Things were thawing on a particular March afternoon when Ewart knocked on the bunkers hatch door. He let her in. The hatch was on a fishing line pulley, so that when you re-closed it, a scoop net tossed ground cover across its surface.
Inside, he was trying not to stare at the harmonica hed laid on the drawing table, the harmonica of his dead daddy. He still hadnt put it to his lips, for fear that since that particular part of him was so susceptible to disease, he might well be infected with whatever drove his father down the road to hell. He got back to business: fashioning a miniature coal tipple and a crane from scrap metal hed collected at the mine dumps. Structure-smart, hed used a hammer and a punch to knock out holes in the skinny tin. Slots for connecting and building upwards. Ewart stared at what would surely become a tiny city there on the table.
Your mommas going to come after you for spending all your time away, she said.
She aint home. Trenchmouth didnt say where the Widow was, but ever since the Huntington woman had gone down on moonshine charges, his mother had been hard at work moving product here to there, covering tracks, fashioning cover. In the time since the train trip to Huntington, their home had been family-scarce. Your daddys liable to come after you, you keep comin here.
He aint home, Ewart said.
Trenchmouth wasnt sure she even had a home. All shed say was that they lived up in Sprigg, a mile off the Tug. I cant figure what shift hes workin then. He looked up at her from his growing construct.
She bit her lip. Had a look of thinking hard. How many secrets can you keep?
I reckon about two hundred.
How many you got piled right now?
Ninety maybe.
She wasnt laughing at his odd ways like usual. My Daddy aint a miner, she said.
What is he then?
Preacher.
His stomach tightened. He looked back to his drawing, took up the pencil again.
You dont care for preachers?
He shrugged.
Listen, T. This aint preacher like youre thinking. My Daddy was best friends of a fella named Hensley down in Cleveland, Tennessee. They fell out cause Daddy was better and everybody knew it. Mr Hensley though, he started up this church Ewart bit her lip again. This caused Trenchmouth to shift in his seat and lock eyes. This promise might fill up all those hundred empty ones you got, she said. He nodded. Mr Hensley picked up a serpent.
What?
It aint like church you know of. Folks pick up serpents. Roll around with em sometimes even.
Snakes?
Snakes. She almost laughed for having finally told someone. Folks get bit even. Trenchmouth stared. A couple folks died.
You could call it a box, maybe a wood cage. Copperheads and rattlesnakes knocked around inside it, their dark, translucent sides thumping at the holes.
Who built the box? Trenchmouth asked her.
Daddy. They were standing inside a small backroom of Ewarts farmhouse. Shed finally let him see where she lived. The walls were stained and halfway papered, like somebody had quit on the whole place mid-job. From the second story came sounds of the adult world. Above the two children, furniture scraped floorboards and the low tones of a man and a woman echoed untranslatable. Hes up there preaching to somebody new, Ewart said. Convertin somebody. She bent down and put her fingers next to one of the little round holes. The snakes were quiet.
You ever pick one up? Trenchmouth hadnt taken his eyes off the box. Its construction couldve been improved upon.
No, she said. I dont care for snakes.
Thats when he bent down next to her and got the feeling hed had on the train that night with Clarissa. His knee touched Ewarts, and through the thick wool fabric both sets of skin seemed to heat up. Trenchmouth put his hand out to touch her, but for reasons unknown he changed destinations. With thumb and finger he undid the little brass latch and opened the snake hatch. He reached into the slowly slithering mound and brought back a hand covered in copperhead. The snake might as well have been asleep, but Ewart hopped up anyway, pressed her back against the far wall. Brittle wallpaper fell to the floor behind her.
The snake moved up Trenchmouths arm slow and methodical. Had it decided to bite him, the going would be tough through coat and shirt and undergarment, but it gave no indication that it meant the boy harm. He stared at its undersized head, the geometric shape of it and every perfect scale lining its being. He stared and the snake looked back at him until the gaze went blurry between them, until that snake had made it up his forearm, biceps, shoulder, and collarbone. It stopped.
Though he knew she was watching and he knew hed never shown her his affliction, the boy opened up wide because it seemed the only thing he could do at that moment. And, as if it was an act theyd practiced together before bug-eyed kids at county fairs, the copperhead, without hesitation, slid into the open mouth like itd found home. It rested its head on his tongue.
Ewarts hands had come up to her own mouth, holding in and keeping out simultaneously. She breathed heavy without having exercised. The breathing picked up more as she watched her friend slowly close his ragged gums and chapped lips around the serpent. He didnt bite down, just closed up slowly so that it appeared to her he was ingesting the thing.
From upstairs, the low tones got louder, the furniture scraping and floorboard creaking more imposing, as if the ceiling might come down on them. But Trenchmouth paid little mind. He held his pose, eyes on Ewart, then opened that mouth of his again, just as slow and deliberate as hed closed it. He gave the copperheads tail a little incentive pull and the girl watched the snake loop its head back toward her, a candy cane pose held briefly before slithering back down the arm. Then it was still.
How bout that? Trenchmouth said.
She let her hands fall from her face. Youve got to leave, she said.
He bent down to the open box and let the snake fall back to its brethren. Did I scare you?
Daddys done convertin. Cant you hear how quiet its got?
From the time hed opened that box, his whole world had been more quiet than anytime he could remember. Quiet like it must be under the ground.
Daddy wont like that youre here. Youve got to go.
He swiveled the brass latch into place and stood up. He walked to her and kissed her on the cheek, and it was warm and dry, without the electricity of Clarissas. Then he slid through the open door of the little back room, his coat knocking paint chips from the molding, and walked out the back. The preacher and the convert descended the stairs inside, laughing.
It was obvious to the Widow Dorsett that for her boy, school was like being put on the rack. And she didnt say a word when he announced hed spent his last Sunday at the Methodist Church. She and Clarissa continued to go without him, and he continued to bow his head and hold their hands for the mealtime blessing. Little else was spoken in terms of Trenchmouths exile. It was simply accepted that the boy would not be accepted. What mattered was that he learned. That he kept up, surpassed even, those that would not accept. Above all, that he did not become a miner. And it was for this reason that the Widow, on most days, left the newspaper out on the kitchen table for him to read. Shed mark the articles she thought educational with black ink advice like Think on this one awhile or Ever thought of trying your hand at this?
Trenchmouth got home from school on a Tuesday to find one of these left notes on newsprint. It was warm enough out that he didnt have to refill with coal or wood the heating stove fire, an after-school chore assigned to him during fall and winter months. He broke a piece of hard cornbread off a brick shed left out and sat down to read. The newspaper settled him like little else could. It was almost as comforting as moonshine somehow.
The Widow had written I hope you dont associate with these boys above an article titled Robbed Passenger Coach. Some local boys had robbed a coach car containing a stock of goods for the local newsstands. Theyd been caught sleeping inside a cave theyd fashioned on top of Horsepen Mountain not far from Trenchmouths hideout. They slept between the open, stolen hampers and baskets of cigarettes, cigars, chewing gum, candy, popcorn, groceries, fruits, novels, and magazines, gorged no doubt on romance and sugar.
Trenchmouth tore off a piece of newspaper and scrawled on it move hideout for safety? He put it in his pocket.
A page in, she had written Think Ill ever get me one of these? above an ad for a cooking oven. It read Every woman who wants a steel range will certainly buy The Peninsular if they can only get a view of it. They could do so if they got themselves to A.H. Beal Hardware in Williamson. The power of steel. It was everywhere to behold. Trenchmouth looked at the beat up Acme cook stove against the wall. It had seen better days.
The door opened and Clarissa walked in with Fred Dallara in tow. Trenchmouth nodded and looked back to his paper.
Hi, Clarissa said. Shed blossomed full to beautiful.
Afternoon, little T.T., Fred said. His voice had gone suddenly low that winter, his torso thicker. He had a mustache that looked like somebody had smudged two fingers across his lip and halfway wiped it off. Fred enjoyed pointing out their age differential.
The two lovebirds climbed the ladder to the loft and went quiet.
Trenchmouth knew that Fred and Clarissa kissed up there. The soft sounds echoed in his ears. He knew that they knew the Widow was at work on her still again, moving and hiding and covering up, and that she wouldnt be back to catch them in the act. He broke off two miniature pieces of cornbread, shoved them in each earhole, and got back to reading.
See here? she had written above another story. Turns out you just got more brains than the rest of us, in more places, more stubborn. It was another new finding from the scientists who were always finding. Throat Brain Is Latest Discovery the title read, and under that Scientists Say Gray Matter is in Fingers and Cells are in Toes. Numerous Thinking Organs Distributed Throughout Whole Body. According to the columnist, the fingertips of the blind contained brain tissue, and so did the throat. If a throat surgeon slipped up during his operation, the throat brain would react by refusing to cooperate.