The Essential W. P. Kinsella

by W. P. Kinsella

  “They repossessed the house and the car and the boat and the snowmobile,” Illianna say. Little Bobby start crying when he hear the word snowmobile. “Thanks for the money, Silas. I used it to put most of our furniture in storage, though I don’t know how I’ll pay the storage fees.”

  Brother Bob is, as they say, only a shadow of his former self. His suits hang on him like they was three sizes too big, and even his snap-brim hat seem to sink down over his ears. He hardly talk, and when he do he just sigh and whisper “yes” or “no.”

  The day we buy about a hundred yards of extension cord from Robinson’s Store in Wetaskiwin (“Charge it to ‘Brother Frank’s Gospel Hour,’” Frank tell the clerk, and get a smile instead of a who-the-hellare-you look) and run it across a slough and through a culvert from Blue Quills Hall so Brother Bob can hook up his TV to watch the soap operas and Illianna can plug in her microwave, Brother Bob mumble a couple of thank yous and grip both my hands the way an old person do.

  Brother Bob used to look right through us like we didn’t exist. And when he did see us, he make bad jokes about our large families, how run down our cars are, and how clean we ain’t.

  Within weeks word come down that “Brother Frank’s Gospel Hour” going international on 112 radio stations. At the same time Bedelia sell a syndicated newspaper column where I write up some of the letters Frank get, and how he send money to those people for the one thing that will make them happy. I tell five stories in every column. Four serious and one that we find funny, one where Frank usually say no. Like the kid who want karate lessons so he can beat up on his teacher. Or the woman who claim she getting messages from Elvis in her back teeth and wants a radio transmitter so she can share the messages.

  The number of radio stations expand almost every day and soon television want to get in on the act. One hour, once a week, where they fly in some of the people we been helping.

  “I’m gonna be bigger than Oprah,” say Frank, when Bedelia give him the news. “Let me rephrase that. I’m gonna have more listeners than Oprah.”

  “You wish,” says Bedelia. “We’re only starting in twelve stations. Besides, Oprah don’t beg for money. But when you let that tear ooze out of your eye and run down your cheek, I can hear pens all over North America scratching signatures on checks.”

  Soon so much money come rolling in we rent Blue Quills Hall and hire Illianna to sort the cash and checks. When she need an assistant we hire my Ma, Suzie Ermineskin, full-time, and my sister, Delores, part-time.

  Frank these days is dressing like Johnny Cash, frilly white shirt, black preacher’s coat, western bow tie. He look a lot better than the time he wore a fuzzy green cocktail dress and won the Miss Hobbema Pageant.

  The TV people want Frank to do a personal appearance tour.

  “Forty cities,” Bedelia tell Frank. “Starting in Calgary, working to Minneapolis and on to places I never heard of.”

  Bedelia arrange to buy a used bus, hire a lady sign painter with long red hair to paint tomahawks, eagles, and dream catchers all over the bus, and “‘Brother Frank’s Gospel Hour,’ A Place Where Dreams Come True,” down both sides.

  The tour give me an idea. I argue loud and long with Frank, but I don’t get anywhere until I take Frank for a walk around the reserve.

  “What would make you happy?” I ask. “Pretend you could write a letter to ‘Brother Frank’s Gospel Hour.’ What would you ask for?”

  Frank stop and think.

  “My biggest surprise is that some of the good things haven’t made me as happy as I thought. Like renting that Lincoln Continental, and having more groupies than a rock star. The car is nice, but it’s just a car. And it was more fun when girls told me to get lost and I had to impress them.”

  “I know what would make you happy,” I say.

  “What’s that, Silas?”

  “Revenge,” I say, “against He Who Has No Balls.”

  I let that sink in for a minute. I wonder if Frank is gonna buy my idea, and what I’m gonna do to help Illianna and little Bobby if he don’t.

  There is the beginning of a smile on Frank’s face. “There is an old saying in the Fencepost clan,” Frank say. “Always kick your enemy when he is down.”

  “This is your chance to really get back at Brother Bob,” I say hopefully.

  “By golly, Silas, you’re right. I can make him suck up to me. I’ll make him wear a sissy uniform like a theater usher, and a visored cap with BRO. FRANK in silver letters across the crown.”

  He grab my shoulder, turn me around, and our pace pick up as we walk in the dark, spruce-smelling air toward Brother Bob and Illianna’s cabin.

  The Alligator Report

  —with Questions for Discussion

  A water-laden wind blows from the ocean over the Everglades. An unlucky black-tipped ibis slams into a palm tree, drops to the sand like a five-pound plastic bag full of liver, lies quivering, the wind furrowing its feathers.

  DO YOU SEE ANY SIGNIFICANCE IN THE DEAD BIRD BEING AN IBIS? LOOK FOR REFERENCES TO THE IBIS IN EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY. WOULD THIS PASSAGE HAVE BEEN AS EFFECTIVE IF THE BIRD WERE AN EGRET, HERON, FLAMINGO, OR ROSEATE SPOONBILL?

  “Stay tuned to WTWT-TV,” says Alvin Lee Wade, the anchorman, giving his audience a jowly, nearsighted smile. According to the latest ratings, Alvin Lee Wade smiles nearsightedly into 114,000 homes, bars, and motels in Talabogie County, Florida. “Right after this commercial break, we’ll be back and have Buzz Hinkman with the sports, our own Charles Caulfield with the weather, and Carleen Treble with the Alligator Report.”

  WHY DO YOU THINK THE AUTHOR HAS CHOSEN TO REPEAT HALF THE TITLE SO EARLY IN THE STORY? SINCE NAMES ARE OFTEN AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF A STORY, DO YOU SEE (SINCE THIS STORY IS SET IN THE SOUTH) ANY SIGNIFICANCE IN THE ANCHORMAN’S SECOND NAME BEING LEE? WHAT OTHER FAMOUS FICTIONAL CHARACER IS NAMED CAULFIELD?

  Preacher Gore watches Alvin’s red cheeks and alcoholic nose fade away into a used car commercial. Outside his apartment, the wind blows high and a broken shutter chatters against the siding. Preacher is not an avocation but a Christian name, though he is not often called Preacher. Before his accident, he was known as Foot-to-the-Floor Gore, when he drove in local demolition derbies, dirt-track stock-car races, and even once at Daytona Speedway.

  WHY DO YOU THINK THE AUTHOR CHOOSES TO USE THE WORD PREACHER TWICE, AND THE WORD CHRISTIAN ONCE IN SENTENCE THREE? THE WORD GORE HAS A NUMBER OF MEANINGS, ONE BEING “AN ANGULAR POINT OF LAND.” SINCE FLORIDA IS AN ANGULAR POINT OF LAND, COULD THE NAME HAVE SOME SIGNIFICANCE?

  While waiting to go on the air, Carleen Treble is munching sensuously on the tail of a two-foot chocolate alligator which was delivered to her anonymously at the front desk that very afternoon. She thinks of it as an anonymous gift, though she knows it is from Preacher Gore. Preacher Gore is in love with Carleen Treble and in the past few months has gifted her with: twenty-four varieties of candy (culminating with the chocolate alligator), a pink princess phone, a goldfish, a Doberman puppy, a tape deck for her car, a poster reading “Exonerate Shoeless Joe Jackson,” a chrome cat with a clock in its belly, a pair of ice skates, a moped, a steamer trunk, a case of Saran Wrap, twelve pounds of pork chops, a microwave cooking course, a model kit of the Hindenburg, a case of Lipton’s Chicken Noodle Soup, a Star Wars jigsaw puzzle, a cribbage board, his extra crutch, eight Willie Nelson records which he bought at a store owned by Burt Reynolds, and an alligator bowling ball bag which he made at physical therapy class. The doctors are worried that Preacher takes an inordinate amount of pleasure in making anything from alligator hide.

  Although he didn’t sign it, Preacher Gore left a note with the chocolate alligator. “If I’d listened to you,” it said, “I’d be driving at Daytona, probably even in the Indy 500. I was watching the alligator report and I heard you plain as day say, ‘There’s alligators on the loose out around Old Sewanee Road and the Talabogie Swamp area. Now all you good ole boys be careful you don’t get your Dingos bit,’ and you smiled into tha
t camera fit to break my heart.”

  THE CHOCOLATE ALLIGATOR IS A SYMBOL OF SOMETHING. CAN YOU GUESS WHAT? SINCE ALLIGATORS USUALLY EAT PEOPLE, RATHER THAN PEOPLE EATING ALLIGATORS, CAN CARLEEN’S ACTION BE SEEN AS SIGNIFICANT? WHO WAS SHOELESS JOE JACKSON AND FROM WHAT SHOULD HE BE EXONERATED? CAN PREACHER’S NOTE BE INTERPRETED IN ANY WAY AS A PARABLE? SINCE WILLIE NELSON IS AN OUTLAW, AND SINCE BURT REYNOLDS OFTEN PORTRAYS OUTLAWS, COULD THIS BE SEEN AS FORESHADOWING AN ILLEGAL ACT BY PREACHER GORE?

  “Thus far, Hurricane Zoltan has dumped over four inches of rain on Talabogie County, and at last report the wind was blowing at 80 mph, or 125 kph, whichever is greater,” says Charlie Caulfield, the weatherman, who for some reason is wearing a clown’s red nose clipped over his own, and a scarlet jacket with a small white alligator on the pocket. The alligator is the symbol, mascot, and logo of WTWT-TV, The Eyes of Talabogie County.

  SHOULD A HURRICANE EVER BE NAMED AFTER A MAN? OR IS THIS JUST A PLOY OF THE LIBERAL, COMMUNIST, DEMOCRAT, FEMINIST ALLIANCE TO DESTROY ALL THAT AMERICA STANDS FOR? AH HA! 125 KILOMETERS PER HOUR! ONLY COMMUNIST COUNTRIES USE KILOMETERS, METERS, AND UN-AMERICAN MEASUREMENTS LIKE THAT! NAME THREE OTHER SUREFIRE WAYS A CONCERNED AMERICAN CAN SPOT A COMMUNIST.

  After another commercial for Mangrove Motors, and a promo for the Miss Teenage Talabogie County Contest—following a trumpet fanfare, the camera moves in on Carleen Treble. Carleen, as always, is dressed like a cheerleader, with knee-high white leather boots, a micro-skirt of red velvet, and a skimpy velvet halter with one breast red and one breast white, the red one having a white alligator embossed on it, the white one boasting a red alligator. As always, Carleen stands at attention as if somewhere in the back of her rather small mind the Star-Spangled Banner is waving in a gentle breeze. Carleen stares straight at her cue cards, or cute cards as she calls them, smiling vacantly, her grapefruit-colored hair cascading over her bare shoulders. She has a tiny smear of chocolate in the corner of her mouth. Carleen’s hazel eyes move from side to side as she reads the Alligator Report. Her voice is untrained and whining but no one seems to notice—WTWT-TV’s ratings have shown a steady upward movement since the Alligator Report began.

  Right now, in Tampa, the executives of a much larger station are preparing a six-figure contract in an attempt to lure Carleen away from WTWT-TV.

  “We’ve had six sightings in the last twenty-four hours,” reads Carleen, “and our $30 award for the Alligator Sighting of the Day goes to Mrs.

  J. D. Commings, of Bobwhite Road, in Talabogie, for getting right on the Alligator Line, 282-4117, out-of-county call collect, and reporting that an eight-foot-long gator et her dog, Hannibal. ‘Jest chomped him right in half,’ Mrs. Commings said. So y’all watch for your $30 in the mail, Mrs. Commings. Maybe you can buy yourself a new doggie.”

  DO YOU THINK THE AUTHOR IS TRYING TO COMPENSATE FOR THE COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA OF THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPHS BY MENTIONING THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER? SINCE GRAPEFRUIT IS A MAJOR PRODUCT OF FLORIDA, COULD THE COLOR OF CARLEEN’S HAIR IN ANY WAY BE A TOURIST PROMOTION? IS IT SIGNIFICANT THAT DOG SPELLED BACKWARDS IS GOD AND VICE VERSA? WHO WAS HANNIBAL AND WHY DID HE CROSS THE ALPS? DO YOU THINK MRS. COMMINGS’ DOG WAS NAMED AFTER THE CARTHAGINIAN GENERAL OR THE CITY IN MISSOURI? WRITE A 500-WORD ESSAY JUSTIFYING YOUR CHOICE. SINCE MARK TWAIN THE FAMOUS HUMORIST AND DOG-HATER HAILS FROM HANNIBAL, MISSOURI, COULD THIS BE WHY THE AUTHOR ALLOWS MRS. COMMINGS’ DOG TO MEET SUCH A HORRIBLE DEATH?

  “Oh, Carleen, if I’d listened to you instead of letting Lester Griff talk me into going hunting in the Talabogie Swamp, I’d still have my right foot and still be driving professionally, probably in the Indy 500,” says Preacher Gore, formerly known as Foot-to-the Floor Gore or just plain Foot to his friends. Preacher is speaking to the sizzling black and white TV set in his apartment. He notes the smear of chocolate in the corner of Carleen’s mouth, and hope springs eternal in his bruised and battered breast, for Foot has lately had an encounter with the enemy. But in his passion, a passion so complete that he can picture Carleen in her white boots standing at a greasy stove cooking up his favorite chile and clam casserole, he decides to ignore the enemy and buy Carleen a foot-long vibrator with red eyes and a lolling tongue which he saw at Kinks and Things, and have it delivered to her at WTWTTV, anonymously of course.

  After the accident, his right foot (Adidas, sock and all) on the inside of a twelve-foot gator somewhere at the bottom of Talabogie Swamp, Preacher Gore had written to Carleen Treble to thank her for the warning he had disregarded and to tell her how sweet her smile was. Carleen read the letter over the air, then along with a camera crew went to visit the one-footed ex-stock-car driver at Talabogie County’s City of Saviours Hospital: 22 stories, 626 rooms, the most modern equipment in all America, built as the result of a vision by Delbert Staggers, the blind giant.

  Staggers, six feet nine inches, 330 lbs., slow moving, slow witted, his white eyes hidden behind blueberry-tinted, mirrored sunglasses, was formerly employed by The Mob as a collector of bad debts. He was driven to the scene of his assignments by Pico the Rat, the 98-lb. cousin of the presiding warlord. Pico would point out the debtor and guide Delbert Staggers forward until contact was made. Delbert would whack the debtor unmercifully with his white cane until he either paid up or fainted. He spent his days pummeling myopic Spanish fruit stand owners, and losers in shiny suits with stained fingers and ties who had blown their welfare cheques at the dog tracks.

  Then, one afternoon when there were no collections to be made, Pico the Rat took Delbert Staggers to see Rocky. Delbert could only hear the movie. But he cheered Rocky in his final battle for the championship and several times shouted, “I’ll loan ya my cane, Rocky! I’ll loan ya my cane.”

  WRITE A COHERENT PARAGRAPH DEMONSTRATING THE OBVIOUS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE FACT THAT DELBERT STAGGERS CARRIES A CANE AND THE CORRECT ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX, MAN.

  Behind his blueberry glasses Delbert had a vision. “If Rocky can fight for the heavyweight championship, then I can build a hospital.” He reached over and put his large, red hand on Pico’s birdlike arm. “Give me a hundred dollars or I’ll give you a compound fracture,” he said to Pico. And the rest is history.

  The City of Saviours Hospital emerged from the Everglades, just off a secondary highway, a mile inside the Talabogie County line. At Delbert’s instruction, Pico the Rat had a logo prepared showing Christ’s head erupting in a blaze of heavenly light from the top of a 22-storey building. The stationery on which the logo appeared was thick and cream colored. Pico used his connections with The Mob to obtain the mailing lists of several TV evangelists and sent out 222,000 letters with Delbert Staggers’ signature, demanding money for the City of Saviours project and suggesting that a certain vaguely defined plague would befall those who didn’t contribute generously.

  When the money began rolling in, Pico established, on paper only, his own medical supply wholesale firm, through which all equipment for City of Saviours passed, marked up 222%, a number which Pico considered lucky.

  Only one minor problem surfaced. Talabogie County already had two major hospitals and was in no need of a third. Soon, City of Saviours boasted a staff of over 5,000—all hired through the P. R. Personnel Agency, president, Pico the Rat, which claimed six months’ salary as its reward for placing the right person in the right job.

  Only in the case of natural disasters like Hurricane Zoltan, or if someone like Preacher Gore was unlucky enough to get his foot bitten off in the immediate area of the hospital, did it ever operate at even 10% of capacity. The staff held daily Scrabble tournaments and the doctors played polo and miniature golf on the landscaped grounds. For rainy days, there were the five bowling alleys in the maternity wing.

  After she and the camera crew visited Preacher Gore at City of Saviours, Carleen Treble was taken on a tour of the hospital and introduced to Delbert Staggers, who sat behind a wide chrome desk topped with blueberry-tinted glass. Although blind from birth, Delbert Staggers imagined he looked like Elvis Pr
esley.

  “Oh, Mr. Staggers, or should I say Reverend Staggers, I just love your blue glasses. I look so good reflected in them,” said Carleen. “I want you, I need you, I love you,” said Delbert.

  IN DESCRIBING DELBERT STAGGERS, DO YOU THINK THE AUTHOR WAS FAMILIAR WITH THE FOLLOWING BIBLICAL QUOTATION: “THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE EARTH,” GEN. 6:4? NOTE HOW BLUEBERRIES ARE ASSOCIATED WITH STAGGERS. DID YOU KNOW THAT ALL BLUEBERRIES HAVE TEN—AND ONLY TEN—SEEDS? DO YOU THINK THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS STORY? THERE IS A NERVOUS DISEASE OF HORSES AND CATTLE CALLED BLIND STAGGERS: CONSULT A VETERINARIAN AND LEARN THE SYMPTOMS. HOW DO THEY APPLY TO DELBERT AND PICO? IF YOU DON’T ALREADY OWN ONE, ASK SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU TO BUY YOU A HORSE.

  Carleen Treble and Delbert Staggers immediately became an item, as it were. And while Foot Gore, the alligator-bitten, lovesick, ex-stock-car driver showered Carleen with his dubious gifts, she was spending six nights a week and Sundays after church with Delbert Staggers.

  Pico the Rat often got to open the envelopes full of $100 bills which poured in every day in response to the vaguely threatening letters of Delbert Staggers—letters that intimated he was a minister of the gospel. Pico knew a good thing when he was onto one, and ordered for Delbert, by mail, several doctoral degrees ranging in scope from Divinity to Zoology, all of which subsequently appeared on the letterhead and under Delbert’s signature. As the letters became more threatening, the response from the lunatic fringe of Christianity to whom they were directed increased in direct proportion to the nastiness of the request.

  Delbert knew nothing about the changing tone of his letters or the acquisition of degrees. He was only interested in Carleen. He had made the earthshaking discovery that sex did not require 20/20 vision, and rested easy in his excesses, confident that overdosing was unlikely to damage his eyesight. Carleen loved it when he quoted from Elvis Presley, and made Delbert leave his blue glasses on while they made love so she could practice her various expressions of passion. For Carleen had no intention of always delivering the Alligator Report for WTWT-TV, but harbored ambitions of acting, singing gospel music, and being elected to the state senate.