Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

  “Singed capillaries.” She slowly answered, because she was concentrating. “It’s going well. The burnt-flesh smell means it’s working.”

  After she finished cauterizing one nostril she took a break and cooked her hands again. Once her fingers loosened up it didn’t take long before I tilted back into position and she came at me and finished the second nostril.

  “There,” she announced proudly, and with unnecessary flair she plucked the pin from my nose. “I’m all done. It will hurt a little tomorrow and may bleed a bit during the scabbing stage, but you should be fine.”

  I sat up. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I’ve been this way all my life.”

  “Don’t question me,” she said irritably. “People who question me get crossed off my good list—like Spizz.”

  “Sorry,” I said in a small voice. “Didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Now come with me,” she ordered. “We’ve got some work to do.”

  I took my seat at the writing desk after moving all the books to the couch where she sat. I removed a pad of paper and a pencil and stretched my fingers out and cracked my knuckles. “Ready to roll,” I said.

  She stood upright with her feet firmly planted as if she were going to deliver a fiery speech that would change the course of the nation. And then she cut loose like a wild woman and paced the room back and forth. The more worked up she became the faster she spoke and the faster I had to write. But I kept up with her, and in the end we were both exhausted. She flopped down on the couch and I went into the kitchen to soak my hand in a pot of cold water.

  By the time Mom called to remind me that I was late delivering the casseroles, I had finished typing up the obituary.

  “Before you leave,” Miss Volker instructed, “go into the garage and get the box of hospital bleach crystals so I can soak the blood from your shirt. And while you are out there grab that rusty tin of Compound 1080 poison. I’ll need that too. I saw some vermin in my basement and I want to get rid of them—they’re feasting on the Great Women in History needlepoints my sister left for me to watch over and they already ate a hole in Clara Barton’s Red Cross hat.”

  I dashed out to the garage and grabbed what she wanted, then returned.

  “Should I tell Mom about my nose?” I asked, and set the bleach and poison on the kitchen table.

  “Give it a week,” she suggested. “And if it heals properly we’ll surprise her with the good news.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks.” And to myself I happily thought that now Mom wouldn’t have to save up for it.

  I sprinted the obituary to Mr. Greene and was going to turn and dash home but he made me wait while he read it through. Once he finished he made a grim face. “Good grief,” he remarked, “this obituary might scare some of these old folks to death.”

  Might be what she wants, I thought, but instead said, “She’s just trying to keep everyone on their toes.”

  “Well, tell her I’ll get it in the paper as soon as I can,” he said with his voice trailing off. “I have to help my brother skin the minks at his mink farm this afternoon and I may fall behind a bit.”

  I didn’t want to talk about skinning minks. That might ruin my nose before it had time to heal. I quickly said goodbye and ran home.

  * * *

  Mom was waiting impatiently for me with six casseroles wrapped in aluminum foil and packed into a shallow cardboard box. “They are clearly marked,” she pointed out. “This one is for Mrs. Vinyl, who had cataract surgery and can’t see her own hands. This one is for Mrs. Linga, who has the broken hip. This one is for Mrs. Sulzby, who has been living on turkey jerky for the last month, and the others are for what is left of the ladies’ Fancy Hat Club tea—Mrs. Hamsby, Mrs. Dubicki, and Mrs. Bloodgood.”

  “All women,” I remarked.

  “Sadly, yes,” Mom said with a sigh. “All the working men except for Mr. Spizz died young from black lung disease after digging in the mines. The coal dust clogged them up and they went early. My dad was the same. I guess the only other old men left are those who owned the mines, and they live in Pittsburgh—in mansions, not mines. Now get going,” she said, glancing at the clock. “Mr. Spizz is waiting for you. I’m sure there are some hungry old gals peeking out their windows.”

  I lifted the box and marched down to the Roosevelt Community Center as quickly as I could. My hands were full so I kicked on the bottom of the door with my foot. Bunny Huffer yanked it open. She was dressed in her Girl Scout uniform, which she had sewn herself, and it made her look like a shiny green leprechaun. Behind Bunny were two other Girl Scouts. One was Betsy Howdi, who was dressed in a Peter Pan costume, and the other was Mertie-Jo Kernecky, who just had her Girl Scout sash over an outfit that made her look like the Jolly Green Giant. Bunny was the smallest of the three, but her temper made up for her size. “Holy underwear in heaven!” she spat out, and pounded her fist into her palm. “It’s about time you showed up! Those starving old people kept calling every two minutes and ruined our meeting.”

  “I was helping Miss Volker,” I explained. “We ran late writing the Hells Angel obituary.”

  “What is there to say about him?” Bunny snapped. “I could write it in one sentence,” and she held up a stubby finger about the size of a Tootsie Roll. “He danced into town and was hit by a cement truck and nobody cared.”

  “There’s more to it than that!” I shot right back. “Miss Volker cares, and she said he has brought a death plague into this town and that people better beware or they’ll drop dead.”

  “You read too many books,” Bunny replied. “You’re starting to sound like a murder mystery for idiots.”

  Betsy Howdi laughed at that and I turned away from her mocking dark-eyed face.

  Mertie-Jo stepped around Bunny and rescued me with her beauty. “Do you want to buy some Girl Scout cookies?” she asked softly, and looked me in the eye as she slowly lowered her head to one side so that her right ear was nearly pressed against the top of her emerald shoulder. She smiled a naturally sweet smile, but it still seemed as if her awkwardly tilted head was the result of a rare medical condition. In order to speak eye to eye with her I tilted my own ear toward my shoulder. “What kind of cookies?” I asked as smoothly as my strained neck would allow, and gave her my handsome smile—the one where she couldn’t see my missing tooth. She was cute, and I allowed myself to like her too much because I just knew she would never like me back.

  “I have dreamy Thin Mints—twenty cents per box,” she replied, and smiled even more brightly.

  “I don’t have any money, but I bet if you go to Miss Volker’s house she’ll buy a lot of them,” I advised. “She lives off of cookies.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” she replied briskly, and her head popped straight up and she tucked her smile away with one lizard lick of her lips.

  I straightened up myself and wiped my smile off against my shoulder. We were suddenly back to where we started.

  Bunny glanced at her watch. “Well, girls,” she announced in her bossy voice, “this meeting is over. Now go sell some cookies so we can make money to go to the drive-in. My dad said he’d drive us up there in the hearse to watch Dracula this weekend if we pay for the tickets.”

  Just as they ran out the door Mr. Spizz came up from his basement living-and-work studio. I stepped forward and gave him the meals.

  “Thank your mom for the food, Gantos boy,” he said with his foghorn voice. “But also remind her about the weed ticket. It has to be paid or it will double to six bucks.”

  I still didn’t have a cent. “Can I trade you jars of peaches for it?” I asked, imitating Mom. “You know, barter one thing for another like in the good old Norvelt?”

  “I’ll have to bring that up at the community meeting,” he replied, “and the whole town will have to take a vote on it. And then it will be written about in the News. Would you like that?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “No.” Because Mom would surely read about it.

  “Then com
e up with the money,” he demanded. “Now I have to get going.”

  I followed him outside and began to walk up the street. In a minute he rang his kiddy bell as he passed me on his giant tricycle with the red wagon full of meals trailing behind.

  11

  When I woke the next day my nose was sore to touch and felt a little lumpy. It pulsed hotly inside as if the blood was building up to erupt furiously out of my scorched nasal passages like waves of molten lava, but so far not a drop had leaked out.

  “Hey, Mom,” I called from my bed when she passed my open doorway. “Can I do anything fun today?”

  “Sure. You can study your history books and help out with chores,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “But I’m young and I’m suffering,” I whimpered like a puppy. “I need fresh air. It’s not fair to lock your child up.”

  “What you did to that cornfield was not fair,” she reminded me. “Occupy your time with thinking about hungry people. And if you need fresh air just open a window.” She raised an eyebrow to punctuate her point then walked down the hall, and I heard her descend the cellar stairs to the laundry room. She wasn’t having much fun either.

  When I heard the washer start its gyrations I hopped up and went to the kitchen and grabbed the jar of peanut butter and a box of Nilla wafers, a knife, and a tall glass of milk. I turned on Mom’s kitchen radio, but it was that awful air raid warning test so I turned it off then scampered back to my room. I made a checkerboard of peanut butter wafers and slowly began to eat my breakfast as I searched through the newspaper. Mr. Greene was late getting in the obituary but This Day In History was really good:

  June 26, 1541: Conquistador Francisco Pizarro was assassinated in Lima, Peru, and got what he deserved for killing Atahualpa and all those Incas.

  June 26, 1945: The United Nations signed a charter and pledged to create peace around the world. The not so hopeful news is that there seems to be a new war about every other week and millions have died since the charter was signed.

  “And in 1962,” I said, looking up from the paper and bemoaning my fate, “the longest grounding of a boy named Jack continues to go unnoticed by history.”

  When I finished eating there wasn’t much left for me to do but read history as Mom ordered. I picked up John F. Kennedy and PT-109 off my pile of Landmark books and decided to spend the day in bed and let my nose heal. It turned out that reading was a great idea because the book was terrific.

  During World War II, Kennedy and his torpedo boat crew were on night patrol in the sea around the Solomon Islands when a Japanese destroyer came roaring at full speed out of the mist and sliced their boat clean in two. Eleven men survived the collision but some were burned badly from the fuel fire that took place after the crash. Kennedy had been hurled across the deck and fractured a vertebra in his back but he could still move.

  Fortunately, half of the PT boat floated for a while as they hung on to it and made a plan. Their only hope of survival was to swim miles away to a small island that they hoped was not covered with Japanese soldiers. Kennedy tied one end of a belt onto the most wounded man’s lifejacket and put the other end of the belt in his own mouth, and then he swam the breaststroke for five hours before he got the man to the island. There was no food or fresh water.

  After several days of hunger they ate snails, which were bitter tasting. At night it rained and they licked the water off of leaves, and in the morning they saw that the leaves were covered with bird droppings. Everyone was becoming sicker and their wounds were infected. Night after night Kennedy kept swimming out into the ocean to try to spot any Allied ships, but he had no luck. He was worn down but he had not given up hope.

  Finally he and a sailor swam to another island and discovered a hidden camp where some native islanders had kept fresh water and hardtack and crackers. They were also lucky enough to find a canoe so they could deliver the supplies to the other men. Still, without soon being rescued they were sure to die, because their wounds were so infected their flesh had begun to stink and rot.

  But just before the men lost all hope, the native islanders tracked them down. They were friendly and wanted to help, so Kennedy scratched a rescue note on a coconut and gave it to the islanders, who paddled their war canoe to an Allied base. More days passed, and just when Kennedy and his men thought they all would die, they were rescued by soldiers from New Zealand.

  Kennedy became a hero for his effort to save his men from the Japanese. And now that he is president, he keeps that very same coconut on his Oval Office desk.

  “Hey, Dad,” I hollered when he passed by my room that evening. As he turned toward me I saw the top of his head was white from his helping to paint the War Veterans’ Club ceiling. I held up the book for him to see.

  He smiled. “That is a great story,” he said, and waved his speckled hand over his brow in a snappy salute.

  “Weren’t you in the Solomon Islands?” I asked. “Did you know him?”

  “Sorry to report that we never met,” he replied. “But like about a zillion other soldiers who never knew each other, we fought on the same side—the winning side—of the greatest country in the world. And I’m proud of it.”

  I smiled. It felt good to be an American.

  * * *

  By the next morning Mr. Greene had printed the Hells Angel obituary in the paper. I sat down on the front steps and read it.

  UNKNOWN MOTORCYCLIST

  By E. Volker

  NORVELT—As many citizens of Norvelt are aware, a Hells Angel died in our town. He was struck down by a ten-ton cement truck and died instantly of a massive skull fracture on the Norvelt road early in the morning on June 24. He was taken to the Huffer Funeral Parlor to be identified, but there was no identification on the body except for many colorful tattoos which revealed his devil-worshipping ways. Mr. Huffer has documented the tattoos, and the photographs can be viewed by adults only at the police station. It is hoped that someone will recognize the tattoos and identify him so his family can be informed.

  He was a stranger to our town, but what is even more strange is how he died. From the police record it appears that he was eating a ham-on-rye sandwich and drinking a beer at the Mount Pleasant Polish American Club when suddenly he dropped his bottle and began to dance rather spastically, as if in acute pain. He danced out the door and danced down the road and was seen by many witnesses, who have all testified that he was dancing for the entire three-mile stretch from Mount Pleasant to Norvelt. This is all we know about him before his inner music was abruptly stopped.

  What we should be concerned with is that this person may have brought into our community a terrible plague. I do not think it is a coincidence that June 24—the day of our stranger’s death—is also the same day of the year in 1374 when the plague of “St. John’s Dance” erupted in Germany. This dancing plague began with a single maniac who could not stop dancing for days. Soon he was joined in the streets by others until hundreds of people were afflicted. There were many theories about the dancing plague, but the most popular theory, put forth by physicians and priests, was that the Devil himself—the original Hells Angel—had cast an evil spell upon the citizens.

  The dancing plague traveled to France in 1518. To hasten a cure the community constructed a stage and musicians were hired to play soothing dance music so that the dancers might slowly waltz themselves back to good spiritual health. But quite the opposite results were achieved, as the dancers danced themselves to utter exhaustion, and one by one they began to expire from heart attacks, strokes, and complete organ failure. Not one person with the dancing plague survived, but with their deaths the plague vanished. However, throughout history, the plague has reappeared.

  Remember in 1284 when the Pied Piper of Hamelin who, when the king refused to pay him for ridding the town of rats, turned the irresistible music of his pipe toward the children? He danced them uncontrollably through the town and into a bat-filled cave where they disappeared forever. And do not think we Americans are immu
ne from this mysterious plague of dancing possession. Remember our Puritan ancestors in Salem, Massachusetts, who were stricken with convulsive dancing, twitching, uncontrollable smirking, and spastic pagan gestures, which were judged to be the signs of Devilish Possession and which led to the Witch Trials where twenty citizens were put to death.

  And perhaps now we have had the plague’s modern advance scout—a Hells Angel—come to Norvelt. What infection did he bring? What curse, disease, or epidemic has he unleashed in our town? Beware! Death has reached our doorstep!

  That was an intense obituary. A lot of people are going to read it and be upset, I thought, and just at that moment I heard something that sounded like a swarm of angry bees. I thought Dad had started up the J-3 and I was hearing the high-pitched sound of the engine.

  But it wasn’t Dad’s J-3. It was an engine-roaring swarm of Hells Angels coming up over the hill past wormy Bob Fenton’s gas station. They must have read the obituary too.

  I ran down the front steps and across our property so I could watch the long line of them pass. There must have been fifty of the meanest, toughest guys I had ever seen. They were wearing zippered black leather jackets with HELLS ANGELS spelled out in chrome studs across their backs. They had on greasy blue jeans and thick boots with heavy silver buckles running up the sides, and on their hands some had face-smashing brass knuckles, and to let everyone know they were evil, a few even wore black Nazi helmets.