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Getting out of Forgottensville, West Virginia.

When your home is worn away, what do you do?

By George DevoPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
1

12th July

Blood splattered on the sink below me.

Hunched over, wheezing.

More coughing.

more blood.

And rest, my lungs deserve it. I took a step back, stumbling as I lowered myself, resting my back against the bathtub’s wall.

I fasten my eyes shut, screw my face together and wait for the pain in my chest to subside. Five minutes pass, and all that’s left of what’s become my morning routine is a dull, distant ache in my torso.

I realise this isn’t a healthy start to the day, but those are hard to come by near me. Relative to the other residents of Forgottensville, West Virginia my mornings are magazine morning show material.

The customary glance and sigh at my 50-year-old face in the mirror reveals the sunken eyes and burrowing forehead lines of blue-collar America.

These are Summer morning thoughts. Admittedly they’d make for a different take on the archetypal saccharine of the morning show, but I’m sure the audience would warm to it eventually.

Trying to leave my cramped apartment, I’m cut across sharply by the man who lives in the apartment above. I don’t know him, nor he me, but the self-absorbed demeanour is recognisable. Head down, muttering to himself. A word of apology wouldn’t have gone amiss, but neither is it expected.

Work.

12-hour days underground may sound miserable, but the buzz makes up for the lack of tan. The oppressive heat and claustrophobia of the surrounding rock make sure you’re well aware of your helplessness. Chaos is in charge in our workshop and I love it.

Miners don’t like to feel sad or afraid, so we get louder as we sink lower in the lift shaft. The worst part is looking up and watching as the bright white light of civilisation steadily drains away. Luckily, that never lasts long. Soon we’re talking about anything and everything – football, family, politics you name it.

Talking is how we get through the day, as well as the catharsis of sinking pneumatic drills into the Earth. Drinking is how we get through the evenings. Not in a dramatic, depressive way but rather a communal recuperation.

Bar.

Dimly lit, suitably quiet and well-stocked, “O’Connell’s” is our den of choice. Much to the amusement of the Italians (me included), and horror of the Celtic, in our group the ‘Irish pub’ is owned by an elderly Sicilian called Ciro.

Routine banter about the pub’s ‘cultural appropriation’ – named so by Noel, the one of our party who watches MSNBC – preceded drinking, but amidst the drinking the conversation turned a little darker.

The TV on the 1920s, teak shelving unit behind the bar was showing CNN. One of their reporters was in Montanan miner’s country attending a union meeting. The usual shots of ‘left behind’ America flashed up: a montage of unhealthy and sad people, unhealthy and sad fast-food joints and decrepit and, still, sad buildings.

The poverty porn wasn’t surprising. There’s nothing coastal suburbia enjoys more than bathing in the despair of Forgottensvilles everywhere. Our newfound silence wasn’t because of their journalistic schadenfreude. That was the fault of the headline running below:

GRS ENERGY BEGIN MINE CLOSURES

We’re GRS miners who happen to be safe in this round of cuts, but that didn’t stop the rest of the evening being a little more sombre. A reminder you’re working in a dying industry tends to have that effect.

The drinking then became less about enjoying ourselves, and a little more depressive.

14th July

Weekend, so no work.

It’s Summer, and that means fishing for a man of my age where I’m from. My free time during this stretch of the year is dedicated to the glass-clear lakes of my state.

Mid-July West Virginian sun is almost unbearable. You learn to live with it, not under it, and then to enjoy it. It’s amazing what beer, deckchairs and company can do. Somewhere in-between sitting, talking with friends and catching hold of 5-pound bass, you realise the orb of flame in the sky is no longer a threat. Your skin isn’t being slowly grilled to a nice shade of cancerous-charcoal, there’s just a gentle, comforting warmth.

12-hour days like this are nice.

15th July

The coughing’s back, and I’m happy to inform you the biological Jackson Pollock is shaping up nicely on my sink basin.

I should probably get it checked out, but I’ve seen it so many times before I can’t be bothered. Lung troubles are issues equally expensive and inevitable for a man of my profession.

20 years ago, I might’ve gone to my doctor, but I don’t have the same sort of union cover I did back then. The reservoir of resentment between us and big pharma doesn’t help either, you can’t flood our towns with pills like that and expect us to be frequent customers forevermore.

Oh, and my friend upstairs made another sighting.

Heading out of the small apartment block we both live in for another day of fishing, I was faced with him heading towards the entrance. Out of a long-held belief in forgiveness I held the door open for him. This was thanked with an awkward nod of the head as he made his first step over the threshold. He got no further than that. The uneven tiling of the hallway floor sent him flying. In a blink of an eye, I’d gone from bone dry to drenched in ice cold Evian.

Again, no apology. His eyes stared into mine, startled. His expression reminded me of hunting trips with my dad when I was younger. The animals caught by our traps had the same cocktail of terror and shock on their faces. The visible anguish made me pity him, but before I could rectify the damage done by my unconscious spouting of expletives, he darted past me and disappeared up the stairs.

Strange.

20th July

This is a big gap between entries for me, but Kate called.

As she’s my daughter who I haven’t seen face-to-face for the last 2 years I guess a little processing time is OK.

As per usual, she was slurring.

“Hi dad, how’s Forgottensville?” Trying her best to mimic her 16-year-old self, even using the comic epithet we bestowed upon our hometown to great personal amusement.

“Fine darling, how are you?” Answered with the exasperation of a man who’s had this phone call too many times.

“Great…”

She took a beat. Working herself up for the inevitable question, trying to suppress the shame and self-loathing that perpetuates this cycle.

“Real great. How’s that little black book I gave you?”

Slightly choked up at the inquiry, I answer “Great. I’ve been writing in it every day.”

Another pause. Torture. My insides twist and my chest gets tighter. I want to say yes to everything she asks of me. All I want is to hide from reality under a pretence of joviality. To ignore the pain in her voice and agree wholeheartedly with the stories she tells me. She has got a good, busy job in New York, and that is why she can’t see me now.

The confused pretence-weaving begins “So I lent a friend some money the other day, and he-“

“Is this the same friend as last time?” I interject.

“No.” She absentmindedly reposts, her speech developing into a babble “So he wasn’t good for it, but I thought he was, and now I’ve lost more money than I thought I had before, so I was wondering if you’d cover my losses a little and lend me some money?”

“Kate…”

“Yeah, like not a lot just enough to get through the week, and then I’ll obviously pay you back really quickly.”

“Kate c’mon…”

“Dad, I’m good for it. I swear.”

Really choked up now, “You’re good, that’s true. To your core. But you’ve got a problem darling. Just come home Kate. Your mom would’ve wanted you home.”

This was met by a small whimper from the other side of the line. Then a crackle and long, slow beep. She’d hung up.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s the town. If we should’ve moved out long ago. I need her back, but who wants to return to Forgottensville?

23rd July

When it rains it pours.

The folks from GRS came to work with us today. Not out of the paternalistic concern of good bosses, but rather the inconvenient nuisance of politeness.

They’re making redundancies. They’re making me redundant. With not even as much as a ‘sorry you’re leaving’ card.

2 weeks of pay left to look for other options, then my ‘job-for-life’ has ended prematurely.

10th August

I wake up angry, I go to sleep angry.

There hasn’t been a working day of my life since 16 I haven’t been busy. Taking the chance to graft from me is to take my identity.

They’ve stripped me of my pride. Kicked me from working class to under class.

Giving me welfare papers isn’t you being a conscientious boss offering an olive branch. It’s mocking my ineffectuality. Sick fucking joke.

Our vertical neighbour’s just a nuisance now. This banging and whirring noise has started coming from his apartment. Incessant.

11th August

The heat is unbearable.

I’m trying to pass my time not thinking about the rejections I’m getting. Either too skilled or old for every job in the state.

The heat! Jesus.

And the noise. Still going. Two days in a row. Whirring and banging, banging and whirring.

12th August

I woke up drenched in sweat, my bright red bedsheets had turned a furious crimson.

The heat, the colour, the prospect of another empty day. It set me off. The whirring and banging hadn’t stopped, so I resolved to end it myself.

If I couldn’t help anything else shit in my life, I could at least deal with this. The one thing I could control.

I grabbed the baseball bat leant against my bedroom wall for quick-access protection, left my residence and began to climb the stairs. Only later did I realise I hadn’t changed from my nightwear – a socially-acceptable combination of a cheap football jersey and boxer shorts.

In this semi-conscious state, I marched up the stairs. Ranting and raving at my neighbour to “stop the fucking racket”, among other things.

I vaguely remember reaching his door and knocking it furiously to no reply, breaking down his door is a bit of a haze and I have disjointed memories of entering the property. What I saw after that is burned into my brain. Vividly outlined in horrendous colour.

Totally limp. His neck was a bruised purple, and his eyes were bulging.

A fan in the corner of the room had been on full blast and his suspended body had been thrust forward and back by its’ power. Repeatedly knocking into the cabinet in front of him. Whirring and banging.

My stomach fell and I rushed to his kitchen counter, grabbing a knife to cut him free.

His noose fell against my leg as I lowered his body to the ground. Life had long since left his body, the pulse had distantly faded.

Sitting back, shell-shocked, I ran my fingers through the coarse carpet beneath me to calm myself.

I’m not sure how much time passed, but the light had darkened slightly by the time I reached my senses again.

Noticing a closed briefcase that lay directly beneath where his body had been, I approached it. Taking and reading the crumpled paper that lay on its’ surface:

If you found me, I hope this can make up for everything.

I’m so sorry.

I unlocked and opened the briefcase. Shining, gleaming green greeted me.

Money. $20,000 to be exact.

“Sorry” – the apology at last when it was least needed.

This town had done this to him.

Life here isn’t made for the vulnerable, lonely or gentle.

It would’ve done the same to me.

Now I can repair, renew, refresh because of him.

I can get out of Forgottensville, West Virginia.

humanity
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About the Creator

George Devo

Always loved writing.

From Birmingham, Great Britain.

18 years old.

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