Eleven Miles to Oshkosh

by Jim Guhl

  And do you know what else she told me? She said that she still wanted to walk all the way across the Butte des Morts Bridge with me one of these days. She said “it must be done,” and that she was going to hold me to it. “It’s a matter of principle,” she told me.

  In case you’re wondering, the Blue Jay Slayer was a giant flop. Mark and Steve and I finished building it, complete with the sign, a twelve-foot tail made of empty beer cans, and the pull-string-operated bomb hatch. The plan was to load it up with about a million red-and-white ping pong balls and shower the Menasha baseball team as they came out on the field. It would have worked too. We had everything set up and even got it in the air with all three of us pulling hard on the twine. It all worked perfectly for about a half of a minute. Then a gust of wind came out of somewhere and sent the kite spinning in circles until it finally crashed, head first, right onto the street. There was nothing left to do but pick up the pieces and watch all of those ping pong balls roll away with the wind down two city blocks. At least the little kids in Menasha got an extra Easter egg hunt out of the deal.

  Of all the people who changed at Shattuck High, guess who changed the most. Larry Buskin. You’re probably not going to believe this, but he and I sort of became friends. Remember how Larry helped me follow the trail of clues to the Cadillac Man? Remember how he warned me to be careful? Well, some of those things probably saved my butt.

  But at the same time that I was getting all sorts of praise for getting the Highway 41 Killer, Larry was getting into deeper and deeper trouble. Yep, when the cops finally connected the dots and chased down the people in Shulepick’s file box, they eventually got to Larry Buskin and took him down hard. Six months earlier I would have cheered. But, all of a sudden, something about it didn’t feel right anymore.

  I went to the sheriff’s office to explain things to them, but they were no help. In the end, I called up Agent Culper again at the Milwaukee FBI. To make a long story short, he worked with Larry and helped him, but he still had to spend a month in juvie. When he came back, Mrs. Borger asked me if I could tutor Larry in a couple of classes. I said I would, and guess what. Larry Buskin got a B- in Geometry and a C+ in American History.

  And do you think the grits and dirtballs messed with me after that? No, they did not. They didn’t yell curse words at me. They didn’t try to get my lunch money. They didn’t bug me in the halls. Heck, I even started using the central lavatory again.

  As a cloud passed over the sun, I blinked my eyes and focused once again on the fishing boats bobbing out on good old Lake Winnebago. Suddenly, I remembered why I had driven down to the point in the first place. I pulled on my dive goggles, retied my crummy tennis shoes, and tightened the string on my swim trunks. There was only one fisherman on shore, and he was way down at the south end of the park. I climbed down the rocks and into the water crab style, feet first, using both arms for balance. The chilly water brought up goose bumps. Through my goggles, I viewed a familiar, green glow.

  On Saturday morning I was up eating Pop-Tarts and drinking Tang before Mom or Sally had made a single peep. I loaded a folding card table and my box of lures into the truck and drove to the Fox Point Shopping Center. The flea market was the same disorganized jumble of vehicles and tables that I remembered from last fall. Folks were set up in two rows, selling everything from dishes and dolls to carburetors and cuckoo clocks.

  I spied an opening next to an elderly lady with a table full of fresh-cut flowers of every color and type.

  “Hi,” I said. “Can I set up by you?”

  “Certainly,” she said. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Whatcha got there?”

  “Used fishing lures, mainly.”

  I set up the card table and spread out my junk the same way I had last fall. Spoons and spinners in the first row, plugs and plastic worms right behind, with the sinkers, hooks, swivels, and bobbers in the third row. My prices were handwritten on pieces of masking tape stuck to the table and, just like last year, they ranged from a nickel to fifty cents.

  Then I pulled out my second box, removed the lid, and placed the contents to one side of my fishing lures. The Eaglewings reflected the bright morning light off the reddish-brown leather from the fresh coat of polish I had applied the night before. Agent Culper had rescued them for me from Howard W. Shulepick’s house. The toes were a little scuffed, but otherwise round and rock hard. I tied up the laces so they would look their best.

  Just like last fall, folks wandered through at a steady clip. A thirty-year-old blond-haired guy with a sunburned face bought three Little Cleos and a Spinno-King.

  “I fish a lot on Haystack Reef,” he said. “Need to replenish my supply.”

  A farmer wearing coveralls and a seed-corn hat bought up all the hooks, sinkers, and swivels.

  “Heard they’re catching bullheads out by the tissue mill,” he said.

  With others picking up an item here and there, my fishing stuff was nearly gone by ten thirty, and I had nine bucks and seventy cents to show for it. Holy smokes! That was more than a month of Hoot Owl money, and it only took a few hours.

  “You’re almost sold out,” said the flower lady at the next table.

  I shrugged and smiled. “I guess it’s my lucky day.” I didn’t ask her how she was doing, because I could see that she hadn’t sold much.

  “My grandson could use some boots like that. Are they good quality?” she asked.

  “Very good,” I said. “Genuine Eaglewings, with the steel toe and the reinforced shank and less than a year old.”

  “Don’t they fit you?”

  “They fit me just fine.”

  “Aren’t they comfortable?”

  “They’re very comfortable.”

  “Then why are you selling them?”

  Now there was a question. Why was I selling them? I opened my mouth but nothing came out and I closed it again. Then I just said what I believed.

  “I used to need them, but I don’t anymore.”

  The lady smiled. “You mean you had a job to do, and now the job is done?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What size are they?”

  “Size four.”

  “How much are you asking?”

  “Three dollars.”

  “Hmm . . . well, that’s probably a good price.” She picked up one of the shoes and tried to squeeze the rounded toe. She worked her mouth a little and put the shoe back down. “But I don’t have three dollars,” she said.

  I arrived home with the card table, two empty boxes, and a pile of fresh-cut flowers.

  I poked around in the highest shelf in the kitchen cabinets and found two vases. Arranging the tulips, irises, and daffodils was easy, just a matter of following the lady’s instructions. When I was done, both arrangements looked dang-near perfect. I even poked some white flowers called baby’s breath around the edges like the woman had showed me. I put a little card on one of them for my mom with a note thanking her for loving me. The second bouquet was for Sally for her graduation, and I wrote some sappy words on her card too.

  The last bouquet was the most impressive of them all. The flea-market lady had fixed it up with some big, orange lilies and tied it all together with a pink ribbon and tissue paper around the outside. “Keep them in a cool place,” she had told me. I slid the flowers into the refrigerator, then checked the time on the kitchen clock. Half past four. I would have to leave soon.

  I took a quick shower, combed my hair with Vitalis, and slapped some Old Spice on my face. I put on some clean black pants, a white buttoned shirt, and a blue clip-on tie. I wiped off the black leather shoes that I had only worn to funerals and put them on over black socks. Last of all, I grabbed my camel-colored, corduroy jacket and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

  “Not bad for a Minnow.”

  I smiled at my own dumb joke and tweaked the tie a little to make it look real.

  By now I suppose you’re wondering why a
nerdy, scared of everything, little shrimp like me was putting on fancy clothes with flowers waiting for me in the refrigerator.

  Do you remember what Grandpa Asa told me once about making my own luck? And do you remember that girl named Jan who I met at the pizza restaurant in Kaukauna? That’s right—the one playing the lead role at the end of May in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The one with the sparkly blue eyes and the perfect smile and blonde hair that curled up on the ends? That prettiest girl in the world who wrote “Come and see me again sometime!” on my check?

  Still wondering?

  Well, okay then—now you know.

  Acknowledgments

  A host of people provided encouragement, guidance, and support. My sincere thanks to the following:

  My wonderful parents, Jack and Mary, who gave me fond memories of growing up in Neenah, Wisconsin, and much more.

  My dear Carmen, who helped me clear countless hurdles and never wavered in her belief in me.

  My daughter, Kavya, and son, Curtis, for cheering me on.

  Bev Larsen, Chuck Ladd, Anne Hollenbach, Shirley Brander, and Sachin Gore, for helping me scrub the first draft.

  Raphael Kadushin, Sheila McMahon, Amber Rose, Dennis Lloyd, Sheila Leary, Jennifer Conn, Casey LaVela, and Scott Mueller through my association with the University of Wisconsin Press, who brought it all together—for real.