The Slate Boss

FICTION The Slate Boss Walter Lane THE OTHER MINERS CALLED HIM BOY, because they were older. The other miners often laughed at him because he talked funny. But, when you go to college, you talk funny, if you learn. The superintendent treated him nice and told him his son had got kicked out of college too. The boy picked slate and told jokes. The other men complained about wages and benefits. When they asked the boy why he was so happy, he said, "I was just thinking of all those rocks I threw for free when I was a child." The other slate pickers didn't like his talk. When he told his fellow workers at a dog hole mine that he hoped the union was successful— he would like a raise— they said We ain't union. You're crazy. We ain't union. What has the union got to do with us, but keep us from working? The superintendent called him in the office for coffee. The superintendent said, "Son, you need to learn to keep your mouth shut tight. I understand, but a lot of people won't." A month later, people were mad at the boy again. The shotfirer's brother didn't get a job on the shooting crew. The acting section foreman's son-in-law didn't get a job on the shooting crew. Nearly every inside miner was angry, because the boy had the job many people wanted for a family member. The boy behaved strangely—they said he was the first inside miner who wanted to go back out and pick slate. He told them that working inside was ruining his poetry —he wanted to be Jonathan Swift, not William Faulkner. Nobody knew who they were, but they guessed these were among the strange people the boy talked about. The other miners laughed because the boy was the mine's biggest klutz. One day he was supposed to go down one way and he got lost. The shot went through and covered up where the boy was supposed to be, by accident. When the break shot through, the other miners went to check on the boy. The boy was all confused because he had got lost. They teased him about wanting to be an electrician, as he professed, and said he would never last in the mines. 74 The next day, the superintendent pulled him out of the mine and put him back picking slate. The superintendent put a sticker on his miner cap, "Slate Boss". Everybodybut the superintendentnicknamed him Sam—like Sam Church. The superintendent called him "Son" until he got hurt in a freak accident and quit to write poetry. 75 ...