Tales From The Loon Town Cafe

by Dennis Frahmann

  “What’s that smell?” I asked. There was a hint of sandalwood and gardenia mixed with yeast and flour as she walked by. “Are you wearing perfume?”

  “What’s it to you? I just want to know if that Gilbert Ford has shown up yet with my delivery of goods. I need the canned apples for tonight’s pies.”

  “What canned apples?” I demanded. “You’re using those fresh apples we got from Door County. What are you doing with canned apples?”

  “Canned apples make for a faster pie, and no one can tell the difference,” Thelma plumped herself onto a stool by the bar. “Hey, Cynthia, bring me a cup of that coffee. I think it’s time for a break from the heat.”

  “I can tell if we use canned apples. So can our customers.” I wasn’t about to relent.

  “You couldn’t tell two nights ago, when I used canned apples in the apple crisp,” she retorted.

  “What . . . ” I began, but Cynthia cut me off, asking, “So Thelma, do you have the sweets for Gilbert.”

  “Well, he is kind of nice, but there’s no need letting him know that,” she said with a shake of her head toward me. “He don’t understand romance. It’s because he’s never had it himself. Kind of a gelded calf, you know—always ready to go bucking up his heels in the fresh green grass, but don’t really understand the emotions of the heart and all. He’s kind of simple in that respect. Sort of like our Wally.” I didn’t like the way this was going. “Wally thinks everyone’s like him. Honest, nice, understanding, trustworthy—all that stuff. And I guess he thinks everyone’s like him in that they don’t need or want somebody in their lives. Well, I miss my Fred, even though he’s been dead four years now. I miss having him in bed at night. I miss turning over, and him turning over too and flinging that big hairy arm he had around my body and pulling me tight to him, even when it was hot at night. And I miss a lot more.

  “So when I see somebody nice that I think is nice looking, and who seems to take a hankering toward me, then I want to pay attention. And I want him to notice me. So maybe I do have perfume on. Big deal.”

  Thelma was wrong. I did have something I missed, someone who once protected and sheltered me. But this town didn’t need to know about my mistakes.

  Claire picked up her cup and moved to sit at the counter next to Thelma. Cynthia was standing behind the counter with her coffee pot, ready to pour Thelma a fresh cup, just so she could hear every word. I was stranded in the middle of the dining room, feeling attacked.

  “You know,” Thelma continued, “there’s two people in this town who are really sad. I can say this because Danny’s not working today. One of them is Danny’s father Toivo. The other is the Reverend Willy. The Reverend Willy is sad because he is all wrapped up in himself and his mistakes. Maybe he don’t even know how warped he’s become. Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he goes to church three times a Sunday.”

  One of these days I was going to meet this Reverend Willy.

  “But Toivo . . . he’s sad in a different way. He knows what he’s had, and he knows what he’s lost. He knows what it means to be bigger because someone has become part of you, and you part of her. Lempi and Toivo are what all of us should want to be. I used to know people who would drive into town late in the evening, just because they wanted to see the two of them walking down the road, hand in hand, like they did every night. Because there was love in their walk, and you could see it. You could feel it. I know it’s not good that Toivo can’t let go of that love, that he sits there in the cemetery every evening talking to a memory of a woman long gone, a woman who can’t never come back. Because you know there’s no such thing as a ghost that lingers around to give us comfort. But you know in a way I wouldn’t mind being Toivo. I mean I wouldn’t mind having a Toivo. Not to replace Fred. Fred can’t be replaced. But to have a light in my life again. You can’t live without that light. Maybe Wally, you can. I can’t.”

  Cynthia clapped her hands. “That was so beautiful Thelma. I just wish someday that I have a Fred or a Toivo in my life. Instead of that Kip.” Her eyes threw daggers in my direction. Ever since school had restarted and she had discovered Kip had stayed in town, she found every excuse to accuse me. But I paid no attention. I was still wondering if I could live without my own light for the rest of my life.

  I had left Manhattan to keep from thinking about things. But now in Thread, I had more things than ever to think about. There was keeping the business going, and how to pay Thelma, Cynthia and Danny every week. There was the way I had become ensnared in Van Elkind’s business for no good reason. I kept reflecting on Chip’s comments on all of Thread’s churches, and how they weren’t enough to solve the problems of Reverend Willy?

  Why did I still not know this man? Was Reverend Willy a nickname for one of the preachers at the local churches? But which one?

  There was Our Lady of the Rushes Catholic Church. But that church’s leader would have to be a Father Willy, not a Reverend Willy.

  Then there was the Holy Rollers Spiritual Church of Christ. As a teenager, I found it daring to sneak by the old log cabin church, built before the rest of the town. For most of the week, the building sat empty, dark and moss-covered, faintly reeking of the decaying swamp from which the cedar logs had been cut. But on Saturday night, lights blazed and rolling organ music fled from the windows. Singing and chanting echoed into the woods. A Reverend Willy could belong there, maybe.

  Closer to my life were the three Lutheran churches. Each had its own anemic following. Once there had been only one Lutheran church. But that had proved to be insufficient.

  Like so many things in town, it started with the Truehearts. Since they owned the material life of the town, they saw no reason not to own its spiritual life. But when the original Lutheran pastor refused to allow Big John to hold a bake sale years ago for his plan to build the town’s first giant wooden loon mascot, the family quickly determined the old curmudgeon was under the control of Rome. There was no alternative but to build their own church. And when the Truehearts build a church, people come to pray and pay. Thus, the Reformed Lutheran Church of Thread was born.

  All would have been fine in the Lutheran world if it hadn’t been for the Second World War. Since America won, the country was faced with the problem of coping with millions of displaced persons from central and northern Europe. Part of the solution was to ship several score to Northern Wisconsin where they could be conveniently forgotten. They arrived with their kielbasa and kerchiefs and sat appalled in the first Lutheran Church. Where were there conservative traditions? So the next Sunday they promptly trooped to the Trueheart church. Again, they were appalled. And so was born the Old World Lutheran Church.

  In a town that had never seen its population hit one thousand, each Sunday morning rang forth with the warring carillons of Lutheran bells at nine, ten and eleven. It would be immensely fitting in my opinion that at least one, if not all three Lutheran churches, were to house the offices of Reverend Willy.

  My parents could never decide which of the three churches they should join. We played religious musical chairs, moving from pew to pew, church to church, each Sunday of my childhood in Thread.

  That left only one church. The so-called church of the Summer Folk, or more accurately the non-denominational Chapel of the Wooded Glen, governed each summer by yet another soon-to-be graduate of some theological institute back East. The only people who attended its services were the rich vacationers from Chicago and Milwaukee whose wealth had somehow made them grow beyond memory of their immigrant religious roots. I am sure Henry and Rita van Elkind attended this church. Reverend Willy. Yes I could see a Reverend Willy at one of those churches. Perhaps a female Reverend Willy. Maybe that’s why everyone was so tightlipped. A babe in the pulpit. A Wilhelmina, perhaps. Sister Willy to some.

  There was a chill in the air. “Wally, I hate you!” Cynthia cried out. An ill wind blew dust eddies in the town square. “How could you do this to me?” A squadron of geese flew in ‘V’ formation high above the to
wn, silently fleeing south. “You know how much I hate Kip. Now he’s in every one of my classes.” The town’s sole school bus headed south on Highway 17, a yellow box getting out of town. Over the past few weeks, Cynthia had become more and more convinced I was responsible for Henry’s decision to leave his only son in Thread. She was always at her most accusing right after getting out of school and coming to work.

  “I’m sure Wally didn’t mean to do it,” Danny said, wincing in expectation even as he tied his apron and edged back into the kitchen doorway. He looked more and more tired as each day of his senior year passed. I was worried about the boy.

  “Didn’t mean it?” Cynthia countered in a near scream. She collapsed into an empty chair at the bar where Bromley, Claire and Mr. Packer were finishing their three o’clock coffee. She set her head in her hands and rested both hands and head on the counter. She broke into heavy sobs. Coffee sloshed over the edges of the cups. Claire looked anxious.

  “Kip?” Bromley demanded. “Is he one of those god darn Indian kids? Keep trying to integrate these schools, but I tell you it’s no good. Washington knew what it was doing when it set up these reservations. There’s no need mixing. You know,” he began in a near whisper, “I hear those redskins are up to something sneaky down there in Lattigo. My friends in Madison tell me the Lattigo have been spending a lot of time down there with the state attorney general. Don’t know what they’re up to, but you can count on me to keep my eyes open. I’ll keep this town safe.”

  It didn’t seem worth the effort to remind Bromley that Kip was the Van Elkind son. That would only set him off on some other theory about Henry Van Elkind. Anyway, Cynthia would soon start to return to her sunny self.

  “This morning my men were telling me that,” Claire said, “they might begin to execute that plan they’ve been working on for so long. You know to invade the Earth and take over. It’s the fish they want. Especially the giant muskie. It’s a delicacy back on their planet. But the fish don’t survive that star trip back. And even when they take eggs, they never hatch. So they have to catch them here, freeze them and transport them home. That’s why the fishin’s getting worse, you know. Don’t you go looking at me like that Mr. Packer. I know what I’m talking about. And if they do take over, they’re going to put people like you on a reservation. Mark my words. They’ll be no fishing from the top of a spaceship.”

  Mr. Packer just picked up his coffee cup. Cynthia suddenly stood as she pressed her fists onto the bar. Bromley’s cup tipped further, spilling hot coffee into his expansive lap. He yelped, quickly rose and headed to the restroom. “What about Kip and what I was talking about. None of you care about me!”

  “Cynthia,” I said, “I never meant for Van Elkind to have Kip spend all winter in Thread. And since when does Van Elkind ever listen to me? We were just talking one day and the idea sparked. That’s how things work.”

  “Your idea’s for real now,” said Danny. “Kip’s here for the duration. He saunters through school like he owns it. Just because he’s richer than everybody else don’t mean he’s special.”

  “I feel slimy,” Cynthia said, “because he never stops looking at me. And if I try to glare at him to make him stop, he just smirks. He looks like he has a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lip even when he doesn’t.”

  “And it looks like he stuffs a sock in his pants,” Danny joked.

  “It sure ain’t real,” yelled Thelma from the kitchen. It was a rare day when Thelma didn’t have the time to keep up with a conversation in the dining room even as she prepared for the dinnertime crowd, such as it was.

  “What are they talking about?” asked Claire, looking straight at Mr. Packer and ignoring Bromley back from the rest room and still muttering to himself about Indians.

  Cynthia stood suddenly and walked toward the door. “Pastor Mall,” she said, with some alarm. “No one saw you come in.”

  The man in the white collar ignored Cynthia but spoke grandly to all of us, “I wanted to stop by and introduce myself. I’m Pastor Paul Mall.” I thought perhaps I should ask him about Reverend Willy, but he was apparently new to town and no doubt had other things on his mind.

  “They tell me you serve alcohol in this establishment.”

  Of course, I did. It was the secret to my success.

  “The demon drink must stop. I’ve been called to the Old World Lutheran Church here in Thread, and I’m deeply offended by all I see. Such sin. Such degradation. And so many Catholics. Not enough true Christians. There are those who think the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Now, I am not one of those people. I am an open man, but when a town has more sins . . . “

  For the first time, the man looked around the cafe and he spied the mayor and his cohorts. “Mayor Bastique! I am shocked that you would be sitting in a place that serves alcohol.” Bromley twisted in his seat, although it may have been more the result of the drying wet spot from the coffee spill, then from the pastor’s disapproval. Although it may also have been the presence of some ladies from the Old World Lutheran Church having a late lunch in the corner. Bromley liked to keep everyone on his side.

  Claire stood up and waddled over to Pastor Paul Mall. “I’m Claire Moon,” she said, extending her hand.

  “I’ve heard of you,” he muttered, ignoring the proffered hand.

  The man was of middling height, heavy and triple-chinned. His hair was cropped close to the skull, almost military in style, and gone silver with years. He appeared to be in his fifties, but it was hard to tell because there was a childish softness about him, as though made of clay stretched to whatever size and shape was needed. Although dressed in black slacks, with a black shirt and white clerical collar, something about his manner seemed better suited to pumping gas or handing out shoes at a bowling alley.

  “This is a resort town,” I began.

  “Indeed it is, but that is no excuse,” he replied.

  “Please let me finish,” I complained.

  “No need to,” he said. “I know what you’re going to say before you say it. You’re going to claim that because this is a resort town, people are here to have fun, to relax, to enjoy life a little.

  “But God should be your relaxation. God and hard work. When I heard that the synod had sent me a calling to a little town in the northwoods, I was distressed for a moment, but only a moment, because then I realized that God was testing me. He was sending me to a place where they did not know Him. Oh, you may think you know Him, but you can not know Him as I know Him.”

  “Knowing God. Do you mean that in the biblical sense?” asked Mr. Packer, without an ever-so slight smile on his face.

  During this exchange, Chip Frozen Bear had entered the cafe and had been standing near the entrance listening to the Reverend. “As a child, I was told God made this country for my people,” Frozen Bear said. “And I prefer to continue to believe that. And a town this size needs every business it can get. I’m not so sure about the churches.”

  Mall sidled to the door, staying as far from Chip as he could, looking at him as though he were dressed in full war paint and attack regalia. “Don’t think you can avoid this.” He pointed his finger at me as he walked out into the street. I watched him head toward Happy’s Northern Nights on the other side of the square, no doubt to continue his crusade. If Happy Thorp were in, the Reverend Mall would be thrown back into the square within ten minutes.

  I had heard that the Old World Lutheran church had a great deal of trouble finding someone to take their call. They were, after all, a very small and not very generous congregation. The intelligent thing might have been to merge with one of the other two Lutheran congregations in town. But the old immigrants came to the predictable conclusion that the other two churches were still too liberal. They kept looking until Pastor Paul Mall appeared. Through Bromley and Claire, I knew there had been resistance to Mall. He was a single man who had divorced his first wife early in his career, and his second wife had run off with another man only last year.

 
Thelma came out of the kitchen, “Who was that awful man?”

  Bromley took center stage. “I wish you two hadn’t been quite so harsh with him. Every minister is one of the leaders in the town, and it’s never wise to get them angry at you . . . “

  Frozen Bear broke in, “Bromley, what do you think Red would do if he were forced to stop selling liquor at his Piggly Wiggly? Do you think he would be a very happy citizen? And what about Happy Thorp, if he had to close down his tavern? And think about all of the resorts that have little beer bars on the premises. Do you want every business in town to board up like the old theater?”

  “Of course not. But politeness and moderation always has its place.”

  “Aw, get off of it,” Thelma said, “I just want to see Mall’s face when he finds out Reverend Willy is part of his congregation. Let him fix that man.” Claire twittered.

  “The Reverend Willy is a very god-fearing man,” Mr. Packer said. “I’m told he never misses a sermon in town. He attends all three Lutheran churches in a row each and every Sunday, the Old World Lutheran at nine, the Faith Lutheran at ten, and the Reformed Lutheran at eleven. They say he even goes to midnight Mass when they have it at the Catholic church.”

  “He goes to the Holy Rollers’ church on Saturdays too,” Claire piped in. “He’s very fond of church.”

  “If he’s such a god-fearing man, why won’t anyone ever tell me the Reverend Willy story?” I asked.

  “If you’re really interested, I’ll take you to Reverend Willy’s Sunday for one of his performances, and you can see for yourself,” Thelma said with a sad smile.

  I noticed Danny standing in the doorway, listening, watching. His face turned ashen, and he backed into the kitchen.

  “Not to change such a fascinating subject,” Frozen Bear interrupted, “but I did stop by to see Wally about some business matters.”