“You’d better set down.” Iva Lou rises out of her seat at Bessie’s to make room for me in the booth. She has ordered for me, my usual sloppy joe and Diet Coke, and has already picked at her macaroni and cheese.
“I’m sorry I’m late. What’s wrong? Did your tests come back?” Iva Lou had a full-service physical at Holston Valley—blood, stress test, the works.
“Hell, they told me I was fine over there. I just have to go back for a couple more things, but so far, I’m as healthy as a horse.”
“Good.”
“No, honey, this is about Etta. I’d rather you hear it from a friend.”
“What?”
“It’s a beaut. I gotta say, at least your daughter sticks to the tried and true.”
My mind races, but I can’t imagine what could be wrong. Etta has been an angel since the Roof Incident. She went to the band festival in Bristol, which Jack and I chaperoned. Her first report card of the year was all A’s. She doesn’t talk on the phone too much and isn’t boy crazy. In a week, she and I are going to New York City to see Theodore, just the two of us. I can’t imagine what Iva Lou is talking about.
“It’s gonna be all over town, and you need to know first.”
“Know what?” I say in a measured tone.
“Etta pulled a prank.”
“A prank?” This is a word a mother hates to hear.
“Well, here’s what happened. Ole Kate Benton made the kids run laps after a bad band rehearsal. Evidently, the kids were really slacking off, and of course, she made everyone run the laps, from the flag girls to the banner carriers.”
“So?”
“The kids thought this was unfair, and they rebelled.”
“How?”
“Etta and a few other kids ordered a ton of coal to be delivered to Miss Benton’s house over on Wyandotte Avenue.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yep, and she has gas heat.”
“No.” Delivering coal to someone with a gas furnace is one of the classic pranks that local kids pull, and it surfaces every ten years or so. Basically, some kid calls the coal-delivery service and asks to have a ton of coal delivered for the winter. In these parts, everything, including coal delivery, is done on an honor system; no deposit, they bill you after they deliver. The customer sets the date (usually sometime in November), and the truck shows up and dumps a mountain of coal in the yard. The customer is responsible for shoveling it down into the basement. You can tell how much of the winter season is left as these mountains of coal diminish in backyards all over town.
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.” Iva Lou laughs.
“It’s not funny. It’s against the law.”
“Oh, loosen up. I remember when I was girl, we called the Roy A. Green Funeral Home over in Appalachia, and we told them our principal died of a heart attack and to come fetch him. So old Roy got in his black Buick and drove over to the principal’s house. His wife came to the door, and Roy looked at her with them sad bug eyes and said, ‘Ma’am, we’ve come for the body.’ She fainted dead away. Now, that was a good un.”
“Hilarious,” I tell Iva Lou. But I’m not laughing.
I call Jack, who heard the news from the principal, who is first cousin to Jack’s business partner, Rick Harmon, and is about to head up to the school. He’s furious and tells me that he will handle it.
As I drive back to town, I take a turn toward Wyandotte Avenue to assess the damage for myself. I’m not sure which house the band director lives in, but then I remind myself, don’t be stupid, just look for the two-story pile of coal in the backyard.
I find her house, and it’s even worse than I imagined. The mountain of shiny black lumps glistens in the afternoon sun like the diamonds they would be someday if left in the earth. The ranch house actually looks smaller than the pile of coal, but that’s probably due to my fury and perspective. There’s a car in the driveway (it too looks miniature compared to the coal pile), so I pull up and park. I see Spec’s Rescue Squad wagon parked near the coal. He makes his way around the side of the house and joins me, shaking his head. “It’s a humdinger.”
“Hey, Spec. What are you doing here?”
“Miss Benton didn’t know who else to call, so I told her I’d come and make the arrangements.”
“I can’t believe my kid did this.”
“She had her some help.”
“Don’t defend her, Spec,” I tell him gently.
“Oh, I ain’t. I ain’t. But you know how them kids is, they git that group-think goin’, and here’s the result of it.”
“It just makes me sick.”
“I talked to Delmer Wilson over to the coal company, and he’s ready to send a truck over whenever y’all figger out who’s going to pay for the labor.”
“I’d like to send Etta to a military academy.”
“Now, Ave.” Whenever Spec says this, it means fatherly advice is to follow. “You need to keep a cool head in a hot ’tater of a situation. Overreactin’ is as bad as no response. Remember what I taught you about responding to emergencies? Stay in charge and remain calm. Okay?”
Spec walks me to the front sidewalk, pats me on the back, and heads back to his wagon. My legs are weak as I take the steps up to the front door; I am so full of dread, you’d think I had pulled this prank myself.
Miss Benton comes to the door. She is wearing a windbreaker and white sweatpants and has a whistle around her neck. She has an aristocratic face—a fine nose and the high forehead of a leader. Her sharp jawline is softened by her auburn curls, pulled into a loose ponytail. She might be forty, but she is tall and lean with square broad shoulders, so she’s in that ageless category.
“Hi. I’m so sorry, Miss Benton.”
“It’s a mess,” she says quietly.
“We will punish Etta.”
“I just put sod in the backyard so it could take before the winter. Now it’s ruined.”
“We’ll replace it.”
“Well.”
“I’m really sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. She doesn’t invite me in, but then why should she? My daughter has ruined her property. Suddenly she turns away.
“Miss Benton, are you all right?”
She turns to face me, her eyes full of tears. “It’s just so . . . shitty.” She takes a deep breath. “You know I moved here from Richmond, the big city, and I thought, well, Big Stone Gap, in the mountains, it’s a small town. It’ll be fun, a new adventure. All my friends warned me, it’s a dead end to move to a place where there’s no life outside of school. But I love what I do, and on weekends I have the National Guard, so I thought I’d give it a shot. But this is just, well, it’s too much. I don’t mind not being liked, but I don’t want to be hated.”
“They don’t hate you!”
“Oh, okay. This is something that kids who like you would do,” she snaps.
I am standing face-to-face with a woman whose shoes I’ve been in, whose frustrations I shared for most of my adult life, and I want to tell her that I understand what it means to be single in a small town, to be alone, to have to take care of a house, from leaks in the roof to kinks in the furnace to mowing the lawn, to deal with bad news from family far away and hear good news from the same and have no one to share it with. To long for connection, to want to be a part of the bigger picture and yet to love your solitude, to have time to think and silence to read with no one to answer to or tend to. To hoard privacy, the greatest luxury, knowing that though it’s the very thing that keeps you separate from people, it’s so meaningful and delicious that you don’t care. I know about working hard all week and being so busy that weekends aren’t weekends, just two extra days to be useful. I know what she is feeling, and I want her to know that.
“I understand. I was alone in this town for a long time,” I tell her.
“Then you know.”
“Yes ma’am, I do.”
Kate puts her hand on the door, signaling that she is done opening u
p to me. I turn to go down the steps. She stops me.
“What’s a ferriner?” she asks quietly.
“Someone who moves to these parts from the outside. A foreigner. Why do you ask?” But I have a sick feeling I know the answer.
“I was just wondering. One of the kids called me that.”
“We’ll get the coal cleaned up and the sod replaced,” I promise her.
She closes the screen door.
I feel so bad for Kate Benton. She might feel like a ferriner, but now she knows that is exactly how she is perceived. Every time we attract talented people to this area, we end up driving them away when they dare to do things differently or take a firm stand with our children. Ferriners are outsiders, but we make them outcasts. Why should she stay here? What is here for her? At least I had Theodore to share things with, to go places, to have a life outside my work. We loved all the same things—good books, good food, and the theater. I hardly noticed time passing in the ten years that Theodore lived here, I was so happy to have a like-minded friend. We’d go and climb around caves and see movies in Kingsport and go to the mall. When one of us needed an escort to some party or event, we’d always go together. Kate Benton doesn’t have a Theodore. I don’t know how long she’ll last around here without one.
Fleeta is locking up when I stop by the Pharmacy on my way home.
“How bad was it?” she asks as she sorts through the keys on a large brass ring.
“It’s terrible.”
“Yeah, Misty confessed the whole thing to her mama, who told Iva Lou at the li-berry.” Fleeta pauses, waiting for me to respond. When I don’t, she continues, “Yeah, it’s a bad thing them kids did. But at least Etta made the group confess to the principal. That ought to make you feel better.” Fleeta lights up one of the two cigarettes she’s smoking per day now.
It should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. “I don’t want to talk about it, Fleeta.”
“All youngins git into messes one time or another. You know what I went through with Pavis.” Fleeta exhales so deeply, it’s as if she blows out an additional pocket of old smoke from deep within her lungs.
How could I forget Pavis? When he was in high school, I had to advance Fleeta her paycheck several times so she could bail him out of the town jail for infractions that varied from public drunkenness to selling illegal fireworks to minors.
“Poor pitiful Pavis,” Fleeta says as though it’s his given name. She continues, “When the police picked him up the first time, they come by my house to let me know they had him. And I don’t even remember the charges, I just remember I took a fit of cryin’. I said to the cop, ‘Why? Why do I have two normal youngins who act right and one Pavis who’s forever in a mess? How could one child turn out so badly?’ And he said, ‘Ma’am, there’s an old saw, and it’s true: You plant corn, you git corn.’ ” Fleeta sighs and goes to lock up the Soda Fountain.
My hands begin to shake on the steering wheel as I make the turn up Cracker’s Neck Road. I try to remember what Spec told me, try to stay calm, but my body has other ideas. When I told Jack I would meet them at home, we were both furious, but I think he was still a bit taken aback by my tone of voice. And now that I’ve seen the pile of coal, my mood is even worse. I park my Jeep and take a moment to sit and breathe before going inside.
“Etta. Come down here. Now.”
Jack stands back from the stairs, signaling that he wants to have a private talk with me. I raise my hand to stop him. I don’t even put my purse down. Etta appears at the top of the stairs and grips the banister in fear.
“I just came from Miss Benton’s house.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Really.”
“I really am.”
“Have you told Miss Benton?”
“The principal called us into the office before band practice, and Miss Benton came, and we all told her that we were sorry.”
“So it’s all better now?”
Etta shrugs.
“Answer me.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No ma’am.”
“Come downstairs.”
Etta gingerly makes her way down the stairs. I go into the living room. Jack and Etta follow me. I motion for her to sit. “How did this happen?”
“Me and Misty—”
“Misty and I.”
“Misty and I were in the library, and she told me that when her dad was in high school, he called Westmoreland Coal and had a ton sent to Mr. Bates, his biology teacher. And we thought it was funny.”
“Oh, it’s funny. Did you see what you did?”
Etta shakes her head.
“Do you know that Miss Benton just moved here and she’s all alone? Can you imagine how she feels?”
Etta looks at me. Clearly, she hasn’t thought about Miss Benton.
“First of all, you’re going to clean up the mess. You and your pals.”
“She knows that.” Jack looks at her sternly.
“And you’re not going to New York.”
Etta looks up at me. “What?”
Jack almost says something, but I don’t give him a chance. “You heard me. You’re not going to New York.”
“But it was a joke!”
“I hope you had a good laugh, because that’s all you’re getting out of it. Go to your room.”
Etta gets up slowly and walks to the doorway. I can tell she wants to say something, but she thinks better of it and climbs the stairs to her room.
I collapse onto the couch. Jack sits down next to me.
“How could this happen?” I ask him.
“They’re kids.”
“That’s no excuse. I’m really worried about her.”
“Why?”
“She runs with all these older kids. That’s not good.”
“You mean Misty?”
“Misty, the kids in the band.”
“She carries the banner.”
“Still.”
“She’s really sorry.”
“Too bad.”
“No, she really means it. She cried at the principal’s office.”
“What is it, Jack? Do you think I’m overreacting?” Jack doesn’t answer me. “I went to see Kate Benton, and she was devastated. I bet she moves out of town over this.”
“Why?”
“God, Jack, don’t you get it? She’s all alone over there. She moved here on a lark, thought it would be interesting to live in a small town, and look at this. She’s a joke to those kids. How would you feel?”
“I’d take control of the situation. You have to when you work with kids.” Jack leans back and puts his feet on the coffee table. This nonchalant movement infuriates me further. I want to shake my husband, wake him up to what this is, show him that it’s not just about a cruel prank, it’s deeper than that. It’s about Us and Them, Ferriners and Natives. How do I explain that I’ve been a ferriner all of my life, and that I relate to Kate Benton? My daughter will never have the experience of being an outsider. With her MacChesney name and her lineage, she is one of Them. I can’t get into this with my husband. He is one of Them too. He doesn’t see it, doesn’t think it’s important. So instead, I blast him for his indifference.
“You know what? You’re not taking control of this situation.”
“She said she’s sorry.”
“Maybe that’s my problem. I don’t believe her. She’s old enough to know this was a terrible thing to do. Where’s her conscience? Her compassion? Don’t you worry that she’s not sensitive to other people’s feelings?”
“Like you’re sensitive to mine?” Jack asks softly.
“What?”
“When did we talk about a punishment? You just sort of sprung the New York thing on her and me. I want to back you up, but you need to at least let me know what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t believe it! You’re turning this into something I’m doing wrong.”
“If you want me to help, you have to let me
make the decisions with you. That’s all I’m saying.” Jack’s tone is even and calm, as though we’ve had this argument before. (We have.)
“I’m sorry. This incident hit a nerve.”
“I see that.” Jack puts his arm around me. I sink into him like a spoon in cake batter.
“All the books say to get a grip on your emotions before you discipline your child. Haven’t I done that in the past? I usually have a grip, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do. Most of the time.”
“But this time I saw myself in it. I was like Miss Benton for a lot of years. It’s like Etta did something personal to the person I used to be.”
Jack holds me for a long time, and I don’t say a word. No matter how many years go by, I’m never very far from who I was, the ferriner, the unmarried one, the lone Eye-talian. And no matter how many years go by, I carry her inside me. Somehow I know that I always will.
Etta has left for school early. She has the Girls’ Athletic Association preschool basketball game, but I’m sure she wants to avoid me. Jack is off to work already, so the house is quiet. As I pull a mug from the kitchen cabinet, I see a letter addressed to me propped on the windowsill. With the end of a teaspoon, I open the letter and unfold it, then I pour myself a cup of coffee.
Dear Mom,
I know you hate me right now but I wanted you to hear my side of things. I did do the wrong thing. I did call the coal company and place the order on a Friday when we knew they were rushing to get out of there and wouldn’t check. I don’t hate Miss Benton, except for the laps she makes us run, she’s been a pretty good band director. We thought it would be funny to see a pile of coal in her yard. I didn’t think about how we would get it out of there. I am very sorry. I am sorry I hurt Miss Benton and sorry I can’t go to New York where I’ve always wanted to go. I won’t order a coal dump in anyone’s yard anymore.
Etta
I grab some paper and a pen and write Etta a note back.
Dear Etta,
I don’t hate you. I don’t like what you did, there’s a difference. I believe you are sorry for the coal dump and that you won’t do it again. But next time you think of doing something for the sport of it, would you please consider the person’s feelings? How would you like someone to do that to you?