The divorce part caught Benny by surprise, like that sucker punch Russell had thrown at him back in high school. He blinked and leaned forward, putting a hand on the car for support. Then he brought his face down close to the open window, took a deep drag, and blew the hot, wet smoke directly into his cousin's upturned face.
Russell flinched. “Jesus! You trying to blind me!”
“Why'd she send you, Russell? Why didn't she come herself if it's so goddamned important? You been sniffin' around, haven't you, you sonofabitch?”
Russell rubbed his eyes.
“I didn't come up here lookin' for trouble. Ruth says she can't talk to you, says all you do is cuss and call her names.”
He flinched as Benny took another long drag on the cigarette.
“Look, Benny, I was comin' back to West Virginia anyway, and Ruth's workin' five and a half days a week. It's too far for her to come, all the way here and back, in just one day.”
Benny laughed. “Shit, that won't hurt her. It just means she won't have so much time to fuck around with cruds like you, that's all.”
“Damnit, I only came up here because she asked me to. She's a good-lookin' woman, Benny. You can't expect her to wait forever.”
Russell’s placating tone gave Benny some distance. It was as if he were looking down at the hollow from way up high, like the time he and Charlie took that charter plane ride and saw the hills rolling away into the distance like giant green waves.
From that height, the Buick would look like a shiny black beetle. He considered the scene for a moment, then slowly ground out the cigarette with his boot, imagining it was Russell's car. When nothing was left of the cigarette he looked up and said, “Better get back down the road, cousin. Your ass is way out of line, and there's nobody up here to save it.”
Russell's face was flushed now. Almost pleading, he said, “Hell, Benny, you can't keep junkin' forever. A certified electrician like you could get a job in Columbus, easy. Besides, what're you gonna do when you've hauled this old mine away, what then?”
“Don't try to snow me, Russell. You don't want me comin' out to Columbus and we both know it.”
Benny grasped the door handle. “Matter of fact, after the mine's gone I just might junk this here Buick and then go to work on the piece of shit that's drivin' it.”
Russell jammed the car into reverse and hit the gas pedal, spinning Benny around. He stopped the Buick at the far end of the parking lot and stuck his head out the window.
“I came up this stinkin’ hollow because Ruth asked me to!” he screamed. “You're runnin’ out of time, you dumb bastard. You always were a dumb bastard, Benny. Fuck you!”
Benny watched the Buick bounce down the road. In time, he knew, it would wend its way down the hollow to the river, follow the Kanawha on down to Charleston, pick up I-64 and then head west until he reached Columbus, where Ruth was waiting.
He could just imagine their conversation: “You should have seen him, Ruth, up there with those stinkin' piles of garbage, cuttin' up the mine for scrap. Don't know how you stayed with him long as you did.”
Ruth would eat it up, of course. He could see her running her hand through her hair. Benny's so small-minded, she would say. He doesn't want to better himself.
The curtain of dust kicked up by Russell’s car slowly descended on the parking lot, clouding the scene in Columbus. “Motherfucker,” Benny said, watching the dust slowly settle. “Motherfucker hasn't changed a bit.”
Dwayne peered at him, anxiously. “You okay?”
Benny smiled. “Yeah, I'm okay. Fact is, I feel pretty damned good, like there's not so much weighing on me right now, if you know what I mean. Or, at least I'll feel that way after I get rid of some more of this beer.”
He squeezed Dwayne’s shoulder and headed toward the bathhouse, the glare coming off the asphalt making him squint. He was zipping up when Dwayne called out, “Here come Norvil and Junior.”
THREE
At that moment, Ruth Eskdale was zipping the plastic cover over her electric typewriter, taking care that the zipper's teeth didn't catch her ruffled sleeve. When the cover was in place, she picked up the letter she had just typed for Jackson T. Hobart III, president of the Midwestern Mattress Co., Columbus, Ohio.
The letter, addressed to the chairman of a congressional subcommittee in Washington, D.C., was demanding prompt relief from foreign imports. It went on for three pages about how slave labor companies in Asia, the Taiwanese in particular, were undercutting U.S. manufacturers with shoddy merchandise priced far below anything Jason T. Hobart III could make a decent mattress for. He wanted the congressman to do something and Ruth was proud to be typing a message that would go to a powerful member of the government.
She examined the letter, looking at it with a critical eye. Like all her work, it was evenly spaced, perfectly typed, framed beautifully. That's why, although she'd worked at the plant for just over six months, she was Mr. Hobart's secretary.
“When Mr. Hobart's secretary took maternity leave I filled in for her,” she had told Benny, back when he was calling every week. “Mr. Hobart said he'd never seen such beautiful work. He said he wanted me to do all his letters.”
Ruth flushed, recalling how Benny had laughed and called her a go-fer. He'd asked if she sat on “Mr. Hodad's” lap when she took dictation.
She knew Benny was jealous of her job, but that was no excuse for being so mean. “At least I have a job,” she'd said before hanging up on him. She usually wound up slamming down the receiver when they talked. But then he'd started doing it too, and it really made her mad when he beat her to it.
She dropped the letter in the out box and headed down the hall for her mid-morning break. Brenda, a chubby brunette who worked in packaging, was already seated at a table when she reached the lunchroom. Ruth got a can of Coke from the machine and joined Brenda at a long, plastic table with the plant's logo stamped on its surface.
“So, d'you think your husband's coming up?” Brenda asked as Ruth sat down. “If I was you, I'd forget that hillbilly. Me, I'd concentrate on Carlos. Now, there's a man. I love those big, brown eyes. Makes me shiver when he looks at me.”
She rolled her eyes, making Ruth laugh.
“Brenda, I swear you're the horniest woman I ever saw.”
“Then you ain't seen much, honey. I once knew a girl who had to have it twice a day or she broke out in hives. One time, when she was real itchy and couldn't find...”
She broke off as a slim, dark-haired man came through the door.
“Buenas dias, ladies'' he said, sitting next to Ruth. “Qué pasa?”
It irked some of the men when Carlos sprinkled Spanish into his conversations. They called him a show-off spic, but Ruth liked it. She had seldom heard foreign languages on Cabin Creek, except for Polish cuss words and she was charmed by his accent and his worldly air. It was obvious Carlos had been around. And, it was clear he liked her.
Brenda
