B Is for Beer (10 page)
“On the other hand, you’ve learned that every day, beer helps millions to be glad and dizzy, and that once in a great while it can lead to a brush with the Mystery.” She paused, as if to reflect. “As long as there are those who seek contact with the Mystery, no matter how misguidedly and crudely they go about it, I suppose there ’s still hope for the human race.”
Pausing again, as if to permit her words to sink in, the pixie gestured toward one end of the village. “There ’s something 106
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else. You see that beer garden that ’s closest to the water? Yes?
Can you make out that soldier in uniform who’s sitting alone at the bar, staring at the river? At sunset, he ’s expected to rejoin his regiment, and they’ll march off in the night to fight a bloody battle in some stupid war that in the end will benefit nobody but the rich and powerful, and maybe not even them.
The soldier has been contemplating making a run for it, but fear has held him back.
“Okay, now do you see that other fellow who’s just rather awkwardly, hesitantly approached a table of young women and asked one of them to dance?”
Gracie did see him, though she was still stealing glances at the sky, looking for that airplane.
“That guy is desperately in love. He wishes to ask the girl to marry him, but so far he ’s been too timid to pop the question.”
While they stood spying on the scene at the beer garden, the soldier nonchalantly slipped off of the bar stool and very slowly made his way, in a zigzag route, to the river’s edge.
When, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder, he was confident none in the noisy crowd was looking his way, he stepped out 107
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of his boots and slid into the water, slid so smoothly he made scarcely a ripple. He swam, unobserved, to the other shore, which was heavily wooded.
Meanwhile, the shy man had drawn his beloved off of the dance floor to a relatively quiet corner beside some rose bushes. He was down on one knee before her.
“You see,” said the fairy, “the beer has dissolved enough of their fear to allow the men to act. Now, many would call this ‘false courage,’ and they might be right. But there are times, I think you’ll agree, when false courage is better than no courage at all. At least, tomorrow morning the soldier will wake up alive in his forest hideout rather than lie cut down like a barley stalk on a senseless, soon-to-be-forgotten battlefield.
“And before Christmas, our other man will be walking down the aisle with the girl he adores, instead of weeping alone in an empty room while she weds another, less worthy suitor.”
Gracie loved all this drama. It was like watching TV. Thanks to the fairy, there were even beer commercials.
“Courage is where you find it. Having said that, I must admit that bravery that comes from a bottle—or from a book or a 108
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sermon, for that matter—lacks the full strength and purity of bravery that comes straight from the heart. Your bravery came from your heart, Gracie. I was significantly impressed.”
“Hi de…,” Gracie began, but before she could get the “ho” out, the Beer Fairy interrupted.
“I want you to promise me that you’ll always be this brave, that when exploiters disguised as public servants offer you protection from puffed-up dangers, you’ll turn your back and skip away. Promise me you won’t be afraid of travel, of people different than yourself, of spiders, bats, bullies, dentists, attorneys, peer pressure, bad taste, social disapproval, insecurity, Sugar Elves….”
“Why would Sugar Elfs…?”
“Never mind. That you won’t quake before old men with titles, and most especially, that you’ll never be afraid to love, not even when there ’s a chance you aren’t being loved in return.”
Gracie nodded in tentative agreement. “Are you a phil…
a phil… a philockerfer?” she asked, obviously thinking of Uncle Moe.
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Her tiny teacher laughed. “A philosopher? Not me, kiddo.
I’m just your ordinary universal Beer Fairy.”
“But,” said Gracie, frowning about two wrinkles’ worth,
“they’re drinking lots of beer down there in… in Pimple-on-Toast. Why aren’t you down there with them?”
“I am.”
Anticipating Gracie ’s confusion, the fairy let her fret a moment before going on to say, “I’m very much present at that village festival, and I’m at another harvest festival downriver at Poop-on-Shingle. I’m in a dozen rowdy taverns in Alaska, a hundred Irish pubs, a tailgate party in Ohio, a factory opening in Korea, et cetera, et cetera; and I’m also completely and totally here with you. That ’s the way it is with my kind. I can be many places at once. And now, I—and you—need to be somewhere else.”
Deftly, she slid her wand between Gracie ’s fingers, and it was
poof
time again.
The next thing Gracie knew, she was lying on her bed at home.
She stared almost in wonder at the familiar surroundings.
Oddly enough, her Hello Kitty ticktock clock indicated that no more than ten or twelve minutes had passed since she ’d 110
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looked at it last. The pool of upchuck on the carpet was still shiny and bright.
No, it hadn’t been a dream, in case that ’s what you’re thinking.
The Beer Fairy was right there with Gracie, perched on her chest. “Promise me something else,” the fairy said. “You mustn’t drink beer again until you’re at least eighteen. And you must never, ever drink and drive.”
The idea of herself behind the wheel of a car struck the kindergartner as so comical she giggled out loud. She agreed, nonetheless, and as she was giving her promise, they heard footsteps on the stairs.
“I’m blowing this pop stand!” exclaimed the Beer Fairy. She flew up to whisper something in Gracie ’s ear, then in a flash (or, rather, a
poof
), she shot toward the ceiling and vanished.
Mrs. Perkel was at the door. “Gracie, are you in there?
What happened to your cake? What ’s that awful smell?”
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Well, boys and girls, assuming you’ve been paying attention, you now know everything you’ll ever need or want to know about the world ’s most popular adult beverage. True, we didn’t examine from a scientific standpoint the precise physical effects the consumption of beer has on the brain, the belly, and the liver. Should you crave such information you can always consult your pediatrician—
although don’t be surprised if he gives you a funny look. He ’s likely to look at you strangely even if he ’s Irish.
There is one other thing. Should you have nothing better to do than to delve further into the origins of beer, you’ll come across some historians who contend that beer was invented in Sumer, the present-day country of Iraq, centuries before it was first brewed in Egypt. The Beer Fairy concedes that the Sumerians did, indeed, ferment a kind of grain drink, but that it would be stretching the point to actually call the slop beer.
The Beer Fairy ought to know.
Okay, that ’s that. We ’ve reached the bottom of the keg, so to speak. Let ’s bid one another good-bye and good luck. Ciao, babies. You, too, Grandpa. Go forth with gusto.
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Oh, by the way, in case any among you are interested in what happened to Gracie Perkel, it ’s sad to report that in the days, weeks, and months following her birthday escapades her woes did not diminish nor her home life improve.
Upon her daddy’s return from Arizona, he and her mommy engaged in a vicious, tongue-smoking, brain-skinning, milk-souring argument. They continued to fight like that, off and on, until deep into December. Two days before Christmas, they called their daughter into the den, set her down, and told her they were getting a divorce.
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No child wants to hear that her parents are divorcing, but Gracie took it fairly well. She had, if you recall, made a promise to maintain a brave heart. She only cried once or twice. Maybe three times.
Matters got worse. Charlie Perkel was not a particularly successful attorney, but he was clever. Before their wedding, he had convinced Karla to sign a contract stating that should they ever divorce, he ’d be entitled to any properties they might jointly acquire. The document probably wouldn’t have held up in court, but Karla Perkel possessed neither the money nor the stomach to contest it. She and Gracie were forced to vacate their home.
Since she ’d dropped out of college in her sophomore year to get married (she ’d been an honor-roll major in social studies), Karla lacked the proper education or experience for rewarding employment. She took a part-time job in a doughnut shop, and with her minimum-wage salary, food stamps, and—when he remembered to send it—Mr. Perkel’s monthly child-support payment, mother and daughter moved into a vermin-gnawed one-bedroom apartment on a sketchy street in White Center, a ticky-tacky, blue-collar Seattle neighborhood noted for the size of its rats, the aroma of its cooking grease, and the frequency of its gunfire.
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They couldn’t afford cable, so Gracie went back to
Finding
Nemo
, watching the video so many times she surely could have qualified for a mention in
Guinness World Records
(a book, incidentally, that owed its existence to… beer).
One Saturday afternoon, Gracie awoke from a nap to discover her mother sitting at the kitchen table sipping a cheap brand of beer from a can. There were two or three empty cans on the tabletop in front of her.
Gracie frowned. Like a pea-size groundhog, a single drop abruptly poked its bald head out of her left tear hole and seemed to peer around for a moment, although due to the dim light in the room it could not have seen its shadow. With a blink, she shooed it away, but having only duct for cover, it popped right back up again.
Except for an occasional glass of wine, Gracie had never known her mother to touch alcohol. “Mo-Mo-Mommy,” she began, stuttering as if she were back in that chilly conditioning room at the brewery. “Please don’t.” She paused, searching for the right words.
“Beer’s nice for being glad and dizzy and sometimes for the Mystery and stuff, but the happy that comes out of a beer 116
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can is not like the real happy you got to make in your heart.”
She paused again. “When the beer’s done working, you’ll only feel badder.”
It was Karla’s turn to entertain a teardrop. She pushed her chair away from the table and rose to give her small daughter a hug.
“I swear, Grace Olivia Perkel, sometimes you almost scare me, you’re so… so wise. Where on Earth did you learn to give advice like that?” She supposed it was the influence of the “ol’
philosopher,” though she couldn’t conceive of the likes of Moe Babbano having anything negative to say about beer. Or if he did, it wouldn’t be in plain American television English that people could actually comprehend. “Where did you ever learn…?”
“From a fairy,” Gracie chirped, just blurting it out—and instantly regretting it, wishing she could stuff the syllables back in her mouth.
The mother smiled. “A fairy, huh? Despite everything, you’ve certainly not lost your imagination.” She walked to the sink, hesitated, took one last swallow, and poured the remaining beer down the drain. “Well, maybe you and I can imagine we ’re going to share a pint of vanilla Häagen-Dazs for our dinner tonight.”
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“Rocky road,” muttered Gracie.
As it was, they dined on buttered noodles that evening, and there was no dessert.
Eventually, the ol’ philosopher himself got wind of their situation. At once, he invited them to come live with him and Dr.
Proust in Costa Rica. Karla politely declined. There quickly followed a second invitation. Karla declined again. Ah, but Gracie: she pleaded and pleaded and pleaded; pleaded so long, so hard, so persistently, so sweetly, so annoyingly, that she could have landed in the Guinness record book for pleading, as well.
Finally, with the arrival of a third invitation that included plane tickets, her poor mother caved in. On a Tuesday near the middle of summer, the pair found themselves on a flight jetting south-southeastward: past Texas, past Mexico, past Nicaragua, down to far Costa Rica. If they flew over Pimple-on-Chin, Gracie didn’t recognize it.