The Crop Circle

When the paper mill closed its doors for the last time, a domino effect blew through the surrounding areas like a twister. In small towns where every industry is connected, losing one is like flipping over an hourglass. You only have so much time before the rest follows.

In 2009, the job losses in Annandale, Lone Pine, and Mill Haven reached a still unbroken record. 450 jobs alone at the paper mill, followed by the chemical plant in Lone Pine with over 100, the peat moss plant in Mill Haven with 50, and these places were all serviced by the railroad, who laid off 30 conductors and engineers who operated those lines.

That was over 600 jobs in a town and surrounding communities of just over 8,000 people, with 30 percent of those 8,000 being retirees. The heart of the working class was effectively ripped from its chest.

This didn’t even account for the small motels that had contracts with the railroaders, the bars on Main St, the blue collar clothing stores, the industrial laundry, dealerships, real estate, and the restaurants that families with a little money in their pockets went to for Friday or Saturday evening meals.

When paper was no longer the cheapest means of production, the money left the pockets of the working class, and when that money left, the stores who depended on it to keep their doors open were forced to declare bankruptcy.

The white collars stayed afloat a little longer by wheeling and dealing, as was their custom. The lawyers and accountants landed some work because wherever flesh was being ripped from the bone, there was paperwork to be made up and signed, and money to be transferred from callused to bloody hands.

I remember the chaos like it was yesterday. I was 16 years old. Old enough to understand that my father and mother were in pain, but not quite old enough to understand the nature of the beast. But that would come.

I remember them fighting a lot. My mom was insistent on getting out of dodge, but my father didn’t want to leave. He told her nothing was different out there and even if it was; he had no connections. What were they going to do, pack up their shit like the Joad family from Grapes of Wrath and travel until they found something? The world didn’t work like that, and after the market crash, Annandale certainly wasn’t the only town flatlining on the operating table.

But I knew they loved each other. Their world had just been turned upside down, and it was reasonable to believe that certain resentments and animosities would rear their ugly heads during a period of such turmoil that they’d never experienced before.

I never held it against them. They did their best to make it seem like things were fine during the day. I was just a light sleeper and heard what was happening during the hours when they thought I was thousands of miles away.

My father never laid hands on my mother, but the same couldn’t be said for many of my peers. The uncertainty of the abrupt decision to shut down the only reason people lived in Annandale took its toll on a much deeper level for some. The industry men, who were hanging on by a thread during the best of times, lost all control.

Chris, Jack, Andrew, and Ryan, just to name a few guys from my school, were getting roughed up by their fathers after long nights of drinking and gambling. And they were carrying that cross to school with them.

Those had always been vices of the working class in Annandale, but it used to come in a more controlled setting, at least for many, where you could drop a few bucks for drinks and hit the blackjack table for an hour or two without pissing away your family’s life savings.

Now, some of the newly unemployed were drinking and gambling heavier, hoping to strike it rich at the casino in Mason. Of course, that never happened. They continued to dig deeper and deeper holes for themselves, and took the losses out on their kids.

Like some wise person once said, shit rolls downhill. The abuse that was going on at home made its way to Annandale High, and for a while, the school was a jungle. Drunken fatherly rants about brown-nosing cocksuckers sucking up to management and stealing their jobs, were told to their kids, who took it as holy scripture, not to be questioned.

This happened mainly within the railroad fathers because, although the railroad was hanging on by the skin of its teeth, it was still operational. Fights broke out, most of the time on the second floor landing during lunch break. Some were funny to watch, clumsy, skinny kids, throwing haymakers that weren’t landing, but others were frightening in their reality.

While this was going on, Richie Marks’ (seemingly one of the brownnosers) cabin was burned down by Roy Jannie(one of the good guys?) Roy, of course, denied it, but small town rumours spread like wildfire. And he was being condemned by the Annandale gossip jury. More powerful than any real court. He would end his life by shotgun blast a couple of years later. A social pariah in the only town he’d ever known.

There was even a Molotov cocktail thrown through the window of McCleans Fishery, over some behind-the-scenes deal to get Jamie McClean, who didn’t have much seniority at all, to keep his job.

After turning the other cheek as long as they could, the teachers or better yet, prison guards of Annandale High eventually started handing out suspensions to those who were caught fighting inside the school. But, despite the valiatn effort, it didn’t stop the carnage, it just relocated it. The fights moved to the pit, which was the 3km race track just across the street.

I have a vivid memory of Braxton Andrews skipping backwards down the second floor between first and second period, announcing to the crowd of students, “If anyone wants to see a man get beat senseless, if anyone wants to see a man lose his mind, then come down to the track. Corey is going to face the wrath of a God. Yes, he is.”

He was giving a full Ali performance, while the teachers pretended to be deaf and blind.

They had just been on the picket line a few months back because of low wages. I didn’t think they were prepared to play referee, to a bunch of fucked up high school kids who were out for blood.

The pit fights went on for a while, and I was there for most of them. Standing on the gravel track outside the grass ring, with my fists clenched. Smelling the blood, but still too timid to taste it. It felt like the Lord of the Flies. Man returning to its most primal incantation. Some were scared of what they were seeing, and left the pit, shaking their heads, others in tears. It felt like the end of civilization, but it felt good too. Because civilization obviously wasn't working. That’s why our town was dying.

But the fights at the pit did eventually stop when Bobby MacMillan put Jesse DeSilva in the hospital, and nearly killed him. These were two heavyweights who had hated each other since they were kids. This went beyond the job losses and new petty rivalries based on drunken ramblings from their folks.

It had rained the night before. Jesse slipped on a damp patch of grass, and Bobby pounced on him like a jaguar. Throwing punches long after Jesse was unconscious, while the rest of us stood like statues. Still as though we just looked in Medusa’s eyes. And if it wasn’t for Trent Galley, who ran through a crowd of us to throw Bobby to the ground, Jesse would have been killed, while half the high school watched.

Trent was one of those quiet guys who never asked for trouble, but never ran from it, either. He was an anomaly unto himself when it came to the high school click hierarchy. He was just there, someone who was left to their own devices. Untouched and uncouth. He became the one to announce a change in the way the animals went about their fighting. He proposed the crop circle behind his house.

This was a dead circle of grass in his backyard across the river that acted as a makeshift boxing ring. People would schedule fights with whoever they wanted as long as both parties agreed. Fights would take place across the river in Cross-Point on Saturdays and Sundays. The school was off limits. No one touched anyone during the week. If there was a problem, they went to Trent, who marked it down in his notepad and scheduled them in.

The common consensus became that the fighting wasn’t about hatred for their schoolmates, but by a shift in their existence. By coming to terms with the madness, the guys understood that the anger was coming from drunken words without validation.

They just wanted to look up to their fathers as though they were gods, but the reality was they were human, they were in pain, and they were venting their frustration in their homes, where they knew someone would listen.

We also came to understand the importance of getting out while we still had time. If we got kicked out of school, we’d be stuck. And unlike the generations before, there weren’t going to be any jobs waiting for us. Now that was a fact.

Trent’s idea to fight only at the crop circle helped a lot of the angst and anger ridden teens. Many of us got out of Annandale, but, of course, not everyone.

As the years went on, the men who got too deep in debt ended up sitting on the train tracks around Christmas time when their families had nothing to put under the tree. The engineers often said they went with a peaceful smile on their faces.

Trent didn’t make it out. He stayed at home, taking care of his old man, who was dying of cancer. He ended up working as a cleaner. Making his rounds through vacant office buildings and grocery stores after everyone had gone home.

And now, for the first time in fifteen years, I’m driving back to Annandale. I’m heading for the crop circle.

Throughout the four-hour drive, I’m thinking about my family. I got married, had two kids, went to college and got a good job. I did what civilized society told me to do. But that feeling inside of me. That one I felt watching the fights in the pit, has never gone away. I’ve tried to silence it, and I can for a while, but it just sleeps, it never dies.

A few weeks ago, around Christmas, I received my lay-off. Christmas will be thin this year, but I won’t be on the tracks. I’ll be in the ring. Once some blood has been spilled, I’ll return home. I’ll figure something out.

The sign for Annandale is old and decrepit. The ghosts are in pain. I’m home.