Chapter 3
THE TELLING CAVE
That Saturday I left Chisold Street in the late morning to set fire to an old mine shed I’d found the week before. Audy Rae was off and Pops had office hours, so I stopped into Hivey’s Farm Supply to buy a soda and a sandwich for the mission.
Hivey’s was a constant in Missiwatchiwie County, a sanctuary for the miners and farmers who would gather at the back by the woodstove. Jesper Jensen was the unofficial leader, four-year pinochle champion, and key opinion former of the men by the back stove. His sons were now running what was left of the farm, which gave him even more time for pinochle and opinions. I went to the cooler case near the back for a turkey sub.
“You really think Tennessee is a better choice, Paitsel?” Jesper asked.
“Cleo’s a pure passer and Notre Dame is option heavy,” a tall, sinewed man replied. “Irish may be a sentimental favorite, but a bad offense for the boy.”
Jesper nodded solicitously; the rest of the men did the same.
Paitsel Meadows was twenty years retired from minor league baseball but still held broad shoulders and forearms muscled and tendoned, veins worming up to his biceps. Short-cropped hair brushed with gray, sparkling eyes, chin enough to hang a Christmas stocking.
Drafted out of Alabama to the Cleveland Indians farm system with a baffling 12-6 curve but little else, he played A ball in North Platte for a season, then went on to Reading. He threw three seasons for Double-A, working his way up the rotation, then finally onto the Mobile Bears. His big break came when two Indians starters blew out UCLs in a late-summer climb out of the cellar and Birdie Tebbetts drove down from Cleveland for a Bears homestand.
He came out against the Washington Senators with the 12-6 on point and his fastball propelled by debut adrenaline. He notched a win, striking out Ken Mullen, Frank Howard, and Don Lock in succession. But as August wore, the 12-6 began to hang, and hitters had at it. Without a fallback fastball, Paitsel was sent down, then down again, eventually drifting out of baseball and into small-engine repair around Missiwatchiwie County. He’d been in Medgar eighteen years, taking the extra room at Paul Pierce’s house, but his time in the majors made him an instant celebrity around town and the go-to arbiter on any discussion of sports physiology and practice.
“Got a call from the Tennessee baseball coach, who’s an old buddy a mine. Says Johnny Majors wants to come up for a visit.”
“He’ll have to get in line,” Jesper said.
“Yes, he will,” Bobby Clinch agreed.
“Long line a folks,” someone else said.
“Johnny Majors ain’t much of a line waiter,” Paitsel said and tipped his Caterpillar hat. “You ladies take care a yourselves.”
They all waved and smiled. “You take care, Pait.”
“See ya tomorra.”
“Bye now.”
The door jingled shut. Jesper watched as Paitsel disappeared around the corner, then leaned in to the boys. “Well, I always knowed it to be true bout Paul,” he sniffed. “I can tell these things, you know. I been to New York.”
“What’s New York got to do with anythin?” someone challenged.
“New York’s got a pile a them people. Once you seen one, the rest is easy to spot.”
“You were up at Niagara Falls, Jesper,” someone else reminded him.
“Yeah, but we changed planes in New York City, Bobby. You ain’t been there, so you don’t know. Airport was full of em.”
Bobby Clinch found Jesper’s logic hard to argue, so he changed the subject. “Well, I don’t think Paitsel’s like that. He’s jus like one a us. Good pinochle player an all. You sure Paitsel’s in on all this?”
“I dunno, Bobby,” Jesper said after a long intake of air. “Hilda was in there for the meetin bout how to organize against the blastin. Said that second bedroom is a guest room.”
“How would she know?”
“Women can tell a guest bedroom from a regular bedroom, an she said it was most definitely a guest bedroom.”
“How can they tell?” someone asked.
Jesper rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Levi. Ask your dang wife.”
Bobby shook his head and bladed a hand toward him. “Friends is all, Jesper. Friends is all.”
I picked a sub from the top of the pile and started to the cash register.
“Guess we’re all gonna have to drive to Glassville for trims now,” Jesper announced. “I hear Lark’s over to the Pic-n-Pay got him a Wednesday special. Trim an a shave for two dollars an fifty cent.”
The men around the stove nodded. “That’s a good price,” Bobby Clinch agreed.
“Tis,” someone else said.
I paid at the register, went out to the sidewalk, and turned down Green Street to head up the saddle toward Buzzy’s tree house. The porch was empty and my callings were met with silence. I waited for a while, then hiked over two ridges to the abandoned mine.
At the left of the entrance was the old wooden shed, walls leaning slightly south the way flowers tilt toward the sun, the door hanging from a hinge. Inside were a few dented miners’ hats, blackened coveralls with Monongahela Mining Company stitched across the chest. A workbench with a row of open glass containers, the dried residue of long-evaporated solvents mucking the bottoms. Under the bench was a nearly full old metal can, its faded Kerosene label brushed with rust.
As soon as I saw it, the walls of the shed fell to an infinite horizon and my heart began to push out against my breastbone, as if it was a wrongly accused convict pounding out his innocence on a cell wall. When I picked it up, my feet and the ground under them faded out like a lost television signal blurring to snow. My hands were dead stones, as some other person, some other entity, took control of my limbs and pushed me outside myself to watch the can’s contents splash on the old wood wall and watch the way the wood pulled the kerosene into it as dry ground drinks in water.
On the empty, he threw the can into the door and took five steps back and pulled a Redhill match pack from his pocket, struck one, and lifted it to flick into the kerosene puddle at the corner. A hand reached from behind him and grabbed his wrist hard. I spun. It was Buzzy Fink.
He blew out the match.
“So you come to my mountains jus to burn em down.”
“No, I’m just, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“I’m… never mind.” I pulled my wrist free and turned back toward town.
“Hey,” he said after a few moments.
I stopped. Turned. “What?”