by Ninie Hammon
Reckon his vision had been messed up somehow because he didn’t sleep Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday nights? He’d slept last night, though. Fell into a deep, dreamless sleep the second his head hit the pillow. Soon as he decided what he was going to do, his mind stopped racing, his heart stopped pounding, and he relaxed.
As he dressed for work, his mind was peaceful as a still pond, one where you could see all the way to the bottom, watch the turtles swim with the minnows. His heart beat comfortably, slow and steady, pumping blood around and around his veins for the last few hours before it could rest, before he could rest.
His mind was not just peaceful, it was clear and fiercely crisp, sharp, supremely aware. His sense of his surroundings was in such a heightened state he could see the individual lines in the black lace pattern coal dust had created on the skin of his fingers and hear each individual drop of rain go splat on the roof. The glorious aroma of his last pot of coffee was so intense it took his breath away and drawing cigarette smoke into his lungs was as smooth as inhaling the clouds that hung above the mountains on a summer day.
It was only his vision that was screwy. Circles around lights and everything so bright he felt like he needed sunglasses. He ached for the velvet darkness of the mine, the absolute blackness. The total silence, too, except for the echoing drip, drip, drip of water. And even that was peaceful. The mine was a place where being dead was really more appropriate than being alive. Quiet. Dark. Preparation for eternity.
A sudden fierce chill gripped his whole body, as if someone had poured ice water on his head. No, into his head, so the cold sunk down inside his skin.
How had it come to this? To planning something so monstrous?
How…?
Before he could consider further, a door banged shut in his soul, as a man might slam a door in the face of an intruder on his porch, some bald, stinking terror come to murder his family in their sleep.
Only it was wrong-side-out. The intruder was inside the house. It was reason that stood outside knocking. But it was too late now, the terror was already poised. It drooled as it awaited the kill. There was no way to put the Boogie Man back in the closet. He was in charge now. Lloyd was just along for the ride.
He pulled his pickup into the parking lot of the mine and killed the engine. The pace of his heart had picked up. It thumped hard now, but not with fear or dread—with excitement. He was going to enjoy this.
GRANNY, WILL, AND JoJo listened to the rain beat a staccato rhythm on the metal trailer roof as they nursed cups of coffee at the kitchen table. Will hadn’t expected JoJo to be home. He’d thought she’d gone to work when he heard her drive away earlier, didn’t know she had Fridays off. With no makeup, a paint-splattered UK sweatshirt and tattered sweatpants, she looked like a high school freshman. Except for her eyes. They held a look as old as time.
Jamey was working day shift in Harlan #7. He had finished his arts last night, came down from the shed late—tired but apparently satisfied with how it had turned out.
“I’s done with it and it’s wrapped up in a pillowcase on the workbench,” he’d said as he wagged his head from side to side and his eyes roamed the bottom 3 feet of the room. “I’s feared it’d be scary and bad and I thought maybe it was a sin rock and I shouldn’t set free what was down inside of it, but I done it ’cause Granny said, and wasn’t no sin rock a-tall. Wasn’t bad. Down in the bottom, it was smilin’. The end.”
Since it was raining off and on, JoJo had dropped Jamey at the mine on her way to the Jiffy to pick up the jug of Tide she’d forgotten to bring home last night. She was telling Granny about what had happened there when Will tuned back in to the conversation. He’d sat on the periphery of the women’s chatter, waiting…okay, putting off what he had to say.
JoJo held out one of the black armbands. “Tugboat looked at it, turned it over in his hand, then reached up and tied it ’round his neck!”
“Don’t guess it matters where you tie it,” Granny said with a chuckle. “Long’s it helps you remember.”
“I don’t need an armband to help me remember,” Will said quietly, seizing the opening. “What happened in the mine, it plays on a movie screen in my head every day. It has for 20 years.”
The room went instantly silent. Obviously, Granny’d told JoJo that Will had something he needed to say. Granny sat up straight in the chair. Will couldn’t read the look in her eyes, but from the firm set of her chin it seemed she was ready, like she had screwed herself up for this.
So had he.
“Guess you’re gonna eat that frog, now, ain’t ya?”
JoJo started to rise. “If you two want to—”
“Sit down, JoJo. You need to hear this, too,” Will said.
She shot Granny a questioning glance, then settled back into her chair.
“I’ve rehearsed what I’m about to say a hundred times,” he began quietly. “Granny, I…”
The words were suddenly choked with emotion and he couldn’t deliver his canned speech. The truth was wrapped in razor blades—no way to get at it without being sliced open. So he just said it, plain and simple.
“It wasn’t only Lloyd and me who survived the explosion, Granny. Ricky Dan did, too.”
Granny slowly raised her hands to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears, but she kept them fastened on Will’s face, locked tight, didn’t blink.
“My father was alive? Then what—”
“He died so Lloyd and I could live. He gave his life for us.”
The tears began to spill silently down Granny’s face.
Will described the explosion as simply and clearly as he could. Granny gasped—a little sound—when he told her that Ricky Dan had wanted to go back for Bowman, but helped him save Lloyd instead. He painted for them a vivid picture of the panicked, nightmare race through the shaft as it filled with deadly smoke faster than they could run, told them how Ricky Dan had found the enclosed break.
“We collapsed in the break panting, coughing and crying!” Will hadn’t realized that to describe the scene he’d have to relive it, endure here in this warm kitchen the worst moments of his life. “The air outside in the shaft was death, inches away on the other side of a piece of yellow plastic not much thicker than a garbage bag.” His voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “And I was so scared!”
“I understand, Sugar. You—”
“No, you don’t understand!” He hadn’t meant to bark, but it had all come back—so real. “I wasn’t just frightened. I was totally panicked. Granny, I hated every second I spent in the mine. My stomach was tied in such knots I never ate a bite of the lunch you packed me, fed it to Worthless so you wouldn’t know.”
He remembered, remembered it all. “Eight hours of terror every day. I was exhausted, wrung out. But I couldn’t sleep, lay there every night dreading…and then I’d have to get up and do it again the next day. It was a nightmare that wouldn’t end.”
Will realized he was shouting. He clamped his jaw tight shut and gritted his teeth to get control of himself. JoJo stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. Granny looked like she was in as much pain as he was.
When he could, he reached out and took Granny’s hand. “Ricky Dan knew how I felt. I didn’t tell him, but he knew. He tried to help. And that day, he knew I was about to crawl out of my skin.”
Will described the hours in the dark and the realization that they would suffocate before help could reach them. He described their decision to send one of them out to find good air.
At first, JoJo was merely stunned by the revelations, by the horrific scene she could see through Will’s eyes. She’d never known her father, had never loved him, so she had nothing like the emotional investment in the story that Granny had.
But as Will spoke, he watched a gear shift in JoJo. She was riveted to his every word. And he realized he had brought her father to life right there in front of her, the essence of him, condensed and purified by the intensity of the final events of his life.
Will didn�
��t see Granny take a single breath the whole time he spoke. She stared at him with such ferocious concentration he knew she could see into him, see the darkness inside.
“So we decided to pick rocks out of a hat to decide who had to try to make it through the smoke to the next break.”
“Like Lloyd was talking about the other day,” JoJo said eagerly. “Two black rocks, one white. The one who draws the white rock loses.”
“Uh huh, but remember, Lloyd had a broken ankle; he couldn’t climb over the conveyor belt. It was just Ricky Dan and me. Two rocks.”
“And my father got the white rock, right?” JoJo said. Granny reached over and patted her hand.
“Shhh now, Honey. Let Will talk.” She turned back to him with tears in her eyes, her face wet with them. “Will has to tell it.”
CHAPTER 29
Even though they’ve decided, nobody moves. Lloyd is leaned against the coal wall beside the back curtain, Ricky Dan is seated next to the pile of rocks and Will rests against the coal pillar across from Ricky Dan. It’s as if the deed is so huge, the decision so momentous, they can’t quite take it all in at once. They have just decided to send Will or Ricky Dan to an almost certain death.
Will grits his teeth and a sudden icy calm settles over him. He can do this. He has no choice. He has counted all his emotional reserves, cashed in all his chips of courage and come up way short. But he must do it now, right now, before he loses his nerve.
“Okay, rocks in a hat,” he is surprised that his voice, though ragged and hoarse, is level. “I ain’t got no hat. We’ll need yours, Lloyd.”
Lloyd removes his helmet without comment and passes it to Ricky Dan. Lloyd’s light is resting on the pile of rocks, though it is dark, turned off to conserve the battery. The lone beam of Ricky Dan’s headlamp casts precious little illumination.
On his knees, Will locates two rocks the same size—a little lump of coal and a small piece of white slate from the rock pile—and holds them out for the others to see. Ricky Dan hands him Lloyd’s helmet. He lifts it up to the roof where neither he nor Ricky Dan can see into it, then drops the rocks inside. One plunk. Two. He shakes the helmet around, rattles the rocks.
The three exchange glances. Nobody speaks.
“Who’s gonna draw first?” Lloyd asks.
Will looks at Ricky Dan and tries to attach a grin to his face, but it instantly falls off. “Age before beauty,” he says. Ricky Dan nods. He can’t manage a grin either.
His hand steady, Ricky Dan reaches up and shoves it into the hat. He grabs Will’s gaze, but Will quickly looks away. Then he withdraws his hand in a fist. He holds the fist out into the light from his headlamp and slowly opens it. Lying on his palm is a white rock.
He gasps. Will lowers the helmet and sets it on the rock pile. Nobody speaks.
“That’s it, then.” Though Ricky Dan’s voice is raspy and damaged, it is strong. He coughs briefly but quickly gets control of his breathing and silences the cough. All of them are dry, so dry.
“Shame nobody bothered to bring a water bottle along on this little field trip,” Ricky Dan says.
Neither Lloyd nor Will responds. Lloyd sits quiet, obviously aware that his injury has saved his life. And luck has saved Will’s. With only Lloyd and Will in the enclosure, they’ve got a good shot at survival. But Ricky Dan…
“That seal and them curtains is out there,” Ricky Dan says firmly. “Makes sense they would be. The curtain and seal here didn’t blow; they wouldn’t a-blown, neither. All’s I gotta do is climb over the conveyor and grab hold of yonder wall, follow it till I see yellow—or feel plastic, probably won’t be able to see 6 inches in front of my face.”
“Na, it didn’t blow,” Will says. “You’re gonna get there and have so much air to breathe you might quit coughing.”
Ricky Dan pokes Will’s arm. “You get yore bags packed, son, ’cause I’m comin’ back for you! Soon’s I get my wind back and make sure everything’s okay, I’ll be back to lead you to the promised land so Lloyd here can have all this fine air to himself.”
Lloyd works at a smile but can’t pull it off. Ricky Dan points his finger at him. “You ’member to tell them guys where we’re at! Rescue team’ll come in down the tracks. They’s chalk markin’ on that curtain.” Ricky Dan nods to the front piece of yellow plastic. “I smeared it some when I come under.” He glances at a white chalk mark on his left shoulder. “It’s readable, though. When they get to you, you’re gonna have to draw them boys a map to me ’n Will.”
“I can do that, Ricky Dan,” Lloyd says, his voice unsteady.
The three fall silent. Nobody moves. When Ricky Dan speaks again, there is no bravado in his tone. It is quiet and sincere, but Will can hear neither fear nor self-pity in his words.
“If I don’t make it, you guys gotta make me a promise…no, two promises.”
“Anything,” Will chokes.
“First, you gotta promise me you’ll never tell a living soul about any of this. Far as you ever say, you two was the only ones made it out of the ’xplosion.”
“But—” Will begins to protest.
“Promise!”
Will and Lloyd exchange a glance, then nod.
“Why don’t you want nobody to know?” Lloyd asks.
“’Cause I want Ma to think I died with Daddy!” The end of the sentence is a choked sob. “I want her to think I went quick, like he done.”
He pauses, looks into Will’s eyes, then Lloyd’s. “And I don’t want nobody second-guessin’ what we decided to do here today. Folks is all the time doin’ that, but we was here and they wasn’t and we done what we had to do. I ain’t gonna have none of this comin’ back on you two.”
“We won’t tell nobody,” Lloyd says. “Ever. We swear.”
“What’s the second thing?” Will asks.
“Look after Ma!” Ricky Dan turns away, his shoulders shake for a few moments, then he turns back, tears in his eyes. “It’ll be real hard on her…losin’ Daddy and me both.” Sad awareness spreads over his face, like he hadn’t put it together in his head until now. “Uncle Ed and Jody, too, likely.” His uncle and brother-in-law had been on the other crew working at the face. “She’s gonna need you two. Not for a week or a few months. She’s got the girls but ain’t the same as a son. She’s yore mama now. Don’t you let her fend for herself.”
“I won’t,” Lloyd says.
Ricky Dan turns to Will and speaks with a quiet intensity louder than a shout. “You take care of her, hear! You take care of my family from now on.”
Will can’t speak, just stares dumbly into Ricky Dan’s green eyes. His heart has been sliced open, torn apart. It is a pain he never knew existed, an agony so excruciating he cannot suffer it for long or it will kill him. He doesn’t know now that he will never again be free of it. Except when he’s drunk.
“Joanna.” Just the one word. Then Ricky Dan takes a breath. “You guys need to know. Joanna, she’s…” He stops. Then seems to think out loud. “Young like she is and pretty, she’ll find somebody else. Somebody to help her—”
“Joanna ain’t gonna have to look for another man ’cause you’re gonna take care of her your own self,” Lloyd says adamantly. “You ain’t goin’ but 25 feet out to the shaft, across the belt line—15 feet—then 50 feet up to the break. Ninety feet. It ain’t in the next county. Only 90 feet, that’s all.”
Ricky Dan shakes it off. “That’s right. I’m just sayin’…”
He is seized by another coughing fit and it is a long time before he can breath properly again. By then, he is all business. He seems intent now on simply getting the job done.
He stands, bent at the waist and moves to the back curtain, has to step past Lloyd who is leaned against the coal pillar next to it. He scoots away the rocks Will piled on it to seal it to the floor.
“You put them back fast as you can,” he says. He picks up Lloyd’s headlamp off the rock pile and hands it to him. Lloyd fits it onto his helmet. Ricky Dan turns to Will but
doesn’t make eye contact. “I’ll be back for you in a few minutes. You be ready.”
Without another word, he leans over and takes the bottom of the curtain in his hand. “See ya,” he says, takes a deep breath, lifts the curtain, and plunges out into the shaft.
Will and Lloyd stare at the empty spot where Ricky Dan just stood. Will is seized by an almost uncontrollable urge to rush out into the shaft and drag him back. But he sits, watches Lloyd replace the rocks and lean back against the wall beside it.
Still on his knees, Will slumps forward onto his belly and his elbows, his eyes fixed on the back curtain. Lloyd’s headlamp casts out a single pallid beam; all the corners are attended by shadows, but Will doesn’t allow his eye to stray to the corners. The light will play tricks on him. And he’s certain there are things in the corners of this ever-shrinking prison he doesn’t want to get a good look at.
He waits, almost holds his own breath. Without a watch, it’s hard to tell how long. Five minutes. Ten. Half an hour. After a while, Lloyd wordlessly reaches up, turns off his headlamp and plunges the two of them into blind-man darkness. Together they wait in the silent, inky black nothingness of the unborn—or the dead.
While the world outside continues to revolve, time slows down and eventually stops completely in the darkness of Will’s grave. But his focused attention does not waver. It remains fixed on the curtain he can no longer see.
Ricky Dan never comes back through it.
“That darkness never ended,” Will told Granny and JoJo. “I didn’t find out until later that sometime after Ricky Dan left, there was another explosion or aftershock or something that knocked loose a pretty good sized piece of slate in the roof above Lloyd and me. I was stretched out on the floor so it fell several feet before it hit me in the head, and I wasn’t wearing a helmet. That’s when I got the concussion.” The concussion that sealed him in darkness until he awakened in the hospital two days later.
“And you didn’t do it,” JoJo said. Will looked at her quizzically. “My daddy said, ‘You take care of her. You take care of my family from now on.’ But you didn’t. You didn’t do what you promised.”
