Duane's Depressed by Larry McMurtry Read Free Book Online Page A

cheerfully. She always tried to be extra cheerful when she felt domestic tension building; and she certainly felt it building just at that point.
    “I just don’t want to rush my signature gravy,” she continued, when no one responded to her first cheerful remark.
    “Take your time,” Duane said. “We’ve got lots of it.”
    “Speak for yourself, Duane,” Karla told him. “If I have to spend my declining years dealing with a crazy husband, then I doubt I have much time to spare.”
    Before he could answer, Julie wandered in, wearing the sleepy look she wore when she was smoking dope rather than the wired look she sported when she was taking speed. The fact that her own brother, Dickie, was in rehab for the third time, leaving his own three children to the tender mercies of his spaced-out wife, Annette, was not enough to discourage Julie from sampling a wide range of drugs.
    “I wish you all weren’t so mean to Annette,” she said. “It’s a lot jollier around here when Annette and those kids come to supper.”
    Annette, at the moment, was living in a trailer house at the far west end of the property—the trailer house had been bought for Rag to stay in, but Rag—who had once made the mistake of telling her sister that she felt like Raggedy Ann and had been called Rag ever since—soon decided that she would survive in her job longer if she lived a little farther from work. That way she wouldn’t be available if Jack showed up drunk or stoned at three in the morning, under the delusion that it was breakfast time.
    “We’re not mean to Annette,” Duane said. “I like Annette a lot.”
    “I like her too but it’s hard to give your full approval to a daughter-in-law who makes her living robbing convenience stores,” Karla said.
    Annette did in fact have two convictions for armed robbery, but she was so appealing that the judge’s heart had melted both times, causing her to pile up twice as much probation time as Jack; but the good part was she had only served three or four nights in jail.
    “Why do you always have to bring that up?” Julie asked. “She just took the petty cash, both times. Can’t I just ask her if she and the kids would like to come in and eat? I hate to think of the four of them sitting out in that trailer house eating junk food.”
    “Bring ’em in, they can have gourmet cooking,” Rag said.
    “Annette’s part of the family,” Duane said. “Of course you can go invite her to dinner.”
    “But if she doesn’t want to come you hurry on back,” Karla said. “I don’t want you sitting out there half the night, smoking dope and watching porn.”
    “Mom, we don’t watch porn,” Julie protested. “It’s just that on cable sometimes people are naked.”
    “Naked,” Little Bascom said. His vocabulary was growing by leaps and bounds.
    “Do you want a drink, Duane?” Karla asked. Annoyed as she was, it was hard to stay totally mad when Duane was sitting around with his grandkids, looking sweet.
    “A splash of bourbon might taste good,” Duane said. “Little Bascom was poking his fist in the peanut butter when I got home.”
    “That’s your fault, for not taking the ride I offered,” Karla said.
    Duane let the remark float by. He was determined not to be goaded into some hasty retort that would just raise Karla’s temperature. He decided to wait for Annette and her kids to show up before making a statement announcing his intention to become a walker. He would explain calmly that at his age he needed lots of exercise and fresh air. Walking, by definition, was a beneficial activity that would keep him outdoors and reducehis desire to smoke cigarettes or pursue any of the unhealthy desires that could overcome a man who spent too much time in the cab of a pickup. He wasn’t naive enough to suppose that his reasonableness would sway Karla, who was rarely swayable once she took a position. But he thought he could probably get most of the grandkids on his side, creating a