Storming Heaven Page 3

  I asked C.J. if they would be returning to Italy “one of these days.” He rubbed his square chin.

  “I reckon they’s land enough for all,” he said after a time. “I like to think we can live together ifn we have to. Hit wont never be the same, but we’ll have to do the best we can.”

  C.J. hated the coal camps, had as little to do with them as possible. He rarely went to Jenkinjones, at the head of Pliny, although it was only two miles from Annadel. He passed through Felco, then the largest camp, on the train, and only came to Winco to see me. He usually brought a newspaper with him, the Justice Clarion, or the Charleston Gazette when he could get it. He said there were things going on in the world I would never learn in a coal operator’s school, and was always pointing out stories about revolts in the Philippines or strikes in Massachusetts.

  “I fret about you growing up here,” he said. We sat on our porch swing. “Company runs everything, makes all your daddy’s decisions for him, even gits his mail. Hit’s like Russia with that there Czar. Your daddy aint a free man. He’s like a slave.”

  “Aint nothing he can do about it,” I said defensively. I didn’t like to think I came from a cowardly daddy.

  “Aint nothing he is doing about it except drinking,” C.J. said.

  I shushed him, afraid Mommy might be listening and send him away. “Hit eases his back,” I whispered.

  C.J. pushed back and forth hard with his legs. I looked anxiously at the ceiling to see if the swing would hold. C.J. was a big man, over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, and his end of the swing tipped lower than mine so that I was jerked back and forth each time he pushed off.

  “What you learning in school these days?” he asked.

  “I’m a-memorizing the Declaration of Independence for Class Day. Can I practice on you? ‘When in the course of human events…’”

  I spoke proudly and confidently. I had already practiced before the class and Miss Radcliffe said I had “presence.”

  I stopped breathless with “the pursuit of happiness” and waited for his praise.

  “That it?” he asked, like he was disgusted.

  I nodded, hurt.

  “Aint it just like them,” he said. “Where’s the rest of it? Where’s the part about overthrowing the government?”

  “I dont know nothing about that. Miss Radcliffe just wrote this here out for me on a scrap of paper.”

  “Declaration of Independence says we got a right to overthrow the government when it gits worthless,” C.J. said grumpily. “I’d like to hear about that there sometime.”

  I wanted to hear that I had presence, but C.J. was in a bad mood the rest of the day. His parting words were a vow to bring me a copy of the complete Declaration to read.

  In fact, his visits became less frequent after that. A company policeman told him he came too often; the company did not like outsiders to be such regular visitors. He was welcome only once a month, and then he must tell the police he was there.

  C.J. tried to save me from the mines. It was like him to think that he could. Daddy started taking me with him when I was ten. The law said you had to be fourteen, but the company looked the other way. Daddy thought if I helped, he might get out of debt to the company store. C.J. came down to argue with him.

  “They aint never going to let you out of debt,” he said. “The bastards is weighing you light as it is. They’ll keep right on no matter how much coal that boy loads.”

  “It will help,” Daddy insisted. “Denbigh says hit could mean as much as fifty cent more a day. And he’s taking Talcott on as a breaker. We’ll do a lots better.”

  “What about Rondal’s schooling?”

  “What about it? He cant eat them books.”

  “He could be a lawyer or a doctor someday.”

  “Someday. You’re a-talking twenty year down the road about something might as well be a fairy story. Boy aint smart enough for that.”

  “That boy is plenty smart. You just aint around to see it. They got you stuck in that hole so you dont know what’s going on in the world.”

  “Damn it, C.J., I know what it takes to live. Look at my woman. She aint nothing but skin and bones. She dont eat no supper half the time sos the younguns can have some. Schooling takes money, and I aint got none. Have you?”

  My heart sank when C.J. shook his head.

  “No, I aint got it right now. Maybe in a couple years. Ermel talks about setting me up with a store in Annadel.”

  “Then tell me about it in a couple years. Right now, I cant see wasting no more time on schooling when they’ll just be teaching the boy what that boss wants him to know anyhow. Hit’s got nothing to do with us that I can tell.”

  I didn’t sleep that night, and hid under the bed the next morning when I heard Daddy get up. I hoped he would think I had run away. But Talcott was awakened by Daddy’s swearing and said, “He was just here. The bed is still yet warm.” Daddy looked all over, went out on the front porch and hollered, stuck his head under the house and rousted out the dogs. It was Mommy found me and dragged me out from under the bed. Daddy took the belt to me.

  “Later we git started, longer we got to work. Otherwise theys one less biscuit on the plate. You git that through your head, boy.”

  I went to the mines with a sore back from his strap. I had on my first pair of boots. They were too large and rubbed blisters on my heels before we even reached the tipple. I told Daddy and he said, “We’ll tell your mommy to put you on two pair of socks next time.”

  An early morning rain fell as we walked past the outbuildings—the engine house, the supply house, the blacksmith’s and new powerhouse, all built of solid brown blocks of stone with high windows of thick cloudy glass. Daddy and I held Talcott’s hands. We took him to the breaker boys’ shed. Here the chunks of coal came trundling in on conveyor belts, and Talcott would sit beside the moving line and pick out pieces of slate to be discarded. The shed was drafty and the roof leaked. Drops of water left hissing round craters in the coal dust on the floor. Some of the boys were already at their places, hunched on wooden boxes beside the conveyors like they had been working all day, even though the coal hadn’t started to run yet. The boss man paced back and forth, a stick in his hand, ready to strike the shoulders of any boy who missed a piece of slate.

  “He’s going to hit me with that there stick,” Talcott whimpered. He was only eight years old.

  “You just do what the man says.” Daddy sat him down on a stool. “Dont you back talk him. Mommy put a piece of dried apple pie in your dinner pail, special for your first day. Dont let nobody else git a holt of it.”

  We left quick before Talcott could commence to crying. Soon after we walked into the drift mouth, we passed the underground mule stable.

  “Can I pet one of them mules?”

  “Hell, no. We aint got time to pet no mules. This is the coal mine, this aint Ermel’s damn farm. Besides, them mules is mean. They’ll take your hand right off.”

  One mule was led out in front of us and I gave its flank a furtive pat. Its hair was sticky with sweat and dust. The skinner saw me and yelled, “Git back fore you git your head kicked in!” Daddy grabbed my arm and pulled me along behind him.

  “Git offn that track. You got to git in the habit of watching out for cars, or you’ll git run over.”

  I shrank against the ribs of the tunnel, walking so close that I kept bumping into the wall and staggering. I was afraid some invisible force would drag me into the path of an oncoming coal car. Once I looked back. The drift mouth was small, a milky gray circle that promised the dawn.

  “Say goodbye to the light,” Daddy said. “Hit will be dark when we come out of here.”

  It wasn’t really light outside. But the weeds had smelled strong and green in the spring dew, mourning doves and meadowlarks had cried for the sun to rise, and a breeze ruffled the fine hair at the nape of my neck. Now there was no movement of air except the unnatural breath of the trap doors opening and closing in the tunnels. The
smell was like the inside of our coal stove, but damp and decaying. Ahead of us, lamps bobbed like monstrous lightning bugs. Here and there an arm swung free from the darkness and disappeared again. I felt the mountain hunkered over us, pressing down, and it was hard to breathe.

  “Daddy, I cant do this.”

  “Other younguns do it. You aint nothing special. You’ll git used to it.”

  I knew there were other children in the mine. Boys at my school were always dropping out to go to work. I would lose sight of them for weeks, then they would reappear on a Sunday afternoon, some with chaws of tobacco bulging in their cheeks, looking hard and wise like little old men. I felt ashamed when I thought of them. Daddy was right. I was due no special privileges.

  I knew the boy on the first trap door we came to. He was an Italian who went to first grade with me. His job was to pump the trap door all day long, keep the air moving. He had to open the door for the mule trains too, and keep out of the way so he wouldn’t be run down. When the light from my cap reached his door, I saw he had been writing on it with slate. DO NOT SCARE THE BIRDS, he had scrawled, and beneath that a picture of a canary with fancy swirls on its wings. I raised my hand to him. He nodded briefly as he hauled on the door.

  We walked almost two miles in. It was low coal so that Daddy and his buddy must always crawl, but I was short for my age and could walk if I bent over. I was called on to fetch and carry the tools, the auger, rod and black powder. Daddy stretched out on his belly and showed me how they would work.

  “This is called our place and that there is the face of the coal. We drill in there with our auger and then we tamp in the powder and dirt and the needle. Tamp it in tight as a virgin’s ass. Then we pull out the needle and stick the squib in the hole and light it. Then we git for cover on our hands and knees. You stay put out of the way while that’s going on. You’ll help us load the coal after it blows.”

  Daddy’s buddy, Joe Kracj, crawled in and was listening but not understanding a word. He was a foreigner. I couldn’t see his face in the dark because of the carbide lamp on his head, and it occurred to me that I might work with him all day and never recognize him outside the mine.

  “You git down when the coal starts to blow,” Daddy said. “Put your head down. You’ll know hits a-coming when I holler out like this.”

  He leaned back and yelled, “Fi-i-i-yah! Fire in the hole!” He laughed. “I allays do the hollering cause hit just dont sound right when ole Joe does it.”

  I went back where Daddy showed me to wait while they drilled. I tried not to think of the mountain pushing down on us. To distract myself, I bobbed my head up and down and watched the light from my lamp skitter across the ribs and timbers. It was quieter than I had expected. Puffs of coal dust danced in my lamplight. I heard a steady plopping of water, like a banjo played with only one note. My eyes were heavy with the darkness. I longed to see the mine lit just once, to possess a magical eyesight that could see the men all at their places; Daddy crawling on his belly in the number four coal; others drilling upright in the number five; the skinners driving their mules; the trappers opening and closing the trap doors. I felt them trying to breathe together as one, in unison with my own heaving chest. The air was still and our breathing could not move it. The mountain pressed down, uneasy at the violation of its entrails. Daddy hollered. The air blew apart. I bounced onto my belly, covered my ears with the heels of my hands. The earth stroked my chest, my thighs.

  Daddy emerged from a billowing black cloud.

  “Come on, boy, time to break it up and load it.”

  I jumped up and hit my head on the roof.

  When we left the mine at the end of the day I was so weary from shovelling coal that I could not walk very fast. When we came for Talcott, he could not stand up, but sat hunched over on his bench. Daddy picked him up and he cried out.

  “Dont worry, son,” Daddy said. “You’ll git toughened up.”

  I heard Mommy crying in the kitchen that night before I slept.

  “What am I supposed to do? I’m a-scairt to hug my own babies for fear of hurting them. I seen bruises all over Talcott’s back where that boss man hit on him. Aint no mother supposed to let such things happen to her younguns.”

  “Shut up!” Daddy said. “I can take care of them boys.”

  I closed my eyes.

  The pain in my body settled into a dull ache. I went on. For the first time in memory, I spent time with my daddy. I came to realize that he was glad to have me with him. He had few ways of showing it. We seldom spoke underground. We were too busy with our picks and shovels, straining to load as many tons as we could, for the more we loaded, the more we were supposed to earn. But when we left the mine, Daddy sometimes pulled off my cap and gently rubbed his knuckles back and forth across the top of my head. He could never bring himself to touch me with the fleshy palms of his hands. But I knew he loved me.

  It was Mommy I missed now. I only saw her on Sundays, except for a few moments in the early morning and late at night. Even on Sundays she seemed more distant. She went to church and stayed all morning, or worked in the garden and told me not to come bother her.

  One Sunday when she was outside, I got the idea of reading the newspapers covering the walls. I missed C.J.’s visits with the Justice Clarion, missed the books at school. The newspapers were new; Mommy had put them up that very week. I brought a wooden chair from the kitchen and set it by the front door, lit a kerosene lantern, and stretched on tiptoe to read the headlines near the ceiling. When I had read halfway down the wall, I got down and stood on the floor, then hunkered down to study the articles near the baseboard. I worked my way around the room, even removed the calendar with the picture of Jesus given out by Ermel Justice’s store so I could read beneath it. I was wedged in tight behind the black pot-bellied stove, my rear end pressed against the pipe, engrossed in an account of how European companies would soon be mining coal in China, when there came a sizzle and pop and a burst of acrid smoke. The heat from the lantern’s chimney had set the wall on fire.

  I squirmed from behind the stove, ran outside to the rain barrel, returned with a bucket of water. I dashed the water against the wall. A gaping black-edged hole was left in Mommy’s clean newsprint wallpaper, but the flames were dead.

  I went to find her in the garden.

  “What you doing down here?” she said. She was clearing a patch for fall planting.

  I told her what I had done. When she didn’t answer, I said, “You going to switch me?”

  “Why should I?” She chipped at the ground with her hoe. “You done gone in the mines. Aint no switch going to faze you none. Your daddy done made a man outen you. I cant do nothing with you now.”

  I wished she would whip me about the bare legs with a briar switch, like in the old days, then weep at the sight of the scratches, hug me and feed me an apple butter biscuit. But I was left lonesome to chastise myself.

  One of my jobs in the mine was to keep an eye on our canary. We were always in danger from black damp, an odorless poison gas that collected in pockets where we blasted. We kept the bird in a small wooden cage at our place. If we hit a pocket of black damp the bird would fall over dead, and we would know to run. It didn’t take long for black damp to kill a man.

  I grew fond of our bird, and named him Butterball. He was a sooty gray color from the coal dust, but I could ruffle his feathers with the tip of my finger and reveal tufts of yellow down. I began taking his cage with me to the dinner place where we met other miners to eat our bait. The other boys teased me at first, but then they started to bring their birds too. We argued about whose bird was the best.

  One of the Negro boys, Antoine Jones, had the biggest bird of all. He named him Tiger. The others agreed Tiger could lick any bird in the mine. But I wasn’t so sure. Butterball was small, but he jumped around constantly and had a bald spot on his scalp from hitting his head on the top of the tiny cage. I pointed this out to the others.

  “He’s like a banty rooster,�
� I said. “He’s born to fight.”

  “My daddy raises fighting birds,” Antoine countered. “He aint lost a cockfight in years. And he taught me a lot. Your bird couldn’t beat Tiger.”

  Tommy Slater proposed a fight. The loser would have to give the winner his bait to eat. I was reluctant because bird fights were supposed to be to the death. But I couldn’t back down since I’d done too much bragging. We unlatched the doors, stuck the cages together and shook them sideways until Butterball was coaxed into the bottom of Tiger’s cage. He fluttered his wings and pranced nervously in one corner.

  “Git up on the perch!” Antoine urged. “Git up there and fight, you coward!”

  “He aint no coward!” I protested. “Tiger dont know what to do neither.”

  Tiger sat on the bar and craned his head.

  All the boys started yelling. “Come on! Fight, you cowards! Sic him, Tiger!”

  The birds just sat.

  “We got to make them mad,” Tommy Slater said. He picked up the cage and shook it. Tiger clutched the wooden perch and Butterball flew against the bars in a panic. “Come on! Fight!” Tommy shook the cage harder, up and down.

  “Stop it!” I jerked the cage away from him. Tiger stood up in the bottom of the cage, wobbling like he was drunk. Butterball lay still, his head twisted sideways.

  “He’s dead!” Antoine shouted. “Your bird is dead! Tiger wins!”

  He opened my dinner pail, sorting out the biscuits and side meat. I didn’t care about the food. I reached into the cage and picked up Butterball as gently as I could. His head fell across my finger. I wrapped him in my bandana, concentrating hard on being neat so the others wouldn’t see me cry. When they were busy talking, I slipped back to Daddy’s place to be alone.

  That night I took Butterball down by the creek to bury him. But I decided it would be cruel to put him back under the ground, so I made a pyre out of twigs, laid the stiff body upon it, and set it on fire. It burned quickly. A breeze bore away the gray flakes of ash.