Kent Haruf - Where You Once Belonged

“Good lord,” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all.”

“What’s wrong, though?”

“It’s just you. You look beautiful.”

We went back to the water-slide area and climbed the flights of stairs to the top. There was a long line of people waiting to go down. You went down through a tube, through fast twists and swoops, sitting on a piece of plastic with a stream of cold water pushing you and at the bottom you shot out into the swimming pool. As people disappeared, going down, you could hear them screaming and hollering. The line kept moving forward, then it was our turn. “Who wants to go first?” I said.

TJ’s and Bobby’s eyes looked huge. They stood on the platform staring down into the water slide where it made its first turn.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You’ll see.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No. You won’t get hurt. It’s fun.”

“Okay,” TJ said. “I think I can try it.”

I gave the attendant the tickets and he handed us the plastic pieces to sit on. TJ sat down on the plastic and inched himself toward the lip of the platform, then he was over the lip and the stream of water caught him and he went down fast, screaming.

“Next,” the attendant said. “Who’s next? There’s people waiting.”

“What do you think, Bobby?” I said.

“Can I try it with you?”

“Yes. Come down with me once, then you’ll be all right.”

I sat down on the plastic rug and took Bobby on my lap. I winked at Jessie.

“See you boys at the bottom,” she said.

I pushed us off the platform, leaning back, holding Bobby with one hand and pushing off with the other; then the water caught us and we went down in a wet rush around the first turn, banking up onto the side and shooting ahead, then more twists and sudden dips and a long fast straight run and a sudden turn up onto the side, the water carrying us and Bobby and I both yelling, and another swoop and then a short run and finally out, flying, still seated on the plastic rug but suspended in air now, and then down into the pool. We went under, I held Bobby around the chest and swam to the surface. When we came up Bobby’s eyes were as bright as glass. “How’d you like it?” I said.

“I’m going by myself next time.”

We turned to watch for Jessie. But one of the lifeguards standing at the side of the pool motioned us out of the way, so we wouldn’t get hit. We swam over to the edge where TJ was. We climbed out and waited. But she didn’t come.

“Where’s Mom?” TJ said.

“I don’t know. She was right behind us.”

“What’s taking her so long?”

“I don’t know. Keep watching.”

Then suddenly she came flying out of the tube with a big fat man in yellow trunks just behind her, the two of them sitting briefly on air, his legs around her, and then they sat down into the water in a tremendous splash. They rose to the surface and Jessie swam over to us. “Sorry,” the fat man called. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry.” Jessie shook her head and waved at him. She was laughing.

“What happened?” I said.

“Oh,” she said. She looked toward the man in yellow trunks; he was climbing up the ladder out of the pool, pulling his trunks up over his fat bottom. “I got stuck about halfway down and I couldn’t move.”

“Wasn’t there any water?”

“Yes, but I lost the piece of plastic. Then that man came down and smacked into me, with his legs around me, and we came down the rest of the way like that.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No it was just funny. And he kept yelling: ‘I’m sorry, lady. I’m sorry.’ But it wasn’t his fault. He was awfully big, though.”

“Well,” I said. “It’s a little unorthodox, but you did make a splash.”

“I think we did,” Jessie said.

“But, Mom,” TJ said. “Don’t do that again. It’s embarrassing.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. But it’s embarrassing.”

“Very well. Next time I’ll let Pat follow me. Will that be all right?”

“It’s certainly all right with me,” I said.

“But you should have heard him,” Jessie said. “ ‘I’m sorry, lady. I’m sorry, lady.’ God, it was funny.”

Jessie began to laugh again. Her sons stood beside her, looking up into her face. I don’t think they had ever seen their mother look so amused and animated. She was having a good time. We all were.

We stayed at Wet World for most of the afternoon. Jessie and I went down the slide several more times with the boys, then we got out and dried off and sat at a table watching them. The boys swam and played in the water, diving after a piece of tile, and finally they rode the water slide a few more times. Then we got dressed and walked out to the car. We were very hungry.

It was about five-thirty now. We drove across town to West Colfax, to the shopping center where Casa Quintana was. It was a large Mexican restaurant where the food was satisfactory, but the primary attraction — for little boys — was the entertainment and the decor. The rooms had been plastered to give them the appearance of adobe, as in a Mexican village, and sitting in the rooms you were meant to have the feeling of being in a peasant’s house. Most of the rooms looked out at a central square where there was a sunken pool with a clifflike platform above it. Also in one area there was a cave which kids could explore. We walked inside the lobby and stood waiting for half an hour for a table. I gave the hostess our name and told her we wanted a place near the pool, so it took a while for a table to be available. Then there was one and we followed the hostess back through a couple of the rooms to a booth. “Your waitress will be with you in a minute,” she said. From where we were sitting we had a clear view of the pool and adobe cliff.

After the waitress had come and we had ordered, some mariachi singers came through the rooms, singing sad songs in Spanish. They were dressed in Mexican costumes with braid and silver and wore big decorated hats. They stopped at our table and sang to Jessie in high voices.

“Ask them to sing something happier,” she said.

“I don’t know any Spanish songs. Just ‘La Cucaracha.’ ”

“You would,” she said. She smiled at the singers. When they were finished we applauded and they went on.

In a little while the waitress brought us our food. There was a small Mexican flag on a stick on the table and if we wanted anything more we could run the flag up and she would see it and come back. When we had finished eating I said: “Don’t you boys want some sopapillas now?”

“What are they?”

“They’re like pockets. They’re made of dough and deep-fried. You can put honey inside them.”

“Okay.”

“Run the flag up, then.”

They ran the flag up the stick and the waitress came over to the table.

“These boys want a sopapilla,” I said. “So do I.”

“Three of them?”

“Do you want one, Jessie?”

“Of course.”

“Four of them. With honey.”

The waitress cleared our plates and went back to the kitchen to put in the order. While she was gone there was a sudden racket on the cliff above the pool. Two men were arguing with one another, shouting nonsense and pretending to fight; then they each pulled guns and shot tremendously several times, but threw the guns down when they were empty and began to fistfight. They struggled on the lip of the cliff again until one, the bad one, was slugged hard and he fell forward in an arc off the cliff and dove into the pool. Then he climbed out, streaming water, and he and the man above him yelled again at one another while people applauded and whistled. I looked at TJ and Bobby. They were stunned.

“They were just fooling, weren’t they?” Bobby said.