Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

  I really wasn’t paying attention to her. My nerves were shot. I started the engine and must have driven a mile in the wrong direction before I gave any thought to where I was going.

  “You know,” Miss Volker said, “I hope when my turn comes the Grim Reaper is a lot like you. You don’t seem too scary.”

  “I’m not scary,” I admitted. “I was scared. Even when she invited me for tea I was shaking. And after she invited me back in two weeks I ran. I don’t think I’m a very good Grim Reaper.”

  “Well, when her time comes remind me,” she said, “so that when I write her obituary I make sure to mention she invited the Grim Reaper to tea. That reveals her good upbringing, don’t you think so?”

  “Very polite of her,” I agreed. “And you can add that she loved her grandson whose birthday is on July third.”

  “Thanks for the good detail,” Miss Volker noted, and smiled to herself. “Now, would you like to turn the car around and go home?” she asked. “Otherwise we’re heading for West Virginia.”

  I slowed and made a U-turn in the parking lot of a boarded-up church. On the way back we again passed Mrs. Dubicki’s house and saw that the black window curtains were now thrust open.

  “I’ll have to speak with my spotter,” muttered Miss Volker. “He won’t be getting a finder’s fee for this one!” Then she looked at me and said, “Your nose is bleeding. The next time you come down I’ll fix it for you. It’s easy—I have all the right tools.”

  “Did Mrs. Roosevelt give them to you?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “I bought some items at a retired veterinarian’s yard sale and the others I made myself.”

  Cheeze-us-crust!

  9

  I was reading about King Arthur and liked how he had a round table which made everyone feel equal when they sat in a circle. Usually the king was the boss at the head of a long table and everyone else had to listen and take orders and not talk back unless they wanted to get locked in a dungeon and lose their heads. But King Arthur was different. He respected everyone and believed that if he treated people fairly they would treat him fairly. That was his secret to greatness.

  Just then Dad stuck his head through my bedroom doorway. “How would you like to escape your room for a while?” he asked.

  “I’d love it!” I shouted, and put down my book. I had really been plowing through the Landmark series. I figured I might have them all read by the time summer was over. “Is Mom okay with letting me out?” I asked him.

  “Well, I’m giving you permission to leave your room so you haven’t broken any rules. Now follow me.”

  “Is she still mad about the plane?” I asked as we walked down the hall.

  “Yep,” he replied. “And she is showing no sign of getting over it.”

  “Are you now living in the garage?” I asked as we stepped outside.

  “I bought my way out of that trouble,” he said. “I took her down to the grocery store yesterday and paid for a cartful of charity food to make up for the corn she was going to trade for groceries.”

  “Cash is king,” I remarked with a little swagger.

  “Money makes the world go round,” he sang. “Cash is the universal get-out-of-Norvelt-forever card.”

  “How much will you have to pay her not to get mad that you aren’t really building a bomb shelter?” I asked.

  “That is still an unresolved subject,” he replied. “I can only afford to pay off one debt at a time. So for now we are going to say we are building a bomb shelter.”

  “Mom said you won the plane in a card game. Is that true?” I asked.

  “Not entirely. But I got it for a song,” he said confidentially. “They were practically giving them away at a military surplus auction. I mean, for twenty-five bucks how could I not buy it?”

  I was shocked. “That’s less than Mr. Fenton wants for his old car!” I blurted out.

  “Next time I’ll look around and see how much they are selling Sherman tanks for,” he said.

  That would be so cool, I thought. I wouldn’t have to learn to steer—I could just drive in a straight line and run things over.

  By then we were standing at the edge of the ex-cornfield. To one side, where I had cut down the last three rows of corn, Dad had marked off a long rectangle with twine wrapped around stakes in the ground.

  “See that space?” he said, pointing.

  I nodded.

  “And the shovel stuck in the dirt?”

  I nodded again.

  “Then start digging,” he instructed. “I’m going to roll the field flat for the runway.” He jerked his head toward a road roller which was hooked up to the back of the tractor.

  “Can we trade places?” I asked. “Miss Volker needs me to practice my driving so I can cart her around town.”

  “Maybe later,” he said. “But for now you can practice your digging.”

  I didn’t think that being grounded also included working in the ground.

  I grabbed the shovel handle with both hands, then closed my eyes and imagined merry-olde-England in medieval times. “Whoso pulleth out this sword is the rightwise born king of England!” I shouted from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Then I tugged on the handle with all my might. The shovel easily pulled out and for just a moment I imagined that I really would be king, but when I opened my eyes I was still a kid holding a rusty shovel in western Pennsylvania. I had not become the future king of England, but I wished I had. King Arthur only had to deal with plague, famine, and evil knights. Instead, I was just the lone digger of a fake atomic bomb shelter.

  “Hey, Dad,” I called behind him as he walked toward the tractor. “Which do you think is more deadly? Past history or future history?”

  He didn’t even slow down to think about it. “Future history,” he yelled back without hesitation. “Each war gets worse because we get better at killing each other.”

  That sounded so true. At first cavemen bashed each other’s heads in with rocks and sticks. By the time of the Crusaders it was long swords and arrows, and at Gettysburg they were blasting each other to bits from cannons filled with lead balls, iron chains, railroad spikes, and door knobs. And atomic bombs made future wars look even more hopeless. No humans will survive. All the animals will die. Fish will rot in acidic water. All vegetation will wilt in the polluted air. There will be nothing left but enormous insects the size of dinosaurs. I took a deep breath and pushed the blade of the shovel into the earth and got busy filling a wheelbarrow with dirt. Our only hope for survival might be in building cities deep underground like the one Dad said the army built to protect the president and all the self-important government people.

  After a while Mom sauntered out with a pitcher and cups to give us some cold water because it was hot and because she wanted to check up on our progress. We must not have been doing too well because after a quick glance at our work she said to Dad, “Jack, you know I can get some men from the Community Center to help out. This is a big job.”

  “It’s okay,” Dad replied, and poured a cup of water over his head then shook it off like a dog. “We don’t need any help from the Communist Center. We can do this ourselves.” He glanced at me. “Right, partner?” he asked, and jabbed me in the shoulder.

  “Right,” I replied, but I didn’t mean it. I’d love to have a dozen friendly guys run over and finish this job.

  “Mr. Spizz and that maintenance crew of his could make this easier,” Mom suggested, trying to reason with him. “And faster too. And they might make the runway a little smoother.”

  The three of us held our hands over our eyes and squinted at the runway. It was as wavy as the ocean.

  “It makes me seasick to look at it,” Mom remarked as she turned away.

  “That’s nothing,” Dad said dismissively. “This plane was built to take off and land on a ship, so it can certainly land on this.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need just a tiny bit of help?” she asked again.

  “H
onestly,” he said in a firm voice, “I’d rather just keep it in the family.”

  “Okay,” she conceded, giving in to his stubbornness. “Do it your way.” And she went over to the pony pen to check on War Chief’s hay and water.

  Dad turned to me. “If Spizz and those Community Center guys help us, the next thing you know they’ll want to help fly my plane and share our bomb shelter. Good God,” he said, “think of it. The Russian Commies will be bombing us from above and we’ll be protecting a bunch of local Commies in our shelter. Nuts to that!” He hopped back onto the tractor, started it up, and roared off with the roller in tow.

  “Yeah,” I aped, and picked up the shovel. “Nuts to that.” I certainly didn’t want Mr. Spizz to come by and ask about paying the ticket.

  Just then Bunny came running from around the corner of our house. She looked like the square face on a box of Wheaties—only with arms and legs. I was really happy to see her.

  “Hey,” she said breathlessly, “what are you doing?”

  “Digging our fancy new bomb shelter,” I replied without enthusiasm. “The future is going to take place underground.”

  “Bomb shelters are just family-size coffins,” she said like a know-it-all. “When the atomic war comes we’ll all die and when UFO people arrive they’ll dig us up and study our culture.”

  “What do you think they’ll learn?”

  “Who knows and who cares,” she replied, and threw her short arms up into the air. “Probably no more than what we know from digging up King Tut.”

  “Well, we have history books,” I reminded her.

  “They’ll rot like everything else,” she countered with a groan, and dropped her hands down to her side. “Nothing will be left.”

  I was going to say that the presidents on Mount Rushmore would survive when she stopped me.

  “Let’s change the subject,” she insisted.

  “To what?” I asked, and leaned on my shovel.

  “To what I came here to tell you! The ambulance just arrived and now we have a stranger in the funeral parlor,” she said excitedly. “A Hells Angel motorcycle guy who was dancing in the middle of the road early this morning and got flattened by a cement truck down by the pants factory. Guess you could say he got pressed flat as pants.”

  “Ugh,” I said. “What’s he look like?”

  “Like tattooed roadkill only with a long black beard on one end and crushed black boots on the other,” she said. “It’s not pretty.”

  I could already feel my nose twitch from imagining what he might look like. “Is he from around here?”

  “No one can tell,” she said. “He didn’t have a wallet and the police don’t recognize him. But he has amazing tattoos.”

  “What kind of amazing?” I asked, and looked around to make sure Mom wasn’t sneaking up on us.

  “Depends on what part of his body you look at,” she whispered, and made her eyes get real big like she had seen something off limits. “Dad’s just now photographing them for the police, so he told me to get lost.”

  “Do you think I can handle seeing him?” I asked.

  “No way,” she replied. “You’d bleed out of your eye sockets if you saw this guy.”

  That was probably true. But then I had a thought. “Has Miss Volker been there yet?” I asked. “She needs to make it official.”

  “Nope,” she replied.

  “Well, do me a favor,” I said, and put my hands on her shoulders. “Run down to her house and tell her about the Hells Angel. Then tell her to call me immediately, and that way I can get out of digging and take her down to see the body.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” she said, getting all wound up and pawing at the dirt with her sneakers. “Meet you in the back of the funeral parlor. But if you plan on looking at this guy, bring a box of tissues because of your nose problem.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said as she bounded off like a springer spaniel.

  It didn’t take long before the telephone rang and Mom called me inside. “Miss Volker needs your help right away,” she said at the door. “There was a road accident this morning and she has to examine the poor victim.”

  “Oh, that’s awful,” I gasped, and imitated Mr. Huffer’s sad face, but inside I was thinking, Great, this will get me out of digging. But before I could make my escape she reached out and grabbed my shirt. She reeled me in and smelled my armpit. “You stink like an old billy goat,” she said, and wrinkled her nose. “Hop in the shower, quickly. I’ll get your clothes ready. I want you to look respectful at Mr. Huffer’s place.”

  “What do the dead care if I smell?” I asked. “They are dead and they’re bound to smell worse than me.”

  “Well, I’m not dead!” she snapped back. “And it is what I care that counts.” Then she nudged me toward the bathroom with her hip. “Now don’t forget to use soap.”

  I took the fastest shower I could. I didn’t use soap but when I got out of the shower I splashed myself with Dad’s bottle of Old Spice. I figured it made me smell like I was Admiral Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay. “Damn the torpedoes,” I quoted boldly, “and full speed ahead!” I wrapped a skimpy towel around my waist and danced and pranced out of the bathroom and up the hall like I was a Union ship dodging Confederate mines.

  Mom was in her room ironing a white shirt for me. “What are you doing?” I asked when I waltzed up to her. “I’m not going to church. I’m going to see a dead Hells Angel whose face looks like roadkill with a beard.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said. “No matter who that poor man is he deserves our respect. He was once someone’s little angel baby.”

  “You mean Hells Angel baby,” I pointed out. “I should be dressed like the devil in honor of that guy.”

  “Even the devil wears clean underpants,” she said, pointing the threatening tip of the hot iron at my skimpy towel. “And put on clean socks, pants, a belt, an undershirt, comb your hair, brush your teeth, and put on your shoes, and when you do all of that I’ll be waiting at the door with your perfectly ironed white shirt and then you can leave the house.”

  “How do you remember all that stuff?” I asked over my shoulder as I ran back down the hall.

  “I have it memorized,” she shouted behind me, “because I’m forced to say it every day of your animal boy life!”

  By the time I did everything Mom told me to do she was standing at the porch door holding my shirt out like a bullfighting cape. I wiggled my arms into the sleeves. She buttoned me up the front as I buttoned my cuffs, then I tucked my shirttails in. “Thanks, Mom,” I said, and gave her a kiss and fled.

  “Hey!” Dad called behind me as I ran past him. “Where are you going? I still need your help.”

  “Miss Volker called!” I yelled over my shoulder, and kept running toward her house. “There is a dead guy she has to see!”

  “If only she were next,” Dad hollered back. “Then we’d get some of this work done around here.”

  * * *

  Miss Volker was already sitting in her car. “Hurry,” she called from the passenger window. “I just cooked my hands so I can use my fingers to examine the body.” She was wearing quilted oven mitts in order to keep her hands warm.

  I started the car and put it in Drive. “Hang on,” I warned her. “I think I’m getting better at this.” I punched the gas pedal to the floor. The back tires shot gravel through the open garage door and we blasted down the driveway. The tires squealed as we turned onto the Norvelt road and about thirty seconds later I hit the brakes and we swerved crazily into the parking lot at the Huffer Funeral Parlor.

  “You’re a fast learner,” she remarked. “You’ve gone from slowpoke to safety hazard in one day.”

  I grinned with pride. But that was my last grin for a while.

  Mr. Huffer was waiting for us in the back room where he prepared all the cadavers. It smelled of formaldehyde. I knew it looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory because Bunny had shown it to me when it was unoccupied. Th
ere was a work table topped with a big yellowed marble slab that had a drainage groove carved around it. I remembered seeing that because it looked like one of the Aztec sacrificial altar stones where the victims had their hearts cut out and the blood snaked along the groove and down into a beautiful golden cup that would then be offered up with the still-beating heart to satisfy the bloody appetite of the Aztec gods. But with the Hells Angel on the slab I kept my eyes lowered and stared down at my shoes. I may have been a big talker to Bunny and Mom, but I didn’t want to see that dead man. Just the thought of his roadkill body made me queasy and I knew my nose would spew like a busted dike if I even peeked at him.

  Bunny stood next to me and tapped me on the leg. “You okay?” she whispered.

  “Sure,” I said with false bravery, and stupidly took a step forward which was a mistake, because next to my foot was a bucket filled with thick human fluids. Don’t look into the bucket again, I warned myself and jerked my head away. I took a deep breath and lifted my head for just long enough to see the victim’s mangled boots on display at the far end of the table.

  “They had to cut the boots off of him,” Bunny informed me. “He was really clobbered.”

  I looked back down at my shoes and took another deep breath. I closed my eyes but the room began to spin so I opened them a bit.

  “Did you see the tattoos?” she asked.

  She knew I hadn’t and she knew I never would. I hadn’t looked at a dead person since she made me touch that man’s unnaturally stiff neck.

  “Then I’ll tell you about them,” she said, and without waiting for me to answer she continued. “On one leg is a spiraling black snake with a 666 in its open mouth, and a devil’s tail is twisting around his other leg.”

  I could see everything she said as if it were a wall painting inside the cave of my own skull. Somehow the tattoos were even more gruesome when they were tattooed on the inside of my mind. I could run out of the room, but the image of his legs would still be dead inside of me and chasing after me for a lifetime.