BACK IN THE DAY there was only one way to mine coal. Dig a hole in the ground, prop the mine open with wooden beams and support structures, and get the coal out. By hand. By mule. By train. By truck. Whatever it took.
It was dirty. It was dangerous. Sadie’s husband, my Uncle Nelson, died in the collapse of Mine Number 3. It took them two weeks to dig his body out.
My granddaddy Lewis died of black lung disease. He inhaled so much coal dust that his lungs turned from pink to black. Not a good thing if you’re a lung.
Uncle Nelson died before I was born. But I remember Granddaddy Lewis, coughing and spitting and barely able to speak a sentence he was so short of breath. He died when I was ten.
Factors of five are evil. My mother ten years ago, my granddaddy five years ago, and now, Mount Tom.
Coal mining has always been dangerous and unhealthy but at least the mountain was left above the mine and there were jobs. After all, duh, it takes coal miners to mine coal. A mountain of ’em. The Greenfield American Three Mine had been producing for decades. It reopened after the collapse, and now close to half the town was employed working the mine. As I said before, take the mine away from a mining town and there isn’t a lot left.
“Bastards!” Mr. Cooper roared. “They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want! They want to blow the mother up!”
Coop had worked himself into such a furious frenzy that the flosser had flew to the floor and joined the broken beaker in the corner of the room. Spittle was frothing from Coop’s mouth like one of those rabid dogs on Animal Planet, wild and crazed and needing to be put down before they did some serious damage.
“Sons of bitches!” he hissed.
We had never seen Mr. Cooper like this before. Pissed? Yes. Annoyed? Most definitely!
But never anything like this.
•
Mountaintop removal.
It was all the rage here in West Virginia. And, come to find out, had been for years.
Who knew? Obviously, not Ashley and me.
Picture this:
A beautiful mountain, blanketed in green. A West Virginian quilt of trees, trees, and more trees. The who’s who of the forest hopping and scurrying and flying and buzzing and bounding from tree to awesome tree.
Nature. Awesome nature. A feast for the eyes. A sanctuary for the soul. A temple to the gods.
Always had been and always would be.
Until now.
Until this.
Mountaintop removal. Blow the top off of the mountain.
I know. I know. It sounds like some really lame action flick where a bunch of terrorist dudes cross the border and sneak into the country and start blowing shit up before Will Smith or Dwayne Johnson or Vin Diesel come and beat the crap out of them.
But that’s what the coal companies do. They cut down all the trees on the top of a mountain, lay down tons of dynamite, and then—KABOOM! Hundreds of vertical feet on the summit of a mountain are blown sky high.
Gone. Just like that. Goodbye, paradise. The top of the mountain blasted apart. And all the rock and debris dumped to the side, burying streams and valleys.
It’s like taking that forested quilt, that fabric of life, and tearing the middle right out of it. Rip out the heart. Rip out the soul.
To the company it makes perfect sense. Why hire a bunch of locals to dig, dig, and then dig some more when you can just cut to the quick and blow the whole thing up? It’s much easier that way. Take the miner out of mining. More bucks for the bang.
Of course, like Comedy Central said, keep it up and they’ll just have to call us ’billies, because there won’t be any more hills left to put us on.
This had been going on for years throughout Appalachia. Years. Mount Tom wasn’t going to be the first to lose his head. Coal was king and the emperor had a fierce appetite for beheadings.
How could I not have known this?
Sadie had told us that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
But what about the hand that holds the sword that chops off the head?
•
You know the ads you see on TV where there’s this happy little family sitting on the couch, reading or playing games or just plain snuggling together? I know it’s just an ad. I know it’s setting the mood to get us all gooey and mushy inside so we’ll rush off and buy some worthless piece of crap that we don’t need and we don’t even want and we clearly can’t afford.
But those ads work for me. I like them.
I remember sitting on the couch just like that happy little family. Sitting on the couch with my mom and my dad and little Britt thinking that nothing bad could ever happen to us. Nothing. That grown-ups would take care of everything and the world was a safe and wonderful place where only princesses and unicorns and cute little puppies played, happy as a catfish in Green River muck, not a care in the world.
And then my mom died. I was five. I didn’t have a clue as to what death was and I remember, night after night, waiting for her to come back home from wherever she was and tuck me in and kiss my forehead and read me a story or sing me this lullaby by Deanna Coleman:
Well I love my baby
sweet and fair
you’ve got the sky in your eye
the sun in your hair
I rock you to sleep most every night
and sing you this song
while I hold you tight.
There are nights where I still lie awake, waiting for my mom. Waiting for my bedroom door to open. Waiting for the hallway light to illuminate the shadows of her jet-black hair and her face and her smile. Waiting for her to kneel by my bed and pull the covers up tight under my chin and kiss me lightly on my forehead.
The night after Mr. Cooper told us what they were planning to do to Mount Tom was one of those nights.
I lay awake and waited. All night long. And Mom never came.
I’d have to say that up until that very moment I’d really thought that grown-ups had it more or less figured out. That they had it together. That I was safe in their hands.
Even growing up with a dead mom and a slightly crazed dad and a twit of a sister, I was happy. I didn’t worry about the world. Call me silly. Call me naïve. Call me whatever you want, but that’s how I felt.
What a difference a week makes.
Watching the news with Britt and being force-fed the terrifying images of the world as it was had been bad enough.
And now this.
They were going to cut a road to the top of Tom and then clear-cut the rest. Cut down every tree on the top of the mountain. Every tree. And then blow the top off of the mountain to get at the coal inside!
This was definitely not having it together. This was definitely not figuring it out.
This. Was. Horrible.