An Ocean in Iowa Read online

  No one moved as Carole told the sequence of events.

  That night, during dinner, the Judge explained the medical reasons. “Some people,” he said, “a very small number of people, have what’s called an aneurysm. Doctors have no way of knowing if a person has one. Some aneurysms, such as Mrs. Fowler’s, are on the brain.” And then he said, as if it were good news, “She died instantly. No pain. No warning, of course, but at least there was no pain.”

  None of the children was eating. Appetites had been lost.

  “But you must understand—aneurysms are very rare.” The Judge used a toothpick to dislodge a chunk of meat from between his teeth. “If I was a betting man, I’d put my money that none of you would have an aneurysm.” His children still didn’t move. Finally the Judge said, “Maggie, could you pass the salt.”

  ***

  On Bev’s second day back, Scotty studied her from ten feet. He stood by the textured globe. (It was too cold to play outside, so recess was indoors.) Bev watched Ruth Rethman and Leann Callahan play ticktacktoe. Bev crossed one leg over the other as she stood. She had yet to smile.

  “She touched her dead mother,” Tom Conway whispered.

  “Yeah,” said Scotty.

  “We know someone who touched a dead person.”

  “Yeah,” said Scotty again, forgetting for a moment that Tom Conway’s family kept a dead puppy frozen in their freezer.

  Scotty envied Bev Fowler. His mother had only left, and leaving did not pull the same weight as dying.

  ***

  That night before sleep, he imagined Joan’s death. It would have to be worse than Mrs. Fowler’s. Anything less would be a letdown for his friends. Anything less and they’d say, “Too bad but look at what Bev Fowler had to go through.”

  (9)

  On television, many of the mothers on Scotty’s favorite shows were dead.

  On My Three Sons, Chip and Ernie had no mother. They had Uncle Charlie, of course, who did many of the motherly chores. And even though Fred MacMurray was dating Ernie’s teacher (they would marry that March), she would never be a real mother.

  On The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Eddie had no mother. He had Mrs. Livingston, a Japanese maid, and his father, a funny and kind and kite-flying father.

  On Family Affair, Buffy and Jody had Uncle Bill and Mr. French—no mother, though.

  Bonanza was the most motherless of shows. In fact, all three of Ben Cartwright’s boys had different mothers, all dead. But they had Hop Sing, their trusted Chinese cook.

  TV provided the necessary evidence. Not only was it possible to survive without a mother; it seemed to improve your chances of having your own TV show.

  Scotty wanted to tell Bev Fowler what he had figured out. Maybe it would make her smile or at least feel not so bad. But Bev always had her many friends around her, and he could never get close enough.

  (10)

  “School is canceled,” the Judge told his children. “You’re snowed out.”

  The Judge drove the Dodge through the storm. His snow tires helped him handle rough roads. He had mounds of paperwork to sort through at the courthouse. Claire was put in charge, and in her usual crack-the-whip style, she had both Maggie and Scotty shoveling immediately after Captain Kangaroo. The snow was heavy and wet. Scotty worked on the sidewalk and cut a path. Maggie and Claire only did one half of the driveway because only one car would be coming and going.

  The afternoon was given over to building snowmen and snow forts.

  Later in the day, while outside, Scotty broke off a small tree branch, and when he saw a row of jagged icicles hanging from a neighbor’s gutter, he ran the stick along breaking each at its base, causing missiles of ice to pierce the snow below. He took the largest icicle and licked it like an ice cream bar. He walked nonchalantly with it in one hand. Finally, Scotty had a weapon, and even grenade-toting Tom Conway (who was carving out a fort in a drift on the side of his house) knew to keep his distance.

  The Crows had a Toro snowblower and Andrew was allowed to operate it. Their driveway and sidewalks were spotless, reminding Scotty of the snow cleaner that the Cat in the Hat used.

  A snowball hurtled through the air just missing Scotty’s head. It splattered on the garage door.

  Andrew stood in his snowsuit. Bright orange stripes of reflector tape were sewn onto the legs and arms so that at night he would glow.

  Scotty hurried inside.

  That night as the family watched TV, the doorbell rang. Scotty opened the door and felt the cold from winter squeezing past the storm door. He rubbed an eye opening in the frosted glass and peeking out saw Andrew Crow standing on the porch.

  “I’ve come to collect,” Andrew shouted.

  Andrew Crow had become the paper boy for the neighborhood, delivering the Des Moines Register six mornings a week, Monday through Saturday.

  His cheeks red and eyes glazed from the cold, he stood hoping Scotty would ask him in.

  But Scotty didn’t. Instead he disappeared from view and ran circles around the coffee table, shouting, “It’s him! It’s him!”

  Claire got up from the sofa where she had been stretched out, poked her head around the corner, and, upon seeing Andrew Crow, made a gagging sound.

  The Judge gave Scotty the amount owed in exact change. And Scotty returned to the vestibule. “There you go,” Scotty said, dropping the last coin into Andrew’s glove.

  And Andrew looked up at Scotty and had an idea.

  ***

  Andrew Crow waited outside while Scotty asked the Judge. The Judge told Scotty to show Andrew inside. The Judge sat on the living room sofa, a large bowl of popcorn sitting in his lap. Mannix blared on the TV.

  “Hello, Andrew,” the Judge said.

  “Hello, sir.”

  “Scotty tells me you want to hire him to help you.”

  Andrew had never thought about hiring. He wondered if Scotty might like to tag along. It would be fun to have someone to talk to.

  “Scotty’s curious about what his wages will be.”

  Scotty stopped breathing. He wasn’t curious. He didn’t care about wages.

  Andrew had never considered paying Scotty. He saw giving him the opportunity to help him, if anything, to be a privilege, and certainly not a job.

  But the Judge was firm and Andrew quickly agreed to seventy-five cents for helping. His first offer had been a quarter but the Judge said a quarter was out of the question.

  Scotty couldn’t believe it. Not only would he get to hang out with Andrew; he would get to walk around the streets when everybody was asleep, and he would be making money, too.

  Life had a way of surprising.

  (11)

  “Maggie? Is that you, Maggie?”

  Scotty wondered, When would his voice change? When would he sound like a man?

  “Claire?”

  Scotty held the receiver and spoke in his lowest voice. “No, it’s Scotty.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Hello, little love.”

  He knew his mother’s voice. And he knew she was forcing the happy tone on the phone.

  “Scotty, you there?”

  Scotty mumbled something in response.

  “What was that, sweetheart?”

  He said nothing. He could hear her inhale on a cigarette. After a silence, Joan asked for Scotty to call the Judge to the phone.

  “He’s not home.”

  “What was that, honey?”

  “He’s not home.”

  “Of course he is—”

  “No.”

  The Judge had taken Maggie to dance class and dropped Claire off at the library.

  “He left you at home all by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m seven, Mom. Seven can handle this.”

  “Of course.”

  He was right, seven could. For seven handled helping with the laundry. Seven handled matching socks and shining the Judge’s shoes and dressing himself every morning. Seven managed.


  “Could you write your father a note?”

  Scotty mumbled an “Okay.”

  “Get paper and pencil.”

  Scotty set the phone down and pulled open drawer after drawer. He easily found a small pad of paper, but no pencil or pen.

  “No pencil.”

  “Scotty, hurry please.”

  “But there’s no pencil.”

  “Hurry.”

  He searched the bookshelf. He climbed the stairs checking each step; he ran to his room where he found crayons.

  “I got a crayon,” he said speaking into the upstairs phone.

  “Here’s my message.”

  Joan started to speak when Scotty realized he’d left the pad of paper downstairs. He dropped the phone and ran down the steps, turned the corner and picked up the kitchen phone as Joan finished giving her message.

  “What did you say?”

  “Scotty,” she sighed.

  “One more time.”

  “Write: Mother… is… in…”

  Scotty prided himself at being fast in many areas, but his penmanship took an eternity. Joan would have to wait.

  “Where are you, honey?”

  “At my house. Kitchen.”

  “No, honey, where are you with the writing?”

  “I’m on ‘is.’”

  “Tell him I’m in…”

  Joan Ocean began to sob.

  Scotty waited to hear the next word to write. He didn’t want to seem pushy so as she wept on the other end, he went back and crossed the “t” in “Mother.” Then he tried to imagine what the next word would be. Mother is in…

  Scotty heard his mother say, “One moment, please. Just one more moment.”

  “What, Mom?”

  “I’m talking to someone else, honey. Just hold on.”

  She must have covered the receiver, he decided, because he could only hear muffled voices. When she spoke to him again, her voice had no feeling. It made Scotty think she was talking to someone else.

  “Tell your dad—tell him I’m in jail.”

  Joan said good-bye. Scotty said nothing as the phone went dead, then a dial tone. Scotty was pleased because jail was a word he knew how to spell. He wrote it in big letters with his blue crayon.

  He left the note on the kitchen table and went into the living room where a plate full of his toast crusts waited. He flipped the channels in hopes of finding the Salem girl or the Purina chuck wagon.

  Later he went upstairs where he found the phone he had forgotten to hang up. When he got close, he heard the throbbing cry a phone makes when off the hook. It was as if it were calling him. “Scotty,” it said. “Scotty, Scotty.”

  ***

  As soon as he got home, the Judge called the police in Iowa City. Joan had crashed her car into a telephone pole. She had cut her forehead, received stitches: She had been drinking. The car was damaged, not totaled, and she’d be able to drive it. After being treated at a hospital, she was taken to the Johnson County Jail where she was to spend the night.

  The Judge told his worried children all that he thought they should know. Scotty didn’t hear much of what he said—only the good news that his mother was a criminal.

  At school, Scotty expected and got a small crowd of boys who wanted to know all the details.

  Tom Conway asked Scotty, “Will she get the death penalty?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s she in for?”

  “Lots of things,” Scotty told the boys.

  “I believe in the death penalty,” Chip Fisher said. His father was a policeman.

  “Me, too,” Scotty said.

  “Even if it’s your mother?”

  “For what she did, yep.”

  “What’d she do? Murder somebody?”

  “Maybe,” Scotty said.

  “No. We woulda heard ’bout it.”

  “You gotta kill to get the death penalty.”

  “Scotty’s a liar. He lies.”

  Scotty shrugged. They all had boring mothers—mothers who baked, mothers who sewed, mothers who drove station wagons. His mother was a criminal.

  Mrs. Boyden rang the bell signaling the end of recess.

  “You don’t mean the death penalty part.”

  “I do.”

  Mrs. Boyden rang the recess bell a second time and the others sprinted toward the classroom. Scotty walked, taking his own sweet time. He knew those who weren’t looking at him were thinking about him, his mother and her crime, and how great it must be to be Scotty Ocean.

  ***

  Within minutes, as Mrs. Boyden flashed addition and subtraction cards, Bev Fowler put her head down on the table and began to cry uncontrollably. Mrs. Boyden took Bev by the hand and led her out of the classroom as the others watched silently.

  After a short time, Mrs. Boyden opened the classroom door and said, “Scott, could you come here please?”

  Outside, Bev’s shoulders heaved up and down, her eyes all pink and wet.

  “Tell Beverly the truth.”

  Scotty looked at her as if he had no idea what she meant.

  “Your mother isn’t going to be executed,” she said as she squeezed Scotty’s arm. “Tell her!”

  Scotty turned to Mrs. Boyden, pressed his big front teeth into his bottom lip and glared. She said, without thought, “I’ll get the principal.”

  Scotty said nothing to Bev Fowler, who continued crying with her hands brought up to cover her face. Scotty looked out to where the playground equipment stood. He heard the click of Mrs. Boyden’s heels walking away. The click grew softer. It stopped when she turned into the carpeted office. Mr. Sheil, the principal, would be coming out soon, the weight of his body leaning forward, his bald head reflecting the fluorescent light.

  ***

  While waiting outside the principal’s office, Scotty watched the other children as they left for the day. Some kids carried home their art projects, and other kids lined up for the water fountain. Tim Myerly hurried past. Somewhere out in the parking lot, inside a station wagon, Mrs. Myerly waited.

  The Judge had been contacted. He drove straight from the courthouse, and he was, as Maggie would say, steaming mad. He had gone immediately into the principal’s office, where he met privately with Principal Sheil and Mrs. Boyden for over thirty minutes.

  Scotty wondered what they were talking about.

  Scotty knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t seem to care.

  When the Judge emerged from the office, he didn’t look at Scotty. He said tersely, “Get your coat.” Scotty did. “Get your things.” Scotty had his lunch pail, his stocking cap, his mittens. “I have them.”

  “Let’s go,” the Judge said.

  ***

  The Judge unlocked the car door with his key.

  “Scotty, this is unacceptable. Do you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t want me to have to come back to school. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know,” Scotty said as he climbed in the car.

  “Because,” the Judge said with utter certainty, “the next time I get called back, it won’t be pretty.”

  (12)

  That Sunday, Sheila Myerly came to church alone. No Tim or Jeff, no Elizabeth. No husband. It was just Sheila. And Scotty knew it was his chance.

  He kept turning around and looking at her during the service. Maybe her children and her husband got burned up in a fire or crushed by a bus.

  At the coffee hour, he watched from behind the glass door outside the nursery. It would be time to go home soon. He waited for her to take a cigarette. As everyone said their goodbyes, Sheila stood in her regular spot.

  Finally, she reached into her purse and pulled out her weekly cigarette. She lit it.

  “Tim’s Mom?”

  Sheila turned and looked down. Staring up at her was Scotty—his odd face with a lopsided smile and hair she longed to comb.

  “Tim’s Mom?”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Uhm. Uhm.
” His knees felt like liquid; his stomach contracted into a tight knot. “Uhm.”

  Sheila Myerly smiled at Scotty. This gave him the needed strength.

  “Where’s Tim?”

  “The kids and their father went to Kansas City on a special trip.”

  “Oh.”

  Scotty stood for a moment. He didn’t know what to do. Mrs. Sheila Myerly’s ashes turned orange as she inhaled. The smoke poured out her mouth and Scotty closed his eyes, hoping the smoke would surround him. It floated above, at first, and he watched as it slowly began to descend.

  Standing in Sheila Myerly’s smoke, Scotty was transported. He wondered, Is this sex?

  Mrs. Sheila Myerly giggled.

  Scotty opened his eyes.

  “I’ll tell Tim you asked about him.”

  “Okay,” Scotty said, turning, and then he stole away.

  “And Scotty?”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe sometime you’d like to spend the night at our house. Would you like that?”

  “Huh?”

  “An overnight. You come to our house. Spend the night.”

  Scotty wanted to celebrate, do something, dance, but he cocked his head, as if considering, and said, “I’ll have to ask my dad.”

  (13)

  That week on Family Affair, Buffy lost her doll Mrs. Beasley. Uncle Bill spent the entire show trying to find Mrs. Beasley. Through persistence and a bit of good luck, he found the doll in the trash receptacle and just in time, too, for the show was almost over for the week. He woke Buffy, who was missing both front teeth—she’s only six, Scotty said to his sisters and the Judge—and she told Uncle Bill that she had been dreaming that he had found Mrs. Beasley. Then Uncle Bill held out Mrs. Beasley for Buffy and said, “Sometimes dreams come true.”

  (14)

  “Wait till the car stops moving,” the Judge shouted.

  But Scotty had already swung open the car door. The Judge was about to yell at Scotty when he realized Sheila Myerly was approaching the car. She wore a wool sweater and matching earmuffs.

  “We’re so pleased Scotty could be with us,” she told the Judge.