The View from Mount Joy (21 page)

After keeping careful track on my watch, I rang the bell.

“Congratulations, kids,” I said. “Every single one of you is a winner. Now as quietly as you can, tiptoe to the toy aisle—it’s across from the magazines—and pick out your toy.”

The kids didn’t seem to care that they weren’t shopping at FAO Schwarz; they seemed happy to select a cheap plastic water pistol, a coloring book, a deck of Old Maid cards. Mrs. Ghizoni told me later that her son said it’d been just like Halloween, “instead of tricks, we had to be quiet, and instead of treats, we got toys.”

One slow morning, I noticed Marlys Pitt pushing her cart as if it were filled with rocks instead of the boxes of macaroni and cheese she seemed to subsist on since her husband ran off with her sister. She looked terrible, swollen-eyed and stringy-haired, and so thin she kept having to hoist up her slacks to prevent them from sliding down her butt.

I rang my bell.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said to the half dozen or so shoppers, “a prize will be awarded to anyone who right now has a box of Good Home macaroni and cheese in their shopping cart.”

Marlys was apparently too deep in her funk to participate in the contest, and it wasn’t until Estelle Brady, for whom everyone’s business was her business, noticed Marlys and banged into her cart with her own.

“You won,” she shouted, and then looking up at the window, shouted, “Joe! Joe—she’s got a whole cartful!”

“All right, we’ve got a winner!” I said, as if surprised. “And you win…” Trying to think of a good prize, I revved up my brain. Inspiration came as I looked at Marlys and her unkempt hair. “You win a gift certificate to Patty Jane’s House of Curl and…and dinner for two at the Canteen!”

Marlys gave me a rare smile, and thus began my cosponsorship with neighborhood businesses.

Once I asked if there was anyone shopping who could recite the entire Gettysburg Address. Surprisingly I had two winners—Jan Olafson, a waitress who always needing reminding that there was no smoking in the store, and Mr. Snowbeck, my Twinkies shoplifter. They each got gift certificates to a new bookstore that had opened on Cedar Avenue. Another time I asked shoppers if anyone had a picture of their grandmother in their wallet. No one did, but a little boy holding a gray-haired woman’s hand said, “But I’ve got mine right here!” He took home a gift certificate from the Abdullah Candy Store.

Usually the contests were random and I didn’t know who the winner would be (who’d have thought Irv Busch, a customer whose moods swung a short arc from bad to really bad, would know all the lyrics to “Some Enchanted Evening” and sing them, in a sweet tenor, in the middle of the feminine products aisle?). Other times I rigged the outcome, selecting the winner in advance according to the prize being offered. For instance, my mother offered six free piano lessons, and I awarded the prize to Cindy Waldron, who paid for her groceries with food stamps and whose son was a dreamy boy who always sang or whistled when he shopped with her. Another time I asked, “Who’s got disposable diapers in their cart?” knowing that Helen Hanson, whose baby was three months old, had just told Shelly Ericson she was pregnant again and not exactly thrilled about it. Helen, who waved two packages of Dry-Didies in the air, won a weekend getaway at the Thunderbird Hotel (one of my customers was its vice president).

“It’s romance that got me in trouble in the first place,” said Helen, accepting her prize, but afterward she breathlessly reported, “They had a pool, and my husband and I actually met when we were lifeguards, so we spent the whole time in the water!”

The prizes often came from other stores (I had taken a beating during that first Supermarket Sweep I’d held—Kay Nelson had cleaned me out of porterhouse and T-bone steaks), but I donated my fair share and was just about to announce a contest when I saw an attractive, vaguely familiar brunette in the dairy section.

“You’re drooling,” said Darva.

“I know that person,” I said, “I think.”

“Maman, we made faces on our cupcakes!” said Flora, who had spent the night at my mother’s after our Tuesday night dinner. This was a common occurrence; in fact, so common that she considered the guest room
chez grand-mère et grand-père
her second bedroom. Having slept on my mother’s couch in the den, I had taken Flora to work with me, and Darva had come to pick her up.

“And Grand-mère read me seven books—I counted! And
mon
Joe let me help stack up the oranges!”

“I think she’s got a career in produce,” I said.

“So who do you think it is?” asked Darva, following my gaze out the office window.

After I shrugged, Darva took the bell off my desk.

“So figure it out,” she said, holding it to the microphone and ringing it.

“Good morning, shoppers,” I said, scrambling to the mike. “Today’s prize will go to anyone”—I watched the brunette reach into the egg case—“who has a carton of eggs in their cart.”

The dark-haired woman froze, holding the carton in her hand.

“I’ve got eggs!” shouted Red Carlson, who owned the hardware store down the block.

“We have a winner, then,” I said. “Actually two, because even if you haven’t put the eggs in your cart, you’re still a winner.”

I heard Darva laugh. “Smooth,” she said, “real smooth.”

“And today’s prize”—my mind raced through new inventory items that might appeal to the brunette beauty—“is a free Mrs. Wilkerson’s Fruit Pie, available for pickup in the bakery section.”

“This is how you’re going to charm her?” asked Darva. “With pie?”

“I’d like to win a pie,” offered Flora.

“I guess I’ll go down and make my prize presentation,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

“You look good,” said Darva, cheering me on.

I raced down the stairs, worried that the brunette might have left without claiming her prize, but when I reached the bakery section, she was standing with Red Carlson by the Mrs. Wilkerson pie display.

“Joe!” said Red. “What do you think—the cherry or the apple?”

“I don’t think you could go wrong with either,” I said.

“Then I’ll take the cherry,” he said, loading a red box into his cart. “And Joe, I’ve got a prize to donate for you—free duplicate keys made and a gallon of paint.”

“Write up a gift certificate,” I said, “and I’ll use it.”

The hardware store owner left, whistling “We’re in the Money,” and I stood next to the woman, who was even lovelier up close.

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said, and when she smiled, a little cartilage softened in my knees. “It’s so weird—I came here to buy eggs because I was making pie, and now I win one!”

“That
is
weird,” I said, although I didn’t think it was weird at all, having already decided that Fate was at work in bringing us together. “By the way…I’m Joe. Joe Andreson.”

From her response, you would have thought I’d introduced myself as Mick Jagger.

“Oh my God!” she said, hugging me. Not wanting to be rude, I hugged her back, but it was all too brief.

“You’re Mrs. A.’s son!” she said, pulling away.

“I am,” I said, dipping my head in a nod. “Only now she’s Mrs. Rusk, so then she’d be Mrs. R.” I crossed and uncrossed my arms before putting my hands in my pockets. I no longer felt like the lead singer of the Rolling Stones as much as a member of the New Christy Minstrels.

“Oh yeah, I heard she had gotten married.”

“Yup,” I said and dawn rose in the horizon of my mind. “Hey, I remember you. From my mother’s first spring concert at Nokomis Junior High. You played the flute. You played the theme from
Alfie.
”

“Wow,” she said, blushing. “
Alfie.
I forgot all about that song. You’ve got some memory.”

“Well, I…” I was worried I was coming across as some weirdo who memorized his mother’s band concert playlist. “Well, that’s all I remember: how well you played. I mean, I don’t remember your name or anything.”

“Jenny,” she said, offering her hand, “Jenny Baldacci. And your mom…well, Mrs. A. was one of my all-time favorite teachers.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“Please do.”

“So what kind of pie were you making?”

“What?”

We hadn’t broken our handshake, and it was as if the more we talked the more excuse we had for holding hands.

“You said you were getting eggs for a pie.”

“Oh yeah. Lemon meringue. Meringue takes a lot of egg whites.”

“Really.”

“It’s one of the few things I make well—meringue. I use a store-bought crust, but my meringue’s delicious.”

“I’d love to try it sometime.”

Something shifted in Jenny’s lovely, lively face.

“It’s my husband’s favorite pie.”

Everything wilted: my blood pressure plummeted, my heart rate lowered, my hopeful erection deflated, and my testicles shrank to the size of marbles.

“So your husband likes meringue, does he?” I said, my voice loud and blustery enough to let her know I was the strong type, that I’d be able to survive this crushing blow.

“Yes, he’s…,” she began, her blush deepening. “We’re visiting my folks. It’s their thirtieth wedding anniversary. So I’m making them a pie…. We live in New York.”

“That’s great,” I said. “New York, that is. Although I’m not saying that with much firsthand knowledge. I mean, I was only there once. I was ten. I went with my mom and dad, and we went to the top of the Empire State Building. Oh yeah, I had a hot dog from one of those stands too.”

As I blathered on, I screamed at myself,
Shut up! Can you possibly be more inane?

“Well, so nice to have met you,” said Jenny, grabbing the handle of her cart. “Please say hello to your mother for me and…and thanks for the pie.”

“It’s not lemon meringue,” I said, “but it’s free.”

As I watched her approach the cash register, I noticed her pretty legs and the nice curve of her rump, but the knowledge that she was married was a cold bucket of water thrown on my appreciation.

Back in my office, Flora raised her arms, asking to be lifted. Letting someone hold her was her remedy for cheering someone up.

“
Mon
Joe, you look so sad!”

I exaggerated a grunt as I picked her up.

“Was that lady mean to you?” she asked seriously, pressing her palm against my cheek.

“Yeah, Joe,” said Darva. “Was she?”

“Worse. She’s married.”

Sixteen

From the
Minneapolis Star Tribune,
October
4, 1987:

HOMEGROWN EVANGELIST WOWS LOCAL CROWD

by Robyn MacDonald

Billy Graham chose to headquarter his Evangelistic Association in Minneapolis, and now it looks as if a Minnesota native may be another force to be reckoned with in the evangelical world. At thirty-two, Kristi Casey still has the fit and toned body of a head cheerleader, which she was (Ole Bull High, Class of ’ 72) and the pretty, open face of a homecoming queen.

“Unfortunately, I can’t put that title on my résumé,” she told this reporter, “but I think the voting was rigged.”

In interviewing one of the stars of the Shout Hallelujah! revival that took place at the Merina Auditorium this weekend, Ms. Casey exhibited the same playful sense of humor that is evident in the radio broadcasts the citizens of Minneapolis/St. Paul will be able to listen to beginning in January.

“I’m thrilled that I’ll be bringing the good news over AM radio K-LUV Tuesday nights at seven o’clock to all my friends and family in the beautiful state of Minnesota,” she said, and then, catching herself sounding like a press release, added: “I’ve got some old friends who could
use
some good news!”

After our short interview in Ms. Casey’s dressing room, this reporter took her seat along with a crowd estimated at more than four thousand.

There was a lot of fire and brimstone interspersed with rousing renditions of “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “God Bless America,” sung by the Shout Hallelujah! Chorus, and if the crowd was enthusiastic listening to Reverend Timmy Johns or Brother Quincy Byerly, they were positively rabid when the beat of a bass drum thundered through the auditorium.

Everyone stood up and clapped a reply to the beat as Kristi Casey marched inside a spotlight, wearing a white sparkling dress and a big bass drum. She beat out another rhythm, which was answered, and this interplay lasted, by this reporter’s watch, for three minutes, until the crowd was clapping in one solid steady beat and shouting, “Kristi, Kristi, Kristi!”

Her message didn’t offer anything new and revelatory to these ears, but as far as delivery went, she was peerless. Ms. Casey could recite “Three Blind Mice” and her fans—or as they call themselves, the Kristi Corps—would clamor for more.

She told the audience before leaving the stage, “You don’t have to go looking for God—because He’s right here now!” and the shouts of “Amen!” rattled the rafters.

I can’t say going to a revival had ever made it onto my top 100 list of things to do, but I would have braved the legions of the lost and the saved to see Kristi. By the time the article came out, however, she was already on her way to Detroit. I know, because I drove her to the airport.

Darva had taken Flora to Detroit for her nephew’s wedding, and I had just popped a beer and settled back to watch Johnny Carson do his Art Fern bit when the telephone rang. Before answering machines became indispensable appliances, like toasters or coffeemakers, screening calls meant deciding to pick up the phone or let it ring. I let it ring—Ed McMahon was snorting with laughter, and while I didn’t quite have Ed’s apoplectic reaction, I was entertained enough to choose Johnny over the ringing phone. But this caller was persistent, and finally, thinking it was the kind of call you don’t want to answer but should, I picked up the receiver.

“Jeepers, Joe—don’t tell me you were in bed!”

I recognized the voice immediately.
“Kristi?”

“The one and only. Now, if you’re in your jammies, get dressed. We’re going for a ride.”

“But…what…”

“Still a sweet-talker. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

I threw on some clothes and sat on the arm of the recliner, peeking out the window like the neighborhood busybody. A Cadillac pulled up in front of my house
exactly
ten minutes later and sat there, purring like a big black cat, and I scurried out toward it like a little mouse.

She sat behind the steering wheel, her hair all big and shellacky, her eyes weighted with fake lashes, her mouth glistening with deep pink lipstick…and she looked great.

“Hey,” I said, and swallowed hard.

Laughing, Kristi leaned over in the seat to kiss me full on the mouth.

“So how long’s it been, Joe?” she asked.

With her face inches from mine, with her perfume going up my nose and into some receptor part of my brain that shouted,
Yahoo!,
all I could answer was, “Too long.”

“Nice house,” she said, ducking her head to look out the passenger window.

“Thanks, I bought it when—”

“I’ve got an eight-thirty flight tomorrow morning,” said Kristi, pulling away from the curb. “So let’s have some fun while there’s fun to be had. Some
real
fun.”

Her implication was obvious.

“Are you talking about
visiting another county?
” I asked, using our old sexual shorthand.

Kristi made her voice husky. “I hear it’s beautiful in Ottertail County this time of year.”

“But Ottertail’s way up north!”

“I’m kidding, Joe,” said Kristi with a laugh. “I told you I’ve got a morning flight.”

She turned the car on the parkway, heading east.

“We’re going to St. Paul. At least it’s in a different county than Minneapolis.”

Val, my latest girlfriend, had been a new teacher at my mother’s school, and while she initially seemed pretty nice, she began showing odd personality quirks. Anytime we had sex, she’d giggle and say things like, “Now don’t tell your mother—that’d be telling tales out of school!” or “After that performance, young man, I’d put you at the head of the class!” Once when I picked her up, she looked me over and said, “What, no apple for the teacher?”

Val started calling me more than I was comfortable with, and began sending me “report cards” (I got an A in foreplay and a D in remembering our first-month anniversary), so you can imagine my relief when she told me she was transferring to a school in Duluth and I’d no longer have to deal with her. She was beginning to rival Kelly, my old
Love Story
girlfriend, in the nut department, and nuts were not what I was looking for in a woman.

So you’d think I’d be wary of strange women, but Kristi’s strangeness was an old friend to me, and the invitation to revisit our carnal knowledge of the past was too tempting to ignore.

“Do you always wear so much makeup?” I asked, noticing the pillow-case smeared with color.

“Very gallant of you to ask,” she said. Laughing, she pulled the sheet off me and wrapped it around her. “But no, only when I’m onstage.”

I watched as she went into the bathroom. “When
aren’t
you onstage?”

This elicited another laugh. “That’s what I love about you, Joe—you always tell it like it is.”

“I noticed you’re not denying it,” I said, raising my voice as I heard the sound of water.

A minute later she emerged from the bathroom, tying the belt of the hotel bathrobe around her waist, her face scrubbed.

“Why should I?” she asked, opening the minibar. “‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ You want a beer?”

“Please,” I said. We were staying in Kristi’s downtown St. Paul hotel, in a fancier room than any of our motels had offered.

“You know what else?” I said, watching as she opened the beer. “We just had sex and your hair looks exactly the same as it did when you picked me up.”

“Are you familiar with the adage ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything?’” asked Kristi, climbing back into bed.

I took the bottle she offered with my right hand and touched her hair, an elaborate blond cascade that was stiff to the touch.

“Do you know they’ve discovered hairspray’s bad for the ozone layer?”

Kristi managed to smirk at me, even though she was in the middle of taking a long draw of beer.

“So,” I said, “you’re still allowed to have nonmarital sex and drink beer, huh?”

“Oh, goody,” she said, clinking my bottle with her own. “The insults about my appearance are over and now it’s time to start making fun of my life’s work.”

On the way to the hotel, she had told me why she was in town, bragging about how attendance had risen more than 17 percent since she’d joined the Shout Hallelujah! revival, and complaining about her position following Mother Olive (“Really, there are only two women in the whole show, and what do they do? They put us on right next to each other!”), but when we passed Shannon Saxon’s parents’ house on River Road, we laughed about the stupid bull costume Shannon had had to wear, and our conversation veered back to high school.

But now I wanted to know just where the hell she’d been and what the hell had gotten into her.

“Your life’s work,” I said, sitting up against the headboard. “Am I allowed now to ask about how a girl who used to give me blow jobs in school is now on tour with the fucking Shout Hallelujah! revival?”

“Don’t talk like that,” she said quickly, a blush tinting her face.

“What’s it you object to? Blow jobs or fucking? ’Cause you’re pretty good at both.”

Kristi took a swig of beer. “Do you want to hear about my life or don’t you?”

I shrugged. “Fire away.”

“Okay,” she said, pulling the covers up and wriggling closer to me. She was going to talk about her favorite subject—herself—and her excitement was palpable.

“Okay, remember when we saw those northern lights up in Grand Marais?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I think that’s when I first saw God.”

“What?”

She nodded, as if the tone of my voice suggested agreement rather than incredulity.

“I didn’t know it right then—it took me a couple of weeks to figure out what it was I saw.”

“Kristi, we saw the northern lights. It’s a scientific phenomenon. Something about sunspots or something.”

“I was sitting in the student union,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard me, “when all of a sudden this big chill—you know, the kind you get if you drink a Slushie too fast—rushed through my body and I knew, I just
knew
that what I’d seen was a message from God.”

“No, I remember,” I said. “It’s solar particles smacking into gas molecules.”

“I knew right then that somehow, some way, I was going to dedicate my life to Christ.” She took another sip of beer, nodding at the memory. “And then, I swear to God, I got another chill, thinking,
My name is Kristi.
”

It wasn’t exactly a spit take, but some beer that had been heading down my throat came up through my nose.

“I know it sounds weird,” she said, acknowledging my reaction, “but if you think about it,
Kristi
’s the female of
Christ.
I mean, I know it’s a popular name for girls right now, but I believe it was all in His plan, that I should know He touched me because I was named Kristi.”

The schoolteacher girlfriend I’d just broken up with was starting to seem a little more sane. I searched Kristi’s face, expecting to find something in the tension of her mouth or a look in her eyes that let me know she was joking, but the face that stared back at mine was guileless, on her an expression I wasn’t used to seeing. I finished my beer and set the bottle on the nightstand.

“What about everyone who’s named Jesus?” I asked. “Or Christian? And there’s gotta be some Amish guys named Jehovah. Should they all start thinking they’re somehow
touched
?”

“I’m only explaining my experience,” said Kristi impatiently. “Now are you going to make fun of me, or are you going to listen?”

I’m going to make fun of you,
I thought,
just not out loud.

“So why didn’t you tell me any of this while it was happening?” I said instead. “I mean, considering I was a witness to you witnessing God.”

“Are you kidding me? And put myself up to your ridicule?”

“What do you think you’re putting yourself up to now?”

“Ha-ha,” said Kristi. “And I thought time might have the odd effect of
maturing
you.” She drained her beer and let out a loud, protracted burp.

“You should talk.”

“Okay,” I said after we’d shared a laugh, “keep going. Tell me how you got from A to…Z.”

“Well, you can figure, if I couldn’t tell
you—
’cause I can tell you just about everything—I couldn’t tell anyone. And then, remember, I only saw you a couple times after that, before I graduated and left.”

“Yeah, where
did
you go? It was like you vanished into thin air.”

“I’m hungry,” said Kristi, getting up and opening the minibar again. She took out a bag of M&Ms. “This stuff is so expensive, and if you think Shout Hallelujah! pays for it, the answer is
n-o.
”

“Okay, enough about your expense account,” I said as she settled back into bed and poured a little mound of M&Ms into my hand. “Where’d you go after school?”

“Where does anyone like me go after school? California. North Hollywood, to be exact. It was cheaper to live in the valley than in L.A. proper.”

“Were you trying to get into acting?”

“I didn’t know. I was trying to get into something…public. I mean, I knew I was supposed to be famous, I just wasn’t exactly sure if I should be a movie star or have my own TV show or be a news anchor or what. And then on top of everything else, I had to deal with that religious experience. I mean, as much as I was
awed
by what happened to me, I was scared too, you know? After all, I was only twenty-one years old when it happened! What twenty-one-year-old wants to devote herself to God? Well, what
normal
twenty-one-year-old? I began thinking maybe I’d just dreamt the whole thing, or maybe it was a reaction to all the drugs I’d taken—you know, some strange…well if not
flashback,
then
flash.
” She eyed me carefully. “I haven’t done drugs for years, by the way.”