Rocket Boys

by Homer Hickam

  Doc waited at the ambulance with its crew, and Mr. Van Dyke watched with a little knot of foremen and engineers from the porch outside Dad’s office. Jake was there too. Little children stood around everywhere with their parents, as quiet and stoic as the grown-ups. A baby wailed behind the sawhorses, and a Salvation Army lady took it and rocked it quiet while its mother sagged in the arms of another woman.

  The storm quieted, and there was a murmur of excitement when the man-hoist winch creaked and the lift came up, but it contained only a few men of the rock-dust crew. They reported the rescue team had gotten near the face, but a loader covered by the fall stood in their way and they were trying to pull it out. That gave the men in the crowd something to chew over. I ventured over to listen to a couple of wheezing retirees trying to explain everything to Doc. “They’ll manhandle the rock off that loader, Doc, and then they’ll tie on a cable, try to use a motor to pull it out.”

  “Why don’t they blast their way through?” Doc wanted to know.

  “Can’t, might set the black damp off,” the old miner said, using the colloquial term for methane. “Or it might cave in the rest of the roof. Naw, diggin’ them out’s all they can do now.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Couple hours, maybe more. Depends on how much slate they got down. Them ol’ boys got a chance if they can get in there pretty quick. There’s air aplenty the way this mine has the hell ventilated out of it. Story I got was the fans are back up. They just got to open up a little hole. Naw, Doc, they got a chance. You wait and see!”

  The night dragged on, the rain ending and the clouds scudding away and the stars blinking on, one by one, looking cold and distant. A breeze rustled the budding trees above us on the mountainside, but, like everybody else, my focus was entirely on the silent tipple and the frozen winch wheel on the man-hoist. It seemed as if the shaft sighed every time steam rose from it, as if emoting a whisper of anticipation. Mr. Van Dyke came back out on the porch after talking on the telephone, and a rumor flashed through the crowd: One in the rescue team had been hurt, but they had broken through. Some men had been found dead. The wives behind the sawhorses dropped their heads and prayed quietly. The winch on the man-hoist creaked, and everyone looked up as it slowly began to turn. Doc and the Reverends Lanier and Richard walked toward the shaft and stood at the gate as the cable, rigid with tension, slid by. The people tensed, instinctively knowing that this was what they had been waiting for.

  On the rising cage were two members of the rescue team, identified by the green crosses taped to their helmets. With them was a stretcher, the body aboard covered by a gray blanket. A miner opened the gate and held it back as they walked the stretcher off. Doc raised the blanket and took off his hat and said something to the wives. A path opened in their ranks and a woman, her arms wrapped around her old coat as if she were freezing, stepped through it. She walked regally behind the stretcher to the ambulance. When she crossed into the light from the bathhouse, I saw that it was Mary Bykovski. I couldn’t stop the groan that escaped my lips. Please, God, I want this nightmare to end.

  I started to go to her, but a voice stopped me. “No,” Mom said. “Not now.”

  When she came out of the shadows, her eyes shot holes in me. I started to say something to her, probably some cowardly plea for understanding, but before I could she slapped me as hard as she could in the face. I rocked from it, my cheek burning and tears welling in my eyes from the surprise of it as much as the pain. Her face was twisted with anger. “I told you not to come up here,” she said.

  I stood my ground. “I was worried about Dad.”

  “No, you weren’t,” she hissed. “You don’t worry about anybody but yourself. That’s the way you’ve always been—selfish!” She turned in disgust and stalked away from me, going into the crowd and out of my sight.

  I slumped against the bathhouse, my hand to my cheek as if it were glued there. My mother’s opinion of me kept ricocheting in my brain: selfish. The ambulance carrying Mr. Bykovski started up and slowly rolled down the hill toward the road. I watched it and prayed: Make it stop hurting. Please, God have mercy, make it stop hurting. My prayer caught in my throat. Mr. Bykovski’s body was in that ambulance, and my prayer had been for myself. Mom was right. I had always been selfish. There was yet another reason to be disgusted with myself.

  The man-hoist winch creaked again, and the waiting wives shuddered as if a cold wind had blown through them. It seemed an eternity, but finally a dozen men came up, their faces black as the night sky. Some of them were being held up by others. A rescueteam member stepped out on the ground. He looked at the wives. “All alive,” he said in a loud voice.

  All alive! The wives pushed up against the sawhorses and then knocked them over to get at their men. Some fell and picked themselves up, but they kept going. They flew into their husbands, oblivious to the greasy coal smearing their clothes. The children crowded around, clinging to their fathers’ legs.

  Then I saw my father coming off the lift alone. His helmet was gone and there was a bloody bandage covering his right eye. He walked stiffly to Mr. Van Dyke. The general superintendent came down off the porch and solemnly shook his hand. Then all the rescue squad crowded around Dad, patting him on the back. He duly accepted their accolades and then walked clumsily away, as if his boots were made of lead. My mother left the crowd, but didn’t go to him. She just followed. I think she knew it was important to him that he walk home under his own power. I waited until they were down the hill to the road and then I followed, my cheek where my mother had struck me still on fire.

  Mom and Dad were in the basement—I could hear the shower running—when I slipped inside the house and went to my room. I heard them come up the steps and then the sound of bedsprings giving as he was let down on his bed. Mom went downstairs.

  Then the black phone rang. It seemed ten times louder than I had ever heard it. Mom came running into the foyer, but instead of picking it up, I heard her tear the phone from the wall, open the front door, and throw it out into the yard. I came out of my room, worried that she might hurt herself.

  The black phone in Dad’s room was still ringing. She came two steps at a time upstairs, and pushed aside Jim—groggy with sleep and wondering what all the commotion was about. She brushed by me and threw open Dad’s door, raised the window in his room, and tore the remaining black phone from the wall and threw it out too. “Go get Doc,” she ordered me. I started for the stairs, but Doc had already arrived, stalking into the foyer and up the steps. He said nothing to me, but took Mom into his arms. “It’s going to be all right, Elsie,” he said.

  “Since when?” she choked. The two of them went into Dad’s bedroom and closed the door.

  When Doc came out, Jim and I were waiting in the hall. We had said nothing to each other. There was nothing between us to say. “I had to put twelve stitches in his forehead,” Doc reported. “The cable they were using to pull out the loader snapped and hit him in the head. The force of it cracked his helmet in two. He’ll probably lose his right eye. I’ll have him over to the hospital tomorrow and we’ll know more then.”

  Doc walked to the banister and turned and looked at us. “A dozen men would have died tonight if it hadn’t been for your dad. That’s something a son should know.”

  I followed Doc out to the back gate. “What about Mr. Bykovski?” I asked.

  “He was operating the loader that got buried.”

  It was all too much. I couldn’t take it anymore. I hung my head and started to cry. Doc put a steadying hand on my shoulder. “What’s this?”

  “It was my fault! Mr. Bykovski wouldn’t have been there except for me!” I told Doc the story. “And if he hadn’t been at the face, he would still be alive,” I finished, my voice spastic with choked sobs. I looked up at Doc, meeting his eyes.

  “Stop your sniveling,” Doc hissed. “Gawdalmighty, don’t you understand the kind of place this is? The men in this town go in that pit and hold hands with de
ath every day.”

  I couldn’t stop my tears, and they shamed me. They ran in rivulets down my cheeks, dripped off my chin. I hated myself for them.

  “Ike built your rockets,” Doc said resolutely, “because he wanted the best for you, the same as if you were his son. You and all the children in Coalwood belong to all the people. It’s an unwritten law, but that’s the way everybody feels.”

  He walked to his car and climbed inside, started the engine, and rolled the window down. “I’m going to tell you what your father would say if he could. Don’t let me ever see you act like a sob sister again or, by God, I’ll whip you myself. Coalwood is no place to be weak, but if you are, keep it to yourself and get the hell out of here as soon as you can.”

  I stood at the gate and watched Doc drive off. I looked up the road toward the tipple and saw the people coming back. I heard what sounded like normal conversation. Somebody even laughed. Mr. Bykovski was dead and my dad was maimed and they were acting as if it were all a relief. Only one man was dead. Only one! One man was killed in the mines in McDowell County all the time. The prayers at the shaft had worked well enough. I loathed them all as they passed me by, loathed that what passed for courage and endurance was in reality apathy even in the face of death. I wanted no part of them. I wanted only escape, to show my back to Coalwood forever.

  Clyde Bishop, the day-shift foreman, passed through the gate as if I weren’t standing there and climbed the steps to the back porch. Mom stopped him at the door. “I need to talk to Homer,” he said grumpily. “Something’s wrong with his phone.”

  “He isn’t here,” she snapped.

  “Now, Elsie—”

  “He isn’t here for you, Clyde, and he’s not going to be here. Don’t try to call him either. I threw the black phones out in the yard, and that’s where they’re going to stay.”

  Mom drove Dad to the hospital the next day. I sat on the back steps to wait for their return. Dandy sought me out and, perhaps sensing I was sad about something, put his head on my knee. I stroked the soft blond fur on his head. Occasionally, he’d sigh as if he were deep in thought. After a while, Poteet joined us, sitting at my feet like she was guarding me. We were still there when my parents got back. Dad’s head was bandaged and there was a thick patch over his eye. When he got out of the Buick, he had to lean against it to get his balance. Mom put his arm over her shoulder and took his weight. I rose to help, unlatching the gate for them. Even though she was struggling, Mom kept me away with a glare.

  I watched my parents go into the house. I flinched when the screen door banged shut behind them, loud as a rifle shot. I wanted to follow but I couldn’t. My feet seemed rooted to the yard. The sound of the screen door hung in the air, as if every door in Coalwood were slamming shut in my face, one after the other. My whole life, I had always been busy with some scheme to make things go my way. Now I knew there was nothing I could do to make things right, not now, not ever. At that realization, every ounce of energy in me just seemed to drain away. My arms hung limply at my sides and I lowered my head in hopeless shame. Despite Doc’s caution, I was about to feel sorrier for myself than even I could imagine. Then, as if some thief had sneaked up behind me and robbed me of everything I had always believed to be right and holy, I felt a terrible thing. It took me by surprise and I knew instantly it was wrong but I couldn’t do anything about it. The boy who raised his head and looked around at the ugly old mountains surrounding him seemed far different than the boy I’d been merely moments before. Perhaps my lips didn’t curl into a sneer but they could have. The worst thing I had ever felt in my life had taken control of me. I felt: nothing.

  19

  PICKING UP AND GOING ON

  Auk XXI

  IT WAS AS if somebody had reached up inside me and turned off a switch. I felt dull and thick. In the following days, I quit building rockets, quit studying my book, and quit going to the machine shop. I avoided all contact with my parents, never approaching Dad’s bedroom, getting up early and standing in the dark an hour before the school bus came.

  I was scared, but I wouldn’t admit it, even to myself. Had I turned into one of them at last? Had Mr. Bykovski’s death—my fault, no question—and Dad’s accident finally got me where I was always supposed to be? Was I finally a good West Virginian, all stoic and stolid, filled everlastingly to my chin with guilt but not capable of showing it? I considered going to church, just walking inside and dropping to my knees in front of the cross, and begging for pain. Christ had felt pain—it was His gift to us, really. Weren’t we, His people, supposed to be like Him? I detested myself for what I considered the abomination of feeling nothing.

  Mr. Ferro found me walking past the church and made me stop and talk to him. “The boys got you another rocket all ready to go. How about you loading it and let’s fire it off this weekend?”

  “Tell them thanks, but I’m not in the rocket business anymore.” I started up the steps of the church and then turned back. It was just another company building. I would have gone to see Little Richard, but it was too far and what was the use? He’d quote scriptures to me I already knew.

  Jake! My heart leapt with the thought of him. Was there ever anybody who could feel more love of life than Jake Mosby? I ran to the Club House, but Mrs. Davenport said he had left for Ohio that morning.

  I got on my bike and started to ride home, but Mr. Van Dyke hailed me from the steps of his office. I stopped and, my eyes downcast, listened while he praised Dad. “His courage should be an inspiration to us all,” Mr. Van Dyke concluded.

  “Yessir,” I replied, the good Coalwood boy speaking by rote. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  After the general superintendent was through with me, I tried to bike out of town central, but Mr. Dubonnet caught me outside the union hall. “Sonny, wait up,” he called, and then trotted up beside me when I finally stopped. “How’re your parents doing?”

  “Mom’s fine,” I said politely.

  “And you?”

  “I’m very well, sir.” More of my learned rote. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  Mr. Dubonnet held on to the handlebars. “I know what Ike meant to you, but you need to give yourself a break.”

  “I’m still in that hurry, sir.”

  He let go. “Then I guess you’d best be on your way, hadn’t you?”

  I lay in my bed at night and stared up into the darkness. When Daisy Mae purred, I petted her head, but didn’t talk to her. I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t pray either. I just waited for the night to end.

  In the mornings, I looked at Coalwood and it looked nasty. The company was pulling up the train track, and the work crews were out, teams pulling the spikes out of the ties and hauling off the rails. The track bed left behind looked like an ugly black scar slashing through town. Without the coal cars, Coalwood was no longer covered by a daily pall of dust, but I still saw a gray, ugly crust on everything and everybody that would never come off.

  I went to school now, unafraid of bad grades. I wasn’t afraid of anything. Roy Lee made other kids move on the bus so he could sit behind me. “How’s it going, sport?” he asked over my shoulder.

  “Going,” I said, and then closed my eyes and pretended sleep.

  I sat alone in the auditorium before classes and at lunch and snarled at Quentin when he tried to sit beside me. “Stay away from me,” I told him. He leapt up as if I’d kicked him.

  I saw Valentine and Buck sitting together as if they had everything in the world to talk about. I didn’t intrude. She had accomplished her act of compassion. She caught me looking and cocked her head, smiling tenderly. I looked away.

  Dorothy and Jim walked down the hall toward me, hand in hand. Dorothy tried to talk to me. “Sonny—” She had to move or I would have walked right over her.

  “What a dope,” I heard Jim tell her.

  Miss Riley made me stay after class. “Sonny, I’m sorry about your dad. How is he?”

  “Fine.” I waited for whatever sh
e had to say to be said so I could leave.

  She worried over me for a little while. “What’s this I hear about you not working on your rockets anymore?”

  To my surprise, I felt something. “That’s right,” I told her. My heart sort of hurt. I held my breath as if I were standing on ice that was cracking beneath me.

  “Why?”

  “Why not? Who cares?”

  “I do. Quentin does. All the boys do.”

  “Then they can build their own rockets,” I said with an arrogant snarl. “As if they could without me.”

  “You’re feeling sorry for yourself,” she said quietly. “And not a little bit proud. A poor combination.”

  My temper flared like a sweet electrical current coursing through my body. “What do you know about how I feel?” I indulged in my self-pity, the nastiness inside me curdling like putrid milk.

  Miss Riley didn’t even blink during my little tirade. “Give me your hand,” she said.

  “What?”

  She reached out and took one of my hands, which I found I had balled into a fist. She unwrapped it. Her hand was soft and warm. I knew mine was cold. I had been freezing since the accident. No matter how I piled on the blankets at night, I was still cold. “Sonny,” she said, “a lot has happened to you, probably more than I know. But I’m telling you, if you stop working on your rockets now, you’ll regret it maybe for the rest of your life.”

  I pulled my hand away from her. I couldn’t let her confuse me. I needed to stick to my new course. It was the only way I was going to get through all the mess I’d caused, make it right somehow.

  “You’ve got to put all your hurt and anger aside so you can do your job,” Miss Riley said.

  There it was, the West Virginia thing—the almighty job. I should have known that was coming. Oh, yes, we all had our job to do in this state, breaking our backs to ship our wealth out to the world so we could turn around the next day and do it all over again for next to nothing. “What’s my job?” I demanded harshly.