for eight thousand miners.
The Coal Mine
That he should be lowered . . . into those subterranean zones from which no one returns without having their view of life on the surface modified.
—GRAHAM SWIFT, Ever After
We were met at the station by Carbo officials, who drove us off in a battered old Studebaker with a Pontiac hood ornament. After paying a courtesy call to the mining company director, we went directly to the mine. I was outfitted with baggy pants, an oil-stained jacket, sloth-toed sandals, and a miner’s helmet and headlamp. Kanto and I were then squeezed into bucket-shaped coal cars hooked behind a miniature locomotive.
The train gave several jerks and then clanked off down into the mine. It became pitch black, and it seemed as if the tunnel was closing in around us. Water began dripping on my helmet, and I knew we were out under the sea. We went down past honeycombs of mineshafts braced with wooden posts that creaked andgroaned, their echoes reverberating along the tunnels and bouncing off the mineshafts. We had descended into an underwater mausoleum. The train gave a series of jerks and stopped. When we got out, I could see miners kneeling and lying on their backs, chipping off shards of coal. Figures trotted along the shafts scooping up the shards and then dumping their buckets into the empty coal cars.
Interviewing miners under the sea was not going to be easy, but for my cover story to hold up, I had to try. I duck-waddled along the nearest shaft until I found a niche next to a miner with enough room for me to squat alongside. The miner glanced over his shoulder at his unexpected visitor, nodded, and went back to chipping off shards of coal.
I had been there about ten minutes when he turned and pointed to the empty bucket behind him. If I was going to share his space, I should make myself useful. I nodded and began scooping up shards and dumping them into the coal bucket. I actually welcomed the task, because it took my mind off the cramps and my knotting leg muscles.
I scooped up shards for almost an hour before a bell rang for the lunch break. I leaned back and stretched my legs. The miner offered me one of his rice balls wrapped in seaweed and some of his tea. I thanked him and then asked him about working in the mine, his home and his family. He said he had a wife and four children, liked beer and baseball, and was tired of working in the mine.
Author with Bushido coal miners .
My interview was cut short when the bell rang and we went back to work. The cramps had begun to come back when Kanto came by and said it was time to go. I thanked the miner for sharing his lunch with me. He smiled and nodded, then reached in his pocket and handed me a “souvenir,” a black lump of coal sparkling with silver mica chips. My first operational keepsake.
Going back up was easier than coming down. I forgot my fear of being interred under the sea, and by now my eyes had adjusted to the dark, allowing me more clearly to see the Lilliputian figures chopping away in the narrow mineshafts. I sympathized with these miners whose trade union I was trying to penetrate. One miner had even shared his lunch and presented me with a token of friendship, and for the first time I felt uneasy about having traded on a bogus black-lung father to gain their confidence.
When the train came out of the tunnel into the sunlight, I realized I had to put these misgivings aside and concentrate on the task at hand.
Agent
Since this story is based entirely on facts, the author feels it is his duty not to overstep the bounds of the verifiable, to resist at all costs the perils of invention.
—PAUL AUSTER, The New York Trilogy
The agent is the soul of an operation. The intelligence agent, unlike the travel, insurance, or real estate agent, is not paid on a commission basis. He carries out missions on behalf of his case officer, who is also his paymaster unless the agent is working for the cause pro bono.
There are no standard
The Coal Mine
That he should be lowered . . . into those subterranean zones from which no one returns without having their view of life on the surface modified.
—GRAHAM SWIFT, Ever After
We were met at the station by Carbo officials, who drove us off in a battered old Studebaker with a Pontiac hood ornament. After paying a courtesy call to the mining company director, we went directly to the mine. I was outfitted with baggy pants, an oil-stained jacket, sloth-toed sandals, and a miner’s helmet and headlamp. Kanto and I were then squeezed into bucket-shaped coal cars hooked behind a miniature locomotive.
The train gave several jerks and then clanked off down into the mine. It became pitch black, and it seemed as if the tunnel was closing in around us. Water began dripping on my helmet, and I knew we were out under the sea. We went down past honeycombs of mineshafts braced with wooden posts that creaked andgroaned, their echoes reverberating along the tunnels and bouncing off the mineshafts. We had descended into an underwater mausoleum. The train gave a series of jerks and stopped. When we got out, I could see miners kneeling and lying on their backs, chipping off shards of coal. Figures trotted along the shafts scooping up the shards and then dumping their buckets into the empty coal cars.
Interviewing miners under the sea was not going to be easy, but for my cover story to hold up, I had to try. I duck-waddled along the nearest shaft until I found a niche next to a miner with enough room for me to squat alongside. The miner glanced over his shoulder at his unexpected visitor, nodded, and went back to chipping off shards of coal.
I had been there about ten minutes when he turned and pointed to the empty bucket behind him. If I was going to share his space, I should make myself useful. I nodded and began scooping up shards and dumping them into the coal bucket. I actually welcomed the task, because it took my mind off the cramps and my knotting leg muscles.
I scooped up shards for almost an hour before a bell rang for the lunch break. I leaned back and stretched my legs. The miner offered me one of his rice balls wrapped in seaweed and some of his tea. I thanked him and then asked him about working in the mine, his home and his family. He said he had a wife and four children, liked beer and baseball, and was tired of working in the mine.
Author with Bushido coal miners .
My interview was cut short when the bell rang and we went back to work. The cramps had begun to come back when Kanto came by and said it was time to go. I thanked the miner for sharing his lunch with me. He smiled and nodded, then reached in his pocket and handed me a “souvenir,” a black lump of coal sparkling with silver mica chips. My first operational keepsake.
Going back up was easier than coming down. I forgot my fear of being interred under the sea, and by now my eyes had adjusted to the dark, allowing me more clearly to see the Lilliputian figures chopping away in the narrow mineshafts. I sympathized with these miners whose trade union I was trying to penetrate. One miner had even shared his lunch and presented me with a token of friendship, and for the first time I felt uneasy about having traded on a bogus black-lung father to gain their confidence.
When the train came out of the tunnel into the sunlight, I realized I had to put these misgivings aside and concentrate on the task at hand.
Agent
Since this story is based entirely on facts, the author feels it is his duty not to overstep the bounds of the verifiable, to resist at all costs the perils of invention.
—PAUL AUSTER, The New York Trilogy
The agent is the soul of an operation. The intelligence agent, unlike the travel, insurance, or real estate agent, is not paid on a commission basis. He carries out missions on behalf of his case officer, who is also his paymaster unless the agent is working for the cause pro bono.
There are no standard
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