Page 19 of Our Own Light

Oliver scrunched up his nose and said, “I’m nitpicking because I like teasing people, which is probably one of the many reasons for me never holding onto friends for very long.” Floyd kept looking at Oliver, hoping he’d say some more. Floyd was still feeling confused. Oliver sighed. “Earlier, you invited me and you said that your wife and daughter would love my company, but you didn’t say that you’d love my company, so I was poking at you for the hell of it. And, selfishly enough, I needed to hear you say that you wanted to spend time with me, too. Because even though we spent the entire evening together shooting pool, I’m still stupidly mad about you abandoning me today.”

“I never really apologized for it, huh?” Floyd looked at his shoes, his face reddening with shame over how much he had hurt his new friend. “It was wrong of me to abandon you today, Ollie. I’m sorry about that.”

“Ollie? Do I have a nickname now?”

Floyd reached up to scratch the side of head so that he could hide his face, which was only becoming hotter by the second. Though he had no idea whether Oliver could see the color of his cheeks in the low light of the moon, he still felt vulnerable enough that his first instinct was to try to hide a bit.

“If you want one,” he said.

“Yeah, I like it. I’ll have to think of one for you, too. You seemed to like lunkhead earlier. How about that?”

Floyd bellowed a laugh. “You’re real strange, Ollie.” He realized Oliver might take that the wrong way. Before he could think better of it, he said, “I like that about you.”

As soon as the words left Floyd’s mouth, his heart started fluttering like mad. But luckily, Oliver held himself back from commenting on the bluntness of that statement.

Floyd and Oliver continued their walk, though neither of them said much else for a while. Seemed like Floyd could make Oliver stop talking if he sputtered something awkward enough. He tried not to beat himself up for how risky it had been to say that he liked Ollie’s strangeness. Who knew what Oliver thought of him now.

After a while, Floyd heard a night bird calling in the distance. Its familiar high-pitched woop-woo-woo comforted him, even though he wasn’t exactly sure what type of bird it was. He kind of liked not knowing, though, because it meant that his little old coal town still had some mystery for him. He might not have been well-traveled like Oliver, but that was fine. There was still plenty to discover in the mountains of West Virginia.

Sometime later, Oliver stopped walking and Floyd realized that they had probably reached his house.

“Well, this is me,” Oliver said. “It looks like your house from the outside, but it’s way more depressing on the inside. No newspaper on the walls or children running about. I haven’t even bought any books yet. Speaking of which, where could I find some?”

“We got a few over at the company store.”

“I must have missed them. I’ll look harder next time.”

Floyd wondered what kinds of books Oliver would buy.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Oliver said with a half-smile. “Bright and early.”

“Bright and early,” Floyd confirmed.

As Floyd walked home, he couldn’t stop thinking ’bout Oliver. His entire body was burning with a new kind of energy, one that was making him feel like running and jumping and maybe even skipping, as ridiculous as that was. It had been eight long years since Floyd had felt anything even close. He reminded himself that nothing could come of these feelings he was having for Oliver because Oliver surely wasn’t like him. Not many men were.

Instead of that reminder making him sad, it somehow had the opposite effect. If Oliver wasn’t likely to feel a romantic kind of way in return, Floyd felt like he could be free to enjoy his crush. Suddenly, the strange swirl of energy was less terrifying, and the copperhead in his stomach stopped writhing. Floyd carried the happy Oliver-energy with him the entire way home, holding onto it with care, pleased that he could enjoy the sensation for a while.

When Floyd reached home, he found Effie rocking back and forth in the rocking chair, mending a hole in one of Josephine’s skirts. She looked up at Floyd with a little knowing smile. And he realized, then, that he was still wearing Oliver’s hat.

Chapter Four

Oliver

When Oliver arrived at the brass board, Floyd was already there waiting for him. Following Floyd through the mine, Oliver noticed that many men, especially those who were older than either Floyd or Oliver, had boys working with them—kids who looked to be between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Floyd said that they had essentially been hired by the miners themselves. Sometimes they were relatives, sometimes neighbors, sometimes kids who had previously been working as a spragger or a breaker boy. Oliver wondered if Floyd would have stuck it out with Billy if it hadn’t been for him. He kind of hoped so. Because that would mean that Floyd had chosen him, in a way, which was a really touching thought. He really liked Floyd so far. It’d be a Goddamn miracle if Floyd liked him back even half as much.

For safety reasons, everyone in the mine needed someone to work with. Some men worked in clusters of four or six, but many worked in pairs, oftentimes with a friend, rather than with a child.

“Whoever you’re working with, we call ’em your butty,” Floyd said very matter-of-factly, enunciating the t’s.

It was clear that the potential silliness of the term had never even occurred to him.

“I’m sorry, my what?”

“Butty,” Floyd repeated in the same serious tone.

“Like B-U-T-T-Y.”

“Yeah.”

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