SIX. Then Came More of Sorrow and Anguish
The words split the preachers lips asthmatic. He was small, but he preached big and airy and hoarse, like a coughing fit had ahold of him. The sorrows of death compassed me, he shouted. And the pains of hell gateheld upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. Frank Dallaras body went into the ground inside a rough-cut box, wet from rain. Then called I upon the name of the Lord, the preacher went on. Oh Lord, I beseech thee deliver my soul.
Trenchmouth stood and listened. For a time, hed felt more anger than anguish. Folks had been talking about Anse Pilcher, the burned hotels owner. Anse had a condition. His bones were soft. Like cartilage. His bones could be pierced just like his flesh, and because of this, most wouldnt speak poorly of the cripple, as they called him. But he had enemies and Frank Dallara had been one of them. Those talking said Anse had told Frank a little girl was inside all that fiery construct, that he lied to see the man set ablaze. Trenchmouth thought on this at the funeral. His shoulders, broadening now, nearly split the shirt seams the Widow had sewn a night prior. When Frank Dallaras coffin hit bottom and the rough men lowering it pulled back their ropes, the boy nearly lost what little composure he had left. In a weeks time, hed lost the man closest to being a father to him and learned the vile fate of his real daddy. Hed watched his birth mother spew shit and venomous words in his direction. And hed kissed his own sister on the mouth. It was a good deal to take in at nine years old.
The preacher preached onward. I said in my haste, all men are liars.
Thats when the boy knew that God was for the featherheaded, that religion was a salesmans game. Gods man himself had said it: liars. Trenchmouth turned then and walked away from all of them. Black-clad and bad-postured, they half-listened to the words, deliver my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. But Trenchmouth drowned it out. He whistled while he walked away. This struck a particular funeral-goer, Frank Dallaras ugly brother-in-law Hob Tibbs, as disrespectful beyond the pale.
He followed the boy away from the mourners circle. He pulled him by the arm behind a substantial tree, and he smacked him. Dont you disrespect the dead, he said. He smacked again. Dont you dare disrespect the Lord out here, you hear me?
Folks handle anguish in a variety of ways. Somehow the nine year old knew this to be true, and it stopped him from striking the ugly man back. But Hob Tibbs had made a new enemy, had added to his list of many, and something in his face burned into Trenchmouths brain unforgettable. Tibbs said, Youre going to be in church every Sunday, hear? Im puttin you to work for God. Youll spit shine a cross if I tell you. Polish up stained glass for walking away from a mans burial.
Trenchmouth said what hed said all his life. Yessir.
SEVEN. Folks Could Fall Hard
Church and school. These were places that didnt interest a ten-year-old boy. It wasnt that Trenchmouth abhorred scripture or couldnt learn his lessons. He could. It was the existence of those that sought to ridicule him on account of his oral ailment, to single him out and dig at him so as to break his spirit. There were boys at school who plotted little else. And in church, of course, there was Hob Tibbs.
As promised, hed shackled Trenchmouth to the Methodist congregation. He put him to work spit shining brass and polishing glass. During Sunday services, the boy was forced to wait and clean up after communion. Shirts were to be tucked in, hems straight. And Trenchmouth was subject to the unrelenting criticisms of his mouth. Theres men called dentists these days, boy, Tibbs would say. Might fashion you a brush outta twig and pine needle. You ever hear of a brush? Oh, hed say, squinting close at the closed mouth, I reckon you havent.
Trenchmouth owned a toothbrush. He pulled it back and forth when he could stand to, but the ache it induced, along with the bleeding, would make anyone wonder at the worth of such a practice. Hed long ago tried and discounted a homeopathic mouth rinse from the Sears Roebuck, and now he used a concoction the Widow had stirred up for him, a bitter, stinging rinse for the mouth whose makeup she would not reveal.
It was a summertime Sunday, just after the Methodist Man had finished giving communion, when Trenchmouth, by this point a forced duty acolyte of sorts, was helping Tibbs in the choir room. They poured the unused grape juice back in the jug. The boy spilled it on the bitter mans shirt front.
You little rotten shit, Tibbs said, teeth grit hard. He grabbed Trenchmouth by the collar. You got no sense in that head, just like you got no teeth. You cant do a simple Lords chore without foulin it all up. He was letting loose whatever it was that ate at him without rest. Got no mama to speak of except the one in the bughouse, and even that Widow can see you got the devil in you. Hes leakin out through your gums, aint he boy? A boil rose inside Trenchmouth then, one that had started at Frank Dallaras funeral, his first encounter with Tibbs. It was about to bust and run over. The man kept up, And if you think Frank Dallara was any kind of daddy to you, think on it some more. That there was pity, son. No more, no less. Pity for a cripple whose real daddy was no bettern a nigger. The word was ugly, even in those times. Some say he was half-a-one anyhow, mixed blood. Tibbs let a smile inch onto his face.
Trenchmouth, without much thought, bent at the knee and hinged back his hip. He took a full-leg backswing and let fly, trailing a black-booted shoe. This was inertia. He kicked Hob Tibbs in the stones with the force of a mule, like old Beechnut when hed not eaten. Tibbs sucked in air with great volume. He bent double. On the dark wooden floor slats of the churchs choir room, he curled into a babys pose and whimpered like one for lack of speech at such pain.
The boy bent over him. If anybodys kin to hell, its you, cocksucker. Hed heard a drunk man say the word to another during a fight outside the pool hall and had been waiting to use it ever since. And you wont see me in this here church again, ever. And you wont come calling either. Cause if you do, Ill be up in a tree behind a barrel. The words were such that a boy shouldnt possess to speak, but he did, and he wasnt finished. He leaned over Tibbs head and spoke. Youll fall hard as Goliath, cocksucker.
Tibbs just whimpered and knotted up tighter. Trenchmouth let his saliva carry and gather in his lips, just ahead of the ravaged gums. When hed pooled enough, he opened up in a grin not unlike the one Tibbs had given him that morning. The spit, rusty and thick, hung for a tick or two until its own weight broke and it smacked heavy into the left eye of Hob Tibbs.
Trenchmouth tore off his church-donated tie and walked out the heavy doors. He was through. For the rest of his life, hed use the word sir to address any man his senior, with the exception of Hob Tibbs. Hed taken a place in the boys brain and heart reserved only for a few. A few whod spend their days and nights back-looking over shoulders and sniffing the air like dogs.
It was the same at the schoolhouse. Under a ceiling so low a miner would crouch instinctual, sat all ages, all grade levels, together. The teacher, Ms Varney, switched legbacks for crimes ranging from sass talk to bad posture. She wrote on the new blackboard formulas for understanding reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history. But her two favorite subjects were hygiene and singing. Once, after Doc Taylor visited on head lice, Ms Varney said this to the class: If you care for yourself so little as to let bedbugs infest your scalp, well then youre nearly as bad as a tramp with trench-mouth in my book. Clarissa had put her head down.
When the students got to singing in unison at the end of every day, songs like In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree, Ms Varney inevitably told Trenchmouth, Remember to keep yours sealed shut, young man. Humming is all this little room can stand from a stink box such as yours.
If Ms Varney left the room, Mose Crews inevitably scampered to the blackboard to draw up little diagrams of fly infestations and cow flop inside the opened orifice of young Trenchmouth. He had favorite, scribbled phrases like T.T. = Doo Doo and T.T. Stinky dont talk, he breaks wind.
Trenchmouth never put his head down. He stared straight ahead at something no one else could see.
It was fall 1913 that a new girl came to sit beside Trenchmouth in that schoolroom, and she alone had the energy to break his stare. She even had the energy to take his thoughts off Clarissa, whod been ignoring him since the kiss on the train.
Ewart Smith was her name. She came from Tennessee with her daddy, who was taking work in the mines. Ewart was tan. More tan than Trenchmouth even, who, after a summer of bareback climbing and digging outdarked all the kids in the segregated schoolhouse. But Ewart had yellow hair and green eyes, and her teeth were as white as Ms Varneys chalk. The day she came in, she was introduced to the sound of laughter and confusion at such a given name. She responded by crossing her feet and bowing, one hand across her hips, the other extended to her side. Though there were a few empty seats, she picked the one next to Trenchmouth Taggart, T.T. Stinky.
By winter break, she held his hand after school, and he nearly parted his lips when he smiled at her.
EIGHT. Who Among Us Has Read The Signs
It was a simple idea really. Steel not wood. If folks would just realize that timber construction was a thing of the past, steel the future, maybe whole towns wouldnt burn. Maybe good men wouldnt die. And maybe, if the self-made railroad men laying track like match-sticks across the hill terrain of southern West Virginia, if theyd just realize that coal tipples could be fashioned heartier from the very product being mined in these hills, namely the bituminous coke, maybe the wealth would spread to the little folks. This is how Trenchmouths brain worked. The boy climbed Sulfur Creek Mountain daily to his secret spot, a dug out, one room, underground bunker complete with homemade drawing table, ruler, drafters compass, and school-stolen pencils. There he drew up plans. Inventions really. There he devised an outline for steel cities and suspension bridges and coal tipples. Hed never let anyone in until Ewart Smith came along. Only she knew the hideouts location, and shed been sworn to secrecy.