Tom Robbins - B Is for Beer

If it is the ambition of every Pop-Tart to be eaten and enjoyed, there was one in the Perkel household that was destined to exist in vain. Gracie left the table without touching a single bite of breakfast. Back to her room she scurried, closed the door, and flopped onto the bed. So deeply did she bury her face in the white pillowcase you might have believed that above the neck she was one of those Egyptian mummies (though of Egypt we should probably say no more). Soon her pillow was as soaked as if it had been left out in the yard.

Do you think she was overreacting? Could her disappointment really have been that horrible? No, Gracie was no crybaby wimp. Furthermore, she was hardly a stranger to disappointment as her daddy was forever — forever! forever! — promising to take her places, to play games with her or buy her things, only to forget about it when the time came. What had upset Gracie, what had gotten her so worked up, was not so much disappointment as it was embarrassment and humiliation.

She was only five (okay, almost six) but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that no beer can was heavy enough to injure a grown man’s foot by falling on it. Maybe it was her mother, maybe it was Uncle Moe, maybe it was both of them together, but somebody was fibbing in order to shame her. Somebody she loved was making cruel fun of her, undoubtedly because of all that interest she had shown in beer on Saturday; and probably, too, for having mentioned beer during church on Sunday. They were mocking her for that beer business and she didn’t exactly know why.

She did know, however, that she wanted nothing to do with beer ever, ever again! Beer could totally disappear from Planet Earth for all she cared. She was through with beer. She hated it. She wished the damn baby-drowning Egyptians had choked on their dumb, icky invention.

Her tearwater finally used up, Gracie rolled over and blew her nose on her pajama sleeve. (Don’t pretend you’ve never done anything similar.) She lay there throughout the morning, uninterested in listening to music, choosing not to watch her Finding Nemo video for the thirty-seventh time, and most assuredly not inspired to dance.

Mostly, she just gazed through the drizzle-speckled window at the distant hills, as if expecting, actually longing, to detect otherworldly signs in the mist; signs, for example, of legendary stick Indians, signs of tricksters, phantom outlaws, enchanted dwarves running through the forest in long velvet robes, or, most particularly, runaway orphan girls searching out hollow trees in which they might make homes for themselves. Once or twice, she believed she saw something along those very lines, although she would have hesitated to bet her allowance on it.

Next, she tried imagining what her socks might be saying to one another in the privacy of their dresser drawer, straining hard as if to overhear socky conversation, but, alas, this game failed to amuse her the way it had so many times in the past.

Gracie Perkel had lost her giggle. She’d lost it. Her giggle had deserted her. It had gone far away. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever get it back.

“Hello up there!” Her mother was shouting from the bottom of the stairs. “Lunch is ready!” When there was no response, she added, “Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup!”

Don’t think for a second that Gracie wasn’t tempted. Wasn’t her tummy as empty as outer space? Wasn’t grilled cheese with tomato soup her favorite lunch? Yes, it was, but why should she eat food prepared by a mommy so heartless as to ridicule her only daughter for merely being curious about the unusual drinking habits of adults? Forget about it! No way, José! Gracie would sooner eat poison.

At that moment, she heard a car pull up in the driveway. It was a big yellow taxi. And soon there was the ol’ Moester being helped from the vehicle. Uncle Moe in his pinstriped suit, dark glasses, and artistic French beret. He was supporting himself with crutches. On his left foot there was one of those medical boots.

“Technically speaking,” explained Uncle Moe, “it was not a beer can.”

“What was it then?” asked Mrs. Perkel. “Technically speaking.” She sounded suspicious, even a trifle irritated.

Moe’s eyes were fixed on Gracie with a sympathetic gaze. Although it was past noon, she remained in her pajamas and he understood why. “To be absolutely accurate — and we should always strive for accuracy, shouldn’t we, Gracie? — the inanimate object that disabled my lower extremity was not a beer can but, rather, a can of beer. Which is to say, it was a full can. An unopened can. But that’s scarcely the worst of it.

“The beer in question happened to be an imported Sapporo beer, which, you may remember, if you’ve ever seen one in the supermarket, comes in a giant silver container that resembles some kind of Japanese ninja weapon, all tapered and sleek and deadly looking. The Sapporo can holds twenty-two fluid ounces, which is close to a pint and a half, so when one opens one’s refrigerator door and a Sapporo unexpectedly tumbles— Banzai! Kamikaze! — from the very top shelf and crashes down onto one’s bare tootsie…”

“Ooh,” oohed Gracie. “Did it hurt?”

“Hell yes, child! It felt like my foot had been run over by your daddy’s golf buggy on one of those occasions when it’s loaded with lawyers and blondes and a barrel of fried chicken.”

Mrs. Perkel moved toward the kitchen. “I’ve got work to do, Moe. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Heaven forbid that I keep any citizen from honest toil,” he said. “But before you become engrossed in your domestic labors, would you mind providing me with a little hair of the dog?”

For a moment, Gracie’s heart thumped wildly. Somewhere inside her a squeal began loosening its seat belt. Was there — could there possibly be — a puppy in the house? After all, her birthday was approaching and she’d been asking for a…But no, her mother instead returned with a cold bottle of Budweiser beer and thrust it at the grateful relative, who, noticing Gracie’s confusion, explained then that “hair of the dog” was slang that referred to the practice of drinking in the morning, for healing purposes, a small amount of the alcoholic beverage in which one had overindulged the previous evening; although in this case the mutt that had bitten Uncle Moe was that hefty can of Sapporo, a can that, as it turned out, had cracked the bone in his big toe and caused him, as he recoiled from the blow, to tear a tendon in his ankle.

“It throbbed like a toothache the rest of the weekend, so first thing today I made an emergency visit to a podiatrist.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the word podiatrist , you’re not alone. Fortunately for Gracie (and now for you), Uncle Moe was quick to define podiatrist as a doctor who investigates and treats disorders of the feet. A foot specialist. But the ol’ Moester, being the ol’ Moester, didn’t stop there.

“Are you aware,” he asked, “that there are more podiatrists in the United States of America than in all the other countries of the world combined? It’s true. And my podiatrist says that the reason for this is that Americans lace up and tie their shoes too tight. That’s correct. We lace up our shoes and tie them so tight that we end up damaging our feet.

“Now what does that tell you about our underlying national personality? Eh? Any indication there that Americans have a fear of looseness? A craving — hopeless, of course, hee-hee — for security? For stability? Can it partially explain the disturbing tendency on the part of certain of our citizens to huddle together in Wal-Mart parking lots?”