The Coalwood Way Read online

  I tore my eyes away, and my drumming sped up unilaterally. I needed to get away from what I had seen. It was just too awful. The other drummers, the entire band, strained to catch up with me. We were almost running before Mr. Polascik’s screams at me to slow down finally penetrated my skull. By then, we were past Harry Truman and the judging stand. We stopped at the Pocahontas theater and to the clickety-clack of our sticks on the rims of our drums, my drummers and I cadenced the band inside. We marched up into the balcony and stood in the back. That’s when it sank in. Coalwood, for the first time ever, was going to lose the Veterans Day float competition, and my mom, and probably my dad, too, was going to get the blame for it.

  I kept thinking about what I’d seen in Mom’s eyes as the speakers came up on the stage and made their various pronouncements. A Presbyterian preacher gave the invocation. After that, we played the National Anthem while the audience turned and faced the American Legion color guard and sang the words. The old theater’s roof could have lifted up and turned around, everybody sang so hard. Then we said the Pledge of Allegiance, and Sonny Pruett, Big Creek’s lead trumpet player, played Taps as sweetly as ever anybody had done it. Then the mayor of Welch spoke briefly, followed by a chorus from Welch High School singing a medley of songs including the West Virginia official song, “Those West Virginia Hills.” Sam Solins, a Welch businessman and, according to my dad, a “bigwig Democrat,” introduced the former president, and the great man himself stood up and walked to the microphone. He looked about a foot shorter than everybody else onstage, but he strutted to the mike like a banty rooster set loose in the hen house. He only spoke for a few minutes, his reedy voice not entirely pleasant to listen to. I tried to pay attention to what he had to say, but my mind kept wandering back to Mom and the dismal scene of the Coalwood float.

  The bus took us back to Big Creek High. I made sure the drums were all put away and helped everybody else clean up their instruments. Then I hitched my way home. When I arrived, I noticed that the Buick hadn’t been put in the garage. In fact, it seemed parked at an odd angle, as if Mom had started to put it in and lost interest.

  I found her peeling potatoes over the kitchen sink. It looked like she was peeling them pretty hard, as much potato going into the sink as peel. I briefly thought of saying something to her about how pretty I thought the float had been, but then thought better of it. Mom was clearly not in a mood for any foolishness out of me. I went to my room and closed the door. Mom called me down for supper later but she didn’t eat, retreating instead with Chipper to the Captain’s porch, so called because Captain Laird had originally added it to the house to face the mine. Soon after we moved in, Mom had gotten Dad to send down the mine carpenters to enclose it and put in some Florida windows. The sun kept it warm, even in winter. She liked sitting out there but I don’t know if she cared much for the view. When I walked past and glanced at her, she was just staring straight ahead. She was waiting for Dad, I figured. I was in my bed when, around midnight, I heard him come home. There wasn’t any yelling, but whatever Mom had to say didn’t take long. I heard her come upstairs and go into her room. Dad came afterward. His footsteps on the stairs were slow, as if he was climbing a steep mountain.

  8

  A ROCKET KIND OF DAY

  MELANCHOLY SEEMED TO settle over Coalwood like a layer of brooding clouds. Even the air seemed to have weight. People walked around as if they wore lead boots. It wasn’t fair! Coalwood had the best float! The Welch and Gary floats had tied for first prize but they didn’t belong on the same street as the Coalwood float. The Welch float was a big fat guy dressed up like Henry the VIII with a sash that said—what else—Old King Coal with the Welch High School Maroon Wave cheerleaders sitting on his lap. The Gary float, sponsored by the UMWA, had miners lounging around under a banner that said THE SACRED RIGHT TO STRIKE. (When Dad saw a photograph of it in the Welch Daily News, he wondered aloud if they had the sacred right to starve, too.) But since the Coalwood float never crossed in front of President Truman and the judges, it was ruled that it was ineligible, no matter how superb the design or accomplished the craftsmanship or splendid the uniforms of the boys.

  Mom took full responsibility for the failure but sent the message down the fence line that, to make up for it, she was going to make sure the Women’s Club’s 1959 Coalwood Christmas Pageant was the best one anyone ever saw. The fence roared back with anger and disdain. It was more than the truck breaking down. My mom had overreached herself, made the whole thing too complicated. If it hadn’t been the truck, it would have been something else. What did she think she was, an artist or something? And what was she talking about, this grand Christmas Pageant? Elsie Hickam needed to remember who she was—a girl from Gary (it was also noted sharply that she’d actually been born in the dreary, dilapidated coal camp of Wilco), not some hoity-toity general superintendent’s wife out of Ohio.

  Dad came in for his share of criticism as well. Wasn’t Homer Hickam, after all, just a common miner raised up by Captain Laird? Why, the man wasn’t even an engineer. Those Hickams needed to be pulled down a peg or two where they belonged!

  I heard the fence-line buzz on the school bus from Roy Lee, who’d heard it from his mother. “Gossipy idiots,” he concluded. “My mom told them to mind their own business.” I shrugged. My family had been raked over the coals by the fence before. There was hardly a family in town that hadn’t felt its bite, one time or another.

  I went to Mom and reported what I’d heard. She was doing the laundry at the time. She poured in the detergent and closed the washing machine hatch. “It’s Cleo Mallett who’s spreading most of the poison,” she said. “She’s a ridiculous woman and everybody knows it. Don’t concern yourself.”

  “What did Dad say about the truck breaking down?” I wondered.

  She shrugged. “What could he say? He should have gotten us a better truck. That’s it.”

  “But we lost!” I blurted.

  She eyed me carefully. “No, Sonny, we didn’t lose. I lost. It was my responsibility and I didn’t come through. I’m sorry about it but I can’t change it. Spilled milk. End of story.” She started to fold the laundry. “But we’re going to do better with the Christmas Pageant, aren’t we?”

  My reply just popped out of me. “I don’t want to work on the Christmas Pageant, Mom.”

  “Now look, Sonny . . .”

  “I just don’t care anything about Christmas anymore.” This was like poking a hornet’s nest with a stick. I knew what was going to happen, but I still couldn’t keep myself from doing it.

  “Hold out your hands,” she said. I did as I was told, and she started stacking folded towels on them. “Now you listen to me, young man. Christmas is the best time of the year and you will help me on the pageant. Do you understand?”

  I understood very well so I properly “yes ma’amed” her but, before I could stop myself, I thought: I hope the blamed thing gets canceled. It was a mean, nasty thing to hope for but that was the way I felt. I even knew why. Mom had forced me to be with Dad and Poppy last Christmas, and I was still mad about it. I wanted my revenge, and if it took cutting off my own nose, and my mother’s too, to spite my face, then I guess I was just the boy for it. Then I thought: Is this what makes me sad sometimes—this memory of Poppy and Dad on Christmas Eve? I gave it some logical thought, per Quentin’s recommendation, but when I was finished, I still wasn’t sure. Then I thought of the Reverend Little Richard’s recommendation and took a sidelong glance at heaven, although I was careful not to utter a prayer. You don’t have to stir a pot if you don’t put anything in it. That was my thinking.

  THE night after Veterans Day, I went down to the machine shop to help disassemble the float. There weren’t nearly as many people there as on Float Night. The women were divided into two groups. Mom and her group were hard at work pulling tissue paper and chicken wire off the float. Cleo Mallett held sway over the other group. They weren’t working much more than their mouths as far as I could tell. I
wondered if they were talking about Mom. Roy Lee hung around the edge of their knot and then came over to where Sherman and I were to report what he’d heard. “It’s about Cuke’s woman,” he said. “Mrs. Mallett wants to run her out of town.”

  “Why?” Sherman asked.

  “Because they’re afraid she’s after their husbands.”

  I scratched my head. “Why would they think she’s after their husbands?”

  Both Sherman and Roy Lee gave me disbelieving looks. “Innocent as a lamb,” Roy Lee said, shaking his head.

  “As a newborn kitten,” Sherman added.

  “As a fresh egg.”

  “As a—”

  “All right,” I broke in. “I get the picture.”

  When I took a break from paper pulling, Mr. Bolt came up to me with what appeared to be an aluminum cylinder. It had a little hinged hatch on its side. “What do you think?” he asked. “My guys built it for you to put on top of one of your rockets. It could carry cargo, see, like maybe a mouse or something.”

  I took the cylinder and pretended to be considering it. The truth was we boys were into pure altitude, and extra weight, even a mouse, would cut into that. “It’s nice,” I said diplomatically. “I especially like the hatch.”

  “I’ll tell the guys. It’ll make their day,” Mr. Bolt said, obviously relieved that I hadn’t rejected their work out of hand. “You want they should catch you a little mouse?”

  I told Mr. Bolt I could probably catch my own mouse, and then noticed Ginger working atop the float. She was pulling up the tape that had marked the spots where the soldiers stood. After admiring her for a minute, I made a decision. I was going to ask her to the Christmas Formal right then and there. Roy Lee grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?” he asked. There was concern in his voice.

  I shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “You were looking at Ginger Dantzler, weren’t you?” he said. It sounded like an accusation.

  “Well . . .”

  Roy Lee got between me and the float. “Sonny, don’t even think about asking her out.”

  “How did you know I was thinking that?”

  Roy Lee gave me a sad smile. “Because I pay attention, that’s why. That and because I’m the Big Creek lovemaster.”

  “The what?”

  “The Big Creek love—never mind, I’ll explain later.” He shifted his stance, looking uncomfortable. “Look, I’ve got just the girl for you. I’ve been working on her for the last couple of weeks and I think I’ve got her softened up. It wasn’t easy, you being a little four-eyed creep, but I think I’ve done it.”

  “Name the girl,” I said suspiciously.

  Roy Lee grinned. “Melba June Monroe!”

  Melba June Monroe was an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous girl from Bartley. She was a junior at Big Creek, and I had to admit I’d had my eye on her for some time. What boy at Big Creek hadn’t? “I still don’t understand why I can’t take Ginger out,” I said.

  Roy Lee frowned. “You got to trust me, that’s all.”

  I laughed. “Get out of my way,” I said. “I’m going to ask Ginger out right now. As a matter of fact, I’m going to invite her to the Christmas Formal. I don’t think she thinks I’m a four-eyed creep.”

  “Don’t,” Roy Lee said, barring my way. “You’ll be sorry if you do.”

  I looked over his shoulder and saw that Ginger had come down off the float and was talking to my mother. I couldn’t ask Ginger anywhere with my mother standing there.

  “Attaboy,” Roy Lee said as I stepped back. “I’ll have you lined up with Melba June before you know it.”

  “I don’t want to be lined up with Melba June,” I said. I felt a sense of loyalty toward Ginger even though she had no idea of my intentions.

  Roy Lee rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. “Oh, yes, you do, boy. Yes, you do!”

  Mom came over to us a little later, bringing us some punch. “Hi, boys,” she said wearily. I think she wanted to get away from the other women and we were the only alternative.

  “Mrs. Hickam, I think you are looking especially lovely tonight,” Roy Lee said.

  Mom blushed. “Why, thank you, Roy Lee. That’s a very nice thing to say.”

  “The truth never hurt the teller of it, ma’am,” he replied, so smoothly it was like grease.

  After Mom went off, looking pleased for a change, I stared at Roy Lee. “What in blue blazes has gotten into you?”

  “You don’t think your mother’s a beautiful woman?”

  “I guess she is. So’s your mom. So what?”

  Roy Lee pondered me. “Women like compliments, Sonny. Even mothers. I wanted to show you that.”

  “Okay, you showed me. So?”

  He sighed. “I guess I got to say it to you.”

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Sonny, I can’t let you go down to Cape Canaveral the way you are.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He started to run his hand through his hair, but I guess he remembered he’d spent too much time lacquering it down to spoil it, so he just patted at the edges. “Listen, you got to know that’s a wild bunch of women down there in Florida. All those men and their big rockets sticking up in the air got to keep them all excited. If you go down there as innocent as you are, those women are going to eat you alive. I got to get you trained.”

  I was nearly speechless but I recovered quickly. “I don’t need to be trained,” I said. “I’ll just follow your lead.”

  Roy Lee frowned. “I’m not going to Cape Canaveral, Sonny. That’s not my dream, it’s yours. But I’m going to get you ready, in my own way.”

  “So you think Ginger . . .”

  Roy Lee nodded. “Ginger’s even more innocent than you, if that’s humanly possible. Besides, you’d never live up to Mrs. Dantzler’s standards. Why, I bet she’d have you playing the piano again. You’d never have time to build your rockets. Wernher von Braun would fire you so fast your head would swim.”

  His logic was wearing me out. “Roy Lee,” I said tiredly, “I just want to ask Ginger Dantzler to the Christmas Formal. I don’t want to marry her.”

  Roy Lee wagged his finger at me. “One thing leads to another. Don’t even let it get started, son. That’s the advice of the Big Creek lovemaster.”

  “What is this Big Creek lovemaster thing?”

  As unlikely as it was, Roy Lee blushed. “We all got our talents,” he said, serious as steel.

  That night, while lying in my bed, I could hear the wind howling outside, a bitter blast of freezing air pushing in from the north. I was thinking about all that Roy Lee—the Big Creek lovemaster—had said when I heard something outside. I looked out my window toward the tipple and then, for just a moment, caught a movement in the lights of the filling station. The year before, some boys from Bradshaw had robbed the station, so I watched to see if I could see who or what it was. Then I saw a tiny deer fawn come out into the light, going stutter-step across the concrete. A doe, two more fawns, then another doe and a big buck followed, their heads swiveling nervously. The lights from a car coming down from the mine startled them and they ran off, their white tails flipping. They disappeared into the gloom of the back alley. They were all skinny as rails.

  THE following Saturday, the BCMA gathered at the Cape. Although the sky was cloudy, and the temperature was hovering at around the freezing mark, there were only light breezes. It was a rocket kind of day. We ran up the BCMA flag on our blockhouse and got going with Auk XXII-F. I’d come up with the name Auk for all our rockets when we’d first started building them. The Great Auk was an extinct bird that couldn’t fly, but I figured it would’ve if it could’ve. That put it in the same boat as us Rocket Boys when we started.

  I looked across the slack and saw that our audience included, naturally enough, Mr. Bolt and our machinists. Ginger was there, too. Her mother and father were with her, just stepping out of their big Buick.

  I walked over to say hello. “Good morning, Sonny,” Mrs. Dan
tzler replied coolly. She wore a mink stole over her dress. I’d never seen anybody so done up at Cape Coalwood. “Will your rocket fly?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it will,” I said. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was how high. I briefly explained the test objectives of the day while Ginger beamed at me.

  “I hope you’ll still have some fingers left to play the piano after you’re done down here,” Mrs. Dantzler said.

  Even though I didn’t plan on playing the piano anytime soon, I fervently hoped the same.

  Mr. Dantzler took his railroad watch out of his vest pocket and contemplated it. “Will you launch soon?” he asked in his languid Mississippi drawl.

  “Yes, sir, another ten minutes at most.”

  “Where will it go?”

  “Downrange,” I said, nodding in the direction of the Big Branch River, “if all goes as planned.”

  “Make it fly, Rocket Boy,” Ginger said with a wink. That got me going again. I decided that after the launch I was going to ask her to the Christmas Formal, Big Creek lovemaster or no Big Creek lovemaster.

  “I don’t see your father here today,” Mr. Dantzler observed, looking around the crowd.

  “No, sir. He never comes.”

  Mr. Dantzler’s eyebrows went up. “Is that a fact?”

  I shrugged and headed back to the blockhouse. Before I got there, I was stopped in my tracks when I suddenly felt a passing sadness. I thought and then I thought again, but I couldn’t figure out why. I shook it off and found Sherman working on the firing box inside the blockhouse. My undefined blues were replaced by impatience. I thought Sherman was going too slow, being entirely too meticulous. It wasn’t that difficult, just some wires to be hooked up. “Hurry it up, will you, Sherman?” I demanded.