It wasn't that he fell, or that the fall killed him.  It was how he fell and where.  People in town still talked about it.

It did not escape anyone who knew him or his family, that his father died in a fall too.  Able Rose fell sixty feet, three floors, down an open elevator shaft at the Shakespeare Venetian Blind factory.  The factory was located in the center of town, along the river.  It was once the single largest employer in Shakespeare, Maine.

The building where the factory used to be was still along the Kennebec River that flowed through the center of town, but it was abandoned and boarded up, like every factory along the river.  Before the Shakespeare venetian blind factory, there were paper mills along the river.  Dozens of them.  Since the late 1800s, the smokestacks of the paper mills, looking like great, black cannons poised along the river bank, bombarded the small town, day and night, with clouds of smoke and ash.  So much lumber was turned into paper in the mills along the Kennebec River in Shakespeare, that the town became known as, The Town That Trees Built.  But most people called the place, Stinktown, because of the sickening smell of sulfuric acid that came from the mills.

When the paper mills closed, the venetian blind factory took over.  Then, it too, closed.  Now, there was nothing along the river, except rows of abandoned buildings and towering, cold smokestacks.

It was a cold day in February.  The town was at a standstill, covered in snow and ice.  Pipes were freezing, schools were closed and cars were buried in six foot snow drifts.  The factory was closed because none of the huge semi-trailer trucks could get in or out of the loading dock.  The hill, leading in and out of the loading dock, was a sheet of ice.

Able Rose walked to work through the snow wearing snowshoes.  Able wasn't afraid of a little snow.  During the war the had served in Norway.  Snowshoes were like second nature to him.

It was always his job to start the huge furnaces in the factory and he came there every day, six days a week, before sunrise, to get the pressure going in the huge cast iron boilers in the basement.

Able kept pretty much to himself.  He had no other choice.  He was always the first one at the factory each morning and no one was ever usually there before him.

This particular cold, icy, February morning was no different and he went about his business, stoking the coals, turning up the steam and checking the valves, as he had done for nearly twenty years.  When the phone rang, it startled him.  He couldn't think of anyone who might be calling.

"There's no heat up here on the third floor," the voice on the other end of the line said.

"Who's this?"  Able asked.

"Henry Pike."

Henry worked in shipping on the third floor.

"What the hell are you doing in here at this time?"  Able wanted to know.  "How'd you get in?"

"Drove," Henry said.  "Nothing better to do."

Henry always drove.

Able knew Henry.  They were old friends.  Henry was a widower.  He lived up the street from the factory with his grown daughter.

"I had some orders to go out," Henry said.  "Didn't know the trucks wouldn't be running."

"Icy," Able said.

"Not bad," Henry said.

"I'll come up and see what's wrong," Able said.

"Use the stairs," Henry told him.  "The elevator is broken.  Frozen solid."

"Ill take a look," Able said, and grabbed his tool box.

While he waited for Able, Henry left the shipping department and went down the corridor to see if there was any coffee left in the coffee machine.  It was a long hike up the stairs from the basement.  It would take Able a while.

Paul Rose was a twin.  His sister, Emily, and he did not look the least bit alike.  Paul had curly hair and white skin.  He looked, everyone said, like an angel.

Emily Rose had long black hair and her skin was olive, like her mother.  Paul looked more like his father, Able, although Able Rose did not have long curly hair.  Able was bald.  He always wore an old baseball cap and overalls from work.  Paul couldn't remember seeing is father wearing anything else.

Paul and Emily were not particularly close, despite being twins.  Emily did well in school, liked boys who drove fast cars and liked living in Shakespeare, where she had many friends and boyfriends.

Paul couldn't wait to get out of Shakespeare.  In the summer, Paul liked to wear sandals and always had a string of beads around his neck.

"How stupid is that," Emily said when she saw the beads.

Able Rose and Paul had grown distant over the years.  Able didn't understand his son.  He didn't like the music Paul listened to in his bedroom late at night and he didn't like Paul's long hair and beads and sandals.

"I think he should enlist," Able told his wife, when they talked about what Paul should do after high school.  "It will make a man out of him."

Constance Rose didn't want Paul to join the service.  She loved him just the way he was, even though she didn't understand him, lately.  He was still her beautiful angel boy.

Able was able to get Paul a job at the venetian blind factory the summer he graduated from high school.  Paul needed the money.  He wanted to go to Europe and travel.

Constance tried to get her son a job at the pharmacy in town, working part-time.  Constance's brother-in-law, Irwin Saltmarsh, owned the pharmacy.  Emma Saltmarsh was Constance's sister.  She and Emma were also twins, like Paul and Emily, and just like Paul and Emily, they did not look or act alike.  Emma was short and heavy.  Constance was tall and languid.  Emma had short, curly, auburn hair.  Constance had long, straight jet black hair like her daughter.  Emma had a rosy complexion.  Constance had olive skin.

There were other differences.  Emma said she once saw a ghost.  Constance didn't believe in ghosts.

"It's a stupid idea," Able told his wife.  "What's he want to travel for?  What's over there?"

"He wants to go to Italy.  To Anzio.  Where you served," Constance said.

"Anzio?"  Able said.

He hadn't thought about Anzio in years.  He fought in Italy during the war, before being sent to Norway.  Whenever anyone ever mentioned Italy, which they seldom did, but if they did, Able Rose would always say the same thing.

"I was almost killed over there during the war," he would say, tipping his baseball cap and then pulling it back tight over his ears as if to keep the memory of what happened from escaping.

If Able Rose hadn't accidentally slipped and fallen during an attack by German soldiers, he would have been killed.  Two of his army buddies were.

"If I had my boots on, I probably wouldn't have slipped," Able would say.  "I was barefoot, for some reason, and I slipped on something and fell into a ditch.  It saved my life."

"He should enlist if he wants to see the world," Able said to Constance.  "Like I did."

"And what," Constance said, "almost get killed?"

Paul Rose never fit in.  Not in high school.  And not in Shakespeare.  He only had one good friend, Max Coffin.  He and Max liked the same Grateful Dead music; liked the same books, Catcher in the Rye, especially, and played guitars.  They both liked to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and stay up late.  And they both had long hair, longer than almost anyone else in Shakespeare.  But most of all, Paul trusted Max.  Max could keep a secret.

"I don't ever want to end up in Shakespeare all my life," Paul said.

"Me neither," Max said.

"I don't want to end up like all of them," Paul said.  "Especially like my father."

"I don't want to end up like your father, either," Max laughed.  "Or mine."

"I never want to end up like them," Paul said.  "Never."

"What about your mother?  Max asked.  "She's nice."

"I don't ever want to stay here and become just like my father and have somebody nice like my mother marry me," Paul said.

Paul and Max liked to play practical jokes.

They once wrote a letter, under an assumed name, to the advice column in the local paper.

The Shakespeare weekly newspaper, The Bean Pot, was written by Barbara Bean.  Mrs.  Bean owned the old Roseland Ballroom in Shakespeare and published the weekly newspaper.  She also wrote an advice column in the paper.  It was called, "Ask Babs."

Paul and Max wrote a letter to "Ask Babs" that was published.  They both had a good laugh when the letter appeared in the newspaper.

I am a wanker.  I wank it every chance I get.  Sometimes I wank it first thing in the morning while looking at my bowl of oatmeal.  Do you think I should stop?  Or maybe just change hands.

I don't know what wanking means, but that oatmeal sure sounds good.  We all need lots of fiber.  I am not sure, but maybe you could do your "wanking" with both hands.  Good luck.

Paul went to work at the venetian blind factory the summer after he graduated from high school.  He worked for a time in the shipping department with Henry Pike.  Henry tried to teach Paul everything he knew about shipping.

"There's a lot of tricks I can show you," Henry told him.

Paul wasn't interested in learning any of Henry's tricks.  Besides, he had a few tricks of his own.  Paul couldn't wait to save enough money and get out of the factory and Shakespeare.

He was always late for work.  He hated punching the time clock upstairs in the shipping room each morning.

"They dock you a full hour if you're late fifteen minutes," Henry Pike warned him.

"Make sure you punch in and out on time," he said.

Paul came up with a trick of his own.  He figured out how to slip the cover off the time clock and set and re-set the time.  When he came in late, which was almost always, he secretly adjusted the time so that his time card was right on time.  When he left work early, which he also did, often, he did the same thing, making sure the time clock stamped him out with a full day's pay.

Several times, when Paul came in late or left early, Henry had to handle all the shipping by himself.  Sometimes Henry had to stay late or come in early to get the orders out.

When Paul was transferred out of the shipping department, Henry discovered what had been going on and fixed the time clock.

Paul was sent to work in the boiler room with his father.

"No time clock down here," Able told his son.  "I keep the time sheets for both of us.  We can come in together and leave together."

Paul worked at the factory straight through the summer and into the fall and winter.  He was scheduled to start the boilers in the factory the morning after the huge February snowstorm.  Everything in town was closed.  Paul slept late that morning.  He had saved up enough money to go to Europe and quit his job at the factory the week before.  He still hadn't told his father.  He would tell him later.  Instead, that morning, after the snowstorm, he told his father he was sick.

"I'll go then," Able said.  "Somebody has to do it."

Paul was still in bed when his father went out the front door with his snow shoes strapped onto his boots.

"What was he doing barefoot?"  the medical examiner asked.

Henry Pike was too upset to answer.  His hands shook.  He could barely speak.

It was Henry who found the body, lying at the bottom of the open elevator shaft.  Able Rose was sprawled at the bottom of the shaft, spread eagle, with no shoes on.  He had fallen three flights down the open shaft.  His neck was broken.

Later, the police found Able's shoes in the basement, near the boiler.  They were still strapped to the snow shoes he had worn into work that morning.  The straps were frozen solid.

"He probably couldn't get them off," the medical examiner said.

The medical examiner determined that Able slipped on the floor just outside the open elevator shaft and fell head first.  If he hadn't been barefoot, he might not have slipped.

Paul Rose didn't go to Italy, not after his father's accident.  He stayed in Shakespeare.  He couldn't stand to go back to work at the venetian blind factory, so his mother asked Emma if he could have a job at the pharmacy.

"What could I have him do?"  Irwin Saltmarsh asked.

"He's been through so much," Emma said.

"I don't know," Irwin said.  "You heard about all that business at the factory with the time clock.  And the letter he wrote to Barbara Bean.  He really embarrassed her."

"He's family," Emma said.

Despite his doubts, Irwin gave Paul a part-time job in the stock room.  A week after Paul began working at the small pharmacy, Irwin noticed some of his stock missing -- minor things -- a few packets of contraceptives, some packs of cigarettes, cough syrup, a few comics.  He never said anything to Paul or his mother, but he transferred Paul to the cash register where he could keep an eye on him.

After a few weeks, Paul announced to his uncle, "I'm going to Europe.  To Anzio."

"Your father served there," Irwin said.

"I know," Paul said.

"Did he ever tell you about how he was almost killed there during the war?"  Irwin asked.

Paul had heard the story hundreds of times.

"What about your mother?"  he asked.

"She's not going," Paul said.

A week after he left the pharmacy, Paul flew out of the Portland, Maine airport on his way to Italy, with Max.

Not many people knew it, but Constance Rose encouraged her son to go -- to get away from Shakespeare.  To travel and see the world.  Just as his father had done when he was Paul's age, except Able Rose had traveled to Europe as a soldier, during the war.  Still, Constance thought it would be good for Paul to get away.

"All I want is for you to be safe and happy," Constance told him.  "And eat right."

No one could have imagined that Constance, newly widowed since the accident at the factory, would have given Paul her blessing to go.

"How stupid is that," his twin sister Emily said when she heard Paul quit the pharmacy and was going to Italy with Max Coffin.

Constance, Emily, Uncle Irwin and Aunt Emma drove to the airport in Portland to see Paul and Max off.  Max's parents didn't come.  They were furious that Max wasn't going to college and had instead decided to go to Italy.

"What for?"  Max's father asked.

"What about school?"  his mother asked.

"I'll be back.  I'll have time.  I love you both," Max told them.

Max and his parents said their goodbyes in Shakespeare instead of at the airport.  Max's mother would not have been able to stand seeing her only son fly away like that.

"It's like they're both in the service," she told her husband.  "I can't stand it."

"My brother is never going to grow up," Emily told Mrs.  Coffin in the driveway as Max packed his suitcase into the trunk of the car.

"How stupid is that?"  Emily said.

Their plane landed in Rome and they traveled by foot along the Mediterranean coast, south, to Anzio.  Three days into their journey, they camped out under the stars in a small grove of date trees, not far from the town where Paul's father was stationed during the war.  Their camp was near the cliffs over-looking the Anzio coastline.  The cliff had to be one hundred feet of sheer rocks straight down.

"What is that?"  Max asked standing on the edge, pointing to something bobbing in the surf below.

Paul could make out something, but he was not quite sure what it was.

"Looks like a hand," Max said.  "There along the rocks.  Sticking up.  See it?"

Paul peered over the edge to get a better look.  It did look like there was a body or something washed up against the rocks.

"Maybe somebody fell over board in a ship wreck or something," Paul said.  "We'll go down tomorrow and check it out."

"Not me," Max said.  "You can go."

They slept that night under the stars in sleeping blankets side by side.  Max slept in his clothes.  Paul undressed.

"What are you gonna do when we go back?"  Max asked.

"Back where?"  Paul said.

"Back home.  After our money runs out over here," he said.  "I think my folks will make me go back to school."

"I'm never going back there," Paul said.

"We have to go back sometime," Max said.

"Never," Paul said.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, but I'm never going back there," Paul said.

Paul was the first to awake the next morning.  Max was still sleeping, curled inside his sleeping bag.  Paul crawled out of his sleeping bag.  It was a warm, cloudless day.

Barefoot and dressed only in his hiking shorts, Paul wandered down, alone, from the grove to the cliffs.  He could still see the body caught below on the rocks and surf.  He started to climb down the side of the cliff to get a closer look.

The telephone kept ringing.  It was the middle of the night.  Constance Rose was not sure what time it was.  She slipped out of bed, put on her bathrobe and went downstairs to get the phone.  Before going downstairs, she checked to see if Emily was home.  She was.

"Mrs.  Rose?  Constance Rose?"  the man on the other end of the line said.  "This is the American consulate in Italy."

Constance began to tremble.  She slid to the floor.  The telephone dropped from her hand.  Her screams woke Emily.

Max flew back, alone with the body.  There were some problems getting through Customs.  The body was in the water a long time and was barely recognizable.  Finally, Max was able to fly home to Shakespeare.

Emily Rose waited in the back seat, when the long procession of cars arrived at the cemetery.  Paul was being buried beside their father.

"How stupid is that,"' she thought, and began to cry.

Max never spoke to anyone about what had happened in Anzio.  Everyone wanted to forget about the accident.

Max spent as much time as he could with Constance, trying to comfort her.  He even dated Emily, for a little while, before he left for college.  He wrote, to Constance and Emily, for a time, from school, in Boston, but soon the letters stopped coming.

When he did come back home on semester breaks or summer vacations, he seldom stopped by to see either of them.  And he never went out to the grave site.  Constance went out there every day.

People in town still talked about it.  It wasn't that he fell, or that the fall killed him, it was how he fell and where, they said.

Five years passed before Max received even a postcard.

It was addressed, "Dear Wanker."

Author Bio

Jack Conway's work has appeared in, The Antioch Review, The Columbia Review, Yankee, The Land-Grant College Review, The Peregrine Literary Review, The Paumanok Review, The Norton Anthology of Light Verse, Nuvein Magazine, and The Encyclopedia of New England Culture, published by Yale University Press.   He is an instructor at the Sarah Doyle Fiction Writers' Workshop at Brown University, a former adjunct professor at Boston University and he is a member of The Poetry Society of America.