Liberty

by Garrison Keillor

  And now here was his boy trying to figure out his problems, trying to be good and be happy, and a cold wind had blown in and a still, small voice that said: Let me give you the big picture, fella, you are over the hill, and we’ve got no further use for you, so get out of the way. You’re dead wood.

  But no, it was Irene’s voice asking him where he was.

  He said, “I’ll be home soon.” She hung up. When he got back to the Lutheran church, Angelica was nowhere to be seen. He poked his head in the Fellowship Room and looked down the hall of the Christian Education Wing and then heard the floor creak up above. She was in the Sanctuary, looking up at the Lord Jesus Christ in stained glass, holding a lamb. She had dropped her robe again. She stood naked at the Communion rail.

  “You’d better put these on,” he said, holding up the bag.

  “Want to come to California?” She said that Kevin had taken off. He told her he was leaving if she didn’t come immediately and she told him she had to march in the parade. He said that if the parade was more important to her than he was, then okay, he was out of here. And he was.

  She turned to face him. “I worry about you, darling. You are so, like really depressed, and you have to bounce back somehow. Maybe it’s diet. I feel like I ought to be taking care of you. If you accept depression as a way of life, you die. Why do you work so hard to get what you don’t even want?” she said. “You’re the Man and you aren’t having any fun. Really. Have you ever done yoga? Seriously.”

  And then he heard a distant whistle blow. And the urge came over him. The urge to be fluid, get a move on, leave your regret and failure behind, something good may lie ahead. Drive west. Get to the Black Hills. Wyoming next. The snow-capped Grand Tetons up ahead. The railyards there along the river, under the cottonwoods. A campfire. Other gypsies gathered in the flickering light, their RVs pulled up in a circle. People roasting chicken and peppers on sticks, lolling about with cartons of red wine, talking about Mexico. Maybe some cagey old Bedouin will plop down and read your tea leaves and tell you where to go to find the gravy train. Jesus never commanded anybody to work hard day after day. Jesus said, Don’t worry about what you shall eat or what you shall wear. Don’t worry about money. Jesus did some teaching and preaching and healing and hiking, and he was a great fisherman, but he didn’t have a day job at the vineyard.

  “Are you having any fun?” she said.

  He told her that he was brought up to look like he wasn’t having fun—it was considered undignified, also bad luck—but that inside he was, really, no kidding, having a good time, but could she please get dressed now?

  “Kiss me,” she said. So he did.

  “Did you ever enjoy living here?” she said. She held her arms out. “What was the most enjoyable part you can remember?”

  Well, he enjoyed the Fourth, though not as much as when he was 10 years old. And that’s who he was doing it for, 10-year-old boys, not for his own pleasure. You were supposed to do this, weren’t you? Make sacrifices? Give to kids what your forebears had given to you. So he’d thought about running for Congress but the Brickhouse woman had a ferocity he didn’t have. A woman on the make, a shakedown artist, and fascinating to him and seeing her today took the fight right out of him. He was a lightweight and glad to be one. Running for Congress seemed as foreign to him as playing the sitar. But O God Angelica had her arms around him and his face lay against the side of her neck and her long hair. He kissed her again and again, on her throat and her collarbone and up behind her ears. “I wish I could take you with me,” she said. “I want to rescue you from yourself.”

  “I want to go, but I want to go the right way.”

  “I think it was meant to be,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  I always wanted to see the white castles of Spain someday

  But the plane that flies to Spain has flown away

  So I may never see Seville, Barcelona, or Madrid

  I could have once but I never did.

  33. IRENE CATCHES UP

  He stood there nuzzling her like an old horse, wanting to start his life over again with her and be 23, just out of the Navy, heading for art school. He could see it now, sort of—the drive west, a tourist motel somewhere in South Dakota, the kind where you park your car at the front door of the cabin, then up at dawn and the land rising to the high plateau of Wyoming and maybe a stop at Yellowstone to see Old Faithful. He would suffer terrible remorse but she would see him through it and meanwhile California lay ahead, shining, the pastel towers, the orchards, the powerful breakers of the rolling sea, and they’d find a little seaside town and he’d find a garage. A good mechanic will always find work. Folks in the bullshit professions have to struggle—write up their bullshit résumés, make friends with bigger bullshitters, learn what kind of shit is valued and how to produce it, maybe buy a bull—but a mechanic can walk into a shop and establish his bona fides in ten minutes and once they know you can do the work, nothing else matters. He could earn a nice living in Parnassus and maybe he and Angelica would stay together and maybe not. Not up to him. But he would be free.

  He’d walk into a café and sit down and the waitress wouldn’t come over and say, “I like those shoes better than the ones you were wearing last week. You got those from a rummage sale, right? I knew it. They were my uncle Ralph’s. Blue boat shoes. SueAnn had a hard time throwing those away because they were the shoes Ralph died in. He was on his way to go fishing and he got as far as the dock and he felt bad and he sat down with the bait bucket in his lap and he died. Bang. Just like that.” Maybe he’d go to church and maybe not, but it wouldn’t be anybody’s business, just his. Maybe he’d be a Republican and maybe he’d quit thinking about that stuff and get a bike and become a bicyclist. And five years from now people in Lake Wobegon would say, “You wouldn’t believe who Lillian ran into in California. Clint Bunsen! Yes! He looked good, she said. Very tan and trim and he bikes cross-country. Dips his rear wheel in the Pacific and bikes east all the way to the Atlantic. Came through Minnesota and for some reason didn’t stop and say hi. He’s got a nice little cottage, she said. Spanish style. Terrace, a little garden. He said to say hi, she said.”

  “I’ll go get us a getaway car,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the garage in fifteen minutes.”

  “You sure you want to go?”

  “Come meet me at the garage. I’ll get us a nice car.” And now he was back in Durango at the gas station and Mom was on the phone and now he was going to tell her the truth, that he did not want to go home. He felt heat back behind his eyeballs. He was about to weep.

  He dashed back to the garage. He grabbed the keys to a used Mustang on the lot and he dashed off a note to Clarence—“I’ll call you tomorrow and explain everything”—and he found an old brown duffel bag and he started throwing tools in it and got it half filled up and was looking for another bag when the back door opened and Irene strolled in. She locked the door behind her and she walked through the shop and into the showroom.

  “Turn out the light,” she said from the next room. “Art is on the warpath and he’s looking for you, darling. He found the Hospitality Suite and he is incensed, he called up and said he knew it was your doing—”

  “Where is he?” Clint stood in the doorway.

  “On his way here, I suppose.”

  It was twilight outside. In the park a tenor was torturing “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” making it twist in pain. On the street people streamed away from the park, blankets in hand, to find a good spot to watch the fireworks. Three young women loitered across the street who apparently hadn’t attached themselves to young men, or had come detached, and they were elaborately cool, as if pantomiming themselves having a wild good time, but he could tell they had their eyes out for opportunity. O love, O love, where have you gone?

  “Don’t lie to me,” she said. “Tell me the truth. You’re going away with her.”

  “The truth is what I’m trying to find out.”

 
“You’re going,” she said. “That’s the truth. But the fact is that you have to get past me first. I’m your wife. I’m not somebody you can just toss aside like an old brown banana.” And she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a pistol.

  He hadn’t noticed the shoulder bag. And he hadn’t noticed her blouse. It was white, silky, and it was cut low. Daringly low. Unusual for Irene to go out dressed like that.

  “Oh darling, I can’t let you do it. If I were angry at you, I could, but I’m not, so I won’t. I’m not angry, I’m tired. You’re wearing me out. You and I went through so much together, don’t make us go through even more. Please.”

  He needed to sit down. Right away. He walked to the Taurus on the showroom floor and sat down on the front fender. She didn’t look like she’d shoot holes in him but how could you tell? She looked very calm. She stood by Daddy’s old desk, the pistol in her right hand, her back to the front door, and beyond her, crowds moving in search of excitement, the beautiful uncomprehending people ignoring the Big Story.

  “I never had my chance to be foolish, Irene. I want to go back and do it.”

  “Fine. Let’s do it together. I’ll be just as foolish as you. Maybe more.”

  He thought: Maybe I should jump up and walk straight toward her, just walk over and take the gun away. She’s not going to shoot me. Walk over, take the gun away, and say good-bye.

  She said, “Listen to me. We raised our kids here. This is our life here. Don’t be in such a hurry to throw it away. And don’t say it was nothing. It was something. You came home after work and three little kids could hardly wait until they saw you come down the walk. You dressed up as the Big Bunny. Remember? We had our Christmases here. All those birthdays. What was that about? You and I fought here. You yelled at me once to Just Grow Up—remember that? People heard you a block away. You watched football on TV back when you used to watch football. We got sick here, we had sick kids. I nagged you to quit smoking. I had that awful bout of depression where I curled up in bed for a week after I taught Vacation Bible School. You cried in that house. Twice. In thirty-two years. I was there, I remember it. Once on Christmas Eve the year your mother died and the other was when Kira left. We had fights here. Those grim fights over money. The time you told me you never wanted to see my father again. The time you stayed out all night and told me you were at a friend’s and I found the motel receipt in your pants. Honey, we went through it all here. We weathered the storm, babes. We made it. So why start all over with somebody else? Darling, you’ll have to go through everything with her that you went through with me, but darling, when you finally get settled—like we are now—you’ll be eighty-five and gone to rack and ruin and here you are with me, you’re sixty, we could have twenty-five great years. Why not?”

  He shook his head. “I’m all done,” he said. “I’ve got nothing left. The tank is empty.” He was waiting for her to suggest counseling. “I was in California, darling. And I came home to say good-bye. My mother asked me to come home and give her a hug and I did and now look at me. I am sixty years old and I have lived over three decades of a mistake and, Irene, that is longer than a mistake should go on.”

  He didn’t think she’d shoot him. On the other hand—oh my God—maybe she was thinking of shooting herself. And the thought of it—her raising the barrel to her temple in one swift move and pulling the trigger and spattering herself on the wall—that would be the end of him. He’d never survive it. He’d live the rest of his life as a pale weeping shadow.

  Ten feet away, the people streamed by, and they couldn’t see the two figures there in the dimness, but if her gun went off, the mob would gather and break in and find one of them dead—and now Angelica was approaching the door.

  He was about to point this out to Irene when there came a banging in back, someone shaking the locked door. And then a big whump of boot against wood, and the door cracked open.

  “BUNSEN!”

  The voice of Art, exploding in the shop. “BUNSEN!” A few footsteps on the gritty concrete floor. “I know you’re in here, you bastard.” A few more footsteps. “Go ahead and run but I’ll find you—”

  He walked to the door and stuck his head in. He saw the dark form of Art standing by the workbench with a rifle in his hand.

  “Hey. John Wayne. Welcome to the movies.”

  “Came to tell you to get your crap out of my cabins, Bunsen. All that shrimp and fish for you and your liberal pals. I’m onto you. That fridge you brought in. Where’d that come from? Electric company, that’s where. Get it out. Now.”

  “Go talk to Viola, cowboy.”

  “Talking to you, Bunsen. Think you can walk into a man’s house and take it over, think again! And one more thing—give me back the gun you stole.” He banged the rifle butt on the workbench and made the hardware jump. “This is America, in case you didn’t notice! Not the Soviet Union. Not yet.”

  Irene was standing beside him. He saw the reflection of the gun in her hand. She stepped in front of him.

  “I’ve got your gun right here, you old booger, and I’ll give it back when I’m done with it. So just turn around and go out the way you came or else I’m going to put a hole through you.”

  Art said nothing for a moment. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like to see you try it, lady.” But he didn’t sound like he meant it. He’d never been married so he didn’t know how to fight with a woman. He had no useful experience. “Who are you? Is that Irene?” he cried. He stepped forward to get a better look and she pulled the trigger.

  The sound seemed to lift Bunsen Motors a foot off the ground. Clint’s head shrank to the size of a pea, then gradually got back to normal. The old man stood frozen, the rifle clattered to the floor.

  There was a hum in the room, the hoist was rising. Evidently the bullet had hit some control mechanism—the hoist rose, two solid steel tracks in the air—no. Clint had hit the switch on the wall with his left hand.

  Clattering in front—somebody banging on the showroom door. Clint turned—it was Angelica, face pressed to the glass, hand shielding her eyes, peering in. Irene strode to the door, gun in hand, and opened it. “Come in,” she said. “I’m the wife.”

  34. FINALE

  Art had never been shot at before and the shock of it capsized him completely. He sat down on the floor semi-comatose and Clint lifted the rifle off the floor. “May I offer you a cup of coffee?” The old man said he thought that would be nice. Ordinarily he didn’t drink coffee this late, but he could use some now.

  Clint filled the coffeemaker and listened to the voices in front, Irene trying to explain to Angelica what had happened and who the old man was and why she fired the warning shot into the ceiling, which Clint thought was a good story, he just wished he weren’t in it.

  “I’m sorry if you thought he was going to waltz out of here and into your arms,” Irene told her, “but that’s not how it works. If you want him, you can take him, but I’m going to have to shoot him first. You don’t get to take him whole and fresh. I’m going to shoot him in the foot, or maybe in the butt. He can’t walk out of here without a mark on him. You just tell me where to shoot him. If I blow part of his hinder off, they can fix him up with silicone but he’ll lose some muscle so he’s probably going to be a leaner. Hard to get that balance right. In the foot—that’s going to be painful—lot of delicate little bones—and he’s going to be gimpy, no way around it. Or I could blow his ear off. That sounds bad but it might actually be more merciful.”

  He winced—she wasn’t kidding. (Was she kidding?) No, she wasn’t.

  The back door was fifty feet away but he didn’t feel like running. And do what? Call the cops? Hop a freight? Wait around in the woods for things to blow over?

  “Is this a joke? That is so sick. How can you even think about doing that?”

  Click-click. Irene locked the front door. “It’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Primitive justice. Very simple. You don’t get away for fr
ee. There’s an exit price. I know men. They have powerful imaginations. He could get in a car with you and two hours later he imagines he never was married, he has no children, no obligations—men are hitchhikers. Well, this one is going to walk out of here with a reminder. I’m going to put a mark on him.”

  “You’re serious,” said Angelica.

  “You’re a bright woman.”

  “I don’t want any part of this,” said Angelica. “I am not into violence in any way, shape, or form. If this is a joke, it’s a bad joke. I’m out of here.” But she didn’t move. He stood, smelling the coffee as it dripped into the carafe, wishing she would think of something.

  “I love your husband. I don’t need to own him, I believe that everything we do for love enlarges us and makes us free. Your husband is a hero to me. He has suffered this town and yet his eagerness for life is undiminished. He has not given up hope. He is eager—”

  “Butt, foot, or ear?”

  He thought he’d choose a shot in the butt if it were up to him, which evidently it wasn’t. The ear? No, she wasn’t a good shot—she could easily take out some of the frontal lobe and leave him a vegetable, dim-witted but filled with anxiety. The foot—painful. Probably for years to come. He’d spend his life sitting and lying and he’d turn into a blimp. A butt shot—of course so much depended on the angle. A straight shot was likely to hit the pelvic bone and maybe richochet into the gonads and you’d be a nutless guy who walks funny.