"Walking Amongst the Ruins": reflection on my old marriage, on the eve of my new.

Holy crap. It's been a long time since I've posted in this blog.

I've been going through a lot of life changes in the last few months. Last few years, actually. And I really have that painful time to thank for the surge my writing enjoyed. Albeit, at the expense of my liver.

Though a lot of my personal life hasn't come out in this blog (for a look at all the nitty gritty that's worth posting online, feel free to indulge in Runner Confidential). In the last two years, my first marriage ended, really before it even got off the ground. Last year, I reconnected with an old high school acquaintance who was also going through divorce. Long story short, she and I started dating, are are about to be married.

Life is a heck of a lot better than it used to be.

While digging through a folder of writings on my laptop, I discovered this shorty. It was something I wrote a few months before my first wife moved out, in February of 2012. Our marriage was getting rocky, and, although we were going to counseling, I felt as though storm clouds were rolling in from every direction.

I give you: "Storm Clouds." (rated PG for mild language)

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For the first time in my life, I am at a loss.

The two of us are sitting side-by-side in a two-person paddle boat.  We’re in the middle of the lake, and a terrible storm is coming in.  Yes, for a while, I didn’t paddle; and, stupid thing was, I didn’t even know I wasn’t paddling.  But now that I’m paddling again, she’s decided to stop.  She’s making the conscious effort not to paddle, and instead screaming and yelling and crying about how she can’t believe I ever conned her into getting into the boat in the first place.  When we were on shore, she was just as excited to rent it as I was. 

Turns out, she doesn’t even like paddle boats.  They were just something she thought she could deal with, something she thought she could get over.  But this one last time was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Now, here we are, in the middle of the lake, with a huge storm on the way.  The only way we’re getting back to dry land is if we start paddling together, and she’s talking about jumping out of the boat and swimming for it, all by herself.  But that plan won’t work; she’d never make it back to shore before the storm hits.  And I’d certainly never make it back on my own if she decided to jump.

But as long as I’m paddling by myself, the boat is just going in a circle.  I can work as hard as I can at the paddles, but I’m going to keep kicking up a circular wake and I’m never going to make it back to shore.  And all the while the storm clouds are growing darker and darker and darker.

But, of course, since we got into the boat together, I am more than willing to accept my part of the blame for this (I won’t say ‘half’, because, though the boat is suppose to be an equal partnership, this ordeal is more than half my fault).  Should I have seen this from the beginning?  Of course I should have.  But my stupid ass didn’t really know how to tell whether or not she liked paddleboats or lakes or whatever.  Whenever she followed me, I took it as a sign that she was doing so willingly and happily.  I didn’t bother to consider that the paddle boat excursion was really my adventure, not our adventure.  

And I should have. 

I also should have realized that, just because I paddled my ass off to get us to the middle of the lake, I wasn’t entitled to lay back and let her do all the paddling for a while.  It was wrong of me to think like that, and I’m fairly certain it makes me a bad person to have thought like that. 

And it should have taken less than the storm on the horizon for me to realize that I was wrong.  I’ll always regret that it took the storm to get my stupid ass paddling again.  Because as badly as I feel, trying to paddle hard enough to get us both back to shore, I know she felt the same way because she did all the paddling before the storm.  Maybe she saw the storm coming and tried to paddle harder.  Maybe she tried to tell me that the storm was coming, but I was too focused on the pretty sky and the sound of the wind and other arbitrary things to notice.  For putting her through that, I know I don’t deserve to have her paddling next to me again.

She’s afraid.  She’s afraid that, if she puts her feet back on the pedals, I’m simply going to lie back and make her to all the peddling again.  I try to tell her that I don’t want that, that all I want is for us to get to shore before the storm hits.  I tell her that if I wanted to stay in the middle of the lake, I wouldn’t be peddling as hard as I am.  But she doesn’t believe me, and part of me doesn’t blame her.  After all, look at how long she spent peddling alone, probably trying to get my attention about the storm on the horizon.  What can I do to convince her that I am through with either of us peddling alone?  What can I do to make her believe that, when her feet touch those pedals, mine aren’t going to leave?

And there is the question of future boat rides.  She wants to know, if we made it through this and I somehow convinced her to get back on another paddleboat, would I forget about this storm?  Would I forget about this terrifying ordeal, take a break, and force her to paddle alone again? 

I try to tell her no.  I try to convey to her that this storm is terrifying enough to keep my feet on the pedals forever, to never leave it up to her again.  I don’t think she believes me, because she’s still not pedaling.

Every moment we spend arguing, the storm grows closer and closer, and even though we’re side-by-side, we’re both completely alone.  All I can do is pray that storm approaches a little slower, at least until she decided to start pedaling again.  I’m peddling as fast as I can, just in case she decided to join in.  But the boat is still going in circles. 

What do I say to get her to put her feet back on the pedals?

Happy Election day, Kentucky! Next time, give us someone to vote for besides the lesser of two evils.

Today is Primary Election Day in the great state of Kentucky, my home. Too bad that, as a registered independent, I don't get to vote (In Kentucky, voters can only vote in primary elections in which candidates from the party in which the voter is registered are running). 

That doesn't mean I don't get to poke fun at Mitch McConnell (current Senate Minority Leader and Galapagos tortoise) and Matt Bevin (Lousville Tea Partier who stands a snowball's chance against Mitch). 

I mean, really: is this the best my great state has to offer? 

Please don't turn this blog into a sounding board for your own political beliefs. You can make your own blog for that. 

The inspiration for this was the Matt Bevin billboard I pass every day on the way to work. For a split second, I always think it says "Matt Bevis", which might have greatly increased his chances of winning had that actually been his real name. 

"Open Enrollment"

This story takes place in the same world as two of my earlier short stories, "Sometimes I Feel Like I'm Being Watched" and "The Best Medicine", which focus around the character Jillian Nightingale, human nurse practitioner to the supernatural community. She actually doesn't appear in this story, but... well, you'll find out. 

The Salisbury steak wasn’t from Salisbury, and it sure as hell wasn’t steak. More like a mound of meat someone had smashed flat and poured over with cold, brown sauce that slightly resembled gravy. I didn’t want to be rude, but I looked up at the waitress and hoped my disapproval and confusion were plain. If she picked up on my cues, she gave no response before walking back behind the counter.

Disappointment was bringing on a pain between by eyebrows. I closed my eyes and kneaded the spot with two fingers and tried to control my temper. I was getting better at it, but my therapist said I still had a long way to go. And stuff got bad when I lost my temper.

“Is something wrong?” Came the voice of the guy on the other side of the white-and-red checkered table.

“What exactly is Salisbury steak?” I asked calmly without opening my eyes.

“It’s a sort of minced-meat patty, served with gravy,” said the other person. “It was invented by J.H. Salisbury in 1897, while he was trying to patent the first low-carb diet.”

“Not from Salisbury,” I spoke my realization. “And I think ‘steak’ is a bit of a misnomer.”

There came an uneasy clearing of a throat, and finally I opened my eyes and gazed at the skinny guy in the suit sitting across from me. He sipped from his glass of water, pushed his glasses further up his wide face, and shuffled the papers in his hands. “Mammon, if you don’t mind, I could read over the policies while you eat. That way, you can already be deciding which one might be best for you.”

I sighed and, just to make he and the waitress feel better, I unwrapped my fork from my napkin and cut a piece from the Salisbury ‘steak’ with its edge. I didn’t exactly relish the idea of eating a steak I didn’t need a knife to cut. “If I don’t eat, does that mean you won’t read?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be that way,” Tim Greenbrier, head of human resources for the department, said. “You’re the only one who hasn’t signed up yet, and open enrollment ends today. Templesmith says that if I don’t get you signed up today, you’re going to be stuck doing deskwork until the next open enrollment.” He set down the paperwork and leaned forward a bit. “And so will I!”

“You already do deskwork all day,” I said, finally gaining the courage to stick a forkful of Salisbury steak into my mouth.

“But you don’t! You love fieldwork. And you can kiss it good-bye until November unless you sign up. So, why not just sign up and get it over with?”

I chewed slowly. Hmm. Maybe I had judged Salisbury steak too quickly. “Do I seriously have to?” I asked out of one side of my mouth. “What kind of medical coverage could I possibly need?”

“Well, for one, we have a plan that would cover your therapist sessions. Wouldn’t it be nice to simply pay a little every month and not have to worry about writing a check every time you saw Dr. LaRue? Or not having to pay out of pocket every time you catch a piece of furniture in her office on fire?”

My eyes snapped up from my meal, and Tim flinched a little under my gaze. My skin, which is already tomato-red during my best moods, started to glow.

It was days like this I wished I hadn’t had my horns filed down. Tim got to keep his, although he was mostly behind and desk and not on patrol (not to mention that a satyr’s horns don’t get much bigger than nubs). Apparently the department was trying to soften their image, and iffrits’ curved, black horns apparently made me seem less than approachable. As did my outbursts that tended to make things combust.

I forced myself to breathe more slowly, through my nose, like Dr. LaRue had shown me. In doing so, I chewed the bite a little more slowly. Tim’s only trying to help, I told myself. And he’s just doing his job. You can’t get mad at him for that.

Actually, now that I thought about it, Salisbury steak was pretty damn good. “That would be pretty nice,” I said. Though I hadn’t told anyone about the periodic fires at my therapist’s office, apparently word had gotten around the rest of the precinct.

“You bet your ass it would,” Tim said, practically cheering. He shuffled the papers in front of him and pulled a few from the stack. “I already picked out a few policies I think you’ll like. I’ll read through them, and you tell me which ones you like best.”

So I ate, and Tim read. He used a lot of big words like ‘copay’ and ‘deductible’ and ‘premium’ and ‘in-network’. For the most part, what he said made sense. There were a few plans that seemed identical, and when I asked Tim to clarify he only made me more confused. In the end, I picked a plan called the ‘Commonwealth Plan’, because I liked the name the best.

The more I ate the Salisbury steak, the more I realized I liked it, and the more I realized I had unnecessarily given the waitress the stink eye. I would have to make good with her before I left the restaurant. That’s something Dr. Larue told me I should do: as soon as I realize I’ve done wrong by sometime, make amends as quick as possible.

A thought occurred to me. “Hey, if the department says I have to go to counseling, I’m not sure I should have to pay for that. I mean, it’s for my job, right?”

“You still have to pay for it,” Tim replied without looking up from the stack of paperwork he was rapidly shorting. “But you can write it off on your taxes as a work-related expense. Your NP should be able to tell you more about it.”

While Tim had been talking, I had flagged down the waitress and apologized for my behavior over the Salisbury steak. Satisfied with my apology, she now poured coffee for Tim and I. “NP?” I asked, lifting my cup. “What does that stand for?”

“Nurse practitioner,” Tim said, ripping the tops off of three packs of Equal. He dumped them into his coffee, along with a drop from a small cup of half-and-half. “Our new heath plans are through the Agency for the Betterment of Cryptohumanoid Kind. They have a bunch of NPs on staff that do housecalls and stuff. One will be by your place to check on you every month or so.”

“Aw, crap,” I breathed, after I had swallowed my firth mouthful of coffee. “I don’t want to have to clean up my apartment for company that I don’t even want.”

“You don’t have to clean up anything,” Tim added. “Their visits aren’t for more than a few minutes each. It’s supposed to be a new initiative to bring down insurance premiums for all cryptos.”

“Tired of paying extra premiums of offset the mummies’ rapidly rising cost of bandages?” 

He smirked. “More like, tired of paying for iffrits who catch their therapists’ couches on fire.”

I sipped my coffee. “See how I’m not killing you now? I think I’m making progress. I should send Dr. Larue a text.” I finished my Salisbury steak, vowing to return soon for another. Our waitress, a pretty faeling with curves in all the right places and shimmery dragonfly wings that emerged from the back of her uniform shirt, set our check on the table. She smiled at me, I smiled at her, and I considered that I might not be coming back just for the steak.

“Oh, and get this,” Tim suddenly added as he pulled out his wallet. He set down a few bills to cover his part of the tab. “They Agency just hired a human NP!”

I froze with my hand in my wallet. “Wait. What?”

“You heard me.”

Finally thinking again, I scooped Tim’s money from the table, put it into my wallet, and sent my credit card off with the check. “Why the hell would they do that? Only a tiny fraction of humans even know cryptos exist.”

Tim rose and pushed in his chair. When he wasn’t looking, I wrote my phone number on the check beneath my signature. “Way I heard it, she saved a gillgonder that got hit by a truck. Noticed his gills and, instead of losing her mind, got him to water before it was too late. They offered her the job to thank her.”

I made sure to smile at the waitress one more time before Tim and I headed out the door. In the sunlight, our covers, the enchantments that let us (mostly) blend in with human society, shimmered to life. “A human nurse,” I said, shaking my head and following Tim down the sidewalk, back toward the Cryptohumanoid Police Department precinct. “What’ll they think of next?”

"The Evils of Polka Dots"

“And polka dots. Be sure to watch out for polka dots.”

I lowered the notepad I was writing in to my lap and turned my face to my old aunt. “Evil? What are you talking about, Aunt Catherine?”

The woman across the table was more than sixty years older than me, but still she looked at me with child-like eyes. “It’s a little-known fact that polka dots are the most evil thing in the known universe, Maggie. Never forget that.”

“How could polka dots be evil?” I asked, closing the notepad. I was definitely not writing anything else until she answered. “And besides, you told me that no magic is good or evil on it’s own. You said that it’s the user of the magic that chooses good or evil.”

“What patterns have we already covered?” Aunt Catherine asked, pointing at my notepad.

I groaned. It would be like her not to answer my question until I answered hers first. So I flipped my notepad back a page to where I had started writing a few minutes before. “Lesson three: magic in patterns.”

“Beautiful rendition of the title,” she said with a smirk.

“Plaid and tartan: holds enchantments of heightened physical abilities,” I read from the paper. “That’s why Scottish and English warriors wore it as part of their military uniforms for hundreds of years. Until people stopped believing in magic.”

“And part of why socks are still patterned with argyle today,” Aunt Catherine put in. “Be sure to add that part.”

I wrote in the margin as she spoke, then read more from my notes. “Houndstooth: power of persuasion. Someone working magic through houndstooth becomes very easy to follow.”

“Only black-and-white houndstooth,” Aunt Catherine corrected. “That’s why you see it so frequently on business attire. Someone wearing blue houndstooth can make their words have the opposite effect of what they say. And red houndstooth… well, that just looks ridiculous.”

I scribbled more notes next to what I had already written.

“And under that,” Aunt Catherine added. “Be sure to put, ‘Polka dots: pure evil’!”

I wrote what she told me. “Aunt Catherine, why are polka dots evil?”

“Why is the sun hot? Why is rain wet? We’re not meant to understand everything, Maggie. Some things just are.”

I wanted to tell her that I had learned why the sun was hot and why rain was wet in 6^th grade science class last month, but I held it inside. Instead, I asked, “If plaid holds physical enchantments, and houndstooth can make a person more convincing, what does magic worked through polka dots do?”

“Exactly what I told you. It does evil,” she replied, curling her hand like a claw when she said evil. “No matter what you try to do with your magic through polka dots, it comes out evil. Trying to make your friend lucky? They’ll get bad luck. Trying to get rid of an itchy rash? You’ll catch a worse rash. Trying to get school cancelled for the day? It’ll get smashed by an asteroid.”

I looked up from my notepad long enough to raise a skeptical eyebrow.

“It’s happened!” Aunt Catherine insisted. “Polka dots are no laughing matter! They’re seriously bad news! Why do you think they were so big in the 1950’s? We were in the middle of the Cold War! Everyone was having dark thoughts!”  

I knew nothing about the 1950’s, and I had no idea what a ‘cold war’ was, but if Aunt Catherine said so, then it made sense. I jotted it down on my notepad. “Hey Aunt Catherine,” I began. “Why does magic flow so easily through patterns?”

When she smiled, the lines beside her nose deepened. But instead of making her look older, they actually made her look more vibrant, more full of life. “Why, the same way everything flows through colors and patterns, Maggie,” she replied. “For example, describe what you’re wearing today.”

I looked down at my shirt. It was bright yellow, and on it there was a cartoon of a walrus with a huge handlebar mustache and a top hat. “Well, I’m wearing my fancy walrus shirt, a jean skirt, and gray leggings.”

“Why did you choose to wear those this morning?”

“Because it’s Monday, and fun clothes always cheer me up on Mondays, because otherwise it’s the worst day of the week.”

She lifted her eyebrows and gestured with her index finger. “See what I mean? Colors and patterns have a great effect on our emotions! Another example: when you think of people who are sad, like at a funeral, what color are they always wearing?”

“Black,” I responded instantly. 

“Good,” Aunt Catherine replied. “But black is not always a sad color. Black is reserved, inward-seeking. It doesn’t see to impose on others; it simply wishes to be itself, accepted. On that idea, what color is a bride’s wedding dress, usually? And what is it made from?”

“White,” I replied. “And usually something smooth, like silk or lace.”

“White is an extroverted color,” Aunt Catherine said. “White wants to be seen, to be heard. And magic worked through those slick fabrics repel other things – bad emotions, bad luck, bad magic – which only makes white that much more outgoing.”

I nodded, enthralled by her story-telling. “Tell me some more!” I prodded.

Aunt Catherine nodded sharply with her forehead. “Why? You haven’t written down what I just told you!”

I looked down. Though I hadn’t realized it, my notepad and pencil had fallen to the floor.

“Are you the next Weaver Apprentice, or ain’t ya?” Aunt Catherine said, but there was some laughter in her voice. “How am I going to teach you about the forces of creation and destruction, light and darkness, order and chaos, if you don’t write any of it down?”

I laughed a little and stuck my tongue out at her, but wrote down everything she had told me about weddings and funerals and black and white. “What about paisley? You know, the pattern on handkerchiefs? What kind of magic can you do with paisley?”

A sly smile crossed her face. “Oh, you’re not ready for paisley yet, sprout. That’s advanced level stuff. We’ll be lucky if we make it to gingham today.”

I playfully rolled my eyes at my great aunt, but continued to write as I hung on her every word. After all, I liked the Weaver Apprentice lessons. And, the longer she and I talked, the longer I got to put off doing my math homework. Win-win!

"Scrap Paper" - A "Sleepwalking" short story, by Graham Patrick Smith

Saturday, February 15th, was the four-year anniversary of the day I started on what would become Sleepwalking, the first novel in my young adult series, Who Was Veronica Dawson? Ronnie has come a long way in four years; four novels completed, gaining a literary agent, losing a literary agent, and starting the whole 'seeking publication and representation' process anew. 

In honor of Ronnie's fourth birthday, I wrote a new short story starring her. I hope you enjoy it. 

Oh god. Oh god, he noticed me staring. Oh god, oh god.

My breath quickened and I felt my heart thundering in my chest. I felt my face start to grow hot, so I quickly tried to bury it in my copy of Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. I hoped it looked like I was absorbed in the book and not the boy sitting one row and one desk to the left of me.

Jonathan McGregor had sat in the same seat since the first day of school, and I had purposely taken the seat one row behind him, one desk to the right. It gave me a beautiful view of the side of his face, his awesome hair, and his muscular shoulders and arms.

And, of course, his butt, whenever he got up to sharpen his pencil.

Minutes before, I had been found myself in my usual trance of watching him instead of paying attention to Mr. Edwards, my English teacher. Jonathan’s pencil had slipped from his hand, bounced on the eraser, and flipped back into my shoe.

He had turned, looking for his pencil.

Our eyes had met. For one long, slow second, we were locked on to each other.

He had leaned for his pencil the same instant I had, on instinct alone. Our eyes had finally departed when I picked up his pencil by the eraser and handed it to him. He had taken it without our fingers even coming close to touching.

“Thanks,” he had said softly, in his gentle baritone.

My lips had stopped working and my mouth had filled with sand, so I had simply mumbled and retreated back to my book. When I looked up to Mr. Edwards, the page number that was written on the board was not even close to where I had opened the book.

Oh god, he knows. He knows, I continued to panic. He knows I was watching him all class period. He thinks I’m a total freak.

What was I going to do? I couldn’t just let him walk out of English class thinking I some kind of weirdo stalker. Even if that’s precisely what I was acting like.

What does it matter if he saw you? I asked myself. Just enjoy the view. You still have fifteen minutes of class to admire him.

I thought my inner monologue was trying to make me feel better, until it added, It’s not like it hurt your chances with him. You had zero chance of him liking you before, and you still have zero. Nothing lost, really.

I didn’t want to believe it, of course. I wanted to have hope that, for once in my life, the cute boy that I crushed on would actually return my feelings. Too often I daydreamed about having someone walk me to class, greet me in the morning by the attendance office, and kiss me good-bye when we got on separate busses at the end of the day.

My skin broke out in gooseflesh as a cold sweat started forming on the back on my neck. What would it feel like to kiss Jonathan McGregor?

Not like you’re ever going to find out, the voice inside of me said.

Something inside me flared to life, and I thought defiantly in reply, Oh, yeah? Watch me.

While the rest of the class continued to read, I rummaged around in my backpack until I produced a piece of lined paper. It was crumped and had been battered by weeks of textbooks, and it had some notes from Algebra scribbled on it from a few months ago. It would do.

Still trying to hold the book open with one hand to give the illusion that I was actually doing classwork, I smoothed out the paper with my arm and pulled a red pen from my pocket.  Before my brain could catch up with my gut impulse, I poured out my heart in red ink.

Jonathan,

Confession time. I think you’re really cute. Actually, I’ve thought you’re really cute since the beginning of the school year. Seriously; I just thought about kissing you, and I got goosebumps all over. I want to get to know you better. And then we can… you know… see where things go.

~ Ronnie (the girl behind you, to the right)

When I stopped to catch my breath, I was mortified at what I had written. The mean voice in my head was laughing hysterically at me when I wadded it up and shoved it back into my backpack. If anyone would have walked by and seen it, I would have been absolutely mortified.

That might have been coming on a little strong, I told myself. Try it again.

Mr. Edwards called for an end to the silent reading and started asking discussion questions, a telltale sign that we were in the last five minutes of class. I was running out of time to get it right.

I rummaged in my backpack again until I found another piece of scrap paper. Without bothering to smooth it out, I started writing. This time, I made a conscious effort to tone down my teenage hormones.

Jonathan,

So here we are. English class, huh? I mean, we already speak English; isn’t that enough?  Ha ha.

~ Ronnie (the girl behind and to the right of you)

I wadded it up and crammed it into my backpack the second I had finished it. The mean voice howled with laughter in my head even before I had produced another piece of wrinkled notebook paper. My pen flew across the paper, scrawling words conjured by my frantic brain.

Jonathan,

Sorry for staring earlier. Well, not really… see, I think you’re cute. So it’s hard not to stare. Sorry if that creeps you out. (Also, not really sorry)

~ Ronnie (the girl behind and to the right of you)

Before some base, lower portion of my brain destroyed the note, I placed it between the pages of my copy of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and closed the book shut. An inch of paper stuck out of the end of the book, making it completely obvious.

At first, the demeaning voice in my head started laughing again. When I stood from my desk, it’s laughing diminished. And when I stepped forward and placed my book on Jonathan’s desk, so the piece of paper inside was facing directly at him, the voice shrieked in horror.

Oh, wait. That was just my common sense.

What the heck are you doing?! Screamed every shred of common sense in my body.

I was so nervous that it felt like I was tingling all over. But I was in too deep to back out now. Any second, he was going to pick up the book, notice the note I had left him, and finally know how I felt about him.

In the middle of a class full of people.

Oh, god. What had I done?

The flood of teenage hormones in my brain that had made this attempt at flirting seem like a good idea was instantly burned away in an inferno of fear. And not wimpy fear, either, like walking through a dark house in the middle of the night. This was lower-brain-function Fear, with a capital F, like our ancestors had the first time they had to outrun a saber-tooth tiger.

Like the cavemen of old, I was afraid for my life.

A total of three seconds had passed since I had placed the book on Jonathan’s desk. On the fourth second, I reached down to take it again, before I did something even more stupid (although I wasn’t sure how I could possibly achieve that). But also in that fourth second, Mr. Edwards took both books from the desk and added them to the stack in his arms.

In the fifth second, the bell rang to end class.

Time returned to its normal speed. Jonathan gathered his things and left the room with the rest of the students.

Mr. Edward took the stack of books to the bookshelf behind his desk and started placing them inside, where they would stay until they were randomly passed out to the class tomorrow: when someone in class would find my note containing my feelings for Jonathan, complete with mine and his names written on it.

The inferno of turn had turned into a full-blown Chicago fire. And I was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Oh, god. What have I done?   

"Coveralls"

I wrote this short story when given the prompt "Soot" by a competitive writing community. I grew up in eastern Kentucky, the mountains of Appalachia, the heart of coal mining country. Appalachia, the mining industry as a whole, and the people associated with both, often get poor publicity. And although prescription drug abuse has infected the area like a plague, most people from the area have always been hard working, salt-of-the-earth individuals, simply providing for their families. Among them are my father and grandfather, who both went into coal mines for as many years as their bodies would allow. My grandfather's name is Elmer. 

"Coveralls" 

His knees ache so badly when he lowers himself into bed that, for just a moment, the releif takes his breath away. The springs creak with his weight. A slow exhale, from a breath he didn't realize he was holding, escapes his lips in time with his body sinking into the matress. 

"Elmer? Did you get in bed with your boot on?" 

He looks down. He's just in a t-shirt and his undershorts, but bunched around his feet are his coveralls. When he'd arrived home, he'd been in such a hurry to unbutton the coveralls and take them off that he hadn't removed his boots. Now the coveralls are bunched around his feet. When he wiggles his toes, though, he can still feel the boots' protective steel plate, laced in place. 

He looks like a banana with a persistent, blue peel. "I did, Betty. I'm sorry. Will you help me get them off?" 

There are footsteps through the house, but it's not his wife that enters. Instead a bright little face, framed by bouncing brown hair, charges into the room. "I'll help you, daddy!" She says, stumbling to a stop by the end of the bed. 

Sweet Cathrine. "Thank you, Kitty," he says with a smile, sitting up and dropping his legs over the side of the bed. His knees make him wince, but Cathrine doesn't notice. She simply busies herself with unlacing the tall books and yanking them with all her might. He still does most of the work, but seeing her desire to help warms his heart like nothing else. 

After all, it's why he goes into that mine every day. 

With the boots now discarded on the floor, he is free to extricate himself from the coveralls. His wife enters the bedroom with their youngest, his son, on her hip. Cathrine wipes her brow with her hand, smearing a black streak over her eyebrows. 

He laughs. Betty frets, with a smile, "Kitty, look at you! You've got coal dust on your face!" 

Cathrine looks at her mother, then he father, and exclaims, "I look like daddy, now!" With reckless abandon she climbs into her father's lap, over his aching knees. He barely notices as he takes her into his arms. 

"Will you make sure she gets washed up before dinner?" Betty asks him, smiling. 

Careful not to make her even dirtier with his own blackened face, Elmer smiles and nods.