Prodigal Blues

"Oh, that's sweet, thank you."

"Lean back."

It took him about ten minutes to clean off my face, check my nose again, and apply the splint.  "Use the rest of these to wipe off your hands and neck."  He tossed the sanitary wipes into my lap.  I checked my face in the mirror; the splint made my face look both threatening and silly.  The two shiners were already starting to show.  I had other cuts and scrapes on my face and neck that I didn't even realize were there until now.  I had looked prettier in my time.

"Still look better than I do," said Christopher, as if he'd read my mind.  "By the way—thank you.  For what you said.  Thank you."

"Uh-huh."

"Do I get to hear about your grandmother now?"

I shook my head.  "Nope.  I was promised a quote electrifying unquote game of 'Hide the Heifers.'"

"'Bury the Cow.'"

"Whatever.  If by the time we're finished with all of this you have more cows, you get to hear all about dear old Grandma; if not, then you're just going to have deal with it."

He started the engine.  "Fair enough."

I started to climb out.

"What are you doing?"

"Driving," I said.  "I might be in pain but my memory's just fine.  Move over.  Go on, do it—the blue grass of Kentucky awaits us."

14. That Other Guy

Christopher lost the first three rounds of 'Bury the Cow' and decided like a graceful loser that it was time for him to drive again; by then, the pain of my nose was almost blinding me and the glow of victory was rapidly losing its charm, so I took a couple of codeine pills, leaned back in the passenger seat, and felt all shiny again for a while.

I dreamed briefly of dead men in trailers rising to their feet and tearing away duct-taped cardboard, and when they opened their mouths to scream for help, inside of them were the faces of children, their mouths opened in a scream—they were the ones screaming for help, not the dead men—while the faces of other children screamed from inside theirs.

I forced open my eyes and blinked against the sunlight as it strobe through the canopy of leaves above us.

"I was about to wake you," said Christopher.  "This is some really pretty country we're passing through—if you can forgive the diesel smoke you see hanging over the treetops every so often.  Truckers tend to take it slow through here because these inclines are hell on gears, plus these roads can dip twenty feet or more with no warning.  Because of the elevation, the atmosphere doesn't rid itself of exhaust fumes as quickly as it does in the lower parts."

I rubbed my eyes, shaking myself further awake and away from the screaming dead men.  "You sound like a tour guide."

"I know."  He looked out the windshield.  Tears brimmed in his eyes but he was smiling.  "You have any idea how long I've dreamed about seeing this road again?  I knew it would be just the same.  Most roads like this in Kentucky never change.  Thank God."

I sat up.  Outside it was raining—nothing spectacular, just one of those constant gray drizzles that leaves the road slightly muddy and everything else looking as if it's shimmering from somewhere deep inside.

Have you ever driven through Kentucky?  Now, I know from books and television and movies that actual cities are rumored to exist there, but from the route Christopher was taking, you'd never be able to tell it.

I have never seen so many hills in my life.  The road we were on was this twisting, turning, narrow two-lane snake that wound through lush trees crowding closer to the side every time we made a turn.  Even though it was only two-thirty in the afternoon, a luminous mist skirled across the road like ghost-tides lapping at shores no longer existent except in their ghostly memory.  We were going uphill all the way so far, and I think we passed maybe four cars, at least three times as many deer, and two semis who moved with the deep-gutted roars and slow, desperate deliberation of dinosaurs crawling from the tar.  The one time I dared to peek out the side window and look over into one of the deep ditches—just to see how deep it was—I about passed out from vertigo; the side of the hill (or was it a mountain?) dropped straight down, at least three hundred feet, and into a river speckled with the knotted, bare branches of trees gliding along, having caught a free ride on the current.

Still, I stared at that sheer drop.  "You've never driven this road before, have you?"

"Nope," said Christopher.  "But I've driven some damned dangerous ones, so don't worry—I'm not about to send us sailing over the side."

"Could I have that in writing?"

"Enjoy the view, why don't you?"

"I'm trying."

"Try harder."

Eventually, and about as suddenly as a roller coaster, the road plummeted to a short steel bridge that rattled and shook like a bag of bones as we crossed it.  Then I remembered that we had an actual bag of bones in here with us and heard the dead men screaming and felt sick and sad all over again.

Through the windshield I saw the shear side of a mountain—a rock face—then the road hung a 90-degree to the left, pointing us through yet another set of hills lined on either side with yet more thick firs and pines.  A family of deer stood among the trees nibbling at the grass; they lifted their heads and looked at us as we lumbered past.  I felt like we were intruding.

The road narrowed down to a single rutted lane here, and I occasionally spotted old, rusted railroad rails scattered among the trees, as well skeletons of homemade chairs, what looked like blankets, and swear I once spotted the remains of a log cabin.

Here and there, up on the mountainsides in the distance, shelves of rock hovered over what looked like shallow caves.

I pointed up toward one.  "Are those caves or something else?"

Christopher looked in the direction I was pointing.  "That's a cave—if it was a mine, you'd see timber propping the entrance."

"You know about mining?"

"You bet.  My grandfather worked these mines.  He used to talk about it a lot after he got sick and came to stay with us.

"All these mountains you're looking at, they're limestone with seams of coal. Sometimes the seam goes straight into the mountain, but usually it sort of just angles in and the coal shaft follows the seams.  The shafts are propped with timbers, and generally slate lies above the coal.  You take out enough of the coal and that slate—wham!—it'll come crashing down right on top of your head."

"Even if there are timbers propping it up?"

"Hell, yes.  Timber gets soaked over the years, it weakens, doesn't take much to make it snap.  Limestone is really porous, so there's always ground water.  In those days, when my grandpa worked the mines, if a miner hit a narrow seam, he had to lie on his back in the water—can you imagine what that must be like?  There you are, God-only-knows how deep down, in the dark, on your back in water, between all these rocks, pushing shovels backward over your shoulder to draw out loose coal."

"I'll stick with cleaning toilets and doing windows, thank you."

"Yeah… I wish Grandpa would have done something else.  Goddamn mines killed him.  Turned his lungs into blackened Swiss cheese and twisted up his back so bad he couldn't stand up straight.  He had to use a walker to move around, and even then me and Paul had to help."

I look ahead into the road.  The canopy formed by the tree limbs grew lower and thicker the wetter it was made by rain, and soon Christopher had to turn on his headlights.