A Plague Year

by Edward Bloor

  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.

  Wednesday, December 12, 2001

  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. T
hen 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 th
e 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.

  Friday, December 21, 2001

  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.”