Lori Ostlund - After the Parade

None of this made sense to Aaron. A baby was too big to get sucked up by a vacuum cleaner and could not climb into the oven by itself. He did not understand why Helen Ludtke did not know these things, or why they put her in the hospital instead of telling her. “Helen Ludtke had to go to the hospital because she was afraid?” he asked.

“Something like that,” his mother said. “Listen, you’ve got school tomorrow, so back to bed with you.” When he stood, she reached out and wrapped her hand around his arm just below the elbow, caressing the roughened skin with her thumb.

“Are you going to bed also?” he asked.

“I am,” she said. “But first I’m going to sit in the closet a little longer.”

His mother wanted him to wear his suit for his first day of school. He had left it in Moorhead, wrapped in a bag and still smelling from when he wet himself at his father’s grave. “Nobody wears a suit to school,” he said because he had not told her about urinating in the suit or leaving it behind.

“Of course they do,” she said cheerfully, but she left him to dress himself while she went into the kitchen to make breakfast. “Don’t you look sharp,” she said when he appeared wearing his brown pants, a button-down shirt, and the dress shoes. She tied a dishtowel around his neck. She’d made cinnamon toast with the crusts removed.

“When will the bus be here?” he asked.

“I thought we’d walk today. What do you think?”

“Isn’t it far?” He did not want to disappoint her, but school had started six weeks earlier and he could not afford to be any later.

“It’s two and a half miles,” his mother said. “I checked the odometer when we followed Mr. Rehnquist out yesterday. We’ve got plenty of time.”

He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth twice, cleaned the crumbs from his trousers, and presented himself to his mother, who stood waiting on the front steps. He could tell that it was early by the way it smelled outside. She set off briskly, and he ran after her, his satchel banging against his leg. They walked single file along the road, his mother in front while he stared at the ground, taking inventory: four dead snakes, a rotting skunk, and a turtle, still alive but with a large crack across its shell. They did not speak.

On the outskirts of town, several split-level houses were being built, and across from them were trailers lined up in neat rows. “What does that sign say?” he asked, and she read it to him: “Mortonville, population four hundred twenty-eight.”

Thirteen years later when he left, this sign would be the same, though the sign south of town, which he and Walter would pass on their way out, would say 441. “I wonder if they counted me and my mother,” he would say, because the second sign had been erected after their arrival. “I suspect it’s not a terribly accurate reckoning,” Walter would reply. “Nor do I imagine anyone will be out changing the signs tonight once they realize you’ve gone.”

A woman in front of the school began waving at them when they were still half a block away. “That must be Miss Meeks,” said his mother, lifting her hand with its chewed-up pink fingernails to wave back. He waved also, but the woman kept waving, and he turned to look behind them. There was nobody there.

“The new boy!” Miss Meeks said when they stood in front of her, declaring dramatically, “The new boy has arrived.”

“You must be Miss Meeks,” his mother said, placing her hand on his shoulder, which meant that something was expected of him.

“Good morning, Miss Meeks,” he said. He swung his satchel hard against his leg, but his hands were slick with sweat and it slipped and landed near Miss Meeks’s feet.

“Oh, goodness,” said Miss Meeks. “The new boy is nervous.”

“I’m Aaron,” he said.

As they entered the school, Miss Meeks turned to him with a severe look on her face. “We do not run in hallways,” she said, and Aaron, who was walking sedately behind her, nodded. They paused outside the classroom, and Miss Meeks turned to his mother. “I recommend that parents say good-bye at the door — to discourage outbursts.”

He had pictured his mother entering with him, the two of them enduring his classmates’ stares together. “Fine,” said his mother, and she left.

He walked in with Miss Meeks, who took him over to where several children stood in front of easels. “This is Ralph Lehn,” said Miss Meeks, gesturing at a boy who had painted a large truck and stick figures holding giant soup cans over their heads. “His father drives the garbage truck in town.” Her lips pursed in what Aaron would come to think of as her vowel lips, a poutiness that occurred when she exaggerated her vowels or disapproved of something. “Mr. Lehn, say hello to the new boy.”

“Hello, new boy,” said Ralph Lehn. He dipped the tip of his brush into the black paint and jabbed it at the paper, creating a series of black specks above the truck. “Flies,” he explained, looking at Aaron for the first time.

“Ralph, why don’t you show the new boy where to hang his jacket, and then I’ll help him with his cubbyhole.” She left, and he and Ralph Lehn stood looking at each other.

“My name is Aaron,” said Aaron. “I’m new.”

“So?” said Ralph Lehn. “What’s the big deal about being new?”

“Nothing,” said Aaron.

“You put your stupid jacket over there. What else do you want to know?”

“What does your father do with the garbage after he picks it up? Does he bring it to your house?”

“Why would we want everyone’s stinking garbage at our house?” said Ralph Lehn. “He takes it to the landfill and dumps it in a big hole, and then a cat covers it up with dirt.”

Aaron loved cats. His neighbors in Moorhead had had two cats that used to climb over the fence and defecate in his sandbox. He rarely played in the sandbox, so he did not mind, particularly as he had admired how neat and focused they were, crouching with their tails erect and twitching, then turning to sniff at what they had created before covering it with sand. He tried to imagine a cat so large that it could bury a truckload of garbage.

“Are you allowed to pet the cat?” he asked Ralph Lehn. His father had forbidden him to pet the neighbors’ cats, but he had done it anyway when his father was at work.

“It’s not a real cat. It’s a Caterpillar. Don’t you know nothing about machinery?”

Aaron thought that caterpillars made even less sense than cats, but he did not ask Ralph Lehn any more questions. He was not interested in machinery. He hung his jacket on an empty hook and took his satchel over to Miss Meeks, who showed him his cubbyhole. When he had finished arranging his school supplies inside it, she pointed to a table and said, “You’re at table five.” He sat down and waited, and finally Miss Meeks clapped, and everyone else sat also.

“We’ll begin Show and Tell today with the new boy,” Miss Meeks said, pointing at Aaron. “This is Aaron Englund. He just moved to Mortonville with his mother.” She sat down at her desk, hands clasped atop it. “Aaron,” she said, “you may take over.”

“You better go up,” whispered a boy at his table.

“Mr. Englund, please come to the front. Your classmates have questions for you.”

Aaron rose and went to the front. “Questions for the new boy?” Miss Meeks said, scanning the room.

“Moo,” said a thin boy with great feeling, and Miss Meeks ordered him into the corner.

A bored-looking girl in a cowgirl outfit asked, “What did you do this summer?” Her nose was turned up so that her nostrils appeared gaping.

“I went to the Paul Bunyans, the sitting-down one and the standing-up one. We stayed at a motel. Mainly, my father drove a lot, and I was in the backseat.”