by Mary Knight
JD wants to play more Battle King. The kids from Berlin are online again and calling us to a rematch. Two hours into it, my head starts to ache, what with all the land mines and bombs and hand grenades blowing up in surround sound.
“Can we go outside?” I plead after we lose another battle.
“Outside? What’s that?” JD jokes. “Some kind of virtual reality? You hicks are all alike.”
We spend the rest of the afternoon playing around with his video camera, filming stuff in the woods near his house from weird angles and making the other one guess what it is. For dinner, we grab a roll of paper towels, a couple of Cokes, and eat pizza up in his room, something that would never happen at my house. Papaw would insist on eating dinner together at the table with our guest. But Mr. Tiverton has to run out to check on one of his mines. He says he’ll be back in time for dessert, but JD says, “Don’t hold your breath.”
“Does it ever feel lonely?” I ask, peeling a piece of pepperoni off the top of the pizza and popping it into my mouth. “I mean, being in this big house all by yourself?”
“Sometimes. But it was worse when Mom and Dad were together.” JD tosses me a paper towel and motions for me to dig in. “Up in Indiana, when the ’rents were mad at each other, they’d freeze each other out. You might say I got caught in the cross-freeze. You’d know when things were really bad between them when the house got deadly quiet.”
“Like a loud silence?” I ask.
“Yeah, weird, huh?” JD takes a sip of Coke. “You know how I’ve been saying that Mom’s not here because she’s waiting for our other house to sell?” I nod. “Well, really, she just can’t stand living with the old man. Dad’s a workaholic, see. When he was home, he’d shut himself up in his study, even sleep in there. Mom would watch the Shopping Channel and drink.” JD shrugs. “Now the only tension in the house is between me and the old man. Mostly, he’s so busy, he just lets me be.”
It feels like my last bite of pizza’s caught halfway down my throat. “So how’s your ma doing? How often do you see her?”
“I guess she’s doing a lot better now that we’re gone. She even got a job doing marketing for a local mall. Ha! I guess you could say all that research on the Shopping Channel paid off.”
He stops to roll another piece of pizza up like a burrito, from the point to the crust. I’m marveling at how much food one person can fit in his mouth and still breathe, much less talk, when he adds, “I don’t blame her for not coming with us to Hicksville. Living with my old man would drive anyone crazy.” He swishes a swig of Coke around in his mouth and swallows hard. “I miss her, though. I only get to see her every few months.”
Only twenty-four hours ago, I was envious of JD for his car collection, his big-screen TV, his video camera, his computer, his house, and his games, but now I’m realizing he’s as much an orphan as I am. As a matter of fact, the more I’m with JD, the more I see. He’s his very own walking oxymoron—an orphan with parents and a good bad boy, if there is such a thing.
I don’t know what makes me do it—maybe it’s that niggle again, or maybe I feel like it’s my turn to share something sad, but I tell JD about the orange ribbons and what his father’s planning to do with our mountain.
“I was hoping to talk to him this weekend,” I say. “Maybe get him to change his mind.” As soon as I say it, I can hear how silly it sounds. How pointless.
But JD isn’t laughing. His face is turning red, like he’s embarrassed or maybe mad.
“So that’s why you came?” He’s tearing his paper towel into tiny little wads.
My gut does one of those slow rolls as I realize what I said, or at least how it sounded. I want to blurt out, I didn’t mean it that way! but something about JD makes me want to tell it straight.
“Yeah, that’s why I thought I came.”
His dark eyebrows knit together in an upside-down V, like I’m one gigantic puzzle.
“I don’t get it, either.” I think about that dang niggle and silently curse it. “If it’s any consolation, Jules thinks I’m here to make friends with you.”
His face softens at the mention of her name. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I chew on a pizza crust, now that I’m pretty sure he’s not going to kill me. “She may be right.”
Oxymoron—noun
: a phrase in which the words seem to be in opposition to each other or have contradictory meanings; e. g., cruel kindness; laborious idleness
My definition: a juxtaposed conundrum that in the right context makes perfect sense
“Are you sure your dad’s asleep by now?” I whisper as we creep down the dark hallway.
“Yeah, couldn’t you hear him snoring when we went by his bedroom?” JD pauses at a door. “Come on. This is it.”
As we pass over the threshold of the door into his father’s study, I know I am crossing a line. I am no longer Curley Hines, the quiet and good. I am Curley Hines, the renegade (r word, last fall), the rebel with a cause.
Inside, JD shuts the door and turns on the light. I feel like a mole coming out of its hole in broad daylight. When my eyes finally adjust, I think there must be some mistake. The room looks more like a den than an office. There’s a fieldstone fireplace in one corner with what appears to be a fully stocked bar beside it. A humongous movie screen takes up most of the wall in an opposite corner facing an overstuffed couch.
“Over here.” JD heads over to his father’s desk, which is as long and wide as our kitchen table. On one end, long rolls of paper are stacked in a kind of pyramid. “Surveys of mining sites.” JD picks one up. “This could be yours.”
The idea that the entire fate of my mountain might be rolled up in that one lousy tube stokes a fire in my gut that may never go out.
“Wait a minute.” JD looks at some sketches spread out on the desk, weighed down by books at each corner. “Look here, Curley.” Red Hawk Mountain is written in blue at the top of the sheet.
“This is it,” I whisper. My voice comes out all raspy. Fear grips me from the inside out.
Parallel lines reveal the mining road that runs through the holler and up the mountain, beginning at the county road, just like Jules and I saw yesterday. More lines cut through the center figure that represents Red Hawk Mountain, with numbers off to the side indicating elevation.
“That’s where the coal is.” JD points. “Each line shows how much of the mountain will be taken down to get to the coal deposit, one slice at a time.” The engineer’s drawing looks so delicate and precise, it’s eerie, considering what our mountain will look like a year from now if all goes according to Tiverton’s plan.
JD grabs a black datebook from the center drawer and holds it up.
“Hey, Ketchup. This should tell us something.”
He opens it to today’s date and starts thumbing through the rest of April as I look over his shoulder. On April 21, which is a little over a week away, it reads: R.H. access road. I’m guessing the R.H. stands for Red Hawk.
“That’s when Ol’ Charley’s coming down, I bet,” I say, pointing at the date. We start flipping through more days, when we hear the sound of a toilet flushing on the other side of the wall.
“Shhhh! The old man!”
JD scrambles from behind the desk and pulls me toward the couch. Grabbing a remote from the entertainment cabinet, he points it at the screen. We’re after the lesser of two evils here, as Papaw would say, but my heart’s still thumping like a rabbit against the walls of a cage.
“Boys?” Mr. Tiverton leans against the doorframe, dressed in gray flannel pajamas, his short-cropped hair standing up helter-skelter in all directions. “What’s the meaning of this?”
JD casually turns toward his father as if he just noticed him. “Oh, hi, Dad. Sorry if we woke you up. We were just about to watch a movie.”
His father glances around the room. “Isn’t it a little late for that?” He walks over to his desk and shuffles through some papers.
I try not to watch his every move.
I try to relax.
“What’s wrong with your TV?”
“Your screen has higher def, and, well … it’s bigger,” JD quips.
I’m beginning to think we’re in the clear, when out of the corner of my eye, I notice Mr. Tiverton pick up his datebook and study it. JD didn’t have time to put it back in the drawer.
“Boys?” Mr. Tiverton’s voice is deadly calm. “Can you explain what my calendar is doing on my desk and not in the drawer where I always keep it?”
You know how they say that before an accident, everything seems to go in slow motion? Well, that’s how it is for me in this moment, when I know I’m about to come clean. My p word comes to me in Papaw’s voice, sending me strength. It’s like having a superpower. I feel electrified when I think it.
Persist.
JD starts to make something up, but I wave him off. “That’s okay, JD, I’ve got this.”
I stand in front of Mr. Tiverton and his enormous desk. “I looked at it, sir. I wanted to know what your plan was for Red Hawk Mountain.”
He sets the book down. “I see.”
“I apologize for sneaking in here like this. It’s not how my papaw raised me. But when I saw those orange ribbons the other day on all those trees, well, I felt desperate about saving them. And my mountain, too, of course.”
Mr. Tiverton sits down in his office chair and leans over the blueprints like he might just lay his head down and go to sleep. “Curley … your grandfather and I have already talked about this.”
“Yes, sir, I know. But you haven’t talked with me. I’m pretty sure my words aren’t going to make a lick of difference, but Papaw says it’s the trying that counts.”
Mr. Tiverton leans back in his chair with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. I look over at JD, who is now lounging on the couch, his legs dangling over one arm. I can’t see his face, but I can see his bare feet swinging freely, and for some reason, that steadies me.
Persist.
“Red Hawk Mountain means the world to me. It is my world. It’s all I’ve ever known from the time I was knee-high to a rooster. I’m sure I’ve walked every inch of it. I know it like the back of my hand. All my memories of my daddy and Ma and little Zeb are rooted there with the trees. I wake up to that mountain. I go to sleep to that mountain. Some days I might not think about it or even appreciate it, but it’s always there, kind of like God. You take that mountain away from me and Papaw, and you might as well take our house, too. The mountain is our home.”
JD’s feet have stopped swinging, which pretty much tells me he’s heard every word. Mr. Tiverton just sits there and stares. Finally, he says, “Are you finished?”
“Yes, sir. I am.” I thought for sure I was going to need some of the words Papaw gave me, but I guess I had enough of my own.
“Curley, you probably think I’m a man without a heart.” He throws a quick glance toward the couch. “That’s what some people in this house think, anyway. But I know your story and your papaw’s, too, and they move me. I didn’t need to continue that deal you had with Barkley Coal, but I did, didn’t I?”
I nod. “Yes, sir. And we’re thankful for it.”
“I kept that deal, because I care about what happens to you, Curley.” He’s speaking so softly I have to step closer to hear him. “Coal takes care of its own. That’s why I need to mine this mountain. I have employees and their families to consider. If I didn’t move forward with this lease, I’d have to start laying people off. I also wouldn’t have the money to keep up with the causes I care about most, if you catch my drift.”
He rubs his face with his hands, as if he might wipe away all that responsibility, which, I’ve got to admit, sounds like a lot. Still, it feels funny to be called a “cause,” although Carl Jenkins once called me a lost one.
“In case you’re listening, JD”—Mr. Tiverton’s tone takes on an edge—“it’s my job that’s on the line, too. Tiverton Coal pays for this house and your video games and your college education, if you should be so lucky to have one.”
JD flips his legs off the couch and springs toward the door. “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t need you or your money.” Turning toward me, he says, “I told you this would be absolutely futile.” It’s the same word I used at Ma and Zeb’s funeral, when I threw that shovel down.
“Come on, Curley,” JD says. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Not so fast, you two.” The edge to Mr. Tiverton’s voice grows sharper with every word. “We’re not quite done here.”
His piercing look shoots right through me, and I realize I need to pee. The urge is so bad, I squeeze my legs together like a little kid.
“First of all, there’s no excuse for you boys breaking into my office and going through my desk. That was a terrible violation,” he says.
“You mean, like blowing the top off a mountain?” I can’t believe I say that out loud. Judging from the look on JD’s face, he can’t believe it, either.
If words carry weight like Papaw says they do, then silence must weigh more than a dictionary, or at least that’s how heavy it feels standing in front of Mr. Tiverton like this, with him just staring. I fully expect him to unleash his wrath and, while he’s at it, send me out into the pitch-black night, but he drops his head into his hands and sighs. When he finally looks up, I’d swear he looks more raggedy than Papaw did after his bypass surgery.
“Curley, I know you came here hoping to change my mind, and I guess I don’t blame you. But there are things you kids simply don’t understand. Things that come first in this life—yes, even before mountains. And that’s jobs and putting food on the table and making sure folks have enough energy to heat their houses on cold winter nights. Maybe you think I’m in some kind of dirty business, but I’m working my tail off here to help keep this country running. Almost forty percent of this country’s electricity—and more than eighty percent of the electricity in the Commonwealth of Kentucky alone—runs on coal. If it doesn’t come from your mountain, where’s it going to come from?”
I want to say, Somebody else’s mountain, but I can’t seem to work out the justice of that. Besides, my brain is having a hard time concentrating, what with having to pee and all. I mean, I’m seeing yellow.
“Look here, Curley, I’m a businessman …”
JD groans. His dad shoots him a poison-dart glare before turning back to me.
“… and as such, my first duty is to protect my business at all costs. Tiverton Coal will be mining Red Hawk Mountain; it’s as simple as that. Do you understand?”
Mr. Tiverton peers into my eyes, as if willing me to come to my senses. Maybe he thinks he’s made a case for Big Coal. But where I come from? All the good sense in the world will never add up to a mountain.
“Honestly, sir?” I say. “I don’t.” And then I turn and run.
“Man, Ketchup, that took some swag,” JD whisper-shouts as we scramble down the hall.
I turn into the bathroom closest to his room, one of five in the house I’ve counted so far. As I pee, I think of my p word. Who would have ever guessed that such a simple word could be so risky? And what will it mean?
The loss of everything?
Persist—verb
: to stand firm; to be fixed and unmoved; to stay; to continue steadfastly; especially, to continue fixed in a course of conduct against opposing motives; to persevere
Gurrrrrruuup! Rrrrrrrrrrr … zing! Rrrrrrrrr … up, up, up … zzzziiiing! Zzzzzzzzzziiiiiiing!
The holler rings with high-powered chain saws ripping a path through the woods. A bulldozer follows closely behind, banging against uprooted trunks like a bull butting its head against a fence post, only this bull never yields. Everything gives way in the end.
“Curley!” Jules screams as she tears through the woods, outpacing both me and JD. “They’re almost there!”
A tree moans mere yards from where we’re running, then … CRACK! It crashes to the ground. There’s a gentle whoooooosh of green-leafed branches coming to rest and
then … nothing. No birds. No rustling of leaves in the wind. Just the smell of fresh wood, a fatal wound.
Gurrrrrruuup! Rrrrrrrrrrr … zing! Rrrrrrrrr … up, up, up … zzzziiiing!
“Come on, you two,” JD yells as Jules and I throw our backpacks against the trunk of our favorite tree. “I’ll give you a hand up.”
Jules and I settle onto our favorite branch of Ol’ Charley, straddling him like the horse we’ve imagined him to be. I’d say it was like old times, but old times were never like this. In the olden days, we never had a bulldozer or an army of chain saws breathing down our necks, much less a third party watching our every move. This last part was planned, mind you. Still, I’d rather be alone with Jules any day.
JD pulls a stack of signs made out of poster board from Jules’s backpack and hands them up to her. Then he starts fiddling with his video camera.
“Give me a sec,” he says, “and we’ll be ready to roll.”
I turn to give Jules a thumbs-up, and see that she’s crying.
“What’s wrong?” I immediately feel stupid for asking.
Thankfully, she ignores me and wipes her face with her jacket sleeve. “Curley?”
I nod, daring to look into her eyes.
“I’ll be strong for you if you’ll be strong for me,” she says, holding her little finger in the air between us. “Deal?”
I hook my pinkie around hers and shake.
“Deal.”
Not only can I feel the strength of our friendship in that silly kid’s pledge, but also the strength of my new resolve. I will do anything to save our mountain. And the fight starts here.
“Hey, you kids! We need you out of that tree. Now!” A man who appears to be the crew boss yells at us, cradling a massive chain saw across his chest. The rest of his cronies gather around him. They’re all wearing bright orange jackets with TIVERTON COAL emblazoned in black across their backs.
