The Coalwood Way by Homer Hickam

Author:Homer Hickam
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Autobiography
ISBN: 9780385335164
Publisher: Island Books
Published: 2000-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

18

THE DUGOUT

“GOL, SONNY, DON’T you own anything besides overalls and flannel shirts?” Roy Lee asked. “You want Ginger to think you’re a hillbilly? And what is that smell? You smell like a Christmas tree!” After rifling through my closet and dresser drawers, he had finally settled on a gray crew-neck sweater I’d gotten for my birthday last year and a pair of khaki pants. They had a hole in one of the back pockets, but he said if I pulled the sweater down low enough, nobody would notice. He also dragged out my penny loafers. “You ever hear of shoe polish?” he demanded, and then spit on them and gave them a polish with his handkerchief. Then he got the bottle of Aqua Velva Dad kept in the medicine cabinet and splashed it all over me. Added to the pine aroma on me already, I figured I smelled like a cemetery on the Fourth of July.

I probably could have borrowed the Buick, but Roy Lee insisted he wanted to be my chauffeur. “If things work out, you might need my backseat for some hot lovin’,” he said. Then he caught himself. “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Miss Sweetcakes. Well, you could hold her hand back there, anyway.” He shook his head, the Big Creek lovemaster foiled by the perception of innocence.

We descended the concrete steps to the Dugout. The Dugout was the place to be on a Saturday night if you were going to Big Creek High. Ed Johnson, a janitor at Big Creek, had converted the basement of the Owl’s Nest Restaurant, just across the river from the school, into high school heaven, a warm room festooned with crepe paper and dim lights and the best rock and roll to be found anywhere in America, all played over Ed’s homemade sound system. There were benches around the walls of the basement, actually wooden pews from an old church he’d found somewhere. In the corner was a furnace and a pile of coal in front of it. You could tell how much you’d danced when you got home by the amount of coal dust stuck to your socks.

Ed had decorated for Christmas. There was a wreath hung on the door with a Big Creek owl doll attached to it. Inside, crepe paper, green and white for the school colors, red for Christmas, was wrapped around the support posts. Ed liked to play a medley of fast and slow songs, thoughtfully planned to get his dancers in a romantic mood. If you were having an argument with your girlfriend, an Ed Johnson dance was the perfect place to get her willing to climb in the backseat with you before the night was out. At least, that’s what I’d heard. It had only worked for me once, last year with Valentine Carmina. Valentine was an older girl who had taken pity on me when Dorothy Plunk had thrown me over for my brother. It seemed like ancient history now. Valentine had gotten married as soon as she had graduated from high school, and then left to work in the Detroit car factories.

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