Jackie and the VISTA come up behind me. It is worse to see it than to imagine it, and I can’t speak for the tightness across my throat. I look at Jackie. She is standing with her arms folded across her chest, looking down at her muddy shoes. I wait but she doesn’t look up.
“Jackie,” I say, “there’s your heritage.”
She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t care about a damn thing except her silly crush on the VISTA, and I think, You are not mine.
“I wish there was something I could do,” the VISTA says.
I say, “That’s a joke. You work for the government, and the government and the company, they’re the same. They didn’t send you in here to get anything done. They sent you in here to make folks think they care. It saves their asses until they can think up something else. And you, son, you’re like a fish on a line. They’ll give you some slack, let you run for a while, but then they’ll haul you up on the bank to die.”
“I know that,” the VISTA says. “I’m just trying to push things as far as I can, see where the limits are. I’m not naive, Mr. Freeman, and I don’t like being patronized by you.”
“Is that so?” I laugh and light a cigarette, grind the match under my boot, no danger of starting a fire here. Jackie is tugging hard on my sleeve.
“I’ll patronize you if I want to,” I say. “I earned the right.”
“Because you blew up a railroad bridge?” the VISTA says. “Because you went to prison? So what? People here talk about you like they admire you, but I don’t see why. You just hide in that trailer all the time. It’s a fucking waste, man.”
I pinch the cigarette between my fingers, blow smoke, feeling mad as hell and pleased at the same time.
I say, “You’re telling me my life is a waste? And you want to be a priest? Pretty boy like you and can’t touch a woman? Now that’s a fucking waste.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth I know I’ve gone too far. The VISTA’s face is red and his fist comes up like he might slug me. I raise my hand, start to apologize, but Jackie has slogged through the mud and grabs my arm.
“Stop it!” she yells. “Stop picking on him, you stupid old backward old hillbilly! You don’t know anything!”
I pull my arm away and she strikes out, the heel of her hand catches me across the cheek. Then she staggers back across the mud and over the side of the spoil bank, headed for the truck.
The VISTA and I look at each other. He grins suddenly and says, “Hardheaded as she is, it’s obvious who she’s related to.”
JACKIE
My shoes are cased in heavy mud but I run anyway. I climb over the tree trunks, ignoring the bits of wet bark that stick to the palms of my hands and knees.
When I reach the truck I stop to scoop up mud, throw it splat across the windshield. Then I run on down the mountain, gaining speed, faster than I have ever run, feet pounding, a roller coaster cut loose to run free, taking the curves, feeling the jolts in my shoulders and neck, breathing hard, and I trip finally near the bottom and slide on my stomach to the edge of the road. I lie still for a moment. Smoke from the slag heap curls up through the trees.
The stinging pain rouses me. I turn slowly onto my side. My arms are raw and red, my knees are bleeding, and the skin of my stomach burns. I lie still and then I hear the truck motor somewhere above me. I haul myself up and try to run again, but my ankle is sprained and I can only hobble. I sit in the road and pick bits of red dog and rock out of my wounds.
They drive around the curve and stop the truck. I stand up and limp around to the back like I will climb in there but Tom is out, he has me by the arm and leads me to the cab. I start to cry and he gets in beside me, puts his arm around me and lets me sob on his shoulder. His chest moves up and down when he breathes.
Dillon and Tom are talking. Their voices are low and calm, as if they have been talking peaceably all the way down the mountain.
“I’ve been following the strip mine permits,” Tom is saying. “I don’t think American Coal has one for this end of the mountain. We could sue them.”
“You hear tell of the overburden?” Dillon says.
“No.”
“It’s what they call the land over a seam of coal. It’s the mountain they’re talking about. Overburden.”
“Poor mountain,” Tom says.
He takes out a handkerchief and dabs at my bloody knee. Dillon is watching with this suspicious look on his face, and I am tempted to stick my tongue out at him but I don’t because I am grown up now.
HASSEL, 1966–1967
We finally went door to door to raise money for that food co-op and bought our first batch of groceries. We set up in what used to be a store when Junior’s people had it. Still yet has the little white coolers with sliding doors where they kept the cold CoCola, only the coolers don’t work no more, so we have our stacks of paper bags inside. The old wood sign that says Tackett General Store is still yet nailed onto the wall outside. We put up a new sign says Lloyds Fork Co-op.
The Justice Clarion had this article in the newspaper that said a cooperative was communistic and un-American. Said next the Concerned Citizens would be calling each other comrade. We didn’t pay them no mind and it was Opening Day but our permit to take food stamps hadn’t come from the government. We cut the ribbon anyhow and Louelly prayed and the gospel quartet from the Holiness Church sang “Just A Little Talk With Jesus.” I read out a letter from Sargent Shriver that said, “Congratulations, you have the first War on Poverty Food Cooperative in the Nation,” and then most folks went home without buying anything because we couldn’t take their food stamps.
Tom got on the telephone and called the Agriculture. Me and Betty Lloyd was sweeping up. Betty was supposed to run the store and we was going to pay her a little salary only it didn’t look like they’d be any money.
“What are you telling me!” Tom was yelling into the telephone. “None of this screwing around. We got a letter of congratulations from Sargent Shriver. Now you’re telling me we’re out of business before we get started?”
Betty Lloyd leaned on her broom, rolled her eyes at me and lit a cigarette.
Tom told the telephone, “All our customers own the store. That’s how a co-op works, damn it.”
Then he hung up the phone and said another cuss word, which is something else Catholics can do. He said, “The Agriculture Department won’t give us a permit to accept food stamps. They say it’s a conflict of interest because food stamp recipients own the co-op.”
So Arthur Lee’s congressman had been talking to the Agriculture. I stayed awake all night thinking on what to do. I reckoned I was the one should come up with the answer because I studied Arthur Lee enough when I pumped his gas and I know how he thinks. Tom, he don’t think crooked thataway. He will look for what is right and how to stand up for it. He wanted to take the Concerned Citizens to Charleston to hold protest signs outside of that federal building where the Agriculture office is. He wanted to write back to Sargent Shriver and ask for help to get that there permit.
The way I seen it we had done spent our little bit of money on a load of fresh vegetables and fruit. The tomatoes would be rotten by the time anybody noticed all them picket signs and letters. And the way I seen it, Arthur Lee’s congressman knew Sargent Shriver too. I hear tell all them fellows in Washington drink their liquor at the same places. I said to Junior Tackett, “Now what would Arthur Lee do if he was us? Arthur Lee would kick some rear end, and he would kick it fast.”
“That’s because he can,” Junior said.
Well, I have got some things done in my time, too. Next morning I drove the Batmobile to the food co-op. Betty Lloyd was setting at the counter twiddling her thumbs. She has a metal box to keep her change in, on the counter beside the big jar of dill pickles, and it was shut tight.
“No customers?” I say.
“Woman from up to Felco that hadn’t heard about the food stamps. I had to turn her away. It about killed me because she had three younguns with her, s
o I give each one of them a dill pickle.”
“That’s all right. I thought what to do but you’re the treasurer of the Concerned Citizens and I need you to come with me. Lock up the store and bring the checkbook.”
I drove the Batmobile to Justice town with Betty setting up beside me and explained what I had in mind. First thing we done was go see one of them new poor people lawyers that the government sent in. That is one thing about the government, it is so big that for a spell the right hand won’t know what the left hand is up to. It usually don’t last and you got to move fast to take advantage. So while Arthur Lee was calling all his government buddies, here was this lawyer with a bushy beard and a bow tie and blue jeans, and I could tell he wouldn’t be with us long but while he was he’d dearly love to help us.
I told that there lawyer what had happened. Then I said, “Arthur Lee Sizemore has the Pick-and-Pay up to Annadel. But they got them Pick-and-Pays other places too, because I seen one over to Logan and one at Oceana. I reckon Arthur Lee don’t own the whole thing, so he must just have himself a lease like he does at the Esso. And I reckon that Pick-and-Pay is a big outfit that sells stock.”
That lawyer had on them glasses with the wiry rims, real shiny, and he got this twinkle in his eyes. “I reckon you may be right,” he said. He got on the telephone and when he called the stock exchange in Huntington I knew him for a man that could think crooked like me. He handed me the telephone.
“Yes sir,” I says to that stock man, “this here is Hassel Day, president of the Number Thirteen Concerned Citizens, and I have with me Mrs. Betty Lloyd, our treasurer. How much is a share of stock in that there Pick-and-Pay groceries? $25.50? I would like to buy one share in the name of the Number Thirteen Concerned Citizens. Wire you the money? Yes sir we can do that right now.”
While Betty run down the street to the Western Union that lawyer smiled at me. He says, “I assume I should be suing the Agriculture Department to revoke the Pick-and-Pay’s license to accept food stamps on the grounds they are owned in part by food stamp recipients.”
I rubbed my chin. “And you better call that Pick-and-Pay head- quarters too. Tell them hit’s Arthur Lee’s fault they’re getting sued.”
We shook hands on it. I said, “What do I owe you?”
“Oh.” The lawyer held out his hands and humped his shoulders. “Uncle Sam pays my fee.”
Me and Betty stopped at the Dairy Queen for hot fudge sundaes, then we went home and told Tom what we done. On Thursday our food stamp permit come in the mail and we started selling groceries. Tom said, “Hassel, I sure as hell am glad you aren’t a coal operator. You’d have every bit of Justice County carted off by now.” Which set me to thinking maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t go past the eighth grade after all.
Tom reads a lot of books about God. It is what I mean about him standing up for what is right. It aint enough for Tom that the Bible is thick as a doorstop and hard enough to live up to by itself. He has got to add onto it.
They are big old ugly books with covers as drab as potato skins that he keeps in a box beside his bed. One time I went in where he was stretched out on his bed reading, and asked him what was in the book.
“It’s by a German minister named Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” he said. “He was plotting against Hitler so the Nazis hung him. Listen up.” He flipped a few pages and read, “ ‘When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.’ ”
“It aint too cheerful,” I said.
“No,” Tom said. “You got to be crazier than hell to be a Christian,” and then laughed about it. He will laugh at such things, like he wants to show he aint scared of nothing. But one night I woke up before dawn to take a pee and seen a gold bar of light at the foot of his door. Then I heard him mumbling out loud, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. And I thought he sounded like he was in pain. So while I peed I tried to think if I should check on him. Finally I reckoned I’d better in case he might be sick, so I tapped on his door. Right off, he said, “Come in.”
He was in his underwear, kneeling on the floor with a book laid open on the bed. It weren’t a Bible that I could tell but it called one to mind, all thin-papered and with red ribbons to mark the place. Tom looked up at me and I seen he wasn’t hurting in his body but he was still yet in misery.
“You all right?” I said.
“Yes,” he said and looked away.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to come in on something private.” I started backing out of the room.
“No,” he said, “come on in, if you want to.”
I stood still, not sure what to do.
“I get up every morning at three and pray,” he said. “It’s a kind of discipline. But this is one of those nights when praying seems to hurt more than it helps. I could use a break.” He slid down to where he was sitting instead of kneeling. “You know, I can’t stand those ministers who tell people praying to Jesus will make everything all right. They’re the worst kind of lying sonsofbitches.”
“I reckon,” I said, not sure what he was aiming at.
He leaned against the bed and laid his head down on his arm, his face turned away from me.
“You’re not married, Hassel. Is it hard for you? I don’t see you dating any women. Is it—”
Then he said “Oh!” and looked up at me like he’d just thought of something. I took a step back and said, “It is hard sometimes for a fact.” I thought how I was talking too fast and he would notice.
“You—” He stopped again. Then he said, “Can I tell you something? I think you’d understand.”
I swallowed hard. “Sure,” I said.
“You know priests are supposed to be celibate? That means no sex, period. And I—Sometimes I want a woman so bad I don’t think I can stand it. And I’ll get fond of someone and everything’s fine except those feelings come on, not just love but—”
“I know,” I said.
“When I was in college I had girls hanging all over me, because I was on the football team. Most of them wanted to sleep with me and I wanted that but I was afraid of it too because then it would mean I would be stuck with them. I’m not the kind of guy who can sleep with a girl and then drop her just like that. Guys who do that are shits.”
“I wouldn’t think you were like that,” I said.
“Finally I decided on this one girl. She was real religious, so it was a while before we slept together. And when we did, I liked it a lot. I couldn’t get enough. But she couldn’t get enough either, not sex but me. She wanted to be with me every minute. I couldn’t shake her. So we split up. She was real hurt. I wouldn’t want to do that to somebody again.”
“No,” I said.
“Anyway, I decided to be a priest. So marriage is out of the question.”
I said, “Do you have to be a priest?”
“Yes. I don’t know why, but I have to.”
“They’s some things you can’t change,” I said. “You just got to go on and do the best you can.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. Then he said, “I didn’t mean to keep you. No need for you to stay up.”
Next morning he was like nothing happened and I thought maybe I’d dreamed it. Then when we was washing the supper dishes he said, “I’m glad to be here, but it’s good to know I can pick up and leave if I want to. I’d hate to lose that freedom to some woman.”
He started whistling, hard and low, and scrubbing the crusty scales off an iron skillet.
A month later Tom and me was sipping our breakfast coffee when we heard the whopping sound of a helicopter. It got so loud the trailer started in to shake. I pulled back the curtain and we could see the copter, white with a gold seal on the door like a police car will have, settling down on the ninth hole of the golf course. Two men in suits climbed down and run toward the houses. Somebody knew they was coming because a man from the golf course unlocked the gate and let them through.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Wonder has Dillon been getting in trouble again?”
“No
,” Tom said, and straightened up his shoulders. “They’re here for me.”
“Good Lord,” I said, “what have you done?”
“Nothing you don’t know about,” he said. “But it appears it doesn’t take much.”
He sat down on the couch, real calm looking. I jumped when they banged on the trailer door, even though I was expecting it. When I opened the door one of the men held out a piece of paper.
“Agent Temple,” he said. “Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have a search warrant.”
He pushed right past me and another man followed him. Tom stood up.
“What do you want?” he said.
They didn’t pay him no mind and went on to the back of the trailer. “Which bedroom’s yours?” Agent Temple said.
Tom pointed to the right. They went in and hauled out drawers, threw Tom’s clothes in the floor and rummaged around, stacked the boxes where Tom kept his books and his work files.
The telephone rung. While I answered it, Tom leaned against the wall.
I put my hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Hit’s Betty. They’s another FBI man over to the co-op and he wants the ledger. She says she’s setting on it and he’ll have to haul her ass off it before she hands it over.”
“No,” Tom said. “Tell her to give it to him. It’s over, Hassel.”
“Tom. Naw.”
Tom put his hand on my shoulder. “Hassel,” he said real gentle, “it’s over.”
“Tag these boxes,” Temple was telling that other FBI agent. “We’re taking them with us.”
“Do you mind telling me what you’re looking for?” Tom asked.
Temple come out in the hall. “Do I mind, son? I don’t mind. You’ll be goddamn lucky if you don’t end up in front of a grand jury. Misuse of federal funds is serious business.”
They toted them boxes to the helicopter. Another man was waiting for them with a brown ledger stuck under his arm that looked like the co-op books. The blades of the helicopter whipped around slow, then faster until they blurred. After the copter took off they was chunks of turf scattered all over that golf course green.
The Unquiet Earth Page 24