Nobody's Angel by Thomas Mcguane

roots and felt their cool bulk against his hands, he knew the enemy had been driven from his fortification. Three fat chickens, small projectilelike cucumbers, fresh spinach to make streamers to mark the depth of his clear pork soup, a case of Great Falls Select from the cooler and yes, a bit of help to the truck would be nice. Put the leeks up front with me. I’m a captain, good-bye.
    The grandfather and Mary sat at the round kitchen table while Patrick worked. He boned and skinned the chicken, then sliced it all into uniform strips. He had first cooked on the lid of an old Maytag washing machine—a basic utensil in the mountains. But now he had a south San Francisco hard-steel wok, restaurant-sized.
    “What in hell you been doing to support yourself?” Grandfather asked Mary.
    “I worked for a veterinarian.”
    “What happened?”
    “I lost the job.”
    “For what?”
    “I was fired for taking animal tranquilizers.”
    “You
what
?”
    Patrick made a rectilinear pile of the chicken slivers. He mashed the garlic with his cleaver, removed the pale-varnish papery skins, then minced the peppers; the same with the ginger—both arrayed alongside the chicken. He broke up the serrano peppers and spilled the rattling minute seeds into the sink.
    “What else have you been doing, Mary?” asked Grandfather in a yelp. Granddad under stress always grew dog-like.
    “Well, let’s see. Got pregnant and, uh, went to Warm Springs. You know,
the big nut house.
”
    “Oh, well, great, Mary.”
    Using the cleaver, Patrick split the well-washed leeks into cool white-and-green lengths, dividing them on the steel. He could feel the animosity through his back.
    “I hear you’ve gone into the movies, Grandpa.”
    “I was just having a look around. Anyway, nobody knows where that damned movie went to. I certainly don’t, but I’m darned mad about it.”
    Patrick fired up the wok, the cooking shovel resting inside. He poured in the oil. In a moment numerous small bubbles migrated vertically through it.
    “Then I joined up with some communists from Canada.”
    Patrick turned from the stove. “Can it,” he said to Mary. “And
you
, shut up about the movies.”
    He dropped the garlic in, then the ginger, then the Szechwan peppers, then the serranos. They roared in the oil and cooked down gorgeously. Arrayed around the wok were leeks, chicken, yellow crookneck squash, soy sauce, rice wine, salt—everything
jingbao
, explosion-fried. He raced about setting the table, put the wok next to a six-pack and served with the cooking shovel.
    “Do I have to use chopsticks?” the grandfather wailed.
    “You better if you’re going to China.”
    “I’ll bring my own utensils. Say, who said I’m going to China?”
    “Use the chopsticks, Gramp. They won’t let you take silverware through the metal detector at the airport. Y’know, because of international terrorism.”
    “Tomorrow can we have chili?”
    “No, you’re having a can of tuna and your own can opener, you goddamned sonofabitch.”
    “I like water-packed tuna, but no oil for me, please.”
    “Eat what I made you.”
    Mary stared into her plate, held each piece up as though trying to see through it, then returned it to her plate. She went to the kitchen for a glass of water and was gone a little too long. Patrick returned to his own meal: She ought to be darling when she gets back.
    “Used to be a real stockman’s country,” said his grandfather, eating quite rapidly once he forgot the chili and tuna fish. “No one retained mineral rights in a ranch trade. No farm machinery.” Mary came back. “Strange people here and there. One man with a saddled horse tied under his bedroom window at all times. Southern man with his boys chained up at night. Irrigator from Norway hiding in a car body from the hailstones. Me and old what’s-his-name buying hootch out back at the dances. Pretty schoolteacher used to ski to them dances, packing her gown. This Virginian used to do the