Page 69 of Our Own Light

On a Thursday, Oliver was working with Floyd in the mines, looking on while Floyd poured the black powder into a paper casing. Even though Oliver was trying his best not to focus on the fact that Floyd had yet to let him help with the explosives, he wasn’t able to keep himself from constantly wondering why that was. Floyd had yet to let Oliver take on any real responsibility in the mine. Oliver had been Floyd’s butty for weeks, and still Floyd continued to insist on being the only one to prepare the explosives. Hell, Oliver had even suffered some trouble convincing Floyd to let him shimmy into tight spaces from time to time with his pickaxe. Luckily, Oliver had been able to reason with him on that front. Oliver liked to be the one to carve the “V” into the coal wall underneath where they’d be blasting. And still Floyd had pushed back a few times. God, Floyd was so stubborn. All Oliver wanted was to feel like they were equal partners.

Later, when the two of them were shoveling coal, Oliver thought he’d try to push the subject. Gently.

“So, uhm, how long had you been working in the mine before you felt, you know, competent?”

“Can’t remember.”

“Well, was it long before you felt like you were a real miner?”

Floyd scooped up a shovelful of coal and tossed it into the coal car. “Breaker boys are miners.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Oliver paused shoveling to catch his breath, equal parts nervousness and manual labor taking the wind out of him. “But I mean, you moved up to excavating, eventually. Who taught you how to work with the black powder and the clay and everything?”

“Matt’s father. See, I had known Matt’s whole family for forever and so, his father was happy to show me.”

“Oh. Interesting.”

“Matt was working with one of his brothers,” Floyd said next, as though he had anticipated Oliver’s next question. “But once we’d both learned enough, we paired up.”

“Ah,” Oliver said, suddenly feeling as though his organs were being smushed together, envy bursting to life inside him and taking up too much room in his chest. Still, he tried to keep his voice even so as not to let it show. “Matt was your butty.”

Floyd tossed some coal into the car. “Yup.”

“You were partners.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Equals.”

All of a sudden, Floyd stopped shoveling, and then he planted his shovel in the coal pile and leaned against it, looking up at Oliver like he was completely exasperated by this nonsense.

“Ollie, what are you trying to say?”

“Nothing,” Oliver sputtered. “Sorry. Not important.”

So Matt had been Floyd’s partner. His butty.

Jealousy continued to twist his organs together, but Oliver tried his best to ignore it. Once Floyd and Oliver were finished with lunch, they were assigned to work somewhere else, in a section of the mine that the miners liked to call Timber Alley because of the sheer number of pieces of timber that had been placed to help prop up the ceiling. Many of those logs had already begun to bend and crack, too. Consequently, a few miners had recently been instructed to install new pillars with the intention of extending the life of this particular section of the mine, but it was evident even to Oliver that the company would have to leave it soon enough.

“Just wait out here for a while,” Floyd told Oliver at the entrance. “I’ll collect as much as I can over the next hour or so my own self. Why, I ought to march over to James Donohue’s house right now and tell him that his father is plum crazy to keep asking folks to work over here, but we might as well try to make a little money before complaining. It’ll hold for a while yet.”

“I’m not standing here twiddling my thumbs while you exert yourself in there.”

“Ollie, it ain’t safe enough for you.”

“But it’s safe enough for you?”

“I been a miner for near twenty years. You, on the other hand, are still learning.”

“I know how to shovel coal.”

“No,” Floyd responded firmly. “I ain’t arguing with you about this neither.”

“Fuck, Floyd, first you won’t let me handle the powder, and now you won’t even let me work next to you? Do you even want me around?”

“What? Of course I want you around.”

“You’re treating me like a child.”

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