The Coal Tattoo

by Silas House

  But Easter had been blind and foolish not to see that Anneth felt as if she had lost her sister. She had quietly finished up her days of high school and walked the graduation line, and then after another year of dating Matthew, she had run away to be married. There was nothing to be done about it now. Anneth was almost twenty years old and had been grown a long, long time. At least she hadn’t gotten married at sixteen, as Easter had feared she would. Easter really didn’t know why she was so upset; Matthew was a good man. Maybe that was the problem—he was too good. She doubted that Anneth’s marriage to him could ever survive.

  Easter went around to the back of the house and grabbed her hoe from its place leaning against the coal shed. She needed something to get her mind off everything. It wasn’t just that Anneth had sneaked off to get married; Easter and El had been having trouble, too. Gabe had problems with Jimmie and had been coming down a lot lately. Sometimes Easter came home to find Gabe and El playing poker or sitting on the porch, drinking, singing along with the radio. Gabe liked to start trouble when he was drunk. It was an unexplainable thing about him, and she was just waiting for the day when Gabe would cause a great fight between her and El. Once, El had cupped her behind in one hand, right in front of Gabe. She had knocked his feet off the chair where they were propped up. “I won’t have this going on here,” she said.

  Gabe had snickered. El looked up at her and she saw that he wasn’t as drunk as she had thought. His face was so clear and flat with anger that she realized he wasn’t drunk at all, but had only been playing along with Gabe, who looked near to passing out. “I’m a good man, Easter,” El said. “I work hard, try to do my best by you. But if I want a beer every once in a while, I’m going to by God drink one.” She knew that he had thrown in the “by God” especially to spite her.

  She chopped the weeds hard, sweat rolling down into her eyes. The sun beat down on the top of her head and she lifted her hair off her neck. Even though it was pulled up into a bun, it had gradually fallen down and was hot on her neck. If she was smart, she’d go into town and get it cut. She wondered sometimes if she wore her hair long because she wanted to or because the church wanted her to. She wiped her brow and went back to work. She had hoed around the tomatoes and the corn and the beans before she realized that blisters were forming on her hands. Then she let the hoe drop and fell down on her knees in the rich loam, praying. When she finished, she realized that she hadn’t prayed like this in a while. Serena had always prayed in the garden. Easter helped her with the hoeing and dreaded it when Serena felt the urge to pray, as her grandmother sometimes knelt for a half hour. It was disrespectful to keep working while Serena prayed, so Easter had to stand there waiting after she’d finished her own hoeing. Gnats swarmed around her face in the heat. Once, she had said, “Not now, Granny. Please.” But Serena had gotten down anyway and looked around with a stern face. “No, I’m bound to pray now, honey.”

  Her knees were in that same soil where her grandmother had knelt so many times. But she was not as good a woman as Serena had been. Lately she had been full of doubt and lust and everything except goodness. She clasped her hands and prayed again, this time for her own forgiveness. With her eyes closed and her head bent, it was easy for her to realize that this was a strange thing, to be asking for forgiveness. Because really, what had she done to repent for? She knew that it wasn’t what had already been done, but what she was about to do. Because for the first time she admitted to herself that she needed more, too. Maybe not an adventure like Anneth’s—running off to Tennessee—but a change. She held her hands together tightly and tried to find the proper words. She had never prayed for herself before in her life.

  THE IN JESUS’ NAME Pentecostal Church was one block away from the drugstore. The building wasn’t really like a church at all. It looked like an old storefront. There were curtains covering the big plate glass windows, and gold lettering on the glass: THREE SUNDAY SERVICES, PRAYER MEETING EVERY TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY, ALL-NIGHT SINGING FRIDAYS, WEDDINGS ANYTIME. PASTOR R. C. SHEPHERD. The church must have recently moved in; customer bells still hung from the door. They rang out loudly when Matthew went in.

  Anneth stood back in the open doorway and looked at the announcing bells. As the air from inside pushed out past her, Anneth sniffed and realized this had been a bakery at some point. The smell of cinnamon and chocolate still lingered. She suddenly felt so sad that she could hardly stand it. She wanted Easter here with her.

  She walked on in and didn’t hear a word as Matthew talked to the preacher. The faces of the people around her registered briefly. There was a tugging at the back of her lungs that made her worry that the old sadness she carried around might be blooming again. Not now, she thought. Not on my wedding day. Before long she found herself in a Sunday school room where she was to get ready, and now her homesickness for Easter hit her like a fist to the stomach.

  She wanted to marry Matthew; she wanted to be married right now. But she wanted Easter and El as her witnesses. Not the preacher’s gray-skinned wife, Zinnia, who smelled of mothballs and liniment, and his spinster daughter who wore glasses so thick that her eyes were magnified to twice their size behind the lenses. Zinnia had bouquets in the refrigerator standing in the fellowship hall. There were bunches of roses, daisies, and mums. Anneth chose the daisies. “I usually charge a half-dollar for them,” Zinnia said, “but you’re so pretty I want to give them to you.”

  Zinnia stood in the Sunday school room with Anneth and asked her if she needed anything. The daughter slumped in the corner with her arms crossed and her head cast down. She was pitiful and Anneth knew she ought to be friendly to the poor girl but couldn’t bring herself to do so. Her mind was too occupied. Zinnia claimed to be a good hand to fix hair—she had always wanted to be a hairdresser, she said, but her husband thought it was a sin to fix up too much. “You’re so naturally pretty there’s nothing to add to,” Zinnia said.

  There was a small window in the room that looked out onto the backyard. A huge tomato plant grew there, where a block of sunlight came down between the house and the mountain, and its leaves pressed close to the window. She could see the red of a tomato just below the distorting glass. She stared hard at the plant, willing herself to do this alone. She felt a shudder go through her.

  Zinnia put her hand in the small of Anneth’s back. “Honey, are you sure you want to do this?” She lowered her voice and took a step forward so that her hot breath played in Anneth’s ear. She looked behind her to make sure they were alone. “If you’re not sure, don’t do it. Or you’ll have a life of misery.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Anneth said, and heard her voice as if from very far away. She did not meet Zinnia’s eyes but kept her gaze on the tomato plant. The garden would be full of life back home. It was strange to think that the world was operating the same back there, since she felt so far away from Free Creek. She knew that as the crow flies there was very little distance between them, but it was too big a gulf. She wanted to fall against Zinnia and cry until she felt better. “It’s just I wish my sister was here. I wanted her to see me marry.”

  Zinnia patted her back. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry. I know what you mean. I still miss my sisters from when I left home. That’s part of marrying, though. Leaving your people behind. You have to cleave to your man.”

  “I’ll never do that,” Anneth said, her voice harder than she intended. “Leave my people behind, I mean. There’s no way.”

  Zinnia just nodded, but it was obvious that she was only resigning herself to agree.

  “I’m ready,” Anneth said, but she wasn’t. Still, if she didn’t do this quickly she’d never do it at all. Zinnia opened a door and waved to begin the ceremony. The organ music started and Anneth felt as if she was about to die. She walked out into the foyer of the church and sucked up her homesickness and grief. She could feel tears standing on the bottom of her eyelids. But then Matthew stepped out in front of the altar and their eyes met. She shook Easter from her mind and walked on down th
e aisle.

  MATTHEW GRABBED HER up from the car and carried her to the motel room. He had a hard time fumbling around to get the key into the doorknob but did it without dropping her. He laid her on the bed and kissed her so hard on the mouth that she couldn’t even protest. Neither of them undressed. He let his trousers slide down around his legs and jerked Anneth’s panties off. He kissed the insides of her thighs and she undid the buttons on his shirt, peeling it back so she could put her face against the flat muscles of his stomach. But then he was sitting up in bed and she was straddling him with her dress and crinoline and everything between them. She arched back, her hands against his chest, then held on to the sides of his neck, and his mouth searched for her lips, his hands moving on her hips. Cool beads of sweat broke out on the small of her back and a great warmth swam all through her.

  Afterward they lay on the bed with the sounds of coal trucks rolling by the motel.

  “Why don’t we head on over to Nashville from here?” Matthew said. “We’re only about six hours from there.”

  “That’s an awful long way,” Anneth said around a mouthful of crackers. She was hungry again and had pulled a pack of Nabs off the night-stand. “I thought the band had another show lined up this weekend.”

  “Yeah, but I’m thinking of trying to go solo,” he said. He positioned himself on his side, put his elbow on the bed, and supported his head that way. “I’m tired of mining coal all week long and playing little clubs on the weekends.”

  “But I’ll miss home so bad—”

  “I’ve got a dream, Anneth.”

  She liked the way he said that. Just hearing him talk about dreams pleased her. When she talked like this to Easter or Gabe or Aunt Sophie, they barely paused in whatever they were doing, the silent equivalent of saying, Oh, that’s nice.

  “I want to be a real singer. I’d like to sing rock ’n’ roll one of these days. But I’ve got it all figured out,” he said. He got up quickly, grabbed Anneth a Dr Pepper out of the silver cooler he had packed in from the car, and got back into bed without ever taking a pause in his talking. “The easiest way is to get into country first—because I can play any country song there is. I can hear one verse of a country song and pick up the rhythm on my guitar. I know I can do it.”

  “I wish you could, Matthew,” she said, and took a drink. The Dr Pepper was so cold that it hurt her teeth. “But I got a job to get back to. I told them down at the diner that I’d be back Monday. I’m lucky they let me off long enough to get married.”

  “If I make it in the music business, you won’t never have to work again. We won’t have to worry about nothing.” He moved down and laid his head on her stomach and she put her hand in his hair. “I want more out of life than that. I want us to have the biggest life we can have, and I can make that happen. I want to give you everything you deserve.”

  She took another drink and looked out the window at the hills. There were no mountains in Nashville. Of this much she was certain.

  Matthew rolled over so that he was facing the ceiling and took her hand and kissed it. As he talked, his words were warm against her fingers. “Do you know what it’s like to have a dream? To want something so bad you can taste it?”

  She turned and looked him in the eye. She could see sincerity there. He did not blink. She put her hand on the side of his face and held his gaze. “Tell me something, Matthew. The first time I met you, you told me you believed in magic. Just like that, without even having to think about it. Were you just telling me that?”

  “I believe in magic,” he said. “I do.”

  Anneth didn’t have to think about it a minute more. If nothing else, it was an adventure. The thought of being that far away from Free Creek and everyone she loved didn’t cross her mind at that moment. She didn’t think about where they would live or how they’d get by until he got a good gig, or anything else. All she thought was that they were young and free and she loved the way that word—adventure—felt in her mouth. She whispered it to herself, and when Matthew asked what she had said, she only replied, “Let’s go, then.”

  Seven

  O Nashville

  EASTER HADN’T BEEN fishing since she was a child, but the memory resided in her hands so clearly that when she felt the pluck of a bluegill on the end of her line, she immediately drew back her rod to set the hook and started reeling the fish into the boat. She couldn’t help growing excited as the bluegill raced toward the river’s bottom, pulling her line taut. Then it came up so close to the water’s surface that she could see a zoom of its glistening back as it caught sunlight. She stood, causing the rowboat to rock and tremble, but did not lose her balance as she reeled the line all the way in and swung the end of the pole around so she could take the fish off the hook. The blue-gill hit the wooden floor and flopped with such strength that it nearly made its way back into the water, its iridescent scales sending glints of sunlight against the sides of the boat.

  “Here, I’ll get it,” El said, rising up from his seat at the end of the boat. He had been watching her quietly except for the loud clap he gave when she managed to get the fish into the boat.

  Easter snatched the fish up off the floor with one quick motion and reached in to grasp the neck of the hook, working it back and forth. “I can get my own fish off, thank you very much,” she said. “You seem to forget I’m a country girl.”

  El leaned over to unlatch the lid of the wire basket he had tied to the side of their boat and held it open while Easter dropped the blue-gill in. She dug into the cold loam of the coffee can to pull out another night crawler.

  “What do you think about that, now, buddy?” she said to El. “I’m already beating you.”

  “We’ve only been out here twenty minutes,” El said, smiling. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and sat there bare chested. She knew he had done this not because he was hot but because he relished the feel of the breeze against his skin. “You won’t be ahead long.”

  “We’ll see who comes away with the most when we get ready to go home,” she said. She sat down and baited her hook, cast her line, and looked out over the winding expanse of the Black Banks River. She could smell the sandbar willows that leaned over the water, the dripping cliffs farther upstream. Here the shade was thick and blue and a breeze was always present, just enough to move the boat around in a slow little circle from the anchor. She heard the glee in her own voice and saw the peace of this place and instantly chastised herself for the tenth time that morning.

  She had let El talk her into going fishing instead of going to church. In the last year her churchgoing had been their biggest problem. It wasn’t that El griped about her going to church, really. But often the only day he was home from work was Sunday, and she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to spend his only time at home within the confines of the church house. He wanted to be out fishing or driving up to Natural Bridge or simply sitting around the house with her. It was a dilemma—miss church to be with your husband, or go to church and not see him for another week. At first she had been relentless, not letting anything stand in her way of attending both services that were held on Sundays. She told him that he ought to enjoy going to church, that he ought to see it as a release, the way she did, but as soon as those words escaped her mouth she knew they wouldn’t work on El. Because of course everyone didn’t think of church the same way she did. It was a place where people wore their best clothes and talked in hushed tones—how could that be relaxing for most people? Slowly she began to see his point and started to attend only one service on Sunday—usually the Sunday morning meeting so that El could sleep late—but today was the first time she had not gone to church at all. They had left early in the morning and packed a picnic that they took up to Pine Mountain. They had eaten on the big rocks up there and laughed at the little cars on the roads below and climbed the mountain’s rough trails to see the laurels that grew out of the cliffs. When they came to a place of slick, moss-covered rocks, El had taken her hand and guided her through
. He had run his thumb across her palm and it had stirred up a feeling in her that felt very much like a kind of salvation.

  Then they had driven back home, and El had talked all the way and made her laugh so much that she didn’t even think twice when he suggested that she skip the evening service so she could go fishing with him. They had shoved El’s little rowboat into the back of his pickup and driven down to the Black Banks River to fish awhile. When Loretta Lynn came on the radio, singing “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” Easter was surprised to realize she knew every word of this song, as if it had been sung to her when she was a child and she had tucked the lyrics away in the back of her mind. She hadn’t even been conscious of hearing this song before, but obviously she had heard it. When she sang, El tapped his thumb on the steering wheel and nodded his head to the beat.

  The evening church service would be starting in ten more minutes, and here she sat, intent on catching another fish. What made her feel most guilty was that she didn’t feel too bad about missing church. El was right—God could be found on Pine Mountain in those laurel bushes, could be found in the little ripples on the river’s surface—but still, she should have felt worse than she did. She knew that this was the way people fell into temptation and forgot the ways of the church—she had heard preachers talk about that her whole life. She tested the weights of both pleasures: the ease of laughter between herself and El, and the sensation of the Holy Ghost racing up and down the backs of her arms. Both things filled her with joy. And it seemed that God could be more easily present in time she had with her husband than El could be in her own dialogues with the Lord.