BODIES IN HARLAN
Corky give me an annoyed look. “Why in tarnation ya want to go where the bodies is?”
“Cain’t ya jist answer my question?”
“My daddy might let me take ya in his Model A if’n ya really hanker to go there. Want I should ask ’im?”
“If ya would, Corky, I’d be grateful.”
A grin stretched across his face. “Grateful enough to give me a kiss?”
I blew out my breath. “Men has died, Corky, and that’s what ya think about?”
“I think about kissing, and you think about gitting to Harlan. What’da ya say? We got a deal?”
“Only a kiss on the cheek,” I said.
“On the lips or it don’t count.”
I blew out my breath again.
“That’s my price,” he said.
“Tell me the way to Harlan and I’ll git to walking.”
“All right, you mule-headed girl. How’s about ya kiss me on the cheek, but I tell Jane Louise ya kissed me on the lips? And you cain’t tell her otherwise.”
And Corky thunk girls was deceitful. “No kiss until ya ask your daddy about the Ford.”
He drove up ten minutes later in his Daddy’s 1928 Model A.
“Git in,” he said, “and pay the price.”
I clumb up into the Ford and plunked down aside Corky. I’d only ever been in an automobile one time, when me and Pick went with Teacher Bromley to fetch some books from her home in Yancey, but I didn’t say so. The car trembled a mite, kind of like a coin does right afore it stops spinning.
Corky leaned towards me, and I lightly brushed his cheek with my lips.
“Ya call that a kiss?” he said.
“I never claimed to be no expert.”
It was Corky’s turn to blow out his breath afore he ground the gears and the Ford rumbled down the road, away from Smoke Ridge Mine. I warmed my cold, wet feet against the fireboard that separated the inside of the auto from the engine. We drove across the railroad tracks, and my teeth dang near rattled loose. The roads was slick, and Corky had to watch his driving careful-like. We was both quiet for a long time.
“Good thing the rain stopped,” Corky said after a spell. “I ain’t drove much in rain.”
We crossed a concrete bridge on Main Street in the town of Harlan, and crowds of folks left no question about where the bodies was. But automobiles lined both sides of ever’ street. Finding a place to park wasn’t easy.
We drove past the Citizens National Bank three times, that bank Daddy told us about in January. A grand building, closed near a year now, reminding folks it was Hard Times. Boarded-up stores offered more reminders. A furniture store. A jewelry store. A couple restaurants.
Corky brought the Ford to a stop more’n four blocks from where crowds gathered. We walked the rest of the way, passing houses and stores, more of ’em empty than not. A naked mannequin lay on its side in the window of a dark clothing store, a mannequin with no head. Shivers gripped me as I hurried by and tried not to think about dead bodies—even though I was about to look at some. I couldn’t make myself erase the thought from my mind. Men had died and I was fixing to look at bodies to see if Pick was one of ’em.
Cumberland Hardware and Undertaking Establishment was where the bodies was. On the second floor over the hardware store. The stairs was thronged with men, women, and young’uns. White folks and colored folks both. Plenty wore their Sunday best, but others was dressed no better’n me—in Jane Louise’s too-big dress and Pick’s jacket and old shoes.
I got in line to start up the steps and seen tears in the eyes of many. I even heard wailing from the second floor.
“Ain’t it sad?” said a lady on the step above me. “Twenty-three lives all snuffed out at once.”
“So sad,” I agreed. “Do ya know was they all identified?”
The lady nodded. “Six was brothers.”
Corky stood behind me on the steps, his eyes big.
I finally reached the second floor, where new widows wept openly and held onto small young’uns. Older women, who must’a lost sons, cried on the shoulders of their husbands, who dabbed at their eyes and noses with handkerchiefs.
I tried to look around other folks to see the bodies. Did any of ’em have red hair? Corky grabbed my hand, and I didn’t make him let go.
Following the line that snaked between the rows of bodies, I saw faces of the dead. Up close. Most looked like they was jist asleep and might wake up any minute. About half was colored.
The bad-burnt bodies had their faces covered. I didn’t realize I was squeezing Corky’s hand until he squeezed back.
Each body had a name on a card. And none of the names was Pickens Haywood Cutler.