Where You Once Belonged by Kent Haruf

Author:Kent Haruf
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mountain, West, Travel, Fiction, United States, Literary, General
ISBN: 9780307807854
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-11-08T11:00:00+00:00

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At first people in Holt were not alarmed by his disappearance. On the contrary, they were rather amused by it. They thought of it as a kind of joke, as another of his sudden and outlandish acts which in time would be explained, or at least accepted, as just another installment in that ongoing legend that followed him about the town.

Then he’d been gone for about a week. And it began to get about—in the bakery and the pool halls and the tavern, wherever people were talking—that he had charged some things on Main Street before he left.

We learned that on that Friday afternoon on the last day of December he had gone into Foster’s Jewelry Store and after looking at several men’s rings and old-fashioned pocket watches he had chosen the most expensive 14-carat gold Bulova wrist-watch that Lloyd Foster had to offer. And he hadn’t paid for it; he had merely signed his name to a charge slip. Then he walked out of the store with the new gold watch on his wrist and went next door to do the same with Ralph Bird.

And there, at the Men’s Store, he charged a new maroon sport coat and a pair of good gray wool slacks, a leather belt and three long-sleeved oxford-cloth shirts—all of which satisfied Ralph Bird so well (since Bird hadn’t expected to conduct any business at all in that dead time following the Christmas rush) that he decided, uncharacteristically, to throw in a good new striped tie to boot.

And Burdette thanked him. He slapped Ralph on the back and signed his name to another charge slip. Then he walked out of the Men’s Store wearing the coat and the slacks and the belt and one of the shirts—with the other things (the two extra shirts and the bonus tie and his old clothes) all stuffed into a plastic store bag. Once he was outside, he walked up to the corner to Schulte’s Department Store.

But we discovered that he wasn’t quite so successful there. It happened that old Mrs. Thompson was the only clerk available at the moment and it was she who waited on him. In no uncertain terms Mrs. Thompson informed Burdette that the store had specific limits on how much they would allow anyone to charge. Burdette took this amiss. “But look here,” he said. “You know me. You know who I am.”

“I certainly do,” Mrs. Thompson told him. “I’ve heard more about you than I ever want to, ever since you were an ornery little boy. Your mother is a friend of mine.”

Consequently, at Schulte’s, Burdette was somewhat obstructed in his Friday afternoon shopping; that is, he was allowed to charge only a pair of dark socks and a set of blue underwear. And before he left the store he must have thought better of changing into the socks and the underwear and wearing them out onto the street. Mrs. Thompson was still watching him.

Despite these new stories about Burdette which everyone in town heard and afterward repeated, people in Holt were still not alarmed.

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