place...and closed their door on his heels.
What was it about adventure that had faltered? And his mind gave him the view of loaded cars on interstate highways. People traveling. A whole lot didn’t even look at the countryside. They read. Played games. Slept. The driver watched the road and noted the speed and maneuvering.
Times had changed when Andrew hadn’t noticed. He was a throwback to another time. Out of it? How strange.
If he was obsolete, then why did people go to museums? And he remembered being a child when an old cousin came to visit with them. He didn’t really visit. He read the paper and watched TV. Andrew’s own mother invited the elderly cousin to go to the museum, which was one of the eleven best in the country.
The old cousin said, “I’ve seen a museum.”
He indicated that if you’ve seen anything once, it was enough. It wouldn’t change. Museums did.
Think of the people who go to see the paintings and stand and just stare at them, absorbing the lights and shadows, the colors, the genius of it.
There are people who have such paintings or photos or drawings in their homes. They smile at them or stand and allow their eyes to draw the drawings into their brains and feel fulfilled.
Andrew really wasn’t such a person. He was not a viewer. He felt he, himself, was enough for any audience. He was unique and precious and worthwhile. He was there for them to regard and admire.
Yeah. Sure.
Two
Late that evening, Mrs. Keeper was sitting on the wide stool before her vanity mirror. She rolled her hair onto small wire rounds and pinned them with odd, bendable, plastic hairpins. She looked as if she’d just landed from some faraway planet.
Her husband came over and sat on his side of the stool, which had been custom-made for that very reason. His legs were on either side of her and his arms were around her body, nicely, but his hands were not in control. He asked, “What are we going to do about Andrew?”
She sighed with his “we” comment because what he actually meant was: What was she going to do about Andrew.
She fiddled with the lengths of hair tightly wound up in all those plastic doodads. She mentioned, “I’ve called Mark’s daughter JoAnn?” That’s the TEXAS questioning do-you-understand statement. “She’s coming to see us and she’s going to smooth Andrew... out.”
With his eyes closed, Mr. Keeper’s hands were exploring his wife’s front chest He mentioned, “Women terrify me.”
She turned her head slightly and looked at him loftily over her shoulder from under hooded eyes. She said, “—you are terrified—with reason. You brought me out to this raw place and, even now, you expect me to adjust.”
“You’ve done that very well.”
“Hah!”
Indignant, he reminded her, “I let you go in to San Antone twice a year to shop.”
“You go along and shake your head over anything I put on!”
“That’s how well you make a rag look when it’s on your body. I’ll not have you wearing rags.”
She was patient. “If they look good on me, then they’re not rags.”
And he said, “Oh,” as if he’d learned something.
“Why are you clutching my breasts? Do you think you’re going to fall off the stool? You had it made so that you wouldn’t.”
“I’m being helpful.” He breathed on the back of her neck and his hands cupped her breasts closely. “It’s nice you have two. One for each hand. No quarreling of hands. Each is content.”
She sighed with some drama. “You’re groping me again.”
That shocked him for her lack of understanding. “No, no, no! I’m keeping them from jiggling!”
“How kind.” Then she told her husband, “I can’t think of anything else to do with him.” She didn’t even have to say the name of Andrew Parsons.
So her husband solved everything. “Let’s take him back out on the tableland and just dump him. We could shoot a horse to put on top of him.”
“Not any of our horses.”
He accused, “You’re picky.”
She moved her mouth around as if she was searching out food caught in her teeth, then she sighed impatiently, “He’s human.”
“No! Really?”
And they were then silent. He relished her body and neck. She went on winding up every damned little curl.
She mentioned, “Your parents will be here in about three more days.”
Her husband chuckled in his throat.
“Why do you laugh?”
“How young they are. My daddy’s just barely twenty years older. My momma is only twenty-one years older than you. They really hurried. I was born exactly nine months after they were married!”
“—and your daddy was in Europe, fighting in that awful war.”
“Yeah. He didn’t think he’d get back.”
“I’m glad he did.”
“Me, too.” Then he looked at her in the mirror, and they smiled at each other. But he told her, “I have only one eye.”
She was patient He did that all the time. She told him, “Move your head over to your right. You will see that you have two eyes.”
He did that and exclaimed in lousy surprise, “Glory be!”
He continued sitting astraddle her hips, and he gently moved his evening beard on her shoulder giving her erotic goose bumps. But he was very diligently holding her breasts to keep them from wiggling.
When she finally finished winding her hair and had captured all of the curls on her head, he asked, “Ready?”
“For what?”
“Me.”
“Don’t joggle my hair.”
He chided, “I never have! The hair on your head isn’t one of your sexual lures.”
“I’ll take out the pins.”
“Naw. I’d never notice.”
“You just like my body.”
“I like you, your body, your essence, the way you laugh, and that sneaky little smile when you want me.”
She was indignant. “I have never wanted you. I’m just a used sex slave.”
