The Coalwood Way Read online

  I shook his hand and basked in his glow.

  BEING around Jake always gave me a sense of optimism. That night, I looked over my list of problems. Now that Jake had put me in a happier state of mind, the last item, Mom going to Myrtle Beach, could be pretty easily fixed, I thought. I resolved myself to it, prepared myself a little argument in my mind, and went looking for her. I found her at the kitchen table with a self-teaching real estate book. “Mom, here’s the situation,” I said cheerfully. “You’re right and I’m wrong— about everything. Therefore, I’ve decided I’ll help you with the Christmas Pageant.” I laid a big satisfied grin on her like ol’ Dr. Sonny had arrived with the cure.

  She looked up from her book and regarded me through narrowed eyes. “Didn’t you hear me when I said I was going to Myrtle Beach for Christmas?”

  It was exactly what I thought she’d say. It was time for part two of my argument. “Yes, ma’am, I sure did, but here’s the thing. You said you didn’t want to be remembered for losing the float contest and then not putting on the pageant. So, see, you can’t go to Myrtle Beach. You’ve got to put on the pageant. Just tell me what you want me to do first.”

  She shook her head. “When I said that, I meant it. But I’ve changed my mind. It’s too late.”

  “No, it’s not!” I exclaimed. My cocky grin evaporated. “Come on. Think up something for me to do. I’ll get right on it!”

  She tapped her book as I had done when she’d come up to my room asking for my help. “I’ll be in Myrtle Beach. If there’s a Christmas Pageant, I guess it will be put on by Cleo Mallett and her bunch.”

  She was referring to the new women’s organization in town. For some time, Mrs. Mallett had attempted to organize a rival club to the Coalwood Women’s Club but got few takers. After the Veterans Day float debacle, she saw her opening and announced the Coalwood Organization of Women was hereby established. Roy Lee was the first to note that its initials pretty much described its membership.

  My logical attack on Mom’s unhappy mood had been repulsed, so I did the only thing I could do. I launched an illogical counterattack. “Come on, Mom,” I said. “You can’t go to Myrtle Beach for Christmas. You just can’t!”

  “Oh, yes, I can,” she said firmly. “Anyway, why do you care if I’m here or not? You don’t much like Christmas. That’s what you said. Don’t you remember?”

  She had me there. I’d dug myself a hole and crawled right into it. My mom wasn’t above throwing a shovelful of dirt in behind me, either. I slunk off. I had been so confident, I’d already crossed Mom going to Myrtle Beach off my list. Now I had to add it again.

  MISS Riley called me up to her desk after physics class a couple of days after Jake returned. She waved my most recent test under my nose. It had a big red 86 circled on it. “You’ve got an A going in this class but you’re not going to keep it with this kind of work, Sonny. Why didn’t you do better?”

  “Because your test was too hard?” I guessed.

  Miss Riley leaned her head on her hand, out of fatigue or exasperation, I wasn’t sure. “Wrong answer. Because you didn’t study hard enough or studied the wrong thing. Look here.” She held up a test with a 96 in a circle. It was O’Dell’s. “You can do as well as O’Dell, of that I’m certain.”

  She hadn’t shown me Quentin’s test or Billy Rose’s, either. I figured they’d each made a hundred. I guess she didn’t want me aiming too high. “What did Sherman make?” I asked.

  “A ninety-eight.”

  “How about Roy Lee?”

  Miss Riley sighed. “You and Roy Lee have the same tendency to let your minds wander in class. You, I suspect, are dreaming of your rockets. Roy Lee’s mind doesn’t much travel past the first pretty girl it lights on. I also plan on having a little talk with him.”

  “I’ll do better.”

  “See that you do. Are you going to enter the science fair this spring?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Quentin says you’ve been loitering.” She eyed me speculatively. “That was his exact word. Loitering.”

  “I’ll work harder.”

  “I suggest you do if you want to go to Cape Canaveral.”

  “I’m going there, Miss Riley.”

  She smiled. “I hope you’ll have your old broken-down physics teacher come visit from time to time.” She was, at the time, all of twenty-one years old. She looked past me, out the windows where there was nothing but gray skies. “I’d like to walk on the beach, be in the sun a bit.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You’re invited anytime.”

  “I count on you, Sonny.” She held up my test again. “Do better. Work harder.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you want to see a present I got?”

  “Sure.”

  I showed her my book on the stars and planets. “Jake gave it to me. He’s back. He said to tell you hello.”

  She lifted her head and her eyes sparkled. “Did he now? Well, please give Mr. Mosby my regards and remind him that I suspect he still knows where I live.”

  I promised her that I would. She looked happier than I’d seen her in weeks.

  13

  JIM’S DECISION

  BIG CREEK’S PRINCIPAL, Mr. R. L. Turner, accosted me in the hall the day before Thanksgiving while I was on my way to class.

  “Wait up, Mr. Hickam,” he said from the door of his office. As he walked toward me, the sea of students in the hall parted like the Red Sea before Moses. “Did I hear correctly that you boys have recently put up a rocket as high as a mile?” he asked.

  Nervously, I considered my possible responses and lit on honesty. “That’s true, sir,” I said, one foot sliding down the hall in case I needed to make a run for it. “We did it last summer.”

  “And how did you measure the altitude of this device?” Mr. Turner asked dubiously, his eyes narrowing.

  “We used trigonometry, sir. We built two of what Quentin calls theodolites to determine the angles.”

  His eyebrows turned down into a V. “But you didn’t start trigonometry classes until this fall,” he pointed out.

  “We taught trig to ourselves,” I said. I barely managed to keep from sounding puffed up.

  Mr. Turner studied me for a period of time that seemed to last about a century. “I’m impressed by your tenacity,” he finally allowed, “even though you boys still strike me as little better than a demolition squad.” He pursed his lips. “Why don’t we visit for a minute in my office, hmm?”

  I followed, certain that I was doomed in some way. He sat at his desk but didn’t invite me to sit in one of his chairs. “What I want to know from you, Mr. Hickam, is why Billy Rose is quitting school and joining the navy?” I think my face told him my astonishment. “Mr. Rose is a member of your, ah, group, is he not?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” I stammered, “but I don’t know anything about this!”

  Frowning deeply, he drummed his fingers on his desk. “You know, Mr. Hickam, a man should take care to observe his friends lest they be needful.”

  I just stood there, trying to keep my mouth closed.

  “This is to go no further,” he said, pressing his index finger down on the desk to indicate he meant nowhere outside his office.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and left at his curt dismissal. That evening, I surreptitiously watched Billy sitting up front on the school bus. I ached to find out everything that he planned, but I was boxed in by my promise to Mr. Turner. He’d said not to talk to anybody about Billy quitting school, and I guessed that included Billy. I cast around for another way to satisfy my curiosity. Then I had it! I would talk to O’Dell. O’Dell was as close to Billy as anybody. He’d know all about Billy’s plans. And O’Dell could no more keep a secret than a cat in a sack. I’d figure out a way to steer the conversation to Billy with O’Dell and he’d tell me everything. I mentally patted myself on my back. I could get pretty clever when I had to. I figured to put Billy on my list that very night. I figured to, but the truth is I forgot.

  TO celebrate Than
ksgiving, the War Grade School class came and played Pilgrims and Indians for the Big Creek High School assembly. My former beloved Dorothy Plunk sat two rows down and three to the right of me. She was sporting a poodle skirt and a tight blue sweater with a white collar and was also wearing her hair in a new style, her usual ponytail traded in for a long Veronica Lake look. Her lipstick was a new shade of pink, too. Not that I noticed, of course. She looked over her shoulder when she sat down and gave me a friendly smile. I studied the air above her. She tried to catch my eye again when we all stood to sing “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” but I pretended I was too busy singing to pay any note. I thought it was interesting that we had stolen the music from England’s “God Save the Queen” for our own patriotic hymn, so I sang extra loud. If Dorothy heard me, I guess I couldn’t help it. “Gol, boy,” O’Dell, who was sitting beside me, complained. “You couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.” Then he said, “You want to come ride the ponies this weekend?” O’Dell was talking about the ponies his dad kept in the barn behind their house. I agreed. It would also give me a chance to ask him about Billy.

  After the program, I watched Dorothy out of the corner of my eye as a couple of boys escorted her up the aisle. She gaily chatted with them, then giggled when one of them whispered something in her ear. I figured she would have laughed harder if she hadn’t been so worried about me ignoring her. Roy Lee caught me at it. “Mooning over Dorothy,” he accused, clucking his tongue. Then he said, “Melba June Monroe.”

  Roy Lee pointed her out as she went up the aisle, her bottom sashaying within a tight navy-blue skirt. She had lots of curves, all in the right places, and she was fine, indeed. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Sonny, there are girls and then there are girls. But that girl there is a woman! Don’t ever get them confused. A woman can teach you things you can’t even imagine.”

  I admired Melba June a little longer, and he nodded approvingly. “She’ll go with you to the Christmas Formal if you ask her.”

  “How do you know?”

  Roy Lee leaned in close. “Because I’m the Big Creek lovemaster, boy. Do I have to keep explaining that to you?”

  I spotted Ginger going up the aisle. She gave me a shy smile and said “hi” with her lips, then kept on going. I made up my mind. “Well, Mr. Big Creek lovemaster, I thank you for all your help but I’m going to ask Ginger to the Christmas Formal and that’s it.”

  Roy Lee let out a long, exasperated breath. “Why I even bother with you is beyond me.”

  “Well, it’s beyond me, too, Roy Lee,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’m telling you those Cape Canaveral women are going to put you through the grinder. Melba June is the only chance you’ve got to practice up.”

  I ignored him and wormed my way through the other students to catch up with Ginger. When I couldn’t find her, I figured to see her on the school bus. To my disappointment, she wasn’t there. I squirmed my way through the other students so I could sit beside Betty Jane Laphew, one of Ginger’s sophomore friends. About halfway across War Mountain, I finally got up the nerve to ask her why Ginger wasn’t on the bus. “She’s going with her mother to New York,” Betty Jane said. “She’s visiting Juilliard’s.” When I looked blank, she said, “The music school. She’s thinking about going there.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed that I had missed her and that she was going to be gone for so long.

  Betty Jane appraised me. My disappointment must have been transparent because she said, “Cheer up. Ginger likes you.”

  “She does?”

  “Well, I definitely remember just the other day she said she thought you were pretty cute. Do you like her?”

  Betty Jane had put the question to me plain and simple. Whatever I said in reply, no matter what it was, would get back to Ginger the next time the two girls were together. I was trapped. The answer I wanted to give stuck in my throat. “She’s okay,” I said, shrugging with feigned disinterest.

  “She’ll be thrilled to hear of your high opinion,” Betty Jane said sarcastically, and left it at that. I felt pretty much like a flat tire.

  WHEN I got home, I discovered my brother Jim was there, come home from college. I spied his bulk as soon as I came through the front gate, mainly because he was standing at the glass storm door and had to move out of the way to let me through. We didn’t speak, just gave each other the eye. I thought he looked tired. When I got to the top of the steps, I turned around, having thought of a zinger to aim at him. I was far enough away to keep him from grabbing me. “So what’s it like to be a Hokie?” I was going to ask, that being the nickname for students at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute where Jim had gone to play football. It was a funny name and I figured to get a rise out of him about it. But I never asked my question because all of a sudden I was worried about him. I didn’t know why but I was. There was something not right about him. He kept staring through the storm door. There wasn’t anything to see outside except the street and the mountain that rose above it. He seemed to be just soaking Coalwood in. Then I dismissed the idea. He was a college boy, gone to the great world beyond. Why would he care about this old place?

  That night, Jim borrowed the Buick, bound for an unknown destination and an unknown purpose. At least, they were unknown to me. I suppose he had confided his plans to Mom. As always, he was splendidly dressed. His pants were draped and pegged, his shirt crisp, pressed, and pink, his sweater white, fluffy, and cashmere. His penny loafers gleamed. I could smell the cologne on him as he went past my room after a considerable time in the bathroom. I figured he had himself a new girlfriend. Curious as to where he was headed, I looked through my room window and watched him drive the Buick past the tipple, heading toward Coalwood Mountain. There were a lot of towns on the other side of that mountain, any of which could contain a new girlfriend for Jim. I tried not to be jealous but I was. I just couldn’t figure out why Jim had such an easy time with the girls. True, he was a smooth talker, and he usually had a little money in his pocket. He also had ready access to a car and dressed better than Elvis Presley. He was also handsome, in a square-jawed, blond-haired, blue-eyed sort of way, and I guess it was fair to say he had himself a pretty bright future with his college scholarship and all. Otherwise, I couldn’t imagine the attraction.

  While I was puzzling over Jim, I saw Dad coming down the path from the mine. By the way he had his shoulders hunched, I could tell he wasn’t happy. As soon as he got home, he looked for Mom, finding her on the Captain’s porch with her real estate book. I came down the steps to hear what he had to say. Orders had come from the steel company to cut off twelve men, he told her, and he had done it as always, calling the chosen men aside as they came off the lift after their shift. Dad was a bit shaken by what had happened. One of the men, he said, had cried. “I never had a man cry on me before, Elsie,” he said plaintively. “He told me about his baby. What was I supposed to do about his baby?”

  Mom listened, but there was little she could say and nothing she could do. A dozen more Coalwood men and their families were without jobs on this, our Thanksgiving Day.

  JIM ate Thanksgiving dinner like he’d been starving for a month. Mom wasn’t known for her fine cooking skills. In fact, if I’d made a list of the best cooks in town, Mom wouldn’t have even been in the top ten. Sherman’s mom would have been number one. Not that Mom wasn’t pretty good at the basics—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, potato cakes, pork chops, brown beans, biscuits, and corn bread. And she didn’t do too bad with the turkey she fixed every Thanksgiving, either. Jim devoured everything he could reach. Mom kept sliding the dishes and bowls in his direction.

  We were eating at Mom’s prized cherry wood dining room table. Jim and I had had a fight a few years before and had used one of her chairs to hit each other until we’d managed to break off a leg. We had glued it back, and as far as I knew, Mom never found out. I picked that chair as I always did when we ate in the dining room at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I eased myself in and out of it, t
esting its strength. Mom looked at me one time and said, “You’d think you were glued to that chair or something, Sonny.” I was not certain if that meant she knew of its past or not, but I made no response. Red Carroll used to say never wake a dog up unless you wanted to get bit.

  Mom had set a good table, putting on a lacy tablecloth and cloth napkins. She’d gotten out the real silverware (a carving knife had a navy insignia on it, I noted) and the fancy china that usually hid in the hutch cabinet. When she was getting the finery out, she discovered Chipper had chewed a hole in the base of the cabinet and used her prized mahogany napkin rings for teething rings. She went down in her mouth when she saw them. “Poor little boy,” she said, holding the mangled rings in her hand. “He had to work so hard to keep his teeth pared down.”

  “But you loved those napkin rings,” I said.

  “This is Chipper I’m talking about,” she answered forlornly. “You know, my squirrel you killed.”

  “Roy Lee let him out.”

  “It was your responsibility.”

  She had me there.

  She had cooked a good turkey, too, although she had to use her old oven when her new turkey roaster had failed her, not even coming on when she plugged it in. Of course, I knew the reason for that was because its electrical guts were down at Cape Coalwood in our rocket-ignition system. She didn’t ask me about it, so I just played dumb. Did failure to volunteer information count as a lie? I didn’t think it did even though I wouldn’t have wanted to put that question to a preacher. It was my experience that preachers could get snagged on the details and miss the big picture entirely.

  I watched Jim out of the corner of my eye, astonished at the amount of food he was packing away. There was something strange going on with him, but I couldn’t imagine what it might be. During Jim’s years in high school, the supper-table conversation was usually dominated by Dad and Jim talking football. Dad kept looking Jim’s way but kept his peace. Finally, unable to stand the silence a moment longer, I lobbed in a question, figuring to stir things up. “So are you going to be on first string next year?” I asked Jim, as innocently as you please.