Milan Carl Liskart,
Coalman
by
Tom Sheehan
When
the bounteous
and splendidly
round Kamilla
Liskart died her
husband dove into
a clumsy silence.
Without his wife,
five years dead,
and then with
his son suddenly
off to World War
II out in the
vast Pacific noise,
our coalman Milan
Carl Liskart began
plowing through
his days as if
he were unconscious
or barely breathing,
coal delivery
becoming, as if
it were, his life.
A
quiet man to begin
with, he brought
any and all trappings
with him into
that studied silence.
Nothing but labor
marked his days;
he carried pain
neither upon his
brow nor spread
on his sleeve
bold as insignia
of rank. Darkness
just letting go,
tonnage loaded
and on the road,
he could have
said to the rising
sun he had beaten
out of bed, “Hello,
angry dish! You
here again late
as usual? What’s
in the pipeline
today for me?”
The day’s
route and schedule
with no degree
of effort must
have formed and
reformed continuously
at the back of
his mind. There
were times, as
evidenced on occasion,
that he lost the
whole plan of
the day; but hard
work endured for
him and proved
itself endless.
Meanwhile,
in his neighborhood,
the old-timers
spoke of the couple
that for long
years had searched
out the mushrooms
on the tall elm
trees of the Cliftondale
Square , Milan
knocking the white
knobs from their
high gardens with
his long telescopic
pole, Kamilla
catching them
in the basket
of her apron.
The old ones,
in hushed whispers,
told of the union,
how they whistled
and sang at their
Sunday work, God
sitting himself
on a high limb
for the advance
of their prayers.
Sunday evenings,
they reflected,
there were services
of mushrooms and
red wine on the
Liskart’s
screened porch,
now and then a
low-sung song
slipping from
those happy confines,
or a sudden twist
of laughter gay
as ribbons.
In
one quick year,
ending on a cold
and dark October
evening, lights
steady and blazing
in all rooms of
their house, Kamilla’s
laughter and roundness
and the sure net
of her apron left
him. Such a tragedy
was not unknown
to me, having
lost my beloved
grandfather John
Igoe but months
earlier. I looked
at our coalman
with a different
eye from the day
of her death,
the lonely perception
of sharing in
command. There
had come to me
a sense of measurement,
and a sense of
contrast. It was
more than the
beginning of manhood,
which had been
announced at about
that same time
with physical
changes and other
valid pronouncements.
Thenceforward,
dawn to dusk for
sure, Milan smelled
of coal, a thick,
acidic rankness
that identified
him in the doorway,
even at a chance
encounter on the
walk or at the
roadside. Kerosene,
it seemed, rode
him its liquid
finery, or the
crudest of oil
with tinplate
knowledge in it.
Never was he as
clean as leaded
glass or pewter
work or an amalgam
solder, anything
token of a craft
or brought by
keenness. Often
I thought he must
have slept at
night in a mine,
right down where
the air is thin
and ferric and
smothered with
its quality of
gas, or in some
colliery counterpart.
He smelled like
the coal bins
I know fifty years
later as remnants
of that time,
or old lanterns
railroad men used
to stop traffic
with and which
I occasionally
find these days
useless in old
barns, or those
round black-bomb
lanterns that
town workers,
the endless diggers
of earth and roads,
set aside to mark
off new trenches
for water pipes
right along the
line of traffic.
There comes, replete
and terribly savory
of nostalgia,
the gray image
of his dead-gray
mackintosh standing
like a sentinel
on our front steps
as he but steps
away plied basket
atop basket to
the coal bin in
the cellar. Determined,
rodent busy, he
went at his work.
Coal,
those calamitous
and combative
years, was $12-14
a ton, anthracite
with red or blue
spots that today’s
TV commercials
would make merry
music about, and
knuckle hard.
Soft coal was
cheaper, but came
dustier, burned
faster, and needed
more tending.
Milan Carl Liskart,
who lived on the
edge of the great
Rumney Marsh in
the sight of the
General Electric’s
huge Riverworks
Plant and the
Atlantic ’s
edge, had one
truck (a cumbersome
Reo seemingly
of one speed forward
and one sense
of duty) and delivered
the kind of coal
the customer wanted.
Milan and the
Reo were a decided
pair.
Sometimes
at our house,
just outside Saugus
Center on the
North Shore above
Boston, we had
to get the cheaper
soft coal due
to financial calls;
father, his own
military tours
done, was a guard
at the General
Electric Company;
mother, a sweeper
there before and
after meals and
wash done and
hung on the line;
older brother
Jim, off in the
explosive Pacific,
his onionskin
letters passed
like diamonds
between us in
the kitchen. The
winter of 1944
scratched the
pocketbook deeply.
Our lives were
scratched too.
The scratches
and scars were
all around us.
Now and then the
blood oozed free
or gushed loose.
Incidents in Europe
and North Africa
and the southern
Pacific islands
of madness converged
like instant phantoms
on our street,
often in ghostly
collision, a boy’s
face somehow rampant
on the air. Now
and then the morning
came greeted with
a mother’s
scream. A few
of those days
were so quiet
we were afraid
to breathe, to
set a bubble adrift.
I
can see him now,
Milan Liskart,
arms huge as timbers,
Atlas shoulders,
and blue shirtsleeves
gone black where
they rolled on
his forearms.
Rugged big teeth,
worthy of new
apples or tough
steak, gleamed
whiter on his
darker face, his
forehead was broad
as a brick above
thick brows, and
his black hair
was sent straight
back to his neck
by comb or hand.
Every day he carried
coal in a basket
down into dark
coal bins and
I’d swear
he only smiled
at the drop of
the final basket,
that minute reprieve.
The last basket
dumped in our
cellar achieved
but a slight nod.
The evening sun
would daily mark
his return from
labors, the Reo
chugging at its
gait down the
street close to
the marsh, Milan
parking in the
driveway of his
small house sided
by reeds, his
rushing to the
mailbox to check
on letters from
his son. On some
days there’d
be a small eruption
of jubilation,
and he’d
delay his retreat,
pour a glass of
whiskey into a
glass on his porch,
sit into the soft
evening in his
old Morris chair
and read for hours.
We never knew
what his son had
written, the letters
being, beside
his wife Kamilla,
the most prized
and most secretive
thing Milan Liskart
ever knew.
My
grandfather, one
of the few men
I had seen head
to head with Milan,
obviously having
some agreements
in life, some
related memories,
or some aspect
of their existence
they shared or
had kinship with.
It was my grandfather
who said that
Milan most likely
had his share
of peace while
he drove the cumbersome
Reo, that driving
the monster was
a palliative to
his troubled silence,
allowing him a
rare respite in
his labored days.
“No one
knows what cooks
in that man’s
mind, more than
the black spirit
of silence, while
he runs through
the town from
dark to dark and
being black himself.”
It
was on holidays
or Sundays, when
there was no mail
delivery, he’d
sit an hour or
two in the White
Eagle Café,
a Polish weekend
stronghold, sipping
on strong whiskey,
sitting among
other quiet old
Polish friends
all measuring
out the hours,
the days, now
and then a lifetime.
Which
partially explains
why Milan, on
another Sunday
afternoon, the
winds from the
great north as
robust as they
had been all that
season, came to
the White Eagle
and his friends
later than he
usually came on
a Sunday. He said
he’d had
a soak for hours
in the tub reading
the latest letter,
had fallen asleep
and the letter,
free of his hand
and consciousness,
sank at length
to the bottom
of the tub. It
was no longer
legible. The image
rocked his solid
frame.
“By
God, Milan ,”
Pordgorski said,
trying and failing
to divert the
shock, “but
Kiska carried
his eighty-two
years one too
many. Old bozo
lived past one
boy and one daughter,
and that’s
the hell of it,
getting on like
that, two going
in a matter of
months, like there’s
no sense in praying
for else wise.”
”The
thing is we don’t
know what he knew,”
Milan might have
said if he had
anything to say,
thinking about
the man thinking
about his dying.
Some people said
Milan ’s
eyes, from that
day on, were like
marbles the kids
played with on
the school grounds.
It
was later at the
White Eagle Café,
cold spells leaping
down from Montreal
in waves, the
short days still
getting longer
for him, that
Milan first heard
about the fire
chief’s
new task in life.
It was a Sunday
afternoon, church
done, dinner done,
the old work warriors
tossing down some
hard stuff, wind
talking at the
windows and an
occasional utterance
at the door. Milan
was with Kowszolski
and Pordgorski
and Petras at
the bar, as old
Eagle said, “Say,
Milan , hear yet
about Chief Milbern
knocking on doors
around town? Knocked
on Sev Matrick’s
door he did and
had the telegram
in his hand saying
young Sev was
lost at sea from
off his ship.
I remember that
little shit, oh
what a one he
was, sneaking
around for a beer
all the time with
his tongue hanging
out a yard long,
had a way with
the girls, was
a spitfire to
say the least.
Like the old man.
Seems nobody in
the town wanted
the job of delivering
those sad words,
so Milbern took
it on. Be a man
of his size take
to do it, seeing
he’s been
in two, three
tough places already.”
He shook his head
and added, “Probably
that and then
some.”
Old
Kowszolski put
in his piece:
“He brought
Joey Tighe out
of the warehouse
in Malden , didn’t
he? Word has it
it was one of
the bad ones,
bouncing through
the walls and
getting on top
of them in the
ceiling spaces
before it blew.
Chief sees Tighe’s
buddy come out
alone, almost
melted they say,
and the chief
goes in for Tighe.
Has him over his
shoulder when
he comes out.
Jeezus, he met
the lion a couple
of times that
day, how he lost
the hair on the
back of his head,
fire must have
been right behind
him crawling up
his ass.”
“Take
a man like that
to do it,”
Petras said, “carrying
the pup out of
the flames, but
worse, I think,
knocking on a
door like he does,
holding death
in his hands,
kind of like the
other way around.”
They were all
looking in the
bar mirror at
themselves, measuring
manhood one would
figure. “We
all know the measure
of a man,”
Petras added,
“and some
don’t add
up like some do.”
Later
Eagle told my
grandfather about
it. Much later
when stuff had
gone down. “
Milan only listened
when they talked
about the chief
walking up someone’s
walk, the telegram
in his hand like
an odd glove,”
Eagle said. “Never
said a word, did
he. The others
had no boys out
there, not like
Milan , Adam off
in that hard part
of the world.
Man has little
to say, even under
a few stiff ones,
like he’s
someplace else
not here in town.”
Stories,
of course, bounced
around about him.
When Taggart died
and the wife and
the kids were
hard up he staked
them to a winter
of coal. Never
said a word about
it, but the word
got around. Though
Mel Timmons tried
shaking him down
for price break,
Milan said he’d
stop his regular
deliveries, him
not making that
much to begin
with.
The
coal man, it seemed,
knew little of
nor cared much
for the passage
of time, nor frivolities
of meaningless
intent. No sense
of time passing
proved invasive.
Only the mail
did that…
it gave him age...
it gave him matter…it
gave him the avowed
sense of maturity…
and it gave him
silence, like
an after-chew,
a gum-liner, a
bubble in the
cheek, the way
some men seek
solace in a chew.
Yet
it was said his
son Adam, Adam
the football player
“as tough
as nails”
they said, Adam
the hockey player
who skated with
the wind, who
wrote no soft
letters but real
letters…
foxhole letters,
letters of the
last lament, letters
that finally owed
up to the pain
he had known.
Adam, who knew
of death…
had seen his mother
shrink away and
his father dive
into silence…had
been there at
the hospital when
his father had
seen the doctor
walking down the
hall toward them,
his eyes buried
in his face, his
hands limp and
senseless against
his side, useless
signposts telling
the whole freighted
story.
So
that was all in
the making, all
the stage set,
the character
and characters
in place, the
sun coming down
and a stiff wind
coming right out
of the Northeast
and across the
marsh reeds and
dikes as if it
had no home of
its own, a wild
January at its
chill when Chief
Milbern stepped
out of his old
Packard coupe,
the big black
behemoth with
the futuristic
chrome grille
and the hood as
long as a canal,
and started the
walk up the long
driveway to Milan
Liskart’s
side door. The
huge and cumbersome
Reo sat off to
the side of the
driveway abutting
the marsh, a monolithic
and staid testament
to its owner,
the silent Milan
Carl Liskart.
The
chief looked nervous,
though his white,
black-visored
hat was perched
in place with
aplomb, impeccably
clean white gloves
sat his hands,
and his uniform
pressed into an
ebon smoothness,
the pants crease
like an iron seam.
The yellow-signal
telegram was grasped
in one hand. A
neighbor, through
a kitchen window,
caught his breath
seeing the yellow
missive in the
chief’s
hand; his own
two sons were
out there in that
calamitous madness
of the Pacific
islands, whole
chains of islands
now coming up
daily in the newspaper
headlines.
It
was January of
1944... it was
cold…things
had popped up
and off around
the world with
frightening and
horrific reality;
Millions of pounds
of bombs had been
dropped on Berlin,
Germany early
in the month practically
obliterating three
aircraft plants,
the Russians had
a bit later crossed
the Polish border,
Monte Casino was
attacked, in a
surprise move
our troops had
made the invasion
at Anzio, 60 miles
behind enemy lines,
and out there
in that mad Pacific
where my brother
Jim was, Adam
Liskart’s
outfit leaped
ashore in the
Marshall Islands/Kwajalein
Islands (where
my brother, it
turned out, had
ferried some of
the Marines ashore,
perhaps him having
given Adam the
last ride of his
life). At that
time word was
passed around
the world about
Japanese atrocities
heaved upon survivors
in the Philippine
Islands, the Death
March from Corregidor
and Bataan .
It
must be assumed
that Milan knew
all this, that
he would read
of it, hear it
on the radio,
hear the gospel
of it at the White
Eagle… indeed
some of the members
had been in Europe
after their emigration,
during World War
I. They had known
the gas, the shells,
the stench of
death, the trenches
of blood where
all truth drowned
in misery.
It
all gathered for
him in the neatly
uniformed man
walking up his
driveway on a
bitterly cold
January evening,
a yellow missive
in his hand.
Milan
leaned at the
garage, came away
with a deep, pear-shaped
coal shovel in
his hands. Over
his head he waved
it, that clumsy
shovel, adroitly
and menacingly
at Chief Milbern.
“Don’t
you goddamn come
on my property,
you son of a bitch!”
He roared, he
raced at Chief
Milbern, the shovel
still swinging
wildly overhead,
his voice at a
lion’s roar
that the chief,
even in his tough
outings of meeting
the lion, had
not heard such
a lion before,
had not met him.
He decided not
to do so at that
miraculous moment,
the deadly, easily-wielded
shovel a sure
weapon above the
coalman’s
head, a weapon
of sure destruction,
thicker than fire
and heavier, but
less liquid than
fire and less
insinuous, bearing
the kind of pain
fire might not
have in its bowels.
Yellow
light spilled
from the Liskart
house and from
neighbors’s
houses. Two corner
street lights
glowed a soft
war-time yellow.
The early stars
were open and
lit. A crescent
moon lay out over
the marsh like
a sliver of light,
like a distant
flame of a struck
match. Remnant
ice, sprawled
over flat lawns
and tangled in
reeds from an
earlier storm,
caught a variety
of light, yellow,
near-silver, hushed
golden, fading
to a strange opaqueness.
Glitter gathered
and departed from
the chief’s
vision, from the
corners of his
eyes. Peripheral
glitter. Come
and gone glitter
that could have
been yard markers.
Once a track star
in high school,
he called upon
the old drive
and the old measures
to hasten himself
down the middle
of the street,
called on adrenalin’s
rush he had known
in more than a
few fires with
the lion, and
felt the anguish
and pain chasing
him down the middle
of Saugus Avenue
that skirted the
marsh and the
southern slopes
of Baker Hill.
He tried to remember
the face of the
boy he had seen
rushing the football
at Stackpole Field.
He could not find
that face. But
he knew the face
of the man chasing
him; the wide,
brick-shaped brow,
the caverned eyes,
the broad middle
European nose,
the ledge of chin,
the darkness that
there abided.
He
prayed the coalman
would not catch
him. He did not.
A
week later, the
world still topsy-turvy,
the Pacific war
spreading like
wildfire, Chief
Milbern, out of
uniform, slipped
into the White
Eagle late on
a Sunday afternoon.
He sat on a bar
stool nearest
the door and ordered
a glass of whiskey.
From a group of
men, from the
midst of Kowszolski
and Pordgorski
and Petras and
Eagle himself,
Milan Carl Liskart
excused himself,
placed his drink
on the bar and
walked, sad-faced,
shamefaced, hand
out to the fire
chief who slid
off his seat and
stood at a kind
of attention,
his face lit with
signal.
They
are both gone
now, long gone,
Milan Carl Liskart
and Chief Milbern,
and Adam Liskart
has been at sea
all these years,
more than a half
century’s
worth, floating
there in memory
forever. Every
now and then I
bring him back
to Stackpole Field,
the rushing fullback,
the young bruiser
so hard to tackle,
so hard to bring
down, see him
still driving
forward with the
ball, that great
forearm shiver
and lethal straight
arm his ultimate
weapons. And see
his father, the
dark coalman,
sitting off in
a far corner,
never fully understanding
the game but noting
the bravery and
relentless motions
of his son.
©
2008 by Tom Sheehan
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