Mom and Dad grounded me for two weeks. That made very little difference in my life, since I hardly do anything but go to school and work, and I was still allowed to do those things. I was not, however, allowed to call Arthur or to contact him in any way. Questions about the Florida trip were eating me up, but I couldn’t get any answers. Arthur had not shown up for school on Monday. He had not shown up on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, either. So all I could do was wait.
Mom and Dad were barely speaking to me, but it seemed like Lilly was going out of her way to. She never came right out and said it, but I think she actually respected what I’d done. (Or did she just appreciate someone else getting in trouble for a change?)
Before school, while I was messing with the N64, she came into the parlor and stood behind me. She asked, “Can you help me find something on the computer?”
“Sure,” I replied, figuring it was another weird sex website she’d heard about, but I was wrong. As I slid over to the Gateway, she said, “Is there a job you can do that helps drug addicts?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s what social workers do. Ben’s always saying he got diagnosed by a social worker.”
I searched the Internet for “social work careers.” That pulled up several sites, and I clicked on three of them. Lilly read the information over my shoulder. Each time she asked, somewhat disappointed, “Is there another one?”
By the end of the third site, she sounded totally discouraged. “They all say ‘bachelor’s degree.’ What does that mean?”
“Four years of college.”
Lilly shook her head. “No. No way. I’m not doing that.”
She started to leave, but I said, “Wait a minute. Let me type in ‘drug counselor.’ A site titled “Substance-Abuse Counselor” popped up, so I clicked on it. Lilly leaned over my shoulder and read along with me. The very first line, under “Education,” said “high school degree.”
I slid out of the chair. “Here. I’ll let you read this.”
Lilly took my place in front of the Gateway. When Mom called her for the ride to school, she was still reading.
I waited outside Mr. Proctor’s class, like I had for five days, watching for Arthur’s approach. When I finally saw him, I waved happily, but he walked right past me without a word. I turned and followed him inside, slipping into the next desk. I hadn’t gotten one syllable out before he growled at me, “I’m not ready to talk about it yet!”
Mrs. Cantwell hurried into the room, causing everyone to quiet down and face forward. She announced, “Mr. Proctor has called in sick today. I am in the process of getting a sub to cover this class. Until then, is there some work you could do?”
She swiveled and looked at the whiteboard. It had the word Vocabulary written at the upper right. She said, “Jenny Weaver, is there a vocabulary assignment you could all be doing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What page would that start on?”
Jenny thumbed through her vocab book. She replied, “Forty-two.”
Mrs. Cantwell picked up a marker from the desk and printed Page 42 under Vocabulary. She told us, “All right. You all have your assignment; now get to work.” And she hurried back out.
Most kids put their heads down.
Arthur slapped my arm with the back of his hand. He pointed to two desks near the window and commanded, “Over there.”
I followed him to the more secluded area. I guess he was ready to talk about it, because he plunged right in. “This is for your ears only. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Here’s what happened after you pulled away.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he started talking, as if reading from a play script: “You pulled away. The police dog started going nuts around the truck, barking and scratching at the door like he’d found something. The sheriff lady told Warren, ‘You can open up the truck right now, or I can send for a search warrant. It’ll be here inside of an hour.’
“Warren told her, ‘Go ahead. Send for a search warrant, because I’m not letting you look in my truck.’
“So all three cops and the cop dog stayed right where they were, glaring at us. The sheriff lady walked over and asked me about you. She said, ‘Where’s that other boy?’
“I didn’t know what to say, so I played dumb. I said, ‘Who?’
“Warren jumped in. He told her, ‘That other boy wasn’t with us. I think he was a Boy Scout.’ ”
I laughed in spite of myself, though none of this was funny.
Arthur frowned and continued. “So for the next hour, we had three cop cars on our lot with their lights flashing, and three cops, and a freaked-out German shepherd. How many people do you figure bought Christmas trees from us?”
“None?”
“That’s exactly right. So this fourth car finally pulled up, an unmarked car, and this Detective Sergeant something got out waving a piece of paper. By now the cops were pissed off at Warren because he’d made ’em do all that. They surrounded the truck. The detective sergeant showed him the paper. Warren read it. Then he said, ‘I’m still not giving permission, but I guess you’re gonna look in my truck now. It’s not locked.’
“The lady sheriff and the K-9 team pulled open the doors and climbed in. About ten seconds later, the lady reached under the driver’s seat and pulled up a metal pipe and a Baggie with some rocks in it.”
I had to interrupt because I didn’t understand. “Rocks?”
“Yeah. Crystal meth. Or crack. I don’t know. Could have been either one. Doesn’t matter, really—they’re both illegal. So the lady sheriff called out to Warren, ‘Do these belong to you, Mr. Giles?’
“Warren said, ‘Nope.’
“Then she looked at Jimmy and me, but she was still talking to Warren. ‘I must assume they could belong to anyone who had access to this truck. In which case, you will all need to come down to the county courthouse for processing.’ ”
Arthur stopped talking. He swallowed hard. Then he continued: “Warren knew it was over then. He told her, ‘No. Those two don’t know anything about it. The stuff is mine.’
“And that was that. They cuffed Warren’s hands behind his back. They leaned him against the truck and searched him. Then they stuck him into the back of the lady’s police cruiser. She handed us a card showing where they were taking Warren, and they drove away.
“I looked over at the Boy Scouts. They were all staring at us. I swear, if one of them had said anything, or blasted a boat horn, I’d have ripped his freakin’ head off.”
An angry flush crossed Arthur’s neck and face. “Me and Jimmy didn’t know what to do. People started pulling into our lot again. Me and Jimmy started selling off the Christmas trees for forty, twenty-five, even ten bucks each. Whatever the customer said, we said, ‘Yeah, whatever. Take it.’
“About four o’clock, a lady from the hotel came walking over. She handed Jimmy a paper with a phone message on it. Warren had gotten himself out on bail already. He wanted to get picked up outside the courthouse.”
Arthur shook his head in admiration. “He had appeared before a judge, who had set his bail at five thousand dollars. Warren told the judge, ‘I’ll get you the five thousand dollars if you let me go back and sell my Christmas trees. That’s what I’m down here for.’
“The judge said no. He asked Warren what else he had as collateral. To make a long story short, Warren met with a bail bondsman and signed over the truck. The bail bondsman paid five thousand dollars to the court, and the judge let Warren go.
“Anyway, I took off in my car as soon as we got the note. I drove straight down Colonial Drive until I got to the courthouse. I was expecting Warren to be mad as hell at me, but he wasn’t. He was just standing outside there like it wasn’t any big deal. I rolled down the window and started to apologize, but he waved it off. He told me to slide over because he wanted to drive.”
Arthur stopped and swallowed hard again. “He said that he forgave me. He understood why I did it. He knew I meant well. All that kind of stuff. He made me promise to save him from hellfire, like he always does. Then we drove back out to the lot. Warren rolled down the window and said, ‘Get in the damn car, Jimmy Giles.’
“We pulled around to the hotel. That took no time, you know? We had never really unpacked. So we were right back on the road, Warren behind the wheel, heading for home.
“After a minute, Jimmy asked Warren, ‘What about the trees?’
“Warren said, ‘Eff the trees, man. We’re out of the tree business.’
“Jimmy asked, ‘What about the truck?’
“ ‘The bail bondsman can keep the truck. He can keep the trees, too. I ain’t never coming back to Florida. What do I care?’ ”
Arthur paused.
I commented, “It must have been a long drive back.”
“Yeah. It was kind of quiet. After Warren told us what went down in the courthouse, he didn’t have much else to say. And he had left all his Christmas cassettes in the truck.
“He drove until South Carolina. Then him and Jimmy bought a whole case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and proceeded to drink it. So I drove the rest of the way up.”
What could I say except “Arthur, I am so sorry”?
“Yeah. I know. So am I.” He added, almost imperceptibly, “Damn Boy Scouts.”
When I entered the office conference room, the unlikely team of Arthur and Mikeszabo were sitting together, working on a poster.
I asked Arthur, “What’s that?”
He flipped the poster over so I couldn’t see it. He answered impatiently, “Nothin’. I had an idea, that’s all.”
When he didn’t go on, I prodded him. “What was the idea?”
“I talked to Mrs. Lyle about a new slogan. Maybe something stronger than ‘NEO.’ She hooked me up with Mike here.”
“And?”
“And nothing. You’ll have to wait for the rest.”
“Okay.”
As kids filed in, they looked curiously at the poster, too, but no one else asked about it.
Wendy Lyle has not been back. I guess that scene with her father and Arthur was the last straw. Chris Collier doesn’t come anymore, either. Maybe they’re too busy with play rehearsal, being the two leads and all.
But otherwise, the group is growing. And the plague is growing. We might not have known much about meth in September, but we sure do now. There has been a major increase in car robberies, in panhandling, and in zombie sightings on the streets. There has been a major increase in corpses down at the hospital, too.
At least two kids per week join our group. Some are court-ordered; some come on their own. Folding chairs now ring the table two deep.
When everybody was seated, Catherine Lyle opened the meeting by laying out a topic. She touched her notebook with a long fingernail and said, “I’d like to talk today about living with someone who has a drug or alcohol problem.”
She looked at Jenny. “Jenny brought up this topic two weeks ago, and I noticed that a lot of you responded to it.”
Not surprisingly, Ben responded to it again. His hand shot up. “Yeah. Jenny talked about having to be the perfect kid so people won’t know your parents are using.” He asked Jenny, “But what if you can’t be the perfect kid?”
Jenny replied, “Well, you can’t. Nobody can.”
“What if you keep screwing up, and they send a social worker out to your house? And everybody gets mad? And you get a lot of tests, and then you get diagnosed?”
Ben looked at Catherine Lyle, who smiled at him kindly.
Mikeszabo held up his hand. He said, “I lived with parents who were using drugs, but I don’t anymore.”
Catherine squirmed slightly. “Why is that, Mike?”
“Because they got arrested. They’re in jail.”
“Oh?” Her eyes darted to her notebook. “Mike? Did this happen after you joined the group?”
“Yeah. A month ago.”
“Okay. So… where do you live now?”
“With the Weavers.” He smiled at Jenny. “Now I gotta be perfect all the time, too.”
A few kids chuckled—at the irony, I guess.
Some high school kids started telling stories about living with alcoholics and drug addicts. The stories were different, but they had points in common—missed birthdays, angry Christmases, public embarrassments.
Arthur really got my attention when he contributed this: “I have a… a relative who lives near me. I used to go over to his place all the time and play Nintendo. I guess he used to get high, but I didn’t know what was happening.
“Once, when I was about ten, he started a fire in his kitchen.” Arthur shook his head. “He totally freaked out. He just stood there screaming at me, ‘I don’t want to burn! Don’t let me burn!’
“My mom came running in the back door. She beat the fire out with a dish towel. She was real mad, because he wasn’t thinking about me at all. He was just thinking about himself.”
I looked at Lilly. Did she know he was talking about Warren? She didn’t act like it. I pictured the two white trailers in Caldera as Arthur continued. “She never let me go back there to play. To this day, I can’t go inside his house.”
Catherine Lyle responded, “That’s so true, Arthur. Addicts don’t think about anyone but themselves.”
Once everyone who wanted to speak on the topic had, Catherine Lyle summarized the discussion. “Thank you all for sharing those stories. Obviously, you do not have to be a drinker or a drug addict to be the victim of drinking or drugs. You can just be trying to live your life, minding your own business, and drugs can ruin everything.”
I had a sudden strong feeling that Catherine Lyle was talking about herself. Arthur apparently thought so, too. He asked, “Do you live with someone who has a drug problem, Mrs. Lyle?”
“Pardon me?”
“Do you live with someone who has a drug problem? Or did you when you were our age?”
Catherine Lyle looked down. I could see the wheels turning in her head. She finally said, “The point is, Arthur, that I understand people who have these issues. That’s part of my job.” She measured her words carefully. “That sort of… empathy helps me to help others.”
She ended the discussion by pointing a manicured finger down the table at the overturned poster. She announced, “Now Arthur and Mike have a presentation to make. Arthur has come up with a suggestion for a new slogan. Let’s give them our full attention.”
Mikeszabo took that as his cue to flip the poster over and show us. The poster had a bright green background with blood-red lettering that said in no uncertain terms I HATE DRUGS.
Arthur leaned forward. He pointed to the words and began, “This slogan, ‘I Hate Drugs,’ is very direct.”
Arthur looked at Mikeszabo, who nodded with conviction. He continued, “It’s a simple message. No more pussyfooting around. No more ‘Just Say No.’ No more ‘NEO,’ although that was a righteous slogan. It’s more serious now. It’s war now, and it’s to the death.”
Catherine Lyle smiled nervously. “Well, that certainly is a direct, clear message, Arthur.”
“Thank you.”
“Now, how do the rest of you feel?”
Mikeszabo spoke first. “I know how I feel. My parents are in prison. My sisters and me are living on charity. I’ve had enough. It’s war for me.”
A high school stoner went next. “Meth killed my dad. My mom and me watched him die. Then we had to pay for his funeral with the last money we had. We lived in our car for six months. Then we started to freeze to death, so we live in a homeless shelter now. You’d have to kill me before I’d smoke meth.”
Arthur asked, “Are we gonna let meth destroy everything we have? Everyone we know? Look outside. It’s a war out there, and we have to fight back.”
Jenny agreed. “It’s like Night of the Living Dead. The people fought for their lives in that movie. Has everybody seen it?”
The kids who were not in Mr. Proctor’s class shook their heads or said no. Jenny explained to them, “People in a little town like ours were attacked by zombies. So they fought back with anything they had—bats, axes, fire.
“The zombies were spreading a plague. They were turning their friends, their family members, and everybody else into more zombies. The only way to stop them was to kill them.”
Catherine Lyle looked nervous. She interjected, “Well, there are always other options.”
Lilly agreed. “That’s right. You can help people. I mean, what do we have around here? We have coal, and we have drug addicts.” Some kids laughed, but quietly. “So if you want to work around here, you can dig coal, or you can help drug addicts.”
Mrs. Lyle nodded vigorously.
Arthur muttered, “Righteous.” Then he told the group, “All right. Let’s take a vote. Who is in favor of the new slogan?”
Every kid’s hand shot up. It was unanimous. Catherine Lyle gulped. “All right, then. This will be our new… direction. Thank you, Arthur and Mike.”
Arthur asked her, “So, are you gonna pay for shirts, like last time, and will the Student Council sell them?”
“I’ll speak to Mrs. Cantwell this week.”
Arthur looked her in the eye. He had wanted to hear a simple yes. Instead, he had heard ambivalence (PSAT word). I could tell that it bothered him, but he let it slide. For now.
Two separate zombie couples were wandering through the store today, looking suspicious, looking to shoplift.
Dad was already shadowing one couple when the second one entered. He waved to me, pointed two fingers at his own eyes and then at them.
I fell in behind my pair, a thirty-something husband and wife. Both wore really old black leather jackets. She had long, matted hair, torn jeans, and flip-flops, despite the freezing temperatures outside. He had on weird rust-colored pants, a plaid work shirt, and sneakers. I took to straightening boxes on random shelves nearby, keeping my distance, keeping an eye on them.
Gradually, I became aware of a noise, a commotion, near the front of the store. It wasn’t a bad noise, though, like a busted shoplifter screaming at Dad. It was a good noise—laughing, congratulating, oohing and aahing.
I left my zombie couple to investigate. Here’s what was going on, in a nutshell:
John had delivered Lilly’s cash drawer to her register, which was unusual. It turned out he had a secret plan—a plan that was romantic in a Food Giant sort of way. He waited for Lilly to count the money in the drawer. But when she looked inside, instead of seeing the usual coin rolls and small bills, she found a square jewelry box. She opened it and saw a diamond engagement ring.
John then got down on one knee between registers two and three and said, “I love you, Lilly. Will you marry me?”
Lilly screamed, jumped up and down, and answered, “Yes! Yes, I will!”
The customers from the next register, and new people coming in, and people shopping near the front all got caught up in the excitement.
It was a very happy scene, with kissing and hugging and congratulating. I got in there and gave my future brother-in-law a high five and my sister a brotherly hug.
Dad finally abandoned his zombie couple, too, and joined us. Lilly held up her ring finger and showed it to him. She gushed, “John just asked me to marry him, Dad! And I said yes. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Dad assured her, “Yes. Yes, it is wonderful.” He shook hands manfully with John and gave Lilly a big kiss on the cheek.
While all this was going on, I saw Dad’s zombie couple slip out the front door with their faces turned away. I wondered what they had stolen.
My zombie couple, though, was standing on the edge of the crowd. They had an equally good chance to escape with merchandise, but they didn’t. Instead, they stayed to look at Lilly and John and the diamond ring. The woman in the flip-flops had tears running down both cheeks. The man was smiling sadly in approval.
I thought, The hell with it. They can steal whatever they want tonight.
After about ten minutes, things settled back down. Lilly got her real cash drawer, and everybody went back to their business. Dad ducked into the office, apparently to call Mom and tell her the news.
I started rounding up carts in the parking lot. There were fewer of them every night. I figured they were getting recycled as hibachis, dollies, and firewood baskets. Maybe people were selling them for drugs, too.
I had just pushed a train of seven carts into the store (two over the Food Giant guidelines) when I saw Mom through the window. She was running from her car toward the entrance. (The last time I saw Mom run was on Memorial Day, when Dad had dropped a propane tank in our backyard and it started to fizz.) She ran right past me, all the way up to register two, where she screeched to a halt.
Mercifully, Lilly had no customers in line as Mom started in on her. “What do you think you are doing? You never said a word to me about this… this choice you are making! This choice that could ruin your life!”
Lilly stopped smiling in an instant. And she gave it right back to Mom. “Ruin my life? What life? My life can only get better, believe me.”
Dad hurried out of the office. He grasped Mom’s elbow and started moving her back outside, like a bouncer removing a loud drunk.
Lilly watched for a moment, but then she locked her register and took off after them. There was no way I was going to miss this, so I took off, too.
We all converged near Mom’s car. Lilly leveled a finger at Mom and shouted, “I got a call this morning from the Kroger Pharmacy, Mom. Do you know anything about that? They told me they couldn’t refill my Adderall prescription again because it was all used up. That prescription was for two refills, at thirty pills each, and it was all used up. Do you know anything about that?”
I expected Mom to say no, or some variation of it, but she didn’t. She just stared back at Lilly, her face suddenly white.
Lilly went on, “That’s ninety pills, Mom! I took one of them, because you made me, and I felt sick. So tell me: What happened to the other eighty-nine pills? Who’s been calling for those refills?”
Dad’s jaw was hanging open by now, and I guess mine was, too.
Mom looked at us all and replied quietly, with some dignity, “Am I supposed to be the only one who never has a problem?” She told Dad, “You had yours. For years.” She told Lilly, “And you had yours. So this is mine. All I am trying to do is… keep up. I’m trying to keep up with two children and a house and a stack of bills. And the pills helped. At first.”
A strange silence seemed to fall over the parking lot. No one could think of a thing to say. This was just too weird, almost incomprehensible. Mom was taking Adderall? Of course. How else could she have driven for twelve hours straight?
Dad finally said to Lilly, “Go get your coat and drive your mother home. Tom and I can handle things here. You two can talk about… Well, you can talk.”
Lilly and Mom stared at each other like two schoolchildren who had been fighting and who now had to make up. They both silently agreed to the plan, though, and they were soon driving away.
I watched them go, wondering, What are they talking about? About why Mom took the pills? About why none of us even noticed? About what to do next? Or are they talking about wedding plans? About bridesmaids’ dresses and stuff?
This was just too weird to comprehend.
Dad took over register two and ran it until closing. Near the end of the night, I did a last shopping cart run. I spotted Arthur’s Geo Metro pulling up by the propane cage, so I headed over there. But I was surprised when the door opened and someone else emerged—someone wearing a green satin Haven High Football jacket.
I called out, “Warren! You’re driving the Geo?”
He looked at me and smiled. “Don’t tell anybody, okay, Tom? I got a reputation to maintain.”
“Okay. Uh, did you want some propane?”
“Yeah, give me three tanks. Robin says she’s running low. And we gotta eat, right?”
“Right.” I fished out the key and unlocked the cage. I could barely look at him when I said, “Look, Warren, I am really sorry about what happened down in Florida.”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Forget about it. Things like that happen. You just have to deal with them.”
I said, “You really told that sheriff lady some stuff. You sounded like a lawyer.”
He smiled. “Did I? Hey, you have to know your rights in this country. And you have to use them.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m really sorry about that… that prank thing. If there’s anything I can do to make up for it, please let me know.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Tell you what: Buy me the propane and we’re even.”
I was happy to oblige, to pay him back in any way. “Okay! Sure.”
“That way, I can save my money for the Drunken Monkey.”
I pulled out three white tanks, set them on the ground, and relocked the cage.
Warren continued: “Arthur was real upset about what happened down there. He thinks it was all his fault, but it wasn’t. It was my fault.” He thought for a long moment. “Arthur doesn’t have any role models in his life. Never has. His biological father was an alcoholic. Did you know that?”
“Yeah. He was my uncle Robby.”
“Oh, right. Well, his stepdad has some drug issues. And you don’t want to know about the guy who lives in the trailer behind him. It’s a race to the bottom with those guys. They’re all facing hellfire.”
I laughed awkwardly.
So did Warren. He was totally serious, though, when he said, “You seem to have a plan, though. Is that right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Can you help Arthur make a plan for himself? He can be all talk and no action sometimes.”
What could I say except “Sure. Yeah. I’ll try”?
Warren looked out toward Route 16. “I don’t want him hanging around here, talking trash that he could have been this or could have been that but he isn’t. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“Help him make a real plan and stick to it. Something solid: the military, college, whatever.”
We stood still for a moment. I finally had to ask him, “Do you have a plan, Warren?”
“Me? You mean aside from going to the Drunken Monkey tonight?”
“Yes.”
Warren shrugged. “Well, I’ve always wanted to use my degree.”
“Yeah? What was that in?”
“Chemistry.”
“Oh.”
Warren walked around to the hatchback and opened it. He pointed at my back pocket. “Hey, is that what I think it is? Is that the story you were writing? About the trip?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Did you ever finish it?”
“I finished the trip part.”
“Cool. Can I read it?”
“Sure.” I felt a sudden stab of guilt. “I… uh, I put the bad stuff in it, too.”
“The bad stuff?”
I pulled the notebook out of my pocket and handed it to him. “I wrote about the cops and the arrest and all. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh. That stuff.” He leafed through it. “Hey, if it weren’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck around here at all. Am I right?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
Warren held the notebook up. “You sure I can have this?”
“Oh yeah. That one’s just about full. I need to start a new one.”
“I’ll get it back to you. I will. I’ll send it with Arthur.”
I said, “Sure.” And I knew he meant it. But the fact is, I never saw that notebook again.
As I headed inside, Warren called out, “Hey, thanks for the ’pane, Tom.”
“The what?”
He hoisted up a tank. “The propane.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
I was staring through the window of Dad’s van as we drove to the Food Giant. There were no abandoned shopping carts at the intersections this time. I guess they had gotten too valuable. There were, however, abandoned human bodies.
Zombies. Meth addicts.
Zombies stood on two of the four corners at Sunbury and Lower Falls Road. Each had a small cardboard sign with words scrawled in ink. It didn’t matter what they said; the message was clear enough to me: I am dead now. I have lost my life to methamphetamine.
Lost people like these haunt the main intersections in Blackwater, the parking lots, and anywhere else where people congregate. It was shocking at first, but now they are just part of the scenery.
When we arrived at the Food Giant, Dad parked the van in his outer space and we started in.
That’s when we saw her. A woman emerged from the shadows near the ATM. She came toward us, almost floating, like a gray ghost.
The woman moved steadily, purposefully, with one hand held out in front of her. I realized with a shock that I knew her. She was the woman I had followed just one week ago, the one who had cried for Lilly and her engagement. She was back here now, and alone.
She didn’t say anything, just extended a red, cracked hand. When she got close to us, Dad took out his wallet, extracted a ten-dollar bill, and placed it in that hand. The woman then turned and, without a word, wandered off across the lot, back toward the shadows.
I watched her go, thinking, This is normal now. This is what I see every day. So I want to set down what I have observed about zombies. It seems to me that there are three stages of them. Stage-one zombies can go to a store and shoplift, successfully or unsuccessfully. Stage-two zombies can stand on a street corner with a handmade sign and beg. Stage-three zombies can only wander, like this woman. I guess you could add another stage: death. Stage-four zombies are dead.
Anyway, I asked Dad, “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
He shook his head. “What can the police do? Arrest her?”
“No! Not at all! They could take her to a hospital.”
“There aren’t enough resources in the county, not for all these people. We’ve run out of hospital beds, and we’ve run out of jail cells.”
I turned sarcastic on him. “How about graves? We haven’t run out of them, have we?”
Dad looked offended. “I don’t make the rules, Tom. You know how it goes by now, or you should: You make your choices, and you deal with the consequences.” He pointed toward the receding woman. “She chose to try meth.”
“I know.” I muttered, mostly to myself, “Not even once.”
A green Mustang pulled into the slot next to Dad’s. Del got out on the driver’s side; Mitchell got out on the passenger side. I watched them as Dad unlocked the front door.
Mitchell has always been a slow, simple guy. He has been at the Food Giant for twenty years, but he has never had an outside life, as far as anyone knew. He has certainly never had a girlfriend. Suddenly here he was carpooling with Del. Lilly thinks it’s a romance, but I’m not so sure. I think it might be more sinister. I think it might be meth. Suddenly Mitchell is working three times faster than he used to. When his last assistant quit, Dad didn’t even hire a replacement. He didn’t need to.
Del has changed, too, but in the opposite direction. She used to be a bundle of energy. She used to talk so much at the register that Dad had to reprimand her. Now she only speaks to Mitchell, and she has no energy, and her hair is falling out. (She stops by the meat department every morning and gets a hairnet to wear up front.)
Dad held the door for me. He whispered, “I have to speak to Mitchell and Del this morning, first thing. So I’ll need you to open up the meat counter. Okay? Just for ten minutes. Then I’ll drive you to school.”
“Why can’t Reg do it?”
“Because he’s not here yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “Will it really be ten minutes?”
“Just help me out here, Tom.”
“Do I have to wear a hairnet?”
“Of course. Anyone touching food has to.”
I sighed mightily, followed Dad inside, pulled on a hairnet, and got to work setting out the trays of meats. I prayed no one would place an order in the next ten minutes.
Some early-morning customers filed in. I watched them as best I could. How many people were in the store to buy, and how many were there to steal? People I had seen for years, normal-looking people, slightly overweight people, now looked like they were wearing somebody else’s clothes. Their jackets hung limply from their shoulders, like they were several sizes too big.
These honest, hardworking people had become thieves, really inept thieves. They stuffed bunches of grapes into pockets with holes in them; the grapes fell out and rolled away as they walked. They stuffed frozen food items into their jeans; the ice melted, and they stood in the checkout lines looking like they had peed themselves.
It was all so pathetic.
Dad was as nice to them as he could be. He just took the items back and told them not to return to the store. He never called the police.
Of course, my prayer did not come true. I looked up and saw the close-cropped hair and round head of Mrs. Smalls, Bobby’s mother. She was wearing a blue raincoat, opened to reveal her white uniform beneath. I said, “Good morning, Mrs. Smalls.”
“Good morning, Tom. They got you in a hairnet today?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can’t really tell. It’s black, like your hair.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me have a pound of Lebanon baloney and a pound of American cheese.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I pulled out the long cylinder of lunch meat and plopped it onto the slicer.
Mrs. Smalls pointed to the zombie couple in the produce section. “Do you see those two people?”
“Of course.”
“They’re shoplifting, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
She shook her head. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t see them. Or who claim they don’t see them. Professional people, with excellent eyesight, who claim they don’t see them anywhere.”
I wrapped up the Lebanon baloney and pulled out the cheese as Mrs. Smalls continued. “Well, I see them every day in the emergency room. That’s where this all ends, Tom. In the morgue. On a slab. They come into the ER, and they die. Or they come in DOA. All from methamphetamine.”
I was surprised to hear her actually say the word—methamphetamine. Hardly anyone outside of our group ever said it. She went on: “Seventeen people so far this month, more than all other causes of death combined. But nobody will admit it—not the hospital administrators, not the police, not the politicians. Nobody wants to admit that this little town has a gigantic problem.”
Her voice rose as I finished up her order. “So the problem will only get worse! Am I right?”
I told her sincerely, “You are right. Everything you’re saying is right.”
“I know I’m right. And if we don’t do something about it”—she stopped to point at herself and then me—“you and me, Tom, it’s not going to get done.”
I gulped.
“Do you think I ever ignored my Bobby’s problems?”
“No, ma’am.”
“ ‘No, ma’am’ is right. I faced those problems, and I got him an education, and a job, and now he earns his own way.” I handed her the order.
She said, “Thank you,” then paused. “You don’t know anything about Bobby buying Gold Bond talcum powder, do you?”
“No, ma’am.”
She cast an angry glance toward the produce department on her way out.
Reg appeared right after Mrs. Smalls left. I wondered if he’d been hiding from her in the storeroom. He smacked the top of the counter and told me, “You are relieved, Thomas! Your dad says you can stop beating the meat.”
I pulled off the hairnet and tossed it in the trash. I advised him wearily, “You really need to get some new material, Reg.”
“What? Not precocious enough? Too invidious? Was I being puerile?”
“Yeah. All of the above.”
In class, Coach Malloy attempted to read us a summary of the Dred Scott decision, and free states versus slave states, but that was not to be. He kept getting interrupted by dissatisfied customers.
Angela raised up her hand and then a glass jar of strawberries. “My mom said I have to return this. It didn’t whoosh when she opened it.”
Coach looked puzzled. “It didn’t what?”
“Whoosh. She said if it doesn’t whoosh when you open it, it wasn’t sealed right.”
The coach laughed. I think he wanted the rest of us to laugh, too, but we didn’t. “Well, we’re not selling whooshes here, honey. We’re selling strawberry preserves.”
Ben raised his hand. “I had the runs all day Saturday.”
Several people groaned, but his point was made.
A girl named Mia spoke up. “We gave some to my grandmother, and she had to go to the hospital.”
Coach sputtered, “Aw, come on now! That’s not fair. Maybe your grandmother was sick anyway. She’s an old lady, right? Old ladies get sick.”
“It happened right after she ate the strawberries.”
Ben followed up. “My dad says you have to give us our money back.”
Coach held up one hand and spread out his fingers. “Well, on that deal there, I can only tell you what Reg told me. He takes your money, and he uses it to pay for the fruit, the jars, and the pectin. So that money is gone.”
Ben was ready with a reply. “Then my dad says we can sue you.”
Coach shook his head. He answered tightly, “Well, I guess what your dad chooses to do within the United States legal system is up to him.”
Then he went back to the Dred Scott decision.
The door to my second-period classroom was closed. That was unusual, so I stopped and peeked through the window. Mr. Proctor was pushing desks toward the back of the room, one row at a time, like he was pushing a train of supermarket carts.
Arthur came up behind me and looked in; then Jenny did, too. Neither seemed surprised.
Jenny said, “It’s for play rehearsal. Mr. Proctor told us that we need more rehearsal. He’s going to use our class time for it today.”
Arthur added, “I guess we suck. I know I do.”
Jenny objected to that. “We do not!” She took a quick look left and right and then whispered excitedly, “Did you guys hear that a teacher got arrested?”
From the looks on our faces, we clearly hadn’t. It was Arthur who replied, “No way.”
“Yeah. Arrested in the parking lot, after school on Friday.”
“For what?”
“Selling drugs.” Jenny reconsidered that. “No, wait. It wasn’t selling. It was possession of drugs.”
I asked, “Who was it?”
“Mr. Byrnes, from the high school. He carpools with Mr. Proctor.”
“How’d they catch him?”
“One of his own students turned him in.”
Arthur said, “No way! A kid was a narc?”
“Sort of. See, the kid got busted himself, right outside the auditorium, for selling weed.” Jenny went on with total authority. “The kid made a deal with the police. If they would charge him with possession instead of selling, he’d give them the name of a teacher who had weed.”
Arthur nodded knowingly. “He traded up.” Seeing that I was confused, he explained. “They offered Jimmy Giles a deal like that. If he’d trade up, if he’d give the name of his dealer, they’d go easy on him. Jimmy wouldn’t do it, though. Jimmy’s no narc.”
Mr. Proctor, red-faced and panting, finally opened the door. He pointed me and the other nonactors to the back of the room. He pointed the actors—including Jenny, Arthur, Wendy, Ben, and Mikeszabo—to the front. They stood by the whiteboard, where they were soon joined by a half dozen high schoolers from the Drama Club, including Chris Collier.
Mr. Proctor told the nonactors in the back, “We’ll be having play practice today. You’re welcome to watch us, or you can do other work.” Most of the kids put their heads down and fell asleep.
I watched.
Mr. Proctor told the actors, “We’ll start with the blocking.”
Arthur commented, “That’s what we do in football, Mr. P. We start with the blocking.”
Arthur was clearly joking, but Mr. Proctor didn’t get it. “No, no, Arthur. Blocking in Drama Club means placing actors where they need to be onstage.”
Arthur rolled his eyes.
Mr. Proctor positioned the lead actors, Chris and Wendy, first. Chris had his Bible cheat sheet in hand; Wendy did not. She had memorized her part.
Wendy delivered her lines like a real actress, with emotion (and empathy). Chris, however, was awful. He may as well have been delivering his “Vote for me for Student Council” speech. He sure didn’t sound like the priest in a plague village four hundred years ago.
Anyway, after the priest and his wife had been blocked, Mr. Proctor took other actors by the elbow and positioned them. Then they read their lines.
Ben’s character had a long argument with Jenny’s character. Ben was actually pretty good, and Jenny was very moving as a doomed teenage girl.
Mr. Proctor took Arthur’s elbow and moved him in and out among the others. Arthur had a few lines, and they were pretty crazy, like a village idiot’s should be. I had to admit he wasn’t bad, either.
After class was over, I walked out with Arthur. I asked him, “So, do you mind playing an idiot?”
He looked at me quizzically. “I’ve done some hard things, cuz, but this ain’t one of them. All I have to do is show up, wander around, and read my lines. For that, Proctor gives me an A in English. Even if I don’t do anything else, which I probably won’t. I can just sit in front of him and sleep for the rest of the year. So tell me: Who’s the idiot?”
Arthur suddenly grabbed my elbow and turned me toward the wall. “Listen, I gotta tell you something. Something not good.” He checked around for eavesdroppers. “Jimmy Giles started using again.”
“Oh no!”
“Oh yeah.” Arthur shook his head, disappointed. “He bought himself some crack and smoked it up.”
“No!”
“Yeah. It’s what Catherine Lyle would call a ‘relapse.’ ”
“Right. Is he okay now? Has he stopped?”
“I don’t know. I doubt that he knows.”
I used my counseling-group experience to ask, “What was the trigger for him?”
“United flight ninety-three.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He saw something on TV about how they’re identifying the dead people at the crash site. They’re finding all these little bits of human bodies, you know? Like bone fragments and teeth. They’re asking their families to bring in people’s combs, toothbrushes, and stuff for DNA samples. It flipped poor Jimmy out.”
“That is some creepy stuff.”
“He just got up from the TV, climbed into his Ranger, and took off. To his old dealer, I’m thinking. My mom heard the truck leaving and thought somebody was stealing it, or it was damn repo. Then she saw that Jimmy was gone. By the time she woke me up, it was too late.”
A large group of students swirled past us. Arthur lowered his voice. “Guess where he wound up?”
“Where?”
“The crash site in Somerset County, down those dark country lanes. He drove off that gravel road and broke the back axle of the truck. The county sheriff called us at five a.m. to come get him. As far as I know, the Ranger’s still out there, or they towed it to that big scrapyard.”
He finished by saying, “Don’t tell anybody.”
I assured him, “No. I won’t.”
When I showed up for the counseling group, I saw kids huddled in front of the conference room door. I joined them, leaning my face over Jenny’s shoulder to see what they were looking at. (I couldn’t help noticing how good her hair smelled.)
A note was taped to the door, written in a feminine cursive hand. It read: Due to a recent family emergency, the group will have to be canceled this week. The note was signed Wendy Lyle.
I whispered to Jenny, “What’s the family emergency?”
Jenny looked at Mrs. Cantwell’s office before answering, “Her father got busted.”
“What?”
“The state police raided a bunch of houses up at Blackwater University—frats mostly, but Dr. Lyle’s house, too.”
Arthur demanded to know, “Where do you hear all this stuff?”
Jenny’s hands fanned out to encompass the whole office. “Right here. Officer O’Dell was talking about it today.”
I asked her, “Did they find anything?”
“They did. They found weed at his house.”
Suddenly the stoners all started talking at once about police raids, and search warrants, and narcs. They really knew their stuff.
Mrs. Cantwell stepped out of her office, frowning at the level of noise coming from our group. She pointed at the door. “Jenny Weaver, what does that note say?”
Jenny read the note aloud to her. Mrs. Cantwell shook her head. “No. That’s not right. Mrs. Lyle called me an hour ago. She said they’re moving away, so the group is canceled permanently.”
Ben Gibbons’s face drained white. “Permanently! She can’t do that. I still have pica disorder.”
“You have what?”
“Pica disorder. I eat things that aren’t food. Compulsively.” Mrs. Cantwell just stared at him. He added, “I eat chalk. I eat wood. I eat rocks.”
Mrs. Cantwell finally found her voice. “Please, that’s enough! You need to stop doing those things.”
Lilly turned the conversation back to the note. “But Mrs. Lyle can’t just end the group like this. Can she?”
Mrs. Cantwell said, “I’m afraid she can. Mrs. Lyle is a parent volunteer. This group was her idea. If she leaves, then it’s over.”
A ringing telephone pulled Mrs. Cantwell back into her office.
Arthur commented bitterly, “She said she was gonna talk to Mrs. Cantwell about the new shirts. Yeah, my ass.”
Mikeszabo pulled out a red marker. “Listen, that’s no problem. I will turn any T-shirt into an ‘I Hate Drugs’ shirt. Just bring it to me and I’ll do a custom-made design for you.”
Arthur nodded. “Righteous. That’ll do it. Everybody bring your shirts to Mike.”
After that, though, the group members started moving toward the exit, heads down, feet shuffling, looking totally defeated.
Jenny raised her voice. “Wait! We can’t just leave like this. We can’t just give up. We’re in a war here. Remember?”
She waited until she had everybody’s attention. “All right. My parents ran an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting every Monday night until a few months ago. People stopped showing up because, well, because alcohol is not the problem anymore. We could meet where the AA did and do our small sessions, just like here. We don’t need a leader.”
Lilly asked, “Where was the meeting?”
“The Hungarian church on Sunbury Street.”
“I know where that is.”
“Everybody does.”
Ben asked, “What will we talk about? Should we think of topics?”
Jenny replied solemnly, sincerely, “There’s only one topic now: the meth plague. We need to talk about that. Bring whoever wants to come. The people in our town are dying. We need to save as many of them as we can.”
When I told Mom about the meeting at the Hungarian church, she got all excited. She started talking about it like it was the homecoming dance. “I can drive you! And I’ll stay if they need adults. And I’ll get your father to donate some food.”
Lilly’s face contorted. “Geez, Mom. Do you want to hang up balloons, too? It’s a frigging drug-counseling group.”
“Lilly! Don’t talk like that.”
“Like what?”
Mom persisted, “That f-word. And there is nothing wrong with me volunteering to help your group.”
Lilly tried reason. “We can’t have a parent sitting in our group, listening to us talk about how messed up our parents are.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Yes.”
I interjected, “No. We do more than that.”
Mom said, “Well, how about if I just set up a table, away from you, and serve the food?”
I decided. “Yes. That would be fine.”
Lilly just shook her head.
The Hungarian church has a real name, St. Stephen’s Catholic Church. We learned that from Mom on our drive to the Food Giant. Mom then went on in great detail.
“Most of the coal miners around here were Catholics. Some came from Eastern Europe, like the Hungarians and the Poles; some came from Western Europe, like the Irish, Italians, and Germans. They all had their own little churches. But now all the Eastern Europeans go to St. Stephen’s, and all the Western Europeans go to St. Michael’s.”
Lilly muttered, “I wonder where the Puerto Ricans go. I’ll have to ask John.”
She was trying to be funny, but Mom answered seriously, “They go to St. Michael’s.”
When we arrived at the Food Giant, Dad was in a frazzled state. He told us, “I’ve got nobody to run the register. I’ve got nobody to bring back shopping carts. I’m getting robbed blind here.”
I figured that meant I would have to stay, but Lilly volunteered. “I’ll take a register, Dad, until closing if you like. And I’m sure John will help with the carts. That way, Tom can go to group.”
I really did want to go. “Are you sure?” I asked her.
“Yeah. But tell me what happens. I want to know everything.”
“I will. Thanks.”
So Mom and I filled a bin with lunch meats, cheeses, and bread products that had reached their sell-by dates. Then we loaded it into the car.
Once we started driving again, Mom hinted at why she wanted to attend the meeting. She said, “Tom, I just had a scare with drugs, too. I hope and pray that it’s over. I understand now that it can happen to anybody.”
“Yeah, it can.”
“That ‘Not Even Once’ slogan is true.”
“It definitely is. And you’ll hear stuff like that at the meeting.” I added, “But you’ll have to stay away from the small groups. The kids won’t want you listening. It’s all confidential.”
“I wouldn’t repeat anything.”
“You might. You might not be able to stop yourself from telling a parent what his or her kid said.”
“Well, if I thought the child was in danger—”
“There you go! This is why you need to stay far away.”
“Okay. I said I would. I’ll set up the food and serve it; that’s all.”
We didn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. Instead, I found myself staring at the full moon rising over the mountains and thinking how beautiful it was. Then I found myself thinking about that beautiful moon and a beautiful girl.
But the girl was not Wendy Lyle.
It was Jenny Weaver. Jenny, with her nice-smelling hair and her pretty eyes and her… righteousness, as Arthur, or Jimmy, or Warren might say.
When we arrived at St. Stephen’s, I had to shake my head to get back to reality. We turned into the driveway and continued back to a narrow parking lot. Mom pulled into a space next to the Weavers’ Explorer. A bright light was pouring out of the basement level of the church. I grabbed our big plastic bin and followed Mom down a wide flight of stone steps, right into that light.
The basement was huge. The right side of it seemed to be for storage. It had neat stacks of wooden chairs and folding tables. The left side had a long cork bulletin board attached to a wall that was, to my surprise, totally blank. I looked around and saw that all the white block walls were blank, too—no crucifixes, no holy icons, no church announcements.
I saw two old refrigerators in the far left corner, so I headed that way. Mr. and Mrs. Weaver, Jenny, and Mikeszabo were arranging rows of wooden chairs, but they stopped when they saw us.
Jenny gave me a shy, waist-high, limited-movement wave, which I found really cute. I thought about her again—with me, in the moonlight.
She and Mikeszabo went back to arranging chairs, but Mrs. Weaver hurried over to help Mom sort out the Food Giant donations. Mr. Weaver and I dragged over two wooden tables. Ten minutes later, those tables held plastic trays of ham-and-cheese and turkey sandwiches; small vats of coleslaw and potato salad; and pint-size containers of regular milk, chocolate milk, and orange juice.
Mrs. Weaver was delighted. “Look at this bounty! This is so generous of you.”
“It was all going into a Dumpster if we didn’t take it,” Mom explained.
The high school kids started to arrive, either solo or in groups. Some had driven themselves, and some had carpooled together. (Only the junior high kids, like me, still depended on their parents for rides.)
Ben Gibbons walked in with his father. I had expected his dad would be a big guy with amazingly strong teeth, but he wasn’t. He looked kind of scrawny, and his teeth were discolored and broken. He had red splotches on his face, too. So of course I thought, Oh no. Is he a user?
Suddenly other people started walking in, too, but they weren’t parents or students. They were not like anybody in our group. They were meth zombies from the streets of Blackwater.
One man asked me through a broken smile, “Is this the AA meeting?”
“Alcoholics Anonymous? No, sir. This is a school counseling group.”
His pockmarked face dropped. “Is it open to the public?”
“No. Not really.”
His arm rose toward the table. “We can’t eat any of that?”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t the leader; no one was. I said, “Why don’t you take a seat. We’ll start the meeting, and we’ll talk about it.”
I watched the man as he sat down. He was, to say the least, underdressed for the weather. He had on a pair of filthy white sneakers with no laces, thin blue jeans that were ripped and stained, and a Blackwater U sweatshirt so worn that the letters were barely visible. It was about thirty degrees outside, and that’s all he had on. Bizarrely, he would be one of the better-dressed zombies in the room.
Dozens of desperate-looking people appeared at the door and walked timidly inside.
Jenny whispered to me, “Where did they all come from?”
“I guess they saw the light and figured it was the AA meeting.”
“We have to let them in.”
“Sure. I think we should give them food, but I want to put it to a vote.”
Jenny said, “Okay, good plan.” Then she squeezed my arm. I loved how that felt.
Arthur was the last of the Haven students to arrive. He stopped inside the door and stared at all the zombies. There must have been forty of them at that point. He spotted me, smiled, and raised his eyebrows.
Every wooden chair was now full. I stepped forward with Jenny. She whispered to me, “What should we do?”
I heard myself say with total confidence, “I am going to speak to them.”
Jenny looked surprised. But then she lifted up her hand, touched my shoulder, and gave me a light push. “Go for it.”
I have to admit, I was terrified. All the moisture was sucked right out of my mouth. I started to stammer, “I’d… I’d like to welcome you here tonight. This… this is a meeting of a student group that was formed in September. Our purpose was to talk about different drug issues. Well, maybe back in September, there were different drug issues. Now there is only one, and that is the meth issue, the meth plague that is destroying our town.”
I looked at the lost, ravaged faces before me. “Those of you who wandered in here tonight are welcome. You are welcome to talk to our group members about meth. Maybe we have learned something about it that will help you. Maybe you can help us to understand some things, too.”
I cast my eyes over toward the food table. “I realize that you came here for something more than talk.” I looked at the first zombie guy I had met. “We don’t have a leader in this group, so… well… the passengers on flight ninety-three took a vote before they acted.”
The zombie guy nodded at me. He said quietly, “They were brave people.”
“Yes. So let’s do what they did. I’d like to ask the group members to vote about the food. If you think we should offer the food to everybody here, raise your hand.”
Every group member raised his or her hand. Some, like Ben and Mikeszabo, raised two hands. It was immediate and unanimous. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Weaver and Mom raise their hands, too.
I put mine up last, joining the sea of hands that remained upraised. We were going to help the meth zombies. We were going to feed them, at least.
As the hands slowly dropped, I said, “Okay. We’ll pass out the sandwiches in a minute. I just want to say a few words first about the meth plague.
“You know… people can live with a drinking problem, and join Alcoholics Anonymous, and maybe get over it. My dad is an example of that, and maybe some of your loved ones are, too. But meth isn’t like that. There is no meeting place for Meth Addicts Anonymous.” I paused to look out. They were all listening to me. “No, actually, there is a place where meth addicts meet. It’s down at Good Samaritan Hospital, on the slabs in the morgue.”
I felt myself channeling the voice of Mrs. Smalls. “We have a gigantic problem here. We need to do something to solve it. If we don’t, nobody else will, and it will destroy our town. We need to fight back. We need to counterattack. And I think it could start right here, in this place. It could start right now.”
Unfortunately, I had no ending to this speech, so I just stopped talking—right in the middle like that.
Everyone continued to stare at me.
I stared back.
Ben Gibbons’s father looked so intense that I thought he might pitch forward off his seat and fall. I finally asked, “Does anyone else want to speak?”
Mikeszabo hopped right up. He addressed the audience from the back row. “I do! I had this idea. I was thinking that we could bring winter clothes next week. But now I’m thinking that next week might be too late. Some people here might freeze to death before next week. So I’d like to come back tomorrow with a bunch of coats and sweaters and blankets. If the church is locked, maybe Mr. Weaver would let me hand them out from his truck.”
Mr. Weaver assured him, “It won’t be locked. I’ll see to that. We can distribute the clothes from here in the basement.”
Mikeszabo unzipped his lined windbreaker and pulled it off. “For now, who needs a coat? I don’t really get cold. Let me give this to somebody.”
None of the zombies moved, so Mike draped his coat over a woman in front of him. It hung down over her frail shoulders.
Arthur pulled off his black hoodie. “I know what you mean, bro. I don’t get cold, either. Never. Not Arthur Stokes. Somebody else can use this.”
Other Haven kids stood up.
Soon a dozen more had pulled off jackets and hoodies and sweatshirts and had pressed them into the hands of the zombies.
I took off my own down coat and placed it in the lap of a man in the front row. His hands clutched it, but otherwise he didn’t move.
Mom was now crying her eyes out. She spoke up. “We’ll bring more food back tomorrow, too. The Food Giant throws food out every day. We should bring it here.”
I spoke directly to the zombies. “So, there will be food and clothing here tomorrow night. Tell anyone who needs those things to come here.” I looked over at Mom. “Okay, so, I guess we’re ready to eat.”
Several of the zombies were unable to deal with a food line, so group members shuttled food and drink to them in their chairs. In one case, Jenny actually fed a shaky, toothless lady. I don’t think any of the Haven kids ate or drank, but soon all the food was gone. The zombies got up shortly after that and walked back out. Those who could talk said thank you.
Ben Gibbons’s dad came up to me. I expected him to sound gruff, but he was soft-spoken, humble even, when he said, “Thank you for doing this.” Then he hurried out so fast that Ben had to run to catch up to him.
We never did form our Catherine Lyle discussion groups. Everyone got involved in breaking the room back down—returning the chairs and tables to their storage spots. Mom, Mrs. Weaver, and Jenny did some cleaning up in a small kitchen off the refrigerator area.
I grabbed the Food Giant bin and lugged it back outside. I popped open the trunk of Mom’s car, slid it in there, and turned around with a start.
Jenny was standing in front of me, very close. She said, “That was a great speech, Tom. Really moving.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re a good speaker. I really wish you were in the play.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Then she just stood there, and so did I. Though neither of us had on a coat, and it was freezing.
I decided to seize that moment. I blurted out, “I was thinking of you on the drive here tonight.”
She cocked her head, still dangerously close. “Oh yeah?”
“I had a vision, I guess you’d call it, of a great thing that I wanted to do.”
“The speech?”
“No. The speech just kind of happened. This was something private. Personal.” I looked up at the moon. “I saw myself with a beautiful girl, and that girl was you.”
She blinked once. I could see her trying to process my words. She looked surprised, but not totally so. And, more importantly, she did not move away. She did not slap my face; she did not knee me in the groin.
If anything, she tilted her face slightly upward.
So I did it. I kissed Jenny Weaver, and I kept kissing her for a long time, in that cold parking lot under the full moon.
And it was beautiful.
Coach Malloy began class today by addressing his growing problem, the Haven Family Preserves scandal. He said, “Okay. I talked to Reg about your complaints. He explained some things to me, and I think those things fit in pretty good with our social studies curriculum.”
He consulted an index card. “One thing is… the small farms we used to have in Pennsylvania just don’t exist anymore. They’ve been taken over by big agribusinesses that kick the small farmers out and dump pesticides in the water and exhaust the soil. It used to be, you would buy your strawberries right here in town, on the side of the road, from the local farmers. I can remember those days.
“Now you got to buy your strawberries at the Food Giant or Kroger, and those strawberries probably come all the way from Mexico.
“Well, I don’t need to tell you, they don’t have our standards of cleanliness down in Mexico, so the strawberries Reg bought probably had”—he checked his index card again—“E. coli or some other bacteria on them that would not come off during the normal rinsing process. Reg said not to worry, though. He has a special double-rinsing process for next year that will take care of all these Mexican bacterias and make Haven Family Preserves an even better holiday gift choice.”
The coach looked around hopefully.
I looked around, too. If Coach saw what I saw, he realized that it was all over. Haven Family Preserves would not be having a next year.
A kid named Joey Sanchez raised his hand. “My aunt lives in Mexico City. She sends us food all the time, and we don’t get sick eating it.” He pointed to a mason jar on the desk. “Not like that stuff.”
Coach squirmed. “Well, I’m just telling you what Reg told me. And I’m trying to tie it in to the social studies curriculum for Haven County. I can’t speak for everybody’s aunt that ever sent anybody anything. I can only speak for myself.”
After that, Coach retreated to his chair. We read a chapter about the interstate highway system and answered questions about it for the rest of the period.
As Arthur and I approached Mr. Proctor’s room, we could see Jenny ahead. She was practically hopping up and down, just bursting to tell us something. When we got within whispering distance, she began, “Are you guys ready for today’s news?”
I whispered back, “Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Dr. Lyle came in the office to withdraw Wendy.”
That got Arthur’s attention. “What? The Grape’s leaving?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“She’s done with classes as of now.”
“Is she still in the play?”
“She is. She asked if she could be, and Mrs. Cantwell said yes.”
Arthur looked relieved to hear it.
Jenny continued: “But before Dr. Lyle left, he asked to speak to Officer O’Dell.”
Arthur asked, “Who’s that again?”
“The junior high resource officer. The real big guy?”
“Right.”
“I drifted over by the door to listen, and I couldn’t believe it! Dr. Lyle totally ratted out Mr. Proctor. He said Mr. Proctor was at a Halloween party at the college, with Haven High students, and he was doing drugs.”
I said, “Wait a minute. We were at that Halloween party.”
Jenny looked shocked. “What?”
I explained, “Wendy invited us.” Jenny’s face fell, so I added, “It was a really awful party.”
Arthur agreed. “The worst.”
“I saw Mr. Proctor for one second, at the most. He wouldn’t even talk to me. He sure wasn’t doing drugs with me.” I turned to Arthur. “Or with anyone else. Not that I saw.”
Arthur looked pained. “Sorry, cuz. That’s not what I saw.”
“What?”
“I saw him smoking with some frat boys, and it wasn’t Marlboros.”
“No! Where?”
“Across the street. On a frat house porch.” He looked at me strangely. Sympathetically? “I know you look up to him, cuz. But in the end, I think you understand he’s one of them.”
I didn’t reply. We all just stared at each other until Arthur shouted, “Still! Why would ‘the doctor’ rat him out?”
I suggested, “Just to be a jerk?”
Arthur shook his head knowingly. “No. He’s too smart, too creepy smart. Something else is going down.” Then he figured it out. He smacked his head. “Man! He made a deal!”
Jenny said, “What?”
“The doctor. He made a deal with the cops. He gave up Mr. Proctor, and they gave him a lesser charge, or they dropped his charge.”
“Why? Why would the cops do that?”
Arthur thought for a moment. “Because the cops don’t like to waste their time. They know Dr. Lyle’s creepy smart. If they come down too hard on him, he’ll just skip town. Hell, he doesn’t want to be here anyway. But Mr. Proctor’s stuck. He’s got his job; he’s got his grad school thing.”
My head was reeling. Mr. Proctor? I felt so confused. Then I looked through the door, and I got even more confused.
Mr. Proctor was in there!
He was standing in front of the whiteboard, just staring at it. He was holding a black marker in his right hand, with the cap off, but his hand was not moving. No part of him was moving.
It was an awkward situation, to say the least. We all filed into the room silently and took our seats. We got ready to do vocabulary, as usual. But there was no vocabulary to do.
Ben finally broke a long silence. “What’s wrong, Mr. Proctor? Can’t you think of a sentence today?”
No reply. No movement.
Ben suggested, “How about if we help you?” Mr. Proctor’s head rose up slowly. That led Ben to ask, “What’s today’s word?”
Mr. Proctor did not turn around, but he did say, loud enough for all of us to hear, “Apologize.”
Ben said enthusiastically, “Apologize! That’s an easy one. Okay. How about ‘Guys apologize’?”
Mr. Proctor’s right arm moved forward. He wrote, in his large, cursive hand, Guys apologize.
Ben looked over at Jenny and me. He shrugged. “That’s all I can think of.”
But Mr. Proctor could think of more. He kept writing, adding for their lies. Then he stepped back.
Ben read the sentence aloud. “‘Guys apologize for their lies.’ Okay. Should we write that?”
Mr. Proctor tossed the marker into his trash can. He pressed a button, and the vertical arm of the whiteboard lit up and started to crawl across the face, copying what was written there. When it reached the end, he pressed another button, and a page popped out from the bottom right side.
Mr. Proctor tore it off, folded it, and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Then he told us quietly, “No. You don’t need to copy this. You will have a substitute today. She will be working in the regular vocabulary book with you.”
He picked up the vocab book and set it on the corner of the desk. Then he muttered, “I was trying to do some things outside of the county curriculum.…”
His voice trailed off. When he spoke again, it was more businesslike. “I would like to get in one final pitch for The Roses of Eyam. It will take place at the school auditorium on Sunday evening, December thirtieth, at seven p.m. Please come out and support your classmates. They have worked very hard.”
He glanced nervously toward the door. “It is a good play. It has some things to say to people who are living through an annus horribilis, a year of horrors, a plague year.”
He held his arms out wide. “One of those things is this: Your little town is the center of the whole world. What you do here affects the whole world.” He looked at me. “So don’t put this place down. Don’t put yourselves down.”
He looked at everybody. “This year will pass, you know. Yin and yang. A good year will follow this one. Just hang in there.”
The large figure of Officer O’Dell appeared in the doorway, signaling for Mr. Proctor to step outside. Mr. Proctor took one more moment to stretch his neck and straighten his shoulders. Then he walked out of the room.
He was gone. Just like that. We would never see him again.
The doorframe remained empty for a few seconds, but then an old woman entered.
And I knew her.
It was Mrs. Kerpinski, my fourth-grade teacher. She was our sub. She briskly took charge, as always, assigning a page from the vocabulary book. I doubt if anyone actually did it, but they opened their books and pretended to work. No one went to sleep in Mrs. Kerpinski’s class.
I started writing, of course, and she soon walked over to me. “Aren’t you Thomas Coleman?”
“Yes.”
“You have the same face.” I didn’t like hearing that, but then she added, “And you still do all your work.”
This was true, and I realized that I was proud of it. Geeky as it was, I lifted up my vocabulary book and showed her my PSAT prep book hidden beneath it.
“Oh! Are you making plans for college so soon?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Penn State?”
“No. Well, I don’t know. I had been thinking about Florida.”
“Florida?” She said it like it was some unsavory place, like Las Vegas. Mrs. Kerpinski arched an eyebrow. “Surely there is no reason to go all the way down there, not with all the fine universities around here. You could go a little ways away—to Pittsburgh, or to Philadelphia. That way, you could enjoy some independence. That’s a good thing.”
I gulped. “Yes. Well, I haven’t really made up my mind yet.”
She said, “No. You shouldn’t. Not yet. You have plenty of time.”
My last class of the day is chemistry. It’s taught by Miss Mancino, who went to Haven High just five years ago. She’s short and baby-faced and looks like she’s still a student. I don’t think she ever intended to be a teacher; she seems to have no aptitude for it at all. She just leads us through the textbook, chapter by chapter.
Anyway, I am writing about her class because Miss Mancino did not show up today. Neither did her sub. Neither did an administrator to cover.
We just sat there, unsupervised, doing mostly nothing. A few kids went to sleep. I reviewed some PSAT math problems, but then even I had had enough. After a few minutes of staring at my watch, I decided to leave.
What the hell, right?
I got up and walked out. I wandered down the hall, down another hall, past the office, and out the front door. Normally, an administrator, or a school secretary, or Officer O’Dell would have stopped me. But this wasn’t “normally.” Not anymore. Not in a plague year.
I stood outside next to the Battlin’ Coal Miner and gazed out at the mountains. They looked beautiful, as always.
A few cars were already idling in the riders’ area. I recognized one of them and started toward it. It was Arthur’s midnight-blue Geo Metro.
As I got closer, I could see that Arthur was not at the wheel. In fact, no one was. I peered into the back and saw baby Cody asleep in his car seat. Then I saw Jimmy Giles asleep up front, on the passenger side, with his head against the window. (I later learned that Aunt Robin was the driver. She was in the office, applying for a job, although there was no one to apply to.)
I decided not to disturb Jimmy. I was turning to go, when his eyes popped open. He cranked down the window and said in a “Don’t wake the baby” voice, “Hey, Tom. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
I asked, “Are you okay now, Jimmy?” and immediately regretted it. That was none of my business. But Jimmy acknowledged the problem. “Yeah. I’m okay. I had a bad day or two, but I’m clean now.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.”
“Look, I’m real sorry you didn’t get paid.”
“Oh, forget that. I’m real sorry, too, about what happened.”
He raised his shoulders up and down.
I went on: “I’m still glad I went, though. I liked it until, you know, that stuff at the end.”
“I guess you heard we lost the big truck. No more moving business.”
“No more Christmas-tree business, either?”
Jimmy smiled sadly. “Nah, I think we were out of that business anyway. No way they’re giving us credit three years in a row, no matter how Christian they are. No. I’m back with WorkForce now. One day at a time.”
Arthur came walking up. He got into the driver’s seat and called through the window to me, “Can you believe these people are driving my car?”
Jimmy muttered, “It’s all we got left.”
We hung out for a minute, listening to Cody’s heavy breathing in the back. Finally, Arthur pointed toward the school and asked me, “Did you know that Warren played football here?”
“I saw that on his jacket.”
Arthur nodded. “Yeah. He was a star. He was the quarterback.”
“Really?” I asked. “What about you, Jimmy?”
“What?”
“Did you play?”
“Nah. I was a stoner back then, too.”
I asked, “What’s Warren doing now?” Both Arthur and Jimmy clammed up. “I mean for work.”
Jimmy mumbled, “He’s got a plan. Warren always has a plan. He’s buying materials now.”
Arthur snapped, “Jimmy!”
Jimmy looked puzzled. “What? We can talk in front of Tom.”
“No, we can’t. This is none of Tom’s business.”
My heart was suddenly up near my throat. “What kind of materials are you talking about?”
Arthur pounded the steering wheel. “Dammit, Jimmy! You see? You can’t talk in front of Tom.”
Jimmy muttered, “Forget what I said, Tom. He’s got a plan to pay off some bills. That’s all I know.”
I stood there for a full minute, letting Arthur simmer down. I remembered my promise to Warren. Since Arthur was already angry, I figured it was as good a time as any to ask, “What about you, Arthur? Do you have a plan?”
Arthur didn’t move for several seconds. Then he spit out the window. He replied coldly, “You never mind about me. You go study your college prep book. Get ready to go to Florida, or wherever the hell you think you’re going.”
“I don’t know where I’m going. I know I’m going to college, but I don’t know where.”
“Well, I know I am not, so I guess that’s the plan.” Arthur turned his face away. I knew our conversation was over.
Jimmy, though, looked up at me. He said quietly, like I should have known this already, “Arthur’s signing up with the marines.”
I said, “Okay. Yeah. That’s a solid plan. I’ll see you guys later,” and headed back over to the Battlin’ Coal Miner.
I stood there for fifteen minutes, waiting for everyone else to come out. I tried looking at the mountains again, but they didn’t interest me. I felt a cold wind whipping up all around, and I watched a dark cloud cover the sun.
I found myself thinking about Warren, and what his plan was, and why he might need three tanks of propane.
When I started down the stairs this morning, I saw Lilly leaning out of the front door. Apparently, someone was on the other side, because I heard her say, “Sure I know you. You’re in the counseling group.”
A boy’s voice said, “Right.”
I came up behind Lilly and looked out. It was Mikeszabo. When he saw me he explained, probably for the second time, “I’m collecting clothes and blankets for the homeless.”
Lilly turned and squeezed past me. I heard her run back up the stairs.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “No. No time. I’m only halfway through your block.” He looked to his left, away from the sun. “I try to hit one block every morning—before school, or church, or whatever.”
I saw a Hefty trash bag behind him. It was the thirty-gallon drawstring size, and it was almost tipping over. I asked, “Did you collect a lot today?”
Mikeszabo looked surprised. “Yeah. I collect a lot every day.” He leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “Hey. Did you hear about Mike Murphy?”
“No. What?”
He lowered it even more. “It’s bad, man. He was found dead yesterday.”
“No! No way!”
“Yeah. The Weavers used to stop over there sometimes, you know, to see if anybody needed help. Well, Mr. Weaver couldn’t get nobody to answer the door yesterday, so he called the cops. They found the whole family laid out on the floor—all three of them.”
I was having a hard time processing this. I shook my head and tried to paraphrase, “Mikemurphy, and his dad, and his mom are all dead?”
“Yup.”
“Dead of what?”
His surprised look returned. “Of smoking meth! I guess that’s all they’ve been doin’ at their house for a long time.”
“Man! That’s horrible.”
“I know. And it really makes you think. My dad and mom are in jail, but at least they’re alive. Maybe they were the lucky ones. They got busted in time.”
“Poor Mikemurphy.”
Mikeszabo looked away again, down the street. He whispered, “Yeah. Poor Mike Murphy. Poor Dad and Mom. Poor everybody.”
Lilly came back down behind me. She had taken the wool blanket off of her bed. Mikeszabo stepped back and opened the Hefty bag for her. Lilly folded the blanket into squares in midair. Then she leaned out and stuffed it into the bag.
Mikeszabo said, “Thank you,” then added, “I’ll see you guys at the church.”
I asked, “Aren’t you going to school?”
“Nah. There’s no reason to.” He set off for next door, hoisting the black bag over his shoulder like Santa Claus.
Mikeszabo was right about school. This was the Friday before Christmas break. That meant that all the tests at school had been taken; all the grades had been recorded. There was no reason in the world to be at Haven Junior/Senior High. It was obvious the moment Mom dropped us off. No one but the Battlin’ Coal Miner was standing outside.
Lilly threw up her hands. “This is ridiculous! There is nobody here. I could be sleeping.”
Mom answered automatically, “It’s a school day. That means you go to school.”
“But there’s nobody here!”
“Of course people are here.”
“Where? Do you see anybody?”
“They are all inside.”
I thought, Mikemurphy sure isn’t here.
Lilly held up an angry index finger. “I will go to one class. One. If nobody is there, I am calling you, and you are coming back to pick me up.”
Mom, to my surprise, conceded. “All right. But you’ll see—people are here. It’s a normal school day.”
I thought, A normal day? Not in a plague year. As it turned out, though, Mom was partially right. There were teachers and students inside, just not very many.
I entered my first-period class, sat down next to Ben Gibbons, and looked around. Mikeszabo (I guess I can just call him Mike now) was not there, of course. He was collecting clothes for the needy. Jenny was not there, either. (I would later learn that the Weavers were making Christmas baskets for the needy. I thought, Damn! I could be doing that, too.)
Coach Malloy was there, in body at least. He was seated behind his desk, with his nose stuck in a Sports Illustrated magazine. (Maybe he should have been reading Strawberry Preserves magazine.) When the bell rang, he announced, “It’s a free period. You can all do homework.”
Ben raised his hand. “It’s the last day of the semester, Coach. Nobody has any homework.”
The coach lowered the magazine and looked at him. He growled, “Okay, so it’s just a free period, then.”
The TV blipped to life. Mrs. Cantwell addressed us as if it were a regular day. She made a very solid pitch for Mike’s clothing project. “The Student Council is collecting warm clothes for the homeless and the needy. That is becoming a big problem here in our community.
“I know that, historically, when the town of Blackwater has faced a problem, the people have come together and solved it. I remember my grandmother telling me about the Great Depression, back in the 1930s. People with only two blankets to their name gave one to people with no blanket at all. That’s how we do things here. We all pull together, and we all get by, so please give generously.”
Mrs. Cantwell would normally have been followed by Wendy Lyle reading the news, but there was no Wendy Lyle because her father had withdrawn her, and there was no news because it was the last day of the semester.
The Pledge of Allegiance came on, so the coach rose out of his seat. We did, too. We remained standing for the national anthem. Then we all sat down, and most of the kids went to sleep.
Ben and I did not, though. We stared at each other for a moment. I finally said, “How’s the play going?”
“Good.” He added, “That Chris guy sucks, though.”
“Does he?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have the time, you know? Between the play and work.”
Ben looked surprised. “Chris doesn’t work.”
“Yes, he does. At the bowling alley.”
“Not anymore. He got fired.”
It was my turn to be surprised. “Why?”
“For stealing the shoe money! People would pay two bucks for shoe rental, and he’d put it in his pocket.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told us about it. It’s like he didn’t care who knew it.”
“Huh. Well, how’s Wendy Lyle? She’s good, right?”
Ben’s eyes lit up. “She’s great. She’s a great actress.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Then Ben lowered his voice. “I like what we’re doing with the counseling group. You know? At the new place.”
“The church basement?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Me, too. It’s better away from school.”
“Definitely. That way, parents can come. And siblings. And anybody who is, you know, messed up. I’m trying to get my mom to come. And my sister.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Does she go to Haven?”
“No. She’s older. She went to high school in Pittsburgh. Then she joined the army. Then she got kicked out.”
“Whoa. For what?”
Ben shrugged and said, “I don’t know,” in such a way that I believed him.
“What’s she doing now?”
“She’s at home.” He added, “My dad was in the army. He joined up when he was eighteen, and he retired when he was thirty-six.”
“That’s a sweet deal.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“What’s he doing now?”
Ben looked puzzled. “I just told you. He’s retired.”
“Oh. Okay. How about your mom?”
“She’s at home. They’re all at home.”
“Really? So, you’re the only one who gets up and goes out in the morning?”
He thought for a moment. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
I remembered what Wendy had told me, that Ben was a “designated patient.” Then I remembered Catherine Lyle’s ethical rules. But I decided to ask him anyway. “Do any of them have problems?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you have that pica disorder, right?”
“Right. I eat—”
“Yeah, yeah. How do you know about that?”
“Uh, I got diagnosed at school, back in Pittsburgh, by a social worker.”
“Are you the only one in your family with a disorder?”
Ben looked offended. “Yeah. Like I said, I got diagnosed. Nobody else in my family got diagnosed.”
“Okay. Sorry. Well, I hope they do come to the meetings.”
Ben eyed me suspiciously. Had I crossed a line? If so, I decided to keep going. I told him, “My mom will be coming. She’s hoping to get some help from the group.”
“Help for what?”
“She had a problem with prescription pills.”
His eyes widened. “Really? Your mom?”
“Yeah. I hope my dad will come, too. He used to go to AA meetings all the time. Do you know what those are?”
“Sure.”
“And my sister had a problem with pot last summer. I hope she’ll keep coming, too.”
Ben leaned back and exhaled. “Wow, Tom. I had no idea.”
“Nobody does. You heard Jenny talk about her father’s problem. And hell, Mike’s parents are both in jail.”
“Right.”
“Everybody acts like everything is okay at home, Ben. But that’s not true. You know?”
Ben looked really grateful. He answered huskily, “Yeah.”
Mrs. Cantwell appeared in the doorway. She spotted the coach behind Sports Illustrated and snapped, “Coach Malloy!”
He dropped the magazine and jumped to his feet.
Mrs. Cantwell directed a withering stare at him. I noticed a group of kids clustered behind her in the hall. She said, “We have numerous teachers calling in sick today. I will be placing some students in your classroom for supervision.” She added, “I fully expect you to supervise them.”
Coach Malloy gulped and nodded. Mrs. Cantwell stepped aside, and ten kids shuffled into the classroom. They all took seats, put their heads down, and slept.
I continued to chat with Ben for the rest of first period. He wasn’t as strange as I had thought. I believe he is being used as a designated patient. (Of course, that’s just my uneducated opinion. I am not a mental-health professional. Or a famous professor. In a field.)
The bell finally rang. I don’t know where those extra kids went for second period. I don’t know where Ben went, either. Home, most likely. I entered Mr. Proctor’s room by myself and stopped in my tracks. Bizarrely, a sub was sitting at his desk, a sub who I knew.
Aunt Robin!
How weird was that? She looked incredibly out of place. She had on a pair of black pants and a very tight white blouse, like something she might wear for karaoke night at the Drunken Monkey. She had teased her hair up for the occasion.
She certainly looked relieved to see me. “Tom! Are you in this class?”
“Yes.”
“What class is it?”
I said, “English. Language arts.” Then I asked her the obvious question: “Aunt Robin, what are you doing here?”
Her hands shot upward, like she was signaling a touchdown. “Damned if I know! I got a call from some lady this morning at six a.m. Woke me up. And she asked me to come in here.”
“Some lady?”
“The principal lady.”
“Mrs. Cantwell?”
“Yeah. That’s her.” She explained, “I came in here a couple of days ago to apply for a job—secretary, cafeteria worker, anything, really. That’s how she got my number. She called me this morning and asked if I would come in as a parent volunteer.
“I asked her, ‘Do I get paid?’ She said, ‘No, I can’t pay you. But if a paying job opens up, I’ll remember that you did me this favor.’ So here I am.”
“Wow.”
“Arthur don’t even know I’m here. He’s sleeping in today.”
“Yeah. Good plan.”
She pointed to the sleeping kids in the back. “It’s just like babysitting. I don’t mind.”
I took a seat in front of her. A few seconds later, Lilly appeared at the door. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered loudly, “Tom! I called Mom. She’s on her way here.”
Lilly had not looked at the sub. But even if she had, I don’t think she would have recognized her. The context was just too wacky. I pointed to the desk and whispered back, “Look! It’s Aunt Robin! She’s the sub!”
Lilly’s head, followed by the rest of her body, bent backward in disbelief. She managed a friendly smile and a wave. Aunt Robin motioned for her to come in, which she did.
Aunt Robin followed our lead and continued the loud whispering. “Congratulations, Lilly! I hear you got engaged.”
Lilly instinctively held up her left ring finger. “Yes!”
“That’s great, honey! I hear he’s a nice guy, too.”
Lilly actually blushed. “Yeah.” She held the ring out for Aunt Robin to ooh and aah over.
“Beautiful. That’s real nice. I got married twice, but I never got a diamond ring.”
“No?”
“I got wedding rings, two of them, but I never got an engagement ring.”
Lilly told her sincerely, “I hope you will come to our wedding. We’ll send you an invitation.”
Aunt Robin seemed surprised, and touched. “Oh, thank you, honey. That’d be an honor. Did you set a date?”
“Not yet.”
“June, maybe? I was a June bride. The first time, anyway.”
“Is that when you married Uncle Robby?”
“Yeah.” She thought for a moment. Then she laughed, a little embarrassed, “I can’t remember the exact date now. June the third? The fourth? It was a Saturday, the Saturday after Robby graduated from here.”
Lilly observed, as if for the first time, “You were Robin and Robby! That’s so cute.”
“Yeah. That’s what everybody said.”
“Did you guys get married in a church?”
“Nah. The county courthouse. No muss, no fuss. Then we went back to Robby’s mom’s house. That’s where we were livin’ anyway.” She recalled, “Your mom and dad came over! Yeah. Your dad brought a case of Rolling Rock with a white bow around it. That became the big joke of the wedding—that my colors were green and white, like on the Rolling Rock beer bottle.”
Lilly laughed. Then she stole a look at her watch. “I’m sorry, Aunt Robin, but I’m pretty sure my mom’s parked outside.”
Aunt Robin pointed at the door. “You go! Both of you.”
As we started out, Lilly assured her, “I’ll be sending you that invitation.”
“All right. And I’ll start saving up beer bottles for you.”
We laughed. But I did whisper to Lilly, “Does she know you’re too young to drink?”
“She’s real nice. Don’t put her down.”
“I’m not.”
“And do not tell Mom that she was here.”
“Okay.”
So the ride home featured no talk about Aunt Robin, or her surprise career as a substitute teacher, or her beer-bottle wedding colors, or anything else, for that matter.
As it turned out, Mom was saving all of her talking for lunch. Over bowls of Campbell’s tomato soup (the same company that owns Pepperidge Farm, V8, and Swanson) and grilled cheese sandwiches, Mom opened with a blockbuster announcement: “I was talking to your father. I am going to start working at the Food Giant on Sunday, on the cash register.”
Lilly practically spit out her grilled cheese. “Why? I thought you had to be here for us, like a traditional housewife, so you could keep the household together, or whatever.”
“Well, you’re both older now. And you’re both working at the store now. The best thing I can do is help your father hold on to it.”
I was alarmed. “Hold on to it? Is he going to lose the store?”
“He could. The corporation could decide to close it. The corporation only cares about profits, Tom. Your father can’t show profits if people aren’t buying.”
Lilly seemed stunned. “Close the Food Giant?”
“Quite a thought, isn’t it? What would people do? Where would they go for food?”
“Did Dad tell you this?” I asked.
“Yes. He said that if he was paying all his employees, the store would already be in the red, and the corporation would close it.”
Mom pointed to us in turn. “He has you, Tom, and you, Lilly, and now he’ll have me, all working for nothing. And John is working eighty hours a week, but he’s only getting paid for forty. That’s how your father is keeping the store open—with people working for nothing.”
Lunch ended on that note, with fearful glances all around.
John was outside chasing down shopping carts when Mom dropped us off. He blew a kiss at Lilly as she hurried inside to get out of the cold. He waved me over, saying, “Bobby went home for a few hours. He’s coming back later to clean the storeroom. You, Bobby, and your dad.”
“Sounds like another late night.”
“Yeah.” John scanned the parking lot nervously. He added, “Hey, you gotta keep a close eye on these carts, bro. People are stealing them. It’s unreal.”
“Yeah. I know.”
When I saw Dad inside, he told me what I already knew. “We’ll be cleaning out the storeroom tonight. You, me, and Bobby.”
“John told me.”
He shook his head. “Reg has been putting off cleaning that place since before Thanksgiving. And he called in sick today, probably because he knows we’re doing it tonight. Still, it can’t wait any longer.”
The storeroom had been in complete disarray for a month. The hole the robbers made in the roof hadn’t been properly repaired. The Food Giant Corporation had to approve all payments, and Dad had used up his repair budget for the year. He could not even submit a request until 2002. In the meantime, Dad had climbed up on the roof with a piece of plywood, a few trash bags, and a roll of duct tape. So far, the repair job had held.
After completing the closing checklist, Dad and I stacked up the day’s pallets and waited for Bobby. Dad seemed to be struggling with something. He finally said, “Mitchell came into the office today. To talk.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Dad’s face turned pale. “He told me that Del is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean… dead?”
Dad said softly, “No. She’s not dead.”
“But she’s gone?”
Dad nodded, and I knew what he meant. She was a zombie now. He added, “Mitchell won’t say anything else about her. He seems to be okay, though. He’s focusing on work.”
“That’s good. We need him.”
“We sure do. And I just talked to Walter. He’s coming back on Monday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m putting him in the bakery, on the early shift. Gert can use the help. She’s having some trouble with her arthritis. She’s been calling in sick.” (I wondered if it was really arthritis. I’m suspicious of everybody nowadays.)
Dad continued: “Walter knows he can’t go anywhere near customer service, or anywhere near the pseudoephedrine, and I think he’ll honor that.”
He set the last pallet against the wall and looked at me. “This store is Walter’s life. It’s Mitchell’s life, too. And Gert’s. Where else are they going to go? We have to keep this store open.”
Bobby appeared in the doorway. He was far enough away for Dad to whisper, “This store is Bobby’s life, too. He’s not”—Dad stopped and searched for the word—“inferior here. He’s as good as anybody else.”
I agreed. “He’s better than some.” I amended that to, “He’s better than most.”
Bobby walked over to us, shaking out his arms, getting ready for some hard labor. Dad gave us our assignments, and we set to work. With three people doing it, and with no interruptions, the cleanup went very smoothly. The storeroom was back in shape (except for the hole in the roof) in a little over an hour.
Bobby announced, “My mom’s coming at eleven!” He asked me, “What time is it?”
“Ten after ten.”
“I gotta call her, then. She said to call if we were going to be early. Or late.”
Bobby and I walked up front and stood by the carts. He punched in his home number, then practically shouted into the phone, “Mom! We’re done early! Come get me.”
He listened for a moment, then replied, “I’m at the front window, with Tom. That’s where I’ll be. That’s where I am.” He turned the phone off.
I said, “She’s coming now?”
“Yeah. She’s coming.” Bobby looked outside and frowned. He pointed through the glass. “Hey! That wasn’t there before. I came in that way, and it wasn’t there.”
I looked out into the parking lot. A lone cart was sitting in a space about twenty yards from the entrance. Bobby said, “Somebody must’ve stole that. Then they felt bad and brought it back.”
Dad stuck his head out of the office. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a cart outside,” I explained.
He nodded. “You better get it, Tom. We’re losing too many.”
“Yeah. All right.”
He pointed to the entrance. “The keys are in the door. Be careful.” Then he waved at Bobby. “Come here, Bobby, I need you to sign your pay card.”
“Okay,” Bobby replied, and walked into the office while I headed toward the entrance. I turned the key in the inside lock, opened the door, and stepped outside.
But I guess I wasn’t being careful. Or careful enough.
My eyes, and my attention, were on the cart in the distance. I didn’t hear the low thrumming of the engine, or the running feet, until it was too late.
I turned toward the sounds.
A black tow truck with a silver hook was idling just past the propane tanks. Two men in black ski masks were running toward me. The one on the left had a hunting rifle. The one on the right reached me first and grabbed my arm.
Then I felt the cold steel of the rifle jab into my neck. I braced for the sound of a shot, and the end of my life, but that didn’t happen. Instead, they quick-marched me back into the store, turned me, and headed right toward the office.
Bobby was standing in front of the bakery counter. As soon as he saw us, he started yelling, “No! We’re closed! You can’t come in here!”
The rifle bore pulled out of my neck. The robber, still walking, aimed it at Bobby. Suddenly I heard a painful blast in my ear.
Bobby spun around 180 degrees and fell to the ground.
Dad came running out of the office, but he froze when he saw us. The rifleman aimed at him but did not shoot. Instead, he pushed me toward Dad, hard, causing us both to fall backward. Dad and I landed together on the floor. My head was on his chest. I could feel his heart pounding.
The rifleman stood over us, sweating and twitching, breathing like a crazed bear. He jammed the rifle into my neck again, under my ear, and held it there.
The other robber ran into the office. We could hear him pulling out drawers and ransacking the place. Looking for money? Drugs? Both? This went on for at least five minutes, five unbearably long minutes. I could hear Dad’s voice in my ear, whispering, “Shhh.”
My face was turned toward the back of the store. Just by focusing my eyes, I could see Bobby. He was lying on the floor, ten feet away. A round red spot was visible on the right side of his back. He had been shot at close range. Was he dead?
No! I could see his hand moving. It was punching buttons on his phone. I thought, No, Bobby, please. Do not make a sound.
The robber in the office continued to break things and crash around. The rifleman grunted at him impatiently, angrily, desperately. Finally, the robber emerged with a trash bag bulging with small boxes. I knew what they were by their size and shape—boxes of cold capsules.
The rifleman pulled the bore away from my neck. He pivoted and, without looking at us again, took off running for the door. The robber with the bag followed him.
I took a few seconds to get my breathing under control—in and out, in and out.
Dad eased me off of him slowly, whispering, “Stay here, Tom.” He army-crawled over to Bobby; then he called back to me, “He’s alive.”
I whispered back, “I know. I saw him dialing his phone.”
Suddenly a blinding flash of light filled the entranceway. I rose up as high as I dared and looked. I could see a police car. It was facing the store dead-on, just ten yards out, with its search beam aimed at the entrance. As my eyes adjusted, I could see two officers crouched behind the opened car doors. Each was aiming a pistol at a robber.
The officer on my right screamed, “Drop it! Both of you! Drop what you are carrying!”
The robber with the black bag dropped it and raised his hands up in surrender.
The other one, though, made another decision, a fatal one. He let loose a rifle blast that shattered the police car’s searchlight. Then he took off running for the tow truck.
Both officers leveled their weapons, sighted, and opened fire at him. Their first shots missed the robber, but they hit the propane cage. I could hear their bullets strike the outside wall of the store. Then I heard two loud booms, one right after the other, as two tanks of propane exploded and started to burn.
The officers sighted again, aiming lower. This time, they found their mark. Bullets ripped into the body of the rifleman. He fell to the ground, immobile, just beneath that silver hook.
The officer on my right raised his pistol and stood. He approached the remaining robber, shouting, “Get on your knees! Keep your hands where I can see them!”
The robber obeyed.
The other officer stood and approached his man, too, with his pistol still trained on him, but that officer didn’t say anything.
There was nothing to say. Because the other robber was dead. The officer stared down at the body for a long moment. As he did, the outside wall suddenly shook with another loud boom, and then another, and then a whole series of explosions. The propane tanks, at least fifty of them, burst open and flamed upward into the sky.
I dared to stand all the way up. To my left, I saw Dad kneeling next to Bobby, putting pressure on his bullet wound. To my right, I saw a Ford Explorer screech to a halt near the entrance. Mrs. Smalls, dressed in her white uniform, jumped out of the car and ran in. She looked at me and shouted, “Bobby! Where’s Bobby?”
I pointed at Dad. “Over there!”
“Is he alive?”
Dad himself answered, “Yes! Yes, he is.” As Mrs. Smalls hurried past me, Dad added, “He’s the one who called nine one one.”
Mrs. Smalls bent over Bobby and set to work checking his vital signs.
I turned back to watch as three more police cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck raced into the parking lot.
The propane tanks were still burning wildly, scorching the outside wall of the store, casting an unholy light on it all—on the police, on the paramedics, and on the two robbers—the one still kneeling near the entranceway, and the one lying dead near the truck.
No one told me to stay where I was, so I walked to the door and stepped outside. I saw two paramedics reach the rifleman’s body, check for a pulse, and find none. I was just a few feet away when one of them grabbed the ski mask and pulled it back, revealing his face.
I knew him.
I think I knew him from the very beginning—when he was sweating and grunting and pushing me around.
It was Rick Dorfman.
He had stuck a rifle bore in my neck. He had shot Bobby for no reason. Now he was dead.
I turned back to the second robber. The police officer had just pulled his ski mask up and off. And I knew him, too. There, kneeling on the asphalt, blinking in the firelight, with a half-amused expression on his face, was Reg the Veg.
Reg Malloy. And I was surprised. Despite everything, I was surprised.
I stood there for a long time, looking between Dorfman and Reg, as the awful, bloody scene ran its course. I watched Bobby and his mom leave in the first ambulance. Then I watched the body of Rick Dorfman leave in the second. Then Reg Malloy left in the back of a police car. He was staring straight ahead.
The firefighters were still training their hoses on the propane cage when Dad walked out. He and I spent about an hour answering questions for the police.
Finally, after all the fires were extinguished and all the police cars had left, Dad and I were free to go home. Before we did, though, Dad motioned to me to wait. He muttered, “Give me one minute, Tom.” He walked back inside and soon emerged with a small sheet of butcher paper. He had made a sign, by hand, and now he taped it to the front door. It said CLOSED—DECEMBER 22 AND 23.
On our weary trek out to the van, all he said was, “I need a weekend off. We all do. Believe me, life will go on.”
Life went on.
I thought Mom would be freaked out by the news of what had happened, but she was not. Neither was Lilly. Even though Dad and I had nearly been killed, and Rick Dorfman had been killed, and Bobby had been wounded. I think we’re all just numb to disaster now, in all its forms, in the dark days of a plague year.
The store reopened on Christmas Eve. Things looked pretty normal except for the ugly black burns behind the propane cage. Some employees were angry because they had arrived on Saturday, read the sign, and then had to go home. But they got over that fast when they heard the facts about Bobby, and the break-in, and Reg, and the dead robber. Some customers were angry, too. I guess they had to go across town to Kroger, or to the 7-Eleven. Too bad for them.
Our family had taken a weekend off for the first time in recent memory. Here’s what we did:
On Saturday morning, Dad and I drove out to Good Samaritan Hospital. We met John in the lobby. The first thing he said to Dad was, “We’re really closed all weekend? Corporate gave us permission to close?”
“They did,” Dad assured him.
“On the weekend before Christmas? The whole weekend?”
“Yes.” Dad surprised me by explaining further, though I am not sure what he said was true. “We had no choice. Our store is a crime scene now. The police will let us know when we can reopen.”
That sounded good, and John bought it completely. I guess Dad’s bosses at corporate had, too.
We took an elevator up to the fifth floor and walked around until we found Bobby’s room. His mother was the only other person in there. She was sitting in a chair, doing a crossword puzzle.
Bobby was propped up in bed, staring at a high-mounted TV set. Bobby’s right shoulder was heavily bandaged and bulged out from under his blue gown. When Mrs. Smalls saw us, she closed her book, stood up, and turned off the TV, using a button on the side of the bed. She said, “Mr. Coleman! Thank you so much for coming. Hello, Tom. Hello, Uno.”
Bobby corrected her. “He doesn’t want to be called that anymore, Mom! He wants to be called John.”
“Oh. I am sorry. Hello, John.”
John muttered, “No problem.”
Dad asked, “How are you feeling, Bobby?”
“How am I feeling? I’m feeling hungry.”
“You’re not eating?”
Bobby made a face. “The food here is horrible.”
His mother interrupted. “You’re in a hospital, Bobby. They’re giving you hospital food. Nobody likes hospital food.”
“I sure don’t. It’s horrible.”
Dad tried again. “How is your wound feeling, though? Your shoulder?”
Mrs. Smalls answered for Bobby. “The bullet passed right through, under the shoulder blade. It severed veins and arteries, and it damaged muscle tissue, but it didn’t break any bones.” She shook her head. “Bobby has low muscle tone to begin with; that’s part of Down’s syndrome. He has a very delicate system. It’s not like yours and mine.” She added bitterly, “You can’t go shooting holes in him.”
Dad asked, “Is he going to be okay, though?”
She replied, “Yes, of course,” but she did not sound totally convinced.
Bobby suddenly shouted, “The guy who shot me is dead!”
Dad nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s true.”
“I’m glad he’s dead!” No one replied to that, so Bobby asked, “Who was he?”
Dad raised his shoulders. “I didn’t know him.” He turned and looked at me.
I told Bobby, “His name was Rick Dorfman. He went to Haven High. He played on the football team.” Everybody was looking at me like they wanted more, so I added, “I only saw him in the store once. I know he had some legal problems, and some drug problems.”
Mrs. Smalls expanded on that. “Some meth problems.”
“Yeah, I think so, the way he was behaving.”
Bobby shouted again, “And what about Reg the Veg?”
“Well, he’s in jail, and he’s going to stay in jail.”
“No! I mean what’s his problem?”
“Oh. I don’t know, Bobby. Maybe he has a drug problem, too. I know he has money problems.”
Bobby mulled that over. “Drug problems. They all have drug problems, all the ones who shoplift. They’re all stupid thieves. They steal cold pills and make meth. They cook it up at home; then they smoke it, right?”
I was surprised at how much he knew. “Yeah. That’s right.”
He went on: “It makes them feel good for one week. Then it makes them feel bad for the rest of their lives. They’re stupid.”
“They sure are.”
“I hope they shoot Reg the Veg!”
Mrs. Smalls intervened. “Come on, Bobby. That wouldn’t be right.”
“Yes, it would.”
Mrs. Smalls stared at him until he looked away. Then he clammed up.
Dad, John, and I shuffled in place for a few more minutes after that, looking around uncomfortably. Dad finally turned to Mrs. Smalls and said, “Well, I’m glad to see that Bobby is up and talking and everything. Is there anything we can do for him, Mrs. Smalls?”
She leaned over the bed and stared at Bobby again, forcing him to make eye contact with her. Then she looked back at Dad. “Bobby thinks he is ready for a little more responsibility at work, Mr. Coleman. He thinks he could be the one who unloads the produce trucks, now that… that… Reg person won’t be.”
Dad agreed right away. “Sure. Sure, Bobby. That’s a good idea. The job is yours.”
Bobby managed a shy smile.
“And that new job would come with a raise.”
Bobby’s eyes bulged and his smile widened.
“The job will be waiting for you when you come back,” Dad assured him. “For now, you take your time and get better.”
We then muttered our goodbyes to Bobby and Mrs. Smalls.
John and I were actually out the doorway when Dad turned back to say one more thing. “And, Bobby, thank you. You’re the one who called the police, in spite of your injury. You knew just what to do. That was a smart and a brave thing to do. You’re the reason why those criminals didn’t get away, and why they’re not out shooting someone else right now. You are a hero, Bobby, and I am proud to have you as an employee.”
Bobby stared at Dad curiously, as if none of that had ever occurred to him.
Dad walked past me. He had tears in his eyes. I took a last look back at Mrs. Smalls. Big tears were running down her face, too.
After an early dinner, we drove to Pottsville to see a movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It was pretty cool. It was the forces of good against the forces of evil, and we could all relate to that. The evil Orcs really creeped me out. They had rotten teeth, and they wore filthy rags, and they moved like the living dead. After the movie, nobody mentioned them by name, but I bet we were all thinking the same thing: They were the Blackwater zombies, the meth addicts.
When we got back home, we played a short game of Parcheesi and then a long game of Monopoly. It was a busy, unusual, totally enjoyable family day.
And so was Sunday, but that was more of a day of rest. Rest for everyone except Mom, that is. She cooked and served up roast beef, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and apple pie.
I slept in. I awoke at nine, staring directly at my Florida colleges collage. I sat up in bed, slid down to the bottom, and set to work dismantling it. I peeled off all the beautiful pictures of sunny campuses, lush greenery, and tanned, smiling people. For me, that was now Wendy Lyle land, and Christmas tree–drug bust land. I was no longer interested. Like Warren, like Jimmy, like Arthur, I was never going back to Florida.
John knocked at the front door around noon. Lilly let him in and kissed him right in front of Mom. But then Mom walked over and kissed him, too, on the cheek. She led him by the elbow into the dining room. “Welcome, John. You’re just in time.”
Dad sat at the head of the table, with his back toward the kitchen. John and Lilly sat on the window side; Mom and I were on the inside. Once everyone had a full plate, Dad said, “This is our family. There are five of us now, with the addition of a new son. Welcome to you, John.”
John was clearly moved. He muttered, “Thank you, sir.”
Lilly laughed. “ ‘Sir’? You don’t call him that at work. You call him Gene.”
Dad said, “He can still call me that. But I hope, in family matters, you’ll feel comfortable calling me Dad.”
John replied, “Yes, sir. Yes, Dad.”
Lilly and I both looked at Mom. She quickly added, “And Mom.” She told him, “I look forward to meeting your parents, John, and your siblings. Do you have siblings?”
He said, “I do. I have one older sister.”
“Ah! What does she do?”
“She works in a dentist’s office. She’s a hygienist.”
That killed the conversation, but only for a moment.
Dad reached out his hands, one to Mom and one to John. Lilly and I joined in, so that we were all holding hands. Then Dad threw me for a loop by saying, “Okay, Tom? Will you say grace for us?”
I blanked for a moment. My mind started racing. I found myself thinking, What do we have to thank God for? We are in the middle of a plague year, an annus horribilis. Are we supposed to be thankful that things aren’t even worse? I guess so.
I finally said this: “We’ve seen other families lose a lot this year. They’ve lost family members to death, and to jail, and to just… zombieland.”
Mom and Dad looked uncomfortable, like they were wondering where this prayer was going. So was I. I continued: “But our family has hung in there. We’re all healthy, and we’re all still here, and we’re not in jail, and we have even added a family member in John, so that’s all good.”
Mom and Dad quickly said, “Amen!” Lilly and John followed. Then we started to eat.
The show went on, too. The Roses of Eyam.
Arthur had offered to drive me to it, and I was happy to accept. He picked me up outside the house on Sunday evening, immediately handing me one of Mr. Proctor’s Bibles with dialogue inside. We drove to the school, with me reading lines from the play and Arthur trying to remember his responses to them.
We parked in the row nearest to the auditorium. The Weavers’ Explorer was next to us. The Lyles’ red Suburban was in the row behind, three spaces over.
I followed Arthur through the main doors. We then veered left down a side corridor that led to the back of the stage. Arthur joined Jenny and Mike at a table, where they were going over their lines. I started to sit with them, when a hand reached out and grabbed me.
It was Wendy Lyle’s. She had not spoken to me in over two weeks. She had not bothered to tell me that she was leaving school and that she was moving away forever. But now she was pleading with me, like we were best friends, “Tom! You have to help. This play is a total disaster!”
I said calmly, “Hello, Wendy. How are you?”
She replied with controlled fury, “There is no director! We haven’t rehearsed in forever. Ben is in the bathroom, throwing up. And Chris Collier has bailed on us!”
“What?”
“He’s the freaking male lead, and he’s not here!”
I looked at the side door. “Well, there’s still time.”
But she was adamant. She practically babbled, “No, he has bailed on us! I knew he would, the jerk. He was only doing it for a grade from Mr. Proctor, and now Mr. Proctor has bailed, too!”
I couldn’t let that go. I repeated, “Mr. Proctor has bailed?”
She looked at me, puzzled. “Uh, yeah. Do you see him anywhere?”
“You think he just… quit because he felt like it?”
She answered simply, even convincingly, “Yes. He got the hell out of this place.”
I thought, Maybe she doesn’t know the truth. She’s been out of school. Maybe no one has told her.
Wendy looked at the door. She spoke bitterly. “Chris sucked anyway.” Then she added, to my shock, “It’s because he’s a freaking druggie.”
“No way!”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
She looked at me like I was deaf, dumb, and blind. “Please! He couldn’t memorize his character’s name, never mind his lines. He was still reading every word from the book.”
I was dumbfounded. “Chris Collier is using? Using what?”
“Who cares? Something that makes you stupid; that’s all I know.” Suddenly Wendy put both hands on my shoulders and begged me. “Tom! You have to do it. You have to play the lead!”
“Me?”
“Yes! You were Mr. Proctor’s first choice. He wrote the part for you.” She spun around and grabbed a black book off a table. She opened it and thrust it in my face. “Look! All you have to do is find the name Mompesson and read his lines. I’ll move you around where you need to be onstage. Please. Please!”
Arthur appeared beside me, bent double. He had obviously been listening, because he said in an idiotic voice, “Do it, Mr. Tom! Do it! The show must go on. Arthur needs to get his A.”
I stared at his hunched figure. “Are you serious?”
Arthur stood erect and spoke normally. “Dead serious, cuz. Come on, it’s no big deal. You just stand out there and read the lines. Nobody expects you to be any good.”
Jenny called from the table, “Yeah! Come on, Tom. We need you.”
I looked at all of their faces (well, mostly at Jenny’s face). I heard myself say, “Okay, then. All right.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was on the stage. I was appearing in The Roses of Eyam, by Don Taylor, as adapted by Mr. Proctor. I was the star of the show, in fact, performing before a small crowd consisting of mostly the actors’ parents.
I could see the Weavers in the first row. I could see Catherine Lyle in the second row. She was sitting with her creepy husband and a line of three frat boys, including, of all people, Joel. It was bizarre to see his curly head again. He didn’t seem uncomfortable to be there, either. He was just chatting with Dr. Lyle and the boys, acting like nothing was wrong. I thought, Why did they come tonight? Just to make fun of us?
I put them all out of my mind, though, and concentrated on my character. I stood where the Reverend Mompesson was supposed to stand, and I read all his lines the best I could. The Reverend had to convince the villagers of Eyam to stay where they were; to fight the plague to the death; to save the rest of England.
I liked the part. And I liked the character. Mr. Proctor had given the Reverend Mompesson some stirring speeches about honor, and responsibility, and shared humanity.
Mr. Proctor had condensed the play down to one long act, a little over an hour’s running time. Halfway through, Dr. Lyle’s frat boys got up and left. They returned ten minutes later, and suddenly everything was funny to them. They laughed particularly long and hard at anything Arthur did as the Bedlam, the village idiot.
But I must say, from where I was standing, that Arthur performed his part very well. He really threw himself into it. So did Wendy and Jenny and Mike; so did Ben, despite his earlier bout with stage fright. We managed to deliver Mr. Proctor’s version of The Roses of Eyam competently. Maybe even with some conviction. Maybe even with some passion.
There was a nice round of applause when it was over. There was also some silly hooting from the frat boys, causing Catherine Lyle to look uncomfortable. We took a group bow, with me in the middle, and made our exit. It was really an exhilarating feeling.
Backstage, Arthur was hopping around and slapping five with everybody, still in his stooped village-idiot posture. Wendy had her head down, muttering, “Thank God that’s over.” But Jenny, Ben, Mike, Arthur, and I were all up and giddy and elated.
I felt elated for Mr. Proctor, too. This had been his vision, and we had made it real. It wasn’t great; it wasn’t Broadway. But it was good, and it was Blackwater.
Our group walked together, going back down that side corridor and out into the night. As soon as we pushed open the auditorium doors, we were greeted by a swirl of blowing white snowflakes.
Ben stuck out his tongue and shouted sloppily, “I love eating snow!”
Arthur slapped him on the back. “Eat all you want, dude. It’s only water.”
We moved along in a laughing, chattering bunch to the first row of cars. Mrs. Weaver rolled down the driver’s window of her SUV. She called out, “You kids were great!”
“I know!” Ben replied.
“We want to take you to Friendly’s, the whole cast.”
Ben clenched his fist. “Yes! Real food!”
Jenny looked at me, so I looked at Arthur. He raised his shoulders up and down and said, “Sure. Sounds good. We’ll meet you there.”
Jenny, Mike, and Ben piled into the SUV, and the Weavers took off. As they backed out, Arthur and I got a clearer view of the Geo Metro.
Something was wrong. It was slumping to one side, like a man leaning on a crutch.
“Damn!” Arthur spat out. “Flat tire. We don’t need that now.”
“Can I help?” I asked him.
“You ever changed a tire before?”
“No.”
“Then how can you help?”
I was going to press the issue, but I heard the sound of people emerging from the auditorium, heading toward us. It was the Lyles—Dr., Mrs., and Wendy—and the college guys.
I could hear Joel teasing Wendy. “That was the worst play in history, like in ancient Greek history, like in three thousand years of history.”
Wendy said flatly, “Shut up. You were sleeping.”
“Only in the first half. We got it up for the second half.”
“Yeah. I bet you did.”
As they got closer to the Suburban, Wendy noticed me. She raised a gloved hand to silence Joel. She called over, “You did a nice job tonight, Tom. You were the best actor out there.”
Joel disagreed. “Next to you,” he said.
She ignored him.
I replied humbly, “Well, maybe the others shouldn’t have rehearsed, either.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
I didn’t say anything else, and neither did she.
Dr. Lyle then joined the boys in mocking our production of The Roses of Eyam. They all started repeating lines of dialogue and guffawing, amusing themselves.
As I listened to them carry on, I thought, What the hell do they know? Mr. Proctor had chosen the play for its message, and they had missed it completely.
Dumbasses.
Catherine Lyle turned away. Did she think she still had to ignore me? Was this confidentiality again? Or was she just plain ignoring me?
I looked back at Arthur. He had changed the tire very quickly, very expertly, like a NASCAR pit-crew guy. He was now hefting the old tire into the trunk and spinning it around slowly, looking for the puncture.
Wendy stepped closer and spoke to me. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
I said, “Yeah? To where?”
“Florida. My dad is going back to his old position at FIT.”
“Yeah? Is that a college?”
Her lip curled. “Yes, it’s a college. What do you think it is?”
I curled my lip right back at her. “I don’t know. It sounds like a gym, maybe, or a ladies’ spa.”
To my surprise, Dr. Lyle stopped goofing around with the frat boys, stepped forward, and snapped at me, “For your information, young man, the Florida Institute of Technology has one of the top Psy.D. programs in the nation.”
I nodded. “Oh? Psy.D.? Is that some new kind of workout? Like yoga, maybe?”
Spit flew from his lips. “It’s a doctor of psychology degree!”
Just as I was pondering a reply, Arthur came shuffling up next to me. He was bent slightly and slurring his words, like he was still playing the Bedlam. “A doctor? There’s a doctor here? Can you fix a crooked back? Are you that kind of doctor?”
Dr. Lyle rolled his eyes. He pointed to the Suburban and told his group, “All right, that’s enough. Let’s go.”
“I was taught, at Haven High, that doctors cure things like that.”
Dr. Lyle muttered, “I’ll bet you were.” He pointed at the school doors. With contempt in his voice, he told his wife, “I said this school was a mistake. Wendy never learned a thing here.”
I couldn’t let that go. I asked him, “No? She didn’t learn about supply and demand?” I raised my voice and addressed his group. “Well, here it is, then, in a nutshell: If demand is high, like if frat boys and old professors with ponytails demand to have illegal drugs, then supply will be high, too.”
Dr. Lyle and his boys froze in place.
I went on: “If demand is low, or if demand disappears, then supply disappears. And there is no more drug problem.” I asked them, “Everybody understand?”
No one replied. No one even moved.
Arthur stepped in front of me and pointed at Joel. “Hey, Joe? It’s snowing, and I got ice building up on my windshield. You don’t have an ice pick on you, do you?”
Joel’s eyes shifted toward the Suburban.
Arthur waited a moment and then continued. “No? You don’t?” Arthur looked at the Suburban, too. “Because I could swear somebody put an ice pick in my tire. I thought it might have been you.”
Joel stepped behind the other two guys.
Arthur turned his attention to Catherine. “Excuse me, Mrs. Lyle? Did you get a chance to speak to the doctor about that”—he lowered his voice—“that sensitive matter?”
She seemed genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“If you recall, I suggested that some of Wendy’s companions, these boys right here, in fact, were seen in a very unsavory neighborhood. And I should know, since it’s my neighborhood. And they were perhaps involved in some illegal activity?”
Catherine Lyle swallowed hard. Clearly, she had not spoken to her husband about it.
Arthur continued: “Because, if I am not mistaken, there is once again a strange smell coming from these boys.” He whacked me in the chest with the back of his hand. “Tom? Did you notice a strange smell?”
I had not, but I said, “Yeah. I did.”
Arthur held up his head and sniffed the air like a ten-point buck. He walked back toward the Geo Metro. He pulled a tire iron out of his trunk, turned, and retraced his steps toward us.
The Lyles all exchanged frightened looks, but they were not Arthur’s target. Not his direct target, anyway. Arthur crossed over to the red Suburban. He cranked back his right arm and delivered a mighty blow to the back window. The wide pane of glass shattered, splitting into long horizontal lines. But the glass did not fall.
Arthur then pulled back and struck again at the center of the window, and again, and again, pounding away until he had opened up a hole about two feet in diameter. He poked his head in, then pulled it out quickly. “This is it, Mrs. Lyle! The source of the smell. It’s coming from inside this very vehicle.”
Everyone in the Lyles’ group remained frozen except Wendy. She held out her hands to them all, demanding to know, “Aren’t we going to do something about this? We need to call the police. We need to have this psycho village-idiot jerk arrested!”
I told her, “Your family doesn’t call the police.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that right, Dr. Lyle? No talking to the police? Oh, wait. Wait!” I slapped my own head, as Arthur likes to do. “You did talk to the police, though—to Officer O’Dell. You talked to him last week. You ratted out Mr. Proctor to save yourself, right? So you probably don’t want to talk to them again so soon, not with your vehicle having a suspicious smell and all.”
I walked over to the Suburban and stood next to Arthur. I leaned my head into the hole he had just made. There was no question about it; Joel and his boys had smoked weed here during the play.
I was pulling my head back out, carefully, when I noticed a toolbox. Some pieces of the windshield had fallen down onto an open metal toolbox, but I could still see what was sitting right on top—a wood-handled ice pick. I reached in, brushed the glass shards away, and pulled it out.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. But before he could do anything, I did it for him. I gripped the wooden handle tightly and stepped around to the left side of the Suburban. I pulled the ice pick back and plunged it, hard, into the left rear tire. I heard a quick hissing sound; then I smelled stale air rushing past my nostrils.
Arthur just stared at me, amazed. He finally proclaimed, “Righteous, cuz,” and clapped me on the shoulder.
We turned and walked back to the Geo Metro, leaving the ice pick, still hissing, in the sidewall of that very big, very expensive-looking tire. Arthur tossed the tire iron into his trunk and slammed it shut. Then we got in the car and drove off.
And we didn’t look back.
Arthur gunned it down the long entrance, laughing all the way. “I can’t believe you, cuz! I can’t believe that act of blatant vandalism. And with an ice pick! That was righteously blatant.”
“Well, they deserved it.”
He held up a hand to slap, which I did. He slowed down to negotiate the right turn onto Route 16. “Hey! Forget them, right?”
“Right.”
“Forget all of them. Forever.”
“Right again.”
“I have already forgotten them.”
“Me, too.”
“Now tell me: Where are we going?”
“The Friendly’s downtown. It’s across from Kroger.”
“Got it.” Arthur shook his head, bemused. “Those losers are too stoned to change a tire.”
I added, “And too pusillanimous.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Hey! Do you think they belong to triple A?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Check it out: We belong to double A; they belong to triple A.”
We slapped five again.
The car kept skidding at every stop sign and traffic light, so Arthur dropped the transmission to a lower gear. Still, we managed to arrive at Friendly’s right after the Weavers.
As soon as we walked inside, I saw Jenny wave to me from a vinyl-backed booth. I cut in front of Arthur and slipped in next to her. The lineup was this: Ben, Jenny, me, and Arthur on the red vinyl side: Mike, Mrs. Weaver, and Mr. Weaver in chairs on the other side.
Ben ordered a sundae with a cherry and nuts on top. He picked up the cherry, held it out to Arthur, and asked, “Can I eat this?”
Arthur assured him, “Yeah. That’d be okay.”
“What about the stem?”
“Ah, no. No stems.”
“Oh, man!”
We all laughed. The Weavers seemed puzzled, but they smiled along with us.
The Weavers started talking about the play and its themes, Mr. Proctor’s themes. They understood that it was all about Blackwater, and that the plague was meth. We talked about meth and what it had done to us, and how we could continue to fight against it.
Mrs. Weaver said, “Your parents have been terrific, Tom. Your father has been so generous with supplies from his store. Your mother has been so generous with her time.”
Mr. Weaver added, “We’re getting more people at the church basement—desperate, desperate people. We’re going to expand our services to food, clothing, and medical care. We’ll need more volunteers.”
Everybody raised a hand, nodded, or spoke up. We would all volunteer. We would have it covered.
I asked, “Medical care? How are we doing that?”
Mrs. Weaver said, “Nurses from Good Samaritan.”
“Is Mrs. Smalls one of them?”
“Oh yes. She’s organizing it.”
“I’m not surprised. She really knows what’s going on. She’s been calling it ‘the meth plague’ for a long time.”
Mrs. Weaver nodded. “We all need to do that. We all need to call it what it is.”
We continued to talk, and eat sundaes, and plan our counterattack against the meth plague for over an hour. When we finally trooped out into the parking lot, I saw that the snow had stopped falling. The sky was now clear and dark, with twinkling stars. The temperature had dropped, though; it had dropped a lot—so much that a runoff from the roof had crystallized, leaving foot-long icicles hanging over our heads, like swords.
Arthur jumped up and snapped one off. He handed it to Ben. “Here. Take this in case you get hungry later.”
Ben took it and stuck it between his back teeth. “Great. I’ll eat this before it melts.”
We all laughed; Mr. and Mrs. Weaver looked puzzled again. Then Jenny gave me a beautiful smile, and they took off.
It was a perfect moment, I thought. On a perfect night.
But if I had known where to look, to the north and west, I might have thought differently. I might have seen a faint red glow in the dark sky.
Yin and yang.
Heaven and hell.
Paradise Lost.
All the things Mr. Proctor had talked about.
If I was thinking that this plague year would end on a happy note, or on a positive note, or even on a not-horrible note, I was mistaken.
Arthur saw the glow in the sky before I did, but he misinterpreted it. “Looks like a fire up in Primrose. Maybe a forest fire.”
“A forest fire? In the snow?”
“No, you’re right. Maybe a grease fire. Or maybe somebody was cooking with propane and the damn thing blew up.”
But as we drove on, Arthur got less sure of that, and less talkative. Something bad was happening, but it wasn’t in Primrose.
It was in Caldera.
He finally said, “Sorry, cuz. I gotta know where that fire is. You okay with getting home late?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Neither of us spoke again as we rose higher into the mountains. The first sign of the tragedy was, oddly enough, something comical. The heat of the fire was melting the snow and ice above us, creating a river of running water. As we slowed to turn onto Arthur’s road, I saw an orange duck—a small plastic one—floating by.
As we accelerated up the road, I saw orange plastic rings floating in the runoff, too, followed by black Transformer parts.
By then, we could see the red flashing lights of a Haven County ambulance up ahead. We could see the blaze by then, too, through the sparse winter trees.
It wasn’t Aunt Robin’s trailer, but it was right behind it.
It was Warren’s.
Arthur slammed to a halt in the middle of the road. He turned off the ignition and bolted out of the car. I got out and followed him as best I could, scrambling up the short hillside, slipping in the river of icy water that was running down.
Jimmy Giles, wearing nothing but jeans and a T-shirt, was standing halfway between his trailer and Warren’s. He looked devastated, broken, shaken to the core.
The ambulance was parked on a spot well away from the blaze. Aunt Robin, Cody, and a paramedic were sitting in the front cab. The paramedic was speaking into a black microphone. A second paramedic, a stocky guy in an orange coat, was standing between Jimmy and the burning trailer.
Arthur ran up to Jimmy. He had to shout to be heard. “Where’s Warren?”
Jimmy opened his mouth slowly, reluctantly. Then he spoke through gulping sobs. “He was the doomed one. Not me.”
“What?”
Jimmy’s voice rose. “Warren’s dead, Arthur! He got killed in there. By an explosion.”
Arthur shook his head from left to right. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s got chemicals in there. You know that. Bad stuff …” Jimmy’s voice trailed away.
The paramedic took a step toward Arthur and yelled, “The man inside the trailer is dead from an explosion. It blew a hole in his chest.”
Arthur pressed both hands against his ears. Then he yelled back above the roar of the blaze, “Where is he now?”
“In the kitchen area.”
“Why isn’t he out here? Why aren’t you working on him out here? Why aren’t you trying to save him?”
The paramedic took another step and explained. “I looked inside. I saw the man very clearly. He is dead. He is surrounded by volatile chemicals, though. We can’t remove him until the firefighters get here, put out the fire, and tell us it’s safe to remove him.”
The paramedic half turned at the sight of flashing lights. His right arm shot up and pointed. “Okay! Here they are! They’re turning up the road.”
Arthur looked confused. He finally asked, “You’re not leaving him in there?”
“No. I just explained to you—”
“No, I’m explaining to you! We gotta get him out of there!”
The paramedic opened his mouth, but he stopped speaking at the blast of a horn from the fire truck. A voice called out from the passenger-side window, “Move this car! We can’t get the engine in!”
My head was whirling around—from the blaze, and the smoke, and the noise, and the rush of the icy water. Here was something I could do. I yelled, “I’ll get it!” and took off back down the hill.
Almost immediately, my feet flew out from under me and I slid to the bottom, my back caked with ice and mud. I hurried to the driver’s side, jerked the door open, and jumped in. I cranked the car key, dropped the transmission into gear, and lurched forward about twenty yards up the road. Then I turned the car off and ran back, as best I could, to the blazing trailer.
I couldn’t see Arthur anywhere.
The paramedic was gesturing angrily to his partner, and to the firefighters. Suddenly I heard an explosion inside the trailer, like the propane tanks at the Food Giant. The fire surged even higher into the night, bursting through a hole in the trailer’s roof.
I looked at Jimmy. He was staring, stunned, at the trailer’s front door. Then I knew where Arthur was.
I took off running toward that door. The paramedic made a move to block me, but he was too slow, and I slipped around him.
The heat got stronger, like a wall of energy pushing against me. I reached the trailer just as Arthur’s back appeared inside. His hood was up over his head. The top peak of it was on fire, like a small candle. His sleeves were on fire, too, at the elbow. He backed out rapidly, so fast that I had to scramble out of his way.
He was dragging a body after him.
Warren’s body.
Warren’s face was gray with death. He was wearing the remnants of that Haven High Football jacket. His chest had a large bloody indentation in it, the size and shape of a bowling ball.
Arthur kept moving, kept dragging, seemingly unaware that his own clothes were on fire. I sprang forward and drove my shoulder into Arthur’s, hitting him a solid blow, like a football block. He released his grip on Warren and fell backward. I could hear the flames on his head and arms hiss out on the watery ground.
Arthur’s face contorted in pain. His mouth opened, and he screamed. Then he flipped himself over spastically, rising up on his elbows. He started coughing rapidly, deeply, uncontrollably.
Somewhere behind me, the firefighters unleashed two streams of water onto the roof of the trailer. One of them barked at us, “Get back! Both of you! There are chemical vats in there!”
The paramedic grabbed hold of Warren’s body, just as Arthur had done. His partner joined him, and they soon had Warren away from the trailer. They fastened him to a stretcher and hoisted him into the back of the ambulance.
Jimmy and I helped Arthur rise to his feet. We led him, step by step, to a spot in front of the ambulance. Arthur dropped to one knee and stared at the ground, panting and coughing miserably.
Jimmy spoke in that haunted voice. “It was Warren. He was the one. He was doomed.”
The first paramedic returned to take a look at Arthur. He said, “You are injured, son. We need to treat these burns. We might need to take you to the ER to check out your lungs.”
Arthur hacked up some foul liquid and spit it on the ground. He managed to say, “Treat the burns. But I ain’t going to no ER. I’m staying here.”
The paramedic applied salve to Arthur’s ears, arms, and hands; then he wrapped both hands with gauze and tape. He lectured him, “I told you he was dead already. Didn’t you believe me?”
Arthur answered softly, almost to himself, “He didn’t burn.”
The paramedic asked, “What?”
But Arthur didn’t answer him. He spoke to Jimmy and me, his voice rising in intensity. “He didn’t burn, goddammit! He may be dead, but I didn’t let him burn.”
I nodded rapidly; then Jimmy did, too.
“He didn’t burn.”
The paramedic stared at Arthur for a moment, confused. Then he went back to wrapping the bandages.
From somewhere behind me, I heard Cody start to cry. Aunt Robin crossed in front of us, bearing him up in her left arm. She paused for just a moment to stretch out her right arm and touch the top of Arthur’s head, keeping her hand away from the burns. Then she stepped carefully through the mess and continued on into her trailer.
Jimmy trudged in after them. His feet were bare. His bony shoulders showed through his T-shirt. He had to be freezing.
I stayed outside with Arthur. He remained kneeling in the slop, his head bowed. The runoff water continued to flow around him. He was holding up a bandaged hand at a ninety-degree angle, like he wanted to ask a question. His lips were moving.
I leaned forward until I could understand. He was repeating three words in a low and barely audible voice, over and over, through choking sobs. The words were “I hate drugs.”
A minute later, a big vat exploded inside Warren’s trailer. It took out the entire kitchen area. The flames continued to lick higher, filling the dark sky with a hellish light.
It was all life and death, and water and ice, and fire and cold. When I finally took a look at my watch, I saw that it was ten minutes past midnight.
It was December 31.
The last day of the year.