Oxford and the others gathered at the bottom board a mantrip at 6:33 and ride toward their working places in the maze of black-walled rooms off New Main South, ninth to sixteenth entries. The light from bare bulbs glistens off the rough cracks in the roof as the iron box rocks and sways, rattles and shrieks, making too much noise for talk. In its urgent rhythms, Oxford can almost hear his old Aunt Marge, who raised him and Dinah, letting go at the Church of the Nazarene:
“… and oh God you have mercy on them children God (amen) show them the everlastin’ peace (in Jesus’ name) stop that boy acussin’ warsh his feet (oh yes amen) and God stop Dinah seekin’ men so as she might seek Thee (yes tell it Sister Marge) warsh her feet (amen amen) and God do stop Oxford asmokin’ and adrinkin’ You show him the way warsh his feet (hear her Lord) for the Day of His Judgment is at hand (yes God) and verily the Son of Man is acomin’ in the glorious light of God the Father (yes) with all His angels (they are comin’) and outa his mouth they comes a sharp sword (yes yes) and all these here sinners and false prophets shall be cast alive into the fire and brimstone (oh save us) and all things shall be made new and the poor and the true shall inherit (we shall inherit) and so for the love of Jesus Christ oh God save my Dinah and Oxford from their adulteratin’ ways warsh them clean in the blood of the Lamb (oh God) let the dove of Grace descend on them (warsh them white) lead them home oh God teach them the love and the everlastin’ glory oh God I’m callin’ to Ye kin Ye hear me God warsh ’em warsh ’em all over God warsh their feet (amen)!”
When the mantrip stops at the ninth entry and there is a moment of silence, Tony Rosselli turns to Clemens and asks, “Say, wait, ain’t you Ox Clemens? Didn’t you play on the team that went to State?”
Yes, and he wore silk shirts and stopped screwing his sister’s friends at Waterton, made out with all the fancypants high school girls instead. He’d still stop in for a round of snooker now and then, but just to let the old men clap him on the back and call him Big Ox. And he and Tiger took the team to State that year and only lost the final game, getting named, both of them, to the All-State All-Star team, and just sophomores. Only the next year it turned out Oxford was ineligible for being too old. He could hardly believe it, but when he found it was really true, he gave them all the royal digit and went down in the mines. Tiger had a new buddy he played ball with and Oxford almost never saw him, except when he went to see the games, had to put up instead with his bucktooth minebuddy Willie Hall, who went to church with his Aunt Marge and was too scared of the mines to work more than half the time. Oxford never got written up anymore and those fancypants girls hung up on him if he tried to call. His Aunt Marge went completely off her head and fell down in a froth in campmeeting one night and died of a stroke. He had the blues something rotten all the time. He went to Waterton every week, drank with Dinah till he was sick, and tumbled her girlfriends when they weren’t busy.
Clemens and Rosselli leave the mantrip at the eleventh entry because Clemens wants to speak to somebody in that area, a buggy runner named Eddie Wilson. Bill Lawson and his buddy Mike Strelchuk follow them off. They wait for Oxford to turn down the entry, and then they sidle up next to Rosselli. Each takes an elbow. “C’mon, Tony,” says Strelchuk with a toothy big-jowled grin. “We’ll walk you up toward the working area.”
A few feet away, Wilson is saying: “No, Ferd, goldarn it, I’m tellin’ ye, I ain’t lettin’ ye have the barry of my dog, and that’s it. I got me a hankerin’ to maybe take the pup and go huntin’ myself this weekend anyhow.” Clemens spits, gives it up.
Sitting there alone at a cracked creamy table one rainy week night, then, about midnight, and so desolate even Mrs. Dobie had waddled off to bed, the two of them sharing a sour beer, Oxford got to talking on about how he was feeling so very down, how his life was all used up, he might as well quit, and there weren’t even any girls in the place tonight. Dinah showed deep age scars cutting through her forehead and under her eyes and around her mouth, and it made Oxford feel miserable and sick. He wished to hell he had some money to give her, send her off on a vacation somewhere, out West maybe, or buy her a new silk dress, spruce her up — Jesus! he was very sad. And while he was staring at his sister very sad she said, “C’mon, Oxford, you might as well stay here with me tonight.” Nobody was around to notice, so they went upstairs, joking and feeling a little like dumb kids. In bed, she played with him a little, but he couldn’t get it up, it just wasn’t any good, so they laughed and dropped off to sleep, and then they both woke up in the middle of the night, humping away to beat hell….
When Clemens arrives at the fourteenth, he discovers Rosselli down on his stomach, Strelchuk and Castiglione sitting on him, pinning his arms. The boy’s face is smeared with blood and coal dust, and Strelchuk and Castiglione are rubbing coal dust into his new clothes. Jinx Pontormo kicks the stuff into his face. Tuck Filbert stands a few feet away with a big grin on his broad-jawed face. Strelchuck’s buddy Bill Lawson comes up with a compressed-air hose. “Pull down his britches, boys, and we’ll treat the baby dude to a little initiation goose!” he shouts, and lets fly a chaw of tobacco.
Ely Collins, the Nazarene preacher, emerges tall and gray from the entry, frowns, warns: “You boys oughtn’t to clown around like that. It ain’t right.”
Clemens essays a couple steps forward, but Filbert, Pontormo, and a couple other guys get in his way. Strelchuk and Castiglione try to roll Rosselli over, but in the effort lose their grip, and the boy breaks free of them. Lawson runs over to help, and Rosselli, lashing out wildly, catches him on the side of the head with his new steel-toed boot, sends the older miner sprawling. Strelchuk and Castiglione leap on Rosselli cursing, pin his arms and legs. On his back, the boy keeps twisting and jerking, but they have him good now.
“Okay, get his pants!” Strelchuk gasps.
“Little shit,” Lawson crabs, his hands trembling. He has a long bleeding gash on his face, and his false teeth are knocked awry. He and Pontormo unbuckle the kid’s pants and rip them down off him.
The boy’s struggling flesh, leaping like a chicken with its neck wrung, is a strange creamy white against the black earth. Strelchuk and Castiglione try to force the boy’s legs back — Strelchuk clips him in the belly with the side of his hand, and the boy doubles up. They force his knees up against his chest, Rosselli still not giving up.