by Tess Oliver
Graham, or Rush as the guys and I sometimes called him because he was always in a rush, paced the mansion’s gourmet kitchen while talking on his phone. He didn’t look happy about his conversation. Something that became even more obvious when he returned to the refrigerator three times to pull out a beer. I had no doubt that the conversation was about me, his pain in the ass singing prodigy, who had earned him a fortune and earned him plenty of gray hair along with it. The reason behind the unusual brown hair color.
His bushy eyebrows bunched together as he tried without success to pop open the third beer. I walked into the kitchen. He stared at me with a harsh expression that confirmed my suspicion that the conversation was about me.
I gazed right back at him, popped open his beer and handed it to him hard enough to make foam splash out the top.
“We’re working on it, Frank. I just think this week away is all she needs.”
I walked out, not wanting to hear any more of it. I had no real interest in the conversation, mostly because I didn’t need to hear it to know exactly what was being said. Frank, the dickless record producer who we’d all sold our souls to three years earlier, was raging mad about the tour cancellations. And rather than just telling Frank the truth, Graham was trying to appease him with lies. But there was just no appeasing the devil, especially when he knew it was going to affect his bottom line. And two missed concerts were definitely going to cut out a chunk of cash.
I headed into the media room and turned on some music, any music that wasn’t our music. I picked up my book off the coffee table. The house had been too quiet. Duff, the keyboardist, and Rex, our drummer, had taken off for two nights just to get away from the tension in the house. When we were between concerts, we spent most of our time together under one roof, Hades Manor, as we lovingly called it, to compose and practice and record. Normally, we all got along fine, and aside from the parade of girls tripping through the house to Brick’s bedroom, we were cozy like a close family. Something I’d never had growing up. But like other real families, ours came with plenty of drama and emotion. And lately, I’d been the center of that drama. But it hadn’t been intentional. None of it had been intentional. And, for now, it all seemed out of my control.
Rush came out of the kitchen with the phone in his hand. He stared at it on his palm. “Do you think I could crush this thing in one hand? Or maybe I should just heave it through that flat screen television.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Don’t,” he snapped as he walked around to the couch and stood glowering over me. I continued to look at my book. “Don’t roll those eyes at me, Lenix Harlow. Don’t even fucking roll those eyes.”
“Too late,” I quipped. “Don’t know how to take back an eye roll. Although, I guess since I’m looking down at this book, it might count as undoing it. But the sentiment remains. You’re making too big of a deal about this.”
“Too big of a deal!” His baritone yell rattled the windows and my nerves, but I didn’t let him know that. I sucked in a long, silent breath and closed my book. Even as I reminded myself not to cry, the tears burned my eyes as I looked up at him. The ugly veins that always bubbled on the side of his neck when he was pissed looked as if they might just burst open this time.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Lennie? We just canceled two sold out concerts because the lead singer was having anxiety issues.” He made those grumpy, out of style air quotes that made me want to laugh and cry all at the same time.
I hopped up to remove myself from under his menacing shadow. Not that he would ever lift a hand to me but standing gave me back some confidence.
“During that last concert, it was all I could do to keep myself from running off the stage and hiding in the dressing room. I need this break. I told you, I’ll be fine. We just need to make some big changes to the set. No more of those horrid fireworks, and—”
“Medication.” He pointed his big finger in my face as he spit the word out.
“I told you I’m not taking any of that shit that your questionable doctor is handing out. Christ, Graham, you of all people should know that I can’t take that stuff. A week off, just like you said, and I’ll have this stage anxiety worked out. Just leave me the hell alone.”
He made good on his earlier threat and heaved the phone into the television. The crashing sound brought Brick running from his room. He’d at least taken the time to pull on his pants, even if he hadn’t bothered to button them.
Brick looked straight at me. “Are you all right, Lennie?” The guys, my bandmates and three best friends, were the main reason why Graham would never take a swing at me. I was pretty good at taking him to the brink, and I was sure the idea had run through his head more than once. But Graham knew there would be hell to pay if he so much as laid a finger on me.
“I’m fine, Brick.” I turned back to Rush. “If you don’t think I’m feeling the guilt, the pain, the fucking pressure of this down to my toes, then you don’t know me at all, Graham. Even after all these years together, you still don’t know me.” From that point on, I knew the tears would only keep flowing, like a river of humiliation, down my cheeks. I ran out of the room and headed for the solitude of my bedroom.
“Don’t forget the hell I pulled you from, Lenix,” Graham yelled unnecessarily at my back.
As if I could ever forget.
Chapter 3
Dawson
I climbed into the man trip with all the enthusiasm of a kid suffering a gnarly toothache climbing into the dentist’s chair. Kellan stared at the side of my face as the vehicle rolled toward the mine entrance.
“What the hell are you gawking at, Braddock?”
“Just wondering what the pouty face is about.”
“Fuck you. You try living with my dad. It’s only been three weeks, and I’m ready to tear my damn head off listening to him. I’ve got to get back into the cabin and soon. Otherwise, you’re going to read about me in the papers, and it’s not going to be a pretty story.”
“Thought your dad had mellowed some after your mom’s health scare.”
“Yep, for a brief time, he thought he might lose the only person on this planet who still liked him. But now that it seems my mom will live a good long life, he’s back to being his ornery, assholery self.”
“How much longer until you move back to the cabin?”
“The landlord said three more weeks. He’s going to raise the rent to make up for the damage. So, I’m out a roommate, and now I’m going to be paying more for that shithole of a place.”
“Sorry about that, Dawz. Hey, but at least you’ll be on vacation in California for one of those weeks. Are you still meeting your sisters down at the beach?”
“Yeah, they rented a couple of rooms at some motel on the beach. Most of the schools will be back in session, so the summer crowd will be gone. It’ll be nice getting away from Bluefield for a week. Just not sure what the hell I’m going to do down there. Aubrey and Megan aren’t exactly into the same stuff as me.”
Kellan laughed. “Should be good times.”
Darkness and the familiar bitter smell of float dust swallowed us as the man trip descended into the massive hole that we called ‘the pit of hell’. After high school, we’d all been anxious to put on our work boots and trudge through the lightless, suffocating passages of the mine. It had been our calling, our destiny, to work the Bluefield Mine. Or at least that was what we’d told ourselves. Lately, especially since the dreams had started, I’d been questioning the idea that we were born to be coal miners.
The lights on the man trip lit up the black ribbed walls of the mine. The walls and roof were the only things between the gritty pocket of air that we worked inside and the entire crushing weight of the earth. Kellan had always had bouts of claustrophobia, something that he’d learned to deal with. If he hadn’t, there was no way he could work in the mine. You had to keep the demons out of your head when you were a thousand feet below the surface shoving pins into the rock to keep it from f
alling and crushing you.
“Hey, Dawz, did you talk to Huck this morning?”
Tommy, or Huck as we called him, had grown up with terrible asthma, a result, no doubt, of growing up on the south side of Bluefield where most of the coal dust drifted to on a breezy day. His breathing problems had not stopped him from mining though. Just like Kellan and I, he’d gone to work for the Bluefield Mine straight after high school. The mine was the one place in town where you could earn a living wage, money that could give us the independence we’d always craved. Tommy was able to secure a position above ground filling coal cars, which was still not great for someone with asthma, but it beat a gig underground.
I picked up my lunch pail and put it on my lap. “Nah, I didn’t even see Huck this morning. Is he ready to give up his coveralls for farmer’s overalls yet?” After a good deal of resistance from me, Tommy had hooked up with my twin sister, Andi. I’d always known deep down that my best friend was madly in love with my sister, but the idea had just never sounded right in my head. And I’d given him plenty of shit about it. But now they were together, and my sister was insanely happy. It made the whole damn thing a much easier pill to swallow. Even though it meant that Tommy had way less time to hang with me. Kellan’s high school sweetheart and love of his life, Rylan, had returned to Bluefield a year ago. They fell right back into the same love story they’d started in high school. He, too, had way less time to hang. I’d been stripped of my two best friends in less than a year, and it had been fucking dull around Bluefield ever since.
“Actually, I think Huck might just be giving those coveralls up soon. He says when they’re out on the farm, his breathing is way better. And Andi is determined to make him quit the mine. Being a nurse, she knows this job is going to send someone like him to an early grave. They’re trying to figure out a way for Tommy to stay home and work on making that piece of barren land a thriving farm while Andi works at the hospital.”
I shook my head. “What the fuck does Tommy know about farming?”
Kellan looked at me. “You sound pissed.”
“Yeah, I’m fucking pissed. So my sister is going to support him while he cruises around on a secondhand tractor?”
“Thought you’d be happy for Tommy. You know this was never the right job for him. Your sister is right. It’s going to kill him.”
“He’s got a cushy fucking job above surface, so excuse me if I don’t shed tears for him.”
“Damn, Dawz, you’ve definitely got to get out of your dad’s house. You’re starting to sound like him.”
“Yeah, well fuck you.” I slumped back against the seat and pulled the front edge of my cap low to let him know I was done talking. Deep down, I knew this was right for Tommy, but deep down, I was envious as hell. He’d found his happiness, and I was sure it wouldn’t be long before Kellan left the mine too. Rylan wanted badly to move out of state where she could put her college degree to better use than the local library. Then I’d be left alone in the pit of hell.
The man trip made its first stop. Kellan and I would be riding down to the last mined out area. Our job was to secure the emptied sections with roof bolts to keep the place from sandwiching all of us.
We traveled the rest of the descent in silence. I was too busy stewing in my misery to want to strike up conversation with my buddy, who, now that Rylan had returned to him, had everything he’d ever wanted. After Sasha had left the night of the fire, I’d realized that I wanted someone too. Hopping from woman to woman and never really making a connection was starting to make me feel like a lonely fucking loser, like one of those lifelong bachelors who spends his nights alone sucking down beer, playing video games and jacking off to porn flicks. Shit. I was already that guy.
The supervisor and two engineers, who made rounds in their comfortable white trucks, were at the mouth of the section where Kellan and I would be bolting the roof.
Kellan glanced over at me. “Wonder what that’s about?”
“Who the fuck knows? Never saw all of them in one spot before, so it can’t be good.”
We climbed out, and Jake Carson, our supervisor, headed toward us. “Braddock, Sullivan, we’ve got a kettle bottom. A big one.”
“Fuck, this job just keeps getting better,” I muttered so that only Kellan could hear.
Kettle bottoms were flat tree stump shaped bulges in the roof of the mine, loose sediment that had pooled around a petrified tree. And they were unstable and dangerous. Just like a massive dead branch, ready to fall on the lumberjack below, kettle bottoms were a miner’s widowmaker. It was going to be our job to push a bolt through it, to keep it from falling.
Carson motioned for us to follow. The LED lights on our caps threw long white streams of glow over the otherwise black chamber. Columns of coal, or chain pillars, were left to hold up the entryway into the mined out section. The brow got lower, and we had to drop down to a crouch to make it to the place where the kettle bottom had reared its ugly face.
“Jeezus,” Kellan mumbled next to me.
The flat, cylinder shaped protrusion looked as if someone had carved it out of the rock ceiling. You could almost count the rings and root system of the prehistoric tree. A coal ring, a layer of smoothly striated bark turned to coal, showed where the kettle bottom could easily slide from its mold and crush all of us. It would have been an amazing site to see if it hadn’t been so damn dangerous.
“Biggest damn one I’ve ever seen,” Carson said. “We’re going to need you to push up some bolts to get it stabilized.” He said it as if it was no big deal to drive a bolt through tons of unstable earth, earth that was above our heads.
“How do you know the cast is shorter than the bolt?” Kellan asked. “How do we know we can even reach the end of this monster?”
“We don’t,” the engineer, Spalding, said from behind. “This is more than three feet in diameter. Probably closer to five, in fact. We had to bring down a steel strap, a bacon skin. Have you men used one before?”
“Never taken care of this big of one yet,” I said.
Spalding crouched past Carson. He pointed up to the roof next to the coal ring. “You won’t be drilling into the kettle bottom. You’ll send two bolts through the shale. One on each side of it. Then the steel strap runs across the two bolts to secure the kettle bottom.”
“Hopefully,” I grumbled, earning an angry scowl from my supervisor. It was easy for him to scowl. He’d be well out of the danger zone long before we started poking holes around the damn thing.
Once the roof bolter equipment and steel strap were moved into place, the three big shots with sparkling clean gloves and a pretty truck to cruise around in, moved out of the way to let Kellan and me do the work.
I watched as the three of them walk-crawled out of the room, eventually moving out of the scope of my light. I looked back at Kellan, who seemed just as excited about our task as me.
“Don’t know about you, Kel, but I forgot to strap on my balls of steel this morning. I’m not looking forward to this.”
“Yep, that about sums up my feelings too, Dawz. But the longer we wait, the harder it’s going to get.”
We moved the roof bolter to a spot where we could drill a hole right next to the protrusion. That was when it hit me, a suffocating feeling that made it seem as if the walls, the roof and the ground beneath my feet were all turning in on me. It was something that I knew Kellan had dealt with many times, even if he didn’t talk about it much. But it had never swallowed me before. I froze and waited for my heart rate to slow. Instead, it seemed to be charging off in every direction as if jolts of electricity were pulsing through my veins. My skin prickled as if cold, clammy fingers were poking at it, and the egg sandwich I’d shoveled down for breakfast was threatening to launch back out of my stomach. My recurrent nightmare was coming back to me in one epic long flash.
“Dawz? Hey, Dawson.” Kellan’s voice snapped me back from the darkness that was pulling sharply at my confidence. “You all right?”
I nodded but couldn’t pull up an answer.
The light on Kellan’s cap shouted at me like the angry light the cops shined at you when you were screwing around in the backseat of a car. “Dawz, get a grip. We need—”
It was all I needed to push me off a cliff that I’d had no idea I was standing on. The pressure, the looming threat of being swallowed by the earth, flattened beneath the fossilized remains of a tree, had gotten to me, and there was only one, unsuspecting target in my path.
“Fuck you, Braddock. You think just cuz you’re a fucking pretty boy, you can be the only one who crumbles down here? Got news for you, bro, we’re all in fucking danger down here.”
Kellan’s jaw clenched, and his face pulled tight beneath the small brim of his yellow cap, a cap that might stop a small avalanche of debris from killing you but that was otherwise comical safety gear for a kettle bottom. My partner and best friend didn’t say a word as he started the drill and pressed it into the rock ceiling above our heads.
The twist in my mind slowly unraveled as we finished securing the steel strap and the rest of the roof. Kellan and I worked in our chalk dusted tomb without a word to each other. I knew I’d stepped over a line in our friendship, a line that should never have been crossed. It had been the tension of the moment.
With the last bolt of the morning set, we crawled out from the mined out section and stretched our legs for the first time in two hours. Kellan walked ahead of me toward the cross entry, a passageway that would take us to the underground station for break.
“Look, Kellan, I lost my cool—”