A Few Lumps of Coal by Kathleen J. Harris Department of Psychiatry           The lines and creases of his face told a story in themselves. I wanted to read them more carefully, but was afraid of being rude. He had been an attractive man, handsome in his youth, and probably vain. One could see it clearly even now in the tilt of his chin and the wink of his eye. His full head of hair was now a sandy gray, but his youthful nickname of "Red" could still be understood. Quiet brown eyes looked out evenly from behind heavy brows. His large, well-shaped nose was not noticeable until emotion colored his face. Then his nostrils flared and his breath came in snorts. Quick to anger, he was also quick to laugh. His wide mouth pulled up at the corners to show rows of well made teeth.         I watched and listened as he talked, interested in the mostly mundane details of his Depression story. He answered each question politely and waited for the next. His name was Edward, though he had been called Red since before he could remember. He was a few months shy of his 78th birthday, but he had been just 17 years old in 1933.         "Young people today read about the Depression, but they don't understand what it was really like in my day," he said. "It was hard. No TV or video games. No, we were lucky if we had a roof over our heads and a few lumps of coal ... for heat."         He turned his head away slightly, and these last words were spoken so low I could hardly hear them. He stared at an insignificant spot on the table cloth and fingered his coffee cup absently. He was lost in a remembrance. He had left me behind. After a few minutes I asked if it was something he could share with me. He looked at me a long time, and then he turned his head and began.         I haven't thought of Charlie in a long while. Charlie was my mother's boyfriend. He was a real pal until you got him riled. Then he could scrap with the best of them. A great hulk of a man, he was always ready for a fight. He had almost beaten a man to death over an off-hand remark before he met my mother. But he had liked me, the 17 year old son of his latest mistress, and I liked him, even though a streak of fear ran through our relationship.         Times were hard which was probably the reason Ma kept the chair at the head of the table filled with one man or another. She was not a bad woman, just a practical one. Once Charlie moved in, there always seemed to be something on the table to eat and a roof over our heads.         Then Charlie got laid off, and the times got rougher. After the rent was paid and food was bought, there was nothing left for coal to heat the small three room house that sat on an acre or so of ground just across the field from the railroad tracks. The tracks were doubled there to provide a waiting space for the trains to sit during switching. Sometimes the waiting trains were coal cars, and sometimes they sat at night.         Charlie noticed this one evening while walking home from a poker game at the union hall where the boys gathered to sample the hooch as much as to play cards. Small lumps of coal were strewn along the tracks. He picked up enough from along the side of the car to fill his coat--enough to warm our house. This became a habit, and when there was not enough coal on the ground, he began to climb the ladder on the side of the car and to throw over chunks to finish filling the gunny sack he now carried with him at all times in the lining of his overall coat.         On a bitterly cold night in early December, the train sat longer than usual on the waiting tracks. So after filling his sack once, Charlie decided to make another trip. He woke me and I went with him this time. Being younger and faster, I climbed the ladder and moved along the top of the car to about the middle and began pitching lumps of coal over the side to the frozen ground below. Once the lumps left my hand, they disappeared from sight and fell into the black, moonless night.         Each piece landed with a thud on the snow-spotted earth, unless it hit another piece of coal. Then it clacked and clattered as the coal shattered into seemingly hundreds of black nuggets. I worked feverishly, my fingers hurting at first before they turned numb. Down below Charlie was picking up the chunks and putting them into the bags. He worked carefully so as not to be hit by the falling black grenades.         We worked for 10 minutes or so and then I rested, while Charlie continued to gather the lumps below. Every so often Charlie would stop and listen. He had just about filled the first bag. He tested its weight and tied it off. When he turned for the second bag, we saw him--the railroad dick. He stood not more than five feet away from Charlie with his service revolver drawn. I watched, terrified, unable to move until the coal suddenly shifted under my feet, sending a shower of small lumps clattering over the side of the car. The detective swung around and pointed the gun skyward, shouting for me to show myself. Instantly, Charlie pulled a small revolver from inside his coat, and pointing it at the detective, fired twice. The detective fell in a slump on the ground. Charlie called me down from the car.         I heard the shots, and saw the detective lying in a heap next to the bag of coal, but I could not grasp what was happening. My mind would not work. I stared at the dark lumps in front of me and then at Charlie. "Get out of here, boy. Run, run!" was all he said. I couldn't move. Charlie grabbed me by the collar and shoved me in the direction of home. "Get out of here, damn it."         Once in motion, I couldn't stop. My legs moved independently of my brain. My feet stumbled over the frozen furrows in the field and tripped over the dried corn stalks, but they carried me homeward. I ran till I had no breath and my lungs ached. Near the edge of the field, I fell over the uneven clods of dirt and lay there on the hard, frozen ground, retching and crying, with the corn stabs cutting into my side. I didn't know whether I laid there a minute or an hour. It seemed like forever. Finally, I crawled home.         In gasps and sobs I told my mother a disjointed tale. When she was sure I hadn't been identified, she sent me to bed. Lying there alone, I tried to piece together the events of the evening, tried to make some sense of them, but none would come, only the image of the detective lying in a heap next to the bag of coal.         Sometime later, I heard the sputter of the old car's engine as it reluctantly turned over and churned away in the distance. I knew my mother would go to Waverly where Charlie's family lived, expecting that Charlie would go there too.         I didn't think I could sleep, but I must have for I was awakened by the police beating on my door, and was dragged to the police station. They wouldn't wait for me to put on my shoes and socks so I stuck my feet into a pair of overshoes that had been left standing at the back door. I remember the cold of the rubber against my toes and the sound of the metal fasteners jingling as I clomped along.         They had tracked me from the coal car. The traces of snow had left just enough tell-tale prints along with the incriminating vomit to betray me. They knew I had been there, but they knew I hadn't killed anybody. Who else was there, they demanded over and over again, hammering away at me. Then late in the afternoon for no explicable reason, they took me home, dropped me off at my mother's house where they had found me.         What I didn't know was that while I was being questioned, the police had received an anonymous tip to look for Charlie at his mother's house in Waverly. They had gone there by the carloads. They surrounded the farm house and barn, and when Charlie made a run for the car, they shot him down in the driveway. By the time my mother got there, he was gone. They shot him 37 times, she said.         The old man sat silently for awhile, adrift in his own sea of memories. I didn't say anything. I had pried enough. Then remembering my presence, he looked at me and shook his head. "All over a few lumps of coal," he said.