Between a Wok and a Hard Place

by Tamar Myers

  “You see?” Lilibet said. “What did I tell you? Always a scene.”

  It was quite a scene at Miller’s pond. The old coot was standing in his rowboat in the middle of the pond, waving his arms and shouting.

  “I found it. It’s really here.”

  “What’s it look like?” It was Jacob Zook, the man with the miracle tractor. He was standing on the bank, shading his eyes with his hands. He shifted from one foot to the other, and back again. I had never seen him so animated.

  “I can’t tell yet,” Pops called. “There’s too much algae. I’ve never seen the pond this scummy. But it’s metal, I can tell that much just by banging on it with my oar. We need to get your winch hooked up to her and pull her in. I bet she’s worth a million bucks. More to the Smithsonian.”

  Jacob grinned and scratched his head. He was going to wear himself out if he didn’t watch it.

  “I have to hand it to you, Aaron. I didn’t think flying saucers really existed. You said I get half of what we recover, right?”

  “That’s right. Now I’m going to row back and get you so we can hook this thing up.”

  “Hot dog!” Jacob said in a gush of ecstasy. “My little Emma wants to go to Switzerland next summer and look up her roots. I reckon half a million will get us there, all right.”

  Pops laughed heartily. “With that kind of money you can bring back an Alp for a souvenir.”

  I sat down on the grass in the shade of a pin oak tree. It was the exact spot I was sitting in exactly a year ago, when I first met Aaron Jr. Only one year—I could hardly believe it. So much had changed in the intervening time.

  The oak was maybe a little taller, the grass definitely was, now that there were no longer any cows to keep it short. The pond definitely had more scum. But some of the changes were much more profound than that— for one thing, I had changed. In such a short time I had gone from being a naive, maiden lady, to a savvy matron, to a bitter adulteress who stole chicken from little girls.

  At least it was good chicken. Lilibet Augsburger may put on airs, for an Amish woman, but she can fry up a chicken that would make the Colonel weep with envy. I bit into a plump breast that was crispy on the outside, but tender and juicy on the inside. There were three more just like it on the platter, plus a smattering of thighs and drumsticks. Just skin and bones indeed! By the time I licked that platter clean I would be well on my way to that size 24W dress. Then we’d see who had the biggest laugh.

  The men had to know that I was there, but they didn’t acknowledge my presence. That was fine with me. Let them pretend I was invisible. I really didn’t want to speak to the old coot anyway. I just wanted to make sure that he was all right. Yes, I was furious at him, but I didn’t really wish him ill—well, a bad case of gout maybe. Certainly not death by drowning. If Aaron Sr. died before I could get him on the plane that night, then my ex-Pooky Bear would no doubt return to Hernia, if only to make arrangements to have his father ‘s body shipped to Minnesota. I couldn’t let that happen. If I looked into those Wedgwood blue eyes again, I would throw up. In fact, just the thought of them made me nauseated. I quickly put the chicken breast down and took a deep breath.

  Where was I? Ah, yes, Aaron Sr. It was in my own best interest to make sure that the old geezer got safely on that plane to Minneapolis. Besides, he was just trying to be a protective parent, wasn’t he? Maybe if Mama was alive, and I had been the deceiving, lowlife scumbucket—no, Mama would willingly, if not eagerly, have picked up the first stone. “You make your bed, you lie in it,” she said to me at least a thousand times.

  When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher, Miss Enz, caught me passing a note to Darrel Stucky and thrashed me with a willow switch. The truth was, I hadn’t written a note, but was just doing Esther Rickenbach a favor. Well, Mama refused to take my side. At supper that night she wouldn’t even listen to my version of the story.

  “Chew with your mouth closed, Magdalena,” she said, when I tried to tell her about it.

  “But, Mama—”

  “Chew with your mouth closed, Magdalena.”

  I picked up the chicken, took a big bite, and chewed with my mouth wide open just to spite Mama. Two breasts and a drumstick later my mouth was still open, but for a different reason. The old coot and his accomplice were stripping to their skivvies.

  “Pops, you put your clothes back on right now,” I hollered.

  Aaron Sr. smiled and waved. Being right made him magnanimous.

  “It’s here, Magdalena. I told you, didn’t I? Jacob, tell her it’s here.”

  Jacob waved, unabashed in his baggy boxers. “Yah, there’s something here all right.”

  Then to my amazement Pops, who shuffles when he’s on land, dove neatly into the water and disappeared from sight. Jacob followed him with only a slight splash. They both surfaced a few seconds later, thrashing and screaming. Apparently the water was a lot colder than they thought. Either that, or neither of them could swim.

  I put the chicken aside, stuffed to the gills. If the men couldn’t swim, they were out of luck. I was a decent swimmer in my youth, but thirty years and half a chicken were bound to make a difference. The best I could do was to find my car keys and hold them, ready to sprint to the car at the first sign of trouble.

  Both men were expert swimmers. It took them about an hour to hook the cable to the flying saucer and winch it close enough to shore so that a preliminary inspection could be made. During that time about a dozen onlookers, besides myself, had gathered. Folks driving by on Hertzler Lane, either by automobile or buggy, couldn’t help but notice the unusual proceedings. Even Freni, who had successfully picked the walnuts out of poached chicken salad, wandered over.

  “Ach, they’re like little boys,” she said when she saw the two men, covered in slime, grinning from ear to ear.

  At that point the flying saucer, also covered with slime, was halfway to shore. It is hard to describe the excitement that was building up in our little shore-bound band. The mixture of holiness and heresy was, frankly, rather stimulating.

  “Of course there’s no such thing as flying saucers,” someone said in a high, girlish voice. “It’s contrary to God’s plan of salvation.”

  Our eyes shifted from the salvage operation to Nora Ediger. She is a plain woman with a broad jaw and a deficit bosom. She is also on the shady side of thirty and has never been married. Aaron Jr. once admitted that he was attracted to her.

  “How is it contrary to God’s plan?”

  We turned to look at Dan Gindlesperger. For most of us it was more than just a passing glance. Dan is, after all, one of Hernia’s few eligible bachelors old enough to have been weaned before the Clinton years. He is also an ex-Mennonite, but has fallen so completely through the ranks that he teaches philosophy at Bedford County Community College. Even the Presbyterian church has been unable to hold him, and there are rumors that he is an agnostic.

  Nora was game. “Because there was only one Jesus,” she said. “How could Jesus have died on the cross here on earth to save us from our sins, and died on another planet as well?”

  Dan smiled. “Maybe the aliens didn’t fall from grace. Maybe they weren’t in need of a plan of salvation.”

  Several people gasped, Freni among them. “That’s nonsense,” Nora said, her voice rising to an almost inaudible pitch. “That would mean they were sinless. Besides the Trinity, only angels are sinless. Are you saying that aliens are angels?”

  Several people laughed, I among them. “Now that’s silly,” Dan said with irritating calmness. “Even you don’t believe angels are sinless. The biggest sinner of them all was originally an angel. Lucifer was his name. I believe you call him Satan.”

  Nora, bless her heart, stood her ground. “Genesis gives us a detailed account of the Creation, but it doesn’t say anything about aliens. Did God make them before or after he made man?”

  Dan shrugged with annoying nonchalance. “What difference does it make? The creation story in Genesis is a metaphor an
yway—”

  I’m not saying that it was God who intervened, but the loud curse that came from Aaron Sr. certainly grabbed our attention. The debate was suddenly of no importance.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “What did he say?” Freni demanded.

  “He said it’s a 1988 Ford Festiva,” I said, omitting the offending words.

  “Ach, a car?” She sounded disappointed.

  I think we all were, even Nora. At least there was the possibility of dead bodies to look forward to. I know that sounds grizzly—like we don’t have enough to keep us entertained in Hernia—but hey, that’s just human nature. At least I don’t rubberneck when I drive by an accident, like Susannah does. She once got whiplash from trying to do her makeup, drive, and accident-watch all at the same time. Believe it or not, her insurance company actually paid her benefits until they discovered that Susannah had caused the accident by changing her blouse.

  Much to our collective disappointment there was nothing more to see. Just an old, waterlogged Festiva, covered with slime. As near as we could determine, the exterior of the car was gray, the interior brown. There was nothing in the glove compartment, in fact, nothing in the car that didn’t come attached from the factory, except for the key. That was in the ignition.

  “Maybe the driver tried to swim to shore and drowned,” Nora said hopefully.

  We all nodded.

  “Drag the pound with your tow hook,” Dan directed.

  With nothing to show for their effort except a junked car, the old coot and his accomplice readily agreed. There would be glory in dredging up a decomposing body, if not vindication. A corpse would mean that the incident had happened recently, and would explain the mysterious nocturnal lights.

  The pin oak tree was not large enough to shade a dozen people, and some of our number were beginning to swelter. After all, with the exception of Dan Gindlesperger we were all God-fearing folks, which meant we were modestly dressed. I know the Good Lord gave us brains for a reason, and so I quite expected to see a few people take off their shoes and socks and wade sedately up to their knees. What I didn’t expect was a full-fledged, free-for-all water fight that began just seconds after Nora slipped on the slime and fell. Witnesses later claimed that Dan started it by tripping her.

  “Someone needs to call the police,” Freni said, who hadn’t budged from her spot in the shade next to me.

  “In the absence of Melvin I am the police,” I said irritably. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t true, of course. But I was Melvin’s “legs,” and every bit as capable as he.

  “Then do something.”

  I needed no further urging. I am not bossy, as Susannah claims, but I was gifted with certain undeniable leadership qualities. And as any good Christian knows, it is a sin to hide one’s talents under a bushel basket.

  “Get out of that stinking pond this minute,” I ordered the drenching duo. “And you,” I shouted at Jacob and Pops, who were still sloshing around the stranded Festiva, “put some clothes back on, for pity sake.”

  I hope you won’t find this offensive, but there isn’t enough cold water in the world to shrink a Miller man down to a modest size. Several of the women, and at least one of the men, couldn’t take their eyes off my bogus father-in-law.

  Not only did Aaron Sr. ignore my order, he headed my way clad only in his underpants. “That’s not my car, Magdalena. You’ve lived across the road from me your entire life, and you know I’ve never driven a Festiva.”

  “You’re right.” To my credit, I refrained from saying “so?”

  Perhaps Pops was psychic. “So, that good-for-nothing Jacob Zook wants to charge me over two hundred dollars for pulling that piece of junk out of the pond. And he wasn’t going to charge a thing when he thought it was a flying saucer!”

  I pried my peepers from Pop’s pants and pondered the problem. “Tell him you won’t pay him the unhooking charge, dear. That will save you thirty bucks, and as long as that remains hooked up to Jacob’s tractor, that’s his problem. He’ll have to haul it away and find a place to dump it.”

  Pops hemmed, hawed, and pawed at the ground with a bare foot. “I don’t have the rest of the money, either. I’m flat broke.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I heard myself say. Believe me, I wasn’t being generous. It was in my own best interest to remove any stumbling blocks that might prevent Pops from catching his ten-thirty flight.

  To protect Pop’s modesty from the prying eyes of the curious, I had begun edging away from the throng and closer to the car. Pops padded along with me.

  “Thanks, Magdalena. You’re a real peach, you know that? I don’t care what Aaron says. It’s a funny thing about that car though—it doesn’t have a license plate.”

  “Most abandoned cars don’t. People can be traced through their plates.”

  “They should stamp the owner’s name on the car,” he said vehemently. “Then I could have them arrested for dumping their car in my pond.”

  I sighed. “Let go of it, Pops. I said I would pay Jacob.”

  “They could use the same kind of machine they use to stamp the date on milk cartons.”

  I was gazing at the car when he said that, and the dark splotch on the inside of the windshield jumped out at me first. Pops does not get any credit for this.

  “Is that an inspection sticker?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  I trotted over. Indeed it was a sticker. It was almost the same green as the pond scum and would have been easy to overlook initially. But most of the algae had either sloughed off the windshield, or shriveled in the sun. The rectangular shape of the sticker was now quite distinctive.

  “Well, I’ll be dippy-doodled,” I said.

  “What?” Pops asked impatiently. Obviously he doesn’t see very well.

  “It’s an inspection sticker, all right—a Pennsylvania sticker. This vehicle was inspected last month.”

  “And?”

  “You were right, Pops. This isn’t some old clunker that someone decided to dump. Just like you said, this car was hidden in the pond, and recently, too.”

  “I said that?”

  “It was very clever of you to pretend you saw a flying saucer. Too bad we didn’t pay attention to you sooner.”

  Pops beamed. “I was right, wasn’t I? I did see something go into the pond.”

  “As right as rain, Pops. Now you go on home and pack. Remember, we leave for the airport at seven.”

  He looked suddenly miserable, small and shriveled like the dried algae—well, most of him at any rate. “Aaron made me say those things, Magdalena. I didn’t want to, but he said I owed it to him because I was never much of a father. He said he wouldn’t have gone off to fight in Vietnam if he hadn’t been so angry at me.”

  “It doesn’t make a difference, Pops. He’s your son. You belong with him, not with me. I’m not”—I gulped, choking back the shame—”even your legal daughter-in-law.”

  “But Hernia is my home! I’ve never even been to Minnesota.”

  Trust me, there are few things more heartbreaking than to be arguing with an eighty-one-year-old man in his underwear who is feeling the angst of displacement.

  I tried to smile reassuringly. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine in Minneapolis, Pops. You’re going to make it after all.”

  I paid Jacob Zook his pound of flesh but had him leave the car on the bank. His precursory dredging of the pond with a tow hook had yielded no bodies, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t foul play involved. The Festiva might well have been stolen. It was clearly a matter for the law to investigate. And by that I don’t mean Melvin, but the big boys—the dreaded DMV.

  Please understand that I had every reason to be hot, tired, and crabby by the time I got home. I also had to use my private facilities in the most urgent way. I most certainly didn’t have the patience to deal with rude and intrusive members of the press.

  “Go away,” I said to the blonde who was sitting in a car in my driveway in the shade of
one of my maples.

  She opened her door and got out. She was quite young, barely more than a girl, which meant I probably couldn’t outrun her.

  “It’s not here anyway,” I said. “It’s across the road by my neighbor’s pond.”

  She pretended to be confused, and did a good job of it. “Are you the owner of the PennDutch Inn?”

  “It has nothing to do with me or my inn,” I snapped. That was true in its own way, since Pops would be leaving the inn that evening for the very last time.

  She had one of those puttylike faces set with two huge, brown eyes. It was enough to make a puppy jealous.

  “I’m here about an alien—”

  “I told you, it’s over by the pond, and it’s crammed full of aliens. All of them slime green.”

  “What?”

  “Beat it, toots. Scram, before I call the cops.”

  She pretended to be scared, which I thought was really rather decent of her. Perhaps it was something new they were teaching in journalism school these days. So many reporters from the old school try to stare you down—one gal from the Post-Gazette, a heavy smoker, tried to intimidate me by putting her face just inches from mine and puffing like a chimney. Fortunately I was wearing a pair of garden-aerating sandals at the time—you know, the kind with cleats mean enough to make a football player weep with envy. It took only one false step from me, and Miss Obnoxious from Pittsburgh had to be carried from the yard.

  I went inside to take a nice cool shower and change into my traveling clothes. Call me compassionate if you must, but Pops clearly didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and no Bedford cabby was going to give the old geezer a ride to the airport on the strength of his good looks. So, I would sacrifice my evening and drive him there myself. Besides, that was the only way I could be sure he actually made it on to the plane. The new Pittsburgh International Airport is a veritable city of shops, restaurants, and immaculate rest rooms. With just the right doleful look, Pops might well receive enough dole to live in the airport indefinitely. While this would be no skin off my teeth, it wouldn’t skin Aaron’s dentures, either. No, my pseudo-pops-in-law belonged in Minnesota, at his son’s side, where he could drive his offspring stark raving nuts.