Read Online The Coalwood Way by Homer Hickam - Free Book Online Page B

were long and her nails always polished a deep ruby. She was how I imagined a queen would look. I often wondered if she wasn’t in fact some sort of royalty that had accidentally ended up in Coalwood.
    On Sundays, Mrs. Dantzler played the piano at the Coalwood Community Church. She insisted on a good tempo, no long drawn-out hymns for her. Mom used to laugh and say that “once Eleanor Marie got the bit in her mouth, everybody had to ride or get bucked off.” Usually, Mrs. Dantzler didn’t sing with the choir, but every so often, at special occasions—Christmas, Easter, and maybe a wedding— she would don the maroon robe of the choir and step out for a solo. She was a glorious sight standing alone beside the pulpit, her face raised to heaven. Her voice was huge in our little church, rattling even the rafters, her great, pearly notes hit sure and strong like a hammer square onto a nail. Sometimes when she was singing, the sun would shine through the windows and her hair would glow almost like molten silver and it seemed to me she had turned into an angel. All she needed were the wings. When she finished one of her solos, I always felt breathless.
    Although I had no talent for piano, Mrs. Dantzler kept at me until I at least had developed some playing skill. At her recitals, she always had me last on the schedule, since I was the only boy in her class. To make certain I was presentable for the recitals, which were considered important society events in Coalwood, she taught me to sit up straight on the piano bench and how to bow when I was finished, putting one arm across my stomach, the other across my back.
    Although I was perfectly agreeable to taking piano, I hated practicing. “A little more time at your piano at home, Sonny, is in order before your next lesson,” Mrs. Dantzler would say routinely. “You know, two dollars doesn’t grow on trees.”
    When I started to go to Big Creek High, I decided it was time to quit the piano. I had a lot of homework and rockets to build, and practicing the piano cut into my time. Mom said it was okay by her if I wanted to quit, but I had to tell Mrs. Dantzler to her face. I think she thought that would stop me, but I was determined.
    I rehearsed what I would tell Mrs. Dantzler. I had myself quite a verbal concoction. It wasn’t that I was quitting, that’s what I was going to tell her. I was just going to play the piano more for myself, that’s it. I had learned so much, see, and now I needed a little while to just work on all that I knew. I would keep playing, you could bet on that, now and forever. So thanks a lot, Mrs. Dantzler, you’ve been grand. While riding my bike, I went over my tall tale all the way down to the Dantzler house, but as soon as she opened her door, my little lies flew out of my head like scared bats. I stammered a bit and then just blurted, “I can’t take piano anymore!”
    Her big blue eyes opened in shock. “Why not, Sonny?”
    “Because . . . because . . . I don’t want to!”
    Mrs. Dantzler looked at me with disappointment and hurt while I shrank under her gaze, and then she silently led me back to her piano and sat beside me as she had done so many hundreds of times before. She turned on the meter and it ticked as I went through my compositions. She corrected me as if it were a normal lesson and that she would get to see the results next week as she had done for all those years. Finally, the excruciating hour was over, and she turned off the meter and got up and went to the window and looked out at the mountains while I gathered my books and manuals. I left two crumpled dollar bills on the piano bench. “I’ll keep practicing,” I told her back.
    “No, you won’t,” she said quietly.
    I fled, knowing she was right.
    SHERMAN was the Rocket Boy I could always call on to help me mix up propellant. For some reason, he enjoyed spending time up to his elbows in chemicals. A day early in November 1959 found the two of us in my basement