West Virginia: Driving the Gauley River, Listening to the Radio

37 DEFOE MARK DEFOE WEST VIRGINIA: DRIVING THE GAULEY RIVER, LISTENING TO THE RADIO From the road I see King Coal has sprinkled down his favors —new jeeps, wives on riding mowers, remodelings, additions, and fresh paint. I hear a tune of harder times. Set it in these hills. Say she walked home in late November rain — caught cold, of course. It ran to pneumonia. Drowning, the doctor said, lungs filling with the dank that settles in these mountain hollows. The preacher, the gathered kin, sang the grim songs of sweet solemn hope, crossing over to tarry on that brighter shore. Her blue eyes clouded. She squeezed their hands, saying, give Sis my best dress, Cletus my 4th grade speller. Said it like she had it by rote, like it came to her from a country song. And those anvil faces, that circle of skulls, sang, rising toward a light they saw above their shrouded hills. And every year they ran her picture in the county paper—a small girl with receding chin, limp hair, and bad teeth. And the tale became this song. It's maudlin, but I sing along, caught on the bramble of that twang, hooked on the briars of her blue, blue eyes. And I drive on beside the green river, 38 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW pulled curve by curve into the trees — my own voice rising in terrible joy, held in the circle of her thin arms, certain she is asleep in Jesus. V The Life History Scanner m· fine tested in »a autopsy dated April 9, 1997· The decedent was SO year» old. Cause of death «as called thyroid cancer. The Scanner successfully traced the cancer to a dose of isotopie iodine (^ I tj») ingested by the decedent»t » party in Pormanton, New England, between 9 and II p.m., en July ? , 1979 . Across the »on, the decedent'· spouse m engaged in an obviously amorous conversation;jealousy drove the decedent to gluttony. But that's beside the point. The point is that what the decedent gabbimi was a quantity of bite-sised Hershey chocolates. For three months prior to this episode, in and around the flersJiey factory in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, radiation levels had soared. First an 'accident' at a nuclear power plant and then a series of spille during the subsequent cleanup. Hershey bars were loaded with contaminated ingredients. According io the Scanner, the decedent also absorbed radiation Crom other products manufactured in the»m« vicinity : Pennsylvania Dutch Egg Noodles , Pepsi-Cola bottled in Harrssburg, Sico lnMromenc, Kinney «hoee, Purin» Cat Chow, £quanti tranquilizers, etc. ...