The Perk (5 page)

The high school band marched past playing the
"Star-Spangled Banner" followed by vintage fire trucks, antique cars,
and pickup trucks with pretty girls in blonde braids tossing red, white, and
blue bead necklaces into the crowd and up to the people on the balconies. Beck
caught a red one and put it around Meggie's neck. She showed it to the doll.

A World War Two
battle tank and more military vehicles and farm equipment rolled past followed
by floats for a ministry with a sign that read KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS
and
the Knights of Columbus with a sign that read ONE NATION UNDER GOD. Separation
of church and state had never been a major topic of debate in Fredericksburg, Texas. A long RV decked out in red, white, and blue drove by with loudspeakers blaring the
Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA"; it was trailed by a truck
advertising for a gun show, a 1921 Stanley Steamer, an old Cadillac convertible
with longhorns on the hood, and a Boys and Girls Club float playing
"Yankee Doodle Dandy." The Gillespie County Farm Bureau Queen and
her court wore prom dresses and waved as their float passed by.

"Are they supermodels?" Meggie asked.

"No, honey, they're just high school girls."

Next up were clowns, kids on bikes, cowgirls on horseback, and
a University of Texas cheerleader prancing like a show horse alongside a tall burnt-orange
replica of the UT clock tower with NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 2005 on the side. The University of Texas had won its national championship without Beck Hardin.

A float for the Gillespie County Democratic Party was manned
by five brave souls followed by a standing-room-only float for the county's Republican
Party. Gillespie County had always been as red as Austin was blue; LBJ had
been the only Democrat to carry the county in the last seventy-five years. The
American Legion float played the Marine service hymn, and the last float had men
dressed as Revolutionary soldiers. The parade ended with a truck toting a big
sign that read DAS IST ALLES, Y'ALL.

God, country, and German beer: the Fourth of July parade in
Fredericksburg, Texas, had been exactly as Beck had remembered. And he
thought how much Annie would have loved it. She had never lived in a small
town but had always thought it would be perfect. He had always told her it
wasn't. But standing here now in this Norman Rockwell painting, maybe it was.

As soon as the parade had rolled out of sight, Main Street reopened
for business and traffic; it quickly became crowded with cars, pickups, and
eighteen-wheel rigs heading out to or in from West Texas. A semi pulling a
cattle trailer braked to a stop at the Lincoln Street light. The cows were
mooing woefully, as if begging for mercy.

"Daddy, look!" Meggie cried. "Moo-cows!
That nice man is taking them for a ride."

"He sure is."

"Where are they going?"

Beck figured a five-year-old didn't need to know about
slaughterhouses, so he said, "Well, they're—"

"Hamburgers, little lady. You can eat 'em at
McDonald's next week."

Beck turned. An old coot in a cowboy hat was standing there
with his thumbs in his pockets and a grin on his face.

"
Hamburgers?
"
Meggie's face was stricken. "The moo-cows?"

The old coot realized his error. "Uh, sorry about
that."

Beck pulled
Meggie away from the cows and walked the children west down Main Street. They
passed sun-hardened locals wearing Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, plaid shirts, and
caps with
John Deere
and
Caterpillar
on the front. Twenty-four
years later, Beck could still recognize the goat ranchers, turkey farmers, and
peach growers; they carried the smell of their trades with them.

But he didn't recognize the other people walking down Main
Street, sleek women sporting tattoos, low-rise designer jeans, and high heels, holding
leashes connected to puffy French poodles and hairless Chihuahuas, and carrying
stuffed shopping bags … teenage girls wearing short-shorts with their lace thongs
showing in the back and tank tops stretched across their precocious chests up
front and texting on cell phones … long-haired boys wearing baggy shorts, tee
shirts, and headphones wrapped around their skulls … and pale-skinned, soft-bellied
men looking as if they longed for the office.

Who are these people?

They walked on
and something began bothering Beck in the back of his brain. Something wasn't
right. Something was missing. And then he realized: the people were
missing. The
other
people. He had become so accustomed to the
diversity of downtown Chicago—Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, Arabs in
burkas, Indians in turbans, Orthodox Jews, homeless people pushing grocery carts,
and cops, trash, and graffiti—and to hearing loud
Tejano
and rap music
pounding out from boom boxes carried by kids who dressed like gangsters and
spouted profanity like rappers, that it had all just become part of the
landscape that he no longer noticed, like elevator music.

But when all of that is suddenly not there, you notice.

He noticed. None of that was here in Fredericksburg, Texas. The people were white, the streets and sidewalks were clean and quiet, and the cops
were two guys in shorts riding bikes. This was not downtown Chicago. But it
wasn't his old hometown either.

Fredericksburg had changed.

The sounds had changed. "
Guten Morgen
"
and
"
Danke schön
" had been as common on Main Street back then as
"howdy" and "hello." But not now. Not a German word was
heard that day.

And the sights had changed. The same historic buildings still
lined Main Street—
Hauptstrasse
to the locals—but all the vacant,
dilapidated buildings that had lined the street when Beck had left town had
been restored and were now occupied, and the names on the buildings were all
different. Gone were the old German businesses like the Weidenfeller Gas
Station, Otto Kolmeier Hardware, Dorer Jewelers, Haas Custom Handweaving, Langerhans
Mower & Saw, Engel's Deli, Freda's Gifts, and Opa's Haus. In their places
were fancy boutiques called Haberdashery, Lauren Bade, Root, In-Step, and Slick
Rock and shops called Cowboy Eclectic, Divinely Designed, Bath Junkie, Rather
Sweet, and Phil Jackson's Amazing World of Things.

Doc Keidel's two-story limestone home still stood on Main Street, but Keidel's Drug Store was now a "vintage western boutique" called
Rawhide and the Keidel Memorial Hospital was a kitchen emporium called Der
Küchen Laden. In the basement was a restaurant called Rathskeller. The White
Elephant Saloon was now the Lucky Star Boutique, and the Domino Parlor where
the old-timers had gathered to play dominoes and drink beer all day was now a
store called Grandma Daisy's. Lee-Ed's FolkArt & Decoys was a wine cellar.
And the Western Auto was a store just for dogs called Dogologie.

The Stout Shop still served the sturdier women of Gillespie County, but the newspaper had been replaced by Spunky Monkey Toys and a store
called Zertz that sold $250 hand-painted jeans for girls. Hill Country
Outfitters sold kayaks. And the Pioneer National Bank had been replaced by a
Chase branch.

Ausländer Biergarten, the old Herbert Schmidt Electric shop,
Dooley's 5-10-25¢ store, and Dietz Bakery still occupied their same spots on
Main Street, but the Jenschke Furniture Store was now a live music theater
called the Rockbox, and the Nut Haus and the Wilke Barbershop where Beck had
gotten his hair cut had been combined for a store called Grasshopper & Wild
Honey. And the old Palace Theater where Beck had watched John Wayne in
Rooster
Cogburn
was now a store called Parts Unknown, A Fashion Adventure. They sold
expensive English loafers and Tommy Bahama shirts.

Beck shook his head.
Who would have the balls to wear a Tommy Bahama shirt in Fredericksburg, Texas?

Beck turned and came face to face with a white-haired man
wearing a bright maroon shirt printed with multicolored parrots perched on floral
patterns of yellow and white flowers sprouting amid long green leaves—a Tommy Bahama shirt.

"Nice shirt," Beck said.

"It's called 'Parrots of the Caribbean,' " the old
man said.

"You look like the bird exhibit at the zoo."

"I was in a rut."

"Well, you're out of it now."

The two men sized each other up like gunfighters looking to
draw. The old man's thick white hair was cut short and contrasted sharply
against his weathered face. He was wearing the parrot shirt over Wrangler jeans
and brown work boots. His bare arms were tanned and sinewy, and his hands were
gnarly. His blue eyes were as clear as the sky and were looking Beck over,
from his Nike sneakers to his shorts and knit golf shirt to the gray streaks in
his hair. The old man finally nodded as if in approval.

"Beck."

"J.B."

"Just get in?"

Beck nodded. "Saw the peach stands out 290 are closed."

"Nothing to sell. We're in drought, going on seven
years."

"It is hot."

"It's Texas."

"Who are all these people?"

"Tourists. They say we're the next Santa Fe."

"Shopping on the Fourth of July?"

"Every day but Christmas."

The two men fell silent on Main Street. After a long
moment, Beck said, "You get married again?"

The old man snorted. "That'll be the day."

After another moment of silence, Meggie's voice rose from
below: "Who are you, mister?"

The old man looked down at her, then back up at Beck as if
waiting for him to respond. Finally, the old man patted her head and said,
"Why, little gal, I'm your grandpa."

John Beck Hardin, Sr., known to all, even his son, as J.B.,
was sixty-six years old. He stood six feet tall, he weighed one hundred ninety
pounds, and he had a handshake that could still bring tears to a grown man's
eyes. He was born here and he would die here, as his parents and wife had. He
had married Peggy Dechert when he was twenty-four and buried her when he was thirty-seven,
left to raise a thirteen-year-old boy alone.

When Beck's mother died, the world had lost all color. Life
became black-and-white, J.B. became hard, and Beck became angry—at God, at the
world, at his father. By his senior year, the anger was as much a part of Beck
Hardin as the color of his eyes or the speed of his legs. He took the anger
with him onto the football field; he played with a fury that even he did not
understand, a fury that often frightened him. He knew the anger would
eventually kill him or he would kill someone—and he almost had; so he left this
land and these people and his father. He ran away, as far as his athletic
ability would take him. Notre Dame, Indiana, was thirteen hundred miles from Fredericksburg, Texas.

Beck had not spoken to his father in twenty-four years.

"Why didn't you call ahead?" J.B. said.

"Wasn't sure I wouldn't turn around."

Across Main Street from the courthouse was a park where Beck
had often played baseball; they were now sitting at a picnic table where second
base had been. The baseball diamond was gone, replaced by a covered open-air
arena called Adelsverein Halle. Meggie was eating a corn dog, Luke a
sausage-on-a-stick, and Beck barbecue. J.B. was sipping a soda.

Playing where home plate had been was the "Sentimental
Journey Orchestra," a big band made up of old guys wearing World War Two khaki
uniforms. A trio of middle-aged women called the "Memphis Belles"
was singing "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B." They were
good. Old white-haired folks were dancing, young blond kids wearing bead
necklaces and red, white, and blue tiaras were bopping around as if dancing,
and their sunburned parents were drinking Weissbier and Bitburger. Germans
here were raised on beer and bratwurst, like the French were on wine and
cheese. The soldiers from the parade mingled with the locals and were greeted
like celebrities; no soldier had ever been spit on in Fredericksburg, Texas. An old-timer in a plaid shirt walked by, slapped J.B. on the shoulder, and said, "Hell
of a shirt, J.B."

After the man had walked out of earshot, J.B. said,
"Ned don't got the sense of adventure God gave a turtle."

Beck stood and stretched and smelled beef being barbecued
and cotton candy being spun. The rural park with a baseball field had been
transformed into a manicured Marktplatz, a European-style town square. The
white octagonal Vereins Kirche museum stood in the center of the square. Behind
it was the Pioneer Memorial Garden with bronze statues of Baron von Meusebach,
the town founder, and a Comanche war chief smoking a peace pipe. A Maibaum
depicting the town's history stood tall over the square. World War Two-era music,
ranchers, farmers, and soldiers in uniform, old folks and young kids, everyone happy
and alive on the Fourth of July in small-town America. It all seemed so
perfect.

"She was a special woman," J.B. said. "Annie."

Except that. Beck looked down at his father.

"How would you know?"

His words had come out harsh, and Beck saw the hurt on his
father's face. J.B. gathered himself.

"Annie and me, we've been emailing for the better part
of two years. About every day her last six months."

"
Annie emailed
you?
"

J.B. nodded, and Beck sat back down. Another secret.

Beck said, "You've got a computer?"

J.B. nodded again. "Down at the winery."

"You've got a winery?"

"That's how Annie found me, buying wine on the
website."

"You've got a website?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"For online sales. We ship wine all across the
country—"

"No. Why did Annie email you?"

"Oh. To get me ready."

"For what?"

"For today—when you and the kids came home."