Big Stone Gap (4 page)

“Jesus,” Spec says under his breath.

“Anybody actually injured?” I whisper.

Spec ignores me.

“I’m scared,” a familiar deep voice says behind me.

“You should be,” I whisper back. “The teacher’s lounge is next.”

“Dinner tonight? After the show?”

“I’d love to.”

The deep voice, and now my date for the evening, is my best friend, the band and choral director of Powell Valley High School, Theodore Tipton, formerly of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Every once in a while the mines or the school will hire someone from the outside world. Inevitably, they move in and shake things up. Theodore brought our band back to life and simultaneously goosed the libidos of all the women in town. (“He’s a humdinger,” Iva Lou says with relish every time she sees him. “The man makes a pair of Levi’s sing.”) Theodore also stars as Preacher Red Fox in the Outdoor Drama. We became friends when he auditioned nine years ago and I cast him on the first round. I had to. His face reading told me that he was loyal and true and fiercely protective. I knew if I cast him we would spend lots of time together, and we have. His face is square-shaped, with a defined jaw. He has a firm chin with a dimple in it. He can look strong, like an Irish pirate, or intellectual, like a preoccupied poet. He is tall, with blue eyes and a red beard. Even though all the available women in town chase him (and a few married ones, too), he spends all of his spare time with me. We’re “feriners”—even though I was born here, I’m considered a feriner because my mother was one—but that’s just the start of what we have in common.

The principal wraps up the assembly with a couple more threats for the student body. If the guilty party doesn’t fess up, he promises to suspend the smoking areas outside. This brings a groan from the students. The chaplain places a shoe box marked
ANONYMOUS
on the podium. Lurch tells the kids it will be placed in the gym so anyone with tips regarding the toilet incident can leave them in there. He dismisses the assembly. The student body rises. As the kids exit in an orderly fashion, most of them acknowledge Theodore. He is popular and respected, the perfect reputation for a teacher.

Only one student stops to speak to me: Pearl Grimes, fifteen years old, a sweet mountain girl with a weight problem. She often window-shops at the Mutual. I walk down the hall with my arm around her.

“My skin’s done broke out agin.” Pearl hangs her head sadly.

“I got something for that. Come by the Mutual and see me.”

“All right.” She shrugs. She doesn’t believe me.

“Don’t you know the more pimples you got now, the less wrinkles you’ll have later?”

Finally, Pearl smiles. Her face, heart-shaped, with a high forehead, tells me that she is emotional yet fair. Her nose is small and turns up slightly. Her cheeks are full and round—the cheeks of a monarch—which means she can handle power.

Pearl blends off into the sea of students. Theodore takes my arm.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Sure.”

“What’s new?”

“I’m a bastard.”

Theodore laughs, which gets me laughing too. “Did you bust a shoplifter or something?”

“No. I didn’t behave like a bastard. I mean the literal definition.”

“What?”

“I settled Mama’s will today. She left me a letter. Fred Mulligan wasn’t my father.” Theodore is surprised but remains cool for my benefit. He knows everything about Fred Mulligan and me. When I shared all those stories, Theodore always got a look like he’d kill anyone who hurt me. This new information surprises him.

Theodore leads me out the front entrance to the car. Spec sits behind the wheel.

“Get in, Ave,” Spec grumbles, lighting a cigarette. “That was a waste of my time.”

“See you tonight,” Theodore says as he closes the door. He touches my cheek. I look up to the second-floor science lab. Pearl Grimes stands in the window, watching us. From here, in the mellow afternoon light, she has a regal countenance, like a queen looking down on her subjects. I give her a quick wave good-bye. She smiles.

 CHAPTER TWO

On top of everything else, my roof leaks. It needs to be patched, and fast. The town handymen are a pair of brothers, Otto and Worley Olinger. They drive an open flatbed truck around town and pick up people’s discards. Some days you’ll see them with a wringer washing machine strapped to the back of the truck; another day it’ll be a couple of railroad ties and a stuffed bear head. In some parts they’re known as the Are Y’all Using That? Brothers because that’s how they greet you when they want something from your yard.

Otto appears to be the older of the two. He is short-legged and sturdy, with gray hair and a few teeth left on the bottom. He has a distinctive nose—it has a shelf on the upper bridge, which indicates he’s good with money. Worley has thick red hair and is tall and lean. His long face matches his long body. Nobody in town is exactly sure how old they are because they did not matriculate through the school system. But they seem to have been around forever.

I join them up on my roof. I manage a Thermos of coffee and a few fresh ham biscuits for the boys.

“Time for a break, gentlemen,” I say as I crawl toward them.

“Miss Ave, you afraid of heights?”

“Uh-huh.” I try not to look down as I answer.

Worley extends his hand to me. “Don’t be. We won’t let you fall. Anyhow, the ground is soft. I fell off the post office when we was fixin’ an exhaust fan. Landed on my head. It weren’t so bad.”

“That’s a lie,” Otto says. “I caught you.”

“How bad is my roof, boys?”

“I seen worse,” Otto decides.

“I let everything around here go to hell when Mama was sick.”

“It happens.” Worley shrugs.

“I should be able to keep y’all busy through the winter.”

“We need the work. We’ll do a good job for ye,” Otto promises.

There is a long silence. I’ve never been on my roof. I can see pretty far. Fall has definitely moved in. The treetops look like orange and red feathers to the edge of town. I wish I had brought Mama out here. She would have loved being able to see so far. I check the pocket of my overalls for her letter. I manage to carry it everywhere with me, even though I don’t need to. (I’ve read it so many times that I’ve memorized it.) I wish she had left instructions. Why did she tell me this story? Did she want me to try and find Mario da Schilpario? Or did she just want me to know so I would understand Fred Mulligan? So much to think about.

“If I had a roof like this, I’d set up here all the day,” Worley announces.

“My brother don’t like workin’.”

“Naw, I don’t. I like sleepin’ and eatin’. Workin’ wears me out. Wind up all tarred and ferget how I spent the day.”

“That’s how I feel after a day of counting pills.”

“Ye ought to git murried, Miss Ave. Womens ain’t supposed to work like ’at.”

“Otto, I ain’t husband hunting. And I like my job. Okay?” I say this flatly; inquiries regarding my marital status are an everyday thing for me. Folks always want to let me know—even though I’m not married—that I’m okay, certainly nice enough to have a husband.

“Ye oughtn’t wait too long to git murried. Git set in your ways and then nobody’ll want you.”

“What if they like my set ways?”

“She’s done got a point there, Otto,” his brother says.

“You ever been in love, Worley?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How about you, Otto?”

Otto doesn’t answer.

“Otto was sweet on a girl once. You was, brother. You was!”

“Keeping secrets from me, Otto?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Do tell, then.”

“I done had me a true love, but it was many, many years ago. Well, it was summer. I was ’bout fifteen. Mama done made me go to town fer jars. She was canning her some chow chow. Walkin’ down, I passed a trailer. Lot of kids runnin’ around. Their people, I could just tell, was Melungeon. They had that dark color, and that look of them. There was a girl there. She had her some black hair, shiny and straight in braids. I ’member thinkin’ that the braids look like them garlands over the bank door. They was that long. And she had her some black eyes like coal. And she was small. Tiny, like a matchbox? Reminded me of that storybook about the fairy girl.”

“Thumbelina?”

“Yeah. Thumbelina.”

“What was your girl’s name?”

“Destry.” Otto looks away at the mention of her name. “Best name I ever heard,” he says quietly.

“So what happened?”

“The summer passed. And pert near every day she walked with me. I grew to like ’at and look forward to it. One day she couldn’t go with me, and I missed her bad. I knew then that I loved her. Turned out her pappy moved their trailer over to Stonega. I walked over there about five miles. I done had something to give her. My mama had a little silver ring with a red stone in it. And I loved Destry so much, I stole it and give it to her.”

“How do you like ’at!” Worley said, laughing.

“You must have loved her very much to steal for her.”

“That I did, ma’am. That I did.”

“Mama done whooped the tar out of Otto when she found out. Beat him with a switch till it snapped in two.”

“Yup, and then Daddy done came home and beat me, too.” Otto reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a wad of paper crumbles, nails, and a five-dollar bill. He sifts through the stuff and pulls out the tiny silver ring. He gives it to me.

“Go ahead. Try it on.”

I put the ring on my finger.

“For a big girl, you got little fingers,” Worley observes.

“What a beautiful ring.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Where is Destry now?”

“She died.” Otto sighs.

“That’s the sad part of the story,” Worley says. He looks at his brother with great feeling.

“Yes, ma’am. She died. Melungeons git all sorts of things—they catch just about anything that’s out there, and they’re weak, so it tends to take ’em. She was sixteen when she died. I wanted to murry her, but she was too sick.”

“Why do the Melungeons die like ’at?” Worley asks.

“Well, the theory is that there’s a lot of inbreeding there. Up in the mountains, folks didn’t mix with the general population. And that hurt them. Because the more of a mix you get, the stronger the blood. Or so the doctors believe.”

“Where do they come from?”

“
Melungeon
comes from the French word
mélange
. It means ‘mixed.’ ”

“I thought the Melungeons were them folks from the Lost Colony down in North Carolina.”

“That’s another theory.”

“What’s the Lost Colony?” Worley asks.

“Ye tell him, Miss Ave,” Otto says.

“I think the Lost Colony was more of a tale told in the hills rather than actual fact. But the story goes that settlers from England landed on the North Carolina coast near Virginia. The ship dropped them off with supplies, and they built a colony. There was a fort, gardens, little houses, a church—things were going well. But when the ships returned from England a year later, the colony was a ghost town. Beds were made. Books were on shelves. Clothes were hanging in the closets. But no people. The people had vanished. They looked for them but never found them. There was only one clue: the word
Croatan
was carved on a tree. Some believe that a settler carved that before he was kidnapped away by the Indians. It’s just a guess, though. So, a Melungeon could be a person who descends from a mix of the settlers and Indians, who hid here in these hills and never left. Your Destry could have been a descendant of those people.”

“Well, all I know is I never loved no other.” Otto says this with such clarity, I know it is true.

The three of us sit and drink our coffee. We’re all thinking about little Destry. Otto had the real thing and lost it. I hope someday my heart will open up and have a love like that.

The open-air amphitheater for
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
Drama was built next door to the home of the only famous person to ever come from this town, the author John Fox, Jr., who wrote the book that inspired our play. Mr. Fox was a talented loner who lived with his mother and sister. His book of 1908,
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,
was the best-selling novel in the United States prior to
Gone with the Wind
. It’s the first fact you’re told on the tour of the Fox home. The town turned their home into a gift shop, where you can buy key chains, postcards, and corn-husk dolls. Next to it is the theater, and next door to the theater is the original one-room schoolhouse from John Fox, Jr.’s childhood. The state funds to refurbish it haven’t come through, so you can’t go inside, just look through the window. The tour buses roll in to the cul-de-sac, and it sort of landlocks the audienceto spend money. Visitors peruse the gift shop and eat at the Kiwanis Club sloppy-joe stand during intermission.

I love the Drama because growing up I spent most of my summers backstage. Mama designed and sewed all the costumes for the show. There was always something needing mending or replacing, so Mama and I would walk over and tend to the problem. I always loved theater people, even though I was a little scared of them with their elaborate wigs, long black eyelashes, and bright red cheeks. The cast was always nice to me, and once they even let me come onstage with them in the finale. I never forgot the excitement of those footlights, the torches that lit the back wall and the cluster of musicians in the sawdust orchestra pit downstage. It only stood to reason that someday I would grow up and help out. Mazie Dinsmore, the grande dame director of the first season, a tugboat of a woman with the vision of Cecil B. DeMille, spotted me early on and taught me how to direct. I served as her prompter (the girl who crouches offstage and feeds lines to the actors who forget where they are or what to say). This was an important job because more than one of our lead actors was known to hit the Old Grand-Dad before and during a performance. One night I fed a tipsy Cory Tress his line and he looked at me in the wings and said, “What?” He got a huge laugh. But those sorts of flubs are rare. We’re amateurs, but we do take the Drama seriously. There was another night when a flat of scenery painted to indicate a drawing room in a Kentucky Bluegrass mansion started to teeter and was about to fall. I slipped onto the stage and grabbed it before it crushed the actors. Mazie never forgot that. She felt I had the stomach for directing. I never panicked. She thought that was one of the most important attributes in a director.

Backstage at the Drama there is always a disorganized cacophony of kids running around, musical-instrument warm-ups, dancers doing their stretches, and actors running their lines. Tonight is closing night, the last show of our season. It’s a free performance for the families and friends of the cast and crew, so it’s standing room only. Nerves run high when we’re putting on the show for the town; somehow, performing for strangers is easier.

The play is about a mountain girl named June Tolliver who falls in love with John Hale, a coal inspector from Kentucky. He takes this wildcat girl and sends her to the Bluegrass to be refined and educated by his aristocratic sister, Helen. When she returns to her mountains after having the Pygmalion pulled on her, she doesn’t fit in. In fact, she is too cultured for John Hale, who cannot believe what a lady she has become. They get past all that, though, and admit they’ve loved each other all along. It’s a classic story, and it gets the audience every single time. My favorite moment in the play is in the first act, when June’s father, Devil Judd Tolliver, finds out that John Hale is in love with his fifteen-year-old daughter. He tries to blow the coal inspector’s head off. The lines go:

DEVIL JUDD:
My Juney is too young for ye.

JOHN HALE:
She won’t always be fifteen, sir. I’ll wait.

The actual blocking has been handed down for years, so all I do is say, “You go here,” “You stand there,” “Look surprised when the gun goes off,” and “No chewing gum.” I just follow the instructions from Mazie’s promptbook. (When she died she willed it to the John Fox, Jr., Museum.) Any of the special touches we owe to Mazie Dinsmore and her theatrical vision. She put actual gunfire into the show and added the preshow of roving bluegrass musicians and singers to entertain the audience before curtain. The preshow has set us apart from all the other outdoor dramas on the circuit. Audiences love the traditional bluegrass music, and of course, they can’t wait to see our world-famous backdrop: a painting, the size of half a football field, that is an exact replica of the mountain view you see behind it. It’s a dazzler at twilight, when you’re sitting in the audience and you see a painting of the actual vista from your seat.

The hardest part of directing is the scheduling. Because we are not professionals, everybody has a job or two outside of the Drama. I’ve got musicians who are coal miners and work the hoot-owl shift (midnight to lunch), teachers who are busy all day, farmers who work weekends. It’s a juggling act, but it is the most fun I’ve ever had. I love mountain music—the Celtic Scotch-Irish sound of regret, low wailing tunes like “Barbara Allen” and “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.” I always thought I loved that music because of Fred Mulligan. He was Scotch-Irish. The music was our one connection, the only mutual thing we loved. Now I must let go of that, too.