The Evening Hour (11 page)

“Beginning to wonder if I was going to see you again. I got the notion in my mind that you ran off.”

“It wasn't me who ran off.”

She looked at him, did not respond. She was wearing a white cardigan, a plain dress with a hemline falling just below the knee, stockings, and rubber-soled brown shoes.

“You going somewhere?”

“Esther's taking me to the beauty parlor. I'm getting a haircut.” She raised her eyebrows. “What do you think? You think that's a sin?”

“If I thought that, why would I be wearing my hair this way?”

“Every time I see you it looks more yeller.”

But he did not know how to imagine her without long hair. Though she wore it twisted in a bun most of the time, whenever the spirit moved her, she would let it spill out to her hips like silver water. They both knew what the old man would have said about her cutting off her hair.

He followed her down the hallway, running his hands along the weblike cracks in the walls, afraid to ask about her, but when he stepped into the kitchen, he started, knocking against the wall clock. “I didn't know she—,” he stammered, finished: “I didn't know you were still here.”

His grandmother turned her back on him and began rummaging through the refrigerator, and his mother smiled like they were old friends. She wore ripped-up jeans, a V-neck T-shirt that was stretched tightly over her fake ones. She was barefoot, her feet small and bony, the toenails painted huckleberry blue. A silver ring shone from her second toe.

When she came toward him, he stepped back. “Don't,” he warned.

“All right, all right,” she said, her voice too loud, excitable. “At least sit down, visit with me. I don't bite, you know.”

Cole pulled out a chair, its feet scraping the linoleum.

“How come your car isn't out front?”

“I moved it behind the house.” She reached for her cup of coffee, the silver bangles on her wrists clanging. “I've been watching a blue pickup drive by. Figured you wouldn't stop if you saw I was still here. Sorry, it was a mean trick.”

“Well, here I am.”

She scooted closer, and he stiffened as if he'd been hit with a cold blast of air. Her eyes were bloodshot, and there were tiny wrinkles around her eyes and mouth that had not been there the last time. The last time she was here, she was twenty-seven. His age. Now she was forty-four. Still, he was startled by how much she looked the way he remembered her, the thick dark hair and almond eyes. She was pretty, he'd been right about that.

“You look different,” she said.

“A person changes in seventeen years.”

“What happened to your hair?”

He shrugged.

Her voice softened. “You're all grown up now.”

His grandmother set two plates stacked high with sliced ham, buttered biscuits, and coleslaw in front of them, though they both protested that they weren't hungry. There was the sound of a car. “That'll be Esther.”

“Isn't she going to come in?” Cole asked.

“You know Esther, always in a rush.”

“I never thought that about her.”

“I've got an appointment,” she said. “You two visit, get to know each other again.”

After she left, Ruby slid a cigarette out of a pack of generics, but Cole said they weren't allowed to smoke inside. It was still his grandfather's house. She looked like she was trying not to laugh. “Then let's go outside.”

They sat on the porch steps. It was a cool afternoon, the sky heavy and without color. Ruby offered him a cigarette, but he said he had his own, searching his pockets.

“Just take it,” she said. “You think it's poisoned or something?”

He lit the cigarette, and she asked him when he started smoking. “Thirteen.”

“I didn't even start that young. Daddy ever find out?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I don't know, maybe he knew.”

He stared at his scuffed boots. The last time she'd come bearing gifts. Not this time. This time her hands were empty.

“I was just kidding about your hair,” she said suddenly. “It's cool.” She twirled a strand of own. “I used to have mine bleached. I also had it dyed. Pink, purple. Not when I was living here. I mean, this was about ten years ago. Once I almost got a mohawk.” She smiled to herself, remembering a time he would never know. “I did a lot of stupid things, but I never did get that mohawk. Probably should have. Maybe I should have got one before I came back here. That would have given people something to talk about. Well, something else, anyway.”

Cole said nothing. Wanting more space between them. She sat too close, talked too loud.

“Hell, I knew it'd be hard. But I didn't think talking to you would be like this.”

He looked at her. Anger shot into his voice. “I don't know what you came back here for.”

“Well, you don't have to know, do you?” She closed her eyes for a moment and he saw how tired she looked and then he knew that she came back because she was running from something.

“How long are you staying?”

“Don't know,” she said, an edge to her voice, which sounded the way he remembered it, cigarette-hoarse, scratchy. Even though she'd lived all over, she still had a mountain lilt.

“You're staying here?”

“As long as Mama will have me. I think I'm already getting on her nerves, but she'll never say that. I sleep too much, smoke too much, and I'm a slob. But she won't put me out.” She smiled. “Don't worry. I'll stay out of your way. I won't get in your space. Everyone wanted to drag you out here to talk with me, but I said, Jesus, give the kid a break. He'll come when he's ready. See? I'm looking out for you.”

She wanted to play catch-up, for him to give her the rundown on all twenty-seven years. She asked about his job. Did he have a girlfriend? Had he ever traveled? What did he do when he wasn't working? Cole gave short, closed answers, and all the questions he'd had for her seemed to vanish now that he was sitting next to her. He knew all he needed to.

“I'm on your land,” he said.

“Baby, that's yours now.”

The word
baby
made something inside of him skip. “Coal company wants to buy it,” he said.

“That's what Mama told me.”

“I ain't selling.”

“Do what you want.” She looked off. “This land doesn't mean much to me anymore.”

Carelessly, she touched his arm, her fingers resting lightly on his skin, the first time he'd been touched by her since he was ten years old.

“I got to get going.”

“Now, Cole, wait,” she started.

But he waved without looking back and drove down to his trailer and for a long time he lay on his bed, his heart pounding wildly, until he couldn't stand it anymore.

It was early and the Eagle was dead. Four guys in the back shooting pool. Two brunettes in a booth, faces made up and cigarette smoke lassoing around their heads like their gossipy talk. An old man who worked for drinks mopping the floor. Bad Company on the jukebox. Lacy Cooper behind the bar.

“How you holding up?” She poured him a generous shot.

“All right, I guess.”

He'd not seen much of her in the past couple of weeks and the few times that he did, it felt awkward, which he thought had to do with her being at his grandfather's viewing. But now as they talked about their jobs, the high cost of gasoline, the cold snap, the awkwardness fell away. He did not say anything about his mother. He felt like he could have stayed all night by her side, but when it started to get busy, he turned around in his seat, scanning the crowd.

“Hey. Cole, right?”

A guy in 1950s-style glasses was smiling at him. The writer from New York.

“This is a cool place.”

Cole lit a cigarette. “Cool how?”

“Um.” Michael paused, then looked relieved when Lacy came over. Cole tried not to show his surprise when she leaned across the bar and hugged Michael.

“I'm glad you're back,” she said. “How's the writing?”

“It's good. The article will be out next week.” He set down a twenty-dollar bill. “I can't get this place out of my head. I really want to write a book.”

As Michael and Lacy talked about who Michael should interview, Cole was quiet, his mother crowding his thoughts. He saw her walking through his grandparents' house. His childhood room. Touching his arm. He used to dream about this. One time he and Terry Rose got their hands on a stash of magic mushrooms and they went up to the top of Rockcamp Point and looked out at their homeland and Cole swore he could remember his mother holding him when he was a baby and he'd sat down among the dead leaves and suddenly remembered everything about her, the touch of her hand and how she smelled and how her hot tears fell on his baby face.

“Talk to this one,” Lacy said, pointing to Cole. “He's living under the sludge dam too. And a hell of a lot of blasting. It's ruining your grandma's house, isn't it?”

Michael turned to Cole, waiting.

“It's just the same shit everyone's dealing with.”

“You want to talk more? Any day this week works for me. And I don't have to record you.”

Cole shook his head, then pretended to see a friend. “I gotta go.”

Hidden by the now large crowd, he moved to the other end of the bar and drank his beer alone. He could still see Michael out of the corner of his eye, leaning in, nodding at whatever Lacy was saying. He held a small notebook, scribbled in it from time to time. Cole knew these types. His grandmother had told him stories about the newspaper men and the VISTA people coming to the mountains to look at how poor everyone was. One time, when he was about ten, a man came to the door wanting to film his grandfather—he'd heard about the serpent handling. His grandfather asked him if he was a believer, and when he said, “Sort of,” the old man told him to come back one day when he wanted to experience the Lord “without that camera.”

Loretta Lynn came on the jukebox, singing about growing up in Butcher Holler, having no shoes. Michael would like that. It would go with his book.

After a while, Lacy came over. “What's wrong, you don't like him?”

“It's not that. I just don't trust him.”

“He's a nice guy.”

“Where is he?”

“Over there.” She pointed. “Talking to the Calhouns, you know them? They've got a four-thousand-acre mountaintop removal site behind them. Down by Muddy Ridge.”

“Nothing he's gonna be able to do about it.”

“He knows a lot about all of this. The laws and all that. Anyway, he's made a few trips out here already, that means something. We need all the help we can get.”

“For what?”

“Stop the coal companies from taking over. Everyone's leaving.”

“I ain't,” he said. “I'm staying.”

“You might be the only one.”

“My grandma's still lives up there.”

“You don't think she'll sell?”

“Nope,” he said. “She won't.”

Lacy poured a shot of Early Times for a sad-looking man at the other end of the bar. Cole felt a hand on his shoulder. He expected it to be Michael again, but it was Terry Rose. He was lit up, eyes dilated and cheeks red like he'd been running, but he spoke cautiously, the way he might talk to an injured animal.

“Heard about your granddad. I'm sorry, buddy.”

Maybe it was the booze, or maybe just the timing, but when Cole looked at Terry Rose, he saw him as the friend he once was and told him to take a seat. Terry shed his Carhartt jacket. His long-sleeved T-shirt, dark jeans, and black Nike sneakers resembled what he used to wear when they were kids. He looked thinner than he had the last time Cole had seen him.

“Darling, we need two bourbons over here, and two more beers,” Terry called to Lacy. She looked at Terry, then Cole.

“You're not friends with this asshole, are you?”

Terry slung his arm over Cole's neck. “Me and him go way back, don't we, buddy?”

“I'm sorry for you, Cole,” Lacy said.

“You're hilarious. Come on now, how about getting us those shots?” Terry turned to Cole. “Tell me what you been up to.”

“Just the same old.” Cole lit a cigarette. “How's Kathy? Your kid?”

They held each other's eyes for a second, a hard, flinty gaze. Then Terry said, “Doing good. Everybody's all right.”

Lacy brought their drinks over, and Cole tossed back the shot and then looked at Terry. Before Terry could get started talking, he said, “My mom's back.”

Terry set down his empty shot glass and Cole waited, thinking, He is the only one, except my kin, who knows me from that far back. “You mean she's here?”

“Came back for the funeral, except she missed it.”

“How long is she staying?”

“I don't know.”

“That's fucked up. That's like my old man coming back from the dead. Except that won't ever happen.” He shook his head. “Shit, you've had a rough couple of weeks, bro.”

The bourbon moved through Cole like light cutting darkness. He and Terry used to take their twelve-gauges and shoot up beer cans and road signs and abandoned houses in the hills. They tried hunting a couple of times. Cole was a good shot, but Terry, although he was crazy about the idea of hunting, didn't know how to be quiet and couldn't hit a target if his life depended on it. Cole didn't care. He had just wanted to be around Terry. They were burning up with boredom and recklessness and hope for something they could not name. They were young then; they had each other.

He felt unguarded. “Remember when we cut open our hands?”

“Stupid kids. Yeah, I remember.” Terry grinned. “But blood runs thick, don't it.”

Cole said it did. He ordered another round.

“You're gonna be shitfaced,” Lacy warned.

Cole laughed and said maybe he already was. Terry said, “Darling, anytime you want to go out, just let me know.”