The Mysteries of Soldiers Grove

by Paul Zimmer

  What has he really done with himself over all this time? Not much after a few years of high school glory—but he’d managed to make those moments last all his life. I was pretty sure that Louise would not be impressed, although I have to admit that Danderman looks a hell of a lot better than I do. He’s kept most of his hair—I notice he’s touched it up with brown coloring—and is only a little puffy around the middle. All I have going for me are my bandages that Louise has painted with small flowers, and my skin that looks like rancid bacon.

  Danderman looks a little like Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian World War II traitor, and I’m about to tell him this when he, in his quick, assertive manner, asks: “You having a good time here?” His eyes are like chilled plastic ice cubes and his mouth is slack. I think right then that I sure as hell am not going to give Danderman a life to identify with—not even Quisling’s.

  “I’m getting through the days,” I answer him. “Nights are a little tricky sometimes.”

  He’s looking at my bandages, my nose, and where my missing ear should be. “What the hell hit you, man—a double Peterbilt?”

  “I got mugged by a polar bear,” I tell him.

  Louise has a pleasant chuckle at this. I can usually make her laugh—and she likes that.

  Danderman seems flustered that she thinks my remark is clever. He’s a veteran libertine, not used to being one-upped, especially by a corpus delicti. He shifts in his plastic chair and gives me a patronizing smile as he tries to stare me down. I hold his gaze. We sit in silence for a while. Finally Danderman asks, “What have you been doing with yourself since high school?”

  “That was a long time ago. I kept to myself. I had jobs in town over the years.”

  More silence. I gnaw on my rubbery chicken. The singing lady is doing “The Little White Cloud That Cried” now. It’s pretty bad.

  “Somebody should shoot that old bag,” Danderman says.

  “She’ll die singing,” Louise says. “There are worse ways to go. She’s determined to entertain us. I think it’s very generous of her.”

  “She ruins my digestion.” Danderman grinds in his chair.

  I chew another bite of chicken. “What did you do with yourself after high school?” I ask him after a while. “I know you had an insurance agency. You probably played golf.”

  “Yeah, I was a golfer. Still can hit a few. I played slow-pitch softball until I was in my early fifties.” He’s looking at Louise like he would like to eat her with a spoon.

  “You look a lot like Donkey Thomas,” I say suddenly.

  Here I go! Now I’ve done it. I guess I just can’t help myself—I’m going to give this pissant a life anyway.

  Danderman is surprised and sits up in his chair, looking challenged. “Who was Donkey Thomas?” He puts both of his big hands on the table.

  “He was an outfielder/first baseman for a lot of major league teams. Not the Hall of Famer Frank Thomas who played for the White Sox, but he was Frank ‘the Donkey’ Thomas, a big strong, white guy, mean as hell, he hit double-figure home runs eight times, but he struck out a lot. He pulled the ball and hit some of the longest foul balls in major league history. Strong guy—not the smartest. He had a standing bet with anyone that he could take their hardest throw with his bare hands, so you can imagine what a dope he was. It used to drive his managers crazy, but he’d dare people and never lost the bet; he even took Willie Mays’s best shot with his bare hands. And he’d stick his skinny nose in anyone’s face. One time the Phillies traded for him, and the first day he got into a fist fight with their star, Dick Allen, and they placed him on waivers the next day.”

  There—I’d given Danderman a life, despite myself. I’m not sure he liked it, but I enjoyed it. I even elaborated and embroidered the tale now, just for my delectation: “Donkey Thomas played seven years for Pittsburgh, then bounced around with eight other teams in half a dozen years. Managers couldn’t stand him—nobody could stand him—so they kept moving him on. The new teams kept hoping he’d at least hit a few home runs and win a game or two for them.

  “One of his managers was mad at him one time and commented to sportswriters, ‘He needs to change his deodorant.’ Donkey Thomas could not be managed, but if they had a little extra room on their roster, they wanted his power. He was all muscle, but the muscle ran into his head as well. You look like him.”

  Danderman looked as if he’d swallowed a baby alligator. We all sit quietly at the table for a few moments, listening to the singer struggling now through “Ebb Tide.” I nibble at my cold peas.

  “What really happened to you?” Danderman asks after a while. “You run your electric cart into a display of canned peaches at Walmart, or something?”

  “I got abducted by a criminal and he left me out to die in a snowstorm. I was lucky the sheriff found me. What happened to you?” I asked him. I was pretty worked up by now. “You look like you got old, too. Were you surprised? Did you finally get your bare ass snapped with the biggest wet towel in the locker room?”

  “Gentlemen,” Louise says after some moments of white silence, “please. You must excuse me. I have some things to attend to.” She stands, and Danderman and I struggle to our feet.

  “I’ll walk you to your room,” I offer quickly.

  “That won’t be necessary tonight, Cyril,” she says. “You’ve not finished your meal yet.”

  “Allow me,” Danderman says.

  “You sit with Cyril,” she tells him. “He’s just been in the hospital for a while and doesn’t know too many people.” She’s off with her cane tap-tapping quicker than I’ve ever seen her move, escaping us both.

  Danderman watches her walk away. “Pretty foxy lady,” he comments. “Nice legs.” He turns to me.

  “Listen, junior, you keep trying to show me up like that, you’ll be wishing the cops hadn’t found you in that blizzard.” His demeanor has changed. He’s edged forward and is leaning on me like Danderman the tough jock.

  “Here now!” I say. “Aren’t we a bit old to be talking tough to each other?”

  “You started it, Mr. Frosty. What kind of jobs did you have? Cleaning up the toilets at the VFW? I could have hired you to mow my lawns, except you probably wouldn’t have got the lines straight.”

  After all these years Danderman was finally speaking to me. Were the two of us going to have a dustup over a woman right here in the dining room of the old folks’ home?

  That would probably be a first for this place. I notice there is a crutch propped against his chair. That could be his weapon, and I could use one of my walking sticks. Satisfaction! En garde! Clackety-clack.

  I’d seen Danderman hobbling painfully around the halls; his crabbed pace was obviously making him irritable. Years ago in high school I saw him run for a seventy-yard touchdown. But now—even I could probably dazzle him with a little footwork despite my missing four toes.

  Poor Louise, how disgusting for her! What silly boys she must think we are. I’ll pick her some flowers from one of the beds in the parking lot. In the meantime, I have to deal with Danderman, the ex-jock who has his big nose way out of joint.

  “Look, it’s too bad we’re having this little rumpus,” I say. “Both of us should probably watch our blood pressures. How about a game of checkers sometime?”

  Danderman struggles to his feet. I wonder if he is going to smack me with his crutch—but he tucks it under his armpit. He sticks his big red puss down close to mine; his breath is like air off the town dump. “Listen, snowman, don’t butt in next time you see me talking to a woman! It ain’t polite.”

  Suddenly everything seems at stake, my vision flares. I take a blast of air into my lungs, blood rushing to what’s left of my fingertips. I snarl back at Danderman: “Up your ass with a ten-foot pole!”

  Men are rote creatures. They curse each other like little boys when they don’t know what else to do, they revert to teenage playground blurt. I’d never dreamed of saying such a thing to someone like Danderman. In the old days I would
have kept my mouth shut, hoping for the best—but age has ground us both down to our nubs, and things have evened out a bit.

  Danderman starts to walk away, but when he hears my response he turns and faces me again, drooling with anger. I think—this is it, he’s going to come back and deal with my ass. People sitting at nearby tables are alarmed. But then he remembers who we both are and where we are. His eyes flick around the room; he bites it off and jerks around to walk away.

  The scene we had created was like a weigh-in at a heavyweight boxing match. I’d occasionally seen men brawling over women in the parking lot at Burkhum’s, and always thought that all that blood came too readily. But now I feel like Saint George. If necessary, for the fair Louise, I will face the fetid breath of this half-dead dragon. Bring him on! I’ll knock him down on his goddamned keister! I’ll drop him like a hot spud!

  CHAPTER 10

  Louise

  We live such small lives in this place. All of us are here because we can no longer stand on our own. I remember my mother writing to me from France, worrying about her coming retirement from her teaching job. “What will I do?” she asked me. I wrote back that she should be free—paint watercolors, keep a memoir, do volunteer work and help others, travel to Italy or Scandinavia or North Africa. She had never been anywhere. But my uncles told me that she retired uneasily and sat small in her house. She lost weight, grew depressed and got even smaller, became so weak she couldn’t take care of herself. By the time they moved her to a care facility she was so reduced she died within weeks.

  Is it any wonder I resisted the idea of coming here to this rest home? I can already feel myself diminishing. Sleep closes in at all times and from all angles. Should one attempt to be calm and acquiesce to this entombment? We have so little choice. I fall slumbering over my books. My watercolors are runny and frustrating. Music becomes noise. I can only read for a half hour at a time before my eyes grow dim. The television set is a box full of babbling, intrusive idiots. The advertisements attempt to suck my blood.

  How can I give myself to any of this? My entire adult life has been silence, but I made myself large within the quietude. I must strive to do the same in this place.

  That man Danderman is trying to be friendly, but he is such an incredible bore, and his attention makes Cyril feel threatened. The two of them act like school boys around each other.

  I must give Cyril some assurances. I don’t want him to feel that our friendship is at risk. I have never met anyone like Cyril—all of his life he has collected other people’s lives and his head is teeming with them. Out of his generous heart he attempts to share his studious good fortune with others, but he is generally avoided. Despite this patronization and now his physical afflictions, he remains buoyant and munificent. I hear the lives he recites with gratitude—they are like gifts. But not everyone listens to him. He needs to be a bit more selective, and I will urge this on him. But who else knows such things? He is someone using his mind, flourishing like fresh air in this place, and people are generally suspicious of this.

  Cyril says I remind him of Christine de Pisan, and he wants to buy me a Leinenkugel at the tavern across the road. The potentiality of this adventure stirs us both as if it were an exotic trip on the Orient Express. The rules in the home are that we are not supposed to leave the grounds on our own, so we will have to do this on the sly, but this is precisely why we should have this forbidden adventure—it will challenge us to do something, to stay large in our brief lives.

  We begin to lay our plans. Friday nights are bingo nights in the home, so everyone will be busy at the games. We decide that we will make an appearance and play a few cards, then fade away from the crowd. Cyril will go out and around the side of the building to prop open one of the emergency exits with a match book late in the afternoon, and we will slip out that evening. Cyril uses two canes and I require one, so arm in arm with this tripod of assistance we will deliberately make our slow way through the parking lot and across the highway to this tavern called Burkhum’s.

  Cyril says there is country music on Friday nights—not my favorite genre, but Cyril wonders if we might have a dance. Now wouldn’t that be wonderful, if we could do it? I am willing to give it a try—a slow number, so we can support each other. I haven’t danced in decades and Cyril says he has never danced. He wants to try. He figures it is time for us to take a step or two, and I agree. Perhaps after several Leinenkugels we will attempt it. The people in Burkhum’s Tap would probably welcome a spectacle.

  Everyone at the home’s bingo party is in a good mood after a day of sunshine. In these driftless hills one earns and deserves the pleasures of springtime after the long winter. If you bear up well to the cold and snow, it makes the warm spring weather even more gratifying. There is much pleasant banter as the bingo cards are played. Cyril and I play three cards before, as prearranged, both of us rise separately and move off to the back hallway as if to go to the restroom. No one notices our departure and the nurses are busy at the desk.

  We are down the hall and out the exit door into the fresh twilight like violets “that strew the green lap of the new come spring,” both of us greatly excited, hobbling skillfully with our canes across the parking lot toward the highway that crosses between the home and Burkhum’s Tap. Cyril is cackling triumphantly. I wish I could hold his hand, but we are both occupied with our canes. We stay close to each other as we move along, happy as a couple of teenagers frolicking in the foothills of a lifetime. It has been many years since I’ve felt this sort of keenness.

  We are accomplished old shufflers—so tap, tap, tap—and we are across the road and quickly at the edge of Burkhum’s gravel parking lot. There are early crickets in the bushes around the building; we can hear a car door slamming and people laughing. The moon is not quite full, but it is gibbous and high, and there is the sound of a fiddle, a loud guitar, and double bass coming out of the tavern.

  CHAPTER 11

  Cyril

  The last time I was in Burkhum’s on a Friday night I got myself into some serious heat, but I can tell already that this evening is going to be better. This is an occasion! My first date ever! I’ve waited a long time, but now I’m out here doing the town with a real knockout. Louise!

  The Tap is jumping, but I spot a table for two off in a corner. Louise seems a bit overcome by the crowd and loud music. I tuck one of my canes up under my arm, take her elbow and proudly steer her through. We are the oldest people in Burkham’s by at least twenty years. Folks are checking us out and moving their chairs back so we can hobble through like royalty.

  Burkhum hires extra waitresses to work on weekend nights—but the man himself personally comes to our table to take our order. I suspect he might be feeling just a tad guilty about what happened to me—as he was the guy who put me out into the storm that Friday night when I got iced, and I haven’t seen him since.

  “Cyril!” Burkhum says. “I’m glad to see you out and around. You doing okay?”

  “Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, Burkham, but I’m making it. Thanks for asking. How’s business?”

  “We’re getting by,” he says. “Who’s your lady friend?” He’s looking at Louise and smiles.

  “This is Louise,” I proudly tell Burkhum. Then to Louise, “Burkhum is the guy who owns this pile.”

  Louise has put on small earrings and some makeup. She gives him her nicest smile. The way she’s fixed her hair—she’s like a beautiful white bird. Lord, she is a sight to my eyes! Louise glows. I know Burkhum has seen some women in his day, but I can tell he’s impressed.

  I am mighty proud to be with her. Cyril, I keep reminding myself, here you are on your first date ever. And you are out with a queen.

  “You from around here?” Burkhum asks Louise. He’s looking her up and down.

  There may be only 693 people in Soldiers Grove, but folks can live a lifetime as neighbors in these driftless hills and never meet. Louise tells him, “My husband and I had a farm two miles in off
Highway J. He died a few years ago. I live in the care home now.”

  “What’ll it be?” Burkhum asks.

  I proudly order for both of us. “Bring us two Leinenkugels, Burkhum, and a bag of barbecue chips.”

  “This one’s on me,” he announces.

  I make as if I’m falling out of my chair. “Burkhum, from whence comes this benevolence? Have you been canonized? I thought you were looking a little like Saint Vincent de Paul tonight. Do you know about him? He was patron saint of generosity. There’s a statue of him in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. One time he gave his whole fortune away to ransom 1,200 Christian slaves in North Africa and saved their lives. He was always raising money and helping the poor.”

  Burkhum quick steps away with our order before I am able to say more. Louise giggles as she watches him retreat. She places her hand on my sleeve. “Dear Cyril, they don’t know what to do with you!” she says. “You are a beautiful fountain in the driftless hills. If the world were a right place, they’d put up a statue of you in Rome.”

  Burkhum sends over a waitress to deliver our order. “Boss says this is on us,” she announces, placing two unopened beer bottles and bag of chips on the table and hustles away. I manage with a little effort to twist off both bottle caps and place Louise’s Leinenkugel in front of her, then somehow I manage to wrangle open the bag of chips.

  “Do they give you glasses?” Louise looks around.

  “Only if you ask. Let me get one for you.” I struggle to rise.

  “Sit still, dear man!” Louise grasps my wrist to hold me down. She raises her bottle to her lips for a sip. “This is Leinenkugel, isn’t it? You told me it is a Wisconsin elixir—good right out of the bottle.”

  As we sip our beer we chatter with excitement about our escape from the home.

  “I liked it best when we were just outside the door,” Louise says. “I haven’t had a feeling like that since renfoncement from school in France. It was like being out-of-body, making our way over here to the Tap. Bless you, Cyril!”