Do you think she was overreacting? Could her disappointment really have been that horrible? No, Gracie was no crybaby wimp. Furthermore, she was hardly a stranger to disappointment as her daddy was forever—forever! forever!—promising to take her places, to play games with her or buy her things, only to forget about it when the time came. What had upset Gracie, what had gotten her so worked up, was not so much disappointment as it was embarrassment and humiliation.
She was only five (okay, almost six) but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that no beer can was heavy enough to injure a grown man’s foot by falling on it. Maybe it was her mother, maybe it was Uncle Moe, maybe it was both of them together, but somebody was fibbing in order to shame her. Somebody she loved was making cruel fun of her, undoubtedly because of all that interest she had shown in beer on Saturday; and probably, too, for having mentioned beer during church on Sunday. They were mocking her for that beer business and she didn’t exactly know why.
She did know, however, that she wanted nothing to do with beer ever, ever again! Beer could totally disappear from Planet Earth for all she cared. She was through with beer. She hated it. She wished the damn baby-drowning Egyptians had choked on their dumb, icky invention.
Her tearwater finally used up, Gracie rolled over and blew her nose on her pajama sleeve. (Don’t pretend you’ve never done anything similar.) She lay there throughout the morning, uninterested in listening to music, choosing not to watch her Finding Nemo video for the thirty-seventh time, and most assuredly not inspired to dance.
Mostly, she just gazed through the drizzle-speckled window at the distant hills, as if expecting, actually longing, to detect otherworldly signs in the mist; signs, for example, of legendary stick Indians, signs of tricksters, phantom outlaws, enchanted dwarves running through the forest in long velvet robes, or, most particularly, runaway orphan girls searching out hollow trees in which they might make homes for themselves. Once or twice, she believed she saw something along those very lines, although she would have hesitated to bet her allowance on it.
Next, she tried imagining what her socks might be saying to one another in the privacy of their dresser drawer, straining hard as if to overhear socky conversation, but, alas, this game failed to amuse her the way it had so many times in the past.
Gracie Perkel had lost her giggle. She’d lost it. Her giggle had deserted her. It had gone far away. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever get it back.
“Hello up there!” Her mother was shouting from the bottom of the stairs. “Lunch is ready!” When there was no response, she added, “Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup!”
Don’t think for a second that Gracie wasn’t tempted. Wasn’t her tummy as empty as outer space? Wasn’t grilled cheese with tomato soup her favorite lunch? Yes, it was, but why should she eat food prepared by a mommy so heartless as to ridicule her only daughter for merely being curious about the unusual drinking habits of adults? Forget about it! No way, José! Gracie would sooner eat poison.
At that moment, she heard a car pull up in the driveway. It was a big yellow taxi. And soon there was the ol’ Moester being helped from the vehicle. Uncle Moe in his pinstriped suit, dark glasses, and artistic French beret. He was supporting himself with crutches. On his left foot there was one of those medical boots.
5
“Technically speaking,” explained Uncle Moe, “it was not a beer can.”
“What was it then?” asked Mrs. Perkel. “Technically speaking.” She sounded suspicious, even a trifle irritated.
Moe’s eyes were fixed on Gracie with a sympathetic gaze. Although it was past noon, she remained in her pajamas and he understood why. “To be absolutely accurate—and we should always strive for accuracy, shouldn’t we, Gracie?—the inanimate object that disabled my lower extremity was not a beer can but, rather, a can of beer. Which is to say, it was a full can. An unopened can. But that’s scarcely the worst of it.
“The beer in question happened to be an imported Sapporo beer, which, you may remember, if you’ve ever seen one in the supermarket, comes in a giant silver container that resembles some kind of Japanese ninja weapon, all tapered and sleek and deadly looking. The Sapporo can holds twenty-two fluid ounces, which is close to a pint and a half, so when one opens one’s refrigerator door and a Sapporo unexpectedly tumbles—Banzai! Kamikaze!—from the very top shelf and crashes down onto one’s bare tootsie…”
“Ooh,” oohed Gracie. “Did it hurt?”
“Hell yes, child! It felt like my foot had been run over by your daddy’s golf buggy on one of those occasions when it’s loaded with lawyers and blondes and a barrel of fried chicken.”
Mrs. Perkel moved toward the kitchen. “I’ve got work to do, Moe. You’ll have to excuse me.”
“Heaven forbid that I keep any citizen from honest toil,” he said. “But before you become engrossed in your domestic labors, would you mind providing me with a little hair of the dog?”
For a moment, Gracie’s heart thumped wildly. Somewhere inside her a squeal began loosening its seat belt. Was there—could there possibly be—a puppy in the house? After all, her birthday was approaching and she’d been asking for a…But no, her mother instead returned with a cold bottle of Budweiser beer and thrust it at the grateful relative, who, noticing Gracie’s confusion, explained then that “hair of the dog” was slang that referred to the practice of drinking in the morning, for healing purposes, a small amount of the alcoholic beverage in which one had overindulged the previous evening; although in this case the mutt that had bitten Uncle Moe was that hefty can of Sapporo, a can that, as it turned out, had cracked the bone in his big toe and caused him, as he recoiled from the blow, to tear a tendon in his ankle.
“It throbbed like a toothache the rest of the weekend, so first thing today I made an emergency visit to a podiatrist.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the word podiatrist, you’re not alone. Fortunately for Gracie (and now for you), Uncle Moe was quick to define podiatrist as a doctor who investigates and treats disorders of the feet. A foot specialist. But the ol’ Moester, being the ol’ Moester, didn’t stop there.
“Are you aware,” he asked, “that there are more podiatrists in the United States of America than in all the other countries of the world combined? It’s true. And my podiatrist says that the reason for this is that Americans lace up and tie their shoes too tight. That’s correct. We lace up our shoes and tie them so tight that we end up damaging our feet.
“Now what does that tell you about our underlying national personality? Eh? Any indication there that Americans have a fear of looseness? A craving—hopeless, of course, hee-hee—for security? For stability? Can it partially explain the disturbing tendency on the part of certain of our citizens to huddle together in Wal-Mart parking lots?”
Gracie tried to think about it, but it proved to be a thought her thinker could not think on. When he realized that, concentrate as she might, the little girl was only bewildered by his philosophizing, the Moester took a mighty gulp from the bottle, then offered it to her.
“Beer is at its best when drawn directly from a tapped keg,” he said, “but a glass bottle is superior to a can. Cans are more convenient and they’re here to stay, but the aluminum’s fluctuating temperature does mess with the purity of the flavor.” To Gracie’s nine thousand eager but inexperienced taste buds, the flavor of the beer from the bottle proved every bit as icky as the flavor from the can, so after one cautiously optimistic swallow she gave the brewski back, sadder Budweiser.
Nodding at the face she made, as well as at the jammies she still wore (pajamas being the official uniform of inertia and depression), Uncle Moe said cheerfully, “The world is a wonderfully unpredictable place, my dear, we’re seldom as limited as we think we are, and every cloud has a silver headline. For example, my podiatrist turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous representative of the female sex. I mean, if good looks were two flakes of snow, she could provide nesting grounds for half the Earth’s penguins.
r /> “Dr. Proust has straight black hair so long it would take a spider monkey twenty minutes to climb the length of it, she had on a silk dress as red as a terrorism alert, silver sandals, ornate jewelry, and some kind of glittery savage eye shadow, and in general looks more like a gypsy than a surgeon. Maybe it’s not surprising that she wants to take a knife to me on Thursday.” He grinned. “I can hardly wait.” He paused to finish his beer.
“At one point, she informed me that she was half-Jewish and half-Italian. I said, ‘That’s a splendid combination, Doctor, but under those conditions I have an urgent request: I want your Jewish half to perform the surgery. Okay? All right? Save the Italian part for cooking and singing.”
From Gracie’s quizzical expression he could tell that his wit was lost on her, the girl being as yet innocent of cultural stereotyping, so he patted her small hand in affectionate appreciation, and, struggling with his crutches, forced himself free of the sofa.
“Here’s the deal, pumpkin. Following surgery, I’ll be as gimpy as a rusty robot for at least a week, but by the time of your birthday I should be getting around fairly well. You’ll be having a party on the big day, I suspect, but the next day, when you’ve rested from the festivities, we’ll go tour the Redhook brewery just as we’d originally planned. Only we won’t be freighted there aboard some motorized Prozac box. I’m going to pick up the birthday girl in a stretch limousine. Can you dig it?”
Dig it she could, for she was an excellent digger. And when Moe left, Gracie skipped into the dining room and consumed every drop of the tomato soup, even though by then it was approximately as cold as Moe’s Budweiser had been. Then she skipped up the stairs (which is kind of a dangerous practice actually, one you shouldn’t attempt without adult supervision), where she changed into jeans and her Give Peace a Chance sweatshirt. She opened her sock drawer and removed a pair of pink ones. She held them at eye level and spoke to them directly. “Socks,” she addressed them, “you oughta know the answer to this question: how come Americans tie their shoes too tight?”
Not surprisingly, the socks remained silent, as was their legal right. Gracie, on the other hand, could not suppress a giggle. It would appear that she’d gotten her groove back. But maybe we should keep our fingers crossed for her, wouldn’t you agree?
6
The week passed as slowly as a snowman’s gas. Each drizzly day limped into the next, as if a falling can of Sapporo had broken the day’s sunset toe and torn its sunrise tendon. In kindergarten that week, Gracie was taught nothing she didn’t already know; midway through Finding Nemo, she suddenly found that thirty-six viewings had been quite enough; and though she badly wanted to visit the recuperating Uncle Moe and bring him a bouquet of flowers or something, her daddy was always too busy to drive her downtown and her mommy was always too tired. It was frustrating.
She did call Moe after his surgery, of course, regretting all the while that she couldn’t have made the call on that pink cell phone she was expecting for her birthday and on which niece and uncle might have enjoyed an actual private conversation. And truth be told, it was only the anticipation of her approaching birthday that kept the lights on in her eyes and the skip in her step that week.
Having said all this, however, the week can be described as totally dull and uneventful only if Sunday isn’t counted. It’s probably permissible to leave out Sunday because in America and Europe, Sunday generally isn’t considered a weekday. You yourself must admit that, for various reasons, there’s something different about Sundays. Sundays look different, feel different, even smell different than the other six days. Sundays have a different color (usually white), a different texture (starched linen), and a different flavor (kind of like mashed potatoes) than even Saturdays (which are crimson and taste like weenies and beer). In some American cities, incidentally, it’s illegal to sell beer on Sundays, but that’s a different story.
In any case, an incident occurred that Sunday that wasn’t strictly normal, that caused it to further stand out from the week’s other days, and that Gracie would not soon forget. It happened in church. (Some silly people used to refer to beer openers as “church keys,” but that’s a different story, as well.)
For reasons of her own, the Sunday school teacher had directed Gracie to sit in the front row that morning, and being a polite youngster, she obeyed without question or objection, although she was aware that from time to time she might have to hold her nose to keep from gagging.
Taking the third chapter of the Gospel of John as her authority, the teacher had been discoursing forcefully and at considerable length about the necessity to be “born again”—a concept that Gracie, frankly, had never fully comprehended—when she, the teacher, noticed that a shoelace had come undone and bent to tie it (undoubtedly much tighter than function required). Taking advantage of the lull, Gracie impulsively acted to contribute to what so far had been a one-sided discussion.
“My uncle Moe says that when he dies he’s gonna be born again as a vinegar eel.”
Still in the process of knotting her lace, the teacher commenced to sputter, but before she could straighten up, a curious boy asked, “What’s that?”
“Oh,” said Gracie in her chirpy voice, “a vinegar eel is a paradise—no, I mean…a parasite; yeah, that’s right, a parasite that lives I think in Germany. It bores into the sides of beer steins over there—they’re made outta clay, you know—and it lives on the foam that slops over the top. Uncle Moe…”
“Enough!” screeched the teacher. She seized the startled Gracie by the shoulders and yanked her from her chair. “That’ll be enough out of you, little heathen.” Her face the color of a grape Popsicle, she pulled Gracie to the door and shoved her through it. “You wait out here until after class. We’ll deal with you later.”
The Sunday school building was connected to the main church by a colonnade, which, we’d better explain, is a narrow walkway covered by a roof that’s supported by columns. One side of this walkway was open to the weather, and you can guess—can’t you?—what Seattle’s weather was like that morning. (If you said “drizzly,” you’re a winner.) And because the season was late October, it was also rather chilly. Therefore, when Mrs. Perkel came upon Gracie in the colonnade to which the bewildered girl had been exiled, there was a fair amount of shivering, chattering, and sniffling going on.
As her mother was wrapping a damp and shaky Gracie in her shawl, the teacher arrived on the scene.
“What’s she doing out here?” Mrs. Perkel demanded.
Not a bit sorry, the teacher puffed herself up. “Lord knows what sort of loose behavior she’s exposed to at home, but I can tell you she was talking in my Sunday school class about beer again! And that’s not the worst of it.” The teacher then repeated, more or less accurately, Gracie’s disruptive remarks about dead humans possibly being reborn as German beer worms. “I will not tolerate,” railed the teacher, “such depraved pagan garbage being spewed forth in a Christian house of worship!”
For a moment or two, Mrs. Perkel looked the other woman in the eye. Then, slowly, between clenched teeth, she spoke.
“Considering the amount of wine consumed by folks in the Bible, including Jesus and his disciples on numerous occasions, holy and otherwise; considering the size of the goblets at the Last Supper, and how our Savior once miraculously transformed ordinary drinking water into the alcoholic beverage of his choice, I doubt that the Good Lord would turn an innocent five-year-old…”
Practically six, Gracie thought, but she kept her mouth shut.
“…out in the cold for merely mentioning a weaker substance like beer. Have you forgotten the part where we were commanded to ‘suffer the little children’? As for reincarnation, I personally don’t subscribe to it, but tens of millions of decent, intelligent people do, and you’d better pray they’re wrong, Miss Righteous. Because if they aren’t, you’re sure to come back as some hard-shelled pinchy old she-crab with the worst fishy breath in the whole damn ocean.” Over her shoulder, s
he added, “What do you do, eat cat food for breakfast?”
During most of the drive home, neither mother nor daughter spoke. Gracie, however, was beaming with satisfaction, so elated with the unexpected way her mommy had risen to her defense that she could scarcely hold back a giggle.
After a time, Mrs. Perkel herself made a noise that somewhat resembled a laugh, although it could just as easily have been a snort or a loud sigh. She shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe how much I sounded like Moe back there.” She rolled her eyes. “That radical bozo’s fancy smart-mouth has been getting on my nerves for seven years, and now I swear I’m starting to sound a lot like like him.” She laughed again, although it was hard to tell if she really thought anything was funny.
One block later, she abruptly stopped the car at a strip-mall Häagen-Dazs ice cream parlor, led Gracie inside, and proceeded to buy her a hot fudge sundae as big as the Ritz.
Before Gracie could take her spoon to the treat, however, Mrs. Perkel gripped the child’s wrist. “Young lady,” she said. Her tone was stern. “There’ll be no more nonsense about beer around here. Understood?”