Kent Haruf - Benediction

The inside of the café wasn’t black and white anymore, but all yellow and brown. There were a lot of people out on Sunday morning eating brunch. She stood at the door waiting until someone would come to lead her to a booth or table. She couldn’t see Frank among the waiters hurrying in the room.

Then she was seated at a small table near the back and she ordered a breakfast of eggs and toast and coffee and sat watching the people with their families and their friends, they all had someone to dine with and talk to. The waitress who came was a young girl. Later when she brought the bill Mary said, You don’t know anybody by the name of Frank do you?

You mean here?

Yes. Somebody who works here.

There’s nobody by that name here.

He might have been called Franklin.

You could ask Janine. She’s worked here the longest.

Where is she?

That’s her over there.

Would you ask her if I could talk to her?

We’re pretty busy.

Just for a minute. Would you ask her, please?

The girl went over to the woman wearing red-framed eyeglasses, she looked too old to still be working. The girl said something to her and after a while the woman came over. You’re looking for somebody?

I’m looking for a young man named Frank. Or he might have called himself Franklin.

Franklin Lewis? He used to be here. When I first started he was working here. That was a long time ago.

I know. It would have to be. He’s not here now?

He’s been gone for years. And he wouldn’t be very young now. I’m lucky I even remember him.

Where did he go?

No idea. Him and his boyfriend took off someplace together.

His boyfriend.

That younger kid he was with.

Why did they leave?

The waitress looked at her closely. Ma’am, how much of this do you want to know?

Whatever you can tell me.

All right then. The owner found Franklin with some of the café’s money. I heard he’d been taking it for months.

I don’t believe that.

You said you wanted to hear this.

I don’t believe Frank would steal.

He had some of the money, that’s all I know. I don’t remember how they discovered it but the owner gave him a break, told him he could just give it back and leave.

He must have had a reason, Mary said. Her eyes filled with tears again.

I’m sorry. Can I get you something?

No. I’m all right. I just need to sit a minute.

The old waitress moved away and Mary sat still for a while and then stood up and placed money on the table and went out to her car. It was a little past noon.

She was four hours driving home. She drove cautiously getting out of Denver and went too slow on the interstate so that cars and trucks racing past honked at her. By the time she reached Brush she was so tired that she stopped in the parking lot at McDonald’s and put the seat back and rolled the windows down. She went to sleep at once. An hour and a half later when she woke she was sweaty and hot.

She started the car, turning the air-conditioning on, and ordered a large cup of iced tea at the drive-up window and then drove back to Holt through the wide-open flat country and the mile roads and the pastures and the stubble. In town she turned north on her own street and looked at all the houses and then parked at home. She took her purse and the empty thermos and passed through the wrought iron gate and on up to the house. It was quiet inside. As soon as she stepped through the door Lorraine came out from the kitchen. Mom. Are you all right? You look tired. You had us scared.

I’m all right.

You shouldn’t take off like that all alone.

Well, I did.

And you’re all right. Nothing happened.

I’m worn out, that’s all.

Did you find him?

No. He wasn’t at the café.

That was so long ago, Mom.

I had to look somewhere. I tried his apartment too. I don’t know where he is. He’s disappeared. He’s out in the world someplace, in thin air. He’s not coming back.

No. I don’t think he is, Mom. He doesn’t want to be found anymore.

I can’t just forget him. I can’t.

I know.

Well, she said. She put her purse and the thermos on the table and looked around. How’s Dad?

About the same. Maybe a little worse.

What did he say about me leaving?

He didn’t know what to say. Neither one of us did.

Well, I’m back now.

She walked into the bedroom and he was lying on his back, the sheet over him. He turned to see her. His eyes looked dull. Is that you? he said.

Yes, honey. I’m home now.

Did you find him?

No. I never found him. She came close to the bed. How are you this evening?

Not much good.

THEY MET IN THE BASEMENT of the church in what was called the fellowship hall. A big open room with a kitchen at the back, with the smell of mold rising from behind the trim at the edges, and long folding tables and metal chairs stacked against the wall, and an old upright piano in the corner.

Outside the church the light was beginning to fade, and there was a little breeze. But it was dark down in the basement and the recessed ceiling lights had been switched on.

The five members of the ministerial relations board were there along with the assembly director from Greeley, a middle-aged man with bifocal glasses. He was wearing a white shirt and tie but it was a warm evening and he had draped his coat over a chair. They all sat around one of the long tables that had been unfolded and set up.

The director had opened the meeting with a prayer and then they had begun to discuss Reverend Lyle. The board wanted to put this outrage and unhappiness and disruption behind them, they wanted Lyle to be replaced, to be discharged and not to be allowed to preach in Holt again.

Maybe he doesn’t even want to, one board member said. He wasn’t here this last Sunday.

No, he was here, one of the others said. He just didn’t do any preaching.

Would you be willing to allow him to stay, the director said, if I talked to him and he agreed to avoid this kind of controversy?

I don’t want to take the chance, the first man said. There’s no knowing what he’ll say when he gets up in the pulpit. You can’t trust him. He could say anything.

But I think he would be willing to make some kind of promise if I talk to him.

I don’t even want to try.

What about the rest of the board here?

They looked back at the director, in his tie and white shirt, and didn’t say anything.

I’ve spoken to him by phone, he said, but I haven’t seen him yet. Does he look pretty bad? I understand he was attacked.

Attacked. I wouldn’t call it that, another man said.

What would you call it? I heard two men stopped him at night and beat him.

He was out wandering around town at night, looking in people’s houses. What would you expect? After what he said in church.

And you think that justifies what those men did. Settling the score for the whole town, so to speak.

I’m not saying that. Did I say that?

But they did hurt him.

A little. Not much. I don’t think he was hurt very bad.

That makes it all right then.

No. Somebody roughed him up. We know that. But nobody knows who. If anybody knows who it was they aren’t saying. And he never made any complaint or accusation to the police. It wasn’t much anyway.

So he’s all right now. He’s not seriously hurt.

He’s able to talk at least, the first man said. Like we said, he came to church last Sunday and spoke a little.

What did he say?

I wasn’t there. I heard he just said that he didn’t have anything more to say. He told people to go home. It wasn’t a sermon.