The Book of Guys Read online

  A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR

  GARRISON KEILLOR AND THE GUYS

  “Keillor can write as funny as anyone ever wrote in this country. I’m sure a lot of us guys would get together to chop his wood for him, if only we knew how.”

  —Bill McKibben, New York Daily News

  “A deft, droll, and whimsically sculpted series of tall tales about being a man, a dude, a mensch”

  —USA Today

  “Keillor deftly takes the erratic pulse of modern American ‘culture’…For those who prefer their humor over easy, The Book of Guys is an out-loud chuckler.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Hilarious…Chuckles, groans, giggles, guffaws, or smiles, take your pick, The Book of Guys has ’em all.”

  —People

  “Keillor’s comedy is as sharp and swerving as a sickle. There’s not a lazy entry in this new album of squibs and shucksy fables.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “More from the master of the broadcast memoir…Keillor is more talented at the Thurber business than anybody since.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Keillor is a mix of Dave Barry…and Robin Williams on a more wholesome diet…. He’s also got a strong streak of wisdom in him…. He’s a guy, but what a guy.”

  —The Detroit Free Press

  “Both hilarious and poignant…The Book of Guys displays a darker, more reckless side of Keillor.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “His ear for the quirks and banalities of contemporary conversation is Keillor’s great gift…. The way he works the territory between our formal education and the reality of our experiences makes us feel he knows all our secrets.”

  —The Miami Herald

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE BOOK OF GUYS

  Garrison Keillor was born in Anoka, Minnesota, and is the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion. He is the author of nine books, all published by Penguin, including the bestselling Lake Wobegon Days and Wobegon Boy. A teacher at the University of Minnesota and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he lives in St. Paul with his wife and daughter.

  BOOKS BY GARRISON KEILLOR

  Happy to Be Here

  Lake Wobegon Days

  Leaving Home

  We Are Still Married

  WLT: A Radio Romance

  Wobegon Boy

  COMING SOON

  Stan, A Boy of the North

  Where Rain Comes From

  Fred Peterson: A Life

  Notes on Colossians

  The Oxford Anthology of Interesting Articles

  People I Have Known in Days Gone By

  One Hundred and One Ways to Serve Rutabagas

  THE BOOK OF GUYS

  STORIES BY

  GARRISON KEILLOR

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads,

  Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

  a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1993

  Published in Penguin Books 1994

  20 19 18 17 16 15

  Copyright © Garrison Keillor, 1993

  All rights reserved

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  These selections are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the

  product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  “Lonesome Shorty,” “The Chuck Show of Television” (as “The Chuck Show”), “Al Denny,”

  and “Zeus the Lutheran” first appeared in The New Yorker. “Christmas in Vermont” (as “A

  Christmas Story”) and “George Bush” (as “How the Savings and Loans Were Saved”)

  appeared in slightly different form in The New Yorker. “That Old Picayune-Moon” was first

  published in Harper’s. “Don Giovanni” originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGUED THE HARDCOVER AS FOLLOWS

  Keillor, Garrison.

  The book of guys: stories/by Garrison Keillor.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-64471-3

  1. Men—United States—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.E3755B6 1993

  813’.54—dc20 93–2168

  Printed in the United States of America

  Set in Postscript Garamond No. 3

  Designed by Amy Hill

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall

  not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without

  the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it

  is published and without a similar condition including this condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  TO MY SON, A REAL GOOD GUY

  A thousand thanks to

  Veronica Geng for

  her editing and to

  Jenny Lind Nilsson

  for her reading

  of this book.

  G.K.

  CONTENTS

  Address to the National Federation of Associations Convention, Minneapolis, June 12, 1993

  Lonesome Shorty

  The Chuck Show of Television

  The Mid-life Crisis of Dionysus

  Buddy the Leper

  Mr. St. Paul

  That Old Picayune-Moon

  Marooned

  Don Giovanni

  Roy Bradley, Boy Broadcaster

  Gary Keillor

  Omoo the Wolf Boy

  The Country Mouse and the City Mouse

  Casey at the Bat (Road Game)

  Herb Johnson, the God of Canton

  Earl Grey

  Winthrop Thorpe Tortuga

  Al Denny

  George Bush

  Christmas in Vermont

  Norman Conquest

  Zeus the Lutheran

  THE BOOK OF GUYS

  IMPORTANT

  Book reading is a solitary and sedentary pursuit, and those who do are cautioned that a book should be used as an integral part of a well-rounded life, including a daily regimen of rigorous physical exercise, rewarding personal relationships, and a sensible low-fat diet. A book should not be used as a substitute or an excuse.

  ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF ASSOCIATIONS CONVENTION, MINNEAPOLIS, JUNE 12, 1993

  MADAME CHAIR, MEMBERS OF THE CLERGY AND JUDICIARY, DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SKILLED TRADES, MY FRIENDS IN THE PRESS, FELLOW ARTISTS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, CHILDREN OF ALL AGES:

  few years ago in a poker game I won a membership in a club called The Sons of Bernie and last January, late one night, I drove my tru
ck deep into the woods near River Falls to attend the annual Bernie campfire and drunken orgy of song and self-pity, standing arm in arm with other S.O.B.s around a bonfire under the birches, in a raw wind at twenty below zero, the snowbanks up to our waists, and there, under the Milky Way and a nearly full moon, we ate chili out of cans and drank bourbon whiskey and sang mournful songs like “Long Black Veil” and “Old Man River,” and complained about women until six o’clock in the morning, when we retired to our homes to recuperate.

  There were about thirty of us, and when I arrived and saw them, I said to myself, “Let’s get out of here. You were had in that poker game. This membership isn’t worth half the five hundred dollars you gave him for it, the big cheater.” It was not my crowd. They were the sort of desperate low-lifes who will tell you a long story for a five-dollar loan, guys who everything unfortunate has happened to, cruel fathers, treacherous friends, abject poverty, rejection by women, dust storms, prison, tuberculosis, car wrecks, the boll weevil, and poor career choices, all the disasters familiar to fans of the great Johnny Cash. Men peak at age nineteen and go downhill, we know that, but, I tell you, they looked so much older and sadder than you want people your own age to look. One glance at those beat-up faces and you could not imagine women loving them at all and I was by far the soberest and handsomest one in the bunch. “Well, perhaps I will stay for a while,” I thought, “and gather impressions of them so that I can someday write about these poor guys so that they will not be completely forgot.” As the night wore on, however, I came to feel more brotherly.

  You had to stand close to this fire to get any warmth from it. The smoke got in our eyes, hot coals flew into our hair, but we didn’t mind. We stood, left arm over the shoulder of the man to our left, right arm free to pass the bottle, and we sang and sang.

  We sang “Hard Times Come Again No More,” “Abilene,” “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” “Take This Hammer,” “Streets of Laredo,” and recited poems, such as “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes I all alone be-weep my outcast state,” and then someone recited, “There was an old sailor named Tex who avoided women and sex by thinking of Jesus and terrible diseases and spending the night below decks.”

  It was not a tasteful or reverent occasion, and yet it was satisfying in some respects. A person can drink quite a snootful of whiskey in subzero temperatures and still keep floating, and while it isn’t an experience that you want to base a lifetime on, nevertheless you would hate to come to the end of your life and think, “I never ever once got drunk in the woods on a winter night with a bunch of guys who all knew the words to ‘I Ride an Old Paint.’”

  We sang about Old Paint and Frankie and Johnny and somebody recited:

  Whenever Richard Cory went dawn town,

  The women on the streetcar looked at him:

  He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

  Clean shaven, and he used expensive aftershave.

  And he looked very elegant in a suit.

  And he was always friendly when he talked;

  He certainly made the heads turn en route

  To his office at the First National Bank.

  And he was rich, a man of style and grace,

  And married to a beautiful woman named June.

  And yet none of us wished that we were in his place.

  We knew June and she was a bitch.

  And one calm summer night, under a beautiful moon,

  Richard Cory put a bullet through his head.

  No big surprise, not if you knew June.

  We got to feeling awfully close, hooked together, the fire blazing away, the whiskey doing its work. After the poem, a guy said, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I’m glad there aren’t any damn women here.” (LAUGHTER) Sorry, but that’s what he said.

  Another guy stepped forward and said: “I have worshipped women all my life, especially pregnant women, and then the other day, a woman I know, she looked like she had a basketball under her dress, she told me that she felt great when she was pregnant, that she enjoyed it, had more energy, felt sort of high, and it just makes me wonder if maybe women have gotten more mileage out of motherhood than they should’ve and if maybe we could stop bowing whenever one comes in the room.”

  A ripple of excitement passed through the circle: Guys were Speaking Out! Us! Saying things we wouldn’t dare say in polite society (i.e. women).

  A guy with snow-white hair stepped into the circle. “Listen, you pineapples. Damn women writers write absolute drivel and dreck and people fawn over them. Women win blue ribbons even though they didn’t come in tenth. They get hired for jobs they’re barely mediocre at. Affirmative action sounds good in theory, boys, but any time you promote incompetence, you are dragging society down, I don’t care what your motives are.”

  A guy said, “I ain’t no misogynist or chauvinist but I got to say, women are getting awfully impossible to please these days. I’ve been busting my butt for years trying to keep women happy, and they’re madder at me now than they were before I started trying so hard. I quit playing softball and deer hunting and took up painting delicate watercolors, still lifes mostly, and tossing salads, and learned how to discuss issues and feelings and concerns and not make jokes about them, and they’re still angry at me. A guy can’t win. Boys, let me tell you this for your own good and it’ll save you a lot of time later in life: most women down deep believe that everything wrong is men’s fault and nothing you can ever do will change that. So don’t worry about it. Live your life.” Oya! we all yelled.

  A great big bearded guy stepped into the circle. “I sort of miss communism. When the Soviet Union fell apart—I don’t know—it seemed like everything went slack. There was no point anymore. Guys lost interest in baseball, guns—guys quit messing with cars. My son never gets under a hood. Instead he tries to get in touch with his feelings, tries to understand his girlfriend and keep a nice close peaceful relationship. Something doesn’t add up here. We’re selling out our manhood, bit by bit, trying to buy a little peace and quiet, and you know something? it won’t work. Self-betrayal never works! I say, nuts to sensitivity. Go ahead and fart. Go ahead.” So we did. All at once. The fire flamed up blazing bright. It felt good.

  I realized right then, standing in that circle, that I know many more women than men. Women are easier to talk to. So I go have lunch with a woman at, say, Le Domicile de Daphne restaurant, and we talk and talk about various things that intrigue us, and suddenly I lean forward across the plate of ziti and sun-dried tomatoes and whisper, “Bozo alert,” and nod toward a guy in a dumb T-shirt (HELP ME. I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T REACH MY BEER) and a blue satin team jacket, his cap turned backwards, who has lumbered into the restaurant searching for a toilet.

  For more than thirty years, I have been nudging women and pointing out dopey men to them so that women would know that I am no bozo. And here I was arm in arm with the very sort of guys I had always made fun of. I felt ashamed.

  I stepped forward and sang them a song:

  There was once a shy young man who left his country home

  And moved to the city to be more free,

  For in the city no one cared if you stayed out half the night

  And people didn’t notice every time you bought a new pair of pants.

  So he enjoyed a carefree life amongst the Broadway crowd

  And attended shows they did not have in Minnesota,

  And the only thing that worried him was what if he got sick

  And fell down in the street, would anybody notice?

  He decided to find out, so he laid down in the gutter,

  And right away a woman came and knelt down by his side,

  And it was Gladys, his old neighbor, who was in the city visiting her niece Denise,

  And she said to him, “Jim, I always knew that you were no good.”

  “That’s right,” they said. Oya.

  A large guy (I would say about a size 62) stepped into the circle. He was blinking back the tear
s. He had a hank of hair falling down in his eyes that he tossed back with his head. He blew his nose and said, in a soft voice, “I have never been in a group of men before, and it’s hard for me to say what I have to say.” We shouted our support and manly encouragement. “Thank you,” he said. “I had a chance to become a girl when I was in the fourth grade. We all did. You could check a box marked F on the Iowa Basic Gender Questionnaire, but they never explained it to me very well, like most things about sex, so I checked M instead, but some of the girls in my class checked M, and they got changed a few weeks later—in those days, it was referred to as ‘having your tonsils out’—and a tiny penis was implanted and two testes the size of hailstones—and those girls grew up and became extremely successful, happy, and well-adjusted men, the sort of guys who are easy with their masculinity and get along just fine. And sometimes—” and here his voice shook—“sometimes I wish I had become a girl.”

  Several guys gave him big hugs. He flinched and tried to squirm out but they had him like a chicken in a vise. (LAUGHTER)

  And then the head man of the S.O.B., the Big Burner himself, stepped into the circle, to talk about Bernie. He had been Bernie’s best friend.

  Bernie was a good guy who married a great girl, Jackie, who then became a feminist, but that was okay by Bernie, and he supported her in all that she did as she flew around to women’s conferences and seminars, gave speeches at dinners, was on the boards of NOW and NARAL and the ACLU and ACT and WARM and WARN and YES, and seldom was at home there in Minneapolis, but that was okay, she was happy and if she was happy then he was happy. They had four daughters, Susan B., Elizabeth Cady, Willa, and Betty. Bernie was a good dad and good husband, and the rest of the time he was a cement contractor. He had fourteen trucks pouring concrete. One winter when the concrete business slacked off, Bernie thought he’d maybe go ice fishing for a week with his buddies, play poker and tell some stories, have some laughs—though Jackie thought it was dumb beyond belief and gave him a hard time about him wanting to go off with those rednecks and said, “I thought you got it, but obviously you don’t”—and then, the day before he was to leave, he ran into the Big Burner on the street and told him how wonderful it would be to see the guys again. “I haven’t gone ice fishing in fifteen years, but finally I got Jackie to let me go,” he said, “and boy, am I looking forward to it. Well,” he said, “I gotta cash a check before the bank closes.” And he turned and two seconds later he was rubbed off the face of the earth by a runaway gravel truck.