All Your Pretty Dreams (5 page)

“
It’s not so
bad.”

“
Just weirdly old school.
I mean,
polka
.
It’s so, shit, I don’t know what describes polka.”

Jonny winced. “My dad loves
it.”

“
Exactly. Remember when we
played all those Springsteen songs on the squeeze box? I mean, you
did.” Lenny wouldn’t be caught dead with anything as unhip as an
accordion. High in a dark tree an owl hooted. “And Wendy? Jesus H.
I hope the angel Gabriel isn’t listening up in heaven.”

Jonny sagged against the
picket fence. He just had to get through the mass, that was all.
“How’s the campaign coming?”

Lenny told him about a
fundraiser he was working up for next weekend. He found out some
state official would be in town. Supporters of moving the landfill
would come out, and hopefully open their wallets for the young
mayor-to-be.

“
Can you play? Add a
little excitement to the putrid stinkwater debate.”

“
The whole
band?”

“
Do we have to use Little
Toot? I was hoping to leave her out of it.”

“
That might cause
problems.”

“
Okay, all the Notable
Knobels. Maybe your granny can play the tambourine like the old
days.”

“
You know, she might like
that.”

“
Okay, Jack,” Lenny said,
throwing up his hands in mock dismay. “Bring ‘em on. The numerous
and notable.” They walked around the corner of the garage as a
beat-up orange VW bug was pulling into the motel lot. Lenny pulled
Jonny back into the shadows.

“
Take cover, it’s the
Queen Bee,” he whispered. The girl who had called the police on
Jonny stepped out of the car. From the other side a man got
out.

“
Who’s that with her?”
Jonny whispered.

“
One of the dudes, there’s
just two of them. Mostly hot college girls. I got my eye on a
couple.” The two students disappeared into separate rooms. “She’s
made quite an impression around town, let me tell ya.”

“
With that
hair?”

“
Hair?”
”The dye job or whatever.”

“
Maybe she’s bald. The
first day they were here a bunch of the students got drunk at the
Owl. They didn’t get carded, of course. Walter needs the business.
But the Queen Bee marches in, tells Walter he shouldn’t have served
them. That she’ll have his bar shut down if he keeps serving
them.”

“
Nice.” Walter had been
happily serving minors for decades.

“
The place was so quiet
you could hear the mice in the walls. She ripped him a new
one.”

“
She called the cops on me
the first night I was here, practicing in the garage.”

“
Seriously?”

“
Mike said she was
complaining about the noise.”

“
She’s out to make
friends.”

A shadow flashed by her
window. “What’d you call her?”

“
Queen Bee. Walter came up
with that. Says she acts all high and mighty.”

As they walked through the
rose garden the Queen Bee was at her window. Her strange hair lay
lank on her shoulders and her face was sad, almost lonely. Weeks on
end at the Rainy Days Motor Inn could do that. As Jonny stepped
around the picket fence she snapped her blinds closed.

Lenny snorted. “Stuck-up
college kids. And we’ve got four more weeks of them.”

Chapter 4

Father Teddy’s voice rang
through the church, strong but comforting, like a well-knit mitten.
A large congregation was assembled in the 115-year-old St.
Bernard’s with its soaring gothic ceiling, but half the pews were
empty. Red Vine had been the county seat when the church was built,
and nothing but good times were expected. But the interstate
highway passed them by, the railroad shut down. The county seat
moved twenty miles away to Beinhorn. Sleepy little Red Vine was
left to its apple orchards, its undistinguished lake, a bunch of
Lutherans, handful of Catholics, and an oversized Catholic
church.

Ozzie had the high position
on the landing with his drum set. Wendy and Jonny balanced on wide
red-carpeted steps to the altar. The accordion straps pulled Jonny
down, into the earth. He took a deep breath and pictured his feet
anchored to the floor. The carpet was covered with plastic runners.
With a few prayers the carpet would last through the apocalypse,
which Jonny’s stomach felt could be any minute.

Ozzie tapped out the beat
to the ‘Just for Today Polka’ and they were off.

Jonny kept his eyes up on
the stained glass window in the choir loft. If he saw anybody he
knew— if Lenny came to make faces at him— he didn’t think he could
make it. Why these nerves? These were his people, folks he’d known
all his life. His third-grade teacher, Miss Atkinson, probably
ninety by now. His Little League coach and all his children. He
tried to keep his mind away from Catholics of his acquaintance.
Walter, from the Owl, with his St. Christopher’s medal. Ozzie was
brought up Catholic and Margaret didn’t seem to care that much
either way. Jonny’s church attendance, mostly Lutheran, was spotty.
He liked church music though, the hymns that carried you through
the roof.

Jonny forced his mind back
to the music.
You’ve done this a hundred
times. You could do this in your sleep.
He
tried to smile, or at least not grimace.

Ozzie and Wendy paused for
his solo. Jonny pumped the accordion, in and out, fingers moving
madly. His hair fell across his forehead.
Concentrate.
He kept his eyes on a
tear in the plastic runner a step down, bent to his task. A murmur
of appreciation as Wendy came back in, only a few beats late, and
Ozzie rat-a-tat-tatted through the last stanza.

Father Teddy stood up again
for a prayer. A few in the pews followed suit. Others looked
confused. The polka mass was so far from the traditional mass, all
bets were off. No chant and response, no rules at all. It was
almost civilized.

“
Here we sing along,” the
priest said. “If you will take your song sheet? Please stand for ‘I
Have Decided to Follow Jesus.’ Once again the Notable
Knobels.”

The congregation rose,
hunting for the sheet. Jonny took his first glances at the
people
out there
.
His mother and her sister Aunt Irene sat right up front, despite
saying that her side of the family wouldn’t attend. Margaret gave
him a covert wave by her knee. Three rows behind her sat wizened
Miss Atkinson. Who were those people in the back? Bunch of
white-hairs.

At the rear of the
sanctuary a metallic yawn broke the silence as the door opened.
Three women in slacks and one man slipped in. Standards may have
slipped but even Wendy was wearing a skirt (short, tight, and
purple but still a skirt) in St. Bernard’s today. The college
students: blond hair, a safari shirt, black pigtails, funny
hat.

There was Claude,
three-quarters of the way back, one hand on the metal walker, his
mouth open wide, ready to sing. The old people probably couldn’t
hear way back there. And his grandmother, she had come of course.
With— was that Reinholt?

Before Jonny could get a
good look, Ozzie cleared his throat. The cue to get moving. “One,
two, three—” Jonny channeled Lawrence Welk and the squeeze box
exploded into the song. The voices began, weakly. Jonny stepped up
to the microphone. “I have decided to follow Jesus,” he sang. Lots
of that, it was an easy song. “No turning back, no turning
back.”

The voices got stronger,
rising. Jonny smiled, urging them on. “Let’s hear it for
Jesus!”

His mother called out,
“Amen, brother!” Wendy rolled her eyes.

The music faded. People
smiled at each other. They had done well. They began to sit again
when a voice came from the back.

“
She likes
kielbasa!”

People froze, halfway into
their seats.

“
What?” Ozzie asked.
Father Teddy stopped midway back to the lectern.

Muffled voices. “No! No!
Let me go.”

A ruckus broke out in the
back of the church. The congregation turned as one. Near Claude’s
walker, down the pew, three or four people stood clustered— Grandma
Nora, her neighbor Faye, Faye’s husband Roger.

“
Kielbasa! She likes
kielbasa! Let go!”

An old man’s voice. Jonny
saw his grandfather’s tangle of white hair and one arm flailing. He
broke free, pushing, climbing over the back of the pew in navy
sweatpants and a green cardigan. He ran hunched over like a
fugitive toward the aisle. Shouting from Nora, Faye, Wendy: “Stop
him!” Across the aisle Gus Heideger leaped into action, grabbing
Reinholt’s sleeve. There was a tussle. Feet, hands, hair flew. The
plumber had fifty pounds and fifty years on the old man. He pinned
Reinholt in a bear hug, arms to his sides, spinning to show his
handiwork to all.

As the shouting died down
Father Teddy’s mouth hung open. He blinked, looking carefully at
Margaret, then at Ozzie, entreating them with his eyes. He was a
mild, soft-spoken man, a childhood friend of Margaret’s. Commotion
in the sanctuary? Not his bag.

The crowd held its breath.
Reinholt muttered, twisting his head from side to side. Jonny
leaned into the microphone. “We have a request from the gentleman,
Mr. Reinholt Knobel. Polka fan and former band member.” He turned
to his father at the drums. “Reinholt requests ‘The She Likes
Kielbasa Polka.’” Ozzie shrugged and twirled a drumstick. “Stand
back, Wendy, this is a new one.”

Jonny dredged up the
chords for ‘She Likes Kielbasa’ from the deep recesses of his polka
memory. They were basic, with the familiar oompah beat. His
grandfather had taught it to him when he was fourteen, old enough
to appreciate the naughty references to the ubiquitous Polish
sausage.
Sure, she likes it.
Reinholt, the scamp.

Ozzie remembered the
words.
That’s her dish.
Jonny grinned as his old man picked up the
lines.
She won’t eat
fish
. Never let it be said the Knobels
forgot who kielbasa was for. Father Teddy picked nervously at his
vestments.

Down the aisle the plumber
loosened his grip on Reinholt. The old man began to clap his hands.
Gus let him sway to the music. Nora stepped into the aisle. Then,
just like that, Nora and Reinholt were dancing, a shuffling, stiff
sort of polka. The plumber sat down, squeezing his wife’s
hand.

Wendy put her horn under
her arm and clapped along to the song. Soon everyone in the church
was keeping the beat, watching Nora and Reinholt dance. Then the
song ended. Jonny turned to his father to reprise the last stanza,
and launched back in for one more verse. Then, it was truly
done.

The grandparents stopped,
hands on each other’s shoulders as if waiting for more. Reinholt
blinked, spots of color in his cheeks. Nora dropped her arms, took
Holti by the hand, and led him out of the church, solemn and joyful
as the day they were married.

——

Isabel had hoped to slip
out before the congregation but got caught up in a crowd waiting
for a busload of old people to shuffle, roll, and push walkers out
the doors and down the steps. She had come to the polka mass with
Dana and Kate out of boredom. When he heard the girls were going,
Terry invited himself. Isabel was getting used to having him
around, a nebbish her father would have called him. Last night
she’d gone to the bar with him, and discovered his interests ran
from carrion beetles to World of Warcraft. Hygiene, not so
much.

They hadn’t had the best
reception at the Owl. No wonder, after calling out the bartender.
The entire burg seemed to be conspiring against her. Yet there were
three weeks to go on the field work. No— four! She had to hold the
crew together.

Although she was suspicious
of his motives— there was a weird gleam in his beady eyes— Terry
might just be bored too. Beyond polka mass there was nothing going
on in Red Vine. The weather had turned rainy and cool, spoiling
plans for swimming and picnicking. Isabel had no intention of
socializing with the students. She wanted to get away from them.
Her sanity demanded it. Yet here she was, with Terry at her
elbow.