Week Fifteen
In the Forgotten Season, Chapter Two
The following is adapted from a memoir I've been writing about my childhood.
The main reason people travel to Sudbury, Ontario – and let me be perfectly clear here, there’s no reason for anyone to travel to Sudbury, Ontario – is to watch industrial rail cars dump molten slag down hills of black ash at night. The second reason to travel to Sudbury, Ontario is to see what was once the tallest freestanding smokestack in the world. The plumes of grey smoke that escaped from this Empire State Building-sized chimney produced acid rain far and wide across eastern Canada and the United States.
At the turn of the century, the discovery of nickel deposits in and around Sudbury resulted in the establishment of large-scale mining operations in the area. This caused an almost total loss of native-vegetation throughout the city, and the industries that popped up blackened the newly exposed rock formations with soot. If you’re seeking out Hell on Earth, one need not look farther than the charred landscape of Sudbury, Ontario.
In 1989, my parents took us to Sudbury for our family summer vacation.
With a few stops on either side, our family piled into my mother’s Peugeot and drove up to see Canada’s industrial wasteland firsthand. Other families went to Cape Cod, the Outerbanks, or Maine, but the Uhrynowski family needed to experience the fun and lung cancer cough-inducing side of Canada’s 24th largest city.
Our car trips always had a few prerequisites. Most importantly, Eric and I were not to cross the taped-off centerline of the car. I sat on the left, and Eric on the right. We’d fold down the armrest in the middle to ensure stray fists, boogers, or spit didn’t cross the threshold. Second, Eric insisted on listening, on eternal repeat, to Genesis’ crowning achievement in album creation, Invisible Touch. Third, we didn’t eat at rest stops. Individual ham and cheese sandwiches were made days before, placed in a cooler in the trunk, and handed out only when we stopped for gas. With those key items in place, we were free to get underway.
“She does a handstand an invisible touch it. She thinks she’s eaten and grabs right hold of your heart.”
“Those aren’t the lyrics,” Eric says an hour into our trip.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s saying,” I respond without an ounce of confidence.
“Phil Collins is singing about handstands?”
“Yeah, he even says ‘she has a built-in ability’ which is all about her gymnastic skills.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, you’re wrong.”
“So, what are the lyrics then?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s not about handstands.”
“Bite me.”
I get a look from my father in the rear-view mirror. Eric, out of sight of my parents, gives me the finger and laughs.
“Mom, Eric just gave me the finger!”
“Which one,” she says still reading her magazine from the passenger seat.
“The bad one,” I say, “The REALLY bad one.”
“Did not,” Eric says, sticking out his tongue, “You’re a liar.”
“Oh yeah? How about this.” And I reach across the DMZ, grab Eric’s still-extended finger, and bend it backwards. He screams like I just stabbed him in the heart.
“Hey, you two, quit it,” the magazine falls into my mom’s lap as she turns around with ignited eyes. “Adam, get on the other side of the line. Eric, stop giving your brother the finger.”
“Fine. Can you turn it up?” he says, “I don’t want to hear Adam singing the wrong words. Besides he sings like a girl.”
“Eric, be nice.”
Be nice? Be nice! With adrenalin pumping through my brain, everything slowed down. My head turned to the right, with the bones cracking in rhythm. I caught a glint of light off Eric’s eyes as they turned toward mine. I realized what I was about to do was dangerous. It won’t end well. But he drew first blood, and I needed to establish dominance in the backseat of this car. I needed to set the tone for the rest of the trip. I held up not one, but two fists, both clenched tightly. Slowly, deliberately, the middle fingers on both hands began to raise and I bit my lower lip in anger.
Eric’s mouth dropped open with incredulity. He pulled his arm back, smiled briefly, made a first, and punched me in the throat.
I felt the tears first. The shock of what just happened took seconds to calculate inside my brain, but my go-to-emotional defense system kicked in from the microsecond his hand made contact with my neck. I noticed the smile on Eric’s face which only added to the tears. From somewhere off in the distance, my mother’s voice sliced through the air and landed in our ears like a hawk descending upon two helpless salamanders.
“Do you even want to go on this trip!? We can turn this car around right now if you two don’t shape up.” The idea of not seeing glorious downtown Sudbury was, for a fleeting second, an actually possibility. For a brief second, the question hits home: do I even want to go on this trip?
“Eric, the tape is getting turned off. Adam, stop crying. We’re driving in silence for the next hour.”
“But he started it,” I pleaded.
“It doesn’t matter who started it, it matters who finished it,” and with that, my mom reminded us of a basic rule of fighting in the Uhrynowski family. All would be okay as long as you were the one to finish it.
“So I finished it, right mom? Because I hit him last?” Eric said, still smiling.
“No, I finished it because I didn’t hit you back,” I snapped back with an air of condescension, my tears quickly drying up.
“Both of you, be quiet. One hour.”
“Listen to your mother,” my father said, putting a death knell into the battle.
---
“You need to watch out. You’re probably going to be an alcoholic,” my mom said, flicking her cigarette ash into the ashtray in front of us. We were halfway between Niagara Falls and Sudbury at a roadside restaurant that more than likely had “shack” or “family” or “backyard” in the name, enjoying – for once – non-ham and cheese sandwiches.
“Why am I going to be an alcoholic?” I asked, not fully understanding who or what an alcoholic is.
“Because you have a small upper lip. People with small upper lips tend to become alcoholics.”
Eric laughed and pointed at me.
“Wait, is this true?” I asked with a relative amount of concern.
“Yes. Look at your grandmother. Small upper lip, loves vodka,” and she was right, my grandmother did have a small upper lip and she could definitely drink a vodka or nine.
My mother stubbed out her cigarette, its dying streams of smoke puttering out in the cool Ontario air. “It’s why I don’t drink. I don’t want to risk it. That sort of thing can really do damage to you and to your family.”
“So what should I do?” I asked, “Is there medicine for it?”
“No. You should never drink alcohol. Ever.”
This was the sort of scientific fact my mother was famous for stating. An often-misheard statement that she sold as fact. And it worked, for the most part. I didn’t touch alcohol throughout high school and most of college. I did, however, start drinking in my 20’s and have yet to develop anything close to bordering on an addiction.
“What about me?” Eric chimed in, “Am I going to be an alcoholic?”
“No, you’ll probably develop diabetes.”
---
“I don’t know, it just got stuck,” I said, “like I closed it and it won’t open back up,” we’d made it to Sudbury and things were not going well.
“Did you jiggle it, Peter?” which was my mom’s solution for everything.
“Yes Dane, I jiggled it. It won’t budge,” my dad was clearly reaching the end of his rope and we were only a few days into this trip.
“Well, what’s in there? Just our suitcases?”
“Nice going, Adam,” Eric was quick to identify blame.
“OK, let’s figure this out. When Adam closed the trunk it somehow locked. The key won’t open it, and there’s no access to the trunk via the backseat. Maybe we can use the automatic car locks?” my dad was stepping in with his even-tempered logic.
The main problem, aside from having zero access to our clothes, toiletries, and ham sandwiches, was that my parents had purchased a Peugeot – a notoriously shitty French car. Somehow, the lock cylinder failed when it slammed shut, resulting in a solidly secured trunk.
Attempts at using the automatic locks failed to rectify the situation. The Uhrynowski family, in a stale hotel parking lot, had no (fresh) clothes.
Off in the distance, the Sudbury smokestack puffed more soot into the air, creating a line of smog across the horizon. All four of us sat on a curb, watching the smoke travel across the sky in silence. My mother was frustrated. My dad was organizing potential solutions in his head. Eric blamed me. I ran over how and why it happened again and again in my head.
“Screw it. Let’s go to K-Mart,” my mom stood up, stubbed her burning cigarette out on the ground, and hopped in the passenger seat. I’d never been to a K-Mart. In fact, the term “K-Mart” was only mentioned in our suburban Connecticut family when we were describing something or someone of poor-quality. For example:
“This garden hose has a hole in it already, it’s totally K-Mart,” or, “He uses words like ‘ain’t’ and ‘y’all.’ He’s K-Mart.” I’m not proud of this. I’m sure my father cringed every time we said it. But it had entered and found a nice home in the vernacular of the Uhrynowski family.
But actually going into a K-Mart? Actually creating an informed opinion of the store and clientele we’d poked fun at all these years? This would be a first. And so, we piled into our disastrously built French sardine can on wheels with a locked trunk and found the closest Canadian K-Mart.
My mom grabbed three pairs of t-shirts, three pairs of socks, three pairs of underwear, and three pairs of shorts for each of us. The entire time, she held her head high and said not a word. We might not have our actual clothes, but we were going to maintain our dignity, even if that meant wearing knock-off clothing brands and polyester underpants.
That night, we drove out to the mining section just north of town. Still reeling from my mistake earlier, I figured this would be a good place for them to dump my body. Instead, we sat on the roof of the Peugeot and watched as a train slowly pulled up on the top of a low black ridge. One-by-one, the train cars – shaped like giant metal bowls – tipped over, pouring their bright red molten slag down on the heaps of black. As it flowed out, splashing down the side of the hill and sending sparks scattering into the wind, I looked at the faces of my family in their already-fraying new clothes. With their eyes glowing with wonder (or, let’s be honest, the burning remnants of smelting waste), smiles slowly rose on their faces. We’d come a long way to witness this moment, and we earned every second of it.
