Down Sand Mountain

by Steve Watkins

  When Mom talked like that, there wasn’t anything to say back to her except, “Yes, ma’am,” which Wayne did and so did I and so did Tink. It seemed like David Tremblay and that girl Scooty just about started living with us after the announcement, and they both said they wanted to move with us to Crystal River, too. I wished I had a friend that liked me as much as David Tremblay and Scooty liked Wayne and Tink. Who I had had like that, or sort of like that, I guess, was Darla.

  So I decided I was kind of glad about moving. It meant I would never get to be the Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy in the minstrel show, but I didn’t want to do that anymore anyway. There’d been enough people making fun of me all year long, and making fun of Darla. I guess I didn’t have the heart to want to be up there on the Mighty Miners stage making fun of anybody else, which was all they were really doing in that minstrel show: making fun of the colored people. I didn’t want to be any part of that kind of meanness.

  Besides that, I was thinking about calling myself by a different name when we got to Crystal River, and I was thinking that name might be Charlie, which was a name I kind of liked, I’m not sure why. It just sounded regular, I guess, and I thought maybe when we got to a new town I could let everybody think that’s what I was — somebody regular.

  A week after Dad told us about moving, Tink started crying late one afternoon and she wouldn’t stop or couldn’t stop, I didn’t know which, for about an hour. Mom and Dad tried everything, but Tink just sobbed and sobbed. It turned out she thought we were going to have to leave Suzy behind when we moved, and when Mom and Dad found that out, they said, “No, sweetie, no — we would never leave Suzy,” and they were so relieved that that’s all it was, Mom told Tink she could choose anything she wanted for dinner that night, and she could decide what we would watch on TV.

  Tink said she didn’t care about dinner or TV, she just wanted to go to Sand Mountain and slide down from the top, which Mom and Dad hadn’t ever let her do before because she was too little. Dad said it was still cold out — it was the end of March but it had been a long winter, especially February when frost killed off a bunch of the groves — and he also said it would be dark soon. But Tink looked like she was about to start crying again, so he said, “OK,” what the heck.

  For once David Tremblay wasn’t over, but he came riding along on his bike just when Dad was backing the car out of the driveway, and said his usual, “Whatchyall doing?” so we took him with us, too. Dad was in a good mood, and him and Mom even sang a song on the way to Sand Mountain. Things were so lousy with the job and moving and all, plus the stuff that happened from the election, you would think Mom and Dad wouldn’t be happy or anything, but for some reason it was just the opposite — when things got bad, they might be low for a while, but then they always kind of got better together.

  I hadn’t been to Sand Mountain since the last time I went with Darla, and I was dreading going now, on the way over, but it turned out not to be so bad once we started climbing. I even kind of liked thinking about the times her and me had gone there before.

  It took us the longest time to get to the top of Sand Mountain because we practically had to carry Tink. Actually she wanted to be dragged up the mountain on the cardboard, even though we kept telling her to get the heck off, that wasn’t how it worked. The sun wasn’t even there anymore by the time we finally made it, but the sky was still light enough to see OK, and over the phosphate mines, it was streaked red and orange just like the last time I was there with Darla, which seemed like a really long time ago by then.

  David Tremblay and Wayne hopped onto their cardboard right away and yelled, “Geronimo!” and disappeared over the side. I guess they didn’t care about looking all around the way the rest of us did, especially Tink, since it was her first and, as it turned out, last time. The Tire Tower way over in the Boogerbottom next to the Peace River had flared up again about a week before — a couple of months after they said they were sure it was done burning — and we could see a line of black smoke going straight up to the sky like somebody drew it there with a Magic Marker.

  We watched the smoke for a while except for Tink, who was busy running from one edge to the other, to the other, and Dad said, “Oh, by the way,” he guessed he hadn’t told us yet, but the W. R. Grace Company was going to re-mine Sand Mountain.

  “What?” I practically shouted when he said that, and Dad said, Yeah, they were going to reprocess the whole Sand Mountain because they discovered there was a lot of phosphate still left in the tailings, which is what the sand of Sand Mountain was, but now they had a new process that the chemical engineers had invented that they could get the rest of the phosphate out with. They figured there was probably ten million dollars’ worth of it still in Sand Mountain once they moved it back over to the plant — kind of the opposite of how they made the mountain in the first place.

  “And there won’t be a Sand Mountain anymore?” I said.

  Dad said, “That’s right.” Another two years and where Sand Mountain stood would be as flat as the rest of Florida. I guess Dad didn’t think it was all that big of a deal, because he went over to get Tink so they could slide down together on their cardboard, which left just me and Mom the last ones standing on top. No more Sand Mountain. Dad could have told me the Russians just dropped the bomb or the Vietcong just won the war and I wouldn’t have been shocked any more than I was. No more Sand Mountain! I looked around in all directions, trying to memorize everything I saw.

  West was the phosphate plants and the faded sunset and the torn-up land. South was the woods with Bowlegs Creek and probably that half man–half gator. East was the town with the Methodist Church, and Darla’s house, and our house, and the high school, and the Skeleton Hotel, and the Boogerbottom, and the Tire Tower, and the Peace River, and that colored church — even though you couldn’t see most of those places on account of the trees. North was the Pits, which Mom one time said looked like the four chambers of the heart, and Moon’s Stable at the back side of the Pits, and the Old Bartow Highway. Where Darla …

  Mom said we had to go now and there was just one more piece of cardboard, so we’d have to ride down together and did I want front or back. I guess I didn’t move right away, so she put her arm around me and squeezed me. “Dewey Markham Turner, you’re too young to look so sad,” she said.

  “But you’re not old and you’re sad a lot, too,” I said back to her. It was true but I hoped it didn’t sound mean.

  Mom said when you’re older, sometimes you have more you’re sad about but that she had mostly blessings she was thankful for and I better know I was one of them. It was the second time she talked about blessings and how we ought to be thankful for them and count them, etc., which made me wonder if maybe she didn’t really think we had all that many. But since it was my mom I didn’t say anything. We sat on our cardboard, me in front, her in back, and I lifted up the front edge so it wouldn’t get caught under the sand and flip us over. She said, “Look, Dewey, you can see the moon,” and I did, a crescent moon already rising in the sky so close to the top of Sand Mountain that you could probably grab it if you had to.

  Mom said, “Are you ready, Freddy?” I wasn’t but said I was anyway, even though I kind of wanted to stay up there forever. Mom said, “Me neither,” and then shoved us over the side. Everybody down at the bottom was waving at us and I wanted to wave back, but when you’re doing something like that, going a million miles an hour down Sand Mountain, you don’t want to mess around or anything. You just better hold on for dear life.

  My profound gratitude to everyone who helped me climb Sand Mountain — not something I could ever do on my own: Bucky McMahon, Heather Montanye, and Pamela Ball; wonderful Kelly Sonnack and the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency; Candlewick Press and the gifted Kaylan Adair; my daughters Maggie, Eva, Claire, and Lili; and my wife and partner, Janet Marshall Watkins, who read, critiqued, edited, and reread with patience, grace, and love.

  Steve Watkins is an accomplished author whose fiction, po
etry, and nonfiction articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, Poets & Writers, and Mississippi Review, and have received many awards, including the Pushcart Prize. In his day job, he teaches journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. He also teaches Ashtanga yoga and works as an investigator and advocate for abused and neglected children.

  Down Sand Mountain was his first book for younger readers. He has written another novel for young adults called What Comes After. About Down Sand Mountain, he says, “Every time I look in a mirror I see Dewey Turner—twelve years old and always so worried about making mistakes. I want to tell him not to worry so much—that life is about the trying, and the stumbling, as much as it is about getting things right. I want to tell him what the writer Samuel Beckett once wrote: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’” Steve Watkins lives in Virginia with his wife and four daughters.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2008 by Steve Watkins

  Cover illustration copyright © 2011 by A-Digit/iStockphoto (boy on bike)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2011

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Watkins, Steve, date.

  Down Sand Mountain / Steve Watkins—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a small Florida mining town in 1966, twelve-year-old Dewey faces one worst-day-ever after another, but comes to know that the issues he faces about bullies, girls, race, and identity are part of the adult world, as well.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-3839-9 (hardcover)

  [1. Family life—Florida—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Race relations—Fiction. 5. Bullies—Fiction. 6. Florida—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W3213Dow 2008

  [Fic]—dc22 2007052159

  “R-O-T-A-R-Y, That Spells Rotary” from the Rotary songbook by Norris C. Morgan. Copyright © 1923 by the Rotary Club of Wilmington, DE. Reprinted by permission of the Rotary Club of Wilmington, DE.

  While every effort has been made to obtain permission to reprint copyrighted material, there may be cases where we have been unable to trace a copyright holder. The publisher will be happy to correct any omission in future printings.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-4835-0 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-7636-5431-3 (electronic)

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