Riot (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage) Read online

  RIOT

  Also by Mary Casanova

  Published by the University of Minnesota Press

  Frozen

  Moose Tracks

  Wolf Shadows

  Curse of a Winter Moon

  RIOT

  MARY CASANOVA

  For my parents, who demonstrate love through

  their words and deeds,

  and for Bill Elliot and the law-enforcement

  officers who braved the storm

  The Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series

  Funded by the John K. and Elsie Lampert Fesler Fund and Elizabeth and the

  late David Fesler, the Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series publishes

  significant books that contribute to an understanding and appreciation

  of Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.

  Originally published in 1996 by Hyperion Books for Children

  First University of Minnesota Press edition, 2014

  Copyright 1996 by Mary Casanova

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

  a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written

  permission of the publisher.

  Published by the University of Minnesota Press

  111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290

  Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520

  http://www.upress.umn.edu

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Casanova, Mary.

  Riot / Mary Casanova. – First University of Minnesota Press ed.

  (The Fesler-Lampert Minnesota heritage book series)

  Summary: When his father engages in vandalism against nonunion

  employees, Bryan, a sixth grader, must decide whether to accept his father’s

  actions or do what he believes is right.

  ISBN 978-0-8166-9209-5 (pb: alk. paper)

  [1. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 2. Labor disputes—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C266Ri 2013

  [Fic] —dc23

  2013039467

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

  21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This story, a work of fiction, is based on events that the author experienced in International Falls, Minnesota, on September 9, 1989, when a labor dispute erupted in a riot, gaining national media attention. Fifty-eight arrests were made after the riot, resulting in misdemeanor and felony charges.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Weeds poke up through the gravel-covered field, and the rows of yellow mobile homes are gone. It’s been a year since everything broke loose, since black clouds of putrid smoke chugged into the sky, defying the efforts of firefighters. I bike here often, turning it all over in my mind, replaying the events like a videotape, forcing myself to remember. Remembering helps me to understand—not only what happened to our town, but to me.

  After Communion, Bryan Grant folded his hands casually—a sixth grader couldn’t look too serious—and walked back to the third pew, where his family sat every Sunday.

  Nearing the scrolled edge of the wooden pew, Bryan felt a warm hand on his shoulder. He looked behind. It was Dad, biceps outlined beneath his denim shirt, sleeves rolled up, jaw clenched. With a slight sideways nod, Dad signaled toward the back of the church.

  Bryan glanced at the empty foyer. Why would Dad want him to leave early?

  Mom sat in the pew, her blue dress skimming her knees, with the seven-year-old twins, Josh and Elissa. She tapped the space beside her, signaling Bryan to sit.

  He hated when his parents did this, pulling him in two directions. All summer long, it seemed he couldn’t please one without upsetting the other.

  The sound of shuffling feet blended with the choir’s music, “Those who trust in the Lord will gain new strength, they will rise on the wind like the eagle.…”

  Bryan hesitated a moment. Then deliberately avoiding his mother’s eyes, he followed Dad down the side aisle toward the red exit sign. The church was packed with locals, tourists, and nonunion workers. With each step, heads turned.

  Bryan’s face grew hot. Why should he feel embarrassed? After all, he was just doing what his dad wanted.

  At the back of the church, kneeling at the end of the last pew, one girl caught his attention. He’d never seen her before. She glanced up at him—long chestnut hair, peach-colored skin, and hazel eyes flecked gold—and smiled.

  A smile like a whisper only he could hear.

  Then, quickly, she looked away.

  Bryan stopped breathing. A rush of tingling warmth climbed to his neck and face, and then he passed by. He’d probably stared a second too long and made a fool of himself. Girls didn’t do much for him, not the way they did to Kyle. But this girl … she was … well, perfect. And she’d smiled right at him. And he hadn’t even tried to smile back. What an idiot! Slowing his step, he glanced up at the vaulted ceiling. Who was she? Please God, let her be in my class Wednesday.

  Dad nudged Bryan’s shoulder from behind, passed ahead of him through the double wooden doors, and stormed down the stone slab steps.

  Sliding his hands deep in his pockets, Bryan followed his father toward the parking lot. It was September 3, and the sun shone high in the sky, summertime hot. Under Bryan’s white T-shirt, a bead of sweat stole down his back and stopped at his Levi’s.

  He trailed Dad through the parking lot to Mom’s red minivan, which she had insisted they take to church. She’d bought it for her long drives to Bemidji to complete her teaching degree—although now she taught in town. The pickup suited Dad better.

  “Hop in,” Dad said, his voice strained.

  Bryan jumped in on the passenger side and closed the door. Had he done something wrong? What was going on, anyway? The warm air hung between them. Bryan cranked down the window.

  He glanced at the passenger mirror, at his slate-green eyes and the few light freckles across his nose. His auburn hair was darker than the girl’s, more like the crayon color “burnt sienna.” If he had to name her hair, he’d call it apricot. He ran his forefinger back and forth above his upper lip. Before long, he’d probably feel stubble growing, but not yet.

  “We have a few minutes before church lets out,” Dad said, stroking his short, dark mustache.

  “Yeah?” Bryan waited for an explanation.

  “I just couldn’t sit there,” Dad said, shoving the key into the ignition, “and watch those rats file up for Communion in my church. Isn’t it enough that they take away our jobs?”

  “Rat” was the name for anyone who worked for Badgett Construction, the nonunion contractor chosen by Gold Paper Portage to build the new paper-machine project. Mom hated the word “rat,” but then as a teacher, she was ultrasensitive to any name-calling. She shook her head at lots of Great-grandpa Howie’s words, too. Grandpa talked about how he used to have nightmares of getting wrapped up in the old plant’s paper rollers. Now the new machine, costing some $535 million, would stretch more than a couple of city blocks. Incredible.

  “Where are we going?” Bryan asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Was the girl a rat? Were her parents “scabs,” here to build the new paper machine and then move on to another town? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably just tourists from Chicago or Iowa, coming north for a week of fishing on Rainy Lake.

  As Dad gunned the engine, the van spewed gravel and Bryan jolted back in his seat.

  “Thing
s are going to start changin’, Bry.” Dad gripped the wheel with both hands and zipped past the library and the courthouse. “When school starts, you stay away from those rats, okay?” There was an edge to his voice.

  “Why?” Bryan asked.

  “They’re dangerous, that’s why. Most of them carry knives in their boots—and they’ll use them, too.” He glanced at Bryan. “Comes from living on the road so much, going from job to job like nomads.”

  Bryan tried to picture knife fights breaking out at his elementary school. Maybe that could happen in New York, but not in northern Minnesota, not in Blue Ash.

  They turned the corner, past the enormous statue of Smokey Bear, and headed toward the paper mill. Dwarfing the downtown, the mill sat on the edge of Rainy River next to the dam where, a hundred years earlier, a waterfall had flowed. The paper mill spouted steam and smoke into the blue cloudless sky. Though the air in town didn’t always smell bad, today it stunk.

  “Smells like a ripe outhouse,” Bryan said.

  “That’s what money smells like,” Dad answered, repeating the common refrain.

  One block north of Main Street, against the towering blue backdrop of the mill, a few dozen men carried white picket signs. One sign showed a black rat in the center of a circle with a diagonal line slashed across it. Others read: BADGETT—NO WAY! SCABS ARE A DISEASE, AND RATS GO HOME!

  Dad leaned out the window. “Hey!”

  “Coming to join us, Stan?” one guy yelled.

  “Bring some coffee?” said another.

  “Coffee?” someone shouted. “How about beer?” Laughter followed.

  Clustered together, the men wore caps, T-shirts, and jeans. Some were white-haired; others were younger than Bryan’s dad.

  “Just stopping for a minute,” Dad said. “Well? What have you heard?”

  The men looked at one another. A short, pudgy man with a Twins T-shirt shrugged. He stepped up to the van, put his speckled hand on Dad’s arm, and, his eyebrows wiggling like black and white caterpillars over his nose, glanced over at Bryan. The man lowered his voice.

  “It’s going to happen, Stan,” he said. “Are you with us?”

  “You bet I am!” Dad said. He swore. “Think I’m going to let those rats take away our jobs without a fight?”

  Bryan looked out his window toward the city tennis courts. Dad didn’t usually swear—only a few times, when he’d hit his thumb with a hammer. What was going to happen?

  “Do you have a plan yet?” Dad asked.

  Bryan glanced back.

  The man raised his eyebrows. He forced a smile at Bryan, but his eyes were somber. “Later, Stan. We better talk later.”

  Dad threw open the car door, hopped out, and slapped the man on the back. “I think we better talk now.”

  The two men joined the picketers. Bryan watched Dad blend with the crowd. The morning sun fell on his shaggy dark hair; he’d been on the lines every day all summer and hadn’t had time to trim it. Dad wasn’t a quitter.

  Bryan remembered Dad’s words in the arena locker room, before he’d coached the Squirts to their hockey tournament win last season. “Don’t hold back because you’re afraid,” Dad had said, “or you’ll get hurt out there.” He scanned the room and his thread-line scar, which ran from above his right eye to the top of his cheekbone, like a hero’s medal, emphasized his point. Dad knew what it was to push hard. He had looked every boy in the eye, especially his top players, Bryan and Kyle. “Skate hard! Do your best! And save your fear for after the game.”

  Sitting up straighter, Bryan crossed his arms over his chest. This labor dispute was like a tournament game, only it wasn’t over winning a shiny gold trophy, it was over jobs.

  “Rats,” Bryan said under his breath, “ruining our whole town!” It felt good to say it. It made him feel like he was standing right alongside Dad, fighting the fight with him, even if he didn’t fully understand the battle.

  By the time Dad climbed back in the van and they pulled up to the church, the parking lot was empty. Mom was sitting on the cement entry steps, waiting with the blond-haired twins.

  She wasn’t smiling.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The twins rode in the middle seat and Bryan sat in back, his arms stretched across the crimson seat. As they approached the driveway, Mom pushed the garage-door opener that was clipped to the visor. She shook her head. “Stan,” she said, “I don’t like what’s going on.”

  In the visor mirror, her eyes caught Bryan’s for an instant, holding him, as if she needed him for support. Bryan looked out his window and pretended to study the neighbor’s lawn. The van pulled up the sloped driveway.

  Inside the garage, Dad turned off the key. He sat there while the twins unbuckled. “Nobody likes what’s going on, Meg,” he said. “Nobody.”

  “Let’s keep our family out of it,” Mom whispered. “Please.”

  Bryan, glad to escape, hopped out of the minivan. He stepped out of the garage to the backyard and climbed into the woven hammock under the willow tree, its long, slender leaves a canopy of flickering green. The minute he closed his eyes, Gretsky, his gray miniature schnauzer, pushed his black nose through the mesh hammock and licked Bryan’s arm.

  “C’mon up,” Bryan said and hoisted Gretsky’s sixteen pounds up beside him.

  The garden hose swooshed as Dad pulled it across the grass toward the blue spruce saplings bordering the yard.

  Bryan tried to relax, but he couldn’t. Something beyond his understanding was brewing, both with the strikers and between his parents. It was as though he were watching storm clouds form on the edge of the horizon.

  Squinting, he glanced up through the leaves. The sky was perfectly blue. Almost as perfect as that girl’s smile.

  “Bry,” Dad called. “The hose is all tangled. Would you please give me a hand?”

  “Sure.” Bryan climbed out of the hammock, set Gretsky down, and straightened the twisted hose.

  Then he crossed the lawn and deck to the sliding doors and stepped inside the house, his dog following. He sat down at the piano. The smell of lunch floated from the kitchen into the living room. Bryan could almost taste Mom’s grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.

  Striking only the white keys, he played a progression of slow chords—C, A, F, and G—with his left hand. Deep notes, almost like an electric bass guitar. He thought of going to the beach later with Kyle and of the girl’s apricot hair, and his tempo quickened. He added a right-hand melody, making up a tune as he went.

  The glass door from the deck slid open. “Am I the only one who works around here?” Dad’s voice was stern.

  Bryan stilled his hands on the keys. His stomach tightened. He hated the way he cowered at his dad’s voice, almost like a puppy with its tail between its legs. Maybe with time, as he grew older, he’d be able to hold his own.

  “Stan,” Mom called from the kitchen. “It’s Sunday. There really isn’t much to do right now. The table’s already set, and I was enjoying Bryan’s music.”

  From the corner of his eye, Bryan watched Dad walk around the cutting block in the center of the kitchen, pause, and slip his arm around Mom’s waist, which was bare between her gray aerobics shorts and cropped top.

  Bryan pretended to be invisible.

  Dad kissed Mom on the cheek.

  “Stan, maybe you should start exercising,” she said. Since she’d started working out, she had made it her job to get everybody in shape. “It might help you feel better … get rid of some of that tension.”

  “No time,” he said and headed back outside. “Besides,” he added through the screen door, “I’m already a Greek god.” He laughed and turned away.

  Mom smiled. “You’re impossible.”

  Bryan exhaled deeply, his shoulders relaxed. He looked at Gretsky, flopped lifeless on the green couch, paws toward the ceiling. He certainly didn’t have to worry about labor disputes.

  “Go ahead. Keep playing,” Mom said to Bryan. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “Don’
t worry about Dad. He’s just tense right now.”

  “Nah,” Bryan answered, standing up. “I don’t feel like it anymore.”

  He kneeled next to the couch and stroked Gretsky’s clipped coat and head, his soft, shaggy underbelly. The dog groaned contentedly and licked Bryan’s hand with his pink tongue. Imitating his dad’s voice, Bryan whispered in Gretsky’s ear, “Don’t you ever work around here?”

  Then he rose and walked to the end of the hall where he shared a bedroom with Josh. He climbed the ladder to the top bunk, straightened the blue and green star quilt grandma Effie had made last Christmas, and climbed down. He tossed his basketball into the closet and picked up Josh’s Lego blocks from the floor. At least Dad couldn’t complain about his room.

  Straddling the stool next to the long table at the window, he looked outside at the wooden playset that Dad had made. Josh swung slowly from rung to rung like a sloth. Elissa was on the ground, sticking leaves and twigs into the top of a sand mound.

  Next to the cedar fence, where the marigolds were fiery gold, yellow, and orange, Dad was digging up weeds and tossing them over his shoulder into a withered heap on the lawn.

  Bryan hooked his heels on the stool and watched his father. How could he, a twelve year old, help? Maybe there was a way. He reached for the blue and white ceramic jar he’d made a month ago at College for Kids, pulled out a pen, and rolled it between his fingers. He ripped out a sheet of notebook paper, then wrote:

  Dear Editor,

  My dad is an electrician and a very hard worker. He’s a union worker and should get the work to build the new paper machine. My dad doesn’t want to leave town to find work! I say, no way to Badgett Construction!

  Sincerely,

  Bryan Grant

  He reread his letter, then added after his name, “Sixth Grader.”

  After lunch, with a towel draped around his neck, a Hornets cap snugged backward over his hair, and a blue backpack over his shoulders, Bryan rolled down his driveway on his ten-speed and glided half a block to a small cedar-sided house.

  Kyle Kalowski stepped out the front door and saluted. He was taller than Bryan by a couple of inches, with wider shoulders and blond tangled hair. “Hi, Bry! I’m coming.”