Moving the Mine

Bobby turned his white Nova off the highway and onto the dirt and gravel road that led to the strip mine. He fingered his tight black curls at the nape of his neck and one leg jiggled from new job nerves, though he’d been working at the mine for almost three weeks.  Once off the main highway there were no distractions, no more trees or billboards advertising topless dancers. The mine that was just a valley of marred earth, a huge black crater, came into view.

Men in hard hats moved on and around the equipment like fleas on a Great Dane. At any moment a shovel or a drag line, like a dog’s hind paw, could wipe them out.  Bobby could make out the rubble that took the place of the holes he had packed with dynamite the night before, the dynamite having been ignited earlier that day. The process, which seemed intimidating in orientation, was simple; drill a hole, pack it with dynamite, and the next day, blow the hole and strip the land of its coal.

The corners of Bobby’s mouth raised in a smile as he recalculated his union pay. He’d make more this summer than his first year out of college. When he was younger, like most kids, he considered running away, but long since realized he would be giving up free room and board. Some years back, he learned to time his exits to avoid his father, who still got under his skin.  He’d take the back stairway from the third floor to the kitchen and out the back door. But if he forgot his keys and had to climb those same three flights of stairs, he’d pound the wall all the way up, letting everyone know he still lived and hated their big fucking house.

Bobby was perpetually pissed off, a clenched fist at his side, putting it through a glass storm door as a kid then years later pounding against the plaster until it bled. The fist was always ready to challenge anyone but his father, who Bobby had eventually grown taller and stronger than but never meaner. From as early as he could remember even a chat about the weather could end up with Bobby on the stand with his father performing a cross-examination. Bobby didn’t have words to hurt people, the clever put downs, the stinging sarcasm of his father.

The only comeback Bobby had was brute force. He often wished his father would just hit him and get it over with. It would be more direct. Bobby preferred things this way. Yet he would cringe whenever he recalled the afternoon his mother pushed the button marked “you’ll have to talk to your father” when she and Bobby both knew that would mean an argument.

 Bobby cornered her in their country blue kitchen, turned the butcher knife in his hand as if it were a switchblade, thrusting it at her. She flinched, and he threw the knife in the sink. His own mother was afraid of him. Bobby was finished with his parents after this. Only speaking to either one of them when necessary as it had been for Bobby to get this job.

 “Don’t think you’re better than them,” his father had said after getting Bobby on at the mine.

He didn’t think he was any better than anyone, and that pissed him off because he had accomplished more than most guys his age. He’d just graduated from St. Louis University High School with a 3.9 – ’cause one jerk never gave A’s –  and a year of college credits under his belt. He had swum for a new record in the hundred freestyle and was voted “most likely to be filthy rich” by classmates who knew at least that much about him. His efforts had failed to prove that he wasn’t stupid and incapable because according to his father the Jesuits were a bunch of idiots and, come on, there was really no swimming competition here in the Midwest.  The only undeniable quality Bobby had was the ability to make money.

As he drove deeper into the mine, the tall breeze-blown grass gave way to the maimed hills that seemed bluer, blacker against the gray sky. The Nova kicked up a little dirt and gravel as the land flattened out. He could feel each rock make its ding, leave its mark, reducing the resale value. He’d paid cash for the car on his sixteenth birthday and put in a sound system.  And, now many years after Woodstock, he was still listening to the soundtrack. He didn’t think much of the hippie movement but loved the music. He heard it for the first time while making pizzas at a place up the street.

Just after his thirteen birthday, Bobby worked tax-free and illegally on weekends until two and three in the morning.  “As long as it doesn’t affect your grades,” his mother had dutifully said. His father had told him “Sure. Go ahead,” which Bobby translated as “you’ll quit before the weekend is over.” He had spent long nights tossing dough, stomping roaches and tasting empowerment. This gave Bobby the courage to ask his father for the favor of getting him a mining job, a job that, except for the ongoing threat of a strike, was turning out to be okay.

He drove past the maroon doublewide trailer that served as the office and checked his mirror to watch the dust, hoping it wasn’t getting on the first shift miners heading home. The ground crunched under the car’s wheels. Joe Ricotti, his foreman, was walking toward the office. Joe waved. Bobby felt his shoulders drop and a sigh of relief leave him; Joe still liked him. Bobby hadn’t done anything, but he always waited for people to stop liking him. His open window let in a breeze that was warming up the air for mid-summer. He stopped the car. Joe walked up and brought with him the smell of dank earth and sweat.  Bobby noticed the creases, laugh lines, around Joe’s eyes as he spoke.

“All this and money, too?” Joe extended his arm toward the mine like a game show model. His belly jiggled as he laughed at his own joke, but his arms, one of which bore a blue anchor tattoo, were thick and tight. “I see these machines everyday and still don’t get used to the size,” Joe said, looking at the giant diggers and shovels. “Gotta respect ‘em, too,” the foreman put a firm hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “Kill a man in a split second.”

Machinery and death were all that anybody talked about at the mine. The diggers and draglines were as big as hotels, as long as strip malls. They had elevators, the biggest shovel had a kitchen, or so Bobby was told. These machines destroyed paved highways in transit and if tipped over would dig their own graves by sheer weight. Hell, one of the shovel’s teeth was as big as his little car itself. Yet Bobby feared his own anger more than the steel monsters. He knew he had no control over his destiny because he never knew what would really piss him off and what he might do because of it.  He recognized Jib and Paul’s cars and parked near them.

“Better roll ‘em up, gonna rain.” Bobby heard Jib’s voice, then saw him up ahead with Paul. Paul worked the drill, Jib was the greaser, Bobby packed the holes. The only difference between Bobby and his co-workers was a few years and a couple-or-so pounds. But they seemed so much older than Bobby when he first met them.

He had no idea what to expect his first night. His father had warned him that the miners might not take to the son of an “office dick.” That’s what they called the corporate people, he told Bobby. After meeting Joe, and then the guys in orientation, Bobby wondered if his father hadn’t over-estimated his own importance. The only thing he’d heard Joe complain about was that first shift couldn’t move the mine because a bunch of men in shirts and ties came over every day asking why they were behind schedule. And Bobby took to Paul and Jib right away when he met them a few weeks back. Jib had been more friendly than Paul at first.

 “Jib Berger,” the chunky one put out his sweaty hand. Bobby had heard Joe use the name “Jibber” and assumed this was the same person. The other guy just smoothed his short blond hair and positioned his hard hat.

“That’s Paul,” Jibber had told him. “Pussy-whipped Paul got in trouble with his wife.”

“Shut the fuck up, you fat piece of shit.” Paul shoved a laughing Jibber.

“Jibber’s just mad, cuz he don’t get any.” Paul finally spoke to Bobby.

He realized then that they were showing off for him. He was surprised at how, as his mother would say, “clean-cut” they appeared. Paul was blue-eyed, freckled, and might have been a quarterback in high school. Jibber had brown hair that was just a bit overgrown and a belly to match. That and his amiable face would probably guarantee Jibber the part of Santa Claus each year.

“Speaking of not getting any,” Jibber nodded toward Wade Duncan who was walking past them, taking one stride for their puny two steps. Much like the equipment, Wade was oversized and Bobby had sensed a danger there in equal proportion.

“Hey Wade, nice hair cut. Step up with the times, it’s 1976. Ya gotta let it all hang out, brotha.” Jib pretended to toss hair over his shoulder. “You ain’t never gonna get laid with that flat top,” he added.

Wade turned sideways, pushed up his black boxy frame glasses with his middle finger and stared. Bobby’s stomach had fluttered. He was frightened by, then angry at Wade for having the ability to intimidate him. Bobby didn’t think he should have to be afraid of anyone.

“See that shovel.” Paul whispered, shoving a finger into the fatty part of Jib’s arm and then pointing out in front of them. “One of these days they’ll be using that to dig up your dead ass.

“You’re such a pussy,” Jib muttered, adjusting his shirt.

“The guy is fucking crazy – ’Nam crazy.” Paul rapidly tapped his temple.

“Shut up. Half the guys here went to ’Nam and they’re not loony.”

Wade had stopped maybe ten feet in front of them and flicked his cigarette, adding a slow whistle as if the butt were a grenade. Jib snickered and hopped sideways. Bobby jumped back.  The cigarette landed at his black steel-toed boots.

“Boom.” Wade said and let out a humorless laugh, then walked on.

“What he meant to say,” Jibber said and slapped Bobby on the back “was welcome to River King Mine Number Six in beautiful Marissa, Illinois.”

Bobby had seen Wade off and on since that night a few weeks back and always had to fight the desire to be annoyed by him, trying not taking the real or imaginary bait as his high school counselor once suggested. Tonight as almost every night, Bobby caught himself anticipating another encounter with Wade. He caught up with Jibber when it started to rain, a spitty little drizzle that aroused a musty, earthy smell.

“I hate working in the rain,” Paul said as he climbed the ladder of the drill ten feet up and onto a metal tightly crisscrossed platform --the porch is what they called it--and into the faded yellow cab. From the platform Jib flicked his cigarette, as always, a little too close to the orange dynamite truck parked nearby. Bobby noted the digger he would need to refill the hole that Paul would drill. It was next to the truck. They were ready to move the mine. He knew why the old guys talked so much about the machines. The drill he worked on with Paul and Jib was small in comparison to others but even it was huge; a square cab that held the three of them with room to spare. It had one large picture window and from there they could see the long metal arm that held the cylinder stems Paul would use to drill deeper in to the earth. Bobby tried to compare the machines to the Tonka toys he’d had when he was kid, but even his mathematical mind couldn’t come up with a proportion. They were in a sense, playing with toys. These guys were nothing but a bunch of big kids, with big toys, making big money.

Bobby proposed this theory. Jib and Paul laughed until Jib said a tire from one of these big toys killed Paul’s old man – they were changing a tire, the harness broke and the tire crushed him. And then, they were quiet, sitting in the cab of the drill with plenty of room, listening to the rain peck the metal roof. A weak flash of lightning made Bobby needlessly worry about the dynamite truck again, yet he no longer popped off his torn plastic seat when the engine roared to life. Paul maneuvered the long handles. Metal clanged on metal and on Bobby’s eardrums.

The stem Paul released from the clamp met the drill bit, it twisted into the ground churning up the soil. Bobby didn’t startle anymore when the second stem met the first and the third slammed into the second, pushing the thick rods deeper into the earth, one hundred feet or there about. Paul pulled the stems, then the drill bit out of the ground.

“There you go, Junior,” Jib said pointing, indicating that it was time for Bobby to pack the hole. He liked Jib, so Bobby didn’t mind being told to do his job. Anyway, Jib wasn’t bright enough to be insulting. Bobby hoisted the heavy slick bag of blasting powder to his chest from out of the truck bed. He eyed the hole but could only see for a few feet then it turned into black nothing. He dropped the bag in. A faint thud was the only evidence the hole had a bottom. Two more bags, then he threaded the blasting cap. The rope acted as the fuse. He repeated the process, three bags, blasting cap and fuse twice more in the same hole, then headed for the digger to bury it all.

Bobby took in the field, men in hats, machines, and dirt as he drove the small digger to the next hole. There was no sun to set; just gray losing out to black and spotty floodlights attempting to replicate daylight. He saw a dragline in the distance. Dusk had turned it into a huge alien monster, screeching, clawing, attacking the planet.

The light summer rain turned into a downpour as he parked the digger near where Paul had moved the drill for the next hole and headed back for the dynamite truck. No lightning. But he drove the truck fast, parked then headed for the cab. Jibber tossed him a towel and reminisced about night blasting. Bobby had heard this story from his father at the dinner table a few years ago.

Jib told how second shift was supposed to blow nine holes in sets of threes, but they were in a hurry to leave, New Year’s Eve and all. So they decided to do two sets, four then five. The crew moved the dynamite trucks, drills, and the rest of the stuff down the mine away from the four holes that were supposed to blow. They had put the equipment right in front of the other five. Somehow all nine holes blew. Lots of guys got hurt, one guy died. Ricotti had walked away. Paul waved a hand towards the approaching foreman.

 “Accident looking for a place to happen,” Jibber said as Joe drove up.

“Yeah, we’re here, working in the rain,” Jib yelled out to Joe.

“McDonalds poppin’ up all over the place, they’s hiring, Jib. Got some applications in my office.” Joe waved and drove on.

“Move along, Joe, so no one gets hurt,” Jib mumbled and got back in the dry cab.

From the porch, Bobby looked up toward the steel arm that extended from the cab. A cubed rectangle with a diamond lattice disappeared into the black sky. Paul was taking too long, it seemed, to grab the next stem held in the arm that would push the drill down.

“Fuck.” Paul brushed past Bobby and climbed on top of the cab.  Jib followed.

“Looks like the clamp’s stuck and the stem’s blocked,” Jib said as he pulled himself up on the metal roof.  Bobby hoisted himself up as well.

“Well okay, Einstein — go up and unstick it.” Paul spat off the side of the cab.

“It’s your drill, you go up, I’m just the oiler,” Jib laughed. Bobby had no idea as to what Jibber actually got paid to do.

“I ain’t going up there,” Paul said. “So ladies, I guess we can get in the cab and wait for Joe to come back.”

“Second shift moves the mine,” Jib prodded.

“Not tonight.” Paul looked up toward the caging that extended above the cab and into the night. He turned the floodlight to expose the rain and the metal boom where the stem was jammed. Bobby knew the stems were what pushed the drill bit deeper into the earth to make a shaft for the dynamite. The dynamite loosened the ground to be cleared by the shovel so the dragline could mine for coal. If the stem didn’t slide down the shaft, the hole could not be drilled; no blasting, no shoveling, no coal. Bobby assumed this would mean a bunch of guys from the office would be over the next day, bothering first shift. Second shift would hear about it from first shift tomorrow. He didn’t want to hear about it.

“We have to do three holes,” Bobby said.

“Nothing we can do.” Paul said.

“I’ll go up, just tell me what to do.”

Paul snickered and explained that the stem was either stuck on the clamp or the clamp was blocking the stem. There was no way for him to know since he couldn’t see fifty feet up in pitch black, not to mention the pouring rain. Bobby felt a flush creeping up his chest and a strong desire to shove Paul. Instead he dropped his wet gloves, grabbed a wrench from Jibber’s tool belt, and took in a deep breath. Rain pelted his face. Sweat rolled down his neck and tickled his chest hairs. Bobby scratched his damp shirt with the wrench and shoved it in his jeans. With wet hands he grabbed a straight metal bar above him. The caging was about as wide as the ladders of a thousand diving boards he’d been on. He wedged his boot in the V near his groin. He pulled himself up and used the Vs for stairs. In a few seconds, Bobby had halved the distance to the jammed stem, he rested and tried not to think about falling. When he reached the clamp Bobby turned, looking behind him into the white light.

“Christ.” He closed his eyes and faced the lattice again. Bobby gazed at the stem, the long solid steel rod that could make all that noise in the cab when it dropped and slammed into the bit. He could see it was angled slightly against the broad clamp.

“The clamp can’t open all the way. The stem is resting on it. This side.” Bobby waved his right arm.

“Bang on it – to your left,” Jib yelled. Bobby banged away, laughter creeping up inside him – he was taking orders from Jib and not minding. Rain and sweat slid down his face and back then settled in his boots. Bang. Bang. Metal against metal. Then with a whoosh the stem flew down the shaft. Bobby’s right arm flung back and sent the wrench into orbit. He held on with his other hand, feeling the water run under his palm. His free hand flew back to the bar pulling his body into the lattice – merging metal with bone. Bobby gripped the bars in the crook of his elbows and waited to stop shaking. He wanted to sit down – just for a second. Something danced on his spine; he shivered and his body was still. His eyes closed, Bobby could feel the spotlight leave him and the rain trickling into a drizzle.

“Get the light back on him,” Paul yelled. Bobby let his lean athletic body take him down, just a little more to go. The chatter and cheers rose from what Bobby realized was an audience. He turned a bit to see Jib and Paul standing on the roof. They were smiling. Bobby felt a surge of pride until his father’s voice reminded him he was no better than anyone else.

He turned back and his foot slipped, dragging him down. His thigh punched into his chest before gravity pulled his body backward.  One foot was lodged in a V as the rest of him flailed in open air.  His head and shoulders barreled into Paul. Paul’s arms tightened around Bobby’s chest. Bobby saw Jib climbing on the lattice and as he unstuck Bobby’s foot a prickly heat shot through his leg. Cheers of men Bobby had never met put out the fire ripping through his muscles, the explosion in his foot. Paul and Jib carried Bobby to the side of the roof and handed him down to Joe and another miner waiting on the platform. They carried him down and stood him up.  Bobby balanced on one leg.

Each pat on the back felt like a knife in Bobby’s ankle slicing up through his calf, but Bobby smiled through it. He’d never been the good guy, the hero.

“Second shift moves the mine.” Bobby understood now.

“Damn straight,” someone yelled as the men dispersed.

“Way to go, son.” One of the older miners shook Bobby’s hand. Then he saw Wade Duncan. Bobby had won him over, one less thing to worry about.

“Fucking idiot.” Wade said bumping into Bobby’s shoulder. He felt the impact in his foot and sat down hard.

“All right, Duncan,” Joe said. “Forget it, Bobby.” Joe helped him up. “Let’s get that foot checked out.”

“I gotta pack the hole.” Bobby didn’t want to pack it.  He wanted to sit back down. He also wanted a shot at Wade.

“We got it, Bobby,” Jib said.

“Good job, Junior.” Paul winked.

As Bobby gimped to Joe’s truck he heard the drill start up and he saw Joe smile. The nurse in the doublewide said she thought it was a bad sprain – nothing broken. Just ice it up. On the long drive home, Bobby learned how much his left foot actually played a part in driving. The pain, however, could not wipe out the memory of Wade bumping into him.

At home, in the kitchen, he removed the heels from a bread bag and filled it with ice. He eyed the narrow staircase, decided against, and carefully gimped in to the hallway and up the main stairs.

 “You’re home early?” Bobby’s father met him on the second story landing.

“What happened to your foot?” His mother helped him to her chair in the TV room.

Bobby eased into the chair and explained the story, doing his best not to be accused of bragging.

“This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t work in the office,” his father said. “They wouldn’t have made you go up. I’m going to call Ricotti. You don’t have to go back.”

“But I want to go back.” The dog captured a spot on the sofa as Bobby’s little brother fled. “I volunteered to go up, you can ask Joe. We had to move the mine.” His voice was louder, shakier than he wanted.

“I think I know what I’m talking about.”

“You weren’t there.”

“Okay, Bobby whatever you say.” His father waved him off with a hand and a smirk. Bobby tingled with shame, weakened with futility. His ankle throbbed and the already tight skin pulled to make room for more swelling. Tenderly he scratched it and wondered if he hadn’t somehow been tricked into climbing up the drill. If they’d made a fool of him as his father suggested. Wade thought so.

 Bobby limped up to the sanctuary of the third floor and crawled into bed. He fished a pain pill the nurse had given him from his pocket and swallowed it dry. He tried to calculate any lost wages while his mind replayed the scene, climbing, falling – each time a different detail accentuated, exaggerated. His mother came in.

“Why do you listen to him? You’re old enough to know better than to argue with him.” She wrapped the ice bag in a towel, then around his ankle, which felt better. Her words, however, floated above him. Bobby was beginning to learn there was no right or wrong way to deal with his father.

“Why do you argue?” she said and left. In his mind he told her to fuck off, but soon his thoughts were washed away by the painkiller.

Three days later Bobby was back at work, sitting in the cab with Jib and Paul night after night as the soft June air turned hard and sticky by mid-July. Mostly they talked about sex and frog-hunting. Bobby mostly listened.

 “Pack the hole, kid.” Paul shoved Bobby off his seat. “Grease my drill,” Paul said to Jib and pointed to his groin, grinning. Bobby laughed to himself as he walked toward the truck in the dark. He stopped when he saw Wade with his bulky build, signature flat top and those stupid glasses reaching with both arms in the truck bed and pulling out a crate of blasting caps. He sneered at Bobby then spat over his shoulder.

“What the fuck?” Bobby asked Wade who turned and walked away.

“He’s stealing blasting caps from my truck,” Bobby told Jib and Paul on the way to their cars, pushing their way through the walls of hot air, the July humidity had turned their shirts into a second skin.

“Fuck it, Bobby, don’t worry about it.  Wait till the strike…everything walks out of here,” Paul said.

“Never lets up, last week he flattens my tire, I know it was him.”

“Looked like a slow leak to me,” Jib said.

“Guy drives me crazy,” Bobby spat.

“Did you ever think that’s what he’s trying to do?” Paul asked.  “He’s a nut job and there’s no rhyme or reason to what the guy does.

“Let it go, man,” Jibber slapped Bobby on the back. “You waste all your energy on that jerk when you should be thinking about the foxes, my brotha.”

Jib was right. Why couldn’t he just forget about it? He pulled off his shirt and wiped his face, disgusted at his own stench.

“Remember tomorrow park near the big shovel. Time to degrease and grease.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bobby slid into his car.

The next afternoon he approached the shovel, tilted his head back, his hand shielding the waning sun. The shovel was the size of a high-rise.

            “Punk,” Wade said as he walked past Bobby.

            “Fuck you.” Bobby wished he could pull the words back as Wade stopped and turned. He faked a left hook and Bobby flinched. Wade laughed and walked on. Bobby wanted, at the same time, to run toward and away from Wade. He kicked at the dry dirt. Jib and Paul came up behind him.

“What’s he doing here?” Bobby nodded towards Wade.

“Everybody works on the shovel,” Paul said. The entire mine would be shut down to degrease and grease the big shovel, the coal shovel. Bobby headed for the cab.

“You wish we were going up there,” Paul teased. “Over here, Junior.” He put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder and pointed to an orange metal tower. He watched some of the crew walk through what seemed to be a very small door against the large orange building and dutifully followed.

Joe had Bobby loosen nuts and flanges that were the size of softballs, heavy iron and layered with brown slick grease. With the clink of a nut hitting the ground, someone would yell, “hit ‘em like you live, Junior.” Bobby wasn’t sure what that meant, but it made him smile. He loved coming to work, except for Wade.

It wasn’t until the second week of shovel work that Bobby ran into Wade again. Bobby was scraping grease off a cylinder underneath the base of the shovel, wondering how air could actually suffocate a person. It was August. The valley was retaining all the June and July heat and humidity. He knew when the sun set, there would be no relief, but instead, the black sky would serve as a lid. He took a rag from his pocket to catch the sweat rolling toward his eye avoiding that salty sting. A pipe came down with a bang a few feet from him, and he jumped. Another pipe came down and hit the blade. Tentatively, he stepped out from the under the cylinder and looked up. Wade was a just a dark figure, but Bobby knew.

He saw Wade pick up a piece of jagged sheet metal and toss it like a Frisbee. Bobby ducked under the cylinder and watched the piece slide across the dead dry earth. He picked it up, as evidence and headed up the ladder on the side of the shovel. Bobby didn’t realize Paul, Jibber and eventually about half of the crew were behind him. Instead of cooling down, Bobby grew angrier with each step.

“Why do you keep fucking with me?” Bobby was spitting as he spoke. His face burned red. He held the metal back above his head, poised to strike Wade. Wade just laughed.

“Settle down, Bobby,” someone said. “Duncan, leave the kid alone.”

“Back off.” Paul said and blocked Bobby.

“I’m sick of his shit.” Bobby spat and tried to move past Paul.

“Don’t be stupid.” The word “stupid” sent Bobby into motion. He wanted to feel his knuckles crushing Wade’s face. Instead he shoved Paul which caused some of the men to step back.

 “You dropped this, asshole.” Bobby took the metal and flung it at Wade.

Wade grabbed it in midair, letting the metal slice into his skin. He shook off the blood and grinned with those square teeth Bobby wanted to knock out. The miners formed a circle as if a bell had been rung. Wade came at Bobby. Bobby stood ready waiting, wanting this to happen. He’d gone over this fight in his mind a thousand times.

Wade landed the first punch on Bobby’s greasy cheek and dazed him. Bobby swung back and missed. Wade’s second punch grazed Bobby’s slick chin. Bobby closed his eyes and brought his knee up. By luck it brushed against Wade’s groin. Wade grunted and bounced back a little. Bobby wiped sweat, and some of Wade’s blood, away from his face and into his hair. Wade’s middle knuckle landed on Bobby’s cheekbone. He tried to blink away a bright light as he tasted warm blood in his mouth. As he turned to spit, Wade pushed him down and kicked his black steel-toed boot into Bobby’s back just under his ribs, taking his breath away. The last thing Bobby saw was Wade’s boot coming down on his face. He woke up later in the double wide. The nurse was holding an ice pack on his face.

            “Well, hey Ali. You been in here more than ol’ Joe Ricotti,” she said.

            “Sorry,” Bobby sat up then went right back down. Joe came toward the cot with Paul and Jib following.

“Go home, Bobby,” Joe said. “We strike tomorrow, so that’s it, kid.  Helluva summer.” Bobby said his good-byes; he would miss them.

He held the ice bag on his nose as he drove out of the mine. The gravel disappeared under his wheels as he turned on to the paved highway and headed home. A puff of cool air blew in the car and gave Bobby some relief. A pink squiggly line chased the sun. Bobby would be home early again. At home in the kitchen he made a sandwich and chewed slowly. He heard his father coming down the steps but instead of bracing himself, he decided to just take it as it came, whatever it would be.

“Son of a bitch” Bobby’s father surveyed the damage. “Ricotti just called about the strike. I guess he got you out of there as fast as he could? I knew it would get ugly.” His father fingered the loose change in his pocket.

 “Yeah, yeah,” Bobby decided it wasn’t worth explaining that his mangled face had nothing to do with the strike or the fact that his father worked in the office. That he had no idea what it had to do with, other than Bobby taking the bait. “It was just this one guy, the other guys, they were cool.”

“I tell you what, your pal will be looking for a new job,” his father barked. “ I know you’re not gonna tell me, I’ll find out from Ricotti.” Bobby knew his father wouldn’t make trouble because he wanted the miners to like him – to think he wasn’t like the other office dicks.

In his room, Bobby stretched uncomfortably on his bed. With each breath Wade kicked him again. He groaned when it dawned on him that Wade hadn’t even taken off his glasses. Thumbing through a catalog from the school he’d decided on last spring, he tried not to agonize over losing, correcting and changing the outcome of the fight in his mind. He dropped the catalog off the side of the bed, insulted by the photos of models smiling happily but at the same time wondered how they did it; how people could shrug it off, walk away, not argue, not fight. It seemed that’s all he knew how to do – argue, fight. Bobby tried Jibber’s advice and conjured up images of the girls at the pool, wondering what kind of attention his bruised face might bring him tomorrow.

END