Secrets; I Tried To Keep Us Together, You Were Busy Keeping Secrets

Caged Johnson

"It's my first day," the boy said, venturing a anxious smile.

< 5 >

Sump smiled back. His face was warm, not flat and expressionless like the other miners. He had a rough look about him, but an overall sense of gentility that shined through the layer of stubble and wrinkles of a face that had seen hardship. He was respected by the other men, mostly because of his optimistic nature; inside bloomed the hope of a child. Looking at the boy beside him, he remembered his first day.

At sixteen, Sump was a chubby, bashful kid who had been tossed out into the world to fend for himself. Things were rough at home, his father ran out on his mother with another woman and she was left with a dingy apartment, one son, and no money. With no other options, his mother pushed him to take the mile and a half walk through the woods to the Orson Brothers Coal mine and ask for a job. It was an easy choice for Sump to make; work or starve.

It was a cool, crisp day in October when he set out through the forest on his way to the mine. The trees clutched orange and red leaves, which floated down to the ground with each hint of a breeze. They fell before him as he walked, like rose petals in the path of royalty. He kept his mind finely tuned, knowing the hard labor which awaited him but pushing the thought way back into a vacant corner of his mind. Sun shown down from above as he walked, listening to the sequences of crunches and scrapes his boots made against the dirt and gravel in the road. The woods were vast, and he walked for some time without any hint of the outside world. It was peaceful, there was scarcely any noise, save the occasional rustle of leaves or chirping birds. Soon up ahead, spreading up over the horizon, Sump could see a cloud of thick black smoke twisting and bouncing in the wind. As he walked on, he saw the source of the plume; a slender pipe connected to a large iron roof. It was the mine's main building, a sight he'd soon become familiar with.

< 6 >

He approached a large iron gate and gazed up at the weatherbeaten wooden sign that hung from a pole by two rusted chains. Orson Brothers Coal Mine, it read. Sump would see the sign each morning for the rest of his life. Some days it would sway in the breeze, and some days it would cast off pearly drops of cold autumn rain. On this day, it hung motionless in the sun, a looming glimpse of his future.

He passed through the gate and made his way between the masses of soot-covered miners and crooked shanties to the main building. It brooded over the mine yard like a huge dark parasite, sucking the life out of the earth below.. The manager's office was a small square room in the left corner of the building. Through the sooty film on the outside of the windows, Sump saw a thin gray figure, hunched over what looked like a desk. He grasped the cold metal door handle and pulled. The door came open with a hideous metallic shriek that seemed to echo through the yard. Small orange flakes of rust fell from the old hinges, mingling with coal dust in the dirt. The manager looked up, annoyed. He was a small man, fat and greasy, with a thick gray beard and pale eyes that sank into his skull. He peered through a pair of bifocals at the boy who appeared in front of him. Sump stood silent for a time, searching for his voice under a heap of apprehension. He fumbled nervously with the tails of a soiled denim shirt.

"I came for a job." The words were dry and labored.

The manager looked Sump up and down, his pale eyes twitching in the poorly-lit room. He leaned back in the tattered chair with his hands on the back of his head, raising his eyebrows.

"Ever work in a mine before?"

Sump shook his head, words didn't come.

"Ever work anywhere before?"