The Keillor Reader

by Garrison Keillor

  He took his foot off the gas and coasted to a stop. He hadn’t noticed her crawl into the backseat, but he looked and she wasn’t there. She hadn’t jumped—he would’ve noticed that. (Wouldn’t he?) It couldn’t’ve been angels taking her away. He thought of the truckstop. He was a good ways from there, he knew that. He must’ve gone twenty miles. Then, when he made a U-turn, he noticed he wasn’t on the freeway anymore. There was no median strip. He was on a Highway 14, whatever that was.

  He drove a few miles and came to a town named Bolivia. He never knew there was a Bolivia, Minnesota, but there it was. Went into a Pure Oil station, an old man was reading a Donald Duck comic book. Florian asked, “How far to the Interstate?” He didn’t look up from his comic. A pickup came in, the bell dinged, the old man kept reading. Florian went down the street into a café, Yaklich’s Café, and asked the woman where the Interstate was. She said, “Oh, that’s nowheres around here.” “Well, it must be,” he said, “I was just on it. I just came from there.”

  “Oh,” she says, “that’s a good ten miles from here.”

  “Which way?”

  “East, I think.”

  “Which way’s east?”

  “What way you come in?”

  “That way!”

  “That way is northeast. You want to go that way and then a little southeast when you get to the Y in the road. Then keep to your left. It’s about two miles the other side of that old barn with Red Man on the side. Red Man Chewing Tobacco. On your left. You’ll see it.”

  There was a funny look about her: her eyes bulged, and her lips were purplish. Her directions weren’t good either. He drove that way and never saw the barn, so he turned around and came back and looked for the barn on the right side, but no barn, so he headed back to Bolivia, but Bolivia wasn’t there anymore. It was getting on toward noon.

  It was four o’clock before he ever found the truckstop. He had a long time to think up something to tell Myrtle, but he still had no idea what to say. But she wasn’t there anyway. The waitress said, “You mean the lady in the blue coat?” Florian didn’t remember what color Myrtle’s coat was. He wasn’t sure exactly how to describe her except as real mad, probably. “Ja, that’s the lady in the blue coat,” she said. “Oh, she left here hours ago. Her son come to get her.”

  Florian sat and had a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie. “Can you tell me the quickest way to get to Lake Wobegon from here?” he asked. “Lake what?” she said. “I never heard of it. It can’t be around here.”

  But it was, not too far away, and once he got off the freeway he found his way straight home, although it was dark by then. He stopped at the Sidetrack for a quick bump. He felt he owed it to himself after all he’d been through and what with what he was about to go through. “Where’s the old lady?” asked Wally. “Home, waiting for me,” he said.

  He headed south and saw his house, and kept going. Carl’s pickup was in the driveway and he couldn’t see facing the both of them. He parked on the crossroad and sat, just beyond Roger Hedlund’s farm, where he could watch his house. It was dark except a light was on in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. Roger’s house was lit up. What if Roger should see him and come out to investigate? Out here in the country, a parked car stands out more than a little bit, you might as well be towing a searchlight behind you. It’s considered unusual for a man to sit in his car in the evening on a crossroads an eighth of a mile from his own house, just sit there. If Roger came out, Florian thought he’d explain that he was listening to the radio and it was a Lutheran show, so the old lady wouldn’t let him listen to it in the house—Roger was Lutheran, he’d like that.

  He ducked down as a car came slowly past, its headlights on high beam. The preacher on the radio might be Lutheran, he didn’t know. The man was talking about sinners who had wandered away from the path and wound up on a steep, rocky hillside in the dark, and it seemed to Florian to fit the situation. “Broad is the road that leadeth to destruction, and narrow is the path of righteousness”—that seemed to be true, too, from what he knew of freeways. The preacher mentioned forgiveness, but Florian wasn’t sure about that. He wondered what this preacher would do if he had forgotten his wife at a truckstop and gotten lost. A woman with a warbly voice sang, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. See by the portals he’s waiting and watching. Calling, O sinner, come home.” He could not imagine Myrtle singing such a song or taking such a position.

  Come home, come home—

  Ye who are weary come home.

  Florian felt weary. Seventy-two is old to get yourself in such a ridiculous situation. He waited as long as he could for Carl to leave, and then the coffee inside him reached the point of no return and he started up the engine. Taking a leak in another man’s field: he drew the line at that. He turned on his headlights, and right when he did he saw Carl’s headlights far away light up and the beams swung around across the yard and Carl headed back toward town.

  Florian coasted up his driveway with the headlights out. He still did not have a speech ready. He was afraid. He also had to pee. Outside, on the porch, he smelled supper: breaded fish fillets. He was surprised that the door was unlocked—they never have locked it but he thought she might if she thought he was coming.

  He hung up his coat in the mud room and looked around the corner. She was at the stove, her back to him, stirring something in a pan. He cleared his throat. She turned. She said, “Oh thank God.” She dropped the spoon on the floor and ran to him on her old legs and said, “Oh, Daddy, I was so scared. Oh, Daddy, don’t ever leave me again. I’m sorry I said what I did. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to make you so angry at me. Don’t leave me again like that.”

  Tears came to his eyes. To be so welcome—in his own home. He was about to tell her that he hadn’t left her, he’d forgotten her; then she said, “I love you, Daddy. You know that.” He was going to tell her, but he didn’t. It occurred to him that leaving her on account of passionate anger might be better than forgetting her because of being just plain dumb. There wasn’t time to think this through clearly. He squeezed her and whispered, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I promise you that I’ll never do a dumb thing like that again.”

  She felt good at supper and put on the radio; she turned it up when she heard “The Saint Cloud Waltz.” Sometimes I dream of a mansion afar but there’s no place so lovely as right where we are, here on a planet that’s almost a star, we dance to the Saint Cloud Waltz. That night he lay awake, incredulous. That she thought he was capable of running away, like a John Barrymore or something. Seventy-two years old, married forty-eight years, and she thought that maybe it hadn’t worked out and he might fly the coop like people do in songs? Amazing woman. He got up at six o’clock, made scrambled eggs and sausage and toast, and felt like a new guy. She felt better too. The lump on her head felt like all the other lumps and there was no blood on her toothbrush. She said, “I wonder if I hadn’t ought to call down there about that appointment.” “Oh,” he said, “I think by now they must know you’re all right.”

  11.

  FAITH

  A monologue from 1985, inspired by a friend’s daughter’s confirmation into the Lutheran church. I remember the audience’s pleasure at suddenly hearing me pop up as a character in the story. I was pleased by it, too, and put a Gary Keillor into The Book of Guys and Pilgrims and Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny.

  It has been raining off and on most of the week, long wet nights and rain in the mornings sometimes changing to snow, cold. The sky misty. The Bloodmobile came but after the long winter our blood was too salty and they went away. Said they’d come back in June. It was Confirmation Sunday. In olden times girls would dress in bright new spring hats and white dresses and white gloves and boys would wear suits and ties. Those days are gone, never to return. If the girl has a grandma who wields some influence (a grandma with property), the girl may wear a nice dress,
but the hats and gloves are gone. I miss the white gloves, which was a way of saying This day is different from other days. Many confirmation kids come in jeans and sneakers, which is in line with the idea that God looks on the heart, not on one’s exterior, but is that a license to attend church in our underwear? It’s Sunday, after all. It’s not Tuesday. But the truth is that some Lutherans actually are Unitarians. Just as you have people at a basketball game who don’t care about the game, they go just to be sociable.

  Church went long last Sunday. I drove by at twelve thirty and the parking lot was full. And then I remembered that I was supposed to be there for the confirmation of Lois Tollerud, my goddaughter, and I slowed down but couldn’t think of a good enough excuse for being two hours late and drove on.

  A whole herd of deer came through town on Tuesday, ten of them, like a tour group, and Pastor Liz saw them on her morning walk, standing in the church parking lot. They lifted their heads, and stood perfectly still, ears perked up, and she stood still, thinking of things to tell them. Deer carry ticks that transmit Lyme disease, which has hit a few people in town, a couple of them disastrously. Stoicism can carry a terrible price. Pastor Liz ran into a deer once that leaped out of the ditch at dusk when she was heading back to town for confirmation. The animal was knocked across the road where it flopped around on the shoulder and expired and Liz drove to church and lit the candles in her office and led the confirmands in a review of the Nicene Creed and what it means. She didn’t mention the deer. She didn’t want death to trump the creed, but she couldn’t help thinking about how she had dragged the carcass by its hind legs off the road and what about deer ticks? She had hugged the children. Should she tell their parents? Well, yes, of course. Eight phone calls, varying degrees of consternation, dread. Ten minutes later, Val Tollefson called to anguish about liability and then his brother-in-law the retired attorney in Minneapolis called to offer advice. Grim.

  • • •

  Pastor Liz had been on her way to meet Cindy Hedlund at the Sidewinder in Millet, which is open for lunch these days. Drinking and dancing don’t pay the bills anymore, so they added lunch. A crisis of faith, Cindy said on the phone. She was crying. Connie the church secretary told Liz that Cindy has been looking at new cars at Krebsbach Chev. Whatever, said Liz, but of course it matters to people—Lutherans drive Fords bought at Bunsen Motors, Clint and Clarence being church members—likewise Catholics drive Chevies. Be true to your own.

  A red hatchback, a Caprice. Donnie Krebsbach sidled over and asked if she wanted to drive it. “I shouldn’t even be here,” she said.

  “Times change. I think you need to please yourself. I mean, Ford makes a good car, it’s not that, but a lot of people think they don’t handle all that well. This Caprice is a real good handler.” He jingled the keys. She bolted for the door—“Let me think about it.” And that night over supper Roger said he’d heard that she’d been looking at Chevys. “Up to you,” he said, “but Clint is an old friend.”

  • • •

  Arlene Bunsen returned from visiting her son Duane and his attractive (childless) wife, Denise, in their lovely two-bedroom condo outside Houston which is full of DVDs and exercise equipment and things people use to fill up their lives who do not have children. Duane and Denise were out kayaking and left a key at the desk for Arlene and she plunked down her grocery bag full of rhubarb and strawberries and flour and butter—to make a rhubarb pie for them—and could not find a bowl to mix dough in, or a knife to chop rhubarb with. Their kitchen appeared never to have been used. She knocked on a neighbor’s door, and it opened two inches, the length of the chain, and when Arlene asked for a knife, the door closed. She wound up mixing the dough in an ornamental Chinese bowl from the mantel and she found a knife in the box of nice silverware they’d gotten for their wedding which was in the closet, still in a plastic wrap. Arlene turned on the oven as she whomped up the dough and soon there was acrid smoke in the air and she opened the oven and it was full of melting DVDs.

  Denise and Duane appeared to be subsisting on take-out. Like take-out spaghetti from a pizza place, with garlic bread and wine in a carton. For breakfast the next morning, they took Arlene to a pancake house. Denise is slender and goes to a gym four times a week. She is tan and beautiful in a modelish way and Duane is crazy about her and they travel a lot. They both work. Good jobs. Plenty of money. They’ve been in counseling for the entire ten years of their marriage. “Is there a problem?” Arlene said. “No,” he said, “that’s to catch problems before they come up.”

  • • •

  Well, there it was. A preventative lifestyle. You steer away from trouble. Children are trouble. Everyone knows this. Arlene loves Duane but couldn’t imagine flying down to Houston again—what for? To watch DVDs? Not her style. Anyway, she came back in a good mood and went to the church council meeting and when someone brought up the subject of Ernie Rasmussen she volunteered to go visit him. He’s been coming drunk to church and leaving unsigned checks for $100 in the collection plate and evidently Lottie has left him and gone to her sister’s in Bemidji but who knows. So Arlene went right up to his house, which people refer to as the Peterson house—Pete Peterson and his family lived there for years, until they found a python living in the crawl space under the kitchen. An aluminum patch covers the hole. The snake was 16 feet long and weighed 240 pounds, and lived under there for about sixteen years, during which the Petersons lost six Chihuahuas and numerous cats. Their youngest girl, Julie, discovered the snake when she crawled into the hole to hide during Starlight Moonlight and saw pale yellow eyes in the dark, and was paralyzed with fear but luckily she had just eaten peanut butter and pythons are repelled by the smell of peanuts and she ran and told her mother. Mrs. Peterson went to look. She stuck her head in and there were the yellow eyes. Like Julie, she was paralyzed with fear but the little girl had the good sense to grab her mother by the ankles and pull her to safety. The Volunteer Fire Department was called and the firemen were about to blast the creature with a fire hose and then someone remembered that warm cheese will make a snake drowsy so Mrs. Peterson heated up some leftover macaroni and cheese and pushed it in toward the snake and sure enough the yellow eyes closed. It took six men to haul it to the truck and they drove it to the zoo in Duluth but around McGregor the snake woke up and fell off the truck and slithered away and nobody cared to give chase. The Petersons moved to Napa Valley soon after and opened an inn called Paradise Inn that caters to couples taking their first vacation without children—their kids have grown up or the parents have decided to stop worrying about them—and they go to Napa Valley to see if they still like each other and have anything to talk about. Thirty-five years of marriage and a lot of puke and snot and disease and squalor and bad companions and suspicious odors and big attitudes and eye-rolling and ingratitude and the man and woman who procreated the brood open a bottle of Pinot Noir and look at each other and try to remember what it was they were thinking of back when their flesh was united.

  Arlene walked up to the Peterson house, knocked, and there was no answer, so she stepped into the kitchen, and heard sounds of groaning and sighing upstairs. “Oh God,” a woman said. “Oh my God.” It was a video. She yelled, “Ernie??? It’s Arlene Bunsen. From church. You forgot to sign your checks.” And the groaning stopped. And he hollered from the top of the stairs, “Well, leave ’em there on the table and I’ll get to ’em as soon as I can.” Arlene looked around at the piles of dirty dishes, clothes on the floor, garbage overflowing, flotsam, wreckage of a misspent life. “Is Lottie here?” she yelled. She heard rustling and creaking under the floor where the python had lived.

  Years ago a famous wild-game hunter named Lyle Bradley was brought in to look for snakes, a man in leather boots and a pith helmet and jodhpurs, and he spent two days and found nothing but garter snakes and black snakes and said he thought the python must’ve escaped from a circus sideshow and simply adapted to cold weather. He said we’d never see
another one. “Of course,” he said, “you never know.”

  Ernie came lumbering down the stairs, supporting himself against the walls. She was glad to see that he had put his pants on and zipped them up. “Do you have twenty bucks I can borrow until Tuesday?” he said. She peeled two twenties out of her billfold. “I just need a little help until I can get on my feet,” he said.

  His brothers, Tom and Jack, went away to college though they weren’t that smart, and did well for themselves, or so you hear, and Ernie had his own septic tank business with plenty of work, but he and Lottie never got along. The house is cursed, Arlene thinks. The Petersons got divorced after they opened Paradise Inn.

  She wrote up a report on Ernie for the Pastoral Care committee, saying that he’ll need some support, and she wrote to Tom and Jack and asked if they could contribute $100 each per month. No word yet from them.

  • • •

  Cindy Hedlund’s story went like this: she was awakened by Roger snoring and came downstairs, turned on the radio, found a jumble of talk shows but there was a good jazz show from Grand Rapids and she listened to it and revisited an elaborate fantasy she’s had for years, in which she’s in New York City, in a restaurant on the forty-seventh floor, a jazz trio is playing, she sits at a table looking downtown toward the Empire State Building in the mists, the lights of the city twinkling. In the fantasy, she’s dressed in black, her fingernails bright red, and she pulls a cigarette out of her purse and two slender hands with fine black hair on the backs reach over and light her cigarette, and she looks up through the smoke and there is a very handsome man, sort of Italian. Sometimes it’s a gay man, sometimes it’s an old friend from high school who lives in the city, who always told her, “When you’re in town, look me up.” But last night, in the fantasy, she was a widow and the man asked her to dance. He danced beautifully. Jazz isn’t about getting old and raising kids and earning a living, it’s about youth and freedom, she told Liz. “I know,” said Liz.