I kept Brigham and Homer after the meeting. Brigham rubbed his hands, said, “You want us to haul a picket shack up to the tipple?”
I smiled and said, “Sure, but we aint going to be spending much time there.”
Sim Gore is the president of the local at Jenkinjones, the first Negro to get elected. I drove to Jenkinjones that night and parked my truck across the road from his house in Colored Bottom. I reckoned he would have heard and that the boys at the union office in Justice would be keeping a close eye on him. Jenkinjones is the biggest mine on the creek, and it is part of the deal that it will stay union and keep working. The company and the union would both want the coal to keep running out of Jenkinjones.
I got out of my truck, shut the door, and lit a cigarette behind my cupped hand while I leaned against the cab. Sim’s house was dark and I reckoned he would be watching out a window. There would be others watching too. I strolled across the road, my boots loud on the gritty pavement.
The door of the house opened and a voice said, “Hold it right there!”
“You got a gun, Sim?”
“You damn straight,” he said.
“I aint got mine. Left it in the truck.”
“That’s your lookout,” Sim said.
“I just want to talk.”
“I aint interested in talk,” he said. “It may be two in the morning but you can be for damn sure I aint got the only ears in this bottom that heard you pull up.”
I thought he was meaning keep talking but be goddamn careful. I said, “Sim, I know you shoot basketball sometimes down to Annadel. They say you’re good. I recall you took Excelsior High to the colored state tournament back before the war.”
“Yeah. I may shoot ball tomorrow evening after my shift. So what? That don’t make you nothing to me.”
“We was trapped together oncet. We swapped breaths at an air hole.”
“And I recall you got a peckerwood cousin that called me a nigger. He raising hell with you now?”
“Me and you, we’re union brothers, Sim.”
“You the one seem to forgot about that. You aint in no union, from what I hear tell. Now get away from my fence before I call some of my boys.”
“Company suck,” I said. I gave him a mock salute, got in my truck, and drove back home to Winco, watching in my rearview mirror the whole way. When I got to my house, Brigham was waiting on the front porch.
I said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Making sure nobody don’t mess with your house that aint supposed to,” he said.
We went inside but didn’t turn up a lamp.
“What’d he say?” Brigham asked.
I lit a cigarette and grinned in the flare of the lighter. I said, “Called you a peckerwood.”
“Sonofabitch! They’s white boys in that mine at Jenkinjones, more than half. Will you tell me why they elected a goddamn nigger president of the local?”
“Because he’s smart,” I said.
“Don’t give me that,” said Brigham. “Shit, sometimes I wisht I lived in Alabama.”
I tapped my ashes into an empty beer bottle, leaned back on the couch, and smiled and said, “Get the hell out of here. I need a good night’s sleep. I’m shooting basketball tomorrow.”
There’s no net in the goal at the town playground in Annadel. A clean shot whips through the iron with just a whish of air. The court used to be asphalt but it has been ground to hard-packed dirt. I stood beside my truck and watched Sim Gore send three straight through the hoop. He was ignoring me.
“Air ball!” I called.
The others, there were twelve in all, stopped to look at me. Sim said, “You aint got eyes, asshole.”
“What’s the score?” I said.
“My team’s winning,” Sim said. He drilled a shot from the side.
I said, “Am I on your team?”
He flipped me the ball so suddenly I almost dropped it. My shot bounced high off the back rim and over the backboard.
“Off the court,” Sim said. He jerked his head sideways. “Bad as you shoot, you ought to try tomorrow morning early when they aint nobody around to watch you. Now get on away from here.”
I got back in my truck and drove away. A Negro in a tan Plymouth followed close on my bumper as I left Annadel. I recognized him for an active union man. I held my breath and waited to see what he was up to, thought I might have got the message wrong. But he just followed. When I reached the mouth of Lloyd’s Fork, the Plymouth pulled off the road and turned around. I held my fist up to my window and stuck my thumb up. The man did the same. I smiled at myself in the rearview mirror and drove on home.
I never could stand to get up in the morning. But you can’t help notice how everything smells better in the dawn. The brewing coffee fills my kitchen with a rich odor, and the back door is open to let in the damp air. In two hours the sun will crest the hills and burn off the dew. We have to be on the mountain before that happens.
I rub my eyes and watch Hassel fry baloney.
“You sure you want to come?” I say.
He half turns. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
We pack fried baloney sandwiches in a poke and go out to the Batmobile. I curl up in the floor behind the front seat and Hassel covers me with a rug. I can smell motor oil and coal dust ground into the plastic flooring.
The Batmobile travels Lloyds Fork and on up the dirt road that winds up the back side of Trace Mountain. Hassel doesn’t say anything so I reckon no one is following us. My back starts to hurt because I am draped over the axle hump, but I fall asleep anyway.
I wake up when the Batmobile stops. “We’re here,” Hassel says. He sounds far away. “Hit’s all clear. Brigham and Homer done beat us, and looks like they’s ten or twelve with them.”
I get out, trying not to straighten my spine too quick. The boys are lounging around their vehicles. They are all from Number Thirteen mine. Brigham is standing spread-eagled beside his Ford and Homer is perched on the hood.
“First time to shut down a union mine and we got to trust a nigger,” Brigham says.
His voice sounds soft and I know he has been drinking.
“Shut up,” I say.
“I don’t trust a goddamn one of them.”
I go and stand right up against him. “You’ll keep your voice down,” I say. “And if you call one of them a name I’ll poleax you myself.”
He shrugs and tucks a plug of tobacco under his gum. I walk away from him, along the edge of the dirt road that leads back down the mountain past the tipple. We are high up in the fog. Late in the day you can see a lot from here, the rooftops of Jenkinjones, the curled smoke rising from the slate dump that fills half the hollow. The entrance to the Jenkinjones mine is above us, farther up. I feel good while we wait. If they have been watching for us, it would be along the main road, but I doubt they know we have come over the hill on them. The entrance to the Jenkinjones mine is up to our right. The hoot owl shift will still be inside.
“Deputies up there?” I ask.
“Nary a one,” Homer says. “We reckon they’ll come in with the day shift and bring the hoot owl out.”
“And if you’re wrong about your Nee-gro,” Brigham says, “we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, aint we?”
We hear the car engines pulling up the hollow below us. The fog has burned away a hundred yards down the mountainside.
“Hit’s a convoy for sure,” Homer says. “They’re expecting something.”
“That’s all right,” I say.
The boys behind us fold up their penknives, stick their whitrocks in their back pockets, and move up. Their cheeks bulge with chaws. I find my pouch of Red Man and fill my own jaw. The cars are close now, we can hear their tires chewing up the road. Then gray bulges rise out of the fog. The first three are county deputy cars with round lights on top. Behind are the miners. Their cars and trucks are beat up, their engines rough and rattly like ours. Nobody can afford anything new. I hate to do some of them like we might have t
o do.
The deputies get out, six of them. The one in front is from down below Justice town, I have seen him around.
“You boys are blocking the road,” he says like we don’t know it.
“Turley,” I say, “we can’t let you bring them boys by here.”
All down the line the cars and trucks stop, doors open and slam shut. Men climb up the hill. I recognize Sim Gore but he is too far away to say anything.
“We got a shift here wants to work,” Turley is saying, “and the union aint called no strike. We can’t let a bunch of troublemakers keep these boys away from their place of employment. You got one minute to get in your cars and move them out of this road or we’ll move them for you and take you in to Justice.”
Sim is within shouting distance now.
“Yonder comes the president of this here local,” I yell. “Sim Gore, ya’ll come to work today?”
Sim comes on up the hill, his arms moving at his sides.
“We aint here to work,” he says. “We here to shut down this mine until American Coal quit fucking with our union brothers”—then he smiles real big, pats Turley on the shoulder—“and we do appreciate the escort.”
You have never seen such a surprised bunch of deputies. They turn quick and stare at Sim. “What the hell—” Turley sputters. “You just said—”
Some of the miners look confused too.
“I’m here to work,” one says.
“Naw,” Sim says. “No work. I done polled the most of the membership. This here local is on strike.”
“Any man don’t agree,” I say, “his car goes over the hill.”
Turley has been looking around wild-like and now he puts his hand to his gun.
“Don’t do it, son,” I say. “You got to live in this county. Look around you here. You know all these boys. They know you.”
Turley keeps his hand on his pistol and licks his lips.
“Listen to him, Turley,” says one of the deputies. “This here is too big for us.”
“Tell that to Arthur Lee,” says Turley.
“You tell Arthur Lee to keep you boys out of this or he’ll need some new deputy cars,” I say.
“What you aiming to do?” Turley asks.
“We’re aiming to call out the hoot owl shift and send them home. And then we’re claiming that tipple. Come back this afternoon you’ll see what we done.”
Turley squints at me. “You’ll do time for this,” he says.
“Bud,” I say, “only if you make an identification. And only if Arthur Lee and somebody’s army come to arrest me.”
“It may end up somebody’s army,” says Turley.
“May be. Until then, I reckon you ought to just leave them deputy cars here and walk on back to town. You get started now you ought to be able to thumb you a ride and get to the Tic-Toe in time for a cheeseburger and a piece of pie.”
Sim and his boys stand aside to let them pass.
“Anybody aint with us, go on follow them,” Sim yells.
“And let you topple my car?” says the one that spoke up before. I knew his daddy that got killed at Number Ten in 1949 and left his mommy with ten younguns. He is a fellow that aint had two nickels to rattle together in his pocket.
“Ray,” I say, “you may not be with us, which is why Sim aint said nothing to you before. Just don’t get in the way and it will be all right for you.”
Ray shakes his head but he doesn’t leave. Him and a few others stay by the cars since they can’t go anywhere. The rest of us go up to the mine. The boys from the hoot owl are coming out. Some of them join us, the ones Sim has reached. The others cuss but they just stand by and smoke their cigarettes because they are outnumbered.
First we tear down the fences and raid the supply shed where they keep the dynamite. Me and Sim see to placing the charges, and he is a good man to work with, he knows his job and will say what is what. At noon we blow the tipple. It is a tall metal tower several stories high. Sim Gore stands beside me and flinches at the sound of the explosion, watches the girders holding the main structure buckle as though the tipple has taken a bowlegged step, then it collapses in a cloud of dust.
“It’s a shame on this earth,” Sim says.
“You want out?”
“Naw. The Bible say they’s a time to build up and a time to tear down. This here’s a tearing down time.”
They join us by the hundreds, all the men in the little mines who’ve been cut off and some of the miners who’ve been kept in the union but know they might be next, who are tired of working short and going home to hungry younguns. We go all over the county, hitting a different mine each day, and no one but me and Sim knows where we will show up next. We blow tipples, burn buildings, and tear up track, throw up picket lines and stop the coal from moving.
The Justice Clarion carries the story under a thick black headline that looks heavy enough to fall off the page: COMMUNISM COMES TO JUSTICE COUNTY.
They call us the Roving Pickets.
ARTHUR LEE SIZEMORE
I am a Kennedy man. Wasn’t always. Early in that 1960 election, used to support Hubert Humphrey. Familiar as an old hound dog, Hubert. Knew how things was done. Wasn’t so sure about Kennedy. Didn’t care for how he played up his religion, making out how if dumb ignorant hillbillies would vote for a Catholic, anybody would. Made him look good when he won. Hell, that is politics. But Kennedy had all the network TV cameras poking around here looking for “poverty,” like it had ever been lost. That disturbed the peace and quiet.
Then the Kennedy people called from Charleston and asked why all they ever saw in Justice County was Humphrey signs.
“Because it’s my county.” My feet was up on my desk.
“I’d like to send someone to see you,” said this Yankee-sounding voice.
“Waste of time.”
“He’ll bring money to help with your local campaigns. But only if you promise to take down every Humphrey sign in the county and shut Hubert out.”
Chewed on the end of a pencil for a while. “How much?”
“How much do you need?”
“Thirty-two.” Always think big.
“Twenty-eight,” said the Yankee.
Know how it is when you’re fishing and that bob takes a dive and you feel the tug?
“Thirty-one.”
“Twenty-nine,” he said. “That’s my last offer.”
“You got a deal. Twenty-nine.”
“Good. I’ll send my man down on Monday. If he sees one Humphrey sign, he heads back to Charleston with the cash.”
Told my buddies on the Democrat committee. Hollered laughing and I said, “Boys, twenty-nine hundred dollars is twice what Hubert’s paying. But that aint the point. They know how it’s done and this proves it. And they got more of what you need to do it with, so why not?”
They got the general drift. Come Monday, man in a pinstripe suit showed up at the coal company office with a briefcase.
“Like the scenery?” I said.
“Lovely. Coal mines and Kennedy signs. But we expect more than signs.”
“I know what you expect. Told you it’s my county.”
“Good.” He set the briefcase on the floor and left. I locked the office door and opened the briefcase. Stared at the stacks of cash, new and crisp, you would not expect old bills from a Kennedy. It took my breath away and my fingers trembled when I started to count.
Called my Democrat vice-chairman. “Herman?” I said. I was so tickled I wanted to drag it out. “Herman? You setting down? You know that twenty-nine hundred? It’s twenty-nine thousand!”
That one called for a cigar. Cuban, one of the last I ever smoked. Slickered people often enough, but that was the first time without trying. I became a born-again Kennedy man, from admiration and from pity.
So they owned me and I thought I owned them. When the Roving Pickets burned that first tipple I got hold of a middling ass-kisser in the Justice Department.
“We delivered,” I told the ass-
kisser. “It’s payback time. Pass that word on.”
“You’re one little hillbilly county,” said the ass-kisser. He sounded bored.
“One little hillbilly county with a bunch of armed reds running wild up the hollers and half the cameras in the country filming every little tarpaper shack they can find and crying over poor people and talking to every troublemaker that wants to get on TV and tell the whole world about it. I bet they’re watching in goddamn Moscow. I bet they’re showing it to their people and laughing up their sleeves.”
“I hear you. Calm down. It can’t be that hard to handle.”
Goddamn prick, like the paper pushers I saw in the army. Had a better idea. Called my boss who is the president of the American Coal Company, got houses in Philadelphia and Georgetown and Miami Beach and eats his lunch at the Cosmos Club. Took me there once. Food aint as good as what you’d think, but the men who eat there, you see their faces and you know what they know. Boss is a coal man who will not say a thing about little hillbilly counties, and he knows nothing in this world comes easy.
DILLON
I don’t turn on a light in my house anymore. At least the days are long so I can see to get around for a while. I turn the TV to the wall, away from the window. I read with a flashlight. I love to read. Just now I have a Sam Spade mystery from the library. I have to limit myself on mysteries or I will finish all the library has and there will be nothing left.
I stand in the shower, washing off the sweat and dust, rinse out the shampoo and slap on some Old Spice because I am going to Rachel’s. When I throw back the shower curtain it is twilight and the house is falling into darkness. The world seems quieter at twilight, as though the darkness soaks up sound.
The glass breaks in the front window, falls, and a zingpingwhine rackets through the house. I drop flat in the bathtub and hold my breath. Off on the highway I hear a motor race and grow faint, then the silence again, only this time there is a buzz beneath the surface of soundlessness. I turn on the flashlight, its beam like a round yellow eye, and find shattered glass on the living room floor and the front porch. There are three rips in the window screen, and I dig two bullets from the kitchen doorframe with my jackknife. I drop the bullets in my shirt pocket and they jingle harmlessly.
The Unquiet Earth Page 15