The Evening Hour (5 page)

“Your mama used to handle serpents,” his grandfather told him. “Before she turned into a harlot.”

What Cole knew of his mother was a mix of his grandmother's soft words and his grandfather's judgments. A few stories from his aunts, a single faded photograph. Mostly he learned about her from the family silence, the quiet that was wrapped around her name. His grandfather said she was a whore who turned her back on God, but there was another time, a time when he had adored her. Ruby had started preaching at eleven years old. She went to baptisms and revivals, and at school, she proselytized. Unlike her own child, Ruby had no trouble speaking, and people loved to hear her, her little-girl voice puncturing something deep and frozen within them.

One time, when he was a little kid, Cole had looked up at the pulpit to see his grandfather glaring down on him, a copperhead in his hands, and before he could stop it, a prayer rushed through him.
Bite him,
he'd thought, the words wild and fevered. The snake had opened its mouth, revealing its set of fangs, but then his grandfather smiled, a victorious, gloating smile, and dropped the snake back in its cage. His grandfather was waiting for the day that Cole would rise to the challenge, the way years ago his youngest daughter, who had never been afraid, lifted a serpent and gave herself to God. “What happened to my little girl?” he would ask, tears in his eyes. “How did she get so poisoned, what was it, Lord, that took her away?”

Cole looked around at the dirt and dust and torn-up walls. He gave the pulpit a gentle kick, and it clanged against the floor and a part of the top broke off. He flicked his lighter. It would all burn so easily. The sun was setting and shadows loomed across the shell of a building. The wood squeaked, settled. Chills tickled the back of his neck. He didn't want to be here anymore. He shoved the lighter in his pocket and quickly walked away, his eyes not lifting from the path in front of him.

Chapter 4

The engine wouldn't turn over.

“Damn it,” Cole muttered.

Charlotte rested her motorcycle boots on the dash. “Why do you drive this piece of shit?”

“I like it.”

“I bet you've got money to buy a new one.”

“I ain't gonna spend all my money on a truck.”

“Why not?”

“You must think I'm a millionaire.”

“You got more than I do, that's for sure.”

“Have you ever thought I don't want to draw attention to myself? 'Course, you've already told just about everybody about what I do.”

Cole tried again, pumping the gas. What was between them now felt different. Charlotte still talked about leaving, but did not say anything about him going with her. They did not see much of each other anymore. It was the beginning of summer. A lightness filled the air.

On the fourth try the engine started. He took the curves fast, and Charlotte leaned out the window and yelled. He smiled, watching her. He still liked how wild she was, how unhinged.

The lot at the Eagle was full, so he parked along the dirt road. From the dark woods, a chorus of tree frogs called out steadily, a familiar hum that for a second made him feel strangely homesick.

“How about we party?” Charlotte said.

“I just feel like getting drunk.”

“I wish once you'd get high with me.”

“Seems to me like you want me to be somebody else altogether.”

He gave her twenty milligrams, but she wanted more. He searched the bottles and found a forty, and she crushed the tablet on her compact and leaned her face to it and then opened her eyes wide. The moonlight shone over her; she looked pretty and fearless. She wore a little midriff shirt and hip-hugging jeans; her hair was pushed up and spiked out.

“I can't go in just yet,” she said, lighting a cigarette.

They sat on the bed of the pickup. Two women they'd gone to school with walked by and said hey, voices loud with drink. After they were far enough away, Charlotte said, “Nobody ever leaves this place.”

“That ain't true.”

“People around here don't know how to think big,” she said. “Me and Terry were talking about it. That's why he left in the first place. Nobody around here has any dreams.”

Cole rolled his eyes. “Terry Rose went to Kentucky. And now he works at Walmart. Is that thinking big?”

“He's not planning on doing that forever.”

“Then why don't you take him up there with you to New York.”

“You don't think I'll really go,” she said in a small voice.

“I don't know what you'll do.”

The Eagle was one big room, with the bar at the front, and a small dance floor and pool tables in the back. It was smoky and crowded, and he trailed behind Charlotte, who pushed her way through, all elbows, not caring whose feet she stepped on. While she was in the bathroom, Cole waited at the bar. The bartender stood at the cash register, her back to him, and when she turned around, they both smiled. It was the waitress from the Wigwam. Lacy Cooper.

“I didn't know you worked here,” he said.

“Just started last week.”

“You quit the Wigwam?”

“Working both places.” She asked him what he wanted, and he ordered two beers. “So,” she said, “I finally figured out who you are.”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“You're one of the preacher's grandsons. Rockcamp.”

“That's me.”

“I grew up on Thorny Creek,” she said. “Right above you.”

She told him that her mother had gone to his grandfather's church a few times before she got too sick. “Too fat, actually.”

“Oh yeah? I think I remember her.”

She laughed. “She was always trying to get me to go, but I didn't want any part of that fire, brimstone crap. I bet it wasn't easy growing up with him, was it?”

“No, not what I would call easy.”

“Y'all really mess with snakes?”

Before he could answer, Charlotte came back and threw her arms around him. “Whoo,” she yelled. Attempting to steady her, Cole gave Lacy a little smile.

“Looks like you got your hands full.”

“I better go find her a place to sit down.”

“Yeah, you better.”

They took a table near the dance floor. A few women were line dancing, laughing and turning in unison, while the men stood around watching them and drinking beer. Cole kept an eye out for customers. Another dealer, Dave D., a heavyset guy with a stiff crew cut and a soul patch, stood in the far corner. Dave D. dealt weed and dabbled in pills. He usually didn't come into the Eagle, which Cole thought of as his territory. When Dave D. nodded in his direction, Cole barely raised his chin.

Then Charlotte called out, “Yo, brothers.”

The three brothers, big and mulish, were moving toward them in a pack. “Try to act sober, would you?” Cole said, but her face was lit up, shining, and they noticed right away: “Char, you on something?” She laughed, slid farther down the chair. They looked at Cole. “What the fuck did you give her?”

He was afraid of talking, the words bunching up in his mouth. Almost every weekend a fight broke out in the Eagle. Busted bottles, tipped-over tables. Cole had not been in a fight since high school, when some guys went after Terry Rose for sleeping with one of their girls. Cole came out of it with a bloody mouth and an aching jaw, but also feeling like he was a part of something.

He looked around, wondering how he could escape. Then he saw his twin cousins. He lifted his hand, and they headed over.

“Hey, blondie,” said Dell, still just as bucktoothed as he'd been as a kid. “How's that old Chevy running?”

“All right.”

“Didn't I tell you?”

Charlotte's brothers glanced at each other. Although his cousins had pounded on him when he was a kid, when it came to fighting, a person could usually count on kin. Cole was not sure what would happen next. He clenched his hand into a fist. But then Lyle suddenly let out a coyote-yelp, startling everyone; seconds later, a slow song came on the jukebox. The men stood there, all glaring at each other. Then one of the brothers said he was going to play pool, and the other two trailed after him. The twins looked at each other and laughed.

When they were kids, Cole had tried to stay clear of them. “Spit it out, retard,” Dell would say, thumping him on the head, while his brother laughed wildly. Lyle was borderline crazy; even his grandmother said he was a little bit touched. Tonight, they had washed the motor grease from their hands and faces, and wore clean jeans and button-down shirts. “Y'all clean up good.”

“We're celebrating a week of work,” Dell said. “Justin got us on at that new site. He's up there at the bar.”

“What are y'all drinking?”

“Whatever you want to buy.” Dell laughed.

Cole still felt pumped with adrenaline. Jumpy. He watched Lacy pour out four shots. “How old are you, Cole?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Oh, you're just a baby. I'm an old woman compared to you.”

“You ain't old.”

“Thirty-six,” she said. “And I got an eleven-year-old kid. What do you think of that?”

He carefully balanced the shot glasses. “That ain't old,” he said again.

Back at the table, Cole and his cousins and Charlotte downed their shots in unison. Justin had joined them. He wore a camouflaged cap backward, and his gigantic T-shirt and jeans hung loosely from his linebacker frame. All of his cousins, the men anyway, were taller and stronger than Cole. It had always been this way.

“Cole, you should've applied for a job at that new site in Bucks County,” Justin slurred. “I could've gotten you on. I got the twins on.”

“I already got a job.”

“You could be making double what you earn now.” Justin shook his head. “I don't know how you stand to be around those stinking old folks all day.”

“You get used to it.” But Cole knew what they thought of his job. The men in the family, of those who were actually employed, worked in the mines or construction, jobs like that. He'd never wanted to work for the coal companies; he couldn't gut the mountains the way they were doing and feel right about himself.

Charlotte's face was shiny with sweat. She grabbed Cole's hand. “Dance with me.”

“You know I ain't one for dancing.”

She moved her hips seductively. “Come on.”

“No, I said.”

“This is what I'm saying,” she accused. “You're happy just sitting there doing nothing.” Cole stared through her, lit a cigarette. “I guess I'll have to find someone else,” she said, and turned to the twins, tugging on their meaty arms, but they just laughed. Charlotte finally gave up. She flipped all of them off and walked away, disappearing in the dark.

After a while, Justin complained he had the spins, and stumbled out of the Eagle. The twins said they better go after him. “All right,” Cole said, but they just stood there, like they were thinking hard. “There's something else—,” Dell started, but then Lyle, who rarely spoke, interrupted: “Cole, you got any Ritalin?”

“What?”

“Some guys at the site were asking,” Dell explained. “I told them I could probably get it.”

Cole shook his head. He didn't know how much his cousins knew about what he did. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Ritalin, Adderall, whatever. Something to keep us up, you know. It would be a nice chunk of change for you.”

Cole hesitated, and the twins looked at him eagerly. But he'd always promised himself that he would not sell to family. Family complicated things.

“No, I don't have anything.”

Dell and Lyle looked at each other. “All right, that's cool,” Dell finally said. “If you hear of anyone—”

“I'll let you know.”

After they left, Cole studied the room, also keeping an eye out for Charlotte's brothers. But now his game felt thrown off, and he wondered if he should give up and go home. Everything felt too small, too close. He wanted it to be simple, the give-and-take, the little ball of power. A couple of regulars walked in. He made a few quick deals, then went out to the parking lot. The Oxy went fast, and he also sold a few tablets of the Adderall that his cousins had wanted. With his pockets stuffed with cash, his mind felt clearer. He considered bailing on Charlotte. It would be the easy thing to do.

Instead he went back in. He maneuvered his way through the crowd, and then stopped at the edge of the dance floor. There was Charlotte, her arms around a tall hatchet-faced guy. He looked at least twenty years older than her, maybe more. A slow song came on the jukebox, and Charlotte's eyes were half closed and the man had his hands on her hips. Just a few hours ago she'd been on her back on Cole's sofa. He stood there and watched, then she opened her eyes and saw him. She looked sad and tired. She stopped dancing and stepped away from the man and stood with one hand on her hip, as if she was waiting for the music to change. He thought she would come to him. She would come to him and he would dance with her, he would dance and dance. He wanted her to know that he was a dreamer too, that he grew up in a house where dreams and prophecies were as real as the food on their table. But the man leaned over and said something to her, and she followed him up to the bar.

The cigarette in his mouth burned down to nothing.

“Hey, Cole.”

He turned and tried not to show his surprise. He guessed that he was going to have to get used to running into Terry Rose. This time he looked more like himself, or at least the way Cole remembered him, wearing jeans, T-shirt, and boots.

“Let me get you a beer,” Terry offered.

“Nah, I'm heading out.”

Terry saw where Cole was looking: Charlotte at the bar, leaning against a man old enough to be her father. “Oh, shit.”

Cole started to go, but Terry asked him to wait. “You got an extra smoke?”

“I thought you quit.”

“Only when my wife's around.” He lit the cigarette with a match. “You and Charlotte broke up or something?”

He sounded sincere and fake at the same time. Did he sound like that when he was getting high with Charlotte, talking to her about New York and big dreams and other stupid shit?

“Don't worry about it,” Cole snapped, but Terry was unfazed.

“Ain't this the shit, bro? Running into each other again?”

“It's not that big of a place.”

“We ought to get wasted together, like the old days.”

“I gotta go.”

“Wait.” Terry leaned in close. “You got anything on you?”

The goddamn question of the day. “No. I don't know what you're talking about.”

“But Charlotte—”

“She doesn't know anything.”

“I'll take whatever. Even Xanax, I don't care.” Terry grinned. “Come on, look who you're talking to. I know you must get some good shit at that nursing home.”

“Man, didn't you hear what I said?”

“Wait. Wait, Cole.”

But he walked out the back door, and Terry didn't come after him. His pickup started on the first try, and he drove home in a drunken haze. His heart was pounding. He stood outside. Everything spinning. Several pieces of brick-size flyrock were scattered on his lawn, blasted down from the mountain, and he picked them up one at a time and hurled them into the road. “Fuck,” he yelled. “Fuck, fuck.”

He went in and flung his jacket across the room. He paced the trailer and then sat down, holding his head. Everything was still spinning. He reached for the remote and turned on the TV, just to have something in the room with him. Only three stations came in, all fuzzy. A late-night talk show and a zombie movie and an Irish man talking about sheep shearing. He flipped back to the zombie movie and watched the dead dig themselves out of their graves. A Heritage commercial interrupted. The camera panned on happy miners and their wives and their kids wearing Heritage ball caps.
Responsible to coal miners, to West Virginia, and to the environment
. The commercial ended with a view of a big green mountain, then zoomed in on a herd of deer and a chickadee perched on a tree limb.