An Ocean in Iowa (12 page)

(16)

Mrs. Boyden announced to the class that she had a special treat. Then she introduced the artist Miss Clarissa Jude to the class. “It’s an honor,” Mrs. Boyden said, “to have an
actual
artist come to our classroom. Aren’t we lucky, class?”

“Yes, Mrs. Boyden,” the children said.

Miss Jude was the most popular artist in the greater Des Moines area. A painter of still lifes, she specialized in bowls of fruit.

Standing in front of the class, with gray hair, pinched lips and brittle, blotched hands, Miss Jude spoke to the students about art. Her nasal voice irritated Scotty. He wanted a teacher with pizzazz. He wanted an artist like his mother, a smiling artist with pretty eyes and long hair and soft hands.

As Miss Jude spoke, the door swung open suddenly. Joan Ocean stood in the doorway, her paint shirt specked with every
color, a large brush in her hand. She dipped the brush in her mouth and painted a mustache on Miss Jude; then she painted flowers coming out Miss Jude’s ears…

“That’s enough, Scotty!” Mrs. Boyden called out to Scotty, who was laughing so hard he’d covered his face. “That’s enough!”

When Scotty looked up, he saw the eyes of his classmates staring at him. He saw Mrs. Boyden poised ready to come down the aisle after him. He saw Miss Jude standing by the blackboard, a fake smile on her face. Miss Jude had no mustache, no flowers out her ears, and for Scotty, his mother was nowhere to be seen.

Miss Jude resumed her talk about art. She told the class they could paint whatever they wanted. “Just so it’s real,” she said.

When she asked what the budding artists might have in mind for subjects, hands rose in the air. “A dinosaur,” said one. “A tree.” “A swing set!”

“Those are all real things,” Miss Jude said.

Yeah, but not as real as what I’m going to paint, Scotty thought.

***

Carole Staley and Scotty Ocean sat next to each other every time there was Art. Carole’s crush on Scotty was no longer a secret. Ever since she kissed his forearm, everybody had known. Scotty detested Carole and avoided her at all times. But during Art in Mrs. Boyden’s class, he gravitated toward her, often sitting with her at the same table, sharing crayons, construction paper, and finger paints. It was during Art that Carole’s kissing missions ceased, and Scotty left her pigtails alone.

Only Art could call a truce.

And with the arrival of Miss Clarissa Jude, for an afternoon, they would be inseparable, taking over the table in the back of the room. Sitting as far away as possible, they spread out large sheets of white paper. They moved quickly up to the front of the room to secure the best paints. Carole carried as many plastic paint bottles as she could. Scotty followed with only two.

“I’m just using black and white today,” he said.

He watched as Carole took red and green, mixed them, squirted in some yellow, used a big thick brush to stir, dropped in three dribbles of blue. She painted a sun in the corner of the page. She mixed more colors. “Purple comes from red and blue,” she said, looking over at Scotty who stared at his paper. “Scotty, what are you painting?”

“Oh, only the realest thing I know.”

All morning they worked, forgetting about the time, not even hearing the announcement over the intercom about the next day’s Thanksgiving assembly. And when the kids were excused for lunch, Scotty and Carole kept on painting.

“Okay, you two. Finish up. You’ve got to eat. Artists have to eat.”

***

When they returned from lunch, the paintings had been hung across the chalkboard, and along the bank of windows.

“Twenty-five paintings, boys and girls, and Miss Jude has stayed here to judge your work. She will give it a critique. Let’s thank Miss Jude.”

The kids clapped.

Carole’s painting hung third from the left. Scotty’s had been pinned on the far end. He knew from the placement of his painting that he would go last. He loved being last.

Miss Jude started with Lucy Titman’s painting.

“Hmmm, very nice, Lucy. Very nice. Can everyone see that it’s an apple?”

“Yes,” the kids said.

“Can you see the worm?”

“Yes,” the kids said.

“Very good, Lucy. Isn’t it very good?”

“Yes!”

Lucy smiled and Mrs. Boyden smiled and Miss Jude licked a gold star and put it on the painting in the upper corner. “A gold star for Lucy.”

David Bumgartner had painted the next one.

“Hmmm,” Miss Jude said, studying it. “It looks like a fish to me.”

“A whale,” said David, who suddenly covered his mouth because he’d not been called on.

Mrs. Boyden smiled, for the Bumgartner boy was learning.

“Oh, I see the whale now,” said Miss Jude. “Oh yes indeed. And is that the whale spout?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Class, do you see the water spurting up?”

“Yes, Miss Jude.”

“Whales have spouts which spurt water. Not only is your painting recognizable, but it’s taken from real life. Very, very good.”

Tim Myerly, the new boy, started to clap, which caught on. All of the kids except Scotty and Carole clapped. Carole didn’t because she was next up and all she could think about was what Miss Jude would say. Scotty refused to clap. He didn’t think much of the whale. He would later tell Claire, “A dumb whale.”

Carole Staley had covered her paper—a sun that blazed,
her ocean blue and bright. She had painted the boldest mountains, violet and indigo with streaks of dark purple. And while she’d never seen a mountain, she’d seen
National Geographic
magazines and specials on public television, and, finally, she was Carole who could imagine anything.

Miss Jude looked at the painting. She turned to the class and said with a smile, “Who painted this one?”

Carole raised her hand. The class turned to look at her. Scotty looked down at his hands. He noticed traces of paint on his fingers, under his nails. He thought of how he had scrubbed and scrubbed that afternoon. Paint doesn’t come off me, he thought. It just doesn’t come off.

When Miss Jude turned back to the painting, the class followed. Carole looked at Scotty, who smiled his congratulations.

Miss Jude said, “Carole, mountains aren’t this color.”

The room became still.

“They’re never purple. Isn’t that right, class?”

“Yes, Miss Jude.”

“But should we give Carole a gold star anyway?” And before the class could answer, Miss Jude said, “I think we should.” Then she licked the star.

Scotty looked to his painting partner. He noticed rapid movement in her stomach muscles; her face turned a bright, flush red. The tears didn’t roll out or drip down—they shot out like bullets, splattering the table. When Carole Staley folded her arms and put her head down on the desk, a sound broke out of her, a scream.

Scotty couldn’t help but wish he was sitting elsewhere.

Miss Jude stopped. She looked at Mrs. Boyden, who waited patiently for a time, then spoke: “Part of being an artist is learning to accept constructive criticism. That’s part of making
art.” Mrs. Boyden meant those words to be helpful but they only caused Carole to sob louder.

Scotty’s stomach began to hurt.

As she led Carole from the classroom, Mrs. Boyden signaled Miss Jude to continue.

She critiqued with great care now—gentle, always encouraging. (One student in tears and it could be explained as an overly sensitive child; two or more devastated students and she’d be held accountable.)

So Miss Jude praised Bobette Daley’s barn with barnyard animals. The proportions were all wrong, the animals were all pink, but Miss Jude praised her all the same and gave the gold star.

“No cows are pink,” Scotty wanted to say.

Patrick O’Meara’s painting of a fireman was next. Miss Jude heaped praise on Patrick even though he painted the fireman with a blue face.

“No firemen got blue faces,” Scotty wanted to say.

Ruth Rethman’s green pizza got a gold star because, “I look at this and I know exactly what it is and that’s good.”

Gold stars for everyone.

When Miss Jude got to Scotty’s black-and-white painting, she looked at it long. And Scotty had this thought: If she liked those other paintings, then she surely has to love me.

Miss Jude looked at his painting for what felt like hours. He knew he’d impressed her for she had no words. As Miss Jude moved closer to his painting, Scotty prepared for praise.

Miss Jude thought about abstract art and how she hated it. Suddenly worried about the length of her silence and knowing she had to say something, Miss Jude turned around and asked, “Who painted this one?”

“Scotty Ocean painted it,” Mrs. Boyden said as she returned to the classroom.

“Isn’t your mother a painter?”

Scotty nodded proudly.

Miss Jude looked back at the painting, and not knowing what to say, blurted out, “What is it?”

Scotty smiled but didn’t answer. He remembered his mother had told him that paintings have many meanings, that it was up to each individual to interpret.

“Scotty,” Mrs. Boyden said, “Miss Jude asked you a question.”

“I know.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a real thing.”

Miss Jude began to make out the shape of a face. “Is it a painting of you?”

“Yes.”

Miss Jude looked back at the painting; she looked at Scotty. “Well, then what is that part right there?”

Scotty stood and pointed below his belt.

The painting suddenly came into focus for Miss Jude. At the top of the paper, painted in a squiggly fashion, was a face. Below the face, a boy’s chest with circles for nipples. And below that…

The children had begun to move about, whisper, and squirm, after Scotty pointed to his penis. Before chaos could break out, Mrs. Boyden said, “Okay, class, let’s thank Miss Jude for her kind gift of time and talent.”

The kids applauded meekly. It was time for recess. They knew it. Mrs. Boyden excused them and they giggled and tittered about Scotty’s nude portrait as they gathered up their coats and mittens and ran outside. Scotty waited until the others
had left. While Miss Jude spoke in a whisper to Mrs. Boyden, Scotty walked slowly down the aisle, his hands lightly touching the tops of the other desks. I’ve dazzled her, he thought. She can hardly look me in the eye. Before he left the classroom, Miss Jude stopped him.

“Scotty, may I keep this for a while?”

He hesitated.

“May I? It’s a most… uhm… interesting piece of work. May I… uhm… borrow it?”

“You can
borrow
it.”

“Thank you.”

“I get it back, right?”

“Of course.”

“And I get the gold star, right?”

***

Scotty described the painting as he helped Claire set the table for Thanksgiving dinner. It had been two days since he’d painted it, and he knew, deep down, it was his best painting.

“It sounds like a masterpiece,” she said as she folded napkins.

“Oh yes.”

“Maybe it could be framed.”

“Oh, yes.”

Scotty decided he would send it to his mother.

***

When Carole Staley returned to class the Monday after Thanksgiving, she ate her usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of her Barbie lunch pail, and she seemed to have recovered nicely from the art class the week before.

Scotty, too, resumed his old patterns, pulling her pigtails
and avoiding her kisses. All seemed fine; all had been forgotten.

But at the end of the day, Scotty approached Mrs. Boyden and said, “Did Miss Jude bring back my picture?”

Mrs. Boyden smiled and said, “Not yet.”

The boy will forget eventually, she thought, in that beautiful way all children forget.

For days, though, Scotty persisted, always asking politely, and always accepting the news of “Not yet” with a hopeful grin.

At night when the phone rang, he wanted it to be Miss Jude calling. “Scotty is the best artist ever,” he imagined she would say.

But she never called.

***

Days passed; soon it was December, and Scotty began to wonder if he’d ever see his painting again. He asked at the end of each day and Mrs. Boyden kept repeating “Any day now.” Once, during Art time, he tried to re-create the painting, but as hard as he tried, it was not to be recaptured.

***

On the last day before Christmas break, Scotty stood in front of Mrs. Boyden.

“Have a nice Christmas, Scotty,” Mrs. Boyden said. She looked down and when she looked back up, Scotty was still standing there. “How can I help you?”

“My painting.”

“Miss Jude really must have liked it. Everybody got the gold star. But yours is the only one she kept.”

“But…”

“Next year, Scotty.”

“But…”

“Next year.” Then she smiled. “I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday.”

(17)

On the way home, Scotty came upon Tom Conway, who was waiting for him at the top of Woodland Avenue.

Earlier that day, at lunch, when everyone showed everyone else what they were eating, Tom Conway refused to open his
Rat Patrol
lunch pail. Throughout the day he carried it with him, even into the bathroom, which made Scotty curious.

But now Tom Conway was gesturing for Scotty to approach, which he did. Tom unlatched the lunch box and showed Scotty the contents: a Baggie full of crushed Oreo cookies, three butterscotch candies, and a hand grenade.

Seeing the grenade, Scotty took off running. He heard the high-pitched sound of the grenade in the air; he felt it coming close. Diving like a soldier in the movies, he covered his imaginary helmet with his hands, shut his eyes, held his breath, prayed.

Then he heard laughing.

Tom Conway stepped on Scotty’s rear end as he walked over him, his lunch pail swinging, the sound of the grenade rolling around inside.

“Ho, ho, ho,” Tom said, as if Santa Claus.

***

That night at dinner the Judge told his children that he had good news. “I spoke to your mother.” The Judge paused. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “She called me at the courthouse. I have some news you might be interested in.”

All eyes were on him.

“She’ll be home for Christmas.”