Ever After

by William Wharton

  Both north- and southbound traffic is on the north side with us. The trucks are enormous and, considering the density of traffic, they’re going fast. There’s no passing. These guys have got to make up time. About three miles after the highway opens up again, and the southbound traffic is back in its own lane, we see where the accident occurred. Steve pulls over. We get out in the pounding sun, and look. The roadbed is all cracked up from the intense heat of the crash. I looked only briefly at the newspapers everybody kept pushing into my face last night because I wasn’t ready. But I remember the fire burned for hours. It seems diesel fuel leaked out of a truck and it, combined with a truck filled with wood chips, made quite a blaze. I find a piece of metal on the road. I shine it up: it’s the name-plate of a Corvette. Steve and I need to be careful: the cars and trucks are tearing by us, nobody going under seventy. People don’t seem to learn.

  “Steve, we’d better get going. I don’t know if I can take this any longer. It’s hard to predict traffic at this time of night. Also that photo shop might close on us.”

  So, we hop back in the car and head north, continuing the trip Kate, Bert, Dayiel, and Mia never got to finish.

  We arrive at the photo shop at ten till six. The girls pull out both the negatives and contact prints. They have a light-box and magnifying glasses. It’s almost worse than the reality. This time we did it right. Steve wants me to make the choices. I’m not sure just what Bert really wanted, except that, somehow, these photos were supposed to help fight field burning. I try selecting the photos which best show the terrible damage done to their bodies. I know that, after the funeral, only these photos can ever prove that damage. Two days from now, the cremation will be completed and, as far as we mere mortals are concerned, the bodies won’t exist any more.

  For full-scale enlargement, I select twenty photos. The rest of the negatives and proofs I put in a separate packet.

  “Are these photos of the victims of the I-5 crash Wednesday?”

  “That’s right.”

  Steve looks at me to see if it’s OK to tell them.

  “Are you from the police? How did you get these pictures? I couldn’t help looking at them. They’re horrible!”

  We’re both quiet for a moment. She has a right to know now.

  “No, not the police. I’m the father of the woman and grandfather to the two babies. My friend here is the brother of the man and uncle to the two babies. We took these pictures so we’d have something to remember them by.”

  She looks to see if I’m kidding, sees I’m not, puts her hand to her mouth.

  “But what a terrible way to remember them. I don’t know how you could have taken these pictures. Didn’t I just say that to you, Diana?”

  “Well, it wasn’t easy, but we did it. In a certain way, we had to. How much will I owe you for all this work? It’s very well done. Could you write out the bill for the enlargements, also the development and proofs? I’ll pay now. My friend will come pick them up when they’re ready.”

  She takes out a form and checks the negatives that are to be enlarged, peering at the numbers in the margin. The cost comes to just under $200. I take two hundred-dollar bills out of my pocket. She peers at them just to check if they’re real, I think. Then she gives me the change.

  “We’re terribly sorry about what happened. Isn’t that field burning just awful?”

  “I don’t know, except it killed my family. We don’t allow dumb things like this where I live.”

  We turn and leave. It’s hot in the car. Even at six o’clock in the evening it’s hot. But then, this is August. Steve turns up the air- conditioner. I lay my head back on the headrest. My eyes feel bare. But we did get it done, everything, the monument, the pictures. I need to give my address in Paris to Steve and some money to mail the pictures. This should finish up that part of things. Maybe I can relax.

  I hope I sleep tonight. I should. I’m dead tired. I dread the funeral. I own one suit, one white shirt, one tie, one decent pair of shoes. Getting dressed up for things is not my style.

  CHAPTER 9

  WHEN I WAKE Tuesday morning, it sounds as if there’s a party going on downstairs. I feel rested. I look over at Rosemary. She’s watching me.

  “You were even smiling in your sleep. It’s so good to see you back to normal again.”

  “How about you, did you sleep well?”

  “Like a dead person, but I didn’t dream, not of Kate, not of anybody. You seemed to have been dreaming and having a good time and I’m sure it was with them.”

  “I don’t remember anything.”

  We slide out of the bed. Rosemary showers first. My watch says nine o’clock. It’s been a long time since I’ve slept this late.

  When I come downstairs, I see that the house has filled with flowers as fast as it did with food. The center of all the action is the kitchen. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday so I’m hungry. I help myself to some scrambled eggs and a few pieces of bacon. I surprise the hell out of Claire by kissing her good morning. I’m not tuned into Oregonian ways. Out in the streets on my own, I’d probably be nabbed as a rapist or child-molester.

  Over breakfast there’s talk about the music to be played. Rosemary wants Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Infanta”—Kate’s favorite—but no one has heard of it. Matthew suggests “Send in the Clowns,” a favorite of both Kate and Bert, somehow “their” song. We played it at their wedding.

  There’s a young guitarist who says she’ll play it. She’ll also play some music she’s written especially for Bert and Kate. It seems, in high school, she and Bert had been special friends. Claire and Jo Ellen would like some religious music since we’re not having a funeral mass. I suggest a Stabat Mater, but Ave Maria wins out.

  Steve and I will be the principal speakers after the representative from Munich International School has spoken. He’s flown over for the funeral. The students, faculty, and administrators had gotten the money together for him to join us.

  The funeral cortege isn’t much for fancy automobiles, but the numbers are amazing in such a small town. The local policeman leads the way; we’re going about forty miles an hour all the way to Dallas.

  At the mortuary, John has fixed up everything beautifully. We bring in the flowers from Steve’s station-wagon and add them to the flowers already there. We go in quietly, two by two, Rosemary on my arm.

  We slide in and take our places. The place is filled, and people are standing along the walls and at the doors. Bert was popular in this world; we’ve brought along our own mourners as well, and because of the publicity, many have come from far away.

  I keep looking for an official, someone representing the state, or a farmer, but I don’t see anyone. John, the mortician, has promised to look out for anyone he might recognize.

  At the appropriate moment, he goes up to the rostrum and speaks briefly. Steve follows and talks about his brother. Midway, he almost breaks down. Doug, Bert’s best friend, all six-foot-seven of him, is in the front row, his head in his hands, crying and sobbing, racked with grief. After Steve, John nods to me and I go to the rostrum. I have no notes, nor did Steve.

  I tell how I came to Oregon for the first time in my life with bitterness in my heart. We’d reared our children so carefully, hoping to avoid this kind of reckless horror. Then, in a matter of minutes, all is lost. I want to know why they let this field burning go on. Aren’t they afraid it might one day be them or one of their loved ones burned to a crisp, curled up in one of those coffins?

  I turn to look behind me, wonder if I can go on. How can I stifle my bitterness?

  “I’ve been learning more about the seed-growing phenomenon in Oregon. I’ve been reading the newspapers and listening to conversations. It seems brutally crude to me. I ask if there is anyone here at this service who can tell me why it continues, anyone who can defend this vulgarity? If so, speak now or see me after the service.”

  I don’t want to talk long. But I want them to know something of what’s been lost to
all of us. I concentrate on Kate and the children. I recount briefly her life with us, then the all-too-short lives of the children. I tell how Bert was like a member of our family, in his looks, in his mannerisms, and in other ways, without ever denying his Oregon beginnings. He’s been a credit to all of us and look at how he’s been rewarded, smashed, burned, melted in the asphalt with his family on that dreaded I-5 highway.

  “Although we, ourselves, our family, except for Bert Woodman, are not Oregonian, about half our family are now permanent residents. It wasn’t their choice.” Again, I turn to look back at those over-decorated caskets, hiding everything.

  “Our family will be in the soil of Oregon for the rest of their existence on this earth. I hope those responsible for the horror of our family’s deaths, the seed-dealers, growers, the government officials, will look again at this practice and stop it. They must! This can’t go on in a civilized society.”

  I know I’ve been somewhat hard but the anger is deep within me. I did not intend to be so intractable.

  Each of our own kids, including Robert, stands up to say a few words. Some of the Woodman family also speak. Jo Ellen, the practicing Catholic in their family, lends a religious note. She reads from the New Testament. Claire is too embarrassed to speak herself. I lean over toward Rosemary to see if she has anything to say but her face is wet with tears, and she smiles, shakes her head no.

  The caskets are at the front of the room behind the rostrum. They are wooden and ornate; and they’re closed, naturally. I’m not sure if they’re smaller than normal; they don’t need to be full-length caskets to hold the pitiful remains until cremation.

  We file out and over to a place where refreshments are available. It’s about three streets away. There are even more people than I saw at the ceremony. Perhaps they were outside. John had mounted loudspeakers so anyone outside could hear what was being said. On the way out, I ask him if he saw anyone I could speak to about field burning. He shakes his head no.

  When the formalities of the funeral are over, we gather at Claire Woodman’s. The almost-hysterical quality of this morning has burned itself out. Everyone is involved in packing, calling airlines on the sole phone, saying goodbye. There’s much emotion in the air and, with each leaving, many tears. It’s as if it’s only now that we’re realizing the finality of it all. Steve is doing most of the ferrying up and down to the Portland airport. Camille and Sam are going up into Washington, on an island near Seattle to visit with Sam’s sister for a while. Matt and Juliette will be flying to Philadelphia to visit close friends. I imagine all of them are searching out people, close, non-family friends with whom they can share their grief.

  Rosemary and I are the last to leave. We do our best to straighten up the mess made by so many people living together in a limited space. It isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Claire must have slept little, cleaning up after all of us last night.

  I pack my bag and go out into the corral and pet the horses. I’m always shocked by their tremendous strength, vitality. I don’t know what it is, but something in their passivity sets me off again. I find myself leaning against Ginger, the smaller of the two horses, crying to the ends of my being. I don’t know how long it lasts; it probably isn’t long, but it seems like forever.

  After I’ve wiped myself off with my handkerchief, dried my eyes, brushed off the hay and horse dust, I’m ready. I feel anger surging in me—at the wastefulness, at the uselessness, of it all—replacing the numbing sense of loss.

  When I return to the house, Rosemary, Robert, and Steve are waiting. They’ve put all the bags, including mine, into Steve’s car. I had said I might stay on to fight field burning. I guess no one was fooled.

  I say goodbye to Claire, Jo Ellen, and Diane. I hold up pretty well; so do they, although we’re only going through the motions. Steve is in the driver’s seat for the fourth time this morning. Our plane flies out to Los Angeles at one o’clock. Jean, my sister, and Leo, her husband, will meet us. I want to share my feelings with them, especially Jean. I think it will help. I suspect Rosemary has similar feelings. She and Jean were close friends from before we were married. I slump in the back seat. Rosemary is looking at the Oregon scenery as it passes by. Robert is already asleep.

  PART THREE

  Settlement

  CHAPTER 10

  THE FLIGHT down seems long but it’s only a few hours. Rosemary and I sit next to each other, she in the window seat. Robert sits in another row in another window seat. The plane’s about three-quarters full.

  I’m going over all the newspaper articles about the accident. Many are devoted to eyewitness reports. The first are from the Statesman Journal and the Oregonian. They give the totals: thirty-seven hurt, twenty-three vehicles involved, seven dead, twenty-eight taken to Albany General hospital, and an unspecified number to Good Samaritan Hospital in Corvalis. Not much is given about the condition of the injured. The dead had not all been identified when this edition came out.

  The accident was said to have occurred at about four p.m. A hundred yards of the northbound I-5 highway was covered with debris and burning vehicles. It was not until midnight, eight hours later, that the highway could be opened again.

  I’m shocked to read a statement by a man named Brian Calligan, manager of the Department of Environmental Quality, that field burning would continue today, as planned, in Linn County and elsewhere. Linn County is where the accident occurred. He also says that, “Overall burn conditions were quite good today. What happened was a very unfortunate thing, but this state allows farmers to burn their fields.”

  I lean back to absorb this. To Mr. Calligan, this is a “very unfortunate thing.” And, he’s doing nothing to prevent it from happening again. New burning has been scheduled.

  Earl Thompkins, the son of Paul Thompkins, who set the fire, tells reporters that his father doesn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t think anyone has anything to say at this time.”

  So, I have the answer to one of my questions: why none of the people involved has contacted us to express their condolences. One felt that it had been an “unfortunate thing.” The other, who lit the fire, just didn’t want to talk about it. Why?

  The stories of the witnesses.

  Dale Cronin, working nearby at a small plant, said, “The fire had already started when I came out. There were probably twenty-five or thirty people screaming, saying … ‘Get out of the way! Get back from the fire, get back!’”

  Some of the seriously injured were moved into the shade; the temperature, without the fire, approached a hundred degrees. Plant employees brought first-aid supplies, water, and blankets. A few of the less seriously injured were helped into the company’s air-conditioned building.

  I find also that, on Wednesday, the day before, there were three Mid-Willamette Valley wildfires that got away from the farmers who had started them. A spokeswoman from the field-burning office for the Department of Environmental Quality said that ryegrass farmers burned 3,000 acres in Benton, Linn, Washington, and Yamhill counties—all this on Wednesday. So far this year 18,000 acres had been burned. Tuesday’s burning of 5,000 acres in Linn County and the Salem area produced fifty-eight complaints of smoke.

  “It really made a lot of people miserable,” the spokeswoman said. She also said that wildfires, many resulting from field fires, contributed to the problem. There were more wildfires in Marion, Polk, and Yamhill counties. Lieutenant Dale McKinney of the McMinnville Fire Department said fifty fire-fighters controlled a 140-acre burn on Hill Road, west of McMinnville.

  I put down my paper. It all seems so totally irresponsible, and these tragedies, this “wildfire” business, is talked about like a sporting contest or football game, for which somebody is keeping statistics.

  I pick up the next day’s paper. The first thing I see is a picture of our little family. Some reporter must have gotten it from the Woodmans. It shows Kate and Bert standing, with Bert holding Mia, in almost the way he held her when he came to see me on the beach
that lovely afternoon. Dayiel, with her beautiful strawberry blonde hair curled on top of their head, is pressing against their legs. Wills is on the other side of Kate, her arm around him.

  It’s a photo I haven’t seen. I drink it in. How can they not be? There’s an interview with the Woodman family, which mentions that Kate, Bert, and the babies were trapped in their van and burned beyond recognition. This is verified by State Trooper Richard Smith of the Albany State Police.

  The big headline is:

  DEADLY CRASH STOPS FIELD BURNING!

  But will it?

  The governor has ordered an investigation and a moratorium is announced at a press conference. Moratorium is the proper word. The accident is the fifth worst in Oregon’s history. More statistics. State police say it may take two weeks to sort out how it occurred.

  Tom Sims, a physician, says, “It’s a political issue. It’s an economic issue. I feel now it’s a moral issue. When I heard about it, I was thinking it’s time we do something about this field-burning issue. But it’s too late for seven people. It brings you to tears.”

  This man’s sympathy brings me to tears and I have to put down the paper. I find it hard to continue. I’d begun to feel that no one in the state of Oregon gives a tinker’s damn, but here’s this man who seems to care.

  An editorial goes more deeply into the problem. It suggests that, for the time being, until legislation can stop field burning, large flashing signs should be mandatory and placed along the highway wherever field burning could reduce visibility. It says, “These spectacular—and tremendously unpopular—fires have been considered a relatively inexpensive way for farmers to sanitize their fields against diseases and insects. It also boosts yields.” It asks, however, what the total cost will be from this latest pile-up. The property damage and medical services could be tens of millions of dollars, not taking into account the loss of life and the suffering.

  How can anybody else take that into account? It’s a closed account for our family.