An Ocean in Iowa Read online

  Claire and Maggie knew right away they hadn’t thought it through, for they had dared him, and if he didn’t get loose before their parents returned home, they would be blamed.

  In moments the sisters were outside. Claire tried to uproot the mailbox. As she pulled at the wooden base, grunting and sputtering, she explained her thinking: “If we can get the box inside, his tongue will thaw.” But even with Maggie helping, the mailbox was not to be moved. The previous summer the mailbox base had been set in concrete.

  While the girls shouted frantically, Scotty struggled to be understood. “It’s cold” is what he tried to say. But with his tongue stuck, it sounded like “ooosss koohhhd.”

  Joan and the Judge had gone to a Sunday brunch with friends. They would be home shortly, in good spirits probably, unless of course they saw their boy frozen to the mailbox.

  So Claire and Maggie had no choice. They each grabbed a shoulder and hooked under an elbow and yanked suddenly without warning. Scotty brought his hands quickly to his mouth. All three stood quietly staring at the miniature pink circle of flesh still stuck on the mailbox.

  “It looks like a little pizza,” said Maggie without thinking.

  As Scotty’s eyes filled and his skin flushed bright red, he began to jump about in the slush. He fell on his knees in a remaining patch of snow.

  Later, while wrapped in blankets, Scotty lay on the kitchen floor, his hand crammed in his mouth squeezing the tongue. He breathed in short, quick spurts, and didn’t move. A steady stream of tears ran down his face.

  Claire checked the cabinet that contained medicines and Band-Aids. She removed a medicine bottle and said, “Mom uses this on cuts.”

  Maggie said, “Let’s try it.”

  So they propped Scotty up.

  Claire opened the medicine called tincture of Merthiolate. It came in a dropper. Its smell brought with it the memory of every bike crash and knee scrape. It would leave an orange stain but it would sterilize. And Claire thought it was important to sterilize.

  But when she dropped the Merthiolate onto Scotty’s outstretched tongue, he jerked back, stood up, and began to slap at his mouth. He ran around the house. His face turned purple and he finally dropped to the floor and thrashed about wildly.

  As Maggie begged him to calm down—“PLEASE, PLEASE”—Claire knew she had no choice. She dialed the operator.

  ***

  When the Judge turned his Dodge Dart at the bottom of the street, he was the first to see the flashing lights. Then Joan noticed and knew immediately who was hurt. “Scotty,” she said.

  Two paramedics were loading him into the ambulance as the Ocean car pulled into the driveway. Claire and Maggie began to cry the minute they saw the car. The girls tried to explain, they apologized, in desperation they lied and said it was Scotty’s idea; Claire finished the explanation by recalling a TV show where the kid didn’t get stuck. Even TV was to blame.

  The Judge told everyone to calm down. “The body knows how to heal,” he said. “The body knows best and we’ve got to get out of its way.”

  Joan rode in the ambulance while the Judge stayed home. She kept her eyes on Scotty, who stared back at her. The ambulance worker had wrapped Scotty’s tongue with gauze. Joan said sweetly, “This is one time you can stick it out and not get in trouble.”

  ***

  Later that day, after dressing in a parka and matching scarf, the Judge stepped outside. It was time for him to do his part. Since the incident, the weather hadn’t cooperated. The sleet turned to a hard falling snow that had begun to blanket car windshields and sidewalks and the street. The Judge found the bad weather fitting. It felt Shakespearean, Greek.

  Brushing away the accumulated snow with his gloved hand, the Judge stared at the mailbox, studying for a moment the sliver of Scotty’s tongue. Then he prayed without kneeling (for his knees would get wet), but he prayed all the same: Please make this the deepest pain my boy will ever feel.

  Back inside the house, the Judge boiled water. Using his gloves as potholders, he carried the pan out the front door and poured the hot water over the mailbox. Steam rose. He waited a moment and then using the pancake spatula, he scraped the mailbox clean.

  The girls had gone to their rooms where they waited for news of their brother.

  At the hospital, Scotty lay on a stretcher. As an overhead light blurred his eyesight, as a nurse with several tiny black hairs on her chin poked around in his mouth, as the intercom called for a certain doctor to go to a certain room and another doctor to go to another room, Scotty made a gesture that no one saw. He wanted his mother.

  Joan had gone to the pay phone outside of the emergency room. Digging around the bottom of her purse, she found a nickel, put it in the coin slot, and dialed.

  “Judge Ocean speaking.”

  Joan said, her voice shaky, “The doctors want to keep Scotty a little longer. It’s more procedural than anything.”

  “Oh,” the Judge said. It was silent on the other end. Neither of them knew what to say. Then the Judge spoke: “I disposed of the tongue.”

  There was another uncomfortable silence. Then Joan said, “Would you like to say something to Scotty?”

  The Judge said, “No.” He thought it was better for Scotty to rest. But before hanging up, the Judge said, “Tell him Bonanza is on tonight.”

  The Judge wrote the girls’ orders down on a napkin and went to McDonald’s. He didn’t cook, and the girls loved McDonald’s, and it would be his way to help begin the healing. For in the Ocean household, when one child hurt, everyone suffered in their own way.

  It was during Bonanza, however, that the Judge felt a rush of regret. After all, Scotty’s tongue had been torn up, not his ears—Scotty could hear. The Judge, angry at himself, wished he had said something to Scotty.

  During a commercial he dialed the hospital and the operator put the call through to Scotty’s room.

  “Let me talk to Scotty.”

  “You can’t,” Joan said.

  “Please let me talk to him.”

  “He’s asleep now.”

  “Oh,” the Judge said. “Damn.” The Judge paused. “When Scotty wakes up, tell him Bonanza wasn’t much this week. Tell him he didn’t miss a thing.”

  After hanging up, the Judge hurried back to the television. It was the best Bonanza episode he could remember—the best one in years.

  ***

  When word spread the following day at Clover Hills Elementary, a pack of boys—third and fourth graders mainly—made a pilgrimage after school. They sent Scotty’s best friends, Dan Burkhett and Jimmy Lamson, ahead. The boys reported back that the mailbox had no tongue on it. This news noted, the gang of boys scattered and headed to their respective homes, disappointed.

  ***

  Even though his doctor said he could resume talking immediately, Scotty said nothing for days. The only time he opened his mouth was to insert the straw used to drink his vitamin milk shakes. For the time being all his meals were to be liquid.

  Scotty’s first grade teacher, Mrs. Marilyn Sands, felt sorry for Scotty and only asked him yes or no questions. And even though he frequently gave the wrong answer, he was at least nodding and shaking—he was trying.

  His classmates left him alone. They knew he had suffered in unthinkable ways, and that one day they, too, might lose a portion of their tongue on a mailbox.

  That Wednesday, however, Mary Beth Swift came to school with her arm in a sling. She had broken her wrist the day before while roller-skating. Sympathies quickly switched to Mary Beth, who offered her classmates a choice of different-colored markers with which to sign her plaster cast.

  On Thursday morning when Joan woke Scotty, he made a face like he didn’t feel well. “Then you’d better stay home,” she said.

  She worked for his trust. Gaining it, she thought, he would confide in her—he would eventually speak. So she took him on secret trips. They drove all over West Glen and Windsor Heights playing the car radio loud. They drove to the liquor
store and bought extra six-packs of beer. She hid them in the basement in suitcases.

  That Thursday night Scotty sat silently at dinner, slurping at his liquid diet. The girls hated the constant attention he was receiving. Any kindness showed Scotty felt like a slap at them, punishment for daring him to lick the mailbox, punishment for being beautiful and smart and clever and popular. As the girls battled for attention, they began talking faster at dinner, fabricating stories. The meal became chaos.

  The Judge said dinner was over and that the next night there would be a constructive discussion about the future. He asked his children to think about what they wanted to be when they grew up. He excused the girls, who began to clear the table.

  That Friday, Scotty went with his mother to her studio. He watched her squeeze out the oil paints. He liked watching her mix colors, the big thick globs of paint stirred into every color imaginable. Joan set him up with a miniature easel and several containers of finger paints. When she finished a painting, Scotty hurried to finish one, too. They hung their work side by side. She explained why his paintings were brilliant. “The color,” she would say. “The feeling underneath.”

  That afternoon, while Joan talked on the phone, Scotty put his nose up to her palette of oil paints and inhaled deeply. He loved the smell so he breathed in several times fast. He grew dizzy. He danced a bit. He thought sentences but said nothing. This was the closest he’d come to saying words.

  At dinner the Judge asked his children the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Maggie said a model. Claire had many goals, numerous interests. Joan said it would take three lifetimes to do all that Claire wanted.

  Then the Judge spoke again: “And you know what?”

  “What?” Claire and Maggie said.

  “You,” he said, fighting a smile, “Can. Be. Anything.” He smiled, shouted, “ANYTHING!” and then turned to Scotty.

  “Young man, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  Scotty didn’t answer.

  The Judge told him to answer.

  Scotty didn’t move.

  “Don’t be shy. Tell me what you want to be.”

  He put his arm around Scotty and pulled him close. Joan started to object. The Judge said, “Shhhh.”

  Scotty squirmed in an effort to get away. But the Judge was strong. There was no escape. The more Scotty tried to wiggle free, the more his sisters laughed.

  “You can be anything you want to be,” the Judge said. “Imagine that. You can be anything.”

  “Yeah,” the girls said.

  The Judge said, “You just have to be something.”

  Scotty began to hold his breath.

  Joan whispered, “Walter.”

  The Judge waved his hand for her to be quiet. “You don’t want to grow up, Scotty, is that it? You don’t have dreams?”

  Scotty had begun to turn blue.

  Sensing that this was nowhere near working, the Judge patted Scotty on the top of the head, grinned for the family, excused the girls to start clearing the table, and sent Scotty to his room.

  Everyone did as the Judge said, except for Scotty, who sat motionless.

  “You don’t have to talk,” the Judge said, annoyed. “But you have to go to your room.”

  Scotty began to move his mouth. No one could hear him, not even the Judge, who was spooning the last of the mashed potatoes onto his plate.

  “Look,” Maggie said. “Scotty’s trying to talk.”

  Scotty’s mouth moved more.

  Joan leaned over and listened. Scotty’s voice was a whisper.

  Joan said, “Something about heaven?”

  Scotty shook his head.

  The Judge interrupted, “Heaven comes after you die. What do you want to do before that?”

  “No,” Scotty said just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Seven. I want to be seven.”

  (6)

  Even now, after six months, they loved to retell the story. Claire did an imitation of Scotty announcing “I want to be seven!” which caught Maggie off guard. A stream of orange Hi-C shot out Maggie’s nose and everyone started laughing. The Judge almost fell out of his chair. Joan wiped at her eyes and begged, “Stop, please.”

  When everyone caught their breath, the Judge raised his glass and said, “So, Scotty, tomorrow you finally get what you want.”

  Scotty smiled, revealing his uneven teeth.

  “Let’s drink to that, what do you say?”

  They all lifted their glasses—clink.

  ***

  That night Joan used a remaining shard of soap to lather her hands.

  “Let it go, Mom,” Scotty said.

  She let the soap drop. Scotty searched the bottom of the tub. Finding it near the drain, he raised his arms into the air, holding the soap sliver like a trophy.

  “Wash me,” he said.

  With her hands appropriately lathered, Joan began to soap Scotty’s back.

  “Starting tomorrow, Mom, I won’t need this anymore.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Scotty said, “I’ll do it by myself.”

  “Oh, you will, will you?”

  “You’ll see. I’ll do most things by myself.”

  She soaped his pale arms and chest. Using her fingernails, she scratched lightly over his shoulders, and she considered that one day these boy-shoulders would be broad. Soon his sweet face would grow hair, his voice would drop, and his hands would get rough and callused. How, she thought, how do I keep you, Scotty, just the way you are?

  ***

  But there was one habit of Scotty’s that Joan wanted to stop. In the middle of most nights, he found his way to his parents’ bed and climbed in between them. The Judge had discussed putting a lock on the door. But Joan felt there must be a gentler way.

  So that night she asked him as she tucked him in, “Do you know the history of this bed?”

  Scotty shook his head.

  “When I was your age, it was mine.”

  “You weren’t my age.”

  “Yes, of course I was.” She combed back his wet bangs with her fingers and smiled. “And this was my bed.”

  “But now it’s mine.”

  “No, it’s my bed, Scotty. I’m loaning it to you.”

  Scotty said nothing.

  How could she tell him that he wasn’t wanted anymore in their bed?

  She kissed his lips, click went the light, and with her hand on the doorknob, and moments before all would be dark, she said, “Scotty?”

  “Yes, Mom?”

  “Will you do me a favor?”

  He nodded, for he would do any favor, anything, for her.

  “You will?”

  “I’ll do you a favor,” he said.

  “Will you take care of this bed.”

  “Yes.”

  Joan said, “Will you keep it warm for me?”

  LOOK AT SCOTTY GROW

  (1)

  West Glen, Iowa (population 15,991), was one of a cluster of suburbs located west of Des Moines.

  In those days you still could drive a few miles out and be in farm country. Drive east on Interstate 235, and in minutes you’d be in downtown Des Moines with full view of the twelve-story Equitable Building, the KRNT Theater, and the State Capitol, a gold-domed building that shined on a sunny day.

  West Glen boasted one of the finest school districts in the state. With only half of its land developed, the Judge knew, and Joan didn’t argue, that West Glen was a town with a future. It could only grow.

  The Ocean house was built in 1962 along with forty or fifty others in a five-block radius. It had all that a family could need. Over half an acre of land, four bedrooms, a modern kitchen with a state-of-the-art stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher. It was typical for the neighborhood. The Judge wanted something that didn’t stand out. He had found such a house.

  They bought it before construction had been completed, a month after Walter was made a judge by the governor of Iowa. Thirty-seven years old at the time, he b
ecame the youngest judge in Polk County. A new, larger house was needed, as Joan was about to give birth to Scotty.

  With fake shutters painted light blue, a red brick first story, and a white wooden second story, the house had a slightly patriotic flair.

  Upstairs, Maggie and Claire had rooms of identical size that faced each other at the end of the hall. Scotty’s room, the smallest, looked out over the backyard and the younger of two willow trees. His room was closest to his parents’ bedroom, which was at the top of the stairs, across from the bathroom.

  Downstairs, a living room/family room boasted a new television with rabbit ears, a wooden coffee table, a long sofa propped up by books on one end, and a baby grand piano, where Claire and Maggie practiced for their weekly lessons.

  The day they moved in, Joan had her daughters stand with their backs to the kitchen closet door. Resting a book on their heads, she drew lines that recorded their height. When Scotty could stand, she included him. Throughout the years, the marks climbed the door, becoming, as the Judge liked to say, “evidence that big things are happening.”

  The living room had a large picture window, which Joan decided was perfect for displaying the artwork of her children. During those first years, watercolor paintings and crayon drawings were taped in the window for all the neighbors to see.

  One summer Claire made a snow scene out of construction paper, gluing tiny paper flakes to the page, coloring in a snowman and two girls pulling a boy on a sled. Joan hung Claire’s creation in the window even though it was only June.

  “Mom,” Claire protested, “don’t put it up now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s summer.”

  “People need to be reminded of winter. Winter is coming.”

  “Mom!”

  “There’s nothing worse than art that no one sees.”

  While Joan was out running errands, an embarrassed Claire took the snow scene down and hid it under the basement stairs. But Joan hunted it down and returned it to its rightful spot. Claire considered tearing it to pieces, but decided against it when she realized Joan would painstakingly tape it back together. The snow scene remained displayed in the window.