Jim Mense
Once More to the Picnic
an essay
by
Jim
Mense
Once a year I feel an invisible force drawing me from
St. Louis to the small farming community in which I was
raised. Recognized by some as my mother's voice, the
invisible force instructs me to arrive by noon so that
I'll be in time for the lawnmower races. Each year, about
a week before Labor Day, I stand frozen in that same
pose: jaw clenching, eyes bulging, phone pressing into
a sweaty ear. "And bring some money," the invisible force
commands in farewell.
St. Libory is a town of 500 encircled by
deserted coal mines, now green with pasture, and farms
that feature tractors as expensive and loud as an Abrams
tank. It is a town with a one-room post office, a gas station
that doubles as video store and apothecary. It has one
church. It has two taverns that offer the same two beers
on tap, Bud and Bud Light. It is the place where I have
lived the majority of my days.
Schlambachfest, loosely translated as The
Nauseating Feast,1 is the town's primary means
of income. Profits from the beer stand, fish bowl toss,
and the other primitive confidence games pay for road repair-black
tar generously sprinkled with loose gravel-and sign replacement:
Several stop signs are lost each year to small arms practice
and the rolling of trucks. Residents are drafted to man
the various money-making enterprises, and absenteeism is
strongly discouraged: Every five minutes, the tardy
are called for via the bingo game's PA system until they,
or mortified family members, clock in.
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1. The literal translation is Mud Creek Festival. St. Libory was called Mud
Creek for the first years of its existence. Around 1891, the citizens decided
its association with the thicket-lined, sewage-bearing waterway was not good
P.R.
Former residents are asked to attend by family and friends, bitter over their
having lived the sacrifice that is staying-at-home. During a recent phone
call, I sensed the smoldering subtext of my friend's banal conversation: "I'm
working the kettle corn stand until 8:00. (And what are you working?) So
maybe I'll see you by the beer stand. (If you have the stomach to be seen
with simple country folk.) And we can catch each other up. (I'm sure you'll
be fascinated to know that I have lived to convince the zoning board to
name our street; the sign will take a while, though.) Anyway, see you soon.
(You big selfish bastard.)"
Children sense their parents' fear, and the
miniature politicians take full advantage. It is certainly
true that my children are alert to my moments of trepidation.
My hyperventilation interspersed with a whimpering that
can only be described as desperately pathetic signals that
Daddy is in trouble again. And so the rejoicing begins. "We're
going to Schlambachfest. Yes. Schlambachfest! Hurrah! Hurray!" This
is their Sodom and their Gomorrah all rolled into one great,
big, little picnic. Any child not yet distracted by the
poison ivy-itch of his or her puberty views these little
picnics as a mad orgy of cotton candy, cap guns, and ride
tickets. For the kiddies, Schlambachfest is Las Vegas without
the whores. And no one turns to salt.
My wife, too, is thrilled 2 by
the prospect of our driving that short hour to my hometown
and its picnic. Any view into my secreted childhood-she
refuses to buy into my story of being stranded by a
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2. My shame always entertains my wife. See her shouting at the supermarket
checkout, "Oh Jim, you forgot your hemorrhoid medicine." See her, on the airplane
and in the seat behind her target, soft-tossing spit wads into the thinning
hair of Bernie Miklasz, a favorite columnist of mine.
disoriented though otherwise superior race of unearthly explorers-is, for
her, like finding the Holy Grail and reading God's inscription congratulating
the winner of the Infinite Happiness Sweepstakes. Cindy actually squeals
with delight over the invitation. "Children, we're going to Daddy's hometown.
. . . Yes, Daddy was once a boy, just like you, Auggie. Only, see, Daddy
was much clumsier. And no one liked him very much. They picked on him, you
see. The other children. Even the adults bullied him. Yes, it's sad. . .
. Yes, I suppose we will see those people at the picnic. Ha. Ha. Ha."3
Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest
St. Libory possesses all the charms of a
small town. Growing up, I remember flying out our home's
screen door without considering the need to lock it. Though
I often swore that my mother organized her house cleaning
to "keep tabs on me," suddenly quitting the washing of
dishes at that window before the sink to begin the Windexing
of the family room's picture window just to see if I had
really put on my shoes, my mother and father let me run
about town for the day. There was no trouble to get into.
I might have fallen into Mud Creek, or sledded the length
of cemetery hill smack into a gravestone, or wasted an
afternoon pumping my arm up and down along the highway
so that passing 18-wheelers--spawning small tornadoes of
gravel, dust and leaves in their wake--might blow their
horns. But there weren't any drugs to ingest, and there
weren't any gangs to join. At least I never found any.
---------------
3. Perhaps Cindy takes special joy in my hometown discomfort because of her
horrific introduction to St. Libory-a Thanksgiving weekend. At the church,
my raven-haired fiancé, post-communion, could not find her way to our
pew because each offered a line of tall blondes. My Latin lover felt more vulnerable
still as the congregation sang loudly and badly a minor verse of "They Know
We Are Christians": "When you were lonely, I found you a friend. / When
you were Hispanic, I found you a job." Later, at the family feast, Uncle Donald
introduced himself by asking Cindy, without a trace of irony, if she knew the
two types of Black people-"the blue gums and the black gums." And, for dinner
conversation, an aunt merrily described a mother possum birthing babies beneath
the porch, and how she had killed them with a barrage of shotgun blasts. These
horrors must have led Cindy to feel herself a prisoner of Kurtz's village.
The hamlet's denizens are what my father called "good people."4 They
would laugh or do worse if you used words like person-valuing or wellness,
but these folks do care if you are well. Not only will these people not do
you too much harm (there are bar fights but ambulances are never called and
rarely needed), but they always work to aid the needy among themselves. Neighbors
and friends of neighbors bake for the weddings and funerals; every male volunteers
for service in the fire department; the Catholic Church and the American
Legion have substantial charity funds. Schlambachfest is the best example
of everyone working together: the cooking, the construction, the clean up.
This socialism works because everyone is
judged to be equally needy. Though everyone's salary is
a well-known fact-like the Earth's shape, and the Holy
Trinity's composition of God, Christ and the Holy Ghost--this
knowledge is simply part of the social fabric. There is
an absence of social or class distinction: Everyone is
middle class German.5 The town is mostly Catholic,
far from catholic. This insulated uniformity makes for
a safe, predictable, nest-like atmosphere.
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4. I always thought my father would place you into this category if he judged
you capable of doing as he did when his four-year-old daughter was attacked
by a neighbor's dog: He first asked the owner to kill the dog; when the neighbor
didn't comply, my father secretly fed the rottweiler a poisoned meat ball.
5. This knowledge is due in part to the church annually publishing in its bulletin
the amount of offertory given by each parishioner. No one wants to be seen
as rich or poor, so everyone donates reasonably-roughly the price of a new
johnboat.
It is the atmosphere required to enjoy Schlambachfest. And, as a child, I
certainly did. At the picnic I would run around and through the maze of
legs that kept the adults upright. Lisa Kramper, the smartest girl in my
class, chased me under strings of yellow bulbs. More importantly, hundreds
of gaming stands afforded me an opportunity to win rare treasures. I counted
the years of my early childhood by the new favorite prize to be won each
year. When I was six years old, it was the year of the Chinese Yo-Yo. (How
many eyeballs were dislodged by those mischievous toys?) The following
Schlambachfest ushered in the year of the Snap-and-Pop. (Lots of bang for
the dollar!) As I aged I was less impressed by all of this. In my 12th
year, I noted with disdain that little kids were winning bags of goldfish. "That's
retarded!" I reasoned.
Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest
It's Labor Day weekend and the drive to St.
Libory goes well. The mysterious "Check Engine" light,
so frightening in its vague notice, does not flash red.
Few SUV's speed haphazardly by with drivers so consumed
with their phone calls they must be negotiating international
drilling rights off the Atlantic seaboard. Because of my
slow (under 75 m.p.h.) going, two drivers, one that I'm
certain is my third cousin on his way to Schlambachfest,
indicate, by way of hand gestures, their interest in seeing
me romantically.
Even my nuclear family seems strangely calm.
Auggie and Gigi limit their screams of rapture, consternation,
and ire to the first half of our journey. In the last thirty
minutes they grow strangely quiet, sitting like athletes
wrapped and taped for the big game. The eerie calm prompts
my wife to recount what she remembers of my secret childhood,
punctuating each name and humiliation with a shrill laugh.
As I drive, half expecting flying monkeys to perch on our
Dodge Minivan, I experience the opposite of nostalgia.
We find St. Libory shortly after we pull through Dead Man's Curve, my mouth
pulling downward in recognition of rising G-forces. In my childhood, nearly
every weekend saw one vehicle fly over the high embankment onto a portion
of Koeller's field-wheat in the winter and spring, corn in the summer and
fall. The crops formed a cushion of sorts, so people weren't hurt too badly.
One or two were killed each season, but they were mostly from out of town.
There's Trentman's station. To its side sit
the charred, twisted hulks of several pick-up trucks, remnants
from a summer of too much Boone's Farm wine. After a truck
rolling, my father and I and the other "menfoak" would
take a special trip to inspect the wreckage, often charred,
bloodied or both.6 Fathers, sons, uncles, and
cousins would stand together for a time, talking about
the weather, the crops, the baseball Cardinals. Each new
visitor would draw in the rest of the crowd, and then the
gushing would start. "Is that the radiator, Roy?" There
was a little oohing as fingers pointed out a pristine Lynyrd
Skynyrd eight-track tape that had somehow survived a Pacer's
compaction. It was our down home version of That's
Incredible.
----------------
6. Rustic living offers its own set of deaths: long drives to the hospital,
hunting accidents, ATV tumbling, lawn mower flipping (the big kind with airplane
propellers for blades). In this setting, machinery takes on the shark's malevolence.
A dozen men have watched with horror as band saws, grain elevators, hay balers,
and rotary combines (complete with straw choppers and rock traps) grab a loose
sleeve, slowly chew limbs, and otherwise mill the remaining flesh into
a fine red-white powder. In St. Libory, most folks bleed out.
On the left is Boozie's, St. Libory's first tavern and the home for weekend
turkey shoots: clay pigeons are shot to win frozen turkeys. Behind some orange-vested
sharpshooter, who levels his shotgun over a freshly plowed field and in the
direction of town, competitors stand in a semicircle, each man and woman
holding a stack of plastic white cups that grows with each beer dispensed.
(Bud and Bud Light are free with each entry fee at the turkey shoot.) Like
the oldest tree in a forest, the one with the most rings of cups stands proudly,
bowing now and then with the wind. The winner, usually drunk by day's end,
will shoulder-toss the fast "dethawing" bird into his truck bed with a sick
thud.
A quick jog right brings us to the long line
of the town's L-shape. To the left there's the town car
wash-two stalls, one working vacuum. To the right you'll
see a pasture with a new concrete road forming a long oval.
Das Kliesfeldt was the town's radical idea, conceived by
no one named Kliesfeldt, to build a city-like subdivision
in our little German town. One house stands alone and empty
along the oval. "That house looks like a funeral parlor," my
mother explained when I asked of the subdivision's failure.
A less subjective cause, I think, might be the neighboring
turkey shoot's errant shotgun blasts. Who wants to don
Kevlar just to brunch on the sun deck?
Down the road "a spell" there's the Legion
Hall that hosts all wedding receptions and something called
a chicken-&-beer dance. This German event is an all
night polka dance with an all-you-can-ingest hook. Sweaty
couples move from dance floor to long tables holding buckets
of chicken and pitchers of beer. Hours later, dancing couples
move through a snowy field of plastic cups. The dizzy and
inebriated send streams of vomit into any handy container: empty
pitchers, cupped hands, somebody's upturned John Deere
cap. The drink and frenetic dancing work submerged disagreements
to the surface so that fistfights, usually between husband
and wife, flare up. By night's end the dance hall looks
something like that farmhouse in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Mumbling villains run amok amidst debris and meatless bones.
Wedding receptions at the Legion Hall look very much like the chicken-&-beer
dances. Some of the women are "dressed fancy"; otherwise, it's barfing and
boxing by midnight. One or two wedding guests will sleep in the cornfield
cushion off Dead Man's Curve.
Then at the drop of a beer can you're out
of St. Libory. It's Smallville without Superman (or Lex
Luther). It's a town where teenagers and adulterous adults
are caught parking. It's a town where cousins, after shrugging
their shoulders at limited dating options, kiss one another
with increasing abandon. It's a burg with one restaurant,
Chicken's, best known for its basket of tasteless chicken
parts garnished with unbuttered toast. It's a burg with
a meat market commonly called the butcher shop because
men in bloody aprons will enter from a back door, momentarily
freeing the sounds of power saws and nervous cows, to wrap
your order of pig's feet and blood sausage. It's a town
famous for its children's Christmas mass. It's a town that
witnessed my badly misplaying the drum solo in "The Little
Drummer Boy." It's the one hometown I shall ever have.
Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest
I am not likable. This is certain and permanent,
and begins with my face. (Some have said I look like Ed
Begley Jr. stripped of all sex appeal.)7 My
father's family, the Menses, have a jaw that falls into
the most affable grin.8 But I have the Surmeir
face. My mother's chromosomes perform their ageless clicking
of genetic tumblers so that we, the wretched, masticate
with jaws that easily crunch nutshells or blocks of ice,
jaws that rest in a severe grimace. Passersby find this
malignant countenance unwelcoming, but my hypermalleable
mug further betrays my thoughts, which tend to the morbid.
People often encounter me with my mouth agape, nose in
a sniff, or eyes bulging like softballs. Also, I moan a
lot.
---------------
7. I suffer from an association with our least sexy celebrities. Each semester
at the community college, six or seven of my students will declare that I look "just
like" Andy Dick, Tom Greene, or the aforesaid Begley. I'm just young and old
enough for these comparisons to panic me. It is quite unsettling to walk through
the mall and, in catching the furtive glances of young ladies, to first assume
my latest haircut or diet has restored my sex appeal, only to recall those
celebrity associations and realize that these sirens are mistaking me for that
dorkus in News Radio, Road Trip, or St. Elsewhere.
8. Menses are always smiling, but the root of each grin is never certain. Mania
runs in the family. Uncle Donald, he of the blue gums & black gums comment
to my wife, grins while lecturing on race, the evils of sport, and F.D.R.'s
devious designs. Donald's mother, Grandma Mense, would smile, mutter in German
that her boys had drowned in large puddles of rain water, and smile again.
Not surprisingly, Menses have suffered double their share of nervous breakdowns,
which, as a comfort of sorts, have been easily diagnosed. In lieu of more traditional
forms of psychological treatment, Menses have made their way onto the barn's
roof for a day or week's rest. In short, if a Mense is smiling at you from
an elevated position, it's best to go get the sheriff.
This face of mine is for the city. When coupled with my precarious stork-like
neck and stooped walk, my nakedly honest face might frighten and anger
people in the city; but they, at least, are adept at disguising disgust
as benign indifference. Moreover, I believe urbanites are ultimately forgiving
of my Black Lagoon appearance: There are too many people, too many
freakish qualities to properly catalogue. In the city everyone's a freak
and so everyone belongs.
Pointing out that denizens of small towns
know everything about one another is as insightful as noting
that Hitler had issues. The lack of provincial privacy
is a rock of a cliché, one sparkling with specks
of truth, that both city slicker and rube find pretty:
The former, while sipping his mocha double espresso with
his lover, whom he met at the Personal Healing Center,
enjoys at a sidewalk cafe the contrasting, anonymous action
of the city; the latter, while paying the Huck's clerk,
the one caught taking panties from the Hundolts' clothes
line, comforts herself by recalling that her third cousin
liked to pick "fruit" from his neighbor's clothes tree,
and that he turned out normal. "Shoot yes, he likes women:
He's married three times."
But the cliché has an underside hiding
fast crawling bugs not seen in daylight. With the panty-raider
gone to the storeroom in search of Lemon Joy, the rural
housewife cannot help but imagine the naughty boy in some
puerile prancing. Meanwhile, as his aerobically enhanced
girlfriend excuses herself to the powder room, the philandering
urbanite sits dumbly under the umbrella of his curbside
table, suddenly certain of losing his vegetarian lunch
when he considers this woman's background: "She looks like
a stripper, which is great; but, Jesus, what if she is a
stripper?"
This tension of knowledge pulling against innocence is felt in city and small
town alike. No one gets what she wants without getting too much. It's a
tug-of-war with mud between and behind the teams and so, as Hud might warn,
you can't help but step in the shit. Metropolis and province, for the moment,
seem equally uninviting.
And yet I am far happier in the city, any
city. Consider the red-checkered pants my mother once tried
to make me wear to St. Libory's Christmas party. At nine
years of age I still desperately wanted that $3 Kresgee's
toy waiting for me at the Legion Hall, but I just couldn't
stomach those Goddamned dress pants. And this was 1973
when half the world had donned red-checkered pants. In
fact, I believe this was my mother's argument as to why
I should wear my new outfit: "But your friends will be
wearing pants just like these." I didn't have to say anything.
My face gave away my repulsion for the brightly patterned
duds. In noting my continuing objection by way of my wrinkled
nose, Mom applied the fallacy of do-this-or-else. With
Mom, everything in question was quickly disposed of.9 Last
scoops of ice cream, favorite dresses, Neil Diamond records
and much, much more were unceremoniously pitched. After
each soft thud into the "thrash can," Mom would spin and
walk away with the last word: "Now there's nothing to argue
about." I knew this meant that I would lose the toy, but
I stomped to my room comforting my preteen-self with the
notion that I had remained ethically secure and that I
still had my small person's dignity. I lost that thirty
minutes later when I ran downstairs in those red checkered
pants pleading to see Santa: i.e., to get my toy. Mom said
nothing. She just looked the answer.
---------------
9. Were she to successfully take over the world, Mom's answer to the question
of who owns the West Bank would be to nuke that strip of land so that no one
could build settlements. "There, see what you made me do," she would coldly
inform the Israelis and Palestinians.
For me, the small town is the red-checkered pants. It and they just weren't
for me. People are either born for the city or for the small town. Never
for both. I just happened to be born out of place. Geographically, I was
trapped . . . and feeling the frustration of the man desperately wanting
the opposite genitalia. Fortunately the cure for my woe did not require deft
use of scalpel or, worse yet, years of counseling. I simply had to wait until
I was of legal age to get the hell to Dodge. My migration to the brighter
lights of a somewhat bigger city has brought me some immeasurable relief,
one that is only occasionally disrupted-by reruns of Lawrence Welk,10 speeches
read by George W. Bush,11 and my mother's invitation to Schlambachfest.
Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest
The town does not change much. Trentman's
station might have altered allegiances from Shell to Standard
to that brand with the green dinosaur;12 someone's
house might be up for sale (always by owner),
---------------
10. My small children love to dance to this television show, so I am forced
to suffer the music, hairstyles, clothes and dolphin grins of Bobby, the Champaign
Lady, and the rest of the cast. But I especially dread the cuts to the octogenarian
Welk audience, always staring into the camera as if it were an attacking shark.
11. The President suffers from a speech impediment common in my family. Menses
tend to mispronounce even the simplest words without notice, because we all
suffer from the malady, and because we rarely talk in front of people not named
Mense. A recent illustration of this hyper-malapropism occurred when
one of my sisters, while wanting to convey that she and the rest of the church
committee had pooh-poohed the annual report, said that she and the church committee
had "boofooed the anal report." Without flinching, my mother questioned, "Do
you think Father Feldner minds?"
12. People in small towns become fiercely attached to brand names, perhaps
because there are fewer options; so this shifting among oil companies every
ten years or so is big news. I still recall my stomach feeling the sucker punch
of missing the station's red and yellow Shell sign, suddenly replaced by another--a
big blue Standard sign.
and someone else will have bought Boozie's tavern. But Dead Man's Curve will
still offer a Dukes-of-Hazard slow motion jump, Das Kliesfeldt will still
have that one house, and my mother will still feed us cheeseburgers the size
of catcher's mitts before she stuffs twenty one-dollar bills in my pocket. "That's
for the kids," she will say. I will reply with the same old joke, "But what
about my beer money?"
The picnic still starts in the oppressive
heat common to every Labor Day, and the night is still
lighted with those thick yellow bulbs strung from pole
to pole--a spider web of dim illumination. The stands and
menu are uniform. I see the same people grouped in the
same area. But more frightening than the picnic's static
nature is my magnified memory of it.
This is the weird part. The longer my separation
from this hometown, the more I remember my time there.
This recollection, though, is partial and bent-as is a
mirror's reflected light. Scattered are the many fine moments
of my childhood. My memory, like some funhouse mirror,
absurdly stretches the images before me; and with each
familiar face, I recall some awful or embarrassing moment
while guilt-ridden thoughts appear as bracketed subtitles
written in the style of Cheever's Journals, including
the disguising of characters by their initials. Thus, I
am both the subject of and the audience to this macabre
film. It's dizzying. I make the most awful faces.
I feel this nausea full force as we pass
the firehouse and enter St. Libory's park. Here is Schlambachfest!
Wooden stands, each featuring a different game, line the
perimeter. In the park's center, open air sheds feature
Bud, Bud Lite and "meats." A slide the size and shape of
Tyrannosaurus Rex sends small children careening downward
at terminal velocity. An inflated romper room expurgates
bouncing kids at a clip that reminds me of bald, metal-plated
Don Zimmer spitting sunflower seeds. The sun seems to be
drawing nearer. Most horrific, though, is the grade school
band. [This bleating music makes me think of W. and
D. and how the three of us formed the percussion section
of the school band. None of us could read music, but, too
cowardly to merely stand, we each struck our snare drums
with great passion. No one seemed to notice. Or was it
that they didn't care? Is this why I drink? Why is it that
I still feel as if I might have been a good musician? God,
how many people at this picnic heard that awful banging
of mine?]
My children sprint to the nearest stand-the fish bowl toss. When told they
need cashola, the children return to my side. This begins the factory-line
dispersal of money. They come, I give. They come, I give. They come, I give. [How
stupid I've been with my money. Why didn't I prudently invest like L. Look
at him in the cake walk stand. He's so Goddamned proud of himself. Does he
remember me? Perhaps I should say hello.]
For a dollar, each kid gets three ping pong balls to throw at a center table
jammed with small glasses. With every ball that lands in a glass, the child
is awarded a goldfish in a plastic Baggie. Given the likely death of the
fish and, worse still, the cost of food and housing for the pet should it
live, I recall the opening scene in Blue Velvet when Kyle McClaughlin
finds a severed ear. These aren't treasures. I find myself praying for the
first time in years: "Yahweh, here I am in the valley of darkness. . . ." Gloriously,
each toss from my kids merely clanks among the glasses for five minutes or
more before hitting the grass floor. The children look disappointed; I try
to stifle my joy: "Hah, take that, Nietzsche!"
We turn and make our way to the "junk stands" where
for every dollar one picks three plastic duckies caught
in a circular current. Each duck has a number inked on
its bum, the numbers are added, the sum is matched to one
of three categories of toys: charming stuffed animals,
plastic crap that won't last the night, plastic crap that
won't last an hour. The dollars fly from my pocket. Along
the way, we score every number within the finite set, and
still the charming toys remain fixed to the stand. Are
they bolted into position? We walk away with an armload
of plastic crap. [This is like every dream I've ever
had. I'm burdened with things I can't possibly leave behind.
Where is the beer stand? Damn, it's across the park. How
can I possibly wait that long?]
It's time for the lawnmower races. Wives
sit behind blindfolded husbands who must steer solely by
their spouse's instructions. The first to round a pylon
and return wins. I recognize several of my classmates among
the contestants. [There is M. She still looks delectable.
I might approach her, but the last time we spoke she feigned
intestinal problems and left the room. There is B. My God
he's let himself go. I remember the time the two of us
wrestled down at the creek. Our disagreement now seems
so hollow: He had made fun of the way I wore my jock.]
Just before the waving of the green flag, the fire alarm sounds. Most assume
this to be a hyperbolic start to the lawnmower race. But the truth becomes
apparent as several of the town's volunteer firemen run from the beer stand
to their station house. One runs with his plastic cup of Bud held in front,
no drops spilling. Is this another game of skill? [I might have enjoyed
playing the fireman. I'm certain that I'm capable of behaving heroically.
But who am I kidding? Remember last week's shameful episode? Having walked
out the back door, I startled a ground hog, shrieked twice, and ran with
a rabbit's celerity.]
My wife and I herd the kids from all the
excitement. Our objective is the kettle corn stand, a rock
outcropping in the current of flesh. On the way I meet
a face that I should know. He's gray-haired, pot-bellied
and has that Surmeir jaw-a cousin to be sure, but this
is a town of cousins. He looks at me and I look at him.
Neither of us can quite place the other; crossed brows
and bulging eyes betray our confusion. Embarrassed that
I can't make introductions, I secretly wave my family to
the kettle corn. My wife senses my predicament and moves
in to force the issue. But her evil plan is thwarted when
the mystery relative leaves, weary of my vague conversation: "How
are you? What are you doing these days? I see you
have a new John Deere cap." [I'm momentarily spooked
by this doppelgänger. Is this to be my fate?
Christ, why do I bother to work out?]
The kettle corn, sweeter than its caramel
cousin, has a line too long by half. Fast growing tired
of the walking and the heat, my family slowly pivots, like
some long line of parading soldiers, in the direction of
the "supper stand." There are wafer-thin burgers charred
beyond recognition, fish stamped and breaded into perfect
rectangles, and barbecue pork steaks, each small bite of
which chews like an entire package of Spearmint gum. Volunteering
to secure our rations, I secretly pitch half of the plastic
crap we've won into a trash barrel as my wife leads the
suddenly enlivened troops back to the fish bowl toss.
The old woman taking my order I recognize as having been the third place
contestant for our prom queen. I resist the urge to run. [Do I look
that bad? I've got to quit the booze for good. That's it, no drinking until
Thursday evenings!]
Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest Schlambachfest
With supper in hand, I find my family. Despite
having spent half my month's salary, the children have
not yet won a single goldfish. We begin the long mastication
of the meat.
Full and feeling a slight breeze, we feel
strong enough to make it to the children's playground.
With Auggie and Gigi quickly scrambling atop precarious
structures of tubular steel, I breathe easy. Cindy slumps
to the ground. "Oh God, look at that terribly pregnant
woman," my wife says with a mixture of envy, empathy and
relief. The woman at the swing set does indeed have an
outrageously rounded belly; I immediately recognize her
to be Lisa Kramper, always the smartest girl in grade school.
Strangely, seeing my old classmate does not key one paranoid
subtitle.
In recognizing me, or, perhaps, in wondering
why that exhausted woman is pointing at her, Lisa makes
her way to us and the monkey bars. Her three children scamper
ahead and soon launch themselves onto the already overstressed
playground equipment. Amazingly, I am able to introduce
everyone. My wife can't help being charmed by Lisa's good
will as we take turns telling the best anecdotes of our
shared youth. This pleasant exchange lasts so long that
my wife, though she had finally found a portal into my
mystery years, volunteers to take all of the kids to the
fish bowl toss. Lisa and I watch them leave and merrily
recount our hometown histories-the classmates, the teachers,
the second place finish in the Class A basketball state
championship. I remember that Lisa once meticulously drew
a ballerina in our 4th grade art class; she reminds me
that I tossed all of my art projects into the creek. "You
called it Art Creek, remember?"
The day moves into night
and the yellow bulbs glow like fireflies. My wife returns
with the five kids
and their ten goldfish.13 I gulp at the car-sized
fish tank they will need. I feel the old nausea returning.
Lisa offers a cheery goodbye. Cindy and I
are left with just our kids and the fish. Chuckling, my
wife comments on Lisa's St. Libory stories. "Lisa said
you were a great kid growing up," Cindy says with an innocent
smile. "And she said you are looking great."
---------------
13. As evening approaches and the prospect of having extra prizes, that is
suffocating goldfish, dawns upon the attendants, they declare that all who
try the ball toss win.
"Really? That's right." Suddenly, I feel spry. Taking hold of one of the Baggies,
I look into the eyes of a goldfish. Bright orange with brown spots along the
sides, the fish swims lazily in his little bag. I hear the soft popping of potato
guns. Someone on the bingo P.A system calls out the winning numbers. The Big
6 wheel spins with promise. Gleeful cries sound from the T-Rex slide. Momentarily
enchanted, I hook my arm around Cindy's waist and say to the kids, "Let's git
us some more fish."
We win twelve in total, each swimming slower
than the next-their fish eyes growing larger with diminishing
oxygen. I, too, feel short of breath. With a common sigh,
my family agrees to leave in a spirit of homogenous democracy
unique to times of fatigue. I walk faster than everyone
else. In folded arms I carry bags of fish like a frenzied
Humphrey Bogart stealing gold in The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre.
Just ahead, the white minivan patiently waits.
Hopeful, I walk even faster. Suddenly, a bag falls over
my protective arms; my size-12 foot lands on the Baggie,
flushing water and fish onto grass. Cindy gasps. Gigi and
Auggie cry out in genuine horror. "Everyone into the van," Cindy
instructs. I plop bags of fish onto the van's floor. Gigi
howls. With trembling lips, my son says, "It's alright,
Daddy."
In the van and soon past the Legion Hall,
Boozie's Tavern, and Trentman's station, I remember the
banking turn of Dead Man's Curve laying in wait, just beyond
the headlights. With the window open for fresh air, I hear
the school band over my daughter's pitched screams. The
fish, I know, are swimming oh so slowly. I focus
on the road ahead. I dare not look behind.
