Where You Once Belonged

by Kent Haruf

  When she had begun to earn money as a secretary after she had graduated from high school, she had moved out of her mother’s home and had rented a tiny one-bedroom house of her own. It was over there on Chicago Street on the east side of town where there are mainly small one-story frame houses painted white and yellow and sometimes pink, with little gray slap-sided toolsheds in back along the alleys and vacant lots between the houses, with here and there an old wheelbarrow or an old car, a DeSoto or a Nash Rambler, say, rusting on blocks among the pigweed and redroot under the stunted elms. She worked steadily, efficiently, at the telephone office every day, and she kept her little house clean, mowed the lawn on summer evenings, shoveled the snow off the walks in winter, and for two years while Jack was gone she composed letters to him, following him from El Paso to San Francisco and then to Germany, all by mail, by letters—letters which Jack himself only rarely answered and then only to allow, as he would, I suppose, that he was in California now or that he had arrived in Germany, or perhaps (and this is more likely, knowing Jack) simply to complain that he had lost his weekend pass for some minor infraction of military rules and so had nothing better to do with his time than to scribble her a brief note on Army paper while he waited for the other men to come back so he could begin to play cards again.

  But finally in the winter he had returned to Holt once more and it was all right again. Or perhaps for Wanda Jo it was better than all right, since for the next eight years she continued to go out with him, believing all that time that he would marry her yet.

  Well, it was an abject kind of love. And it took many forms. But clean socks was at least one of them.

  I think it must have been a matter of barter to Wanda Jo, a kind of romantic transaction. It was as if she believed that washing his socks and laundering his shirts was not only the obvious and logical progression from making crib sheets for him when they were in high school, but that now doing his laundry each week was also the fair means of exchange for the privilege of going out with him on Saturday nights. Because for eight years, Jack would park his car in front of her house on Chicago Street, on those Saturday nights, and then he would get out and saunter up to her house and under his arm he would carry to her front door a brown paper bag—a bag which would never contain roses or carnations or even a handful of daisies but which instead would always be stuffed to overflowing with another week’s accumulation of his dirty clothes, his dirty socks and his greasy shirts. Then Wanda Jo would open the door to him and take that paper bag from his hands. It was as if she thought he’d brought her a gift, a present, a romantic offering, as though she believed he’d given her something which was actually valuable and considerate. And of course in return she’d have something to give him too; she’d hand him that other paper bag, the one with his clean clothes in it—his sour socks and his old work shirts and his soiled jeans transformed now, sweet-smelling, washed and tumble-dried and still fragrant of soap, as though in the intervening week she’d managed to perform some miracle or magic. And in truth she had: she had accomplished a kind of domestic and loving alchemy.

  Then Jack would say: “Thanks, Wanda Jo.” Or he might even become extravagant; he might say: “Thanks a lot, kid.”

  So they’d leave her little house on Chicago Street then. They’d walk out to his car together, with Jack’s big arm draped over her smooth silky shoulder under her strawberry hair, and at the car Jack would throw the sack of clean clothes into the backseat. Then they’d go out for the night, to drink at the tavern on Main Street or to drink and dance at the Legion on Highway 34. It was all a weekly occurrence; it happened every Saturday night. And afterward, after the bars had closed and after Jack had told his last joke to the last man still there in the bar who was still sober enough to laugh in the right places, they would usually go back to Wanda Jo’s house again. Then for an hour or two there would be another kind of exchange in the back bedroom where, we understood, Jack would teach her the tricks he himself had paid to learn while he was in the Army. And none of us doubted that Wanda Jo was obliging about that too. Because she loved him. Because she still thought of him as a big black-haired man with a good sense of humor. She was willing to wait for him for all those years—for him to make up his mind about marrying her—because she still believed he would eventually. She hadn’t anything else in mind for herself. Jack Burdette was the sum total of what she hoped for in life. She told me that once.

  It was on one of those Saturday nights. It was in March or April, toward the end of winter, after Jack had been back in Holt for six or seven years.

  I had been working late at the Mercury rather than going home to Nora and a silent house. Nora would be reading as usual, wrapped up in an afghan in the front room, and Toni, our little girl, who was two or three then, would already be asleep in her bed upstairs under a white comforter. So I had gone back to the office after supper to try to work on an editorial I was writing for the next week’s issue of the paper, and afterward I had walked up the block to the Holt Tavern on Third and Main streets. I wanted noise and laughter; I wanted to drink a beer among friends before going home again. At the tavern I stood at the bar talking to Bob Sullivan for a while.

  Bob Sullivan was a semiretired farmer who had moved to town recently, and at the moment he was seriously disappointed in his granddaughter Amy. She had married a local boy named Jerry Weaver six months earlier. “And the kid wasn’t any good for her,” Sullivan said. “I told her so. Here she’s just a year out of high school and then this Weaver kid talks her into a church wedding before she even has time to turn around good and see what else there might be in the world waiting for her.”

  “How old is she?” I said.

  “Nineteen.”

  “It’s pretty young to get married.”

  “That’s what I mean.” Sullivan said. “But do you think you can tell these kids that?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Well you can’t.”

  Sullivan ordered another Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. After it was on the bar in front of him he drank half of it at once.

  “So,” he said, “after I see she’s going to go through with it, I decided: hell, all right, then, I’ll make it easier on her. I’ll buy her a nice double-wide trailer as a wedding present. And I did. It was brand-new too when I give it to her.”

  “That was good of you.”

  “Because you don’t think that kid has any money, do you?”

  “His family has two or three sections of wheatland. They ought to have some money at least.”

  “But do they spend it?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “They don’t. And now I wish I didn’t either. I’m going to tell you why.”

  “I’m still listening.”

  “Because,” Bob Sullivan said, “the last time I go out to Amy’s house it was a month ago Sunday afternoon. I sit down at the kitchen table like I usually do and Amy brings me a cup of coffee. And after I’ve litten a cigarette to smoke with the coffee, she looks across the table at me and says: ‘Grandpa,’ she says, ‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke in my house anymore.’ ‘What?’ I say. ‘Grandpa,’ she says, ‘I just would appreciate it if you wouldn’t smoke in my house anymore.’ ‘You would, would you? Well I’ll be damned.’ ‘Because it’s a house rule,’ she says. ‘Is that right?’ I say. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘it is. Jerry and me made up that rule last week after you was here the last time. I’m sorry, Grandpa.’ ‘So am I,’ I say. ‘And I’m getting sorrier.’ Then do you know what I did?”

  “No. But I can guess.”

  “I stood up and went outside. That’s what I did. I drove home again mad as hell about it. And I haven’t been back there since. What do you think of that?”

  “It sounds pretty sudden to me.”

  “That’s what I think. Because I’d already taken out my lighter and litten my cigarette. It wouldn’t be so bad if she had just told me before I’d already litten. But she never.”

  “She’ll probably get ove
r it,” I said.

  “I don’t know. It’s been more than a month.”

  “Give it awhile longer.”

  “Sure. But do you know what, Pat?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what the damn hell of it is?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “I miss her. That’s what the damn hell of it is. I miss Amy. I miss going out there, talking to her and drinking coffee with her. And tomorrow it’s going to be Sunday afternoon all over again too.”

  Then he looked at me and I shook my head. He drank the rest of his Jack Daniel’s and afterward he sat there at the bar stirring the ice in the glass with his finger. Finally he stood up very slowly and went back to the rest room.

  While he was gone I moved farther down the bar. I ordered another beer. Toward the back, sitting at a table by herself, I saw Wanda Jo Evans. She waved at me and I walked back to her table and sat down in the chair next to her. Jack Burdette was standing over by the pool table talking to a circle of men, heavy, solid, massive, an imposing presence, standing there talking, gesturing with a full glass of liquor in one hand and a cigarette in the other, his face far above those other faces, florid now and animated, his eyes a little bit shiny. The men were all watching him while he talked.

  “You’re looking lovely tonight, Wanda Jo,” I said. “Is that a new dress?”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes. You look terrific.” And she did of course. The dress she was wearing was a pale green color, which set off her hair, and it was made of a soft material which fell smoothly from the shoulder down over her breasts and hips. There were little buttons down the front of it.

  She smiled. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  “I’m losing my hair,” I said. “Look at this.” I slapped myself on the forehead where my hairline had been. “If I don’t quit this pretty soon I’m going to be a walking cue ball.”

  “Jack’s losing his hair too.”

  “But he’s got more to lose. He could transplant some off his chest and nobody’d even notice.”

  “I’d notice,” she said. Then she laughed. She’d drunk enough to be amused by the thought of that. “He is awfully hairy, isn’t he?”

  “He’s the missing link,” I said.

  We looked over at Jack where he stood beside the pool table. He was telling another joke or retelling one of his stories, and the men standing around him were waiting for the punch line. Jack had their complete attention. A barroom and a male audience were Jack’s element.

  Wanda Jo turned back and began to twist a straw between her fingers. “I saw your wife and little girl on Main Street yesterday,” she said.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. What’s your little girl’s name again?”

  “Toni.”

  “Toni. Well she’s cute. And she had the prettiest little dress on. I wanted to hug her.”

  “She’s got some of her mother’s good looks at least. But she’s stubborn as hell. Maybe you could come over and help us out at nap time.”

  “I would,” she said. “Just let me know.” She was serious. “Anyway I think you’re lucky.”

  “Oh? I don’t know,” I said. Because I didn’t think of myself as being lucky. Not in marriage anyway. But of course Wanda Jo meant that I was lucky being a father. I would have agreed with her about that. At least at the time I would have. Toni was what kept Nora and me together.

  “But I hope to have children myself,” Wanda Jo said.

  “Do you?” I said.

  “Don’t you think I’d make a good mother?”

  “Of course.”

  “I think I would. Only it’s getting so late. Sometimes I wish Jack would just hurry up and make up his mind. He says he will but then he keeps putting it off.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “Did you know we were going to be married last summer?”

  “No.”

  “We were. I bought a dress and wedding invitations. But Jack decided he wasn’t ready yet.”

  “I don’t suppose he was.”

  Wanda Jo stopped twisting the straw and looked at me. “Of course he will eventually. I have to think that. Otherwise, what else is all this for?”

  “He’ll come around. He’s just not done playing yet,” I said. Then I took her hand; I squeezed it and she smiled. But the smile didn’t last long; it didn’t change anything in her eyes. Afterward she looked unhappy again.

  “Let’s have another drink,” I said.

  So we talked about other things for a time and drank another round or two. And in the end Wanda Jo Evans became drunk while Jack Burdette went on talking to his circle of male friends.

  Finally I decided to go home. It was after midnight and they were closing the bar. When the lights were turned on Jack came over and put his arm around Wanda Jo and they walked out to his car together. Outside on the sidewalk he said something which made her laugh, but her laughter was too loud and you could hear it along the storefronts, hanging in the air like fog. I stood on the sidewalk and watched them get into the pickup. Then they drove over to Chicago Street.

  So it might have gone on indefinitely. It had already gone on that way for most of a decade. Then in 1970 Doyle Francis turned sixty-five and decided he wanted to retire. And Doyle’s retirement turned out to be the first in a series of events which ended it for Wanda Jo Evans, although neither she nor anyone else knew it at the time.

  Doyle Francis was the manager of the Farmers’ Co-op Elevator in Holt. He had been the manager for more than thirty years—for as long as anyone could remember—and he had worked hard and he had performed valuable service. But now he was tired. He wanted out. He wanted to play golf and to see if he could raise asparagus in the garden behind his house. Consequently early that summer he had notified Arch Withers and the other members of the board of directors of the Co-op Elevator that he would retire in the fall, after corn harvest.

  In November, then, about two weeks before Thanksgiving, the board invited all of the local farmers who were shareholders in the elevator, and all of the Co-op employees and the mayor and the town councilmen and all of their wives, to a banquet to be held in Doyle’s honor at the clubhouse at the golf course east of town. And Nora and I went too, so I could cover the occasion for the Mercury. I don’t suppose such an event would have received much play in the Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News or, for that matter, in any other newspaper along the Front Range, but in Holt, on the High Plains, it was front-page news. It was a matter of local concern to see how Doyle’s retirement would affect things at the elevator.

  At the banquet there were the usual long rows of tables set up with chairs along either side and there was a head table established up front. For dinner we had the customary roast beef and mashed potatoes and green peas and coffee and a form of fruit cobbler. Afterward we listened to several brief speeches and testimonials. Then a few of the farmers who were present stood up voluntarily—but a little awkwardly too, with their white foreheads shining fresh and clean for the occasion, under the clubhouse lights, with their big calloused hands showing red beyond the cuffs of their suit coats—and once they had stood up they began to tell stories and jokes at Doyle’s expense, stories about Doyle which everyone in attendance had heard three or four times before and in more profane and expansive versions. But it was a success nevertheless. And of course Doyle took all of this good-naturedly. Then Arch Withers, the president of the elevator board, called Doyle up to the lectern so he could present Doyle with a gift. It was a sizable box wrapped in silver paper and a red bow. Everyone was watching him open it, although Withers and the other members of the board who were sitting with their wives at the head table were more than just watching him: they appeared to be beside themselves. There wasn’t a straight face among them. But finally Doyle got the silver wrapping off the box and opened it. Peering inside, he looked bewildered at first, dumbfounded; then he grinned and reached inside and held up the contents of the box for all to see. And
what he showed us was not the usual pocket watch or a brass pen and pencil set that would gather dust on some desk. No, it turned out that the board had presented him with a good sturdy outdoor hammock to lie in—and a five-year subscription to Playboy magazine to read while he was lying in the hammock. Doyle grinned largely. Then he spoke:

  “Boys,” he said, “I’m afraid you flatter me. The sad truth is, I’m too fat for one and too old for the other.”

  Everyone laughed. Then one of the board members called out: “Yeah but, Doyle. What we want to know is, which one is it you’re too fat for?”

  Then people did laugh. They turned to look at Doyle’s wife who was sitting at the head table beside Doyle’s vacated chair. She was a small plump kindly woman with white hair, and now her face was suddenly red and her hands were playing in embarrassment with a clubhouse napkin. Doyle spoke again:

  “Course,” he said, “I suppose I could always lose some weight. I mean I might even manage to get skinny again. Don’t you think?”

  People laughed once more, and when he carried the box over to his chair and set it down and then bent and kissed his white-haired wife loudly on one of her red cheeks, kissing her with obvious good humor and genuine affection even after more than forty years of marriage, people applauded.

  So that much of Doyle Francis’s retirement banquet was a success. People in Holt felt good about it. And I believe they felt good about the final proceedings that night too.

  Because what happened next was the public announcement that Jack Burdette had been chosen to succeed Doyle Francis as manager of the Co-op Elevator. Arch Withers made the announcement. Leaning heavily on the lectern, speaking solemnly to the audience, he said that he and the board recognized that it would be hard to fill Doyle’s shoes, but that they had decided to look no farther than right here at home. After thinking about it thoroughly they had come to a unanimous decision; they had all agreed to promote Jack to manager.