Mouseturd Flats

MOUSETURD FLATS

PRELUDE

            An old woman sits in a metal lawn chair with a young boy and girl at her feet.  The old chair is rocking as they all look up in the sky periodically and point, apparently, at stars.  They all burst into a song they have always  sung when watching the stars together. For some reason they are distracted and forget some of the words.

            “The stars at night are big and bright,

              Deep in the heart of Texas!

              Na na na na na na na na,

              Deep in the heart of Texas!”

            The old woman laughs deep and joyfully at their attempt to sing the song. Her grandchildren lay their heads on her lap.  She hugs them both, love beaming from her eyes, it is undetected in the darkness.  The old woman reflects upon her life, the good times and the…well, not so good. She has eight grandchildren, these two are her oldest and she loves them all.  That love squeezes her great heart in a tight grip; tears of joy spring into her eyes as she names them all in her mind.

            Connie raises her head and asks, “Nanny, are the stars as bright in Orem as the ones in Texas?”

            Nanny chuckles at the thought, “Yes, they are dear, why do you ask?”

            “I don’t know.” She is quiet after she answers her grandma.

            Mike, the know-it-all brother, pipes up, “She just wants to know if Dad sees the stars where he is.  He’s on a ship in the South China Sea, you know.  Shootin’ old VW’s at North Viet Nam...I wish he could come home.”

            “He sees the stars, same as us.  I guess.  Maybe they’re diff’rent in Viet Nam.”  Nanny offers the best explanation that she could. Viet Nam wasn’t even a country when she went to school. That was over 50 years before this night, before World War I even. Her conclusion seemed right. It was her best guess.

            Connie objected to her brother’s smart-alec remark, “They don’t shoot VW’s Mike!”

            “Yeah they do...smash’em up and put a fuse in the gas tank and send them out of the big guns on the USS New Jersey.” He winks at Nanny, but in the dark she doesn’t see it. Mike continues, “Courtesy of ole’ Adolph Hitler.”

            Connie giggles out loud at the thought of a VW Bug flying through the air.   “Mike you’re so full of it.” She pauses, deep in thought, then quietly says, “I miss him.”

            The yearning they have for their absent father is evident to Nanny. She can hear it in their young voices. It is too bad that the marriage didn’t work out.  Lord knows that she hadn’t been the best example of married bliss to her girls.  Nanny tries to sooth their loneliness, “I know you kids miss your Dad.  He can’t come home, the Navy won’t let him and maybe its best with your new family and all.”

            Mike asked a question that had been bugging him for a while, “Why’d they get divorced?”  Connie sat up straight, she wanted to know the answer to that question too, “Yeah, Nanny how come?”

            Nanny was startled by that question, she hadn’t thought the conversation was heading in that direction.  She didn’t know how to answer the question; she really didn’t have the right to answer it.  Nanny punted, “You’ll have to ask your mother if you want to know more.  Let’s look at the stars some more.  Uh, Ummm…Deep in the heart of Texas.

            The kids didn’t join in with her singing.  Mike was in a mood for answers and if she wouldn’t talk about his parents then maybe he could learn more about her. “Nanny, where was you born?”  Connie knew the answer to that one, “In a hospital stupid!”

            “Was not!”

            “Too!” Connie stood up to her big brother.

            Nanny ended the fight quickly, “Stop it!! Stop!  If you’re gonna fight we’ll go in and you can go to bed!  Are you done?  I mean it, stop the fighting!” Unseen in the darkness two heads bob up and down in agreement.  Nanny waited until they calmed down then she told them,  “Ok.............I was born in Mouseturd Flats, in my parents bed.

            “Where is Mouseturd Flats, Nanny?

            “Over by the Provo River, Mike.” Nanny said.

            “Nanny, why did they call it Mouseturd Flats?” Connie wouldn’t be left out.

            Nanny spoke kind of fast like she is embarrassed by what she was about to say but the kids couldn’t see her face in the darkness. “Because we were so poor  that we didn’t even have mouseturds in the cupboards. Not just my family but all of the farmers in that valley.”

            This sounded like someplace that Mike wanted to see. He was fascinated by farms and old houses.  And if there was a river, well, that was just the frosting on the cake. 

            He jumped up and asked, “Will you take us there, Can we go? Can we? When can we go?”

             “Oh Lordy!  I guess, um, I don’t know, umm.   We can go tomorrow, if your mother says you can.  That was so long ago, I remember..............” Nanny’s voice drops off, they snuggle together and the three of them start singing ‘Deep in the heart of Texas’ as the sound of the crickets rises and falls in time with their song.

Michael D. LeFevre  ã COPYRIGHT 2 July 2000

(adapted from a short play of the same title.)