Part Seventeen: Flossie’s Batter

“Starting next Friday,” Grandma said, “I’m coming back to the kitchen.”

Gil stared at her.

The whole bar stared at her.

“Flossie,” Gil said. “You’re eighty-six.”

“I’m aware of how old I am, Gilbert,” Grandma said. “Thank you.”

“I can’t stand at a fryer for six hours anymore,” she said. “My hip won’t let me. But I can sit on a stool and show your cook how to make my batter.”

She looked at him.

“Leinenkugel’s,” she said. “Not light. The Original. Flour. A little paprika. And the secret.”

“What’s the secret?” Gil asked.

Grandma smiled.

“I’ll tell your cook,” she said. “Not you. You’ll put it on Facebook.”

The whole bar laughed again.

“Fresh fish,” Grandma said. “Walleye and perch from the market in Wausau. Not frozen. Fresh. Every Friday morning.”

“That costs twice as much,” Gil said.

“And you’ll sell three times as much,” Grandma said.

“Potato pancakes,” she said. “From scratch. Not the frozen ones. I’ll show your cook. They have to be grated by hand. With onion. Fried in lard.”

“Lard,” Gil said.

“Lard,” Grandma said.

“Rye bread from Mittelstaedt’s Bakery in Wausau,” she said. “Your father bought it there for thirty years. They’re still open.”

She looked at him.

“And coleslaw,” she said. “My coleslaw. Not the stuff in the tub.”

Then she picked up the pen again.

She wrote one more thing at the bottom of the menu. Under Gil’s signature.

8. Flossie gets her fish for free. Every Friday. For as long as she lives.

She set the pen down.

She looked at Gil.

“Do we have a deal, Gilbert?” she asked.

Gil stood behind his father’s bar for a long time.

His eyes were wet.

He looked at the menu. At his own handwriting. At her handwriting underneath. At the line through Close Mondays & Tuesdays.

At Fix the fish.

Then he held out his hand.

Across the bar. Over the two Coke bottles.

Grandma took it.

Her small, spotted, arthritic hand in his big, tattooed, bartender’s hand.

“Deal,” Gil said.

Part Eighteen: The Regulars

Somebody started clapping.

It was old Hank Wierzbicki. Standing at the end of the bar. Eighty-one years old. He worked at the mill for forty-three years. He’s been coming to Pliska’s every Friday since 1972.

He was clapping his big, rough hands together, slow and loud.

Then the mill guys at the end of the bar started clapping.

Then the bowlers.

Then the couples in the booths.

Then Hank walked down the bar. He stopped beside Grandma’s stool.

He reached into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet. Old brown leather, held together with a rubber band.

He took out a hundred-dollar bill.

He set it on the bar. On top of the menu.

“Prepaid fish,” Hank said. “Ten Fridays. Walleye. Flossie’s batter.”

He looked at Gil.

“I’ve been eating that frozen cod for ten years, Gil,” he said. “Out of respect for your dad.”

He grinned.

“I’d like to eat some real fish before I die,” he said.

The whole bar laughed.

Then one of the mill guys stood up. A big man named Darrell Schultz. He works second shift with Russ.

He pulled out his wallet.

“Ten Fridays,” he said. “Perch.”

He set a hundred-dollar bill on the menu.

Then a woman in one of the booths. Mrs. Kaminski. A widow. She comes every Friday with her sister.

“Two of us,” she said. “Ten Fridays.”

She set two hundred dollars on the bar.

Then the bowlers.

Then a couple I didn’t know, visiting from Stevens Point.

Then everybody.

By six o’clock, there was a pile of cash on Gil’s menu.

Twenties and fifties and hundred-dollar bills. Folded and crumpled. Prepaid fish fries.

Gil counted it with shaking hands.

Four thousand, two hundred dollars.

He stood behind the bar holding the stack of cash.

He looked out at his Friday regulars. At the faces he’d known for thirty years.

He put his hand over his eyes.

“I’ll write everybody a ticket,” he said. His voice was breaking. “A punch card. I’ll get some printed tomorrow.”

“Gil,” Hank said. “We know where you live.”

Part Nineteen: Gil and Me

Gil came around the end of the bar.

He walked over to where I was standing beside Grandma’s stool.

He stopped in front of me.

He’s six-foot-two. I’m five-four. I had to look up at him.

His face was still red. His eyes were wet.

“Shari,” he said.

“I should have asked you,” he said. “I should have called you. I knew it was Flossie’s money. I knew it was for your house.”

He looked at the floor.

“Russ said you were fine with it,” he said. “And I wanted to believe him. Because I needed it so bad.”

He looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time.

I thought about nineteen years of loans. Five hundred for the beer cooler. Two thousand for the lawyer. Twelve hundred for the taxes.

I thought about the house on Maple Avenue. The two-car garage. The apple tree.

The earnest money check I couldn’t write.

“Gil,” I said. “We lost the house.”

He closed his eyes.

“I called the realtor on Tuesday,” I said. “I told her we couldn’t make the earnest money. They sold it to somebody else on Wednesday.”

Gil didn’t say anything.

He just stood there in front of me with his eyes closed.

“I’m not saying that to hurt you,” I said. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

I took a breath.

“Pay her back,” I said. “Every dollar. On time. Every month.”

I looked at Grandma, sitting on her barstool with her Coke.

“And when you do,” I said, “we’ll find another house.”

Gil opened his eyes.

“I will,” he said. “I swear to God, Shari. On my dad.”

Part Twenty: Russ

Russ came home from second shift at eleven-thirty that night.

I was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark again. But this time, I had a cup of tea. And I wasn’t crying.

He sat down across from me.

“How did it go?” he asked quietly.

So I told him.

The two Cokes. How is it doing? Gil going red from his collar to the top of his head.

The menu. The plan. The boat and the Harley. Fix the fish.

Hank Wierzbicki and his hundred-dollar bill.

Russ put his face in his hands.

“I should have been there,” he said.

“You were at work,” I said.

“I should have been there,” Russ said again. “I should have been standing next to Grandma. Not you. It was my mistake. My brother.”

He looked up at me.

“Shar,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“Darrell called me,” Russ said. “On my break. At the mill. He told me what happened.”

He swallowed.

“He told me about Gil going red,” he said. “He told me about Grandma’s Coke.”

Russ shook his head slowly.

“I’ve never seen Gil embarrassed in my whole life,” he said. “Not once. Not when Mom left. Not when Dad died.”

“And he did it,” Russ said, “because of me. Because I never told him no.”

He reached across the table. He took my hand.

“I’m going to learn how,” he said. “To tell him no. I’m going to call Dr. Hanson’s office on Monday. The counselor. The one at the church.”

He looked at me.

“Will you come with me?” he asked.

I looked at my husband.

At his sad brown eyes. At his big rough hands holding mine across the kitchen table.

At nineteen years of a good man who never once told his big brother no.

“Yes,” I said.

Then I said one more thing.

“And Russ,” I said. “From now on, I’m doing the bills.”

He laughed. A real laugh. The first one in two weeks.

“That’s fair,” he said.

 

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