Liberty

by Garrison Keillor

  Of course it would sting and there’d be possible infection, maybe one of those virulent new staphylococci that snaps you in two like a matchstick, and of course there’d be the public humiliation—“His wife got tired of his philandering and cut him a new asshole. Clint. That’s why he ushers at church. Can’t sit down. Can’t drive, can’t go out for dinner. Has to wear a bag, she scared the piss right out of him”—but chances were good he’d heal up and be able to resume normal activity, whatever that might be.

  He helped Art up from the floor and got him parked in a chair and poured him a cup of coffee but the old man’s hands shook so bad, he couldn’t hold a cup, so Clint lifted the cup to Art’s lips, sort of like Communion. “This is coffee, made for you, Art,” he whispered.

  “ ’Preciate it, Clint.”

  A whiff of Angelica’s perfume swept through the room and she touched his shoulder. A thrilling touch. “Good-bye, darling,” she said. “I’ll always care about you.” He gave her the keys to the Mustang. “It’s the red one, alongside the building. A gift. I just put in a new transmission. It’ll get you there.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you mind giving Art a ride home?” he said. “He’s at the motel. There’s a sign. It’s just north on Main Street, a little beyond the swimming beach. On the right.”

  “You want me to give him a ride?” she said, as if he’d asked her to hold a squid in her arms.

  “It’d be a big help. He’s seventy-eight. He’s sort of shaky since Irene took a shot at him.”

  “I don’t understand you people,” she said, but she took Art by the arm and steered him out front—“Goodbye, Angelica,” said Clint. “Drive carefully. Oh, I forgot—it’s a stick shift. Is that okay? Standard transmission?” “Oh God,” she said, and the door clicked shut.

  Ah, mi amor, I will think of this sweet love of ours

  Every night I look up at the stars.

  I wish you as many happy days as there are leaves on my oak tree

  And that on some of them you will remember me.

  It was almost dark and the park was full of people, like cicadas chittering, and cars parked along the county road to the north, cars up on the hill, people waiting for the rockets to go off.

  “Let’s go home,” she said, and she handed him the gun. “You take it. My hand is tired of holding it.”

  “You weren’t really going to shoot me, were you?”

  “I hadn’t made up my mind and luckily for you I didn’t have to.”

  He thought he could smell rain but it was only the lake. And now a burst of flame from the hill, the cannons firing. The crowd raised a mighty cheer. He imagined a big storm coming up and bowling balls dropping from the sky and one ball smashing his head in two, cracking the skull neatly in half, one eyeball per sphere and the two spheres lying in the dirt looking at each other. He quickened his steps toward the safety of home.

  They walked home in the summer night as the first rockets went up. Fireflies flickered in the tall grass. Their neighbors stood on their front lawns to watch the spectacle and somebody yelled, “You’re missing the fireworks!” and they waved and walked on. They got home and Arlene and Clarence came over and then Lyle and Carl and his wife and Billy P. Clarence said, “I heard somebody streaked the governor. A lady.” He hadn’t seen it himself but Arlene saw it on TV. So Clint told him the whole story. His lover Angelica had come to town with her new lover Kevin who had a fit and took off and meanwhile, marching in the parade as the Statue of Liberty, she had approached the governor who, for reasons unknown, had walked up the front of her robe and torn it from her body, leaving her buck naked on Main Street smack-dab in front of the Mercantile and the high school choir, but he, Clint, had snatched her from public view and hid her in the Lutheran church and intended to run away with her to California when Irene surprised him packing up tools in the garage and leveled a gun at him. When poor old Art came in, rifle in hand, she shot a hole in the ceiling and scared the piss out of him. And when Angelica came to pick up Clint, Irene offered him to her on condition that she (Irene) could shoot him first, either in the foot, the butt, or the ear. Angelica turned down the deal.

  “I can repair the roof tomorrow,” Clint said.

  “So you’re sticking around?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Quite a story,” said Billy P. “Glad you’re okay,” said Carl’s wife. The others just nodded and smiled and watched the fireworks.

  He considered whether to tell Clarence that they were Hispanic no longer, but no—Clarence hadn’t believed it anyway, and if he did, well, the illusion might loosen him up a little and germinate some life under that Norwegian icecap.

  Clint got out a case of beer and a bottle of white wine and Irene popped popcorn and put chips in a big wooden bowl and they sat around on the porch back in the old life of howareyounotsobadcantcomplain and everythingisaboutthesamehowsyourself. A pretty good summer. The parade now, that was hilarious. That governor—his name escapes me—got his undies in a twist, that’s for sure. Naked? So what? I looked at her, didn’t bat an eye. What’s the big deal? Why get all worked up over it. There’s enough of that as it is. People getting on each other’s nerves and that’s why God invented fishing. To get you away from the telephone so you won’t worry, which you do anyway. How can you not? The corn needs more sun and Wally’s Evelyn has lymphoma, the poor man is in agony as he pulls the tap at the Sidetrack and makes small talk with the clientele, he is looking into the abyss, but what can you do, not much to be done, what will be will be, and aren’t watermelons cheap this year, strawberries too. Boil ’em up with sugar, mash them in a pan, put ’em in a jar and screw on the lid, you got jam. Nothing like it in January. Anyhoo. July. The old lady wants to go see Canada, but jeese the price of gas now. Ya can’t go motoring in the fast lane like you used to. I told her, “Why spend money to go be miserable in Canada when we can be perfectly unhappy here at home?” Gimme a cold beer and a brat with mustard and I’m happy. Used to eat four at one sitting and now I’m a one-brat man. Two beers, one brat. With age comes wisdom. Sit outside, listen to the crickets, look at the stars, who needs more? Kids drive by with their radios on, neighbors sit out back talking. I was up until 2 a.m. the other night. Never used to stay up so late but you need less sleep as you get old, don’t you know. So much to do, so little time. I heard that somewhere. Speaking of which, I believe it’s time we should be heading home. Good night. See you tomorrow, Lord willing.

  1 The Fourth of July was known to some older residents as Delivery Day, commemorating Lake Wobegon’s miraculous survival of the Great Tornado of July 4, 1965—to the north and west, several towns got whacked hard, water towers and grain elevators leveled, trailers blown away, but Lake Wobegon emerged with little damage. It was a sunny day in town—the storms were fifty miles to the northwest—but debris was carried by high-altitude winds from the storm front, and out of a clear blue sky a barn door came flying in, whirling like a top, and sliced off the attic of the Irv Peterson house as the family sat in the dining room, eating rhubarb crumble. A 1957 Chevrolet the tornado picked up from behind Helen’s Hi-Top Lounge in Fergus Falls fell to earth in the garden of the Earl Dickmeiers, missing their house crowded with grandchildren, by inches, judging by the fact that the TV antenna from the roof was found impaled in the car’s left rear tire. The spot in the garden where the car hit was the rhubarb patch. And a wooden crate containing thirty-six bowling balls lifted off from the Breckenridge train depot, flew for miles, split open, and rained bowling balls down on Lake Wobegon—some splintered, some embedded themselves in soft ground, one bounced on the loading dock behind Ralph’s Grocery, flew a hundred feet in the air, bounced on Main Street, and landed on the roof of the Sidetrack Tap—there was no warning at all, just small objects in the sky suddenly getting larger, and none of them touched a soul, though the town was packed with people. And so every year, the Catholic Knights of the Golden Nimbus marched under a banner UNITED TOGETHER BY GOD’S ME
RCY JULY 4, 1965 and carried the hood of that 1957 Chevrolet and a green bowling ball, and people stood in silence as they passed. And then at the time of the bombardment, 4:36 p.m., the entire town observed four minutes of silence in gratitude for God’s mercy.