Under Ground

Spending much of his time at the face, Carl and Pat got to know each other better, and as time went on, they became friends. There was a rapport building between the two men, in spite of the fact that Pat was a straight-laced, conservative type of fellow, while Carl considered himself to be a hippy.

Carl didn’t really fit the hippy stereotype when it came to his work ethic though. He had a genuine desire to do whatever he was doing the best that he could. He was actually concerned about the image he presented to those around him, and he never wanted to be seen as a loafer by anyone.

The day came when Chuck, the miner helper, was out sick. Pat told John Cooper to put Carl on as the substitute miner helper, and he did. The bosses would almost always agree to anything their miner operator would suggest. In a way, the miner operator was actually the boss when you came right down to it.

Carl was thrilled to hear that he’d be working as the miner helper for the shift and recognized it as an opportunity to advance. He didn’t expect to operate the continuous miner, and he didn’t. But it was his first shot to impress everyone on the crew.

Handling the cable wasn’t that difficult for him, as he’d expected after watching Chuck, and the short pauses between loading the shuttle cars presented the opportunity to talk more with Pat. The shuttle car operators seemed to approve of Carl filling in for Chuck, telling him things like, “Ah, you’re moving up” or “You’re going to be the boss soon,” jokingly of course.

Carl knew it was just for that shift that he’d be the miner helper, but at least he was doing it and getting experience. That in itself was a good thing, because after the shift he could truthfully say that he had experience being a miner helper.

Chuck did return the next day.

Something would happen in the dinner-hole that next day that would increase Carl’s chances at getting closer to top rate pay, though he would rather not have gotten it the way that he did, with what happened, as a good friend was hurt during the process.

During lunch, conversation got around to Chuck being off sick the day before, and he was telling everyone about his experience. Chuck himself hadn’t been sick; it was one of his kids and he’d had to miss work to take her to the doctor. But Chuck had lots to tell about his trip to the doctor’s office. Too much, actually.

As he sat there eating and conveying his story to everyone, Chuck told them that he’d almost had an accident the day before, and then he started describing what had happened. He got to a part where his normal, unknown to the others, racist, away from work jargon, made an appearance.

“Yeah, I was making a left turn, and then all of a sudden, this ni...”

The silence was deafening. Chuck had forgotten about Curtis sitting there among them, but then remembered quickly enough that he’d tried to cut it off. Everyone knew what was coming out of his mouth before he stopped it.

Finally, amid the increasing tension, Curtis calmly said, “You almost said the magic word Chuck.” Chuck showed his cowardice when he tried to talk his way out of it; “I didn’t re...” but Curtis cut him off and said, “The Hell you didn’t; you just caught yourself, that’s all.”

Carl, Pat and Don all called Chuck out for trying to cover up what he was going to say. It must have been the worst day of Chuck's life and the worst thing that had ever happened to him, as prior to this incident, he had been liked by everyone.

The rest of lunchtime in the dinner-hole that shift, continued in silence.

After lunch, Carl tried to console Curtis, and told him that he shouldn’t let one asshole ruin his day. Curtis agreed, but Carl could tell that he was hurting inside.

That evening, Carl got a call from Curtis, telling him that he’d requested to be moved to another crew and that his request had been approved, but they’d put him on a crew working a different shift. So, that ended their carpooling to work together.

More surprises met Carl the next day when he arrived at the mine for his shift; Chuck had been removed from the crew and was put on another one. John wouldn’t say whether it’d had anything to do with what he’d said in the dinner-hole the day before.

John told Carl that he’d now be be taking over Chuck’s miner helper job permanently. A raise would be included since Carl was still making the starting wage at the time. It wasn’t top rate, but it was a nice raise that would improve his and his family’s lives.

Things really went great for Carl that day, though he wished Curtis hadn’t requested a switch to a new crew before they’d all found out that Chuck was no longer there. There would be no reconsideration though, because the way management saw it, working on one crew was no different from working on any other crew, and the change had already been made at Curtis’ request.

Carl’s crew would get two new utility workers; a young guy named Doug, and an older guy named Lou. Doug was a new hire, but Lou came from another crew. Carl’s first impressions of the two were that Doug was funny and friendly, and Lou was an older guy who seemed to like bullshitting a lot. Not the funny kind of bullshit; the annoying kind of bullshit.

As time would go on, he’d also begin to remind Carl of people he’d met so far in his young life, that were totally in love with themselves, though it was hard to understand why. Lou was a big lummox, really. Most of the stories he’d tell were beyond anyone’s belief.

Carl recognized right away however, that Lou couldn’t stop himself from trying to outdo practically anything that anyone else would talk about, or he’d find some way to attempt to interject himself into any subject being discussed by others. Lou had a low, deep-throated speaking voice.

Another weird thing that Carl noticed about Lou as he got to know him, was that no matter what Lou said, he would always begin a sentence by saying, “Ah, well uh...” So, if he wanted to say he was going to eat lunch, he’d say, “Ah, well uh, I’m gonna go eat now.”

If he started talking about some girl that was so turned on by him that she couldn’t help herself, it would be something like, “Ah, well uh, this girl ran into me by accident at the super market, and she said, ‘Excuse me, big boy, whatcha doing later?’”

Carl had no idea how sick this Lou guy really was at that point.