Nothing but Blue Skies

by Thomas McGuane

  “Is it true he buys the life insurance policies of AIDS victims?”

  “Yes,” said Gracie, unmoving. “But it’s not what you think. The sick person needs some cash and gets it. In this case, they deceive themselves because they think if they get the money they can keep from dying. Whereas Edward knows he’s soon going to have the insurance settlement. Or if they don’t deceive themselves, then it’s the insurance company who are kidding themselves by never realizing that people would understand the idea of being doomed and that those people would go on ahead and discount their policy to a complete stranger.”

  “It’s depressing.”

  “I think so too,” said Gracie. “But so much is depressing. It’s depressing that Holly has grown up.”

  “Isn’t it.”

  “It seems like yesterday she was fingerpainting in her room,” Gracie said.

  “Yup. Or how about at her piano recital when she stood up and said, ‘I cannot play “Streets of Laredo” because I have a sore G-finger’?”

  “No more. She’s a cheerful right-wing fanatic with her own life now.”

  “Wipe your eyes, Gracie.”

  “Give me a sec.”

  “So, where were we?”

  “These chairs are hard, aren’t they?”

  “You sit in my lap?”

  “Stop it, Frank.”

  “I still love you, Gracie.”

  “No you don’t, and if you do, shut up about it.”

  “Why?”

  “You make all these statements. I’m not real big on statements these days.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, like, can the statements.”

  “Okay!”

  Gracie paused to blow her nose. Frank noted happily that she was comfortable making a loud, unselfconscious honk. He bet she didn’t do that around Edward of the Money Problem.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I much preferred it when we were younger. I suppose it’s a good thing that most of the world has no idea about what fun hippies had. Otherwise, nothing would work. It’s necessary for most of the world to be deceived. That’s where Edward and I differ. He is now addicted to the idea that he can put an end to deception.”

  “For the whole world?”

  “He says it’s little steps for little feet.”

  “Does this mean that when Edward gets his way, I’m going to have to pump my own septic tank?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Pull my own wisdom teeth?”

  “Could be.”

  “This is not a world I’m looking forward to, Grace.”

  Gracie got up from her chair and went to the window. Frank looked at her, remembering that he liked the way she held her shoulders back so that her back seemed concave and her shoulder blades disappeared even under a thin dress. He liked that the dress still gathered at the top of her buttocks.

  “Anyway, I’m going to try to help Edward with what he thinks is his problem. I owe him that.”

  Frank thought that the concept of this debt had a conclusive note that he was not sure he was correct in hearing. Any relationship between men and women was a mounting debt. Why would she single this one out?

  “So, I won’t be seeing you …?”

  “That’s why I asked you to meet me this morning.”

  “To say goodbye?”

  “Not at all. Edward wanted me to find out if you would be willing to meet with him in some sort of therapeutic way. Do you think you would?”

  This was like hearing from your draft board during a national emergency. He could be as frightened as he wanted to be but he could hardly decline.

  “Uh … sure.”

  45

  He got back to the office, let himself in and turned on the lights. There were several messages trailing out of the fax machine but the phones were silent. There was the Journal, Barron’s, The Economist. He enjoyed the otherworldly atmosphere of a modern office after hours. He tried his secretary’s chair; it had an extraordinary flexibility of movement and she had had no view to distract her from the possibilities the chair offered. He ripped off the fax messages and noted that two of them were from the bank and were rather firm. They were far from summonses but they were certainly firm. The last message was from Jerry Drivjnicki at Reed Point, reminding him of their pig partnership. Frank had forgotten the pig partnership, but in this message Jerry asked him to please come to the stock show in Bozeman and show some interest in at least their show pigs. Jerry’s message was relatively firm too.

  Maybe Frank would have to go. He knew this particular walkthrough: in a stockman’s hat and camel’s hair coat, you stood next to your pigs and stared into their genetic future while waiting for the judge. He realized that this small investment notion had put him somewhere he had no business being. But even as he smiled at the picture of himself in his big hat at the pig show, he realized he’d better not miss it. He remembered that when he had partnered with Jerry, the bank had said they “had trouble seeing money for him.” He didn’t know how he had gotten into so much action with cows, pigs and chickens. If he got the little dish he could play the commodities on the satellite, but that was too fast, too dangerous. He’d seen many a good man taken down by one of those dishes, Old MacDonalds of the microchip.

  Frank parked well beyond the show barns, among the stock trailers. He climbed out of his car, pushing his big lizard cowboy boots out ahead of him. Several 4-H kids had tied their animals to the sides of their trailers for a final grooming. There was a beautiful slick steer, half asleep, being painstakingly brushed by a girl in her teens; there was a self-important ram having his forelock combed by a boy in a cowboy hat, several unattended horses under blankets and hoods like big ghosts, all out in the parking area. The stall barns were dark and smelled of straw bedding and dung. Here and there people were grooming their animals inside the stalls and portable radios played next to plastic trays of brushes, combs and hair spray. He felt first rate in his topcoat and big hat, eager to be among the pigs he co-owned, grand red Durocs he’d held to his chest as babies, now avatars of swine genetics the size of ponies, squinting with wiliness. He shot his coat cuff to look at his watch: he was just in time for the theoretical heart of pork belly futures as understood in the northern Rockies.

  He stepped into the main hall with a gasp: clusters of hogs of truly exaggerated size stood with their handlers under powerful overhead lighting. Men and hogs were several inches deep in cat litter. There were bleachers all the way around and these were almost full of hog fans. A judge wandered among the hogs, speaking in a clandestine manner to an assistant who made notes on a clipboard. The judge was a small-faced man in a Stetson hat with a tight, permanent scowl. Frank spotted Jerry Drivjnicki, who grinned and waved him over. He stood next to a gleaming, mighty red Duroc, Tecumseh. It was like standing next to a spaceship.

  “This must be Cump,” said Frank.

  “This is him,” said Jerry, stepping to one side presentationally so Frank could admire Tecumseh. “He ain’t like you remembered him, is he?”

  “He was a suckling, Jerry.”

  “That whole litter was good ones,” said Jerry.

  Frank looked toward the bleachers and there was Gracie holding a pair of opera glasses. Next to her was Edward, her male companion, looking none too well. Frank’s dismay at seeing her was set against the rather dissolute appearance of Edward.

  “But Cump,” Frank heard Jerry say, “he just jumped out at a guy. I knowed he was headed for the big time.”

  Gracie hadn’t spotted Frank. Then Frank saw Holly, and Lane next to her, a real family tableau. He didn’t for a moment think they would recognize him, but he saw Lane pointing down toward him and the four chatting among themselves. Frank felt body heat rising within his camel’s hair topcoat and around the perimeter of the heavy, wide Stetson. He felt his posture fail slightly, a deadness of flesh and purpose. And some of the pigs didn’t seem completely under control, skidding their handlers a bit as they tried to keep the animals in line while t
hey awaited the judge. Feeling something against his rump, Frank turned to head off the interest of a half-ton boar hog. He caught the eye of the handler, a big vacant farmer with huge flat hands wrapped around his staff. Frank looked off and caught Gracie’s eye and, he thought, her faint smile. He knew he was probably rising in Lane Lawlor’s estimation, out here playing the stockman.

  “You need to feel part of this,” said Jerry. “I’m gonna let you handle showing this pig. Hell, he shows hisself. He knows he’s making history.”

  Frank wanted to ask that Jerry not leave him. But it was too late and he couldn’t think how he might say it anyway without expressing his sense of outlandish solitude. Several of the hogs were now squealing across the arena at one another, which brought a stir of concern from their showmen. They knew how to deal with it, but Frank could only hope Tecumseh stayed put.

  Jerry gave Frank his staff, eased off and found himself a place to lean against the wall. The hog in back of Frank gave him another shove and Frank instinctively slipped his gaze up to Gracie, who was pointing her rolled-up program toward an animal that had gotten her attention. It was just as well; he wasn’t eager to have this butt-rooting observed and was thinking of flogging the farmer if he didn’t get it stopped. A few rows up sat Frank’s hired man, Boyd Jarrell, who politely moved his eyes away once Frank had seen him. Frank was wondering if he was just being paranoid to be so startled at seeing all these people here. He supposed he was glad to have Boyd watch him taking an interest in the pigs. He thought they would all have to understand the costume he was wearing, but he wasn’t sure. He really was dressed for Chicago or the National Western in Denver. He just couldn’t have an outfit for every place a pig or a chicken or a steer with his name on its papers turned up. Frank hoped they would accept that. He did feel overdressed, though, as if he already expected to win the grand championship. He felt ridiculous.

  He began thinking about the approach of the judge. He really had no idea what his role might be. He could only observe that the others were standing next to their hogs by way of establishing their ownership, he guessed, or responsibility. The judge with his mean little face seemed not to occupy any plane with his eyes that could be crossed by any other eyes. He simply went from hog to hog, seeing no humans, then making extremely brief remarks to his assistant, an effeminate teenage boy in a royal blue Future Farmers of America jacket who licked the end of his pencil before writing anything down. All power rested with these two, and since he did not understand his situation, Frank began to elaborate a stone-faced concern to go with the topcoat and the Stetson and the very distinct sense of being evaluated from the bleachers. He was relieved to notice that the showmen and the judge did not exchange words of any kind. For Jerry’s sake he wanted their hog, Tecumseh, to do well; but he concentrated most on quietly handling his own part, however it turned out for the hog.

  Frank felt proud of his big, well-behaved animal, who stood motionless and refrained from even joining in the squealing around the hall. There was certainly some sort of communication emanating from the judge, something nonverbal, because a middle-aged woman showing a vivid Hampshire gazed at the ceiling with tears shining on her cheeks the minute her hog was judged. Perhaps she had overheard the judge’s remarks to the little farm sissy, thought Frank. Or perhaps she had never before faced the fact that she had a bum pig.

  Now the judge was before him, looking right into the face of Frank’s hog, as though he could read the mind of the pig and know whether or not he would transmit intelligence to his progeny. Frank knew that judges often looked for “femininity” in cattle, and maybe some such trait was sought here. Frank’s hog ignored the judge but the brute behind Frank gave him another shove. He hitched his shoulders within the camel’s hair topcoat and stared into the middle distance, feeling the hot breath of the other hog rise through his shorts. He rose on the balls of his feet but found himself trapped between the judge and his own hog. He strongly felt he must keep silent just now as befitted the demeanor of a stockman, but the butt-snuffling had become unbearable. He turned enough to take in the face of the farmer behind him and thought he detected a faint smile. That did it.

  He swung around and gave the hog a good crack. It was a mistake. The brute squealed and dove forward between Frank’s legs. Frank was astraddle the pig, looking into the sour but amazed face of the judge, and then the animal broke into a wild heaving gallop around the arena with Frank on its back, scattering other hogs and the contestants who tried to hold them back. Frank was trying to stay on in the hope that the hog would soon stop, but every time the pig looked back and saw him, it energized him into further squealing stampede.

  There was a loud response from the bleachers that did not sound supportive. For a while, Frank felt that people and pigs were racing past him, but it was the marvelously steady and rapid gait of his own mount that swept him through a coliseum of obstacles. Coming around for another circle, he noticed showmen racing for the exits and the pop of flashbulbs. Frank was still trying to look his best. The crowd streamed past on the side. The rotation of the ceiling was no help and he was beginning to list, which put him in a better position to view the outthrust muzzle of the runaway pig. A very worried Jerry Drivjnicki appeared in front of him, arms outstretched like a traffic policeman. He was run over; and indeed, it was only another moment before Frank watched the plane of cat litter slant up at him and suddenly rotate, and the pig bounded away.

  Frank sat up. Everywhere, shavings and animal droppings clung to the camel’s hair, and the front of his Stetson was bent back against the crown like Yosemite Sam’s. Instinctively, his eye sought the bleachers. Gracie and Ed, Holly and Lane, were hustling for an exit, fleeing from this disgrace as from a fire. Close by, legs stick-like in front of him, massaging a hoofprint in his scalp, Jerry Drivjnicki stared at Frank with anger. There were distinct veins in his cheeks and his lips were flattened against his teeth.

  “I raised the pig that was supposed to be champion here,” Jerry said. “All you had to do for our partnership was stand next to that pig. It didn’t seem like a whole lot. I guess I got ahead of myself. But let me ask you this: how would you like a kick in the ass?”

  “I think I’ll hold off.”

  “You think you’ll hold off.”

  Jerry walked away. The other contestants kept their distance from Frank. Whatever it was he had, they seemed to think they could catch. Frank was dismayed. He always liked Jerry. Jerry was a good guy. Jerry should have been a steady beacon to him and he was disgusted. Frank was interested in people who could throw a switch like Jerry just had. His father had that capability. He could cross his legs, grimace at something in distaste and make a waving-throwing gesture of his hand to indicate he was all through with this or that, whatever it was. Frank was always hung up in some gray area. He admired the way Jerry walked off. Jerry was all through with him. It was the last straw. Pretty good, thought Frank, the last straw. At that, Boyd Jarrell appeared before him.

  “Well, what do you think, Boyd?”

  “You rode the tar out of him, Frank. I believe you can ride anything you can get your leg over.”

  “Thanks, Boyd.”

  “Frank, I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “This is a good time,” said Frank. He hoped Boyd had something nice and clear on his mind. Frank needed to discuss some objective thing.

  “I thought you was a hell of a guy to overlook our differences and let me come back to work. I just wanted you to know I’ll stay as long as you and Mike hang on to it.”

  “I appreciate that very much,” said Frank, thinking, There goes one more source of revenue. “I guess I owe you an apology for the car wash, Boyd.”

  “It’s covered,” said Boyd, gesturing around the small coliseum where Frank’s disgrace lingered. “More than covered. I didn’t have an audience. I imagine you feel pretty bad.”

  Frank looked up to see the last of the pigs crowding the exits. He wondered who won and felt a little gypped. They’d hard
ly had a chance to judge his beautiful red boar. Then a vision of his wild gyration through the hog show at the base of the bleachers came back to him and he felt the heat radiate from his skin again. His mind wandered.

  “I’m all right.”

  46

  He went back to his house and stood in the kitchen opening mail in his topcoat while canned chili heated on the stove. There was some junk mail for expectant parents that he threw across the room. He stared through the cooking steam to think. He was still embarrassed. Worse than embarrassed — humiliated. Yes, that was it, humiliated. He took off the topcoat but momentarily retained the hat. Noticing a smell from the coat, he took it into the next room. He was wondering about Gracie. He started to feel a little crazy, so he turned the heat down on the stove, made himself a drink and sat at the kitchen table with his mail. Wearing the hat gave him the feeling he could jump up and run outside if he so desired. He started with the financial forecasts. He wanted to rise above the day. The drink was good in every way, a warm fun-bomb with great healing powers.

  Nothing all that wrong with the market, really. People were definitely looking for yield, as who could blame them. Frank was starting to unwind. He was going from live pigs to more of a macro picture. It was certainly the day of bond mutual funds. And nobody seemed to give a flying fuck if it was municipal or global. There was plenty to cheer in today’s gasoline futures. All sorts of signals out there that the Fed was easing rates. The ever exciting General Mills was bringing out a four-grain version of Cheerios, with the usual motive of kicking the shit out of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. Good luck: this was the fourth tune-up of a serviceable fifty-year-old idea and Rice Krispies was still around. Try to get it into your heads, boys.

  The chili was done and Frank removed his hat. There was then a ring at the front door. Frank thought, This could be good. He plunged his hands deep into his pockets and walked around the bottom of the staircase to the hall. He just knew it was going to be Gracie.