“This is a sugar maple,” she said. “You can tell by how yellow it is and its points. And that’s an oak leaf.” It had more rounded edges and was deeply cut in. “And this is a tulip poplar.” It was what Buster’s road was named after. It looked alien and fat compared to the others.
Even though Miss Post’s quiz on trees was long past, I was still interested. And the real things looked way better than any pictures in a book.
“I want to keep ’em,” I said.
“They’ll dry out and turn brown if you leave them exposed,” Mom said.
She reached into the back seat and handed me her Bible, which she hadn’t removed from the car since church last Sunday. “Here, press them between the pages. That’ll help preserve ’em longer.”
I carefully held the stems as I placed the maple leaf nice and flat in Genesis, the oak leaf in Psalms, and the tulip poplar in Revelations. Now if I could just tell which trees they’d come from—the edge of the parking lot was thick with them. Most were a mystery, but the sugar maple stood out like a bright flame against the others. I stopped breathing it was so beautiful.
“C’mon, Jack—pumpkins!” Dad said, snapping me out of my thoughts. Next to the big Spencer barn, pumpkins of all shades of orange were lined up in three groups—small, medium, and large.
Mom put her hand on my back and steered me toward the smaller pumpkins. “Aren’t they cute?”
“Grace, as long as I’ve got a job, he can have any damned pumpkin he wants,” Dad said. Quick as that, the tension was back, turning my stomach to knots.
I chose a pumpkin from the middle section—a medium-sized one. From a distance, it looked almost perfectly round, with a curly stem on top. Up close, one side of it was kind of flat, but if I turned that part to the back, no one would notice. It would do.
Dad said, “I saw you eyein’ that big one over there, Jack. Let’s get that one.”
I glanced at Mom.
“You picked out a fine pumpkin, Jack,” she said and glared at Dad. “And I bet it will still be the biggest pumpkin in Coppertown this Halloween.”
I tried to ignore the look that passed between them, but Dad’s red face was hard to unsee. He carried the medium pumpkin to the car, which took longer than it should have. When he came back, he was back to his normal color but his eyes were shiny. His moods flipped like pancakes these days.
How many fewer pumpkins will there be in Coppertown this Halloween? I wondered. Since so many folks probably can’t afford ’em.
Mom got some fresh squash and greens from the produce stand. Dad bought a Styrofoam cup full of boiled peanuts. We sat on the car hood slurping and munching the hot nuts. Salty juice dripped down my sleeves as I sucked the meat from the shells and tossed them to the ground. The salt made my fingers tingle as they went from the warm peanuts to the cold, crisp air over and over again. We went through the entire cup in no time, but I didn’t ask for more.
The ride home was quieter than the ride over. Mom and Dad didn’t hold hands and she didn’t sing along with the radio. They looked straight ahead while I watched the trees thin out as we got closer to home, back to our Red Hills.
Out of the gorge and about thirty minutes west of Coppertown we saw Eli Munroe in his shiny new Jeep cutting up a side road.
“I wonder where he’s going to?” Dad said.
“Maybe he’s getting a pumpkin too,” I replied, though that didn’t seem like something Eli would ever care about.
I watched Dad’s brow furrow in the rearview mirror. “Ain’t no pumpkins that way.”
After dinner, Dad and I cut off the top of the pumpkin and cleaned out the guts with big spoons. We squished the goo between our fingers to pull out the seeds, which Mom roasted in the oven. I carved a scary face into the pumpkin’s good side and laughed as Dad tried to imitate its lopsided expression. The good mood from earlier that day seeped back in as Mom put a small candle inside and set the pumpkin on the front stoop.
“That’s a fine jack-o’-lantern,” Dad said and put his hand on my shoulder.
“You did a good job on the design, honey.” Mom nodded at Dad as if to say, See?
I smiled and crunched on the hot pumpkin seeds until my gums went raw from the salt.
Piran and I were too old to wear goofy costumes for Halloween anymore—we had to be cool. So we dressed like fighter pilots from the movie Top Gun. I borrowed Grandpa’s World War II leather bomber jacket. Piran wore coveralls. We put on sunglasses and strutted around like bulls.
Everybody did their trick-or-treating downtown, since the county was so spread out. Business owners set up tables in front of their stores and gave out candy by the bucketload. Kids came from all over. Sheriff Elder led the parade down Water Street in his police cruiser with his lights flashin’ and him shouting “Happy Halloween” over his intercom. The fire department was right behind him in their big red fire truck. Piran and I walked with the crowd of goblins, witches, and superheroes following behind that. There were so many folks in the parade, there weren’t many left to line the streets.
Piran and I entered the costume contest, but the prize for our age group went to Bill Worley, who dressed as the best zombie I’d ever seen. I entered my pumpkin in the carving contest and won second prize. Turned out, there were a few pumpkins in Coppertown after all. And we both bobbed for apples—I took off Grandpa’s jacket for that. And of course there was the candy.
But even with a county’s worth of kids, it seemed smaller than the year before. Mostly folks were handing out suckers, Bit-O-Honeys, and Tootsie Rolls—the cheap stuff. And the Company table, which always had the best candy, wasn’t there at all.
So when somebody hollered, “Hey, Dilbeck’s Pharmacy is giving out chocolate bars!” Piran and I both made a beeline straight for their table, even though I was the chocolate nut. We went back three times before Mrs. Dilbeck told us to shoo.
We made our way back to where the Quinns were set up in front of the post office. They only gave out SweeTarts, but they still had a crowd. Hannah dressed up as a witch with striped stockings and a drooping black hat that made her look like a movie star. Even with Emily sitting on her hip, wicked had never looked so good.
“Piran, have you seen the twins?” Mrs. Quinn asked.
We turned just in time to spot Superman chasing Batman through the crowd with a light saber.
“Oh, there they are,” Mrs. Quinn said. “Okay.”
“Hi, Hannah. How’s it goin’?” I asked and tripped over the foot of the card table. Piran guffawed and nearly spit out his candy. I shot him an evil look as I quickly made my escape into the crowd before she could answer.
Piran caught up with me and slapped me on the back—still laughing. But his smile died when we found ourselves trailing close behind Eli and overheard his friends talking about Hannah. It wasn’t anything that should ever be said about a pretty girl or any girl for that matter, and certainly not about Piran’s sister.
I looked at Piran. His lips were pressed tightly together and his fists were clenched. He was about to step forward and say something when Eli cut them off and said, “Don’t talk about her like that. Besides, I got good news about our latest crop.”
I grabbed Piran’s arm and whispered, “Crop of what?” Eli was no farmer.
Will McCaffrey turned around and looked at us with murder in his eyes. Then he recognized me. “Jack, yu’uns back off. This hain’t nothin’ to do with you.” He put his hand on my chest and gave me a small push. “For your own good.”
Piran and I froze with our mouths hanging open. Did he just threaten us?
“What was that about?” Piran asked, but then he got distracted by a bucket full of bubble gum in front of Faysal’s Dress Shop. After several more laps through town, we sat on the bridge to sort through our loot.
“I’ll trade you three suckers for that Snickers,” I said.
&
nbsp; “Okay,” Piran replied around a mouth full of Bit-O-Honey. “Trade you a Baby Ruth for that there taffy.” He never did have expensive taste in candy.
At the end of the bridge I spied Eli Munroe pulling Hannah into the shadows. Giggling, they looked around suspiciously.
No.
“There’s…there’s Hannah.” I pointed. “With Eli.” My mouth went dry.
“Oh man. Dad is not going to be happy if she starts going out with him.”
“How could she?” I stared. “He doesn’t have enough sense to spit downwind.”
“You’re a much better catch.” Piran nodded. “Even if you are a goober. Speakin’ of which…”
He grabbed the small packet of chocolate-covered peanuts from my stash. I didn’t mind. I suddenly didn’t want any of it.
Of course, I might have been full.
I held my belly and moaned as I wobbled home with my parents, my loot, and my pumpkin with its second-place ribbon.
“I told you not to eat so much candy,” Mom said. “You can save some for later, you know.”
My eyes rolled in my head.
Dad leaned over and peeked in my bag. “You got an extra candy bar in there for me?”
“Ray!” Mom swatted at him.
When I crawled into bed, my stomach still ached like I’d been poisoned. So did my heart. Eli and Hannah. Surely, it couldn’t last.
Chapter 11
Strike
A few nights later, Dad arrived home late—again.
“There are only three hundred of us left,” he complained over his fried chicken, “and they expect us to keep up the same pace as before the layoffs. Do you believe it? They’ve got us doin’ jobs we weren’t trained to do. They had me driving a backhoe today. It’s been so long, I barely remember how. It’s dangerous, I tell ya.” He shook his head. “I need my crew.”
Mom’s forehead wrinkled with worry. Two men had already left the mines in ambulances since the workforce had been cut. Dad didn’t talk about it. It was like losing Amon all over again—and again, and again.
The phone rang, the harsh sound making us jump.
“Hello?” A wide grin spread across Dad’s face. “Heck yeah, we’ll be there.” He turned to us. “It’s about damn time. The Union’s made a decision. They’re calling a meeting at the community center tomorrow at seven.”
“Jack, would you be okay home alone?” Mom asked.
“Grace, this affects him too,” Dad replied. “Besides, if he’s going to be a miner someday, he needs to start making friends with the Union.”
He got back on the phone and called more miners to help get the word out. I looked down at my hands, which were suddenly numb.
I didn’t sleep that night. It rained, which made my arm ache, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dad said. I imagined about a dozen different ways of telling him I didn’t want to be a miner, but they all turned out bad.
The next night, I stood with my parents, buried in the crowd of thick, rugged miners. With their blue jeans and plaid flannel shirts, they reminded me of the gnarled old oak trees from Miss Post’s slideshow—mad oak trees, with their muscles tensed up and fire in their eyes.
Despite the cold outside, it was hot and humid inside. Steam rose off the miners as they shook their fists and shouted, “They can’t do this to us!”
“I need my crew back,” Dad yelled. “I can’t do that job by myself! It’s not safe!”
“They own the whole town. How can we fight?” Mr. Barnes asked.
Mr. Hill shouted, “We STRIKE!”
A roar of agreement rolled around the room like thunder. There was no discussion. It was what everybody had been waitin’ for. And I was getting my wish. If the miners were on strike, Dad wouldn’t have to be underground no more.
The Union organized everything. They signed up the men who weren’t on unemployment for stipends, or strike pay, and scheduled times for people to walk the picket lines. I helped make signs for the men to carry.
“Gotta make it right for the next round of miners,” I heard someone say as they slapped my back. I coughed and Mom looked at me with that same worried expression.
Could I tell her how I felt?
The miners were fired up. It was scary, but exciting too. The men were loyal and close, like my baseball team. Their energy ran through me like a train. Soon I was yellin’ right along with them. Our voices echoed off the walls like drums: “STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE!”
We went straight to the Company store after the meeting.
Dad said, “We need to stock up in case things get tough.”
“Tough how?” I asked.
“The Company isn’t gonna be real happy about this strike,” he said. “Back when your grandpa Chase was working the mine, the workers went on strike to force the Union in, and the Company shut down the store to make things hard on ’em. But folks were one step ahead and stocked up before the strike. So that’s what we’re going to do—stock up. We gotta get there before the Company catches wind of the plan.”
I loved the Company store. They had the best of everything, even the BMX dirt bike I wanted, which sat in the corner, shiny green with knobby tires. I tried not to stare.
Everybody shopped at the Company store, but miners’ families got a discount. Every now and then Mom would drive to the city to find something specific, but not often. That’s why it was so easy to pick out the mining families in town—they were almost always the best dressed and had the latest everything. Of course, we already knew who they were anyway.
We weren’t alone when we got to the store. I helped my parents quickly fill a basket to overflowing with things like tuna fish, coffee, toilet paper, flour, yeast, and soap—things that would last a long time. We managed to get in the checkout line not too far back. It quickly grew behind us and wrapped around the shelves, which were now almost bare.
Mr. Ledford stood at the checkout counter with a small selection of goods.
“He’s lost weight since I dropped by last week,” Mom whispered. “Poor man is trying to take care of his wife without any nursing help.”
We were close enough that I overheard Mr. Ledford ask, “What do you mean I can’t buy groceries?”
“You can’t buy on credit anymore,” Mr. Davenport said loudly. “You’ve got nothin’ for it to come out of.”
“I don’t have any cash,” Mr. Ledford muttered. “My last paycheck was only ten dollars.”
“You and half the other men,” Mr. Davenport replied. “We were doin’ you a favor lettin’ you charge against it all this time.”
“My wife got sick,” Mr. Ledford said. “I got behind.”
“That’s not my problem,” Mr. Davenport said. “Now step aside, so I can ring up the Hills.”
Mr. Ledford just stood there with his mouth open.
“Saint Peter don’t call me ’cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the Company store,” Dad said, quoting the Tennessee Ernie Ford tune.
“Mom, can we help?” I asked.
She already had her wallet open. Dad nodded as she pulled out a few dollars. I pulled two wadded up bills out of my pocket to add to it. Up and down the line of grocery carts, families pulled money from their wallets and passed it forward. By the time it got to the front it was a thick bundle of cash—enough for several trips to the store.
Mr. Hill slapped the pile on the counter and said, “Mr. Ledford has plenty of money to buy his groceries. I suggest you check him out now.”
Mr. Ledford gave everyone the slightest nod. His eyes were wide and brimming with tears as he turned back around like a turtle pulling into his shell. He paid for his groceries and quickly left the store.
I was never so proud of my neighbors. But Mr. Ledford was a scary reminder of how close any of us were to being in a similar situation.
Dad still left for the mi
ne every morning, but now it was to strike at the front gate…where he can’t get hurt, I thought, but rubbed my lucky rabbit’s foot anyway.
Piran and I stood on the bridge after school and watched the miners picketing in the distance. The men chanted and punched the sky with their signs as they circled in front of the Company.
Dad came home excited at the end of the day. “We’ll have our jobs back in no time—all of us. They’ll give in soon.”
Was it wrong of me to hope not?
By Thanksgiving, Dad was a little less fired up. “They’re not makin’ any money without the Company running. They need us back,” he said. “They’ve got to compromise.”
I almost envied Buster when his family came over for Thanksgiving. Living on a chicken farm might not have been so great, but at least they knew what tomorrow looked like. His dad had a job, and they could always eat chicken.
Chapter 12
December
“Now Jack, I don’t want you getting your hopes up about Christmas, y’hear?” Mom said on the way to the Piggly Wiggly one Saturday. The Company had shut down the store like Dad predicted, so we had to drive forty minutes out of town for groceries, even though we didn’t buy that much. “We don’t have the money to spend this year like we used to.”
The Christmas season had moved in with a lot less celebration than normal. The town put up twinkle lights, but with the miners still on strike, everybody was hurtin’. The storefronts didn’t have anything new in the windows and holiday spirits were low.
“I know,” I replied, although I ached for that BMX dirt bike that would have been mine if things were different. I tried my best not to be bitter about it, but our minister, Father Huckabay, would have had a field day if he could peek inside my head. I knew I was luckier than most and tried to count my blessings. Really, I did.
A Bird on Water Street Page 6