He frowned.
“Keep writing.”
“I will,” he said. The frown deepened. “I definitely will.”
At five that day, along with dozens of others, we had white beans boiled in water, two slices of bread, and a cup of tea.
TWELVE
Friday, October 12, 1934
At 1:00 a.m. Jack came into the room. I sat up on his bed, where I had been sleeping while he was at the hospital.
When he flicked on the light, I saw it on him at the same time I heard it through the open window.
His hair was plastered wetly to his head and the drips had formed at his chin. The shoulders of his shirt were soaked through.
We both listened to the steady drizzle on the pavement outside.
It was a steady downpour.
Jack looked out the window. “Need to talk to Stan,” he said. “He knows the feel of this better than I do.”
I was putting on my shoes.
Jack went through the door. I followed, closing it after me.
They were in the basement, gathered about the drain hole there: Stanley, Emmett, Henry, George, Jimmy.
Stan looked up when he heard us coming.
They stepped aside as Jack and I glanced down into the hole.
It had risen about six inches.
When I looked up, George met my eyes. “The Ohio,” he said. “Lyin’, waitin’.”
We listened to the steady trickle of water into the pit, heavier now than I had heard it before.
“What do we do?” asked Jack.
Stanley looked at him, shrugged. “Keep diggin’.”
“Pray,” said Jimmy. He ran a dirty hand through his matted red hair.
The springs in the tunnel ran in rivulets around our ankles as we dug. Emmett spent most of the night checking and propping the vertical beams, shoring them up where water had eroded the firmness of their footings. He fixed additional horizontals beneath the tram tracks where the earth had begun to disappear.
The wetness turned most of the earth into mud, and each shovelful took on three times the weight.
By dawn we were exhausted.
The water in the pit had risen another four inches.
At noon, we sat on the veranda of the hotel and listened to the train pull into Ashland. Within an hour, we were able to watch as the armored car pulled up to the bank and began to unload the money.
The rain poured down steadily as the gray figures moved from truck to bank and back again.
When Jack went to his hospital job that evening, I went into the basement where Stan and George had already begun to work.
A small steady stream sluiced noisily down through the tunnel mud into the drain pit.
Even from where I stood at the base of the stairs, I could see that the hole was full.
THIRTEEN
Saturday, October 13, 1934
Jack came into the tunnel sometime between 1:00 and 2.00 A.M.
We were ankle-deep in water.
As the rain loosened the earth, the far end of the tunnel began to fall away in ever larger chunks under our assault—a phenomenon both exhilarating and frightening. We filled the tram what seemed like a hundred times, sending it back to the basement to be dumped.
The tracks were completely underwater.
As we burrowed deeper under the streets of Ashland, Emmett and Henry cut and built the supports from pine beams, shimmed and jockeyed them into place, fixing them with miners’ care, knowing what was at stake.
Still, as the water swirled about the bases of the beams, even though nothing was said, the worry in their eyes was clear to all.
I thought of my solitaire games of years ago, the random flow of cards like the river beneath us.
And another memory card turned over.
I had taken my nephew, Bill, to a Jays game. He was ten? Eleven? The tickets, from a scalper, had cost me a bundle. The parking, the hot dogs, the ice cream, the program.
The Jays beat the Angels.
On the street, on the way out, more sidewalk vendors hawked their wares.
Can I have a pennant? he asked.
I looked at them briefly, checked their price. The cheapest was $5.
No, I said, feeling cleaned out. Too expensive. We’ve spent enough already.
He took it with resolve.
Next time, I said.
He said nothing.
We went home.
And now, my back sore, sweat pouring down my brow, covered from head to toe in mud, beneath the streets of Ashland, Kentucky, somewhere in a past I do not understand, I wonder what I was thinking. There was no next time. I wonder what good that $5 is to me now.
I’d give anything, I think suddenly, looking into the glare from the bare light bulb, the sweat running into my eyes, to buy the pennant for him now.
And then the light bulb went out.
I blinked, its afterimage still burning into my eyes in the dark.
“Jesus Christ.”
“What happened?”
“Quiet.” A flashlight snapped on.
I squinted at the new glow. It was in Stanley’s hand, attached by a chain to his belt.
The beam moved steadily about our surroundings, focusing finally on the electric wire that ran our lights. There was water dripping from the tunnel ceiling now, and the wire was covered in droplets.
Stanley started back along the tunnel.
We followed.
We lifted our feet carefully so as not to trip on the submerged tracks. The water swirled now at midcalf, rising.
About forty feet back along the tunnel, we saw what had happened. A small portion of the tunnel roof had collapsed, pulling down with it the electric cord. The wire angled down from in front of us to where it was buried beneath a pile of wet earth some two feet high. The earth covered the floor of the tunnel for about six feet.
We looked at it, looked at one another.
Stanley bent forward, pulled the end of the wire. “Hold this.” He turned, detached the flashlight, and gave it to Jack. Then he crawled up on his knees atop the collapsed earth and pulled the wire loose for the six feet it was buried.
He stood on the opposite side of the pile, the cord in his hands. “Must’ve pulled a connection loose farther back.”
“Ain’t good,” George said.
“Looks like we got some repairs to do,” Stanley said.
We stared at him, standing in the glow of the beam from Jack’s hand, the water building up closer to our knees.
It only took minutes to clear the floor of most of the fallen earth, to shovel it to the sides enough to uncover the submerged tracks. It reminded me of being a kid after a rainstorm, of damming up the flow of water rushing along the curb gutter, then breaking it open to let the buildup break free and disappear down the sewer.
But instead of disappearing, the water merely dropped a few inches, back to the level of midcalf.
We stared at the space in the ceiling above us where the earth had collapsed. I thought of the entire town sitting above us, of our frailty in the earth below.
I asked it, what was not being said: “Is this safe?”
For a moment there was only the sound of the droplets falling and the quiet rush of water about our legs.
“Mine’s a mine,” Stan said. “Tunnel’s a tunnel. Ain’t natural. Men ain’t really supposed to be down here, doin’ this. Always a risk.”
“But the rain,” I said.
“Make’s it trickier,” said George. “Like Stan says, though, it’s the nature of the beast.”
“I took two men out of a mine near the Panther Creek in West Virginia back in thirty-one,” said Emmett. “Wasn’t no rain. Just happened. Sometimes it just happens. Didn’t mind workin’ in the mines till then.”
“I can take you to see this mausoleum in a cemetery outside Coal Mountain.” Henry had been silent for hours until now. “Fella buried there spent his whole life underground. Said when he died he wanted to be buried above ground. Kinda to bala
nce things out.” He looked around. “Lots spend a lifetime below. Nothin’ happens to ’em.”
“But the rain,” I said. “The water.”
Their faces set grimly, in silence.
“Ought to work in shifts from now on,” said George.
Stan nodded.
“No more’n three at a time in the tunnel,” he continued. “Make sure there’s always more on the outside than on the inside, in case another chunk collapses. Could dig us out, or get help. Be a safety measure.”
“Makes sense,” said Jimmy.
“It’ll slow us up,” said Emmett.
“Diggin’s goin’ well,” said Stan. “Like Jimmy says, makes sense.”
Emmett looked unconvinced.
“Till the rain stops,” said Stanley.
Emmett hesitated, then nodded. “Makes sense, I guess,” he agreed, finally.
I dug for a while longer with Jack and Stanley. The others took a break, becoming the safety crew.
“Know anything much about coal, Leo?” asked Stan, suddenly, after watching the others leave.
Sometimes we needed to talk just to hear the sound of human voices. Sometimes we just wanted the silence. This was one of those times for the voices.
I remembered it was 1934, searched for a memory that would fit. I remembered playing in the coal bin in the basement when I was a kid, remembered getting hell because I was coal black afterward. “Got a big old octopus furnace that opens its mouth and eats it up,” I said. “Lot colder there. Burn it all winter.” I remembered watching my father shovel it into the flames.
I heaved a shovelful of dirt into the tram, thought. “I watch the men pour coal down the chutes into the apartment buildings around the corner from where I live. Looking at them, their hands, their faces, I wonder how they ever get clean. Even handlin’ it after it’s been dug up seems like a hell of a job.” I dug the shovel back into the wall, heaved again. “I remember a story my father told me. Told me about how his own father had a horse used to be out back of the house on Berkeley Street. Horse was used to pull the coal wagon my grandfather drove to deliver it in the area.” I smiled wryly. “Don’t know the same things about coal up in Canada as you do down here. We delivered it and burned it up, after you got it out of the ground. Comes in by train. Sits in big cement silos.” I rubbed my nose, smudging dirt across it. “Heard of black lung, but never saw it,” I added.
Stanley wiped his brow, listening, watching me. “Hard to picture it gettin’ all the way up there to Canada.”
“My father says that old horse was a swayback. Says he had grass growing out of his back.”
Stanley smiled.
“Ever hear of Father Coughlin?” asked Jack, topping off the tram, smoothing out the dirt with his shovel.
I straightened. “Matter of fact, I have.”
“Ever actually hear him?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said.
“Every Sunday. From Royal Oak, Michigan. Was in charge of buildin’ the shrine there, to Saint Therese, the Little Flower. Till he started makin’ people aware of things we should know, things that need sayin’.”
I watched his face, in the shadows, become enlivened.
“Puts the international bankers right up there with the devil and the Communists.”
Stanley had stopped and was listening now.
“The Union for Social Justice,” said Jack. “He read us some statistics couple weeks ago that said the profits of the wealthy had increased sixty-six percent the last few years, while wages and salaries had dropped sixty percent in the same time.”
“The Radio Priest,” said Stanley, “gets eighty thousand letters a week. Poll taken at the radio station asked if folks wanted to hear his program. Hundred thirty-seven thousand said yes. Four hundred said no.”
“Program’s on Sundays,” said Jack. “Goin’ to miss it this Sunday, I expect. Might miss mass, too.” He grinned at Stanley.
Stanley smiled back.
This Sunday. It was what we were here for.
That evening, after dinner, we sat in the parlor in front of the radio, sipping tea: myself, Jack, Stanley, Teresa, George, and Jimmy. The teapot sat on a crocheted doily on top of a mahogany coffee table. Beside the teapot lay a well-thumbed copy of the February 1934 issue of Vanity Fair, which looked all of its nine or ten months old. The cover featured a caricature of FDR as a Rough Rider, complete with chaps, hat, boots, scarf. He was riding a saddled outline of the U.S.A., his reins pulling on the snout up in Maine, his heels digging in down in the southwest. Easily taming the wild steed beneath him, he tipped his hat in the air and smiled.
It cost 35¢.
I touched it.
“Ever hear his Fireside Chats?” asked Stanley.
I looked up. He was watching me. I knew that he watched me a lot. “No,” I said, sitting back, letting my fingers slip from its slick surface. I shrugged. “Canada, remember?”
“Course. I forgot. Don’t think of it. Well,” he continued, “it’s his favorite way of sellin’ his programs. Radio talks. Tries to make ’em sound informal. Likes to wait till folks are relaxing after dinner, till your food is digestin’ nicely, so your brain isn’t functionin’ full tilt.”
George chuckled. “Shoulda heard his first one. ’Bout a year ago. Told us all ’bout how the banks were bein’ reorganized, how it was safer to put your money in ’em than to leave it under your mattress. Told us there would be no losses that possibly could have been avoided.” He frowned, scratched his head. “Still puzzlin’ that one over.”
“Don’t want other folks’ money,” said Stanley. He looked down at the magazine cover. Then he said, very softly: “Just Barbara’s.”
I sipped my tea. “Where are we in the tunnel?”
Stanley looked up. “Right underneath it,” he said. “Right under the vault. We’ll be through tomorrow.”
“Drills and torches are ready to go,” said Jimmy, speaking for the first time.
“What happens when they open the bank on Monday morning and find the money gone—see the hole, the tunnel?” I’m not sure I really believed we’d get there until I asked the question. I realized that I’d just been going along with them.
Stanley looked at Jack, then at George. They smiled. Then he said: “We think we got it figured out.”
Jack leaned forward. The blue eyes, the white smile. He came alive. “Got a series of plans, Leo. None of them lead back here.”
Teresa listened, quiet, wide-eyed, admiring.
Stanley was nodding, thinking. Then he looked from Jack to Teresa, watching.
I saw the look on Stanley Matusik’s face as he watched the two of them, and realized that he knew.
I couldn’t take my eyes from his face. I studied it, trying to read the thoughts behind it, trying to follow the river of his emotions.
As I watched him, his face became a puzzle, his eyes colorless. I watched for anger, resentment, jealousy. Instead I saw traces of sadness in the slackened muscles, a deep weariness in his carriage.
Jack looked at him.
“No. You go ahead,” said Stan. He seemed suddenly to struggle with the tiredness, to shake it away, collect himself. “You tell it.”
Jack smiled, excited, oblivious. “Emmett and Henry aren’t here, you notice. They’re part of another crew. They’ve been digging a shorter, smaller tunnel that’s all set to join up at a right angle with ours just beneath the vault. Only got about three feet more to go. Been just sittin’ there waitin’ for us. Comes in from a sewer main beneath Winchester. We got it filled with clothes and stuff left behind by transients for the past six months. False trail, so they won’t be looking for locals. They can inspect and scour it for weeks. Hundreds of false clues everywhere. Address books. Empty wallets with old IDs. Road maps, with places circled. Train schedules. You name it.” His eyes shone.
“We got the last twenty feet of our own tunnel rigged to collapse where it meets the Winchester one,” he continued. “Pull a couple of ropes, it disa
ppears. They open up Monday morning, see everything cleaned out, see the hole, follow it down to the tunnel that leads into the main sewer, see all the stuff we put there, and that should be it. No reason at all for them to come looking for us. No reason even for any of us to have to leave the hotel, or Ashland.”
“But won’t they see the collapsed opening?” The questions spilled out of me. “Won’t they be able to tell that there was a tunnel there? Won’t they wonder where the covered tunnel went?”
“Emmett and Henry will fix that. They can smooth it over between now and Monday morning so’s you’d never know there was one there,” said George. “And if anyone suspected and decided to start digging it out, why they’d never be able to tell if it was a tunnel or not. And we can fill in and collapse the rest slowly over the next few days. Nothin’ll lead back here. Ain’t no one goin’ to dig our tunnel back out after we bring her down. Too much work. Wouldn’t make no sense. ’Specially with all them clues sitting in the other direction.”
I didn’t have much to say. They seemed to have covered all the bases.
Then we heard the thunder. It rumbled down from the east, rattled the windows.
The rain continued to bounce off the pavement outside.
All the bases except one, I thought.
It was Saturday night. Most people went to the movies.
We’d all seen King Kong. We sat in the parlor, cradling teacups, and listened to “Your Hit Parade.”
I watched Stanley.
He watched Teresa and Jack.
I began to feel light-headed. The parlor of the Scott Hotel came into focus as though through a wide-angle lens, curving at the edges.
Is any of this real, I wondered?
Will I ever see my father, my home, my job, Jeanne, or Adam again?
Where am I? What’s happening?
I didn’t know.
Below us, the Ohio River strove upward, trying to join the sky and the rain, squeezing us blindly in between.
Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life, and St. Patrick's Bed Page 12