A Plague Year

by Edward Bloor

  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.”

  Monday, December 10, 2001

  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?”