Big Cherry Holler (3 page)

“You look thinner in real life,” Fleeta says as she sizes him up.

“So do you,” Mr. DeBoard replies. (I guess he hears that plenty.)

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Iva Lou extends her hand and right hip in one smooth move.

“And you must be a former Miss Virginia?” Dan’s eyes travel over Iva Lou as though he’s starving and perusing the fresh pie rack at Stringer’s Cafeteria.

“No, just plain old Miss Iva Lou.” She tightens her grip as her eyes travel all over Dan DeBoard.

“She’s murried,” Fleeta growls.

“Aren’t we all?” Dan winks.

Our kids swarm the stage. “It’s good to let the children get comfortable on the set. It makes for a better show,” Kim tells us as she checks a list on a clipboard. They catch sight of themselves on the television monitor on the floor in front of them. “Look-ee! We’re on the TV!” Jane shrieks. Etta and Billy squeeze into the seat with Jane and wave to their images on the monitor.

Then the enemy arrives. Kingsport Elementary is represented by three stern boys with identical crew cuts and creases in their little navy slacks. Their matching green plaid jackets are so stiff, they look like they were pressed while the boys were wearing them.

“Lordy mercy,” Jack Mac whispers.

“They look like triplets,” Fleeta announces.

Mrs. White surveys the competition, then gathers our team in a huddle. The group breaks. Jane slips into her seat and folds her hands neatly on the desk. Etta smooths her hair and adjusts her nameplate so it is square on camera. Billy sits down at his desk and removes his boutonniere. The girls follow suit with their corsages. The mountain
kids get it. This is for real. If they want to win, no flowers, no shenanigans.

As the theme music plays (a swing version of the alphabet song), Dan DeBoard takes a sip of coffee and spins gently on a high stool. He nibbles on the rim of the Styrofoam cup as his eyes search the bleachers for Iva Lou. When he finds her, he smiles and double-blinks (very flirty). Then he stands and casually hooks the heel of his shiny tasseled oxblood loafer on the chrome rung of the stool. He is so calm, he might as well be playing charades at home in his living room. I grip Jack’s hand so tightly, I could crush a Coke can.

“Let’s welcome the challengers from Big Stone Gap, Virginia.” Fleeta, Iva Lou, and I applaud, and Fleeta whistles long and low, like she’s calling a cow. He continues: “This is the team captain, Etta MacChesney. Etta, tell me about your family.”

“My daddy’s a coal miner, and my mama sells pills.”

“What kind of pills?”

“It depends. What’s wrong with you?”

The host stifles a laugh. “I understand you’re an avid reader.”

“Yes sir.”

“What are you reading now?”

“
The Ancient Art of Chinese Face-Reading
. My Aunt Iva Lou gave it to me. She works at the li-barry.” Etta points to Iva Lou, who straightens her spine and beams as though she’s on camera.

“How interesting. What is the Art of Chinese Face-Reading, exactly?”

“Well. It’s all about how your face can tell you what kind of person you are and what the future holds for you.”

“A little hocus-pocus, eh?” Dan looks into the camera, raising one eyebrow.

“Not really. Like you. Your top lip is thin, and your bottom lip is thick.”

“Does that mean something?” Dan rubs his chin.

“You’re cheap.”

“Somebody’s been talking to my wife,” Dan deadpans.

“I’m sorry,” Etta says, realizing that she may have said something unkind.

“I’d like to crawl in a hole and die,” I whisper to Iva Lou.

“I’d like to crawl into a hole with Dan DeBoard,” she whispers back.

Dan tells our team that, as the challengers, they go first. He asks Etta for a number.

“Five for my cat, Shoo, who is five,” Etta says.

“If you have two baskets of peaches and in one basket there are three hundred fifty-six peaches and in the other there are two hundred ninety-eight, how many peaches do you have?”

Etta squeezes her eyes shut and tries to add in her head. Jane Herd’s little blue eyeballs roll back in her head and click up and down like the digits on an adding machine. Jane starts to shake; she has the answer. Etta’s expression of pure panic and desperation tells me she does not.

“Five hundred fifty-four?” Etta says weakly.

“Sorry. It’s six hundred fifty-four. Let’s go to the Kingsport team.”

Etta’s cheeks puff as though she may cry. Jane is so disappointed, her head hits the top of the desk like a bowl of cold mashed potatoes. The champions look over to see what clunked. Etta pulls Jane’s head off her desk by the scruff of the neck; there’s no blood, thank God, so Dan throws the next question to the opposition.

The Kingsport boys take the next three questions, answering each of them correctly, including one about the state capital of Vermont. “Look at the Skeens boy. He ain’t right,” Fleeta whispers. “He ain’t blinking.” Something
is
wrong with Billy. He is frozen, staring into the distance, his eyes round and vacant like pitted black olives. Our team has totally lost focus. Jane is obsessed with the monitor. She makes circles with her head, studying her face from all angles. She is sweating so profusely in the hot lights that the barrette is slipping from her side part. Etta obsessively twists the third
button on her cardigan like a radio knob; it looks to snap off any second.

By halftime, we have managed to scrape up zero points, while the Kingsport boys have fifteen. “Turr-ible. Turr-ible,” Fleeta mumbles, and she goes outside to smoke. She paces in the hallway, alternately puffing and scratching her head with a pencil she found lodged in her upsweep. Mrs. White spends the break trying to thaw Billy.

As round two begins, we hope for a miracle.

“When water flows out a drain, does it drain clockwise or counterclockwise?” Dan asks Billy. Billy’s forehead folds into one deep wrinkle.

“Oh, for cripe’s sake,” Fleeta says loud enough that everyone in the studio turns and looks at her. Dan drops his chin and rolls his head, encouraging Billy to answer. Finally, Billy opens his mouth and says, “Uhhhh,” without forming words. His mouth hangs open like an unbuttoned pocket. Then his “uhhh” turns into a strange hum. “What the hell is wrong with that boy?” Fleeta whispers.

Dan looks at the cameraman, who shrugs. Jane turns to her teammate. “Dang it, Billy. Say somethin’!” He says nothing, so she turns to him and shakes him. “Guess! Take a guess, Bill-eeee!” Billy slips out of his seat like a wet noodle. Jane lunges to yank him back into the seat, but instead he latches on to her and pulls her out of her seat. Jane’s desk turns over on top of Billy’s. The clanging and banging sound like a four-car pileup. As Jane tries to free Billy, her foot gets caught in the metal bottom of her desk and she flips it over again. The Kingsport boys are standing now, confused by the melee. Dan runs across the set and lifts Jane off the scrap heap, and her skirt flips up like an inside-out umbrella. He yanks her skirt down, then unpins Billy and helps him back into his seat. Etta sits with a clenched smile so creepy, her upper and lower teeth form one wall of fear (I have not seen the likes of it since we watched
Mr. Sardonicus
on the Million-Dollar Movie). I look down at Mrs. White, who is dabbing
her forehead with a hanky. How thrilled we are when the buzzer goes off and the game is over.

As team captain, Etta must collect the consolation prize: a case of Pepsi for their next school party and a check for ten dollars.

“Etta, what is your class going to do with the check?”

“Well, if we won the twenty-five dollars, we were going to buy a set of Nancy Drews. Since we only got the ten, we’ll probably just get a
Weekly Reader
magazine or something. The Pepsi’s nice, though.”

“Well, good luck with all that,” Dan says, and winks at the camera. The theme music plays through. “Let’s do the Good-bye Wave from
Kiddie Kollege
! See ya next week!” our host says in the same professional tone he uses when he’s signing off the six o’clock news or starring on a commercial for Morgan Legg’s Autoworld. He places a giant yellow cardboard dunce cap on Etta’s head, as she is captain of the losers, a tradition that began when the first
Kiddie Kollege
aired. The giant dunce cap is so big it covers Etta’s eyes. Billy, pressure off, has revived. He jumps in front of Dan and the kids and puts his face in the camera, barking out greetings to his kin—every Skeens and Sizemore in the Cumberland Gap gets a personalized greeting. He and Jane flail their arms so hard, it looks like they’re washing a car. The three automatons from Kingsport stand in front of the question wheel (which I believe should be set on fire and destroyed) and wave like movie stars. We are all relieved when the cameraman makes a slashing motion across his throat to stop this nightmare (at least he knows how we feel).

“You guys did great!” I tell them peppily.

“We lost real bad,” Jane says, looking at the ground.

“I can’t add in my head,” Etta says sadly.

“Mrs. Mac, do you have them peanut-butter balls?” Billy asks. Finally, a child that can shake off catatonia and defeat with his sweet tooth. We know our way out of the studio, and it’s a good thing. Perky Kim has disappeared. Even a television producer out of Bristol, Tennessee, knows when to remove herself from the stink of failure.

Even though we lost, the tension is gone, so the ride home is more fun than the ride over. The blue hills of Tennessee give way to our familiar black mountains as we curl through the darkness in our big green van with the Sacred Heart of Jesus painted on the side. A lot of good the religious shield did us. And what about the Saint Anthony medal that Father Schmidt gave to Etta for good luck? Did he forget to bless it? Where was Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, when my daughter forgot how to add?

The kids are gathered around Fleeta in the back of the van while she tells them a ghost story. Etta has already forgotten all about
Kiddie Kollege
, and that makes me happy. Preparing for that stupid show was an ordeal, anyway. No more cramming for questions tacked on that godforsaken wheel. No more flash cards. No more watching the show every week and taking notes. Etta’s moment in the sun came and went in the same night. The kids eat pepper sandwiches, chewing slowly; Fleeta cackles like a witch. Occasional passing headlights cast weird shadows on her and make her even more scary. Mrs. White has tucked her raincoat into a neat square pillow and sleeps against the window. Iva Lou hums to a Janie Fricke song playing softly on the radio. I lean across and rub my husband’s neck as he drives.

“That’s okay,” he says.

“No. I want to,” I tell him.

“Really. It’s okay.”

I remove my hand from my husband’s neck and place it on my lap. I look out the window. I’m afraid I might cry. He puts his hand on mine. This time, I pull away.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly.

“It’s not my fault,” I tell him without looking at him. But I don’t believe it. I think everything is my fault, including the demise of the coal industry in Southwest Virginia. I am the woman in this family; I’m supposed to make everything work. What I can’t seem to say aloud is that I’m failing.

“We’ll be all right,” Jack says, which upsets me even more. I hate
when he downplays important things, the
most
important things! I’m furious with him, yet I’m also angry at myself. I saw this coming. I tried to talk to him about this many times, and he wouldn’t discuss it. Why didn’t I beg Jack to quit the mines when the layoffs became routine and the coal companies shrank their staffs and the train whistles carrying coal out of these hills became less and less frequent? I want to turn to him and say, “I told you this was going to happen!,” but I can’t. We have a van full of kids and Etta’s teacher and my friends. So instead of shouting, I bury my rage. I turn to him and tell him calmly, “I can work more days at the Pharmacy.”

Jack doesn’t say anything. He looks at me quickly and then focuses his eyes back on the road. “Well. What do you think?” I say, realizing it sounds more like an accusation than a show of support. He does not answer me. As he drives into the dark valley, he checks the rearview a lot. But there is nothing behind us. We’re the only vehicle on the road. Thank goodness the shrieks and giggles of the kids fill up the quiet.

The road to our house is so bumpy it wakes Etta, who has been sleeping since we hit the hill into town. She slept through dropping off her teammates at their houses and our guests at their cars outside the elementary school.

“We have to fix this road,” I tell my husband.

“Put it on the list.”

Jack lifts Etta out of the van and carries her up to the house as I clear the sandwich basket, the tote bag, and Etta’s book bag. Jack takes Etta to her room, and I go to the kitchen. As I flip the light switch, I hear a thump. Shoo the Cat has jumped from his perch and is looking up at me.

“I forgot your food!” I fill the dish, pet him, and apologize over and over. There was too much to think about today. Jack comes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator.

“There’s leftover macaroni and cheese,” I tell him. Jack pulls out the casserole and puts it in the oven. “We need to talk,” I tell him.

“Not now. I’m tired.” Jack uncaps a beer and looks out the kitchen window. I don’t know what he’s looking at, the field is pitch black, and tonight there’s no moon.

“We need to talk about the mines.” I try not to sound impatient.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Well, what’s your plan?”

“My plan?”

“Yeah. What are you going to do?”

“Well, I’m going to be out of work.”

“I know that. Have you thought about something else to do? Some other job?”

“No.”

“Jack, maybe it’s time to come up with something.”

“Maybe it is.” Jack shrugs. He is not listening to me.

“I know this is hard for you—”

“You have no idea.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. I know mining is in your blood.”

“Ave. Stop. Let’s just forget it.”

“Forget it? Why are you mad at me? What did I do?”