Free Duane's Depressed by Larry McMurtry Page A

released from prison was taken up with various experimental hair transplants, none of which made him look any less funny looking.
    Fortunately his loyal and attractive wife, Jenny, stuck by him, even though they were now forced to live in much reduced circumstances. The only evidence of their former affluence was a wall-sized television set. When Duane walked past their little house he noticed a glow in the window far brighter than any that emanated from the other houses where only a TV was on. Lester, intent upon regaining his financial position, was probably watching the Financial Channel on his wall-sized TV.
    Over the years Duane had come to have a real fondness for Lester Marlow, even though during the terrible oil bust of theeighties Lester had foreclosed on his deep rig and several other pieces of his property. Even though the embezzlement soon came to light, once the bomb had gone off, nobody in Thalia particularly wanted to see Lester go to prison—he had been absurdly generous with loans, during his years as a banker—but his eccentricities were so pronounced that several thought he belonged in the nuthouse, perhaps permanently. Karla was of that school.
    “Duane, he was always good at chemistry,” Karla said. “For all we know he might get broody and set off another bomb.”
    Duane paused a moment in front of the small house with the giant, glowing TV, with half a mind to knock on the door and sit a minute with Lester. But it was still only three-forty-five, a little early for visiting no matter how eccentric your host happened to be. Lester could just have forgotten to turn off the big TV before he went to bed.
    Duane strolled on through the quiet streets. When he crossed the highway he saw that the truck he had heard droning through town was indeed his own. It was parked in front of the twenty-four-hour Kwik-Sack. The driver, Jimmy Savory, was probably heating himself up a burrito or two in the microwave. Duane hastily slipped across the street and hid in shadows by the Baptist church. If Lonesome Jimmy Savory came out of the Kwik-Sack munching a burrito and saw his boss afoot on the street at such an hour he might have a heart attack, from shock—or else he would run back inside and ask Sonny Crawford, who owned the Kwik-Sack and usually took the night shift himself, what in hell was the matter with Duane.
    Long ago, in high school, Duane and Sonny had been best friends. But they hadn’t stayed best friends; now, for no clear or particular reason, they preferred to avoid each other altogether. Sonny hadn’t made any bombs, but he had spent three stretches in the mental hospital himself, and now preferred to see as few people as possible. He owned a small house but kept the shades drawn winter and summer. He worked the night shift at his Kwik-Sack seven nights a week, winter and summer; so far as anyone knew, that was all he did. Duane’s kids all thought of Sonny as an uncle, and Karla, once every month or two, woulddiscover that she was out of Bloody Mary mix, and would run by and visit with him a little. When Duane asked her how Sonny seemed, Karla had little to say.
    “Like he’s seemed for the last forty years,” Karla said. “Depressed.”
    Sonny, once a very good-looking man, had been puffy for years, from the various drugs he had been given in the mental hospital. Julie and Nellie had both tried to get him to go to the dentist; his teeth were in dreadful shape. But Sonny resisted all efforts to get him to take better care of himself.
    While Duane watched from the shadows, Lonesome Jim Savory, a lanky string bean wearing an old dozer cap and tennis shoes whose loose laces flapped when he walked, came out of the Kwik-Sack, lit a cigarette, got in the truck, and was gone.
    Far up the street the town’s one stoplight winked in the inky darkness like a low red star.
    Before Duane turned to leave, Sonny came out of the store carrying the long thin measuring stick that he used to check gas levels in