by Kent Haruf
Over to have a drink at the Chute. Why don’t you come with me.
I can’t leave these people here. You know that.
Guthrie pulled his coat on and zipped it.
Wait for me, she said. I’ll come join you when I can.
All right. But I don’t know how long I’ll be there.
He opened the door and went outside. He felt the cold air at once on his face and ears and inside his nose. There were cars parked all along the street in front of her house and around the corner. He walked up half a block and climbed into his pickup. It turned over grudgingly, then it caught and he shoved his hands in his pockets while it warmed up a minute, then he pulled out into the street. Three blocks south on the almost empty highway he stopped at the Gas and Go, leaving the pickup engine idling, and bought a pack of cigarettes and came back out and drove over a couple of blocks east to the Chute Bar and Grill. It was smoky inside and somebody had fed the jukebox. The usual crowd was there, for a Saturday night.
He sat down at the bar and Monroe came over, drying his hands on a white bar towel. Tom, what’s it going to be? Guthrie ordered a beer and Monroe drew it and set it down in front of him. He wiped at a spot on the polished wood but it was something in the grain of the wood itself. You want to start a tab?
I don’t guess so. Guthrie handed him a bill and Monroe turned and made change at the cash register in front of the big mirror and brought it back and set the bills and coins alongside the glass.
Anything happening?
It’s still early, Monroe said.
He went down the bar and Guthrie looked around. There were three or four men on his left and people at the booths behind them and others in the far room at the tables and booths and at the shuffleboard table against the wall. Judy, the high school secretary, was sitting with another woman at one of the tables. She saw him looking at her and raised her glass and waggled two fingers like a young girl would. He nodded to her and turned and looked the other direction back toward the entrance. A couple more men, and slumped on the end stool was a woman in an army jacket. The man next to him turned. It was Buster Wheelright.
That you, Tom?
How’s it going? Guthrie said.
It isn’t any use to complain, is it?
Not that I know of.
Not around here, Buster said.
Guthrie drank from his glass and looked at him. What’d you do, lose some weight? I didn’t recognize you.
Hell yeah. How’s it look on me?
It looks good.
I just got out of detox. I lost some weight in there.
How was that?
Detox?
Yeah.
It was all right. Except once I got sobered up I was depressed as hell. Crying all the time. Doctor give me some anti-depression pills. Then I was okay. Except I couldn’t shit.
Guthrie grinned and shook his head. Hell of a deal.
It’s a hell of a deal, Tom. You can’t live if you can’t shit. Can you?
I don’t believe so.
No. So then he give me some laxatives. Cleaned me out thorough. That’ll make you lose some weight, let me tell you. Only I couldn’t keep up with it. All the time I was in there I eat like a horse but I kept shittin like a full growed elephant. Buster laughed. He was missing teeth on the upper left side of his mouth.
Sounds like a radical cure to me, Guthrie said.
Oh, you don’t want to do it every day, Buster said.
They both drank. Guthrie looked back into the other room. Judy was laughing about something with the people at the table. A big curly-haired man was there now too.
Where’s your partner? Guthrie said. I don’t see him anywhere.
Who?
Terrel.
Oh, hell. Didn’t you hear about that?
No.
Well hell. Terrel he was coming into town yesterday morning driving in his truck on the north side of town there and that little spotted bitch dog of Smythe’s run out in the street in front of him. Terrel feared he run over it. So he slowed down and opened the door and leant out to look behind him and be goddamned if he didn’t fall out of the truck right out in the street. The truck went on without him and runt into Helen Shattuck’s backyard privacy fence. They took him to the hospital, thinking he’d had a cardiac arrest. When he come to he had to tell what it was. Fell out of the truck, all it was. On account of he’s overweight and got to leaning out too far. Overbalanced hisself, I guess. Dumped out on his head right there on Hoag Street.
Guthrie shook his head, grinning. How bad was he hurt?
Oh, he’s all right. Give him a good headache is all.
Did he hit the dog?
Nah. Hell. The dog wasn’t even involved. The dog skedaddled. You reckon there’s a lesson there?
I wouldn’t be surprised, Guthrie said.
My mama use to say it’s a lesson in everything you do if you just have eyes to see it, Buster said.
I believe that, Guthrie said. Your mama was a smart woman.
Yes sir, she was, Buster said. She’s been dead now twenty-seven years.
Guthrie lit a cigarette and offered the pack to Buster. Buster took one and inspected it and put the filter end in his mouth. They smoked and drank for a while. Monroe brought Guthrie another beer and brought a beer and a shot for Buster. Take it out of that, Guthrie said. Buster nodded thanks to him and picked up the little glass and threw the shot back and immediately afterward bent over and had a long drink of beer.
As he was finishing it Judy came up from the back room. She stopped behind Guthrie and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around she said, I thought you’d be at the party at Maggie Jones’s house.
I was. I didn’t see you there.
I get enough of school at school, she said. It’s just the teachers. The same old talk.
Well, Guthrie said, you’re looking good.
Why, thank you. She turned completely around in front of him, making a little dance. She had on a low-cut white top and tight blue jeans and boots fashioned from soft red leather. The tightness of the top she was wearing made smooth pretty mounds of her breasts.
Can I buy you a drink?
I came over to buy you one, she said.
You can buy the next one, Guthrie said.
All right. I won’t forget.
Monroe brought her a rum and Coke and handed it to her and she tasted it and stirred it with the straw and tasted it again.
You want to sit down? Guthrie said.
Where?
You can have my seat. I’ll stand up awhile.
Shoot. I’m younger than you are.
Are you?
I’m younger than anybody here. I’m the youngest girl out on a Saturday night. She raised her fist and waved it.
The man on the barstool to Guthrie’s left was listening and he turned around and looked at her. He was wearing a big black hat with a bright feather in the band. I’ll tell you what, he said. You can have my seat if you give me a good-night kiss first. I was just about to leave anyhow.
Do I know you? she said.
No. But I’m not hard to get to know. I don’t have nothing, if that’s what you mean.
All right, she said. Lean forward, you’re too tall. He leaned forward from the waist and she took his face in both of her hands, ducked under the brim of his hat and kissed him hard on the mouth.
How’s that? she said.
Jesus Christ, he said. He licked his lips. Maybe I better just stay here.
No you don’t, she said. She pulled him by the arm.
He stood up and patted her on the shouder and went outside. She sat at the bar with Guthrie and turned in his direction. Who was that? she said.
He lives out south, Guthrie said. He comes in here once in a while. I don’t know his name.
I’ve never seen him before.
He comes in about every other week.
Guthrie and Judy sat and talked about various things, about school, about Lloyd Crowder, some of the student
s, but not for long. Instead she told Guthrie about her daughter, who was a freshman at Fort Collins, and how it was to have the house just to herself now, how it was so quiet too much of the time. And Guthrie said a few things about his boys, told her what they were doing. Then she told him the story about the blonde on the charter plane to Hawaii, and in turn he asked if she knew what the worst thing was for someone to say to you when you were standing at the urinal. They had another drink, which she insisted on buying.
After it came she said, You mind if I ask you something?
What.
Is your wife still in Denver?
Guthrie looked at her. Yes, she’s still there.
Is she?
Yes.
What’s going to happen, do you think?
I can’t say. She might stay there. She’s staying with her sister.
Aren’t you two going to get back together?
I doubt it.
Don’t you want to?
He looked at her. You think we could talk about something else?
Sorry, she said.
He lit a cigarette. She watched him smoke. Then she took the cigarette out of his hand and drew on it, blew two jets of smoke from her nostrils and drew on it again and gave it back.
Keep it.
No, I just wanted that much. I quit.
You can have this one.
No, that’s all right. But listen. Why don’t you come over sometime and let me cook you a steak or something. You seem so lonely. And it’s too quiet over there in my house all the time when it’s just me.
I might do that.
Why don’t you. You ought to.
I might.
A few minutes later the other woman came in from the other room and dragged Judy back to their table. My God, the woman said, don’t leave me with him.
See you later, Judy said, and Guthrie watched them go back into the other room. The two women pulled the curly-haired man to his feet and walked him over to the shuffleboard table and Guthrie watched them play for a while. When he turned back to the bar he found that Buster Wheelright had disappeared. He’d left some change on the bar and then he’d gone off. Guthrie looked around. The woman in the army jacket was still asleep down the bar. He finished his beer and went out into the cold air again and drove up Main Street toward home.
Victoria Roubideaux.
In December the girl appeared in the doorway of Maggie Jones’s classroom during the teacher’s planning hour. Maggie was sitting at her desk, marking student papers with a red ink pen.
Mrs. Jones? the girl said.
The teacher looked up. Victoria. Come in.
The girl entered the room and stopped beside the desk. Nobody else was in the room. The girl was heavier now, beginning to show, and her face looked wider, fuller. Her blouse had drawn more tightly over her stomach, making the material appear polished and shiny. Maggie set the papers aside. Come around here, she said. Let me look at you. Well, my yes. You’re getting there, aren’t you. Turn around, let me see you from the side.
The girl did so.
Are you feeling all right?
It’s been moving lately. I’ve been feeling it.
Have you? She smiled at the girl. You seem to be eating enough. Is there something you wanted? You don’t have a class now?
I told Mr. Guthrie I had to be excused to the rest room.
Is something wrong?
The girl glanced around the room and looked back. She stood beside the desk and picked up a paperweight, then put it back. Mrs. Jones, she said, they don’t talk.
Who doesn’t?
They don’t say more than two words at a time. It’s not just to me. I don’t think they even talk to each other.
Oh, Maggie said. The McPheron brothers, you mean them.
It’s so quiet out there, the girl said. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. We eat supper. They read the paper. I go into my room and study. And that’s about it. Every day it’s like that.
Is everything else all right?
Oh, they’re kind to me. If that’s what you mean. They’re nice enough.
But they don’t talk, Maggie said.
I don’t know if they even want me out there, the girl said. I can’t tell what they’re thinking.
Have you tried talking to them? You know you could start a conversation yourself.
The girl looked at the older woman with exasperation. Mrs. Jones, she said, I don’t know anything about cows.
Maggie laughed. She laid the red pen down on the stack of student papers and leaned back in her chair, stretching her shoulders. Do you want me to talk to them for you?
I know they mean well, the girl said. I don’t think they mean any harm.
Two days later that week, in the afternoon, after school was let out for the day, Maggie Jones discovered Harold McPheron standing in front of the refrigerated meat case at the rear of the Highway 34 Grocery Store on the east side of Holt. He was clenching a package of pork roast to his nose. She walked up beside him.
This look recent to you? he said. He held the meat out toward her.
It looks bloody, she said.
I can’t tell if it smells good. They got it wrapped up in all this goddamn plastic. You couldn’t tell the working end of a skunk with this stuff on it.
I didn’t know you ate skunks.
That’s what I’m talking about. I can’t tell what I’m eating with this goddamn plastic wrapped around it. It ain’t like our own beef from the meat locker—when we get it I know what I’m getting. He shoved the pork roast back into the meat case and picked up another package. He held it close to his face, sniffing at it, grimacing, his eyes squinted. He turned it over and peered suspiciously at the underside.
Maggie watched him, amused. I was hoping I’d run into you, she said. But I guess it’ll have to wait. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your shopping.
Harold looked at her. What for? What’d I do now?
Not enough, she said. Neither one of you has.
He lowered the meat package and turned to face her. He was dressed in his work clothes, worn jeans and his canvas chore jacket, and on his head, canted toward one ear, was an old dirty white hat.
What are you talking about? he said.
You and your brother want to keep that girl out there with you, don’t you?
Why yeah, he said. What’s the trouble? He looked surprised.
Because you think it’s kind of nice having a girl in the house, don’t you? You’ve gotten kind of used to having her out there with you?
Where’d we go wrong? he said.
You’re not talking to her, Maggie Jones said. You and Raymond don’t talk like you should to that girl. Women want to hear some conversation in the evening. We don’t think that’s too much to ask. We’re willing to put up with a lot from you men, but in the evening we want to hear some talking. We want to have a little conversation in the house.
What kind? Harold said.
Any kind. Just so you mean it.
Well damn it, Maggie, Harold said. You know I don’t know how to talk to women. You knew that before you ever brought her out there. And Raymond, he don’t know a thing about it either. Neither one of us does. In particular a young girl like her.
That’s why I’m telling you, Maggie said. Because you better learn.
But damn it, what would we talk to her about?
I expect you’ll think of something.
She said no more. Instead she walked away into one of the aisles of the grocery store, pushing her shopping cart ahead of her, her long dark skirt swirling briskly about her legs. Gazing after her, Harold followed her progress with considerable interest, watching from under the dirty brim of his hat. In his eyes there was the look of mystification and alarm.
When he returned to the house it was just before dark. Raymond was still outside. He located him out back of the horse barn and pulled him inside into one of the plank-sided stalls as if there were a need for privacy. With some excitement in his v
oice he reported to Raymond what Maggie Jones had said to him in the Highway 34 Grocery Store while he stood before the meat case considering pork roast for their supper.
Raymond received the news in silence. Afterward he looked up and studied his brother’s face for a moment. That’s what she said?
Yes. That’s what she said.
That’s all of it? The sum and total?
All I can remember.
Then we got to do something.
That’s what I think too, Harold said.
I’m talking about we got to do something today, Raymond said. Not next week.
That’s what I’m telling you, Harold said. I’m trying to agree with you.
The McPheron brothers made their attempt that same evening. They had decided it was safe to wait until after supper, but believed they could wait no longer. After supper they sallied forth together.
They and the girl had just finished eating a meal of fried meat and red onions, boiled potatoes, coffee, green beans, sliced bread and equally divided portions of canned peaches, bright yellow in their own syrup. It had been the customary nearly silent evening meal, eaten almost formally out in the dining room, and afterward the girl had cleared the square walnut table of their dishes and had taken the dishes to the kitchen and washed them and put them away, and then she was started back to her bedroom when Harold said:
Victoria. He had to clear his throat. He started again. Victoria. Raymond and me was wanting to ask you a question, if you don’t mind. If we could. Before you started back to your studies there.
Yes? she said. What did you want to ask?
We just was wondering . . . what you thought of the market?
The girl looked at him. What? she said.
On the radio, he said. The man said today how soybeans was down a point. But that live cattle was holding steady.
And we wondered, Raymond said, what you thought of it. Buy or sell, would you say.
Oh, the girl said. She looked at their faces. The brothers were watching her closely, a little desperately, sitting at the table, their faces sober and weathered but still kindly, still well meaning, with their smooth white foreheads shining like polished marble under the dining room light. I wouldn’t know, she said. I couldn’t say about that. I don’t know anything about it. Maybe you could explain it to me.