Calvert knew. His grandmother had pointed it out to him in January, the first time he had put it on, standing in the kitchen with a dish towel over her shoulder. Whoever made that dropped a cross in the middle of the back, she had said. Look there. See how it goes left when all the others go right. Your grandfather wouldn't let me fix it. I offered. He said leave it.
"My grandma does that," Mick said. "On purpose. In every one she makes. She says only God makes a perfect thing and it's bad luck to try." His voice had gone strange. "She's got a name for that cable, too. Where it splits at the bottom. She calls it the two brothers. She made one for my dad, and one for my uncle Stan that died in a car wreck on Route 61 when he was nineteen, and she made one for me when I was twelve that I never wore because I thought it looked like something a grandpa wears." He stopped. "Turn back around."
Calvert turned back around. Mick's face was very white, and the scar in his eyebrow stood out on it like a pencil mark.
"Stan," Calvert said. "Stan Wychulis. On the board. Fifty-two. The logbook says your grandfather went back for Stan."
"My uncle's named after him," Mick said. "Was named. My grandpa named his second kid after a guy that died in his section. People said that was—" He did not finish. "People said a lot of things."
He looked past Calvert at the middle panel. He did not step forward. But he read it. Calvert watched him read it, watched the gray eyes go across the photograph and then the typed transcription and then back to the photograph, as if he did not trust the typing, as if he wanted to see the shapes of the actual letters. Told T.K. not safe to advance. T.K. agreed. T.K. phoned up top. Calvert saw him get to the line about the ore cars and the tonnage. He saw him get to T.K. refused. He saw him get to T.K. carried me out, which was on its own at the bottom of the page in the other pencil, and he saw Mick's mouth open very slightly and close again.
Mick read it twice. Then he turned around and walked away down the row, past the Liberty Bell, past the man in the Penn State jacket, past Butchie Saylor and his chairs, and out the double doors into the lobby, and the doors swung behind him and stopped.
Butchie looked at Calvert. Butchie looked about nine years old.