By Kevin Joseph Reigle

A beacon light strobed from the bolted top. Wayne lifted a finger, and the continuous miner ground to a halt.  The shift foreman yelled, “Time to head to the house.” 

Wayne grabbed his battered lunch box and duck walked to the mining buggy with the rest of the crew. Roof bolter, Crazy Sikes, pushed aside a plastic curtain and hunched down as he made his way over from the unsupported top in entry four. 

The miners lowered their heads as the buggy sped toward the light at the entrance of the shaft. As the first rays of sun washed over them, Sikes patted Wayne on the shoulder. “You going to the game tomorrow?”

“I never miss one,” Wayne answered as the buggy came to a stop.

“Great job today, boys,” Don, the outside man, yelled. “We got eight cuts.”

The men celebrated a day of hard work as they started up the rocky incline to the gravel lot. Wayne looked into the bed of his pickup truck before unlocking the cab. The body was rusted, and with almost three hundred thousand miles, the engine wouldn’t last much longer. He was past due for a new truck, but every time he looked into the bed, he saw Blaze, panting, tail wagging, excited to see him. Getting rid of the truck would be like losing Blaze all over again.

Wayne lifted the handle and gave the door a hard pull. He slid onto the bench seat, putting the lunch box on the floor.

“Great job this week,” Don said, approaching the truck.

Wayne put the key in the ignition and turned it halfway, letting the radio crackle to life. A John Fogerty song playing softly from an AM station. “I do what I can.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. We’d have to shut this place down if it wasn’t for you. Night shift ain’t worth a damn,” Don said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “When the company sent me down here, I didn’t expect there’d be someone as good as you running a miner.”

Wayne shrugged. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“How about that boy of yours? I bet he’s ready to follow in his pa’s footsteps.”

“He’s nine. I don’t think he’ll be operating heavy machinery anytime soon.”

Don squinted, looking at the sun. “Sorry, I thought someone said you had an older boy.”

“Just Tyler. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Bright and early,” Don said, stepping away from the truck.

While shifting into reverse, Wayne turned up the radio as Thunder Road filled the cab while the on-air DJ announced the station’s call sign; AM 1220, Home of Heartland Rock in the mountains of West Virginia.

Wayne coasted down the single-lane dirt road across the narrow Caney Creek Bridge, which stood just wide enough for coal trucks to cross on their way to the processing plant. A plant Wayne would pass on his twenty-minute drive home to Marshall Hollow. 

Rounding the bend and crossing the abandoned railroad tracks, remnants of a general store stood in the undergrowth. A cracked RC Cola sign hung from a rusted pillar. Sun-bleached wood planks supported cracked glass in a store window.

The Big Sandy Tabernacle Church of Christ departed from their usual practice of displaying fire and brimstone Bible verses and instead, offered good luck to the football team on their upcoming district championship game. Up ahead, the coal processing plant straddled the hillside like a colossus. A line of trucks waited to offload unprocessed coal onto the two-ton conveyor belt that fed into the breaker before being sorted and washed. 

A few miles down the road, Wayne’s doublewide trailer nestled on a hill just beyond the turnoff to Marshall Hollow. The road continued past his trailer and eventually ended at his parent’s house. The entire hollow filled with kinfolk.

Wayne pulled into his driveway. In the backyard, he watched his son, Tyler, trying to kick a football, but he flubbed it, sending the ball spinning across the grass. Tyler chased after the ball as it skidded through the mud and into the weeds.

Wayne leaned against the grill of the truck and lit a Marlboro. Tyler hardly looked fazed by his bad kick. He picked up the wayward football and began tossing it in the air. 

A sedan pulled into the driveway. Stones kicked up, pinging off the undercarriage. Wayne watched Allen roll down the driver’s side window and give him a nod. 

“You coming out tonight?” Allen asked.

“Yeah, after I get a shower.”

“Jesus,” Allen said, watching Tyler throw the football at a tree stump but missing badly. “Are you sure he’s part of your gene pool? Hey, I’m really sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking.” 

“It’s fine,” Wayne muttered.

Allen glanced at the darkening clouds through the windshield, looking for a way to change the subject. “Man, I hope it don’t rain. If this place floods again, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t miss any more work.”

“You’re not the only one. We needed a boat to get out of here last time.”

“The creek better start draining.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Wayne said, dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his boot. “I’ll let you know when I head out.”

“Sounds good,” Allen said, rolling up the window.

Wayne gave a two-fingered salute as he watched Allen back out of the driveway. It startled Wayne when the football bounced up and hit his leg. He grabbed the ball and spun it before resting his fingers over the laces. “Go long for me, bud.”

Tyler screeched with excitement as he ran across the yard. A perfect spiral flew through the air and arced into his hands. The ball slipped through Tyler’s fingers and thumped off his chest.

“Can I try again?” Tyler asked hopefully as he retrieved the ball. 

“I have to get a shower. Maybe we’ll throw some tomorrow.”

  Tyler held the ball above his head. “Why don’t we play like we used to?”

Trisha’s voice came from inside the kitchen. She had the window over the sink open and could hear their conversation. “Yeah, why don’t you?”

Wayne stepped up on the deck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Sure you don’t,” Trisha said.

Wayne ignored her and opened the trailer door. He walked through the kitchen as she stood at the sink washing dishes. “You don’t have to make me dinner. I’m going out with Allen.”

Trisha raised a soap-covered hand and turned off the faucet. “Is it because he’s not good at football?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He’s not Johnny,” Trisha said, her voice trailing off.

“You don’t think I know that?”

Trisha grabbed a towel and dried her hands. “Don’t you think this has been hard on me, too?”

“Has it? Looking at you, I’m not so sure.”

“It’s been five years, Wayne. Tyler needs you. There’s nothing to be done about Johnny now. Don’t go losing two sons.”

Wayne wiped the coal dust from his face and extended a hand for her to see. “I’d like to get a shower, if that isn’t too much to ask.”

“You’re going to regret this.”

“Regret what?”

“Not spending time with him. Tyler’s allowed to be good at something other than football. Don’t toss him aside just because he isn’t Johnny.”

“I’m getting a shower,” Wayne said.

Trisha threw up her arms. “That’s fine. Go to the bar and cry with Allen about the state championship you lost when you were both eighteen. Jesus, move on.”

“Allen can move on, he has Roddy.”

“What, so if his son wins state this year Allen’s loss has been avenged? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You don’t get it.”

“Johnny was our son. He was nice and thoughtful. His sole purpose in life wasn’t to win a state championship that you couldn’t.”

Wayne opened the bathroom door without saying a word. He laid his cell phone beside the sink. He tapped the screen and found the last picture of him and Johnny taken beside the car just minutes before the accident.

                                                                      *   *   *

Kevin Joseph Reigle’s fiction has appeared in The Brussels Review, Bridge Eight, Drunk Monkeys, Beyond Words, Bristol Noir, Bright Flash Literary Review, Midsummer Dream House, and several anthologies. He is a student at The New School.