Dead End in Norvelt (19 page)

“I think you are right,” Miss Volker agreed as Mr. Huffer reached into his jacket pocket and removed the medical examiner paperwork and certificate of death.

“Can you sign this,” he asked, “or do you have to cook your hands?”

Miss Volker frowned at him. “Jackie,” she ordered, “get that pen and hold it in my hand.”

Mr. Huffer leaned awkwardly over Mrs. Linga’s cold body and held the paperwork on the kitchen table corner right where she had hit her head and dropped dead. I pressed the pen between my hand and Miss Volker’s twisted palm and together we managed to slowly scrawl her name, letter by letter, as if we were receiving it from a Ouija board.

“Voilà!” she said to Mr. Huffer when she finished. “Now you can take her away.”

That was just what he had in mind.

On the way out the door I glanced into the living room, and there must have been about a hundred carved ducks. They were so lifelike it was as if a flock of mallards had flown in the window and settled all over her furniture.

“Pretty cool, don’t you think?” I said to Bunny, who was pacing around by the door. “I’d love to be able to carve ducks.”

“God, how I wish there were more kids in this town so I wouldn’t be forced to hang out with a kook like you,” she replied. “Now let’s get to the game!”

But when we got in the car Miss Volker was ready to dictate the obituary. Bunny sighed unhappily as I pulled a pad of paper and a pencil from the glove compartment.

“Mrs. Karen Linga died on July 9 at the age of seventy-two,” Miss Volker began. She couldn’t pace back and forth in her living room like always, so she just tapped her feet as if stamping out a campfire. “Mrs. Linga had a wonderful, gentle husband with a beautiful wooden leg, and it meant a lifetime of love for her. When he was still a single man he lost his leg in a coal mining cave-in and when the stump healed he had to have a new leg fitted for him. At the time there were people who carved legs, and Mrs. Linga was a carver. As everyone knows, she is a champion duck carver and carved the portraits of all the presidents that hang in the school library. So she carved a new leg for Mr. Linga and that is how they met and from there they were married.

“He continued to work in the mines, but not at digging coal. He took care of all the mules that lived in the mines and pulled the small rail cars filled with coal through the tunnels and to the elevators, where the coal was lifted up to ground level for sorting and shipping. The mules, once they entered the mines, seldom ever saw daylight again until they died and were hoisted up to the ground and sold to animal processing factories. Mr. Linga took particularly good care of the mules and Mrs. Linga would often go with her husband down into the mine to help groom the mules and feed them treats and clean their stalls. The two of them provided the mules with affection and doctoring and kind company. It was cold in the mine shafts and Mrs. Linga sewed feed bags together and made blankets for them. After Mr. Linga died she continued to volunteer her time to care for the mules until they were gradually replaced by more modern machines.”

I was just writing that last sentence when I looked up through the windshield and was stunned to see Dad slowly driving a big flatbed truck with a Norvelt house on the back of the double-wide trailer. He slowed down even more and waved at me. “Hey, Jackie,” he hollered gleefully, “say goodbye to a piece of old Norvelt.”

“Where are you taking it?” I hollered back as I jumped out of the car and ran toward him.

“Eleanor, West Virginia,” he said loudly—loudly enough for Miss Volker to hear. “A crew of us have been hired by some folks down there who are buying up all the empty Norvelt homes and adding ’em to their own Roosevelt town.”

I quickly turned to catch Miss Volker’s reaction. “You-you-you—!” she stuttered as she tried desperately to open the door handle, but her fingers were so rusted together she gave up trying and leaned out the open window. “You should be ashamed of yourself! These are Norvelt homes,” she shouted. “Mrs. Roosevelt said our homes should stay right here in town and never, ever be destroyed.”

“I’m not destroying anything,” Dad shouted back. “I’m just moving the dead parts of this town to a new location that’s still alive! Besides, take a look at the back of the house—it’s burned. The Hells Angels must’ve got to it, only this one was put out by a neighbor before it was gutted.”

“Hey!” Bunny shouted to my dad as she slipped out of the backseat. “How about giving me a ride to a new location?”

“Hop on board,” he replied. “Just sit on the back of the trailer, and when I pass through town you can jump off.”

Bunny turned toward me and I could see the disappointment in her eyes.

“I’ll play next time,” I replied, but my voice sounded phony. “I really want to.”

“You are worse than one of Dad’s stiffs,” she shot back. “At least they know they are dead. You don’t even know you’re alive.” Then she ran after the trailer.

I was afraid to get back into the car because I knew Miss Volker was fuming and would be so angry with my dad she might take back her car. I wouldn’t blame her. For her entire life she had done nothing else but keep her promise to Mrs. Roosevelt to watch over the health of our town. Now to see it being sold and hauled off to some better Eleanor Roosevelt town must have hurt her feelings.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said angrily when I got enough courage to take my seat behind the wheel. “We should have Mr. Greene print up a request to start a Protect Norvelt fund and collect money to buy what empty houses there are and keep this town from being sold or burned down.”

I started the engine. “That’s a good idea,” I said, and put the car in gear, but at the moment I didn’t know anybody with money in Norvelt except for Mr. Huffer, and he only had money because everyone was dying off.

“You can’t write and drive at the same time,” Miss Volker said to me, “so I guess we’ll skip the history at the end of the obituary.”

“Sure,” I said, hoping that maybe if we got back to her house I could still find time to run down to the ballpark and play a few innings and make Bunny happy.

“But if I were going to add a little history to Mrs. Linga’s obit it would be about a great love story,” she said. “I like a love story.”

“Is it a good one?” I asked. “You know I like history.”

“One of my favorites,” she said. “It is about Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman—two great American anarchists who wanted to improve the lives of all Americans.”

“I never heard of them,” I said.

“Because schools don’t teach the history of social reformers who were real American heroes and fought for workers’ rights and justice,” she said angrily, with her hands already chopping at the air as if she were fighting off hornets. That was a sure sign she was warming up to her subject. “Anyway,” she continued, “let me tell the story.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and drove slowly enough so that the squirrels could run relay races back and forth between the wheels of the car without getting flattened.

“Alexander Berkman was a handsome and fiery revolutionary young man who wanted better pay and safety for miners and factory workers. He was full of hotheaded ideas—too hotheaded, really. In order to gain equality for miners and steelworkers he decided in 1892 that all he had to do was assassinate the incredibly wealthy Henry Frick, who owned a lot of coal mines and factories where men and children were poorly treated. He figured once Frick was killed then the mistreated workers would rise up and start a revolution to take over the country and give everyone a good, safe job and education and a house and everything else they deserved.”

“That sounds like some of Eleanor Roosevelt’s thinking,” I interjected.

“They may have thought alike,” replied Miss Volker, “but they sure didn’t act alike. Mrs. Roosevelt did not approve of violent revolution.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Well, depending on who you talk to, Berkman got an appointment with Frick at his Pittsburgh office and during the meeting Berkman pulled out a gun, but he was nervous and his hand was shaking and when he fired he only nicked Frick a few times in the neck. So then he pulled out a knife and stabbed Frick a few times in the leg. Or, another story has it that Berkman pulled out a gun and it jammed so he pulled out a knife and tried to stab Frick. Either way, what happened is that Frick and a helper wrestled the gun and knife from Berkman, who was then arrested and sent off to prison.”

“Was there a revolution anyway?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “No one cared, which really depressed Berkman.”

“So where is the love in this love story?” I asked. “I’m sure Frick didn’t give him a hug and kiss for trying to kill him.”

“Hold your horses,” she replied. “I’m not finished.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Anyway, Berkman’s girlfriend was Emma Goldman, who I admire. She was a really famous social reformer who did all kinds of good things for women, and she decided to help him escape from prison. Berkman sent her letters filled with secret code for a brilliant plan. First, Emma and some friends rented a house across from the prison walls. Second, they hired a piano player to sing and play loudly all day long. Third, they began to dig a tunnel from the basement of the house toward the prison while the piano playing covered the sound of the digging. They dug under the road and under the prison wall and, depending on who you talk to, two things happened.”

“What?”

“One story has it that their tunnel came up to a little patch of prison ground where only Berkman was allowed to exercise. Emma was waiting for him to take his daily walk, and then he’d sneakily drop down into the tunnel and off they’d flee to freedom and live a romantic life fighting for workers’ justice all over the world.”

“But that didn’t happen, did it?” I suspected.

“No. Unexpectedly, a guard stepped into the hole and discovered the tunnel and everyone fled for the hills,” she said flatly.

“What is the other story?” I prodded.

“Or else they were digging the tunnel when two kids who were playing around the house went in to listen to the piano player and discovered the tunnel and ran away and told their father who was a prison guard and everyone had to disappear. Either way, Berkman did fourteen years in prison.”

“So what happened to his girlfriend?” I asked.

“She was a great gal,” Miss Volker said with admiration in her voice. “She continued to travel the world fighting to improve the lives of poor people, but in the end she was at the train station when Berkman was released.”

“That’s a pretty good love story,” I said as we pulled into her driveway. “Why can’t we add it to the obituary?”

“Well,” she said, “depending on who you talk to there are different dates on the bungled escape. One says it was on July 5 and the other on July 16, so it’s hard to link the story to Mrs. Linga’s death date.”

“Too bad,” I said. “But it would be really cool to have a tunnel out of my basement so I could escape from being grounded.”

“And I wish someone would dig an escape route out of here for me too,” she said, staring vacantly out the window. “I’d love to step into a hole and vanish with a handsome revolutionary and live a life of exotic adventure.”

“Like with Mr. Spizz?” I asked. “He seems to want to take you away.”

“He’s not a romantic man,” she said scornfully. “He’s a dud. His idea of a revolution is coloring outside the lines. Ugh! What a bore.”

“Well, you won’t need a tunnel out of here once all these Norvelters pass away,” I said. “Then you can do anything you want with whomever you want.”

“Believe me,” she replied with a heavy heart, “I know that all too well. And by the way, your nose is bleeding, but only on one side.”

“I hate this!” I cried out, and ran my hand under my nose. My fingers were covered with blood.

“Get the flashlight out of the glove box,” she ordered.

I pulled the car over and got the flashlight out and tilted my head back and shined it up my own nose. “Oh, yes,” she said peering up my dripping nostril. “I can see where a bundle of capillaries has ruptured. We’ll take care of that easily.”

Take care of that easily
echoed back and forth across my mind, and when the echo stopped I knew it was not going to be easy.

18

Without my
GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card I was stuck waiting for Miss Volker to call me down for some obituary work, but all the old ladies were doing just fine. They were breathing and eating and talking and singing and not at all making plans to die. I couldn’t blame them because I didn’t want to die either, even though boredom was killing me. Then, after a few more sun-scorching days of hard digging in the backyard, I suddenly remembered Mr. Greene had said I could work for him at the
Norvelt News
.

But when I asked Mom to let me go work for him she said, “No. You have chores to do right here.”

“But he’ll pay me,” I said.

“And we are now giving you an allowance for your work around here. Besides you are still grounded.” She was tough.

“I’m now going to go cry,” I said with my voice rising as I headed out the back door to continue digging the bomb shelter. “If you come outside you won’t see any tears because the sun is so blazingly hot my sad tears evaporate before they even have time to leave my swollen red eyes.”

“That was nicely spoken,” she said, and cracked a smile. “Too bad you didn’t put that much thought into not mowing down my corn.”

“Please,” I begged. “Let me help Mr. Greene.”

She softened. “Maybe later,” she said. But later never arrived. I was stuck in a world where time had come to a standstill except for my digging. My nose bled on and off, so I worked with a corner of a white handkerchief shoved up my one bad side. I had used a yellow pencil to pack it in there good and tight. From a distance it looked like I had been playing badminton and had a shuttlecock jammed up my nostril.

Every morning I hoped it would rain, but the sky remained clear blue and the temperatures hovered around ninety degrees. At breakfast one morning something seemed wrong when I read This Day In History. Then I realized Mr. Greene had repeated a column from the previous month. He could definitely use my help at the newspaper.