Leif Ericsson

Marla Weeg

This is a love story.

I think.

One night, after living in Chicago six months, I got home around nine p.m. and unlocked my door. I stayed for a moment on my front porch and repeated to myself the items the For Sale sign listed the first time I came to look at the house: 4 bedroom/ 2 fireplace/4 bathroom/parquet floor/wet bar in finished basement/3 backyard decks (one off the kitchen, one off the master bedroom, and one above the two car garage) house in the 3000 block of Cornelia Avenue. I had just been to my Toastmaster’s meeting and really needed something to cheer me up. (I had joined Toastmasters, an organization that helps you become a more effective public speaker, about two weeks ago.) I may as well admit -- I am shy. Horribly shy. Stupidly shy. I can’t speak in front of people, in groups of people, at parties and so on. In Dodge Center, Minnesota – where I moved from -- I didn’t really have to speak that much—even less after I won the computer at the State Fair -- but here in Chicago speaking and joining in are more important. (I taught myself to trade online after I won the computer and I, remarkably, was very good at it and had made a lot of money. I recently joined a trade group here and was fulfilling my dream of living in a fast-paced city.)

So, I joined this Lutheran Church here to meet people, the First Swedish Church of the Resurrection, and all the time they are asking me to be a lectern or lead the Adult Bible class or read announcements at the coffee hour. I keep putting them off, but I’m really determined, more than anything, to get over this stupid problem of mine. And (I might as well admit it) this shyness and not having a way with words interferes a lot with my dating life. A lot of times the few girls I have asked out for the evening seem sort of excited about the evening, excited about going out with me, (I don’t think I am completely bad looking) and then I know—I know– I deflate their expectations. I become mute. I panic. I can’t speak. I am a total idiot. One of my dates exited my brand new silver Lexus one evening and said “Good night Mute-Man.” That was awful; so I have extremely high hopes for the effective Toastmaster’s.

Well, I am happy to say I had (after taking out a book from my local library titled Don’t Panic) given speech #1 – Introduce Yourself. Well, actually, I did such a bad job I really was wondering if I should return. I had started out with a joke on my name, “My name is Leif Ericsson. You maybe thought he was dead. I mean, I guess it has been a few years since he’s been to America.”

No one laughed. I felt sick. I tried to take deep diaphragmatic breaths to calm myself, and at the same time make eye contact with my audience of twelve business men and women as the Toastmaster manual suggests. They were looking back at me. I blushed, which I hate, and could feel a real panic attack coming. I breathed. I told myself not to look at the audience again. I tried to imagine myself grounded, having roots coming from my feet, solid and confident as another panic book suggested. I told myself I was safe. I imagined the business people audience all on toilet seats. In short, I did all the techniques I have read about. I finally gasped out, “You may be wondering on the selection of my name, Leif – rhymes with safe—Ericsson. Yes I am named after the Swedish Viking founder of America.”

I lifted my normal-sized arm and flexed my muscle as I had rehearsed, “but that marauding explorer is not me.” Again, zero laughter. I went on: “In fact, his fellow compatriot Bjarni Herjolfsson actually discovered America before him.—Although, I must say, I’m pretty glad not to be called Bjarni Herjolfsson.” Here I did a laugh that I had rehearsed. It came out like a bark.

I began to see white lights in my vision. I continued, “Imagine being called in for supper as a boy,” I tried to playfully shout, “Bjarni! Bjarni! ” I peeked up from my note cards. One Asian man looked confused. My nausea and the bright shiny dots were really getting strong. I grasped the podium, rocked a little and tried to look at my index cards. (I had written all over the sides of the cards: RELAX, BREATHE, ROOTS FROM FEET, YOU CAN DO IT. YOU DESERVE TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC. ) With a clinched throat I said, “Being raised in Dodge Center Minnesota, my name didn’t really cause more than a ripple, what with all the Larsens, Berglunds, Andersons and Carlsons with first names like Kirsten, Sven, and Olaf. But, at my new job – at the Chicago Board of Trade – I get considerable joshing from my fellow traders, on being named after the ultimate Swede.” I swallowed and actually panted for a few seconds. “I trade mostly in grain—in the corn pit—in fact, after being here only six months, I am considered somewhat of a corn pit specialist. To continue,” my voice wobbled and my chest heaved up and down. I silently screamed at myself: relax. I just felt more and more light-headed.

I glanced at my cards where I had written about my business success as a trader and how my fellow traders would tease me when I did well. I had written:

Many a day a fellow trader after making a deal for $10, 0000 over in the treasury pit, will yell out ‘Hey Leif Ericsson, I just discovered Comcast.’ Other times when I do well, they joke and yell at me to go back to Minnesota and take a ship to Greenland. They say in a sort of Swedish accent, ‘Yah, Leif’s a real Svedish wild- man a real berserker.’ Now, if you don’t know, a berserker was a Viking warrior who fought in an insane rage, mindless of his own safety, courageous . . .

I decided to skip all that. I went straight to my concluding sentence. I mumbled, “Don’t worry; this Leif Ericsson does not plan on discovering you.” Sweat was sliding down my back. I wiped gummy saliva from my lips and looked up. The toastmaster leader stared and looked bewildered, not understanding I was done, but finally he applauded, and then the group applauded. I shook the toastmaster’s hand, as is the suggestion in the manual, and feeling completely defeated, sat down.

As I drove home from downtown Chicago to my north side home, I tried to remind myself of the sixth century poet Caedmon. (Never having gone to college, I really enjoy listening to tapes in my car from the Great Learning Company and had just finished up 22 tapes on the History of the English Language with a Professor Lucas from Texas.) Caedmon, Professor Lucas lectured, had written the earliest English poem in existence. He was a shy sixth century cow herder, well into adulthood, who, when the party got too boisterous and drinking too heavy and was requested to make up a poem and recite, like everyone else did, fled the hall and stayed in his barn alone with his cattle. Bede, a monk, who a century later wrote about Caedmon, said that through a dream God intervened and gave this incredibly shy guy the ability to write really beautiful poems and speak them in front of big crowds. I recited a few lines, I had memorized in Old English:

Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard -

Meotodes meahte and his modgepanc

Uerc uuldurfadur-- sue he uundra

I couldn’t remember what it meant; I just really wished I could be like him.

So, I got home that night and decided to cheer myself up with cooking this recipe the speaker following me handed out and talked about in his Level #4 speech- Persuade me. And, you know, he really persuaded me. He gave this super talk on the making of this thing called risotto and gave us each a packet of it. I marched into my kitchen ready to tackle the job.

As I poured water over this packet of risotto, I peered from the kitchen window and could see my next door neighbor’s deck. A bowl and spoon that had sat on the white plastic table the last seven days was still there. A “Go-Bulls” beach towel had blown into their scraggily looking apple tree. I placed the risotto on the stove and waited for it to boil. (The speaker talked a lot about making sure all the water was gone before you ate the risotto. I planned on following his directions.)

I opened my sliding glass door—smudged a little already—to let in the city noises and polluted night air. (I have to say here that I kind of like the smell of pollution, even exhaust fumes. Dodge Center has three churches, two bars, one store and a gas station. It is surrounded by huge fields of corn and soy bean crops and mostly clear air. I still can’t get over peering out my windows and not seeing a field!) I could hear loud voices: a man and woman, my next-door neighbors. They were arguing. I still had never seen them. They must have been sitting beneath their deck in their small backyard. I heard:

He – Fuck. No! I did not do any tonight. I told you I’m not doing it. C’mon. C’mere—c’mon, give me a kiss baby. C’mon.

She – (Noises that I think sounded like she was kissing him.) I don’t want you to go on this tour. It’s too soon. We just found out.

He - If I don’t go I’ll get kicked out of the band. Start all over. Shit, Julie. Is that what you want? Is that really what you want?

She - No. No -- It’s just I still am so scared. What if something happens?

He – What could happen! (Loud noise like a chair going over.) Christ, you make a big fucking deal out of every goddamn thing Julie.

She - You don’t fucking get it you motherfucker. (Shouting) You’re his fucking father! Aren’t you remotely worried? (Runs into the house, door slams.)

He – (Yells) Bitch! (Noise of lawn chair being kicked several times.)

I quietly slid the door closed. Oh boy. Oh boy. I walked back to my stove and stirred the risotto. Maybe I had moved into the wrong neighborhood. I couldn’t help but remember my Mom’s impression of some my neighbors when she came down to visit several weeks ago. She had gotten out of my Lexus and first noticed the dirty green house which was on the other side of mine. On the porch sat a gray haired, haggard looking woman – maybe in her late 50’s—surrounded by six or seven yellow-haired, dirty children. Her front yard was littered with papers, beer cans, and cigarette butts. My mother gasped as the young children ran too close to the busy street. Then a baby – no more than two years old—went wobbling past us down the sidewalk. The grey-haired lady didn’t even look his way.

“Why didn’t you buy in another neighborhood, Leify, if you have to live in this filthy city? Why not the Swedish neighborhood we read about?

“Andersonville?”

“Yes, Leif.” I was helping her up my new front porch, hoping she would notice the gold paint inlay of my own front windows, “Why did you pick here?”
As we walked up my steps, I sort of glanced at the gray-haired; well I’ll just say it, old crone, who was no more than three feet away from us. (The houses in this city are very close to each other. My dining room windows look directly into the green house dining room. ) The crone didn’t even say hello. I heard a screech of tires behind me. My mom and I twirled around and saw the baby being snatched out of harm’s way by – excuse my language—a snot-nosed seven year old. My mother looked at me and said, “You’ll regret this idea Leif Ericsson. Moving from Dodge Center to the ghetto. This was a bad idea.” Lord. Lord. Good thing she had not just heard the man and woman’s loud fight!

The risotto was done and I wiped away at some drops of water on my granite counter. Sometimes I wonder if I have a way out of proportion pride in this house. Since I was a boy, I really wanted a home of my own. My mom and I had always lived with relatives, or rented parts of homes in the southern Minnesota region, and I was always being told to “be careful, don’t bang, don’t walk heavy on the floor – stop moving. No! We cannot hang anything on the walls.” My father had left when I was two, so that’s why we had the rental situation. (And I really have no memory of him. My mom said he was nothing special, just a ne’er-do-well from North Dakota. She’s always sort of teary though when I ask about him, and reminds me to look for a girl who is practical and from Minnesota.) Anyway, here in Chicago I had, so far -- as they say -- rolled it in. I had bought my Mother a nice condo in Rochester near the Mayo Clinic, moved out of the trailer I had been renting, and at last had my own remodeled home here on Chicago’s north side.

I peered again out my sliding glass deck door to see if the man was still out there. All I heard was the El train roaring by and some wonderful Mexican music down the street. I sat down on my high stool that matches the kitchen wood work and looked at my large modern kitchen. I began to eat the risotto. It tasted very different. What an adventure! I thought. I ate the risotto, washed up the dish and pan, and went to bed.

The next day, I was teased again at work by my fellow traders for not going out and drinking with them and for being so fastidious. I am organized and focused at what I do. I don’t feel like going out for beers, smoking, or ogling women at break time. I don’t swear. I like to work. Is there anything wrong with that? I returned home at 4:00 p.m. (I work from 6:00 to 3:30. That way I can reach Japan before it closes.) And I guess this is where this love story actually begins.

I was sitting at my carved-by the-Amish oak dinging room table, leafing through several house improvement manuals (Successful Homebuilding and Remodeling, Roof and Siding for the Common Man, and Basic Home Repairs—Illustrated), just real interested to figure out how to re-finish the parquet floor just in case it became damaged, when I heard a bang, bang, bang noise. -- Nervous that the white-trash-dirty-green-house gang had decided to play with guns that day, I jerked to my feet. – “Bang, bang, bang.” I realized the noise was coming from the white house on the left. My dining room, as I have said, looks somewhat into their kitchen and dining room. (I was already planning a sort of crushed green and gold velvet drapery to take care of this problem.)

I looked into their kitchen window, which was two feet away, and saw a baby – well, really—a toddler—dark-haired and olive skinned, with a running nose, staring out at me. In his hand was one of those children’s bright red plastic hammers. He was pounding on his glass window with quite a heavy hand. I sat down and tried to continue. I read: A parquet floor consists of an inlaid mosaic of wood, horizontal and--- Bang, bang, bang again. Where the heck was that boy’s mother?

I began to think my Mom was possibly right: this neighborhood was a bad choice – when I noticed the baby smile out to me. Well, okay. I looked at his big gummy smile, his running nose, and his fat-fist holding the plastic hammer, and I’ll say it. – I don’t especially know anything about babies, but he was a charmer. I stood up close, right next to my dining room window – and faced the boy directly. What does a 34 year old guy do with a toddler? I hadn’t been around little kids -- mostly we had stayed with my elderly relatives -- so I didn’t know what to do. “Bang, bang, bang.” I needed to think quickly. I placed my hand over my eyes and quickly removed them, and mouthed, “Peek-a-boo!” The boy stopped hammering as if stunned. I mutely repeated the whole operation ending in “Peek-a-boo!” He smiled. I moved to the side of my window and then leaped to the center and mouthed “Peek-a-boo!” He barked out a laugh that I could faintly hear through our two closed windows. I crouched now, underneath my window and popped up, -- “Peek-a-boo!” bursting from my lips. He no longer stood there. A beautiful woman stood staring at me. She had black wavy hair, dark eyes, dark skin and red, red lips. Definitely not Swedish. I stared. I knew I looked a little playful, but the next thing she did – gave me the finger!—wasn’t necessary. I fled to the kitchen.

I sat at my kitchen counter and panted with embarrassment. Peek-a-boo, Peek-a-boo. My gosh. What does she think of me! – was all my humiliated mind could formulate. Oh, heck. Oh, heck. My next project, I decided, wasn’t the parquet floor, but, definitely getting up the curtains.

That night, from my upstairs windows (which I am glad to say had shades) I peered out my bedroom window to check on my wainscoting. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see a portion of the beautiful woman’s bedroom (I assumed it was hers; it had a double bed, a dresser, books—it looked adult), and a sliver of a bathroom, showing a glimpse of a blue shower curtain. I walked into my bathroom and looked out its small window. I could see into another bedroom with a child’s baby bed, stuffed animals, scattered clothes and diapers (sort of a mess). Before I turned away, I caught my reflection in my window. I looked strange. I am blonde, blue eyed, and tall. Yes, I have the features of a handsome man, but somehow I never come off as handsome. I peered at my disappointing reflection when I noticed someone go into the beautiful woman’s bedroom. It was the beautiful woman. She was wearing only a long t- shirt and was holding her baby in her arms. She looked—for a second it seemed—directly at me. I flung myself away from the window, slipped and fell over the side of my tub, and cracked my elbow on the ceramic floor. I stifled a scream, and at the same time noticed this loose base board under my sink that would need some fixing. I crawled, in pain and embarrassment, out of the bathroom.

The next afternoon, after doing well downtown – the market was good – I decided to measure the windows for curtains. On inspection, I realized a screen had been slightly torn out of its frame. I opened the window and heard Julie, the beautiful woman, speaking. What a voice: low, rich, open – nothing practical and Minnesotan about it. I took a quick peek and glanced into her kitchen. She was sitting on a chair at her table, her long wavy hair reaching almost to her backside, talking really passionately – to no one!

She said something like: It is you who are stupid Olya. I love him . . . that is my destiny . . . . That is my fate. And he loves me . . . . I love Vershinin . . . My darlings, my sweet sisters . . . . I’ve confessed and now I’ll say no more . . . Silence. Silence.

Oddly, then she took a sip of water, stood in place and jumped up and down. Then she sat down and repeated the above phrases very movingly (hand gestures and so forth). She did that three times. My God, what in the world, I thought, lowlifes in the green house on one side of me, and a woman with echolalia in the white house on the other?

Then oddly, as luck would have it, two days later I accidentally received her mail (3028 Cornelia) instead of mine, (3026Cornelia), and saw all sorts of letter from “Theater this” and “Stages that” and Screen Actors Guild and so I understood she must be an actress.

I walked over, to put her mail into her box, when her front door flew open. A big man, around my age, with red hair, a goatee, and a ripped untidy t-shirt burst out and stared at me.

I swallowed. Darn it, I could not speak! I held up the mail. He took it and said “Oh, thanks.”

I sputtered and got out, “I -- Leif---”

“What?” He looked puzzled.

“I’m Leif -- like safe.” I jerked my hand toward my house.

“Oh.”

I giggled. How I hated when I giggled from nervousness. What was wrongwith me?

“Okay, thanks. Yeah, I’m Jonah.” He reached out his hand and squeezed mine. I squeezed back.

“Uh . . . thanks.”

He went to shut the door, but before he could, I rushed out with “Is-is, umm, is there much of a weed problem in your backyard?”

“What?”

“I-I was wondering—do you have weeds, dandelions . . . . I seem to be getting some.. I wondered if they were from your –“

“Look, Leaf,” his nostrils flared and I wished I had not asked him, “I’m busy now. I don’t know a thing about weeds, okay? This ain’t the suburbs, bro.”

With that he slammed the door

Two days later I again heard Julie. I was sanding away some faint scuff marks in my great room, ready to varnish and I needed some fresh air. I opened my window. She was in her kitchen with her windows open (this being the end of May, we Chicagoans could safely hope we had seen the last of the snow), and she was feeding the baby in its high chair. (I had glanced out my window to see if any debris had blown into my gangway.) I heard her voice and peeked into her kitchen.

“Stan . . . . Stanny . . . Here it comes—Open. Open up. Good Stanley. Good, Stanley.”

Stanley! What an awful name for a child. I thought Leif was bad. She continued.

“You are the cutest, the bravest, the most wonderful Stan!” Again the baby gurgled and smiled and allowed food to be plopped into his mouth.

Then she stood back and began declaiming, in a huge booming voice: “Set down, set down thy honorable load/ If honor may be shrouded in a hearse/ whilst I awhile obsequiously lament/ the untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.” She fell to her knees and pretended to bawl with big wah-wah noises. The baby loved it and gurgled with laughter. The woman took out a wine glass and a bottle of red wine and poured herself a full glass. She drank it. My Gosh, I thought, in the morning!

The next thing that happened nearly knocked me over. This loving mother, or so it seemed, took fat-baby Stanley’s hand and pressed down on one finger with what seemed the sharp needle-tip of a white fountain pen. Little Stanley froze, turned reddish, screamed and frantically shoved back in his high chair. I hovered at the window in shock. Then, horribly, she pressed this bloody little finger on what seemed like a flat square calculator device. I was so upset my breath was fogging my raised window-pane. Lord, what was going on? She crooned, lovingly to the now-sobbing baby, “Just this time Stanley. I know it hurts. I know it hurts.” She patted his back and kissed his fat cheeks. She flung her long hair to one side, and I could see her face. She was crying. She looked down at the square device with the baby’s blood on it, and walked to the refrigerator. She pulled out a small bottle and a syringe. Ah, ah, ah.

I slumped and sat on the floor and watched. Was it diabetes? Was that possible for someone so young? My Grandmother, who lived in Duluth, had been a diabetic. Many a visit I recall almost gagging on my underdone eggs as my ancient grandmother, sitting across from me, would prepare a shot (swabbing a piece of cloth soaked in alcohol over the insulin bottle, plunging a huge hypodermic into it, pulling it out, lifting her dress way up so I couldn’t help but see her crepey looking thigh, and plunging the shot in. I still have problems with eggs.) Little Stanley was a diabetic? I did not know babies could even be diabetics. I thought it occurred only in hideously old overweight people.

I peeked back into their kitchen. The woman had picked up the phone and was talking to someone while continuing to roll the syringe back and forth in her thumb and forefinger. Stanley seemed to be settling down a little as he sucked on a bagel, but Julie, talking on the phone, seemed more and more agitated. I could hear her say, crying still, “Yes. Yes.I fed Stanley. I did figure out his fucking carbs and grams.” She began getting louder. “Yes. I tried. . . . . I can’t do it. . . . No, I can’t. . . . . No, I can’t, Jonah. I know I can’t. I just can’t give it to him. I thought I could, but I can’t. – Please, please come home. . . . . Tell them something. Tell them the truth. Just tell them the truth. . . . . Please? Just this time?” She was sobbing now. “Just today you give it, and then I promise to start doing it. Jonah, please.”

My fists were clenched. I was sitting on my paintbrush and getting varnish on my pants, but I couldn’t move. “You selfish motherfucker, I never ever should’ve had a baby with you. I can’t count on you for anything. . . . What? Wait, wait. No, no, no --- sorry. Stay on the line.-- Sorry, I am sorry I said that. No, I am. I am so sorry. Please stay on the line, baby? Please. Please. Okay, okay-- I’ll do it.” She set the phone down and walked towards the baby. Stanley, now eating again, was his happy gurgling self. Julie moved stiffly, flung her hair back, reached for her wine glass and drank to the bottom. Then she bent and kissed the baby on the cheek. “What a good, good, baby you are Stanley.”

She grabbed his arm and said, “Now, hold still. Look at Mommy’s hair --,” the baby scrunched up, flailed its arms and screamed. Julie tried reciting again for the baby. The baby howled. She did a little hopping dance and then tried to reach for his arm. He screamed very loudly. She screamed “Shit!”and just grabbed his arm. She held the syringe high, ready to plunge it in. The baby arched and wriggled. The struggle the kid put up was amazing. She put one hand over her eyes and began weeping loudly, at the same time holding this syringe in her fingers really carefully.

I don’t know what came over me, but I stood up and banged on my window. No one heard. I grabbed a spoon off my table and tapped hard. She glanced at the window and saw me. I gestured and mouthed “Look here.” She just stared out at me. I repeated it a couple of times and then she nodded and began pointing at me. I waved furiously. I jumped up and down. Then I remembered what he liked and began to do Peek-a-boo. Stanley looked a little stunned, but at least he was sort of holding still. I could see the woman take his other arm, and aim the shot at it. It looked like she was shutting her damn eyes. I banged on the window. She opened her eyes up. I gave her the thumbs up sign. She held the shot up, but I could see her hand was shaky. I kept on giving her the thumbs up sign. She plunged it down into his fat little arm. I could barely look. When I did look, the shot was just stuck there. Stanley began to scream. She screamed, ripped it out and flung it behind her. She crossed over to the kitchen window and pulled down the blind.

That night I had a weird dream. I dreamt the Chicago Board of trade was in the cornfield next to the trailer I used to rent. As I sat at my computer, at the Chicago Board of Trade, in the cornfield, I could hear this soft moan. In the dream I stood up, thinking a cow had gotten loose and fallen over. But suddenly I was now crammed in the bottom of a Viking long ship. Thirty or forty really huge, huge, hairy Vikings in tunics and leggings were rowing, and we were in horrible weather -- cornfields and the Board of Trade were gone. I could hear the moaning again. Where was the cow, I wondered? Water was spraying into the boat, the wind was howling, and I felt pretty darned scared. I heard the moaning again. Where was it coming from? I looked at this small bundle near me and picked it up. It felt like a baby. I pulled back the material that was covering it and it just disintegrated, like a heap of oatmeal. Next, this massive, giant Viking leapt up and came tearing towards me, really rocking the boat. He screamed out Nu sculon herigeanand came closer and closer. It was terrifying. I jerked myself awake. I huffed with fear. After my heart settled down a bit, I could still hear the low moan and I sat up. The moan kept repeating itself. I looked toward my open window and saw Julie’s bedroom window. The sound heightened and heightened. I leapt up, closed my window and locked it. Then I turned on my nightstand lamp, had a sip of water that I always bring to bed with me, and picked up my Basic Home Repairs book. I turned to the chapter: “Plumbing Do’s.” Stupidly, I could not get into the chapter and just sat up for awhile and wondered about re-staining my bedroom door.

The next morning being Saturday, I mowed my back and front lawns. I noticed I seemed to be the only neighbor on the block interested in true lawn care. After a lot of internal debate I decided to go ahead and mow Julie’s front lawn as well. (I rationalized that I helped out neighbors in Dodge Center all the time, and they were always very grateful for my efforts. And it seemed like Julie might need a little help. ) After I did their front lawn, I went on to weed, re-fertilize, and water my own. That job done, I went inside to begin my work on Speech # 2 – Getting the Information Out. I’d thought of a title called “Harrowing Vacations Not to Take in Minnesota.” In this speech, I was supposed to give information but also be entertaining and use a lot of vocal variety. This seemed like quite a challenge. I stood in the center of my great room and began to practice:

My speech tonight is about a vacation spot in Minnesota that could break the very spirit (here I decided to pitch my voice high} if not the backbone (here my voice dropped very low) of you and your children. You may be thinking I am referring to some exotic Club Med den of vice, or perhaps you think I am referring to some dangerous beachfront satanic cult getaway. NO! (I shouted and help my hand up in a stop gesture) -- Brace yourselves. (I lowered my voice almost to a whisper.) I am referring to Paul Bunyanland in Brainard, Minnesota!

I chuckled to myself at this humorous introduction. (In Toastmasters they give out hints to the speech makers: Hint #1 – Start with an attention grabber or humorous anecdote. I hoped I had.) As I said, I was chuckling at my comparison to Paul Bunyanland and the Satanic Cult (which still seems funny to me, although it once again met with a grim silence from my fellow Toastmasters), so I did not hear anyone come up my front porch steps.

My doorbell rang.

I had not had company since my mother’s visit. I glanced around my great room and nodded with approval. It looked okay. I walked to the front door and pulled it open. Julie stood there. She had on a backless halter top and itty bitty shorts. Her breasts and stomach peeped from her outfit. She was holding Stanley and she smiled at me. Darn it, I couldn’t talk.

I nodded my head and motioned for her to come in and she moved several inches into my front foyer.

“Hey, y’don’t need to mow my lawn.” She moved the baby to her other hip.

I was strangling. Her beauty, her perfume, her hair, -- I could not talk! Luckily, Stan decided to wiggle out of her arms and run across my great room floor. He knocked over a gold wire figure I had bought through e-bay and flung his bottle of chocolate milk onto my blue-crush velvet couch. Then he toddled over to the window that faced his house. He began pounding.

She smiled, “He remembers.” Oh my gosh, she was pretty.

I tried to respond, “Ahoo—“

“Your peek-a-boo game.”

I nodded. I could do no more than that. I blushed. I tried not to pant.

“Look, I don’t want to come off as a total bitch.” She smiled. She had a slight double chin and dimples. “I’m Julie and this little hellion is Stan.” She held out her hand to me.

I reached out and shook it. What a soft, little hand. I nearly groaned. I managed to get out, “Oh . . . So nice . . . . Sit . . . “ I was simply strangling with nerves.

She moved to my couch, and picked up the baby bottle. Beads of chocolate milk had sprayed across the surface. She turned her head around looking for something to wipe it with.

“S’nothing . . .” I gasped out like a raving idiot.

“What’s your name?” Stanley had now joined her on the couch. Saliva dripped in one long string out of his mouth and down to my gleaming floor.

I was able to make a sound, “Leif.”

“Safe?”

“No . . . . Leif.” Perspiration began beading on my forehead.

“I heard you speaking just before. Did I interrupt you?”

I just stared dumbly at her as she talked.

“Leif?”

I prayed. I prayed to God, Caedmon, and any dead and once-lonely Minnesotan farmers to give me speech. I half whispered, half spoke, “Y’yes, I . . . give --- speech.”

“Oh, really!” Stanley was pulling all of my carefully arranged magazines off my marble coffee table. Then he stepped on one and ripped a page out. Julie tried to snatch him. She finally grabbed him and said, “Stanley, cut the crap. You boopy, poopy boy.”

Her lips came forward and she kissed the baby.

Stanley escaped from her arms and ran over to me. He wrapped his sticky hands around my leg and held on. I didn’t exactly know what to do, but I reached down and patted his head several times. He just stayed there, so I picked him up. He leaned his face up against mine. I felt slobber on my cheek.

“Stanny, c’mere. Leave our new neighbor alone.”

Julie crossed her nearly bare legs. Stanley bumped his head on mine and then grabbed my hair. He began to lean his full toddler weight back and away from me, and if I had not thought quickly, he would have fallen out of my arms. I pushed him closely back to my chest. Again, he repeated this whole leaning back and me responding over again. Julie laughed. As I grappled with the baby, I remembered my duties as a host.

I was able to avoid stammering and got out “Drink?”

She said, “Oh, no thanks Leif. -- Leif. What an interesting name.” She seemed to contemplate that for a few seconds and looked into the distance, really dramatic. Then she said, “I just came over to tell you, you don’t have to do our lawn too. My guy would be pissed if he knew you did it.” She slid her long legs snugly next to her on the couch. (I noticed she kept her sandals on and they were on my new blue couch!)

I nodded my head and said, “Oh.” Stanley was pushing my cheeks in and out. Oddly, this seemed to help my nerves, and I felt I was appearing more normal.

“I just don’t like people doing things for me.” She paused again and thought. I waited but she didn’t say anything. Finally she came back to life and said, “ I mean, really, my boyfriend doesn’t like it I mean, I just --” she clasped her two hands in front of her lips and looked sort of pained and paused again. (People in Dodge Center do not take long pauses. She was so unusual.) She started up again, “Wow! That’s the first time I called Jonah my boyfriend. We’ve been together for awhile but we never really named what we are. You know? I always thought it was— we’re both artists, that sort of thing . . ., (she paused again and seemed to drift in her thoughts and slid her fingers through her beautiful hair), but y’know the baby and all . . . . ” (She stopped again. But it was like she was still talking, she was so thoughtful and interesting in these silences. Her face was arched and you could really see she was thinking and seemed to yearn to understand something. She was something. No one in Dodge Center, I mean no one ever took this much thought while talking.) “--Oh, I forgot, and thanks for helping me the other day. I don’t know what you must think --”

I jerked out, “No, no—no.” I figured I would just say no until I drove this pretty woman from my house. Why was I so nervous?

She cut in, “I just don’t handle, well,” again a really interesting big pause, and finally, “help -- from other -- people.” She proceeded then to tell me her history with men who she thought were going to help her. She told me she always picked assholes for boyfriends, or drug addicts, or even once a cross dresser (I wanted to ask her what that is), and, plus, on top of all these bad not-helpful boyfriends she used to have bulimia, but now she had accepted her body. Finally, she found she was really good at theater and had done a super lot in Chicago. But then she stopped telling me her history, looked at me hard, and said the real shocker: “Hey, know what Leif? I could use a friend that’s helpful. Wanna be my friend?”

What could I say?

People in Dodge Center who live next to each other for 30 years don’t think of each other as friends. I felt very ill-at-ease at being asked this question, but I nodded anyway.

She laughed, yawned and stretched her beautiful body and said, “So, let me first help you. You’re working on a speech?”

“Oh --- yah, sure.” Was I going to begin talking Minnesotan? I blushed and continued, “I joined this speech club—Toastmasters.”

She giggled. Stanley bent over and I put him on the ground. He wobbled to his mother. “Do you want to do it?”

“Pardon?” My eyes opened wide.

“Your speech.” She swung her long hair out of her face. Stanley began crawling on top of a magazine he had thrown on the floor.

“Oh. I-I think I am – too nervous to do it in front of anybody.” This struck Julie as hilarious. She began to laugh, a beautiful laugh – she even snorted. Stanley looked at his mom and began to giggle which caused a gas noise to emit.

“C’mon. Being in the theater, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

She stood up. I quaked. “I’m gonna try and loosen your larynx. It’s a trick we have.” She proceeded to stand behind me and wrapped her hands around my neck. I thought I’d die. I mean happily die. She then made soft circular motions with her fingers that both relaxed me and felt like slow strangulation. Drool almost started to leak from my mouth. She stopped moving her fingers, and just held my neck. We were so close I could feel her actually pressing into my back. She whispered, “Okay, now, just do the first line of your speech.—C’mon. I know you have it memorized. I’ve been hearing it—Paul Bunyanland, right?” She giggled.

I blushed. Gosh almightily, I thought, I am so ridiculous. She came around and grabbed me by my arms and positioned me in front of my fireplace. “Begin.” She held her arms up and out towards me, really theatrical, and nodded her head and stared hard at me. I began:

“My speech tonight is about a vacation spot in Minnesota –“

I heard a hissing sound. We both quickly turned our heads. Stanley had taken off his diaper and was peeing on the area of the parquet floor I had recently sanded. Julie lunged for him and said “Fuck!” I gasped. She picked the baby up and said “Shit, Stanley keep it in your pants at least.” She turned towards me and winked and headed for the door. She said on her way out “I’ll be back to help you when Stanley takes his nap. Okay?”

They left my house and I closed my front door.

I could not move for a little while.

During the next several weeks we saw each other often. Julie and Stanley seemed to adopt my front porch and bench as a favorite place. I did not mind.

I asked her about the diabetes thing. She said that Stanley had just recently been diagnosed with it. She told me that mostly Jonah gave the shots; she really couldn’t get used to the idea of sticking a needle into her baby. She didn’t talk very much more about it, but I’d hear Jonah and Julie fighting about it at times in the backyard. Jonah was going to leave soon with his band for his tour, and he always told Julie the diabetes was no big deal and Julie was a drama queen, and Julie, a lot of times would be teary eyed and sort of on the brink of hysteria and tell him “You’re killing me and your killing my child with your indifference, you asshole.”

Many a time she came over almost-drunk with Stanley in her arms. She would tell me she was having a nervous breakdown, but then we would have a nice time visiting, or I would make sandwiches and she seemed sort of okay. But all in all she drank too much. She was having a hard time coping with the baby’s disease. Sometimes I would play with Stanley as Julie went back home to, as she said, “sleep it off.”

But I had a friend. I had a friend I could sort of talk to. I had a friend who was an actress. Never, never, never, as I sat in my trailer in Dodge Center, looking out at the fields would I have conceived of the good fortune I had here in Chicago.

Julie allowed me to mow her front and even her back lawn. (She would not let me weed.) Several times she went to auditions in the evening, and asked me to watch Stanley. So Stanley would hang out with me, and he really loved the snake I used to clog drains. We went around and did home repairs. (Or I tried to.) He was just an all around sweet fella. Sometimes he’d whine and fuss and we’d just leave the home projects and go for a walk around the block, but he was very good natured. I always wanted to take him to the ice cream place, but Julie told me I would have to give him a shot, and I knew I could not do that

Jonah left on his tour. I heard no more moans.

I couldn’t resist sometimes, late at night, opening my window and looking at Julie’s bedroom. I could hear the hum of my other neighbors’ air conditioners, an occasional hood type of guy racing down the block with music blaring, and then finally quiet. I am ashamed to say that I wondered what she looked like sleeping over there in her room. What position did she lie in? What did she wear? I imagined myself lying next to her, smiling at her, telling her my thoughts, kissing her—. Then her lights would go on, and I knew she was going into Stanley’s room to do a finger stick. (She had shown me the device she does this with. It’s called a glucometer—really an amazing thing. I told her I might want to invest in diabetes medical supplies. I asked her who the insulin and glucometer manufacturers were. She shook her head and laughed at me.)

So I would peer out my window until she finished with the baby, and then returned to her room, and switched off her light. One night, I actually blew her a kiss after the lights went out. (I realize this sounds so ridiculous, but I have had an amazingly limited dating life because of my stupid speaking problem.) I could hear all the city noises and an airplane going overhead on its way to O’Hare, heavy metal music from a party down the street and the hum of window air conditioners. I felt sort of weird that night. It reminded me a little of being in my trailer at night and looking at the corn fields surrounding me. I mean, it was so much better than the corn fields, but I still felt a little strange.

It was now the middle of August, really hot and humid. A house was being torn down across the street and I felt like I had to clean dust off my windows every other day. I was still doing fine at work. A trio of traders from my company had done very well and they insisted we all “go out.” I avoid these outings as much as I can because of my shyness. I just have such an awful time getting into a conversation. But Julie, one hot evening, asked me why I didn’t go out more? Did I have any buddies at work? How come she hadn’t met any friends of mine?

I tried to mumble about having a new house and the upkeep and church and so forth. She told me that I should do more than church, Toastmasters and work. I wanted to impress her, so I said yes to these loud-mouthed, Chicago Board of Trade guys. We had pizza and I drank many, many beers. What I can remember of the evening is that the fellows kept on telling everyone I was a direct descendent of Leif Ericsson, and one guy from another table told us he was part Native American and would like to lay into me. There was some sort of scuffle between some of the crazier traders and the Native American table, but I finally returned home too inebriated to even wipe up the stain I happened to notice on the coffee table. I flopped into bed and passed out.

I dreamed again of being crammed into the bottom of a Viking long ship. This time the ship was surrounded by a horrible white fog. The seas were quiet; all I could hear was the sound of water lapping onto the sides of the boat. I turned my head around to see the giant terrifying Norsemen. No one was there. I was alone again. I crawled around the bottom of the boat, bumping my head on the wooden benches, desperate to find an oar. The fog was dense—really sort of suffocating. I began to scurry over the broad length of the boat, frantic now to get moving. (Where or from what I don’t know.) My bare feet stepped onto thick wadding; I bent to pick it up. I knew in the dream, even, what it was, but picked up the bundle and flicked the cover expecting it to disintegrate. Instead, it was empty. A bang-bang-bang noise came out of the quiet. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I slumped low in the boat with the empty bundle. The noise occurred again, bang-bang-bang—then quiet. It seemed to be moving closer and closer to me, growing really loud—when an enormous crashing sound woke me up and out of the dream. Drenched in sweat, I sat up. Pieces of glass were spread all over me, and my bed. I turned my head and saw that a baseball bat lay beneath my now-broken bedroom window. I jerked out of bed and stood on a sharp shard of glass. I yelped. As I bent to pull the glass from my foot, I looked directly into Julie’s window. Her lights were on; her window was open and she was looking over at me. I tried to make sense of the whole situation when I realized she was talking. I pushed open the frame of my smashed window and said, “What?”

I could hear a sort of slurred, “Help, help us.”

I still don’t know how I actually got inside of Julie’s house. I remember Julie running ahead of me up her upstairs steps, and me noticing that the bottoms of her feet were very dirty. I remember the shard of glass going deeper into my foot. I remember realizing I was only in my underwear – I felt, oddly though, no embarrassment, no nerves. I felt fear. Julie kept vomiting at various places before we got to her room. Somewhere in my mind I realized she had been drinking heavily, and for the first time I really did not like her so much. We got to her bedroom, and she pointed at a bundle on her bed. It was Stanley. . His whole baby body was arched, taut and flinching in spasms. His fat cheeks were blue, and his tongue was hanging out. I could not make out the noise coming from his closed throat at first, as Julie, on seeing him, vomited again and slumped against her dresser drawer. I then heard this unique noise that sounded like kcaaa-kcaaaa-kcaaaa coming from Stanley. He seemed like he was smothering and trying to suck in air. I froze.

I broke out of it and howled at Julie, “How long has he been like this? Did you call 911?” Julie’s nodded yes and vomited again and threw a sleek red aerodynamic looking container at me. It arched and fell into a mess of clothes besides Julie’s bed. I grabbed it. I saw EMERGENCY GLUCAGON KIT printed in white on the top of the container. My hands started shaking and I dropped it. I knelt to find it, knowing every second I took, that Stanley could be passing over. I located the red container next to a balled up sock. I snapped it open and saw a vial of white powder and a hypodermic needle filled with water. I could not look at Stanley. I could just hear his kcaaa-kcaaaa trying-to-suck-air-in sound. I felt utterly terrified. The container had four instructional pictures taped to the inside lid. My vision blurred. I screamed at myself: focus. I saw diagrams in black and white of flicking the cap off the vial of powder, taking the cap off the hypodermic, plunging the needle into the bottle with the powder, and then it said—MIX POWDER AND WATER SLOWLY IN THE HYPODERMIC. My stomach churned. Mix slowly in the hypodermic? How the hell was I supposed to do this?

I turned to Julie, “Help me Julie. I don’t know how to do this.” Julie vomited and moaned.

So, I looked over at Stan. I did not want to. He looked almost dead. Was he dead already? He was blue, his tongue was hanging out, and his little forehead was drenched in sweat. I took quick gulps of air. I forced my shaking hands to insert the hypodermic into the vial of powder. I plunged the water down into it. I then shook it as slowly as my terror would let me. I tried to draw the mixture back into the hypodermic but could see a space of air. An air bubble? Was that lethal? Stanley’s clicking noises stopped. Something clicked inside me. It was as if I left my scared self and I sank into someone else’s shoes. I summoned up this borrowed courage and leaned my body down to Stanley and shoved the shot into his fat lifeless thigh. He was no longer breathing. I waited one second. Nothing changed. I bent down and began to blow air into his closed airway. Sirens were now wailing. I blew and blew and blew into his rigid mouth, and thumped and pushed on his little chest. I heard clumping noises, as if an army was coming up Julie’s stairs. Stanley’s body seemed to slump, sink in---stop. Was he dead? Was the little guy dead? I could hear an incredibly loud rage-filled roaring noise. I noticed my mouth was opened. It was me. I roared, I growled, I hissed. I screamed. I shouted. I flung my body around and cursed, God, Leif Erickson, Caedmon, whomever. I shouted and raved and shouted. Huge firemen with outstretched arms lunged towards me. I tried to look at Stanley. His eyelids flickered, his chest heaved, and he began to wail.

Julie and I waited together in the lobby of the fifth floor of the Children’s Hospital. The doctors wanted to hook Stanley up to a continuous glucose monitor, so they had kicked us out of the room. Julie had vomit on her t-shirt and in her hair and just a pair of tights on and slippers. I had my underwear, a pair of Jonah’s shoes and his long black raincoat.

We sat on two hard chairs with one other family whose child had had an asthma attack in the night. They had had an awful night too.

Julie stirred from her chair and said, “Oh Leif.”

“Huh?” I could barely talk, my throat was raw.

“Here, hold my hand.” I held her hand. I looked down at it in mine. We both had scratches and cuts and were filthy. She held onto my hand tightly. “You went completely berserk tonight. You saved Stan. You are,” here she had a long pause, “my hero. Is it okay if I fall in love with you? I mean, really, truly fall in love with you?”

She leaned her head on my shoulder and slept. My body stiffened. I was so angry at her: at her drinking too much and being a mother, at that slob Jonah, I don’t know, at the whole darnconcept of the universe letting a child be ill. I wasn’t even sure that I desired her anymore. Of course, I knew Jonah would come back, and that Julie probably would stay with him and forget this moment happened. I knew that I would continue working as a trader at the corn-pit, and that I would continue with my struggle with my speech at Toastmasters – Speech #3 Inspire. I knew all that. But I also knew I was angry.

I got up and walked towards Stanley’s room. Other children were in metal baby beds connected to machines with parents slumped asleep in chairs next to them. The nurses moved past me, it seemed, in slow motion. I turned the corner and walked into his room. He was connected to an IV stand and had a tube taped to his arm. His arm was taped into a cast-like holder so he wouldn’t rip off the IV, I figured. He breathed, and moved his little baby face as he slept. He had color in his face now, and at one point he sort of heaved in air, really deeply, as if remembering the last bad moments. Then he whimpered and his body shook. I walked toward him and reached for his little hand. He latched onto my fingers really tightly. He slept.

This is my love story.