The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg Read Free Book Online Page B

nose.”
    “Well … maybe not.”
    “Why? What else does it say? I don’t understand.”
    “Honey … just keep breathing, and let me look at this again.” He sat there reading the papers while Sookie continued breathing into the brown paper bag, but she didn’t like the look on his face.
    “Well?” she asked, between breaths.
    He looked at her. “Are you sure you’re up for this? This is a lot of information to get in one day.”
    “Yes … of course, I’m sure.”
    “I’m not going to read anymore, unless you promise me you won’t get too upset and faint again.”
    “I promise.”
    “Well … your medical records look good. You were a very healthy baby.”
    “What else?”
    Earle picked up the birth certificate. “According to this, it says that your mother’s name was Fritzi Willinka … and I think the last name is … it looks like Juraaablalinskie. Or something like that.”
    “What?”
    He spelled it out.
    “Good Lord! What kind of a name is that?”
    “Uh … let’s see. Oh, nationality of mother … Polish.”
    “What?”
    “Polish.”
    “Polish? I don’t even know anyone Polish.”
    “Hold on … it says … birthplace of mother … Pulaski, Wisconsin … November 9, 1918. Religion of mother: Catholic.”
    “Catholic? Oh, my God. What does it say about the father?”
    Earle looked again and then said quietly, “Uh … it says here, father unknown.”
    “Unknown? How can it be unknown? What does that mean?”
    “I’m not sure. It could mean a lot of things. Maybe she didn’t want to say or … I don’t know.”
    Then Sookie said, “Oh, my God, Earle … I’m illegitimate. I’m an illegitimate Catholic Polish person!”
    “Now, honey … calm down. We don’t know that. We can’t jump to any conclusions.”
    “Well, Earle, if you were married to someone, he certainly wouldn’t be unknown, would he? Did she even give me a name?”
    “Wait a minute. Yes, here it is. Your birth name is … Ginger Jaberwisnske or however you pronounce it … and you were born at 12:08 P . M ., October fourteenth, 1944, weight … eight pounds, seven ounces.”
    Sookie slowly sat straight up and said, “Earle, that’s not right.”
    “What?”
    “1944.”
    “Well, honey, that’s what it says. October fourteenth, 1944. Look … there it is in black and white.”
    Sookie looked stricken. “Earle, do you know what that means? Oh, my God, I’m sixty years old! Oh, my God—I’m older than you are! Oh, my God!”
    “Okay, honey, now just calm down … that’s no big thing.”
    “No big thing! No big thing?
You
go to bed thinking you are a fifty-nine-year-old woman, and the next day, find out you’re sixty!” Sookie felt the blood slowly begin to drain from her face. Earle caught her just before she fell off the couch and hit the floor again.
    A few minutes later, after she had come to again and had had a little more brandy, Sookie, who almost never cursed in her life, looked at Earle and said, “And
who
in bloody hell are the Jerkalawinskies?!”

WHO INDEED!

    P ULASKI , W ISCONSIN
    S TANISLAW L UDIC J URDABRALINSKI HAD ARRIVED IN C HICAGO ON J ANUARY 5, 1909. During his first few years in America, he had worked hauling beer barrels for a local brewery and learned English at night. Sometime later, Stanislaw got a better job building the Chicago and North Western railroad that went from Green Bay, Wisconsin, through a small town called Pulaski.
    At the time, Pulaski, Wisconsin, was a tiny village of Polish immigrants who had been lured there by a savvy German landowner. After purchasing the land, he had spread brochures throughout the predominantly Polish neighborhoods in Chicago, Milwaukee, and the Pennsylvania mining regions, hoping to sell plots of land to the large number of Polish immigrants wanting to establish a “little Poland” in America, complete with churches and schools. He had even named the town after Count Casimir Pulaski, the