Run (Part 4)
“Ya know Davy, you ain’t going to be able to run forever.”
David looked up at the sound of his Papaw’s molasses-thick Appalachian accent. The older man’s gnarled, work-worn hands were gripped around a rake. It was nearly Halloween, and the leaves were thick on the ground in front of his modest home. It wasn’t much—but it was bought with the hard-won earnings of a man who worked for himself. Like every other home here in Hazard, Kentucky it was bought by coal.
“Whatcha mean, Papaw?” David was 19. He was back from basic training for a visit before he headed out to Iraq to fight for his country. His friends told him he was the best shot at Basic—he attributed it to years taking pot shots at squirrels and birds attempting to poach his grandfather’s garden. He was in that very garden right now, pulling up the old plants and working them into the earth while it was still soft. He didn’t fully understand why the old man insisted on doing something like this when you could just wait for the winter to take care of it for you, but Papaw had always been stubborn and particular, and there wasn’t anything to be done about it. So, he dug.
“I mean,” he started, and then took a moment to cough into his shaking fist before spitting on the ground. He tried again.
“I mean you’re young and healthy and you got prospects. You got good grades and a future.” He scratched his protruding stomach with too-long fingernails. “Y’aint like me. No need to throw yourself away. Stay here, Davy. Go to college. Find a gal.”
He paused a moment, face tight and unsure, as if he was wrestling with the words to get them out of his mouth. “Stop beatin’ yourself up over somethin’ that weren’t your fault.”
David, his face still turned towards the earth, stiffened. His grandfather had tried this same conversation at least half a dozen times before.
“Mom ain’t coming back, Papaw!” David’s voice cracked in a semblance of the puberty that he had so recently gone through. He paused to gather himself and said with finality and venom, “I ain’t either, so stop tryin’.”