The Coal Tattoo

by Silas House

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Liam said, and held her lightly by the elbow as he led her back to his car. As he drove back down the driveway he put his hand on her thigh and looked over at her with a smile. “You were amazing in there,” he said.

  “I was pissed off in there,” she said. She took a hard draw on her cigarette.

  “Well, I loved it,” Liam said, “seeing him struck down like that.” He slapped the steering wheel and let out a high laugh.

  “Well, you sure didn’t act it,” she said, and turned to watch the mountains go by out her window. She wondered who Liam was exactly, a man who could walk around like two different people. There were a lot of things she didn’t know about him, and it wouldn’t occur to her until much later that she should have realized this before it was too late.

  AN UNNATURALLY THICK dew had fallen in the blue part of night, just before the world started to awake. In that time when daybreak is still hours away, the world knows it is approaching and prepares itself. Even before grayness shows at the horizon, things begin to stir. Animals move about. Trees take in deep breaths of the cool air, anticipating the heat that will descend upon them by midday. The ground opens its pores and yawns against the dark.

  It was during that time that the dew had fallen, a dampness that moved down through the air and touched the leaves and the moss and the ferns along the creek. The dew was thin and beaded, so that it seemed to arise from the earth instead of coming down on it, but it was there nonetheless. The dew stood like sweat on the old rocks and made undecipherable, beautiful patterns on the glass of car windows, on the petals of flowers.

  Anneth sat down in the woods and felt the dew soak into the seat of her dress. It was cool on the backs of her legs. She wasn’t sure how long she kept her eyes closed but when she opened them, all was awake, as if she had wished it into being. Birdcall filled the mountain behind her, echoing far back into the deepest, most shady parts of the forest. Suddenly it was morning, clear and peach and lavender. The scent of summer came out of the ground and surrounded her. She could smell everything: the field of wildflowers atop the mountain, the creek water, the dew.

  She had awakened in the middle of the night and sat up in her bed, trying to orient herself to the darkness of the big house overlooking Altamont. Liam snored beside her, his back hot and sticky against her elbow. The house creaked and moaned around her, settling into its patch of earth. She threw back the sheet covering them and carefully slipped out of the bed. She dressed silently, eyeing his naked body in moonlight. She grabbed her keys off the kitchen table and went outside, standing in the driveway with the coal camp spread out below her. There were so many lights down there that it almost looked like a big town. The coal company had built a church down there and its steeple was white against the black mountainside, watching her. Judging her. This was the first time she had stayed all night at Liam’s house and already she didn’t like the place. It wasn’t that she felt guilty for being with Liam. The last few months they had been together many, many times. But there was something about his house at Altamont. She knew there were ghosts there. Altamont had once been known as Redbud, and Vine’s family had lived there before the mining company took it away from them. Now the valley belonged to Liam’s family, who had bought it several years back. She wished she had reminded Liam’s father of this fact, too, since in actuality he was now mining her family land, stolen from them.

  Anneth had awakened with the thought of Easter and was not able to go back to sleep. It was three o’clock in the morning when she put her car into neutral and let it roll to the bottom of the driveway before cranking its motor halfway down the mountain. The car glided above the silent curves of the mountains as she drove toward Free Creek, knowing that she had to see Easter. Once she bounced across the old bridge and pulled up into Free Creek, she saw that there was no one stirring. She had expected the lights in the house to come on at the sound of her car engine. She had thought she would see the flutter of curtains being pushed aside as Easter looked out to see who was in her driveway. But there was no movement at all and the world was a perfectly still place, as if she was the only person left on earth. So she had walked around to the back of the house and sat down on the big rock near the foot of the mountain, the trees close around her. The trees were bigger in the heart of summer, their leaves huge and crowded, and they surrounded her like a womb while the dew fell, as the forest brought itself up out of sleep.

  She didn’t know why she felt the desire to sit and study the little house where she had grown up, where Easter and El still lived. But she didn’t want to disturb anything until daylight. The blue part of night was perfect and ought not be bothered.

  Now daytime was instant, and down in the holler she could hear cars being started as people left for work. Roosters crowed and dogs barked. She kept sitting there while lights came on in the house—probably El getting ready to go to work. She sat there awhile longer—an hour, she supposed—while Easter cooked breakfast for El and they sat drinking coffee together. Anneth didn’t move until she heard the door open and watched as El went to his truck and pulled out onto the road. Didn’t he even notice her car, parked on the side of the road?

  Anneth arose and went to the back door. She was aware of how silently she moved across the yard. The damp grass didn’t make a sound beneath her feet. She stood at the screen door, breathing in the only scent that would ever conjure up the aroma of home for her. That big house in Altamont would never be hers. Her body didn’t fit correctly into its space. Here she could smell the breakfast Easter had cooked—tenderloin and biscuits—and that familiar scent of home. The house smelled of all the good things that had ever happened there. The overlapping scents of so many meals, Ivory soap, and talcum powder.

  Easter came into the kitchen without even realizing that Anneth stood behind the screen, watching her. She moved like an old woman now, slightly bent. Her hair was a wild mess, even though Anneth could never remember its being out of place when Easter used to get up in the mornings. It had finally started to grow out a little after Easter had hacked it all off. She was still wearing her gown, and this was the thing that convinced Anneth she was needed here. Easter never got out of bed without immediately dressing. She rarely left her bedroom without first putting on a freshly pressed dress and placing tortoise combs into her hair.

  “Sister,” Anneth said, and Easter dropped the cast-iron skillet she had just taken from the stove. It made a dull metal thump against the enamel countertop. The screen door let out a high, familiar screech as Anneth opened it and stepped into the kitchen. Easter’s hand had rushed up to her heart in surprise, and she took it down slowly, letting her fingers settle on the edge of the counter. Anneth felt the great distance between them as they stood three feet apart in the kitchen of the house where they had grown up together. The gulf there seemed to churn and sway.

  Anneth took a step forward. “I woke up in the middle of the night, worried to death about you,” she said.

  Easter brought her arms up and let them cross her breasts, her hands on the tops of her shoulders. “I want to die, Anneth,” she said.

  ANNETH TOOK HER up on the mountain. It took some coaxing; Easter said she had to force herself to get out of bed in the mornings, much less climb that steep path. But Anneth would not hush until Easter went with her. Anneth needed to go there as badly as Easter did. It was the only place where she could get her thoughts in order. They walked up the path with their arms intertwined, the songs of the mountain twirling around them. Anneth talked nonstop, thinking she would not give Easter time to think about anything else. She told Easter how good Liam was to her, told her what asses his parents were and about their beautiful but lifeless house on a mountain overlooking Huntington. She told Easter of their adventures traveling around the state, how Lolie and Israel were finally coming around to liking him. She could tell that Easter wasn’t even listening to her. When they got to the summit, Anneth paused for a minute in the shade of the woods be
fore stepping out into the field of wildflowers, her favorite place in the world. She felt as if she had spent her childhood here, running, lying back, pulling out the stamens of honeysuckle to drink their juice. This was her church, the one place she prayed.

  “Granny told me that she and Vine used to come here all the time,” Anneth said. “They was like sisters, wasn’t they?”

  Easter just nodded.

  “I wish you’d tell me tales about them sometime. I don’t know nothing about our family.”

  Easter let go of Anneth’s hand and put her fingers out to touch the pink blooms of a trillium. “Granny brought me here one time when I was real little. When you was a baby,” she said, her voice low. Almost a whisper. “She set down in the flowers and cried, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “They had so many secrets,” Anneth said. “Reckon we’ll be that-away one of these days?”

  Easter stepped out into the field, and her hair shone in the stark sunlight. Anneth walked closely behind her, so close that she had to take small steps to keep from stepping on Easter’s heels. The smell of the flowers rose up to swim around them.

  They sat in the middle of the field, in a patch where no flowers grew. Anneth couldn’t stand to crush them. The wind rose up out of the valley and smoothed back their hair, and the sun was hot on the tops of their heads.

  “I know that you’ve been living a lie,” Anneth said. “I knowed you weren’t healed yet. There’s no shame in grieving over that baby, Easter. Give yourself time.”

  “I’m scared, Anneth,” Easter said, her voice firm and steady now. “I’m ashamed to say it out loud, but I’ve been doubting God. I can’t understand why He’d take the baby from me. I’m a good person—I know I am. I try to be.”

  Anneth took Easter’s hands again. She couldn’t help but tear up, hearing Easter admit this. Only now did she realize the weight of Easter’s grief. For Easter to say such a thing, she must have been in the lowest place of her life. She must have been past sadness, into a black, hollow place.

  “I don’t believe in God anymore,” Easter said, leaning forward, her eyes large. “How can anybody live in such a world?”

  “That’s all right, Easter. I believe strong enough for the both of us,” Anneth said. She ran her finger across the air. “How can you doubt there’s some kind of God when there’s a morning like this? When you hear music or open your mouth to sing? There’s no doubt about it, Easter, and you know it.”

  Easter started crying again, but this time there were no tears. Her body simply convulsed and she had to put her hands to her face out of shame. “Why did my baby die, then?”

  Anneth took Easter’s shoulders. “You can be mad about it, Easter,” she said. “Just because you believe in God don’t mean you can’t get mad at Him. That’s what your problem is. You believe, but you can’t accept that you’re angry. Be mad, Easter. Let yourself be mad.”

  “I am mad!” she yelled.

  “Good,” Anneth said. She put her hand on Easter’s chin and pulled her face up. Easter’s eyes were closed and tears trembled down her cheeks. “I don’t believe I could live if you didn’t believe, though, Easter. I couldn’t make it without knowing you were always praying for me, always watching over me. You can’t give up,” she said, running her hands over Easter’s sheared hair.

  Sixteen

  Little Lives

  THAT SUMMER, EVERYTHING grew wild. Easter’s garden burst out of the confines of its tilled ground and snaked into the yard surrounding it. When El mowed he had to carefully lift the cucumber and squash vines, then replace them once the grass had been chopped away. The tomato plants were abnormally large, bearing fruit that was so perfectly round it looked unnatural.

  Easter arose every morning—saying a quick prayer of thanks that school was out and that she wasn’t having to go in to work at the cafeteria—and went straight to her garden, where the bite of her hoe in the earth was the only sound until everyone else arose to fire up their cars and leave for work or children ran out of their houses to play. She hoed the garden even when there were no weeds because she liked to. But often this did not take long at all, and she secretly wished that weeds would grow rampant and that she would have to stay out in the garden until midday, when the sun beat down so furiously that she could hear it.

  Once the beans came in, she got her wish and was bent in the garden half the day, shedding the vines of their load. Her back ached after picking the bucketfuls of beans, but she relished the tight knot of pain at the base of her spine. It was the irrefutable proof of a day well spent.

  Every evening for a week she sat on the porch in the cool of the day, stringing and breaking the beans to put up for canning. On the last night of that week, El came home from a long haul to Pittsburgh and sat on the porch with her.

  She studied him closely as he sat in one of the folding chairs they had recently bought for the porch. He stretched his tired legs in front of him, obviously grateful that they were no longer cramped up in the cab of his truck after the long miles between Pennsylvania and home, and leaned his head back against the chair. He had brought home a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and was drinking one now, silently eyeing the mountain in front of them. When he sat like this, drinking his beer and leaning back in his chair, Easter always thought of that evening when she had caught him dancing with Anneth. She did not think back on this event much and still felt somewhat foolish over her reaction to seeing them dancing like that. Even as she had slapped Anneth and told El to leave, she had not believed that he had really done anything wrong. She knew him well enough to know that he would never betray her. He was not that kind of man. Still, letting Anneth rub up against him was a kind of a betrayal, Easter thought. Even if he hadn’t seen it that way—even if he had been too drunk to see it that way—the thought of it still caused doubt to rise up in the back of her throat.

  She broke the beans—five loud cracks at each knuckle of the bean—and let them fall into the bowl she had set on the floor beside her chair. A breeze moved through and lifted one corner of the newspaper she had spread across her lap to catch the strings and the brown places. There was a rhythm to bean breaking that she enjoyed. It was persistent enough to make her consider tapping her foot, but at the same time it was the music of monotony, and this sound always made her reflect on her life and the excitement involved.

  She knew that it was outer forces that made her think this way. People were always going on about how you had to have some fun in your life. How you had to have adventures. But she had never wanted to be anywhere else but Free Creek. She didn’t feel an empty place inside herself because she had barely ventured out of these hills. She did, however, feel funny because she did not share these desires that the rest of the world seemed to have. She had never studied movie magazines and wished to be an actress, had never envied the people on television. The rest of the world was what was messed up, coveting everything they laid their eyes upon.

  She thought about people who drove through Crow County or flew by on the new highway without even realizing there was a whole town beyond the mountains on either side of them. If they saw this place, if they drove by Free Creek and saw her house with her and El sitting on the porch while she broke beans and he drank his beer, she knew what they would think. They would consider these people on the porch and wonder how they stood living such little lives, stuck in a small town where nothing ever happened. A place where the stores closed up at dusk and nobody famous ever came to speak or sing in a concert hall. A place where nobody important in their eyes had ever been born or lived. They would feel sorry for the people on the porch and the smallness of their existences and be thankful that they themselves lived in places where there were fancy restaurants and tall buildings and jobs that you had to get dressed up for.

  But her life did not feel little at all to her. All she had ever wanted was the peace of a life well lived, a good man, and the knowledge that her family was safe. Those were big things. In her mind, those people wer
e the ones who led boring lives, always watching the parade go by, wishing that they could be something they were not. So full of dreams, all of them, Easter thought, dreams that would never, ever come true.

  El drained a beer, then grabbed up another one and opened it with the church key. Three bobs of his Adam’s apple as he drank and a barely audible “Ahh” when he brought it down to rest on his thigh. She couldn’t understand how someone could put so much store by a cold beer. It was something that was beyond her, the sense of satisfaction that a man got from just sitting on his porch and tasting that amber, fizzy taste as it ran over his tongue. Easter wondered what his dreams were. She had never even thought of this before.

  “When you were young,” she said, breaking the spell of quiet that had befallen them, “what did you want to be?”

  El thought for a moment and didn’t look away from the trees, as if he was aware of animal eyes watching them from there. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never really thought about it.”

  “Everybody has dreams.”

  “I wanted to be a soldier,” he said. “And then I got shipped off to Korea and seen what it was really all about, so I got out of the service as quick as I could.”

  “Did you ever want to leave here?”

  “No,” he said. “My brothers did. Every one of them left here, you know. But I never could bear the thought of it.”

  She watched her hands. She had been breaking beans since she was six years old, taught by her grandmothers, who had sat on either side of her, giving directions. She could have done this in her sleep.

  “Why?” he said. “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “But you had dreams,” he said. She loved the way he said this, the expectation in his voice. She detected a little quaver there, as if he expected her to tell him something that would change them forever.

  “I wanted to be a teacher. I had a scholarship to Berea College.”