Authors: Tim Tingle
Letter to Belinda
Letter to
Belinda
A Novel by
Tim Tingle
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© 2012 by Tim Tingle
. All rights reserved.
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Published by AuthorHouse 08/02/2012
ISBN: 978-1-4772-5673-2
(sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4772-5570-4 (e)
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Contents
For my son,
Andrew
On his trip to England.
T
hanks to my mother, Lois Tingle, and Judy Owings for their help in reading and editing this story. And thanks to my wife, Nanette, for editing, and the use of her magnificent and mind boggling computer skills. And for washing my clothes.
H
oward Gibb’s body had been badly broken up in a rock fall in 1988, and he was lucky to be alive. And he probably should have taken the 100% disability he was offered, as most miners would have done, but not Howard. When asked why he wanted to continue working instead of relaxing at home on his disability checks, he replied, “I’ve got a bad case of anal glaucoma. I just can’t
see
my
ass
doing that.” He knew that if he just sat at home like a vegetable, he would simply die of boredom. And so that was why he took the job of ‘control room operator’, which was not much more than someone to answer the telephone and re-route messages from person to person at the mine. It was a boring job, but someone had to do it. Howard loved the job though. He could sit in his wheelchair and watch the monitors from West A and B headers, from the bunker, and hear the conversations between section foremen, and the problems they were having, and sometimes he could connect them with someone who could help. In the event of a disaster of some kind, such as a mine explosion, or fire, or an injury, Howard was designated as ‘The Responsible Person’ who was to coordinate the appropriate response. The mantle of responsibility he wore when he was on duty was the best kind of therapy a crippled man could get. He was always useful, and at times, even important.
That said however, this evening had been very boring. Coal production had been good, therefore there were few calls out from the sections. But late in the shift he took an unusual call from a line outside the mine.
“Hello, Savage Creek #2 Mine.”
Silence on the other end.
“I said hello! Anyone there?” He was about to hang up when he heard someone clear their throat. He spoke again.
“This is #2 Mine. How can I help you?”
Hesitantly, a ragged female voice finally spoke up. “I need to get in touch with Travis Lee. He
does
work there, doesn’t he?”
“Yes ma’am. Is this an emergency?”
“It is to me. Can I speak to him please?” She seemed upset, but holding herself together.
“Okay, Travis is still underground, but I can page him to call out. Are you his wife?”
“Does that matter? No, I’m just a friend.”
“I see.”
“I really need to talk to him right now!” She was getting irritated at the delay.
“Would you like to leave a name and number, so he can call you when he gets out?”
“No, that’s okay. I mean yes, I need him to call me as soon as he gets out, but I can’t leave my name or number.”
“That doesn’t leave me much to go on, Ma’am.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Can I stay on hold until he gets out? What time will he get out?”
“Usually about 10 P.M., which is about 45 minutes from now. That’s a long time to be on hold, Ma’am. Actually, I can’t tie up a line that long, in case of an emergency.”
“Then I have no choice but to call back.”
“Okay, suit yourself.” She had already hung up, so he did the same.
Sexy
voice,
he thought. Actually, this was not an unusual type of call. He often got calls from women trying to reach someone who worked there. Often it was a girlfriend trying to reach her lover, without his wife finding out. He learned long ago not to ask too many questions in those situations. He didn’t want to get entangled in a domestic dispute. He just conveyed the messages without trying to interpret them, though the interpretation was often the fun part.
God,
I
love
this
job!
He thought. Travis was not accustomed to getting those kinds of calls though.
Exactly 45 minutes later she called back, that same sexy voice he heard before, only now she seemed more composed.
“Is Travis Lee out of the mine yet?”
“No Ma’am, but he should be just any time. Listen, you can leave a phone number, and I will see that it confidentially gets to him, if that will help.”
“Yes, it would. Okay, write down this number. 555-7895.”
“555-7895, got it! I’ll pass it on to him!”
“Thank you.” She had no sooner hung up when he heard the air brakes set on the service hoist, which meant that the elevator had just come to the top. He looked out the window and saw three men get off the elevator, black with coal dust, heading for the lamp house. One of them was Travis Lee. Howard paged him. “Travis Lee, come to the control room before you shower, please.” He saw Travis wave at him, an indication that he had heard the page.
As Travis washed his boots off, he couldn’t help wondering what he had done now. He had already had a bad shift, and bad luck seemed to come in clusters. He entered the lamp house, put his lamp on charge, then climbed the steps to the control room.
“What do you need, Howie?”
“Just to inform you that you got two phone calls, the first about an hour ago, and the other one as the cage was coming up. She wants you to call her back as soon as possible.”
“Who, Janice?’
“No, I don’t think it was your wife. Here’s the phone number she left. You can call her from here if you like.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s nothing to me. If a man wants to call his girlfriend from work, that’s his business. She sounds sexy! Is she good looking?”
“Of course she is. She’s my oldest sister.”
“Yeah, right!”
“Yeah, really. I have three sisters. This is my oldest sister’s phone number.”
“Oh, I see. Well, that puts my mind at ease. I thought you might be slipping around.” Howard distinctly remembered the woman saying that she was ‘just a friend’, but he didn’t want to press the matter.
“Nope, not me! Janice would have my hide! I’ll call my sister from downstairs.” He started to leave, then thought of something else, and stopped in the doorway to tell him one more thing. “Oh, Howie. Should Janice call later to see where I am, don’t tell her that my sister called.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll know something is up. See, I’m planning to surprise her on our anniversary, and my sister is helping plan it. If Janice knows my sister called here, she would know something is up.”
“Okay, I won’t say a word.”
As Travis descended the stairs, he looked at the phone number, but it didn’t look familiar. No, it wasn’t his sister, but it was best to give that impression, because he knew how rumors originated and spread in a coal mine. Lying was a smoke screen to stop gossip before it got started. He had no idea whose number this was. He knew it was a Tuscaloosa County exchange, but he couldn’t think of anyone he knew in Tuscaloosa that would be trying to call him. Certainly not a woman who would be calling him at work, at this late hour.
In the past six months he had seen a lot of traumatic changes in his life. Part of it was that he and his wife, Janice were having to deal with their six teenage kids, who seemed to get into more trouble, the older they got. For example, Jenny, their eldest daughter, had gone into the Air Force last spring, immediately went AWOL from Boot Camp, and was booted out of the Air Force. But then she extended her streak of bad decisions, by not coming back home, or telling anyone what had happened. Instead, she got drunk and married the first good-for-nothing deadbeat she could find, and got pregnant. She then decided that the marriage wasn’t her ‘cup of tea’, and called home to get her dad to assist her in getting a divorce from Rodney, who had no intention of letting her go. Travis instructed her to come back home, and he would try to help her. However, when she came back home, she brought with her, that deadbeat husband from whom she wanted a divorce, which was not what Travis meant, when he initially told her to come back home. So for the past eight weeks, his daughter, and this deadbeat had been living in his back bedroom. They were supposedly looking for jobs to make money to get out on their own, and Jenny was working, as a cashier at Hardees. But Rodney had not so much as left the back bedroom, except to eat and crap, which he only did when Travis was at work. This did not set well with Travis. And then Travis found out that Rodney had secretly tied into their internet hook-up, and was using it to access porn sites, and was even taking an on-line course to be a licensed Warlock in the Church Of Satan!