Liberty

by Garrison Keillor

  “We forgot! Hold on!”—it was Viola, out of breath, holding up her hand, pointing to her wristwatch.

  “Delivery Day! We were supposed to have four minutes of silence at 4:36! It’s past five o’clock.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want me to hold up the parade?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then I won’t,” he said.

  “Add ’em up and move ’em out!” he hollered into his walkie-talkie. Nothing happened. It was the old After You Alphonse syndrome—people couldn’t start marching without looking around and making sure others would march with them—“Are you ready?” “Yes, let’s see if they’re ready. Okay, they’re ready. Is he ready? He’s ready. Okay, is she ready? She’s ready. I guess we’re ready. Do you think we’re ready?”—Clint pressed Talk. “Add ’em up and move ’em out! That’s an order. Go!” And he could feel in the soles of his feet the great parade gather itself up and take a deep breath and then the roll and rattle of drums from the Will Jones Drum & Bugle Corps and the basso grunt of the drum major and his Heeee-ya—HUHHH and the cadence of marching feet.

  Uncle Sam stepped out, grinning, tossing handfuls of silver stars in the air, hand in hand with Miss Liberty, behind the eight-man color guard as it swung around the corner—not a geezer in the bunch, all eight in fighting form—and a great cheer went up from the crowd packed onto the sidewalk for four blocks to the bleachers. Flags flew over the heads of the crowd, a boulevard of flags, and small children hoisted onto their parents’ shoulders waved tiny flags—a solid wall of humanity with little faces poking out between the legs—Miss Liberty grinned to see it. She let go of Uncle Sam’s hand which was pressed against her right boob exploring it and she raised up her torch high and swung it in time to the rattle of the drums behind her. It was maybe her last parade. Farewell, Minnesota! It was like a dream, all that energy and passion flowing her way, and her naked under the robe and ready to receive it. It’d do these Lutherans good to look at a naked woman even if they don’t know she is. The crowd was waving to her and she waved her tablet at them. “Hurray for freedom!” she hollered. She chanted, “Life! Liberty! Happiness!” The color guard was poking along and she swung out in front of them. “Hey!” yelled Uncle Sam but she was in full stride, weaving from one side of the street to the other, her torch keeping time. The people were all transfixed by her and the day, everyone beaming and grinning, and she thought, “What if I dropped my robe?” They were so excited: Why not give them something to remember for the rest of their lives? The body is God’s handiwork and he’d given her a good one. Why be ashamed? The tap dancers came along, twenty heads bobbing, dancing to “Tea For Two” or was it “Stars and Stripes Forever”? And then the Soybean Queen and then the Whistling Mothers, twenty-two ladies in gray skirts and capes, marching along and whistling “Colonel Bogey March” and doing a bang-up job of it. The crowd had never heard female precision whistling before. They listened, awestruck, as the Mothers went through their maneuvers, wheeling and fanning into a revolving circle and then into concentric rectangles and when they started whistling in four-part harmony, it knocked the socks off people, they whooped and yelled, and then the Mothers were gone and up came Mr. Topps the Human Gyro, an old man in red tights who balanced on one finger on a chrome gazing globe. Likewise phenomenal. And the Car Club and a pink Oldsmobile with a mouthful of chrome and a sweet Mustang and a ’57 Chevy with the great fins, followed by a sad-faced clown with a big red beezer and a monkey on his shoulder. And the Future Farmers chorus in blue jackets, singing:

  We raise the crops that make your kids grow tall.

  Plant in the spring and harvest in the fall.

  Work late at night and rise at early morn.

  We plant the corn, we plant the corn.

  Clint watched them go by and all the miseries of the past weeks fell away and he felt glee. Utter glee. Roll on, America! He’d done his best and it was passing before his eyes, all the color and grandeur like a tapestry he’d painted. And him in his tight white pants with gold buttons and rose-embroidered shirt and LIBERTY button fit in perfectly. He had been a Spectator all his life and now he was in the Parade. That was it! Don’t let life pass you by. Get your boat in the river. Roll with it. Let it roll. He hadn’t seen a Norwegian bachelor farmer all day but if they wanted to drive a load of pigshit down Main Street, fine.

  “How’s it going?” Irene yelled in his ear and he jumped.

  “What you doing here? You hate parades!”

  “Came looking for you,” she said. And she took his left arm in hers and crowded up next to him. She had a canvas bag around her shoulder and he could feel a piece of hardware in it, a garden trowel or pruning shears. “I gotta keep an eye on you,” she said. “Defend you against your girlfriend.” And then Wally the Human Pinwheel went cartwheeling by and eight Percherons and a circus wagon painted with bronze faces in feather headdresses and a band atop it playing the “Minnesota Rouser” and he stepped into the street to check on the units behind and when he came back to the curb, Irene had melted into the crowd.

  29. THE GOV ARRIVES

  The ocarina band from Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility was supposed to follow the first big bandwagon and then Clint said no. They had rehearsed a very nice arrangement of “Dona Nobis Pacem” in case he changed his mind but he had not. “The band on the wagon is going to be blasting away on ‘Muskrat Ramble’ and your ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ is going to be lost,” he explained to Sister Arvonne, but he underestimated her. She did not intend for all of that rehearsal to go for naught. She mustered her twenty ocarinists in the church along with the twenty girls of her Joyful Noise choir and she hustled them by a back route to the tail end of the parade, behind Mayor Eloise Krebsbach’s white convertible. She knew Eloise very well. Eloise was her prize pupil. Eloise was not going to let an old Lutheran like Clint Bunsen stifle a Catholic children’s ocarina band and choir. No, ma’am.

  The crowd of forty children in their pressed white shirts and blue capes, shoes shined and hair combed, arrived at the white convertible sitting by the entrance to the Wally (Old Hard Hands) Bunsen Memorial Ballpark and there was Eloise in a pretty red frock and a garland of daisies on her short black hair. Sister Arvonne had donned the old black habit, the wimple, the whole kit and kaboodle, for the occasion—people like to see a nun in a nun outfit, not in jeans and a sweatshirt which she wore most of the time. “We’re going to be back here where we’re more appreciated,” she announced. She made the volunteer firemen back up the truck to make room for the children, and she got them shoehorned into position just as Lyle wheeled up in a golf cart and told her she was in the wrong place. “The governor’s back here,” he said. “You’re up behind the bandwagon.”

  She could hear the drum-and-bugle corps stepping off and the crowd cheering in the distance. “Plans change,” she said. And then she heard the rustling of costumes and turned and here came fifteen Sons of Knute in their Viking regalia, the Sergeants at Arms carrying spears and shields, the Knights Exemplar in their horned helmets with plumes and their swords and blue silk sashes, and the Grand Oya in his sash covered with badges, the fringed silk ceremonial apron, the ceremonial mace, and his horned helmet fringed with fur. The Sergeants carried between them a Norwegian flag large enough to conceal a Sherman tank.

  “We thought we’d be happier back here,” the Oya explained to Sister Arvonne. “We didn’t feel wanted up front. The parade’s all about TV now.” She nodded. “Pardon my French but we’re just a bunch of old Norwegian assholes and they’re looking for youth and beauty.”

  She beamed up at him. “But when was it ever different?” He nodded back. “You put your finger on it, Sister. Story of the human race. When you’re over the hill, you’re over the hill.” His big nose had red veins streaking down it and a cluster of them in the big bulb at the end. A mole was tucked to the side like a black fungus.

  She had never sp
oken to a Grand Oya before. The Knutes were known to hold anti-Papist views and they smelled of fried herring, but on this sunny day they were quite jovial and grinned at the Catholic children and let them inspect their swords and shields. “I guess this is the rejection section,” she said.

  The Oya was a nice man with firm ideas about obsolescence. “When you’re old, after your kids are grown up, Mother Nature has no more use for you,” he said. “Get out of the way and mind your own business. That’s my principle. Fishing and drinking beer, that’s my idea of the good life.” He was starting to explain to her the Codex Angularis which Saint Knute, the Viking Christian explorer, had found in a Gnostic temple in Egypt in 1024 and brought back to Vinland and translated from Aramaic, an account by a lesser apostle of Jesus known as Saint Sandy who maintained that Jesus was first and foremost a fisherman and had no truck with hard work—“Jesus said, ‘Blessed are they who fish for they shall have more time’—left out of the Sermon on the Mount unfortunately”—and was just getting warmed up when Irene Bunsen walked up. She and Sister Arvonne were pals from way back. “I wish I’d thought of this before,” she said. “I should’ve dressed up as a nun. Why not?” And then a black Lincoln SUV pulled up ahead of them and a highway patrolman rolled down the window.

  “Got the governor here,” he said. Lyle pointed to the white convertible. “Get him in there,” he said. “The parade just started.”

  The governor emerged from the back door, a well-practiced smile on his face, eyes alight. “Great to see you again,” he said to Irene who had never seen him before. He pressed Sister Arvonne’s hand. “God bless you,” he said. “Hey! Great to be here!” he said to the children who didn’t know who he was. “You all as excited as I am? Looks like you are!” He had the old charmola working, all right. His grin came right up to the gums. Clearly he was someone of distinction. His blue suit was perfectly pressed, not a wrinkle on him, not even on his pants—Did he take them off on long car trips, Irene wondered. Perhaps so. He waved to a knot of people standing in the shadow of the ballpark. They didn’t wave back. The outfield was studded with black pipes standing upright, black wiring everywhere. Three men in orange jumpsuits were on the grandstand roof, setting up what appeared to be a giant American flag made of colored sparklers. The governor gave them a big double thumbs-up. One of them yelled, “What?” He cupped his hands. “You’re doing a heckuva job!” he hollered, winking at the Knutes. “Same to you!” the man yelled back.

  The governor climbed into the backseat of the white convertible and perched himself on the back shelf alongside Mayor Krebsbach, just as Todd came running up, out of breath. “I tried to hold your place for you,” he said, “but they decided it had to go. Anyway, everybody is excited you’re here. People’ve been talking about it all day.” He looked around. “Would you mind if the governor and I have a moment alone?” he said to the lady in the red dress. The governor leaned over and Todd stood on tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “The guy running the parade is an auto mechanic with a hair up his butt about running for Congress and he might ambush you about that. Let me handle him. Plus which, Georgia showed up five minutes ago. Stay loose.”

  “Georgia’s here? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “She surprised us. She was supposed to be in Waseca. She flew up on her broom.”

  “I don’t care for surprises. I’ve told you that.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m on the case. She won’t lay a hand on you. We’ve got tranquilizer darts if necessary.” Todd smiled at the mayor. “Good to see you,” he said. “Have fun, you two.”

  He nodded to the driver, a skinny man in reflector shades, hair greased and combed back. “Move ’em out,” he said. “Who’re you?” said the driver. “Can’t move ’em out until the people ahead of us move.”

  And then the 4-H float in front of them lurched forward with fourteen Busy Beavers holding up their giant flag quilt, and the governor grinned heartily and waved his gentle beneficent wave to the knots of people, families, gangs of teenagers, along the curb as the car swung around the corner past the back door of some sort of lodge hall where, he noticed, an old man was blowing the contents of his left nostril onto the sidewalk. A little tot slept in a stroller and his mother chomped on a giant bratwurst. A man in a denim jacket stood against the building, drunk. Six people stood in line at a portable toilet from which came the sound of male urination. People with glazed eyes peered at the governor as if at a strange creature in a zoo and he looked down and realized Todd had forgotten to hang a banner on the side of the car. What an idiot. The guy was a moron. End of the road for Todd. Today his ass would get fired, the little turd. A woman held up a sign, “Georgia for America,” and looked beyond the governor, a big grin on her face. From behind him came the quavery hum of the ocarina band like a cloud of horseflies on his tail—“Beautiful day,” he said to the mayor, “great crowd—great what you people have accomplished here”—and then he heard a woman caterwauling to his rear. He did not need to turn around to see who it was.

  Irene held her position in front of the ballpark as Georgia swept by, standing tall on the American Legion float (IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO MADE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE), six corpses at her feet, their bodies twisted, bright red blood spattered generously on them, and it looked for all the world as if she had bludgeoned them herself and was ready to take on newcomers. She wore a white ruffled blouse and knee-high red plastic boots and bright blue tights on her corn-fed thighs and across the two artillery shells of her bosom was written CONGRESS. Her mane of wiry blond hair was pulled back in a knot and her broad warrior face looked eager for engagement with America’s enemies. She wore a tiny microphone on a headset and her voice boomed out: “I am ready! Bring it on! I will be in place, ready to fight for you, on Day One! Day One!” A brigade of Georgia supporters thronged alongside, handing out literature to bystanders, as the candidate shouted her message over and over and gave a crisp hand-to-the-forehead salute to each flag she spotted along the route, even the small ones. There were a great many flags and she tried to keep up with them, saluting, saluting, her back nice and stiff, feet firmly planted, announcing her readiness to serve, as two big loudspeakers behind her blared out a choir singing “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea”—she was bigger than life, and also heavier, and when the float turned the corner and hit a bump she lurched to her left and planted one red boot on the groin of a corpse who let out a strangled cry and half sat up and clutched himself in agony—though fallen, he was still a man and had feelings in the matter—Georgia stood straddling him, saluting flags left and right, preparing for her close-up on CNN.

  Alongside her float, the Human Pinwheel came slowly cartwheeling by, hoping to get on TV and advertise himself—he needed the work. Georgia glanced his way and pointed at him and jerked her thumb like an umpire, OUT—and three of her guys moved up and collared the bum and hustled him away.

  “Go out there and unplug her!” Mr. Griswold grabbed hold of Clint’s shoulder. “Yank her switch! Tell her the rules say no amplified sound.”

  “Too late,” said Clint.

  “You gotta challenge her. Can’t let her rant and rave like that. She’s about to get on national TV.”

  “I’m going to take the high road. You challenge her.”

  Mr. Griswold adjusted his cuffs as the Ultimate Sacrifice float approached and he stepped into the street.

  “Ready and able,” the big woman cried. “Ready to fight for you!” The corpse was sitting up and she stepped over him and stepped down on the pavement. “Hey, big mouth!” yelled Mr. Griswold. “Turn off the loudspeaker! We’re tired of you and your noise!” He jumped up onto the float and grabbed the microphone. “She’s a fake!” he yelled. “Georgia Brickhouse is—”

  She was on him like a buzzard on roadkill. She yanked the microphone away and grabbed his arm and twisted it. “Beat it, pip-squeak. This is America and I’ll make as much noise as I want so just shut your own mouth,” she yelled and turned ar
ound and raised her right fist and her supporters chanted, “Brickhouse! Brickhouse!”

  She gave Mr. Griswold the straight-arm and shoved him aside, heading toward the TV camera and satellite uplink dish she spotted up the street.

  Miss Falconer was heading for the cameras too. The spot Clint assigned to the choir was a block and a half away from CNN—too far—way up near the Sons of Knute Temple. “Seize the day,” she decided, and so she was leading forty choristers in blue-and-gold satin robes on an invasion of the sidewalk opposite the CNN truck—“Choir coming through!” she cried, perfectly coiffed, prim, her bejeweled glasses on a chain around her neck, tapping people on the shoulders with her baton—“Make way for the choir! Coming through! Thank you! Thank you!”—her choir perspiring in their robes, squeezing into the cracks in the crowd—“Go somewhere else!” a man yelled. “No room! No room!” But she elbowed by and he was engulfed by blue and gold and the choir, intact, but in some disarray, stood opposite CNN, Miss Falconer with pitchpipe in hand—“Our first number will be ‘O Flag Of Freedom, Grandeur Bright,’ ” she cried. “Diction, people! Diction!”

  The CNN crew was still waiting for the word from master control in New York—Ricky chain-smoking, murmuring on a cell phone, glued to a headset, watching a monitor—shavehead manning a shoulder camera in the cherry-picker, the squat man with a hand-held in the street, the sullen teenager, head wrapped in big headphones, at the audio control—all of them psyched-up, ready, coiled, waiting, waiting, as the parade passed them by—a drum-and-bugle corps playing a raggy version of “Yankee Doodle” with backbeat flourishes, the queen of the soybean growers smiling and waving stalks of produce, the governor turning full-face to the camera and grinning heartily, eyes twinkling, transcendent, redeemed, freshly waxed, as if he had never ridden in a parade before—he basked in the brightness of all those eyes turned toward him, he could hear the word “governor” repeated hundreds of times, simultaneously, like purring. And next to him, eclipsed by his glow, the mayor of Lake Wobegon looking small and ordinary, like a personal assistant, a coat holder. Or his wife. He turned up the wattage of his personality as he came closer to the camera. He raised his chin and looked awestruck as if he were approaching the holy city of Jerusalem. Radiant beams shone from his face, his jowls disappeared, he threw back his shoulders and exuded joyful love of his fellow man and all of God’s green creation, as the ocarina band shuffled behind, and then someone yanked on his sleeve. It was an old coot with little flags sticking out of his cap. “Hey guv’nor,” he growled.