An Excerpt from My Book

Here’s my Daddy home from another shift in the pit, jolly with the dust in his throat washed down – washed down with a shot of Old Overholt and a long Yuengling porter. My Daddy with his drooping dusty moustache and his briar pipe – he gets a new one every Christmas from Uncle Hugh in Wales – his face never clean, it seems, but cleaner than clean to me. Tattooed for life where powdered carbon has dusted its way into every cut and shaving nick on his face and hands and other places you’d never imagine. My Daddy giving me a quick arm around the shoulder, his grin a beacon of good humor from the black of his face, crinkling crows’ feet around his eyes. And now, here’s my Daddy home for the last time... “Davey. Help me here.” Mary took Henry’s shoulders and began to roll him onto his stomach. “Take his legs, son. Turn him when I count three.” She counted. On three, David grunted and twisted with all his strength, wincing at his father’s weight and bulk and how tons of stone had smashed that weight and bulk into a pulpy mass, now oozing slowly as it warmed after three days’ entombment. And on the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. The sentence from the Nicene Creed played over and over in David’s head. Reluctantly the corpse rolled and faced the broad plank floor, leaving a spot smeared with something wet and black – a devil’s brew of coal, water, blood. Up Home: Stedman 1903-1909, Chapter One (excerpt)