the small breath-a soap opera begins

The snow fell on the family as they tramped through the night. Snow found a resting place on their frozen skin and hair, mile after mile, so by the time they reached the hotel near the town they were covered in winter. They might have spent the night at the small cottage on the farm where father worked as a groundskeeper, but they were on the run. A while ago he had written bad checks when the family had fallen into debt. Although he had written to his father for help, his only reply were the words that echoed from his childhood: "You'll never amount to anything. I'm always getting you out of scrapes. You're on your own from now on". With jail imminent, father jammed a chair against the hotel door and shot mother, the baby and himself through the head.

When the police broke the hotel door down, they found mother and father dead. The baby was taken to a homeopathic hospital where she died hours later. Curiously a letter was found in mother's coat pocket. It was from her brother, offering them train fare, but not stating to where.

When the town read about the murders/suicides in the local paper the next morning, they cursed the father and laid equal blame on the murdered mother. They likened the incident to one similar that had occurred on Christmas Eve two years earlier. Then a drunken farmer had taken a knife and slashed the necks of his family of five as they slept, from the oldest daughter to the youngest son in his crib, and then his wife, gouging deep into their flesh, never stopping until the blood of his entire family washed over his flesh and saturated his clothes, pooling into every fold of his denim overalls, dripping onto the floor and mixing with his own as he performed the finale of the massacre, the cutting his own throat.

By morning his corpse lay covered in thick, darkening clots. People just don't go mad, others would say. It must have been building up for a long time. They repeated that sentiment when speaking of the family who died at the hotel. They said that even if they had been going through bad times there was always an alternative, always someone to turn to, some institution, a way out. More than once someone brought up the letter found by police. What of that? Didn't the brother offer to help the family?

Yet, a few days later, when the family was buried in a section of the cemetery reserved for indigents, they were laid in unmarked graves because there were no funds for stones, only metal, ground-level plaques. For years afterward teenagers in the town partied in the area, getting drunk and invoking the spirits of the family. They had sex on their graves and kept the fond memories of such evenings long after they had become adults and entered into respectable professions.

This is Jumonville. Every story here, of life, death, hatred and love, eventually gets lost in the vividness other memories. Although all stories become one, they don't start out that way. For a moment there is hope of being remembered, being valued. I'll write what I know, what I remember from my life here, all of it, from the first small breath.

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