by Ninie Hammon
“…Jamey was 6 when he carved his first statue. It was a goat with a bent horn,” Granny’s voice. “He said t’was the Jewetts’ goat, only the Jewetts’ didn’t have no goat. About a year later, they got one, though. It had that very bent horn.”
“…the time Jamey carved that mural of a wedding.” JoJo’s voice echoed in his head, magnified like sounds in a mine. “The bride and groom all dressed up, the minister with his Bible, even a little girl had a bouquet of daisies but didn’t have no front teeth.” She paused and looked at Granny. “When Granny seen it, she liked to died.”
“It was my weddin’, Will. Mine and Bowman’s. But the only weddin’ picture I had was burned up with everything else in the fire. And the carvin’ shows all kinda’ details wasn’t even in the picture. It’s hangin’ on the wall in my bedroom, if ’n you wanna’ see it.”
Will shook his head. “Maybe some other time,” he croaked.
Maybe some other time?
“…Miss Viola at church years ago made so over that big yella tomcat. You’d a-thought it was the onliest cat ever drew breath. It got lost and she liked to had a conniption. Then Jamey comes out with this carving…” Granny looked at JoJo to help her explain it.
“We didn’t know it was a carving at first. It was a piece of coal shaped like a jelly glass, only when you looked in it, down in the bottom was a cat’s face lookin’ back up at you. They found Miss Viola’s cat in the Peterson’s well.”
Finally, Will could handle no more. He feared imminent death from a closed-head injury if he took any more blows to his mind.
“Enough!” he pleaded and the two women fell silent. Jamey had grown bored with all the talk and was happily playing a video game with ValVleen perched on his shoulder, singing.
“What do the neighbors, the rest of the hollow think of all this?” he asked.
“They’s plenty of folks suspect there’s some’m odd ’bout some of his carvin’s, but don’t nobody ’cept the girls know the whole of it like we told you,” Granny said. “Not even Lloyd.”
Lloyd’s name again. The word sounded like the drip of black water in a dark mine.
“We was afraid…oh, I don’t know, that they’d come and take him away from us if folks knew how special he was,” JoJo said. She didn’t specify who “they” might be.
“’Sides, all most people ever see is the carvin’s he sells,” Granny said.
“There’s a Lexington company that helps out artists, trying to preserve the Appalachian culture,” JoJo said. “They got his stuff into some galleries, the Berea Art Show, The St. James Art Fair in Louisville. Folks mail in orders after them shows. And then lots of his carvin’s is sold all over the mountains to tourists in curio shops and the gift shops at state parks.”
Jamey put down the video control long enough to point out, “That ain’t my arts, though. Making things people wants is only ’cause we need the money.” He looked at the bottom of the kitchen chairs as he spoke. “And they’s only made with dead coal. Live coal won’t let you do nothin’ with it but open up what’s already in there. The end.”
Hours, though it seemed like weeks later, Will sat on the side of his bed in Granny’s spare room trembling. He had never in his life wanted a drink as badly as he wanted one now. Of course, he had, too. Probably lots of times. But when the yearning came, it was a force so powerful you couldn’t imagine you’d ever felt anything like it before and survived.
The only reason he did survive was because he was here. Granny had no alcohol in the house. Nothing in Aintree Hollow was open past five o’clock. Even the Jiffy Stop across the bridge closed at 11.
Will lay back onto a pillowcase as smooth as a pool table; Granny still ironed sheets. He couldn’t think about today and he didn’t want to think about tomorrow, because tomorrow he had to go find Lloyd Jacobs and have a good, long talk.
His thoughts bounced around as random as a ball in a pinball machine. Then the shiny silver ball suddenly landed in one of those big holes that make the sirens wail, the bells clang, and the lights flash. That mural above the mantle of the three miners. In a glaring moment of understanding, Will knew why the figures in it had looked so eerily familiar. A photo caption of it would read: shown here, from left to right, are Will Gribbins, Ricky Dan Sparrow, and Lloyd Jacobs.
With that, his mind went tilt and he fell asleep.
CHAPTER 9
THE LONELY WHISTLE of a coal train wailed a mournful cry in the gray dawn light. Somewhere out there on the flat, the sun had just cleared the horizon. An early riser, Granny had already swept the leaves off the porch. Now she leaned over to drag some stragglers out from under the rocker. She paused for a moment, looked at what light she could see in the sky and wondered as she had so many times in her life what it’d be like to watch the sun come up in the morning and go back down at night.
She wasn’t like some mountain people she knew who’d never set foot outside Harlan County. She’d been shopping in Somerset and all the way to Corbin once, too. And up to Hazard that time Jamey took the croup so bad he couldn’t hardly breathe. She’d been to Lexington, but the first time she went, she didn’t remember nothing about the trip or the city. Alls that hung in her mind was Will laid out unconscious in the hospital bed, and them doctors saying with a concussion like he had he might not never wake up. She didn’t remember a whole lot more from the trips to see Joanna—miles of white fences, shined-up horses and grass that when the wind took it a certain way, really did look blue.
When she went to get them babies up Lexington that last time, Stella drove, babbled the whole way that Granny had ought to let her or one of her sisters raise them. That was when Granny first felt it. There was a shakiness in her belly; her heart started to pound like somebody on the porch banging on the door wanting in. It got worse and worse, didn’t stop until the mountains rose up all around her, protective like. Made her feel safe, the way she used to feel with Bowman by her side—strong and sturdy and dependable. Him gone, the mountains was all she had. A tall green fence between her and ever bad thing.
But as time went by, the fence began to hug tighter and tighter. She’d go to Pineville and she’d get that feeling so painful she had to hurry back out to Ruth Ann’s car, say she was sick, had the runs or something, and had to go home. After a while, alls she had was the hollow. Then she didn’t even have that no more.
Granny could hear folks up and stirring around inside the trailer. She’d already made the biscuits, the sausage, and the gravy. She’d have to go in directly and finish up that breakfast she’d promised Will. Bacon and eggs wouldn’t take long.
A wave of sadness washed over her. Will looked so…lost. Well, he was lost—had been for a good long time now. But couldn’t nobody go out there and find him and bring him back. He had to come his own self. She had to admit, though, that she had begun to think he never would.
She seen the pickup soon as it turned up her way, but didn’t have to see it to know it was Lloyd. She recognized the sound of his truck like she got where she could recognize the footsteps of the different nurses in the bright hospital hallway outside Joanna’s room.
The truck had been red once, a 1990 Ford F150. The front bumper was missing now and the hood was held shut with duct tape. Lloyd pulled to a stop next to the road in front of the house, stepped out of the truck but didn’t come up to the porch, simply went around to the back and let the tailgate down. Didn’t even say hidy.
“Hidy do, Lloyd. Whatcha’ got there?”
“Piece of jet for Jamey. Big ’un. I’ll carry it up the hill to the shed.” He reached into the truck bed and began to scoot the rock toward the back.
“That’s right thoughty of you, Lloyd, but you can do that later.” Granny couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when she told him Will was home! “Come up here on this porch. I got a surprise. Bet you cain’t guess—”
“Ain’t no surprise. I know he’s here.”
Lloyd didn’t say Will’s name, but he did let go
of the rock and walk to the foot of the steps.
“How come you never called to tell me he was back?” There was a strange, cold tone in Lloyd’s voice Granny’d never heard before.
“You’s working yesterday afternoon. He didn’t show up ’til after you went down and I’d done gone to bed ’fore you got off.”
Granny was confused. “What are you just standin’ there for, son? Come on in the house. Didn’t you hear me—Will’s home.”
“You don’t need me for welcomin’. What I hear, you done a fine job your own self, ’bout threw him a party last night.”
Again, the cold, distant tone. All the excitement drained out of Granny’s voice like water out a hole in her washtub. “There was times I thought he must be dead, Lloyd. Dead. Now he’s back—alive. He’s been gone for 20 years!”
“And I been here for 20 years. I’s the one who come and checked on you, brung you groceries, built this here deck, put up…”
“I been powerful grateful for all you done. I’ve told you how beholden I am, couldn’t a-got along ’thout you. I…” She stopped, then tried again. “Will was yore best friend, Lloyd; you two’s like brothers. Why ain’t you glad he’s home?”
Lloyd shook his head. “These here is rock hard times for Lloyd Jacobs and I ain’t up to celebratin’. ’Sides, looks to me like you’re glad enough for the both of us.”
His words were so sharp and angry they took Granny’s breath away. He stalked back to the truck, picked up the jet and headed out across the yard with it, his footprints chocolate drops on the powdered sugar dusting of morning frost.
WILL WOULD HAVE sworn he wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink here, under Granny’s roof, with Ricky Dan’s children—his children, for crying out loud!—asleep down the hall.
And he’d have lost that bet. Actually, he hadn’t so much slept as passed out. He’d laid back on the bed last night and awakened in that same spot this morning. Hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even undressed.
After a shower, he put on clean clothes, jeans, and a pale green long-sleeve shirt. He had a red shirt, too. Three shirts and two pairs of jeans, socks, underwear, a windbreaker, and the pair of Nikes he was wearing constituted his entire wardrobe.
Will emerged from the guestroom to find JoJo ready for work and Granny set to serve his made-to-order breakfast.
“You still drink coffee, doncha?” she asked, as she set bowls of scrambled eggs and white gravy with big chunks of sausage in it beside the homemade biscuits on the table. He nodded that he did. “I disremember whether you like it black or all doctored up.”
“Black.”
“You clean up good, son. You looked a mite raggedy yesterday.”
Jamey was engrossed in his video game; JoJo wasn’t doing anything. Dressed in the red Jiffy Stop smock, she sat on the couch and stared hollow-eyed out the window at a distant nothing.
Granny called them all to say the blessing and settled into the role she loved best—caretaker of her family. She poured coffee and orange juice, fetched cream out of the refrigerator and the salt and pepper shakers off the stove.
Only when everyone else had been served did she sit down and begin to fix her own plate, but a knock at the door interrupted her. Bucket slept out on the porch and hadn’t so much as peeped so whoever was on the other side of the door was no stranger. Before anyone had a chance to rise, the door opened—the knock was perfunctory; Granny’s doors were never locked—and a man stepped into the living room.
He was a thick, solid man with a barrel chest and an expanse of belly that had a University of Kentucky T-shirt drawn tight across it. He took off his camouflage cap to reveal a mop of thick hair as black as shoe polish without even a sprinkle of gray in it.
“Glad you decided to come on in,” Granny said and Will saw a communication of some sort pass between them.
“Smells like I’m just in time for breakfast,” he said and turned to Will. “’Lo, Will.”
“‘Lo, Lloyd.”
A smile started on Will’s lips and died there; he sensed no warmth in Lloyd. Will rose, took two steps toward his childhood friend and offered his hand. Somehow, Lloyd managed not to shake it without seeming rude or even calling attention to the omission. Will was the only one who caught it; he figured he was the only one who was supposed to.
“Sit down and eat with us, Lloyd,” Jamey said. “We’re having this extra special breakfast ’cause Will is here. But we got ’nough for you…” Then he looked stricken. “And if ’n we don’t, you can have mine.”
“Special dinner last night, special breakfast this morning. You must be feeling real special, ain’t you, Will…comin’ back like you done after all these years.”
Lloyd smiled when he said it, but the smile hung as limp on his face as a surgeon’s mask. The undertone was so unmistakable even JoJo looked up quizzically. But Lloyd spoke to Jamey before the moment could turn awkward.
“Guess what I gotcha, Champ.”
Jamey’s face was instantly filled with little-kid-on-Christmas-morning expectation. “What’d you bring me?”
“Just the best-looking piece of jet you ever seen, that’s all.”
JoJo had told Will that Jamey used jet to carve the relief murals on the mantle and in Granny’s bedroom—and the one of the Harlan County High School basketball team that showed…Will stopped himself. Now was not the time to go there.
“You did?” Jamey squealed. “Lemme see it.” He made to leap up from the table, but Granny grabbed his arm.
“Finish your breakfast, boy,” she said. “It took the good Lord a right smart while to make that rock. I s’pect you can wait another 10 minutes to see it.”
She stood and started to the kitchen, spoke to Lloyd over her shoulder as she went. “I’ll get you a plate. I made fresh biscuits and white sausage gravy. You used to favor biscuits ’bout as much as Will did.”
“I done ate,” he said.
Will knew that wasn’t true, in the same way he knew that Lloyd would rather swallow hot coal slag than eat so much as a bite of the breakfast Granny had made special for Will.
Lloyd settled himself on the arm of the ejection recliner with his hat in his hand. His was a relaxed pose, but he didn’t look relaxed. He looked wound tighter than an alarm clock.
“I done took that piece of jet up to the shed, Jamey,” he said. “Fella told me about it a week ago, said he seen it in a break in Big Sandy and figured you’d want it. Took me a whole afternoon to cut it out of the wall, but I didn’t want to waste none, knew you’d use it all.”
He turned to Will, “Long time no see, buddy.”
“Yeah, long time no see.”
“You come back to Aintree for the memorial service?”
“That was one of the reasons.”
“Committee asked me to speak, but I turned ’em down. But maybe you’d want to. I could tell Justine, she’s headin’ up the service. I’m sure she’d be glad to let you say a few words—you being one of the only survivors an’ all.”
Lloyd was taunting him. Lloyd knew Will didn’t want to speak at that service any more than he did.
“Kind of you, Lloyd, but I think I’ll pass.”
Jamey leapt to his feet. He had been shoveling food into his mouth as fast as he could, barely took time to swallow.
“I’m done!” he said, his mouth so full he could barely get the words out.
“Turkeys are done,” JoJo said. “People are finished.”
“Yeah, that, too.” He chewed between words as he spoke to Granny. “Can I go see the slab Lloyd brung me? Please.”
“Not ’til you do the dishes,” JoJo told him. She scooted her own chair back and rose from the table. “It’s your turn. I need to get goin’. I got things to do.”
Will had watched her during breakfast. She had moved the food around on her plate, arranged and rearranged it, but as far as he could tell, she hadn’t taken an actual bite of any of it.
“No it ain’t,” Jamey wailed. “It’s yours. ’Member?
I done ’em the other night and then you—”
“You could settle this the way your daddy, Will and I used to settle things,” Lloyd cut in. He spoke to Jamey, but he looked at Will with eyes as hard, cold, and dead as the coal under Black Mountain.
“How’s that?” Jamey asked.
“Every time we had to decide which of us was gonna do some’m none of us wanted to do, we’d take two black rocks and one white rock and put ’em in a hat.” Lloyd never took his eyes off Will as he spoke. Will noticed Granny turn pale; his own heart felt like a jack hammer in his chest. “And whoever drew out the white rock…” he paused for emphasis, “…lost!”
He turned his body toward Will, the plastic smile still on his face. “We done that all the time, didn’t we, Will?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“I ain’t got time to wait for white rocks and black rocks,” JoJo said. She turned to Jamey. “You know it’s your turn to do the dishes tonight, don’t you?” Jamey nodded. “Okay, you do these now, I’ll do them others tonight for you. Deal?”
“Deal,” Jamey said cheerfully and began to gather up the plates off the table.
“Whoa, hold on there,” Granny told him. “Just ’cause you stuffed food in your mouth like tampin’ down gunpowder in a muzzle-loader don’t mean the rest of us is finished.” She sighed. “Oh, leave these be and go on out there and see that slab of jet before you jump plumb out of your skin with wantin’ it.”
Jamey bolted out the door. JoJo gathered up her purse, pecked Granny on the cheek and left.
Granny turned and smiled brightly at Lloyd. “Well now, set yourself down here, son, and I’ll fix you up a cup a coffee.”
“Can’t Granny. I got to go.” Lloyd hopped up from the arm of the chair. “Got a lot of stuff to get done. I change shift tomorrow, goin’ from nights to days.”
In most of the bigger operations, miners worked 3-week, rotating shifts: early morning to mid-afternoon, late afternoon to late night, and late night to early morning. Shift change was the most dangerous time in a mine. The men had just gotten acclimated to one sleep cycle when they had to adjust to another. For the first few days, they were tired and mildly disoriented. That’s when accidents happened.
