"Are You For Real?".... Marshfield, Wisconsin

I left Madison at four-thirty in the afternoon, which, after heading northwest on Rt. 12, put me in Wisconsin Dells right around six. Just like outside Branson, Missouri, billboards started becoming more and more frequent. Tommy Tiny’s Water Ski Show and Paddle Boats! Mt. Olympus -- The Best Roller Coasters in Wisconsin! Mini-Golf! Old-Thyme Photos! Frozen Custard! Great Wolf Lodge and Indoor Water Park!

I’m familiar with the Great Wolf chain because there’s one in Sandusky, also with an indoor water park. But the one in Wisconsin Dells made Sandusky’s look like a cheap motel with a wading pool. The Dells also has a Kalahari hotel and indoor water park, which is a popular Sandusky spot too. What I wasn’t expecting was all the tourist-trap crap that was in the Dells. I thought the farmer was supposed to be in the Dell, with a nurse and a cat and a rat and cheese or something, but instead it looked like the Ocean City boardwalk threw up all over a ten mile radius. One sign did make me giggle with appropos, however -- “Smile, You’re On Vacation!”
I got as far as I could before nightfall, eventually stopping the town of Marshfield, in Central Wisconsin. The drive was beautiful, and the Ryan Adams album Dave gave me in Chicago was a perfect soundtrack. Finally, the interstate was in my rearview mirror and farms and forests were the only thing spread out before me.

In Marshfield I turned hard into the first restaurant I saw, called The Cameron Club. A sign out front had cartoon pictures of a cheeseburger, a slice of pizza, and a big blue F that served as the first letter for the words, “RIDAY ISH RY” I had no plans of getting a motel or a campground that night. I just wanted to go to a pub, get to know the locals, and then find myself a nice church parking lot to snuggle up in for the night. Even the most militant Christian can’t turn in a loiterer with a note on their car that says, “Just passing through, no money. Thank you for letting me stay! WWJD? God bless!”

I got the usual you’re -not-from around-here stares that, at this point, are beyond familiar. Small town folk actually do a funny thing, I’ve noticed, when a stranger walks into a room. They all turn to face the stranger, study them for a moment to make sure it’s a bona fide stranger and not someone they haven’t seen in awhile, then they each look at each other to make sure it’s not a person that anyone in the room knows. Each person has to make eye contact with every other person in the room, then they all pretend not to watch said stranger sit down at the bar. While this is happening, they all have looks on their face that say, “Who invited this chick?” If I were a lesser woman, I would let this initial distrust get to me. However, I’ve been on the road enough by now to know that it fades just as quickly.

I ordered a Miller High Life draught from the mannish lady bartender, because I’m on vacation and nothing but The Champagne Of Beers will do. She set it down in front of me with a gruff, “One dollar”. I gave her two singles and she looked at me like I was retarded. “No, it’s one dollar.”
“I know,” I said. “This is your tip.”
Her face lit up suddenly as she smiled a gummy grin. “Thank ya!”
“No problem.” I later learned her name was Charlie, and she is married to Leon. Together, they own and operate the Cameron Club.

The bar itself was your typical hole-in-the-wall place -- wood paneling, dart board, pool table, black vinyl stools with fraying edges. A small neon jukebox was mounted on the wall and a gumball machine sat in the corner. Off to the side was a restaurant area with formica tables and folding chairs. Three tow-headed children, two older boys and a little girl, chased each other around the pool table as the adults laughed about something in the other corner. No one spoke to me for about 45 minutes, although every so often someone would look over and we’d both smile. The country music channel was counting down the top twenty videos on mute as Jimmy Buffet played on the jukebox.

Eventually, one of the blond boys, with pool cue in hand, hopped up on a stool next to me. “Wanna play me?”
“Sure! You’ll probably crush me.”
“Maybe,” he said. “’Cause I’m a really good breaker. I’m gonna break.”
“Alright,” I said, as his little sister shouted to me, “Hey, watch what I can do!”
She jabbed a pool stick into the white cardboard ceiling tile, causing a rain of dust and paint and gypsum to float down on the green felt. “Olivia! You know better!” A man with a blond mullet called from the other side of the bar. She looked at me with an impish grin and said nothing.

“What’s your name?” I asked my partner.
“Dylan. But everyone calls me Shooby.”
“Why’s that?”
“I dunno. Everyone just calls me that.” He spoke fast and breathy, as though every sentence was a race.

He broke and sank the three ball, then proceeded to coach me on where I should hit each of my shots. I ended up beating him, but only because he was such a good teacher. “You must be really good at math,” I said as he calculated a complex move.
He answered in a frantic voice. “Yeah, I’m really good at math and science. I get all A’s. We had a test in math that was worth, like, three hundred points and it had all these hard problems and stuff and I got 305 percent on it ‘cause I did, like, extra credit.”

He was so easy to talk to, and what really struck me about both he and his sister was their easy, yet very respectful way with adults. Most children I’m used to try to compete with adults, play mind games and such to prove that they are smarter, they pout and generally act like brats. Not these kids. They were polite and kind and really made me feel welcome there. And eventually, when the grown-ups noticed that I was cool enough for the kids to talk to, they started talking to me too.

A younger middle-aged man named Corey was sitting near the pool table, lechery written all over his face. Go figure -- a single guy brings his cute nephew to the park to meet pretty women, but a pretty woman hanging out with children in a bar attracts a drunk guy in a Hawaiian shirt. “Where you from?” he asked me, and I explained my situation. To which he replied, in all seriousness, “Can I come with you?”
“You can’t fit in my car.”
“No, we’ll move all your stuff into my Tahoe.”
“Sorry, man, no can do.”
Dylan leaned over to whisper in my ear, “That guy’s hitting on you.”
“I know, I can tell. Yuck!”

Dylan had overheard me discussing my road trip with Corey and asked, “Are you really from Washington, DC?”
“Yeah, near there.”
“And you’re all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I writing a book about people I meet while I’m traveling. And now you’re gonna be in it. And your sister, and your dad. All the people here tonight.”
A slow, surprised smile spread across his face. He couldn’t think of anything to say, possibly afraid of saying something silly and that ending up in the book. Instead I asked him, “Can I use your real name?” He nodded vigorously.

Olivia piped up, “Why don’t you go back with your mommy and daddy?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m a little older so I don’t really need to be with them all the time. And I have a stuffed animal, a moose, that keeps me company so I don’t get lonely. And also, if I went back with my mommy and daddy, I couldn’t be hanging out with you.”
That answer seemed to suffice.

A tall, thin guy came in the bar and sat down with Corey. He looked to be about my age, with shaggy brown hair and blue eyes. The kids and I took a break from pool and my stool was next to this new guy. His name was Carl and he’s a farm hand at a dairy farm near the bar. “I work for Corey’s uncle, milking his cows and stuff,” he told me in a thick upper-Midwest accent. “I work seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year. This is the first time I’ve been out to a bar since I moved to this town from just south-a here. That was July 11th of 2005. I’m usually in bed by eight or nine, ‘cause I gotta get up and milk them cows at five in the mornin’.”
“I want to milk cows! I want to be a dairy farmhand!” I cried.
“Ooh, you’kin come over tomorrow at five if you want to and see how it’s done. The farm’s right up the road there. Just look for the big white farm, ya can’t miss it.”
“I’ll be there. I’m gonna set my alarm.”
I was dead serious, I wanted to see the farm.

Olivia has been blowing bubblegum bubbles and playing with the pool chalk, resulting in sticky face and hands covered with blue streaks. “You’re a mess!” I chided her, and she giggled. “Let’s go clean you up.” She led the way to the bathroom and I plopped her down on the sink. As we scrubbed her chin, I marveled that no one was barging in the door -- in Maryland, if a stranger is seen taking a child into a bathroom, the worst is automatically assumed. Such is the nature of suburban suspicion.

Some older men at the bar were shaking dice around in a leather canister and then slamming them on the bar with alarming force. I couldn’t figure out what the game was, but it was loud. Later on, when it had been established that I was not just some weirdo and I wasn’t a prostitute (two common fears about me on the road), I asked about the dice. Dennis, a burly man with a snow white mustache and coke-bottle glasses, called to Charlie, “Hey, Charlie Brown, we need some dice over here for the rookie!”
Carl chimed in with an “I’ll play too.”
“Okay,” said Dennis. “What’re we playin’ for?”
“A drink of your choice,” I offered. And with that, I learned how to play bar dice.

Dennis came in first and I second, so Carl owed us both a drink. We settled on Jaeger bombs and I balked when Charlie made them because it was so different than how we drink them in DC. She put the shot glass in a rocks glass with a tiny bit of Red Bull, and then filled the shot glass flush with Jaegermeister. “I can’t do it, it’s too strong! Don’t you have pint glasses in this place? Where’s the part where you drop the shot glass in the big glass of Red Bull? This is too much Jaeger, it’s disproportionate!”
“Oh, just do it, you’ll be fine!”
I was fine, if good and buzzed.

Dylan and I played some more pool, and during the game I asked him to make me a promise. “Promise me you’ll go to college. You’re too smart not to go to college.”
“Oh, I’m definitely going! I want to study science! I want to build stuff, like this thing I saw that you put on the ground and it looks for dinosaur bones in the ground, and it tells you how far down it is, and how old it is, and what type of dinosaur it’s from and it’s so cool!”
“That does sound really cool!”
“Yeah, I’m 11 and I’m gonna go to college in seven years!”

Olivia was getting tired, so Mullet Man scooped her up and took the kids home. A good thing, it seemed, because children don’t belong in a bar most times, and especially after 11 o’clock at night. She slept on my shoulder for awhile, wrapping her arms and legs around me, before her father took her home. It reminded me of Diana and I missed the Del Cids.

After the kids left, I spoke more with Carl. “I race cars. Demo derby. It’s really great, but it’s dangerous. My girlfriend, oooh, she gets so mad when I race, ‘cause she’s scared sumthin’ll happen to me, but she don’t understand that dairy farmin’ is about as dangerous a job as there is! I could get kicked, puncture a lung, crush my heart, and I’d be dead where I stand. That’s farmin’. But racin’, I wear a helmet, and a fire suit They don‘t make no fire suits for dairy farmin‘! I’m fast. I always finish first in my heat. I’ve never taken anything lower than first or second. My little boy, he’s ‘bout one year old now. He’s prob’ly gonna race too, when he gets old enough.”
“What’s his name?”
“Alexander Hunter Hedde. I came up with that myself.”

Carl went to the bathroom and I was tapped on the shoulder by a pretty lady in a bright yellow shirt. “So are you gonna tell us where you’re from or what?” She motioned to the crowded corner of the bar, filled with locals. “Dylan said you’re from Washington, DC, is that right?”
“Yeah,” I laughed, again launching into my explanation of the reasons for traveling, and the book. The yellow shirt lady looked at me quizzically, and then began introducing me to everyone on that side of the room.
“Well, I’m Carol, this here’s Cheryl and her husband Jerry, that’s Dennis, over there’s Barb and Bud, Charlie, Leon, Sean, Patty, and over there’s Stacy and Denny.” Each person said hello and smiled, and Neil Diamond’s “Cherry Cherry” began playing on the jukebox. By this time it was late and nearly everyone had a good buzz on. The entire bar started dancing around, clapping and stamping their feet, so I joined right in! We all laughed, me because it was so fun and they at the funny city girl doing a hoedown stomp.

An Elvis song, “Shoppin’ Around”, came on next and Jerry, a tall man with dark hair, told me, “This is me!”
“You like this song?”
“No, I’m singing the song!” He led me by the hand over to the jukebox, where a CD cover in the top left corner read, “Jerry Purkis -- Songs of Elvis”. A small picture of Jerry, in full Elvis regalia and fingers pointed, sat next to the words.
“I’m an entertainer! An Elvis impersonator! I got all kinds of costumes!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I made all of them by hand, I sewed ‘em myself!”
“That’s amazing!” I said.
The song ended and he looked at me with that famous Elvis stare and said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. You’re welcome very much!”
He laughed. “Carol is the only other person that says that to me!”

The rest of the night was spent singing along to “Sweet Caroline” and “Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw?“. Jerry’s wife, Cheryl, pulled me aside at one point, saying ,”Tell me again why you’re writing a book?”
“The main reason is because there are great stories out there that may never be told, because the media doesn’t care. Another is because I’ve met so many people on the coasts who think that nobody in between New York and LA are worth a damn. And I‘m out to dispel that stereotype.”
She looked literally crushed. “Is that true? Are you serious? People don’t think we’re important?” She shook her head sadly. “I knew it was different…. But I never knew they look down on us.”
“Well, not everyone does. Just a few select assholes.”
“Don’t they realize where food comes from?” she asked.
“I guess they think it grows in the produce aisle.”
“That makes me mad! It’s hard enough to live and work without people looking down on us. Me, I’m not a farmer, but I got it hard. I hate my job. I’m a buyer for a pharmacy and I’ll tell you what -- it’s a man’s world. The harrassment and shit I have to put up with would kill you. No respect. I’ve been there for years and I got 12 left ‘til I can retire. I can’t wait. And I got new guys come in under me and they treat me like shit. Twenty years old and you wouldn’t believe the shit that comes out of their mouths. And I can’t say nothing’ to ‘em, can’t turn ‘em in because my boss, he don’t care. He’s the worst one. And I can’t go above him, ‘cause I can’t risk losing my job.”
“Why don’t you look for a different job?” I asked, innocently, ignorantly.
“You ever tried looking for a good job in Wisconsin? Good luck. When you get a job, you keep it. I got the two of us to support.”
“Can’t your husban--”
She cut me off. “Jerry’s an entertainer. That’s not real regular work. So I just keep my damn mouth shut, get pissed up drunk on Friday nights and wait ‘til I can retire. It’s a man’s world, honey, and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
She repeated herself in that way that drunk people make the same point six times and I could feel my eyes welling up with guilt. A single tear slid down my cheek as Cheryl asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I just can’t believe that I’ve been given all this opportunity. I can do whatever I want. I live the way I want to, but others can’t. It’s not fair. I just get sad that I can’t figure out why I deserve the good life and others don’t.” It’s true. I have a hard time seeing the gaping discrepancies between myself, who can live like a free spirit, and those never given the chance.
“Don’t cry, honey. It’s just the way it is.”

Jerry asked, “Where are you sleeping tonight?”
“There’s a church down the road a ways,” I said. “I’ll probably just sleep in the parking lot.”
He and Cheryl looked at each other, then back at me. “You can sleep in out motor home, in the driveway.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, but I gotta get up at five and help Carl milk the cows over at the Shuler Farm.”
Jerry laughed. “You sure you’re gonna wake up in time?”
I lied through a smile. “Positive.”

Carl gave me his number and told me to call him at milking time, which at that point was only three hours away. “I’m gonna be hurtin’!” he assured me. He left, leaving me with Carol. She pulled me aside as Cheryl had and asked me a striking question.
“Are you a bullshitter?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you a bullshitter, or are you for real? I mean, do you really just drive around and talk to people? Please say yes, because you seem like the real thing. When you first walked in I wrote you off, ‘cause I didn’t think anyone would do what you do, but are you for real?”
“Yes, I’m very for real. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
“Man, I hope you’re right, because I’d hate it if you were lying.”
“No, ma’am. I’m for real.”

At closing time, everyone hugged me and I followed Jerry and Cheryl’s van to their house. Cheryl went straight to bed, but Jerry The Nightowl showed me around the house and the camper, and also the huge rock garden waterfall he built in the backyard. “200 bags of concrete!” he said proudly. “Did it all myself! You want some coffee?”
“Sure,” I said, and soon we were in the camper with steaming mugs, talking about life in Marshfield.
“Cheryl and I were high school sweethearts. But we broke up and then I got married ‘cause I got somebody pregnant and she got pregnant by somebody else, but we never got over each other. Still lived in the same town and saw each other everywhere, but I never talked to her because I didn’t know what to say. Then one day her friend said, “You should say hi to Cheryl next time you see her. So I did, and we been together ever since. That was six years ago, and we got married in Vegas last year. May first, same day Elvis and Priscilla got married! It was puppy love that stayed strong. It was hard, ‘cause we were both still married when we got back together. The kids didn’t take it too good. Some of them don’t talk to us anymore. But, we’re still in town in case they ever come back around, y’know?”

He handed me a sleeping bag and said, “If you go milk them cows tomorrow, come back here before you leave town.”
“Will do,” I said, and I was asleep before he shut the door.