The End of the World in Ireton--iii

Jake and Betts have their granddaughter, Shelley, a high-schooler, overnight. Shelley has a test, mentions Orson Welles, and Jake can't help but tell her what happened the night the world ended in Ireton. 
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“I don’t remember exactly what we got shooed out of church," Jake told Shelley. "We just hung out around town for a while. What’d we do, Betts? We spent a hour or two doing nothing.”

Betts could feel a blush coming on. “We went out in the country, west of town—you and I, and Henk and Faye, because Henk had the car.”

“That’s right. We went out by the old Vander Berg place. It was deserted by then already, and we sat in the yard and watched the sky, lookin', you know--searchin'. We thought maybe we’d see some shiny spaceship coming down to take over—” 

"I'd'a' been scared," Shelley said. "And you didn't have internet."

"Nothing but the word of the preacher that it was end times," Jake said, giggling. "Right then and there it was end times."

“Oh, you guys laughed and laughed,” Betts said. “Big, tough guys.” She picked up her coffee and brought it up to her lips. “’Maybe they’re eight feet high with four heads,’ Henk says, and you says you think they’re going to look more like spiders. And Henk says he wonders how to tell the women from the men. Don’t you remember that, Jake? She took a sip of coffee. “Such big talkers with their girlfriends. But you guys were scared too—”

“We knew it was a big nothing, just knew it.” Jake rubbed his hand over his beard. Betts had told him he should shave before breakfast as long as Shelley was visiting.

“Big tough-guy heroes. You know what boys are like, Shelley,” Betts said. “They don’t change a bit—”

“There we are, searching the skies," Jake said. "A hundred thousand stars out there, perfectly calm and clear, and we’re watching for the end of the world--”

Betts interrupted. “And always yacking too. ‘They’ll get O’Connor’s place first 'cause they want that new Farmall of his,” you said. And Henk laughs and laughs. But we knew you were scared. We could tell.” She pointed right at him with her cup.

“Were not,” he said.

“Were too—you were scared silly.”

“Ah, Ma, you think you remember it all so clear but you—”

“If you weren’t scared, you'd have wanted to neck. That’s all we ever did out there otherwise,” she told him.

"Ma!" Jake said, edging his eyes at Shelley.

“You were scared, and you know it."

“Sounds like guys I know,” Shelley said.

“Tell her the rest too—go on!” Betts said.

“We sit out there for some time, and then Henk, he says that maybe we ought to head back to town because maybe there’s some green men on the bank corner—”

“You were scared. Tell her why you went back,” Betts said.

“I don’t know why—maybe just to be around people is all—”

“You said maybe some men would band together and fight. That’s what you said..”

“We were just joking.” He waved his hand as if it were nothing.

Betts leaned over. “They were wanting to get their BB guns and join the Ireton National Guard.”

“Ma!” he said.

“We all went back to town finally,” Betts said, “and there were kids hanging around, and nobody knew anything more than what the preacher had said—that somewhere out east somewhere the Martians were coming.”

“By then it was almost nine—" Jake said.

“Just let me tell it,” she told him. “You’re always adding stuff.” Jake sat back in his chair. “So we’re all standing around downtown, and some kids are whooping it up and some are crying and some are just kind of sitting there as if they don't know up from down."

“So what happened?" Shelley said.

"Nobody seemed to know anything." She looked over at her husband. "Jake’s got it right about one thing. It was the Depression, and the preacher was pretty much the only one around with a radio—anyway the only radio playing on a Sunday night. So we figured, why not get the facts right from the horse’s mouth—”

“Good, Lord, Ma. That’s no way to put it.”

“You know what I mean, Shelley. So we went right up to the house and knocked on the door—there was Henk and Faye and you and me and about a dozen other kids from other churches too. We figure we should know for sure if it’s the end of the world. We knocked on the door, and preacher’s wife is the one who shows up.”

"She didn't look to me as if she spilled her marbles.' Jake said. Way too loud. And it wasn’t nice either, and Lord knows I’m not proud of laughing, but it was funny—“ Betts really couldn't help giggling a little. “Her eyes were all rimmed," she said, "and she had handfuls of handkerchiefs.”

“Looked a sight, she did,” Jake said.

“So Faye asks her, 'How is things with the end of the world?' she says. I remember that because how do you ask somebody about where on earth are the Martians last time they checked? And Mrs. Bergsma’s face melts into a smile. “It’s all nothing,” she said. “It’s all a hoax.”

“Henk didn’t know the word hoax, because he was real Dutch then yet, so I had to tell him,” Jake claimed.

“Preacher's wife says how sorry she is that she got everybody all scared out, but how if we’d have heard what they did on that radio, we’d have been scared too. ‘Now all of you just ought to go home,’ she says.”

“We knew it was stupid all along," Jake said.

“My word, all of that is true?” Shelley asked. “We heard it in school, but it seemed so dumb.” 

“It was the end of the world in Ireton,” Jake said.

“Look at the time, girl," Betts told her.  "You’re going to be late to school.”

“So did you guys go back to that place out in the country and neck a little, Grandpa?” she said as she picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder.

“You just get on to school before you get yourself in trouble,” he told her.


Once Shelley was out to her car, Jake told Betts that what they’d just had was a pretty good breakfast.

“It’s just that you did all the talking,” she said. “that’s why you’re saying that.”

“Hadn’t thought about those Martians for years,” he said. “When I remember it now, I remember feeling scared, too, though—I admit it.”

“Don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” she told him, reaching for his cup.

“Oh, shussh, and pour me a half cup more, why don’t you?”