The Coalwood Way (6 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” Sherman and I chorused.

Sherman said, “I hear our float’s going to be the best one yet.”

“That’s true, dear,” Mom agreed.

Ginger looked around her mother’s shoulder with a bright smile. She had grown up to be a pretty sprite of a girl, and she still had those curly brown locks and deep amber eyes. She had on a plaid skirt and a white blouse that was buttoned up to her neck, but Sherman and I were both aware that she was a budding, comely teenager. We exchanged smiles when she asked, “Can I stay and watch?”

“Sure!” Sherman said eagerly.

Ginger looked at me. “Is it all right with you, too, Sonny?” she asked.

“Just be careful,” I said, playing the big rocket scientist role to the hilt. “And watch what you touch.”

“I won’t touch a thing,” she said softly.

The way she spoke, so meek and mild, made me look twice at her. Then, while I was looking, I had the sudden opinion that Ginger Zanice Virginia Dantzler was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. It just came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face, don’t ask me why. It was like all of a sudden the only thing I cared about in the whole basement was her. Coach Gainer had once spent an entire hour in his health class trying to figure out how the brains of teenage boys worked. He’d finally given up. I sympathized. I had one of those brains all to myself and I couldn’t figure it out, either.

“Sonny?” Sherman said, smiling kindly. “If you’re finished looking at Ginger now, can we get back to work?”

“Sure!” I squeaked, tearing my eyes away from her. Embarrassed, I cleared my throat and made an attempt to lower my voice an octave. “Sure,” I rumbled in a deeper register, and began to stir zincoshine at a rapid rate.

It wasn’t long before I heard the scuffling of shoes on the back porch and a babble of voices as the women greeted one another. Mom was shepherding them into the living room. I wondered if any of them knew how Mom had been on her hands and knees all morning polishing the beautiful oak planks Captain Laird had laid down. The house, being company property, didn’t belong to us, but she treated it like it did and maybe better.

The McDowell County Veterans Day parade was a huge, patriotic affair. Bands from every high school in the county marched in it, and there was a competition for the best float. As far as anybody could remember, Coalwood had never lost the float competition. Winning it was a point of great pride to the town. The company over the years had spared no expense to keep the string going, providing not only money but machinists and carpenters to do a lot of the work. Mom’s design called for a live Statue of Liberty to stand on a revolving disk while soldiers from exotic foreign nations, such as France, saluted her. Most other communities had something simple on their floats such as high school cheerleaders sitting on the lap of Old King Coal. Coalwood, everybody was confident, would win the prize yet again.

This year, the guest of honor at the parade was going to be none other than Harry S Truman, the former president of the entire United States of America. President Truman and Coalwood knew each other well because when he had been the president, Mr. Truman had seen fit to send the United States Navy in to occupy us, just as if we were a foreign country. It had happened back in 1949 when Mr. Carter had closed the mine to keep the union out, declaring he had no intention of sharing his company with the likes of John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers of America. When this subject came up at the kitchen table, Dad said Mr. Carter and “ol’ John L.” actually respected each other but they had a duty to themselves and their own principles. Mom said if they had any principles, they wouldn’t have caused so much trouble just to make themselves appear like big shots.

President Truman came in on the side of the UMWA. The next thing Mr. Carter knew, there was a convoy of gray military trucks rolling into his town and saluting sailors pouring into the Club House. The first thing the sailors did was order the Club House cook to boil their navy beans and bake their bread. Then, they started marching up and down the road, telling the miners to get back to work. The navy commander in charge told Mr. Carter it was time to sign a union contract. While the old man dithered, the commander settled into the biggest room in the Club House and hosted lavish sit-down dinners there, inviting all the bigwigs in the county to join him. He acted pretty much like the king of Coalwood, the way I heard it. The engraved silver cutlery, plates, and bowls used at those dinners were the stuff of Coalwood legend. I knew it was true because, over the years, I saw a lot of it in Coalwood homes. Most of them had pretty daughters in 1949.

Although it took a couple of months before Mr. Carter gave in, he finally signed, “at the muzzle of a gun,” as he put it. More than a few swabbies liked our mountains and beautiful women so much they quit the sea and came back to Coalwood to be coal miners. Every once in a while, I’d note an anchor tattoo on a man’s arm and suspect he’d once come as an occupier and got occupied instead. Through its grand float, Coalwood was going to show President Truman that, despite him and his navy, it was still a going proposition.

While Ginger watched quietly, Sherman and I got back to our mixing. After a while, he appraised the zincoshine in the bowl. “It looks too dark,” he said.

Ginger came over and sniffed it. “It stinks,” she said, wrinkling up her pert nose.

I ignored her. “It’s the same mix we’ve been using for the last two rockets,” I told Sherman.

He frowned over the bowl. “It still looks too dark. Wish we could test it.”

“Your wish is my command,” I said, showing off in front of Ginger. I measured out a tablespoon of the zincoshine mix and scraped it off into a cup, then led the way over to the furnace. Dandy, our cocker spaniel, looked up from the rug Mom had laid down for him. Poteet, our other dog, was outside. It was about the time when the day shift and evening shift at the mine traded places, and Poteet saw it as her duty to bark at them as they passed by our fence. Dandy took one look at me and the zincoshine-filled cup I carried and rushed out the door and up the steps, his tail between his legs.

“Why is Dandy running?” Ginger asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe he remembers that time we blew up the hot water heater.”

Sherman looked up. “Your mom said . . .”

I had the confidence that only true ignorance can provide. “Aw, they won’t hear this little bit go off,” I said.

“Is this safe?” Ginger asked in a small voice.

“Of course it’s safe,” I said, in patronizing tones, and opened up the grate. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

And I did, too. I mean, was it my fault that that blamed old furnace wasn’t constructed for rapidly expanding gases? Or that the big vents that carried warm air into the house acted just like the pipes of a giant musical organ? What monstrously poor engineer had designed such a beast and installed it in our basement, anyway? Those were the questions that rapidly suffused my mind when, under the influence of zincoshine, the furnace happily produced a resounding belch that the devil himself would have been proud to make. The old vent pipes perversely turned the awful grunt into a long, thunderous rumble and then, in a further indication of the furnace’s peculiarly awful design, sent out an announcement of smells through the house all too similar to purely rotten eggs.

There was a hushed silence for a moment, and then I heard my mom call out my name.
“Sonny!”
It was amazing how loud and fast she could say it sometimes.

Good scientist that I had become, I made a reasoned observation of the event. “I’m dead,” I said, and then cringed at the coming wrath sure to be heading my way. I could hear windows being opened upstairs.

Ginger started giggling. The upstairs kitchen door opened and I heard Mom’s heels clicking down the steps, the pause at the bottom for the step over Lucifer (who hadn’t moved a muscle), and then her pretty face appeared, transformed into a wad of barely controlled temper. She put her hands on her hips. “I think I’m going to kill you two,” she said, “to save God and the authorities the trouble later on.” She appraised Ginger. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m having lots of fun!” Her curls bounced as she nodded her head up and down.

I gave Mom my very best innocent smile and started to tell her how much fun I was having, too, but she held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear a word out of you, not one. Ginger, why don’t you come up and join the meeting, honey? As for you two, get out of my basement!”

“Mom . . .”

“Out, out,
out
!”

Sherman went on home while I skulked into the backyard to play with the dogs. Dandy and Poteet could be endlessly entertained by just throwing a stick and I guess, to be truthful, so could I. I further amused myself by thinking about my zincoshine. Sherman had thought my mix was off. I guessed I’d showed him! That was one hot propellant. If we could just keep it from eating our nozzles.

I was still pondering zincoshine and throwing sticks for the dogs when the screen door on the back porch opened and Ginger came outside, wearing a Big Creek jacket over her blouse. It was a typical Coalwood fall day, chilly but not too cold. The trees on the mountains were aflame. “Need some company?” she asked.

“Can you throw a stick?”

“With the best of them.” She picked a twig up from under the apple tree and threw it for Dandy. Dandy lumbered after it. He liked to dawdle over the stick, sniff it, carry it around the yard a few times before he brought it to you, his stubby tail wagging. Poteet was faster. She’d get that stick back to you before it had hardly hit the ground if it hit it at all. Poteet had a special knack of catching a stick in the air. She had been known to catch bats on the wing the same way.

“I’d like to come down and watch you launch your rockets sometime,” Ginger said, her eyes on Dandy as he went through his meandering, her stick turning soggy in his mouth.

I took Poteet’s stick from her offered muzzle and threw it as hard as I could. She went flying. “We usually launch on Saturdays if we have a rocket ready to go,” I said, shrugging. “Around ten o’clock. Watch for our notices. Sherman usually posts them at the Big Store and the post office.”

“I will,” she said. She walked over beside me. “Sonny, will you tell me something?”

“Sure,” I said, throwing the stick again. Poteet had brought it back that quick.

“Do you like me?”

It was a startling question. “What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “I think some other kids don’t,” she said very seriously. “I think a lot of them think that maybe I’m too big for my britches sometimes because I want to grow up and be a professional singer.”

“What kind of professional singer?” I asked.

She looked up toward the tipple where a line of miners were coming down the path, heading home. I could just barely hear the dull clunk of their empty lunch buckets. “I don’t know,” she said, sighing. “Maybe opera, maybe musical theater. Whatever I do, I know I can hardly wait until I start. When I talk about it, a lot of kids kind of roll their eyes.”

I remembered when we’d once read comic books together in her parlor. I said, “Ginger, I think you’re one of the nicest, prettiest girls in all of Coalwood.” I’d laid it on a bit thick, but I thought she needed it.

Ginger still looked uncertain. “I hope you get what you’re after, Sonny,” she said. “The first rocket scientist from Coalwood, West Virginia!”

Ginger had a way about her that made me feel comfortable. “And I’ll be proud to tell people I grew up with Ginger Dantzler, the famous singer.”

Dandy dropped his stick on the ground in front of her black patent-leather shoes. She had tiny feet. I thought they were cute. As a matter of fact, now that I was paying attention, I thought Ginger Dantzler was pretty much cute all over. Ginger picked the stick up and gave it a toss. Dandy waddled after it, his tail wagging furiously. She gave me a shy smile. “I like you, Sonny. You’ve always been the nicest boy.”

I still didn’t have a date for the high school Christmas Formal. A thought burst in my brain like a wad of zincoshine. Why not go with Ginger? She was cute, she was nice, and she was easy to talk to. And we were both planning on heading out of Coalwood aboard a dream.

“Ginger . . .” I began, but before I got my question out, I was interrupted by the scuffling and natter of women on the back porch. The Women’s Club meeting was over.

“Zanice Virginia?” her mother called.

Ginger gave me an apologetic look. “Guess I better go.”

“Are you really coming down to Cape Coalwood?” I asked.

She tilted her head and gave me a sweet smile that made me feel warm down to my toes. “I’ll be there, boy. Don’t you think I won’t!”

6

FLOAT NIGHT

ALTHOUGH THE VETERANS Day float was designed and built by the Coalwood Women’s Club, it was a fully sponsored coal-company enterprise from start to finish. Company materials, workers, and facilities were available to build as grand a float as the ladies wanted. Coalwood’s float had always won the award for best float in the parade, and nobody wanted that record broken. It was a matter of town, company, and union pride. As Veterans Day of 1959 approached, the machine shop, where the float was being built, reverberated with the rattling sound of hammers, the buzz of saws, and the spewing of welders. The other float builders in the county didn’t stand a chance against a united Coalwood.

The night before the parade was called Float Night. This was when the finishing touches were put on the float and all the ladies in the club, their husbands, and their children were expected to participate. Mindful of the marvelous table of desserts the ladies always set out, I fully intended to be there. I figured to do a few odds and ends, stuff my face with cookies, pie, and cake, and get out early. Mom was aware of my plan, having developed a keen intuition regarding general boy-type behavior over the years. “I’ll be keeping my eye on the food table,” she told me. “I don’t want to see your back every time I look over there. You understand me, Sonny boy?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her the little submissive smile I reserved for such occasions. Her threat didn’t worry me. It would be a long night, and the advantage is always to the persistent over the weary.

Roy Lee and O’Dell arrived at the machine shop on Float Night shortly after dark. I’d been there for about an hour and had already made a sally or two on the plates of cookies. As I figured, Mom was distracted with her supervising and such and had left the goodies to fend for themselves. O’Dell got busy right away helping himself to a slice of apple pie. Interested in another kind of sweetness, Roy Lee went off to scout out the girl situation. I loitered in the background, my pockets full of cookies, happy just to watch the activity. There was a swarm of it, the ladies, their husbands, their kids, and a crew of company carpenters and machinists all bent to their tasks around and on top of the float. Other Coalwoodians were carrying in supplies—paper rolls, paint, nails, and glue, all provided out of the company store for free.

The float was being constructed on a stake and platform trailer ordinarily used by the company to haul heavy machinery. The plan was for a pedestal to be built on the platform where a girl dressed like the Statue of Liberty would stand. Around her would be soldiers (Coalwood boy versions, that is), paying proper homage to our Miss Liberty by saluting her. An American soldier carrying a rifle was to be separate from the group, guarding a copy of the Constitution and the Holy Bible. Everything would be decked out with lots of colorful “flowers” made from toilet paper and crepe paper stuffed into chicken wire. It was a grand design, and everybody was confident of its prospects.

Mom, Mrs. Servant, Mrs. Dent Todd, Mrs. Ada Todd, Mrs. Sharitz, Mrs. Lindley, Mrs. McGlothlin, and Mrs. Mahoney, all supervisors’ wives, were in charge of the work. They had a command table over by the machine-shop door where they kept Mom’s drawings and the master plan. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was spotted and given a job. Another cookie raid and I figured I’d be ready to do a little before sneaking out. I had a good excuse, since I had to get up early. The Big Creek band was going to march in the parade, and the school bus was scheduled to pick up Coalwood band members at 5:00 A.M.

I was just heading back to the dessert table, taking the long way around so as not to be so obvious, when Sherman arrived. The sight of him stopped me in my tracks. All I could do was gawk. Roy Lee, returning from his girl tour, took one look and burst out laughing. Then, while he covered his mouth, Roy Lee began making little chirping sounds, sort of like a chipmunk on a rock. Finally, he turned away, his shoulders shaking. I tried not to but I started to giggle, too. “Go ahead, you creeps,” Sherman grumbled. “Laugh all you want.”

We couldn’t help it. We had never seen the like. Sherman had on a big floppy beret and a bright blue tunic festooned with golden braid from top to bottom. His pants were bright blue, too, and had a golden stripe down both legs. It was supposed to be a French soldier’s uniform, but I thought if the French wore clothes like that into battle, it was no wonder the Germans had beat them up in World War II. The beret was especially peculiar. I couldn’t imagine that a real soldier would go around wearing such a sister piece of headgear. As we snorted and guffawed, Sherman took off his beret but otherwise regarded us stoically. “So I look like a dope,” he said. “My mother was good enough to make me this uniform, and I guess I’ll wear it.”

The other boys who were playing foreign soldiers arrived after Sherman. Roy Lee was so staggered by the sight of them he had to lean against a lathe to catch his breath. Jackie Likens, Grant Smith, Jimmy Siers, Phil Sharitz, and Billy Lindley were all wearing uniforms of our European allies (such as Belgium) cluttered with shiny buttons, braid, and stripes. Not only that, they were also wearing berets like Sherman’s, which could not be mistaken for anything but ladies’ hats. Vincent Curto was the only lucky one. He was playing the American soldier and was proudly wearing his father’s uniform from World War II. I later learned that Coalwood moms, frustrated by not being able to find pictures of foreign soldiers, had pretty well made up the uniforms by themselves. It kind of summed up the way they thought about our country’s place in the world. American soldiers wore uniforms for fighting, and when war came, we would be the ones to take the brunt of battle. Soldiers from the other countries, the ones our boys were being drafted right out of high school to defend, wore uniforms to look good, not for bloody combat.

“Where’s the French soldier?” Mrs. Mahoney called from the float platform. She held a sheet of paper, a list of things to do, no doubt. She spied Sherman. “Put on your beret, dear, and come on and line up. We’re going to teach you how to salute.”

“Put on your beret, dear,” Roy Lee said, holding his stomach. “Put on your beret. Oh, my!” He was having trouble catching his breath.

Mrs. Mahoney frowned at Roy Lee and then at me. “Roy Lee, Sonny, come here!” she commanded. We’d been caught. We trudged to the float, our heads down. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked for O’Dell. As far as I could tell, he’d managed to raid the dessert table and make a clean getaway. He was slick, that boy.

Mrs. Mahoney descended from the platform and gave Roy Lee and me our orders. We were to stuff toilet paper and crepe paper in the chicken wire along the side of the float until she told us to stop. I figured that would be about the time the sun burned out. “Don’t let any bare spots show,” she said. “It’s supposed to look like it’s covered with flowers. Now, get to work!”

Mrs. Mahoney had been our eighth-grade arithmetic teacher, and her voice was law to us. We got busy. Then it occurred to me that Billy wasn’t there, and then I remembered I hadn’t told him he was invited. His mother wasn’t a member of the Women’s Club, but I’d asked Mom about the Rocket Boys coming to Float Night and she had said any and all were welcome. I had meant to tell Billy but it had slipped my mind. I felt bad about it for a few seconds and then shrugged it off. I figured Billy probably wouldn’t have come, anyway. His family had moved to Six Hollow a few months ago, a couple of miles from Coalwood Main. Now that I thought about it, about the only time I saw Billy lately was on the school bus, in class, and at the Cape. Even there, he seemed distant. What was going on with Billy? I made a decision to find out and then promptly forgot it.

After an hour or so of boring paper stuffing, Roy Lee crept off to the table for another handful of cookies. I told him to bring me some and then went around to the back of the float to continue stuffing. When I turned the corner, I was surprised to find none other than Cuke Snoddy’s woman, Dreama Jenkins. I was surprised because I knew for certain she was not a member of the Coalwood Women’s Club. Membership was by invitation only, and it was never extended to any woman whose husband wasn’t either management or a union boss. Besides that, she wasn’t even married as far as I knew. Since she didn’t have a Coalwood husband or father, that meant, no matter how long she lived here, she wasn’t even a Coalwood citizen by our traditional definition.

If Dreama was aware that there was anything wrong about her attendance at Float Night, she didn’t show it. She had come to work, that was clear. She was really stuffing that paper in the chicken wire. She was wearing an old pair of bib overalls about two sizes too big for her and underneath it a flowery blouse with puffed arms. I also noticed she had a ton of rouge on her right cheek. It looked as if maybe there was a bruise underneath it, but I couldn’t tell for sure. When she saw it was me, she flashed her teeth in a big grin. She really did have nice teeth. “Hidy, Sonny!” she said, and the way she said it was most proud. “This is gonna look so purdy,” she continued, eagerly going back to pushing the paper into the chicken wire and fluffing it up. The way she’d said “purdy” was like a note sliding up a scale.

I mumbled some halfhearted reply. The truth was I felt embarrassed to be beside her. She just wasn’t where she was supposed to be, sort of like a snow goose on a slack dump. All I could figure was that she had sneaked in when Mom and the other ladies weren’t looking. When they saw her, I wasn’t sure what they’d do.

Ginger sidled up to me just then, poking me with her elbow and bumping me with her hip. “Hey, Rocket Boy,” she said cheerfully. Then she noticed Dreama. “Sonny, have you no manners? No, of course you don’t.” She stuck out her hand. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ginger Dantzler.”

The woman shyly took Ginger’s hand. “I’m Dreama,” she said in a small voice. “Dreama Jenkins.”

“Dreama, I love what you’re doing,” Ginger said, appraising her work.

“They’re flowers,” she said, ducking her head and blushing even through her heavy makeup.

“Well, your flowers are very artistic and I don’t think there’s anybody here doing a better job than you.” Ginger then took a look at my work. “Hmm. I can’t say the same for you, Sonny.” She fluffed up my paper stuffings and shook her head and “tsked” a couple of times at me. “It isn’t boys’ work, I suppose,” she said, and then she was off, saying she had to work with “Miss Liberty,” meaning, I supposed, the little ninth-grade girl all the beret-boys were supposed to salute during the parade.

Dreama looked after her. “That’s the purdiest girl I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” she said, clearly awed, “and she’s so nice. I bet she’s going to be a movie star or something someday.”

I didn’t see any movie stars coming out of Coalwood, even Ginger, but I kept it to myself. When I looked around, I saw a lot of ladies glancing our way with dirty looks, and more than a few seemed to be directed at me. Then I thought maybe they were blaming me for bringing Dreama in! Short of raising my hand and denying everything before being accused of it, I was stuck. It was like being a skunk under the house. It didn’t matter how innocent and pure smelling that skunk was, unhappiness was headed its way. I was relieved when Mr. Bolt, the machine-shop foreman, called me over to talk to him. Mr. Skunk made his escape.

I had a code name for Mr. Bolt. If Dad was in earshot when I talked to Mr. Bolt on the black phone, I pretended to be talking to one Leon Ferro, a name I had made up because I didn’t want Dad to suspect how much I was using his machine shop. I don’t think I fooled Dad very much but I kept doing it. It was sort of like being a spy. “The boys have a new idea for your rockets,” Mr. Bolt/Ferro said, speaking of his machinists. He leaned in close after a furtive look around.
“Wings!”
he said.

I squinted at him. “Why wings?”

Mr. Bolt was at a band saw, cutting the pedestal that was going to carry Miss Liberty on the float. “So they’ll go farther,” he said. “See, they’d glide.” Mr. Bolt made a swooping movement with his hand.

I considered his proposal for approximately one second. It might have been less. “Horizontal distance isn’t what we’re after, Mr. Bolt,” I told him. “We want our rockets to go as high as they can, not long. If they went long, we’d lose them.”

Mr. Bolt took the pedestal loose from the saw clamps. He looked crestfallen. “I’ll tell the guys,” he said sadly. “It’ll knock them for a loop.”

Roy Lee came and got me. “Take a look,” he said. He pointed to Mrs. Cleo Mallett. She was the wife of Leo Mallett, the second-in-command at the union local, just one notch below Mr. Dubonnet. I thought Mr. Mallett was a nice man, although a bit meek. His wife, on the other hand, was big and brassy and fancied herself the social conscience of the community, sort of a Coalwood version of Eleanor Roosevelt. To her, I guess that meant she had the right to stick her nose into everybody’s business. According to what I’d heard, she held sway among a tiny group of union wives who believed they had married beneath themselves. It was that group of women who were watching Dreama and murmuring low to one another. “They’re building up to something,” Roy Lee said gleefully. Roy Lee never minded a spot of trouble.

Mrs. Mallett looked sort of grandmotherly, dressed as she was in a shapeless dress covered with bright flowers, but I wasn’t fooled. She had the perpetual look on her face of somebody that had eaten something sour. She walked up to Dreama and tapped her hard on the shoulder. We were close enough to hear what she said when Dreama whirled around. “You know you’re supposed to have an invitation to come here, don’t you?”

Dreama tucked her chin and her big green eyes went wide. “No, ma’am, I didn’t. I thought ever’body who lived in Coalwood could come.”

“Well, ever’body can’t,” Mrs. Mallett said acidly. “You’ll have to leave.”

Roy Lee nudged me. “Here comes your mom.”

Sure enough, Mom had left her command table to come up beside Mrs. Mallett. “It’s okay, Cleo,” Mom said. “The girl didn’t know.”

Mrs. Mallett, jerking her head back, acted startled by Mom’s comment. “Float Night is by invitation only, Elsie,” she replied, crossing her rolling-pin arms. “That’s the Women’s Club rules to keep out . . . people who don’t know what they’re doing.”