Spifflicated: A Family Memoir

Chapter1

Vestiges

Comfort the poor, heal the sick, save the boy, protect the girl.

—Below the masthead on the monthly newspaper of the Diocese of Winona.

Sunday, October 11, 1931

Fairmont, Minnesota

The priest was of time and place, and thoroughly avuncular. Ideally suited for his parish, culturally and foundationally embedded in the grey, glacial drift soil of the southern Minnesota prairie. Hardscrabble rural folk who believed and did not question.

They respected and even glorified the hierarchy implicit in the global organization chart of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Christ himself gave St. Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven and that locked in the hierarchy. The Catholic Church, the one true Church established by Jesus Christ, the son of God.

They traced it upstream to God.

The pews were so close together that if the parishioner behind you knelt, you got back down on your own kneeler and at least went through the motions to avoid the discomfort of their prayers spilling down the back of your neck. Peace be with you, neighbor, but keep your hot rutabaga breath to yourself.

When the time came for each to give as they chose, the baskets at the end of a long pole often lingered and were sometimes shaken and rattled in front of certain parishioners, until they gave as the usher, informed by the thoroughly avuncular priest, chose. Give for the widows, orphans, and all who are in need. Inspired by the example of Christ who became poor to make us rich.

Sons and daughters of toil, who gathered for Mass every weekend at Holy Family Catholic Church in Fairmont, this building formed in the shape of a cross. Not to be social, leave that to the Lutherans. But to part with their inequities, to be made pure in heart. So the Eucharist would cleave to their inmost parts, so that God would vouchsafe to accept and bless these holy unspotted sacrifices.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti… (In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…)

She crossed herself and gave a quick once-over to those nearby before fixing her eyes on the thoroughly avuncular priest. Victoria cared deeply about what others in this community of faith might think about her appearance and deportment.

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti beatae Mariae semper virgini, beato Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo. Omnibus Sanctis et vobis fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa… (I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary ever virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you brethren, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed: through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault…)

Exceedingly in thought and occasionally in word. Never in deed, she thought. Until now. Oh God, what have I done? It really is my most grievous fault. She’d heard the words thousands of times. Now she finally realized the full depth of their meaning.

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

For all her life, even before Confirmation, Mass was one more chore for Victoria Bonita Maday. More than an expectation, an obligation. But one does not dutifully genuflect for 19 years without vestiges. It was only after she left home and got away from her mother that the sediment formed by 19 years of ritual, carried by prairie wind and holy water, began to show.

The feeling wasn’t really strong enough to actually name it comfort. Maybe relief.

If she was rude to a friend, short-tempered with her younger sisters, if she took when she knew in her heart she should have given, she felt better after the thoroughly avuncular priest droned generic Latin absolution aloud in Mass.

The system works.

The thoroughly avuncular priest, whom Victoria thought resembled Lionel Barrymore, was going on about the feast of Saint Gummarus, who before he became a saint was a hanger-on in the court of Pepin the Younger, King of the Franks.

An arranged betrothal, shotgun wedding, and Gummarus was marching down God’s path for him. Only after getting married did he discover his new bride was extravagantly greedy, cruel, and not at all interested in the ways of faith. Rather than throw in the towel, Gummarus persisted in patience and virtue, living an 8th century life that would one day make him a saint, enduring constant trials and sufferings of his beloved spouse’s making.

Well, he must have, Victoria thought. If he became a saint and we’re celebrating his feast today.

Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine et homo factus est…. (Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man…)

Victoria allowed her eyes to wander from the thoroughly avuncular priest to the statue of the Madonna. She reached up and fidgeted with her white lace veil, to make certain it was covering her heart, as well as her head.

Nineteen years of obligation had inculcated the notion that women who wear the veil on their hearts are imitating the Virgin Mary in her humility, submissiveness, and obedience to Christ.

Mary believed, didn’t she? Mary got knocked up out of wedlock, didn’t she? Was it a stretch to compare herself with the Blessed Mother? Well for starters, Mary was ever virgin. Conceived by the Holy Spirit. Victoria had lost her virtue in the basement of a Catholic sorority house at the University of Minnesota to a fella she’d known for six months.

So no, I guess that’s a lousy comparison.

She relived the first night it happened. If only she had the impulse to suggest coitus interruptus. She couldn’t have possibly. She should have said no. She should have insisted. She hadn’t really put up a fight, had gone along willingly. It was as though she had no effective mental defense against his amorous prowess.

Her friends seemed to be able to go in a room alone with a man and not emerge pregnant. Why was she deficient in this area? Victoria had plenty of character. She could be counted on to take care of her younger sisters, Dorothy and Veronica. She had a sense of responsibility and a work ethic that bordered on obsession.

In the throes of passion, there was little serious or effective thought of the consequences. In the moment, she thought solely of herself.

She was already in enough trouble with her family: She was quitting college and romantically involved with a guy they considered a Protestant ne’er-do-well. Now, in a delicate condition.

The milk was spilled. Being pregnant didn’t make her an invalid. The Madays were not hand wringers. When her husband died seven years earlier, Agnes Maday corralled Victoria, along with her older siblings John and Clare, and marched en masse to work at a vegetable cannery in Fairmont. The children dutifully turned their paychecks over to their mother, for the good of the family.

After her husband died, Agnes raised their food, went to Mass and Confession, stayed on the farm, and survived. Victoria wondered if she could ever bring herself to say out loud the one thing she desperately wanted from her mother.

Please forgive me, Mom.

Belief is not a right, Agnes would say. The sacraments and the dogma defined her mother. Victoria had borne witness over her 19 years. Agnes was transformed into a different person in the hours and days that followed Mass. It carried her through the week.

Victoria respected it, but had her doubts. Can one gain peace of mind and serenity simply by following the liturgy, by going through these motions, in this sanctified space shaped like a cross?

For her mother, the discipline was the joy.

Trust God. Then tend to the rutabagas.

Victoria wanted to believe. She could rely on God. She could fall back on the Catechism. Faith was in her heart, wasn’t it? Agnes had taught her to love God and she did.

She would kneel, genuflect, Hail Mary, worry the rosary beads, Our Father, cross herself, and defer to the thoroughly avuncular patriarch with the best of them, but her faith was not deep enough to allow her to surrender her own will.

God’s will be done? Fine, as far as it went. But there was something missing in her Mom’s knee-jerk Catholicism: the creativity. The actual using of one’s own wits to spontaneously respond to grace.

She was a young woman with ideas.

The Eucharist. These holy unspotted sacrifices. Born to love God, yet not surrendering her will.

College was Mom and John’s idea anyway, not mine. I’ve never seen New Orleans. I’ve never even been out of Minnesota. I’m going to be a mother. Ell’s not like most men. He has a knack. We’re so much alike. I have fallen in love with him. If we don’t know something, we’ll figure it out. We’ll do it all together.

She wanted to think for herself. She was ready.

Not a sinner full of false pride and ego. A seeker of adventure.

Not God’s plan. Victoria’s will.

Victoria Bonita Maday was ready for something else. She was ready to get the bejeezus out of Minnesota. Nineteen sparse years on the northern Plains were quite sufficient for this girl’s lifetime, thank you very much.

It had not taken much of a nudge for her to buy into Ell Matson’s sense of adventure. On their second date, when he’d shared his dream to outfit a motorboat and speed down the Mississippi to New Orleans, the stars started to align.

In that singular conversation, she glimpsed just enough of an opportunity, just enough potential for excitement. Some adventure. Something new, far beyond her life so far on the farm in Fairmont, her year at the College of Saint Teresa in Winona, or even the glamour and opportunity of the Twin Cities.

She was falling in love with him, and that gave her courage.

Walking along the streets of St. Paul, his hands relaxed in his pockets, her arm looped through his, Ell droned on about procuring a Dunphy inboard runabout and zooming down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where he could listen, in person, to the music that wobbles. It was an idea he’d been marinating for about a year.

She stopped walking, forcing him to stop. She turned toward him, making direct, intense eye contact.

Have you thought about a houseboat?

Chapter2

The Acts of Ell Matson

Owing to the prolonged business depression, the succession of events abroad, the failure of banks in constantly increasing numbers, and the destruction of confidence and increasing fear throughout the country, a situation exists which calls for concerted action on the part of our leading bankers and strong banks to avert a possible threat to our entire credit structure.

—President Herbert Hoover, in a White House statement, October 4, 1931.

Tuesday, October 13, 1931

St. Paul, Minnesota

Victoria Bonita Maday, no… Matson. Her name is now Victoria Bonita Matson, and she could not remember ever being happier. Sure, she’s pregnant. But now she’s married. Whew. Bullet dodged. Day one of her new life as a wife and expectant mother.

She’d struck a hard bargain with her new husband. First, they would get married. That point was never negotiable. She would give up the Catholic wedding Mass, but a priest would have to witness their marriage at the courthouse and the child would be raised in the faith.

Compromise was just give and take, right? She can’t always just take.

But she can’t always just give, either. This troubling notion wouldn’t go away: If Ell wanted nothing to do with the Catholic Church, what made her think he’d have any part in raising their child in the Church?

She had faith. He’d come around. She’d see to it. She could be persuasive.

And stubborn.

Without really thinking about it or planning it, J. Ellsworth Matson II had invested his 26 years developing a manner of living rooted in a deep and overwhelming attachment to his own judgment.

It was evident in his actions and the way he carried himself. His certainty stemmed from self- confidence. Ell had seen and experienced enough not to get all shook up by the curveballs that waylaid most guys. He didn’t consider it a gift. God had nothing to do with it. He called it a knack and he was proud of it.

He wasn’t running away from subjection, it simply never entered his thought process. There was consistency and comfort in falling back on the freedom that came with living in the moment. Ell didn’t waste time worrying.

He was more or less ambivalent about her pregnancy. They had bumped uglies sufficiently enough that logic and common sense told him it was within the realm of possibility. Deep in the act, he also had not considered the consequences. In the bumping of uglies and in nearly everything else that mattered, Ell Matson’s tendency was to be singularly focused on the desired objective.

Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. Here’s one for auld lang syne.

An actual breathing, squealing, diaper-crapping, miniature human being in their midst was too far away, chronologically, to spend much time stewing about now. He would navigate that particular birth canal when the time came.

Victoria Maday was a choice bit of calico and he was crazy about her. In his way, he’d told her so. He didn’t have to spell it out. She was whippy enough to catch on. My God, he’d scrounged up a necktie and stood before the Ramsey County Justice of the Peace, hadn’t he? With a Catholic priest breathing down his neck to make sure it was on the level, apparently. What about that brand new ring? That had cost a pretty penny.

Oh, he understood the mechanics, the biology. Men and women are engineered this way for a specific reason. The parts fit together, nature takes its course, and nine months later, diapers to change.

J. Ellsworth Matson II had a theory about making his way in hard times. He believed most guys were lamebrains and when a Great Depression snuck up on them, they lacked the knowhow to make their way.

Ell believed few men thought and acted as he did. Scheming, manipulating, and looking out for number one. He thought the times dictated the behavior. He was of the considered opinion that a Great Depression made for more do-gooders, and that guys like him, the maneuverers and connivers, would get ahead faster.

He considered himself a bootstrapper. While those around him were wringing their hands, Ell had learned a trade. He was a land surveyor. He was handy. He’d taken apart and reconstructed motorcycles. The man knew his onions.

It suited his tendencies well. Ell was a linear thinker. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. His mind would not conceive of anything beyond space or time. Everything has limits. Nothing lasts forever. Hope is not a plan. There was no grand design, no benevolent clockmaker, just him, his ideas, plans, and schemes.

When he scanned the landscape in the fall of 1931 in St. Paul, Minnesota, his surveying skills were an important part of his theory. They would become a means to an end, but still ancillary to what would separate Ell from a country full of hapless, hopeless bastards.

This was his benchmark: Self-reliance, confidence in his ability, a fixer, problem solver, follow me, fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, plot the points, draw the map, wise to the ways of the world, shit or get off the pot.

He was proud of his attitude. He was better, smarter, more ingenious, craftier, handier, better-looking, and wittier than everyone he encountered. By age 26, Ell had developed and perfected this sort of detached, above-it-all, holier-than-thou, why-should-I-deign-to-waste-any-of-my-precious-energy-on-the-likes-of-you air.

The problem with that approach was that if you do it long enough as a shtick, sooner or later it becomes second nature. Even though you don’t set out to become a self-centered prick, in fact, that’s exactly what you are.

Perception became reality.

If it looks like a duck on the Mississippi River and quacks like a duck on the Mississippi River, then it’s a duck on the Mississippi River.

When he was talking with just one person and someone else walked up and joined the conversation, his manner and air would purposefully leave an unspoken impression that the third person was unwanted, interrupting. How dare they?

He would walk right by you without making eye contact, let alone stopping to offer a pleasantry. No nod, no wink, no smile, no Hiya, how’s the wife and kids? Ell wanted nothing to do with the lubrication of relationships. He didn’t consider himself arrogant, yet that is precisely what many who came into casual contact with him believed.

Self-righteous so and so.

That was just fine with him.

The straight line between his thoughts and subsequent actions petered out somewhere before connecting with actual truth. His ideas were true because he believed they were true.

There were no needs emanating from a place deep within him that needed to be quenched. He knew nothing else. He refused to believe there was room for anything else.

He didn’t think in terms of morality or right vs. wrong. He thought in terms of what it would take for him to get what he wanted.

If you were his friend, you would never come close to anything resembling intimacy or male bonding. It was bare minimum, surface-level politeness, tinged with smartass. If you were a woman, you were good for certain things, none of them very respectful.

Hail Mary, my ass.

No brotherhood of man. That was his father’s way, not his. Benevolence? That’s for chumps and rubes. No ties that bind. Except now he was married and the rabbit had died. The logical next question was, Now what? Ell didn’t dwell long on the question. He knew the answer.

He had a houseboat to square away. Ell Matson was good at getting the parts to fit together.

Chapter 3

The Spectrum (Ell is Spifflicated)

From Victoria’s Bonita log:

DATE: Thursday, October 15, 1931

DEPARTED: Fort Snelling, 11 a.m.

ARRIVED: Pine Bend Landing, 5 p.m.

DISTANCE: 20 miles

RUNNING TIME: 4 hours

SPEED: 5 m.p.h.

WEATHER: Very good – light N.W. wind

GAS: 12 gal., $1.85 + 1 gal. kerosene.

MAINTENANCE: horn & pliers 1.85

MISCEL: Film & lunch $1.04

REMARKS:

We left the McMunn dock at 11:00 a.m. and laid over at the St. Paul Boat Club for 2 hours to go shopping in the loop. We shoved off again at 2 p.m. and everyone there wished us well and a pleasant journey. We had extraordinarily beautiful scenery on the way – particularly noticeable at sunset time. Found a landing place just before dark.

P.S. Have an overabundance of flies in our cabin – Ell says that they must like us!

Thursday, October 15, 1931

Pine Bend Landing, Minnesota

His whole persona was one of confidence. It wasn’t an act, he truly was confident in his abilities. He had the knack, he knew it, and was not shy about projecting it. A man of action. Make a decision and move. Go with your gut. If you have an impulse, act on it.

Deep within, shielded by his overlapping strata of confidence, was a core that on the rare occasion when he allowed himself to think about it, troubled him. It surfaced sporadically, flitting about the boundaries of his confidence like those pesky flies.

The story he told himself was that he wasn’t afraid of it, yet when he allowed it purchase, for a brief moment, the fear creeped in and elbowed out the confidence.

You’re nothing but a boomer, a clown, a grifter. A punk.

He didn’t measure up. Okay, so maybe the confidence is partly just a shtick, but I believe it. Hell, not only do I believe it, I fucking live it. An egomaniac with an inferiority complex. A living, breathing, dichotomy. The fear manifested itself in impatience and a short temper. When it elbowed its way in, it felt like heartburn.

A loophole in the Volstead Act allowed some Scotch whiskey to be imported into the United States for medicinal purposes. Ell wasted no time exploiting that loophole and had packed a half-dozen bottles in what he called the Bonita’s hold, a wooden locker he’d outfitted with a false bottom.

As his wife was fixing dinner, he retrieved one.

Back shortly.

Where ya headin’? Smiling, glancing up from her potato peeling.

Ell stopped on the Bonita’s foredeck, turned her way, pointed the bottle in the general direction of the westward-facing river bluffs, and intoned ceremoniously, Madam, it is my stated intent and desire at this particular moment in time, at the outset of this august voyage, right here on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, to pursue the spectrum.

Very well! Equally ceremoniously. She was perfectly at ease with her husband making decisions and acting on them.

The brown plaid doused Ell’s heartburn and loosened the binds of overlapping strata just enough to provide an extra inch or two of working room. Maneuverability to throw his own sharp elbows.

Life’s good. (I’m good.) Glug.

Now it’s better. (Now I’m better.)

Damn near perfect. Better by increments.

Ell had been drinking long enough to establish some patterns. He had experimented with, developed, adapted, and calibrated a system to identify and label the increments. He called it the spectrum. It contained three distinct, definable benchmarks: ossified, zozzled, and spifflicated.

Ossification removed the cares of the world. If there were no cares, there was no need to put up a front. Sober, his relationships with people were simply a hardship to be endured. Ossified, the fear that prevented honesty in relationships began to fade. When Ell was ossified, the fear-induced heartburn trended downward in proportion to happiness trending upward.

Once ossified, the leap to zozzled was the next target. The length of the leap depended on his pre-ossification mood and state of mind. When Ell would reach the second benchmark on the spectrum, when he was zozzled, his inhibitions dissipated to nothing. His inner societal expectation filter, weak to begin with, simply disappeared. He could and would say whatever entered his mind.

A spectrum implies extremes on either end with varying values in between. As a surveyor, Ell considered himself a measurement specialist. When he would drink, his goal was the outermost boundary, the top of the hill. The pinnacle of the river bluff. He wanted to be spifflicated.

Spifflication brought enhanced mental capacity and acuity. When Ell was spifflicated, not only was he smarter and more creative, his ideas were clearly brilliant. He exuded confidence. He was right to begin with. When spifflicated, Ell knew he was right. The boomer-clown-grifter-punk fear was obliterated.

There was no greater existence than spifflication. This is life as it is supposed to be lived. This is the zenith. This is the feeling to be replicated. As often as humanly possible.

Ell had plotted the points and identified the inputs of the spectrum. Time, quantity of alcohol, the frequency with which it is was consumed, and his tolerance to its properties. At 26, he was already an expert in managing the inputs.

Seated atop the river bluff, the Mississippi below, bottle of brown plaid wedged securely between his feet, sun setting on the far horizon, he was at once mellow and obnoxious. The air around him was light. It was dreamy. His brain seemed to tingle warmly. His connection to things around him sharpened. One thought entered his mind, a word he’d never dream of using out loud in describing himself, for fear of being thought of as a sissy boy: cozy.

His love for Victoria was deeper. She was just about the best looking broad he’d ever been with and she damn sure was gonna be the class of anyone they encountered on this river.