Mr. Keillor went off on a long lecture tour of the West and Eloise was unable to reach him for two weeks, so all the commotion he’d aroused fell on Margie. Eloise had other projects on her plate now—a community concert series, a bike trail around the lake, a plan to consolidate Lake Wobegon schools with the Millet schools, the making of a Lake Wobegon web site, a plan to turn the old depot into a historical museum—every week some brilliant new idea burst forth to occupy her for a few days and then dwindled into the shadows as she got caught up in something new. The trip to Rome was now in Eloise’s rearview mirror. Her last word on the subject was that it might make a good story on CNN if Margie would organize a parade to kick it off. A parade in March? No way, said Margie. Too cold. Eloise was telling all Rome applicants to call Margie. The day after Thanatopsis she got sixty-seven calls—thank God for voice mail—one message after another: “Margie, it’s Ronnie, Ronnie Schaefer. How’re you doing? Listen, I heard that you’re planning this trip to Rome in April and Lonnie and I talked about it and we’d like to come with if you still have openings. Give me a call, would you?” One after another. And fifty-six the next day. People walked up to her in the middle of Sunday morning Mass as the choir sang an irritating song called “I’ve Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy Down in My Heart”—Carl wanted to go to the Contemporary service now, it began an hour later. She stood there clapping along because if you didn’t clap and smile people thought you were an atheist or had PMS, so she clapped unhappily, and people thrust notes in her hands, saying Put us down for Rome. Marlene & Ken and There are ten Luegers on the list for Rome, not eight as Jon told you on Wednesday. Ten (10). Please call if you have any questions.
There would’ve been more calls except that people in Lake Wobegon knew Mr. Keillor’s penchant for making up things and so his offer of a Free Ride to Rome was not given as much credence as if, say, Gary Eichten, popular WLT newscaster and host of Eichten at the Mike, had said it. Nonetheless, Margie got tired of telling people that Mr. Keillor was very busy and to hold your horses and not get your hopes up. Darlene asked her six times in two days, “When will I hear about Rome?” and Margie told her that there was a strict quota on non-Catholics traveling to Rome and they were required to carry a rosary. Not required that they actually use it, just have it in their possession.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Darlene.
Margie skipped lunch at the Chatterbox for three days. She drove to Little Falls to do her grocery shopping. She turned the phone off and pulled the shades.
Judy Ingqvist called to say that she and David couldn’t come since the trip to Rome fell the week before Palm Sunday—D-Day was March 25—so that wouldn’t work for them.
“I’m sorry,” said Margie. But she wasn’t sorry at all. David Ingqvist was a pill. Anytime you tried to make pleasant conversation with him, he had to tell you how horrified he was by George W. Bush. Margie was a Democrat, so was Carl, but enough is enough. Obama was in office, so let’s move on. But it wasn’t W who got the pastor’s goat so much as his brother Michael. Four years younger, an All-American tackle at Concordia—or he would’ve been, but he got nailed for steroids and dropped out, turned to pro wrestling as the Messenger of Death, doing nasty pile drivers and spinal twists, then came to Jesus by parachuting into a Billy Graham rally at Daytona Speedway that made the front page of the New York Times. Went to Wheaton and took over a tiny geriatric church in Denver and grew it from 75 members to 14,000 in three years by communicating to people that God Is Not an Angry God, He Is a Happy God. You couldn’t mention Michael to David, nor even mention Colorado. He would get silent and leave the room.
Marilyn said that she and Daryl would love to come. Or she would love to, and he was agreeable. “He doesn’t want to do anything with me anymore. I don’t know why. He’ll go to a basketball game with anybody who wants to go but if I want to do something, he finds some excuse not to.”
Eloise called to ask if it would be okay to bring Fred.
“Absolutely not.”
“Please. I’m afraid he’s going to leave me.”
“No. Too much drama.”
“He quit drinking. Honest. He went to Hazelden after that nonsense in Sauk Centre and he’s dry now. But I think he went into treatment just to get away from me and meet some needy young woman and I believe he’s met her.”
“The rule is Spouses Only. Fred is not a spouse. He’s a louse.”
Eloise started to cry. “He’s all I have in this world. Hazelden was so good for him and then he met her and now she’s convinced him that he needs to go on his life journey with her. How can he do that to me? How can he throw me over after all I’ve done for him?”
The next day, as Margie was getting home from school, Eloise drove up. She was a mess. Bloated, red-eyed from crying, her long hair tangled up in back, her linen pants a mass of wrinkles. Margie offered her coffee. Eloise asked for vodka. No ice.
“I was the one who got him into AA, for God’s sake. Ten years he and I were together. Every Saturday night I made supper for him. I listened to his troubles. He has a genetic intolerance of winter and a compulsive fireplace obsession. He poured out his heart to me. I went to bed with him. I held him until he went to sleep. That time he went crazy at the Fireman’s Cookout in St. Cloud with a fire hose between his legs and he shot water at people and knocked them down, I was the one who got him out of jail and into couples counseling. We discovered there are three kinds of relationships—conflict-avoidance, validating, and volatile—and that ours was number three. That took six weeks and cost me $800. Then one very cold night he fell off the wagon and went to Sauk Centre and pissed on a policeman. I rescued him again. Shoveled him into Hazelden for six weeks and paid half the freight and now he goes off with this tootsie who stands up in AA and tells a long story about what brought her there and he feels sorry for her and now he’s sleeping with her. It absolutely breaks my heart.” And Eloise fell into Margie’s arms and it sort of broke Margie’s heart too. As bossy as Eloise was, nonetheless she had propped that man up and treated him with tender kindness and then he dropped her like a used Kleenex and took up with someone twenty-one years younger.
“I must be some kind of horrible person. That he couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
“You’re not a horrible person. He is.”
“I must be. People hate me.”
“Nobody hates you.”
“Yes, they do. I am just a bad person. I’m loud and controlling and I do nothing but make people miserable. My kids tell me that all the time. And they’re right.”
Eloise said she wished she could kill herself. She finished the vodka. “Don’t go getting into trouble now,” Margie said, and two minutes later, Eloise backed out of the driveway across the front lawn and destroyed two small spruces and a rosebush. Margie called Father Wilmer. “Eloise is in need of some help. I wonder if you could go over and talk to her.”
“About what?”
“Fred dumped her. You know about Fred.”
“I do,” Father said, with a sigh.
“Now she’s gone to pieces and gotten drunk and she’s driving around like a crazy person. Somebody needs to tell her to quit being mayor and move to Minneapolis where she can find a man who will be decent to her.”
He murmured something about how much good Eloise does and maybe we should all rally around her and give her more support. “She doesn’t need support. Support won’t cut it. She needs intervention. Speak to her, Father. That’s your job.”
Father said he would pray for her. Certainly. He would pray for her daily. “Is the trip to Rome on?” he said.
“If Eloise hangs herself with a coat hanger, the trip to Rome is not on.”
He said he would head over now and talk to her.
It was crazy, all the excitement about Mr. Keillor sending them to Rome and Margie having to deal with them all—visions of a 747 full of moochers and freeloaders, the loungers and widerides, the Sidetrack crowd, the investors in lottery tickets, and her the Shepherd of the Lurchers & Losers, trying to move them on and off buses and through crowded sites in a foreign city—great God, the thought of it. How to kill this ASAP?
ATTENZIONE
Thank you for your interest in our trip to Rome and thanks to Mr. Keillor for his generosity. All expenses paid! The opportunity of a lifetime! If you wish to participate, be advised that you must first (1) pass a test in basic Italian, (2) make a declaration of faith (dichiarazione di fede), (3) name the Seven Deadly Sins (Sette Peccati Capitali) and check off which ones apply to you and supply details. And remember—Rome is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church and all visitors to the Eternal City, both Catholic and non-, must carry rosaries on their person at all times. Rules regarding adultery are very strict and if you have commited such a sin in the past ten (10) years, you should let us know ASAP. Thank you (Grazie). Additional information (in Italian only) from http://www.portaleimmigrazione.it or http://www.poliziadistato.it/pds/ps/immigrazione/soggiorno.htm.
She wrote up the notice and then decided not to send it out. Most people would recognize it as a fake, but some, blinded by greed, would not, and she did not care to hear their confessions. She wrote up another:
Dear Rome-bound Traveler,
This is to inform you that two persons in our party are allergic to meat and alcohol and as a result, the entire trip must be meat- and alcohol-free. No consumption of meat or alcohol will be tolerated. Thank you for your understanding.
That might do the trick. The thought of teetotaling vegetarianism would pretty well kill off interest, she thought. But why not deal with the problem at its source—she got the Great Benefactor’s address and sent him a note:
Mr. Keillor:
It was terribly generous of you to offer to fly everybody to Rome, and I salute you for that, but I think we need to look at this realistically. Flying three hundred people from Lake Wobegon to Rome for a week is going to cost you more than you are able to pay, I am quite sure, or even a hundred—I mean, you’re talking about a million dollars, right? Judging by the sales of your most recent books, I doubt that you have that much cash to spend. And even if you could afford to send fifty people to Rome, I think you can imagine the hard feelings it would cause when some people get to go and others don’t. It will be brother against brother, children against parents. Marriages will break up. There may be bloodshed. Surely you, America’s Favorite Storyteller and the Chronicler of Small-Town America, can understand this. People here are not as charitable as you may imagine. Perhaps they were nicer sixty years ago when you were young, but not anymore. How will you select the lucky winners? Will you give free trips to the Fifty Neediest People in Town? Hold a lottery and allocate half the prizes to Lutherans and half to Catholics? Hold an essay contest and ask people to write fi ve hundred words on “Pasta, Pizza, and Puccini”? Guess the number of rigatoni shells in the Ford pickup truck?
No matter how you award the prizes, there will be rejects—and the more prizes you give out, the worse the rejects will feel—and the day you return to your beloved hometown to visit your poor old mother, you’ll find a mob of angry people carrying torches who will chase you across the corn stubble late at night and you’ll have to take shelter in the blind man’s cottage and he’ll try to be nice to you but eventually he’ll say, “Why didn’t you take me on that trip to Rome? I had a dream that I went to Rome and the Pope touched my eyes and I could see again. Guess that’s not going to happen now.” And he’ll pull out a gun and shoot you. Or try to. Imagine being chased through a cottage by an armed blind man.
So I suggest that we make an announcement here and now that there was a misunderstanding and you are going to donate some money to the Shining Star Scholarship Fund instead and you will pay expenses for the twelve persons already signed up. How does that sound?
Sincerely,
Marjorie Krebsbach
11th grade English teacher
Lake Wobegon High School
P.S. I meant to tell you that I think that Happy to Be Here is, by far, your best book. It’s funny and very stylishly written. You ought to go back to writing that sort of thing.
And that’s what happened. Mr. Keillor’s accountant, Mr. Ross, called from Minneapolis to say that what with Mr. Keillor’s difficulties with the IRS over the claim of a three-week vacation on Antigua as a business expense—research for a screenplay—there wouldn’t be money to cover an open invitation, but yes, $60,000 to cover expenses for the original twelve passengers, that would be okay, provided he could pay half now and half at the completion of the trip. “Fine,” said Margie. And she put a story in the Herald Star.
News has reached us that Mr. Gary Keillor, the radio show host and author of Happy to Be Here, will be flying to Rome on March 25 with eleven Lake Wobegon residents to honor World War II hero August Norlander (LWHS, ’40). Keillor, who was honored by the Thanatopsians at last week’s luncheon, also clarified an offhand remark made at the luncheon which some misunderstood as an offer to pay passage to Rome for anyone who wished to go. The offer, in fact, was to contribute money to the Sons of Knute Shining Star Scholarship Fund. “We are extremely touched by Mr. Keillor’s generosity,” announced S.O.K. Grand Oya W. Lance Pedersen, “and I know that the boys and girls of Lake Wobegon are, too. Many more people will profit from his generosity than would have from a week’s trip to Rome. I am glad that that was a slip of the proverbial tongue. I always knew his heart was in the right place, working for educational opportunity for our young people.”
She didn’t dare expect Norbert to actually send the money. In her world, depending on men to do the right thing was a risky business—many birthdays would’ve gone unobserved if one expected men to remember them—but he remembered, or some woman who worked for him remembered, and the check arrived by registered mail at the post office on Wednesday and Mr. Bauser was quite excited. Registered letters didn’t come all that often. At first, he suspected legal proceedings, perhaps a settlement of a lawsuit for sexual harassment. He could see through the little cellophane window that a check lay inside. “Guess your ship came in, huh?” he said. He peered through the bars, his moustache twitching, as she signed for the letter. “Norlander,” he said. “That’s your rich uncle?” She smiled. “I knew a Norlander,” he said. “Norbert Norlander. He was my older brother’s best friend. Left here in 1950 and went to Texas and went into the oil business.”
“I had no idea,” she said.
“Word is that you folks’re going on a little trip?”
“A person can always hope.”
He smiled a small sour smile. “Must’ve known him pretty well if he sends you a check.”
“I did him some favors and he insisted on paying,” said Margie. “He’s a sweet old man. Eighty-eight or something.”
And he looked at her with eyes narrowed, thinking Phone Sex. A rich old Norskie in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had paid Margie to sit and whisper suggestive scenarios to him sitting naked in his wheelchair.
Fine. Let him think that. She didn’t care. She stepped outside and heard booming sounds from the lake—the ice cracking on a warm day—and drove in to St. Cloud to deposit the cashier’s check at a bank called Associated Federal in a storefront in the Granite City shopping mall. She’d never set foot in the place, nobody knew her there.
She had picked it out of the yellow pages and called on the phone and a woman said, “Thank you for calling Associated Federal. Need a new shower? Want to redo an old kitchen or add on a bedroom? Home improvement loans are quick and easy at Associated Federal. Just talk to one of our loan associates today. To check your account balance, press 1. To speak to a loan officer, press 2. To ask about our payroll saving plan and 401(k), press 3. To speak to an investment advisor, press 4. For employmentrelated questions, press 5. For all other matters, press 0.” She pressed zero.
Another recorded voice: “If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it now.” A long pause. And then a young man said, “Hello?” He seemed confused about the idea of opening a savings account. He put her on hold. A piano played something that sounded like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” And then an older man came on. He apologized. “We’re a new branch,” he said. “Still unpacking the boxes. How can I help?” She wasn’t sure she should deposit a hundred fifty grand with people who didn’t seem to be set up to accept savings, but she made an appointment to come see him. His name was Stanley W. Larson. He enrolled her in the Family of Depositors and presented her with an Associated Federal thermal coffee mug and a rubber gripper to help open tight lids. And a ballpoint pen and plastic pocket protector. She hid the deposit slip in her underwear drawer, and then thought, What if she were killed on the highway like Mrs. McGarry? So she wrote on a Post-it note, This is my legacy to my children, $50k apiece. Spend it. Love, Mom, and stuck it to the slip.