Liberty

by Garrison Keillor

  It was the same week that he met Angelica Pflame.

  It was a shock to Clint—all his life he had been 100 percent pure Norwegian, and now he was down a few quarts. So Grandpa had lied about coming over from Bergen during the great herring famine of 1893 and seeing the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor and feeling welcome in the New World. A big lie. Clint went online and searched for “Ancestor Alarm” and “Shocking DNA Results” and “Loss of Heritage” and discovered a website, Heritage Is Destiny, which was run by Miss Pflame who said—

  Where you come from tells you where you are going. Mystics have always known this. Heritage is Destiny. Let me help you find your personal truth and escape the stereotypes that have held you back. You are NOT THE PERSON THEY SAY YOU ARE. And a true psychic trained in genealogical psychology can read your future by interpreting your past. Give me a call and let’s journey into your future together. My rates are reasonable and I can work by phone or e-mail, though in-person sessions are preferred.

  There were a few pages of glowing recommendations (“I was horrified to discover that Grandpa had done prison time for embezzlement but Angelica showed me how this dark family secret actually pointed toward a career in business. She was a turning point in my life. S.B. Minneapolis”) and a photograph of a tall red-haired woman, grinning, standing beside a black horse, mountains in the background (“Me in Santa Barbara, January 23”). Clint had once, many years ago, planned to live in Santa Barbara. Ding-dong. He e-mailed her and found out that she lived in St. Cloud, the big town south of Lake Wobegon. “I marched in the Fourth of July parade in your town,” she said. “A friend of mine was supposed to dress up as the Statue of Liberty and at the last moment she couldn’t make it and I took her place. It was great except her gown was way too long and I had to walk along carrying my own train and it was hot but I got to march in front of ten thousand people. And then a very nice man fixed the thermostat on my car and he wouldn’t accept a dime.”

  “So that was you.”

  “You were the guy?”

  “I remember it well.”

  And so in his mind, the discovery of his Hispanic roots and his meeting Angelica, and his entry into old age, were all bound up in a circle.

  He sent Angelica a picture of Grandpa in his Norwegian knee pants and frock coat for Syttende Mai, holding one strand of the May Pole, and she wrote back her vision:

  Grandpa was a sailor from Barcelona who got in a really bad fight with the first mate who threatened to whip him and so he jumped ship in New York harbor and there stood Señorita Libertad holding her torch high and telling him to be true to his dream and be whoever he wanted to be. He came up with the name Bunsen in honor of Barcelona and boarded a train to Florida to pick oranges and by mistake wound up in Minnesota and his English was, like really bad, so he couldn’t tell them he was lost, so he settled in, got a job on a hog farm. It was October, cold and rainy. His Latin blood was thin, he felt like really really bad, and then it was November. Snow fell. That’s what I’m seeing. You finish it.

  Grandma was the farmer’s daughter. She was 31, tall, homely, and she got him through that first winter, and in August, Daddy was born. Grandpa never quite got a grip on English, but he was, according to family legend, a great lover who sometimes, in his eagerness to get his wife into bed, left the car at the curb, lights on, engine running, and who, at age 85, buying a new mattress, made sure it was not too firm. “You need a soft mattress so your knees don’t slip,” he explained to Clint’s older brother Clarence, who didn’t understand. “You got to get a good purchase with your knees,” said the old man.

  Clint didn’t feel Spanish necessarily, not in the sense of feeling the urge to put on pointy-toed shoes and dancing with his arms up over his head and crying out “Caramba!” and “Ajua!” He was a plugger, head mechanic at Bunsen Motors, (soon-to-be-former) Chairman of the Fourth, husband of Irene, father of Tiffany, Chad, and Kira, member of the board of Lake Wobegon Lutheran—but in fact, as he got to thinking about it, he had always felt like an outsider, silent at basketball games, dark and brooding at Christmas, a non-fisherman, depressed by winter, not like Irene who got all happy when it snowed and put on a Norwegian ski sweater and whomped up a cheesy hotdish and put on a CD of Christmas favorites and made hot mulled wine.

  When snow fell, Clint’s heart sank and he pulled on his long johns and insulated boots and felt a powerful homing urge to head south and keep going. Runaway Mechanic Spotted In New Mexico. He didn’t belong here. Winter depressed him, the cloudy days especially. He craved sunlight. How did he miss these early warning signs? He was not one of these people. They were stoics and he was a romantic. He had married the wrong woman and thereby missed out on his destiny, which lay to the Southwest. In Austin, Texas, people were eating outdoors in March, barbecue sandwiches and beer, dancing in the parking lots to a Mexican band, and in Minnesota they were huddled in their kitchens, gaunt survivors, gnawing on the leg traps.

  God, with His fine sense of humor, had dropped him here among the Lutherans, a Spaniard by the waters of Lake Wobegon—a las aguas del lago Wobegon. That day he got the news, he bought a guitar, sent away for a catalog of flamenco wear, and sent Angelica a picture of himself and a note—“I may be out of line here but I will be bold and say: I need some personal guidance—what to read, etc. Could we meet for a glass of wine?”

  She wrote back that she had a vision of the two of them in a dark room, undressing, music playing. Or maybe not music. And maybe there was a lamp or something. Or a cat. She wasn’t sure.

  7. CONVERSATION

  She was about to turn his world upside down. He gazed at

  her picture thirty-seven times a day, searched for her online at night.

  She introduced him to a chat room called ZipZone, an amazement. You went to the website and selected from a menu

  ADULT

  FAMILY

  LIFESTYLE

  POLITICS

  RELIGION

  SPORTS

  TRAVEL

  WORKPLACE

  and typed in your ZIP code and—alakazam! Your screen name (OLD BUNS) popped up in a box to the side of a dialogue window where people nearby were rapping out lines of chatter and you could join in the chatter or you click on a name in the list and chat privately.

  It was a miracle. Deliverance from a world of repression. Pure freedom of speech. Nobody in Lake Wobegon would dare to say what people put out there in ZipZone.

  CHUCKLES: Today I saw my mother out back weeding the irises and felt a sudden urge to shoot her. I am 38. Is this normal?

  BOBBI: That’s why I don’t keep guns at home.

  CHUCKLES: She has been riding my ass since I was ten. Nothing I do is good enough for her.

  DR NO: U married?

  CHUCKLES: Was.

  DR NO: Why not move away?

  CHUCKLES: Easier said than done. She watches my kids when I’m at work.

  BOBBI: Better not shoot her then.

  Lifestyle and Travel were rather tranquil, but in Religion people raged against the Lutheran church.

  BUNKY: Read about the serial killer in Wichita? The Lutheran deacon?

  TODO: Weird.

  BUNKY: The control freak who could not stand to see unkempt lawns.

  TODO: Right.

  BUNKY: So he went around killing people with dandelions in their yards. Or people who didn’t rake up clippings. For 21 years. He broke into their homes when they were alone and tied them up and tortured them with shears and decapitated them with a Weed Whacker.

  TODO: I know the type.

  BUNKY: He killed 38 people.

  TODO: He had a job to do and he did it.

  BUNKY: At the trial he sat there expressionless. No remorse. No feeling.

  TODO: My God. I know people like that.

  Skeptics held court. Lapsed Catholics. Dissenting Unitarians. Former fundamentalists in therapy.

  FUNDY: Thunder and lightning terrify me so that I have to take four Paxil and go to the basem
ent. It’s fear of the Second Coming. Sometimes I haul out a hymnal and sing “Just As I Am” or “Lord, I’m Coming Home” and bawl like a baby. Once I called up my cousin to make sure she hadn’t been Raptured. She used to be such a believer. Turned out she’s Buddhist now and happy as a clam.

  And these weren’t New Yorkers or Angelenos, not even Minneapolitans—with ZipZone you went into chat rooms with people in central Minnesota. People from Avon and Albany and St. Cloud and Holdingford. People who said, “What’s the deal with that?” and “Oh for crying out loud!” People who would tell you not to be so persnickety. “Oh sheesh,” they said. “Go figure. Anyhoo.” People you might very well see at the Lake Wobegon Fourth of July. But here they weren’t talking about the weather; they were saying what’s on their mind.

  RIP: I love to walk naked through a cornfield and feel the long tassels brush against my skin which I find terribly arousing.

  RED: Well, don’t you have a vivid imagination, you big corndog you.

  RIP: There is a full moon out tonight. I would be happy to meet a woman in a cornfield around 11 p.m.

  RED: You big corndog you.

  RIP: Age and weight unimportant. Tell me which crossroads and I will be there.

  RED: I’d like to but we’re going into town.

  DOTTY: Is anyone else out there into tickling? I am sort of new to this but would like to explore it with a more experienced person (M or F) who is willing to respect boundaries.

  TROT: Oh Jeeze, how do ya think of those things?

  FLO: I can’t believe I am saying what I am about to say but I would like to meet up with someone who is willing to let me talk very very dirty to them while they sit in a chair and listen. No touching, just talk. No reciprocation expected. I am a Lutheran and must be extremely discreet.

  BOB: Flo?

  FLO: What?

  BOB: Is your name really Flo?

  FLO: No.

  BOB: Okay. Forget it then.

  Irene was scornful of the Internet and thought it “impersonal,” but Clint saw that it was the door to everything he’d missed out on by living in Lake Wobegon.

  It released you from the terrible pained politeness, the extreme reticence. The Internet sprang the lock and you left your prison cell and walked out onto the great meadow of freedom.

  DUPER: Me: 50, pharmacist, a little chunky but good-looking. Married. You, 34, married, three kids, very hot, living next door. I’ve watched you mowing your lawn in short shorts and tank top and now I see on your clothesline six bras and six pairs of panties in various pastels. I know you have a clothes dryer, so I’m wondering if this is a signal. You seemed flirtatious yesterday. If this is you, please know that I would love to meet you anytime at a place of your choosing. I have a green van with a camping bed. We could park and make out for a while. I know of good places. If this interests you, let me know by hanging your husband’s coveralls on the line upside down and however many clothespins you use—7, 8, 10—is the time I’ll pull up behind your garage and wait to pick you up. I have condoms.

  The reality was that he was starved for conversation. Which, around Lake Wobegon, was formal, almost liturgical—Looks like rain. Yep. But I guess we could use some. You can say that again. So what you been up to? Oh, not much—You might’ve been studying the molecular structure of Jell-O or writing passionate sonnets in French to a penpal in Lyon or planning a trip to Nepal, but you’d never say so—“Oh, not much” was the right thing to say, because if you told about the amazing thing you were doing, nobody in Lake Wobegon would ever say, Wow, that is great!!!!!!! It wouldn’t happen. Nobody ever said that something was great. They were not an exclamatory people.

  You sat in the Chatterbox Cafe and got an earful of complaint about kids, lower-back pain, taxes, Congress, the general downward trend of things—all of it ritualistic, nothing earnest or original. Nobody ever said what was on their mind, such as, I always used to worry that I’d wind up just like my father and by George that is exactly what happened. Why am I wasting my life? Why, when they ask me to coach girls’ softball again next year, do I say yes? I don’t want to yell at a bunch of 13-year-olds to hustle and pay attention. I want to live.

  ZipZone offered conversation wild and free, as much as you wanted, on any subject, any hour of day or night—and whatever the prevailing tide of opinion was, you could count on plenty of devil’s advocates. It reminded him of an old radio adventure show called The Invisible Boy in which Greg Pritzer who had saved an old man in a blizzard was given a bottle of blue pills that made him invisible. Greg promised that the pills would be used only to solve crime and not to spy on people, but one day Greg solved the crime in a few minutes and had a couple hours left over until the drug wore off and he walked into people’s houses and saw what they were like when they thought nobody was looking. They were sadder, for one thing, and they talked to themselves and they said very strange things.

  He talked to Angelica almost every night in ZipZone—clicked on her screen name and there she was, whispering to him in a little box.

  MISS VALIANT: How is it being Hispanic? Is it fun?

  OLD BUNS: It’s not bad. I’m still Republican though.

  MISS VALIANT: LOL. When are you going to sing your songs to me?

  OLD BUNS: Just say the word, Angel.

  MISS VALIANT: I never made love to a Republican. Interesting. OLD BUNS: Republicans take more than a minute. We can go for an hour. You don’t know what you’re missing.

  MISS VALIANT: What do you think about Bush?

  OLD BUNS: What about him? He’s a few bricks shy of a load, but so what?

  MISS VALIANT: You support him?

  OLD BUNS: Voted for him.

  MISS VALIANT: Feel good about that?

  OLD BUNS: I’m not a Republican because I love Bush. I love my country and I get tired of people running it down. Democrats don’t like individualism and that’s the problem with them. They believe in One Size Fits All and social management and it just plain doesn’t work here. They want to make things fair. But life isn’t fair. Only a child would think it should be.

  MISS VALIANT: Want to have a child with me?

  OLD BUNS: It’s the Republican party that holds to the idea that each individual is complicated and mysterious and has a lot of meanness which is programmed into us and can’t be wished away. And so we have an army and police force and they carry real guns and not bouquets of chrysanthemums.

  MISS VALIANT: Can I say something?

  OLD BUNS: Democrats are all about Identity Groups and that’s bullshit.

  MISS VALIANT: I take it you are not one of the Christian crusaders who

  OLD BUNS: NO. NO NO NO. The party is about individualism. You’re a woman, I’m a white guy in a small town, but we may have more in common than we would with others in our group. We don’t have to be enemies.

  MISS VALIANT: are out to banish gay

  OLD BUNS: I fix cars. But I hate the term “blue collar,” it does not sum me up at all. But that’s how Democrats think of people.

  MISS VALIANT: We could talk about this in bed.

  OLD BUNS: You want to?

  MISS VALIANT: My nipples are getting hard for some reason.

  OLD BUNS: What are you wearing?

  MISS VALIANT: brb

  She got him steamed up. He sat in his green shorts and Golden Gophers jersey and heartily lusted after her. The power of words on a bright screen.

  MISS VALIANT: You’re turning me on.

  OLD BUNS: Likewise, kid.

  MISS VALIANT: How’d you get stuck in a pothole like Lake Wobegon?

  OLD BUNS: Born here.

  MISS VALIANT: So? Ever think about busting out?

  OLD BUNS: All the time.

  MISS VALIANT: So you’re not really conservative.

  OLD BUNS: Nope. More libertarian.

  MISS VALIANT: Spent your whole life in Lake Wobegon?

  OLD BUNS: Not yet.

  MISS VALIANT: lol

  OLD BUNS: Spent three years in
California. Navy. Came back here and got ambushed and before I knew it I was married and in debt and had a child with the croup.

  MISS VALIANT: You still married?

  OLD BUNS: I guess so. Last I checked.

  MISS VALIANT: Hmmm. And hmm.

  OLD BUNS: I loved it in San Diego. You could swim most of the year. I lived off-base in an apartment on Vallejo and on weekends I’d go out surfing. I was so proud of myself for becoming a Californian that I had to come home and tell everybody and they made me feel like a criminal and so I stayed. Make sense? Anyway, the answer to your question is yes. You still there?

  MISS VALIANT: I want to move back there. More to do. Surfing, skiing, hiking, climbing—people don’t sit around and brood like people here. I went to school in Pomona. Came back to take care of my mother. My family sits around all winter, pissing and moaning and worrying about what’s going to happen to them.

  OLD BUNS: Great minds think alike. Let’s go.

  MISS VALIANT: Where?

  OLD BUNS: San Francisco.

  MISS VALIANT: That is so weird. I was just thinking the same exact thing. Let’s go.

  OLD BUNS: Let’s.

  MISS VALIANT: You’re joking.

  OLD BUNS: Am I?