Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  I grinned wistfully as I started out down the hall. On my way, I stopped and picked up the envelope from The Ward Line, tore it open, and pulled out a glossy color brochure. It contained pictures of exotic shores, majestic cruise ships, and happy tourists. I took it with me, walking past the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedrooms, to a closed door at the end of the corridor. Sarah Jane’s door was also shut. Bad sign.

  For the past few years, a growing rift had developed between Clara and Sarah Jane. Personality conflicts and differences of opinion sparked repeated clashes. As the family diplomat—not a job I chose, by the way—I intervened repeatedly to try to neutralize the hostilities, but I usually ended up becoming the proverbial messenger repeatedly slain by the Oveson women.

  At its most basic level, the tension reflected the divergent paths followed by mother and daughter. For her part, Clara’s severe bouts of melancholy, brought on following the birth of our daughter Emily, were exacerbated by her decision to quit her job as an English teacher at East High School. Her resignation came only after years of intense pressure from members of her family, my family, and various folks in our ward (“ward” being a Mormon word for a congregation). Back when she was juggling the demands of teaching and motherhood, she faced a relentless barrage of disapproval for her attempt to do both.

  Not everybody lobbied Clara to quit her job. I encouraged her to stick with it. So did a handful of others, especially her colleagues and the school principal. But when the bishop at our old ward weighed in and told Clara that he thought it was “unwise” for her keep teaching while she had three children to raise, she abruptly quit. She’d been an educator since her late teens. In her adult life, it was all she had ever known. She found it richly rewarding. Her students loved her, and every year she got emotional when it came time for her classroom to move on to the next grade. They held going-away parties with games and refreshments. Clara also organized fund-raisers to enable students to collect money for the less fortunate.

  When she quit, she lost all of this, and it only worsened the depression she experienced after Emily’s birth. At our doctor’s recommendation, she saw a psychiatrist, who diagnosed her with “mental disease,” saying that Clara suffered from an acute case of “melancholia.” At his advice, I took time off of work during that period to look after Emily. Clara slowly recovered from her downward spiral, but her personality changed. She became more rigid and embittered. She began to place greater emphasis on order and decorum. She wanted the Oveson clan to be liked, and to that end she championed such things as fitting in, attending church regularly, avoiding political discussions, dressing nicely, and maintaining proper weight and a healthy diet. Some days, she’d “hit bottom,” as she put it, falling into a deep state of depression that would leave her virtually immobilized.

  Sarah Jane veered down a different path, embracing nonconformity. She began questioning lessons she was learning in the Mormon Church. She’d also developed her own politics over the past year. She kept a framed picture of Eleanor Roosevelt on her wall. Sarah Jane once shocked her mother by saying, “If Jesus were alive, he’d be a communist or a hobo riding the rails.” Clara dismissed her from the dinner table and told her to go her room for that remark. Clara frequently insisted that I, as the family patriarch, needed to be harder on Sarah Jane than I was.

  “She needs a firm hand guiding her,” Clara told me. “I don’t always want to be the witch, Art. You need to step up to the plate.”

  Now I faced our closed bedroom door, which usually meant that Clara had “hit bottom.” A feeling of dread shot through me as I knocked lightly, turned the knob, and eased the door open a few inches.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Lights off. Blinds closed. In the dimness, Clara was lying on the bed with her arm folded over her eyes. The bed was still made. She wore a dark skirt and a light-colored blouse, but in this darkness, I could not tell precisely what color they were. I crossed the room and sat down on the corner of the bed.

  “Hi, honey,” I said.

  “What have you got in your hand?”

  I looked down at a dimly lit picture of a cruise ship, wondering how she saw it in this darkness. “That Ward Line brochure I requested a while back.”

  “It’s a pipe dream. We can never afford it.”

  “I know.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  She lifted her arm off her eyes and turned her head toward me. Even with the lack of light, I admired her pretty, shoulder-length hair, waved so nicely, like a motion picture actress. She rolled slightly in bed, propped herself up on her right elbow, and blinked at me.

  “How did he do?”

  “He didn’t break any records,” I said. “He’s no competition for these new hot shots. Compared to some of these youngsters, Hank’s a dinosaur, I’m afraid. Enough about him. How are you?”

  “Not good. I had another episode. The stress from it gave me one of those awful headaches, and I’ve been throwing up all afternoon.”

  “Did anything bring it on?” I asked.

  “I had an argument with our daughter,” she said, plunging into the pillow. Her hair splashed outward. “She insists she’s not going to church anymore.”

  “Did she give a reason?”

  “She told me to my face that she doesn’t believe in God anymore.”

  I needed a few seconds to take in that news.

  “Well, I’ll have a word with her,” I said.

  “Would you?” Clara asked, reaching over to squeeze my free hand in hers.

  “Yeah.”

  We shared a silence.

  “We’ll never have the money for a Caribbean cruise,” she said.

  “All I ask is that you look at it. Just give it some thought.” I waited a beat, and then said: “I don’t suppose you’re feeling good enough to go out tonight?”

  “I couldn’t. I’m feeling too sick. It’s this nausea and the vomiting. I’m not even sure I can sit up straight for more than a half hour. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, when I was out at Bonneville today, I sort of—I, uh, saved a man’s life, and he wanted to know if we wanted to…”

  Her mouth dropped. “Wait! Back up.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You saved a man’s life? That’s a big thing. When were you going to tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  She sat upright in bed, propping herself up on her elbow. “Out with it! Who did you save?”

  “He’s an Englishman. His name is Clive Underhill.”

  Clara’s eyes practically popped out of her head when she heard his name. “You’re kidding me! The Clive Underhill? Tell me all about it!”

  I recounted my experience of pulling Clive Underhill out of his burning car, and the encounter I’d had afterward with his manager, Mr. Shaw. The end result, I told her, was an invitation from Shaw for me—and my wife—to attend the Coconut Grove tonight, as Underhill’s guests. Clara sat in rapt attention, hugging a pillow tightly against her bosoms, her pearly smile showing through crimson lips. When I reached the end of my tale, I waited for her to speak, but evidently I’d left her speechless. My tale seemed to exorcise her demons. She picked right up. She seemed almost dizzy with happiness.

  “I don’t think I’m going,” I said. “Especially if you’re not up to…”

  “Pshaw! You’re going to the Grove tonight!”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You said you were sick.”

  “I’ll stay here and recuperate,” she said. “But don’t let that stop you!”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know…”

  “Don’t do this, Art.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “The shrugging … The oh, I don’t know. Gee whiz. That! Don’t do it! You’re going tonight, and that’s the end of it.”

  “What am I going to wear?”

  “Never mind that,” she said. “But there is one thing�
�”

  She hesitated.

  I prodded. “What?”

  “Sarah Jane…”

  “I’ll have a word with her,” I said. “I can’t promise anything.”

  “All I ask is that you try.”

  I nodded and rose to my feet with that sinking feeling of dread, though I hid it well with my “shucks” grin. My news had reanimated Clara, who now seemed full of purpose, despite her illness—getting out of bed and preparing me for my big night out. That left me with the task of confronting Sarah Jane about her waning spiritual commitment. On my way out, I set the Ward Line ocean cruise brochure on Clara’s bureau drawer, and she gave it a glance.

  “At least consider it,” I said.

  “You know we can’t afford it.”

  “Please.”

  “OK. I’ll look at it later. Right now, we’ve got bigger things to attend to.”

  I crossed the hallway and tapped on Sarah Jane’s door with my knuckles. Some sort of classical music played on the other side, and she responded with a muffled “come in.” I opened the door.

  From her desk by the window, Sarah Jane looked at me through wire-frame eyeglasses and smiled. She kept her honey-colored hair out of her eyes with the help of a thin black headband. Her Admiral phonograph was spinning something melodic with a big string section and plenty of woodwinds.

  I stepped inside. Her room contained a bed against the wall that she seldom made (to her mother’s chagrin), a dresser, and a desk buried under orderly clutter: her typewriter, articles and pieces of paper, and stacks of books—some hers, some the library’s. A wall once covered with paintings of ballerinas and framed engravings from children’s books now played home to a cork bulletin board pinned over with layers of newspaper and magazine articles about striking workers and Nazis in Germany and lynch mobs in the South. To the right of the board was my daughter’s beloved framed black-and-white Eleanor Roosevelt picture, signed by the first lady herself. Sarah Jane turned the volume down on her record player. Then she flipped her chair around.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  “Nice music,” I said, walking to the chair and sitting down. “By the way, you got a pickup slip in the mail. Something about a Sad Symphony.…”

  “‘Tragic Overture,’ by Brahms,” she said. “You’re getting there.”

  She sat on the edge of her bed and rocked back and forth, flashing a quick smile that soon went back to a frown.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” she said. “It’s about Mother.”

  “Well, it has to do with something she told me.”

  “Our argument?”

  “She said you’re having doubts,” I said. “About your faith.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” she said.

  “I was hoping we might discuss it.” I gestured to the typewriter, which had a sheet of paper in the carriage. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Oh that?” she asked. “It’s a letter to Mrs. Roosevelt.”

  “Another one?”

  “She replied to the last one,” she said, beaming. “I’m going to get it framed, along with the picture she autographed for me. It pays to have an uncle high up in the FBI.”

  “Yes it does, doesn’t it?” I chuckled. “So, what’s this letter about?”

  “I’m asking her to do what she can to help change the laws so the United States lets Jewish refugees into our country,” she said. “Do you have any idea what the Nazis are doing to those poor people in Germany?”

  “I have some inkling,” I said. “I’ve seen the newsreels.”

  “Jews have been stripped of the right to vote,” she said. “They can’t own property. Their families are being forced into slums that are guarded by armed soldiers, like prisons. It’s eating me up, I swear. I’m losing sleep over it, Dad. And all of these stupid leaders in our country are sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, doing nothing, hoping the problem just goes away.”

  “I agree it is awful,” I said. “Maybe the first lady can do something to change things. But the real reason I came in here is to talk to you about this disagreement between you and your mother.”

  “Oh. That. Yeah. I’m not going to church anymore.”

  “So I’ve heard. That’s a drastic change for you,” I said. “Care to discuss it?”

  “What’s there to talk about?” she asked. “It’s my decision. It’s what I want.”

  “Of course, the choice is yours to make,” I said. “You know by now that I’m not the type of father that’s going to force you to do something you don’t believe in. But I also want you to know that you should feel comfortable talking to me about this, or any other matters in your life, anytime you feel like it.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  I nodded. She nodded. I smiled. She smiled. We seemed to be at an impasse.

  I drew a deep breath and said, “Mind if I ask you one thing?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Is it the Church specifically that you’re having troubles with? Or is it a bigger philosophical issue with God?”

  “Both.”

  She didn’t elaborate. She was not making this easy.

  “OK. That’s a start. Let me ask you—”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t feel like talking about it right now,” she said. “I want to finish writing my letter to Mrs. Roosevelt. Could we talk about it later?”

  “OK,” I said, nodding. “Just tell me this.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did something happen recently that brought this on?”

  “It was the school bus,” she said, sure I’d know what she meant.

  And I did. She was referring to a horrific accident on the first day of December in 1937. It happened in a hamlet called South Jordan, southwest of Salt Lake City. That morning, thick fog, combined with falling snow, caused whiteouts all over the valley. Around eight in the morning, a fast-moving train collided with a school bus at a railroad crossing. Thirty-nine students rode that bus to school. The Denver & Rio Grande Western locomotive hurtled through space at seventy miles per hour, slicing the bus in two, raining debris in all directions, and dragging the bus’s front half more than two thousand feet before a brakeman could bring the train to a halt. Fourteen students survived, all seated in the rear of the bus. The driver, Gerald “Skinny” Wilson—who’d driven that same route for years—was mangled beyond recognition inside of wreckage that had to be separated from the locomotive by workers using acetylene torches.

  The staff at Salt Lake General Hospital set up a makeshift morgue, and posted lists of the passengers killed. The youngest student, Victoria Morgan, was fourteen, and the oldest of the passengers, Tommy Larsen, was eighteen. On that bleak day, parents broke down and wailed when they read the names of their children on typewritten lists. Six of the teens killed lived within a few blocks of each other, in the small town of Bluffdale. Youths, children really, destroyed in the prime of life, their deaths random and senseless. In the weeks following the accident, people kept finding objects near the railroad tracks: ruined band instruments, textbooks with pages warped by snow, lunch boxes packed with uneaten food.

  “Do you think it happened for a reason?”

  Sarah Jane’s question brought me back to the present. “What?”

  “The bus accident,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She winced. “What possible reason?”

  “To test us.”

  “But it didn’t test you. Your children weren’t killed.”

  She was putting me through the wringer. She wanted an answer I could not provide. I said, “Heavenly Father tested us as a people, as a community.”

  “Would you feel that way if one of your kids had been killed in the accident?”

  “I don’t know. I hope I never have to find out.” I gestured to her typewriter. “I’ll let you get back to your letter to Mrs. Roosevelt.”

  I got up from the chair and walked over to her bedroom door. Before opening it, I thought a change of topic mig
ht cheer her up: “Say, guess who I’m going out to dinner with tonight?”

  “Who?”

  “Clive Underhill.”

  Her face lit up brighter than a lighthouse lamp. “The Clive Underhill?”

  “The very same.”

  She fell to the floor and pulled her revered box of movie magazines out from under the bed. At the top of the box was something called Modern Screen magazine with big-shot Hollywood actor Errol Flynn’s picture on the cover. She held it in front of my face. “They’re going to make a movie about Clive Underhill! Starring Errol Flynn! And my dad is going out to dinner with him! I can’t believe it!”

  I laughed. “It’s true.”

  “Hey, can I go, too?”

  “No. Sorry. It’s at the Coconut Grove. They don’t allow anyone under twenty-one,” I said. I leaned forward and whispered, “They serve liquor.”

  Now giddy, she smiled and waved her magazine. “My dad’s gonna tie one on with Clive Underhill!”

  “Hey, who said anything about tying one on? I’m strictly a lemonade man.”

  We laughed, and I told her all about my ordeal out at the Salt Flats. Exiting her room, I encountered Clara, who was none too pleased that I’d failed to secure a commitment from Sarah Jane to attend church regularly. But the way I saw it, I made our troubled daughter happy, and that counted for something.

  Four

  One could not find a ritzier joint in town than the Coconut Grove on Main Street, between Fourth and Fifth South. An endless yellow building, with a row of palm trees lining the front, the Coconut Grove called itself “the largest ballroom in America” on its penny postcards, available for purchase at the cash register inside. I believed it. No other ballroom I knew of boasted a trio of interior waterfalls spraying mist on a garden of tropical plants, or a dance floor that would’ve taken a day to drive across. Maybe that last part is an exaggeration, but not by much. In front of the Grove, college-age boys in suits earned extra change as valets and manning spotlights, swinging beams across the night sky like dueling swords. I parked a couple of blocks away. Valet parking was a foreign concept to me. Discomfort overwhelmed me as I approached that colossus. Stopping in my tracks, I took a deep breath, checking my slicked-back hair in a shop window, and moved on. Why did I come? I didn’t want to be here. Ascending those front steps of the Grove, I’d never seen so many tuxedos and ball gowns in my life. I was a plebe among the ruling class, one of the unwashed masses worming my way through a crack in the floor to rub elbows with the elite.