Big Stone Gap Read online

  “How do you like ’at!” Worley said, laughing.

  “You must have loved her very much to steal for her.”

  “That I did, ma’am. That I did.”

  “Mama done whooped the tar out of Otto when she found out. Beat him with a switch till it snapped in two.”

  “Yup, and then Daddy done came home and beat me, too.” Otto reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a wad of paper crumbles, nails, and a five-dollar bill. He sifts through the stuff and pulls out the tiny silver ring. He gives it to me.

  “Go ahead. Try it on.”

  I put the ring on my finger.

  “For a big girl, you got little fingers,” Worley observes.

  “What a beautiful ring.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Where is Destry now?”

  “She died.” Otto sighs.

  “That’s the sad part of the story,” Worley says. He looks at his brother with great feeling.

  “Yes, ma’am. She died. Melungeons git all sorts of things—they catch just about anything that’s out there, and they’re weak, so it tends to take ’em. She was sixteen when she died. I wanted to murry her, but she was too sick.”

  “Why do the Melungeons die like ’at?” Worley asks.

  “Well, the theory is that there’s a lot of inbreeding there. Up in the mountains, folks didn’t mix with the general population. And that hurt them. Because the more of a mix you get, the stronger the blood. Or so the doctors believe.”

  “Where do they come from?”

  “Melungeon comes from the French word mélange. It means ‘mixed.’ ”

  “I thought the Melungeons were them folks from the Lost Colony down in North Carolina.”

  “That’s another theory.”

  “What’s the Lost Colony?” Worley asks.

  “Ye tell him, Miss Ave,” Otto says.

  “I think the Lost Colony was more of a tale told in the hills rather than actual fact. But the story goes that settlers from England landed on the North Carolina coast near Virginia. The ship dropped them off with supplies, and they built a colony. There was a fort, gardens, little houses, a church—things were going well. But when the ships returned from England a year later, the colony was a ghost town. Beds were made. Books were on shelves. Clothes were hanging in the closets. But no people. The people had vanished. They looked for them but never found them. There was only one clue: the word Croatan was carved on a tree. Some believe that a settler carved that before he was kidnapped away by the Indians. It’s just a guess, though. So, a Melungeon could be a person who descends from a mix of the settlers and Indians, who hid here in these hills and never left. Your Destry could have been a descendant of those people.”

  “Well, all I know is I never loved no other.” Otto says this with such clarity, I know it is true.

  The three of us sit and drink our coffee. We’re all thinking about little Destry. Otto had the real thing and lost it. I hope someday my heart will open up and have a love like that.

  The open-air amphitheater for The Trail of the Lonesome Pine Drama was built next door to the home of the only famous person to ever come from this town, the author John Fox, Jr., who wrote the book that inspired our play. Mr. Fox was a talented loner who lived with his mother and sister. His book of 1908, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, was the best-selling novel in the United States prior to Gone with the Wind. It’s the first fact you’re told on the tour of the Fox home. The town turned their home into a gift shop, where you can buy key chains, postcards, and corn-husk dolls. Next to it is the theater, and next door to the theater is the original one-room schoolhouse from John Fox, Jr.’s childhood. The state funds to refurbish it haven’t come through, so you can’t go inside, just look through the window. The tour buses roll in to the cul-de-sac, and it sort of landlocks the audienceto spend money. Visitors peruse the gift shop and eat at the Kiwanis Club sloppy-joe stand during intermission.

  I love the Drama because growing up I spent most of my summers backstage. Mama designed and sewed all the costumes for the show. There was always something needing mending or replacing, so Mama and I would walk over and tend to the problem. I always loved theater people, even though I was a little scared of them with their elaborate wigs, long black eyelashes, and bright red cheeks. The cast was always nice to me, and once they even let me come onstage with them in the finale. I never forgot the excitement of those footlights, the torches that lit the back wall and the cluster of musicians in the sawdust orchestra pit downstage. It only stood to reason that someday I would grow up and help out. Mazie Dinsmore, the grande dame director of the first season, a tugboat of a woman with the vision of Cecil B. DeMille, spotted me early on and taught me how to direct. I served as her prompter (the girl who crouches offstage and feeds lines to the actors who forget where they are or what to say). This was an important job because more than one of our lead actors was known to hit the Old Grand-Dad before and during a performance. One night I fed a tipsy Cory Tress his line and he looked at me in the wings and said, “What?” He got a huge laugh. But those sorts of flubs are rare. We’re amateurs, but we do take the Drama seriously. There was another night when a flat of scenery painted to indicate a drawing room in a Kentucky Bluegrass mansion started to teeter and was about to fall. I slipped onto the stage and grabbed it before it crushed the actors. Mazie never forgot that. She felt I had the stomach for directing. I never panicked. She thought that was one of the most important attributes in a director.

  Backstage at the Drama there is always a disorganized cacophony of kids running around, musical-instrument warm-ups, dancers doing their stretches, and actors running their lines. Tonight is closing night, the last show of our season. It’s a free performance for the families and friends of the cast and crew, so it’s standing room only. Nerves run high when we’re putting on the show for the town; somehow, performing for strangers is easier.

  The play is about a mountain girl named June Tolliver who falls in love with John Hale, a coal inspector from Kentucky. He takes this wildcat girl and sends her to the Bluegrass to be refined and educated by his aristocratic sister, Helen. When she returns to her mountains after having the Pygmalion pulled on her, she doesn’t fit in. In fact, she is too cultured for John Hale, who cannot believe what a lady she has become. They get past all that, though, and admit they’ve loved each other all along. It’s a classic story, and it gets the audience every single time. My favorite moment in the play is in the first act, when June’s father, Devil Judd Tolliver, finds out that John Hale is in love with his fifteen-year-old daughter. He tries to blow the coal inspector’s head off. The lines go:

  DEVIL JUDD: My Juney is too young for ye.

  JOHN HALE: She won’t always be fifteen, sir. I’ll wait.

  The actual blocking has been handed down for years, so all I do is say, “You go here,” “You stand there,” “Look surprised when the gun goes off,” and “No chewing gum.” I just follow the instructions from Mazie’s promptbook. (When she died she willed it to the John Fox, Jr., Museum.) Any of the special touches we owe to Mazie Dinsmore and her theatrical vision. She put actual gunfire into the show and added the preshow of roving bluegrass musicians and singers to entertain the audience before curtain. The preshow has set us apart from all the other outdoor dramas on the circuit. Audiences love the traditional bluegrass music, and of course, they can’t wait to see our world-famous backdrop: a painting, the size of half a football field, that is an exact replica of the mountain view you see behind it. It’s a dazzler at twilight, when you’re sitting in the audience and you see a painting of the actual vista from your seat.

  The hardest part of directing is the scheduling. Because we are not professionals, everybody has a job or two outside of the Drama. I’ve got musicians who are coal miners and work the hoot-owl shift (midnight to lunch), teachers who are busy all day, farmers who work weekends. It’s a juggling act, but it is the most fun I’ve ever had. I love mountain music—the Celtic Scotch-Irish so
und of regret, low wailing tunes like “Barbara Allen” and “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.” I always thought I loved that music because of Fred Mulligan. He was Scotch-Irish. The music was our one connection, the only mutual thing we loved. Now I must let go of that, too.

  Theodore enters from stage right in full costume and beard. He crosses downstage, jumps off the lip, and comes toward me with a look of concern on his face. We have a powwow about the gizmo that leaks fake blood from his chest (he gets shot at the end of the play). Pearl Grimes is my props department, so she listens in.

  My stage manager waves a clipboard in my face. “Miss Mulligan, we’re ready to open the house.” He calls off, “Dancers! Positions, please.” The dancers take the stage. By day they are majorettes with the high school marching band, under Theodore’s capable direction. Majorettes are the prettiest girls in school, even ahead of cheerleaders. Let’s face it: Twirling takes skill; cheering only takes volume. By night, they’re my dancers, providing storytelling through movement.

  I have no twirling in the Drama, although the majorette captain, Tayloe Slagle, lobbied hard to incorporate it. I explained that historical accuracy is the entire point of doing the Drama. I don’t see a bunch of mountain folk from 1895 twirling batons in the middle of a hoedown.

  Tayloe enters from the stage-right wings. She takes her mark at center stage, owning it like it’s the only pin dot in the universe. Bo Caudill, the follow-spot operator, widens the beam of light from her perfect face to include her body—shapely, bursting in ripe perfection in a simple red dress with a scoop neck and ruffles.

  Tayloe is compact but leggy, like all the great movie stars. She has a well-formed, large head with a clear, high forehead set off by smooth, small features: a prominent but straight nose (like Miriam Hopkins), blond hair (like Veronica Lake), and wet eyes (like Bette Davis). Her right eyebrow is always slightly raised in a delicate swirl, giving me the impression she is skeptical of anything she is told.

  Tayloe plays June Tolliver, the ingenue lead, the coarse mountain girl who transforms into a Kentucky lady. Tayloe won the role because she has true star quality. It cannot be invented. But it sure doesn’t keep every other girl in town from trying to develop That Certain Something. We have girls who practice their footwork, suffer hours of vocal coaching, and diet down to pool-cue thin, but what they don’t understand is that this luminescence is inborn and unteachable, and Tayloe’s got it. All any good director has to do is exploit the obvious, so we incorporated a dream ballet into the second act, featuring Tayloe in a pale pink leotard and a wee chiffon skirt. Tickets flew out of the box office.

  She’s our starlet, so all the girls seek her approval and imitate her. Tayloe gives them a standard, a marker by which to judge themselves. Other skills and attributes can be appreciated and duly noted, but beauty is instantly obvious to all. I have never met a girl (including myself) who did not long to be beautiful, who did not pray for her own potential to reveal itself. When a girl is beautiful, she gets to pick—she never has to wait for someone to choose her. There is so much power in doing the choosing.

  Pearl Grimes touches my arm. “I think I got a better way for the blood to spurt. I’m gonna rig a tube down Mr. Tipton’s pant leg so he can step hard when he’s shot.”

  The summer of 1978 will forever be remembered as the summer of wily stagecraft. No matter what technique we’ve tried—and we even called the folks up in New York City to find out how they do it—we have not been able to get Theodore shot on cue. Either the blood spurts too soon or too late. Either way, it destroys the authenticity of the moment.

  “Did Mr. Tipton like your idea?”

  “He’s mighty impatient.”

  “Most great artists are, you know. Michelangelo said, ‘Genius is eternal patience.’ ”

  “Do you think Mr. Tipton’s a genius?”

  “Genius or not, we gotta get him shot correctly so he can die at the end of the play. It’s the last show of the season. Wouldn’t it be nice to go out with the right bang?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Poor old Pearl; what she’s got, Tayloe is missing. She’s got the thin brown hair, the thick ankles, and the weight problem. Pearl has beautiful hands, though. Pretty-faced girls usually have ugly hands. But then again, I don’t know a lot of people who notice hands.

  “Tayloe sure does look pretty,” Pearl decides as she stands there.

  “Yeah.”

  “That costume is mighty tight.”

  I’m thinking that I would never wear that dress myself. That’s the difference between me and Pearl: She still has the dream of wearing it.

  “She’s stuck-up, though,” Pearl zings.

  I let the comment pass. It doesn’t do me any good to try to convince Pearl that beauty comes from within and that age will eventually wither a pretty face. I get a pain in my left temple watching poor Pearl looking up on the stage at Tayloe like there is some answer up there. She is hoping that beauty will be truth. But that observation was surely made by the father of a very beautiful daughter, not Pearl’s and surely not mine. Tayloe is conceited. But so what? Tayloe, not Pearl, is in the beam of the spotlight. Tayloe, not Pearl, is being examined and appreciated from all sides like a rare ruby. How Pearl wishes she was The One! Of course, I could lie. I could tell Pearl that being the prettiest girl in town is no great shakes, but eventually she would find out the truth. When you’re fifteen, it is everything. And when you’re thirty-five, it’s still something. Beauty is the fat yellow line down the middle of Powell Valley Road. And it’s best to figure out—and the sooner the better—which side you fall on, because if you don’t do it for yourself, the world will. Why wait for the judgment?

  Pearl squints at the stage and breathes the night air slowly like a drag off a cigarette. She is trying so hard to understand, trying to understand why Tayloe and not her.

  “Maybe you ought to check your prop table. Curtain’s almost up,” I remind her.

  Pearl straightens up and goes backstage with a purpose. Having a purpose is the little secret of the nonpretties. Something to do always beats something to look at.

  The cast looks terrific onstage. They’ve worked five shows a week all summer, yet they still have pep. They’re still excited about doing the show. I’ll spare you the details of the auditions and casting that take place every year from March till June. Let’s just say it is highly competitive. Nothing like the theater to bring out the claws and pepper in people. Folks want the part they want and that’s it. Never mind they’re the wrong age, or can’t sing, or can’t dance. They’d leave notes on my Jeep, call me at home, give me gifts of cakes and jellies—anything to sway me. I can’t imagine the competition on Broadway itself could be any more brutal than it is right here. Thank goodness there are parts that actors grow into: Li’l Bub becomes Big Bub, who can then play Dave Tolliver, then, as he ages, Bad Rufe, all the way to the patriarch, Devil Judd. We’ve been doing the show so long, the cast members know one another’s lines. We never have an understudy problem.

  We do have an annoying stage mother: Betty Slagle. Tayloe’s mom caused me so much grief with her many suggestions—of course all of them showing off her daughter to full advantage and forsaking the story—that I put her on the costume crew. She’s busy pressing pants now, so she stays off my back.

  I signal the Foxes to open the house. The Foxes are our women’s auxiliary group named in honor of John Fox, Jr. (of course). They run the ticket sales, the concessions, and the rug-loom demonstration at the Fox Museum during intermission. They’re a clique of young ’n’ sexy divorcées and single girls. There’s a sorority feeling to their activities. And they keep the history alive, so their form-fitting T-shirts say.

  I cue the band to begin the overture. Jack Mac winks at me; I wink back. Now we have a secret—I’ve seen him in his underwear—and it’s kind of fun. He nods to his boys, and they play. I’m always thrilled by the sound of those strings, mandolins so simple and clear. The soft melody sails over the outdoor
theater and spills out into the dark. I take my place on the perch next to Bo’s follow spot on the back wall. No matter how many times I’ve watched the show, I still get nervous before Curtain. I look down as the audience filters in. Iva Lou Wade comes in with a nice-looking man I’ve never seen before. (Where does she find them?) She wears a flowy mint-green pant set that makes her look like a Greek goddess. The gold armband completes the effect. She grins at me and I wave.

  Our final show comes off without a hitch. The foot-stomp-blood-spurt cure that Pearl came up with worked (thank God). The show was perfect until Li’l Bub pulled a closing-night prank. When Theodore was shot, he threw a rubber chicken onto the stage. The crowd went wild. Theodore was not amused. After three standing ovations, Bo shines a light on me and I am motioned to the stage by my cast. Two chorus boys help me up onto the stage. Tayloe whistles through her teeth in approval. How funny that looks, as she is dressed in her Kentucky-society finale gown. I embrace each of our four leads. Then I pull Pearl from backstage. I give her a big hug for her stroke of genius, and she beams. Then I give my usual “thank you for the best season yet” speech. Sweet Sue Tinsley, president of the Foxes, walks across the stage with a bottle of champagne and presents it to me.

  Sweet Sue is my age, and she was the Tayloe Slagle of our day. She is still as pretty as a teenager, small and blond, with vivid blue eyes. She’s as popular now as she was in high school (accomplishment). She wasn’t born with that name, though. There were three Sues in our first-grade class. The teacher got confused, so she gave each of them nicknames, which stuck. There was Tall Sue, Li’l Bit Sue, and this one, our Sweet Sue.

  “A-vuh Maria, this bubbly is from the Foxes with our compliments. You’re the best gosh-darned dye-rector anywhere ever on earth, and we appreciate your work so very much!” Loud applause for Sweet Sue fills the air, and enough wolf whistles cut through to conjure a Miss America pageant. For a moment I consider correcting Sweet Sue on the pronunciation of my name: It isn’t A-vuh Maria like Ava Gardner, it’s Ave like a prayer. Sweet Sue has been mispronouncing my name since first grade. Is she ever going to get it right? I decide to let it go when I look out over the crowd and see their warm and smiling faces. This isn’t the time to be petty. I realize the pause after Sweet Sue’s speech has gone on too long. Her eyes implore me to say something. And fast. She has that frozen smile and certain impatience that all pretty girls possess. Your turn, she seems to be saying with her eyes.