Lake Wobegon Summer 1956

by Garrison Keillor

  ’Cause her mind’s a houseplant

  And you know what a houseplant’s IQ is.

  And I wrote a story for private circulation, “Miss Lewis & the Giant Turd,” about a painful bowel movement that began in class, as she was drilling us on prepositions. Suddenly she emitted a low scraping sound like a box of rocks being dragged across concrete—like a glacier moving!—and she let out an AIIIIEEEEEEE and bent over double and hobbled to the girls’ room, where she fell to the floor and cried pitifully for the janitor, who rushed in with a plunger and tried to extract the fecal mass from her, but it was too immense, and then the fire department arrived and laid her over the sink and attached a suction pump, two men on either side of her skinny butt, working a lever, and they managed to suction the poop out of her, and when they were done, she weighed forty-five pounds. And she couldn’t teach anymore, she just sat on her front step waving to passing cars.

  This title passed from pupil to pupil, two grimy sheets of paper folded to pocket-size. David Magendanz thought it was the best thing I ever wrote. He wrote “READ THIS. A++++!” at the top. He thought I was a genius. He was now my biggest fan. He let it be known that anyone who messed with me would answer to him personally. The story found its way to Laura, Miss Lewis’s pet, who handed it over to her, and she read it, thin-lipped, and tore it into tiny pieces and dropped them into the wastebasket. “This is so childish it doesn’t bear talking about,” she said “It is beneath contempt.”

  8

  Kissing

  I took High School Orgies home and stashed it in my desk, in a manila folder marked Misc. Keep Out, intending to read it quickly and return it to Leonard. And then caught a glimpse of myself in the bureau-dresser mirror. What a geek I was! That dumb green plaid shirt, the blue pants with the inkstains on the pockets. And what better proof of geekhood than to be looking at pictures of naked women! I was scalded with shame. But this did not make the stories less fascinating.

  Open the magazine and here is Miss Erickson, a demure young history teacher in blue jumper and white blouse, at the blackboard, her pointer aimed at a list of the causes of the Civil War (Slavery, Western Expansion, Cotton, States Rights), and here she is on the next page in only her bra and panties, looking severely at a shy young man in horn-rimmed glasses. Miss Erickson asked young Bill to stay after class. “You’ve done nothing but cause me trouble all day,” she said. “Now, for once, you’re going to do what I say.” He offered no resistance as she unbuttoned his shirt. “Now take off your pants,” she whispered huskily. He did so, and as the jeans dropped to the floor, his manhood rose like a ball-peen hammer. “Now do as I tell you,” she said. She unclasped her brassiere to give him easy access to her gleaming orbs and pressed her lips against his, her tongue playing in his mouth. “Finally I discover something you’re good at,” she murmured.

  I dreamed of pressing my lips against Hers. Her tongue in my mouth. Her gleaming orbs pressed against me. But imagination failed me. The only girl I ever kissed was Cousin Kate, a wonderful girl but so plain that I may have been the first one she ever kissed, too.

  The kiss occurred right after we drank wine in Aunt Flo’s kitchen that Sunday morning after the Breaking of Bread, when Kate and I were hiding from everybody. We had sat in the living room, all us Brethren, and when Uncle Al stood and prayed a long sonorous prayer in King James style with surelys and doths sprinkled around and how the Lord was stricken, smitten, and afflicted as propitiation for our perfidy and transgressions, out of the corner of my eye I saw Kate cock her right hand and loft a paper airplane toward him. It fluttered his way, a vexation with wings, then swooped toward Daddy’s bowed head, but swerved and bit the older sister in the left tit, and she squealed aloud. Uncle Al kept right on praying for succor against the temptation of temporal things. I sat, eyes clenched tight, and made a couple of snarfling sounds until Mother jabbed me. The sister of course held me responsible for everything. After the B of B, she glared at me and stalked off. Kate and I were in the kitchen, recalling the tit-biting airplane. The others had all gone to the backyard to take a family portrait beside Uncle Al’s beautiful rosebushes. Kate and I had no reason to trust photography, it had betrayed us so often in the past. She looked out the window. Uncle LeRoy was posing my older sister so she appeared to be standing in the palm of his hand. There was great merriment outside and I said, “Don’t go out there.”

  “I have no intention of going there,” she said. “I don’t want to be with those people any more than I have to.”

  We stood still for a minute, waiting to hear our names called—Kate! Gary!—and meanwhile Daddy was placing his camera on a stepladder, setting the timer, telling everyone to move in closer.

  “Have you ever drunk wine?” she said. I said, “Of course. Lots of times.” A bald-faced lie. And I reached up for the jug of Mogen David in the cupboard and poured some in a jelly glass and took a gulp and she did likewise. And then she said, “Lips that touch wine shall never touch mine.” And I held her shoulders and leaned in and kissed her.

  “You’re very bad,” she said. “You’re as bad as everyone says.”

  “Who says?”

  “Girls say.”

  “Ha!” I kissed her again. She gave me a dreamy look and sighed and clasped her hands to her bosom and then I realized we were playing the Movie Game.

  —When do you return to your ship, Lieutenant? she said.

  —At six A.M. We sail to the Mediterranean. Greece, North Africa, and then on from there, God only knows where.

  —I suppose I may never see you again.

  —Perhaps not.

  —It is such a dreary little town without you.

  We liked to make up movie scenes, but always they were espionage or detective movies. A body lay on the floor, someone like Mr. Halvorson, an ax buried in his skull, the room full of clues. I’d never kissed her in a movie before.

  I moved in for another kiss, remembering to press lightly, lightly, not grind. I thought, I’m doing this pretty well for someone with no experience. It was only pretend kissing, but it was real to me. And then I felt her tongue between my lips. What was that about? Where did she learn it? From a book? It must mean she was enjoying herself.

  And then the screen door slapped open, and we jumped apart, and the older sister slouched in and said, “You’re wanted in the yard. Everybody’s waiting for you.” And she took a closer look at me and said, “You’ve been drinking wine.”

  —I haven’t either.

  —You did so, she said. What’s that spilled on your shirt? It’s wine.

  I hesitated.

  —It’s the juice of the grape, said Kate.

  —No, said the sister, it’s wine from the glass.

  —It didn’t come from the glass! said Kate. It came from the bottle.

  —Bottle or glass, it makes no difference. It’s still the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. You were drinking the Blood that the Lord shed on Calvary’s cross. You drank it. As a joke. Both of you.

  I shook my head, but not convincingly.

  She put her big flat face up to mine and told me that drinking the Lord’s Blood for fun was blasphemy. She said, “That’s the unforgivable sin. You want me to show you in Scripture? I will. You’re going to hell. You know that? You’re going to spend eternity in the everlasting lake of fire. Think about it.” And she said to Kate, “You’re to blame too. I’m going to tell. I’m not going to protect you.” And she marched out the door.

  We stood a long minute and waited for Aunt Flo or Uncle Al to come storming in, yelling, waving flaming swords, driving us from the house and out of town to wander the earth.

  Nothing.

  Then Mother called, in a pleasant voice, ”Gary? Kate?” And we went outside and were photographed, the two of us, Miss Moon Face and Mr. Tree Toad.

  Kate said that God knew that we were going to drink that wine, and so, if we hadn’t, then what were we saying, that God is a dope? We drank the wine because that was what we were going to do an
d God knew it.

  But I felt shaken afterward, as a person would, of course.

  Because hell is a real place. We Sanctified Brethren knew that, we sang about the fiery pit, the reefs of woe. We sang, Only one life, ’twill soon be past; / Only what’s done for Christ will last. Jesus is looking down from heaven, not missing a thing. Grandpa is at his side saying, “I don’t know what happened. They took him to Sunday school and now look at him. Drinking the sacrament. Jesus, what a disappointment he’s turned out to be!” And Jesus says, ’‘I hope he straightens out soon, because in a couple minutes we’re going to blast on down there for the Second Coming.”

  “I saw some of the heavenly host getting ready.”

  “It’s coming up real soon.”

  Grandpa looks down and he’s worried. In heaven, there are no worries, no tears, but Grandpa is Grandpa and he can’t help wishing that I’d straighten out. How can a kid be so dumb? Eternal glory awaits, and a golden crown, and an eternity of love and rejoicing, and there I am, thinking about farts and naked librarians and my throbbing manhood and drinking the Sacred Wine for the thrill of it. Blasphemy!

  Then Grandpa looks at Jesus, and he grasps the hem of Jesus’s garment. “That is really beautiful raiment,” says Grandpa. “Thanks,” says Jesus. “I’ve been saving it for my return to earth. Now I just need to put on my golden shoes.”

  I was saved, I think, at a gospel revival at the Green Lake Bible camp two summers ago after a sermon by Brother Fred Rowley, who preached about the ship Titanic and the tycoons and society ladies on board who paid little heed to Spiritual Things and devoted themselves to Worldly Pleasures and suddenly, in the midst of their glittering evening of Glamour and Elegance, them in their tuxedos and evening gowns sipping their champagne and discussing the wonderful fun they’d have when they docked in New York City, the parties, the dinners—suddenly came a horrendous CRACKING and CRUNCHING and GROANING and SHRIEKING from the bowels of the “unsinkable” ship and the roar of seawater and a few hours later they plunged to their deaths in the frigid Atlantic, their souls sinking into an Eternity of Darkness without God. And I sat in my seat, trembling, thinking that if God could sink an ocean liner, He could easily drop a meteor on our house or blow up the furnace or poison the water or arrange for a gunman to come and murder us in our beds, as the choir sang, “I’ve wandered far away from God, now I’m coming home. The paths of sin too long I’ve trod. Lord, I’m coming home.” And I said, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”

  But was that enough?

  Brother Rowley said anyone who wanted to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour should come forward—and I didn’t go. I preferred to be saved sitting quietly in my seat. I didn’t care to be a tree toad on his knees, bawling, for everyone to gawk at. So I sat in my seat and quietly invited Jesus into my heart. But did He come in? Or did He say, “If you’re too scared to come down front, then why should I walk all the way back there?”

  Condemned to eternal perdition because I was too shy to walk fifty feet! What a fool!

  Just like the Flood! The rains were falling harder and harder and people started knock-knock-knocking on the door of the Ark. Hey, Noah, the boat looks great. Nice job. I’ve been thinking about building one myself. Mind if I take a peek inside? And Noah didn’t open up. And the Flood came and the Ark floated free and those friends and neighbors were drowned like rats. The rainbow and the dove with the olive branch were all very nice, but they came too late for the drownees. God is love and God can also be rough on people. Ask the Midianites.

  I sit every Sunday morning with the Sanctified Brethren in Aunt Flo and Uncle Al’s living room, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ on a card table in our midst, and listen to the men pray their long expository prayers (“O Thou Who didst pass over the dwelling places of the children of Israel, so too watch over us, Thy Church, Thy Faithful Remnant, as we seek to uphold Thy Word in the midst of great spiritual darkness”), and we sing mournful dirges to the risen Christ and read all the owliest and crankiest passages of Scripture, and I think, If these are the Lord’s people, then who am I? Not one of them. Though I’m related to most of them.

  Maybe I am adopted from an orphanage in New York City. Maybe my parents were interrupted by a phone call as they made love and were a few minutes late and got someone else’s child. God has all the souls lined up in the chute, and if your timing is off and you miss your turn—surprise!—you get a tree toad.

  God knows. God knows who you are and what’s in your heart, what you really believe. He knows whether you are His or not.

  So there I sit on Sunday morning, listening to the Word of God, legs dangling, on the edge of eternity, a sheer drop down to hell, and I can’t keep from thinking about the story in High School Orgies about the young Chip, who goes to the school nurse because his stomach hurts, so she has him take off his pants. She presses on his belly and his groin and tells him to cough, and he does, and she puts her hand between his legs and says, “How does this feel?” It feels good. She puts his hand inside her blouse. “How does that feel?” That feels good, too.

  I can imagine some woman doing this to me someday in the dark. Someone like my cousin Kate.

  9

  Eleanor of Aquitaine

  The very beautiful 17-year-old Eleanor of Aquitaine, of noble degree, is enjoying a fine summer on her parents’ palatial estate when one day both of them die of a rare blood disease and she is sent by her evil stepsister to work in the scullery, where she spends the day drying pots and pans. One day, a woman in a white satin robe comes in bearing a fiery torch and sings “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” in a loud voice, and this startles Eleanor and she drops a cast-iron skillet on her dog. He bites her and she goes to her room, weeping, and the next day doctors tell her that she has the same rare incurable blood disease that felled her mother and dad. She is given two weeks to live. The evil stepsister is exultant and planning what she will do with her gold shekels once Eleanor is out of the way. The next day, a tornado comes up suddenly and destroys the palace and estate and it drives a blade of grass into Eleanor’s left foot. Amazingly, her incurable disease is cured, and she takes shelter in a nearby church. That night, the dog creeps into the church and finds the pew where she is sleeping and says, “Would you like to know what it was on the grass that cured you? A little chemical formula known as K9P, that’s what.” The next night, a Bible salesman knocks on the church door. He is selling Bibles bound in black leather, with gold edging, study guide and reference helps, maps of the Holy Land, and when he sees that she is alone, he says, “I’ll give you this one free, darlin, in exchange for some of your sweet lovin,” and she screams and he chases her around the church. As it turns out, she is not alone. A handsome toad is sitting on a window ledge and sees her predicament and leaps onto the Bible salesman’s neck and down his shirt collar and terrifies him so that he runs away screaming, and the toad drops out of his shirttails and lands, semi-conscious, on the stone church floor, where he is suddenly transformed into a comely young man. This often happens to toads who perform heroic deeds with no thought of reward. She is so grateful, she takes him upstairs, and in no time she is pregnant.

  He knew her upstairs in the bedroom. She didn’t know it but he had wanted to know her for months, and right away he said, “Oh, darling, let’s know.” She said no and he took this to mean yes and he took her clothes off, which greatly surprised her. “What?” she said. And then, before she knew it, they were knowing. They knew and knew until they were exhausted and kept knowing until all was known. “This has been the strangest day of my life,” she said. And yet in some way she was rather happy. She had always felt it was likely to happen sooner or later and now it had.

  The comely young man is terribly confused. One minute ago he was an amphibian and now, in a few minutes, he’s become a human and had sex for the first time. The evil stepsister takes Eleanor away to live with relatives, and as they decide what to do with her, they eat a very rich supper. “I’m about to explod
e,” says an uncle, and then he cuts loose with a salvo of silent rippers, and so do three of the others. The air is very curly. The relatives sit very straight in their chairs, trying to keep the gas from escaping, but anytime they lean even slightly one way, there is hissing and fizzing and then the dog walks in the room and says, “I wish you people knew what you smell like to me,” and they jump up to brain him one and the lady in the white satin robe walks in with the fiery torch and there is blue flame everywhere. And meanwhile, in a room upstairs, the young Eleanor Aquitaine powders herself after her bath, drying her breasts like small friendly rabbits, and preparing to run away with the comely young man and marry him and live happily ever after, she guesses. Why shouldn’t she, after all she’s been through?

  10

  In the Boys’ Toilet

  Kate is way older than I, she’s 17, but she is a rebel and a writer like me, though we’ve both been rejected for The Literary Leaf, her stuff for being too scary and mine for being dumb (“JUVENILE!!” Miss Lewis wrote at the top of two of my stories. “Talking animals??? Really! And why is there a fatal blood disease in every story??”). Kate was not a tree toad—more of a muskrat, with big hips and narrow sloping shoulders and somewhat flat-chested, a big beak inherited from Uncle Sugar, not sweet or demure at all, as her mother was hoping for, but she dwelt on a plane of sophistication extremely rare for Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. She was a devotee of The New Yorker and shared copies with me and pointed out the good stuff like Liebling and Perelman and explained the cartoons. She wore her dark hair short with bangs in homage to the great Audrey Hepburn and she acted in school plays, but of course a big-hipped girl with a moon face usually got to be the mother, or the maid, in blackface, dusting the drawing room as the curtain came up. She didn’t care, she loved to perform. She liked to say things to make people’s jaws drop (I am incredibly horny today), and then be nonchalant about it, What’s the big deal?, and walk away, cool. It was a show. She told a girl from Youth for Christ that she had seen boys naked lots of times and had once held a boy’s penis in her hand, just for the heck of it. She said she thought it was okay if people had sex, so long as they loved each other. The other girl told everybody and Miss Lewis got wind of it and sat Kate down for a talk and Kate denied the whole thing. That was her way. It was all a big show. If you dared her to show her underpants, she would. If you dared her to kiss you, she’d be there. If Miss Falconer needed someone to sing a solo at the Christmas choir concert, Kate’s arm was high in the air, her hand fluttering.