Pine Gap

By Brooks Rexroat

In the southeastern Kentucky town of Pine Gap, coal is the economy, faith is the community, and the comings and goings are few and far between.This is home for the Eskills, whose individual struggles overlap and galvanize in the aftermath of a disaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peasantry Press
• Release date: Mar 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781988276151

Book preview

Chapter 1:

WHEN IT RAINS IN PINE GAP, KENTUCKY, POPULATION 942

At the white four-room bungalow owned by Enoch and Miriam Eskill, the droplets strike the pitched tin roof, pinging low tones near the eaves and brighter notes near the capped apex. When the rain comes slowly, the plinking sounds resemble a wind chime in a mild breeze. When it pours in relentless torrents—as is more common in Pine Gap, where the unwanted seldom comes in moderation—the waves of water strike a steady and forceful arpeggio that (as far as anyone in the home is aware) sounds greatly like an ocean might, washing against a stone shoreline.

At Letcher Senior High School, rain collects on the flat, tar-sealed roof until each drop becomes distorted by the pool in which it lands, creating a bass-laden thump that rumbles above the teachers and the learners, a calm and deep percussion that seems to press heavily on them from above. The aging and somewhat unkempt building, on those days, feels even more claustrophobic. As the day wears forward and the standing water deepens, the rain drops become so muted they’re nearly inaudible. When it’s time for dismissal, students who have studied for hours in the interior rooms are sometimes surprised to step outside into a storm.

At MaryLou’s Diner on Main Street, raindrops from above are dampened by the space of a decrepit hotel that once occupied the two floors above the restaurant. One can still hear the rain, though, if the wind drives more than just a few miles an hour from the west (that’s where the storms come from, the bad ones, at least). During those windy downpours, customers can sip coffee and eat stale pastries as they watch drops sweep down in broad arcs across Main Street until they smack dead against the front window of the diner, then trickle down the glass in weak, defeated streaks which collect into a rippling stream that overtakes the sidewalk instead of flowing into the poorly engineered storm drains.

At Laurel Mine Fourteen and the Jasper Complex and Old Main 24 and all the others, the men and women work on in the dark and in the noise, in the haze of coal dust, in the damp of their mountain’s underbelly, and they know nothing of the rain until their quota is met, their shift is done, and their cab reaches the shaft exit—or until, in the smaller complexes, they walk out on foot beside the narrow rail tracks that ferry coal basins. The miners hold their tools slung over broad shoulders, and when their eyes adjust to the surface-light they see dim skies, hear the splashing of droplets against the gravel parking lots and the flimsy shingles of a staff picnic shelter and the new steel roof of their complex’s office building. Further afield, they hear the gurgle or maybe the rush of the diversion channels: huge, concrete-lined trenches cut through the mountains to help usher water safely away, to keep countless mountain streams from converging too fast and flooding out the valleys where the mine workers labor and live. 

*

It was bitter cold that March Tuesday and as Jamie Eskill reached for the mailbox lid one quick slip of sunshine poked through the clouds—not so focused that it seemed to be aimed directly at her, but timely enough that she didn’t believe it could be coincidence. Besides, she’d been told since her earliest days that that coincidence was just a pretty word for small miracle. Hers was about due, she figured.

Under that fleeting moment of fair light, Jamie hummed softly to herself a verse from her favorite old hymn—His Eye is on the Sparrow—and pulled from the mailbox a single white envelope marked with maroon lettering and a small university logo. She whispered a well-worn prayer as she walked to the door, into the house, into her room. There, she clamped her eyes and slipped her index finger through the seal, waiting for the small miracle she knew must be waiting on the paper inside.

Instead, she found the words regret to inform printed below one more college’s embossed seal. Still she hummed, though the pitch broke slightly and the sound came in a forced fashion. She folded the letter without reading the rest of it, placed it back in the envelope, and then shoved it underneath her mattress with all the others. She closed her eyes once more, exhaled in harsh fashion, and then whispered, Thank you, Father, for your wisdom and mercy.

––––––––

Two hours later, the front door rattled as Miriam Eskill returned home from cleaning houses up on the ridge, dropped off, as usual, by whichever coworker finished closest to her irregular schedule. Clinking house keys, footsteps in the hall, then a tap on Jamie’s door.

Come in, Jamie said, and she looked up from her English textbook’s explanation of verb clauses.

Any news? her mother asked.

Jamie shook her head. No mail. How was work?

Forgive me, forgive me, she thought—the way she did each time she lied to her folks.

Same, Miriam said. I saw the sun come out a little while ago—I was thinking about trying to make some tea. Have you seen the jug?

Just boil some tea on the stove and put ice in it. Sun’s not coming back out. It’s too late, besides. Jamie looked at her alarm clock, which showed it was just after five.

Sun could too come back. Anyhow, what are you in such a hurry for?

Don’t finish your sentence with a preposition, Mom.

Miriam smiled and walked to Jamie’s desk. Jamie’s father had built it by hand—the bed and the dresser, too. Miriam tapped her index finger on the textbook, and then patted Jamie’s shoulder.

See? Listen to you. You’ll be getting a stack of acceptance letters before you know it. You’ll have to fight them all away. Put your book down for a minute and let’s make some tea. We’ll do it inside if you really think the gloom’s set in for the day.

Jamie felt what nearly every child has felt through the course of humanity: the resignation of doing something dumb just to keep a mother from moping.

It’s all right. We’ll try it in the sun, and if it doesn’t work, there’s always the stove.

Miriam beamed. My little problem solver.

Jamie sighed and slumped her shoulders, but then stood and followed her mom to the kitchen. While Miriam searched for the clear glass gallon jug, Jamie fetched four pouches of Sav-Mor brand tea out from an olive green cabinet above the stove. She had the sachets out of their paper envelopes and the strings extended by the time Miriam rustled the jug from behind a jangling pile of pots and pans. When the jug was ready, Jamie placed it on the front porch, far enough to the side that her dad wouldn’t kick it if they forgot to collect the jar—if it got dark before he made it home.

You sure you haven’t gotten anything yet? her mother asked as she stepped back in the door. Jamie picked up the television remote for a second, then looked at the front door and let it drop to the couch. Maybe stuck to another letter or something? That happens sometimes. It’s just getting along in the year and...

I’m sure, Mom. There’s nothing. Her stomach tightened as her mom passed by and kissed her on the forehead.

Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’re all praying hard on you. It’ll happen. I just know it. It has to happen.

Thanks, Momma. It’s been a long day. I’m going to go nap a little and then study before dinner. Dad’s on second shift today, right?

Second and then some extra, I imagine. Get some rest. I’ll come get you when it’s time.

––––––––

Inside her bedroom, Jamie opened the window and listened. It wasn’t five minutes before she heard it, the faint sound she knew so well from months of practice: the light crackle of her sister’s tires rolling over pebbles worn free from the pavement. She put a fist-sized rock in the bottom of her window to keep it from locking on her and she climbed out, ducked under the kitchen window as she ran by, past the tea jug waiting on the porch, and hopped into Rebecca’s car, which waited on the edge of the road.

Soon as she got in, Jamie took a flask from the console.

Bourbon or shine? she asked her sister, and chugged before she got an answer. It was bourbon: cheap stuff, but it didn’t matter. Where we headed?

Nothing exciting tonight. Just back to my place.

And who’s going to be there?

Nobody much.

"Nobody much as in you and me, nobody much as in somebody you just met, or nobody much as in someone who shouldn’t be there in the first place?"

Jamie, he’s their daddy.

He’s their daddy who hasn’t paid them a cent, or you for that matter, since their first living breath.

Fine, then. Give me that back.

Jamie pulled the bottle tight against her chest.

This ain’t right, Jamie said.

That’s not your call, and it’s not your life.

Let me out right here, then.

Rebecca Eskill pushed her foot harder on the gas, and neither one spoke again until they pulled up behind a rusted-out mess of a Camaro in the driveway of Rebecca’s trailer home.

Be good, Rebecca said.

I’d say the same thing to you, but that duck’s flown—a couple times over.

When Rebecca pulled on her door enough fumes wafted out of the door to make it look like the opening scene of a B-list movie from the seventies.

Derrick, my babies are in here!

Well, then. I’m officially high, Jamie said. That was cheap. Rebecca rolled her eyes, and they walked in together. Inside, Derrick Rosselot sucked on a bowl. He barely budged, except to turn his eyes mildly toward the door, and then when he saw Jamie, a quick mumble: Oh, good. Her.

Yes, her, Rebecca said.

Derrick shrugged and he extended the bowl toward Jamie.

Think I’ll pass. Rebecca? You got something to say about this?

Need something stronger? Derrick sat up at the hint of a challenge. I got a batch cook—

Hush, Rebecca said, and her foot struck the ground as she said it.

Yeah, hush, Jamie said. She emptied the last of her sister’s flask, dropped it on the table and raised an eyebrow at Rebecca. You sound just like our momma, you know?

And I’ll say it like her once more: you hush, too. So what’s got you all thirsty today, another rejection? Rebecca asked. She leaned down and tapped her bright red fingernail exactly once against the aluminum container.

Shut up.

Cards? Derrick asked. He held up a deck and Jamie could see at least four different backs on the cards, meaning there were probably a solid dozen aces in there. She didn’t care.

I’ll bury your a—

Rebecca cut Jamie off with a glare.

I’ll bury your butt.

Derrick’s laugh came in a howl. If that ain’t the pot calling the kettle—

Personally, I think the Lord gives us a free pass on language when it comes to talking about you, Jamie said. He told me so.

If you’re feeling like the Lord’s been speaking to you, Jamie, I want to know who’s dealing you chemicals, ’cause that means I’ve finally got competition worth worrying about.

Both you two shush—you’ll wake up the twins.

That’s right—we wouldn’t want them to wake up smack in the middle of their first buzz.

Jamie, I’ll take you home right now...

Fine, she said. With nothing north of PG allowed in her father’s house, Jamie could put up with the dead-beat baby daddy long enough to catch some interesting television, maybe a movie. Anything that wasn’t a book or a sermon.

Grab me a beer when you get yours, Derrick said, and Jamie started for the fridge.

What do you figure, about an hour before Mom taps at your door looking for you?

I’d give her a little longer, but it’s probably a safe bet.

Alright. Let’s see what’s on.

No matter what the screen showed, though, Jamie couldn’t settle in, couldn’t get comfortable. Couldn’t get her mind around why her sister would let this imbecile back in the house.

There she is, Miriam Eskill said when Jamie finally turned the cold iron handle and walked out of her room. I tapped a couple times, but I figured you had that headset of yours on again.

Yes, ma’am, Jamie said. Sorry I didn’t hear you. It helps me study, you know, some noise in the background. You always keep it so peaceful and quiet around here, but sometimes...

Whatever you need, dear. You just keep working. Whatever you need.

Her mom didn’t mention the change of clothes—the ones she’d worn before dangling out the window to air out. Or the three sticks of chewing gum she’d taken to chomping on.

The tea jug waited on the porch through dinner, well after the sun was securely behind the ridgeline. Jamie retrieved it then, and inspected it in the light of the kitchen: it was just half a shade darker than the tap water her mother had drawn hours earlier. She knew better than to gloat. Quietly, Jamie struck a match and lit two stove elements, split all that water into two pans and boiled it. She got out two mugs—her father wouldn’t so much as look at tea, even if he did manage to get home while there was still some warmth to it. She poured, sugared, and dumped the extra tea back into the jug, set it in the fridge for later. Her mother was reading by lamplight in the living room an old, dog-eared romance novel. The little yellow fifty-cent price tag from the Salvation Army store covered the left pectoral of a shirtless cartoon man with a flowing blond mane.

Careful, it’s hot, Jamie said to catch her mom’s attention. Miriam looked up at Jamie, closed the book, and turned it upside down on her lap, as if the bare-chested man in the drawing was something to be ashamed of.

I should’ve known better, she said when she saw the way steam swirled upward from the mug. Thanks for rescuing it.

You always told me not to wait on the sun.

But there’s nothing wrong with hoping for it. Come on—grab a book and join me.

It was late, almost ten, and going strictly by shift times, Enoch should’ve been home by at least four hours. Jamie fetched her history book and a highlighter, and Miriam checked the telephone for a dial tone. Jamie flipped on the radio, just in case. She turned it just loud enough that they’d hear the hurried speech of breaking news, but low enough that they could pay attention to their books. So they could distract themselves until finally they saw headlights and heard a doorknob turn.

*

In the back row of the union hall Enoch Eskill slouched in his steel folding chair, his legs stretched forward so the toes of his boots rested on the back legs of Reilly Abbot’s seat. He stared down at his stained denim pants and his company-issued work shirt—both covered in soot and rings of sweat-salt from the shift-and-a-half he’d just pulled—and listened as the young men down front shouted and clapped and shook their fists, worked themselves into a frenzy. He hated these last-minute meetings and their increased frequency. He hated even more that he felt obligated to be at them. He hated that they took the workers’ attention off more important things—like getting into and out of the mine in one piece, with a good day’s work done between. Where he wanted to be: home. Where he was compelled to be: in this room, hoping a gullible majority didn’t do too much damage.

Enoch watched the goings on and wondered how they could have so much energy left after a day of proper work. Every time he wanted to interject, every time the tired muscles in his legs tensed up and urged him to stand, to leap up in protest, he instead exhaled and squeezed on the orange foam stress ball Doctor Elvers had given him just a week earlier. Hold your tongue until it’s crucial to speak, he told himself.

Enoch had nearly cursed under his breath when he first saw that charge on his bill—$14.95, Miscellaneous Rehabilitation Expenses—for something that had seemed strikingly like a gift when the doctor handed it over and patted his back, sent him off with a new list of expensive prescriptions and that little orange toy. In the long, narrow union hall (which seemed half lit because every third florescent lamp had either gone black or was flickering its death knell) Enoch squeezed tight on that ball instead of adding to the shouts and pounding fists of men half his age. Nothing was really a gift anymore. Everything had cost and the prices were startlingly high—even in Pine Gap, where for so long things had generally been simple and cheap and somewhat fair. Lately none of it seemed true, especially the cheap part. Food, gasoline, heating oil. Medicine for hearts and lungs and aching bones and headaches and swollen throats. College tuition, if Jamie managed to get in. Dues to a union that seemed every day to turn a little further from ideals he and his brothers fought for back when they were the ones up front with firm voices and stern expressions. I hope this isn’t what we sounded like, he thought. Surely, we were more reasonable. He looked around at the dingy walls, the watermarked drop ceiling, the filthy floor tiles, then back up at the loud crew in the front. They can’t even bother keeping the place clean anymore.

In his spot near the back (and directly underneath the worst of those sputtering lights) he decided maybe in this instance, the fifteen bucks had been worthwhile. He squeezed on that ball again and again, crushing it into an orange wafer against his palm while a man from Lexington—Enoch hadn’t caught his name and didn’t much care to learn it—pumped all sorts of piss and venom into the young workers.

The lawyer glided back and forth in front of the polished cherry executive table. The heels of his shiny black shoes clicked rhythmically on the floor when he walked and the slick forefoot swished against tiles when he pivoted to look some other gullible boy in the eyes. Who let him in here? The man seemed particularly fond of some pretty important sounding words like injustice and travesty and pension reform, but didn’t seem to be joining them together in such a way that actually said anything substantive. "It’s your right to be paid more than a fair wage! he shouted. Fair? You work harder than fair. Fair isn’t enough anymore, now is it? Enoch scrunched his brow and shook his head at that. Men clapped and whooped. When they quieted, he continued: And I’m the man to do it for you boys. I’m your ticket to a better life. Trust in me, follow my lead, and I’ll take you to the Promised Land. You all have worked too hard to go unnoticed by those bosses up in the fancy houses. It’s time you do less work for more pay!"

Enoch couldn’t entirely disagree with this. But if there was going to be action, it ought to come from the workers. Not some lawyer trying to skim what little they did make. There were other problems, more pressing than the ones he spewed about: safety and equipment and working hours. But the man from Lexington seemed to have expertise in only the issues that could make him some cash.

The boys up front cheered again, wilder and louder as the man sold his anger and snake oil. The old-timers in back looked at each other. Enoch saw in some of their eyes the same worry he felt. It’s time we take this mine back!

We? How did that crook come to the conclusion that he’s one of us? If anything’s going to take anything, he’s got no claim. Enoch heard cursing from up front about the mine bosses. More boys stood to applaud.

"Folks, it’s time for action. It’s time, right now, for clear, undeniable action in favor of our demands."

This is what constitutes a mandatory meeting now? I could be soaking my feet, or looking over Jamie’s homework. Or helping Miriam with dinner. That was the moment he remembered he’d forgotten to call. He felt the blood drain from his face. They must be worried sick. If he had a cell phone, there wouldn’t be any connection here. He turned and looked at the door, thought through where the nearest pay phone was and whether he’d make it there before anyone important noticed he was gone. He leaned forward, buried his face in his left hand, squeezed the ball hard with his right.

One more cheer from up front. One more squeeze of the orange ball. One more worried glance from John Davis, while Reilly Abbot leaned forward and shook his head in disgust. Enoch tried to remember the anti-stress breathing pattern Doctor Elvers showed him, but after a couple of slow inhalations, he gave up and squeezed both fists until his forearms shook and the veins stood out.

When Enoch first started in the mine, no slick-haired suit would’ve made it three steps inside the union hall before the miners sent him packing, or more realistically running toward what was hopefully a very fast vehicle. They’d have ridden him out on a rail, made a sport of chasing him off, challenged him to go try his luck in some other town, some other complex. Then they would’ve called the other camps, warned the other union halls, told them to be ready, so they could guard the entrances with pickaxes, send the greedy buzzard packing. Enoch had even dialed the phones before, on such occasions. The boys he came up with wouldn’t have seen this snake as any different from the owners on the hills—certainly wouldn’t have trusted him or fallen for his bluster. Sick, he thought. This is sick.

Most of the men from Enoch’s era were gone—retired, laid-off, on disability, or worse. Enoch fought alongside them, when necessary, and they did it tooth-and-nail. They battled the company over safety gear and work hours, paychecks rendered in real currency instead of company scrip. They’d gone on strike, and never lightly—they’d consulted wives and ministers and, of course, the Lord first. When they took to the pickets, there was nothing pretty about it, nothing enjoyable—just duty. Necessity. Never borne of ambition or greed, or gold-rimmed glasses. Enoch’s own father walked the pickets in Harlan County—he was right in the thick of it when the guardsmen piled out of truck beds, bayonets fixed and helmets strapped. But there was a difference between defending the workingman’s rights, and plain picking a fight out of greed and boredom. As Enoch listened to the workers cheering on the lawyer, it had the undeniable sound of fight-picking.

In the seat next to him Dusty Jenkins seemed ready to tear up—you could never tell completely whether such welling-up came from emotion or black dust swimming in the eye sockets, but Dusty seemed pretty overwhelmed. Old John Davis, further down the row, looked like he was sucking on a lemon. The back rows, once the source of wise and measured council, once the direction in which the young miners turned for advice, was now home to disgruntled outliers. Cut off from the pack. Easily and routinely ignored.

They’ll give us what’s ours, and now! the lawyer shouted. As if the tone of it wasn’t enough, he pounded his fist down on a lectern with the union seal.

Enough.

Enoch jammed the stress ball into his coat pocket and stood emphatically, so that his calves struck his chair and pushed it backward. Its legs screeched and then it crashed onto the scraped-up tile floor. The lawyer stopped mid-word, frozen in place. He stared with his eyes wide, and he held his lips spread apart as he waited for Enoch to interject. The man gazed intently, ready to calculate a counterclaim and shoot down whatever sense Enoch might issue. Enoch looked away from his pale face—away from his form-fitted suit and those polished and pointed black dress shoes. Men in the front turned and stared from their seats. Enoch’s eyes moved left and then right, swept across the room. Some of these workers were, like Enoch, fresh out of the mineshaft, hair still matted and coal gunk still caught in the creases of their necks. Others were dressed to start their shift, steel lunch pails waiting by their feet. Others were on off-days in jeans with Metallica T-shirts under unbuttoned flannel shirts or maroon Letcher Senior High letterman jackets. Some squinted, some glared, some blinked, blank and tired. Every one of them waited; even if reluctantly, they gave Enoch the attention a man of his tenure had earned. Some looked ready to argue; others seemed ready to nod agreement at whatever he said, but they all waited—quiet, respectful.

Enoch said nothing to them. Instead, he zipped his thick canvass work coat, then turned to walk out the back door. At first he only heard the uneven gait of his boots, the cla-clump of his hobble. Then, he heard the rustling of his coworkers turning back to the front of the room. He listened, waiting for other footsteps to join him. To follow him out into the black evening. The lawyer resumed his rant—Enoch kept going even when he heard the words real men shouted from the lectern in a taunting tone. The hall door crashed shut behind him. Before opening the door to his beat up Chevy truck, Enoch paused on the sidewalk, waited to say goodbye to whoever followed him out. No one came. Not even the old-timers, his buddies in the back row.

Enoch got into his truck and snaked down State Route 46, off the mountaintop and toward home. He knew what would be waiting in the morning, the orange slip of paper that would summon him before the union board. He knew the risks that carried. He knew he’d be met with no sympathy. And he knew that the family impatiently waiting for him at home was a thousand times more important to him than any of the shouting malcontents who’d commandeered his union hall. As he steered with his left hand, he used the right to wipe his eyes with the inside of his coat collar. Coal dust. It’s just coal dust.

*

Rebecca Eskill slammed her car door and coughed on the exhaust. What on earth could it need now? She knew the answer. Realistically, that car needed a new everything, from the left headlight to the rusted tailpipe held in place by a length of bailing wire.

She pounded at the door to a dilapidated doublewide. She pounded again, a little harder, and then pressed her ear up to the door to see if she could hear his footsteps—catch just where it was he hid every time she came by. It’d been a week since she saw him. Just before she left to drop her sister off at home, she found another one of his chemical stashes in her place. As she was throwing him out into the night, he made one last-ditch effort: he told her to stop by in a couple days and collect what she needed. For the boys, he’d added, as if it was beyond him to want to take care of her in the slightest. Right there in front of Jamie, he’d said it. Come on over, girl. You know I’ll take care of you. I’ve got some money coming in. And Rebecca stopped him there like she always did—she never wanted to know where the money was coming from, just in case any of it ever did get into her hands. Plausible deniability she said as she drove Jamie, and Jamie did the mercy of looking away when she took a hand off the wheel to wipe at her eyes.

Someday, she would park at the school bus turnaround, half a mile down the road, so he wouldn’t hear the car. Heck, she’d take off her shoes so he didn’t hear those either, and she’d walk right in through the back door. Kick it in, if he had it locked. She jerked on the front door knob, just in case. Flimsy enough that it wobbled in her hand, but firmly locked.

She liked to tell herself she’d pull a gun on him if she had to, if that’s what it took to get her babies’ money. Almost four thousand, he owed her by now. She knew better (she didn’t have a gun anyway and couldn’t afford one to boot) but she wanted to at least believe she’d go that far. She felt like it