Kevin Kling's Holiday Inn (19 page)

“Heavens, and you?”

“A n-u-u-u-u-u-un,
hahahahaha.
Ave Maria!” I whip the ruler out of my sock and strike a pose.

She says, “What?”

“A nun.”

“But nuns are peaceful, God-fearing creatures.”

She was brainwashed, just like Mom.

Then this lady takes out a huge bowl of candy, dumps half of it into my bag and the other half into my brother’s bag, and says, “It’s so nice to have children in the area.” She closes the door and she’s gone. We’ve only been to one house and we have full bags of candy. We still have another house to go! The nun and the Choctaw warrior are now dancing down the street.

“Oh,” my brother drops to his knees and cries, “we should have brought the UNICEF cans.”

We next arrive at a dilapidated old farmhouse. All the lights are off and the windmill in the yard squeaks as it turns in the cold, gray wind. Spooky. I knock on the door. It opens,
crrreeeeaaaakkk,
and there, sitting in his front hallway, is Mr. Mershing. Mr. Mershing has pulled his La-Z-Boy recliner to the front door, and next to him is an end table, and on the end table are two jars of pickles. One jar is marked “edible.” And the other is marked “Halloween.”

“Yeessss?”

“Trick or trea …”

“Oh, trick or treat,” says Mr. Mershing. “Well, do you boys like pickles?”

“We love pickles. We can eat a million pickles.”

“Oh, you can eat a million pickles?”

“A million, more or less.”

“Well, how about one of theeeeesse?” And Mr. Mershing takes the jar marked “Halloween,” unscrews the rusty lid, reaches into the jar, pulls out a pickle, and sets it on the table. These are the largest and most unnaturally green pickles I have ever seen. Mr. Mershing hands one pickle to me and one to my brother, licks his fingers, and rasps, “There you go, boys, and you can have as many as you want, but you must eat them all in front of meeeeeeeeee.”

No problem. My brother and I take our pickles, “Cheers,” and start in.

I take a large bite, and … and … ahhhhh, it’s so hot. Ahhhh, my eyes are watering, my forehead itches and I have a smile on my face, but not because I’m happy. It’s because my cheek muscles are pinching so hard my lips are trying to crawl around the back of my head. My brother has a smile too, but he isn’t happy either. I cough, wheeze, and finally choke down the rest of the pickle.

Mr. Mershing says, “Would you like another?”

“Of course we would. Pickles are supposed to hurt like this.”

We eat pickle after pickle, Mr. Mershing laughing the whole time. At one point he joins in, chomping on a scary-looking gherkin and sweating and crying and choking right along with us.

And every Halloween we return to see who can eat the most Mershing pickles.

Then one year, Mr. Mershing stops handing out pickles. They’re building a house where his garden used to be, another building where his house used to be. I ask my mom what happened to him. She tells me, “Kevin, Mr. Mershing was a farmer. He had lived in that house and worked that land his entire life, until the city started to move out here. Then his taxes rose so high Mr. Mershing couldn’t afford his land anymore. And that’s when they found him in his garage.”

Had he killed himself? I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.

The next year my brother and I tote full bags of candy from the housing development that has sprung up in the area. At Mr. Mershing’s farm, the house where his garden used to be is finished, and there is a new restaurant where the farmhouse used to be.

My brother and I sit in the restaurant parking lot. I say, “I wish Mr. Mershing were here.”

My brother says, “Me, too. Maybe he is.”

I ask him if he is afraid. He says, “No.”

I’m not either. I know if there is a ghost it’ll be Mr. Mershing. My brother reaches into his bag and pulls out a jar of pickles he’s brought from home. “How about one of theeeeese?”

And we sit on the curb eating pickles, waiting for Mr. Mershing. I’m sure to anyone driving by, it just looked like two Richard Nixons sitting in a parking lot eating pickles.

ELECTION DAY  

In the fall of 1974, I attended college in a small town in southern Minnesota. It was a sleepy campus. Occasionally, fraternities fell under Dionysus’ weekend spell.

There were still a few Vietnam vets around, though, guys on the GI Bill who had seen and done things that left them permanently immune to authority, and there was a smattering of academics, artsy types, vegetarian free thinkers. The elite of this group called themselves the Brain Trust, inhalers as opposed to ingesters, who felt it their mission to bring down “The Man.” They could be trouble.

After a horrific food fight in the cafeteria, they penned their famous “When buns are outlawed, only outlaws will have buns” manifesto for the school paper, which included an irrefutable argument: “Buns don’t throw buns, people throw buns.” The school administration was not amused. The angry youngster was, after all, a thing of the past.

At the time, I was a theater major, mostly because the only thing easier than a theater major was a theater minor. My subversive acts were limited to putting Mr. Yuck stickers on cafeteria trays and wearing socks with sandals because I knew the look put some people off.

That is, until the Brain Trust approached me with a project.

One of the school’s professors, Dr. Kloss, taught surrealism, economics, and German, and he raised goats on a farm outside of town. One morning Dr. Kloss awoke to find several members of the Brain Trust and me on his farm.

“Yes, vat do you boys vant?”

“We’d like to buy a goat.”

“Vat do you want vis zis goat for?” asked Dr. Kloss.

“To run for homecoming queen.”

Dr. Kloss loved homecoming, a celebration like a small Oktoberfest. It was why he could live in America. He loved to drink and sing and dance.

But he loved surrealism more, and that Something with a cloven hoof should represent the student body thrilled him to the marrow.

“I only haff a ram for sale.”

“That’s fine.”

“Could he vin?”

“We think so, Dr. Kloss.”

Now Herschel wasn’t much to look at. Even for a goat, he was one of the more unattractive creatures on the planet—more like a small buffalo. One of the Brain Trust remarked, “No one in their right mind would sleep with that goat,” and it was true. And he smelled horrible. It simply took your breath away, and Dr. Kloss confessed that no amount of soap would help. Herschel may have also been the most amorous creature on the planet. As learned on the ride home, gender was of no importance to him, nor species, nor animal-mineral-or-vegetable, for that matter. And it was later learned that he could hold his alcohol, and in fact inhale. In no time, Herschel fit right in.

Now, to get him elected. This is where I came into play.

Talent was out. Looks were out. He would have to work on his platform. To do that, someone would have to voice the goat’s opinions. The Brain Trust knew I had an interest in the theatrical arts and wondered if I would provide the proper voice for Herschel. I told them my vocal range was a bit high, not distinguished enough for the task. However, there was one man for the job: a student actor, Rick Richards, the self-proclaimed love child of Liberace and Rock Hudson, the only man in the Midwest who said “Broad-WAY” and “Waiting for GOD-ot.” And called Sir Lawrence Olivier “Larry.”

Rick always wore an ascot and smoked a pipe, and at any given moment he would drop into that B-movie East Coast British accent like Katharine Hepburn, even though he came from Illinois. “Or Illinwa. Rally, I did.”

I was in a production of
Bus Stop
with Rick. He decided his character, the sheriff, should have a limp. For the benefit of the audience, and to show his professionalism, Rick managed always to limp on the downstage leg. Amazing. I reminded Rick that every great performer was linked to an animal, in one way or another, on the ladder to stardom. After a lengthy pause in which he seemed focused on a mythic horizon, he took his pipe from his lips and agreed to provide Herschel’s voice.

On meet-the-candidates night, the auditorium was packed. Most students came to laugh or jeer. A familiar lineup of cheerleaders and sorority sisters filed across the stage. Then Herschel walked into the spotlight. Silence. He scanned the room with those insane goat eyes, then began to speak. “My fellow students, lend me your ears.”

He addressed the outsiders, those who don’t fit in. He assured them they now had a voice. At once, he was Julius Caesar, the Music Man, and Henry Higgins, calling the audience Romans, Iowans, and gov’nas. He was Juliet crying out for love in the night, Mad Ophelia, Carmen, Ethel Merman belting, “I don’t know how to love him.” Rick then applied an old vaudeville trick. Any hoofer in a chorus line knows if you repeat a step seven times the audience will automatically applaud. Kick seven times—applause. Herschel repeated, “I feel your pain” seven times until …

The audience leapt to its feet as one. Wild, raucous adulation. Herschel was an instant celebrity.

Men found him virile. His sensitivity and musky smell proved irresistible to women. And the vets loved his blatant disregard for the campus foliage.

He rode triumphantly on the homecoming royalty float dressed as a southern belle amid a crepe paper plantation. A football player dressed as Rhett Butler had to restrain his date only once, when Dr. Kloss appeared, weeping and waving from the crowd.

The election of Herschel brought a calming effect on the campus. The students had been heard, and subversive acts all but stopped.

Then came the ribbon cuttings, the charity events, the state pageant where Herschel competed, unsuccessfully, with other queens from throughout Minnesota. For months Herschel was everywhere, attending parties, school functions, arguing for better food, a new theater facility, even finding time to pen a weekly opinion column for the paper: “Get My Goat.”

Yet as the year rolled into winter and toward spring, he and Rick slowly fell out of synch. Herschel still appeared at his required functions, but sometimes his speeches were mere lines read from upcoming school productions or long passages of biology text. The Brain Trust was already off on another project to topple The Man, this one involving a large phallic structure and the statue of the Jolly Green Giant just north of town. Herschel’s enthusiasm waned as well, except for trips to nursing homes and hospitals. No one there seemed to mind his odor. They patted his bony head and didn’t expect him to save the world. Finally his reign came to an unceremonious conclusion.

At the end of the year, it seemed cruel to return Herschel to farm life. He wasn’t really a goat anymore. Didn’t find other goats attractive, only liked campus food. So an ad was placed in the paper. If you ever want to see a truly frightening cross section of humanity, put a “goat/homecoming queen for sale” ad in the newspaper. We eventually gave him back to Dr. Kloss. And that was the last I saw of Herschel.

Rick graduated to play in a community production of
GodSPELL
and to appear in waterbed warehouse commercials. The great Brain Trust graduated and went on to work for corporations or the government. The vets still buck authority. I went back to wearing socks with sandals.

I remember leaving Herschel on the farm. He stood and stared at us as we got into the car. He seemed sad. Then he saw Dr. Kloss and gave a little leap in the air. Herschel was home, the bright lights and life in the fast lane already a fading memory. I could see Dr. Kloss petting Herschel’s head, then smell his hand and make a face.

As long as I live, I will never forget how Herschel stood before an audience, paused, and simply stared with those insane eyes scanning the room. And for a moment, just a moment, the goat held us, all on his own. Then he would begin. “My fellow students….” God bless America.

VETERANS DAY  

My brother and I liked to play army man out in the backyard behind the garage of my grandparents’ house. During one Christmas visit, the small green plastic men are surrounded by an enemy force of blue Knights of the Round Table, yellow Hessians, and some gray plastic unknown army that was just always “the enemy.” Things look bad for the army men. Supplies are running low, almost out of ammo, no reinforcements available, the box is empty.