"Victor Merkel has created a real page turner.
__A great read!
___I highly recommend it."
____Shirley Ernst, winnebago county reader
Misery Mountain
Victor Merkel
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 Victor Merkel
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
MISERY MOUNTAIN
by Victor Merkel
Chapter 1
“God damn, you shot them in the woods. Didn’t you?” He opened his closet door, turned around and stared at me with steel blue eyes, his face red and twisted, as he pointed to the shotguns inside.
A frothy, prickly feeling swept over me. My breathing grew distorted and burdened. A sense of doom overwhelmed me. He’d found out my secret. I wanted to shrink, run to a safe place and hide.
“I’m sorry for taking them,” I whispered. “Murray, Bobby and I just wanted to target practice. We didn’t.”
”What the hell’s wrong with you, boy?” he ranted in a foul, grinding voice, before I could finish. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from those guns?”
He cocked his fist and smashed it into my face. I catapulted through the air, landing on my back. My senses reeled - fear, anger and pain intertwined as he towered over me, a look of raw hatred on his mug.
I reached up to rub at the wet feeling from my nose and pulled back fingers covered in red. Part of me wanted to hit back. Yet my conscience reasoned, take your punishment. As I struggled to get up, drops of blood fell to the floor in a speckled array.
Repulsed, I muttered, “It’ll never happen again.”
The color in Pop’s face returned to its normal, sun beaten, leathered tan.
“Damn right,“ he responded in a cold, stern voice. “After I sell those guns, at least you won’t be able to shoot your fool head off.”
Pop stepped back but assumed the position of a prize fighter, ready for the next round. I braced to be knocked down again before getting my bearings. Instead, he watched me like a panther contemplating its prey. Once on my feet, I looked him in the eye and sensed his rage had come to an end.
As if in a disturbing dream, I walked past the gnarled old man I called father and traipsed down the hallway. I wiped at the pain, leaving a red streak on my sleeve.
Entering the bedroom, I unbuttoned my shirt and threw it into an old hamper. I grabbed a fresh one from the top drawer of my dresser and went through the motions of tucking it in. The events of the last few minutes started to wash over me. I cursed under my breath and bristled with anger.
How could he treat me like this? I would have given anything to go shooting with Pop instead of my friends. Yet he always found himself too busy or tired to spend time with me. We lived like strangers in the same house. What had I done to offend him? Questions. Questions but no answers.
Entering the stairway, I walked down to the kitchen. Mom seemed busy washing morning’s dishes at the white porcelain sink. Her worn and faded summer dress hung loose, hiding the bruises she’d endured over and over as long as I could remember. Mom’s brown hair, neatly combed, fell just short of her shoulders, framing a grim face and Roman nose, broken from some long ago encounter.
Walking closer, I noticed her red, puffy eyes. At that moment, I realized Mom had been crying. My mother must have heard everything. She looked at the dried blood on my face and daubed it with a wet towel. Then Mom returned to the dirty cups and saucers immersed in the soapy solution.
She muttered to herself at a rapid pace while shaking her head back and forth. “It’s not right. It’s not right. God, please help us get through one more day and….”
I struggled to hear more but couldn’t understand anything as she went into a state of existence in some other place. The, some other place, I had seen her go before. With glazed eyes, staring into space, she could leave her agony, if only for a moment.
My stomach knotted with sadness. Feeling helpless. All jumbled together when I saw Mom….lost. Despair pulled me close, to try and save her, yet I feared her soul could vanish in an instant, leaving me alone. I wrapped my arms around her and held on tight. “I’ll be okay, Mom.”
She looked up at me with hazel eyes, a pained expression on her face. “I know he can act like a bastard and seems angry all the time. It doesn’t excuse your father one iota but the world turned sour on him a long time ago. And we’ve all paid a price for it.”
“You’re right about one thing, Mom. I’ll never forgive him.”
“Don’t fret about what you can’t control, dear. Just…go wash up and try to stay out of his way for the rest of the morning.”
****
As I splashed water on my face, from a small sink behind the kitchen, thoughts raced back to an earlier time. I played with toys in the front yard by the east fence line. Mom had washed several loads of laundry and hung them out to dry on the line. Running out of rope, she’d draped one of the bed sheets over a bush in front of the house.
Sometime late morning, Pop had returned home early from a bricklaying job. He came up the driveway and parked his 1938 Chevy, motor still running, in the middle of the driveway. Slamming the door with all his might, cursing non-stop, he bounded to where Mom stood. He stopped in front of her, yelling all the while. “You bitch! Get the god damn bed sheet off that bush!”
He’d raised his arm high in the air. His open hand smacked her loudly across the face. As her body recoiled, she stood there, stunned at what had just happened. A moment later, she ran to the house, crying, while I could only stare at my father, unbelieving and afraid to move or say anything, lest he take his rage out on me too.
****
Now, eleven years later, I understood the depth of pain Mom had endured.
Every day after, I embraced a bitter brew of love and hate that simmered below the surface. Although we tried to achieve some level of harmony, Mom and I waited, anticipating the next skirmish.
The only beacon of light in our world took the form of letters from my brother Miles in Japan. Mom looked out the window, watching our carrier stuff a handful of mail in the box, set on a post next to the blacktop. She walked past our rusted water pump to the front yard and picked them up. Treading back to the house, Mom sorted through the envelopes, one by one and after a moment stopped. With a smile on her face, Mom opened one and exclaimed, “It’s from Miles.”
She read to me how my older brother and his wife, Betty, settled near the Army base in Osaka. After Mom read the letter, I sat down with my note pad and wrote to them.
Dear Miles and Betty:
We received your letter today. I’d do anything to get away from here and visit but I just started tenth grade. Any idea when you will be coming home? Mom misses you. Well, I do too.
Paul sent a note several weeks ago. He still works on C150 cargo planes and electronics at the air base in Frankfurt, Germany.
Buck dropped by on Sunday. He drove his new Dodge with the big fins. Sure looks fancy.
Nothing has changed with Pop. He lays brick all day then comes home and pulls weeds in the garden until dark. Thank God.
Don’t worry about Mom. I’ll take care of her.
Please write soon.
Chapter 2
Life settled into a nauseating routine of school and home. I obsessed about finding a reason, any kind of purpose, for my existence.
When summer arrived, I helped Pop in the garden. We planted, hoed, pulled weeds and harvested a multitude of fruits and vegetables consuming the back yard.
One of his favorites, scallions, required little maintenance and grew in abundance. I loaded them into a wheelbarrow then Pop stripped the outer hull and cut off the bottom. We tied the skinny onions, as I called them, in bundles of 25 and stacked them in a wicker basket.
Peddling door-to-door, I started with the neighbors and worked my way into the valley. When all the bundles sold, I walked home, my basket filled with nickels, dimes and quarters. Dumping the money on our kitchen table, Pop counted out half and left the rest for me.
Although my father and I reached an agreement to sell vegetables from our garden, I couldn’t have known it only played a small role in the crusades yet to unfold.
In spite of hating this man, I also loved him. Ignoring all else, he embodied the qualities of a brave and fearless champion.
****
So often, my thoughts drifted back to 1952. We had just finished listening to the radio on a Saturday morning when Pop received a call from Kipe Construction. A large stone had fallen off the Keystone apartment complex in Tamaqua. No other bricklayer would take the work. Without hesitation, he volunteered.
“Vance, get your coat. We’re going on a job.”
He packed his bricklaying case in the back of the Sky Blue, 1947 Chevy and headed for town. When we pulled up to the apartment building, we noticed a small crowd milling around the site. They watched with interest as Pop hauled trowels, brick hammers, joint strikers and numerous other tools from the trunk.
“You stay out here on the street, Vance.”
My father walked inside and several minutes later appeared at an open window, eight stories up. The scaffold looked small from the street. Pop crawled onto the fragile wooden structure without any safety harness, only his trowel and a small pile of lime and sand on the mortar board.
Pop grabbed a small can of water, poured some onto the cement and mixed them together. Two men inside handed him a large stone as the scaffold flexed under its weight. My father stood up and troweled the mud into a hole over the window. His body strained as he reached down to lift the shaped granite.
He gripped the stone and fought to stand up. Seconds later, it slipped from his grasp and crashed to the fragile scaffold. Dust puffed into the air as the granite almost rolled off the loose boards, into the river below.
Pop fell to his knees and stared, first at the stone and then the gaping hole where it came from. It seemed like an eternity. Then all of a sudden, he jerked the stone up into the opening in one quick movement.
My father completed filling in the cracks and struck the joints. As Pop started packing up his tools; he looked down for the first time. Our eyes connected. I think he observed the proud look on my face.
I exclaimed to a girl standing on the sidewalk, “That’s my Pop.”
****
July bristled with heat, the sun beat down without mercy as we tended the garden each day.
Pop harped, “Pull every weed and hoe them beans all the way around, boy. Our survival depends on every plant in this garden. These fruits and vegetables get us through winter.”
On one of the scorchers, we stopped for lunch and headed toward the house. As we rested at our time-worn oak table in the kitchen, the phone rang.
Mom answered and several minutes later wiped tears from her eyes.
“Walter, you better take it. Bill Miller has bad news.”
Pop looked puzzled as he pushed away from the table and walked to the 1930’s style wall telephone.
“What the hell? I haven’t talked to the Millers since leaving their place in 1910, just after becoming an apprentice bricklayer.”
My father didn’t say much, he listened with an occasional yep and ok. However, Pop’s face looked pained and his eyes watered. I never saw him like that before. My father seemed on the verge of crying for a brief moment but then Pop shook his head and the familiar hard expression came back.
“The old man can burn in hell,” my father rasped as he hung up the telephone.
Mom shook her head. “He deserves to rest in peace. Let him be, for God’s sake.”
Walking back to the table, Pop sat across from me. He leaned forward, jaw set, eyes squinting.
“Your grandfather, Charles, passed away last night. You should know the truth about him. He had never accomplished anything worthwhile, worked as a baker for a couple years then jumped from job to job the rest of his life. According to the Millers, Charles died a drunken pauper in the lousy downtown halfway house in Allentown.
“His second wife kicked him out years ago, she didn’t want him. Neither did I. We won’t be going to his funeral.
“I let him know where he stood with me when your brother Buck came into this world. Back in 1924, I took him to see the bastard.
“Baby Buck lay in the front seat next to me as I pulled my 1921 Ford up to Norton Apartments on Willow Street in Allentown. The neighborhood looked run down with garbage on the sidewalk, windows boarded over and unshaven, long haired men looking like gangsters congregated on the street corner.
“I gazed up and down the street several times before stepping out with baby. Entering the front door of Norton Apartments, I walked into a lobby with aged rosewood panels and cheap wrought iron chandelier. Several frowzy old men looked up from their newspapers and gave me the once over. When I appeared to offer no threat, they went back to browsing their tabloids.
“A set of wobbly stairs lie at the far end of the vestibule; marked with a small sign – ROOMS 20 to 25. I paused for a moment to get my composure, clutched tight to Buck, then climbed, step by step, to the top.
“Looking down the shadowy hallway, I started walking with caution while my nostrils inhaled a musty smell of neglect.
“After several tense moments, I found apartment 24. Knocking on the portal several times, I heard the creaking of footsteps on the other side. My old man, thin, unshaven, with jumbled hair, opened the door. Our eyes met as we scrutinized each other with somber faces.
“I told Charles he looked like hell. A strong hint, I knew he started drinking again. My old man didn’t deny it but blamed me for not calling ahead. After settling our initial grievances at the transom he asked me to come in.
“Cradling Buck in my arms, I walked to a small living area. Old wallpaper, grimy and loose at the corners emphasized the despair in his place. A clump of chewed carpeting revealed mice had found their way to a warm spot near the radiator.
“Charles sat on a dusty brown chair next to an end table. I perched on an overstuffed couch next to the front window where light flooded the room.
“The old man stared at the small bundle in my arms. I asked if he wanted to hold his grandson.
“Although Charles seemed timid about the whole thing, he agreed.
"I handed my first baby boy to the arms of the man who had abandoned me years ago. He rocked him back and forth while I watched, as if the three of us had a normal relationship.
“He asked what I decided to name the baby. My old man seemed pleased and pained when I told him - Jr., Walter Charles Remke, Jr.
“Charles started talking about how bad he felt for the early years I spent in an orphanage and then with the Millers after my Mama died.
“He rambled on saying he just wanted me to stay with my grandparents in Spinnerstown until he could get on his feet but they could only afford to take in my sister, Mary.
“My old man tried to tell me he understood how tough it must have been, growing up without Mary after she died. How the hell could he begin to know anything? Charles ripped my heart out when he took her away from me?
“Then he went into a tirade about how he screwed up all our lives. He apologized for being an alcoholic and never getting his life together.
“Charles babbled on and on how he loved my mother and sister. I only agreed with one thing, he bought Mama the best tombstone money could buy. Fancy Italian marble, it should last forever.
“After Charles stopped talking, I noticed him swiping at tears while rocking Walter Jr. in his arms. We sat in silence while the world outside went about its business.
“An eternity passed before I stood up and reached for my child. Charles handed the small new life back to me with a strange look on his face. My guess, a realization, he failed everyone, me, Mary and my mother.
“I told him Buck needed a noon feeding and nap soon. We walked out the front door and into the hall. I faced my old man and asked him if he enjoyed the visit with his grandson.
“Before he could answer, I grated the words slow and steady so he understood - it would be the last time he’ll ever see him.
”Charles fell apart and begged me to forgive him. Without a word, I turned my back and started walking down the narrow hallway. Before entering the stairway, I glanced at my father as he fell to his knees, sobbing, out of control.
“Reaching the lobby, I could still hear his pathetic cries until the front door closed behind me.
Pop gritted his teeth and sat quiet for a few moments then looked at me.
“Now you know why we never talk about him in this house. The old man got every ounce of pain he deserved.”
My father reached out and grabbed his fedora, smacking it against his leg as if loaded with dust. Before I could say a word he trod out the front door, lighting a Camel on the way.
I felt sad for my grandfather, a stranger to me. My gut tied in knots thinking of Pop ripping away his own humanity, no forgiveness for Charles or chance to know him. My father clutched at his hate and anger, holding it close to his chest, making us all pay a terrible price.
Chapter 3
The school bus wound its way eastward on New England Valley Road headed for Tamaqua High School. As we descended a steep incline, I looked at our town’s black, ugly mountains.
I still remember Pop grumbling, “Those damn earth moving trucks dumped tons of black slag from the top of Tamaqua’s mountains, killing everything in its path.”
Our transportation turned left onto Owrigsburg Street, navigating the bumpy macadam to school, which perched on the south west side of town in the middle of a residential area. We sprang off the shuttle next to the fire station and entered the brick, two story building.
The corridors buzzed with raucous talk as I walked to morning study hall. Sitting on the right side of the room about half way back, I expected a boring morning until the principal called our teacher to his office.
Unnoticed by most of the class, Joe Blatt pulled a jock strap out of his gym bag. Without looking back, he flung it high over his head to the rear of the room. It landed almost dead center on the top of Jane Moley’s head. She screamed but didn’t move, appearing panic-stricken, afraid to touch it. One of her girlfriends grabbed the sweaty strap and threw it in a garbage can. As the end of the period bell rang, the class rolled in laughter, much to the expense of Jane.
As I headed to English 101, Ron Keler pulled up beside me.
“Hey Vance, what do you plan on doing this summer?”
“I don’t know. Maybe work for my Pop as a bricklayer’s helper.”
“Did ya hear? They pay one fifty an hour over at some of the wildcat coal mines east of town. It sounds a lot better than anything at the mills.”
“One fifty an hour. Wow. I’d be earning more than Kenny, who works full time, over at the auto parts store.
“With summer coming in a few months, I want to earn five hundred bucks to buy a used Chevy. I plan to get my driver’s license by February of next year.”
Daydreaming through class, I envisioned myself getting one of those jobs. The rest of the day my head filled with thoughts of cruising Main Street with my own car.
When school let out at three thirty, I walked a quarter mile through inclined streets to the downtown area. I had promised to meet my girlfriend, Reese, at the 5-point diner on Route 309.
The restaurant shined with polished aluminum panels on the outside and a massive lighted sign on the roof. I opened a large glass door in front and walked down the aisle until I saw her at the last booth.
Sliding into the seat, I wrapped my arm around Reese and kissed her sweet and yielding lips. We engaged in small talk about school, classmates, roller skating, dances, oblivious to the people around us until I heard a familiar voice.
Classmate Darryl Grainger exclaimed, “Hey guys, did you hear about the flying jock strap at first period study hall?”
Darryl, followed by Ron Keler loaded into a booth in front of us.
I responded, “Heard hell. I saw it happen. Joe is going to get a big detention slip for that one.”
Darryl chuckled, “Ron tells me you want to work for one of the mines this summer.”
“I might be thinking about it.”
Reese didn’t say a word but I could feel her disapproval. She hated the mines and the haggard old men, covered in coal silt that walked up Mauch Chunk Street on her way home from school.
“Well, you couldn’t get me to mine coal. Too hard and dirty”, Darryl boasted.
“Yeah, but it pays more than working for my Pop as a bricklayer’s helper”, I reasoned.
I felt Reese pinch me on the leg, hard, my queue to change the subject.
Ron pitched in, “Would your Pop be okay with you bootlegging?”
“Maybe….Hey, I could go for something to eat. How about you guys?”
We bought Cokes, fries and hamburgers with tons of catsup, ate our fill then headed for Route 309 Rink. With rented skates we hung out together and bopped to rock and roll music. Surrounded by Reese and my friends, nothing could touch us. But unknown to me, by day’s end, I would tread down a path to change my life forever.
When evening arrived, I walked Reese up the hill, past St. Joe’s Church, to her red-brick house. We sneaked onto the porch and kissed, ignoring the neighbors and even her parents inside.
Time drifted by, enjoying the sweetness of her company, and only with great reluctance, took my leave. “Reese. I should be getting home.”
She grabbed my shirt and pulled me near.
“Don’t forget. You need to fill out an application at some of the stores downtown. A lot of the kids plan to work at Rexall for the summer. Do it for me, please.”
“Sure Reese. But I haven’t made up my mind about anything yet. Besides, whatever I pick, it’ll just be for three months.”
“You promise to apply, soon?”
“Hey, I will. I will. Promise.”
With one last heady kiss, I said good night and sauntered back down the hill. I planned to hitch a ride home with Mr. Michek, an old miner, who could be found at the Brine Bar on the south side of town, just about any evening.
As I reached the Brine and stepped through their open door, I could smell a strong odor of beer and cigarettes. Mirrors lined the room which made it seem twice its actual size. The bar curved into a large U, occupying most of the room except for some small tables in the corners.
Beer tap controls dominated most of the middle counter and a bartender, blonde, shapely, maybe twenties, seemed busy serving drinks. The jukebox played loud, raspy ballads and competed with the muted, pulsating voices of the patrons.
Miners and other blue collar locals crowded the bar. Some of the men engaged in intimate conversation with overdressed women in tight skirts and gaudy jewelry. The gossipers in school said these whores could be bought for $100. They looked out of place from the other females dressed in old faded Levi’s and dirty sneakers.
I stopped for a moment, in awe, to see Cassie Hanks sitting at the bar, a large draft of ale in front of her. She attended the same school and sat in identical classes as me which made her underage to be drinking beer.
To my surprise, she allowed some bearded, unkempt old guy to put his hands all over her though when Cassie saw me she pushed him away. The degenerate said, “Go to hell,” grabbed his beer and bothered one of the harlots at the other end of the bar.
She grabbed her drink and walked over by me. Cassie appeared to look embarrassed about my unexpected presence.
“Hi, Vance. What brings you in here?”
I could have said to mind your own business but answered anyway.
“I want to catch a ride with Mr. Michek. Cassie, this place reeks of trouble. Why would you want to spend any time here?”
“Well, I, uh, live across the street.”
Cassie nodded at an old woman engaged in conversation with the bartender. The haggard female looked foreboding with hunched over shoulders and dark bags under her eyes.
“My Mom and I come here all the time.”
She never answered my question and I didn’t care enough to press the issue. I just wanted a ride home.
“Cassie, I have to go. See you at school”
“Yeah. I guess so. Bye.”
I spied Mr. Michek sitting at the end of the bar, waving his hand at me. I worked my way through the cigarette smoke and crowded tables.
“Vance, come on over here. Hell, you must have grown four inches since last year, a few more and you’ll be tall as me.
I couldn’t help staring at his clothes, bathed in black.
“Hey, you can’t stay clean when you shovel coal silt all day.”
He took one long draw off a hand rolled cigarette and ran his hand through uncombed salt and pepper hair.
“Hi, Mr. Michek. Will you be going to the valley soon?”
He looked down at his half glass of ale.
“Yes, I should have left about five beers ago. Mama will raise the roof if she has supper waiting on me too long.”
I stood there, shuffling back and forth, while he gulped down his drink and threw some change on the bar. Following him out to the parking lot, I climbed into the passenger seat of his black, 1947 Chevy Sedan. Not surprising, the floor reeked of damp coal silt and the upholstery looked ragged and filthy.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, Mr. Michek asked, “So, tell me Vance, do you like school?”
Bewildered he even had an interest, I answered, “Yes. I just started tenth grade.”
After a long pause, he surprised me, “Well, you best earn good grades so you can get out of this place. Most of the mines shut down and the town doesn’t have work for anybody. Only two kinds of people live here, folks who can’t leave and those getting ready to abandon this hopeless place. The rest, including my son, have already gone.
“I should have headed for West Virginia back in the ‘40s, after the big mines shut down. But, it doesn’t help anybody to fester on the past.”
His old Chevy wound its way up the mountain and into the valley past clap board and brick houses occupied by neighbors I knew since my earliest recollection. Minutes later, I saw my father’s house.
“You can drop me right there,” pointing at the two story, cinder block and brick building with a semi-circular Quonset roof.
He hit the brakes and pulled to a stop on my side of the road. Before getting out, I confronted him.
“Mr. Michek, school will be out soon and I need a summer job. Do you have any work at your mine?”
“Well, that depends. Have you ever bootlegged coal? I mean the dark world of illegal mining on state land.”
“No, but I have experience digging and shoveling. I helped my Pop dredge a hole for our septic tank and excavated a basement.”
“Well, mining can be a thousand times more dangerous with guaranteed filthy work. Could you live with those conditions?”
“Yes sir. I think so.”
“Good. Bootlegging doesn’t tolerate the weak or fearful.
“I don’t compete with the big mines because my coal sells by the bag not per ton. Most of my customers tend to be dirt poor. They live from week to week. I pay a buck thirty an hour and forty percent of the profit on every bag sold.”
Hesitating, I mulled it over in my head, then responded, “I hear the other wildcatters pay $1.50 an hour.”
“Yeah, but their help doesn’t sell door to door. They just shovel coal all day.
“Look, I’ve wanted to work an abandoned mine for the past year over on St. Mary’s Mountain. My son, Jake, used to help me but he married an uppity girl from the east side of Tamaqua and moved to Philadelphia.
“I can’t get to the best part of the vein by myself. If we worked together, some nights and Saturdays, we might fill, maybe twenty bags. On Sundays, we could sell them to the needy people on the west side of Tamaqua.
Before I climbed out of his car, Mr. Michek said, “Best I can offer would be one thirty five an hour. You think it over, Vance.”
I slammed the car door shut and looked through the open window, “I will, sir, thanks for the ride.”
Chapter 4
Walking into the living room, I noticed Pop sitting in his reclining chair, staring into space and deep lines of worry filled his forehead like furrows in a corn field.
“We’ll be taking a trip to Aunt Cleona’s this weekend, boy. Pack some clothes and be ready to travel in the morning.”
Mom, Pop and I left before sunrise. The drive south through Harrisburg to Cumberland seemed foreboding. During the silence, I asked Pop why we set out on the trip in such a hurry. He seemed evasive, without a reasonable excuse. Something felt wrong.
We arrived in front of Aunt Cleona’s two story brick townhouse on Laing Avenue about eleven. The day put in an appearance - excellent with blue sky and warm air. However, my mood felt overcast and gloomy.
Auntie greeted Mom and me as always, smothering us with kisses and attention. She welcomed Pop with a cordial, “Hello Walter.” Those two never seemed to feel comfortable in each other’s presence.
We sat and talked about the benign things in our life, Pop’s work, my three brothers and high school. As the conversation grew thin, Cleona asked Mom to help make lunch in the kitchen. I felt nervous and fidgety, sitting in the living room, alone with Pop. Several minutes later, Auntie rejoined us.
“Walter. Thank you for coming right away so I can tell you about Bernice, face to face. I’ve kept a secret for several months now. You need to know the truth about your wife, my sister.
“Just like you asked, I took Bernice to be evaluated by a psychiatrist while she visited in March.”
Tears fell down Auntie’s face like flecks of spring rain. My heart sank watching her in obvious torment.
“I don’t know how to tell you. She stands on the edge of a precipice. The doctor says she suffers from acute depression and early stage dementia. He thinks the condition may have been triggered by traumatic events she endured throughout her life.
“The psychiatrist doesn’t offer any easy answers. Shock treatment, morphine, opium and a dozen other drugs offer no guarantees and might reduce her to little more than a zombie. It terrifies me but the doctor says any ordeal could drive her over the edge into a place where no one will be able to reach her.”
Pop sat there with a grim look on his face, unresponsive to anything Auntie said. Holding back tears, I tried to understand what this meant until anger started to ooze out the sides of my grief.
I ranted, “Why didn’t you tell me she came here to see a psychiatrist?”
“Listen boy, your mother and I grappled with this for a long time. We decided to spare you the anguish.”
“Baloney! You should have let me know. I live in this family, too.”
The conversation ended as Mom came in from the kitchen.
She barked, “Come and get some lunch, everybody.”
As we ate, I tried to sort it all out in my mind. What happens to Mom now? Everyone seemed to avoid talking about it in front of my mother. Maybe she already knew. I decided to wait until the ride home for my two cents worth.
After lunch, Aunt Cleona took us on a tour of the city, visiting the shopping district and museums. Staying busy kept me from thinking about Mom too much, at least for the moment. I dreaded being alone with my thoughts.
Since the trip back took about six hours, we stayed overnight. Next morning, at first light, we drove through the Appalachian Mountains of Central Pennsylvania.
My thoughts recounted the first time I heard Mom in her bedroom, late at night, talking to someone, even though no other presence existed there. She rasped so loud we couldn’t get to sleep.
Buck threw a shoe against the wall and everything went silent. Later, she started up again in a much lower voice. I slipped out of bed, tip toed to her door and overheard two distinct voices coming from inside. I recognized Mom’s voice but the other seemed husky and evil.
“You bitch. I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear.”
“No. You can’t. God…..please have mercy on me.”
“Go ahead, cry, you little whore. I’ll throw your body in the garbage.”
“Get out of my head. Ahhh. Stay away from me.”
I felt numb as the sinister voice continued to spew its curses and talk of violence and death.
From my earliest memory, I knew Mom walked alone in a world of torment. But no one made it official. We wrote it off as Mom’s quirky way. Now, bright sunlight had been cast and labeled her. My mother’s days became laced with depression and at night she fought an enemy within.
Chapter 5
Mom, Pop and I arrived back from our trip late Sunday afternoon. My father had refused to talk about Mom’s condition during the drive. I felt frustrated, sad and alone with my feelings, unable to share my thoughts or seek consoling.
We went through our normal routines as if nothing had happened. Mom washed clothes in preparation for the week ahead. Pop relaxed in his favorite recliner, reading the Sunday paper. I reviewed my home work for Monday and later walked to the front yard where a swing hung from our large maple. Rocking back and forth, I tried to make sense of everything happening around me. I dreaded going to school the next day.
On Monday, with my brain wading through a gray fog, I sat in class, unresponsive, going through the motions of being a student. By Tuesday, I felt better and concentrated on my homework. Come Wednesday, I returned to the Brine Bar, looking for Mr. Michek. I wanted….no, I needed the mining job, for my sanity.
“Have you thought about what I proposed?”
“Yeah, I’ll take the buck thirty five. Maybe the commission on each bag will make up the difference from the bootleggers at the Coaldale digs.”
“Good. You won’t be sorry.”
“When can I start?”
“How about Saturday?”
“Sure. What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
The weekend seemed in perfect harmony, brilliant sunshine, warm temperatures with a sky of deep blue. I waited in a wicker chair next to the front window so I could see him as he pulled in the driveway.
Mom kept busy making coffee and Pop worked in the garden, on the back two acres, picking strawberries. Soon afterward, I saw Mr. Michek pull into the driveway with an old Ford pickup truck. I scurried to the kitchen and gave Mom a kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll see you later.”
“When will you be home?”
“Sometime before dark, I suppose.”
“Please be careful out in those mountains, dear.”
“Okay Mom.”
I raced out the door with my old work jacket in hand and slid into the passenger’s seat.
“Morning, Mr. Michek.”
“Good Morning, Vance. We have one stop to pick up bags and shovels, then we’ll head for the mine.”
We drove into Lewistown Valley. A rural area with some farms spread here and there over the landscape. As we pulled into a narrow dirt driveway, I noticed an assortment of discarded, rusted appliances, cars and trucks dispersed about the front yard.
Two young girls came running out of the two story farm house which sat back from the road. Soon after an older woman and teenage girl emerged and walked in our direction. I recognized the teenager, Anna Michek. She also attended Tamaqua High School and we even shared some of the same classes.
“Papa, why have you brought Vance here?”
“He will be helping me at a mine just outside of Mary-D. You know the one, way up on top of St. Mary’s Mountain.
“Vance, meet my wife, Mary, and our twin girls, Zofia and Ewa. It appears you already know Anna.”
“Hello Mrs. Michek, Anna, Zofia and Ewa.”
The young girls jumped and down, yelling, “Hi! Hi!”
Anna looked grim as she nodded but her mother greeted me with a big smile and warm handshake, “Nice to know you.”
“Vance, wait here. I’ll get the tools and come right back”, Kooba proclaimed.
Mr. Michek and his wife walked to an old red barn at the back of the property. They opened two large doors and disappeared inside.
After several minutes of silence, Anna snipped, “So, you help my father with the mine. Do you know about the dangerous work? Did he tell you?”
“No, but he didn’t have to. I grew up knowing about mining cave-ins and how they killed people. Everyone who lives in these parts remembers when Mr. Kreiger died in the Schulykill Mine last year”
Kooba interrupted Anna when he approached us, carrying his mining equipment. We didn’t have a chance to finish our conversation.
Mr. Michek laid his tools in the truck bed and latched the back.
“All right, two pick axes, two chip hammers, two shovels, assorted winch and pulley parts and gloves. Oh, I almost forgot the pigeon. Be right back.”
A moment later, he ran back with a bird cage containing one small, pathetic pigeon.
“We always test the air before going down any black hole. Methane will kill you in minutes.
“Okay, I think we have everything. Let’s go, Vance.”
Boarding the truck, he yelled to his family as we left, “I’ll be back by dark!”
I looked out the side window at Anna as we pulled onto the macadam. The sour look on her face seemed obvious; she either had a problem with me, bootlegging or both. Should I be concerned? Nah. What could a skinny, teenage girl do anyway?
Kooba’s old truck chugged East through Lewistown Valley and then North over the mountain. It looked like another world once we crossed Route 209. A terrible Armageddon laid the entire region to waste. Ugly black chunks of earth and rock had been heaved about in nauseating contortions, dominating the terrain, unending to the horizon.
We turned off the narrow blacktop highway onto a winding dirt road and headed up the mountain. Overgrown trees whipped at the sides. The incline seemed so steep at times I felt we would tip over.
“The mine sits near a crest overlooking a range of trees,” Kooba instructed, sounding like a tour guide.
Rusted, mining equipment littered the peak, parked at random angles, appearing abandoned, as if without care and in a hurry. Old Polish women with babushkas around their heads walked the road, bags of coal slung over their shoulders. And open strip mines, deep trenches, with black residue around the edges. I imagined how those, holes to hell, must have intimidated anyone who dared to come near.
Kooba pulled over and we stepped onto to the flat area of a slag dump. I helped lug empty bags, a wheelbarrow, picks and shovels off the truck. The first chasm I walked past looked so deep, a black void overwhelmed the bottom. I felt frozen in place, afraid to move any closer. After several long moments, we gave a wide birth to the menacing gash and the darkness within. We climbed the summit of St. Mary’s Mountain to Mr. Michek’s abandoned diggings.
I noticed an old 1949 Ford, pinned to the ground with thick stakes. It had no tires, just one metal rim. A thick metal cable coiled around it and threaded its way through a pulley to a rusted boxcar on metal rails. This mishmash of parts sat next to the opening of the mine.
“Have you ever used a pulley and bucket before?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll show you everything you’ll need to know.”
He unlocked the driver’s door, crawled in and started the car. After letting it run several minutes, he shifted gears into reverse and lowered the boxcar until the cable went slack, signaling the car hit bottom.
Then he shifted to first gear and started raising the bucket. I heard the creaking and groaning of metal on metal. The weight stressed and pulled on the stakes holding the car in place until it reached the top.
“All right, now you try it.”
Taking a deep breath, I managed an unsure, “Okay, I’ll do my best.”
I ground the gears in an effort to find reverse. Then, I hit the gas and started to release the clutch. Without warning the bucket fell several feet.
“Hey! Hey! You don’t need to goose it so much to lower the bucket.”
Nervous, I strained to control the pedal. After several attempts, I succeeded in lowering then raising the bucket. For almost an hour, I lowered, raised, lowered, raised, over and over. With sweat beading on my forehead and the sun beating down, Mr. Michek grabbed my arm.
“Hold up. I think you can do the real thing now. You ready?”
I felt my heat beating fast.
“Sure.”
“Good, we just might get some mining done today.”
He pointed to a small metal box mounted on the dash.
“This alarm has wires all the way to the bottom of the mine. I’ll buzz twice to stop, once to start.”
He loaded the tools and empty bags then climbed in the bucket. Kooba smiled at me, showing crooked teeth and nodded his head.
“Just continue what you’ve been doing most of this morning.”
I took a deep breath. Everything moved in slow motion and the loud engine seemed little more than a hum as I tuned it out of my consciousness.
Taking short breaths, I lowered him down. After several agonizing minutes, I heard the signal rasp twice. I turned off the car and locked the pulley so it couldn’t move. Almost an hour later, I felt relieved to hear the irritating sound of the buzzer. As I brought the bucket up to the top, I saw Mr. Michek, flashing a big thumb’s up, sitting on ten full bags.
“Now it’s your turn. I chipped enough coal for at least ten more bags.”
Looking at the black abyss in front of me, I climbed in the bucket and knelt on the floor. It rocked gently from side to side as I positioned myself in the middle. When Mr. Michek started the hoist, a band tightened across my chest. I couldn’t breathe for a moment but soon focused on the thrill of my first venture underground.
Turning around with my back toward Kooba’s mine, the bucket started down an inclined track and sunlight became displaced by velvet black. I fired up the sulfur lamp attached to my helmet while a battle between courage and fear waged on in my head. Under the light of my small lantern, I saw the walls of the shaft pass by and then the pile of coal ore that Mr. Michek talked about. I signaled twice and the bucket lurched to a stop.
Putting my anxiety aside, I concentrated on breaking the large coal chunks into smaller ones. Then I shoveled the anthracite into bags. At first it felt awkward trying to hold the sack and then shovel the fist size pieces into the opening. After several bags, I became proficient at it.
With the last sack, I sewed the tops shut using a large needle and cord. Finished with my task, once again, I sensed cold darkness swelling around me.
I rang the buzzer and a moment later the bucket jolted forward. Filled with excitement, I felt an overwhelming sense of achievement. I shoveled coal, just like miners of an earlier generation.
Loading our eighty pound bags of anthracite into the truck, we headed back to Tamaqua. Kooba and I pulled onto Owrigsburg Street in the old section of town and started knocking on doors.