The Evening Hour (30 page)

He did not know how a person was born again, how there could be more than one beginning, how a person could walk away from the past. The old people, with all of their stories and memories, they never forgot. What connected the land and the mountains and the living and the dead he did not know. But he lay there in the brokenness and began to say the names of the old people. He said all of their names. He said the names of those in his family. He said the names of those who had held him. He said the names of the dead. He said the names of places. Every creek and mountain and hilltop and family cemetery. He said the names of trees and flowers and creatures. He spoke clearly, talking into the dirt. He named everything; the words came easily.

The machines down below rumbled and groaned, but he listened beyond that noise. He heard a rustling and thought it was the wings of some bird. He rolled over on his back and put his hands on his chest and looked at the star-shaped leaves of the sweetgum and heard his heart pumping blood. His grandfather used to say that God was laying on his heart. From far away he heard the clear high notes of a wood thrush melting away into sadness. He looked up through the last of the treetops and saw a jagged piece of blue sky, it was blue and it was good. And he began to weep, he wept for a long time, wept until he felt too big for his own body. Not heavy but big. Filled. Feeling the ground under him, feeling his own muscle and bone and skin. All around him the wilderness sang, the old people sang and God sang. The memory of the place was deep inside of him. He did not need to look again. He stood up and walked back the way that he had come. Dirt clung to him. He left it on him and got in his truck and rolled down the window, squinting at the bright sun. As he drove down the mountain, the scarf that those old bony woman hands had knitted for him blew wildly in the wind, straggly pieces of yarn dancing like pearls of light around his face.

Acknowledgments

I'm indebted to many people for helping me get here. Thanks to everyone who made this book possible.

First, a heartfelt thank-you to those friends who encouraged me to write and stuck by me in countless ways, big and small, including: Jenny Abramson, Allison Amend, James Cañón, Sara Greenslit, Michelle Hailey, Paul “Prof” Hendrickson, Rebecca Layton, Elizabeth May, Daisy Rhau, Emily Wallace, and Stephen Wiseman (for driving me around the mountains and hollers, and so much more). I'm grateful to all my friends and family in New York and North Carolina (you know who you are), with a special thanks to my folk crew in Carrboro. Thank you to Yukiko Yamagata, who believed before I did. To my family and parents, with much gratitude to my mother who instilled in me a love of reading. And thank you to José Miguel Cruz, who teaches me about grace and forgiveness everyday, and whose steadfast love and support make me a better person.

Much thanks to my careful readers who saw earlier drafts or chapters: Gregory Brooker, Rosanna Bruno, Michelle Hoover, Emily Jack, and especially Urban Waite. Thank you to Lora Smith, for helping me with crucial details about mining and religion. To J. Pasila for the maps and photographs. Thank you to Terry Lee and
DoubleTake/Points of Entry
. To Matt Bialer for your enthusiasm and unwavering support. An immense thank you to Susan and Jim Lapis, for graciously letting me use their beautiful cabin, where a good portion of this book was written. To my teachers who saw something in my earliest writing and told me to keep going: William J. Cobb, Charlotte Holmes, Alyce Miller, and my first creative writing teacher, Eve Shelnutt. To Sewanee Writers' Conference, especially Randall Kenan, John Casey, and my peers in the workshop—you were the first readers. Thank you to Bread Loaf, and to my brilliant teacher Stacey D'Erasmo and the awesome wait staff.

Immense gratitude to the people of West Virginia, who fight the onslaught of mountaintop removal on a daily basis in order to save their homes and communities. A special thank you to those who shared their personal stories with me and taught me something about courage: Larry Gibson, Maria Gunnoe, Ed Wiley, and especially Bo Webb, who drove me around the mountains, offered me beer and a place to stay, and always had knowledge and a story to share. And in memory of the brave and inspiring Judy Bonds, whose fight for the mountains lit the way and opened so many eyes. Although this book is very much a work of fiction, a variety of films, articles, and books helped me along the way. Those that helped considerably include
Everything in Its Path
by Kai T. Erikson, a vivid picture of the 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster; the
Foxfire
series edited by Paul F. Gillespie and Eliot Wigginton;
Lost Mountain
by Erik Reece, for powerfully detailing the effects of mountaintop removal;
Our Appalachia
edited by Laurel Shackelford and Bill Weinberg;
The Serpent Handlers
by Fred W. Brown and Jeanne McDonald; and
Serpent-Handling Believers
by Thomas G. Burton. Thanks to the amazing films and radio programs at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky, with special recognition to filmmaker Robert Salyer.

For giving me space and uninterrupted time to work on this novel, thank you to Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Fundación Valparaíso, the MacDowell Colony, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Thanks also to the residencies that showed support in the early days: Jentel Artist Residency Program, which inspired me to quit my full-time office job and never look back; the New York Mills Regional Cultural Arts Center; the Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education; and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts.

Thank you to my editor Anton Mueller, champion of this book, for all of his insights and support, and to everyone at Bloomsbury, for their generous efforts in taking such good care of
The Evening Hour
. And, finally, my deepest gratitude to my agent, PJ Mark, whose suggestions, guidance, and faith made this a better book. Thank you for sticking by me and for caring.

In loving memory of my grandparents.

A Note on the Author

Carter Sickels,
a graduate of the M.F.A. program at Pennsylvania State University, was awarded scholarships and residencies to Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the MacDowell Colony, VCCA, the Djerassi Residency, and Fundación Valparaíso. After spending nearly a decade in New York, Carter left the city to earn a master's degree in folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now living in the Pacific Northwest.

Copyright © 2012 by Carter Sickels

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

Electronic edition published in January 2012

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Sickels, Carter.

The evening hour : a novel / Carter Sickels.—1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-60819-598-5

1.  Mountain people—West Virginia—Fiction.   2.  Working poor—Fiction.   3.  Mountain life—Fiction.   4.  Mountaintop removal mining—Fiction.   5.  Choice (Psychology)—Fiction.   6.  Appalachian Region—Fiction.   7.  Domestic fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3619.I27E94 2011

813'.6—dc22

2010053034