Checklist
by Dave Yakubik
Near the end of my high school days, just before I left Guernsey County for good, my friend Clint recommended we go see the Big Muskie before they dismantled it. He didn't know what it was, but his brother's friend had claimed it was pretty sweet. When I got home, my mother asked me if I'd made plans for the weekend. Although I could think of nothing dismantle-able that I felt I must see, regardless of how much danger it was in of being dismantled, I replied, “We might go see the Big Muskie.”
“Ooh! You guys ought to while you still have a chance.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it exactly?”
“It's a huge dragline.”
“What's a dragline?”
“Well, it's sort of like a bulldozer, but they use it for strip mining.”
“You've seen it?”
“Years ago.”
“How big is it?”
“Huge! It's like a big building. You can see it from miles away.”
“Why haven't I heard of this before?”
“I don't know. I thought you had.”
“No.”
“Well you guys really ought to go. It's awesome.”
I remember being told that my great grandparents had been coal miners in Czechoslovakia and had come to America looking for better lives. They ended up dying of black lung and cave-ins in Appalachian mines. I don't know when they emigrated or what was so bad about mining coal in Europe that made them want to leave for good. World War I, perhaps? I don't even know whether they emigrated before or after the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 or, if after, whether they came from the Czech part or the Slovak part. In my defense, there seems to be little clarity on these matters even among my parents, aunts, and uncles. They refer to us as “Czech” but their elders spoke “Slovak.” Nobody talked about the Old Country much, whichever it was. My grandparents' generation showed little pride in its heritage beyond making cabbage rolls and other ethnic foods at big family meals, and my parents' generation regarded it all as little more than a curiosity. My father called us “hunkies,” which supposedly in his youth had been a Central European racial slur like “dagos” had been for Italians.
I don't remember my father's father's father's funeral, but I do remember his white head, and that he looked like my Uncle John, who was actually my great uncle (my father's uncle). I do remember his wife's funeral, which was the first I had ever been to. My only living, breathing memory of that generation was of my mother's mother's mother, a shriveled woman in a smelly little house where we were taken on Christmas and Easter and given money for running around and playing with the bitter poodle. We understood her broken English little better than her Slovak, which she spoke exclusively with my grandmother's sister, who also lived there. We called great grandma “Baba.” For years I thought this was her name, until I realized my parents used that word to refer to all of my dead great grandmas. I assumed I had figured out the meaning of a Slovak word, but just as with “Uncle” John, “Baba” was my parents' word for their grandmothers. The white-haired man was a “Dzedo.”
This is all I ever retained of the Slovak language, except “caca,” supposedly the word for “shit.” My parents' generation knows perhaps one or two dozen words, and their parents' generation knows a good deal more. My mother's mother did not learn English until age five when she was sent to public school with a wholly foreign tongue. Throughout her life, in moments of stress, she still unconsciously reverted to Slovak. I might have learned a great deal from these people had I become interested in what they had to teach me before it was too late.
Several years ago, one of my uncles began researching the family history with the intention of compiling an accurate tree, but he gave up because so much information had been lost through poor record-keeping. Others in the family urged him to complete whatever he could. In response, he offered his notes to anyone who wished to resume his work. No one accepted. Why struggle to compile an incomplete family history when you've already got one?
Further research revealed that the Big Muskie was the largest single-bucket earth-mover ever built. You could fit two Greyhound buses side-by-side in its bucket, which was only a small fraction of the whole. It weighed more than 13,000 metric tons, featured a boom more than 20 stories high, and had moved twice as much earth in its time as was moved during the construction of the Panama Canal. It had been operational from the late 1960s until the early ’90s. Since then it had been sitting in disuse in a field near the tiny town of Cumberland. People all over Southeastern Ohio were fighting to preserve it as a museum, but donations were scarce. I deduced that the machine's name came from either the Muskingum River (a tributary of the Ohio) or Muskingum County (named after the river), which bordered Guernsey.
Clint's older brother was named Will, and the friend who'd told them the Big Muskie was pretty sweet had also provided directions. Will instructed me to wear boots and old clothes because we'd have to trudge through quite a bit of forest and field. Accompanying us would be our friend, Dan, and a couple of Will's friends from college. Since we would be setting out well after dark, we were to bring flashlights. This excited me more than seeing the Big Muskie itself, for this type of adventure was the quintessence of youth recreation in Southeastern Ohio.
Everything good happened at night. After you got off school, you went with buddies to check out this or that weird, cool, or haunted place. I have abundant memories of lakeside campfires, cemeteries, dilapidated houses, rotting barns, derelict shacks, overgrown railroads, hidden caves and ravines, gravel roads snaking through remote forests, stray dog packs, coyote howls, freaky hitchhikers, and mental hospitals and prisons both active and abandoned. Because the Appalachian foothills are so rural and so varied, there are more legendary spots to see within an hour-long car ride than you can fit into your pre-graduation years. Before you're old enough to drive, you buddy up with older kids who can take you places, and when you come to be of driving age, you get your license and a car as quickly as possible. When you're out with friends, unsupervised, you feel like anything can happen, and a whole lot does. Our parents always asked us where we were going and what time we would be back, and told us to be careful. We had no intention of being careful, but they understood - they had done the same things.
Will drove because he was the only one with room for five passengers. Since I had played youth baseball in Cumberland, I knew the area better than any of them, but not even I had been where Will was taking us. We crawled down one windy forested road after another before parking in the weeds along a road that led God-knows-where. Anyone driving by would have been mighty suspicious to see Will's car, but there was little chance of anyone driving by ever, especially so late.
We turned on our flashlights and immediately found that we would have to pass a rusty barbed wire fence. Like all Guernsey County kids, we had years ago perfected parting the strands and straddling through like boxers entering the ring, so we demonstrated for Will's friends. This fence bordered thick forest, in which we shoved aside branches and plowed our legs through brier patches. Since it made little sense for everyone to blaze his own trail, we instinctively began following Will single-file. Everyone wanted to talk and joke around but Will kept shushing us. Amidst the sounds of rustling brush, cracking twigs, and the occasional gasp of someone receiving a surprise scratch or whip in the face, we could hear the high-pitched chirp of small frogs and the low deep bellows of fat bullfrogs. I knew these sounds well because, on a couple of occasions, my father and one of his brothers had taken me frog gigging in some old waterlogged strip mines not far from our house.
Such scars made by the Big Muskie and its predecessors could be found all over our part of the state. Some of them appeared as bare canyons along the sides of highways, but the older ones that had been at least partially reclaimed had morphed into teeming ponds hidden in heavy forest. Will's friends had never been in remote wilderness like this, and had never heard such sounds, so we explained them. The frog chorus grew louder until the bullfrogs splashed into the water to flee our approach. We shone our flashlights over a large dank rectangle partially covered by citrus-green scum. The sewer smell of rotten pond vegetation wafted up as our boots plunged into the muddy earth.
Traditional coal mining had thrived in Southeastern Ohio for decades, but most of the mines had been gutted and closed off long before we were born. My parents claimed to have explored some of them before they were sealed. There was still coal to be had, though, and that's why the strip mining was being done. But it, too, was coming to an end.
In their youth, my parents had gone swimming in some of the strip mines, and told me stories of 50-foot cliffs you could dive from into crystal clear water. There were supposedly a couple still around that some of the kids went swimming in. Perhaps Will had done so with his friends. For myself, Clint, and Dan, that adventure was on the incomplete-able checklist of things to do before graduation. Tonight, we had only one item to check off. It was a big one, and one unlikely to appear on future checklists.
After passing through the marshy strip pit area, the trees thinned and we walked in a row. “How far is it?” asked one of Will's friends.
“No idea,” he answered. “I don't imagine it can be too damn far.”
All at once we found ourselves in an open field of tall thin weeds covering a long upslope. Will instructed us to keep our flashlight beams down: to only use them to see where we were stepping. We didn't pay much attention and he grew tired of reprimanding us.
Our excitement mounted as we trudged upward in the humid night air, cricket chirps echoing in the valley behind us. Suddenly Will stopped, his light shining on a wooden rectangle floating in our path. We all directed our beams to it. “What is that?” someone asked. Will's taller friend crept ahead and we followed. It was a sign bobbing in the breeze on a sagging strand of barbed wire. In letters of bubbled, dirt-smeared, chipped paint, it read, “PRIVATE PROPERTY TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.”
Clint broke a long silence. “Now what?”
“I don't know,” answered Will, stroking his chin.
Dan backpedaled. “Screw this! I'm not gettin’ shot over some stupid crane.”
“But we came all the way out here, dude,” pleaded Will's taller friend. He turned to Will. “Didn't you say your friend saw it?”
“According to him.”
“Is he a liar?”
“Not especially.”
“I take it he didn't mention this sign?” I asked.
“No, but it might be new.”
“Doesn't look new.”
“Or they might've missed it. What do you figure the chances even are that we came across this thing?”
“Maybe we should walk along the fence some and see if there's any other signs like it,” Clint proposed.
“It might be a prank,” suggested Will's taller friend, “or an idle threat to keep people away.”
“You think somebody would really shoot us?” asked Will's shorter friend.
“Ask him,” Will replied, shining his light on me.
“I don't know. There's some crazy bastards in Cumberland. Lots of white trash. Some ex-cons and some hoodlum-ass kids.”
“Crazy enough to sit out in a field all night with a shotgun making sure nobody comes along?” the taller one asked.
“Hey, I wouldn't rule it out. That's all I'm saying.”
We all turned to Will. “I think if we stay low and quiet, they'll probably never know we were here.”
“Yeah,” said Dan, “unless they heard us or saw our flashlights already.”
“Didn't I tell you guys to stay quiet?”
“You didn't say we might get shot,” his shorter friend pointed out.
“All right, then. Let's take a vote. Anybody wanna call it a night?”
Dan raised his hand.
“Anybody else? We can split up. Those who don't wanna go can wait back at the car.”
“I wanna see this damn thing,” said Will's taller friend.
“I don't suppose it would hurt to go on a ways and see what happens,” Clint reasoned.
Will turned to Dan. “If you wanna go back, I'll give you the door key.”
“You coming?” Dan asked, his light shining on me.
I didn't want to sit in a suspicious-looking car in the middle of nowhere with the most frightened guy in the group, with no option to drive away, not remembering the way back, and not knowing when or if the others would return. “Not unless somebody else comes.”
“Well I'm not goin’ back there by myself!”
“Shhhh!”
“I don't even know the way,” Dan whispered.
“Well, Dan,” Will said, “looks like you're out-voted. You can stay in the rear. That way, if we get shot at, you'll be the least likely to get hit.”
“I can't believe you guys wanna do this. Why don't we just come back another time?”
“Cause there won't be another time! You understand? This is it. That's why we're here.”
Dan threw his arms up and gazed back into the valley. There was a silence.
“So I guess that means we're going on,” Will concluded.
“At least for a ways,” Clint amended.
“Right. If it starts to seem like this warning is more than just an idle threat, we can always change our minds.”
“What if somebody has a gun trained on us right now, just waiting for us to cross that fence?”
Will's taller friend pushed the top wire down and straddled it. “I guess they're waiting for a better shot.”
Will crossed as well. “All right, everybody. From here on, no talking unless absolutely necessary. And if you have to talk, keep it down.” He turned to his shorter friend. “Or you might get shot,” he added, chuckling. “And flashlights out. Nobody uses a flashlight except me, and I'm only gonna use it to make sure we don't walk into something unpleasant.”
The flashlights clicked off one by one. With only Will's flashlight on, its beam aimed straight at the ground, I noticed how overcast it had become. The moon glowed faintly behind a thin spot in the clouds, which swirled rapidly past. The weed stalks rustled against each other. It occurred to me for the first time that we might get poured on.
Will aimed the light back at the fence. Clint stepped over, then Will's shorter friend, then me. Then the light shone on Dan. “Nobody's waiting to shoot us, man,” Will told him. “They put the sign up so they don't have to sit out here watching the place.”
Dan didn't move. I felt bad about stranding him, so I stayed just on the opposite side of the fence, facing him. “We'll stay back,” I whispered. He hesitated a moment, frowned, then crossed. When he stepped close to me I felt adrenaline radiating from his skin, and my arm hairs stood on end. Will clicked off the light, and he and his taller friend led the way.
Now that all the flashlights were out, my eyes were clouded over, struggling to adjust to the darkness. The neon green pulses of lightning bugs combing over the weed tops revealed how immense the field was. After a mere twenty or so paces, Will and his taller friend stopped. We all instantly saw why: the horizon of the upslope was glowing. “What the hell is that?” somebody whispered.
“I don't know,” Will whispered back. We gazed at each other, straining to see each other's faces.
“I don't like this,” Dan said to me.
Will crept on, crouched. We all mimicked and followed, single file. For a long time there was no talking. After passing a couple of false horizons, the glow intensified. Obviously some sort of light had been set up around the Big Muskie, and this changed all our minds on the matter of whether somebody might be standing guard. The light was now so strong that we could see each other's wide eyes, and the shadows we cast along the weed tops behind.
Suddenly Will disappeared into the weeds. We all crumbled instinctively, each in his own burrow. “What is it?” his taller friend asked.
“I thought I saw a silhouette.”
“You saw it, or you thought you saw it?”
“Shhh!”
A raindrop fell on my cheek, and another hit my earlobe. Then I felt the cold sting of water on the small of my back. Slowly it began sprinkling all around. After a period of incredible stillness, I sensed someone moving nearby. I inched my head up toward the weed tops and noticed a head protruding from the field. Beyond it was only the glow of the horizon.
“I don't think there's anything up there,” Will's taller friend said. There was more rustling, and more heads. “Did you see somebody or not, Will?”
“I don't know. Maybe. But it might've been my eyes playing tricks on me. Who knows?”
“I'll lead,” said the tall one, then he crept forward. Will turned back and advised us to stay on our hands and knees as much as possible. We obeyed. Dan and I now trailed the rest by a considerable margin. I glanced at him; he shook his head. Although we were moving very slowly now, the false horizons kept coming, and the glow became brighter still. There sure was one hell of a light source around the Big Muskie. We were obviously getting closer, but we still couldn't see even the top of the boom, which meant we were a long way off. Rain began falling steadily. We gradually rose from our knees and walked along hunch-backed. Everyone's eyes played tricks. Several times someone stopped stiff-backed, halting the group, only to place his hand on his heart, exhale, and step on. It happened to me, too. It was like walking across a frozen pond and everyone afraid to speak for fear of drowning out the sound of cracking.
Suddenly Will's taller friend slowed, and we followed suit like a snake's body following its head. He crouched lower, so we did, too. Then he sped up again and we breathed easier. “Get down!” he hissed, then disappeared. I crumbled to the ground, closed my eyes, covered my head, and waited for the crack of a shotgun, or the shouts of an approaching crazed hillbilly. A minute passed, each second wetter and tenser than the previous one. Then I heard a great commotion and thought we were being attacked. An upright body zoomed past me, then another. I pounced up and saw Will and his tall friend scrambling down the hill. Dan yanked on my arm so hard he almost sent me rolling, but I recovered my footing and down we ran, much too afraid to look back. With each step I winced at the thought of buckshot digging into my back, or barbed wire slicing into my legs, sending me somersaulting down the hill and busting my chin open. Fortunately, somebody up ahead had remembered he was holding a flashlight and was using it to locate the fence. A couple of bodies slowed a bit to cross it. Even so, the next two bodies spilled. Dan and I fared better, and helped Clint up. I noticed for the first time that I could barely breathe, but still my legs raced onward. I prayed my ankles wouldn't roll on a stray mound or gopher hole.
After such a long run and nothing bad happening, our adrenaline began to fade and our pace slowed. The return leg of the journey took a fraction of time the outbound one had taken. When Will and his taller friend reached the tree line at the bottom of the slope, they turned toward us with their hands on their knees, wheezing. We all pulled up around them and stood huddled together, looking up the slope. We could no longer see the glow.
We trudged wordlessly through the woods, past the strip pit and the croaking frogs, through the first fence, and up to the car. We were grateful to find it where we had left it, still in one piece. Will's keys jingled in his hands, a welcome sound. We piled in, hot and wet and cramped and itching. The engine roared: another victory. Will didn't pull away immediately because the glass was so fogged. He rolled the windows down. We avoided looking at each other as we waited for them to clear. Now it was just another night out, another night ending, and we all felt too foolish to speak. Will blared some music; we were grateful for the distraction.
When they dropped me off, Will turned the volume down and said, “Maybe we'll try again next weekend.”
“That would be cool,” I replied, popping the door open and lunging out onto the driveway. Will's shorter friend crawled over the taller one's lap and spilled out next to me. He dusted himself off and squeezed into my seat. Both doors slammed. “You guys okay back there?” Will asked.
“Yep.”
The car backed away, music blaring again, and crept onto the road. The engine roared and the headlights carved into the night ahead. I watched until the lights and the noise vanished. My parents had turned off the outside light hours ago, and I could hear only crickets.
We would not think of trying again. We had missed our chance.
A week and a half later I saw in the paper that the Big Muskie had been dismantled for scrap and was taken off-site. The bucket has since been relocated to a neighboring county in a memorial park for regional mining. Since none of the guys have ever said a word to me about that night or about going to see what little is left of the Big Muskie, I can't claim to speak for them, but I'm not even interested.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dave Yakubik was born in Southeastern Ohio and completed his BA in English at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio in 2003. Since then he has focused on writing drama but also has been writing fiction for more than a decade. This story is part of a collection he worked on throughout 2008. One was recently published in Emprise Review and another is scheduled to appear in the February issue of Ascent Aspirations Magazine. He currently lives and works in Central Texas.
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