While I should be writing

The real reason for our Iowa roadtrip: the impossible task of finding Broken Wheel, existing somewhere out there in my imagination amongst the corn in southwestern Iowa.

The closest we could come was Clarence, Cedar County. So we drove past Cedar Rapids, past prosperious small towns with white fences, large houses, golf courses (!) and three curches. “This must be Hope”, Carina said and I was inclined to agree with her. Honestly, a golf course?

So we kept going. The corn fields replaced each other, silos came and went, a train rail suddenly appeared and with it, large freight trains that passed by every other ten minutes.

We arrived at Clarence. It’s basically just a Mainstreet, surrounded by a few streets lined with trees. Half of the stores are closed; there’s a lawyers office that doesn’t seem to be doing all that good, and a café that’s open four hours a day, wednesday through sunday.

The diner is a bar and is not called Grace’s. In stead, it has some sort of racing theme, with a torned checkered flag. Everyone in Clarence seem to be here on a Saturday. We buy coffee and drink it on the bench just outside.

A local keeps us company. He seems to have start drinking at breakfast. “I’m somewhat of a local historian”, he tells us. “My wife use to tease us for it. But this used to be a great town to grow up in. My mom could give me some dollars and send me of on my bike to the store to get bread. Who does that nowadays? And there were stores. We used to have three gas stations! And now? One.”
“What does people do around here?”
“Hard to say. Lot’s of people commute. It’s more of a sleeping town.”
It’s a quarter to six. The evening sun is shining over corn. Freight towns are passing. We drink weak coffee and the local and I smoke a cigarette.
“It used to be different”, he says. “Nowadays we’re hardly a thousand people here and most of the stores are closed.” He nods to himself and takes a step to the side, wobbly. “I love to talk about how this town used to be.”
Me and Carina gets ready for the final goal of the day: taking a photograph of us amongst the corn. You can’t come all the way to Iowa and not photograph yourself amongst the corn. But before we go, we have to check out his car. We admire it as should be and say things like what a good deal he made, and when we leave he tells us again how nice it was that we stopped by. “Very nice!” he says again. “You should come back soon.”

And who knows? Why not?

A few minutes later we find our corn, and we find a broken wheel. Carina thinks it must be a sign. Clarence in Cedar County, and a broken wheel at that. I think it’s one of those times in life when the line between fiction and reality becomes blurred; like standing on King’s Cross Station and seeing platform 9 3/4, or being happily in love and imagining sunsets on the beack.

Or standing in the corn fields in the evening sun in a make believe completely real town in south western Iowa and see Grace and Sara and George and Tom and know that they exist out there somewhere, living happily ever after.

The reason we’re in Spencer is of course obvious: their library used to have a library cat named Dewey Readmore Books. By now, Carina has asked everyone we’ve met in Iowa if they’ve heard of this cat of theirs. Everyone has said “no”, so I think she’s beginning to believe I’ve made “the damn cat”, as Carina lovingly calls him, up.

But they know about him at the motel:
Carina: “So, you know about this library cat, then?”
Motel-guy: “Dewey? Sure, he’s a big deal around here.”
I may have smiled rather smugly.

Dewey Readmore Books is the world-famous library cat that was found half frozen to death in the night drop one cold January morning. He is also the protagonist in the increadibly charming books Dewey – The Small-Town Library Cat that Touched the World. It’s written by Vicki Myron, och it’s also one of two reasons why my own book The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend takes place in Iowa. He does of course have his own webpage: http://www.deweyreadmorebooks.com/ –  the touching story of “An Abandoned Kitten [that] Transforms the Spirit of an American Town.”

And here we are now. Right outside the authentic Spencer Public Library. “Look!” I say to Carina while she is arranging our photo shoot. “A completely authentic library borrower! With a book!”. Carina notes somewhat drily that we are standing outside a library (se image!)

Inside, we’re met by a rather ugly statue of Dewey/The Damned Cat. I sign their guestbook and talk to the friendly woman behind the counter. She didn’t work here in Dewey’s time, but Vicki still comes by often. She is still working on her second book, which might be a childrens book about the miracles surrounding Dewey. As a writer I deeply sympathise with her: it must feel a bit tricky to try to write another book after having written one about her self and the town that sold to tens of countries. I mean, there’s only one library cat.

The friendly woman gives us the full Dewey-tour: the drop box where Dewey was found (see image), the heater where Dewey liked to sleep (for some reason I forgot to document that one) and the memorial plaque (see image). Carine suggest I should kneel reverently by it. I think she might be ironic.

But Dewey is a big deal. When he died it was announced on the tv-news. His orbituary appeared in 250 newspapeers, including the New York Times. Tourists used to visit the small town, even though most of them did it when he was alive. He made the library a part of the community, and he was there for people when family farms were being sold, through ecomonical crisis and lack of jobs, rising oil prices and whatever the world might throw at them. And now I’ve seen his library.