by Kent Haruf
Rose, he’s my uncle. He’s my mother’s baby brother.
I understand that. But he still can’t stay here. It doesn’t matter who he is. You know better.
I was trying to make him stop, Luther said. But he says he’s going to break my back for me. He’s going to take that kitchen table and throw it on me just as soons I turn my head.
Oh, I don’t think he’s going to do that. How could he?
That’s what he says. And you know what I says?
What?
I says I can find me a knife too.
Now you better be careful about that. That would only make matters worse.
What else you want me to do?
Not that. You let us take care of this.
But Rose, Betty said, I love my kids.
I know you do, Rose said. She turned toward Betty and took her hand. I believe that, Rose said. But you’ve got to do better. If you don’t, they’ll have to be taken away.
Oh no, Betty cried. Oh God. Oh God. The blanket fell away from her shoulders and she jerked her hand free and began to snatch at her hair. They already taken my Donna away, she cried, and then she started to wail. They can’t take no more.
Betty, Rose said. She pulled at her arms. Betty, stop that and listen to me. Calm down now. We are not taking your kids away. It shouldn’t ever come to anything like that. I’m just trying to get you to see how serious this is. You have to do things differently. You have to change what you’ve been doing.
Betty wiped at her face. Her eyes were wet and miserable. Whatever you say, Rose, I’ll do it. Just don’t take my kids away from me. Please, don’t do that.
What about you, Luther? Are you willing to make some changes too?
Oh yes, ma’am, he said. I’m going to change right now.
Yes. Well, we’ll see about that. In any case you can start taking some parenting classes at night at Social Services. I’ll arrange for it. And I’ll come by here at least once a month to see how you’re doing. I won’t tell you when I’m coming, I’ll just show up. This will be in addition to your coming to my office to collect your food stamps. But the first thing, the most important thing, is that you have to agree not to let him stay here anymore. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?
Yes ma’am.
Do you promise?
Yes, Betty said. I promise.
I just hope he don’t break my back, Luther said. Quick’s he hears what we been talking about here today.
WHEN THE SHERIFF’S DEPUTY WALKED INTO THE LONG dim stale room at the Holt Tavern on the corner of Main Street and Third, Hoyt Raines was at the back shooting pool for quarters with an old man, and he had already begun drinking for the day. A glass of draft beer stood on the little table near the pool table, with an empty shot glass beside it and a cigarette smoking in a tin ashtray. Hoyt was bent over the table when the deputy walked in.
Raines?
Yeah.
I need to talk to you.
Go ahead and talk. I can’t stop you.
Let’s go outside.
What for? What’s this about?
Come out with me, the deputy said. I’ll tell you at the station.
Hoyt looked at him. He bent over the cue stick, lined up his shot, and knocked the seven in and said to nobody: Hoo boy. Hot dog. He stood and rounded the table and took a sip of his beer and drew on his cigarette.
Let’s go, Raines, said the deputy.
You ain’t told me what for yet.
I said I’d tell you when we get there.
Tell me now.
You don’t want other people to know about what I got to tell you.
What the fuck’s that suppose to mean?
You’ll know when we get there. Now let’s go.
The old man leaned back against the wall, looking from the deputy to Hoyt, and the bartender stood watching from behind the bar.
Well, if this ain’t the goddamn shits, Hoyt said. I’m shooting pool here. He drank from his glass. He looked at the old man. You owe me for this game, and the one before.
It ain’t over yet, the old man said.
Yeah it is. It’s close enough.
I was coming back on you.
You was coming back, my ass.
And this one would of put us even.
Listen, you old son of a bitch. There’s no way you was going to win this game and you still owe me for the last one.
Let’s go, the deputy said. Now.
I’m coming. But he still owes me. You all seen it. He owes me. I’ll see you boys this afternoon.
He downed the rest of the beer and set the glass on the table and sucked on the cigarette once more before stubbing it out. Then he walked out ahead of the deputy. On the sidewalk he said: You got your vehicle?
Waiting on you, around the corner.
They went around to Third Street and got in and the deputy drove two blocks to the reserved parking lot on the east side of the county courthouse. He led Hoyt down the concrete steps to the sheriff’s office in the basement, where they took him behind the front counter to a desk and charged him with misdemeanor child abuse and read him his rights. Then they booked and printed him, and afterward they led him back through a little corridor to a small windowless room. After they sat him down at a table, the deputy who’d picked him up switched on the tape recorder while another sheriff’s deputy leaned back against the door, watching.
He claimed he was teaching them discipline. He did not try to deny it. He thought well of himself for it. He told them it was the right thing. He said he was putting order into their lives. Now when do I get out of here? he said.
There’ll be a bail hearing scheduled within seventy-two hours, the deputy said. What did you whip them with?
What?
You whipped them with something. What was it?
Let me ask you something. You ever seen those kids? Walking around town? They need discipline, wouldn’t you say? And you think their folks are ever going to do it? I don’t think so. They don’t know how. Wouldn’t even know where to start. So I was doing them a favor. All of them. They’re going to thank me someday. You have to have discipline and order in this life, isn’t that right?
That’s what you think? You believe that?
Goddamn right I do.
And you think an eleven-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy need to be physically abused to learn discipline?
It didn’t hurt them. They’ll get over it.
They’re in pretty bad shape right now. They look real bad. We have pictures to prove it. How long have you been doing this?
What are you talking about? That was it. One time. It’s not like I enjoyed it. Is that what you think?
You’re sure about that.
Yeah. I’m sure. What have they been saying about me?
Who?
Those kids. You’ve been talking to them, haven’t you?
What did you hit them with?
You’re still on that.
That’s right. We’re still on it. Tell us what you used.
What difference does it make?
We’re going to know.
All right. I used my belt.
Your belt.
That’s right.
The one you’re wearing right now?
I never used the buckle end. Nobody can say I used the buckle. Is that what they’re saying?
Nobody’s saying anything. We’re asking you. We’re not talking to anybody else right now. We’re talking to you. You used something else too, didn’t you.
I might of used my hands a couple of times.
You hit them with your hands.
I might of.
You used your fists, you mean. Is that what you’re saying?
Hoyt looked at him, then at the other deputy. What if I smoke in here? he said.
You want to smoke?
Yeah.
Go ahead. Smoke.
I don’t have my cigarettes. They’re out there in the front. Let me borrow one off of you.
I don’t think so.
Then let me buy one off you.
You got any money?
You mean on me? What the hell are you talking about? You emptied my pockets when you brought me in here. You know that.
Then I guess you can’t buy any cigarette, can you.
Hoyt shook his head. Jesus Christ. What a asshole.
How’s that? the deputy said, moving toward the table. Did you say something?
Hoyt looked away. I was talking to myself.
That’s a bad habit to get into. You can get into a world of trouble doing that.
WHEN THE SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES AT THE HOLT COUNTY JAIL finished questioning him that day, they led him back through the little corridor to the double row of cells. There were six in all, three on each side, and they were rank with the smell of urine and vomit. Hoyt stepped into the cell they’d indicated and sat down on the cot, and after a while he lay back and went to sleep.
The next day, upstairs in the courtroom, the judge set his bail at five hundred dollars. Hoyt had a little less than five dollars, no more than that. So they walked him back down to his cell in the basement and handed him orange coveralls that had HOLT COUNTY JAIL stenciled on the back in black letters.
It turned out the next docket day in this outlying district was a month away, since there had been one three days before, so Hoyt had to stay in jail waiting until then for his court date. When he heard about this state of affairs he cursed them all and demanded to see the judge.
One of the sheriff’s deputies who was nearby said: Raines, you better shut your goddamn mouth. Or somebody is going to come in there and shut it for you.
Let him try, Hoyt said. We’ll see how far he gets.
Keep it up, you smart son of a bitch, the deputy said. Somebody’s going to do more than just try.
Part Three
20
SO HE WAS ALONE NOW, MORE ALONE THAN HE HAD EVER been in his life.
Living with his brother seventeen miles out south of Holt he had been alone since that day when they were teenage boys and they’d learned that their parents had been killed in the Chevrolet truck out on the oiled road east of Phillips. But they had been alone together, and they had done all the work there was to do and eaten and talked and thought out things together, and at night they had gone up to bed at the same hour and in the mornings had risen at the same time and gone out once more to the day’s work, each one ever in the presence of the other, almost as if they were a long-suited married couple, or as though they were a pair of twins that could never be separated because who knew what might happen if they were.
Then when they had become old men, after a series of peculiar circumstances had transpired, the pregnant teenaged girl Victoria Roubideaux had come out to the house to live with them, and her coming had changed matters for them forever. And then in the spring of the following year she had delivered the little girl and her arrival had changed matters once again. So they had grown used to the presence of these new people in their lives. They had become accustomed to the way things had changed and they had got so they liked these new changes and got so they wanted them to continue day after day in the same way. Because it began to feel as if each succeeding day was good to them, as though all of this new order of things was what was pointed to all along, even if they could never have known or predicted it in any way or manner beforehand. Then the girl had finished high school and had gone off to Fort Collins to attend college, and they had missed her, missed her and her little daughter both terribly, because after they were gone it was as if they were suffering the sudden absence of something as elemental and essential as the air itself. But they could still talk to the girl on the telephone and look forward to her return at holidays and again at the start of summer, and in any case they still had each other.
Now his brother was buried in the Holt County cemetery northeast of town next to the plot where their parents lay.
IN THE DAYS AND WEEKS AFTER THE FUNERAL IT WAS nearly impossible to convince Victoria that she should return to college. She was not going to leave him, not the way he was. She said he needed her help now. This was the occasion for her to help him as he and his brother had helped her during that time two years ago when she was so alone and lost.
So she had stayed with him through the rest of October and through most of November. Then there came an evening, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when they were sitting over the supper dishes at the square pinewood table in the kitchen, and Raymond said:
But you’ve got to have your own life, Victoria. You have to go on with it.
I have my own life, she said. I have it here. Because of you and Harold. Where do you think I would be without the two of you? I might still be in Denver or on the street. Or with Dwayne in his apartment, which would be even worse.
Well, I’m still awful glad you come back. I won’t ever forget that. But you have to go on now and do what you said you wanted to.
That was before Harold was killed.
I know, but Harold would want you to go on. You know he would.
But I’m worried about you.
I’m all right. I’m still a pretty tough old bird.
No you’re not. You just had your cast taken off. You’re still limping.
Maybe a little. But that don’t matter.
And Mr. Guthrie has stopped coming out to help you like he was before.
I told him not to. I can manage by myself now. He’ll come out again when I need him. Raymond looked at the girl across the table and reached over and patted her hand. You just got to go on, honey. It’s all right now.
Well, it just makes me feel like you’re trying to get rid of me.
No. Now, don’t you ever think that. You’ll come back in the summertime and all the holidays between now and then. I expect you to. I’ll be upset if you don’t. You and me, we’re bound together the rest of our lives. Don’t you believe that?
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she drew her hand out from under his and stood up and began to clear the table.
Raymond watched her. You must be mad at me now, Victoria, he said. I just guess you are. Is that it?
You better not try to talk me out of coming home.
Why Jesus God, honey. I wouldn’t be trying to talk you out of anything if there was some other way. Don’t you see? I’m going to be about as lonesome as a old yellow dog around here, without you and Katie.
She took up the plates and the serving dishes and glasses and silverware and carried them to the sink and slammed them into the washbasin. One of the glasses broke. It cut her finger and she stood over the sink with tears brimming in her dark eyes. Her heavy black hair fell about her face and she looked slim and beautiful and very young. Raymond rose from his chair and stood beside her, his arm around her shoulders.
And I’m not crying about this broken glass either, she said. Don’t you think that I am.
Oh, I guess I know that, honey, he said. But come on, let’s get these dishes cleaned up here before we make any more mess out of things.
I don’t like it, she said. I don’t care what you say.
I know, he said. Where’s that dishrag? I’m going to wash.
No. You go on and get out of here. At least I’m going to do this much. Go back to the parlor and read your paper. At least you can’t stop me from doing the dishes.
But you know it’s the right thing, don’t you.
She looked up at him. Raymond was studying her face, his faded blue eyes regarding her with considerable kindness and affection. I suppose I don’t have to like it, she said.
I don’t like it myself, he said. We just both know it’s got to be this way. It don’t seem to matter at all what we like. It’s how things are.
She began to wash the dishes and he went back to the parlor and sat down to read in one of the two recliner chairs, and the next day they packed her car and she returned to Fort Collins with her daughter. She moved into the apartment again and in the afternoon she went out
to find her professors to see about her classes. She was farther behind in classwork than she had thought she would be. She decided to drop two of her courses and to attempt to catch up in the other three.
And now in Holt County Raymond was completely alone in the old gray house in the country. There was no one left for him to talk to. He missed the girl as soon as she was gone. He missed his brother. It was as if he didn’t know where to look or what to think about. Every day he wore himself out working and he came in at night exhausted, too tired to cook anything, so he warmed up food out of cans. And all the while the wind blew outside and birdsong drifted up from the trees, and from time to time the calling of cattle and the sudden nicker of horses rose up from out in the pastures and the barnlots, and these noises carried up to the house in the evening. But that was all there was for him to hear or pay any attention to. He did not care for the radio. He only watched television for the ten o’clock news and the nightly prediction of tomorrow’s weather.
21
SHE WANTED HIM TO COME INSIDE WITH HER AFTER school let out for the day, after they had walked home together through the park through the drifts of dead elm leaves and across the railroad tracks trailing off in the distance east and west in long silver ribbons, and when they got up to the house he said he would, and once they got inside, her mother was not herself. Mary Wells had gotten a good deal worse lately.
This afternoon when Dena went in to find her, she was sitting in her bedroom on the unmade bed, smoking cigarettes and drinking gin from a coffee cup, staring blankly out the window at the winter lawn and the dark leafless trees along the back alley. I’m home, Mom, Dena said.
Her mother looked up, her face lifted slowly as if she were waking from some dream. Are you? she said.
Yes. DJ’s with me.
You better get yourselves something to eat.
What is there?
I think we have some crackers. Where’s Emma?
She’s here too.
Do something with her, please. It won’t hurt you.
Mom, DJ’s here.
I know. You said that. Go on now.
Mom, do you have to smoke?
Yes, I do. And shut the door on your way out. Don’t forget about your sister.