by Jan Smolders
Damn Doyle, she fretted inside. Obviously he had planted the seeds of slander in the priest’s pure mind. She couldn’t prove that, but she had no doubt. Barely able to control her anger she answered with a scowl and a stern stare. “Thank you, Father,” she said. And she thought of Frank. The poor guy, smeared for his good deeds.
She noticed with a trace of glee that Father Bianchi looked somewhat embarrassed. “How about some real concerns?” she tasked, unable to suppress a tinge of triumph in her voice. “Have you also heard complaints from parishioners about a smell, sometimes, when they drink water? And that it looks brownish as it comes out of the tap? I have. You must have too. I’m sure they tell you everything.” She dropped a good dose of scorn into that last sentence.
She had caught some of these water rumors. Rather than simply accepting insinuations and running with them, she had decided to wave them off. Until now. This morning she had told the kids they had to drink bottled water.
“It’s so white, this water,” Jimmy said as he tried to spell the word Dasani.
“Does Jake get bottled water too, Mommy?” Andy had asked.
She had nodded.
Good Father Bianchi seemed relieved by the abrupt change of subject. He said he had been approached by parishioners about the water. “But is anything perfect in this world, Mary?” he asked rhetorically. “Only the Lord….” he intoned, pointing upward with a big smile. “Only He!”
She couldn’t disagree but felt young Father Bianchi was a bit like her aged aunt, a nun in a strictly contemplative order. “Why would I worry about food for tomorrow, children?” she would ask her middle-aged nephews and nieces, her voice quivering but her pale face a picture of confidence. “Even the birds get fed by the Almighty. They don’t worry. They’re His creation, as we are, but we’re much closer to Him.”
“You’re so right,” Mary answered. “Thank you for coming, Father. I think the kids are getting hungry.”
She shook her head as she watched the good shepherd walk to his car. He’s become an unwitting part of the slander machine. Bamboozled by Doyle.
***
Shortly after the priest left Mary received an ominous call from the hospital in Akron. “Your husband has contracted an infection.”
Mary thought Dr. Lima made it sound like Joe had gone out of his way to catch it. “How the…? How did that happen?” she asked angrily.
She gestured for Andy to go outside and take Jimmy and Jake with him.
“We don’t know. It’s not uncommon. It can be treated, of course. Dr. Maseellal, the foot surgeon, hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll have to perform additional surgery. He hopes the antibiotics your husband is already getting intravenously will be sufficient. It’ll be a few days.”
“The treatment takes a few days?”
“Well, all I’m saying is that we’ll need a week or so to decide on the surgery. If none is needed, we’ll transfer your husband to a specialized facility in Cleveland, with his approval, of course. The Milos Institute. They’re very good. Their procedures are very strict.”
“Cleveland? For how long?” Mary saw her visits to that facility swallow more time than she could possibly find once school started. She slumped down into a chair.
“A few weeks. But he may have to go on antibiotics for a long time thereafter. Maybe very long.”
“You mean forever, right?” Mary sighed, defeated. She dropped her right hand with her phone into her lap. She had heard the story before. A friend’s father had suffered that fate for maybe ten years. Then he died.
“We hope not, ma’am.” Dr. Lima’s tone left no doubt that the conversation had taken too long already.
Mary barely heard her. She was tired and had to make an effort to lift her phone to her ear. She asked, “Can I visit Joe?”
“You can, ma’am, but we’ll have to take special precautions.”
“Yes. Maybe you should’ve done that a little sooner.” She had blurted it out, frustrated and angry. And scared.
Dr. Lima maintained her monotonous tone. “I understand, ma’am. We don’t know how the infection happened, but it’s not an unusual occurrence, and impossible to prevent entirely. I’m so sorry. I know you’ve gone through a lot. You and your kids.”
“I’m sure it’s not your fault, Doctor. Thank you.”
As Mary clicked off she started crying, head in hands, elbows on the table.
“Are you done, Mommy?”
She veered up.
“Can I have a drink?” Andy asked, out of breath, his head barely inside. “We’re racing Jake.”
“Oh! A drink? Certainly you can, sweetie.” She waved him in and embraced him. “I’m so glad I have you.”
“Huh? I’m glad I have you, Mommy. Does that make you cry?”
“It does, Andy. It does. Let’s have a drink together.” She loosened her embrace.
“Yeah. But a quick one. Jimmy might do something dumb with Jake. He’s still young.”
Mary smiled at her son’s juvenile condescension. “Okay. A quick one with mommy.”
After the boy rushed back out she let her tears flow. Costs, Joe’s long absences both past and future, unpleasant discussions with HR over Joe’s employment and care, the bullying of her boys—it all popped up in her head, as it did during her many sleepless nights.
On top of that, Mike Doyle had started a vendetta against her. He didn’t seem to waste any opportunity to cast her in a negative, destructive light: Was the Sierra Club paying Mary Jenkins to stoke unrest and unfair criticism of fracking and Supren? Why were those two Sierra losers sitting next to her at Dan’s event, as a Chamber member had told him? She had no doubt that Mayor Sanders was in on this smear campaign. Not that all of this came as a surprise: Doyle had to know she was the instigator of the petition that was still being drafted.
That document took more time than she had expected, but the Sierra folks had taken control and wanted to have all the facts verified, the i‘s dotted and t’s crossed. “It’s got to be airtight and waterproof,” they said. Kept saying. Dan, Frank and she couldn’t argue otherwise: indeed, it had to be hard-hitting, damning, and precise, incorporating the very latest scientific findings. And those kept streaming in. The arguments had to be irrefutable. She had to be patient while fending off unfair comments, insinuations and maneuvers. It had become too much.
Overwhelmed, she started crying, “Joe, Joe, please come home soon. We need you here.” A few minutes later she got up and looked out at the boys. They were caught up in their game, thankfully unaware of her misery.
Chapter 24
Late August the new school year started for Mary and the boys. Joe was still working his way back to normal life in the Milos facility in Cleveland, on heavy antibiotics but making steady progress. Mary had to perform miracles to combine her regular duties with sporadic trips to see him at least one weekday. She usually went alone but on Sundays she could take the boys.
By early September the rumors about “a foul smell in the water” had inundated Noredge. They had replaced the weather and baseball as the main topic of conversation among neighbors. Many had switched from tap water to bottles for food and drinks and most feared worse was on the way. Mary thought Father Bianchi had been a bit optimistic about the Lord’s willingness to keep the town’s water safe.
Arguments pro- and con- fracking had grown louder by the day. Was that newcomer in Noredge the culprit or not?
“The Smell!” The newly arrived odor soon became a godsend for the local TV stations, the Noredge Sentinel, Akron’s Beacon Journal, The Repository of Canton, and others. It had prompted cheers in their boardrooms. It was a juicy topic, a controversial magnet attracting unusually big audiences and keeping them spellbound. People were glued to their TV sets and iPhones because they were fearful, angry, disbelieving or outright skeptical. The latter claimed this smell matter had to be a c
ruel hoax or an act of sabotage by Greens or other groups opposed to industry that brought prosperity. Fear invaded the city.
Mike Doyle shrugged off initial complaints. “Do you know how much manure a cow produces a day?” he quipped one morning on WKSU. His suggestive question regarding methane from bovine excretion carried a kernel of truth. “Ask the tree-huggers. We bring wealth, jobs and dollars to this place. A hell of a lot more than the cows!”
Mary knew all about the argument that pure methane was odorless. But Doyle smartly kept mum about other organic, possibly harmful substances that often accompanied methane from oil and gas fields and smelled awful. Some feared for lead and manganese.
Soon the odor of a glass of brownish tap water was no longer the butt of earthy jokes or a laughing matter that could be flippantly shrugged off and discarded with a catchy one liner: tests showed methane levels a good deal higher than allowed by the EPA. “If that gas evaporates from the water into people’s homes, it can burn,” Mary told neighbors and colleagues at school. “And it can cause headaches, nausea and even brain damage. You can die from inhaling enough of it.”
Sonya had nodded.
The sporadic, isolated little storms of protest gradually coalesced, grew together into a threatening hurricane that could engulf the town and the region. Noredge’s elders had to act.
On September 10th, a Monday, Mayor Sanders faced reporters and citizens at a hastily called public meeting late afternoon at City Hall. Flanked by a combative-looking Mike Doyle, he said he was going to make an important announcement about the water issue.
A thirty-foot-long oak table sporting about twenty-five aging, wooden chairs and, at its far end, American and Ohio flag stands, dominated the narrow, windowless meeting room. On one side of the table two more rows of ten metal chairs each had been squeezed in behind the wooden ones.
Those seated on that side had a huge Ohio State poster at their backs. They looked at a black and white picture of Governor Kasich in front of them and at an antique coat rack. The latter bothered the hell out of those seated with their backs to the governor, their heads inches away from the hooks. The air was laden with perspiration at this late hour and, despite the no-smoking sign, a crisp pipe tobacco smell wafted through the place. Some wrinkled their noses.
All seats were taken. About ten latecomers were standing behind the third row, some of them leaning on and off on the backs of the metal seats. Frank had gotten wind of the announcement and alerted Mary. Both were seated in the back row.
The mayor opened the meeting, his wide frame blocking most of the governor in the picture behind him as he stood up. “We have been made aware by the EPA of a certain degree of methane contamination of our drinking water, and Mr. Doyle has readily acknowledged the problem,” he read from a sheet.
Mary already fumed inside. The EPA. As if he hasn’t heard any citizens’ complaints.
Sanders turned to Doyle, seated next to him, and acknowledged his single nod. He went on, “I’ve asked you all to join me here so I can tell you we’re going to nip this thing in the bud. ‘This smell matter,’ as some like to describe it.” His tone and furtive glances revealed his unstated opinion. He threw another look toward the Texan at his side, who kept staring down but nodded again. “The city owes you and will provide to all of you the clean water we’re all paying for. Mr. Doyle, Mike we call him now, will not let us down. He’s told me that little, innocuous incidents like ours are not uncommon and almost inevitable. Hydraulic fracturing technology, this godsend for our economy, is unbelievably advanced nowadays, but still not one hundred percent perfect.”
“‘Hydraulic fracturing.’ Our mayor has turned into an erudite man, you know,” Mary mocked in a whisper, elbowing Frank.
A few heads turned.
The mayor forged ahead. “‘We’ve had some bad luck,’ Mr. Doyle explained to me, ‘but relax. At Supren we know how to fix it. Not really that big a deal.’ He’s been around this industry for a few years and has been to this rodeo before, as they say.” He folded his sheet and turned to Doyle.
“Let me tell you off the bat that I understand y’all’s concern,” the Texan said, smiling as he stood up.
Sideways glances multiplied throughout the room.
First the mayor’s pooh-poohing and now this syrupy ‘y’all’s.’ Yuck. It was too much for Mary but she kept silent.
Doyle made his pitch. “I understand and I promise we’ll make you good. All of you. We’re citizens just like you. I too hate the rotten smell, but as a veteran of the industry I might be a little less sensitive to it. A bit numbed. Fortunately, we can now say we’ve cleaned up the Carrollton spill, so we can concentrate on this new issue. We’ll take care of it. I’m proud of the team of engineers we have in place now, its expertise. Vince Davis, our key man for the Carrollton matter, rejoined us yesterday at the Beta site here in Noredge.”
Some in the room seemed to turn restive.
He paused abruptly and said, “I see hands up. Enough big words from me. I think I’d better answer some of your questions.”
A back and forth followed. Number of wells planned for Noredge? Whose fault was it that gas seeped into the water? Where did that happen? Was old water piping the culprit? How many times had Mr. Doyle dealt with this kind of problem? Successfully? In what state? How about providing drinking water to the citizens on an organized, systematic basis? For how long?
Doyle handled it all with aplomb and without even once looking at the big folder he had in front of him.
About fifteen minutes into the question and answer session a thin, unshaven youth in cutoff jeans stood up and asked, “Good evening Mr. Doyle. I’m Seth. Do you have any people from Houston, I mean, any water contamination specialists flying up here?”
“Huh? What channel are you from?” Doyle looked irritated.
“No channel. I’m a freelancer.”
“Oh. One of—didn’t I just say we have a great group of engineers here who—”
“Any water contamination specialists?”
Doyle let out a deep sigh. “We’ve got the skills we need. Right here in Noredge. Don’t worry: Houston will always be ready to assist. Just one call from me and they’ll hop on a plane. I’ve got my contacts there. But I feel responsible. The buck stops here. With me.”
He paused, exuding confidence, his eyes traveling the long ellipse in the room. “I’ll personally track down the cause of this contamination, if we even want to call it that, with our guys working their butts off at Rutgers Lake and on Maple Road. This is a driller’s job, my kind of job. I’ll find the cause with my team. Me, not some bearded vegetarian tree-hugger wasting his days in a laboratory. To me, treating the cause of the problem seems slightly more important than producing tables and figures explaining how bad it is. And, let me tell you again, I’ll use any means necessary to get this matter resolved, cleaned up. Even if I’d have to fall on my knees for Houston, but that won’t be necessary. Is that clear?”
Sure. Mary was disturbed by the Texan’s hype and surprised by the strangely long and emphatic reaction to the young man’s simple question. “Does Houston know about this?” she asked loudly.
Doyle had a smirk on his face. “Oh. Miss Jenkins. Good to see you’re a conscientious citizen. Somehow I knew that. Regarding your question, would you really think they don’t?” He immediately turned to a young woman in the audience who had her hand up.
Mary wouldn’t cede the floor. “I doesn’t matter what I think, Mr. Doyle. Does Houston know? Supren in Houston?”
“What?” His face had turned crimson red.
Mary felt she had hit a nerve.
He intoned, “Miss Jenkins, the entire Supren organization is informed and stands behind our local team. Good enough?”
She threw her hands up and looked at Frank. He gave her an enigmatic stare. Then a brief rascal smile.
Doyle cut away fr
om the back and forth. “Okay, young lady,” he said, pointing. “You had your hand up before I was interrupted by Miss Jenkins.”
The woman asked, her voice almost girly, “Can my children drink the water, sir? My two-year-old boy complained this morning—”
“Okay. Okay. Just a moment.” Doyle had his hand up and nodded. “Relax, ma’am. Nothing will happen to your boy because of the methane. Man has been drinking water with methane in it since the day water wells were invented. No problem.”
“But I heard a house exploded somewhere in our state and I—”
“In Bainbridge! In 2007,” Mary shouted.
Mike Doyle looked perturbed but recovered instantaneously. “Right. In extreme situations that can happen.” He had addressed Mary. Now he turned back to the other woman. His tone remained soothing. “Even asphyxiation is possible.” He paused, his eyes sparkling. “Yes, you heard me right. I did say that. But I can assure you that the quantity of methane we have in our water is tiny. We’re light-years away from what we’d need for these disasters to happen. You’ll never see any situation like that here in Noredge. I swear.”
The lady didn’t look satisfied. “But, sir, if—”
“Look,” Doyle interrupted again, “I know of fifty ifs and buts we can discuss here. Talking won’t make our water any cleaner. But our team will. They’ve already started, and I think the best I can do is rejoin them right now. We’re all working around the clock. I assure you this problem will be a thing of the past in no time. And we’re working with the mayor to set up clean water distribution to all homes. Thank you all.”
