Sky of Stone

by Homer Hickam

  “Did he say what kind?”

  “Something that’s supposed to help him keep from drinking is what he said.”

  Jake had always been a drinker. In fact, the first time I’d seen him, I had to wake him up to get him off the floor since he was sloshed from John Eye’s stuff. I was delivering the morning Bluefield Daily Telegraph at the time, and there I’d found him, lying halfway in and halfway out of his room, his outstretched hand still holding an empty moonshine jar. Jake had kept himself in trouble his entire stay as a junior engineer in Coalwood because of his drinking. He’d even dated Miss Riley for a while, but the story I heard was she said it was the drink or her and he had apparently decided the wrong way. It was welcome news that Jake had decided to do something about it. I was glad for him, but I was still angry for what it looked like he was trying to do to Dad. Mixed emotions were the only kind I got to have, so it seemed.

  I went back to my list and stared at it, my eyes flicking from one question to the next. I kept looking and thinking until I couldn’t stand to look and think anymore. Finally, I decided to take a chance. I looked up at the ceiling and mumbled a prayer.

  Dear Lord, help me see what can’t be seen. Dear Lord, let me know . . .

  “Coalwood business,” I said out loud to the ceiling and everything above it.

  It was done, the request made. I sat back and waited, trying not to worry, while the angel that caught it got in the long queue to heaven’s throne.

  31

  KITCHEN TALK

  I PACKED a duffel bag, left a note on Floretta’s door to let her know where I’d be, and walked up to the Likens’s house for my weekend of softball training camp. Mr. and Mrs. Likens greeted me enthusiastically. “It’s going to be so much fun having you, Sonny,” Mrs. Likens said. “I’ve been looking forward to spending some time with you,” Mr. Likens added. I think they actually meant it. They were just nice people.

  Bobby and his brother, Jackie, came to the breakfast table still bleary-eyed and in their pajamas. Jackie and I were nearly the same age, although I’d started school a year earlier. He had always been one of my favorite kids in Coalwood, even though he’d almost gotten us killed in our navy silver-hunting caper. He had an easygoing attitude about nearly everything, and was always quick with a joke. He was also the only boy I knew who could sing “The Witch Doctor” song from end to end without missing a word, which wasn’t easy considering you had to know the whole Ooo-eee-ooo-ahh-ahh-ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang chorus.

  Jackie was tall and slim, whereas his older brother was built like a fireplug. Despite their age and physical differences, though, it was easy to tell the brothers were friends. They came to the table hitting each other on the shoulder, trying to trip each other, and arguing about this and that. I envied them. Jim and I did all those things, but when we did them, we were serious, and sometimes somebody, usually me, got hurt.

  “Jackie’s been standing on his head all morning,” Bobby reported.

  “How come?” I asked.

  He looked at his brother admiringly. “Just because he can, I guess.”

  Jackie demonstrated his prowess and proceeded to walk on his hands all around the kitchen. “Jackie, come to eat, dear,” Mrs. Likens said.

  Mrs. Likens dished up scrambled eggs and bacon. She was a pretty woman with high cheekbones, a set jaw, and an intelligent gleam in her eye. Many a girl had felt her wrath in home ec class for inattention or burnt apple pie. She acted more or less like the assistant principal at the school. I liked her mostly because one time she’d shown me how to slide down the playground slide using a sheet of wax paper. I’d slid so fast I’d sailed six feet past the end of the slide right into a mud puddle.

  Mr. Likens sat at the head of the table, looking like a benevolent bulldog. He was a wide-shouldered man with twinkling blue eyes and a quick smile. “Well, Sonny,” he said, “been swimming much this summer?”

  I had to confess I hadn’t. Mr. Likens had taught me how to swim, along with nearly all the other boys and girls in Coalwood. Every summer, during his vacation from Coalwood school principal duties, he drove a company-provided bus and twice a week reconnoitered the town, stopping to pick up any kid standing alongside the road with a rolled-up towel. Then he took us across Welch Mountain to the Linkous Park pool. I’d even gotten my Red Cross Junior Lifesaver’s certificate from Mr. Likens, a prized possession.

  “You’re a good swimmer, Sonny,” he said, “one of the best I ever taught. I hope you don’t give up on it. Maybe you can be a scuba diver, too. You liked being underwater a lot, I remember.”

  “Sea Hunt is my favorite program,” I said.

  “There you go. I predict you will someday be a wonderful scuba diver.”

  “So I understand you’ve decided to be an engineer and a writer,” Mrs. Likens said, sitting down at the table. Jackie had jumped up and helped her with her chair. “Thank you, dear,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll be a good one, writer or engineer,” she said formally. “After all, you did receive the bulk of your education from our school.” She smiled lovingly at her husband, and I thought again how much I envied her family. They all just seemed to like each other. It was a remarkable thing to see.

  After breakfast, I stowed my duffel bag in the Likens’s spare bedroom. Bobby came in behind me. “I’m sure glad you came, Sonny.”

  “I decided eight hours a day with you Monday through Friday just wasn’t enough,” I replied. It was an attempt at humor, which failed even with me.

  He nodded as if he really believed me, which he probably did. “If you like, we can talk over all your problems while we practice.”

  “Let’s just concentrate on softball. If you and your dad can get me up a notch from awful, maybe I won’t embarrass myself too much.”

  “You’re going to do fine.”

  A limerick I’d just made up popped into my head. “There was a young man named Sonny. Everybody in

  Coalwood thought he was funny. Bobby Likens said, Hey, I’ll teach you to play, and then we lost all of our money.”

  “Very amusing,” he said. “Have you decided to become a poet, too? Be careful. Poets commit suicide.”

  “No, they don’t,” I said. “They just don’t get published. But they get to live in New York City in garrets and wear black and drink lots of coffee and make out with lots of girls who also wear black, don’t ask me why.”

  “You don’t even know what a garret is,” he said. “You read that in some book.”

  It was true, although I couldn’t remember which one. “You hate it when I take up for myself, don’t you?” I parried.

  “No, I hate it when you kid yourself,” he replied, and then left me to make up my own bed in more ways than one.

  All weekend, I practiced softball with Bobby, Jackie, and Mr. Likens on the ball field in front of Little Richard’s church. The Reverend came out once to watch us and, of course, applauded me even though I was terrible. I couldn’t catch the ball and I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with my bat, either.

  During a break, Mr. Likens and I sat down with the Reverend on the stoop of his church while Bobby and Jackie kept tossing the ball back and forth. Little said he had been asked to give the invocation at the Fourth of July celebration. “You’ll do a grand job,” Mr. Likens told the Reverend.

  “It is very important that I do, sir,” he replied.

  “What are you going to talk about, Reverend?” I asked politely.

  “Well, Sonny, that’s been hard to figure,” he said. “At first, I thought I’d talk a bit about Coalwood, ponder a bit on all the goodness we have here. It is my belief that God just likes Coalwood, and the life we’ve built for ourselves here, and our mountains and hollows, too. But then I thought that sounded puffed up, and now I’m down a different track. As a matter of fact, Mr. Likens, I must confess my prayer has something to do with your profession.”

  Mr. Likens took off hi
s hat and used a bandanna to wipe the sweat from his nearly bald pate. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “I would, indeed, sir.”

  I left them to their conversation and went back to dropping balls and swinging at air with my bat. Every so often, though, I was catching one, and hitting one, too. Keep your eye on the ball, Sonny. That’s what Bobby, Jackie, and Mr. Likens kept saying, over and over. Keep your eye on the ball. That seemed to be the main thing to remember. Everything else was just details.

  On Sunday evening, Floretta met me in the parlor of the Club House when I came back from my training. “Mrs. Likens called me to say you were on your way back here. Did you have a good time? I’ve been worried about you all weekend.”

  “The Likens house is only two hundred yards up the road,” I pointed out. “Why didn’t you just walk up to see me?”

  “Even a mother eagle has to let her babies fly.”

  “I didn’t fly very much, just practiced softball.”

  “Your mama called.”

  “Oh?”

  Floretta gave me a look. “I hate to tell you.”

  I shrugged. “Go on. I can take it.”

  “She said she didn’t know if you were planning on coming to Myrtle Beach for miners’ vacation, but if you were, not to do it. She said for you to stay right here. Your dad’s coming to see her and your mama said she’d like some time with him by herself.”

  My feelings were a bit wounded, but I could see why Mom would want it that way. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll stick around town, help the Dooleys, play with the dogs, help you, too, if you need it.”

  Floretta startled me with a hug, nearly squeezing the air out of me. “Sometimes I’m so proud of you, Sonny Hickam! How about some blackberry pie? I picked the berries myself.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Floretta led the way into her kitchen, where I proceeded to chow down on her wonderful pie, hot out of the oven. I was working on my third slice when Tag Farmer strolled in. He nodded to me, then said, “Got some bad news for you, Floretta. No fireworks on the Fourth of July.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it hasn’t rained in about a month,” he said, shoveling pie onto a saucer. “I just got the paperwork. State forestry department says no fireworks this year. I know you’ve got a closet full of Roman candles so thought I’d come tell you, before I have to arrest you.”

  “Well, shoot,” she said. Then she squinted at him. “You came all the way down here to warn me off my Roman candles? My pies wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, hmmm?”

  Tag chuckled and Floretta got busy elsewhere, leaving me and the constable together. It occurred to me that maybe Tag would know the answer to at least one of my questions. I laid it on him. “Tag, how did Nate Dooley break his wrist?”

  Tag looked around. “Wonder if Floretta’s got any ice cream?”

  “About a hundred gallons in the freezer there,” I said, pointing at the big chest along the kitchen wall.

  Tag dug into it and lifted out a big carton of French vanilla. “You want some?”

  “Sure.”

  He ladled it on, one scoop, then two, then three. “Enough?”

  “Doc Lassiter didn’t set Nate’s bone,” I said.

  “Do tell.”

  “I think it was Doc Hale.”

  Tag put the ice cream away. “Doc Hale’s been known to set a few bones when Doc Lassiter’s out somewhere.”

  “So where was Doc Lassiter?”

  Tag shrugged. “Probably up Snakeroot Hollow or Mudhole or somewhere. What’s all this, anyhow?”

  I didn’t see any harm in telling him my suspicions. “I think somebody broke Mr. Dooley’s wrist and Mrs. Dooley’s scared to tell who it was.”

  Tag stopped eating, raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know. A hunch, maybe.”

  “What difference would it make if Doc Lassiter or Doc Hale set the bone?”

  “I’m not sure,” I had to admit.

  Tag wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Well, Sonny, I’m sure not going to ignore a hunch by a college boy. I’ll swing by and have a talk with Mrs. Dooley right

  away.”

  I peered at him. His broad face was open and sincere. That’s how I knew he was lying. “Thank you,” I said.

  “You can count on me,” he said, setting his empty dish in the sink and running some water over it. “Floretta,” he called, “you still make the best blackberry pie in McDowell County!”

  Floretta’s distant voice (it was a big kitchen) answered, “Thank you, Tag, honey. Go on now and catch yourself some delinquents.”

  He laughed. “God knows there’s a bunch of ’em in this town.”

  Tag clapped me on my shoulder and left. I watched the kitchen door flap shut behind him. It went back and forth on its spring, back and forth again, then closed tight. It was, I reflected, just like the conversation I’d had with the constable.

  32

  THE FOURTH OF JULY

  THE SUN bobbed up over the mountains and splashed Coalwood with such glory that when I looked out my window, I had to squint from the mirrored brilliance of the snowy-white Community Church and the reflected emerald glow of the enfolding mountains. Everywhere I looked, Coalwood seemed to shimmer in the hot blast furnace of the deep West Virginia summer. If I was going to make a fool of myself on the softball field, at least I was going to do it on a grand and glorious day.

  My joy in the beauty of the sunny morning was tempered by what Tag had said about the drought. I studied the deep woods behind the church. The trees, vibrantly green, waved and rustled in the gentle breeze. In a drought, I knew it wasn’t the trees that were the problem. It was the dense brush and leaves beneath them that could turn into a flood of fire suddenly washing through the woods. If the woods started burning, it wouldn’t be long before Coalwood’s houses caught on fire, and then we would all be in a fix. Coalwood had no fire department. The Welch and War fire departments might come to help us providing they didn’t have any other calls, but they were a long way away.

  I dressed and went down to breakfast. Victor and Ned were there and a few contractors too far from home to leave for the holiday. I surprised the junior engineers by sitting with them. I guess I needed the company. “You boys ready for the game?” I asked.

  Victor looked up. “Is it true you’re a terrible player?” he asked.

  “It’s true,” I confessed, “but I’ve been practicing.”

  “How much?”

  “All weekend.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Yes. That I’m still a terrible player.”

  Victor looked relieved. He probably had some money down on his side.

  Floretta brought out breakfast. “My, just look at my little ballplayers,” she said fondly. “All you boys do good, now, you hear? Make Floretta proud of you.”

  We mumbled agreeable answers and then dived in.

  After breakfast, I joined the stream of people heading for New Camp. Bobby fell in beside me, tossing me a glove. “It’s Jackie’s,” he said. “He said maybe it would give you some confidence.”

  I admired the glove. It was a well-worn beauty. I smacked my fist into it a couple of times, getting the feel of it. Bobby trotted on ahead, turned around, and threw a ball to me. “Catch.”

  I flubbed his pitch, then ran after the ball rolling down the road. “Got my money on the right team, sure enough,” I heard a man say to the laughter of others.

  I flung the ball back to Bobby and missed him by a mile. He went running after it, fielded it smoothly, and then turned in one fluid movement and fired a hot one back at me. I put my glove out in front of me and it smacked home. I clutched it to my chest.

  “Attaboy!” Bobby called.

  I pitched back to him, missing again. He came trotting back, frowning. “Look where you’re throwing the ball,” he admonished. “That’s the whole secret of playing, keeping your eye on whatever you’r
e doing and following through. Didn’t anybody ever play catch with you?”

  Nobody ever had, of course. Dad was always at the mine, Jim was playing catch with his pals, and I was off somewhere usually reading a book. That was how it had all worked out.

  “Come on, throw it to me again,” Bobby said, running ahead. “And pay attention to what you’re doing.”

  I kept my eye on him as best I could and followed through. The ball sailed to him, although a bit high.

  “You see? You have it in you to be a great player.”

  Although I appreciated Bobby’s opinion, I had, in fact, only two hopes: one, that I wouldn’t hit myself with the bat, and the other, that nobody would hit a ball in my direction. They were forlorn and little hopes, but they were all my own.

  THE COMPANY had built the park above New Camp mainly to create a playing field for the Coalwood Junior High School football team, but every spring, it was converted into a baseball and softball field, complete with a high screen behind the batter’s box, limed baselines, cloth bases, and a pitcher’s mound. It was all pretty fancy. Farther up the hollow, the company had also installed heavy-duty steel swings, seesaws, and merry-go-rounds fabricated in the company machine shops. They were there for anybody who wanted to make use of them. People from Davy and Welch even came over and used them from time to time.

  Mr. Bundini, dressed in his usual snappy splendor, including a bright red vest, was the master of ceremonies for the Fourth of July ceremonies. A stage, decorated with red, white, and blue bunting, had been built for the occasion. My dad, dressed in his khaki mine uniform, joined Mr. Bundini on the stage, as did Reverend Richard, who wore a black suit. Mr. Bundini called for quiet and then introduced Reverend Richard to give the invocation. Everybody crowded around the stage. The Reverend walked up to the podium, and this, pretty much, is what he said: