Western Swing

by Tim Sandlin

  Thorne started up the stairs. “I imagine she’s hungry too. Find something to feed her.”

  “Will that be all?”

  “You might fix me a drink.” Without speaking to me, Thorne clomped up the stairs.

  I held out my hand to Maria. “I’m Lana Sue.”

  “I know.” Maria was short, under five feet, but she wasn’t misproportioned like a dwarf or a midget, and her posture made me feel like a slouch. She led me into this bathroom straight out of a steaming ABC miniseries.

  “You shouldn’t treat Thorne like you’re a slave and he’s Genghis Khan,” I said.

  “Mr. Axel is my boss.”

  “He’ll forget that if you don’t remind him.”

  She laughed, high like a starling. “Why would I want Thorne to forget he’s my boss?”

  “Be a woman instead of a servant. He’ll wonder what you want.”

  That’s my method. Five minutes in the house and I was restraining the maid and, in my head, throwing out the stuffed animals on the walls and retiling the John floor. It was some John too. Sinks and mirrors and lights, little stools so you could poke at your face without standing up. The bathtub was a round, ceramic thing with steps and a handrail. It had a phone and a tape deck and a television with a VCR on top and a round mirror on the ceiling.

  A dial between the tap and a cigarette lighter said I was soaking at 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Nice of someone to let me know. The bottom of the tub contoured itself around my back and neck, soothing away the killer hangover.

  Maria brought in some clothes, a plaid shirt large enough for a logger and some green work pants with pockets down to the knees. “Do you mind eating supper in the kitchen?” Maria asked. “Mr. Axel isn’t having any and on Sundays we don’t make much fuss.”

  “Sunday?”

  “Today is Sunday.”

  Christ, Loren was wearing off on me. I never forgot the day until he came along. If I’d stayed with him much longer, he’d have me right alongside, hanging out with dead writers and talking to the moon. Snuggling deeper into the tub, I raised the temperature to 103 and punched the whirlpool button.

  “This is some bathroom,” I said to Maria. “I’m a John connoisseur and this is the fanciest yet. My mom would go nuts in here.”

  Maria held up my shirt, eyeing the bloody stain. She was dark and self-contained-looking. I figured Maria for around Cassie and Connie’s age. “You should see the master bathroom upstairs. It has a built-in microwave oven.”

  “Why?”

  “Janey and Thorne lived out here six years in a cabin with only an outhouse over on the hill. When she was pregnant with E.T. her bladder distended or something and made the colon spastic. They pitched a tent for her up by the outhouse, then winter came and she carried a slop jar around the cabin. Now Janey doesn’t like going more than a few steps from a flush toilet.”

  Maria hid her mouth with her hand as she giggled. “There are six in the house and two more in the barn.”

  “I’d like to meet this woman.”

  A frown jumped to Maria’s face. “I do not think so. The meeting would not be pleasant.”

  That added a dimension to the arrangement. “Is she expected back soon?”

  “She filled her handbag with credit cards and flew to Paris, France. The last thing I heard her say was that she’d never again play second fiddle to a steer. Can I bring you anything?”

  “Is there any Grand Marnier around? I like Grand Marnier with a hot bath.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Paul.”

  “Call me Lana Sue.” I snuggled deeper into the tub. This was comfortable. I wondered if Thorne could work out a deal with someone at the nearest airport so we’d get a call should his wife decide to appear without notice. Surely she would arrive by plane.

  The only tape in sight was the Sons of the Pioneers, Tumbling Tumbleweeds. I always was a sucker for simplicity and corn, so I plugged the tape in and closed my eyes to avoid the ceiling mirror. That mirror would be the first thing to come down if I chose to stick around.

  If I chose to stick around—the idea was interesting. So far, I liked Thorne a lot. He was the Western authoritative innocent, straightforward and sincere, a king of the range type like Ben Cartwright, who’d suddenly realized good intentions, hard work, and sacrifice for tomorrow don’t make for a loving family. Without half trying, I could give him a pleasure jolt that would keep him going for years. The man deserved a little happiness. And while I was giving Thorne something to look back on in his old age, I could work in one hell of a vacation for myself. I could be matriarch of the prairies, queen of a ranch bigger than Delaware. Then, after a month or so—if Janey didn’t appear—I might go back and forgive Loren or go to Texas and let Daddy forgive me, or stay put and not have anybody forgive anything.

  My nonfussy supper turned out to be a beautiful steak with asparagus tips, homemade french fries, and a four-color salad. I’ve always felt you can trust a person who calls the evening chowdown supper instead of dinner. They fall into my real category.

  While I ate, Maria whipped together a batch of brownies. She was admirable all the way around, Maria.

  “Mrs. Axel’s clothes don’t fit you well.” When she smiled, I could see brownie frosting on Maria’s front teeth.

  “She must be a large woman.”

  “Janey is very strong. My clothes might do better. Maybe you should try them.”

  “You’re tiny, Maria. I’d rip the seams out of anything you wear.”

  Her chin went up. “I’m bigger than I look.”

  “Nobody can hide six inches of height.”

  “Well, my boyfriend gave me his football jersey before he went out on the rigs. He was a fullback in high school. Second string.”

  “If I can’t make it to town tomorrow, we’ll check this jersey out.”

  A twenty-fiveish-looking girl walked in as I spoke. She was layered-flesh fat with short rat-brown hair and skin the texture and color of a used golf ball. She barked, “You’re moving in, then.”

  “Thorne asked me to stay a few days until he gets better. Who’re you?”

  The girl sneered. “What’s the matter with Daddy? He stub his little toe and can’t walk to the bar without help from a hooker? Mom’s been gone four days and the vultures are landing.”

  In the silence, Maria said, “Can I fix you something, Darlene?”

  “No. Why doesn’t she have clothes of her own? Daddy picking them up naked now? I suppose it cuts down on small talk.” She stalked to the refrigerator.

  I chose to be pleasant. “Your father tried to kill himself. I helped him, but he bled on my clothes.”

  Darlene blinked a couple times and the scowl softened for a moment. “Tried to kill himself?”

  “We were in time.”

  “How hard did he try to kill himself?”

  “Couple of pints.”

  “Let me guess. He cut himself in public, probably a bar. Good, safe place to drum up pity.”

  “Something like that.”

  Darlene returned to the table with a quart of mayonnaise. “I’m gay,” she said. She seemed to watch me, waiting for an effect.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You calling me a liar?”

  “My sister’s gay. Her friends are all nice to me, at first anyway. I don’t think you’re gay.”

  “Latently, I am.” She opened the jar and spooned mayonnaise into her slit of a mouth. “He didn’t really try to kill himself. It was a show.”

  “Aren’t you the one who shoots calves?”

  “Yearlings.”

  “Why would you want your father to kill himself?”

  White glop flowed from spoon to face. “‘Cause I’m miserable and it’s his fault.”

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  Darlene’s mouthful of mayon
naise reminded me of a pimple joke we all told in junior high. She said, “Don’t be stupid.”

  • • •

  I found Thorne lying on the far end of a long leather couch that had spurs carved in the wood frame. Holding a glass in one hand, he stared at a soundless television screen.

  “60 Minutes.” I recognized Mike Wallace.

  “You feeling okay?” I settled into a high-back chair that matched the couch.

  “I’m still here,” he answered, which didn’t exactly relate to my question. “You eat?” Thorne had an exhausted Roman senator look. The combination of weight, pride, and alcohol involved in holding together a dynasty does odd things to a man’s face and shoulders.

  “Maria fed me.” I slouched into my favorite position—right leg over right chair arm, back against left chair arm, left foot dragging on the floor—and watched Mike interview an Arab. The Arab had a wide gap in his front teeth, which made him look sneaky.

  “Ain’t Maria a doll?”

  “You’re a fortunate man to have her.”

  “You bet.” Thorne didn’t act too interested in whether I sat with him or not. I’ve never dealt well with being ignored.

  “I met your daughter.”

  He blinked and drank from the glass.

  “She seems to resent my presence. I guess it’s because her mom just left.”

  “Darlene hates Janey more than she hates me. Shot her in the back once with a twenty-two. Said Janey read her diary.” He paused for a drink. “What could be there to read, anyway?”

  “Did it hurt Mrs. Axel?”

  “Getting shot? Naw, Janey’s real strong. I cut the bullet out myself.” Thorne smiled, I suppose thinking of his wife’s back as he cut her open.

  “Could I have a drink?”

  “Bar’s over there.”

  “You want a refresher?”

  “Thanks, Jim Beam blends real nice with my new pills. I’m hardly miserable at all.”

  As I poured the drinks, I thought about poor, fat Darlene shooting her mother. I tried to picture Daddy in our living room back home, cutting a bullet out of Mom’s back. Daddy would wear his doctor’s mask and sterilize a steak knife. Mom would cover all the furniture with newspapers.

  “Does Darlene have a skin disease?” I asked.

  “She’s coyote ugly, ain’t she?”

  “You shouldn’t talk that way about your daughter. Maybe she’s sick.” I walked back to the couch and handed Thorne his glass, then sat on the end and propped his feet in my lap. While Thorne talked, I took off his boots. He wasn’t wearing socks.

  “That ain’t sickness. It’s lack of sun. She eats and sleeps all day and wanders around the ranch all night. The hands are scared of her.”

  “Why is Darlene so unhappy?”

  Thorne drank awhile, considering the question. 60 Minutes ended and Murder, She Wrote came on, still without sound.

  “Hell if I know,” Thorne said.

  “Have you ever asked her?”

  “No.”

  “Lot of people talk if you ask questions.”

  Thorne set his glass on the end table with a clink. He pulled his head up so he could see me better. “Listen here, Lana Ann.”

  “Lana Sue.”

  “Lana Sue, the complications surrounding this household took many years to build into the mess you see today. This ain’t no movie. You can’t waltz in here with folksy wisdom and common sense and make everybody dandy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My wife didn’t just leave on the spur of the moment. I didn’t try to kill myself because I was drunk. Those aren’t phases my children are going through. You dropped from the sky into a fucked-up situation.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Thorne settled back down into the couch. “All right. It’s not your fault. You’re the first good thing to come along in years. Just don’t think you can solve all our problems after two hours of hanging around.”

  “Okay.”

  “Christ, if it was that easy, I would kill myself.”

  Thorne finished his drink and fell asleep. I sat, sucking ice cubes and watching the old lady solve the murder, which was about a rock star electrocuted on a hot mike. Even without sound, I knew who did it by the second commercial. The show went boring after that and I started to wonder about my own fucked-up situations with Loren, Cassie, and Daddy. Did I want to throw off all those complications and take on another, just as screwed-up set?

  It’s like my mom. Mama watched every single episode of Guiding Light for eighteen years. Then, one Tuesday while Alan and Hope were discovering who Phillip’s real father was, she switched to Another World—without knowing any of the characters or their past and present loves or anything. Mom never went back.

  Maybe some of Mama rubbed off on me after all. I never thought so before.

  I smoked a couple of cigarettes and watched Thorne sleep. As he breathed, the ends of his mustache quivered a bit. A white scar creased his leathery tan from the bottom of one ear to his cheekbone. To me, Thorne looked strong and whole, a man in control of what happens to him. Nothing like a person who would grieve to the point of suicide. Suicides are supposed to be pale and meek—like Ann or my grandmother.

  The arm must have hurt because Thorne rolled over a couple times trying it in different positions. Loren sleeps spread all over the bed, sometimes using me as a pillow. Ace always curled on his left side with his right leg thrown across my hip. I guess to keep me pinned down.

  When I first ran away with Mickey he slept on his back, but after Jimi Hendrix died from choking on his own vomit Mickey rolled over. He was the only one of the bunch who snored much.

  I hate to think it, but I don’t remember how Ron slept. Fourteen years together and I can’t picture the guy in bed.

  Murder, She Wrote was followed by a detective show whose name I missed. Someone chased someone until a car exploded. I crawled along the couch and snuggled up next to Thorne’s body. His breathing shifted a moment, then his good arm came around my shoulders. As I drifted into sleep, I felt Maria cover us with a blanket. Loren would have almost approved.

  14

  Way back in March of ’63 when Daddy and the Christian Detective Agency dragged me, uncomplaining, back to Bellaire High, it was as if I’d slept those three months. My friends treated me like I’d been ill, Ron acted as if I never left. One of Daddy’s doctor buddies checked me over and announced the family’s fears were true, I had violated the sacred trust of virginity.

  The funny thing was that Daddy didn’t go into a week-long silence. I guess he wasted so much depression on my bad grades and minor disappointments that manic catatonia just wasn’t appropriate for something as big as being found naked in a motel room with five likewise naked country musicians. My sins were so outrageous it was either forgive and forget or send me to detention hall for life. So everyone forgot—or pretended to. Daddy even bought me a used Chevy. I almost forgot myself. The days turned hot and life focused down to the country club pool in the afternoons and Pizza Hut at night.

  Between the two, I circled Houston’s fast-food strips endlessly in his Oldsmobile with Ron or my Chevy with Roxanne. Gas was cheap. We put on a couple hundred miles a day in a five-mile circuit, looking at other teenagers who looked at us. I remember honking the horn a lot.

  Because of my long absence, they made me take two credits of summer school—which I couldn’t stand. Everyone in town but me got to sleep late and drink Pepsis in front of the soap operas until time to drive over to the pool. I spent my mornings daydreaming away Texan History and Home Ec. Who knows what I daydreamed about; not Mickey, and probably not Ron. Maybe I didn’t daydream at all but turned my brain into a white noise channel. That can happen when you’re bored in hot weather.

  I know I worried more about my tan than the economic class of real people. I listened to To
p 40 all summer—“Wipe Out,” “Tie Me Kangaroo Down,” “Frankie and Johnny.” Roxanne taught me breast development exercises, but I could still look down my nightgown and see my feet. It was as if Mickey and singing onstage and my discovery of dignified poverty were only dreams.

  • • •

  There was one element of my fling that I couldn’t forget and that was how relaxing and fun sex can be—Mickey’s Regular Orgasm theory of mental health. I fought the urge, tried to ignore the urge, self-abused myself through the urge, but the honest truth is that, as summer turned into what passes for fall in Houston, my frustration grew to the point of out of hand.

  “So get laid,” Roxanne said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s fun, you know it’s fun. Keep the fun you learned from Mickey and forget the stupid.”

  “I promised Daddy I wouldn’t.”

  Roxanne pretended to choke on her hamburger. We were in a booth at McDonald’s, waiting for Ron and Roxanne’s newest cowboy, who was really a drywall hanger faking it as a cowboy on weekends. “Why in hell did you promise not to get laid?”

  I sipped Sprite through a straw. “When I first came back, Daddy was going to ship me to a psychiatrist. Then he said Mom would die if I ever had sex again. Then he said it would end his career.”

  “You believed all of that?”

  “Then he bought me the Chevy.”

  Roxanne collapsed into hysteria. She shouted loud enough so all the customers and the girls behind the counter turned to stare at me. “Your father gave you a car if you promised not to fuck?” I tried to shush her, but she wouldn’t let it go. “A car for a pure ass, what kind of a deal is that?”

  “It’s a used car.”

  “Why drive around if you can’t fuck anybody?”

  “Shut up, Roxanne. I promised for his peace of mind. And Mama’s. The Chevy was just a bonus.”

  Roxanne laughed so much I got mad and decided to wait for Ron outside. As I slid from the booth she caught my arm. “You’re getting the crappy end of the deal,” she laughed. “That car doesn’t have a tape deck. Tell him you won’t give feel-ups for a tape deck.”

  “To hell with you,” I said, though that made her laugh even more.