Tales From The Loon Town Cafe

by Dennis Frahmann

  Bromley jumped in. “What’s this I hear about you and Red hanging out together? I can’t much imagine that, don’t know what you folks and a Trueheart would have in common.” When Bromley said that, Cynthia flashed a look of disdain at him. Then she turned her full attention toward Chip Frozen Bear, with quite an admiring look. Thelma frowned; I think she was still hoping to get Cynthia and Danny hooked together.

  Bromley was beginning to wind himself up. He already had had too much coffee. Caffeine made him jittery, but he couldn’t stand the taste of decaf coffee. While Pastor Paul Mall had paid his visit, Bromley had assiduously avoided all opportunity to speak up, but continually sipped from his coffee, refilling the cup twice from the carafe on the table. By now all two hundred and sixty pounds of him was jolted into action. “There’s been funny things going on in town. The senator comes and visits Van Elkind, and I don’t get an invitation. I’m practically the mayor of this town, and I don’t get an invitation.

  “And there’s been people coming and going. I swear I saw Tesla Haligent himself here in town just the other day. He’s never been here before in his life, even if he does own the bank. I only recognized him from pictures in magazines. What would he be doing here?

  “And something’s going on with buying land around here. The county clerk’s never seen so many people checking on so many deeds as she has these past couple weeks. The county courthouse is a regular revolving door she says.”

  “A little land boom is desirable, isn’t it?” I asked, doing my bit at planting good public relations for the American Seasons venture, and looking at Frozen Bear, who was refusing to meet my eye. “Isn’t prosperity what everyone wants?”

  “I just like to know what’s going on?” Bromley replied. “Like why are you and this Indian becoming buddies. He wanted the liquor license that you ended up getting. Is he trying to buy it from you? Don’t you sell, you hear me. You can’t trust a god darn Indian, and they don’t need any bars on the reservation or anywhere near it. Get a bunch of drunk Indians, and who knows what will happen next.”

  “Wally,” Frozen Bear said, pointedly ignoring Bromley’s racism, “I stopped by to ask you to give me some thoughts on how we might update or replace the PowWow for next Summer. Now that you’ve seen it.”

  “Oh, I’d like to give you some ideas about that,” crooned Cynthia. She was always up to planning a new event. Bromley flashed her a look of disapproval.

  I was pleased by Frozen Bear’s invitation, but I thought he was going to want to talk about American Seasons. Since the dinner a few weeks earlier, I had heard nothing from any of the participants. Red had been as silent as Van Elkind. For all, I knew, the plan for the big amusement park was already dead.

  It was time to change subjects. “So who’s going with me and Thelma to see the Reverend Willy Sunday night?” I asked loudly. Mrs. Hutchinson, head of the Ladies’ Aid at the Old World Lutheran Church, stood up suddenly and threw down a few bills on her table, and walked out in an unexpected huff.

  “I think it’s just the two of us, kiddo,” said Thelma.

  On Sunday evening, we were finally on our way to the Reverend Willy in Thelma’s cherry-red sixties Mustang. “I’m sorry,” I said, “that I joked about Gilbert Ford the other day. I’m also sorry he didn’t show up.”

  “Not your problem. I was feeling foolish for getting so excited at my age about a salesman. But there’s a twinkle to him that I like,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road.

  We were headed south on 17, past the end of Big Sapphire Lake and then out on Jackrabbit Road. The road was narrow and the trees grew right to the edge of the lane. The tree branches from either side met high above the road, creating a green tunnel through which we drove at a speed more moderate than usual for Thelma. Here and there stood a house with a lawn that rolled down to the road, green grass covered with a smattering of fallen leaves. The sun had dropped behind the horizon. A break in the tree canopy would occasionally surprise us and the first stars of the evening could be seen in the purple sky above.

  “Doesn’t Danny live down this road?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s a neighbor to the Reverend Willy. Only two houses are on this end of the road.”

  “Gotta turn off the lights now,” Thelma said. “Nothing happens when he sees car lights, even though he knows we’re here. Every Sunday, it’s the same story. So they say, anyway. Don’t know for sure. If there’s no one here, how do we know? It’s like a tree falling in the forest.”

  “What are you talking about . . .”

  “Sshh! I’m turning off the engine, and we’re coasting the rest of the way in.” Thelma cut the ignition, and we coasted in the darkness down a slight incline. She turned the wheels to roll onto the grass of a small field. Two others cars were already there, their lights off, their engines cooling. All three were pointed like hunting dogs to a small house at the edge of the clearing, its doorway open except for a screen, lights on in the room behind. A figure moved into the light.

  “I know him,” I said. “That’s Pete Sullivan. He used to own the theater, but why do you . . .”

  “Sshh!”

  Pete stood in the doorway of his house, leaning against the door jam, a sideways silhouette. Pete was a bit slow of speech, but earnest, good natured and good looking. He probably wasn’t yet fifty. He was surprisingly muscular and trim, something I didn’t remember from the few times I remember going to the old theater years ago.

  “He started doing this about two years ago. No one knows why.”

  Framed in the doorway, he was bathed in the light, a little bit like an angel in a Renaissance painting, with the room’s lighting providing a glow that came from behind. In turn, the small house was framed in the clear dark night filled with stars. He looked out toward the road. To me, it seemed he knew we were there. Then he turned out all his lights, and I heard the screen door bang as he walked out. Suddenly a beam of light hit his garage door. He had started a movie projector. The scratchy, jerky images of a silent movie were projected on the screen. The logo of D.W. Griffith appeared. The title appeared as “Way Down East” starring Lillian Gish.

  The Reverend sat in a lawn chair watching the movie. We were there watching him watch the movie, but soon I had forgotten him and was watching the movie myself and feeling connected to the shame of the Gish character, and then her fear as she floated on the ice floe down a wintry river.

  “Everyone knows that Pete always loved his movies and that closing the theater nearly killed him. But no one knows why he started showing these old silent movies outside. It’s like a penance that he wants us, or someone, to see.”

  We sat in the car watching actors probably long dead work through their sad story. Then the final images sputtered to the end, but the projector’s light still shone. Willy stood up bathed in the light looking out at us. Even from our distance, we could see there were tears streaming, tears that seemed totally unrelated to the old film. “The sermon’s over,” he shouted out. Suddenly, the light was gone. We heard his screen door bang, and then his interior light came on.

  “It’s one of his calmer nights,” Thelma said. “Just the movie. Sometimes, after the movie, he starts to rant and rave. There’s times he even shows up naked. That’s probably why some of these ladies hang around through the whole film, just to see if Pete will show his willy at the end.”

  Each of the cars started its motor and backed up from this strange drive-in movie. For the first time I noticed that there was a house on the other side of the field, behind us. It was Toivo’s house, Danny’s house.

  I caught a glimpse of someone looking out of the second story gable window, and then quickly letting the curtain drop back into place. It was only a glimpse of a face, but I was certain I had seen Danny, and that he had seen me see him watching.

  I turned back to face the small house. The front door was closed. The lights shone from the front room. It was just a little house in a clearing in the big woods.

  “Like he s
aid, sermon’s over,“ Thelma said, turning her head to the side as she backed out onto the road. “Every Sunday for the last two years, maybe more, he shows a silent movie, and he always cries, even if he has nothing else to say. He’s gone crazy, caught up in God and movies. I suppose it’s harmless entertainment for people to watch, even the night’s he naked, but there’s something a little dirty about it at the same time. It’s like we’re watching his confession. None of us know why.

  “We shouldn’t watch other people’s woes, but sometime you just can’t help yourself. And then you have to turn it into a joke to keep it from hurting yourself.”

  .

  chapter nine

  From my bedroom window vantage point atop the cafe, I could look east toward Big Sapphire Lake. My gaze skipped across the autumn patchwork of treetops. Heavy with browns and golds and an occasional steeple of evergreen, the trees marched across the landscape. Only the crystalline waters of lakes here and there broke their stride. The early morning sun was bright and clear. Each object on the town square cast a sharply etched shadow on the drying grass of this early October morning.

  A black BMW pulled in front of the cafe. The heavily detailed chassis gave a little buck when its front wheels met the concrete curb. Out stepped Van Elkind, dressed in blue jeans, a denim shirt and black leather boots. Even from my second story perch, I could see that he was unshaven and generally rumpled. He walked up to the cafe door below me and began pounding noisily.

  “What do you want?” I yelled down. “We’re closed on Mondays.”

  He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and his face grim. “Please open up. I need some decent coffee.”

  For a reason I couldn’t quite fathom, I felt compassion. “I’ll be right down,” I grumbled.

  Close up, Van Elkind looked no better than he did from my second story. “Are you fleeing from the law?” I asked. “You know Capone once stopped here to have a drink.”

  Van Elkind looked up tiredly. “Kip’s disappeared. Regina is frantic with worry at the camp and demanded that I come up. I drove from Chicago overnight. There’s no flight up here until a 10 o’clock on Northwest into Timberton, and it was fully booked. Who the hell is coming up here this time of the year?” He shook his head, not really caring for an answer. “She tells us that Kip’s been gone two days. Frankly, I wouldn’t care, and it wouldn’t be the first time. But Rita and Regina insisted I come up here and look. Didn’t want to call the police. No reason to get them involved.”

  The coffee grounds were now in the automatic drip machine and I turned it on. I didn’t see any reason to respond. A smarter man wouldn’t have even acknowledged the knock on the door.

  Van Elkind had followed me into the kitchen. With all the chairs perched atop the birch tables, legs pointing toward the cafe’s pressed tin ceiling, the front dining room looked alien. The kitchen while eerily quiet seemed more comforting. Then the gurgle of the coffeemaker as it heated up sounded a quiet warmth through the room. Van Elkind grabbed Thelma’s stool. She was fond of half sitting when she stirred her soups or rolled out pastries. Van Elkind slumped on the tall stool with no energy for anything else. The pot stopped gurgling.

  He grabbed eagerly for the freshly poured cup, drinking hurriedly, barely grimacing when he scalded the top of his palate with the hot coffee. After a couple more hurried swallows his back grew straighter and he began to look around the kitchen. “Any chance of making some toast. Maybe some of that cardamom bread Thelma bakes?”

  I sighed and pulled a loaf out of the storage container. With a long serrated blade, I slowly sawed through the hard-crusted loaf, exaggerating each cut back and forth, hoping to make clear my desire that Van Elkind leave. “How about some wild strawberry jam?” he asked.

  I turned, holding the blade out and mockingly thrust forward. He laughed hysterically, then even louder, slowly grinding into strangled sighs. “That damn kid. We leave him up here to stay out of trouble. Still in trouble.”

  He reached for the pot and poured himself another cup of coffee. “Got some cream?” he demanded. I went to the glass-front refrigerator and pulled out one of the small creamers. I handed it over wordlessly. The slice of cardamom bread popped out of the toaster. I walked over, pulled it out, and passed it back from hand to hand to cool and then dumped it on the counter beside Van Elkind. Before he had a chance to ask, I walked backed over to the refrigerator and grabbed a bowl of butter patties. “No wild strawberry jam,” I said.

  “Now I have to head out to the camp and face that ogre Regina. Hate that fucking old bitch. She’s supposed to take care of Kip. Why’d she have to lose him and then call up Rita and scare her half-to-death. And involve me. The old bat isn’t good for anything.”

  “She’s over eighty years old,” I pointed out.

  “She liked you. Why don’t you come out with me? She won’t go off like some fucking old world witch if you’re around.”

  I sighed, “It’s my day off.”

  “So? Consider it part of our new work alliance? We can take some time during the drive out to talk about American Seasons. I can bounce around some new ideas. Figure out the way to introduce them, publicly so to speak. Make sure no one sees it the wrong way, if you know what I mean. Got to handle everything the right way, put the right spin on it. Keep the story positive.”

  Always the obliging sort, I soon found myself dressed and sinking back into the capturing grip of the Recaro seats of Van Elkind’s BMW. He backed into the town square far too fast, nearly hitting Bromley who was on an early-morning inspection of his domain. Van Elkind turned right onto Highway 17 and headed out of town toward the camp road.

  It was a beautiful fall morning. A slight mist clung to the hollows of the ground. There was a crispness to the dried blades of grass. The sumac bushes were bright red. Sunlight broke through the gaps of birch boughs overhead. Spots of bright light shook and shimmered across the road ahead as the speeding car sent shockwaves of air through the trees tops, shifting the long morning shadows and patterns of light falling before us. The camp was only a few miles west of town, so we were soon pulling past the gate and through the stately avenue of carefully tended maples. The rose bushes that Regina Rabinowicz so carefully tended had long since stopped their summer blooming. Most were already trimmed back to canes in preparation for the winter ahead. Carefully mown fields of lawn lay before us as a Persian carpet of yellows and golds and greens from the first leaves of fall floating down to cover the grass.

  Smoke curled up from the main fieldstone chimney, and from another that I knew was in the breakfast room. Vases of cut flowers could be seen in the living room windows that faced the front lawn. Because the curtains were pulled back, one could see all the way through the long living room to the French doors that looked out to the stone terrace that stepped down to the lake. The camp seemed warm and inviting.

  Van Elkind pulled up to the front door. As he stepped out of the car, I could hear unexpected cries of loons, echoing across the lake, plaintive and low. Stephen opened the front door, “Welcome, Mr. Van Elkind,” he said, but looking at me with a cocked eyebrow.

  Regina Rabinowicz came running to the door. Her voluminous chenille housecoat and big furry slippers made her seem even bigger and floppier. Her hair was in tight pin curls. “About time you got here. Kip is gone without saying a word. Maybe he went fishing and drowned. I’m sure it’s something terrible.”

  Stephen coughed discreetly.

  Mrs. Rabinowicz looked at him sharply. “Stephen, Kip’s a good boy. He just hasn’t been brought up properly.”

  “Mother Regina,” Van Elkind began tiredly.

  “Don’t ma Regina me,” she snapped. “If you and that daughter of mine had paid the least bit of attention to the boy when he was growing up, he wouldn’t be in the trouble he is all the time. I don’t know why I called you first or why I listened to you when I did call. There’s no sense waiting for you to get up and look for him. If he’s in trouble, he’ll be dead by now, caught underwater
when his boat tipped over, or lost in the woods after hiking. Who knows what could have happened.”

  Van Elkind had another explanation. “Kip has not gone fishing or hiking in five years. If anything, he’s passed out from drinks or drugs or in some bed he shouldn’t be in. There’s no reason to call the police.”

  Stephen coughed discreetly once more, “Perhaps if Mr. Van Elkind and his guest would like to sit on the terrace, I could prepare some coffee and breakfast and provide added details about Kip’s behavior over the past few days. I have suggested to Mrs. Rabinowicz that there is no real cause for alarm. But, as you can see, she doesn’t agree.”

  “You’re as bad as Hank,” Regina wagged. “You think I’m too old to know anything. Hank’s just waiting for me to fall over dead, you know, so he can get his hands on my money. But you got a long wait coming, Hank, because I’m not about to shuffle off. Just remember it’s my money, not yours. Not Rita’s. It could be Kip’s. Yes. It just might be Kip’s, if you don’t watch out! At least Kip likes me. You exile him up here with this old woman so you can have a carefree life in Chicago. Someday you may come to regret that.” She walked up the broad steps to her bedroom with her slippers flopping at each step.

  Van Elkind looked at me as though to say, “What I put up with.”

  I thought to myself that I must start to say “no” when people asked me to join them on family errands. Stephen motioned us toward the terrace. Once there, we sat at a small cast iron table. The lake water lapped gently at the lawn’s edge a hundred feet away. The loons were gone.

  “Smell the air,” said Van Elkind. “So fresh, so green, so alive with the rightness of it all. That is what will lure people to American Seasons. We cannot lose this air. Admittedly, we can’t make the sky look perfect like this everyday. It rains and snows too much. And we can’t keep the quiet of this lake. Not if we want thirty thousand people a day. But the air, the smell of the air. If we can keep that, then we have it.”