Rapture's Rendezvous (19 page)

Maria went to Giacomo and placed her arm around his neck. “It's the cracks in the walls
and
floors, Papa,” she murmured. “No one could keep a house warm in such conditions.”

“And we don't have stoves in the bedrooms. That's another reason,” Giacomo said, moving back to the kitchen. “But I can't expect to have everything at once. What we have will just have to do for a while.”

Maria followed behind him. “And there is just the one other bedroom?” she asked, going to a roll of shelves, picking up dishes and silverware, seeing how they were caked with dried food. Yes. This kitchen had been lacking a female's touch.

“Alberto and I will share the other bedroom,” Giacomo said, placing a tea kettle on the stove. “We each have a bed, though.”

Something grabbed at Maria's heart. “Papa, I had hoped . . . that . .. uh . . . your house would have . . . uh . . . a bathroom,” she said, blushing.

Giacomo laughed hoarsely, pulling a chair up to the kitchen table, sitting down. “No. No bathroom. If you'll look out the window at the far left of the yard, you'll see a neat little privy for your important private needs.”

“I had so hoped,” Maria sighed, going to the door, seeing a small square of a building that had a door hanging loosely on hinges, gaping open.

“I'm sorry, honey,” Giacomo said. “I know this ain't much. But maybe we can make it feel like home. Maybe
with Alberto's wages and mine put together we can cheer this place up a bit with more furniture, and even some rugs on the floor to cover up the gaping flooring.”

Maria hugged him tightly. “I'm sure of it. Papa,” she whispered. “I'm sure of it.”

When the tea kettle began to whistle, Maria went to it and carried it to the table where her Papa had placed three cups with tea leaves scattered in the bottom of each. “And do you have nice neighbors, Papa?” Maria asked, trying to force a cheerfulness into her words.

“Ah, yes,” Giacomo said, smiling broadly. “There are the Valzanos, Collettis, Hurtados. They are the nicest of the lot. On Sundays, we usually sit around on our porches and have nice leisurely chats. You know. About Italy. About the vineyards we each left behind.”

Alberto entered the room. “Speaking of vineyards,” he said. “I can see off in the distance and I see a vague sign of a vineyard. Whose is it?” He sat down opposite his Papa, thumping his fingers on the table top.

Shadows creased Giacomo's facial features. He lowered his eyes, fidgeting with the cup. “That is just a small part of Nathan Hawkins's estate,” he said.

“I didn't see it, Alberto. Where?” Maria rushed into the living room and opened the door and craned her neck, seeing only a glimpse of what Alberto was speaking of. She could see it in the distance … the ocean of dried grapevines against the horizon. And then when she looked even further … she saw the vague outline of a house. She now knew why she hadn't seen it earlier. She had been too absorbed by the house that her Papa was leading her to.

She continued to stare, eyes wide. “I've never seen such … a … house….” she whispered to herself.

The mine whistle blew long and loud, making goose-bumps ride Alberto's spine. He glanced sideways at his Papa, wondering if he had truly gotten used to this way -of life. He appeared to have accepted it, but Alberto had noticed that the old joviality was lacking in his eyes. It made Alberto's insides ache to see just how much his Papa had changed since having made this trip to America.

“Now, son, you stay pretty close to me these first few times beneath ground,” Giacomo said, hooking his carbide light on the leather bill of his work hat. “Coal mining is one of the most dangerous works in America today. It kills many. There are always dangers of explosions and cave-ins. Just a small rock fall can be the end of a man.”

Fear etched itself across Alberto's face. He knew that he lacked in bravery at times, and he was still amazed at himself for having gotten enough courage to put Sam and Grace in their places. His gaze lowered, feeling a sickness at the pit of his stomach, remembering how embarrassed he had been when he hadn't been able to succeed at seducing Grace. He would always remember her mocking laughter.

“Son? Did you hear a word I said?” Giacomo said,
leaning up into Alberto's face.

Alberto fidgeted with the carbide light he held. “Uh . . . yes . . . Papa,” he murmured, knowing that his face was coloring. What a damn time to be thinking of women, he thought to himself. But he knew that when he wasn't thinking about cards, thoughts and fantasies of women filled almost every moment of his days . . .
and. ..
nights.

Maria. Ah, Maria. It was her fault. If she wasn't so beautiful and always so close . . . reminding Alberto of just what a woman did have to offer a man.

Guilt plagued him, remembering how he had just snuck to stand beside Maria's bedroom door to watch her undress. He had even hidden behind the privy and had watched her through a crack in the wall.

Something similar to a stabbing sensation made his stomach lurch, knowing that something evil was guiding him to do such unthinkable things. But he knew that it was because his needs to possess a woman had yet to be fulfilled.

“Then, son, it's time to get your hat readied with your carbide light,” Giacomo grumbled. “There's nothin' darker than the insides of a coal mine with that carbide light blowed out.”

“Okay, Papa,” Alberto said, watching men scurrying around, stirring the coal dust beneath their feet, looking like black fog rising into the air. Ponies had been lined up and hitched to posts, ready to start hauling the coal once it was brought to the top. Alberto hadn't noticed before, but one stretch of railroad track lay in the depths of dried, overgrown weeds and ran along the ground to cross the tracks that had carried Alberto and Maria to Hawkinsville. The ponies would
carry the coal to the gondola cars of a train oncea day, for the train to then carry and distribute this coal to different sections of the country.

Alberto pulled his soft-shelled hat more secure on his head, frowning, realizing that this hat with its top made of cloth offered no protection whatsoever against any rocks that might choose to fall on his head. But this was the only hat offered to the miners, so Alberto had no choice but to be the same as the others milling around him … to accept a fate that had been so unjustly handed his way.

He placed his carbide light onto the hook of the leather bill of his hat, then followed along beside his Papa, who was quiet with worry. His Papa had confessed that he already was ailing with a rupture from the constant handling of the heavy loads of coal. Alberto wondered what other sort of ailments could be an aftermath of working beneath the ground. Would one's lungs have to work harder to keep oxygen pumping through them? Would Alberto become like a bat, preferring the dark to the light?

“Here's how we get lowered to the city underground,” Giacomo said, stepping up to a mesh-covered cage held upright by a pulley. “Come on, son. Step in beside me.”

Alberto swallowed hard, looking quickly from one person to another. The faces were docile. The men stood, most with rounded shoulders, in dark, coal-stained clothes. The Italian exchange in morning gossip ceased as the cage began to be lowered, sliding gently into the darkness.

The shadows being cast against the wall of earth on each side of Alberto from the men's hat lights made him grow tense and his eyes strain. He scooted closer to
his father, hearing the heaviness in the way he was breathing. “Papa, are you all right?” he whispered, focusing the dim light from his hat onto his Papa's face.

“The closeness of the air always seems to grab at my chest,” Giacomo said, openly wheezing now. “I keep hopin' that my body will adjust. I'm sure in time it will.”

Alberto began to experience such a tightness himself. He coughed, then reached up and loosened a button at his neck. He felt as though a dead weight was crushing in on him the lower the cage moved into the deepest recesses of the ground. “How much further, Papa?” Alberto said, feeling cold sweat beading his brow, though in truth the air had grown damp and cold.

A snapping noise above his head and an abrupt halt of the cage made Alberto aware that the pulley had stopped. A trembling rumbled through him, seeing how pitch black it was on all sides of him. He quickly remembered his Papa's warning . .. “There's nothin' darker than inside of a coal mine with lights blowed out.”

God.
Alberto worried to himself. Even with all the lights each man had on his head, it was still as dark as what hell must be like.

“Come along, Alberto,” Giacomo said, guiding Alberto by an elbow out of the cage, as the rest of the men crowded out and around them. “Like I said. Stay close.”

Alberto's eyes widened, now seeing so much more than before as he began to follow alongside his Papa on ground that crunched with scattered coal beneath his feet. The carbide lights were spread out more, on each side of him, reflecting onto beautiful different colors of
stalactites and stalagmites, almost taking Alberto's breath away. “I've never seen anything like this, Papa,” he blurted. “Why, it's beautiful here.”

“This is the underground wonder I failed to mention,” Giacomo said, reaching into a pocket, pinching off a plug of chewing tobacco. He formed it into a ball and poked it into the right side of his mouth, wetting it with his saliva. “But what you'll soon step into ain't pretty at all.”

“Why, Papa?”

“It's where we've picked and shoveled away at the earth. Where we've been workin' at gettin' the coal out.”

“But you won't have to disturb this area to get coal,” will you?”

“Sometime soon. There's lots of coal to be had here,” Giacomo said, now chewing and sucking on his tobacco. He went to a wall and lifted two pickaxes, handing one to Alberto. “We must get to work. Ain't makin' no money standin' ‘round beatin' our gums.”

Once again, Alberto followed his father, hearing the steady drumming of pickaxes from the other miners who were busy burrowing their way through the earth. Alberto reached up and kneaded his brow. A slow ache had begun in his head and he had just begun his long day of duty.
God,
he thought.
Will I even be able to make it?

He stopped to look around him once again. Some miners were spraying water from a long, twisted hose onto the face of the coal, to keep the dust down. Others were busy propping up the roof of the ground with timber.

“This is where one learns to curve his back, son,”
Giacomo said, moving into a narrow cavern that looked to be only thirty-six inches high. “You might even have to kneel because of your added height.”

Alberto stepped into this part of the underground where fresh timber creaked above his head, but not high enough for him to stand erect. As his Papa was doing, he stooped, already feeling the muscles pulling at the base of his neck and spine.

Shivers rippled his flesh. In this part of the mine, it was even darker than the rest. It had to be the darkest dark there ever was or could be. It was darker than any night. The light on his hat gave him no consolation whatsoever. He now knew that he could never like working in a mine. His goal was to better himself . .. and as quickly as possible.

“Papa, what did you mean when you said that about making money? How do we get paid for a day's labor?” he asked sullenly.

Giacomo lifted the pickaxe and swung it heavily against the earthen wall, then another blow, and after another grunted exhaustedly with each jerk of his body. “We get paid by the buckets we fill with coal,” he said, panting.

“Buckets?”

“See them? Over yonder? We keep track of them that we fill, then we get paid by Nathan Hawkins.”

“Can't some lie and say they fill more than others?”

“Nathan Hawkins knows if there's one less or more bucket at the end of the day. After everyone speaks his number to Nathan Hawkins's representative, he has a way of knowin'. I think there's a spy among us, keepin' track for that devil. If someone tries cheatin', none of us gets our wages.”

“God,” Alberto groaned, beginning to work his own pickaxe into the earth once again. He stopped after only three blows, to wipe his brow. “How much per bucket, Papa?” he quickly added.

“Huh? What's that you say?”

“How much money do you make per bucket, Papa?”

“Ain't never the same,” Giacomo grumbled.

Alberto's heart froze. “What… ?” he gasped.

“Ain't never the same from day to day,” Giacomo repeated.

“Why the hell not?”

“Hawkins pays us also by the quality of the coal we've found on a certain day….”

“That bastard,” Alberto grumbled, now thrusting his pickaxe into the earth, blow by angry blow, imagining it to be Nathan Hawkins. He growled, hitting harder and harder until he felt a firm hand fall onto his shoulder. He stopped and looked down onto the puzzled face of his father.

“Alberto, you act like a crazy person,” Giacomo said quietly. “Why are you attackin' the earth so? You have all day. You must save your energy so it'll last you till we're raised back up into fresh air.”

“Sorry, Papa,” Alberto said, leaning his pickaxe against his leg, wiping his brow with the back of a sleeve.

“Now work at a steady pace, son,” Giacomo urged, spitting against the wall of black. “But don't kill yourself while doin' it. There's enough coal in this here earthen grave to fill many of our buckets.”

Alberto looked away from his Papa, toward a man who was pushing a shovel over some sort of screen. “Papa, what's that man doing?” he asked, watching
more closely.

Giacomo's gaze followed Alberto's. He flicked a suspender, making coal dust fly all around him, then said, “We have these little screens that you dump your coal that you dig on. You take a shovel and push it over the screen so's your real fine coal falls out on the ground. You can't sell that. We leave it lyin' here in the bowels of the earth. We only pass the big lumps of coal up to the ponies a waitin'.”