Kenneth Tingle - Strangeville (7 page)

  Tripod came over wagging his tail. I scratched between his ears and he licked my hand.

“Goodnight, Tripod.”

I brushed my teeth with the toothpaste I had packed, and laid on the bed appreciating its softness. That was another thing I had taken for granted—the luxury of a soft bed—and reflected on the past few days. I thought of Delilah’s face. My eyes grew heavy, and like someone clicked a switch, the world around me faded to black.

I must have had the same dream 100 times. After my parents died, the bank took our home, so I had to get a room in a rooming house in downtown Lawrence. It was on the corner of Haverhill Street and Broadway, a rough neighborhood that got even rougher after dark, with prostitutes and drug dealers taking over the corner.

Some of the drug dealers had rooms there, too, so they had a pretty short commute. The rest of the people were either mentally ill or transients down on their luck, like me.

  It was just a room about ten feet by ten feet with cracked plaster and beat-up woodwork. I covered the mattress with three fitted sheets, one on top of the other, because God only knew who had slept here before me or what they had done. There was no way to cook and no bathroom, just a common bathroom out in the hall with a shower.

There was often a line to use it. Sometimes I could hear an argument out in the hallway. Someone would say, “Yo, how long you gonna be in there?” Then a muffled voice was heard from behind the closed bathroom door, “None of your business, asshole!” In a few minutes, there would be scuffling and yelling in the hallway, another fight, and the police would show up.

  For some reason, I dreamt of this place often. There was a crazy woman, not just mentally ill, but completely insane. She would come slowly down the hall in her crumpled clothes or pajamas, her hair all frizzy and sticking out in all directions, and she’d be walking right towards me.

“Hello,” I would say to her as she passed. But she would just slowly shuffle by with a wide-eyed blank gaze, oblivious to my presence, like she was seeing something I couldn’t see, or was hearing sounds no one else could hear.

  In my dream, I was always standing in the hallway as this woman passed. I would go in my room and there were my parents sitting on the bed. In excitement, I would yell, “Mom, Dad…thank God you’re okay. I’ve missed you so much!”

They would hug me and say, “Johnny, we can’t stay. But we want you to know that we love you. Love never dies, Johnny. We’re looking out for you. We’re allowed to do that. Everything is going to be all right.”

Then I’d wake up. Sometimes I cried because they weren’t really back. I missed them so much.

  And I was in the middle of this same dream when Biff shook me and woke me up.

“John, git up an git ready.”

The lamp in my room had been turned on because it was still dark outside. Biff stood towering over the bed, hollering, “John, git up. Ya can’t be late fer work at the mines. Theys real strict about that.”

I sat up, and managed to mumble, “Sure thing, Biff, let’s go.”

Biff threw an old denim jumpsuit across the bed.

“Ya can wear this. Ah gut me an extra. It’s the required uniform.”

“Thanks, Biff,” I answered as he left the room and clomped down the stairs.

I put the denim uniform on quickly, zipped it up, and looked down at the body and legs. It was a little baggy, but no one in this town was ready for a fashion show, so I really didn’t care.

  Biff was waiting for me in the kitchen. He poured some hot water onto some oats and pulled some toast from a big clunky toaster.

He spread strawberry jelly on the toast, poured two glasses of milk from a bottle, and said, “Dig in.”

The jelly was sweet, the toast crunchy, and the oats were warm and fresh with brown sugar on top.

“Thanks again, Biff. I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” I said, swallowing my last bite.

“Aw shucks, ya don’t gut ta thank me all the time. One feller is supposed ta look out fer another feller when he needs it. That’s jes the way it is.”

  “Jeez, Biff. The world would be a great place if everyone thought like that.”

Biff looked a little confused, and warbled, “Ah don’t know what world ya comin’ from, John. Ya ain’t told us much since ya gut here. But here in Strangeville, that’s the way it is.”

I wanted to ask about the mayor and his thugs, but the time didn’t seem right.

A horn blew out front.

“Shoot, that’s our ride,” Biff said with urgency.

We walked outside where a rusty old Chevy  pickup truck was waiting. Biff opened the passenger’s door and the light went on. An older man with gray hair and overalls was behind the wheel.

“Smedley, we gonna give John here a ride, if that’s okay wit you. Um gonna git him a job at the mines.”

“Fine by me,” the man answered politely.

I slid in next to Biff and closed the door.

The man reached across Biff and held his hand out, saying, “Smedley McDoogle.”

“John Campbell,” I answered, shaking his hand firmly.

Another unique name, I thought.

  We drove up the street, his headlights illuminating the neighborhood as we went; this place looked even stranger in the dark—little houses with 1950s cars all along the roadside. We turned a corner and passed through downtown.  Klemm’s Diner was already lit up and I could see a few people sitting in  the booths.

Smedley tapped his horn and waved as we passed the diner. I could see Klemm behind the counter; he waved back at us. We turned again by the edge of town, the headlights shooting far down the empty dirt road ahead. There were men wearing overalls walking in the dark all along the road and most had metal lunchboxes in their hands. 

  The dawn was breaking and I could see the large quarry-like area as we pulled in. There were old dump trucks parked alongside enormous hills of dirt and gravel. A crowd of men was steadily streaming in all around us, some whistling, and some exchanging greetings, like, “Good ta see ya, Clancy.”

“Good mornin’, Clyde.”

Smedley parked the truck next to some other  pickups and we hopped out.

“John, let’s git over ta the shack an git ya all sorted,” Biff said.

“Ah’ll see y’all in the mine,” Smedley said, heading in the opposite direction.

“Thanks for the ride, Smedley,” I said, as he walked away.

“Ma pleasure. Good ta make yer acquaintance.”

He disappeared into a crowd of men walking his way.

I followed Biff over to a little shack that sat about 100 yards away from the mine.

Biff turned to me, and softly said, “Let me do the talkin’ inside.”

I nodded and followed him through the door. A man sat behind a desk with a large stack of paperwork on it. He jumped a little as we entered.

“Doggone it, Biff, ya gave me a good fright.”

“Sorry about that, Mistah Vonsleestack. Ma cousin, John, here, he’s lookin’ fer work an we been really busy here at the mines. Ah figured we could use another set of hands.”

The man stood up from behind the desk. He was short and stumpy with brown curly hair.

“Yer cousin? Can’t say ah ever seen him around town,” he remarked curiously.

“That’s because he jes moved here from far away,” Biff said matter-of-factly, trying to downplay it.

“Well, we do need us another set of hands. Where ya from?”

I glanced at Biff, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

“It’s real far off; ya never heard of it. The mayor don’t want him talkin’ much about it. Thangs is real bad out there jes like the mayor says. He don’t want folks knowin’ all that stuff.”

The man nodded, and smugly replied, “Say no more. We don’t wanna git the mayor angry wit us.”

He looked at me again, and asked, “What’s yer name?”

“John Campbell,” I said, trying to look a little rough like I assumed a coal miner would be.

“John Campbell? That’s a peculiar name if ah ever heard one.”

You have to be shitting me, I thought to myself; a guy with the last name of Vonsleestack is saying my name is odd?

He wrote my name on a little square piece of paper, slid it into a clear plastic pouch and pinned it to the front of my jumpsuit.

“There, that’s yer name badge. Biff, why don’t ya show Mistah Campbell around, and git him up ta speed on how we do thangs in the mines.”

“Sure will, ole John will be an expert mighty quick.”

I nodded to Mr. Vonsleestack as Biff and I turned around and walked out the door into the morning light. The dawn had just broke, but I could see the whole work area now; the older trucks by the huge piles of gravel and dirt were idling as the drivers sat inside waiting for a load.

Men were walking into a brown mound in the distance with a cave-like entrance, taking picks and sledge hammers off a rack before they entered. Other men stood at their sides giving instructions. The whole scene looked like a bunch of bees going busily to and from the beehive.

“Y’all be careful in there,” a voice yelled as the men continued to stream into the mine.

Biff and I blended in with a crowd of other men as we arrived at the cave entrance. A man handed us caps with a little flashlight on the front. Biff sat mine on my head and clicked my light on.

“Yer gonna need that,” he said.

Then he reached over to a rack and grabbed a pick with a long wooden handle.

He handed it to me, saying, Yer gonna need that, too.”

“How come you don’t need one?” I asked.

“Cause ah gut me a different job now. Ah reckon ah swung a pick most of ma life.”

There was a wooden sign above the cave’s entrance that read, “Strangeville Mining Corp.” As we walked in, it grew dark immediately. The air was musty, and it was cool and damp inside as we walked along the tunnel in the beam of light that our caps provided.

Suddenly, the tunnel forked off into several different directions and grew wider, almost cavernous. Biff veered to the right so I quietly followed along. I stepped into a small depression with a splash, twisting my ankle a little and stumbling for a second.

“Shit, my foot’s all wet!” I complained.

“That happens a lot. Best git used ta it,” Biff said in a dismissing sort of way that made me feel like a sissy.

We continued to follow the metal tracks deeper and deeper into the mine, the air growing damper and cooler.

“Okay, we jest about there,” Biff said, pointing to one of those metal carts sitting on the tracks a short distance away.

When we reached it, he stopped walking and pointed at the wall, saying, “This here is the seam we workin’ on. That’s what they call a big ol’ strip a coal betwixt rock, a seam.

He took the pick from my hand and said in a commanding voice, “ Lemme show ya how it’s done.”

He spread his long pencil legs wide and swung the pick downward into the wall. Some black chunks broke off and fell to the floor. As I watched this strangely-built man swing the pick, his large body bouncing around and pivoting on those stilt-like legs, the craziness of my situation hit me again—I was deep underground in a town I couldn’t leave, going after a woman who never let any man get close to her.

“That’s it, ya jes keep doin’ this over and over. Before ya know it, ya gut a whole cart full,” Biff said, handing the pick back to me.

“Looks easy enough,” I said, “let me give it a try.”

I spread my legs wide like Biff had done. Then I swung downward into the wall. Several large chunks broke off and dropped to the floor.

“Ha, this isn’t bad at all,” I said confidently.

“Let’s see if ya still sayin’ that in a couple of hours,” Biff said, a little sarcastically.

Three men came walking by and I studied them as they crossed through the light beam of my cap. They were young, stocky men with wide shoulders and stubble on their faces. The last one’s cheek was bulging out and he spit some brown saliva to the side as he passed.

“Hey, Toby, ya gut an extra chew?” Biff asked.

“Sure thang, Biff.”

The man stopped and pulled a little pouch from his pocket, pinched off a clump of tobacco leaves, and handed them to Biff.

“Much obliged, Toby.”

“Any time, Biff,” the man cordially said.

Then the three of them walked on deeper into the mines.

Biff shoved the tobacco between his cheek and gums, remarking, “Ah been hankerin’ fer a good chew,” he said with satisfaction. “Okay, we best git workin’, John.”

I swung the pick over and over, and broke off hundreds of little coal chunks that were now forming a pile around my feet. Biff began to pick them up, and tossed pieces into the metal cart parked next to us.

“John, take a break an help me git this stuff in the trolley cart.”

Working together, we tossed all the small chunks into the cart in only a few minutes. But the cart was barely a quarter full.

“Okay, ya git the idea. Ah’ll be right back. We gonna speed thangs up a bit.”

Biff walked off into the tunnel and soon disappeared into the darkness. The light on his cap was the only thing visible in the distance, but soon even that was gone. I continued swinging the pick into the wall as small chunks fell to the floor around me. Barely a week ago, I was at my desk job; now I was a coal miner in the south.

I heard men coming up the tunnel and recognized Biff’s voice as they spoke. When they arrived, I noticed the other guy was carrying a large type of drill machine.