Tales From The Loon Town Cafe

by Dennis Frahmann

  “Good to see you, sir,” Campbell began. His eyes were averted and his voice had an obsequious tone. “A bit of a problem here, with your son and all. Public drunkenness and public nudity. Kind of frowned on in this town. Normally, I’d just send that kind of problem on home, but the boy’s a little too far gone for that. I don’t want to say he’s taken any kind of drugs, but he’s in some kind of stupor. Now if call a county ambulance and have him taken up to the hospital in Timberton, well then if he has taken any kind of illegal drug, then you know, I’d have to arrest him, and I know we talked before you left for the summer how you wanted me to keep an eye out for Kip, and how you would be grateful if I did. Anyway I wanted to call you first.”

  Van Elkind brushed the officer aside, “Let’s just get him in the car.”

  “Well, it may not be so easy sir. Like I said . . .”

  “Just shut up.”

  Van Elkind strode to the water’s edge. We followed. I was getting good at that. Kip lay sprawled at the water’s edge, face to the sky, looking like he had been flung up to shore after a midnight skinny dip. His long stringy hair drying in clumps. I noticed a swastika tattooed right above his pubic hair, and was embarrassed to have noticed. Van Elkind was at his son’s side, half in the water, half on the shore, toeing Kip in the side with his shoe, “Get up, you damn jackass. It’s fucking time to get home. I got better fucking things to do than drive all night to tuck you into bed.”

  I came down with the terry cloth robe, and laid it over him. “We should get him to the camp and call a doctor. He could be suffering from exposure. It was below 40 degrees last night.” I looked back to Campbell. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call an ambulance?”

  Kip’s eyes fluttered open. I wasn’t sure he really saw us. “What the fuck,” he muttered. “Is this heaven or hell?” His eyes flopped back close.

  “Well, at least he’s alive,” I said tentatively to Van Elkind, “but I’d feel a whole lot better if you get him home. The two of us can carry him to the car. I’ll take his shoulders. You take his feet.”

  Who knew such a skinny kid could be so heavy. Van Elkind grunted as he lifted up his kid’s feet, but I had the heavy end. I prided myself on not huffing, and it gave me pleasure to make Van Elkind walk backwards up the slight incline from the shore. We inched our way toward the car with Kip’s head and feet held just high enough to keep his ass from scraping the ground. The robe slid off. It was like we were carrying a naked trophy we had just hunted down in the woods.

  “Sir, I think he’s saying something,” Campbell said.

  “We’re carrying him. You listen,” Van Elkind said impatiently. The car was another hundred feet. I thought about Cynthia, who would kill me if she knew I was making this effort to save her nemesis. The kid’s body looked undernourished with his ribs rubbing up against the skin, exaggerated by the way we were carrying him. The swastika by his cock was only one of several tattoos, all looking hand drawn on the kid’s body.

  At last we reached the car and let the kid slump to the ground. Even as we regained our breaths, Kip seemed to revive a little.

  “What ya doing here Pop?” he asked. “Couldn’t even let me kill myself could you? Had to come and save me. Why bother? No one likes me here. Cynthia won’t go out with me. But you keep coming back. And back.”

  And he was out again. Campbell came back with the fallen robe to put over Kip. “It’s time to take him home, sir.” I wasn’t sure if Campbell meant the camp or Chicago. I would have recommended Chicago, and to take Kip and all of their family’s problems back.

  Under bare fall branches and in the morning sun, we began the drive back, at first in quiet, with only the occasional moan or grunt from Kip in the back seat. But it was on that cool fall morning in those twenty minutes back into town that I got my first glimpse of this millionaire’s real self and that in return I exposed just a small part of myself.

  Was it the smell of the freshest of cold river water mixed with the odor of unwashed hair all wrapped up in damp terry cloth? Knowing that that combination represented yourself in your only son and that somehow you were failing him, that you and your wife would rather leave him to his opinionated grandmother who loved him in a way you couldn’t, that you could try to build an entire city even though you could save family—perhaps all of that became embodied in a smelly, gaseous, bombed-out bundle in the back seat and that made one honest for at least a moment.

  Henry didn’t talk about Kip. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge that he had come to the aid of his son. Rather, all the talk was about what was driving him to build American Seasons. It became clear that he needed to prove himself and build a fortune in the way that his in-laws had; he had to live up to the legacy of earlier Van Elkinds who had once created a fortune. In that quest, he was alone since Rita was only interested in the spending of money, not in creating it. Yet I sensed that it was ultimately only a game to Henry and as in any other game he might play, he wasn’t particularly concerned about following the rules.

  But it was clear he was lonely and that for some reason he thought of me as an ally. I wanted to repay that touch of humanity. I wanted to tell him of my worries for the cafe. I felt a compulsion to recount in detail that horrible day in Manhattan when Patrice and I had been so brutally mugged, to explain why I felt compelled to flee the city and return home to establish a different life.

  But I had no drugged-out son beginning to whimper in the back seat crowding me into honesty, and I decided not to cross that barrier. I didn’t need a friend, not even a rich egotist like Henry Van Elkind. I had a cafe, and that was enough.

  .

  chapter ten

  “What a morning! Brisk enough to nip at the tits of a witch,” blustered Bromley as he entered the cafe and allowed the brisk November wind to whistle through the packed cafe.

  “Close the fucking door,” snapped Red Trueheart. Cynthia looked at her father with alarm. Whenever he ate in the cafe, she tiptoed through the day prepared to be mortified. For someone so easily entranced by my regular cadre of codgers, Cynthia seemed to find no such fascination in her own father.

  “Why such a foul mood? It’s just a nice cold snap to get us ready for winter. And after the best god darn fall color season we ever had. And you’re growling like a hungry bear at the town dump.” Bromley was up on his favorite stool at the bar. “A big cup of java, Cynthia, to welcome a day like today.” Red simply ignored it all and returned to the financial pages of that day’s state edition of The Milwaukee Journal.

  Red’s inattention irked Bromley, so he walked over to sit at Red’s table. Claire quickly began spooning more strawberry jam on her muffin. Mr. Packer leaned across the counter to whisper, ”A ritual we must endure each year. Bromley loves the cold. Red can’t abide it. You can always safely predict that once the edges of the lake are covered with a thin pane of ice in the morning that these two will break through it.”

  Claire inched closer. “My men warned me about today. They said, ‘Claire, stay home.’ But did I listen? No, I did not. Something told me that today Wally would have wild strawberry jam, and I didn’t want to miss out on that. But now I’m here, and there’s no way out of this but to sit through it. You got to take your medicine and lick it.”

  Bromley took an enormous swig from his mug, then leaned back against his chair and released a self-satisfied sigh. Another customer entered the cafe. The quick rush of icy air swirled around the cafe creating momentary mini-tornadoes of the steam that rose above each coffee cup. “A great day indeed. Can’t ask for a better one, could you Red?”

  Cynthia came up beside me with her ever-present pot of coffee. “I know Bromley needs a refill, but I’m staying away. Daddy’s in a really bad mood, and Bromley’s just torturing him.”

  Red laid down his paper to look straight at Bromley. Red had always been a big man, and not one who paid much attention to his appearance. He hadn’t yet shaved and his red stubbly beard nicely matched the nubbly old plaid flannel shirt he wore
. “What are you jabbering about?”

  Thelma stepped out of the kitchen. Lately, she had taken to wearing a fanciful hairstyle and paying a newfound attention to makeup. Today was the scheduled visit from Gilbert Ford, her favorite traveling salesman. She had been a bit giddy all morning. “Those two at it again,” she murmured, “One of them owns half the town. The other supposedly runs it. Should have better things to do than act like a couple of little cocks fighting in the ring.”

  “More the size of bears,” said Mr. Packer.

  “Bears are nicer,” whispered Claire.

  Bromley perked up, “Did you say something Claire, dear?”

  “I said fairs are nicer. We were talking about carnivals and festivals,” Claire dug back into the jam and butter. She lowered her voice to a true whisper. “Stupid old goat. Never did like him. I tell my little men they should use that one for their experiments. But do they ever listen?”

  “Fairs are like amusement parks. Both can be a pleasure indeed.” Bromley was off and rolling once more. “One of my fondest memories is visiting Disneyland in 1963. Those were still the good years. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had our own Disneyland here in the northwoods? Wouldn’t that be a wonder? What do you say to that, Red?” He held up his coffee cup as though waiting for a toast, a smug smile crossing his flabby face.

  Red’s face darkened beyond the color of his stubble. He picked up the paper and folded it into a long narrow strip, which he then slowly tapped on the table. Bromley just smiled.

  “It is a glorious day. The frost is on the pumpkins today. A regular harvest farm out there, wouldn’t you say, Red?”

  Danny stepped out of the kitchen. Both he and Cynthia had arranged school schedules that allowed them to work the breakfast hours. But Danny needed to head off for his first class, and he was already out of his work clothes. Over the summer, he had filled out his lanky frame. With the new clothes he bought with his job earnings, I understood why Cynthia continued to moon over him. “What’s everyone doing out here?” he asked.

  Cynthia waved him close, “It’s Daddy and Bromley again.”

  “Oh,” he said, understanding immediately.

  “Building a park. Now that would take big bucks. And influence. Someone who really understood the politics of the area. Wouldn’t you say that, Red? Someone like me, maybe? Hypothetically speaking, of course. Just an exercise in imagination. That’s all we’re talking about here. Couldn’t be anything more, could it?” Bromley raised his hand languidly toward Cynthia, waving her over with the coffee.

  Red tried to pin me like a deer in the spotlight of his gaze. I wasn’t primed to be shot for something I hadn’t even hinted at, and I gave my head a shake back and forth.

  Red thrust up from his chair with the force of a shock wave. Officer Campbell shifted uneasily over at his table. Knowing that Thelma was in the room, he wanted to act bravely and intervene. Still Red and Bromley were his bosses, so he stayed put.

  Red dropped his paper to the floor, sounding a soft thwack. “Listen to me, you big asshole.” Cynthia grabbed Danny’s hand. Thelma leaned back against the wall. “Here it comes,” she said.

  Bromley continued to smile, “Now, Red, it’s just the first frost getting to you. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  “I regret the day I let you become the town chairman, and wipe that fucking smile off your face.”

  Aaawooogahh! Aaawooogahh!

  Officer Campbell stood immediately. “That’s a fire call. Everyone to the station.”

  Aaawooogahh! Aaawooogahh!

  Red pointed his finger at Bromley, “You’re just lucky I’m a volunteer fireman or I’d have your ass for breakfast. But don’t think it‘s over yet. We got some things to talk about.”

  Officer Campbell cut in. “Red, stow it. We got to get going, even though it’s probably just some chimney fire. First really cold spell when people light up their furnaces, there’s always a chimney fire.” The officer rushed out.

  “Campbell’s kinda of cute when he gets riled up, ain’t he?” Thelma laughed. “But things were just starting to get interesting around here.”

  “Where you going, Danny?” I yelled out.

  The boy turned around as he exited the door, a rare smile flashing across his face. “I became a volunteer last month. It’ll be my first fire!”

  The cafe was emptied of men—except for Bromley, Mr. Packer, and me. I felt like I was the only able-bodied man left in town during the war. Packer was excused because he was missing an arm and was well over eighty. Bromley was too fat to be of any use. “Hey, I have to run the restaurant,” I said defensively.

  “We could watch it for you,” said Mr. Packer. “You know it’s important up here for everyone to stayed joined together. I think it’s a legacy from our forest fire days, when a lightning strike at the right time could erupt into enormous devastation. I saw it happen once, back in the Thirties. Bad days back then. Everyone was out on their luck. The market for lumber was very poor. But there were still a few lumbermen hanging on. All that was gone into ashes within a day. Gone like that. Fire’s like life. We all need to be prepared for it”

  The town alarm stopped, and the lone fire engine had already rushed north on 17. “Jack Manny should have bought the town a new fire truck instead of that god darn garbage truck,” muttered Bromley. “A new fire engine would have looked better in the Loon Town Parade.”

  “So few men. So many beautiful women,” Gilbert Ford exclaimed as he walked in on his weekly sales call. Pans were being moved frantically in the kitchen. Any moment Thelma would likely appear to announce some desperately needed item.

  “Hello, Gilbert,” I said. “The fire alarm just sounded.”

  “We were telling Wally that he should become a volunteer fireman,” said Bromley. “It would be good for his business, and it would keep people from thinking he was one of the summer folk.”

  “The dreaded summer folk,” laughed Gilbert.

  Bromley stepped up to the counter. “I love them dearly. Without them . . . well, without them, this town would not exist. But just the same, it would be nice if we didn’t need to deal with them.”

  “I don’t know why you say things like that,” said Cynthia. “You’re the one who’s always trying to think up new ways of getting more tourists here. Remember how you were trying to invent that story about a giant muskie in Big Sapphire Lake.”

  “I saw that fish,” I said.

  “Now you sound just like one of those god darn summer folk,” laughed Bromley.

  Mr. Packer fingered his long beard in amusement. I had yet to hear Mr. Packer acknowledge that he too had seen that long shadow in the lake. A fish like that could attract new tourists, even if they were a different class of tourist from those that so entranced Cynthia when she recounted past glories.

  Maybe at one time the tourists had been different. It wasn’t hard to imagine a different world when you boated around some of the long-settled lakes and saw the big camps with their grandiose log cabins sporting fieldstone fireplaces large enough to roast a side of venison. Sometimes when I had trouble sleeping, I would take a canoe out to the lake and just silently paddle in the wake of the moonlight, letting myself drift in the silvery glow, sliding by the old cabins, their windows dark portals.

  Tall pines guarded the cabins from the night sky. And when the moon was in retreat, thousands of stars emerged in the blacky ink, provoking tiny reflections in the dark lake waters. I felt encased in a hall of mirrors—the stars above, the lights below. In those magical moments of calm and quiet, I could imagine the strings of violins warming up for an evening ball, and I could picture the large windows of the wealthy camps alive with candlelight, and the chattering sound of the relaxing rich lilting across the water to mix with the cries of loons.

  But had it ever been that way? I didn’t think so. Only Cynthia and I imagined it so. In reality, these grandiose places had been hunting camps—stomping grounds for men who wanted to get away. They probably
smoked cigars and drank whisky while they played poker. There were no summer night balls. There were no grand feasts. There was only hunting and fishing and good-natured cursing.

  The true pleasures had likely been in the smaller cabins and the little resorts that ringed the less desirable lakes, in the city masses that disembarked the train from Milwaukee and Chicago. Husbands with wives and children with parents that fished together, swam together and told stories together around campfires. And young lads from the boy’s camp probably canoed across the lake to the girls’ camp to carry on clandestine romance and midnight skinny dips.

  It didn’t seem that way now. Powerboats raced across the lake. Fisherman used radar to track down schools of minnows. Kids stayed in the cabins to watch television and play video games. There didn’t seem to be much joy. Maybe that was why no one in town really likes the summer folk. They were supposed to be having fun and they weren’t.

  “Things used to better, “ said Gilbert, as though he were reading my mind.

  “Why is that?” asked Thelma, bending forward to hear Gilbert’s reply. How was it possible for her breasts suddenly to appear so large?

  “There weren’t so many rules. People could do what they wanted. People were treated as though they had individual responsibility without every decision being made for them,” Gilbert was on a roll. “Now, everyone is told what to do and no one knows how to have fun.”

  “When I was a kid we didn’t need any laws regarding drinking or smoking,” Bromley said.

  “What are you talking about? There was Prohibition when you were a kid,” Claire contradicted him.

  “I’m talking about those years after Prohibition. You didn’t have to be eighteen or twenty-one to have a beer. Why did they pass that stupid law? When you were fourteen in those days people treated you like you were an adult.”