Managing

BED TIME BAD TIMES

 

The choking, the moaning, rises between the floor boards. Our furnace begs for coal. I can hear my dad scraping the cement cellar floor with the only shovel we have. It is useless. The bin is empty, has been since yesterday. He stomps on the wooden orange crates he smuggled out of the corner A & P back yard. Tossing them into the furnace's hungry mouth, a small flame ignites and dies quickly.

 

Tonight I have the best place in the bed my brothers and I share, the middle. We have one double blanket that doesn't cover six legs. Only my two get thru the night without losing a toe or two. My brothers wake up a few times and double, triple, their socks. Each time they return, they cuddle next to me and any warmth I had managed to have, turns my blood to ice. No sense complaining. I take what I can get and give it away tomorrow and the next night. The warm smell of coffee climbs the stairs. Dad has done all he could to get the furnace going. He is disappointed and surely miserable for all of us.

 

By the time the sun rises at 6, my day is planned. Mama has oatmeal and one scrambled egg ready for my breakfast. She suggests I eat slowly. I try but am too hungry to dawdle. Corduroy pants that have seen much better days, a flannel shirt I inherited from my brother Bo and a pullover over all wool sweater prepares me for my hour work before school opens.

 

Mama has her hand-sewn large black and white shopping bag ready at the door for me. 'Sydney, this is Wednesday, try 4th and 5th streets first. Those blocks have a chance of getting their coal orders filled. Just don't get in the way.' 'Aw, Mama, I know what to do. You don't have to tell me every time I go out early.' She opens the door and a blast of cold air takes my breath away. Before I can even say, 'Bye,' the door is closed again.

 

The sky is starting to turn blue yet offers no hope of the temperature rising above 14 degrees, with no chance of snow. If only it would come down, thick and heavy, I could use our still strong shovel and clear pavements, bring home a dollar or two. By 7 the little amount of traffic changes as milk and coal trucks get busy for the day. When I reach the corner of 4th and Avalon St., two coal trucks are parking, one behind the other. This is very good. Someone in each cellar has already unlocked the windows. The coal chutes are being put in place so the coal slides down and goes directly into the basements bins. The driver of truck #1 tries to make me go away but I stand still and wait for the tumbling coals to find a new temporary home. A chunk falls off here and there and I grab each fast, put them in the bag I've been carrying. In less than ten minutes my bag is half filled. Truck #2 still is sending coal in and I am getting whatever doesn't make the window.

 

I think of my mother, waiting for me. Why didn't she give me two bags? ' Ha,' I talk to my self, 'I couldn't have carried two loads.' My walk home seems a lot longer than getting to my goal. Just as I reach our front steps, the handle on the bag breaks and the coal falls everywhere. My Mama sees this happen and runs out with our trash can that she empties as she runs. In her other hand are her two soup pots.
Together we manage to retrieve the precious golden black coal.

 

Bo, while I was hustling from truck one to two for coal, he was trailing the Cloverdale milk truck. He's swift, that brother of mine, manages to cop two quarts of milk while the milkman  was getting paid for the one he was delivering. He puts the milk in our ice box. 'My lord, Ma,' he shouts. 'We are almost out of ice.'  Mama looks a t him with such soft loving eyes. 'Boys, let's not be worried or frightened. God will provide.' She bows her head, crosses her heart and counts on god.

 

Bo laughs at her. 'Mama, don't ask god. He's busy. Sydney and I will find ice someplace.' She smiles and goes looking for a big bucket.