Free Where You Once Belonged by Kent Haruf Page B

would affect things at the elevator.
    At the banquet there were the usual long rows of tables set up with chairs along either side and there was a head table established up front. For dinner we had the customary roast beef and mashed potatoes and green peas and coffee and a form of fruit cobbler. Afterward we listened to several brief speeches and testimonials. Then a few of the farmers who were present stood up voluntarily—but a little awkwardly too, with their white foreheads shining fresh and clean for the occasion, under the clubhouse lights, with their big calloused hands showing red beyond the cuffs of their suit coats—and once they had stood up they began to tell stories and jokes at Doyle’s expense, stories about Doyle which everyone in attendance had heard three or four times before and in more profane and expansive versions. But it was a success nevertheless. And of course Doyle took all of this good-naturedly. Then Arch Withers, the president of the elevator board, called Doyle up to the lectern so he could present Doyle with a gift. It was a sizable box wrapped in silver paper and a red bow. Everyone was watching him open it, although Withers and the other members of the board who were sitting with their wives at the head table were more than just watching him: they appeared to be beside themselves. There wasn’t a straight face among them. But finally Doyle got the silver wrapping off the box and opened it. Peering inside, he looked bewildered at first, dumbfounded; then he grinned and reached inside and held up the contents of the box for all to see. And what he showed us was not the usual pocket watch or a brass pen and pencil set that would gather dust on some desk. No, it turned out that the board had presented him with a good sturdy outdoor hammock to lie in—and a five-year subscription to Playboy magazine to read while he was lying in the hammock. Doyle grinned largely. Then he spoke:
    “Boys,” he said, “I’m afraid you flatter me. The sad truth is, I’m too fat for one and too old for the other.”
    Everyone laughed. Then one of the board members called out: “Yeah but, Doyle. What we want to know is, which one is it you’re too fat for?”
    Then people did laugh. They turned to look at Doyle’s wife who was sitting at the head table beside Doyle’s vacated chair. She was a small plump kindly woman with white hair, and now her face was suddenly red and her hands were playing in embarrassment with a clubhouse napkin. Doyle spoke again:
    “Course,” he said, “I suppose I could always lose some weight. I mean I might even manage to get skinny again. Don’t you think?”
    People laughed once more, and when he carried the box over to his chair and set it down and then bent and kissed his white-haired wife loudly on one of her red cheeks, kissing her with obvious good humor and genuine affection even after more than forty years of marriage, people applauded.
    So that much of Doyle Francis’s retirement banquet was a success. People in Holt felt good about it. And I believe they felt good about the final proceedings that night too.
    Because what happened next was the public announcement that Jack Burdette had been chosen to succeed Doyle Francis as manager of the Co-op Elevator. Arch Withers made the announcement. Leaning heavily on the lectern, speaking solemnly to the audience, he said that he and the board recognized that it would be hard to fill Doyle’s shoes, but that they had decided to look no farther than right here at home. After thinking about it thoroughly they had come to a unanimous decision; they had all agreed to promote Jack to manager.
    People applauded once more. Everyone approved. And while Jack walked up the lectern to shake hands with Arch Withers, one of the farmers in the audience said: “Well at least his feet are big enough. Burdette ought to be able to fill Doyle’s shoes, or anybody else’s, with them big boats.”
    Sitting in the middle of the room at one