Part Nine: Sheepshead

The next morning, I drove to Grandma’s and told her the truth.

She lives in a little white house on Jefferson Street. Two bedrooms. A front porch with a swing. A kitchen that hasn’t changed since 1972.

Every Saturday morning, she plays sheepshead with three ladies from church. It’s a card game. A Wisconsin thing. Nobody outside the state has ever heard of it.

They were at her kitchen table when I knocked on the back door.

Grandma looked up from her cards.

She saw my face.

She looked at the three ladies.

“Girls,” she said. “Let’s call it for today.”

The ladies left. Mrs. Kowalczyk and Mrs. Zielinski and Mrs. Becker. They patted my arm on the way out. They didn’t ask questions.

Grandma didn’t put down her cards.

She just nodded at the chair across from her.

“Sit, honey,” she said.

I sat.

I told her everything.

The house on Maple Avenue. The two-car garage. The earnest money. The teller computer. $812.47.

The walk-in cooler. The property taxes. The beer distributor.

Russ at the kitchen table in the dark. I was going to pay it back before you ever knew.

She listened with her sheepshead cards still in her hand.

She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t say anything at all.

When I was done, she was quiet for a long time.

Then she laid her cards face down on the table.

One at a time. Neatly. Squaring the edges.

“Friday,” she said.

I stared at her.

“Friday?”

“You’ll drive,” Grandma said. “I’ll wear my good coat.”

“Grandma,” I said. “What are you going to do?”

She looked at me over her reading glasses.

“I’m going to have a Coke,” she said. “At Pliska’s Tap. On fish night.”

She picked up her coffee cup.

“And I’m going to ask Gilbert how my money is doing,” she said.

Part Ten: Russ Knows

I told Russ that night.

He was getting ready for second shift. Packing his lunch at the kitchen counter. Bologna sandwich and an apple and a thermos of coffee.

“Grandma wants to go to the bar,” I said. “On Friday. During fish fry.”

He stopped packing.

“Why?” he said.

“To ask Gil about the money,” I said. “In person.”

Russ looked at me for a long time.

I thought he’d argue. I thought he’d say, Don’t do that. Don’t embarrass him. Not in front of his regulars.

I thought he’d call Gil and warn him.

He didn’t.

He just stood there with his bologna sandwich in his hand.

Then he nodded.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

“Okay?” I said.

He set the sandwich down.

“She’s the only one who’s got the right to ask,” he said. “It was her money. Her husband’s land.”

He looked at me.

“I won’t stop her, Shar,” he said. “I don’t have the right to stop her.”

He knew we were going.

He didn’t try to stop us.

He didn’t call Gil.

Part Eleven: Friday

On Friday, I picked Grandma up at four-thirty.

She was waiting on her front porch swing in her royal blue wool coat. Her pearl earrings. Her white curls set that morning.

She had her purse on her lap. A black leather one with a gold clasp.

She got into my car without saying a word.

We drove six blocks to Second and Clark.

The parking lot was already half full. Fish night starts at four-thirty at Pliska’s. The early crowd comes right after the day shift lets out at the mill.

I parked by the side door. I came around to help her out.

She took my arm.

“Walk me in, honey,” she said.

We walked in through the front door.

Pliska’s Tap hasn’t changed much since 1971.

Dark wood paneling. A long oak bar with brass rails. A row of red vinyl stools. Booths along the wall with Formica tables. A pool table in the back with a tear in the felt. A jukebox that still takes quarters.

Stan Pliska’s Army discharge papers still hang in a frame behind the bar. Next to a photograph of Stan in 1971, grinning, holding up a walleye the size of his arm.

The whole place smelled like fried fish and beer and fifty years of cigarette smoke soaked into the wood.

Grandma walked to the center of the bar.

She stopped in front of the stool right in front of the beer taps.

I helped her up onto it.

Gil was at the other end of the bar, pouring a Leinie’s for one of the mill guys.

He looked up.

He saw her.

He finished pouring the beer. He set it down.

He walked down the bar. Slowly. Wiping his hands on a dish towel.

He stopped in front of her.

“Mrs. Duda,” he said.

He was smiling. The bartender smile. The one he gives everybody.

But his eyes went to me. And back to her.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

“Two Cokes,” Grandma said. “In the glass bottles. If you still have them.”

“We still have them,” Gil said.

He reached into the cooler under the bar. He pulled out two glass bottles of Coca-Cola. He popped the caps off with the bottle opener screwed to the side of the bar.

He set them in front of her.

Then he stood there. Holding his dish towel.

Waiting.

Part Twelve: How Is It Doing

Gil froze behind the bar with the dish towel in his hand.

He knew. I could see it on his face. The second she asked for two Cokes, he knew.

The early crowd was already in.

The tables behind us went quiet. One at a time.

The men at the end of the bar stopped eating and stared.

Gil set the dish towel down.

“Mrs. Duda,” he said. “I didn’t know you were coming in.”

“I know, honey,” Grandma said.

She picked up one of the Coke bottles.

“That’s why I came,” she said.

Somebody’s fork hit a plate.

The sound rang out across the silent bar like a bell.

“Russ tells me you’ve had my money since November,” Grandma said.

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. Every person in that bar could hear her.

“Forty-three thousand dollars,” she said. “For my granddaughter’s house.”

She took a small sip from the bottle.

She set it down on the bar. Carefully. On a cocktail napkin.

“So,” she said. “How is it doing?”

Gil went red from his collar to the top of his head.

He’s fifty years old. Big. Barrel-chested. A thick neck and a gray goatee and arms covered in faded tattoos. He’s been behind that bar for thirty years. He’s thrown out drunks twice his size. He’s broken up fights in the parking lot.

He went red like a schoolboy.

He looked at me.

I did not look away.

“Russ said Shari was fine with it,” he said quietly.

“Shari was never asked,” Grandma said. “And neither was I.”

 

Click here to continue reading PART 4: My Husband Secretly Gave His Brother the $43,000 Grandma Gave Us for a House, but She Found Out and Confronted Him