by Jan Smolders
Frank almost blurted, “I know.”
Joanna had told him, pillow talk, that she had heard Mike call Houston to argue for a raise of twenty thousand for Vince. “I think I heard correctly, Frankie,” she had said and curled up to him. “So much money.”
His eyes trained on Vince, Frank said, “So, you or Mike still haven’t heard of any witnesses of the accident? Or any skid marks? Anything else that—?”
“No.” Vince sighed, showing a trace of irritation. “Nobody’s mentioned anything. No clues. The area is cordoned off and the police have bigger fish to fry with angry townspeople and businessmen facing ruin.” He looked at his watch and stood up, seemingly embarrassed for being so rude. “Time flies,” he said.
As Frank sat down in his car, he fastened his seat belt and inserted the ignition key. Before he turned it he whispered, “I’m not done yet. Not done yet.”
Chapter 21
It was nine in the evening. Mary sat down at the kitchen table, kids in bed, legs tired. She tried to order her thoughts to take stock. Elbows on the table, face in hands, she felt her breath, cold in, warm out. Life had turned into a near-unbearable burden for her and her family.
TV channels and newspapers had discovered “Carrollton.” They milked the story incessantly for all it was worth. Commentary was sometimes supportive of clean air and water, but more often inspired by the oil industry’s generous support via commercials and political lobbying. Joe was blamed mercilessly day in, day out, Mike Doyle fanning the flames, for the loss of image inflicted on fracking, an industry that created employment and wealth in the region. Some program segments did briefly mention that Joe Bertolo’s family proclaimed his innocence and pointed at the man lying in pain in Akron city Hospital. But in most newspaper articles and on TV the concluding sentence was, with minor variations: “Pain and suffering are things the good citizens of Carrollton have come to know all too well through this unfortunate mishap.”
Carrollton and, occasionally, Noredge citizens would be paraded on TV screens extolling the wealth that hydraulic fracturing was bringing to the region, and explaining how they personally already had benefited from it. For good measure—Mary’s opinion—one or two of the Carrollton spill victims would be brought into the studios as well and asked how they knew the “flowback” water was dangerous and why. That “flowback” euphemism for the waste water that came back up to the surface, and particularly the skewed questioning would drive Mary up the wall: she understood that no complete answers were available, not to scientists and certainly not to the clueless victims. But she wondered how everybody didn’t know by now that the truth was hidden from the population by the secrecy laws the industry had bought from politicians.
Jimmy and Andy kept saying they wouldn’t go back to school when vacation ended in a few weeks. They had been harassed by kids in the street or at ballgames—and by parents. Their playmates would ape TV anchors and use phrases and words they couldn’t have thought out themselves. But Andy knew what they meant. “I can see on their faces that they hate Daddy,” he would complain, bitterness and sadness in his tone.
Mary would correct him. “No, Andy. Some dumb older people have told them to say they hate Daddy.”
Last night the boy had told her angrily, “They said that you’re jealous of the people who get money from the frackers because you’re not getting any. It’s not true. You’re not jealous.”
“How silly, Andy. Don’t listen to them. You’re right. It’s not true.” She had cried inside for having harmed her innocent kids.
“I know. I told them.”
“Thank you, sweet boy.” She had hugged him hard. “And when your big strong Daddy feels better he’ll tell them they’re very wrong, about everything. And that he didn’t cause the accident.”
“You know that, right, Mommy?”
“I do.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“When?”
“I hope soon.” She had sighed.
Today, anger burning inside her and nobody around to scream at but poor Jake, she decided to take matters in her own hands. Her Joe would not wait for justice any longer.
She would call a town meeting—her town meeting. She was convinced many in Noredge shared her views on fracking and would show up. But where? She feared she wouldn’t be able to find a suitable meeting room or hall in Noredge; owners would be reluctant to face the wrath of Mike Doyle. He had the Chamber and the city council in his pocket.
Should she call Frank and ask him for his opinion? He might enthusiastically approve of her plan but get cold feet once he reminded himself of his severance payment from Supren. Last she heard, only a tiny fraction of it had been paid out. She understood.
She called goodhearted, bearded teacher Dan Clark, her on-and-off connection to the Sierra Club, who lived in a rural area on Manning Road in Hartville, a few miles from Noredge. His barn had been used for occasional parties and small scale art exhibits by friends.
“Be my guest,” Dan responded enthusiastically when Mary spoke to him over the phone. When she tried to explain her plans and the reason for them, he stopped her. “I know exactly what you’re talking about. I read the papers. I’m with you Noredge guys. Come on over and have a look at my Taj Mahal.”
“Thanks! Thanks so much, Dan.” Mary had found someone who would give her a lift—roll up his sleeves. “You’re a real friend. We should organize our outreach, our thoughts, what we’re going to say.”
“Absolutely. I’ve been through some of those gatherings and enjoyed them, plus learned a couple of things.”
He had used “we” and “our.” Mary got a warm feeling inside. “Tomorrow?”
“Suits me. Afternoon?”
“Great, I’ll have the kids with me. Okay?”
“Good! They can play with my goats.” He chuckled. “My boys are too old for that. By the way, how’s Joe?”
“Thanks. Getting better, very slowly. Foot surgery Thursday. It’s scary. I mean, that too.” Dan’s question had reminded her that her call was much more about Joe than about fracking.
“Yeah. Good luck to him. See you mid-afternoon?”
“Deal. Thank you, Dan.”
***
On the following Saturday around three in the afternoon Mary had taken a seat in the back row and observed the crowd of about fifty that had gathered in Dan Clark’s barn. She wore shorts, a loose Nike T-shirt and running shoes.
When she arrived, she had again marveled at the excellent condition of the old, thirty-foot-high wooden structure. “It always shows its age, Dan, but also its dignity and the care you’ve given it over the years. How impressive it looks today! And how neat. You must’ve worked night and day since Wednesday.”
Dan had shrugged and waved off the compliment with a wink. His wife Lydia, standing next to him, nodded and smiled.
“Thanks, but you’re mostly talking about Lydia,” he said, putting his hand on his wife’s shoulder.
Mary knew what he meant; he had kept her informed of the preparations. The barn’s outside had been repainted a modest brown in October. Yesterday Dan and Lydia had finished a little faster than usual their yearly ritual of removing old hay, throwing out obsolete machinery parts, cleaning up unsightly oil spills, spraying, and thoroughly checking out the very basic ten-year-old sound system. This afternoon their impressive John Deere, the pride of the lowly paid teacher, greeted arriving attendees from its temporary, slightly elevated grassy spot between the house and the barn.
Despite two open windows near the ceiling and the valiant efforts of three moaning fans, the heat inside felt like a leaden blanket; but Mary could barely suppress her excitement. She noticed Frank in the next to last row on the other side of the barn, baseball cap pulled down over forehead, oversize sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose. She smiled: the sun couldn’t reach
his corner of the barn. But he was here, severance or no severance. Good man. She would have to express special thanks to him later, privately. “You’ve got guts,” she would tell him. She didn’t know him quite well enough yet to say “cojones.”
The crowd was a mixture of young and old, more women than men. Dan and Mary and friends had made dozens of phone calls. They had sent invitations by e-mail to about one hundred fifty assumed environment sympathizers and friends in the region. Dan’s Sierra mailing list for Noredge had come in handy.
Fanning herself with a folded copy of the guest list she hummed along with the “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” tunes of Beethoven’s Ninth that created a festive atmosphere. Musician Frank must feel at home. The rustic smell of hay still wafted over the crowd. With her free hand she kept working her phone to avoid conversation with the two youngsters to her right. She had thrown brief, furtive glances at them. They looked a little odd with their tattooed forearms. Were they part of Doyle’s shock troops?
“I’m Mary,” she had said, offering her hand to the one next to her.
“Nick,” he had responded. “And Rudy.”
She had returned to her phone.
A tall, beaming Dan, bald on top but sporting a bushy, graying beard and a short ponytail, mounted the two steps up to the wooden platform behind a simple wooden lectern that looked like his own creation. He rang an antique cowbell, forcefully pushed his shoulders down and back and faced the group while waiting for the murmurs to die down. His face was a picture of authority and confidence.
“Welcome all!” he shouted enthusiastically and turned his mike on. “Welcome to my kingdom! We’ve partied here a good many times, often til much later than our neighbors appreciated!” He pointed at a grinning, corpulent man in the front row. “Today, it’s a different story. I noticed you all love Beethoven, but right now I wish we could’ve had marching bands here to sound an urgent call to arms! A clarion call! Carrollton makes it crystal clear: we’re rushing, eyes closed, toward a treacherous cliff. The fracking troops attacking our land, air, and water move ever closer, turn ever greedier and ruin town after town. Gold for some, true, and poison for most, also true. We’d better start calling it what it is: a shameless public robbery! Let’s get started!”
Boisterous applause and shouts of “Fracking No! Fracking No!” met his exhortations.
He unfolded a thirty by thirty poster, held it up with both hands high above his six-foot frame and said, “Here are some facts!” He paused. His voice turned businesslike, at times professor-like, when he lowered the glossy sheet and started quoting from it. To most in the audience the arguments and the villains were known. So were the academic sources such as Cornell University, revered by many attendees as their oracle and a temple of truth. Dan Clark admitted that the new technology and industry brought fortune and wealth, but only to the lucky few, many of them because they had chosen their landowning parents carefully. “But it’s painfully clear that many other citizens, almost all of us, have to share in the suffering fracking brings!”
Cries of anger and shouts of enthusiasm from the crowd spiked his introductory remarks.
Mary nodded knowingly and studied the two youths next to her. They cried loudly, seemingly determined not to be outdone. They had their fists up in the air when the crowd shouted “Fracking No!” As she looked at Nick and Rudy she couldn’t suppress a frown. She abruptly switched to a jovial smile but wondered whether they were acting.
Frank sat stone-faced, as far as Mary could tell from a distance, right fist under his chin. The thinker. Rodin. She chuckled inwardly.
Dan forged ahead. He warned about earthquakes, potentially lethal rotten egg gases, aquifers contaminated by methane and worse substances, horrific traffic jams, exorbitant rental rates, invasions by unwanted strangers and drugs, and unspeakable damage to the atmosphere by methane, which was many times worse than carbon dioxide.
He paused, stared at his audience and pointed at the bottom of his poster. He whispered slowly into the microphone, “See this? Dirty water,” and dropped the sheet. “Dirty water! Countless numbers of dangerous chemicals are swimming in it, their names unknown, hidden by secrecy laws or executive orders forced down our throats. In all likelihood, radioactive waste is settling into Carrollton’s creeks and sewers and soil. Right now. That’s what gets to me. The thought is killing me.” He lowered his voice even more. “That stuff may kill some of the good citizens of Carrollton. And their children. Their grandchildren. And who comes after Carrollton? My townspeople here in Hartville? The good folks of Noredge? How much of that poison is spilled, everywhere, at every well, anywhere? On every well site, dirty water waits for a tanker that’ll truck it to the injection well, where it can cause earthquakes. Just ask the Oklahomans.” He halted. There was an awe-inspiring silence. He concluded, sounding emotional and solemn, “How bad will it really get? Does anybody know?”
A male in his mid-forties stood up. Dressed in a Polo shirt and slacks, hair slicked down, athletic posture, ready smile, he courteously asked for the floor.
Dan nodded and gestured to him that he should come to the platform.
The man strode forward clearly enjoying the attention as he worked his way through the crowd.
Dan gave him a good stare as he handed him the mike.
“Thank you for letting me speak,” the man said, a wide smile confirming his words as he faced the audience. “I’m David Brooks, a proudly neutral expert in the matter we’re discussing here. Our Truth in Hydraulic Fracturing Foundation, the THYF, holds views that are greatly at variance with—”
“You’d better say what you mean,” Dan told him out loud, and added with a wink, “We’re simple folks here.”
“Oh. Certainly. I’m sorry. I’m trying to say that I respectfully disagree with many of the statements you just heard. At THYF we fund thorough studies and never lose sight of the overall interest—”
“Of the oil companies!” someone shouted.
Laughter erupted. It resounded over the crowd. Dan looked amused.
Brooks smiled briefly and went on. “The interest of the population in the first place, and that includes the thousands of workers who earn an honest living in the oil industry,” he retorted, seemingly unperturbed.
Nick, next to Mary, jumped up and shouted, “Who funds you? Have you read the Cornell study? You tell me what’s in that dirty water in Carrollton!”
Mary took another good look at the twosome seated next to her.
Brooks nodded with a benevolent smile in the direction of his young questioner. “You look like a smart kid. I believe you know I can’t simply give you a cookie cutter answer. Neither can any scientist at the THYF or anywhere else. Every spill’s different, carries water from all kinds of wells. Carrollton…only ongoing tests can tell us what got spilled in that accident.” He waited and stared at Nick, apparently hoping this response would do.
“How convenient. Ongoing tests!” Rudy mocked, elbowing Nick as he stood up. “Why are you here? Were you invited?” A murmur sailed through the crowd.
Mary started checking her list. She didn’t find any Brooks, not immediately.
The THYF man didn’t answer the last question. He fired back, “Our science is completely independent from—”
“You know what chemicals are in the mush they’re pumping down! Tell us!” Rudy looked determined to keep digging.
Now Brooks stared angrily at the two young men. “The composition varies from well to well and it’s secret. You know that. Secret by law to protect the country’s interests—”
“You mean the oil industry’s!”
Jeers and laughter merged into a biting cacophony.
Rudy nodded to acknowledge encouraging smiles and thumbs-ups. “Does THYF know, THYF, what shit Supren’s forcing down their pipes? Supren’s,” he shot back.
“The companies take us in confidence, but firs
t we sign secrecy agreements. I’m punishable by law—”
“And get paid royally by those who entrust you with the information. And you provide them with what they want from you. Figures massaged to your liking. Their liking. Smart, sir. Profitable! But in Carrollton, people may die because of your great deal. I get it.” Rudy sat down.
Brooks showed a sheepish smile.
“You laugh?” Nick shouted.
Mary stood up, made her way to Dan and whispered something in his ear while showing him the invitee list. Then she tiptoed back to her seat.
Dan put his hand up and walked up to Brooks. “Sorry, Mr. Brooks. I must stop you here, sir,” he said, his tone neutral but firm. “Other guests may have something to say too.” He extended his hand in the direction of the mike. His mike.
Brooks moved away from Dan. “Just a moment, Mr. Clark. I’d like to explain one more….”
Suddenly Nick appeared next to Dan and tried to rip the mike out of the hand of Brooks, who held on tightly.
“You scum!” the clean-cut THYF man screamed as he lost his battle to the boy. He threw his empty hands up and looked at the crowd.
“Spy! Traitor!” some bawled, pointing angrily at him.
Dan took over the mike. “Now just get off my property, Mr. Brooks,” he intoned. “I don’t know who asked you to be here, but I can venture a wild guess. Please leave.”
The intruder left without saying a word or looking left or right.
Nick and Rudy high-fived each other and stood triumphant next to Dan, acknowledging applause.
Mary got up, went back to the front and asked Dan for the mike. Looking subdued but speaking forcefully she said, “Most of you know me but anyway, I’m Mary Jenkins from Noredge and—”
“Joe’s wife!” somebody shouted. “We love Joe!”
Mary nodded but didn’t smile. “Thank you. He’s getting better, very slowly. Two days ago he had foot surgery.”
