Census

Inspired by the article "Ironwood, Michigan" on Wikipedia

“It’s all meant to hurt,” she said as she sharpened the blade. “It’s meant to hurt as I slice and dice and dive into every inch of your life. How can it not?”

I stood calm — calm and afraid. Calm and pretending. Pretending not to be petrified beyond belief when she said, “and that’s why no one will love me more than you,” a curvature on her lips. A bend down treacherous roads. “No one will love me more than you,” she chuckled, “because you like it when it hurts, don’t you?”

When I was a boy, my father was quiet. Quietly groaning over a pain that a boy could not fathom. Quietly lying on a couch tucked away in the corner of the living room. Quietly shutting the lights, closing the blinds and cuddling with a bottle of gin. No time for his son. No time for laughs or high-fives or questions about spring days or summer rains.

My friend was from Montreal. He told me — he said, Montreal winters were much colder than here. That all the boys would only set foot in the snow to punish girls they liked with snowballs that loved like hell. I wanted to tell him — wanted to tell him that I knew some place colder.

Every other night, I’d gaze at that bottle. Beef Eater, it read. Crystal clear tinge of peace encased in glass. Once, just once, he told me it was holy water. “Holy water. Holy water cause it takes all the pain an’ turns it to…” Silence. He would fall asleep on that couch and I would sit a while. Spend some time by his side and tug at his massive paw. Just a while. Just long enough to know that he was gone. Gone to that place where broken men are christened by holy water.

Clara came right before the leaves began to fall. Her hair was a blondish brown reddish hue… just like the leaves struggling to remain alive. Just like our town fighting for daylight. She wasn’t quite like the rest of us. Not like the sons and daughters of miners living in a mining town with not much to mine. Her father, I heard her say, bought the wells. Bought every inch, every stretch of the mine. He was, they said, going to revitalize the town.

She rode to school in the company car. It was spotless, sparkling, radiating a shimmer that had never been seen by miners’ kids. We all stood still. Immobilized by the sight of new dreams and hopes out of reach.

She stepped out of the car that fall day. Stepped out of the car and my whole life changed. No longer so… silent. I could tell. Every young boy could tell. Mary could tell, too. She turned her head to all the boys. She could tell. She could tell that no pious name or bitchy games could give her what Clara had come to take away.

Mary and I — we were the same and different in every single way. Mary’s mother, the Bible thumper, left town soon after we got into elementary school. Went out, gossip whispered, looking for a sweeter life, a nicer house, greener mines and a man that wouldn’t strike when the booze wouldn’t silence the pain. Her father had his own brand of holy water. All of them did. None of them could be seen about town come nightfall. Bars shut, restaurants collapsed, streets littered with forgotten cans and long dead cigarette butts. The only life in that mining town lived in that school. Children wearing smiles all wrong. All wrong and I — in time, some of us chose not to smile. Some of us, like Mary, wielded resentment like a warrior’s final blade. But Clara… Clara was nothing like us. Nothing like Mary, nothing like me.

I remember the first time I saw her — Clara’s mom. It was the beginning of winter. Like every other morning, Clara stepped out of that dream on wheels. On that day, she turned back. A woman leaned out and planted a kiss on her cheek. And she, too, was nothing like us. Nothing like the remaining moms in the town. No dark circles, no crow’s feet, no indignation drawn like warpaint on their faces.

She picked up a slice of cheese from the wooden board. “Charcuterie,” she said. “You wouldn’t catch me eating anything more fatty than this. I’ve got a figure to maintain. In the city, that’s all those superficial bitches give a damn about. So does he. Wants to have his thin centerfold wife by his side. Wants to show his old boys club that despite being relegated to the this hell hole he’s still got this one thing going for him…” she dropped the knife onto the board. “I fucking hate that man.” Her hazel eyes turned to me like a big cat targeting its prey. “But you’d never disappoint me,” she moved with the fluidity of a moonlit predator. Her hands went over my shoulders with carefully manicured nails dancing upon the nape of my neck.

Hazel eyes… I looked away.

“Come on,” she barked, “don’t do that. You’ve got to learn how to look a woman in the eye or girls like Clara will chew you up and spit you out. My daughter isn’t the angel you imagine her to be and those city girls won’t be so kind, either”

Hazel eyes. A lot like Clara. This is where she got them from — from a demon’s prowling shadow.

“Look here,” she demanded as she directed my chin. Ruby red lipstick were planted upon ashen skin. Cherry-wine. She tasted like cherry-wine.

“I know it hurts to be here. I know you don’t want to… yet you are.” She shoved me away. “I don’t want to be with you either. But here we are. Might as well get the wine and wipe that pathetic miner’s smile from off your face.”

Clara told me that that particular bottle of wine cost more than anything I could imagine. And there she was, pouring it injudiciously into coffee mugs.

“Her father will be here soon. An hour away. You’d better be gone by then. Don’t worry. I’ll be done with you. Done with you for good. Off to the city where, if you’re lucky, you’ll learn what it takes to be a man. This look… this thing you’ve got going on won’t serve you well beyond town limits.”

She handed me a mug. “Drink up. I need you ripe and ready for a romp before that son of a bitch has his way with me. Need to make a cuck of that bastard.”

The boys would follow Clara around like puppies. Each one had his own little trick — his own way of ingratiating himself to the usurper. One would offer to carry her bag, another would save her a seat in the mess hall, another would fiddle with the air conditioning system until it was just right.

Mary started to lurk in the shadows. No longer was she vivacious, bombastic, daring with her tongue. I watched her withdraw into a shell. More and more, Mary became like me in every single way.

“Hey,” I approached her one afternoon. “Do you wanna walk home together?”

Her eyes, a frozen tundra, turned to me. I flinched.

“I was just thinking that… I don’t know… maybe you’d like some company,” I murmured.

She looked me up and down, up and down.

“I don’t walk with shit heels,” she cussed me out. I stood my ground and took out my phone.

“Do you listen to music?”

“What kind of dumb question is that?”

“I’ve been listening to Nirvana recently,” and as the song got to playing, I got to singing. “I’m so happy because today I found my friends. They’re in my head. I’m so ugly. That’s okay cause you are you…”

Her feet scurried towards me and her hand latched itself onto my collar. “Shut the fuck up…” she yelled.

“Broke our mirrors. Sunday morning is everyday, for all I care. And I’m not scared.” A right fist went across my face. I dropped to the tarmac.

“And I’m not scared…” I went on.

“I said shut up,” a foot went to my midsection.

“And I’m not scared,”

She stepped back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

As I wiped the blood from my nose I said, “the sames as you.” I got to my feet. “Want me to walk you home?”

Mary wiped a dangling tear from her face and started walking with me a few feet behind her.

Clara’s hand was firm on my leg as the car moved slowly out of town. The slightly open window let in the feral scent of a town on its way to hell. The mine was dead and all that the town had left were bodies boozing, shooting, and dying long before death came.

“Don’t wanna say goodbye to your father?” she asked.

“I did,” I lied. She knew.

“You know, we’ll be gone for a while. Won’t hurt to see him one last time.”

All the words I had to say, all the promises I wanted to make remained chained in my head. Quiet. Silent. “Hand me that can in my bag,” I said. Her hands reached into my backpack and pulled out a can of beer.

“We’ve got a long drive to the city. Won’t hurt to pregame.”

“Yeah but don’t get too shitfaced. We’ve got to unpack and start setting up the apartment as soon as we get there.

I tapped on the back of the driver’s seat. “Charles’ll help out. Won’t you, Charlie?”

“Yeah, that’s not his job,” Clara’s was short. “Listen, I don’t care whether or not you drink. Just don’t be a lazy bastard when we get there. It’s a new life. You always wanted to leave this place, right? Please don’t carry this town with you.”

I cracked it open and took a sip. Don’t carry this town with you. I realized right then that I didn’t know how to do that. How could I not be everything that I knew? How could I not walk, talk and smell like the town I had never been out of?

The can in my hand was cool but warming. Each sip making it less and less of what I’d wanted. There were a couple more in the backpack but Clara… She wouldn’t be happy with me carrying the town with me. Fuck, I was terrified. I hadn’t realized it before but maybe… Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe remained with my father, be a plumber. If not Clara, then Mary. Get hitched, have a bunch of kids. We’d love them. I know I’d love them. I know I would because… because I know what not to do. There’s no such thing as holy water only deathly quiet loveless homes. I’d love Mary too cause she knew me. Knew where I came from. She was me, I was her and our kids would be hope for a dying place. No need to carry the town cause we’d be the town.

“What are you thinking about?” Clara asked.

I took a sip from that warm can. “Nothing. Just what the city’ll be like.”

Her hand went back onto my leg. “You’ll love it,” she pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lit one. “I won’t have to hide this from my mom… finally.” That inhale was godly. She handed it to me. I took it in, blew the smoke out the window. “Charles doesn’t care,” as she blew the smoke right into my face.

With her velvet tone wrapping itself around me she whispered, “I love you,” and planted a kiss on my lips.

I fell for her. Fell for the only mirror in the town. She’d never look at me. We’d linger with each pair of eyes looking at that place we knew all too well — ourselves. No one told a soul. After school came to a close, she’d leave right away and I’d start walking a few minutes after. At the bend in the street, I’d start running. She’d be waiting by the bus stop. Waiting on a bus that never came. I’d wait, then sit, then inch closer. She’d do the same. Every single day, I’d pray not to get a fist to my face. It never came though her hand crept slowly closer. Her pinky would wrap itself around mine. I’d look down, then right up at her and see… a mirror.

I fell for Mary and her pious name, her bitchy games. A grin warmed her tundra eyes and that bus stop, for a while, was Eden.

“Do you ever think you’ll leave this place?” I asked.

“Leave and go where? The only family I’ve got is my dad. My mom’s somewhere out there but I’ve got no interest in finding her. This is the only home I’ve got. You, too. This is the only home you’ve got, you know.”

Those were not the words I wanted to hear. By then, my father was far gone. No work for aged men with a penchant for holy water every moment of every day. But it wasn’t just him. Mary’s father and most of everyone else that depended on that mine for their daily bread either looked to the sky or resigned themselves to hell.

“There’s nothing here, Mary.”

“I’ve got you now.” There should have been a hug. There should have been a hug. A kiss. Some kids. There should have been more than Eden. We needed our fall. Not the town. Us. Mary and I needed our fall. To leave that bus stop and move out into the world. Out there where we’d be forced to till the earth and contend with snakes.

“My father found a job,” she broke the silence. “Some factory in the next town over. He says I can go with him or stay but I don’t…”

“Who will you stay with?”

Her blue eyes looked to me. “I was thinking I could stay with you. Just until I get through high school.”

“Yeah but…” holy water, the sullen couch, the cold… the cold.

“I understand if you don’t want to. I totally get it.” She looked away.

“No, no. It’s not that. It’s just… my dad. He’s a bit…”

“My dad is too,” she leaned into me. Her hair bore the town’s scent. Fleeting memories and fading lives. “He’s not gonna make it. I don’t think he do well away from this place. It’s all he knows. It’s all we know. I don’t think any of us can survive anywhere else. I’ve got this feeling that out there, they are all living and we’ve gotten too used to surviving. All that living would probably kill us.”

All that living would probably kill us but it wouldn’t kill Clara. She’d never had to survive. Even while in the town, she lived separate from us. A girl in her high tower gracing us with her presence. Hinting at the fact that we were all just surviving. This, her essence screamed, is what living looks like.

As the car drove on, I recalled Mary’s words. Maybe I would die in the city. Funny thing — never saw no one die of a bad liver or a bad heart in the town. Time took them all. Not the drugging, or the boozing. Time took them out. That bag next to Clara’s feet was gonna kill me. I knew right then that I’d have to fight every single day not to end up where my father was. Not to end up boozing as death caught up.

“Hey Clara.”

“Yeah?”

My grip tightened around the can. Her hazel eyes beamed the future into mine.

“Thank you.”