Table of Contents Gay and Lesbian Theme Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of This Is Not For You Review of Potato Queen Crossword (Solution Posted in March. Printable version in pdf format of journal.) Creative Nonfiction Tunis, Forever By John Champagne Bisexuality 101 By Evelyn McFarland Poetry Blackouts By Steve Rydman Self Loathing By Steve Rydman A Boy Reads YM By Steve Rydman I Finally Found Me By Lucretia Randle Acorn Boy Above the Conclave By James Penha Fiction As If In Time Of War (1985) By Christopher T. Leland General Works Creative Nonfiction Stone Musings #5 By Mike Munsil Ascent Into Being By Holly Mitchell Fiction Come Winter By Sandra M. McDow The End of Stories By Sonia Vora Coal Blood By Tom Bennitt About the Contributors © 2006, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Bill Mausteller Policy Director - vacant Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Sen. Fiction Editor - Patti Kurtz Sen. Poetry Editor - Neeldhara Misra Sen. Creative Nonfiction Editor - Brenda Coxe Contributing Editor - Robert Dittman Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/submission.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/volunteer.html.

Coal Blood By Tom Bennitt The rumble of my big-block diesel fractures the early morning calm. Another drowning nightmare shook me awake before dawn. My shift won't start for half an hour so I ease the Dodge Ram along the valley road. A fog, thick with the smell of dead carp, oozes off the river's oily edge. Railroad trestles, illuminated by the red track lights, emerge through the smoke gray patches. I remember fragments of the dream. Denise and I canoed down the Monongahela. A stretch of whitewater steering us, I quit paddling and laughed as Denise fought the current. She stabbed the river with tense arms as the rapid spat up at her. A noticed a red-tailed hawk eyeballing me. It flew wide circles above me, then darted down at my head. I lost balance and fell backwards out of the canoe. I yelled for Denise to extend her oar but she turned away and started paddling. I wondered if she'd ever do that to me, just paddle away. I pull into the mine entrance and park next to Ernie's dented Tacoma with the Rebel flag plate. I climb the warped wooden steps to the miners' locker - an old camper with frayed, vinyl siding. My locker is next to Ernie's. His eyes are bloodshot. "You get a little banged up last night?" I ask, changing into my flannel shirt and stained overalls. "My horse won at the track." His mouth twitches. "Twenty-to-one payout." God, for some reason, or maybe for no reason, dealt Ernie a shitty hand. Back in the army during a pick-up football game, Ernie tore his knee up; not just the two ligaments, he busted the artery. After half a dozen operations, a brace covers his atrophied calf and lifts his lower leg. His dad left when he was two, and his mom spent most nights out drinking or balling. So I'm willing to overlook his transgressions. And there's nobody else to look out for him. I got Ernie this mining job after he finished his drug rehab program. "Good, so you can actually pay me when our boy gets knocked out tonight," I blurt. As the rest of our crew shuffle in I bullshit with Jake, one of the new fish. He used to bartend at Pour Tom's. When the morning bell rings I clip the mining hammer and flashlight onto my tool belt. I rub my tattooed bicep for safety and replace my Deere cap with the tattered helmet. The rotten-milk stench of sulfur lays heavy in the air. Our eight-man crew jump into the paddy wagon, a flat cart hitched behind a Yamaha quad runner. Hal, our foreman who had thirty years in the mines, drives us in. We ride half a mile through the dank tunnel to our machines, then move down one of the smaller branch tunnels where the roof is less than five feet. Bent over, I shield the coal dust from my eyes. I am over six feet tall but I move well down here. These hills are like skin, hiding rich veins of bituminous coal that extend along the Allegheny ridges. I still love working inside the cool darkness of the earth, escaping the world. No way in hell could I sit inside a cubicle all day, I'd go ape shit. My hands are black but my conscience is clean. We are pilfering the leftovers in one of the last underground mines in southwestern Pennsylvania. Not long ago this was the only kind. Underground mines have wider chambers and tunnels so we have to leave some of the coal in place; a pillar in each room to keep the roof steady. Most operations have switched to longwall mining, where rippers and hydraulic shovels crosscut huge chunks of the seam. The land above usually caves right in. It cuts the need for labor in half. The number crunchers discovered it was cheaper to grab all the coal and buy out the landowners, or let them sue. "Gray Wolf Coal - Pillar of the Community." I should have gone into marketing and put my bullshitting to good use. This part of the mine is a swamp. The old, gutted Cumberland mine sat a few hundred yards to our left. We hoped the engineers had used the right maps to cut the tunnels. Today I am runnin' the bolts. With the Milwaukee cordless, I drill forty-inch bits into the roof for stability. But I keep drilling into buckets of water. Up ahead Ernie steers the CAT ripper. Its carbide teeth gouge the shiny black rock. "Quit jerkin' off up there and finish that cut" I yell up to Ernie. "This could turn ugly real quick." "Sully, these hands get your bonus every month sweetheart," he snaps back. "Flood, get the fuck out now!!" Ron is hauling ass up the tunnel towards me, his hands flying. Ernie's final cut busts into the old Cumberland mine. Several thousand gallons of decades-old rain and groundwater blast through the chute like a rapid. I try to run crouched over. My bad lower back screams. The wall of water knocks me on my ass. I am first to the the wagon, up to my knees now. I yell for the other guys to pick it up. For a few seconds I think about my buddy Clint, one of the miners trapped at Quecreek right after September 11th. Those nine guys were saved by the national media blitz on Somerset, desperate for a story with a happy ending. Clint hasn't been the same since. As the other guys jump on the wagon, the water recedes. The gushing sound fades. Whether it was over or just a lull, I wasn't staying to find out. Ernie is the last one in. Thank Christ the quad starts right up. Hal floors it back to the entrance. We stumble off and sprawl out on the dirt, each lost in our own thoughts. After a few minutes, Hal stands up. "Y'all okay?" he asks, with red eyes and a weathered face that have seen worse. His goatee is speckled gray. "I'm gonna take shit for this, but we did nothin' wrong. It was their shitty maps, is all. Now get out outta here and forget about today." I take Chestnut Ridge Road home, hoping to catch the sunset. The cobalt blue sky fades into an Indian summer night. Out past the refinery, the road climbs. I roll down the window and push the Steve Earle disc into the stereo. At the summit I pull off the road and pinch a fresh dip from my Skoal tin. I gaze at the endless peeks and valleys. In the distance a Norfolk Southern train creeps around the hillside, its horn fading. The sun melts into a gloss of pale reds and harvest golds. My grandfather used to bring me here. He called it his sanctuary, the only place he could clear his head and fill his lungs with the smell of pines and hemlocks. Granddad said when its time to meet St. Peter at the gates, it will look just like this. I hope he was right, and I hope Peter gave him the twenty acres of rolling green farmland he always wanted. Maybe he was Heaven's dairy supplier right now. I pull in the driveway of my doublewide trailer and park behind Denise's car. She looks up from the kitchen table, revealing her Appalachian features - a round face and a long, thin nose. She's wearing faded cut-off jeans riding tight on her thigh, the back pocket showing the outline of a tobacco tin. Her coffee hair rests on tanned shoulders and her round breasts push out over the crimson tank; almost the same color she had me paint the living room, except the paint was called Deep Passion. I'll never forget the kid at Trader Horn who had the nuts to page me, "Luke O'Sullivan, your Deep Passion is ready." The guys on my crew had some fun with that. "Where were you? You know I have the nightshift," she says with gunmetal blue eyes that pierce my skin. "Mine flooded." "Are you alright?" I've always loved her voice. She speaks with a smooth and relaxed cadence, not hurried or insecure like most twenty-something women I know. Her extended vowels hold a slight drawl. "You look like shit." "I'm fine. Just a little scare, is all." "That's it, Sully. I don't want you going back in…" "We can talk about it at the lake tomorrow," I interrupt. Her dad gave in to black lung about five years ago. I always figured we'd end up together on a Fayette County farm with two kids and two dogs, weekends at Cheat Lake. I first talked to Denise after a football game my senior year. She waited outside the locker room and, when I walked by, she looked up with those smiling blue eyes. I had to say something. She never thought I noticed her until that night. One day the summer before, I went rope swinging at the river. She was swimming with her friends on the other side. That image of her long tan legs coming out of the water, brown hair flowing off her back, sits locked in the back of my brain. Growing up with two older brothers in Slate Lick, Denise was a tomboy. She even shot a twelve-gauge. We start dating her senior year; I was twenty. I worked in the mines and she got her dental hygiene degree at the Altoona branch of Penn State. The first few years were the best. In the summers we jet skied at the lake, or went to the Pavilion and watched the Allman Brothers jam from our lawn chairs. On Wednesday nights during the year, I would drive to her dorm. We'd make love as the predawn blue streaked through the blinds, then I would drive the hour back for my shift. A few times I called in sick and she skipped biology, and we ate a late breakfast at Fay's Country Kitchen. I would pretend to be a creative writing student, telling the waitress I was writing a novel about coal miners. One night I showed up at Denise's room in a black beret that I found at Goodwill. I had read that the beatniks used to wear them. Denise was embarrassed, but she let me wear it out to dinner. We laughed like thieves at the sideways glances. But something inside her changed after her dad died. She'd say things like I was selling myself short, or that I could go to college or trade school but I was lazy. She had a good job with a dentist in town but then she wanted to be an ER nurse. She started taking night classes. Now she works odd shifts at the assisted living facility, I guess they call it now. I never see her much during the week, and some weekends she goes down to her brother's lake house while I stay here. One night last year she saw me walking out of Pour Tom's with Brenda. I was just giving her a lift home, but Denise ended things anyway. I started seeing more of Brenda. We were discreet, making late night calls to each other. She was always ready to go. But Brenda was also wild; there was always someone on the side. Denise had her own fun, though, with the married dentist she used to work for. After awhile, Denise and I started talking again. We missed each other and decided to give it another shot. For a while the old Denise was back, her playful laugh and smiling eyes. We've talked about marriage and kids. Lately, though, she started up again about my deadbeat friends or not bettering myself. "Salad and lasagna are in the fridge, and you better come home straight after that fight. You hear me?" she says heading out the door to her car. "Yes ma'am. Clean then bedpans good." "Cute." After dinner I take shortcuts to reach Ernie's place in time for the fight, but I'm stuck behind a Peterbilt hauling gravel. Its exhaust coughs black balls into the humid air. Through his side mirror I watch the young driver struggle to control his rig. The trailer's rear end snakes around the corners, shaking loose the gravel which spills over and pelts my windshield. Ernie still lives in Uniontown, now in the West End. He thinks he climbed the ladder by moving from the South Side and I guess he has. These days on the South Side they sell crack and heroin in broad daylight over there. We grew up on the same street. I moved down to Slate Lick, out in the country, a few years ago. I walk around back. The brick is caked with years of gray soot from the old Armco plant. I open the screen door and head straight for the fridge. Grabbing an Iron City pounder, I find a seat on the olive vinyl couch next to Jake and two guys he bartended with. Mounted on the fake wood-paneled wall is the head of a twelve-point buck Ernie bagged last season. Its eyes stare down at me. "Jake how was your first week in the pits?" I ask. "I don't know, dude. That shook me up pretty good today," he says. "Don't let it scare you. That kind of shit happens once in a blue moon," I lie. Tonight is Donny Kuharik's first nationally televised bout, against some tank from Jersey named Joe Delsardo. An inch under six feet, Donny was built like a brick outhouse. With a nineteen wins and one loss he had knocked out bigger guys. But Delsardo seemed different. He was taller than Donny, with a bull neck. His face held an agitated look that churned my stomach acid. I first saw Donny in seventh grade. He was fighting an older kid behind the Pullman Park fence. I still remember the disturbing sound of the kid's jaw fracturing from Donny's jab, like wood splitting. We played linebacker together at Uniontown High. Donny had the tools to play major college football - size, speed and wrath. Recruiters came from Penn State and West Virginia. But after the steroid rumors they backed off. So he played at a smaller school outside Pittsburgh and set their records for tackles and sacks. After college Donny came home and got a decent job at the Armco steel plant. I would see him at softball games or at Pour Tom's. He had a wife and kid when the mill closed. That's about the time he put the gloves back on. Donny had been a good junior boxer but quit when he discovered football. "That Delsardo's a scary bastard, ain't he?" Jake says. "He was an ultimate fighter before this. You know, that anything goes shit inside the cage," Ernie replies, easing his gimpy leg into the recliner. A pang of envy hits my gut as Donny trots toward the ring. For every great tackle I made, the next play Donny would make a better one and draw a deafening roar from the Friday night crowd. He got to play college football and be the big fish at parties. I remember going up to visit one weekend. Girls lined up to talk to him. But I felt pride too because Donny never forgot his roots. He fought for the mill workers and miners, not the CEO's and country-clubbers. "Our boy's gonna get his head torn off," I say. "This fat dago is dumber than a shit stain," Ernie says. "Like a bigger version of you. And don't forget we got fifty bucks riding on this." Donny looks nervous as he climbs through the ropes. He has on a gray cut-off sweatshirt revealing the tattoo on his bicep, a snake wrapped around a sword. His nickname, "The Dagger," is etched on the front of his trunks. Delsardo wears a silk robe. He had a shaved head and lifeless, coal black eyes. The bell rings and Delsardo lumbers out of his corner straight ahead, hands down. Donny springs up, his gloves in front of his face, and circles the tank. Near the end of the round, Donny throws a flurry of body shots, but he stays inside too long. Delsardo plants a left hook on his jaw. Donny stumbles to the canvas. Life is all timing, I thought. Usually I was a few seconds off. "Ooh shit, that one hurt him." Ernie jerks his leg rest into the recliner and sits upright. "But Donny has a tough chin." There were only twenty seconds left in the round. Still dazed, Donny gets up at the nine-count and dances around until the bell. He escaped. "Hell of a first round," says one of Jake's friends. "Donny's done. He got too greedy," Jake says. The next few rounds go back and forth but Donny's legs were still fresh. In the seventh, both guys trade heavy blows. Donny connects first with two right uppercuts when Delsardo leans too far forward. Donny moves in and hauls away on the body like he's cutting down a Virginia pine. Then Delsardo lands a few hard, straight lefts to Donny's ribs. A cut forms over Delsardo's eye but his corner men close it up quickly. The typical boxing fan just waits for the knockout. He neglects the fluid gestures like a dancer's, the ability to duck a punch, and throwing a punch to set the guy up for the next one. I loved watching the great middleweights of the eighties - Hagler, Leonard and Duran - square off. Roberto Duran was an artist. His punches were layered and, taken together, became something beautiful, the same way Coltrane on the tenor sax transcends the soul, or a Jerry Garcia guitar solo uplifts the spirit. As the final round bell rings, the announcers claim Donny needs a knockout to win. The two naked warriors touch gloves one last time. Out of gas, Donny throws desperation punches that miss by a country mile. Delsardo should have stayed away since he was ahead on the scorecards, but instead he was trying to knock Donny out. When he reaches too far with a hook and loses balance, Donny slips underneath it and finds the opening he needs. Donny plants a left hook square on the ear. Then, like an engine piston, fires a combination to Delsardo's head. Delsardo, stunned, looks at Donny then collapses. His face hits the canvas first. "Damn, I can't believe he went down!" Jake yells. The rest of us are jumping off the couch. Donny sprints to the corner and the referee starts his count. At the eight-count Delsardo rises to one knee, but the knee gives out. That was it. Our Uniontown boy pulled it off. My adrenaline pumping, I walk to the kitchen. I pour a shot of Wild Turkey, let it burn in my throat for a second, then chase it with my beer. From the kitchen window I stare at the Eastern Orthodox churches which cling to the hills above the muddy Monongahela. They remind me, again, of Granddad who emigrated from Poland and started mining at fifteen. Of course, it skipped a generation. My old man drove trains for Norfolk Southern. He ran routes from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast, which explains why he was never around and why my mom divorced him. She still runs her beauty salon in town and takes vacations to Reno or Atlantic City with her girlfriends. My dad's down in Florida running some ponzi scheme. He calls me about once a year to check in; I think to see if I'm dead, so he can collect on the insurance. Granddad was the one who took me fishing and taught me to throw a curve ball. Still, those rail cars my dad hauled were usually filled with coal. So I figured the shiny, black rock was somehow in my blood. People love to get in touch with their inner redneck these days. On weekends the suburbanites jump on their Harleys, or tailgate at the NASCAR race or go see their favorite country band. But during the week they retreat to their gated communities. It's easy to call us all white trash. The reality is never that simple. These old mill and mining towns were built by God-fearing folks who work on their own car engines. I never enjoyed the luxuries of certain kids. I never spent six years partying at Penn State, interrupted by two classes every semester. I never went to some liberal arts college with ivy on the walls a chapel that looked pretty in the snow, or took classes on Central Asian architecture or the repressed sexuality of Puritans. So it might surprise them to know that a hick like me, with only one year of community college, loves Faulkner. The weekenders also forget that people who work with their hands get chronic pain, and some days they'll do anything to escape it. That's why crystal meth arrived in Uniontown not long ago, and it put roots down. Ernie got into crank because it killed the pain in his leg and his head. It's also cheap and easy to cook up: Sudafed, red phosphorous from a matchbox, iodine, rubbing alcohol and a fuel tank. I see him now with hollow eyes and rotting teeth, but he wasn't that cute to begin with. When I was nineteen I had a summer job painting houses. On slow days my boss rolled a joint after lunch. One day we smoked a fat one. I suppose it hit me all it once because I don't remember the fall. Anyway, I busted up my foot and ankle. They fused the ankle together but I still feel it everyday, especially in cold weather. So there's that. I've been mining on and off ten years now, and what it's done to my back; some days it hurts to pick up the paper. So there's that. When Gray Wolf cut my benefits, the Vicodin got too expensive, although Denise occasionally gets some from the senior home. I only tried meth a few times, after Denise and I broke up. I haven't touched it in nine months. But I know it takes the pain away for a good long while, and then some. Thinking about the fight again, I was proud of Donny but part of me wanted to see him go down. There he is, collecting a fat check and parading around the ring, and here I am, a few second away from drowning in a coal mine. My lower back and foot are still throbbing. I need my own happy ending. I need to see that sunset again. I snap out of my daze and walk back into the kitchen. Ernie sits at the table but he's no longer there. His eyes are glazed over, the crank flowing upstream in his veins. He flashes me a gap-toothed smile. Jake stands at the counter and picks up the plastic bag of tan powder. He dumps some onto a spoon and holds the Zippo under it. Then he pours the hot liquid into a needle, finds a good vein and smacks if with two fingers. "No matter where you are going," Jake says with a shit-eating grin, "with God's grace you can enjoy the ride. I heard that on the Christian radio channel this morning." His gaze turns back to his arm as he mainlines the needle. "Praise the Lord!" I grab the bag of powder but stay clear of the needle, not wanting to end up like these two crazy bastards. I dump some powder onto the table and cut a few lines with my pocketknife. I pull out a clean bill and roll it up tight. Then with my best poker face I play the cards I was dealt. A few minutes later the chemicals take hold. My synapses fire. The room is a sauna. I rip my shirt off. Now I am in the ring with that big dago, Delsardo. I haul off on the body with my rage. He retreats to the corner and I follow. My right hook tears at his jaw like those carbide teeth gouging the coal. He falls over the ropes and onto the cement floor. Then he's gone. I look down from the table at my shaking legs. They feel detached. I sense my body being used in an ancestral ritual by some Shawnee from the nearby reservation. *** Reeling in the line off the back of my Boston Whaler, I wonder how that fat steelhead shook free. Cheat Lake is a pristine sheet of glass. What a difference a day makes. As dusk settles, I push on the throttle of the Evinrude outboard. Denise's brother's cottage comes into view. Brian is a contractor in Pittsburgh and let us use the place this weekend. Denise is on the dock. She's talking to a guy on a boat idling twenty yards off the dock. I saw that boat gassing up at the marina this morning; a Sea Ray, probably a forty-footer with twin V6 inboards. My neck and shoulders tighten. The guy has wavy blonde hair and Bahama shorts. Before I can make out their conversation he starts to peel away. As our boats pass he waves and flashes a fake smile. I think about ramming his boat, although my little sixteen-footer would take the brunt of it. I stare hard at him. Nearing the dock I cut the engine and let the boat coast up. I jump out and tie it off. I look at the moon's soft reflection off the lake. It's amazing how water can take such different forms, how tranquil now compared to the raging torrent yesterday. Denise sits on the porch in her bikini and jean shorts. "Make a new friend today?" I say, the sarcasm poorly hidden. "Relax. He just knows my brother. Said Brian built his house, I think." She takes her book and sun block off the other lawn chair and pulls it next to hers. "Next time I might shoot him off his boat." I walk to the cooler and grab two beers. "Because he has a nicer boat? Besides, you got nothing to say about who I talk to after coming home at nine in the morning." She takes the beer without looking at me. "I told you I stayed at Ernie's all night because we had beers and I didn't want to chance it driving home." I say, sitting next to her. " I could have picked you up after my shift. And nobody just drinks at Ernie's. I know him and his buddies are still on crank." "He's really cleaned up," I lie, "been showing up to work on time and looks the best I've seen in a long while." Ernie had just finished rehab at a really good private clinic over in Johnstown. From what I heard, he was damn lucky they plucked him from the wait list. I was proud he didn't sneak out in the middle of the night like the time before. He told me how much he wanted to quit and I believed him, still do. "Why do you protect his sorry ass?" "Because he always stuck up for me growing up, because he had no father and his slutty, alcoholic mom was never home, because he's a half-cripple. Is that reason enough? Why do you hate him so much, Denise?" "I don't hate him. He just doesn't think about consequences. He's bad influence on you. I don't care if you hang out with him, but if I find out you've touched meth again, I will either leave you or kill you. And don't think that I won't know. You could bullshit your way past that skank, Brenda, but not me," she says with those piecing eyes. I never knew a girl that looked beautiful and fearsome at the same time. "Is that what this is about, Brenda? That was almost a year ago. You broke up with me, remember? And what about that dentist friend of yours?" "I'm sorry. Let's forget it, okay?" Her hand touches my cheek. "I love you, and I'm done with crank. I'm crazy enough as it is right?" "I love you too. Yes, you are crazy enough for the both of us." She cracks a smile. I laugh, then lean over and kiss her mouth. Denise grabs my hand and leads me to the end of the dock. We lay down on two beach towels and seat cushions from the boat. Hot white stars ignite the sky. I can hear a small school of minnows jumping. Denise rubs my chest and slides her leg up and down my groin. I feel a lifetime away from the mines. "Maybe we should go inside. I think the neighbors might see," she whispers. "I'll turn on the floodlight to make sure." I kiss her hard, unzipping my jeans. I move behind her and unhitch the bikini top as she pulls her shorts off. Gently against her, I lift her leg up and slide in, deeper. I pull her close as her soft moans echo off the water. When I tell her I'm coming she turns her head back and kisses me hard with eyes open, her buoyant eyes that keep me afloat. I wake in the late morning; a full night's sleep uninterrupted by any drowning nightmare. I hear and smell bacon on the iron skillet. I walk to the kitchen and pour coffee. "You look happy," Denise says, leaning over the sizzling bacon. "I am. By the way, Donny won the other night. Knocked the guy out in the tenth round." Denise snorts. "Look, I know he's a good guy, but it won't last," she says handing me a plate of pancakes. "I'm just worried for his wife and his little girl. After he gets hit in the head one too many times. Then what? He'll come back to Uniontown, except now too messed up to work." "He got paid thirty thousand for that last fight." "And he'll spend more of that at the track and the bar than on his family. I know your friends, I grew up here, too." "I still wonder how you slipped under the radar until my senior year," I say. "How many games did you wait for me outside that locker room?" "First, I know you noticed me the summer before at the river. Don't deny it. I waved to you and you waved back, and later my brother said you were asking about me. Second, that was the first game and I was only there because Nicole asked me to wait with her." "You are an awful liar, you know that?" "Still better 'n you." She sits down to the table and puts the skillet in the center, under an oven mitt. "Have you thought about what Brian said to you last week?" Her brother started out building modest three-bedroom homes in Pittsburgh. After he built a few in places like Fox Chapel and Sewickley, his name spread around the golf and yacht clubs, and his business took off. He offered me a job doing some roofing and electrical work. "Not really. Why?" "I have an interview with a Pittsburgh hospital next week." "Is that right? When did you plan on telling me?" I ask. My chest tightens. I thought she had been reading the Post Gazette classifieds for a golden retriever we talked about getting. "I'm not gonna to clean bedpans at a senior home my whole life, not with a nursing degree. I just thing now is a good time to start looking." "I'd call a job interview more than looking." "I won't get the job, but think about it. You'd love it up there. We can go to Steeler and Penguin games. They have a good local music scene and great restaurants. And it's just two hours away. You can still come down and go hunting with your buddies." "Denise, I am from Fayette County and so are you. Deny it all you want, change your hair and your clothes. They still see what I see. Redneck." "What the fuck did you call me?" "I'm sorry, but you know what I mean. I thought you liked it here. You don't want to be that far from your mom. Besides, I'm a coal miner. It's in my blood." "It was in my dad's blood too, and then his lungs. My mom watched him die slowly. I don't want to go through what she did. It's a big world out there. I don't want to spend my whole life in a decrepit Appalachian town. If you do, fine. Maybe I'll more there myself," she says, walking toward the porch. "Well maybe you should then," I say before the screen door slams. *** The four o'clock bell rings marking the end of my Friday shift. The whole crew came back except Jake. I was skittish Monday but so were the other guys. Some talked about Donny's knockout. I told my fish tale about the big steelhead that got away. Nobody mentioned the flood. But the rest of the week was smooth. We were in a new mine, a dry one with a high roof. I jump off the wagon and walk up the steps to the locker room. Denise and I were still fighting. She had been staying with her friend Nicole all week. "Sully, I'm heading down to Pour Tom's. Meet me down there. You owe me fifty bucks worth of beer anyway," Ernie says. "I'll make it back on the pool table," I say. The parking lot is nearly full. I could never get a drink on these nights. I swing open the doors to an odd mix of college kids from the state school up the road, miners and mill workers, thirty-something women trying to recapture the glory of their youth, and a few yuppies and alcoholics. A metal band is covering a Guns n Roses tune in the back. The lead singer has on black leather and a red bandana. I walk over to Jake and Ernie shooting pool. Ernie is wearing brown leather cowboy boots, and I wonder how he pried his bad leg into them. "Jake, what happened to you, brother?" I ask. "I'm better off working above ground. I'm back here tending bar three nights a week." "How 'bout jumping over and pouring me a shot? This place is packed." I grab a stick and chalk it up. "College night." Jake says, racking the balls. "Sully," Ernie says, "you remember that Motley Crue concert about five years ago? The girls with big hair, tits flashing on the big screen at intermission." "I remember my eyes glued to that big screen. I bet Brenda's trophies were on display that night." Brenda is drinking at a table with her girlfriends across the bar. Ernie waves her over. She still looked good. She's wearing a tight black skirt and boots with a low-cut pink top. She still had big bleach-blonde hair. "Hey guys, long time no see." She winks at me. "Brenda, help me settle a bet," I say. "Were you at that Motley Crue concert at Mellon Arena about five years ago?" "Hell yes. I was on the big screen." She lights her Camel unfiltered. "You, or your tits?" Ernie blurts. "If Sully wants to come on outside, we'll see if he remembers. You can't watch, though." She laughs at Ernie. My glance falls to her heavenly 34Cs as I mull the offer. "Where's Denise at?" she asks me. "Not sure." "Trouble at the homestead?" "Nah, just a little fight." "If you want to talk about it I'm right over there," she whispers letting her breast brush my arm. As she walks back to her table and I follow the hypnotic sway of her skirt, she turns back and smiles. The alcoholics and old mill workers sit on their barstools and stare with lusty, sad eyes at the college girls who are dancing with each other in front of the band. "You gonna take her up on that offer?" Jake asks before he banks the nine ball in the corner pocket. "Denise and I are fighting but if this ever got back to her there'd be nothin' left to fight about." I look for wisdom inside the Iron City bottle. "None of my business but what's up with you two?" Ernie asks. "Denise wants us to move to Pittsburgh. She's interviewing at hospitals and her brother offered me a construction job. I'm not sure, though. It feels like there's more to it than just that." "So you told her no?" "Why would I wanna leave? I got everything I need or want right here." "You in the city. Ain't that a picture! I told you to watch your back with her." "Okay, Dr. Phil. Explain." "She's an ice queen. She never liked it here. She never liked your friends. Hell, she hardly ever tried with me." Ernie slugs the beer and his forearm swipes his mouth. "Nah. She's just quiet around y'all. She's different with me." "It's not just that. She's never satisfied. You move up there with her, she'll keep looking for somethin' better." "Watch your mouth, Ern. This from a guy who climbed out a window in his gurney to escape rehab. You need to take a look in the mirror." "That was the first time. I wasn't ready." "You're a piece of work." "Let's get outta here." Jake lays the stick on the table. "I'm sick of this Axel Rose poser, my ears ringin' from his goddamn falsetto voice. Go ask Brenda and her friends to meet us at Ernie's. I know that chick Jen wants me, she keeps lookin' over here." I walk to Brenda's table. "I can't hear myself think in here. You guys wanna meet us at Ernie's later?" "We can arrange that. Jen's got her eye on your buddy Jake." "I'm sure he don't mind." Pulling onto the Uniontown road, somethin' feels off. I didn't notice at first but Brenda's face had a tired, worn look. Suddenly she looked all of her thirty years. I'd been down that road; it was a dead end. And watching Jake mainline that needle last week disturbed me, and I'd probably see it again tonight. I think about how Denise's hair smells like lemons when she comes out of the shower. I knew I had to clean up, just not so soon. Plus, it was a hard pill to swallow. This place was all I knew. I'd be turning my back on my mom and Ernie. I'd be leaving my sanctuary at the summit of Chestnut Ridge. And I'd be leaving the mines. But nearing thirty, I wasn't getting any younger. I wanted a family. I wanted to be around for my kids, unlike my dad, to teach 'em how to cast a fly line and throw a curveball. Around here trouble seemed to lurk under the surface, pulling like an undertow. I slam on the brakes, turn around and head for Nicole's. As I pull in the driveway, the porch light comes on. After a few knocks, Nicole answers. "Sorry to barge in so late. I just need to talk to her." "She's gone. Went down to the lake to see her niece." "What? That's not right. Brian's family stayed home this weekend. Her niece had an some big soccer game." "That's what I said, she went up to Pittsburgh to see her niece." "You said the lake." "I'm sorry, I mean Pittsburgh." "Nicole, what are you not tellin' me?" "Nothin. What? I told you." "Do you want me to wake up Bob and the kids right now and tell 'em about your dirty little coke habit?" I think she quit, but I needed to get her talking. "Where's she at?" Nicole pauses. "At the lake with some guy she met down there." "What's his name?" "I don't remember. She said he had a nice boat, that's all I know. Sully, wait. Don't confront her, just give her time. She'll come back…" I slam the truck door before she finishes. I peel out on the gravel, my thoughts dense as a river fog. The rain falls harder. Maybe I should go home and drink it off. Here comes the turn into my trailer park. There it goes in the rearview mirror. I stay on the Uniontown Road, thinking about Brenda and getting high. I wonder what it would feel like to drown.