An Ocean in Iowa

by Peter Hedges

  Scotty would say, “I’m thankful for the snow.”

  Maggie would grunt.

  The Judge would say, “It’s something.”

  And Scotty would repeat, “Yeah, it’s something.”

  “And what else, Scotty, are you thankful for?”

  And he would say, “My new tooth,” or he’d mention a new toy. Once he was thankful for everything everyone else was thankful for.

  Maggie’s thank-yous were usually material—a lipstick, a curling iron, or her new go-go boots. Claire’s thank-yous were often of a political nature. “I’m thankful for the lives of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m thankful I received my POW bracelet in the mail.”

  The Judge always looked each child in the eye and then said, “I’m thankful for my wonderful kids.”

  ***

  One night Scotty listed everything he could think up. “I’m thankful for corn muffins and… my new shoes and… and Tang breakfast drink… and that I’m not frozen in the freezer.”

  “Hear! Hear!” the Judge said. Word had spread around the neighborhood about the Conways’ puppy.

  “Anything else, Scotty?”

  “Huh?”

  “That you’re thankful for?”

  “Oh yeah. Sheila.”

  “Sheila?” the Judge asked. “Who is Sheila?”

  Scotty wouldn’t say.

  Claire asked, “Does Scotty have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Then who is Sheila?”

  ***

  Later, as they did laundry, Claire asked Scotty to describe her. He did the best he could explaining her hair, her smile, the size of her eyes.

  Claire poured in detergent. They were doing a load of whites. “What’s Sheila’s last name? If she’s that pretty, you better tell me her name.”

  “No,” Scotty said.

  “Then I don’t believe you.”

  “She’s real.”

  “Let me see her.”

  “You’ve seen her and you don’t even know it.”

  ***

  Tim Myerly’s mom was named Sheila. Scotty had heard Mr. Myerly call her that the previous Sunday. “Sheila,” he kept saying, “Sheila, it’s time to go home.”

  If he were ever to speak with her, Scotty decided, he’d never call her Sheila—better to call her Tim’s Mom. She’d like that, he thought. She’d smile.

  Lately Scotty had been tagging along with Tim after Sunday services. Tim didn’t trust Scotty because he appeared too friendly. But soon the boys were playing during every coffee hour. Sometimes Tim’s younger brother, Jeff, who had just turned five but was taller than Scotty, played, too. Rounding out the Myerly family, there was the baby sister, six-month-old Elizabeth, and the father, a salesman for Massey-Ferguson tractors. But most important, there was Tim Myerly’s mom, whose effortless smile made Scotty think he was one of her own.

  While the adults socialized in the parish hall, Scotty would play hide-and-seek with the Myerly brothers. Whether he was hiding or whether he was “it,” Scotty found a way to sneak downstairs to the nursery. There he would linger behind people and doors staring at Tim Myerly’s mom, who always stood holding Elizabeth, talking with Mrs. Hargroves or Miss Jeannette Snead, in the center of the nursery.

  Each week Scotty yearned for Mrs. Sheila Myerly to do one thing. He would wait. She never failed him. It always came after Sheila handed Elizabeth over to one of her women friends. (Tim or Jeff might run past and she might say, “Boys, not so fast.” She said it in such a way a boy would never want to run fast again.)

  Scotty’s favorite moment began as she opened her shiny black purse. Somehow she never searched or fumbled; she never removed anything extra. Without pause and without even the slightest glance down, she produced a long, white cigarette. The cigarette went to her lips. She reached in again and out came a silver lighter. She lit the cigarette, inhaled slowly, her cheeks sinking in. She looked up and exhaled her smoke in thin, perfect streams. A white cloud of smoke floated above her and Scotty wanted more than anything for it to blow his way.

  (6)

  On a Friday night in early February, ten of Maggie’s closest friends came to the house for a birthday party sleep-over. The Judge made sloppy joes and Claire made a cake, and there were presents, but mainly the party consisted of girls staying up most of the night, wrapped in their sleeping bags, talking about girl matters.

  In the morning Scotty found Maggie and her friends spread out in their sleeping bags, so he was forced to watch cartoons on the black-and-white TV in the Judge’s room.

  Later, when the girls finally woke up, the Judge made French toast, much of which he burned.

  ***

  That Sunday a minor snowstorm almost ruined the second part of Maggie’s birthday weekend. Scotty, Maggie, and Claire had been dropped off at the Des Moines Ice Arena, home of the minor league hockey team, the Des Moines Capitals. On non-game days, the arena was open to the public for ice skating. And since Maggie had received a pair of perfectly sized white skates from Joan in the mail, she was eager to try them out.

  The Judge reminded them as they climbed out of the car that Joan was driving the ninety miles from Iowa City, and the snow would most likely delay her. If she hadn’t arrived by the end of the skating session, they were to call the Judge and he would come get them.

  Scotty stood near the concession stand peering over the ice rink wall. He had no interest in skating himself, but he didn’t mind watching: He especially liked when people fell.

  A pair of cold hands covered his eyes, and a familiar voice said, “Guess who?” (Joan had arrived in time to catch the final fifteen minutes of the afternoon skate.) He pulled her hands away, turned, and saw her. She appeared clear-eyed, her cheeks pink from the winter air, and she kissed him on the forehead, making a loud smack. Then she scanned the ice rink looking for the girls. She found Claire circling in the center of the ice. Then, at the far end of the rink, where the opposition’s goal would be if it were a hockey game, she saw Maggie wobbling along, her ankles turned in. Joan shouted and waved.

  “Look at them,” she told Scotty. “They’re good.”

  “Yeah,” Scotty said.

  “Why aren’t you skating?”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right.”

  Joan had been a cheerleader in college and anyone watching would have seen a hint of the kind of cheerleader she had been: peppy, loud, animated. But the more vocal and more supportive Joan became, the more Scotty wanted to go home.

  When the announcement came over the loudspeaker asking the skaters to clear the rink, those on the ice let out a collective moan. As the girls skated toward the exit door, Joan told them they could skate for another session if they wanted. “No,” Maggie said, quickly unlacing and removing her skates. She already had the beginnings of a blister.

  While Joan and the girls talked, Scotty watched as a special machine, resembling a street cleaner, drove out onto the rink. It sprayed water over the cut, gashed ice. This smoothed over the rough edges and made the surface look like the glaze on a doughnut.

  ***

  After a brisk walk across the street to Shakey’s Pizza, Joan and her children settled into a corner booth. Joan shared a pitcher of Pepsi with the girls. No beer, they would report later to the Judge, no beer. Scotty drank 7-UP. He studied the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth with its blotches of tomato paste and crumbs from previous pizza crusts.

  Maggie asked if it was okay to order a Suicide pizza (which consisted of every topping Shakey’s offered). Joan said, “It’s your day, Maggie.”

  Trying to cram weeks of life into an hour of pizza and conversation proved not easy, as Maggie and Joan were both eager to talk. Maggie recounted her party. And Joan said she was glad it had gone well.

  On a television that hung above the place where soda pop and beer were served, Scotty watched the opening moments of Wide World of Sports (“The thrill of victory, the agony of defea
t!”). On the screen, a skier fell and flipped over and rolled and bounced and skidded for hundreds of yards. Every week he made the same fall. Scotty always wondered how badly the skier was hurt.

  Joan spoke about how nice it was being back in school. She hinted that next time they got together, they could all study. She explained how she had given up art and felt great about it. She wanted to learn something useful. She wanted to help people. Claire told her mother that she was proud, and Maggie agreed. Joan described her apartment in Iowa City. “Barely enough room for me, but soon I will get a bigger place with a fold-out sofa. You all can come and visit.”

  Outside, the snow was accumulating on the street faster than the street plows could remove it.

  Scotty said little during the eating of pizza. He didn’t like pizza.

  Maggie accused him of never trying it.

  “Yes, I have.”

  Claire asked Scotty when he last had eaten it.

  Scotty shrugged.

  “Maybe you’ll like it. It’s a scientific fact that your taste buds change every twenty-one days.”

  “No way,” Scotty said.

  “It’s true.”

  “No way!”

  Apparently Claire had read an “Ask Andy” column in the paper that had explained all about taste buds. Children from all over America wrote Andy with their questions—Why does a butterfly have dots on its wings? What is a drone bee?—and each day Andy chose a winner question and answered it. The winner got a set of junior encyclopedias, and, best of all, his name and hometown printed in the paper.

  “Andy said that taste buds change every twenty-one days.”

  Joan interrupted and said that Scotty didn’t have to eat it if he didn’t want to. She tried to order him a hamburger or fried chicken but Shakey’s only served pizza. “Maybe,” she said, “I can run you over to McDonald’s.”

  Maggie interrupted, “No one is going anywhere. Scotty just wants attention.”

  A group of boys about Maggie’s age came in from the cold. Soon after they sat down, several pizzas arrived for them. They had phoned ahead. The center pizza had twelve candles on it.

  The entire restaurant joined in and sang “Happy Birthday.”

  Joan became distracted. She flagged down the waitress and whispered something in her ear.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Maggie said.

  “No. No, it’s not.”

  Scotty didn’t know what Joan was planning, but the waitress appeared annoyed.

  Joan said that she would order another pizza then, but it must have candles. She put her arm around Maggie, smiled to the waitress, and said, “She’s eleven today.”

  The waitress said she would see what she could do and left.

  “Mom, my birthday was Friday.”

  “I know. But she doesn’t need to know that.” Then Joan looked suddenly sad. “I didn’t know they did such things here.”

  “It’s really okay,” Claire said. “Maggie already had a party. She had cake and candles, she had everything.”

  Joan said for her kids not to worry. Turning to Scotty, and perhaps to change the subject altogether, she said, “Scotty, you seem different.”

  “Yeah, he’s different all right,” Maggie told Joan. “Look at his teeth.”

  Scotty had a couple of permanent teeth that had grown in. The Judge called them man-sized teeth in a boy-sized mouth. According to Maggie, they looked like big poster boards, and she had threatened to paint messages on them: No Parking or Child Crossing. “Or maybe,” she said, “I’ll write a report on them and bring you to school for Mrs. Mendenhall to grade.

  Joan said, “It’s not his teeth that I was thinking of.” Then she squeezed his knee under the table. Scotty said, “Ow.”

  ***

  While waiting for the birthday pizza, Joan began to run out of things to talk about. She gave Maggie a handful of quarters with the order that she play whatever she wanted on the jukebox. “Dizzy” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “I Can’t Get Next to You” were her first three choices.

  While Joan tried to get the waitress’s attention, Claire sent Scotty to see if the Judge had arrived. Scotty opened the door and saw the Dodge Dart idling, snowflakes swirling around the headlights, the wipers batting away the flakes at the moment they hit the windshield.

  Back at the booth, Joan was arguing with the waitress: “It’s just a simple pizza with candles. It shouldn’t take that long.”

  Scotty said excitedly, “He’s here!”

  “Already?” Joan said.

  She watched as her children put on their coats and mittens. Claire explained that they didn’t want to keep their dad waiting.

  (7)

  February was a busy month at Clover Hills Elementary. Mrs. Mansfield’s fourth grade class built a miniature volcano out of papier-mâché and chicken wire. The multipurpose room was filled with second, third, and fourth graders, and Keith Hoyt and Bob Fowler, big, lumpy boys who lived near Scotty, gave a speech about the nature of volcanos, how they are formed, how they can erupt at any time.

  Scotty found this interesting.

  Mrs. Mansfield lit the match for them that caused their miniature volcano to belch; then a black, fizzy lavalike foam poured out. For fifteen seconds nothing had been so magnificent, but then it was over and Mrs. Boyden and the other teachers were nudging their students to stand and march single file back to their respective classrooms.

  In Scotty’s class Mrs. Boyden began to introduce the concept of fractions. She had many drawings of sliced-up pies to help illustrate.

  That Friday, Leann Callahan’s father (who delivered milk for Anderson Erickson Dairy) came to school. He poured milk and other ingredients into a glass bottle. Scotty and his classmates took turns shaking it, and soon the contents had solidified. “I made butter,” Scotty would later brag to the Judge.

  Because of below-freezing temperatures and the occasional snowfall, PE was always indoors and consisted primarily of games of dodge ball in the multipurpose room. Scotty excelled at dodge ball.

  In Art class, the students brought empty cereal boxes, which they began to decorate with red, pink, and white construction paper. Using scissors, they cut paper hearts of varying sizes and pasted them on. The Valentine boxes were hung in anticipation of February 14. Mrs. Boyden sent a note home with each student explaining that Valentines were to be distributed on the twelfth, as the fourteenth was a Sunday. She also suggested that minimal candy should be given as gifts. During rest time, when the students closed their eyes and laid their heads down on their desks, she moved about the room, leaving a candy heart on each desk. Each heart had a message stamped on it. Scotty’s was “Be Mine.”

  Mrs. Burns, the music teacher, wheeled her metal cart full of instruments (rhythm stick, drums, bells) into Mrs. Boyden’s classroom. She had done this twice a week since the New Year. And for most of February, she would teach the students patriotic songs.

  “Boys and girls, why do we honor Abraham Lincoln?”

  No hands went into the air.

  Mrs. Burns continued, “Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and saved the country and if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be Americans.”

  Big whoop, Scotty thought.

  “Today we will sing patriotic songs. As a way of saying thank you to Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday is today.” Then Mrs. Burns led the class in singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and, finally, “America the Beautiful.”

  She had a technique where she would sing a phrase and then her students would repeat. That was the way to learn. So when she sang “Oh beautiful for spacious skies,” the kids dutifully repeated.

  “For amber waves of grain.” This, too, they echoed.

  “For purple mountain majesties…”

  Scotty stopped. He looked over to where Carole was sitting. She had continued to sing with the others. Had she forgotten her painting? He felt heat in his face as he yelled to her, but the singing drowned out his shouts. And by the time the room q
uieted, Scotty had darted down the aisle and out of the classroom. With her face in the songbook, Mrs. Burns saw only a blur run past. She walked quickly to the door and looked down the hall where she saw Scotty Ocean run past the first grade classrooms, past kindergarten, past the principal’s office, and turn toward the teachers’ lounge.

  When he pushed open the door, Scotty entered a cloud of smoke. Several teachers sat with cigarettes—Mrs. Mansfield of fourth grade, Mrs. Pfeifer of fifth, and Mr. Shelton, the PE teacher, all turned toward Scotty and glared.

  Mrs. Boyden stubbed out her cigarette with great force, started to speak when Scotty Ocean stuck out his arm. “Be quiet,” he seemed to say. Mrs. Boyden exhaled and Scotty fought coughing. She spoke with impatience. “You’re not allowed in here…”

  But with his voice, high in pitch, Scotty Ocean interrupted. He said two words, and two words only.

  Mrs. Boyden reached for Scotty. He spoke again, this time with fuller voice. He spoke the same two words.

  She got hold of his arm, pinched his skin, but he struggled free and took to the halls of Clover Hills Elementary. Mr. Shelton, the PE teacher, took after him. But Scotty Ocean was not to be stopped. He shouted, “Purple mountains! Purple mountains! Purple mountains!”

  ***

  The next day when Scotty entered the classroom, the seating arrangement had been changed. The desks had been placed in a giant U. Scotty’s desk was now closest to Mrs. Boyden, and the whole first day of the new seating arrangement Scotty sat wishing the desks could move back to their original positions. He loved his old spot, watching the day’s proceedings as if they were the television, but now—with the dubious placement of his desk practically flush against Mrs. Boyden’s, he was the featured attraction.

  For a few days Scotty would be the talk of the second grade.

  (8)

  Everybody behaved well for Mrs. Boyden the day Bev Fowler returned to class. No one talked out of turn and the moment of silence after the Pledge of Allegiance seemed particularly long. Even Bev did not know how popular she was about to become.

  The week before, Bev Fowler’s mom had died in the parking lot of Dahl’s grocery store.

  Carole Staley told a group of boys including Scotty that Bev had been sent in to buy a package of hamburger buns. When she came out of Dahl’s, she found her mother slumped over the steering wheel, the car horn blaring. “She pulled her mother off the wheel and felt the limpness.”