Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [15]
“He’s okay.”
“The situation stinks.” Spec tears a stick of gum in two and offers me half. I decline. He chews one piece and puts the other in his shirt pocket. “You know they got this new thing now.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a new way to get coal out. Instead of digging it, you start at the top of a mountain and mine from the outside. Kindly like peelin’ an apple. You mine down the outside of the mountain and then through.”
“What happens to the mountain?”
“Eventually, it’s gone. It disappears.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yep. It is. If a bunch of ferriners come in here and mow our mountains flat, what will we be? Indiana?” Spec leans across the counter and shakes the March of Dimes coin canister. “A job’s a job, though. Maybe this here new technology is the answer.”
“I don’t know.” I smile at him, but he knows and I know that new technology isn’t going to help us. The companies have decided that they can go elsewhere in the world and mine coal more cheaply. There isn’t anything we can do.
“I don’t neither. Maybe some of these politicians ’round here will get off their arses and get the tourism thing going.”
“Maybe they will.”
“We got a lot around here to offer folks. The mountains. The beauty. Huff Rock. The Valley. Keokee Lake. Big Cherry Lake. You been up ’ere lately? Oh, it’s a beauty. The Dickensons put in a boat launch—no motors up there. Only manual. It’s something.” Spec neatens the rack of cough drops.
“Spec. Do you need something?”
He looks at me and laughs. His laugh turns into a hack. He clears his throat. “I need you to come back on the Rescue Squad.”
Spec has got to be kidding. Volunteering on the Rescue Squad when I was single was a natural thing; I was the town pharmacist trained in CPR and first aid, so soon I was assisting Spec. But it’s been almost ten years since I was on board. I don’t have the time anymore. “You know I can’t. I’ve got the kids—I mean, Etta.”
Spec looks away at the reference to Joe. I’m not offended by that, it happens a lot. Whenever I talk about Joe (and that’s rare), folks quickly change the subject. It’s not that they’re being rude or insensitive, they just don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s too painful for people to look into the eyes of a mother whose child has died, so they’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. Or maybe they think if they mention Joe, it will hurt me all over again. Joe’s life was so brief, just a small piece of the landscape of our long lives in these parts. Except maybe for Spec. I believe Spec remembers Joe the way I do.
Spec was Joe’s godfather, even though he isn’t Catholic. In fact, I found out later that Spec had never set foot in a “Cath-lick” church on account of the way he was raised. Catholics were strange and mysterious and not to be trusted. But he bucked up the day Joe was baptized, and made it to the church, even though he was shaking so bad from nerves he almost dropped the baby.
“I hate to turn you down.”
“Then don’t. I can’t keep nobody. I had that Trudy Qualls running shotgun with me for a while, and she just didn’t work out. Tried to boss me. You know how I am. I don’t mind living with one bossy woman, but I ain’t gonna work with one too.”
I’d like to help Spec. I would. He’s been there for me on some of the worst days of my life.
“Come on, Ave. For old times’ sake.”
There were lots of good times with Spec on squad detail: cat rescues, setting off confiscated fireworks for all the kids in town when there was no other means to destroy them, decorating the Rescue Squad wagon to ride in the parade at the state capital when Big Stone Gap’s own Linwood Holton