Autopech

Tja, vroeger of later moest het gebeuren: autopech. Opeens deed hij het niet meer. De benzinepomp had het begeven. Een dag later en 600 dollar armer, rijdt hij weer als vanouds.

Holcomb, Kansas

Dit is het begin van Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: “THE village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.” Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely …