Kent Haruf - Our Souls at Night

In August there was the annual Holt County Fair and rodeo and livestock judging at the fairgrounds on the north side of town. It started with a parade coming up from the south end of Main Street, coming up the street toward the railroad tracks and old depot. It was raining the day of the parade. Louis and Addie put on raincoats and cut a hole in the end of a black plastic trash bag to put over Jamie and the three of them walked over to Main Street and stood along the curb with the other people. There were crowds along both sides of the street despite the weather. The honor guard came first, carrying the limp wet flags and shouldering dripping rifles, then there were old tractors muttering up the street and old combines on flatbed trailers and antique hay rakes and mowers, and more tractors, puttering and popping, and the high school band, reduced in the summer to only fifteen members wearing white shirts and jeans all soaking now and sticking to their skin, then the convertible cars with the county notables inside but with the tops up because of the weather, and then the rodeo queen and her attendants on horses, the girls all good riders wearing ranch slickers, followed by more fancy cars with advertisements on the doors, and cars for the Lions Clubem; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 2em; text-align: know art doesn’t matter and the Rotary and Kiwanis and the Shriners zigzagging around in the street, like fat show-off kids, in their hopped-up go-carts, and more horses and riders in yellow slickers and a pony cart, and toward the end of the parade there was a flatbed truck with a cardboard religious picture on it and a riser at the front, entered in the parade by one of the evangelical churches in town. On the riser there was a wooden cross and a young man standing in front of it with long hair and a dark beard, wearing a white tunic and because of the rain he was holding an umbrella over his head. When Louis saw him he laughed out loud. The people standing nearby turned and stared at him.

You’re going to get yourself in trouble, Addie said. This is serious here.

I guess he can walk on water, but he can’t keep it from falling on his head.

A few nights later Addie and Louis and Jamie went out to the Wagon Wheel restaurant on the highway east of town and sat at one of the tables near the big windows. There was a view of the wheatland out to the south. The sun was going down and the stubble was beautiful in the lowering lightem; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 2em; text-align: ooun nt. After they ordered their dinner an old man walked over and sat down heavily in the vacant chair. A big solid-looking man in a long-sleeved shirt and new jeans, his face very red and wide.

Louis said, You know Addie Moore, don’t you, Stanley?

Not as good as I’d like to.

Addie, this is the famous Stanley Thompkins.

I ain’t too famous. More like infamous.

And this is Addie’s grandson Jamie Moore.

Let me see your grip, son.

The boy reached out and shook the old man’s thick hand and the old man winced and Jamie stared at him.

I heard you two was seeing each other, Stanley said.

Addie’s willing to put up with me, Louis said.

He died during church on a Sunday morning, Addie said. You know that.

Yes, I remember.

It was in August, it was hot in the sanctuary and Carl always wore a suit even in summer even on the hottest days. He thought it was what he had to do as a businessman, as an insurance agent. He had some notion about keeping up appearances. I don’t know why or for whom it mattered. But it mattered to him. Halfway into the preacher’s sermon I felt him leaning against me and I thought, He’s gone to sleep. Well, let him sleep. He’s tired. But then he slumped forward and bumped his head hard on the back of the pew in front of us before I could catch him. I reached for him but he just kind of folded forward out of the pew and dropped onto the floor. I bent over, I whispered to him, Carl. Carl. The people around us were watching him and the man sitting next to him slid over in the pew to try to help me lift him up. The preacher stopped talking and other people got up and came to try to help. Call the ambulance, someone said. We got him lifted off the floor and laid him out on the pew. I tried breathing into his mouth and pumping his chest but he was already gone. The ambulance men came. Do you want to take him to the hospital? they said. I s

On a Sunday they sat at the kitchen table over their morning coffee. There was an advertisement in the Post about the coming theatrical season at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Addie said, Did you see they’re going to do that last book about Holt County? The one with the old man dying and the preacher.

They did those other two so I guess they might as well do this one too, Louis said.

Did you see those earlier ones?

I saw them. But I can’t imagine two old ranchers taking in a pregnant girl.

It might happen, she said. People can do the unexpected.

I don’t know, Louis said. But it’s his imagination. He took the physical details from Holt, the place names of the streets ant him embalm

Toward the end of August Gene drove over the mountains and out to Holt on a Saturday to take his son home. He arrived at his mother’s house late in the afternoon and came up and hugged them both and then walked down the street with Jamie and the dog.

Don’t you like her?

Of course I do.

You don’t ever touch her. You haven’t petted her once.

He leaned down over the dog and patted her head and talked kindly to her and they went on around the block then back up to Addie’s house through the alley. They ate supper and at night Gene slept with Jamie and the dog together in the same double bed in the back bedroom. Louis stayed away.

In the morning they packed up Jamie’s clothes, toys and baseball stuff and the dog dish and food. Then the boy said, I have to say good-bye to Louis.

We need to go.

Just for a minute, Dad. I have to.

Don’t take too long then.

He ran over to Louis’s house but he wasn’t home. He opened the door and called inside and ran through the rooms. He came back crying.

You can call him later, his father said.

It’s not the same.

We can’t wait. It’s going to be late already by the time we get home.em; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 2em; text-align: just art doesn’t matter

Addie hugged him hard and said, Now you call me, you hear? I want to know how you’re doing and how school is. Jamie was clinging to her. She gradually loosened his hands. Just be sure you call me.

I’ll call, Grandma.

She kissed Gene. And you be patient.

I know, Mom.

I hope so. You call me too.

They started up, the boy and the dog together at the window in the back seat looking at her standing on the curb. The boy was still crying. Addie watched the car until it turned out of sight. By the time it was dark Louis had not come over to her house yet so she called him. Where are you? Aren’t you coming over?

I didn’t know if I should.

You don’t understand yet, do you. I don’t want to be alone and brood like you do working things out by myself. I want you to come over so I can talk to you.

After Jamie had left they tried to do what the town thought all along they’d been doing but hadn’t. By now Louis had long begun undressing in the bedroom, he got into his pajamas and was faced away from the bed where Aduses and she w

After dark one night they walked over to the grade school playground and Louis pushed Addie on the big chain swing and she rode up and back in the cool fresh night air of late summer with the hem of her skirt fluttering over her knees. Afterward they went back to bed in her upstairs front room and lay beside each other naked in the summer air coming in from the open windows.