Sheila Black Petrovich sat at the picnic table in the backyard, listening to neighbors chatting. She had heard the story now being told a week before about the long walk to the outhouse and it had been a mile. Now, probably several times retold, it was miles.
As with some anglers, the eight-inch trout miraculously grows to 14 inches! This exaggerated storytelling had always been a joy for her, the wonderful fluidity of truth, joyously stretching facts that harms no one. The giddiness for Sheila, steeped in sentimentality, was nurtured in the Adirondack “cabin” of her forebears, the Blacks, old-monied Eastern seaboard investors of astute vision. They loved to lie! In their congenial storytelling colors became more vibrant, thousands became millions, mere comeliness of maidens became the deadly magnetic allure of killer sirens. Hyperbole, like loaves and fishes, fed them all. Tall tales were jewels of the imagination to bestow upon loved ones, cherished forever. Belly laughs and tears abounded.
Vivid creativity and eloquent flair were celebrated with boisterous laughter and fanciful, theatrical eye rolling. Sheila had a great uncle who would droop out his tongue and gutterly moan on especially fabricated truths as his sign of sweet approval.
So she sat contentedly drifting in her mind with the likes of Paul Bunyan and Mike Fink, nodding approvingly. She floats back in recent time to the election of her city council successor. This happened the Saturday morning before Tuesday’s election.
Sheila was now a civilian. The Downtown city council seat had been a contested one. She was now able to enjoy neighborhood politics as a kind of objective bystander. The winner of the three-way race was Warhaven Building Supply’s Debbie Dacnic, who demonstrated to the voting public she knew the difference between her keester and her elbow, largely by listening to voters instead of talking at them. Her opponents included Brown’s Lunch Counter waitress Beatrice Dombledock, who, as a Libertarian, promised more for less.
Retired U.S. Army major Jack Adams was the third candidate. He promised to personally respond to every city complaint. While Jack was a moderate Republican and a proponent of civility, he began to lose his cool when an informal survey of his revealed he was not leading the pack, nor, for that matter, was he a close second. Fervent supporters encouraged him to sling mud, to spend more money on hostile newspaper ads and colorful yard signs. He did not listen to his heart. He began to exaggerate, to massage the facts, to expound poetically in caustic tones of innuendo.
The ruckus happened, so weirdly coincidentally, in front of the Warhaven Building Supply, where Debbie was on duty helping a customer in the paint department. She was called up front by one of her colleagues, Jerry Cisticolas, who spoke into the public address mic, “On the double, Debbie. To the counter. This means you. Now!”
Beatrice had walked out of the store and was returning to the restaurant on foot. She passed Jack in front of the plate glass window, who taunted her under his breath with, “You couldn’t win a coloring contest,” which due to her huge ears and keen hearing did not go unnoticed.
She turned and called out, “Now you just hold on there, Whimpy! You can’t promise folks a hamburger Tuesday and expect to get away with it today!” Jack sputtered gibberish, caught in his own trap. Seeing an audience was forming, she revved up her lungs, looking a lot like the proud rooster of the barnyard.
She ambled back to him, slowly, then spit down toward his shoes. “You think you know a lot, mister high and mighty, but I’d like to tell you, you know less than my nephew, and he’s still in my sister’s womb! You think this council race is about my ego? Nope! You think it’s about prestige? Nope! It’s about hard work, which I do know about. Look at that rump of yours!”
Beatrice smiled darkly, swatting him lightly on the butt. “That is not the rear end of a hard worker. That is the rear end of a federal employee waiting for the 5:00 whistle, for retirement, for his cushy pension.”
She moves in even more closely and gingerly grabs his collar, speaking dramatically, loudly for the gathering crowd.
“Jack Squat, I’ll have you know I have won a coloring contest! It was back in third grade, the end of the year in Miss Everly’s class. I stayed within the lines and everything! Now get outta my sight!”
Beatrice laughed the whole way back to work, which Sheila hears clearly in her imagination.
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