From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Handsome Paul was a prize for our jail. The charmer, Paul’s Brell Creme’d wavy chestnut hair  and perfectly shaped toothy grin were a magnet for the girl “groupies” at the jail. Mom, my little sister, Barbie, and I were smitten too.  Next to Verdi, the blonde with naturally curly hair, Paul was by far the smoothest of our jail gentlemen. Charming and full of exciting stories, he flirted outrageously with us. He’d tease me saying “Wait for me, Patty.” I was maybe ten or twelve, totally snowed with his charm.

Paul’s favorite paperbacks had muscular heroes with mustaches and black hats riding fast Palominos, he shared his tattered copies with our deputy Krook, my Dad’s sidekick. They’d sit in the cells discussing Western adventures on days when the deputy wasn’t arresting someone or having coffee at Wimpy’s Café downtown. 

Paul had been teaching Arthur Murray dance lessons in the Cities. Meanwhile, he had glibly danced his way from wife to wife to wife forgetting about the legalities of divorce and remarriage.  Then he wrote a check with insufficient funds. Dad said that when Paul tried to cash a bad check, that got his attention. Most small town folks didn’t try to tiff somebody or do something shady. Everyone would know who did the dastardly deed, especially folks in Glenwood where anything out of the ordinary was duly noted.

Mom always excused Paul saying he made bad choices. To her our jail guests were not bad people; they weren’t naturally mean and spiteful. They simply made bad decisions.

Mom’s favorite prisoner was Paul, the dancing decorator. Smoothly gliding across the steel floor, Paul would hum a tango tune, dance some fancy steps, dip an imaginary partner then take a bow. He was so smooth and handsome, like a movie star. His hair was combed into a greased pompadour that was cool in the ‘50s along with his tight white tee shirt with a cigarette rolled into the short sleeve.

Paul charmed Mom with compliments about her cooking and pretty hair. He smiled his way into her heart. Not only could he dance divinely, but he became Mom’s decorator that winter at the jail. He seemed to know what went with what. Sentenced to several months in jail, probably for bigamy and bad checks, he decided he might as well paint and wallpaper our home at the jail.

For the most part, our prisoners were not bad men. Mom got Dad to let Paul out of his cell to work on decorating her kitchen the winter he spent in jail with us. He came up with a brilliant idea to transform the jail kitchen by stenciling leaf patterns above the varnished maple cupboards. The leaves had soft green trailing vines interspersed on a pale pink background. It looked pretty and made Mom feel good while she cooked dinner for the prisoners. Paul would keep up a running conversation with Mom while he worked.

Next thing, Paul decided that the dining room needed fresh wallpaper. He chose a leafy fern pattern in green, maroon, pink and beige to compliment Mom’s favorite flowers, blooming gloxinias that sat in the sun on the wide ledge of the dining room windows.  Lush gloxinia blooms of fuchsia purple and variegated reds preened in clay pots atop the radiators. Next to the tall drafty windows were silver painted steam radiators that belched steam heat into the large rooms. In the winter 3-pound coffee tins filled with water provided moisture as our house was very dry from the radiator heat. Creating inexpensive decorating schemes kept Paul from boredom in his jail cell. He was  good at coming up with new ideas.

When the gifted home decorator got out of the cells to decorate her kitchen, Mom would reward him with tasty samples of her chocolate cake with the oozing fudge frosting running over the sides of the slices. Her carrot cookies glazed with sugary orange frosting were Paul’s second favorite treat. 

Even the county commissioners enjoyed Paul’s stories of his stint at the Arthur Murray’s studio in downtown Minneapolis, the big city. He’d taught dancing and tried to teach Barbie and me how to rumba, limbo, even polka and the two step. Paul’s adventures, whether true or not, provided some glamour to us that winter.

Knowing Paul’s questionable character, Dad carefully watched over us. He believed Paul was a good guy, but a wheeler dealer. All my girlfriends preferred Paul, but somehow I innately knew that Paul was not to be trusted no matter how charming he might be. 

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.