One of Us by Tawni O'Dell

Author:Tawni O'Dell [O'Dell, Tawni]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2014-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

ON MY WAY BACK to Tommy’s house I drive through town past the Red Rabbit and see Rafe’s car parked on the street.

I slow down as I recall Walker’s comment that I’d be more comfortable with him in his mansion than here with someone like Rafe at this very bar.

I park my car and go in.

It’s barely noon on a weekday but there are about a dozen men sitting at the bar and the few scarred wooden tables. There’s no music playing. No TV blasting. No women. No pool tables. No food. Barely any light. These patrons don’t come here to unwind or socialize. They come here to drink. The reason they drink is to get drunk. Sex, noise, and conversation only get in the way.

I take a seat next to Rafe. He doesn’t look surprised to see me.

He takes in the dirt on my coat, the tear in the knee of one of my pant legs, and the scrape on my nose and forehead, but doesn’t ask what happened. He knows I’ll tell him when I’m ready.

I used to come to the Rabbit as a child searching for my father before I learned that it was better to be scared alone in my house than to be scared by him at home with me. The Rabbit was never much to look at from the outside: a simple two-story square of whitewashed brick. Over time the paint had flaked revealing patches of pink underneath. At night the other buildings blended into the dark hills behind them, while the Rabbit glowed like a skull still mottled with flesh. I’d keep my head down the last fifty feet or so as I walked toward it and pushed open the heavy front door.

If my dad was in a good mood he’d sit me up on a stool next to him and order me a ginger ale. I’d look around me through the haze of cigarette smoke at the methodically drinking miners, many of them silent, others communicating with each other in low rumbles. All of them had showered after their shift but their necks, the palms of their hands, and the insides of their ears were still lined with grime, and the smell of sour sweat still clung to them. Their hooded eyes would occasionally flick in my direction, and I’d see the guarded curiosity and hostility of an animal that’s been beaten but also fed by the same man.

I knew they had all just returned to the surface of the earth after spending eight hours working a mile beneath it. During the short days of winter, they became entirely nocturnal creatures, leaving their homes in darkness to go work in darkness only to return in darkness.

I could never figure out if they were more or less than human: gods or beasts? Should I respect or pity them? All I knew for sure was I didn’t want to be one of them.

I stare at the old black-and-white framed photos of mines and miners

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