Page 20 of Our Own Light

Oliver started chuckling, which soon changed to full-blown laughter.

“Oh my God,” he said.

“What’s funny?”

“I am one hundred percent sure you will not appreciate what I’m laughing about.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old. Actually, twelve-year-old kids around here seem to be more mature than me. Clearly none of them are laughing about this.”

“Ollie, tell me. I want to know.”

“It’s... well... the term ‘butty’ has the word ‘butt’ in it, right? So, it...” Oliver snickered. “Jesus Christ, it’ll sound even more demented when I say it out loud, but to me, the word makes it sound like we’re... like we’re friends who like each other’s butts.”

Floyd’s subsequent facial expression was one of the funniest that Oliver had ever seen—his mouth hanging open and eyes wide. Oliver couldn’t tell whether Floyd was horrified or amused or merely in a state of shock from the comment. Just when Oliver thought he should probably apologize for his clearly inappropriate humor, Floyd started to laugh, and then Oliver watched this behemoth of a man—one who couldn’t have been a hair shy of six foot three—slowly but swiftly lose his composure, eventually laughing so heartily and loudly that Oliver found himself wondering about the chances of a cave in.

“I feel like I broke your brain with that comment,” Oliver said.

Through a happy sniffle, Floyd replied, “Jeez, Ollie, I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that. Not even from that lunkhead comment of yours yesterday.”

Oliver grinned. “You’re welcome.” He clapped Floyd on the back. “Come on, butty, let’s pick up our long, steel rods and—”

Floyd shoved his elbow into Oliver’s side, cutting him off.

“You’ll be run out of town with that mouth of yours,” Floyd scolded in a friendly way.

“Don’t people like raunchy humor around here?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, yes, they do. Everybody does. People are reluctant to admit it, that’s all.”

“Ollie, hush up before people think there’s something wrong with you. Or with me.”

“Ah, that’s what this is about. You’re worried that since we’re friends, people will think you’re as strange as I am.”

Floyd seemed to have no response for that other than to shove Oliver sideways.

“Alright, I surrender,” Oliver said. “You can show me how to mine now.”

“Well,” Floyd said with a big, heaving sigh. “Lord help me, but we need to... to...”

“Drill the long, steel rod into the coal seams?”

Floyd leveled a look. “Yes, Ollie.”

But Oliver could see the faintest hint of a lingering smile on Floyd’s face, and so, he threw Floyd a wink, which made Floyd smile even more, even though he was rolling his eyes a little.

Oliver and Floyd worked side by side to extract and shovel the coal, traveling up one of the newer coal arteries—a little “road” in their underground city that had been named Sycamore Street—and even though Floyd wouldn’t let Oliver handle the blast powder or light the fuses, he tried not to let it bother him. He was still learning.

All in all, it had been a really nice workday.

***

By the end of May, Oliver and Floyd had become friends. Every morning, Oliver would wake up bursting with energy, eager to spend time with Floyd. Even though spending hours swinging a pickaxe and shoveling pounds of coal wouldn’t have been fun otherwise, being with Floyd made it so. Especially since they spent a lot of the time teasing each other. Becoming so close to someone, it was wonderful. Floyd never minded his rambling. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. And Oliver never minded Floyd’s comparative shyness.

Well, not never.

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