An Ocean in Iowa (3 page)

“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?”

(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 became 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.

While other children filled in their coloring books, getting praise for staying in between the lines, the Ocean kids could be found painting their driveway, no lines or requirements. “Just paint!” Joan would shout. She’d supply them with water-soluble paints or colored pieces of chalk and turn them loose. On most days, primitive images, oftentimes resembling cave drawings, covered their driveway. They might trace each other, kiddie crime scenes with a rainbow of colors. On an average summer day all three Ocean children would be busy creating.

But the day of Scotty’s party was not your average day.

The driveway had been rinsed clean the day before in anticipation of the party guests. A painted sheet hung across the garage door:
SCOTTY = 7
. A second banner covered the picture window with
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOTTY
followed by three exclamation points. A cluster of multicolored balloons had been tied to the infamous mailbox, indicating that if you were looking for a party, you had come to the right place.

The invited guests included Scotty’s best friends of the moment—David Bumgartner and Dan Burkhett. Other about-to-be second graders, Craig Hunt, Richard Hibbs, and Jimmy Lamson, came, too. Even Tom Conway from down the street was invited, at Joan’s insistence, because Tom, Scotty’s least favorite friend of the moment, was a neighbor, and he would see the other kids arriving, Joan said, and it would hurt his feelings. “And we don’t want to hurt Tom’s feelings, do we?”

Yes, we do, Scotty thought.

“There is nothing worse,” Joan said, “than deliberate cruelty.”

So when he opened the front door and found Tom Conway’s chubby face and crooked smile staring at him through the screen, Scotty tried to be nice.

Tom held up a large square gift-wrapped box. “Happy birthday,” he mumbled. Tom’s gift was wrapped in the peach-colored sports page section of the
Des Moines Sunday Register.
The box was surprisingly light.

Scotty shook it but he heard nothing.

“Invite him in,” Joan whispered to Scotty, who reluctantly ushered his neighbor inside.

***

In the kitchen Claire was mixing a pitcher of grape Kool-Aid. She whispered, “Of course,
he
would be first.” Claire often seemed to articulate Scotty’s feelings before he even knew he felt them.

Scotty said, “Yeah,” and extending a paper cup, he waited for Claire to pour.

“And what do you bet, Scotty, he’ll be the last one here.”

“Yeah,” said Scotty, looking out the window to the backyard
where Tom Conway had gone and sat waiting for the party to begin. Maggie gave him a party hat, but the rubber band broke when he tried to stretch it over his chin.

Before long the others arrived. Dan Burkhett rode his Schwinn Sting-Ray. He kept telling Scotty how his birthday would be next. “I’m on deck,” he said, “but even better, I’m gonna be eight.” Scotty wished Dan would be quiet. But Dan kept telling anyone who would listen, “On September twenty-ninth, I’ll be
eight.
”

Later he was to say, “At my party we’re going to have an actual Mexican piñata…”

Claire told Scotty to ignore Dan Burkhett. “Maybe he won’t see eight. Maybe he’ll get squashed by a school bus or drown at Holiday Pool. He
assumes
he’ll turn eight. He doesn’t know for a fact, does he?”

“Yeah,” Scotty said.

Claire poured Scotty more Kool-Aid.

“Yeah,” he said again, a Kool-Aid mustache having formed on his top lip.

In full swing, Scotty’s party proved to be exceptional. The Judge turned on the sprinkler out back. The boys ran from side to side, leaping over the spraying water, giggling as their swimsuits were drenched. Claire supervised other party games—a game of horseshoes and kickball with old record jackets serving as bases. Later, she led the cleanup of plates and plastic silverware. Maggie took over the Kool-Aid detail and stirred packages of black cherry and lemon-lime into large glass pitchers. Whenever thirsty, the boys ran to the picnic table to get refreshed.

“A great party,” the Judge said as he entered the house. “Where’s your mom?”

Scotty shrugged even though he knew.

The Judge must have known, too, for he opened the basement door and called down.

“Honey, get up here. It’s time to open presents.”

***

David Bumgartner gave a talking G.I. Joe dressed in an astronaut outfit. With a head of fuzzy red hair and a bristled beard, this G.I. Joe said eight commands at the pull of the miniature dog tag. “Entering lunar orbit” was Scotty’s favorite. Craig Hunt gave a Slinky; Richard Hibbs, a deck of cards; Dan Burkhett, a Matchbox collectors case. “The case stands up,” Dan said proudly, “and it can carry seventy-two cars.” Jimmy Lamson gave Scotty a Peanuts pennant. Scotty held it for all to see. It was bright yellow with Charlie Brown standing alone, the jagged line across his shirt and his one hair in place. In capital letters the following was written:
I NEED ALL THE FRIENDS I CAN GET
!

The gift from his family came with a card written in his mother’s hand with the following inscription: “To Scotty, for studying the tiniest movements of life.” Scotty ripped open the package. It was a Power microscope lab set. The box claimed that inside, twelve slides were already prepared for viewing. The lab came with test tubes and a dropper and a three-wing metal cabinet. Scotty said, “Wow.” The other kids looked on, jealous. Except for Dan Burkhett, who said, “I got one that’s better.”

“But you didn’t open mine,” Tom Conway kept saying.

Tom had given Scotty the Time Bomb, a black plastic imitation bomb with a red fuse. As the party guests stood in an enthusiastic circle, the Judge twisted the bright red “fuse,” winding it—the bomb began to tick. “Pass it,” the Judge ordered.
“But don’t throw it.” As the Time Bomb moved about the circle, faces got tenser; hands moved the Time Bomb along quickly, as if it were on fire.

When it went
bang
the first time, David Bumgartner had it in his hands. He fell over onto the grass. Richard Hibbs was next and he dropped into a sitting position. All the best people in the whole world are here, Scotty thought, and they’re all getting blown up.