The Unquiet Earth

by Denise Giardina

  I passed the boarded up Exxon station, pulled into my street, and sat with my motor running and my lights turned off. The Bronco sat behind me, its lights still on. Minutes passed in the glow of my dashboard clock. Then a porch light came on at the last house in Colored Row, and a man stepped out wearing a housecoat and holding something in his hand. I turned off the ignition, got out, and walked toward the Bronco to show I wasn’t intimidated. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sim Gore walking down his front steps with a pistol. The Bronco pulled away from the curb, gunned its motor, and sped away.

  Hassel showed up in my office with two CoColas from the lunchroom down the street. He set one Coke on my desk.

  “You heard the news?” he said. “Lech Walesa’s coming.”

  I sat up straight. “Here?”

  “That’s right. One of Dillon’s buddies called from the union in Charleston. He’s coming to support the strike. Won’t that be something?”

  I knew Walesa was on his way to the United States, hoping to get aid for Poland now that the Communists were on their way out.

  “When?” I said.

  “Supposed to be Wednesday,” Hassel said. “That gives us five days to tidy things up. And we got to figure out what to do with him when he gets here. Wouldn’t hurt to find somebody who talks that Polish.”

  “Don’t you think he’ll bring his own interpreter?”

  “Sure, but it would be neighborly if we had somebody here too.”

  I smiled. “You wouldn’t be wanting somebody who could ask him about bridges, would you?”

  “I thought on it,” Hassel said. “But I don’t reckon Lech Walesa’s got any money. That’s why he’s coming here, aint it? I hope he does better with that President Bush than I did.”

  I knew Hassel had sent a letter to the President and asked for help building a bridge.

  “So you heard back?” I said.

  “Oh yeah, last week.” He opened his wallet and took out a folded piece of paper. He read,

  Dear Young Friend,

  Thanks for taking the time to write and share your kind thoughts with me. I appreciate your warm words of friendship.

  It’s a wonderful privilege to be in the White House. You can be certain as I begin my first term that I’ll try my darndest to live up to what you expect of me as president.

  I treasure your thoughtfulness and wish you all the very best.

  Sincerely,

  George Bush

  “They didn’t even care enough to push the right computer button,” said Hassel, “but I’m saving this anyhow. That signature might be worth something some day.”

  “It’s done by machine too,” I said.

  “Oh.” He looked at the letter a moment, then dropped it in the trash can. “Maybe if Lech Walesa gets money from somewhere, he can give me some pointers. You know who I wish was here to help talk to him is Tom. Aint he Polish, and don’t I recall he can speak a few words of it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I don’t think he speaks it very well.” I looked out the window.

  “Damn, I miss him,” said Hassel. “It’s been three years now. They ought to let him come back.”

  “Sorry, Hassel. I don’t think the Jesuits would send him all the way from Honduras just to translate for you.”

  “I reckon not,” he said.

  There was a strangely cheerful note in his voice. I said, “Hassel, you don’t know something, do you?”

  “Know what?” he said.

  “You haven’t heard from Tom?”

  “Naw. I aint never heard from nobody in a foreign country in my entire life.”

  On Wednesday morning, everyone was working hard to get ready for Lech Walesa’s visit. The Dew Drop Inn had been closed six months for lack of business and the little building was in bad shape—the concrete floor streaked with coal dust and damp where the corners leaked, the psychedelic light pulled loose and dangling from the water-stained ceiling like a ball of old tin foil. Boxes of pipes and wire were stacked behind the bar where Junior Tackett had stripped the building of old fixtures to sell for scrap.

  But people were cleaning up, scrubbing the floor, tearing the black shutters off the windows so the light could come in, stringing red and white crepe paper all over everything. They hung a SOLIDARNOSC banner across the back wall, set up tables and folding chairs from the Holiness church to hold the fried chicken and links of Polish sausage and sauerkraut and potato salad and rows of little waxed cups filled with melting ice.

  I was beginning to worry. The New York Times had arrived at the newspaper office with Walesa’s schedule. He was to address Congress on Tuesday and receive an award at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night. I showed the article to Dillon.

  “That doesn’t leave much time for the coalfields,” I said.

  “No,” Dillon agreed, “but he could get here by helicopter easy enough. I talked to the union in Washington and they still hear that he’s coming. But they did say there’s pressure on him not to because it would make the American government look bad.”

  I went on about my own task, which was to take flowers to the old cemetery at Number Ten. It was the cemetery I used to see when I visited my Italian grandmother years earlier, or rather the woman I thought was my grandmother, the cemetery where the Italians and Russians and Poles had been buried long ago. The graves had been neglected for years and you could barely see the stones at all for the weeds. But Dillon thought it would be a good place to take Lech Walesa, to let him lay a wreath on the grave of a Polish coal miner. He had spent the weekend clearing the weeds. I helped him on Sunday afternoon, watched him move slowly, head down and back curved, while he traced the edges of the old stone fence with a gas-powered weed cutter. It was autumn and the air was crisp, smelled of dry leaves and mud.

  I drove to the florist in Justice town and back to Number Ten with my car seat filled with orange and red marigolds, past the shells of abandoned company stores, boarded up schools, the foundations of houses peeping through sheafs of sawgrass. I passed the church with the gold-leaf dome that had once been Orthodox but now housed the Abyssinian Baptist Spirit-Filled congregation and might soon close because the Baptists were also dwindling.

  At Number Ten I parked on the dirt road beside the cemetery, climbed the broken stone fence, and wandered among the graves with my arms full of flowers. I picked up a piece of broken bottle we’d missed and tossed it aside, then laid flowers, stems laced together, beside several Russian markers engraved in Cyrillic. Next were two inscriptions in what I guessed was Polish. A glass oval was set at the center of each stone. One oval was smashed, as though someone had pounded it with a rock, the thick glass crushed white and shot through with lined shards. Beneath the second oval was the copper-brown photograph of a sturdy woman in peasant dress, her hair pulled severely back from her face.

  “Need an interpreter?” a voice asked from the road.

  I turned. Tom stood beside my car. He climbed the fence and walked toward me, caught me up in his arms, and swung me around.

  “I stopped in Justice and called Hassel. He told me you were here, and he hopes you aren’t mad at us for keeping this a secret. It was pretty sudden anyway.”

  I kissed him for answer. “I can’t believe it! Let me look at you. God, you look wonderful!”

  “You been getting my letters? I sure do look forward to yours. And the kids love the books you sent.”

  “I’m glad. How did you get away?”

  “My mother was really sick for a while, and she just died,” he said. “I came back for her last few days and I did the funeral.”

  “Oh, Tom, I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. I’ve got her to grieve for, and mostly I miss what we never had. But her liver was shot. She told me she was ready to go and I was with her when she died.”

  We walked together, arms around each other’s waist.

  “I started to call you first thing when I got back to the States, but the Jesuits decided I should go on a tour of parishes since I’
d be here anyway. We’re raising money for a new school and medical clinic. So I asked if I could add some leave time onto that. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “But Hassel knew, that rat!”

  “I called Hassel to make sure you’d be around.”

  “How long can you stay?”

  “Just a week to start. Then I have to leave, but I’ll be driving back and forth across the country and I’ll have lots of chances to stop in. Plus I’ll spend Christmas and New Year’s here, and I’ll be here the whole month of February and part of March.”

  Crows yawed far up the mountainside and a brisk wind ran through the leaves at our feet. I took Tom’s hand and led him back to the grave with the photograph.

  “Tell me what it says.”

  He leaned over and studied the grave, wiped the glass oval with a red bandana handkerchief.

  “Kielce,” he said. He straightened and sighed.

  “Kielce?”

  “It’s where they came from, in the south of Poland. This woman died young. Her husband too—the stone says the roof fell in the mine.”

  We walked some more and Tom translated—beloved daughter—lost in the Great War—taken in the mines—St. Kazimierz—beloved, beloved.

  “My Polish is rusty,” Tom said. “I’m having enough trouble getting back into English. I haven’t used Polish since my dad died and that’s a hell of a long time ago.”

  “You’d better practice up. Lech Walesa’s coming.”

  “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “What?”

  “When I called Hassel this morning, he said they just got the word from Washington. Looks like Walesa’s not coming after all. Sounded like everyone was pretty disappointed. I guess I’m the only visiting Polak you’ll get today.”

  “I’d rather have you,” I said.

  He put his arms around me and held me close. “I’ve missed the hell out of you,” he said.

  He followed me in his car to Winco bottom and we walked the track together. We met a television crew from Bluefield, hauling their equipment back down the railroad track, cursing and scowling. At Number Thirteen, people milled around in the October sunshine. Hassel’s old band had been playing but they were starting to take down their sound system. Everyone looked glum.

  But Toejam was the first to spy Tom and cried “Well lookee here!” Soon everyone was crowding around, shaking hands and hugging and talking loud. Then we picked up our plates and stood in line for Polish sausage and sauerkraut, and the band decided to set back up and play a polka.

  Tom and I sat on the steps of the Holiness church on the hill. The floodlights at the tipple beyond Number Thirteen made the enclosure look like a baseball field lit for a night game, and the black-uniformed guards patrolling the fence could have been umpires. The full moon was just out of reach beyond lower Trace.

  Tom said, “Hassel’s getting old. It’s funny, I never thought it would happen to him. But his hair’s almost gray.”

  “You’ve got a few gray hairs yourself,” I said.

  “Yeah, but Hassel, Jesus. He’s somebody you think will be young forever.”

  I said, “I don’t know what will happen to Hassel now that he’s closed the Dew Drop. All the Days have coming in is Louella’s Social Security and a little pension.”

  “Hassel will figure out something. He always does.”

  “I can’t see Hassel leaving, that’s for sure.”

  “What about you?” he asked. “Are you staying?”

  “I hadn’t planned on going anywhere. Why?”

  “Because this place is dying, Jackie. Every time I come back it’s more clear. I just wonder how long you’ll hold on, that’s all. I wonder what there is here for you.”

  “You live in a tough place, too,” I said. “You of all people should understand me staying. It’s my home.”

  “I know that. But I keep thinking if you went away you’d have a better chance of meeting somebody, making a new life with somebody.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Besides, Dillon’s here.”

  “Yeah. I about fainted when I got your letter that said he’s your dad.”

  “You and me both.”

  He put his arm around me and pulled me close.

  I said, “When he told me, the first thing I thought of was to tell you.”

  “I’m glad.” He nudged my knee with his. “There are things I want to say to you, things I couldn’t say in a letter because I’m afraid I wouldn’t be clear. I still don’t want you to pin any hopes on me.”

  “Say them,” I said. “I don’t have any hopes you’ll leave the priesthood, if that’s what you mean. I wouldn’t want it. I can tell it won’t happen by looking at the pictures you send from Honduras and studying your face. And if I fall in love with someone else, I won’t hold back. I’m learning I’ve got enough love for lots of people.”

  “Good. Because I wanted to say that I do love you, that I think about you a lot, and when things get tough, I feel you with me. I remember when we made love. It carries me through. And it would be the same if you were with somebody else.”

  “I already knew that, but it helps to hear it.”

  “I do get time off now and then. I don’t have the money to travel far, but we could meet somewhere safe, in Managua or Costa Rica. Will you come down?”

  I leaned back and smiled at him. “I’d like that.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. Now I’ve got a question. Where are you staying?”

  “I figured I’d stay at Hassel’s.”

  “Except Hassel would never tell you this, but you’ll be running off Junior Tackett if you stay there. He’ll have to go back to his mother’s.”

  “Oh, are they still together? Hell, I don’t want to bother them.”

  “I’ve got a guest bedroom,” I said. “And I’m clear on all the ground rules. Besides, it might be good if I had a man around sometimes. I think those company guards are watching me.”

  “Actually,” he said, “I’d like to stay at your place. I’d like that a lot.”

  The light was on in Dillon’s trailer, and we stopped to say good night. He had the television on and a can of beer in his hand. When Tom left us to go to the bathroom, Dillon nodded after him and said, “So, is he planning on staying a priest?”

  “Of course he is. Now you stop matchmaking right this minute.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “The one you catch is the one that bores the hell out of you anyway.”

  He glared at the TV. Lech Walesa was at a concert in the Kennedy Center, wearing a tuxedo and sitting with George Bush.

  “See there,” Dillon said. He flipped the channel and opened a beer for me.

  TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US 1990

  DILLON

  Last week it turned cold sudden, and snowed. Then it rained for two days and melted the snow. There was one day that showed a blue sky, then rain again. In the morning when it is coldest the sky will spit snow but that will melt by ten or so. It is heavy February weather, thick with clouds come pressing down to earth. The mountains are slate gray and they throw off wisps of smoke. The ground is black and churned up like dark chocolate.

  I keep awake, thinking about that bone dam at the head of the hollow. I have been twice to check on it. The first time the water was high. The rain was falling so hard it seemed to spark and fizz when it hit the flat black water. I looked around for Arthur Lee’s measuring stick and couldn’t see it anywhere, so I found a long branch and stuck it in the edge of the bone.

  I went back when the rain commenced again. I just had time to see that the water had come five foot up on my branch when a gun thug in his black uniform found me. The strike is dragging on with nothing happening, and the gun thugs are still yet guarding the Jenkinjones tipple.

  “What you doing up here?” the gun thug demanded.

  He had pulled up in one of them Broncos and his partner sitting in the passenger seat showed me his gun, like I didn’t already know it was there.


  “I’m checking on this here dam,” I said. “It’s got nothing to do with the strike.”

  “Hell it don’t. This is company property and you’re trespassing.”

  “Everything on this hollow is company property,” I said. “Now I am here looking at this water rising because we got a hollow full of people living below this dam.”

  “I got my orders,” said the gun thug, “and they are to keep anybody away except the legal number of pickets allowed up at that tipple. Now get on off, grandpa, before I have to get rough.”

  I drove home and tried to think what to do. I started to call Arthur Lee, but he has got no say any more. I wasn’t even sure he’d be sober when I called because I heard tell he laid drunk all the time since he retired. Finally I called Jackie. She run an article that said Residents Nervous About Slate Dam. The union said the company should do something, and American Coal sent out a press release saying the dam is safe and the union is trying to harass the company.

  So I am lying awake again tonight and the rain so hard it is like hammers beating on my trailer roof. Somewhere around three I drift off to sleep, but I dream and the dam looms over me and crumbles before my eyes and I wake up and hear the rain pounding hard on my trailer roof and my heart racing to beat it. I look at my clock and it is six o’clock of a Saturday morning.

  I dial Arthur Lee’s number on the telephone. When he answers I say, “Arthur Lee, it’s Dillon Freeman. I’m calling about the bone dam. I know you aint with the company no more but maybe they’ll listen to you. Something’s wrong, I know it is, I can feel it.”

  “Dillon, you sonofabitch, do you know what time it is?”

  “The company aint looking after it, Arthur Lee.”

  “What the hell you telling me that for?”

  The receiver clicks in my ear. I cuss softly, “Goddamn bastard that can’t be woke up for something this important.” Then it hits me that Arthur Lee wasn’t asleep and he wasn’t drunk. He had answered the phone quick and his voice was clear and alert. Arthur Lee knows what I know.