Free Muckers by Sandra Neil Wallace Page B

game. He’s got on his red unions—he always has them under the white shirt every shift boss wears—and should be using a fork instead of those fingers when he starts fishing for a pickle out of the jar. But I’m glad he’s aiming for something to eat. Pop never does when he’s drunk, so I know I’m in the clear.
    “Dammit!” he hollers. I can see his fingers dangling inside the jar. “I’m stuck,” he says, his face burning red.
    I get out the lard Maggie Juniper keeps in the cupboard and bring it over to the sink, trying not to smile or laugh or anything. I can see his wrist is bleeding since he keeps trying to yank it out when it just won’t go.
    “Stop thrashing it around,” I say. “It’ll only make it worse.”
    Pop sighs and watches me spread the lard around the rim, then onto his swollen wrist.
    “If you say I’m in a pickle you’ll be sorry,” he mumbles. But I can’t stop myself from smiling.
    When the wrist wriggles free, he dumps the pickles into the sink and grabs the first one that slides out, looking at me in between chewing.
    “So you’re the king of happiness, eh?” he says.
    I don’t say anything. I never know what to say to Pop anyhow. I wonder if he’ll let me take a pickle, though. There’s only three. I lean into the sink to get one, but Pop latches on to my arm. He’s quick for fifty-four, at least before he gets to coughing, but his hearing’s definitely shot from all that blasting down in the mine.
    “The game last night,” he says. “Remember, it’s every man for himself out there. Same as in the mines.” Then he lets go of my arm and I stuff the pickle in my mouth.
    “Wipe that smile off your face,” Pop says when he catches me grinning.
    It wasn’t even a real smile. How could it be? Not today.
    Pop doesn’t bother to shave much anymore. He’s due at the mine before it gets light out. I know they like their shift bosses clean-shaven, but they ease up the rule for Pop.
    Except for his big hands and gut, Pop’s pretty thin, especially in the face. He never took on any muscle, even after all those years of mining, and his nose hasn’t looked like a nose in a while. There are little round things sprouting out from the sides like on those saguaros that grow down in Phoenix we saw in that Kodachrome film.
    Pop’s nose turned purplish-red once they started blasting open the pit. Every time a miner got killed on his shift, you couldn’t find Pop for days. Then he’d come home and throw one of his rocks at the mountain. When Bobby died, there weren’t any rocks left to throw, so Pop hurled a chair at me instead.
    He puts the empty pickle jar in the Frigidaire without the lid and gets the newspaper I left on the back porch.
    “It’ll never happen,” Pop sniffs, wiping his mouth with his hand and pointing to the part about the miners wanting a raise. “The E.C. don’t need us like they used to,” he says, sitting back down at the table, “or we’d have ’em again by the balls.”
    “Ever think it’ll shift back,” I ask, “or isn’t there enough ore down there to keep the mine going?”
    “There’s ore, and enough of it. Gold, too,” Pop says. “But I don’t make those kinds of decisions.” He scratches his belly and looks up like he’s seeing me for the first time. Then he goes to the sink and gets the last pickle. “It’s still good,” he says, handing it to me. “There may be no future for you here, Red. And the mine—it’s no life for you. Once football’s over, you best be tinking about what comes next ’cause there might not be anything left for you in Hatley.”

Chapter 7
FOUR O’CLOCK WIND
    THURSDAY, AUGUST 31
    AFTER PRACTICE
    COACH LET US OFF PRACTICE early after grinding hard all week. He says he wants us to be fresh for our second game tomorrow night in Prescott so we should head home.
    People are always calling four walls a home. But ours doesn’t feel like one. To me, this field is home, so I showered and came back.
    The