Read Online Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ann Pancake
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word, the foreign citiness of it, makes a homesickness thicken in the back of his throat. But at the same time, he sees the map of America in his room
at school. The way the paper is drawn in rumples, lines, and swells to show where the mountains are. West Virginia nothing but a slant of rippled lines, dense, relentless, the lines marked thick and deep.While Cleveland at the top of Ohio is blank. Where the land lies flat. Which means the water has no way to rush down on top of you because it has no place to start.
The tapwater foams out of the spigot, boils into the sink, and Mrs. Taylor says, “Honey, make sure you get them glass rims.”
Bant
I STOOD in front of the office door, an old metal screen with a curly metal pattern, and behind that, a heavy door shut. Looked like a kick dent in it halfway up.When there weren’t any cars passing in the road, I could hear the window air conditioner, a flapping wheeze with a rattle underneath. The place was a flaking green the same color as the high school bathroom walls, and with all the fresh money Hobart was making, he’d decided to get his motel repainted. Jimmy’d heard it from a friend who was Hobart’s nephew. Nobody called it a motel but Hobart, it was the boardinghouse to everyone else, although nowadays I’d heard some calling it “Scab Resort.” And I knew Hobart’s was the only place in Prater doing decent business besides the Dollar General and Scott’s Funeral Home because Hobart rented to the miners the companies imported from out-of-state to work the mountaintop mines. “Miners, shit,” Jimmy Make would say. “Nothing but ditch diggers, what they are.” Jimmy wasn’t crazy about his daughter painting scab walls, and Lace was even less happy, she’d fought him for a while. But eventually, both gave in. There wasn’t anyplace else around where I could get work.
My chest felt like two hands pressing on it, but Jimmy Make was watching me from out in the truck. He called it an interview and had given me pointers. I stepped up on the stoop. I opened the screen, nervous about doing even that without permission and half afraid it would make the inside door open and there I’d stand. I tapped near the kick dent with my knuckles. I waited, but no one came, so I figured he couldn’t hear me with that air conditioner running. But when I knocked harder, somebody right away called out, “Now just hold on. Hold on,” and I stepped back quick. I brushed off my pants in case I’d sat on something riding in and checked to make sure all my buttons were done. Shake hands , Jimmy’d said. Speak up. And keep that hair back outta your eyes.
When Hobart opened the door, I stuck out my hand, but he turned around before he could see it. Jimmy’d told me to wear a pair of pants not jeans and a fake-silky blouse that belonged to Lace. Hobart was in mud-colored sweatpants and plaid bedroom slippers cut open across the toes, and I followed him, that air conditioner gasping, the office still warmer than it was outside. “Sit down,” Hobart said, pointing behind himself because he still had his back to me. It was a lawn chair he pointed to.
He was lowering himself onto the front edge of the recliner, straddling his legs around the footrest still in the air, the recliner must have stayed stuck reclined all the time. I was already noticing his breathing, and I thought it was because it reminded me of the air conditioner. He was staring at me, but I couldn’t tell how, this blank to it that hid something behind. I could feel the places on my face. Red spots with a heat behind. At the start of each breath, his throat rattled, but the exhale sounded like speaking, only you couldn’t catch the word.
“You’re Jimmy Make Turrell’s girl?” he asked.
“Yessir,” I said.
“And I hear you’ve done some painting before?”
“Yessir,” I said.
I waited for him to ask me more, but he just kept looking at me, so I looked off to the side. Wanted to drop my hair in
at school. The way the paper is drawn in rumples, lines, and swells to show where the mountains are. West Virginia nothing but a slant of rippled lines, dense, relentless, the lines marked thick and deep.While Cleveland at the top of Ohio is blank. Where the land lies flat. Which means the water has no way to rush down on top of you because it has no place to start.
The tapwater foams out of the spigot, boils into the sink, and Mrs. Taylor says, “Honey, make sure you get them glass rims.”
Bant
I STOOD in front of the office door, an old metal screen with a curly metal pattern, and behind that, a heavy door shut. Looked like a kick dent in it halfway up.When there weren’t any cars passing in the road, I could hear the window air conditioner, a flapping wheeze with a rattle underneath. The place was a flaking green the same color as the high school bathroom walls, and with all the fresh money Hobart was making, he’d decided to get his motel repainted. Jimmy’d heard it from a friend who was Hobart’s nephew. Nobody called it a motel but Hobart, it was the boardinghouse to everyone else, although nowadays I’d heard some calling it “Scab Resort.” And I knew Hobart’s was the only place in Prater doing decent business besides the Dollar General and Scott’s Funeral Home because Hobart rented to the miners the companies imported from out-of-state to work the mountaintop mines. “Miners, shit,” Jimmy Make would say. “Nothing but ditch diggers, what they are.” Jimmy wasn’t crazy about his daughter painting scab walls, and Lace was even less happy, she’d fought him for a while. But eventually, both gave in. There wasn’t anyplace else around where I could get work.
My chest felt like two hands pressing on it, but Jimmy Make was watching me from out in the truck. He called it an interview and had given me pointers. I stepped up on the stoop. I opened the screen, nervous about doing even that without permission and half afraid it would make the inside door open and there I’d stand. I tapped near the kick dent with my knuckles. I waited, but no one came, so I figured he couldn’t hear me with that air conditioner running. But when I knocked harder, somebody right away called out, “Now just hold on. Hold on,” and I stepped back quick. I brushed off my pants in case I’d sat on something riding in and checked to make sure all my buttons were done. Shake hands , Jimmy’d said. Speak up. And keep that hair back outta your eyes.
When Hobart opened the door, I stuck out my hand, but he turned around before he could see it. Jimmy’d told me to wear a pair of pants not jeans and a fake-silky blouse that belonged to Lace. Hobart was in mud-colored sweatpants and plaid bedroom slippers cut open across the toes, and I followed him, that air conditioner gasping, the office still warmer than it was outside. “Sit down,” Hobart said, pointing behind himself because he still had his back to me. It was a lawn chair he pointed to.
He was lowering himself onto the front edge of the recliner, straddling his legs around the footrest still in the air, the recliner must have stayed stuck reclined all the time. I was already noticing his breathing, and I thought it was because it reminded me of the air conditioner. He was staring at me, but I couldn’t tell how, this blank to it that hid something behind. I could feel the places on my face. Red spots with a heat behind. At the start of each breath, his throat rattled, but the exhale sounded like speaking, only you couldn’t catch the word.
“You’re Jimmy Make Turrell’s girl?” he asked.
“Yessir,” I said.
“And I hear you’ve done some painting before?”
“Yessir,” I said.
I waited for him to ask me more, but he just kept looking at me, so I looked off to the side. Wanted to drop my hair in
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