The Coal Tattoo

by Silas House

  They walked on the side of the road next to the creek and watched the white water tumble over the rocks. It had rained all morning and now the mountain was sending down its flood. The rushing water sounded like a great fury unleashed.

  “Hold on a minute,” Anneth said, and squatted down behind a rock. When she arose, Easter saw that she had bent down there to get out of the wind long enough to light a cigarette.

  “It looks so ugly for a woman to smoke,” Easter said, walking along and looking straight ahead.

  “I don’t think it does,” Anneth said. “Susan Hayward smokes, don’t she?”

  “How would I know?” Easter said. She never went to the movies.

  “Every time you see her in a movie, she’s smoking. And she’s as pretty a woman as you’re likely to see.”

  “Well, every man I ever knowed said it was ugly for a woman to smoke.”

  “I’m not out to impress nobody,” Anneth said, and picked up her pace so she could pass Easter.

  “You know the only reason I’m going to this is on your account, don’t you?” Easter said.

  Anneth put her arm around Easter’s shoulder and walked along like that. “Yes, I know it, and I’m grateful to you always.” She squeezed Easter’s shoulder. “You never know, though. You might have some fun if you’d let yourself.”

  “I doubt it,” Easter said.

  Anneth laughed and the sound curled out in front of them, echoing up over the ridge.

  “I never did like to be away from home on New Year’s Eve,” Easter said. “I always get sad on New Year’s. It’s a lonesome time, somehow.”

  “How could you be lonesome when you’re with me?” Anneth said.

  A gray winter dusk with a mist of rain on the wind came down and settled over the land. The air smelled of the sandy creek bank. Up ahead they could see the lights burning in the schoolhouse windows. Already cars lined the road, and even over the wind they could hear the music.

  Outside, men stood around a barrel that was meant to hold fire, but tonight it was too windy. The men always gathered around a fire, though, and seemed not to know where else they should get together. The light falling from the window caught in a bottleneck’s glass and sent out a little glint across the yard. The men nodded to Anneth and Easter, and a couple of them elbowed each other in the ribs. Easter knew they were taking note of Anneth’s looks. Everybody always did.

  Inside, the music overtook everything. The band was assembled in front of the wall of blackboards. Someone had taken chalk in hand to scrawl “Happy New Year’s” across the boards in a tight, hunchbacked cursive. There were two guitar players and a banjo picker, a fiddler, and even a pianist. A woman sat in a folding chair amongst all the men, taking long slugs from a bottle of orange Nehi and holding a tambourine capped over her knee. They knew a lot of mountain music but were most famous for covering Hank Williams’s songs. One of the guitarists had RIP HANK WMS embroidered on his guitar strap.

  People were milling about in a great frenzy, as if they hadn’t been out of the house in ages. There were feisty girls running after boys, and older women who walked through the crowd looking for someone to call down.

  Easter was hustled into a corner by Lolie. Lolie was short and thick bodied, both traits made more noticeable by the beehive hairdo she wore tonight. Her face exuded kindness. Easter loved her wide green eyes and the way Lolie put her hands on people’s arms when she talked, but Easter also found her to be exhausting. Lolie talked so fast that Easter didn’t know how she had time to catch her breath. Lolie was telling her about Israel and how they were planning to run off to Jellico, Tennessee, where they would elope.

  “They say everybody there is a justice of the peace, that the town makes half its living off marrying folks,” Lolie said. “And Israel drove all the way to Hazard to buy a dress. You ought to see the one he picked out. Looked like something Mamie Eisenhower would wear. But I ended up getting the one I wanted.”

  Israel was leaned against the far wall, telling jokes to some of the other boys. Lolie had on too much perfume, and it got into Easter’s mouth and made her feel sick. Lolie hadn’t given Easter the chance to respond, even when she asked her a question. Anneth stood close by and watched the dance floor. She moved her hips to the music, snapping her fingers.

  As soon as the first licks on the guitar announced “Hey, Good Lookin’,” a boy asked Anneth if she would dance. He was about the same age as Anneth but a head shorter, his face sprinkled with freckles.

  “This song was wrote special for you,” he said, smiling with crooked teeth. Anneth put her hand over her mouth and looked back at Easter, making her amusement plain to see. Easter rolled her eyes.

  “Are you a good hand to two-step?” Anneth said.

  “Best in the county,” he said, and put his arm out.

  “We’ll see about that, hoss,” Anneth said, and hooked her arm into his. She walked beside him out onto the dance floor. Easter tapped her foot to the song, watching them as they moved about the floor. She didn’t really follow country music, but she had liked Hank Williams. She’d cried when they told on the radio about his being found dead in the backseat of his car.

  Israel strutted across the room, nodded to Easter, and took Lolie’s hand. He wore his hat cocked down on his forehead and was wearing a necktie, although no one else was. “Let’s dance, baby,” he said, and finally Lolie was gone. Easter held her elbows in her hands and watched the dancers. There was a big stove at the front of the building and she could smell the sweet scent of hickory burning. The room was so hot and close that she felt beads of sweat popping out on her forehead. She didn’t know why they kept loading the stove with wood; there were enough people in here alone to make the place warm by way of body heat.

  Easter located Anneth on the dance floor and watched how perfectly she two-stepped. The boy was pulling Anneth to him as they danced, and she kept pushing him back, all the while wearing a big smile on her face. The boy whispered in Anneth’s ear and she leaned her head back and laughed as if he were the funniest person she had ever met.

  When the song was over, Anneth made her way back to Easter, scanning the crowd and hooking her hair behind her ears. The boy followed along but Anneth waved him away without even turning around. “I don’t want to dance to no old slow song,” she said.

  Anneth grabbed Easter’s hand and led her back to the concession table. Here sweating women sold peanut butter fudge and bottled drinks and popcorn that smelled so good Easter became suddenly hungry. Anneth asked for two bottles of Dr Pepper.

  “I seen the best-looking man while I was up there dancing,” Anneth said as she plucked a half-dollar out of her little change purse and paid the woman. She looked over her shoulder at the crowd. “Now I can’t find him nowhere,” she said, holding her bottle against her chest as she clicked the purse shut with a thumb and forefinger. “Lord, he looks just like Elvis Presley.”

  The drink was so cold there were little flecks of ice floating around in it. Easter held it against her forehead for a moment to cool herself down. Anneth scanned the crowd, looking for the man.

  “Oh, there he is,” Anneth said. She leaned closer to Easter, pointing. “See him standing against the wall there, smoking?”

  There were at least a dozen men lined up against the wall, all of them with cigarettes hanging from their lips. But then one of the men looked up and Easter realized that he was looking right at them. Easter grabbed Anneth’s finger and forced her hand down. “Quit pointing,” she said. “He’s seen us looking at him.”

  “Good,” Anneth said. “Ain’t he pretty?”

  He had black hair that was too long on the top, combed up with Vitalis that shined beneath the bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. His eyes were very dark and his lips were so full and curved that they looked like a woman’s. He did favor Elvis Presley a bit, but only Anneth would have noticed the resemblance. There was something about him that seemed very confident yet out of place here. Easter felt the way he lo
oked: like she wanted to be somewhere else. The man held their gaze a moment—neither smiling nor frowning—then looked away.

  The woman in the band was so short that she had to stand on a wooden box and wave her arms around to get everyone’s attention. “We’re going to do a cakewalk now. At the back.” She held her Nehi in one hand and her tambourine in the other. “There’s twelve cakes back there, so you can pick which one you want when you win. You all got requests?”

  People in the crowd yelled the names of many songs at once, but Anneth cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered out “All Shook Up” so loudly that the little woman’s head jerked around to find her in the crowd.

  Anneth stepped up onto a nearby chair so the woman could find her. She finally honed in on Anneth and said, “Honey, we don’t play no rock ’n’ roll.”

  One of the guitarists stood. “Sure we do,” he said. “I know that song.”

  Several people in the crowd clapped and squalled out, but some of them walked on back to the cakewalk as if ignoring all of this. Easter looked up at Anneth, who was still standing on the chair. She was smiling at the guitarist and gave him a wink. He winked back, smiling a crooked little grin, and the crowd clapped again. Of course Anneth knew him, Easter thought. The little woman stepped off her box as if trying to show her disapproval, and the rest of the band pulled back, leaving the guitarist alone on the stage. He looked back at them for a moment, then lit in on the song himself. Easter had never heard it before, but it definitely wasn’t country. The man closed his eyes while he sang, as if he could feel it all through him. He moved around a little too much and arched back in a way that Easter found embarrassing.

  Anneth stood on her chair and danced. Her eye never left the guitarist, and Easter could see that Anneth liked him simply for the way he held that guitar, his hand moving up and down the fingerboard, which was long and slender as a woman’s calf.

  Several people went out to dance—boys sliding their partner on the floor between their legs and throwing her over their shoulder—but most people were walking around the cakewalk table. Suddenly Lolie was beside Easter again. “He’s supposed to quit playing,” she said.

  “What?” Easter said.

  “So somebody can win a cake. He has to quit playing in the middle of the song so they can stop on the numbers on the floor,” Lolie said. “Don’t you know how to do a cakewalk, Easter?”

  Easter just nodded, but really she didn’t know how to do a cake-walk. She had only been to a couple of dances. Even when she was in school, she never went to any gatherings except church. It was most likely a sin for her to even be here. She didn’t know why she had gone to church all her life; she just had. Serena hadn’t exactly been devoted—she had gone to church sporadically, and on the holidays—and nobody else in her family went on a regular basis except Sophie and Paul. Easter had always simply wanted to serve God, in His house. It was a desire she couldn’t explain, the same way she couldn’t explain how she knew things before they happened.

  The guitarist stopped singing abruptly, giving the guitar one final quick strum, and his eyes fell directly on Anneth, as if he knew that she would still be in the same spot. She stood on the chair a moment longer, then stepped down onto the floor again.

  The band moved out and started playing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” The cakewalkers started in again, but a sort of reverent silence fell over the place. Everyone loved this song. Easter could not stand it, as it was too sad. Loneliness was caught right in the notes of that song, and the players were picking it out of the guitar strings.

  “That feller’s coming over here,” Easter whispered to Anneth without moving her eyes from him. “He seen you pointing and now he’ll be asking you to dance, I guarantee.”

  Anneth busied herself with buying a bag of popcorn so that she could act surprised when he approached. By the time he had reached them, she had a small grease-splotched bag, and she took two kernels from it to place on her tongue. But he didn’t even look at Anneth. He stood in front of Easter and looked her in the eye. She smiled nervously, not knowing what he was doing.

  “Won’t you dance with me?” he said. He was even better looking close-up. But it wasn’t just that. Easter liked the way he stood, the way he held his shoulders square and solid.

  “I’m Pentecostal,” she said. “We don’t believe in dancing.”

  He smiled. “Listen to that song, though,” he said. “How can you not believe in music like that?”

  Easter wanted to take his hand and go on out to the dance floor, but she hesitated. “I better not,” she said. “I can’t dance.”

  “If you can walk, you can dance,” he said, and held out his hand.

  “Go on, Easter,” Anneth said loudly, hitting her arm. Then she leaned down close to Easter’s ear and whispered, “Live, Sister.”

  “You just follow me. There’s nothing to it,” he said. “Come on before the song’s over.”

  Easter took his hand. He led them out into the middle of the floor and put one hand on the small of her back. With the other he held her hand high in the air. She put her free hand on his shoulder the way she had seen other women do. Whenever Anneth danced with a man, she always held on to his belt at his hip. Easter wouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a thing.

  She tried to follow his lead and stumbled a couple of times, then fell into the rhythm of the music. “See there, you dance fine,” he said. “You’re Easter Sizemore, ain’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve got inside information. I’m El McIntosh.”

  “El? Where’d you get a name like that?”

  “My real name’s Oliver, but everybody started calling me El. They say I look like Elvis, but I think they’re crazy. I like ‘El’ better than ‘Oliver,’ though.” He smiled and spun her around. “Why don’t you do much dancing?”

  “I go to church.”

  “Well, you done told me that,” he said. “What could be wrong with dancing to such a fine song? David danced for the Lord, didn’t he?”

  “That’s different,” Easter said. She looked out at the crowd of onlookers and felt as if they were all watching her. She caught a glimpse of Anneth, who smiled widely and nodded her head in an exaggerated manner.

  “You’re too pretty a girl to be standing and watching everybody else dance,” he said.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t ever get asked to dance. Usually all the boys ask Anneth instead of me.”

  “Who’s that?” he said. His breath smelled like peach pop.

  “My sister, the one that was standing by me. You mean you didn’t see her over there dancing on that chair?”

  “No,” he said, and she searched his face to see if he was lying.

  “Every boy I know is crazy over her. Look at her,” Easter said, and nodded her head in Anneth’s direction. “Look how beautiful she is.”

  “You don’t think you’re beautiful?” El said, and pushed his thumb into the small of her back. “You are. You look like a good woman to me. That’s what I’m looking for.”

  Easter felt the momentary impulse to agree with him. She started to say, I do try to be good, but swallowed her words, realizing how strange that would sound. She felt her face turning red.

  “I want to come see you,” he said.

  Easter laughed and looked away. “I don’t even know you, buddy.”

  “That’s how you get to know somebody,” he said. The song ended but he kept moving for a moment. Then he stopped but held on to her. “Will you let me come up?”

  Easter caught sight of Anneth again over his shoulder. She was still nodding, fretting her eyebrows together. Easter could almost hear her whispering into her ear again: Live, Sister.

  She felt the words assembling themselves in her mouth but had no intention of letting them fly on the air. And then she heard herself saying, “Come talk to me awhile and we’ll see what happens.”

  WHEN SHE WASN’T watching Easter, Anneth had her eye on Matt
hew Morgan. She’d noticed him as soon as she’d gotten there. She’d liked him the first time she met him up there at the pine patch, but when he’d sung that song for her, she’d seen him in a new way. There was something gentle about the way he let the music lift him up off the stage. She had liked the way he moved as he sang “All Shook Up,” but she liked seeing him singing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” too—the way he seemed to be swept away by the song, like he could feel every mournful note.

  And there were his bangs, which hung down in his eyes when he leaned over the guitar, and the way he didn’t pause to brush the hair away. He moved his body in a way she had never seen, as if it were part of the music. When the song was over and he opened his eyes, she remembered why she had been so drawn to his face. Those eyes were like looking at deep water, the kind of water that draws you in on a hot summer day.

  He looked out over the crowd while the lead singer tried to figure out the next song to play for the cakewalk. The people in the back were hollering out for something fast. Matthew looked out at Anneth and winked again and this sent a start through her legs. She knew that later tonight she would be kissing him, putting her fingers over his closed eyes.

  And then it was as if she was being pushed back into the corner of the room without moving at all. The music slowed and blurred until it sounded like a record being played at slow speed. Everything about this place seemed pathetic to her—especially herself. She looked down at her cheap dress and worn shoes, noticed only the brightness of one of the sprigs of holly she had pushed into Easter’s hair, its berry so red that everything else looked drab.