Free Something to Be Desired by Thomas Mcguane Page B

the water goes on going downhill.
    So he launched his drift boat again. He floated andsmoked between the chalk cliffs. For a couple of hours he let the river take him away, toward the bubble of the ocean, toward teeming populations with women who looked like they came from Egypt, who did not seem to have been raised on pancake mix. For a while he felt the nation and its people coming to him, and then he dragged the boat out on a gravel bar, spooking eight fledgling ducks whose takeoffs failed. They pinwheeled into the reeds and disappeared.
    I am a family man, thought Lucien, despite what has been stolen. He persevered in viewing himself as a victim.
    Please send one tall bottled spirits of oleander. The north wind is tearing this joint up. Please send one sentimental war memorial heated by the sun and suitable for emplacement on coastal Bermuda grass. Am anxious to review above-captioned properties with canal and floating coconuts as pistol targets. Guard dog an unnecessary extravagance, also dismantle hydroponic tomato system as I am in all respects devoid of a green thumb especially as it applies to my own life.
    Lucien thought, Possibly I should not have thrown out all the furniture. The wind has a bit of a run at things as is, don’t you think? Of course it has. It’s like being left in the barn.
    He sat bolt upright in the cane rocker, an amber shooter of whiskey in his hand. The cruelest thing I did on my father’s death was to request “no keening” of my relatives. We could start from there. Sixty-six years of his wreaking havoc did not seem an appropriate background for some loud Celtic attempt to grease the boy to heaven. I’ll take my lumps; he’ll have to take his. If he’s going to heaven, it will have to be as an exemplarycriminal, a figure of pathos, there to give the chiaroscuro effect to happy souls who have everything.
    As to my child, maybe I am doing no better. Perhaps I
should
deal with principals only, phone it in without too much English on it, looking at myself with the instrument to my ear in the wind-shuddering front window and ascending foothills enameled on the darkness. Punch in this Yankee-Doodle area code, digits falling through the computer. If I get a boyfriend, I’ll sing “How’s My Ex Treating You?” with castrato enthusiasm. Calm down.
    “Suzanne?”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s me.”
    “What time is it?”
    “About eleven here. I can’t see my watch.”
    “Huh. One here. What’s up?”
    “Are you having company?”
    “What’s up, Lucien?”
    “I’m afraid I’ve been rude to your lawyer.”
    “Oh, so I’d heard. You’re going to have to stop that.”
    “I have already. On advice.”
    “Where are you?”
    “I’m out at my ranch.”
    “What time did you say it was?”
    “Almost nine.”
    “Huh. Must’ve dozed off.”
    “Where am I?”
    “What?”
    “Where am I?”
    “Lucien, I’m sure if
you
don’t know—”
    “Remember years ago, New Blue Cheer?”
    “Yes—”
    “They still make that stuff.”
    “All right, pal. That’s enough.”
    “I was playing our old tune, Suzanne.”
    “What was our old tune?”
    “ ‘My Girl.’ ”
    “This is news to me.”
    “Anyway, I listened to it and it was good. It was clear and it was good.”
    “Okay.”
    “I demand to see James.”
    “You will have to demonstrate to a neutral party that you are worthy.”
    “I ought to brain you.”
    “See what I mean? Besides, you’re in a completely other time zone. So that is a sick fantasy. It would be ill enough if you said it to my face, but this is ill-on-ill. And every time you light into my attorney, you look slightly less good to neutral parties.”
    “Am I to understand that I have to get a gold star from every pot-licker who cares to evaluate me or I don’t see him?”
    “That’s probably the best way for you to view it. James is not something that you picked out of a litter. He is a little person entitled to the usual assortment of human rights.