Georgie Romper worked very hard at the mine, not only because there was little else to do in Howey Bay, but because hard work came naturally to him.
He descended from a long line of miners. His father had started mining asbestos just a few years before it became a proven carcinogen, narrowly losing his one slim chance at making his million. This failure of circumstance was knocked into Georgie at a young age by his bitterly drunken father, who spent the rest of his life resenting missed opportunities, sulking in the potato patch, and slinking by every smaller smaller occasion on a head full of beer.
“You’ve got to take your chance, boy!” his father would growl. “You’ve got to make it happen for yourself. Work for no one but yourself!”
So, Georgie’s career at the Howey Bay goldmine began with the intention of never giving up. He started in the dank underground, drilling and mucking. Then he received a promotion every couple of years, until his only reason to go down below was as a shift boss, to check on his crew. Each promotion brought with it a glimmer of pride, and a seething ambition to make more of his life.
He started making enough money that the Romper family could move from a smaller bungalow into a large, bright house with five bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a humongous finished basement. It was walking distance to the mine, whose main head frame stood several stories above the fringe of scrubby pine and birch trees surrounding the mine property.
The shift change whistle – more of a haunting moan – blew mornings and evenings at nine; every family in Howey Bay used it as a measure of time. Late to school if you heard the whistle before you were in your seat. Late to get home if you heard the whistle before you walked up your steps.
Behind the Rompers’ new house, the backyard lengthened out toward a vast acreage of rehabilitated mine tailings known in Howey Bay as “the Slimes”. Back in the forties, the area had been a pond filled with toxic ooze. Now it wasn’t slimy anymore, just rolling plateaux of mud and re-seeded grass. It was marshy and wild; birds, frogs, snakes, even weasels and martins had long since returned.
Ellen’s bedroom faced out toward the Slimes. Her linens were plaid and pastel, the room punctuated with bright pillows, afghan blankets, homemade art, found objects, and glossy pictures of she and Pammy making faces. From her window, Ellen could see the flat beds of earth, tall fronds of yellow grass, birch saplings waving in the dry breeze. Past the Slimes, she would eye the dark fringe of untamed forest beyond Howey Bay. Sometimes she gazed for a while.
Whenever Georgie and Marisol were fighting, however, Ellen did not stay in her bedroom. She felt alone there, and cold. Instead, she crept downstairs to the finished basement and huddled with Charlie. The older siblings retreated, Keanan outdoors and Bonnie to her own room with a book. It was as though each family member took up his or her private post before the battle began to rage.
At first, during the fighting, Charlie and Ellen tried to occupy themselves with play activities in his room. They played Garage Sale, where they would sell their personal items to one another for five or ten cents each, then buy them back. Or, he would kidnap one of her dolls and tie it by the neck to the light fixture. Sometimes they set up the Barbies and G.I. Joes for a picnic. (Ellen was relieved and glad when Charlie finally seemed to have forgotten about the other games.)
When the flow of murmurs broke out into a ripple, then a cascade, then a thundering roar, all playing ceased. Charlie and Ellen sat at the bottom of the stairs, biting their knuckles at the sound of Georgie and Marisol’s footsteps above them.
“What do you want from me?” was Georgie’s refrain. Back and forth his footsteps stomped. “You know what you are, Marisol? You’re a masochist. I really honestly believe you don’t want to be happy. No man could ever satisfy you.”
“No man like you, that’s for sure. You are incapable of loving. Incapable of feeling. All you care about is yourself, your next meal.” Marisol’s footsteps followed his, back and forth.
“You know that’s not true. I provide for you and the kids.”
“Right. You provide. The bare minimum.” The sneer was audible.
“Who are you to talk? You don’t even work!”
“I forgot, you don’t consider taking care of the house and kids work.”
“You sleep all day when the kids are at school, Marisol! Don’t think I’m unaware.”
She huffed. “Well, it’s not my fault I can’t sleep at night. All the stress I’m under.”
“What stress?” he roared. “I have to go to an office every day, woman! Deal with thirty men who slave in the muck for me. Report to upper management, to stockholders. What kind of stress are you under?”
“The kids, the house,” she mumbled, starting to cry quietly. “You.”
“What about me?”
“You don’t love me, Georgie. You never have.”
“Why don’t you leave me then?” shouted Georgie. His footsteps thumped to the kitchen. “Better yet, why don’t you just kill me now?”
“Georgie, put the knife down. You’re ridiculous,” said Marisol coldly.
“Kill me! Kill me! Just put it right through my heart!”
Charlie and Ellen gulped, their knuckles white. Their father, brandishing the knife, passed the stairs and saw them huddling down at the bottom.
“Go to your rooms!” he roared.
Charlie jumped up and ran to his own room nearby. He did not wait for Ellen.
Ellen waffled. Her room was at the top of the stairs; she would have to pass Georgie and his knife.
“Your room!” roared Georgie.
Ellen scampered backwards, away from the gleaming knife and the towering figure of her father, into Charlie’s bedroom. Would he come after her? If she just disappeared, would it be enough?
No.
His feet thumped down the stairs.
“Leave the kids! Leave them!” screamed Marisol. But she did not come down.
Georgie came to the door of Charlie’s bedroom. Bang bang bang!
“Ellen!”
Ellen cowered on the other side of the door.
When Georgie opened it, I tried to get between them. I was this close to smacking Georgie upside the head. I don’t know about you, but for me there’s nothing worse than seeing a big mean adult intimidating a small, confused child. I mean, go pick on someone your own size already.
The knife was hanging at Georgie’s side, in one hand. He didn’t seem to realize he still had it. With the other hand, he grabbed Ellen by her skinny arm and jerked her out of Charlie’s room. He pushed her in front of him, and then with little hard jabs he shoved her up the stairs.
Even with all that Ellen had gone through, she’d somehow remained a fairly trusting creature up until now.
Now, as she hustled upstairs, her mother hovering at the top with a small, hard mouth and wounded eyes, her father pushing her so hard she almost fell over her feet, Ellen began to understand something about comfort.
Her father clutched the knife, dull grey, long and inert. The knife had been used the previous day, and would be used again, to chop up onions and garlic for frying with ground beef. The children would eat; their cells would metabolize the protein and vitamins, growing and multiplying. In a way, the knife helped to nourish the children. Ellen was a recipient of what the knife could happily accomplish.
Now, about thirty centimetres away, was the point of the father’s rage toward the mother.
Ellen felt the prospect of the knife cutting its way through her skin – something she’d always taken for granted, unbroken – severing her vessels and arteries, penetrating her organs, piercing her heart. Now she could be sliced into parts by this sharp thing. Would it hurt? Would she survive?
Then the solid feeling that had grown between she and her parents, the understanding of sorts, melted into thin air. It fizzled. She couldn’t remember what it had been like to have it. She would never remember again.
I had nothing to do with what happened next. Somewhere inside her head, way back, Ellen found a rocking chair, and slid way back into that part of her head and sat down. Rocking, rocking. Everything turned grey: the mother’s sullen face, more concerned with her own pain than her child’s peril; the father’s thick fingers shoving her forward; the existence of Charlie and his sly, sweet touch; even the light in Ellen’s own room. Everything drained of colour and became mute. Ellen rocked and rocked; the motion became mellow and relaxed. She saw nothing. She barely even breathed. Yet she felt completely at peace, exactly where she needed to be.
The voices of Marisol and Georgie faded into a distance, becoming tinny and irrelevant, like an old television show. Ellen went to her bedroom window, where she could see the Slimes. Slowly, she let her vision broaden to encompass the trees and sky. She breathed sharply. It hurt to come back, like thawing out after frostbite. She distracted herself by wondering what was beyond that fringe of trees on the edge of the Slimes. She had gone into the forest once, for an afternoon. But she had not gone very deep. She wondered why Pammy never wanted to explore the Slimes with her. They usually played in Pammy’s basement, listening to rock ‘n’ roll or watching movies in the dark. Why didn’t Pammy enjoy the expanse of grasses and marsh? She never found it interesting, even when Ellen would run ahead to catch a frog or garter snake. It would be nice if she had Pammy to go deep into the forest with her. Often, Ellen brought Leander to the Slimes in a little box and he would sit there chewing on the bristly grasses while she wrote in her notebook. She pretended she was a scientist and he was her assistant. She told Leander everything she noticed; all he did was chirrup and purr, and look up at her with shiny black loving eyes. In them she could see the birch trees reflected, swaying.
Slowly, Ellen came back. She took another deep breath. She unwound her shoulders from her neck and her arm bones from her shoulders. Now, at least, she knew where the rocking chair was, and how to get to it.
The knife incident occurred several days after Christmas. In the New Year, Marisol resolved to leave her husband again. This time she did not take the children with her.