bobby over to his class every day. That seemingly innocent arrangement was enough to arouse the coach’s suspicions. He had been planning to have Bobby work out in the gym every day during the summer, so he would be in good shape when football season came. It was a pleasure to work with a fine young athlete like Bobby, and when Bobby told him about the trigonometry class he was angered.


  “Why goddamn,” he said. “You mean you’re gonna sit in a damn schoolhouse all summer when you could be workin’ out? What kinda shit is that?”

  Bobby was a little embarrassed. “I’ll have to have trig to get in a good college,” he said.

  “Trig my ass,” the coach said. “I can get you a scholarship anywhere and you won’t need to know a fuckin’ thing.”

  He raged on, but Bobby was determined, and that night, thinking it over, it came to the coach in a flash: Cecil was a queer.

  He didn’t say anything to Ruth about it because it wasn’t a thing to talk to women about. The next morning he happened to be standing around the filling station and he mentioned his suspicion to some of the men. They were sitting on piles of old tires, chewing tobacco and discussing masculine matters, and all of them agreed with the coach right down the line.

  “Hell yes,” one said. “Whoever heard of a man teachin’ English. That’s a woman’s job.”

  “Oughta see the school board about it,” the coach said sternly. The idea got quick support.

  “By God, if you don’t I will,” Andy Fanner said. “I got two boys in that school.”

  “Well, I tell you, men,” the coach said, squaring his shoulders with purpose. “I hate to cost a man his job, but if there’s anything I hate it’s to see a goddamn homasexyul messing around with a bunch of young kids. I got too much respect for the teachin’ profession to put up with that.”

  It turned out the coach didn’t have to say a word to the school board. Some of the men went home and told their wives and the wives called the school board president even before they began to call one another. The school board president was a Pontiac salesman named Tom Todd. When Tom was fourteen years old he had been seduced one night at a family reunion by a male cousin from Jonesboro, Arkansas, and he had felt guilty about it ever since. He went right into action and that very night they got John Cecil before the board and fired him.

  All Mr. Cecil could say was that he hadn’t done anything to Bobby, or to anyone else. He was stunned and guilty looking though, and the board knew they had their man. They didn’t question Bobby Logan because his father didn’t want him to know what homosexuality was yet. If it had already happened to him his father preferred that he didn’t realize it.

  Mr. Cecil went home and tried to explain to his wife what a terrible mistake had been made. “Why I’ve never even touched one of my students,” he said.

  “Oh, they wouldn’t have fired you if you hadn’t,” she said. Then she screamed and ran across to the neighbor’s house and then screamed again and ran back and got the two girls. She didn’t return that night, but the next morning she got some of her stuff and headed for Odessa in Mr. Cecil’s car. Her sisters lived in Odessa.

  Ruth Popper found out about it the night Mr. Cecil was fired. The coach was in an unusually good mood that night and was propped up in bed reading an old issue of Sports Afield—there was a fishing story in it he had read at least fifty times.

  Ruth could not sleep with the light on, and was reading the Reader’s Digest. She lay flat on her back, and Herman noticed.

  “Prop up if you’re gonna read,” he said. “It ain’t good for your eyes to read laying down.”

  She obediently tucked a pillow under her head, and as she did, noticed that Herman was looking at her in a very satisfied way. Suddenly, to her complete surprise, he reached under the cover and rubbed her in rough, husbandly fashion.

  “I guess tonight there’s a lot of women in this town glad they ain’t in Irene Cecil’s shoes,” he said. “I feel awful sorry for Irene.”

  “Why?” Ruth asked. “I’ve always felt a little sorry for John.”

  “You would,” the coach said, abruptly removing his hand. “I guess you’d like to be married to a queer. The school board fired him tonight. Me and some others fellers found out about him an’ took some action. He’ll never teach in this part of the country again.”

  Ruth didn’t credit her hearing. “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Why didn’t you know it, honey,” he said, gruffly condescending. “I could tell that feller was queer as a three-dollar bill—been thinking it for years. Reason I never spoke up sooner was because I never noticed him actually botherin’ with any of the kids. When I saw he was after Bobby, I knew it was time to put a stop to it. That’s one boy I don’t intend to see messed up.”

  He farted gently into the sheets and went contentedly back to his fishing story.

  Ruth wanted not to be there; not to be anywhere. She wanted to hug her knees with shame. Then gradually the shame was replaced by a dull, hot feeling inside her that soon filled her completely. Before she even recognized it as anger it had taken possession of her, and with no warning she swung her feet around in the bed and began to kick Herman furiously and as hard as she could. She kicked the magazine he held clear across the room and her bare heels caught him in the ribs and groin. The coach was so surprised he didn’t know what to do. He tried to catch her ankles but he couldn’t seem to and she continued to flail at him with her feet until he hastily got out and stood uncertainly by the bed, not sure what was happening to his wife.

  “Here, now, here,” he said. “You gone crazy? What’s the matter with you?”

  “You!” Ruth yelled, sitting up in bed. She was beside herself and meant to pursue him out of the house. “You’re the matter,” she said, her voice shaking. “You fat . . . you fat . . .” she didn’t know what to call him. Looking around wildly, she saw the open bathroom door. “You fat turd!” she finished, a little lamely.

  The two of them were both stunned. Quiet fell on the room. Ruth was panting, but since the coach had got beyond the range of her heels she had lost the urge to chase him. He would have liked to sit back down on the bed, but Ruth looked too strange and dangerous for him to risk it. He knew it would mean a fight if he got near her, so he stood where he was and scratched himself nervously. He would never have believed his own wife could look so dangerous.

  “I never done nothin’,” he said finally. “What if I did fart?” It was the only thing he could think of that might have made her mad.

  “Oh, Herman,” Ruth said. Her legs were trembling and all the strength had gone out of her.

  “You got John Cecil fired.”

  “But he’s a goddamn queer,” the coach said righteously.” He needed it.”

  “Then how about you?” she said. “Who roomed with Bobby in Fort Worth, John or you? You think I don’t know about things like that? Now you’ve ruined John’s life.”

  The coach’s mouth fell open. He felt tired and went over and sat down on the couch, fumbling with his undershirt.

  “Why Ruth, you don’t think nothin’ like that,” he said. “Nobody in this town would believe that. I’m the football coach!”

  “Don’t yell at me,” she said. “I know what you are.”

  Herman looked at her solemnly. “I sure don’t know what to think about a wife like you,” he said, not at all belligerent.

  “We’re even,” she said. “I don’t know what to think about a husband like you, either. Marriage is a bad joke, isn’t it.”

  She saw that she could rip him wide open if she said the right mean things, but she didn’t really have the energy and it didn’t seem worth doing.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  “You’re going to sleep on that couch from now on,” she said, throwing his pillow across the room.

  “Hell I am,” the coach said, getting up. “Hell I am.” But he picked up the pillow and stood holding it.

  “You are,” Ruth said, switching off the bedside light. “There’s some sheets in the bathroom.”

  “Goddammit, I ain’t gonna sleep on this couch,” Herman said. “It’s gonna take more than your kicking to keep me out of my own bed.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” Ruth said. “Maybe I’ll call the school board and get a few things off my chest.”

  Her calm voice infuriated the coa
ch, but it frightened him, too. She was clearly an unstable woman. He felt like kicking hell out of her, but instead he went and got some sheets and made a bed on the couch, feeling like a martyr. She didn’t deserve it, but the manly thing to do would be to give her a night to cool off. It seemed to him that his mother must have been the last good woman who had ever lived.

  The next day Ruth went to see John Cecil, hoping to comfort him. It occurred to her that he might be hungry, so she took what was left of a banana-nut cake she had baked the day before and walked over to the Cecils’ house. The porch was dusty and the morning paper lay in the flower bed where the newspaper boy had thrown it. John took a long time to answer her knock.

  “Hello, John,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  He looked tired and a little sick, and she felt silly for bringing the rich cake. He had on a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up unevenly.

  “I’ll just put this on the cabinet,” she said awkwardly, moving past him with the cake. She got to the kitchen just in time to see a little pot of asparagus boil over—John had put too much water in the pot. “Oh, goodness,” he said. She turned the burner off and he sponged off the stove. Curiously, the event seemed to lift his spirits a little.

  “That’s exactly the kind of bachelor I make,” he said.

  He pulled up a kitchen chair for Ruth to sit in and they looked at one another directly for the first time since she had entered.

  “What are you going to do, John?” she asked. He seemed such a kind man, and she realized at that moment that they had lived three blocks apart for fifteen years without really becoming friends.

  He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with both hands. “I’ll just have to do what I can for Irene and the girls,” he said. “I’ve got a friend who runs an Indian reservation in New Mexico—maybe he’ll let me teach out there. If that don’t work out I guess I can go back to Plainview and work in my brother’s grocery store. When you’ve messed up your life the way I’ve messed up mine it doesn’t much matter.”