Kent Haruf - Benediction

In the street she stopped to talk to Alice on her bicycle and then headed west on U.S. 34, toward Brush, and passed Fort Morgan on the interstate and went on toward Denver. Along the way she drank the coffee and ate the toast.

She was all right until she got to Denver. But then there was a lot of road construction and they had the men at work even on a Sunday morning. She got lost in the detours and roadblocks and ended up in the north side of the city. It was half an hour before she had any idea where she was at all.

She pulled into a corner gas station. There were no other cars at the pumps or parked at the cinder-block office but she could see an old man sitting behind the counter. She got out and locked the car and looked all around and went inside. The man looked up. He wasn’t as old as she had thought. It was just that he had gray hair, which was combed back on both sides of his head, with a wave pulled up above his face in the way the boys used to do when she was young. He’d been reading a newspaper spread out on the counter.

Good morning, she said.

Yeah. Morning.

I’m just going to tell you right out. I’m lost. All that construction turned me in the wrong direction. I’m trying to get downtown.

Lady, he said, you don’t ever want to tell people you’re lost. You don’t know what they might do to you.

Oh, I don’t think people would do anything to me. Look at me here. I’m an old woman. She stood in the middle of the little room watching him.

You never know, he said. You can’t tell.

All right, I won’t say it again. But can you help me or not, do you think?

Yeah. I can help you.

He got up and went over to the rack on the wall next to the entrance and took down a map of Denver.

Oh, she said. Do you have to do all that?

What else am I going to do?

He went around to his side of the counter and opened the map and showed her where she was and pointed out the streets to take downtown.

But I can’t drive according to maps, she said.

He looked at her. Why not?

I don’t know. I just can’t. It’s the way I look at things and the way my mind works.

Well, can you just remember, if I tell you?

No. Not like I used to.

I don’t know what I’m going to do then. What do you want me to do?

I want you to tell me slowly and I’ll write it down. I’ll take the turns you say, left or right, from off the paper.

But I got this map here for you. It’d be the same thing.

No, a map wouldn’t do any good.

Well, he said. If that’s what you want.

Then he told her very patiently and she wrote on the blank side of a flyer for a car auction all the directions he gave her, and folded the paper and put it in her purse.

How’s the gas in your car? he said. You don’t want to take any chances.

Thank you for asking. I’m all right that way. But I wonder if I could use your restroom.

Go ahead. It’s right there.

The restroom wasn’t very clean. She put paper down on the toilet and afterward washed her hands thoroughly, and looking in the mirror she applied some new lipstick, and she thought her red mouth and her white hair looked striking together, then she came back out to the office where the man was. Thank you, she said. I feel like I ought to buy something, for all your trouble.

Is there something you need in here?

No. I don’t think so.

Then you don’t need to buy anything. It’s no trouble. Just don’t tell nobody else you’re lost.

I’m not lost now, she said. Aren’t these directions good?

Yeah, they’ll get you there.

Thank you, she said. You’re a good man.

No, he said. He looked out toward the gas pumps. I don’t know if my wife would agree with you.

Why not?

All the water under the bridge.

You mean something happened.

Yeah.

But you’re still together.

As of this morning we are.

Do you still want to stay with her?

She’s the one I want. Always has been. There’s no mix-up in that direction.

Then you’ve got to make her see it that way.

Doing what?

I don’t know. That’s for you to know.

I’m pretty sure she’s give up on me.

No, she hasn’t. I doubt if she has. You wouldn’t still be in the house.

No. I think she has. She’s give up. It’s over for her. She don’t feel the same way no more.

But you’re a good man, I can see that. I could write her a note as a testimony.

Oh lord, wouldn’t that be something.

Do you want me to?

Yeah. Sure. Why not? Hell, what harm’s it going to do?

You have any more paper to write on?

Sure. Write on this.

He gave her another flyer with a blank back.

What’s your name? she said.

Ed.

She started to write, then stopped. Your wife’s name?

Mary.

That’s my name, she said.

Glad to meet you, he said. He stuck his hand out above the counter and they shook hands. She wrote, Dear Mary, you don’t know me but I met your husband Ed this morning at the gas station and he was very kind to me. I have the feeling he’s a good man. I have a good one at home myself so I know, even if some people might not think so but I’ve known him for fifty years. I wish all happy days for you. Signed, Mary Lewis, your friend (unknown). She folded the paper. Don’t read that till I get away from here, she said.

Why’s that now?

It wouldn’t be any good then. It would jinx it.

I won’t, he said. You take care of yourself now.

I’m on my way to see my son, she said, and went out and got in the car and drove away.

In downtown Denver there wasn’t much traffic yet since it was still only midmorning on a Sunday, and by sheer luck and instinct she drove to the street where Frank’s apartment was located and parked and locked the car doors and walked up the sidewalk to the porch of the old run-down frame house. It had not been painted in the years since she and Dad had been there. She knocked and waited. She looked at the next house and it looked just like this one. She tried the door. It was unlocked. She stepped into the dark hallway which ran back to two closed doors the way she remembered, and she went quietly up the stairs to the apartment where Frank had lived. A short Mexican woman came to the door. A program in Spanish was playing on the TV behind her. Is Frank here? she said.

What?

Does Frank still live here?

Is no Frank here.

Mary looked at the other doors. Have you been here a long time?

Me?

Yes. How long has it been since you moved here?

I don’t know.

You don’t know?

Not very long.

Is anybody else here?

My husband is sleeping.

She looked past the woman into the apartment. I’m looking for my son. I’m looking for Frank Lewis.

I don’t know this man.

We haven’t seen him for a long time. I don’t know where he is. He wouldn’t talk to us.

No? Why?

Because of him and my husband. What happened between them. And all of us.

Did he hit him?

No. It wasn’t like that.

Oh, I’m sorry for you.

Mary looked at her, and her eyes smarted with tears now. Thank you, she said.

I’m sorry you can’t see your son.

Thank you for your kindness.

Then the woman suddenly reached and hugged her and Mary held the woman tightly in return and stepped back and thanked her again and managed to smile a little and went down to her car. She sat a while. Then she drove until she found Broadway and the corner café that Frank had worked in and parked where Dad had parked when they had come looking for Frank on that winter evening when the floodlights were all lighted up at Civic Center.