Ninety-Two in the Shade

by Thomas McGuane

  The beginning of Miranda’s stay with her grandmother was like the middle and the end of her stay with her grandmother. Miranda arrived in time for dinner; and her grandmother, a famous social lady, and author of a book about the shells of Sanibel and Captiva islands called The Bivalve and Me, was wearing a floor-length dinner dress. She carried a chain bag and a dog.

  She was drunk as a skunk.

  From time to time, as Miranda readied herself for the dinner upon which she did not have her mind, the dog threw itself at her snapping and snarling. The dog’s name was Vecky, short for Carl Van Vechten, and he looked like a wasted rat of imprecise morals.

  “Grandmother,” said Miranda evenly, “get this animal away from me or I’ll take something to its head.” Miranda’s grandmother showed her disapproval of Miranda. She permitted her lower eyelids to sag farther and farther—quite far actually—until there were considerable red bands of disapproval beneath each of her goo-goo eyes. She was never sure of her footing when she was looped; so she wore the floor-length dresses to hide her basketball shoes. Everyone knew anyway because they could hear their mad squeegee tread as she swept across the room.

  They neither of them ate their dinners at the club but hung disconsolate over plates of expensive meat upon which only the bright parsley could draw the eye. The room, it seemed to Miranda, was cast in bluish gloom; in its middle a baby spotlight gave an ice mountain with its shrimp avalanche an unnatural prominence.

  Ultimately, Miranda’s grandmother called to the waiter in a gravel command voice.

  “Klaus! Klaus! Klaus!”

  Klaus ran at them; so that others might enjoy their dinners.

  “Klaus,” she said, “Vecky’s heart would be broken.” A broad executive gesture passed over the inviolate meat. “What do you say to a bowser bag?”

  “Immediately, Missussss Cole.”

  Some grave force carried Klaus to the kitchen. He emerged shortly with the bowser and, positioning himself to look down Miranda’s blouse, he rammed the beef home. Later, Miranda watched the little beast growling in defense of this world of meat, bloodying his bald narrow paws, and running his sliver of tongue through the fat.

  * * *

  When Peewee Knowles returned from Cuba, he spent a week in political quarantine watched by a mongoose from Central Intelligence, watched and questioned and obliged to fill out profiles until his actual nauseating footling politics were triangulated. The Central Intelligence man, who turned out, oddly enough, to be named Don and who was, weird thing, from the Plains states, totaled up the numerical equivalents of Peewee’s responses and evaluations. Don’s manner with a column of numbers was not unlike that of Myron Moorhen; and when he came up with his total, he divided it by the index number of 10, checked his figures, rose to his feet, and told Peewee he was a Great American.

  Peewee headed for Burdine’s and bought the complete Arnold Palmer dress ensemble; then sloped to the barbershop in the shopping plaza. “Where did you get your last haircut?” asked the barber. “Key West?”

  Peewee turned to him, stared, and said, “No clippers in the back.”

  When the little insurance man returned to the island city and rejoined his great wife, he was surprised to find himself set upon once more by collection agents. Peewee grew hot around the collar. He was fit to be tied. Soon, however, by selling insurance himself rather than only adjusting, Peewee began to perceive a light at the end of the tunnel. And somewhere along in there, Peewee heard what no married man wants to hear: that, in his absence, the little woman had been putting out.

  His first response was an unkind joke. He told Bella that before he’d consider making the love with her again, he would have to slam a five-pound picnic ham in her twat and pull out the bone. Bella gave him a good thrashing for that one.

  A day later, Peewee was storming across Key West toward the Skelton Building on Eaton. Goldsboro Skelton was either going to buy a Homeowner’s, a Premium Endowment, and a costly Life, or Peewee was going to know the reason why.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Goldsboro Skelton.”

  “I’ll ring him,” said Bella.

  Peewee entered Skelton’s office.

  “How much of that jazz am I going to have to buy?” Goldsboro Skelton inquired of the American. Then just to show Skelton who he was dealing with, Peewee Knowles wrote out a check for a thousand dollars and lit his cigar with it.

  That night Peewee entered Bella from beneath, figuring forth the rising aspirations that newly filled his breast like a thousand angry penguins. As for Bella, she lowered herself upon Peewee with a rubicund sense of her own age and history that soon had the temporarily forgotten Peewee calling for air.

  * * *

  Skelton laid his fear in like supplies. Up before the sun, he had the gear on his bed, his Polaroids hanging around his neck on monofilament. No wind yet; trees still in the dark; one or two lights on next door.

  What does that strip-miner want to eat. He will eat what I give him. Skelton made four liver-sausage and onion sandwiches and put them in the wooden box with oranges and a six-pack of Gator Ade. Tackle was in the boat. Shrimp were in the live wells: six dozen chum, four dozen bait. He had to keep his eye on the ball: a trophy for Olie Slatt.

  Ready. Skelton walked around the inside of the fuselage, opened his books with their pages of magic animals; he glanced at his own jejune speculations on DNA replication, graphs in Thompson on the variability of error, a sketch of hypertrophied feathers and prehensile fingers buried in whale flippers: his private, lost science.

  * * *

  There is something, he thought, that I am tired of.

  Breakfast at Shorty’s: the famous French toast. Open-hearted fry cooks soar under the menu-cyclorama. The waitress with the blue hair cast a discriminating glance into the doughnut cabinet.

  A black gentleman, the only other customer, slid the sugar bowl down the counter to Skelton with exquisite judgment of distance. Skelton fell in love with him. The other waitress, a blond indifferent trull, refilled Skelton’s coffee without his asking. He fell in love with her; and mooned between his two new paramours while his Shorty’s famous French toast chilled and glazed under a glossy patina of syrup.

  I am in love, thought Skelton, though his glances seemed to embarrass both objects of his ardor.

  Now let’s get over that and read the tide book so we will know where the trophies mean to be today.

  TIDE TABLES

  High and low water predictions

  EAST COAST OF NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

  INCLUDING GREENLAND

  He opened the book and stared at it a few long moments before realizing he didn’t need the predictions for Isla Zapara, Venezuela. Idly he eliminated Savannah River entrance, Galveston, and St. John, New Brunswick.

  Key West, wintertime, was on page 122. He found his date and read:

  0024 0.8

  0518 0.0

  1142 1.7

  1906 0.7

  With the three-hour Gulf lag at the Barracudas, he could have good early-incoming water first thing in the morning; then drop back to the Snipes on the West side of Turkey Basin; then Mud Keys, Harbor Keys, Bay Keys, Mule-and-Archer for the long shot on permit, and home; presumably, with a trophy for Olie Slatt to snow his neighbors with.

  With that settled, Skelton began to fall out of love. He looked into the street and watched a chromed, rusting Chrysler Imperial glide by, and thought: How terribly depressing. Such an Imperial might rut its lust upon a Dodge Coronet, jetting transmission fluid into our roadway.

  “The sun just doesn’t half seem to want to come up,” he said to the man down the counter, his spirit sinking quick.

  “No, sure don’t,” said the man with a chuckle and holding his breath in case he should need to go on. The waitress said to Skelton, “You want to buy a Studebaker?”

  “No. But thanks for asking.”

  “Huh?”

  Skelton’s hand, resting in his lap, began to feel for the boat keys; and not dis
covering them immediately he jumped to his feet and slapped at his pockets, quickly finding them. He sat down again.

  It was time to head for the dock. The bill came to $1.40. Skelton had a twenty; he tucked it with the check under his coffee cup. The waitress came up.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Isn’t that enough for you?”

  Skelton dug in his mouth with his fork and pried out the loose gold inlay, which he set upon the twenty and the check which enumerated French toast and coffee.

  “Tell me when you’ve got enough,” he said.

  “I’ve got enough,” she said.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “I’ve got enough,” she said, somewhat louder. She was as white as the powdered jelly bismarcks behind her. There was something that Skelton was tired of.

  “Who was that masked man?” asked the customer who had slid Skelton the sugar.

  “I think he’s a guide.”

  “He’s not right in the noggin.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “He’s not right in the noggin.”

  “Ha-ha!”

  The waitress liked to laugh; she sidled down the counter with half a mind to divvy up the inlay. She thought the customer was a real scream.

  * * *

  “My man here?”

  “Not yet,” said Carter. Skelton climbed into the skiff and stowed the lunch. “Cart, grab me a block of ice, would you.” Carter brought the block in the tongs and swung it down from the dock; Skelton got the handle and eased the ice into the insulated box. It was too high. Carter handed him the ice pick and he chipped away, ice splintering and flying all over, until the lid would close. He tore the soft drinks from their cardboard and arrayed them around the ice block.

  “What are you going to fish for?”

  “I’m going to bonefish,” Skelton said. “I’ve got bonefish tides and I’m going to fish them. If Roy Rogers doesn’t want to bonefish, he can fuck off.”

  “I’ve got a permit charter.”

  “Well, you got the wrong goddamn tides.”

  “I know, I know. What’s the matter with you?”

  Skelton started shouting: “Why do these people want a guide? They can’t read tide tables but they already know what they want to fish for!”

  “Boy, are you het up. Do like I do; make your moves until four o’clock; then run home and take his money.”

  Olie Slatt arrived in a taxicab. He was wearing a men’s bikini and carrying a terrycloth beach bag. He was complected right for mine life and so it made a certain amount of abstract sense when he donned a bathrobe that came to the ground. He climbed aboard.

  “I want a trophy.”

  Skelton took the beach bag from him to stow it; inside were wrap-around La Dolce Vita sunglasses, a telephone book, bath clogs, and a roll of toilet paper.

  So far Nichol Dance hadn’t shown. Carter’s people were around. First an anesthesiologist and a tool designer from Spokane who were fishing tomorrow; they wanted a brief casting lesson so they could practice up, a task compounded by a certain lack of simple motor control in either of them.

  Then today’s customers arrived: the Rudleighs, who had abandoned Dance as “a nut case”; old pros in whites and deck shoes, they brought personal tackle boxes and two thermoses of Gibsons.

  Skelton started the engine, warmed up briefly, and headed for the ocean. Carter watched him until he saw the skiff jump on plane, then turn downwind toward the backcountry.

  Nichol Dance arrived about five minutes later. The Rudleighs backed away.

  “We just sent off a guide on his maiden voyage,” said Carter.

  “Don’t say.”

  “Looked real organized. Had his lunch and gear all clean and layed out and rigged.”

  “What’s he and that snake doctor out for?”

  “Bonefish I believe…”

  Dance nodded toward the two Rudleighs. “You fishing that lunchmeat, Cart?”

  “Till four o’clock.”

  “What kind of tides we got?”

  “Five-eighteen Key West low.”

  “That’d make the Barracuda Keys first stop for the new guide.”

  “I suppose.”

  Dance looked at Carter and laughed at him. “Where else? Toptree Hammock? Boy stole half that pattern off me.”

  Dance was wearing a blue shirt with white dolphins all over it; short-sleeved, outside his pants. Dance was not robustly built but his strong arms made him look like a sport of some kind, a handball player, say.

  Cart put his charter aboard and Dance got in his own skiff. Carter came out with a pack of cigarettes; he stopped on the dock and looked at Dance and tore the red thin strip of cellophane from the pack.

  Then Dance’s engine wouldn’t start. Cart came over and primed it for him, pulled the plugs, replaced them, and then succeeded Dance in failing to start it.

  “It ain’t gonna run,” he said, “I can hear it.”

  Dance said in a vacuum, “Man oh man.”

  “Do you want to borrow my skiff?” Carter asked him. Dance looked up; Carter was looking elsewhere.

  “Do you want to borrow my gun?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want to lend me your skiff for?”

  “I thought you could use it.”

  “If I take your skiff, how are you going to pay for that cunt of yours’ shopping?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry, Cart. I am. I’m sorry I said that.”

  “Nichol, my clients can see how upset you are.”

  “All right, all right I’ll stop.”

  “What do you want to do?” Carter asked again, resting his eyes on the highway, ticking off traffic, flow and volume.

  “I don’t know what I want to do.”

  “Do you want the skiff.”

  “Yes, I’m going to take it.”

  Carter and Dance walked up the dock to Carter’s boat. The Rudleighs were in the skiff now, lounging in the fighting chairs.

  “Mister and Missus Rudleigh, can I ask you to get out please?”

  The two climbed out bewildered.

  “What’s up, Captain?”

  “My friend needs the skiff. It’s looking more like miniature golf today.”

  Rudleigh said, “Run it past us again, Captain, you were real unclear the first time.”

  “I’m afraid our fishing is off. We have a kind of emergency to see to.”

  “Well, we’ll be heading directly to the Chamber of Commerce,” said Rudleigh. “Do you have an official version of the event you’d like us to relay as to why a month-old date to fish was canceled?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What is it?”

  “The captain—or guide—experienced a sudden loss of interest—or ambition—and flaked out without warning.”

  * * *

  Dance was gone in a roar.

  * * *

  “Honey,” called Skelton’s father to his mother from the bathroom, “scramble me four eggs and pour my coffee now so it will cool.”

  He shaved very carefully and very thoroughly, preparing his face with a hot washcloth, brushing on the lather thick and hot, then drew stripes through the stubbled foam.

  The conversion was quite startling; and once more the slightly olive skin was visible drawn across the facial bones that were those of an Iberian poet who was moved to verse only by a landscape with one tree and a full moon. Just as true, it was the face, if one believed such things, of someone incapable of cruelty; and deeply prone to folly.

  He finished shaving, manicured his nails, combed his hair, and dressed for the day in one brisk motion after another; then strolled in for breakfast, which he ate while jotting notes to himself on a pad.

  Today he was going to start something. He was trying to work it out on his pad, where he had written:

  1. Fire

  2. Air

  3. Ocean

  4. Stree
ts

  5. Houses

  6. Space

  He was still working on 7. It was his lucky number. He couldn’t decide between “Infinity” and “Waste Disposal.”

  * * *

  “I feel awful about that boy,” said Jeannie when she knew Dance had the boat.

  “Why?”

  “Because he is going to be killed!”

  “Oh, Jeannie please. Nichol won’t hurt him.”

  “What do you think he’s out there to do!”

  Carter was thumb-indenting a neat four-in-hand for his visit to the Chamber of Commerce.

  “Kill himself,” he said, “that seems pretty plain to me.” Then for the thousandth time he began to explain that no force on earth could keep a man from doing away with himself if that was what he was bound and determined to do. He checked the tie in the mirror; then raised his eyes to his own and thought: You are a hamster on a wheel and a low-breed dog in one.

  “Jeannie, let’s us go out and buy something big.”

  “Why hon?”

  “Come on. Something big as all suicide to stand in the lawn. I think it should be some bright color or something to match the shutters.” Her face fell.

  “No, you,” she said, frightening Carter for maybe the first time. “I think it’s something you should buy.”

  It was a tough and gnarled remark that they would both get over; Jeannie would get over it first, deploying her bruised spirit among the New Year sales and One Time Only offers; first-to-come Jeannie would be the first served; until that undetermined hour when she is precipitated into the hole with the rest of us.

  * * *

  The flats appending the northwest end of the Barracuda Keys form a connection between that minute archipelago and Snipe Point. They are, in effect, the western rim of Turkey Basin, diurnally drawing two great sweeps of ocean across the turtle-grass flats, dividing the bank into beveled sections; which from the air resemble scarabs of an annealed green next to the sky-stained green of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the inner rim, there is a concentration of large and hazardous niggerheads.

  Skelton started fishing the first of these flats on the incoming water, poling down light toward Snipe Point. They found four schools of bonefish on the first flat coming in with sting rays, bonnet sharks, and small cudas. They found two schools on the second flat, tailing on the edge of the creek and making a thirty- or forty-foot mud. Olie Slatt hooked his trophy in this second school, an exceptional bonefish. They drifted in on the tide while they fought the fish and Skelton boated it among the niggerheads.