by Homer Hickam
“I haven’t asked him,” she said. “When do I see him to ask him anything?”
I didn’t care to get off on that particular subject. “Can Dr. Hale really fix Dreama’s tooth?” I wondered.
“He can put a crown on it, but it’s expensive. He said he’d do his part for free, but since it was company equipment he’d be using, he needed company permission.”
“I wonder what Dad will say.”
Mom smiled and hung up her coat. She opened her pantry and considered what she had inside it. I hoped she was going to fix lunch. I was starving. A sermon, even a poor one, can leave you pretty hungry. “You know, Sonny,” she said, “I don’t know what your dad would say but I know what he should say so I said it for him.”
“Dr. Hale’s going to fix Dreama’s tooth?”
“I reckon so,” she said, selecting a can of tomato soup. “And I’d give a dollar to see Cleo Mallett’s face when she finds out about it. Being the superintendent’s wife isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but it does have its moments.” She chuckled. “It does have its moments, indeed.”
IT was the day O’Dell had asked me to come ride the ponies with him. After a lunch of tomato soup and a fried baloney sandwich, I pedaled my bike down to Frog Level. Along the way, I plotted my strategy to find out what he knew about Billy. I’d have to be less obvious than I’d been with Mom about Dr. Hale. I figured to come at O’Dell about Billy from an acute angle. That way, I wouldn’t have to break my promise to Mr. Turner to keep Billy’s secret. Billy no longer showed up for any of our BCMA meetings in the auditorium in the morning, and his class participation had fallen off, too. He looked a bit worried and wide-eyed to me, as if he were staring into a firing squad. I guessed quitting school was sort of like that, anyway.
O’Dell and I saddled Trigger and Champion and got going. The ponies tossed their heads and stamped their feet, getting used to the snow. Steam erupted from their noses as we came down off the hill behind O’Dell’s house. O’Dell was on Trigger, named after Roy Rogers’s palomino trick horse. I was on Champion, named after Gene Autry’s horse. Like his Hollywood namesake, Champion was a rich brown color with a white star on his forehead. He had a gentle way about him and was easy to ride. O’Dell inspected the sky. The clouds had blown away. “I was hoping we’d get more snow,” he said. “Someday I’m going to live out in the Rocky Mountains. Every day there’ll be snow. I’ll even go skiing!”
“That I’d like to see,” I laughed. “A Coalwood boy on skis. How do you figure to learn?”
“Nothing to it,” O’Dell declared. “You just strap on barrel staves and aim downhill. It’s just like sledding, only you stand up.”
Our ponies clip-clopped up through Middletown, prancing when Margie Jones’s dog barked at us as we went past her house. Across the ball field, I saw some men in front of Little Richard’s church. One of them was the reverend himself, dressed in his all-black Sunday frock. I turned Champion across the grass to have a word with him. Trigger and O’Dell followed.
A small stack of lumber sat in front of the church next to some glittering panes of glass. Two men stood in blue bib coveralls alongside Little. They seemed to be having an argument. “Hi, Reverend Richard,” I said as I rode up to them.
Little lifted his hand. “Hidy, Sonny, O’Dell. Mighty fine fillies you got there.”
“They’re geldings,” O’Dell said.
The reverend clucked his tongue. “Are they, now?”
“Working on a Sunday, Reverend?” O’Dell asked.
“Got my ox in a ditch, young man.”
I recognized the men in the overalls. One was Mr. Willy Franklin. When I saw the splint on one of his fingers, I remembered Sherman telling me that Mr. Franklin had been in an accident at 11 East. The other man was Mr. Billy Joe Blevins, a shuttle-car operator and also John Eye’s brother. “Hey, boy,” Mr. Franklin said while Mr. Blevins nodded. Though they didn’t call me by name, they knew who I was and I could sense their unease. I was the boss’s son.
“The boys and I are just having a little discussion about our new church windows,” Little said.
The two men were looking at a drawing on a piece of notebook paper. They turned it this way and then that. “We can do it, Reverend,” Mr. Franklin said. “But it still ain’t right.”
“It’s what I want,” Little said, smiling. “And it is as right as heaven.”
The men shrugged and went inside the church. “What kind of windows are you putting in?” I asked, the curious cat on a pony.
Little waved my question away. “So, lookit you and O’Dell, a couple of cowboys. Heh heh. My, oh my. I can remember when you used to ride your bicycles!”
So could I, since it had been earlier that same day and would probably be tomorrow, too. “I’m glad Dad sent you the stuff for your windows,” I said.
“Ol’ Homer usually comes through after some foot dragging just to show you he don’t have to do it. Guess you know how that goes.” A memory seemed to cross his face. “Say, you ever figure out that thing that was bothering you?”
“Not yet.”
Little sat down on the steps of his church. “Did you pray on it?”
“Not exactly.”
“God’s wheel shaping you, praying or not, Sonny Hickam.”
“Yessir.”
“You ready for Christmas, Reverend?” O’Dell asked.
“I live for it, O’Dell. Best time of the year.” Little got back to me. “Your granddaddy died last Christmas, didn’t he?”
“Christmas Eve,” I said.
“Mr. Benjamin Hickam,” Little said. “I used to go over to Warriormine, sit on the porch with him, talk things over. He didn’t care if you was colored or what—just come on over, Reverend, any old time you like. When he wasn’t on the paregoric, he was interesting to talk to. Knew something on just about everything. Read a lot of books. I’ll say a prayer for him tonight.” He searched my face. “You been getting any hassle about 11 East?”
“Some.”
“Been about all people care to talk about around here,” he said, watching me carefully. “ ’Cept maybe that woman who lives with Cuke.”
I was surprised that the goings-on of a young white woman was gossip in the colored part of the camp. “Her name’s Dreama,” I said. I assumed he’d heard about her getting beat up. “Why do you think she stays with Cuke, Reverend?”
Little studied the sky for a bit and then said, “Well, Sonny, people do what they do. Man wants a woman, woman wants a man. That’s the way the good Lord made us. So far as I know, nobody’s seen fit to fix us like your poor ponies there.” At the sound of splintering lumber, he called over his shoulder, “Easy, boys!” Then he said, “A man can’t hit a woman and stay a man. He becomes a loathsome thing, even to himself. But the woman who stays with such a man panders to his darkness. They both risk their souls.”
Mr. Franklin walked out on the church stoop. His black curly hair was sprinkled with sawdust. He was carrying a pry bar. I was surprised he could work with a broken finger. “This old place is hammered together pretty good, Reverend.”
Little gave him his slow laugh. “There wasn’t no shortage of nails when we built it, only boards.”
“What kind of windows are you putting in?” I asked again.
Little shook his head. “Sometimes a thing can’t stand to be talked about before it happens,” he said mysteriously.
Mr. Franklin made a sour face. “It’s durn crazy is what it is.” He looked at his bandaged finger. Then he looked up at me. “Like 11 East.”
Little gave Mr. Franklin a stern look. “Willy, I done told you why we’re doing what we’re doing. Don’t you be calling it names, now. And don’t be getting cute with Sonny. He didn’t do 11 East and he can’t undo it, either. Don’t matter who his daddy is.”
Mr. Franklin gave me a sheepish look and then joined Mr. Blevins. They began covering the front of the church with squares of canvas. “What’s that for?” O’Dell asked.
“To keep your prying eyes away, O’Dell,” Little said, smiling.
Trigger and Champion were getting restless, so we excused ourselves and pointed them up the road. “Ya’ll be careful now,” Little called after us as we waved.
We rode at a plodding pace past the old mule barn, long since emptied of the mules that had once hauled the coal out of the mine. Some of their old leather harnesses, moldy and falling away into dust, still hung inside. I always felt a bit forlorn when I passed that old barn, remembering the fate of the mules. After he’d automated his mine, Mr. Carter had kept the mules in the barn or pastured them around town. When he’d sold out, the mules had gone to the renderers the next day.
When we reached Sherman’s house, just down the creek from the machine shops, he whooped at us from his porch. “Mr. Bolt said he’d like to see you,” he said. I saw that he’d gotten his greens up. We waved and moved on.
We found Mr. Bolt and Mr. Caton at work on one of the benches in the rear of the machine shop. “Take a look at this,” Mr. Bolt said proudly, holding a shiny object aloft. “Clinton did it for you last night. It’s pretty much glorious.”
The shiny object Mr. Bolt held up was indeed glorious. It was a perfectly crafted De Laval rocket nozzle, with an interior lining of hardened water putty. “I finally figured out how to make it smooth,” Mr. Caton said of the putty. “I used a Popsicle stick dipped in lard.”
The putty was as smooth as a sheet of paper. “It’s just the thing!” I said happily. “We’ll try it out next weekend.”
“We’ll be there,” Mr. Bolt and Mr. Caton said in unison.
After O’Dell and I admired the nozzle some more, I put it in my jacket pocket for safekeeping. We said our good-byes to the machinists and went outside to swing back into our saddles. We took the road up past the Club House. Jake’s Corvette was parked in front. Then I saw that the light was on in Dr. Hale’s upstairs office in the post office building. He didn’t see patients on Sunday, at least to my knowledge. I wondered if he was working on Dreama.
When we got opposite the Big Store, Ginger came out of the front door, turning to lock it. The Big Store was closed, but I guess she was allowed inside anyway, since she was the store manager’s daughter. She was carrying a carton of milk. “Take me riding,” she said with a grin and a cant of her head.
“Hop up,” I said, patting Champion’s rump.
She was in a skirt. “If I had my jeans on, I’d be there, boy, and don’t think I wouldn’t!”
We said good-bye and cantered on. O’Dell laughed. “That girl’s got more spunk than any girl in Coalwood.” He turned in his saddle to watch her as she walked down the street toward her house. “You ought to ask her out.”
“I can’t,” I said sadly.
“Why not?” O’Dell demanded.
“Because I’m her friend.”
O’Dell patted Trigger’s neck. “Is that supposed to make sense?”
“No,” I said. “Except to Ginger and me.”
We were in front of Linda DeHaven’s house when Jake sped past us in his Corvette. He jammed on the brakes and backed up. He had on his junior engineer uniform. “Hey, boys.”
“Hey,” we called back.
Jake tapped the steering wheel, his brow furrowed. “Listen, Sonny, you free next Saturday?”
“We’re testing a new rocket nozzle.”
“Launch your rocket in the morning, then meet me at the Club House around one o’clock. Wear your boots.”
I said okay and started to ask him why, but before I could, Jake floored the Corvette and peeled rubber for at least fifty yards. I figured he probably wanted me to guide him on a hike. I’d done a fair amount of that when he’d brought weekend women to the Club House and was looking for something else to do with them. Then I thought maybe he wanted to gather some greens for his room at the Club House. Maybe Rollie and Frank would go along, too. If so, I hoped they’d all stay halfway sober. I didn’t look forward to hauling the three of them out of the mountains.
Linda DeHaven came out on her porch, wrinkled her nose at the smell of burning tires, and waved at O’Dell and me. “Got a date for the Christmas Formal?” she asked. The big dance seemed to be on everybody’s mind.
O’Dell took a moment to wax about the beauty of the girl he was taking, a sophomore who lived in Squire. Linda D., a classmate of ours, frowned at me when I confessed I was dateless. “You’re too picky, Sonny Hickam,” she said. “Always have been.” Linda D. and I had known each other practically from the day we were born.
I laughed. “You go with me, then!”
She laughed back. “I already got a date, boy.” Then she said, “I’m having a pajama party on Christmas Formal night. A bunch of girls are going to stick around for Slug and Carol’s wedding.”
“Slug” was Linda’s older brother, whose real name was Jimmy. Carol was Carol Todd, Ada and Ray Todd’s daughter. Their wedding was already down as one of the biggest social events in Coalwood history.
“Who’s coming?” O’Dell asked.
“Emily Sue, Tish, Tootsie, Patty, Linda B., Becky, and Dana.” She waited a beat. “And Dorothy Plunk.”
My heart did its usual flip-flop at the sound of Dorothy’s name. There was no way I could control it.
Linda D., getting cold, went inside. We headed the ponies down the road, easing slowly past the houses on Main Street Row. I absorbed the concept that the exalted Dorothy Plunk would be sleeping in a house so close to my own. I would ignore her, of course, but I’d have to calculate how best to do it. Anything that had to do with Dorothy in my own personal universe took careful calculation, even when my plan was to do nothing.
I shook off Dorothy and focused on the passing houses. So much had changed since the houses had been sold. Instead of the solid company white, many of the houses had been painted different colors—greens and yellows, mostly, but one was a shade of pink. As we passed it, I noticed Cuke’s house looked as nasty and gray as ever. It had been over a year since the company had pulled up the railroad tracks that went past his house, but it was still coated with a crusty layer of coal dust. It didn’t look like anybody was home, although it was hard to tell with Cuke. I hoped Dreama was at Dr. Hale’s office instead of being in there.
When we got up by the Coalwood school, I decided it was time to find out about Billy. “Billy seems kind of unhappy lately,” I said.
It didn’t usually take much more than the mention of a subject for O’Dell to tell you all he knew about it. But, in this case, he didn’t. He just gave me an odd look and said, “Well, I guess he is. That’s why he’s joining the navy. Didn’t he tell you?”
I pondered his question. Billy had been a member of the BCMA for nearly a year. He had come to the launches and put in his two cents worth and I had listened to his ideas, usually good ones, but beyond that, I couldn’t remember when I had ever actually shared more than a few minutes of conversation with him. It was odd when I stopped to think about it. Billy Rose was one of my best friends, at least if anybody had asked me that’s what I would have said, but I couldn’t think of a single time in the entire history of my life when I had actually sat down and talked to him. That was pretty sad, now that I thought about it. “When did he tell you?” I asked.
“When I was at his house a couple weekends ago.”
“I’ve never been to his house,” I confessed. The truth was I wasn’t even sure where it was. Somewhere up Six Hollow, that’s all I knew.
We rode quietly on, O’Dell volunteering no more information on Billy. I guess there was little else to say about it, or maybe he didn’t know any more. “It’s hard to believe we’re so close to graduating from high school,” he said after a bit. “We’ve been in school twelve years. In a way, it seems like forever.”
I smiled. “Do you remember your first day at school?”
“I sure do. I was in Mrs. Williams’s class. She accused me of talking too much.”
“She must’ve gotten you mixed up with somebody
else,” I said, laughing. “I’m sorry I missed it. Our class was so big, they split us in two. I was in Miss Stapleton’s class, remember?”
“But we all took recess together,” he said. “I didn’t know any kids except the ones from Frog Level. I was kind of scared, meeting you kids from the main part of town. I remember you, though. You kept running into things. You also fell off the slide and bloodied your nose.”
“That’s because I was nearly blind. I didn’t get my glasses until I was in the third grade.”
We rode on. “Wonder where we’ll be in twelve more years?” O’Dell asked.
“Cape Canaveral,” I replied confidently.
O’Dell shook his head. “You maybe, but not me. Daddy says he can’t afford to send me to college. I’m thinking about the air force.”
I took in O’Dell’s unhappy news. I was sorry to hear it, but it put me in a ticklish position. Of all the Rocket Boys, it appeared I was the only one who was pretty sure he was going to college. I couldn’t blame them if they resented me for that. “You can work on their rockets,” I said, trying to find some light in his situation. “Then come on down to the Cape afterward.”
“All I want out of the air force is the GI Bill,” O’Dell replied morosely. “But I wish I could just go on to college and get it done.”
“I do, too, O’Dell,” I said.
“It’s not your fault, Sonny,” he replied, and pulled on Trigger’s reins to turn him around.
“Thank you, O’Dell,” I said, fully meaning it. I turned Champion around, too, and we headed back down the valley.
The sun was fading behind the mountains when we got to the barn built behind the Carrolls’ house. Red had built the barn for the ponies the year before and it smelled of fresh lumber, hay, and horses. The Carrolls were an industrious family, given to country living. They raised pigs and, for a while, even kept a cow. There was a time when nearly every family in Coalwood raised some kind of animal for food, but the practice had dwindled as the pay at the mine had gone up and the houses were fenced and built closer together.
We unsaddled the ponies and groomed them. O’Dell said his dad wanted their stalls changed, so we shoveled the soiled straw into a wheelbarrow and dumped it behind the barn. Then we climbed into a loft full of baled hay and loose bedding straw. It looked to me like the Carrolls had enough hay and straw in their barn to last a lifetime. O’Dell laughed when I said so. “We’ve got even more bales of hay under a tarp outside,” he said. “Daddy bought a bunch of it when it was real cheap. But now that we don’t have a cow, it’s probably going to go sour before the ponies can eat it. They prefer oats, anyway.”