A man in the fourth row nodded. “Doin fine.”
“Frank, how’s Eric’s knee healing up? Cleo Fink’s gonna need him hundert percent come September. Dang kids an their minibikes.” He chuckled, then moved to the center. Paul and Pendrick were beside him and seemed inconsequential by comparison. “Hey, Wade, Joe Bob,” Bubba said and waved, smiling.
He turned to face the crowd. “Y’all know me. Know my family. Know I’ve lived in this town all of my life. An y’all know how much I love this town an I ain’t about to lay around an watch it die. But the mines is all played out, an if we don’t find a way to get jobs back in this town, it will die. I don’t want that. Do you want that?”
Most in the audience shook their heads. Pops’ face was red with anger.
“I dint think so.” Bubba licked his lips. His son, off to the side now, did the same. “But there is still coal up there in the hills. And there are still coal jobs to be had on these mountains. Right now, today, I got a hundert twenny-five men workin up Sadler. Paul, how many folks you hired at the Notion Shop this month?” Paul glowered straight on and crossed his arms. Bubba put a thick hand to his ear. “How many was that? I dint think so.” Another lip licking.
“You are raping the mountains,” Pendrick yelled. The arteries and veins in his neck were pulsing with indignation. “It’s an abomination.”
Bubba whirled around and regarded Pendrick with a dismissive half smile. “Are you the Jew boy come down from Washington, D.C., to save us poor ignorant hillbillies?”
“I’m not Jewish.”
“I heard you was Jewish.”
“I’m Lutheran.”
“You look like a Jew boy to me.”
“My mother is Italian,” he replied defensively.
Bubba sniffed, turned to the crowd, and confided. “That’s what all them Jews do, try to pass themselves off as Eye-talians.” He adjusted his belt buckle, licked his lips again, and continued. “Friends, you know that my family has brought jobs to this valley for years. Good jobs. Jobs that pay a fair wage for a fair day’s work. But now the only way to keep those jobs is to go at the coal from the top. The seams are too thin an unstable. The only way to get at it is from the top. All the other digs is played out—y’all know that. So if we are gonna create jobs for Medgar folks, we gotta dig at it from the top. You want work, it’s gotta come out the mountain. That’s the choice.” He looked from face to face. Men were looking down at their shoes, pulling at their ears. Some were feeling the back of their scalps. Bubba continued. “I love this town more than anything in the world. But you know what gets me riled. Is when some Jew boy from Washington, D.C., comes down here an tells us how to run ourselves.”
Pendrick shook his head and said again. “I’m not Jewish; I’m Lutheran.”
Bubba ignored him and continued. “He talks about abomination. I’ll tell you what’s an abomination that will not abide. An that’s a sodomite abomination destroyin this town. I will not allow a homosexual abomination to take jobs away from all a you.” At the mention of Sodom, heads shot up. On homosexual the place went all atwitter. “That’s right, folks. I heard the rumors jus like you did, an I found out that they are true! Paul Pierce and his homosexual lover, who ain’t even from here, are living in an unholy an debauched union right here in our town.” His voice raised to a shout. He turned to Mr. Paul and pointed. “You are an abomination to the Lord with your homosexual goins-on in that house.” Mr. Paul’s face was chalk, mouth opening and closing. Bubba Boyd looked back to the audience and lowered his voice to a level that implied reason. “I’m sayin it now, friends, cause it needs to be said.”
Pops stood and brushed past us to the aisle. “Bubba, you crossed…”
“Arthur, you sit yourself right down, now.” It was Mr. Paul. Pops paused, folded his arms, and stood astride the aisle. Mr. Paul moved off the low stage, took two steps down to the audience level. “Look, you all have known me since I was a kid. I’ve lived in this town most of my life too, and you all know what it means to me. Paitsel and me have lived on Green Street in our place for eighteen years. And now folks have been spreading talk about me being homosexual. So what if I am? Is that gonna change what’s happening up on that mountain? It’s not gonna make the water up Corbin Hollow clear. It’s not gonna bring Simp back for Betty. We all need to decide—”
“We ain’t decidin nothin—” Bubba Boyd broke in and started to continue before Pops cut him off.
“Let… him… finish!” Pops yelled with a booming voice that rebounded off the walls and carried outside. He had slowly worked his way to the back of the hall, and the admonition seemed like a calling from the heavens above. A few heads turned, but everyone recognized the voice; knew of the bad blood between Pops and Bubba Boyd; knew the history. Bubba opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Like all bullies, he was flummoxed when challenged. Bubba’s man in the back corner took a step toward Pops, but Bubba waved him off with a subtle shake of his head.
“Like I said,” Paul repeated. “This isn’t about me. It’s about the kind of people we want to be. I, for one, will live here poor with my mountains and hollers and streams rather than take the Company’s blood money.”
Grubby Mitchell raised his hand and spoke before being called. “Yeah, but, Paul, the Company ain’t offerin for Miss Janey’s. Bubba says he’ll pay me seventy-five thousand dollars for my place.”
“Raymond, your family’s lived on that farm for generations. That land is who you are. Every summer you, and your daddy before you, dam up Running Creek and make the best swimming hole in the county—been doing that for sixty years. I remember swimming there when I was a kid. Well, when the Company pushes all that overburden into Running Hollow, what do you think is gonna happen to Running Creek? There isn’t gonna be a creek, is what. Raymond, if you decide to sell, you’re not just selling your farm and Running Creek, you’re selling all the memories still to be had there. How much is that worth to you?”
Folks nodded. Grubby’s Adam’s apple bobbed as the inequity of the deal was laid bare.
Jesper Jensen raised his hand. “I hear what you’re sayin, Paul, but Bubba does raise an important point. We been hearin all kinds a things bout you an Paitsel. So I gotta ask you, an you know I respect you, Paul, but I gotta ask you: Is you or ain’t you homosexual?”
Pops opened his mouth again to speak, but Paul looked at him and gently put his hand up.
“Yes, Jesper, I am homosexual.”
“Paitsel too?”
Mr. Paul paused and looked to the front row. Paitsel nodded slightly, a nearly imperceptible smile.
“Paitsel too.”
Whispers and head shakings. Several men blew out long sighs.
Bubba Boyd smiled and licked his lips. He stepped in front of Mr. Paul. “I think we are done here, friends. Let’s all get on home.” He started shooing folks out of their seats the way shepherds drive sheep.
Mr. Paul pushed to the side of him. “We are most assuredly not done here,” he said loudly. “Mr. Pendrick has already been in touch with the Environmental Protection Agency and I have a meeting next week with the Department of Natural Resources. Your slurry pond is over capacity. We’re gonna shut you down.”
Bubba pretended not to hear him and started walking slowly down the aisle, his doppelganger son, Billy, a step behind. They paused here and there to shake hands and talk of fishing lures, the fall rutting season, Cleo Fink’s college prospects.
They had chanced upon each other when Paitsel, recently sent down to his last minor league team, was flat-tired on the side of Highway 81 on the outskirts of Johnson City. Paul pulled over and drove him and his holed-out wheel into town and back again, tire plugged and aired and occupying the backseat. Paitsel insisted on beers and Paul followed him warily to Duke’s Bull & Billiards in Elizabethton.
Life and place had helped Paul construct a masculine veneer, applied when conditions required, and so they talked of Sandy Koufax’s recent perfect game and Ned Jarett’s Grand National win, but all the while Paul was drawn to Paitsel’s hands, which were sizable yet somehow delicate, with flawless cuticles and long, courtly fingers that seemed to be exquisitely carved from alabaster marble.
Paul took in the Johnson City Yankees game the next day, on a ticket Paitsel left at will-call—Paul and his popcorn in the front row and Paitsel glancing over at him before each pitch, as if Paul was a runner ready to steal home.
Paul became a fixture in the front row when Paitsel pitched home games, and at season’s end, Paitsel drove north to help him rehab the newly bought Runyon place on the corner of Watford and Green. They were stripping a generation of wallpaper to the bares when Paitsel burned his index finger on the steamer and Paul grabbed ice and held it to the burn with both hands. Paitsel reached out with his good fingers and touched Paul’s cheek.
After the town meeting, Pops and I, along with Lo and Chester, walked back to 22 Chisold and settled back into the porch. I poured mash for all.
“Bunch of dang cowards the way they suck up to him,” Chester complained.
“What did you think we have in this town, superheroes?” Pops replied. “Most folks can be astoundingly brave or dog cowards depending on the circumstances.”
“That’s easy for you to say; you’re one of the brave ones.”
Pops shook his head. “You want pure brave? I give you Paul Pierce. Probably the most courageous man I know.”
Lo shifted, clearly uncomfortable at the topic. “Where you gettin brave from that? It’s disgustin, you ask me.”
“I’m not talking about his being homosexual. I’m talking about standing up to Bubba Boyd. I’m talking about admitting to the whole town that he and Paitsel are homosexual. That took guts, let me tell you. I have tremendous respect for both those men.”
“I kind of thought he was, you know, a homo and stuff when I met him,” I said. “How come no one else knew that?”
Chester laughed and brought his arms wide. “That’s the absurdity of it all—everybody knew! He and Paitsel have been living together in town for eighteen years! And here he comes tonight, finally admitting to the pink elephant in the room.”
“That ain’t true, Chester. Not everyone knew,” Lo mumbled. His forehead tacked up in rolls.
Chester snorted. Pops waved him away. “You’re right, Lo. Not everyone knew. But lots of people suspected.”
“I don’t get it.” I was on the edge of my chair now. “You say a lot of people suspected—then why the big shock?”