Angry

Angry

The house was quiet and Tron slept on the chair he had claimed as his own. He was sprawled on his side, tail and nose touching each end of the chair and an ear was flopped over the side. The sun made it’s way through the sheer curtains in the living room and created a soft light that created the illusion of warmth despite the chill in the room. It was a sight even the least sentimental of persons would grin at. Then, without warning, the jiggle of the front door handle started the cycle of chaos the house’s inhabitants had grown far too accustomed with. In a moment the air would feel like ice, Tron would be barking and yelping, and tense negativity would flood into the house without an invitation.

She was sitting on her bed thinking about work and how hard it had been last week. Three years ago she had finished school but felt she had nothing to show but mail from the loan company, a certificate that said she was a counselor, and the same job she has had for four years. The same job she has hated for the bulk of those years and the same one that keeps her sitting in bed and unable to get up to go back to it for another day.

Kara was weighing the odds of going to work or pretending to be sick, “It’ll be better this week. And it’s only five hours and I need the money. If I call in sick again they’re going to fire me.” She shifted her legs and rubbed one that had fallen asleep from her sitting motionless for so long. She couldn’t call in sick, she had already twice last week and the annoyance in the boss’s voice was enough of a sign that Kara was walking a tight rope. She also knew the net of unemployment that she hoped would catch her if she got fired may not be there when she would expect it. Kara started thinking of an elaborate story, some disaster with a friend… or a biking accident, when Tron distracted her. He had noticed that she wasn’t paying attention to him and took the opportunity to eat the leftover sandwich she had left from a couple nights before. Tron’s smacking, loud as it was, didn’t snap her out of her daydreaming. It was when he licked the wax paper and the noise of the crinkling as he started chewing on it that broke her out of her thoughts and threw her into frenzy. “Bad dog! You idiot, you’re such an asshole!” she screamed. The fury she felt got her out of bed to hit Tron and yank the paper out of his mouth. Kara was so mad at her dog that she decided she would go to work, if for no other reason than to not have to look at the animal that disgusted her. So, anger was the force that got her out of bed and she carried that anger with her all day.

Kara talked to herself a lot. She didn’t enjoy conversations with other people because she would always have some qualm about something they would say. The last interaction was the previous night at the mini-mart to buy a bottle of white wine that would ease the firestorm in her head (a perfect cocktail for sleep when mixed with anxiety medication). Another person in the store had made the mistake of commentating on how she looked unhappy and she told him in two short words how much she was annoyed by the “rude, misogynistic, prying, egotistical” comment. It should be known that in her rants, Kara uses slurry of words and the more words the angrier she is. Some words are contradictions and there are many word combinations that would make even a sailor blush. Now on the way to work she mumbled to herself that she felt awful. She hadn’t even realized it earlier but she now realizes the headache and sour stomach. “I shouldn’t have drank so much,” she says, wiping mascara off her nose that she notices in the rear-view mirror and curses at her luck that it won’t rub off. Every small annoyance is multiplied by her inability to cope.

Addictions whirled around in her head. She had been clean for almost a year but fought her urge to use every time something went wrong. Kara fought it hard though and was proud of herself for the length of time she hadn’t used. Almost having to have her arm amputated was a major push. That’s how she justifies her drinking. A bottle of wine is like a thimble of wine for her. It takes about two bottles to get the job done, especially with Captain Morgan thrown in if she has the money. She hides her drunkenness so well that she doesn’t realize the extent of the damage on her body and, most especially, her mind. If anything disturbs her when she’s been drinking the anger is intensified to a level most people would find hard to understand. The only time she cries is when she’s so angry thinking that everything in the world is out to get her – “her family won’t help, her dog drives her insane, the government is pointless, corrupt and a bunch of idiots, and no one understands what it’s like to be her. “

There was nowhere to park at the adult care facility that Kara worked at. Street parking was a mess and now she would have to talk to that man on the street that asked her to name the different bird sounds he would imitate. “Please not today,” Kara whispered. And then she was safely in the office, not knowing how she had escaped the forced birdman street quiz. The luck of not seeing him gave her a little spark of hope and her head rose from it’s slumped posture a bit as she sat at the desk.

Her job wasn’t anything special to Kara but she stayed for two reasons: First, it would be incredibly hard to find another job that paid as well for as little work as she did there. Secondly, she had pride in keeping a job for four years, through the darkest times of her life. Her co-workers had all really helped her (they didn’t know the time off was for rehab) but everyone wanted to see Kara succeed so badly that everyone pooled together so she could take a month off and still have a job on her return. Well, it still wasn’t anything like what she expected to be doing after getting her degree in psychology but she figured she had time to kill before the job she really wanted would come along. For now she would just do paperwork and listen to the residents if they had problems or needed someone to talk to. The bizarre part was that Kara hated most people. She always found something wrong with them. It was something inside her that made her want to counsel and help others with their addictions – something that was rarely shown to the public eye but waited patiently inside her for when she was ready. Someone had helped her change her life and she wanted to return that to others… one day.

“Oh, shit. The bird guy,” Kara said so loudly that she was afraid the guy had actually heard her two blocks away. Work had not been as awful as she feared that morning and her mood was unusually calm until she saw the man right next to her car. She got her keys ready and anticipated the onslaught of bird calls would be intensified since he didn’t bother her this morning. She got to her car and unlocked it as fast as possible. The man only managed to start something that sounded gooselike, before the slam of Kara’s door drowned out his noises. She didn’t look at him at all and drove away to the freedom of her house.

Kara remembered on the way home that she hadn’t taken Tron outside before she left for work. She hadn’t fed him either because she was so mad. She imagined with horror the scene that may be before her when she got home: curtains torn, shoes all chewed, poop and piss lining all four walls and that sausage-face Tron just sleeping peacefully and with delight of the destruction he caused. Somehow she imagined he did things on purpose to get back at her for scolding him like he was a vengeful beast from hell. Most others would say he was a dog without direction that wanted attention.

She drove faster and faster hoping to get home before too much damage was done. It took her twenty seconds to realize the flashing lights behind her. She must have repeated “shit” at least 40 times as her hands shook and the cop walked up to her window. This was not what she needed, not now. She had already been covered in tickets from years compounded, her license was suspended, the car wasn’t insured and registration was late. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be driving but without a car it would take her almost two hours to get to work in the far off suburb. It had been worth the risk for her to drive as opposed to dealing with everything on public transportation. If she had to take two busses and a train to get to work she knew she wouldn’t ever make it. She had to have her car.

Twenty minutes later she sat on the side of the road in a patch of grass crying. Everything was gone. Her car had been impounded and more tickets were thrown onto her pile. The running total of all the tickets and fines was somewhere in the three thousand area and Kara didn’t want to count anymore. She sat there, shaking and yelling at the cop that had no sympathy to her situation. There was no way she could pay to even get her car out of the lot, much less pay everything to be able to be legal. And she still had the suspension on her license. Every way she thought of it she was screwed. “That’s it!” she cried and pounded the ground. She pulled her hair and grass was torn up all around her. Dirt covered her hands and streaks of mud and tears were on her face. Then she was quiet. Her hysteria subsided and she made a plan. She didn’t want to face work tomorrow and decided to call in right then and there. “They will understand,” she reassured herself as the phone rang.

They didn’t understand. Her boss had said if she couldn’t make it in tomorrow then they would find a replacement for her. Four years of a new problem every week with Kara had been enough for them. They had tried so hard to keep her and be gracious but she had finally broken their patience with her. Kara resumed her hysterics. Anger overcame her logic and she began yelling at her boss over the phone. Yelling names, sobbing for understanding and then yelling more names. Kara had resigned to her fate. She didn’t care about anything anymore. She didn’t care if she used, if she stayed drunk all the time, or if a car swerved and hit her that very moment (in fact, she was hoping for it). She was a spectacle on the side of the road. Eventually, someone pulled over and asked her if they could help. She hated this person for talking to her; Kara wanted her own existence to be unknown and obsolete. This person talking to her meant she was still visible and still alive. She pushed the lady away until she couldn’t fight her anymore and ended up getting a ride home from her, Kara’s apathy taking over. It was 30 minutes out of the lady’s route but she did it anyway. When she pulled into the driveway she was about to offer Kara anything else she needed but before she could Kara had flung out of the car and slammed the door so hard the car shook.

“If Tron did anything so help me…” she was thinking as she jiggled the handle and felt for her keys in her bag. Her hands were shaking so much it seemed like an eternity just trying to open the door. The flashes of what shape the house may be in came back to her.

Tron immediately awoke from his sleep on the chair when he heard the sound of the key in the handle. Finally Kara was home, he had waited all day for her patiently. No matter what her greeting would be, he would be excited to have her home. He jumped down from the chair and barked excitedly. He whined and yelped sniffing at the door to try to tell if it were Kara or not. Finally the door opened, so fast that it knocked him in the face. He shook it off and started jumping on Kara, pleading for attention. “Back, get back, back!” she yelled and pushed him away from the door. She glanced at the room in amazement to find nothing out of the order. So she wouldn’t do anything to Tron but she wouldn’t be nice to him either. She still didn’t take him outside – she just went up to her room and sat. She cried, she yelled and she punched holes in the wall. She wouldn’t let Tron in her room so he just sat outside shaking a little bit because he could feel her anxiety and he didn’t understand. Tron went downstairs and peed on the tile floor by the door. He couldn’t hold it anymore.

My comments:

I wrote this story because I’ve known so many people who do nothing but fuel their anger in every way possible. In many of the stories we read in class, laughter was an important aspect of keeping things together. Everyone agrees that the circumstances aren’t ideal but they also take time to make light of the situation. Life is too short and so much of our world is too trivial to be angry all the time. This story is a tribute to those who have lost their inability to laugh at the hardships they are faced with. Kara is hard to like in the story but she represents so many people that have to trudge day after day through obstacles that never seem to diminish. She overcame heroin and now she has to fight to keep a job, to have a car, to pay rent, and be the “loving” owner of a dog. We all make bad decisions, some of which go unnoticed, and some of which put people (like Kara) in a downwards spiral of negativity. The difference is trying to stay positive and living to be the person that brings hope and not despair to those around us.

gulf of mexico

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/disaster_unfolds_slowly_in_the.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xGe0zfTqM0&feature=related

 

i don’t want to be a fisher in the gulf of mexico

once i had a life now i have nowhere left to go

the stench of death and rotting on the surface of my sea

now i’m facing down starvation just as far as i can see

i used to make my living on the bounty of the waves

but in this endless choking oil not a breath of life was saved

no way to do what i know how to keep my family fed

what do i do now that my old way of life is dead

 

this used to be paradise

 

i don’t want to be a diver in the gulf of mexico

with so little time to save a million people i don’t know

the pressure is so great down here it freezes up the air

and this wild flood of black is strong enough for steel to tear

we sent down what we could and asked the lord for it to work

it started out high tech and ended up with rocks and dirt

we tried to throw a landfill on that billowing dark plume

but our prayers turned into curses as we struggled in the gloom

 

this used to be paradise

 

i don’t want to be a driller in the gulf of mexico

and to watch ten of my dearest friends and coworkers explode

we did the best we could we only did what we were told

if you disobey an order you’re sent out into the cold

so when “never mind the safety” was the call from up on high

never once did i imagine all those men were gonna die

but if you all want to blame me just remember to think twice

a man driven mad by fear is not a free-thinking device

 

this used to be paradise

 

but it’s okay to be a rich man in the gulf of mexico

he knows that gasoline is now the only way to go

if we want to keep on living like the emperors of old

then we’re gonna have to deal with turgid oceans of black gold

gulf of mexico

 

Understanding Irish Immigration

Corinne Kunze

American Working Class Literature

11-29-2010

A reoccurring theme within learning about the working class in either history or literature of the United States is immigration. Commonly we have learned about the struggles of African American or Latin American citizens within our literature class. I want to explore the subject of Irish immigration in the 19^th century of the United States. Before and after the Irish came to America, there was no question of their rank as working class citizens. Within this essay I found it important to explain where, how, and why the Irish assimilated. But I also found it important to explain the differences and similarities with our modern struggles with immigration.

Being white, the Irish had less obstacles to cross than Latin or Asian cultures because they were allowed into the country (America.gov). However, they struggled very similarly with problems of the working class. Like today, they would work the jobs that were brutally low wage and physically destructive. They would come into the country with little education and zero money in their pockets. Ellis Island acted as a similar structure to our modern barriers for immigrants getting into the country. On Ellis Island a failure of a medical exam for any reason would be deported. Exams were taken testing their ability to read or write and proved a struggle to the vast majority of uneducated Irish. The types of jobs available at the time are identical to what’s available to today’s immigrants. Factory work, building railroads, sewer systems, and for the women being a domestic servant. Even discrimination and prejudices were very similar. Irish people were thought of as lazy, stupid, alcoholic, and dirty. Americans had derogatory words they would place in newspapers such as, “Paddy.” (teachers.yale.edu) “No Irish Need Apply” was a discriminatory phrase used at the end of help wanted signs that was created by a prejudice against the Irish. A comical song was written by John F. Poole and performed by Tony Pastor that expresses the frustration of, “No Irish Need Apply” (Jensen, R.). Though it is comical, it speaks lengths about the struggles Irish-Americans faced. Poole explains within his poem the frustration of being readily recruited to die in a war but scoffed at and turned away when looking for work.

No Irish Need Apply

Written by JOHN F. POOLE, and sung, with immense success, by the great Comic-Vocalist of the age, TONY PASTOR.

I’m a dacint boy, just landed from the town of Ballyfad;
I want a situation: yis, I want it mighty bad.
I saw a place advartised. It’s the thing for me, says I;
But the dirty spalpeen ended with: No Irish need apply.
Whoo! says I; but that’s an insult—though to get the place I’ll try.
So, I wint to see the blaggar with: No Irish need apply.
I started off to find the house, I got it mighty soon;
There I found the ould chap saited: he was reading the TRIBUNE.
I tould him what I came for, whin he in a rage did fly:
No! says he, you are a Paddy, and no Irish need apply!
Thin I felt my dandher rising, and I’d like to black his eye—
To tell an Irish Gintleman: No Irish need apply!
I couldn’t stand it longer: so, a hoult of him I took,
And I gave him such a welting as he’d get at Donnybrook.
He hollered: Millia murther! and to get away did try,
And swore he’d never write again: No Irish need apply.
He made a big apology; I bid him thin good-bye,
Saying: Whin next you want a bating, add: No Irish need apply

Sure, I’ve heard that in America it always is the plan
That an Irishman is just as good as any other man;
A home and hospitality they never will deny
The stranger here, or ever say: No Irish need apply.
But some black sheep are in the flock: a dirty lot, say I;
A dacint man will never write: No Irish need apply!
Sure, Paddy’s heart is in his hand, as all the world does know,
His praties and his whiskey he will share with friend or foe;
His door is always open to the stranger passing by;
He never thinks of saying: None but Irish may apply.
And, in Columbia’s history, his name is ranking high;
Thin, the Divil take the knaves that write: No Irish need apply!
Ould Ireland on the battle-field a lasting fame has made;
We all have heard of Meagher’s men, and Corcoran’s brigade.
Though fools may flout and bigots rave, and fanatics may cry,
Yet when they want good fighting-men, the Irish may apply,
And when for freedom and the right they raise the battle-cry,
Then the Rebel ranks begin to think: No Irish need apply

Differences between the struggles of immigrants exist because of time, history, and culture. There are barriers that Irish immigrants didn’t have to face and struggles today that immigrants do not have to go through. However, as they say, “history repeats itself.” It’s important to look back upon similar situations and educate.

To learn about the Irish emigration, one must understand why they needed to find a new home in the first place. Common knowledge will state, “Irish immigrants came to America because of the potato famine.” This is definitely true, but not the whole part of the story as to why. Throughout Irish history there has been a violent and everlasting struggle against England’s rule. Catholicism was the widespread religion amongst Irish citizens. Irish-Catholics struggled against oppression of Protestant England. The Penal Laws were implemented in 1695 by the English government. The Penal Laws crippled and impoverished Ireland, giving England full control over the country. One of England’s main intentions by implementing to take away land from Irish owners and give them to lords of their own loyalty. Irish gradually had to pay rent to work upon their own lands. The Penal Laws reduced the lives of every Irish who claimed to be Catholic to uneducated beggars. The population of the country was made up of a vast majority of Catholics, so targeting Catholicism was definitely injuring the heart of Ireland at the time. These laws demolished the economic and social structure of Ireland. Catholics were not allowed to be educated in any way, to own a horse worth more than five pounds, to purchase land, to trade, to vote, to inherit land from a Protestant, to educate a child himself, to send his child abroad to receive education, to keep any weapons for protection, or to attend Catholic church (www.ne.education.gov). The list goes on and on. Not only were their living situations destroyed, but their entire economic structure revolving around trade slowly was destroyed starting in the 15^th century leading up to The Penal Laws. Early Irish traders were artisans and successful in creating beautiful metalwork arts to be exported to different countries. English artisans felt threatened and the government passed a law in 1494 that made it illegal for Ireland to trade out of their country unless they went to an English port first, where they would have to pay fees. Over the years, the destruction of Irish commerce got worse as every exported good out of Ireland was forbidden or determined“worthless” by royalty of England. Livestock from Ireland in the 17^th century was declared forbidden to be traded so the Irish slaughtered all of their livestock to try and trade the meat. But soon meat, even butter was illegal to export from Ireland (MacManus, S.) So imagine an already starving country, eating potatoes for every meal because it is all they can afford, when the potato famine hits in 1845. They starved and millions died. Because they were so poor and received no help from the English, disease spread like a wildfire. The Irish had begun to emigrate because of The Penal Laws, but when the plague hit many left with a tiny bit of hope they may survive.

An estimated 2 million Irish people immigrated to America between 1845 and 1855 (Library of Congress.) Irish Americans, as the working class, worked the jobs that they could manage to get. As with any group of low class immigrants, they were the steel workers, the factory slaves, the railroad builders, and the textile laborers of America. Because the Irish-Catholics were so uneducated and unskilled because of Britian’s oppression they often had to take extremely dangerous jobs to make a living. The jobs that no one else would touch. But things improved for some Irish-Americans, they were allowed to vote and be educated. They had saloons, dancing, and music. Alcoholism was rampant among their working class culture. Americans created unfair stereotypes about the Irish. Crude cartoons were common in newspapers, showing ape jawed, smelly Irishmen with drinking problems. Poverty stricken, Irish immigrants often lived in slums in bigger cities like New York or Boston. With New York growing in population, there was little room for proper housing for all the immigrants. The famous Five Points slum came to be known as a home for the Irish. Though not entirely accurate, the movie “Gangs of New York,” tells part of the story of Five Points. Five Points is famous for a riot against police on the 4^th of July. In attempt to control alcoholism, the government had passed a law that less saloons would be open and a limit on how much a person should drink. Irish-Americans felt they were being personally attacked and kept their bars open illegally on the 4^th of July, 1857. The violent riot began when police showed up to attempt to close the saloons down (American Social History Project).

Irish-Americans went on to not only be drafted but volunteer in the civil war, even through draft laws that were not completely fair. Years in the future, as more immigrants from other countries began to move into America, some Irish-Americans even began to take place in political office. It is generally accepted today that Irish-Americans are on the higher end of social status as a group. They exceed in educational averages, income, and career status (America.gov). Today, Irish-Americans face much less prejudice than when they first arrived. Hopefully, through time, other immigrants of our time will assimilate into our social and working class more equally.

 

This is a modern version of No Irish Need apply, I thought it was interesting to compare the lyrics and to put a tune to the original writing.

“90.05.07: Irish Immigrant Families in Mid-Late 19th Century America.” Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/search/viewer.php?id=new_haven_90.05.07_u&gt;.

“Five Points: New York’s Irish Working Class in the 1850s – American Social History Project ? Center for Media and Learning.” American Social History Project ? Center for Media and Learning. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://ashp.cuny.edu/ashp-documentaries/five-points/&gt;.

“Immigration… Irish: Irish-Catholic Immigration – For Teachers (Library of Congress).”Library of Congress Home. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/irish2.html&gt;.

“Irish Immigrants in the United States.”America – Engaging the World – America.gov. 13 Feb. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2008/February/20080307131416ebyessedo0.6800043.html&gt;

Jensen, Richard. “No Irish Need Apply.”Http://tigger.uic.edu. 22 Dec. 2004. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm#FOOT22&gt;.

“Laws That Isolated and Impoverished the Irish.” Nebraska Department of Education Home Page. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.education.ne.gov/SS/irish/unit_1.html&gt;

MacManus, Seamus. The Story of the Irish Race, New York, The Irish Publishing Company, 1922

STORY OF THE STRIKEBREAKER

Final project for ENG 237 by Nathaniel Schwartz

Topic: The strikebreaker, or the scab, who “crosses

thepicket line” during a union strike.

Welcome to the River

Lucas Stockburger
ENG 237
11/22/10

Welcome to the River

A bright sun was shining on the Egegik River. It warmed the waters, land and breeze. Yes, it was a nice day for traveling. He was traveling with his brothers to attend a family reunion up the river, and it couldn’t have been a nicer day. They had arranged to meet a long time ago, and the thought of being reunited once again after all these years made them excited. Just thinking about it made them move faster; and they forgot how tired they were and how far they had come.

It seemed like ages since he and his brothers had been up the river. There was a strange and familiar place there just for them. Familiar because they were raised there and knew it well; strange because they had not been there for years. There was no fear of getting lost: every one of them knew the way. The journey was a long time coming, and the brothers had been anticipating their return ever since they left. There was a beautiful lake waiting for them; with trickling streams and dark green spruce trees. Other creatures dwelt there: bears, moose, squirrels, insects; creatures of all shapes and sizes.
The thought of the place made him impatient -Faster, faster! I need to get there soon, or it will be too late!- He picked up the pace, then something out of the corner of his eye grabbed his attention. He checked his brothers’ reaction, but they were unperturbed, focused entirely on the goal ahead, so he gave it no further thought and kept on. Immediately there was a thick smell of blood;one of his brothers had been hurt. He wanted to go back, to help him, but an instinctual fear of whatever shed the blood sped him onward. I cannot fail, cannot look back, have to keep going, keep going, my family needs me there! It is more important than…

Thin claws wrapped around his throat, choking his thoughts, and cutting into his skin like the barbed tentacles of some horrible octopus.

He instinctively thrashed around trying to loose himself, but the claws only dug deeper and deeper into his throat. The constrictions cut off his breathing completely, he felt excruciating pain and the more he squirmed and kicked the more the skin on his throat was torn open. -No! NOOO! My family! My family needs me!- Then there was a horrible sound, an awful vibration that rang through the claws. His thrashes became weaker and slower until he stopped moving completely.

Barnacle Bill leaned slightly on the hydraulic controls, the one that operated a huge metal wheel called a reel. A line was attached to the reel, and it coiled around the large metal drum. The same line was attached to a long net at the other end, and it was being pulled slowly out of the water. It was a long net that stretched endlessly out into the river. A series of white corks that kept it afloat trembled and rose out of the water, and Bill could see a great number of fish dangling from the mesh below. Gasping mouths and twitching fins. Some of the fish were still alive, some bloody and dead, and some of them tangled hopelessly.

The fish that were still alive thrashed and tangled themselves worse in the net, and were pulled into the boat by the hydraulics. Net, fish, corks, and all were guided through a large metal U-shaped contraption on the stern of the boat. The insides were smooth, because the purpose of this device was to guide the net into the boat without losing fish back to the river. Of course, some fell out of the net, but the forethought of some ingenious fisherman invented metal cradles with mesh inside to catch the corpses. Once the first part of the net came in, the weight of the fish bodies fell in and the loose fish made slapping sounds on the deck.

“Woooooo boy!” Bill let off the hydraulic lever and admired the first of their catch. “We done good!”
“Ka-ching!” Jules, the other deckhand, said this every time a good catch fell in the boat. He began grabbing the slimy creatures by the netting caught under the gills, and flicking his arms, tearing the fish out of the net.

“Season’s starting to pick up.”

“Hell yes, from here on out it’s going to get wild.” The first section of net was clean, and Bill pushed on the lever again.

While Bill reeled in the net Jules began picking up the loose fish and chucking them into metal openings on both sides of the metal drum. He had to disperse them somewhat evenly, otherwise the boat would tilt from the weight and the captain would give him an earful.

Larry, the captain, stood above and watched the deckhands, making sure to keep an eye on Jules. Jules was a greenhorn, or first timer, and Larry was responsible for his safety. Barnacle Bill had vouched for him, but Larry could never trust a greenhorn not to fuck up somehow. Jules wasn’t his only reason for looking back however, Larry needed to keep the boat parallel with the net or it would tear on the stern roller, (the same “U”) catch in the prop and form a mass of tangles, or what fishermen like him more often call a clusterfuck. It would take hours to fix, he’d lose a net, and they’d lose valuable fishing time.

There is an imaginary line across all the mouth of all rivers in Bristol Bay(all seven of them) that you cannot cross if you have your net in the water.  The salmon run in Bristol Bay was also regulated that one could only fish at specified times, called openers. Any infraction would be met with the full force of the law, fines and permit revokes. Trooper boats and planes constantly surveyed the area watching for time and line infractions, and take hard earned fishing money. Larry looked at the small waterproof clock/compass on his steering column. Ten thirty-five. He turned to his workers. They were halfway through the last shackle, and each shackle is seventy-five fathoms long. Four-and-a-half football fields.

”That’s our last set.”

His new deckhand had kept up with the pace, and he was impressed. Sometimes he even outdid Barnacle Bill when they were picking piles of net(he called roundhauling). Old Bill is pretty fast, but he’s slowed down a bit since breaking his face all over that bar. Bill had gotten in a drunk bar brawl right last season with five men. He nearly killed three of them. The fourth and fifth men beat the hell out of him, but he broke fourth’s arm and cut fifth down the middle before they brought Bill down.. Pretty good for sixty-five winters.

Hours later the three of them sit in the dock cafeteria. The food was all-you-can-eat so they took servings thought deserved among tired fishermen.  He had learned Jules was a greenhorn, and saw fit to tell him all about gillnetting while they ate.

“Ya, back in ‘69. They tied up all their boats, right across the river. If anybody wants to cross, they gotta empty their fish holds. Clean them out. The only way to strike. We don’t even work for them, we just bring them the fish. If we don’t somebody will.” The old man shifted in his seat.

“Two scabs got through…busted right through the lines and delivered their fish. The others didn’t like that too much. They caught up to them there at the Red Dog. There was a brawl, and then the those angry fishermen showed those two just how mad they was. One of them got stoned to death with pool balls, the other got thrown off the dock at low tide.”

Bill cut in. “That’s the only way to deal with those fucking scabs. Gotta kill em. They can’t break strikes if they’re dead.” He gestured with his fork in a stabbing motion while he spoke. “Stupid sons of bitches.” Bill shook his head and went back to eating.

During the night the wind had picked up and it was raining profusely. Larry was sitting in the cabin holding a hot cup of coffee with one hand and steering the boat with the other. The boat rose and fell with the waves that got bigger and bigger the closer they got to the river mouth. It’s going to be a nasty one. Ten-foot Swells at least. He sipped his coffee while warming his hands on the cup, and every so often reached out a hand to adjust the steering on course

The icy waves splashed against the boat and cascaded over the gunnels.. The boat was rocking so hard Bill had to stay low to the deck to keep from being thrown around. He labored tirelessly amid the chaos, and tossed fish after fish from the deck into the brailer openings. Great swells of seawater raised him up, then a moment later crashed down again. The sensation was that of a rollercoaster: the stomach sinking low in the abdomen, then shooting quickly up into the chest. It created a feeling of breathlessness and nausea. Sweet, sweet, nausea. Long ago his stomach conquered the waves, and he would never vomit again from motion. When the swells lifted him high Bill could see the other boats nearby disappear and reappear with the rhythm of the waves. The captain up top was yelling about something, so Bill stopped pitching and turned to him.

“Get…fu..up…stand…” Bill could barely make out what he was saying, but intuition and previous orders told he didn’t want me to crouch next to the reel. The captain screamed at him because many men had been lost to the waves in torrents like this, and he had learned to keep a careful eye on his workers. In weather and waves like this, it was easy for a deckhand to lose himself overboard and be subject to the mercy of the waves. Mercy? No, Fury.

Jules, the other deckhand, was inside the cabin being flung violently across the cabin by the ruthless tide. He was a greenhorn, and the torrents fed his thoughts of fear and aquatic doom. He felt guilty, too. The captain had told him to stay inside the cabin, as he was big and green, and big green deckhands didn’t last long in weather like this. What made him feel even worse was being forced to watch Bill labor alone in the fierce weather. He saw that Bill never fell, and if he slipped a practiced hand would shoot out instantly and grab hold of something to right himself.

Jules was torn, fear of the ocean made him glad he was ordered to remain inside, but watching Bill out there battling the sea and the nets without him made him feel he was neglecting his duty as a fisherman. But no, he reminded himself that Bill was the reason he was in there; he had convinced the captain to keep Jules inside because big green guys didn’t last long in shit like that. “He’s gonna fly the fuck overboard if you work him today,” Bill had said, “I can handle this shit, keep him inside.”

Bill heard the old man screaming again, and he turned around to see and understand the captain’s frantic order. He was not aware the tow line had been tightening against the stern roller. The captain had seen this, and was screaming at his worker to notice and avoid the heavy blow. The thick line attached to the cabin shifted when the boat sunk low in the swells. It snapped away with a terrible force, and the unfortunate deckhand was caught in the neck. His deft hands that were so capable of righting did him no good as he was torn off the boat and devoured by the cold, hungry waves. An unyielding flood pulled and pushed and spun him with such force he could not tell if he was upside down or sideways.

Jules got up so fast his head slammed into a hook holding up some cookware, but he didn’t notice the blood running down his face. The sight of the heavy rope dragging Bill overboard sent his heart into his throat and the blood out of his face. He did not stumble despite his clumsy feet and the voracious swells he feared moments ago. A coarse scream echoed in his head and ears and he realized it was the sound of his own frantic shrieks.

“OH SHIT!” Jules got up so fast he got slammed into the wall by the churning boat then he stumbled to his feet and ran outside onto the deck. “ LARRY GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE!” He shrieked at his boss who was in the skybridge above the cabin. Larry sometimes drove the boat from up there, especially with the huge swells they were experiencing.

The captain came down the ladder so fast he almost ran into Jules. He had glanced back from the skybridge just in time to see one of his deckhands thrown off the deck by the tow line. The boat was still churning with an unwavering vigor and they both struggled to regain their balance. They were both bellowing at their lost friend, each other, and the waves. Larry rushed to the rear steering column, but the deck shifted beneath him and he fell, slamming against the hydraulic reel mounted there, cursing violently all the while. The thought of the man disappearing beneath the waves made him ignore the pain and he pushed himself up with a knee. He half crawled to the steering column where the throttle lever was located and jerked it back into the neutral position. The boat quickly lost momentum and the captain lost balance again and smacked his head on the gunnels. He was fuming with rage, but again the thought of the drowning man centered him. His fear and anger drove him to regain his balance, and he rushed to the cabin to get on the radio.

“Man overboard! I repeat! MAN OVERBOARD!” Larry bellowed into the handset, then turned to Jules. “Cut that fucking tow line!” The boat was coming over an unusually large wave and it hovered for a second, the front half of the boat completely out of the water. There was that sweet, sweet nausea again and the boat plummeted into the next swell, causing water to crash all over the boat. The men scrambled all over the boat searching for Bill, and boats began to show up to look as well. Everybody was in motion and they all feared the worst.

Another boat crew nearby was hauling in their catch when a man came in with all the fish. Just slapped onto the deck like he was one of them. One of the deckhands vomited. The captain took off his hat and picked up the radio handset.

Bound For Glory by Woody Guthrie

Bound for Glory is the rough and tough chronicle of Woody Guthrie’s young life told in his own words, on his own terms, and how he saw it. His story begins and ends on a train, bound for nowhere specific but to the very heart of America; in and amidst the hard luck, down and out, and very poorest of America’s citizens. Woody’s story has three distinct periods, his very early childhood where his family falls apart at the seams, his young life of scraping any sort of living he could, and his aimless wanderings through America which defined his music and created the working class minstrel that he was. Woody’s heart was always embedded in the poor, the working class, the real America. Each and every time he would be on the verge of a break, set to live comfortably or make a decent living from his music, Woody would feel the road calling, the open roads and the open people, and high tail it out for the next train out of town. What defined him and his music was hard work and the people who did it. He wanted to be where real people were struggling, he wanted to lift them up and sing about all the troubles so it wouldn’t be so bad. In Woody’s own words on page 178:

“And there on the Texas plains right in the dead center of the dust bowl, with the oil boom over and the wheat blowed out and the hard-working people just stumbling about, bothered with mortgages, debts, bills, sickness, worries of every blowing kind, I seen plenty to make up songs about.” …

“I never did make up any songs about the cow trails or the moon skipping through the sky, but at first it was funny songs of what all’s wrong, and how it turned out good or bad. Then I got a little braver and made up songs telling what I thought was wrong and how to make it right, songs that said what everybody in that country was thinking.

And this has held me ever since.”

His optimism and pride in his people to make it through, to change the world for the better can be seen in his ideals and became the undercurrent of all his music. On page 230 Woody gets caught up in a discussion in a box car over religion. He puts in his “three cents worth”.

“All of this talking about what’s up in the sky, or down in hell, for that matter, isn’t half as important as what’s right here, right now, right in front of our eyes. Things are tough. Folks Broke. Kids hungry. Sick. Everything. And people has just got to have more faith in one another, believe in each other. There’s a spirit of some kind we’ve all got. That’s got to draw us all together.”

So how did he get there? Why did he care so much? This book is Woody Guthrie’s search for these very same answers which allows us to see for ourselves.

Woody’s young life begins from modest means in Okemah, Oklahoma, and as one tragedy after another befalls his family they eventually fall apart till he’s left alone to fend for himself at a young age.

Everything begins ideally enough. His father had carved out a comfortable living in real estate, and Woody’s life began in a big house with his Mother and older brother and sister. His Mother burns the house down one day but no one will outright blame her. They move into an old stone house built into the edge of a cliff, “one that won’t burn down” but a tornado comes through and smashes it to pieces. They loose everything. His father tries his luck in oil boom and gets bullied out by the high profile land dealers. They fall deeper and deeper into debt. His sister dies from a tragic accident when the gas stove explodes in their shack. His mother goes crazy and has to be institutionalized. At the end his father goes off to another oil boom town and his brother and himself are left to support themselves.

Woody Guthrie’s convictions are evident even in his childhood. Chapter VII is a childhood narrative reminiscent of Mark Twain. Woody and the other kids from the town had built a club house and formed a gang. As more and more kids moved into town on the heels of the oil boom they sought admittance and the original members were denying them full citizenship and voting rights in the club. They formed a rival gang. Woody joins the other side and they declare war. Woody writes the declaration on page 116:

“We told you why we are fighting this war. It is because of your leaders mostly. Most of us kids is new here in town and we ain’t got no other place except at your gang house. You made us work but you didn’t let us vote or nothing like that when it was time.

The only way out is to let all of us kids own the gang house together. We was always fighting the other way. One gang against the other one. It will always be this a-way unless we change it, and you don’t want us to change it, but we aim to anyhow. Both gangs has got to join up together and be one gang.

We will come to see you at eight o’clock, and if you still try to keep us split up, we will start a war.”

What follows is the most entertaining tale of a childhood battle with slingshots, armored tanks constructed out of barrels, and an all out assault on the club house. The battle is decided as they devise an ingenious “cannon” creating a massive slingshot from an old tire stretched between two trees. The two gangs become one. Woody denounced his membership with the original gang because they wouldn’t admit everyone, joined the other side, fought for equal rights and justice even as a little boy. This very same struggle follows him through his life but never again was there such a clear cut victory as occurred in his childhood.

The next part of Guthrie’s life starts out as he’s twelve years old sleeping in the old club house collecting junk around town to trade at the junkyards to feed himself. His brother finds him in the delirium of fever wandering around town and takes him back to his apartment to take care of him. Years fast forward and Woody wanders the boom towns working odd jobs to make a living. At seventeen he ends up in Pampa helping his father run a tin shack hostel of sorts. His mother dies in the hospital. He gets several jobs around town but he begins looking for something else. On page 174 Woody writes:

“And then a couple of months wheeled past, and I found myself walking all around with my head down, still out of a job, and asking other folks why they had their heads down. But most people was tough, and they still kept their heads up.

I wanted to be my own boss. Have my own job of work whatever it was, and be on my own hook.”

He went through the library studying every “’ology,’ ‘osis,’ ‘itis,’ and ‘ism’ there was,” but he never found anything that interested him. He started painting and learned to play the guitar. He would make money painting signs for shops and playing for tips in Saloons. At some point he gets an invitation from his rich aunt in Sonora, California to live with her. His trip out to California bumming rides and hopping freight trains begins his next and is the most defining part of his story.

Along his journey to California he ends up stuck in Tucson when the freight train he was riding gets held up. Not having eaten in two days he ventures out in search of work to get some food. An old hobo advises him to stay out of town, to ask around the shanty outskirts if he wishes to get something to eat but Woody has to go see for himself. Half-starved, he wanders into the nice part of town, knocking on every church door he can find offering to work in exchange for food. Most don’t even come to the door. The housekeepers shoe him off the property. His last shot is the cathedral like monastery at the center of town. The head priest at the monastery can only offer him consolation, not any food because today is not the day they prepare meals for the poor. Woody heads back to the poor part of town and is fed by the first house he approaches. They even give him a meal to take with him back on the train. Woody gives it away.

He travels on to California meeting other hobos in search of work riding the freights and dodging the railway bulls. When Woody finally reaches his aunts house he walks up to the front door of the stately mansion in disbelief. Again he hasn’t eaten in days and his whole entire journey has been to make it here but when the butler opens the door and assures him that he is at the correct address he takes off down the street and back on highways, off to drift some more.

The rest of the novel Woody travels around the country, hopping the rails and thumbing rides. He followed the migrant workers who were searching for work and wrote their songs. From page 256:

“Everywhere I went I throwed my hat down in the floor and sung for my tips.

Sometimes I was lucky and found me a good job. I sung on the radio waves in Los Angeles, and I got a job from Uncle Samuel to come to the valley of the Columbia River and I made up and recorded twenty-six songs about the Grand Coulee Dam. I made two albums of records called “Dust Bowl Ballads” for the Victor people. I hit the road again and crossed the continent twice by way of highways and freights. Folks heard me on the nationwide radio programs CBS and NBC, and thought I was rich and famous, and I didn’t have a nickel to my name, when I was hitting the hard way again.”

He made friends with another guitar player the Cisco Kid and the two of them played up and down skid row in Los Angeles. They make a living together for a while till he wanders back out back on the road.

The final episode finds Woody Guthrie poised to get a gig in the Rainbow Room, a high class club located on the 65^th floor of the Rockefeller building. It would pay him seventy five dollars a week and it was his chance to live the easy life. He auditions for the job with a song he makes up on the spot. This is the final verse, printed on page 293:

Well this Rainbow Room’s a funny place to play

It’s a long way’s from here to the USA

An back ta New York City

God! New York City

Hey1 New York City

Where I really gotta know my line!

Ironically enough they give him the job. They think he’s comical, and as the director is planning his clown costume for the shows he excuses himself for the bathroom and walks right out the door and back out onto the streets strumming his guitar the whole time and singing for the crowds out on the streets. Woody puts it best himself on page 299:

“Folks joined in like one voice in the dark. I could vision on the screen of fog rolling down a picture of myself singing back yonder on the sixty-fifth floor of Rockefeller’s Center… And I knew that I was glad to be loose of that sentimental and dreamy trash, and gladder to be edging my way along here singing with the people, singing something with fight and guts and belly laughs and power and dynamite to it.”

He wanders through the night, takes one last look at Rockefeller Center, and he knows that he should turn around get that job. Instead he jumps on barge headed out to anywhere and doesn’t look back.

Bound For Glory is a true working class novel. Woody Guthrie immersed himself in the common man because he was one. He gave up fame and fortune time and time again because he didn’t want to write stupid songs about moons and cow trails. He wanted to sing the songs of resistance, the song of the working man’s plight because it was America’s working poor that he loved, and the beauty of their struggle that he felt deserved to be sung. Woody had a message to tell America and he would keep on working till they heard him. One last quote from page 295 sums it all up.

“…I’ve been picked up, throwed down, and picked up; but my eyes have been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been the messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls.”

Anyone interested in Working Class studies should read this book and then search out his music.

What You Have Left by Will Allison

Jenny Scott

11/10/10

ENG 237

 

What You Have Left: A Novel by Will Allison

 

Will Allison’s story is fictional and yet parallels the true stories of the struggles of many families. What You Have Left takes place in South Carolina between 1970 and 2007. The protagonist is Holly, who was abandoned by her father, Wylie, when she was five. Her mother, Maddy, had just passed away from complications of a water-skiing accident that was Wylie’s fault. He had steered the boat too close to the docks and Maddy died from a blood clot caused by the trauma of the accident. Wylie drops Holly off at her grandfather Cal’s dairy farm in order to think for a few days but instead just leaves without a word. So, Cal ends up raising Holly.  Lyle (a guy Cal hired to help fix up the cottage house) and Holly eventually get married and have a daughter. It is not until the end of the story that Wylie and Holly meet for the first time since he left her at age five. Holly, of course, spends her life full of hatred and resentment for her father while also trying to find him and talk to him.

This story is full of discomfort. Each character has an array of issues and heartaches. Alcoholism is an issue shared by many of the characters (which seems to be a common thread in many of the stories we’ve read). Cal drinks and is a tough man with a family history of Alzheimer’s. Once he forgot what day it was and Holly comments to Lyle, “That’s my grandfather… Knows he wants a drink even if he doesn’t know the day” (20). He’s convinced himself he won’t succumb to it as he had seen his father do but is still diagnosed with the disease despite his efforts to ignore it. Yet, instead of letting the disease get him first, he takes sleeping pills to end his life. “Cal sat slumped in his recliner, an empty pill bottle and rock glass on the table beside him” (29). He died, of course, with a drink by his side.

Holly is a wild and rambunctious girl in her younger years. She drinks (“I spent the rest of the day driving around with a pint of vodka between my knees…”), smokes, gambles, and fights her way around her feelings of loss from her father abandoning her (18). Holly reminds me of Alma from Dorothy Allison’s “Mama” in the way that they both try to hide their feelings and be strong no matter what. There is a point in the story when Lyle (still just Holly’s boyfriend at this point) is trying to take Holly to the farm where Cal passed away and where they all used to live. Holly is fighting against it and says, “Second of all, fuck you. I don’t want to go” (68). When they get to the farm Holly demands that Lyle gets off the property – that it’s trespassing, she grab’s a Daisy rifle and shoots him in the thigh, the hand and his windshield. She locks all the doors and he goes away to let her cool down.  Another parallel with the two stories is with Holly and her mother and Alma and her mama. Holly’s mother, Maddy, raced stock cars and was even a two-time champion, “the only lady driver among men who hated racing against a woman and hated losing to one even more” (21). Maddy is not mentioned much in the story but it is evident to the reader that she never took heat from anyone and constantly had to fight her way through the taunting and foul play that the men in the racing division threw at her. This is just the same as how Alma’s mama had to fight against the men at the diner and stand up for herself and her pride. Holly and Alma both took after their mothers, Holly instinctively and Alma learning it as defense. “Oh, never show your broken heart! Make them think you don’t have one instead” is a motto Alma as well as Holly would share (D. Allison 775).

The relationship between men and women in What You Have Left and in many of the stories we’ve read is troublesome. Wylie and Maddy get married after a long span of affair, cheating on their significant others with each other. Holly and Lyle have a relationship rollercoaster. Holly shoots a gun at Lyle, mocks him every chance she gets, gambles away all their savings, and cares nothing about his happiness for some time. Lyle’s frustration leads him (almost) to sleep with a sex worker. The interesting thing in this book is that instead of a common theme of women being strong without men, Holly is strong when she allows men, especially Lyle, to help her. In this case, Lyle is not physically or mentally harming Holly, compared to stories where the women are being abused. Holly actually really wants Lyle to take control of her. Holly says after she’s locked Lyle out of his bedroom and waiting for him to try to get in, “I wanted him to pick the lock, climb the fire escape, kick down the door, stop at nothing.” Eventually Lyle just makes a bed on the couch and leaves her alone to sulk (21). Holly does so many mentally harming things to Lyle that it’s as if she were the man from the stories and Lyle the woman who stays through all the trials and is abused. When police come to arrest Holly for speeding, driving drunk as usual, Lyle saves her neck by coming out from hiding as the one who was driving and is arrested.

When we read Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life” I immediately thought of Wylie, the father of What You Have Left.  The two fathers are so similar – constantly moving, trying new jobs, struggling with alcoholism, and being disconnected from their children. The way that Carver and Holly interact and deal with their fathers is similar as well. They seem stark towards their fathers and find it hard to have much emotion for a time. Eventually, Holly and Carver come to some sort of terms with them Once Holly finally meets her father and slowly starts to allow him into her life she can’t help but feel something of love towards him. Just as Carver didn’t cry until after his father’s funeral, Holly had learned to keep her emotion tucked safely away so as to not be disappointed again. They both came to a point where being tough works for a while, but in the end there must be some resolution. Carver and Holly seemed to both hold on to some resentment towards their fathers but began to allow themselves to feel love freely.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Allison, Dorothy. “Mama.” American Working-Class Literature. Ed. Nicholas Coles,   Janet Zandy. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 775. Print.

 

Allison, Will. What You Have Left: A Novel. New York: Free Press, 2008. Print.

Josephine Woolington

My book report is coming soon.

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Who is Ann Petry?

You may wonder who Ann Petry is–besides being the alias for Rachel Stevens.  Ann Petry wrote The Street in the early 1940s. It’s the story of an intelligent African American woman who is a single mother, raising a son in Harlem.  More to come.