Sky of Stone (24 page)

32

THE FOURTH OF JULY

T
HE SUN
bobbed up over the mountains and splashed Coalwood with such glory that when I looked out my window, I had to squint from the mirrored brilliance of the snowy-white Community Church and the reflected emerald glow of the enfolding mountains. Everywhere I looked, Coalwood seemed to shimmer in the hot blast furnace of the deep West Virginia summer. If I was going to make a fool of myself on the softball field, at least I was going to do it on a grand and glorious day.

My joy in the beauty of the sunny morning was tempered by what Tag had said about the drought. I studied the deep woods behind the church. The trees, vibrantly green, waved and rustled in the gentle breeze. In a drought, I knew it wasn’t the trees that were the problem. It was the dense brush and leaves beneath them that could turn into a flood of fire suddenly washing through the woods. If the woods started burning, it wouldn’t be long before Coalwood’s houses caught on fire, and then we would all be in a fix. Coalwood had no fire department. The Welch and War fire departments might come to help us providing they didn’t have any other calls, but they were a long way away.

I dressed and went down to breakfast. Victor and Ned were there and a few contractors too far from home to leave for the holiday. I surprised the junior engineers by sitting with them. I guess I needed the company. “You boys ready for the game?” I asked.

Victor looked up. “Is it true you’re a terrible player?” he asked.

“It’s true,” I confessed, “but I’ve been practicing.”

“How much?”

“All weekend.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“Yes. That I’m still a terrible player.”

Victor looked relieved. He probably had some money down on his side.

Floretta brought out breakfast. “My, just look at my little ballplayers,” she said fondly. “All you boys do good, now, you hear? Make Floretta proud of you.”

We mumbled agreeable answers and then dived in.

After breakfast, I joined the stream of people heading for New Camp. Bobby fell in beside me, tossing me a glove. “It’s Jackie’s,” he said. “He said maybe it would give you some confidence.”

I admired the glove. It was a well-worn beauty. I smacked my fist into it a couple of times, getting the feel of it. Bobby trotted on ahead, turned around, and threw a ball to me. “Catch.”

I flubbed his pitch, then ran after the ball rolling down the road. “Got my money on the right team, sure enough,” I heard a man say to the laughter of others.

I flung the ball back to Bobby and missed him by a mile. He went running after it, fielded it smoothly, and then turned in one fluid movement and fired a hot one back at me. I put my glove out in front of me and it smacked home. I clutched it to my chest.

“Attaboy!” Bobby called.

I pitched back to him, missing again. He came trotting back, frowning. “Look where you’re throwing the ball,” he admonished. “That’s the whole secret of playing, keeping your eye on whatever you’re doing and following through. Didn’t anybody ever play catch with you?”

Nobody ever had, of course. Dad was always at the mine, Jim was playing catch with his pals, and I was off somewhere usually reading a book. That was how it had all worked out.

“Come on, throw it to me again,” Bobby said, running ahead. “And pay attention to what you’re doing.”

I kept my eye on him as best I could and followed through. The ball sailed to him, although a bit high.

“You see? You have it in you to be a great player.”

Although I appreciated Bobby’s opinion, I had, in fact, only two hopes: one, that I wouldn’t hit myself with the bat, and the other, that nobody would hit a ball in my direction. They were forlorn and little hopes, but they were all my own.

T
HE COMPANY
had built the park above New Camp mainly to create a playing field for the Coalwood Junior High School football team, but every spring, it was converted into a baseball and softball field, complete with a high screen behind the batter’s box, limed baselines, cloth bases, and a pitcher’s mound. It was all pretty fancy. Farther up the hollow, the company had also installed heavy-duty steel swings, seesaws, and merry-go-rounds fabricated in the company machine shops. They were there for anybody who wanted to make use of them. People from Davy and Welch even came over and used them from time to time.

Mr. Bundini, dressed in his usual snappy splendor, including a bright red vest, was the master of ceremonies for the Fourth of July ceremonies. A stage, decorated with red, white, and blue bunting, had been built for the occasion. My dad, dressed in his khaki mine uniform, joined Mr. Bundini on the stage, as did Reverend Richard, who wore a black suit. Mr. Bundini called for quiet and then introduced Reverend Richard to give the invocation. Everybody crowded around the stage. The Reverend walked up to the podium, and this, pretty much, is what he said:

Dear Lord, we are gathered here to celebrate not just the independence of our great land, but also the document on which it stands. There is much to admire in that document but what we best remember is this: We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

To prepare for this invocation today, I have pondered long and hard these words. Most of you know that I rarely go anywhere without my Bible. It is an old Bible. It belonged to my grandfather. What you don’t know is that inside this book, I have always kept a copy of the Declaration of Independence. It also belonged to my grandfather. He believed it to be as holy as his Bible.

When I was a boy, somebody once asked me if my grandfather had been a slave. I couldn’t imagine that could be true so I went to him and asked him: ‘Grandfather, were you a slave?’ He said, ‘Child, there was a man called me that but I was never a slave and you know why? Because I could read. My mama, she taught me when that man wasn’t looking, just as her mama taught her.’

When he became officially a free man, my grandfather purchased this Bible and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. He kept them both until the day he died. He left them to me.

I have come to understand my grandfather was right. No man is a slave if he can read. Especially if he can read the Bible and the American Declaration of Independence.

But that means there are still slaves in this land. There are slaves who do not know that they have unalienable rights given to them by God, and that they also have, by the grace of the Lord, life, liberty, and the right to pursue their happiness and the happiness of their families.

They are slaves to their own ignorance. Ignorance is the ultimate slaveowner.

So on this Fourth of July, I pray a special prayer.

I pray for the day when the tyranny of ignorance will be banished all across this great land and every man, woman, and child can read and understand what they read.

I pray for that day.

I pray every day for that day.

The Reverend sat down, and for the first time ever, as far as I knew, the Fourth of July invocation got a big round of applause.

I pitied the speaker who had to follow.

It turned out to be my dad.

Dad stood up, nodded to Reverend Richard, and said, “I am here to represent Olga Coal Company on this our celebration of Independence Day. I would remind one and all that it was the coal company that built Coalwood and it will be the coal company that will keep it going forever. If I believe in anything, it is this: Support this town and the town will support you. That’s what Captain Laird taught me. That’s what I believe. Now let’s eat, then play ball!”

Dad got an ovation, too. There was nothing Coalwood people liked better than a speech, especially if it was short.

T
HE UNION
softball team gathered in a huddle along the third-base line. Mr. Dubonnet called out our roster. “I’m pitching,” he said, then looked up sharply from his clipboard. Nobody argued with him, so he kept going. “Catcher, Hub Alger. First base, Bobby Likens. Second base, Gordo Franklin. Shortstop, Sam Fragile. Third base, Billy Cooke. Left field, Jabbo Terrell. Center field, Billy Joe Blevins. Right field, Sonny Hickam. Third-base coach is Leo Mallett. Any questions?”

“Who’s their pitcher?” Jabbo asked, nodding toward the management team, which was having their own little huddle, along the first-base line.

“Not a clue,” Mr. Dubonnet said. “Some ringer, I’m guessing.”

“If he’s not a company employee, I say we put in a protest,” Sam said. Sam had been a classmate of mine at Big Creek. It was good to see him. He was a big, strong guy, and one of the best basketball players the high school had ever produced. I hoped he could play softball, too.

“Hold your horses, Sam,” Mr. Dubonnet counseled.

Mr. Dubonnet handed out our team shirts. They were a dark blue with white letters on back that said
COALWOOD UMWA LOCAL #768
. I was proud to wear the union colors.

I studied the management team as they took the field. They were wearing red jerseys that said
OLGA COAL COMPANY
on the back.

Jake walked behind home plate. His pads and face mask showed him to be the catcher. Then I saw their pitcher. Mr. Dubonnet saw who it was, too. We both stared, but he spoke first: “What the Sam Hill?”

All of the UMWA team, and the crowd as well, grew silent as Rita, holding a softball in her left hand and tapping it on her hip, walked to the pitcher’s mound. “They can’t play a girl!” Mr. Dubonnet protested.

“That’s no girl,” Guy Cox, the management player-coach called back with a grin. “It’s but a junior engineer.”

Jake settled down into a crouch and held up his catcher’s mitt. Rita stepped up on the mound, whipped her arm, and threw. The softball streaked along what seemed a grooved path until it hit Jake’s mitt with a sharp
crack
. Dust erupted from his glove.

“Holy Mother of God,” Mr. Dubonnet said, his jaw dropping.

“Don’t wear your arm out!” Jake yelled to Rita.

She frowned, and yelled back, “I know what I’m doing!”

Jake walked out to the mound and leaned in close. Rita’s frown deepened and she shook her head. Jake stalked back and crouched. Once more, Rita wound up. When her pitch came, the ball seemed to turn invisible the second it left her hand. It didn’t become whole again until it appeared in Jake’s glove. He took off his face mask and his glove, shook his hand, and threw the ball back to her. “Easy!” he yelled.

She turned away from him, rubbing the ball and kicking at the dirt.

Bobby was first in our lineup. He knocked the dust off his cleats and stepped into the batter’s box.

That’s when I saw who the umpire was. It was a day for surprises. It was Dad.

“Both sides agreed,” Mr. Dubonnet said when he saw where I was looking. “Everybody figured he’d be honest.”

“But he doesn’t know anything about softball,” I said.

Mr. Dubonnet gave me a piercing look. “Don’t you know your daddy was one of the best ballplayers, softball or hardball, to ever come out of Gary Hollow? I was about the only one who could ever fan him. Man, he could hit that ball hard!”

That was news to me. And then I thought—if he was so good, why hadn’t he ever taught me a blamed thing about playing? Of course, I knew the answer. The coal mine and his job there. His almighty, holy job! How much of his life had it stolen from our family?

Rita fanned Bobby, though he swung hard, and also our next two at-bats,
zip, zow, zup!
It was an amazing thing to watch. Dad’s job was easy. He just watched the balls go straight down the middle like runaway trains. The women in the stands, management and union alike, started to cheer each time she threw. The men, management and union alike, fell into silence. A woman beating men, especially miners? Nothing like that had ever been seen in Coalwood, or imagined!

With our side retired, we took the field. I went out to right field and started praying nobody would hit anything my way. Mr. Dubonnet was a pretty fair pitcher. Mr. Wotring, the first management man up, flied out to Bobby. Next up was Mr. Cox. I’d always heard that he could have been a professional baseball player if he’d been scouted right. He knocked a couple of long fouls and then got a solid double. Then Jake came up next and managed to hit a line drive. Fortunately, it was right into Sam Fragile’s glove. Sam almost tagged Mr. Cox out, but he was able to scramble back to base.

Then Rita came to bat.

Jabbo had started us chanting in the outfield. I joined him.
Swing batter, swing batter.
She did as we suggested and connected with a hard fastball. It went sailing up, up, and then away. A shrill cry came from the stands. Oh, the women of Coalwood were having a fine time. Rita’s ball landed on the bank just beneath Highway 16. It was a home run!

Rita trotted around the bases. The women began chanting:

Go Rita Go! Go Rita Go!

Mr. Cox, followed by Rita waving at her admirers, sailed home, and we were behind two to nothing. The men in the stands spat in their cups without joy. The women kept cheering.

After Rita, Victor came to bat. Mr. Dubonnet drilled one in and he hit it and it went high and to the right.

To me.

I squinted up at the ball, a nearly invisible little dot in the sky. I’d never caught a ball hit so high. Victor was chugging up the first-base line and Bobby was yelling at me, “Keep your eye on it, Sonny!”

Victor rounded first base and headed for second. I moved up on the ball, then saw I’d overestimated and moved back. The ball looped on. “Get under it!” I heard Bobby cry.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. I kept my eye on the ball. Then, to the amazement of everybody at the New Camp field including myself, I put up my glove and caught it over my shoulder!

I didn’t hear the cheers, although I was told later there were a lot of them. I just kept looking at the ball in disbelief.
I had actually caught it!