Palomino Coal

by Doug Crandell

About the Author: Doug Crandell is the author of the Barnes & Noble Discover pick, The Flawless Skin of Ugly People, as well as three other novels, and two memoirs. He's received awards and endowments from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kellogg Writers Series, Jentel Foundation, and the Goldfarb Fellowship. NPR's Glynn Washington chose Doug's story for the 2018 COG Page-to-Screen Award. Another short story received the 2018 Glimmer Train Family Matters Fiction Award.

Excerpt

The coal mine at Snow Hill looked like a midway ride. It loomed high into the bright blue spring sky, its rusted scaffolding and clanky gears rattling the ground the little girl stood upon peering up at the teetering tower of metal. Donned in a pale-yellow dress, clutching a little white purse that held half a candy-striped mint, and two wheat pennies. Her skinny grandfather’s shift was nearly over, and she could hardly wait to see him emerge from the tin structure they called the mess hall. He was so thin that Dani could easily draw a stick figure of him.

She had seen him many times covered with coal soot, his fingernails chipped and bloodied, black grime to his elbows where a chambray shirt rolled up was so soft when it came out of the dryer that Dani snuggled it to fall asleep.

She would not hold her older cousin’s hand because Kimmy liked to tickle Dani’s palm. In this way, they stood three feet apart, appearing as if they didn’t know one another. They had been dropped off after church service by Mrs. Gudgin and her twin sister because they lived not a mile from the mine.

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