Sky of Stone (22 page)

28

PAYDAY

M
Y FIRST
payday finally came. Floretta received my pay voucher in the Club House mail and slid it under my door. I eagerly ripped open the envelope and beheld an astonishing number. After subtracting taxes and surcharges for Doc Lassiter and Doc Hale and what I owed the Big Store for clothes and mine equipment and the Club House for rent, laundry, and meals, it read, gloriously, $268.52!
I was rich!

Then I remembered the amount I owed for the repair of the Buick—$135.78. I made a quick mental calculation. After paying it, I would still have $132.74 left over. Then I remembered I hardly had a shirt that I could button, and my pants were getting tight. All my clothes had shrunk. I would soon have to visit Mrs. Anastopoulos at the Big Store and buy some more. It was a lesson in economics, but not one I much appreciated.

I cashed my check at the Big Store, took out the Buick money, and stowed the rest of my roll in my sock drawer. I didn’t worry about hiding it. Nobody was going to steal it, not in Coalwood. Then I thought of the junior engineers and decided maybe I ought to at least stuff it inside a sock. Then I thought of the junior engineers some more and put the sock in a pillowcase. Then, when I thought of the junior engineers one more time, I found a loose board in the back of my closet and hid the pillowcase behind it, went downstairs to Floretta’s tool closet, and came back with a hammer and nails and nailed the board down.

After supper, I decided to walk up to the house to pay Dad for the Buick. I had a question for him, too, and I was bound and determined to get it answered.

As I came outside, I saw Jake and Rita walk out of the engineering office. Jake was talking animatedly, and Rita was listening with her arms crossed and her head down. My face flushed hot. Jealousy is a cruel thing. The green-eyed monster, as Floretta called it. I knew Jake and Rita had been friends when they were children, and it was natural they would have something to talk about. But I still didn’t like it.

Rita looked up and caught sight of me. I couldn’t turn away. They came up on the porch. “Hello,” I said to her, trying to sound a lot more cheerful than I felt.

“Hello, Sonny,” she said, and then her head went back down as if she was pondering something pretty hard.

Jake nodded. “Sonny,” he said formally.

They kept going, into the Club House. They were just friends, or had been. They were just talking, too. I kept repeating that mantra and also reminding myself of the real Rita I’d observed the night she’d tried to get into the mine. I was still infatuated with her, but now more guardedly so.

Dad wasn’t home, so I petted Dandy and Poteet, then made my way up to the mine. Dad’s office door was closed, so I handed over the money to Wally, who took it and stuck it in his desk. He wore a little grin that gave him the appearance of a happy toad. “Your dad will be pleased, Sonny,” he said.

“I’m glad. When’s he going to be through in there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. He’s talking to some of the day shift foremen.”

“I need to talk to him, too.”

“I’ll tell him,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe he’ll have some time tomorrow.”

“I’ll wait.” I sat down in one of the filthy plastic chairs along the far wall of the tiny alcove.

Wally eyed me. “It could be a while.”

“I don’t have any appointments.”

“When he finishes, he may have somewhere else he needs to go.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Wally hummed a tuneless tune. Then he said, “Sonny, here’s some advice for you. Your dad will be happy that you came up here and paid off the Buick. Leave well enough alone.”

“I’ll wait,” I said stubbornly.

Wally shook his head and went back to shuffling his papers. I wondered if those papers ever changed or if they were the same ones he’d been shuffling at the beginning of the summer. They were dirty enough to make me suspicious.

The electric clock on the wall hummed the minutes past. Outside, men clumped by, evening shift stragglers. There were always a few on any shift. They’d get their pay docked unless they had a good reason. Doc Lassiter could sign their chits if their delay was caused by an illness in the family. Not much else counted. Even the union wouldn’t back them up. Late work meant less pay.

An hour passed and the clock hummed on. Wally had shuffled the papers on his desk at least four times. I just sat there, musing and occasionally resting my eyes on the Mining Machine Parts, Inc., calendar with a sketch of a bathing beauty on it. Wally turned to see where I was looking and frowned as if I were admiring his personal girlfriend. For some reason, I was happy to irritate him. Wally considered himself the gatekeeper of the most important man at the mine, and that, at least as far as he was concerned, gave him the right to occasionally give everybody who tried to see Dad a hard time, including me. Wally was close to getting above himself.

Finally, the office door opened and I heard a rumble of voices and laughter, too. That surprised me. I always figured Dad’s meetings with his foremen were grim
affairs.

Mr. Marshall greeted me as he came out. “There’s that track-laying man!” He punched me so hard in the shoulder that he nearly knocked me off my feet. Such a blow was tantamount to a hug in Coalwood, so I gratefully accepted it. He kept going.

Other foremen came out and did the same. My shoulder got sore in a hurry. “Got twenty bucks on you,” Mr. Nick Paul said. He was a Caretta foreman, and the fact he’d bet on me made me proud.

Dad ushered the last of his men out of his office. “Sonny, come on in,” he said when he spotted me. I advanced cautiously, closing the door behind me while Dad settled in behind his huge desk. “So what brings you here?” he asked.

“To pay off the Buick. Wally has the money.”

“Thank you.” He looked amused.

“And I have a question.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Where did you go the night Tuck got killed?”

His chair squawked like a mad crow as he leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“Mr. Caulder said both you and Tuck were gone when he came out of the hoisthouse, so he assumed you had gone down in the mine. But Mom said you didn’t come home at all that night. I was just wondering where you went.”

Dad shook his head. “This is Coalwood business, Sonny.”

“I was raised in Coalwood,” I pointed out. “I’m a product of the Coalwood School, I’m a Coalwood miner, and I’m a member of the Coalwood union. I think I’m eligible to know Coalwood business, too.”

“Then let’s say it’s
my
business. You’re not eligible for that.”

I persisted. “There had to be a good reason why you didn’t go inside with Tuck.”

“There was a very good reason,” he said. “Tuck was a competent foreman. It’s not against the regulations for a foreman to fireboss his section alone. I let him do it.”

“Dad, I was there at the testimony. Mr. Fuller made a good case. Maybe you didn’t break the law or even a regulation, but you put Tuck in danger by not going inside with him. Mr. Fuller is going to say it fits a pattern. What are you going to say to that?”

Dad sat back, a startled look on his face. “You have no right to come up here and badger me like this,” he said. “Who do you think you are?”

My answer crackled out of my mouth like lightning. “I’m your second son.”

Dad’s good eye blazed, then seemed to subside. I could feel him gathering control. He waved a hand in dismissal. “Sonny, I’m done talking about this with you. Thank you for paying for the Buick. Good night.”

I stood my ground. “Why won’t you defend yourself?”

“Good night!”

As I went by his desk on my way out, Wally sang, “I tried to tell you.”

I thought about saying something smart-alecky back, but decided to keep my peace. For one thing, he was right.

29

DOC HALE

O
N THE
walk back to the Club House, one part of my mind kept asking where Dad had gone the night of Tuck’s death. The other part wondered why nearly every time we talked, it turned into an argument. I might have thought some more about it, but I found Doc Hale, Coalwood’s dentist, sitting on the porch, enjoying a cigar and the evening. He seemed delighted to see me. “You’re keeping late hours, aren’t you, Sonny? I’ve bet a hundred dollars on you. If you want to catch up with those Caretta boys, you need your rest.”

“I’m heading to bed right now, sir,” I reported.

Doc Hale dropped his cigar in the coffee can that had been left on the porch for that purpose and walked me into the foyer. He was always a snappy dresser and tonight was no exception. He was wearing white slacks and a long-sleeved light blue shirt, a pale yellow sweater draped over his shoulders, its arms tied around his neck. Sporting brown leather shoes with white trim, he walked with an athletic grace. In fact, he resembled Fred Astaire so much, he could have broken out into a tap dance and I wouldn’t have been much surprised.

“So, how are you, my boy?” he asked. “I’ve been remiss. I should have dropped by your room, told you hello, and welcomed you back to Coalwood.” His voice was soft and mellow. Mom had always said there was no one smoother in Coalwood than Eddie Hale.

“It’s okay, Doc. I know you keep pretty busy.”

He cocked his head. “Floretta tells me you’re turning into quite the coal miner.”

“I’m learning a lot.”

“Your capacity to learn is something I’ve always admired about you,” he said. “And how are your parents?”

“Mom’s pretty much on top of the world, I guess,” I said. “You know about Dad.”

“Yes.” He contemplated me. “Does it worry you? About your dad, I mean? I only caught the tail end of the testimony but it sounded pretty rough.”

Sometimes I can be a blurter. It’s as if everything builds up inside me, and then somebody asks me a question, and it all comes bubbling out. This was one of those times. “They’re going to get him, Doc, and it’s going to be awful.”

Doc Hale raised his eyebrows at my torrent of misery. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you stop by my apartment for a nightcap?”

“Sir?”

“A drink and a talk. Maybe I can help you.”

I followed Doc Hale down the hall, past the staircase, to his apartment. “If you don’t mind,” he said, pointing at some sandals beside the door, “I’d appreciate if you wore those. I believe the Japanese are correct in never wearing street shoes into their homes. The home should be considered distinctly sacred, unsullied by the dirt of the outside world.”

That made sense to me. I pulled off my boots and put on the sandals. Just inside the door was a zebra-skin rug. I hesitated before walking across it. “It’s okay, Sonny,” Doc Hale said. “It’s dead.”

Doc Hale’s apartment resembled a Hollywood movie set. Potted plants bloomed everywhere, including a huge fern that looked like it belonged in a prehistoric forest. Here and there were marble sculptures, busts of what appeared to be ancient warriors—Greeks and Romans, I thought. Framed paintings on the walls didn’t look like ones a person would buy in the company store.

A big elephant tusk leaning against one of the bookcases got my attention. I ran my hand over it. It felt like a huge piano key. “He was a rogue, that one,” Doc Hale said, nodding at the tusk. “It came down to him or me.”

A lion-skin rug, its mouth open and fangs bared, lay beside a white baby grand piano. The lion had a surprised look on its face. “A long shot,” he said. “She never knew what hit her.”

I looked at the diplomas and testimonials he’d packed on one wall. Doc Hale was a member of the Pittsburgh Masonic Blue Lodge, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and the Episcopal Church. The latter membership, I supposed, explained why he was usually playing tennis on the court opposite the Community Church while the Methodists were singing Sunday-morning hymns.

“What’ll it be, Sonny?” Doc Hale asked from behind the bar. “Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Royal Crown, Dr Pepper, or something stronger?”

“Do you have a Canada Dry?”

For some reason, my answer made him laugh. “Oh, yes, we have plenty of that,” he said, and produced a bottle from a little refrigerator.

My eyes strayed to an ink drawing of several nearly naked ladies. “Do you like it?” he asked, noting my gaze. “It’s a print of an etching by William Hogarth titled
Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn.
If you look close, I think you’ll see Hogarth was quite expressive utilizing the comedy and eroticism that was prevalent during the rococo period.”

The women in the print seemed kind of plump to me, but nearly naked ladies were nearly naked ladies, so I admired them a little longer. “Very nice,” I said, but I would have called it the rotundo period if anyone had asked me.

Doc Hale hauled out a bottle of clear liquid. It could have been some of John Eye’s best, but the little V-shaped glass he poured it in was entirely too delicate for that rough stuff. “I’ll be drinking a martini,” he reported as he plopped in an olive.

I looked at his glass. I’d heard of martinis on television and the movies, of course, but it was the first time I’d ever seen one for real. “What’s in it?” I asked.

He put away the bottles, licked his fingers, and replied, “Gin, vermouth, and attitude.”

“What about the olive?”

“That’s the attitude.”

He handed over my tumbler of Canada Dry and pointed toward a leather couch, its throw pillows covered with what looked to be leopard skin. I sat down carefully, afraid to bruise the fancy material, and eyed the glass coffee table. It had curved horns for legs. The magazines on the table were
National Geographic, Look, Field & Stream,
and
Argosy
. I felt uncomfortable, like a coal miner wearing a tuxedo.

Doc Hale settled into a chair that squished as he sat. “Buffalo hide,” he said, patting the armrest. “Most dangerous creature in Africa, next to the hippo. This one was in a terrible temper when I took him down.”

“What’s it like to be in Africa?” I asked.

He sipped his martini delicately. “Marvelous. A grand place of adventure. I loved it all—the animals, the people, the lawlessness of nature. It’s so vastly different from Coalwood.” He thought a little. “Then again, there are some similarities.”

“You shot all these animals?”

He nodded. “I bagged the big five.”

“Big five?”

“Lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and buffalo.”

“How about the hippo?”

“Too ugly. Ernest Hemingway told me once he’d just as soon shoot a dog as a hippopotamus.”

My eyebrows rose at that one. “You know Ernest Hemingway?”

He sipped his martini again and gave me a distant smile. I knew I was in for a story.

“I joined him on his 1953 safari. I had traveled down from Mombasa to the Percival farm and found him there with his entire retinue. He was a rookie in the bush, though he was averse to admitting it. In comparison, I was an old Africa hand, having spent some time in the Belgian Congo the year before. I thought Kenya was pretty tame in comparison. Papa didn’t like it when I started telling my tales of the wild Congo. He always had to tell a bigger story. He claimed one time he jumped in the water off Key West and wrestled a swordfish until he drowned it. I knew enough about pelagic fish to be certain that such a thing was impossible.”

“You thought he was lying?”

“I thought he was being colorful.”

“Do you like him?”

Doc Hale gave my question some thought. “I do. But I think he lives his life as if he’s watching his own movie. He has to do everything in bold strokes.” He mused into his glass. “But at bottom he’s a shy man who never feels comfortable in his own skin.” Then he laughed. “Oh, the times we had when we split off from the women! Papa fancied this Akamba girl. I recall her name was Debba. I myself liked a girl named Nobba.” His face took on a wistful cheeriness. “It was on Christmas Day. The ladies in our party had become bored with the bush and had journeyed back to the Percival farm for the holiday festivities. Ernest and I had our own brand of festivities in mind, so we stayed in camp. He had a difficult time explaining his collapsed cot later to his wife. In fact, he broke poor Debba’s wrist when it happened. Luckily, my medical training included setting fractures. Darling girls. He wrote me later to speculate that he now had a child in Africa.”

I stared at the dentist, sorting through his story, and lit on the part that intrigued me the most. “You were with an African tribal woman?”

He chuckled. “Is that so hard to believe? Women the world over are much the same, Sonny. Although I must say the women in the bush had a certain . . . shall we say, abandon?”

“Wow,” I said, meaning it.

“How old are you, Sonny?” he asked.

“Eighteen,” I said. “How about you?”

He laughed at my audacity. “I’m sixty-five years old. The dinosaurs had just died out when I was born.”

“I heard you were from New York.”

He nodded. “Indeed. I am from the heartland of the Yankees, I’m afraid. My family was quite prosperous. The fence-line gossip is correct on that score. I was born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth. Or perhaps the golden teat, if you will.” He laughed at his own joke. “How do you like working in the mine?”

I set my glass on the coaster he’d provided. It said
Famous New York Explorer’s Club
around its rim. “It’s different than I thought it would be,” I said. “It’s hard, but for some reason, it makes me proud to do it.”

“Maybe you’re a living example of the maxim that work is as good for the soul as it is for the body,” he said.

“I hope so,” I replied.

Doc Hale looked at me out of the tops of his eyes. “So, Sonny. Down to cases. About your dad.”

“Yes, sir.”

He cleared his throat, pursed his lips. “I was here when Homer first came to Coalwood. He was shy, a bit withdrawn, but essentially just another boy out of Gary, desperate for a job. The Captain saw something in him, though, and took him under his wing, taught him everything he knew about mining. I watched your father change over the years until he became the man he is today, as near like the Captain as he could possibly be. But deep down, I sometimes wonder if that boy from Gary is still inside him. If he is, I’ll bet you he’s scared. Your mother knows this better than I do. Maybe that’s why you’re here this summer. Your mother wants that boy from Gary inside your father to have at least one friend in this town. Do you understand?”

Although I knew I would need to mull over everything he was saying, I said, “Yes, sir, I think so.”

“This thing with Tuck Dillon. It’s caused by the history of Coalwood. Do you understand that, too?”

“No, sir.”

He let out a long, slow breath. “Have you studied evolution?”

I thought back. “A little, in the tenth grade. Mr. Mams went over what Darwin had to say about it.”

“So you understand how animals change over time? It’s pretty simple and part of God’s miracle, all in all. An animal is always reacting to its environment in order to survive. It has a need to hear better and its ears grow longer. A need to run faster and its legs grow stronger. A need to think logically and its brains grow bigger.” He leaned forward, looking into my eyes for a glimmer of understanding. “Your father and your mother—all of us, really—have changed, been modified by this town and what we do here and how we have to live.”

“But how does that have anything to do with Tuck Dillon?” I asked.

He pressed his hands together and rocked them against his chin for a few seconds. “It was evolution that killed Tuck. An accumulation of events. Cause and effect. History.” He searched my eyes again. “That’s all I can tell you, Sonny. That’s all I
will
tell you. But it is the answer to everything.”

“If that’s the answer to everything,” I said, shaking my head, “then I don’t know the answer to anything.”

Doc Hale picked up his martini glass and finished it off, including the olive. “I’m sorry I can’t make myself any clearer. You’ll just have to allow things to unfold.”

I could tell he was finished. “Thanks for the Canada Dry, Doc,” I said.

Doc Hale walked me back through his fancy digs. At the door, he said, “Good luck with all this. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

“Where are you going?”

“The Sunshine State. Florida. Driving down first thing in the morning. I’ll be there through miners’ vacation. I’m ready for a little surf, sand, and golf.”

“I’m ready for some of that, too,” I said, thinking once again how close I’d come to spending the summer in Myrtle Beach. “Of course, I don’t know how to play golf.”

“Come on along with me, then,” he said brightly. “I’ll teach you. And there are some very pretty girls to be found in Florida.”

I smiled at the offer, but, because I knew it was impossible, I couldn’t put much joy in it. “I wish I could. Good night, Doc.”

“Good night, my boy. And don’t worry. Everything will . . . evolve.”

T
HAT NIGHT,
as I lay in bed, I thought about all the things Doc Hale had said. I kept trying to ferret out his meaning, but in the end, I couldn’t penetrate it. I skipped to what I did understand, Doc Hale’s safari with Ernest Hemingway. I chuckled when I thought of Hemingway breaking his bunk while on top of his girl. Then I thought of something else Doc Hale had said:
Luckily, my medical training included setting fractures.

Staring up into the darkness, I kept thinking. An answer to the truth I sought was so close I could almost smell it. Then fatigue took over and I fell asleep. When I woke the next morning, I sat bolt upright in my bed. Like an airmail letter through the night, an answer had arrived. Doc Lassiter had refused to say anything about setting Nate’s wrist, had said he hadn’t done it. But maybe that was because he really hadn’t. Maybe, for some reason, Mrs. Dooley had taken Nate to Doc Hale. But, if so, why?

I tugged on my clothes and raced downstairs to Doc Hale’s apartment. I knocked on it once, then again. Floretta came out in the hall. “I gave him a bag of breakfast biscuits for his trip an hour ago,” she said, frowning at my raised fist over the door. “He’s probably halfway to Florida already.”