Foot said, "Isn't it about time you got back to your life? I can't take babysitting you anymore."

"Yeah, okay," I said, pointing my light at his chin. I told him I wanted to leave, but I didn't want to leave. I started to go all Wizard of Oz on him. "I think I'm going to miss you most of all, Scarecrow," I said.

"Oh, Christ almighty."

I asked him if he wouldn't feel just a little bit nostalgic for the Cadiz portal, which first opened in the 1970s and would be closing soon, nearly all of the coal gone. By summer the E-rotation guys would all be over in the company's other mine, in Hopedale. "You don't think it's kind of sad to say good-bye to this place?"

"Uh," he said. "No."

We were sitting at the power center, up on section, the place where they park all the generators and batteries running the equipment and the place where the microwave is and the couch. It was about 8 p.m., and some of the guys were taking dinner breaks, Rick with a Philly steak and cheese, cupcakes, Slim Jims. Chris had steak and a baked potato. Billy had homemade beef jerky. Foot was having chicken Alfredo, a Pepsi, and a Rice Krispy treat. The guys were, of course, covered in coal dust, their hands mostly black, but Billy said it wasn't like eating in dirt dirt. "It's clean dirt," he said. "It's just coal."

Hook, chewing Silver Creek, wanted to know if anyone thought Rod Stewart was gay.

No one did.

"Mick Jagger, he could go either way."

"He messed around with that what's-her-face all his life. Aw, come on. Help me out here. What's her name? That blond? I'm narrowing it down here, ain't I?"

"Bianca!"

"No, that might have been their kid."

"Bianco, isn't that that black girl dancing around?"

"No, that's Beyoncé."

"We're not really doing too good here, are we?"

"Hey, I got the latest scoop on Smitty's woman. He said she got to be asking too many questions, so he told her to go fuck herself."

"What about the flu epidemic?"

"She wanted more money for a flu vaccine."

"Oh, man."

"He sent her $1,800 for the flight over. She does that to two or three guys a month, holy hell, she's making a good living."

"He's window shopping again. He told me he's shopping again."

"Sooner or later, you gotta trust somebody."

They talked about killing coyotes. You make a cry like a wounded animal and you can call them in, shoot 'em dead.

They talked about Freddie Mercury wearing assless chaps.

They talked about why Smitty uses a spoon to eat grapes.

They talked about it being Billy's turn to relieve Pap on the bolter so Pap has a chance to eat.

Billy stood, ready for duty. "Okay, give me something to think about," he said, before heading off. He was a man who needed to keep his mind occupied while running equipment, to keep himself from going mad.

They thought about what to offer up to Billy's mind.

"Okay, I got one," Hook said. "If everyone is going to wang chung tonight, and everyone is going to have fun tonight, what is everyone doing?"

No one felt they could top that one.

Scotty came over, sat next to me. He told me his wife had had a baby boy. He told me how happy he was, holding his son. "It was just like looking at a little me," he said. He named him King.