by Robert Gipe
I went out to the ridge, which was pine-tree hot. I saw bugs and snakes and toads and lizards running to hide from the heat and blowing wind. When I broke from the trees, free from everything but the stone and the open air, I was alone. I saw Mamaw’s chin gouging out into the air off the edge of the rock sure as if she had been there. She stood there not afraid to act mad at the world. Mad at the people and the mistakes they made. She wouldn’t back up from being mad. Not even in her coffin, which she didn’t want open, but they left open, even then they couldn’t make her look peaceful.
When I thought of that, I put my face against my knees and cried and the hot wind dried my tears.
Even when I thought she would, she didn’t.
* * *
AT THE funeral tent, the smiling lawyer in the scuffed-up shoes said my mamaw was a giant. Said she was a legend. Said she spoke against strip mining before there were organizers, before there were people raising money to pay people to fight against strip mining. She stood in front of bulldozers when there were only a handful doing it. And then he called the names of them had been there with her. I hadn’t heard of any of them, but the stout silverheaded man smiled. He nodded his head. Aunt June come up behind me and took my hand and squeezed it.
“And had they not stood up,” the little lawyer said, “we wouldn’t have gained what we’ve gained, would never have protected nine thousand acres of Blue Bear Mountain. Would never have protected the settlement school. And now,” the little lawyer said, his tears shining his cheeks like apples, “when the gains are one by one taken from us, the importance of a Cora Redding only grows.”
The scuffed-up lawyer smiled when he brought his glare down on us. He looked at the empty chairs one by one, making a list of the names of people should’ve been there. He looked out from the tent at the five vehicles we brought, at the hearse, at the backhoe and the pile of yellow clay that would soon be between us and Mamaw and he smiled as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Lord help us,” the brown-shoed lawyer said.
* * *
THE LITTLE crowd broke up fast after the brown-shoed lawyer stepped away from the grave. Willett stood in the sun outside the tent holding Nicolette’s hand. The back of her other hand was against her eyes, which were closed against the afternoon light. Nicolette whined like a cattle gate, opening and closing over and over, grinding rusty squeak on misery’s breeze.
I stayed in my fold-up chair under the tent, staring into the Astroturf hole where Mamaw’s body went. My cousin Denny sat down beside me. Denny worked in an underground mine. His dad was Mamaw’s brother. He’s ten years older than me. When I was in high school, he used to put liquor in my Mountain Dew at Thanksgiving. He is all right. He leaned forward on his elbows, looked across me at Nicolette, who was slouching against Willett’s legs. Nicolette slumped to the ground. Willett picked her up by the armpits. When she went back to the ground, he lifted her above his head and set her on his shoulders, even though he knew how good a way that was to throw out his back.
Denny said, “She’s getting big.”
I nodded.
Denny stared into the Astroturf hole. He said, “She was a tough old bird.”
I didn’t say anything.
Denny said, “I admired her.”
I said, “Why?”
Denny said, “She cut her own path.”
I stood up, stepped to Mamaw’s hole, saw the zinnia stems June had thrown on the box, saw Houston’s daisies on top of them. I thought of funerals I had been to where people had thrown themselves on the box, or on the body, wailing and drowning in sorrow. I felt dry as a bird skeleton I found in Mamaw’s attic one time. It made a sound like stepping on Rice Krispies when I crushed it in my hands, and when I showed Mamaw what I’d done, she folded the bones up in a paper towel and sent me to wash my hands.
Nicolette was asleep, her head on Willett’s head. I said to Denny, “You wish you were like my mamaw?
Denny bowed his head, didn’t say anything. The door to his father’s big pickup opened and shut. His family was loading up to go.
Denny said, “Heard you all were doing good in Tennessee. Heard Willett got a job.”
Denny’s father’s truck started.
I said, “You wanting him to get you one?”
Denny said, “No. I want yall to be all right. You deserve it.”
Willett ducked coming in the tent so Nicolette’s head wouldn’t hit. Willett said, “I’m going to take her to Mom’s for the night.”
I said OK.
Willett said, “You staying here with June?”
I said I was going to Mamaw’s.
Willett nodded, asked Denny how he was doing, and Denny said all right.
I said, “Go on if you’re going.”
Willett said, “I’ll call when we get there.”
I said, “Well.” I asked him when he was going back to work. He said he wasn’t sure. Said Monday or Tuesday.
I said, “You better get it figured out.”
He said he would.
I looked at Denny and tried to make my eyes two bottomless black Astroturf holes. I don’t know why I did that. I left without saying goodbye to anyone else.
GENE
The sun sunk behind the ridge where That Woman’s COALTOWN! sign was to go. I was on the road above her house, walking Pharoah on a shiny red leash. Pharoah was wanting to get down the hill, back to That Woman, who’d come home. We ducked through the poison ivy running across the path down through That Woman’s yard. The bugs was out in the dwindly light. Every tree and bush was droopy and full.
The blue flower balls of Cora’s hydrangeas bushes glowed and made me sad she was dead. Made me sad she would never tell me why them hydrangeas was a big deal to her. Made me sad she wadn’t never gonna tell me what to do again.
That Woman didn’t answer the door. Pharoah set on the doormat. The weather was good and hot. I leaned back in a rocking chair and nodded off. I had a dream of Cora scared out in her backyard. She kept falling, couldn’t get up. Kept tearing the blooms off the hydrangeas, throwing them up in the air. Sister come out to comfort her. Sister was nice in the dream to the old woman, trying to pick her up. But she wasn’t no comfort and the old woman started screaming. Screaming and screaming at the top of her lungs. Sister looked at her like she was going to slap her. Then Sister started screaming too, kept it up till I had to wake up to get away from it, to make it stop. When I woke up, I thought the dream was real, that they were in the backyard. I was blinky in that rocking chair, sweating and sleep-drunk in the sunshine coming through the screen.
Another vision come on me, this time a true story, a memory, Sister screaming at me not to do what Brother was egging me on to do, which was to hit a dynamite cap with a hammer. I was leaning towards doing it, cause Brother said he’d done it a hundred times. I had the hammer raised and Sister come flying from the other end of the porch and knocked the hammer out of my hand. And then our cousin Gus, who always showed out in front of Brother cause he thought Brother hung the moon, grabbed the hammer and laid a good lick on them dynamite caps, and the explosion knocked all four of us over. When we set back up, the claw of the hammer had blowed itself down into Brother’s thigh and Gus had his hand up in front of his face, all his fingers gone. I buried my face in Sister’s chest, held onto her tight, till she had to shuck me off, so she could get the bleeding stopped and Gus to the hospital.
I fell off to sleep again, and when I woke, That Woman was there on the porch, had the telephone pinched between her ear and shoulder, her knees together, a Megamart bag full of corn shucks rolled open in her lap, an ear of corn in her hands.
Pharoah laid a paw to the screen door, dragged her nails across the screen. I was about to tell That Woman I’d take her out. That Woman raised a finger, pretty as a half-runner fresh off the vine, made me hush.
That Woman said into her phone, “How big a jail they got? You think we can fill it?”
I thought, you don’t need to go to
jail while I’m around. We can go on the run. I wished I had money for a muffler. Be a lot quieter on the run with a new muffler. Maybe we should take her car, I thought, if we were to go on the run.
That Woman said, “And she talked to the reporter at the Charleston paper? He’s going to be there? Good.”
I took Pharoah outside and she barked. That Woman wrinkled her face. She waved us in. I come through the screen door, dropped Pharoah’s leash, and she click-clicked into the house to get some water. I set down on the rocker.
That Woman said, “I’ll leave tonight. How long does it take? All right. See you soon. Bye.” That Woman pushed a button on her phone and laid it on a wicker table next to her rocker. Pharaoh came back out on the porch. That Woman took her leash off of her.
I said, “You going away again?” My hand was shaking. I was hoping That Woman didn’t think I was drunk. She scratched Pharoah on the top of her head.
That Woman said, “I’m going back to West Virginia, Gene. I don’t know how long I’ll be there. You can take care of Pharoah?”
I said I could. Asked did she want me to go tell her class anything. She said she didn’t need that. Pharoah sat back down on the doormat.
With her doormats and her rocking chairs and just her cleaning cleaning cleaning, That Woman was making a home out of her pillhead sister’s house. She said, “You can water the plants? Take the trash out? I’ll make a list.”
I said I could. I asked her why she was going to West Virginia.
That Woman said, “We’re taking some people from New York and California to look at strip jobs. People who haven’t ever seen them.”
“A person could take them out to the lake,” I said. “Pretty there, specially at the end of the day. Me and Brother go out there near the mouth of Chigger Creek. Catch more smallmouth than you could eat in a month.”
That Woman said, “They aren’t coming like that, Gene. They’re coming to see how bad it is. See the mountains tore to pieces.”
“Hunh,” I said.
That Woman said, “We hope they’ll help us put pressure on the state and federal to stop that kind of mining.”
I said, “That mountaintop removal?”
She said, “Yes. Exactly that.”
I hated to see That Woman mixed up in such as that. I’d heard Sister’s old man talk about people who was against mining. He hated them, talked about doing awful things to them. Shooting them in the face, cutting them up, feeding them to coyotes, throwing their bones in the sludge pond. Scared me to hear him talk. He scared others, even some mining people, but they was enough thought like him that I’d of been glad to see That Woman not take no part in it.
I said, “I was sure sorry to hear about your mommy.”
That Woman kept her eye on her corn, said, “Thank you, Gene.” She shucked an ear and laid it aside.
I said, “You want me to get the strings off them?” Her corn was still pretty stringy.
“No,” That Woman said. “They’re fine.” She pulled back the shucks, broke off the worm-eat part, said, “My mother loved the land, Gene. Loved it more than anything.”
I cleared my throat, said, “Is that why you’re going to West Virginia? Cause of her?”
That Woman looked out over the town, said, “I don’t know, Gene.”
Sister’s husband called people like That Woman treehuggers. Her neck stretched out pretty as a child’s truth, made me want nothing so much as to hug a tree myself. Kiss one. Wouldn’t care a bit to kiss a tree for That Woman.
“Well,” I said, “I reckon she’d be proud of you trying to do something.”
That Woman turned to look at me. Her face was a flower blooming and a Roman candle going off at the same time. It was also a smooth stone in your pocket, your thumb running over it, almost feel the grains of sand that made it, but not really. Just a smooth feeling. And ice cream. Looking at her reminded me of ice cream. Melting in a bowl. My point being, my mind went kind of wild when That Woman looked at me. It’s embarrassing to tell.
She said, “Hard to know another’s heart.”
I said, “Hard enough to know your own.”
That Woman took my hand. She sure did. Shocked me. My hand in hers.
She said, “They’re going to be some famous people there, Gene.” She dropped my hand like wadn’t nothing to it.
“That right?” I said.
She said, “Mm-hmm.”
“Well,” I said. “That’ll be good.” I was nervous and jumpy and wanted to go. But I didn’t. Sat there hoping she’d tell me more. Maybe take my hand again.
It got dark. That Woman turned to the folding leg table where she did her eating and drinking and writing and listening to music. She lit a long purple candle stuck down in an empty gin bottle. Made the evenest old-timey light. Made me think of Granny who took care of me and Brother. Granny was forever looking down while she was talking to you. Looking at something she was working on, some piece of clothes, a broke bucket handle, potatoes needed peeling—and when she stopped moving her hands, that’s when you knew you was supposed to look up—cause she had something she wanted to tell you looking in her eye.
That Woman stopped shucking her corn and I looked up. Tears pumped out of her eyes like flood water under a trailer door. She looked out over my shoulder, out at that ridge where they was going to put her COALTOWN! sign.
The more I looked into That Woman’s eyes, I seen she wasn’t just looking at where that sign was going to go, but at something else. I wanted to turn around and see what it was cause it might’ve just been an interesting bird or a bunch of bats or something. I couldn’t look away from her. Her eyes settled back down on me and she said, “I feel like an orphan child.”
I said, “Honey, your daddy’s still up there on the ridge.”
That made her laugh.
That Woman stood up and said it was OK for me to go.
DAWN
When I got back to Mamaw’s after the funeral, I cleaned the flowerpots out of her bathtub. I lay my pants off on the commode. I wiped my tears on my shirttail. I should have got a dress for Mamaw’s funeral, but I don’t like dresses. I don’t like my legs out there, but I wished I hadn’t worn black church pants looked like a preacher’s. Wished I had worn something other than a black blouse with its big blue flowers made me look like I was in a Hawaiian band on some boat trip. I took off my underwear. I stood there naked on the detergent box towel. I sat down on the tub. My bottom melted down over the sides.
Before Daddy died, Momma would gin up reasons to wear a dress—go to weddings of people we didn’t know. Go to every little picnic and dance party the coal company or school put on. She liked party dresses. She liked everyday dresses too. Dresses with no sleeves in them. She’d wear them with little sneakers like old women did back when Mamaw was young—dresses with quiet stripes running up and down them, washed-out flowers, dresses pale as nursing home legs.
I used the black hula blouse to wipe the flowerpot dirt out of the bathtub. Threw Ajax powder on it. Rinsed that out. Started the water.
Mamaw didn’t wear dresses much. She liked being out in the weeds and up in the woods. She needed pants.
Towards the end, Mamaw got scared of her old pink bathtub, got scared to take a bath. Said if she was going to break a bone, it wasn’t going to be in the bathtub. So Mamaw was most of the time a little funky—like clothes forgotten in the washer or raw chicken should have been thrown out.
I lay back in Mamaw’s bathtub. The water was cool. I scooted down in the water, tried to get my nerves to settle. I was too big for the bathtub. I was too big for everything. I splashed water on my front, wished I loved Willett like I should. I wished I could make a nice life for him and my baby.
But I couldn’t. I puffed out my breath over and over, puffing and blowing like my mouth was a whale hole. I wished I knew what would make me happy. I don’t know why though. I didn’t much care for anybody around me called themselves happy.
The house was hot and clos
e. I hadn’t turned on the air conditioner. Hadn’t opened a window. Being married is hard. You don’t know who to put first. You don’t know who you’re living for. They give you words to say, promises to make, when you get married. Vows. But that isn’t how people live. I wished I had more stick-to. I was a blade of grass spinning down a creek.
I looked down at myself, where I stuck up out of the gray water.
I covered them up most of the time, but I liked them. I liked keeping them for me. My body cheered me up that day. Even my scabby banged-up shins, my bruised thighs and feet, my chipped-off nail polish on my dirty-ass toes—I liked how I looked that day. I put my hands on my fat rolls, squeezed a big bunch of me. And my nerves settled.
Then there come a banging from upstairs. I sat up in the tub, water splashing out on the floor and Mamaw’s bathroom rugs. “Who’s there?” I said. Whoever it was come down the steps. “Who is it?” I said, and stood up in the tub. It was slick and I slipped, busted my behind against the soap dish, banged my knee hard against the tub.
I was on my knees, my head down, my elbows balanced on the edge of the tub when Momma said, “God Almighty, Dawn, I never seen nobody could tear up a bathtub.”
Pills had mashed Momma’s curves flat and whittled her down to a stick you could’ve cooked a marshmallow on. The circles round her black glass eyes was red as bricks. She looked me up and down like she was trying to figure out what she could get for me. Everything to her then was what she could get for it.
I reached past her, got a towel, tried to act like I didn’t care she was there. I had no questions for her. Had no urge to get her to do anything. Had no urge to shame her for blowing off her mother’s funeral.