by Jan Smolders
“Harriet’s mess. Hmm. I guess you’re right. Shit, if she signs they might even suck the oil and gas out from under our feet.”
“No. That’s illegal.”
“Oh. Yeah, right again. And Doornaert’s honest. But many of my friends think—”
“Illegal!”
He glanced at her, clearly surprised by her abruptness. “Okay. Okay. So, no leasing, but….”
“But what?”
“If Doornaert comes knocking on our door, they won’t forget to mention that I have a good job with them.”
“Right. They won’t. And yes, you’ve got that job. Good money. Great money. With work night and day, and not without danger. And your health….” She had read stories about accidents, hoses bursting under terrifyingly high pressure, and explosions. She worried constantly about him.
Mary put her left hand on Joe’s leg, felt his warm quad muscles, and sighed. In an hour or so they would make love. Great love. The tall man sitting next to her, a former elementary school football coach with a receding hairline, sturdy and kind, straight and upbeat, not prone to overly sophisticated considerations, was a safe refuge for her after a painful divorce from a cheating, abusive husband. Joe’s down-to-earth humor brightened her life. He compensated for his limited education—he’d dropped out of college after six months—with his readiness to take on unglamorous work with a smile. She loved him, the good ol’ boy who loved to live.
Her own life had been tumultuous. With a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a minor in Spanish from the University of Cincinnati, she went into teaching. One year later she bolted for a two- year stint in the Doctors Without Borders organization, which led her to a remote jungle area in the Cajamarca province of Peru. There she had met and married Bill, a Lumberton, Texas native. After Peru she joined him in his hometown of about twelve thousand. When they divorced four years later, she moved back north, to Noredge, where she had deep roots.
Of average height, her skin fair, her brownish locks not quite reaching her shoulders, Mary had lost six pounds in Texas. It accentuated her sharp facial features. “Yes, for now,” she would say with a wry giggle, nervous as she always was about almost everything, including her waistline. Shopping for clothes was a breeze for her, and she wanted to keep it that way: blouses, slacks and skirts straight off the rack looked tailor-made on her tight, fit body. “You stride like a twenty-year-old.” That was Joe’s expert opinion.
She softly rubbed his leg and murmured, “We must stop him, Joe.”
“Huh? Doornaert?”
“Doornaert.”
“But he’s a good man. Means well.”
“He may, but he’s seventy-two. We don’t need this fracking and it may ruin our lives, our family.” She longed for the day Joe would agree to get married. Her kids called him “Daddy.”
“You really want to throw all that money away? The lease money, the royalties? Your royalties?”
Mary’s house sat on thirty-five acres and the Chamber had hinted that Doornaert was eyeing them and the surrounding area. The land had been in her family for generations. It was part of her.
“We…. I’ll stop him. For us. For our family.” She squeezed his quad.
“Come on, Mary. The State will shield us from abuse by Doornaert.”
He hasn’t heard me. She would have to rephrase her ‘family’ hint—later, when they were in bed.
She sighed. “Politicians? Shielding us? I don’t know how much, how honestly, Joe. Politicians can be bought.”
“Doornaert wouldn’t,” Joe affirmed.
Pure Joe can’t even imagine that. She chuckled inside. The thought made her happy. “Maybe not him, but the good old chap won’t be around forever. I’m not signing any lease, and I’m going to move heaven and earth so that they don’t move one rig into Noredge. I’ll start a campaign. I don’t want an Avella in Noredge.”
Avella Township, thirty-five miles southwest of Pittsburgh, had seen a dramatic well explosion in February 2011. Joe’s cousin lived twenty miles from the place, and had told them about the horrors that ensued there. Weeks earlier, five workers had been killed in similar circumstances in Allentown.
“I see. So, what are you planning?”
“A quiet campaign. My way.” Mary was determined. “It may get unpleasant.”
He put his hand on hers. “You’re scaring me, baby, the way you talk. Don’t forget I work—”
“You did mention that, Joe. And I heard it.” She looked straight ahead, nodding slowly. “But I have to protect my kids, you and myself. Do you know what that means? My kids?” She regretted her last two words the moment she spoke them; Joe, basically single for over twenty years, had no children.
He sighed. “What it means? No. I guess I don’t, Mary.”
They kept silent until they arrived home.
Joe parked the car in the driveway.
She felt his hand on her waist as they walked to the side entrance.
“Are you serious? A ‘campaign?’” He sounded nervous.
He thinks I’m going to say, “Oh, no. Not really.” She was going to leave no doubt in his mind. “I must. I know too much. It’s not just the Avella disaster. I must, whatever it takes,” she repeated.
“Whatever…. Are you thinking about speaking with…the Sierra Club?”
She knew he had mustered all his courage to ask her the question. “Whatever it takes. Because I love you, Joe, and our Andy and Jimmy. You have the key?”
Chapter 2
Three weeks after the community meeting the city of Noredge agreed with the Doornaert organization on terms for drilling. Mary was furious, although she had seen it coming. She had to be fair in her assumptions, but felt she could make reasonable guesses about the maneuvering that had led to the decision and the names of the players behind the scenes. Pouring breakfast milk for Andy she looked at Joe and grumbled. “I bet we’ll see a doubling of the size of the library, that new meeting hall at the Chamber, a new track for the high school—”
“A new track? Hurrah!” the boy exclaimed. “When?” He swung his little head to throw back his blond locks.
Mary turned to Jimmy, gesturing with her free hand that he should reach out to her with his glass.
Joe didn’t look up from the giant bacon and cheese omelet that smiled at him from his plate, but said, “When, Andy? Hmm. I don’t know, but I think Mommy does.” He winked at her and forked a load of egg into his mouth.
“Soon, Andy,” Mary said, her tone motherly. She turned to Joe, rolled her eyes and muttered in a hushed voice, “I can guess whose sons or daughters will have three or four of the new big jobs with Doornaert; and we’ll see a few more Cadillacs and Lincolns, driven by ‘people’ who think we’re naïve idiots.”
“We’re idiots? Why do they think so, Mommy?” Jimmy sounded indignant, showing a frown too deep for his age.
Mary chuckled. Jimmy was a scaled-down version of his brother. “Because they’re wrong of course. That’s why.”
“Mommy’s right, Jimmy,” Joe added. He hadn’t bothered to clear his mouth.
“I am,” Mary said curtly.
Jimmy stared at her, taking his time before lowering his gaze to his toast.
Joe concentrated on his fork as he spoke to Mary. “Sound a little bitter.”
“Surprised?” she whispered, frustrated.
The kids had turned their attention to their bacon.
“No, sweetie. But you can’t do much about it. Might be better to get over it.”
She was ready to explode, but just closed her eyes; the shrapnel would hit innocents.
Her quiet “whatever” plan to stop Doornaert had not been effective.
She hadn’t told Joe how she might react to a pro-fracking decision by the city. She couldn’t do anything official—she had no function in the city’s management—but had
been meeting with a couple of like-minded friends, Sierra Club sympathizers but not real activists. One was Dan Clark, a tall, bearded high school science teacher of Hartville, father of five grown children. The other one, a single, middle-aged, plump pediatric nurse named Jill Smith who worked at Timken Mercy Hospital in Canton. Both lived less than ten miles from Mary’s place.
The trio’s plans for flyers and radio ads had taken too long to materialize but they had spent a good deal of time and effort on them. Mary always made sure not to miss a minute of work and to never leave the kids at home by themselves. When Joe came home, she would be there on the days he had his regular day shift. He didn’t question her, and she thought it was better not to bother him with tales about her discussions or actions. He was too honest, though she questioned whether she was not equally so.
“I can declare that we have a real victory, Joe,” she said scornfully, sighing. “Doornaert has kindly agreed not to drill less than two miles south of McKinley. How generous!”
McKinley Avenue, running east to west, intersected with Main Street in the center of Noredge. The villa of John Livingston, Jules Doornaert’s brother-in law, was the pearl of McKinley Street. It flaunted its tree-lined driveway a quarter mile east of the city center.
Joe raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? So you’re still not going to sign the lease when Doornaert’s landman knocks on your door? Harriet says she will.”
Mary shot him an angry glance. “You know damn well I won’t.”
“You also said it won’t be just Harriet who’ll suffer. We’ll have to enjoy the noise just as much as our friendly neighbor, and the congestion, the fumes, the invasion of strangers. All of that. Without a penny for you….”
“It’s only money, Joe.” She dropped into her chair and smiled weakly at the boys, whose expressions were all puzzlement.
Chapter 3
On a Thursday afternoon, about a month after Doornaert and the city of Noredge signed their fracking agreement, Mary arrived home from school with Andy and Jimmy. The kids jumped out of the car, Andy holding the door key. “My turn!” he shouted, fighting off Jimmy as they raced to the door.
Mary savored the burst of young energy and the smell of early daffodils.
As she dropped her bag on a chair in the kitchen, she noticed drops of spilled morning coffee on the table. She opened the refrigerator and took out a bag of bread and a jar of peanut butter to prepare a snack for the boys. The electronic clock on the wall next to the defunct, dust-covered, cuckoo-clock said 4:20. The smell of bacon still hung in the air. She felt happy, relieved that Joe didn’t smoke any longer. She exhaled profoundly.
She was half way through her snack duty when the bell rang.
Jimmy ran to the front door, exclaiming, “It’s Seth! With his new ball!” A moment later he returned to the kitchen, pouting and dragging his feet. “It’s Mrs. Woods.”
“Oh.” Mary rushed to adjust the big map of South America that hung askew against the wall opposite the refrigerator—next to a much smaller framed copy of the Declaration of Independence. Andy had taped his signature next to John Hancock’s. She hurried to clean the Formica table top with a paper towel. “Tell her to come in and don’t worry—I’ll make your sandwich first.”
Harriet Woods walked in, a smile covering the matron’s face framed in an abundance of bleached curls. She wore a light-beige pantsuit that looked a size too small. “Hello, Mary! How tall the boys have grown! Lovely.”
“Thank you, Harriet. Please come in. Take a seat. They eat like wolves.” Mary puffed, handing the boys their snacks. She wiped the seat of one of the metal chairs and smoothed her gray skirt.
“They’re playing hard, those champions. I see them kicking the ball in the yard,” Harriet commented, her tone jovial, as she carefully sat down, overstretching her pants in the process.
Mary joined her.
Harriet, a sixtyish widow of five years, lived right across Maple Road, to the north, in a single-story house. It was almost a copy of Mary’s, but with its forty years it was about fifteen older. Harriet’s had greenish aluminum siding; Mary’s was off-white. Mary had two half-size soccer goals without nets; Harriet had a garden shed in the far back. Both had three bedrooms. Harriet’s two-car garage was spic-and-span, always; Mary’s was a chaotic refuge for too much. A John Deere riding mower dominated its left side, sharing authority with Mary’s Corolla on the right. The vehicles had to tolerate the company of discarded toys, four bicycles, numerous soccer balls, a roll of leftover carpet and a half-finished wooden cabinet—a project abandoned by Joe long ago.
The Jenkins and Woods driveways, both one hundred feet long, were almost perfect extensions of each other across Maple Road. Both front yards were impeccably manicured from early May on: Mary and grudging Joe had to keep up with Harriet and her gardener. Much of Mary’s backyard showed the wear and tear from mini-soccer matches the boys played with friends, and sometimes with parents. Harriet’s was strictly off-limits for kids and adults alike. The rescue of wild soccer balls from her yard required diplomacy.
“Oh yes. Joe kicks balls with them too. And eats just as much,” Mary quipped. Her usual “and it shows” lay on her tongue. She kept it there. Rotund Harriet might not have appreciated that kind of humor.
“Well, Mary, I apologize for dropping in without notice, but I thought I should bring you some good news.”
Not about another perfect boyfriend. Mary noticed the piece of paper her neighbor had taken out of her pocket. “Great! I can use some.”
“Yes, great indeed, for the two of us. That’s why I came. I just made myself forty-eight thousand four hundred dollars! Can you believe it? I signed a lease on my forty-four acres, forty-three and a half actually, but the gentleman was kind enough to round it up to forty-four because I was the first one on our road who signed.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I think you should hurry. He said that he would sign only six leases this year on Maple. I thought he was speaking the truth. I brought you his telephone number. You weren’t back yet at three o’clock, when he left my house. Take this little—”
“You just signed? Just like that? No lawyer?” Mary blurted out, disregarding the sheet her neighbor tried to hand her.
Harriet recoiled. She briefly closed her eyes.
Mary quickly added, “Sorry. None of my business, of course.” She realized the kids were still in the sitting room, watching TV. “Andy, Jimmy, why don’t you get the ball and play some. Okay?” She noticed Harriet’s two or three slow nods.
The kids looked at their mother askance, switched off the TV and sauntered to the back door.
After a short, silent intermezzo, Harriet coughed and smiled. “I’ll get the dollars, Mary, no question about that, and my son in Youngstown said he signed two years ago but they never came to his place to drill. Same for his neighbor. See? It’s gravy, that signing money, and no harm done.” She looked at the back door—the boys had left it ajar—and went on, “If they would drill, I’d be really rich. Thirty thousand dollars in royalties over a couple of years. Thirty thousand at least, the man assured me, maybe much more. An honest man. I’d be richer than I ever could’ve dreamt and after a few years I’d have my land back the way it is now.” Her enthusiasm had made her last sentence one too many for her pulmonary capacity. Panting, she placed the paper on the table. “The Watsons will sign too,” she managed to add.
Bill and Dorothy Watson had forty or fifty acres bordering Harriet’s to the north.
Mary raised her voice. “Thank you, but I won’t sign, Harriet. I don’t want any fracking mess on Maple. If it were up to me, I’d ban the damn thing in all of Noredge.” She got up and closed the back door. Angry. She had no position of authority in the city. And she heard rumors that the State was mulling prohibition of fracking bans by cities and counties. Oil companies were making huge donations to judges up for election or re-election to the Ohio Supreme
Court.
“Well, I have my paper for the forty-eight thousand anyway.” Harriet frowned. “A mess, you said?”
As if she doesn’t know. “Of course! Take a little trip to Pennsylvania. Bradford County. You can get a taste of what we can expect when the Doornaert folks set foot on your land.”
Harriet sounded undeterred. “Oh. I’ll have to talk about that with my son. He knows what he’s doing. I’m by myself now, of course. I thought Ed would have done what I did, if he were still with us.”
Mary wrinkled her nose.
“Okay. Got to go now, Mary. Take care.” Harriet pointed at the sheet. “Don’t wait too long!”
Mary walked her neighbor and her penetrating perfume to the front door.
A few feet out, Harriet turned to Mary and pointed at a Buick parked in her driveway. “Marvin,” she half-giggled. “He’s early. We love Happy Hour at Daddy’s Bar.”
“Daddy’s?”
“In Canton. Very thin pizza snacks. Out of this world. I must tell him about my acres!”
“Yes. You must. I’m sure Marvin will be happy for you. Bye now.” Exuberant Harriet had to notice the sarcasm in her tone, but Mary didn’t care. Her neighbor’s case was very different from hers: the Woods land was not a cherished inheritance in the family for ages. Mary felt privileged, a willing and trusted custodian of her Jenkins acres in a line that stretched over generations.
Around eight-thirty Mary and the kids heard the loud horn of Joe’s Highlander. Andy and Jimmy ran outside. “Daddy! Daddy!” Mary stayed behind on the threshold, drying her hands on her apron.
Joe slammed the door of his vehicle, high-fived the boys, and walked past them toward the house. His step lacked the usual bounce.
“Are you tired, Daddy? Can we play?” Andy sounded worried.
“Later,” Joe said without looking at him. “Just kick penalties. Give me a few minutes.” He seemed low on energy.
“It’s late, boys. Getting dark. Daddy must be tired after such a long day,” Mary tried to explain. She welcomed Joe with a kiss. “What’s the matter?”