All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers: A Novel by Larry McMurtry
Authors: Larry McMurtry
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I couldn’t make it happen. Sally could have six orgasms and still keep herself, somehow, whereas I couldn’t even kiss her and keep myself. She thought it was nice of me to make it possible for her to come a lot, but that was about all she felt. When I finally quit she got up and took a shower. I grew unhappy, lying in the messy bed. I felt as though nothing in my life would ever be complete, not even for five minutes. Sally came out of the shower with a towel in one hand, a beautiful five-foot-ten-and-a-half inches of girl. Water dripped down her long legs and onto the floor mats and she was as far away and as much on my mind as if I hadn’t just been screwing her off and on for an hour. All the screwing should have changed something, or made some fundamental difference. It shouldn’t have left things just the same.
“Let’s go to the party,” Sally said. “I want to swim.”
I wasn’t crazy about going someplace Godwin was going to be, but it was the only invitation on our calendar and if we didn’t go we’d just sit around the hot apartment allevening, not knowing what to do with each other. I would brood about one novel or the other, and Sally would tie a thousand knots in the venetian-blind cord.
“Okay,” I said.
“I can wear my red bikini,” she said. It was the only garment she owned that she really seemed to like.
“It’ll drive Godwin wild with passion,” I said.
Sally was drying her legs—she looked up for a moment and made an amused face. “He’s already wild,” she said.
5
THE ABRUPTNESS with which major changes can occur in life was something I had never really experienced until I met Sally. I went through three years of college and no changes of significance occurred at all. I read books and wrote my novel and got drunk frequently. That was about all that happened. Existence really held no wild surprises—or wild surmises, either. Sally was my first wild surmise. I woke up on Godwin’s floor and looked at her and almost immediately my life began to veer crazily one way and then another, like a car being driven by W. C. Fields. Around any corner might be a drawbridge, a vegetable cart, or a brick wall—and I wasn’t driving. I was being zoomed. If I had been alert I wouldn’t have gotten in the car in the first place, but I hadn’t been alert and it was too late to jump out.
Not asking where the party was before I agreed to go is a perfect example of my general lack of alertness. Once I had agreed to go there was no way I could back out. Sally was looking forward to wearing her red bikini. The professor who was giving the party was named Razzy Hutton—Razzy was short for Erasmus. He was English, like Godwin,and was what he called a lineal descendant of Erasmus Darwin. His specialty was protozoa and he wore white trousers the year round. Of course in Houston it’s summer most of the year round, so the wearing of white trousers didn’t really class him as a great eccentric. It was just one of the many little things I held against him.
All he had to hold against me was the suspected theft of an octopus. One had disappeared from the zoology lab while I was taking Razzy’s course in protozoa. I
did
steal the octopus, actually, but Razzy had no way of knowing that. His case against me was built entirely on prejudice, just like my case against him. We brought out all each other’s instinctive prejudices. He was tall, thin, and blond and should have worn a monocle. If he had worn a monocle I would have hated him even more.
Razzy was quite social, and a darling of the Houston rich. Three of Houston’s more prominent Lesbians were sitting by his pool when we walked in. They were drinking vodka and orange juice and baiting Godwin, who looked pale and slightly crazed. I guess the Lesbians were scaring him. The three of them glanced at me as if I were some kind of unattractive dog, but when Sally came out in her red bikini they all but slavered. I expected steam to come out from
“Let’s go to the party,” Sally said. “I want to swim.”
I wasn’t crazy about going someplace Godwin was going to be, but it was the only invitation on our calendar and if we didn’t go we’d just sit around the hot apartment allevening, not knowing what to do with each other. I would brood about one novel or the other, and Sally would tie a thousand knots in the venetian-blind cord.
“Okay,” I said.
“I can wear my red bikini,” she said. It was the only garment she owned that she really seemed to like.
“It’ll drive Godwin wild with passion,” I said.
Sally was drying her legs—she looked up for a moment and made an amused face. “He’s already wild,” she said.
5
THE ABRUPTNESS with which major changes can occur in life was something I had never really experienced until I met Sally. I went through three years of college and no changes of significance occurred at all. I read books and wrote my novel and got drunk frequently. That was about all that happened. Existence really held no wild surprises—or wild surmises, either. Sally was my first wild surmise. I woke up on Godwin’s floor and looked at her and almost immediately my life began to veer crazily one way and then another, like a car being driven by W. C. Fields. Around any corner might be a drawbridge, a vegetable cart, or a brick wall—and I wasn’t driving. I was being zoomed. If I had been alert I wouldn’t have gotten in the car in the first place, but I hadn’t been alert and it was too late to jump out.
Not asking where the party was before I agreed to go is a perfect example of my general lack of alertness. Once I had agreed to go there was no way I could back out. Sally was looking forward to wearing her red bikini. The professor who was giving the party was named Razzy Hutton—Razzy was short for Erasmus. He was English, like Godwin,and was what he called a lineal descendant of Erasmus Darwin. His specialty was protozoa and he wore white trousers the year round. Of course in Houston it’s summer most of the year round, so the wearing of white trousers didn’t really class him as a great eccentric. It was just one of the many little things I held against him.
All he had to hold against me was the suspected theft of an octopus. One had disappeared from the zoology lab while I was taking Razzy’s course in protozoa. I
did
steal the octopus, actually, but Razzy had no way of knowing that. His case against me was built entirely on prejudice, just like my case against him. We brought out all each other’s instinctive prejudices. He was tall, thin, and blond and should have worn a monocle. If he had worn a monocle I would have hated him even more.
Razzy was quite social, and a darling of the Houston rich. Three of Houston’s more prominent Lesbians were sitting by his pool when we walked in. They were drinking vodka and orange juice and baiting Godwin, who looked pale and slightly crazed. I guess the Lesbians were scaring him. The three of them glanced at me as if I were some kind of unattractive dog, but when Sally came out in her red bikini they all but slavered. I expected steam to come out from
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