Nobody Opens

"How's the air at our crosscut, Donna? The short tunnel back of us."

"Sensor there reads 1,900 parts per million. Carbon monoxide."

"Lord help," said Dale. "Say that in English."

"1,600 kills a man in under two hours," Hank said. "So nobody opens that door. Say it back."

"Nobody opens," said seven men.

---

By four they had run out of jokes. Dale was on his wedding again.

"I'm walking her on Saturday. I paid for the ham. 22 pounds of ham, Troy."

"Nobody's eating your ham, Dale."

"Everybody's eating my ham. That's the point of a ham."

Jay had a letter in his locker up top. The lineman school in Charleston would take him in January. Climbing poles in the daylight, Pap. Fixing wires in the rain. He had meant to say it at the party on Friday, Pap's last shift, when Pap would be soft with cake.

"Last week, Pap," he said instead.

"Last week," said Hank. "Don't spoil it."

"And I'm putting in for your job Monday," said Troy. "So don't spoil it for me either."

Something knocked on the outer door.

Three slow. Two quick.

Troy was up before the last one landed. "There's a man out there."

"Sit down."

"Hank, there's a man in the smoke!"

"There's eight men in here, and Donna has eight tags. Who's out there, Troy? Name him."

Troy said nothing. Jay counted out loud, pointing.

"Dale, Troy, Curt, Rod, Lyle, Sam, Pap and me. Eight, Troy."

"32 years," Hank said, to the floor.

"Hank," Dale said quietly. "Don't."

"They ought to know, Dale. 1994, fire on this seam. Same coal, same mountain."

"Who's Benny?" said Troy.

"Benny Pruitt, my helper. He was 19. He got turned round in the smoke and died a mile off."

"And the knock?"

"Next fire, a crew walled up in a crosscut heard three slow and two quick. One of them opened. The gas came in and took two men."

He rapped the bench, three slow and two quick, neat as a clock.

"That's Benny," he said. "He knocked like that on my truck window every morning for a ride. Benny knocks, you don't open."

"When was the next fire?" said Troy.

"Before your time."

"That's a ghost story, Hank."

"So's the one where you open the door and live."

"Or we're breathing gas." Troy pointed at Hank's meter. "Carbon monoxide gets in your head. You see stuff and hear stuff."

Hank held up the meter. CO 0.

"Rule says 25 or less in here," he said. "We're at nothing. You heard it, Troy. So did I."

He picked up the phone.

"Donna. Anybody missing up there? Anybody at all?"

"Hank, every tag on this shift is on my board. Every man is in your box or up here eating my doughnuts." A pause. "Why?"

"No reason," said Hank. "Keep Kyle off the front."

---

At five Hank said to kill the lights.

"Battery has to last till the team comes," he said. "You don't need to see Dale to hear him."

"That's cruel," said Dale. "True. But cruel."

Jay switched his lamp off last. Pap's shoulder was warm against his.

"Pap," Jay said. "About Friday."

"Mm."

"I got a letter."

"From Charleston," Hank said. "Your mother told me. Lineman school."

"You're not mad?"

"I'm glad. Get up a pole in the daylight, Jay. Stay up there."

Jay was smiling in the dark when it came.

Three slow. Two quick.

On the steel, right behind Jay's head.

He came off the bench so hard he hit Dale.

"Who did that?" Troy yelled. "Who's knocking?"

"Not me," said Rod.

"My hands are in my lap," said Lyle. "Both of them, swear to God."

"Swap with me," Hank said in the dark. His voice was very calm. "You sit by the airlock, Jay. I'll take the far end."

They crawled over boots. Jay sat where Pap had sat.

The knock came again. Not behind him. Down at the far end, behind Pap.

"It's on you," Jay whispered.

"I know where it is, son."

Hank lit the meter. The green glow made his face look drowned. "CO2's at 1.4."

"What was it?" said Dale.

"0.6, an hour back. Rule's 1 percent, and it can jump to 2.5 and still be legal." Hank looked at the number. "But eight men don't do that in an hour."

"Nine would," said Dale.

Nobody answered him. At Jay's end of the bench the steel creaked, as if someone heavy had just sat down on it.

Then the knock came from the airlock. Not the outer door. The inner one, a foot from Jay's knee. Three slow. Two quick.

"It's in the airlock," Troy said. His voice cracked high like a boy's. "Hank, it's past the first door!"

"Lights," said Hank. "Put the lights on."

Eight men, blinking. The airlock window was a black square.

"Nothing," Troy said. "There's nothing in there, Hank."

"Nothing you can see," said Hank.

Dale was crying without any noise.

"My daddy carried Benny out," Dale said. "In '94. He was on the recovery team."

"Dale."

"He wasn't a mile off, Hank. Daddy found him sitting up against the outside of your curtain." Dale looked at Jay, not at Hank. "There was never a next fire, son."

"So this one's the second," said Troy.

Jay waited for Pap to say Dale was wrong. Pap was looking at the airlock.

"Five of us walled up behind a plastic curtain," Hank said. "Smoke so thick you could lean on it, and then three slow and two quick. I knew whose knock it was."

"I said nobody opens," he said. "I said it till they said it back."

"How long did he knock?" said Jay.

"Till about four in the morning."

"And the crew that opened? The two men?"

"I made them up, next spring, for the new boys." Pap's voice was flat and tired. "So nobody would ever open for him, and nobody would ever ask us why we didn't."

"You told me that story when I was 10," Jay said. "At the kitchen table. I told it to a new man in March. Right here."

"I know you did. I heard you."

"You left a kid in the smoke," Troy said.

"I left one," said Hank. "I brought five home. You want to tell me which of them I should have swapped?"

The phone buzzed. Everyone jumped, then laughed at themselves.

"Hank, hon." Donna sounded like she had been crying too. "Fire's down and the team's walking in, two hours out. Kyle's third in line, thank God."

"Two hours," Troy said. "Two hours, boys!"

"I'm walking her Saturday," Dale said, laughing. "You hear me, Troy? You're eating that ham."

"I'll eat the whole ham, Dale."

Curt said a prayer that was mostly swearing. Jay shut his eyes and let the noise hold him up.

"Save the battery," Hank said, somewhere close. "Lights off."

Somebody hit the switch. In the dark a hand rested on top of Jay's helmet, the way it had when he was small.

"He's waited 32 years, Jay," Hank said, very near his ear. "Somebody ought to open for him."

The seal of the inner door hissed.

"Lights!"

Troy found the switch. Pap's place on the bench was empty.

Pap was in the airlock, on the other side of the little window.

"The outer door," Dale said. "Lord, he's opened the outer door."

Grey smoke rolled in round Pap's legs like slow water.

He knocked. Three slow. Two quick.

Jay was at the handle without deciding to be. Troy grabbed one arm. Dale grabbed the other.

"Two hours, Jay," Troy said. "Two hours of 1,900 in all our mouths."

"He's my granddad."

"He's my friend," Dale said. "40 years. Let go of the handle, son."

Pap's lips moved behind the glass. Jay knew the shape of it. Pap had said it after every rule he ever taught him.

Say it back.

Jay took his hand off the handle.

"Nobody opens," he said, and six men said it back.