Gracie goes to schooner school

Throughout my so-called career (I'm more inclined to think of it as a "careen"), my goal (seldom articulated, even to myself) has been to twine ideas and images into big subversive pretzels of life, death and goofiness on the chance that they might help keep the world lively and give it the flexibility to endure. The degree to which I've been successful I suppose only history can judge, provided history is not too preoccupied watching digital video to pay any notice to wood-pulp junkies like me. In any case, it doesn't matter much because after nearly 40 years of pursuing phantasmagorical novels down shadowy hallways, I've recently aimed my cognitive flashlight at an entirely different corner of the crumbling castle of literature.
Specifically, I've decided to write a children's book. A children's book about beer.

I got the idea from a cartoon in The New Yorker. Don't sneer, ye purists, ye holders of lofty ideals. Marcel Proust, around 1913, took one glance at a cookie and was inspired to pen a 900-page tome that some experts rank high among the greatest novels ever written (and that despite the fact that the number of Americans who've actually read "Remembrance of Things Past" cover to cover would likely fit inside the cookie oven at any commercial bakery). When it comes to inspiration, a witty drawing has got to be as trustworthy as baked goods, unless, of course, one happens to have the munchies.

Anyway, the New Yorker cartoon depicts two men sitting several stools apart in a bar. One of the men wears a conservative business suit and a no-nonsense expression. The other is shabbily dressed, unshaven, and looks as if he makes a habit of lingering too long at the tap: in other words, your typical writer. In the caption, the businessman is saying to the sad-sack scribe, "I doubt that a children's book about beer would sell."

Now, most readers would simply chuckle or smile at this little joke, turn the page and forget about it. Not I, I'm afraid. For better or for worse, I took it as a challenge.

Let me emphasize that my kiddie brewski opus is not intended as satire with which to amuse cynical adults. Neither is it to be a cautionary tale designed to warn the young away from the perils of irresponsible suds surfing. On the other hand, it certainly isn't meant to entice kids to take up drinking at an earlier age than most will anyway: kindergarten keggers are probably not in society's best interest. Such an approach would not only be unconscionable but as the cartoon businessman predicts, it likely wouldn't sell.

No, my purpose is to enlighten, to decipher for curious children another of the adult world's perplexing mysteries (knowing that most parents talk to their offspring about the ubiquitous presence of beer in our culture with no more frequency or lucidity than they address the subject of sex). And, obviously, I'm also out to make the children's best-seller list if not actually win the Newbery Medal.

Okay, then, without further ado (although I'm rather fond of ado), here's how my book begins.

***

Have you ever wondered why your daddy likes beer so much? Have you wondered, before you fall asleep at night, why he sometimes acts kind of "funny" after he's been drinking beer? Maybe you've even wondered where beer comes from, because you're pretty sure it isn't from a cow. Well, Gracie Perkle wondered those same things.

"Mommy," Gracie asked one afternoon, "what's that stuff Daddy drinks?"

"You mean coffee, sweetheart?"

"Not coffee. Ick! That other stuff that's yellow and looks like pee-pee."

"Gracie!"

"You say pee-pee."

"Well, when I'm talking about potty time I might. But I don't say it about somebody's beverage."

Gracie giggled. Her mother, who was busy at the ironing board, suggested without looking up, "I believe, dear, you're talking about beer."

"Oh!" squealed Gracie. "That's right. Beer. That stuff that's always on TV." She deepened her voice. " 'Better tasting!' 'Less filling!' "Better tasting!' 'Less filling!' " She giggled again. "Is it kinda like Pepsi for silly old men?"

Mrs. Perkle smiled, but it was such a weak, wimpy smile a kitten could have knocked it halfway to Milwaukee. She paused in her ironing to stare out of the laundry room window. The clouds themselves looked like a big pile of dirty laundry. That was not unusual because, you see, the Perkle family lived in Seattle.

Do you know about drizzle, that thin, soft rain that could be mistaken for a mean case of witch measles? Seattle is the world headquarters of drizzle, and in autumn it leaves a damp gray rash on everything, as though the city was a baby that had been left too long in a wet diaper and then rolled in newspaper. When there is also a biting wind, as there was this day, Seattle people sometimes feel like they're trapped in a bad Chinese restaurant; one of those drafty, cheaply lit places where the waiters are gruff, the noodles soggy, the walls a little too green, and although there's a mysterious poem inside every fortune cookie, tea is invariably spilt on your best sweater. Mrs. Perkle must have been feeling that way, for she sighed at the limp pork dumplings (or were they wadded Pampers?) in the sky and said to Gracie, "If you want to know about beer you should go ask your father."

Never mind that she was wearing fluffy fuzzy bunny slippers, Gracie still tiptoed into the den. Her daddy was watching football on their new flat plasma screen, and if the University of Washington was losing again, he'd be in a grumpy mood. Uh-oh. She overheard a naughty word. UW was losing. Gracie was relieved, however, when she noticed that Uncle Moe had dropped by to watch the game and, of course, to mooch a few beers from her dad.

Uncle Moe didn't take sports very seriously. He called himself a philosopher, if you know what that is. He'd graduated from about a dozen colleges, seldom ever seemed to work, and had traveled just about every place a person could go without getting his head chopped off. Mrs. Perkle said he was a "nut job," but Gracie liked him. It didn't bother her that he had a face like a sinkful of last night's dinner dishes or that his mustache resembled a dead sparrow.

Timidly, Gracie tapped Mr. Perkle on the elbow. Her voice was shy and squeaky when she asked, "Daddy, can I please taste your beer?"

"No way," her father snorted over his shoulder. His eyes never left the screen. "Beer's for grown-ups."

Gracie turned toward Uncle Moe, who grinned and beckoned her over, as she had suspected he might. Uncle Moe extended his can -- and just like that, behind her daddy's back, little Gracie Perkle took her first sip of beer.

"Ick!" She made a face. "It's bitter."

"The better to quench your thirst, my dear."

"What makes it bitter, Uncle Moe?"

"Well, it's made from hops."

Gracie made another face. "You mean them jumpy bugs that ...?"

"No, honeybun, beer isn't extracted from grasshoppers. Nor hop toads, either. A hop is some funky vegetable that even vegans won't eat. Farmers dry the flowers of this plant and call them 'hops.' I should mention that only the female hop plants are used in making beer, which may be why men are so attracted to it. It's a mating instinct."

"Moe!"

The uncle ignored Gracie's father. "In any event," he went on, "when brewers combine hops with yeast and grain and water, and allow the mixture to ferment -- to rot -- it magically produces an elixir so gassy with blue-collar cheer, so regal with glints of gold, so titillating with potential mischief, so triumphantly refreshing, that it seizes the soul and thrusts it toward that ethereal plateau where, to paraphrase Baudelaire, all human whimsies float and merge."

"Don't be talking that crap to her. She's five years old."

"Almost six," chimed Gracie.

"In Italy and France, a child Gracie's age could walk into an establishment, order a beer and be served."

"Yeah, well those people are crazy."

"Perhaps so -- but there's far fewer alcohol problems in their countries than in safe and sane America."

Mr. Perkle muttered something vague before focusing his frown on UW's latest booboo. Uncle Moe removed another beer from the cooler, holding it up for Gracie to admire. "Beer was invented by the ancient Egyptians," he said.

"The ones who made the mummies?"

"Exactly, although I don't believe there's any connection. At least I hope not. The point is, the Egyptians could have invented lemonade -- but they chose to invent beer instead."

While Gracie thought this over, Uncle Moe pulled the metal tab on the top of his beer can. There was a snap, followed by a spritzy hiss and a small discharge of foam. Uncle Moe took a long drink, wiped foam from his tragic mustache, and said, "Speaking of inventions, did you know that the tin can was invented in 1811, but can openers weren't invented until 1855? It's a fact. During the 44 years in between, hungry citizens had to access their pork 'n' beans with a hammer and chisel. They were pretty lucky, don't you think, that in those days beer didn't come in cans?"

At that moment there was a time out on the football field and Mr. Perkle got up to go to the bathroom. You yourself may have noticed that beer causes big strong men to piddle like puppies.

"Have you heard of Julia Child, the famous cook? When she moved to Paris in 1948, she brought along a case of American beer. Her French maid had never seen beer in cans before, and she tried to flush the empties down the toilet. Naturally, it overflowed. Took a plumber nearly three days to unclog the pipes."

Gracie laughed. She looked at the empty cans lying around the den, thinking that flushing them down the toilet might be a funny trick to play on her daddy. Or would it? She'd have to think about it some more.

Once again, Uncle Moe passed his beer to Gracie. She hesitated, but being an adventurous little girl, she eventually took another swallow. Although she didn't say "ick," it didn't taste any better than the first time.

"Your pediatrician isn't likely to mention this -- unless he's Irish, of course -- but beer does have some nutritional value. The Chinese word for beer means 'liquid bread.' " Uncle Moe paused to drink. "Even the most wretched macrobrew contains a six pack of vitamins: thiamine, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine, biotin and ... oh yes, cyanocobalamin. Can you say cyanocobalamin?"

"Cyno ... cyho ... cyoballyman ... cy ..."

"Okay, close enough. Presumably, they're each a member of the vitamin B family but precisely what health benefits those little jawbreakers provide I haven't a clue."

Gracie didn't care what benefits they provided. As far as she was concerned, vitamins were even ickier than beer.

"I'll tell you what," said Uncle Moe, almost in a whisper. "On Monday, we'll inform your mother that I'm taking you to Woodland Park. Instead, we'll secretly ride the bus out to the Red Hook brewery. We'll go on their tour and you can see for yourself exactly how beer is made. Most educational, my dear, most educational. After the tour, I'll sneak you into the taproom and we'll watch the bartender water the monkeys. It's better than the zoo."

Practically burping with excitement (or was it the beer?), Gracie skipped out of the den. Now she had something to look forward to.

***

All right, that's as far as I've gotten. Over the next several weeks I'll continue to scribble, hopeful that when I'm finished I shall have furnished exhaustive, authoritative, entertaining, and even practical answers to our youngsters' often unspoken yet ceaseless puzzling over that lustrous liquid brush with which so many millions daily fresco their tonsils.

Beer, however, will not be my sole focus. As in my novels, I'll attempt to lay down an underlying stratum of serious philosophical speculation. The message I wish to impart to the children goes something like this:

The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens -- but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters.

What about it? Do you think it will sell?