by Ed Helenski
Helenski
Squid
Corners
By
Ed Helenski
©2001 Ed Helenski
The Morass Press
Squid Corners
©2001 Ed Helenski
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidence and not intended to represent real events.
First Private Edition
The Morass Press
Erie, PA
Prologue
I started this story making a journal of my experiences returning to my home town. I was making a journey, both in space and time. I had left Squid Corners as a teenager, and my recollections and memories of the town had been colored by the years. What I found was neither what I had expected, nor what I had been searching for. After a number of unexpected events happened I began to realize my journal had the makings of a novel in it. Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again, in fact he wrote four huge novels, all in essence based upon going back to his home after growing into an adult while away. If he could do it, I thought perhaps I could as well. Eventually, the story that unfolded before my eyes was bigger than I had imagined, and encompassed a good deal more than the story of one lost soul looking for his childhood. The story needed to be told, and so I took my journal and turned it into what follows.
What you are about to read, with the exception of the last few chapters, is pretty much as it was written. I have corrected some errors of fact, and of course edited out those things that had no bearing on the story I have decided to tell, but as a whole it represents what I wrote as things were happening. For that reason, little of what was to come is foreshadowed or anticipated. The events are revealed to you very much as they presented themselves to me. Things that were of great import when I started the tale had faded into mere shadows by the end. I considered rewriting the story entire, adding the perspective of time, and of foreknowledge of coming events. In the end I decided to leave it, letting you see the town as I saw it, moment by moment. You will see me that way as well, in all of my failures and blindness.
The last few chapters were written after the fact, for reasons that will be apparent. The story happened, the people are real, and the town is still there.
Chapter 1
After more than a decade in the city, I moved back home today. It is with a good deal of relief that I find myself back in Squid Corners, PA, the town where I grew up. It was not until I had been away from the quiet and community of this small town that I began to realize how vital it was to who I am. The years I spent in Hartford, while productive and successful, have left me empty and wanting. There has been a crucial piece missing, and I have come back here to The Corners to find it. I have not been here since my Mom died, and in some ways that memory made it painful to return.
When I first told my father about my plans to cash in my 401k, invest in electronic publishing equipment, and start a weekly paper here, he was not very supportive, and that is being polite. I tried to explain to him that I needed to recapture something that was missing, but my reasoning has fallen on deaf ears. I told him Squid Corners is a pastoral sanctuary from the impersonal and hostile modern world. He told me I don’t know this town at all. I said it lives in my heart. He said it is filled with pus like a wound gone bad. I think he is projecting his own feelings of failure and loss onto the town.
My best, and truly only, friend Larry Foxe thinks I am crazy. We worked together on the Courant for a long time and he seemed genuinely hurt that I was leaving. Still, there is always email.
I am especially looking forward to finally having a column of my own. The Courant used me as it chose, and I covered many exciting stories, but always with my own editorial voice removed. I could report, but never comment. I am eager to begin this weekly commentary on my town. I’ve even thought of a name: Around the Corner. I think it is cute. If it goes well I hope to syndicate it out to other papers, maybe it will eventually reach the entire nation. Dreams of grandeur, I know.
Deciding to go from a large urban daily to being the sole creator of a six page weekly was no easy choice. The PC based publishing system I have purchased makes the layout a breeze, and at least 3 pages a week will just be ads and coupons, that is my hope, anyway, that had better be the case or I will go broke. I found a coupon paper in Meadville that takes in farm jobs, and they will do a press run each Monday for me, so the paper can be distributed on Wednesday. I am looking at free distribution to begin with, a circulation of about 3000. Rather a long way down from the Courant.
Of course the Courant was rather a long way from here. I have only been here a few days, not quite long enough to have been discovered, although I am sure my presence is well known. Small towns are almost as avid about gossip as large cities, and the number of topics is smaller. I shouldn’t be so inaccurate. This isn’t Mayberry; the men don’t hang out at Floyd’s to get the latest news on who got new tires and who bagged an illegal buck. If the men hang out anywhere it’s Shickley’s, and that’s mostly old timers like Old man Hurley. Now there’s a character. If you put a 102-year-old boozer in a novel they would tell you it is too far fetched. Well, truth is stranger than fiction, I guess.
I will miss my life in the city. The parties, which were interesting, albeit sad affairs, not that I went to many. Work was my party and I spent way too much time engaged in it. The women, city women, now that is something to miss, and yet not miss. Casual sex was certainly easy. Sex without relationships was the norm in the city. Here I suspect sex can be casual, but isn’t taken casually by all involved. I don’t really know, the only sex I had here was with Rhonda Jackson after the senior prom, and it had been far from casual. At the time I thought it was the most important thing in the world. Rhonda had been very angry at me for going away to college. She had written for a couple weeks, then no more. I had heard she got married not long after, not much of a grieving period.
The other kids I went to school with have mostly moved on as well. I will have to look at the records and see who remained in the area. When I was 20 I would have called them losers, now I think they were smart. Or maybe not. Maybe it is only BECAUSE I went away, made it in the city, that I can come back and be well here. Maybe Dad is right, for those that stay the town is poison. I must admit starting the paper isn’t the only project on my mind. I think this town has a novel, or a series of novels in it. I always said I was working on a novel while at the Courant, but who had time? Now I will find out if I can fish or cut bait. That’s a horrible metaphor; I am already being ruralized.
When I visited over the past months to talk to my dad and get things set up I was met with less than open arms by the town. I admit this. The Corners has the small town’s usual xenophobia, perhaps mixed with resentment when it is one of their own returning. Renting the house on Langley and the storefront on Main had been accomplished at the expense of several hours spent with Amy Vickers, Charlie's wife. Charlie is town manager, though he spends most of his time on his mail order fish lure business. Amy says since he got on the internet it’s really picking up. I will have to check out his website. Amy was willing to do business without batting one over made up eyelash, but was none the less reserved. I told her when I was a freshman in High School I had had a crush on her. She didn’t seem impressed. She asked me if the big city was so great why didn’t I come back with a wife? I didn’t tell her about Jana, or the divorce. No sense. I am just glad there were not kids as a result of my short-lived marriage. I was as much to blame for the failure as Jana was, perhaps more so. I think I was never able to settle into a life in the city while part of me remained here, in the past. But where was I? Amy was all business, although with her business includes an open blazer, silk blouse a
nd lots of cleavage, at least until you sign.
She then tried to sell me a variety of insurance policies. I demurred, saying I was pressed for time, but she will be coming by the house next Friday to show me what she’s got. Now that I think about it, I only assumed she meant insurance.
I have much to do If I want to get the first issue out by next week, so I had better get cracking. I have already set up the PC, and it all seemed to work fine. It’s basically the same kind of thing I am used to from all my years at the Courant. The press in Meadville is set for the first issue. I've got to track down a couple kids to do a hand delivery here in town to every door, and I've got permission to put ‘em out in racks at Paul Bunyan and even out in front of Pickeral’s where the old folks still go, and the poor folks; Paul Bunyan don’t run a tab. I need to get to Siegly and set up some rack displays there, too. Siegly has most of the businesses in the area and I need their ads, plus half the folks from The Corners work there.
I got a welcome email from Larry. He was his usual supportive self.
Tom,
Has Andy or Barney locked you up yet? I’ll keep this short cuz I know you are using a kerosene powered PC out there. The paper’s not the same without you. Seriously, good luck. Keep in Tune.
Foxe
Well, the next time I boot up this program to write, I will be in the newspaper business. Woo hoo!
Around The Corner Wednesday,September 6
Welcome to the Squid Corners Gazette and Clipper! I hope this venture proves to be mutually profitable. Each week I plan to deliver to you a six page paper like the one you are holding, with stories of local interest, public notices and private classifieds, as well as coupons and savings from local merchants.
This is the inaugural issue, as well as the first edition of this column. It is my hope that you will eagerly await each press run, as I anticipate providing them for you. For those of you who are new to The Corners, or who don’t go back quite as far as I do, I am Thomas Tharon. You probably know my dad, Burley, from down to the gravel pit in Siegly, or remember my Mom, Candy, who we all sorely miss.
I have been away from The Corners for nearly twenty years. I am back home now, and I mean that in every sense of the word. The Corners is, and always has been, my real home. Though I have spent over a decade in Hartford, and went to Pittsburgh, and New York City (Yeah, I know…) my heart has never left this place. I want to thank everyone for giving me such a warm welcome upon my return. I feel as if I have never left.
The Corners hasn’t changed much in the time I have been gone. Other towns have been changed until they are unrecognizable, but Squid Corners is essentially the town I left, those long years ago. You can still shop at Pickeral’s (though they now have a little competition from the Paul Bunyan), can still get your evening beer at Shickley’s and hear the latest from Old Man Hurley, (who was already Old man Hurley when I was just a boy). If you are feeling a bit more rowdy, you can go to Dewey’s of a Saturday night, and I doubt much has changed there, including the dust.
There are a few differences, even Squid Corners can’t entirely escape the passage of time. There are not so many TV aerials, now that most folks have cable. The old pumps are gone at Wyscome’s, now you can pay with a credit card right at the pump, although, as I found out, they still come pump it for you. The furniture plant is making home entertainment centers and computer desks instead of TV stands and rocking chairs, but it is still pretty much the same. The halls of James Buchanan Elementary still smell of chalk and floor polish, despite there being a computer in most every room. And the iron fist of Ted (dare I call him Baldy, even now?) Cooter still rules. And in the room at the corner, the one whose windows always held a tantalizing view of the woods, Anna Sorenson still teaches first grade, as she did to me.
Some other things have changed. Elmer Tatum is gone; Reggie Picket is the Constable now. The Reverend Johnson passed, though the sermons he spoke on those hot summer Sundays still ring in my ears. The new pastor is Reverend Doland, whom I look forward to meeting. He has some pretty big shoes to fill. My old pal Bobby Schwartz isn’t playing with matches any more, he pretty much runs the volunteer fire house now.
You will have to forgive me for going on about things you all know very well. Just bear in mind it’s all fresh to me, if not all new. I have come back to The Corners with fresh eyes, and everything has that new town feel to it.
While the bulk of each issue will contain those articles and photos you are most interested in, things like reports on the school sports, the church socials, and the like, I am most looking forward to writing this column. I want to share my renewed joy in this town with those who can most appreciate it. You, the townspeople of Squid Corners. This town has given me so much, and so I have returned to pay back that debt. Providing you with this meager paper is not a fair repayment, but it is my start.
It is my hope that you will come to enjoy reading this part of the paper as much as I enjoy writing it. I know some of you are thinking, why should I care what some snotty little brat thinks? You would be right. I left here thinking the town was filled with fools and I was off to see the real world. And that is just why I have something to say. I have seen the “real” world in all its glory, covered its stories for a metropolitan paper, seen the life of the urban and urbane. And I have come back, because the real world is right here, in the Corners.
Thomas Tharon, Editor
Chapter 2
Well, that column didn’t go over too well at all. I guess I had some idea that if I claimed to be welcomed back like the prodigal son, I would be. Dad straightened me out on that point Wednesday night, when I had him over for a dinner of filet and rice, Caesar salad, and mousse. He was as unimpressed with the food as he was with my paper. Let me see if I can capture just what he said to me:
“You really expect folks to open their arms and slaughter the fatted calf? You pretty well slapped the town in the face there, Tom”
I asked him what he meant.
“Don’t be a fool. You as much as said you thought the town was worthless, and the folks were all idiots, till you went and got so damn wise in the city. Now you come back to tell us all it’s OK to live here, we don’t have to feel bad about it any more cause the high and mighty Tom Tharon has concluded that this town is OK, even if you have to be a big city hotshot in order to understand it. And you are gonna spend your time explaining it to us. You see my point?”
I admitted as perhaps I did, but my intentions were to let people know I approved of what they were and how they lived.
He had gotten mad at that point. “Who gives a shit if you approve? We supposed to get down and thank God we can go about our lives now knowing we were doing right cause Tom told us so? Your intentions don’t mean shit, Tom. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I tried to tell you this town wasn’t what you wanted, but you wouldn’t listen to me. You think you are gonna fit in here you have another thing coming. You never did, and I damn well think you never will”. Any further comments had been cut off by his getting up and leaving. He went off in the direction of Gorey Corey’s.
I guess I had some of that coming, but I really didn’t expect to get it from my Dad. I thought coming back here would be a way to put things right. He acts like the things I said when I left here at 18 were serious and real, like it wasn’t just a young punk mouthing off. But I suppose I never really tried to fix things in all the time I lived in Hartford, and I should have thought about this back when Mom died in ‘93. He was so close mouthed then; I had no idea how to deal with him. And things were going so great for me back east. I was getting better assignments, had just had my own byline for the first time, and thought I was the hottest thing to hit writing since…well, ever. Guess I still have a few things to learn.
The rest of the town gave me mixed reviews to say the least. Amy Vickers drove by me yesterday and actually gave me the finger when I waved. I suspect the paper just fueled what is apparently some problem she has with me, though what it is
, is beyond me. I stopped by at Pickeral’s to restock the rack and found it full. Luke was there, and he said hi to me, and that it didn’t look like that rack needed any filling. I explained that since I had the papers hand delivered here in town by Charlesse and Corinne Schwartz, Bobby’s girls, that folks already had copies. Luke didn’t comment. A young lady was getting some magazines there and she came over and introduced herself. One Bettina (call me Betty) Johnson, the new second grade teacher. She thought it was wonderful the town was getting a paper, so that school news and announcements could be made locally. I asked her what she thought of the column, and she admitted she only read the ads. Figures. Cute lady, quite a difference from when I was in school, makes me want to repeat second grade.
Outside Pickeral's sat a young nymph of perhaps 15. She wore a very short skirt with those over the thigh stockings and a short jacket, a bit thin for the weather. Smoking a cigarette she eyed me openly, and when I looked back she licked her lips and pouted at me. I swear to God, she pouted. When I felt myself starting to get red she laughed and stretched out one leg languidly. I hurried off before I embarrassed myself. Who she was I didn’t know.
Thursday I ran into Bobby Schwartz and thanked him for letting his daughters deliver the paper. I mentioned the girl outside of Pickeral’s to him and he laughed. “That”, he explained, “is The Corners version of Lolita. Mike Mistick’s daughter SEE OH BAN. She chases everything over 30 in pants. You had better watch your step with her.” I didn’t know who Mike Mistick was, but I intended to watch my step. Bobby also gave me a piece of advice about the paper. “Don’t be so quick to spell out your mind here, Tom. You have forgotten what a small town is like. You gotta watch what you say, folks are quick to judge and slow to forgive.” I think he was saying the same as my Dad, but it stung less coming from an old friend. We made plans for me to come to dinner next week sometime.