Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

  “I could run to the hardware store and buy a new one,” I offered. “With my allowance.”

  “That reminds me,” he said. “I have to move Mrs. Linga’s house. The guy at the hardware store also works for Mr. Huffer and he’s going to help us.”

  “So can I use the radio?” I asked one last time.

  He gave in. “Sure,” he said reluctantly. “But just turn it off when the commercials come on so you save the battery.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks!”

  24

  The battery slowly faded over two days but I could still hear a tiny voice in the radio when I tuned it to my country music station, and that was just long enough to keep me company as I dug and waited for the telephone to ring. And it did.

  “Come on down,” Miss Volker squawked. “We have a duty to perform.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Bloodgood at F-11 has left the confines of her flesh,” she said respectfully. “She’s a great combination of Norvelt resident and Norvelt history all rolled into one, so we have tremendous obit material.”

  That sounded promising. “I’ll be right there,” I replied, and hung up the telephone.

  “Hey, Mom,” I hollered. “Mrs. Bloodgood’s battery ran out before mine did.”

  “Be mindful of the dead,” she scolded me. “Now that she’s in heaven she can hear you!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Bloodgood,” I yelled into the little speaker on the radio.

  Mom reached out and took a swipe at me. “Just be considerate,” she said. “We don’t know how Mrs. Bloodgood feels about being dead. I suspect she’s probably a little confused about her condition.”

  “When you’re dead can you feel disappointed that you died?” I asked, just guessing. “Or are you just dead and that’s that?”

  “When you are young,” Mom said, “you only see how death affects the living. When you get older you worry about how your death will be greeted by those who are already dead.”

  “Is that like going to a new school?” I yelled back. “You worry about being the new kid.”

  I didn’t wait for an answer and dashed out the door. As I passed the bomb shelter it made me think of what Mom had just said. I was young and I only wanted to think about the living. If that hole was for a swimming pool I’d be smiling. Instead the bomb shelter made me chew on my lip with dread because it was all about death.

  * * *

  Miss Volker was waiting for me in the living room. She was frantic with excitement and I had no idea what was going to come out her mouth—but I knew it was going to be good.

  “Did I ever tell you how this town got its name?” she asked gleefully.

  I groaned. “Yes,” I replied a little too impatiently. “You told me about a million times. It’s named after Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “Right,” she continued, marching this way and that across the living room and waving her hands about like a traffic cop directing her thoughts and words. “But there is more to it than that. In an indirect way Mrs. Bloodgood had something to do with the name. This town used to be called Westmoreland Homesteads, which is a mouthful and really sounds more like a mental institution or an old-age home. Once Eleanor got the funding to build this town, the government bought the old Hurst farm which was here. Two hundred and fifty houses were planned and families had to apply to get one of the land plots. Now, you have to realize that these were desperately poor people. The coal mines closed during the Depression. There was no money to be made in farming and a lot of farmers lost their land. So the homestead idea really appealed to poor people who needed a helping hand.

  “And then a Negro family applied. They were the first Negro family to do so and by chance their last name was White. Now, as I said, these were all poor white people and they should have seen beyond skin color that everyone had their desperation and poverty in common, as well as the same American dream for a better future for their children. But Mrs. Bloodgood did not want any Negro families in the town. She rallied all the white people and they made sure the Negro family application was denied. But Mrs. White was determined to do the best for her family and so she wrote to President and Mrs. Roosevelt directly and told them about the hopes and dreams she had for her family. The letter so moved the Roosevelts that they made sure the White family received a house and there was no more fuss about the issue of race. Well, when the town was finally built nobody really cared for the name of Westmoreland Homesteads and so there was a contest to name the town—and who do you think won the contest? Well, it was Mrs. White, of course. She combined the ‘nor’ from Eleanor and the ‘velt’ from Roosevelt to create a new word for a new town, Norvelt, which was a fitting tribute to the great woman.”

  “That is a great story,” I said, gushing a bit. “A real home run.”

  “And great justice,” added Miss Volker, nodding respectfully as she recalled Mrs. White and her family. “And as you know, I always have to add a little marble pillar of history to hold up a story and properly show it off, so don’t put your pencil down.”

  I quickly sharpened my pencil and got a clean pad of paper on my desk. “Ready for the history part,” I said. “Fire away.”

  Miss Volker shimmied her hips and shoulders back and forth and high-stepped up and down a little bit as if she were trying to shoo a bee out from under her dress. But she was just adjusting her old bones, and once she was good and warmed up she started talking. “So the interesting thing about this land belonging to the Hurst family is that they were slaveholders who came up from Kentucky and purchased the land from the Penn family—and when they arrived here they brought their own slaves with them. Who would have guessed that years later the farm would become a stop for runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. And then,” she said excitedly, “who would have further guessed it would be Mrs. White—perhaps a descendant of those very slaves—who named this new town which was built on equality.”

  “Wow! That’s something to remember,” I said.

  She winked at me and dusted the top of my head with a swipe of her ruined hand. “Don’t ever forget your history,” she sang, “or any wicked soul can lie to you and get away with it.”

  “Even the dead,” I added.

  “Now you’re catching on,” she said warmly. “You’re a good listener and a great assistant.”

  “So where is Mrs. Bloodgood’s body?” I asked.

  “Mr. Huffer already has his grasping hands on it,” she said. “He brought her over already stretched out in the hearse, and I looked her over and signed the papers and I would say that right about now she is about to go up in smoke.”

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “Death is not a lazy fellow,” she replied, then glanced up at the clock. “But the living have fallen behind. Hurry and type that story up into an obituary form. Quickly, and then you can take my car to run it over to Mr. Greene.”

  The thought of driving her car got me excited and my fingers rattled across the keys. I typed up a pretty good obituary about Mrs. Bloodgood and the Mrs. White story of naming Norvelt, and the history of the Hurst farmland.

  “Get a move on,” Miss Volker encouraged from the wall map where she was sticking a red pin into Mrs. Bloodgood’s front yard. “I want that obit in the next edition.”

  I yanked the paper out of the typewriter. I got her keys and ran out to the car and started the engine with a roar and fishtailed out of the driveway and onto the Norvelt road. I floored it and burned rubber and was just picking up speed when suddenly I heard Ring, ring! Ring, ring! It sounded like a bicycle bell and I thought there might be a kid on a bike, so I hit the brake and slowed to a stop. I looked to my left and right and then into my rearview mirror. Right behind me was Mr. Spizz on his adult tricycle. He was pedaling madly and waving his arm overhead while his other hand repeatedly rang his little chrome bell. Then I heard him shout, “Pull over!”

  I just stayed in my lane since there was nowhere to pull over other than into the gutter weeds. He hopped
off his tricycle like a mad monkey and ran up to my window.

  “Gantos boy, let me see your license,” he ordered.

  “Mr. Spizz, you know I don’t have one,” I replied. “I’m too young.”

  “Is this your car?” he shot back.

  “You know it is Miss Volker’s car,” I replied.

  “I could give you a speeding ticket,” he declared. “But I’ll let you off with a warning.”

  “What’s the warning?” I asked.

  “The warning is I heard the news that nosy Mr. Greene is planning to call the sheriff about these old ladies dying and so a lot of county cops are going to be snooping around town. If they catch you driving, you are going to be in big trouble and they’ll impound her car.”

  “It’s my car,” I said emphatically. “She gave it to me.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he said skeptically. “There is a lot going on you don’t know about—even if you are her puny boyfriend.”

  You are just jealous, I thought, and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I really wanted to hit the gas and roar away from him. He might think I was “puny” but he’d never catch me on that tricycle.

  “Now that Mrs. Bloodgood has passed only Mrs. Droogie is left,” he continued. “So you can drop off your mom’s casserole at Miss Volker’s house, and I’ll just collect that and the cookies at her place and make my delivery to Mrs. Droogie.”

  “Are you sure Miss Volker will even want to see you?” I asked.

  “Gantos boy,” he said, and smiled coyly. “She and I have some personal business to finish up that is none of your business. So take the car back to her house and do what you need to do on foot. Really, if you were a smart kid you’d get one of these tricycles. History will show that the tricycle will last longer than the automobile.” Then he gave his old-man har-har-har laugh.

  Har-har, I thought to myself. I think history is on my side.

  I took the car and left it in the garage, then doubled back and got the obit to Mr. Greene. He just shook his head back and forth when he read it.

  “A word to the wise,” he said to me. “Things are going to change around here.”

  “That is what everyone keeps saying,” I replied.

  “Then it must be true,” he said curtly. “Mark my words, change is on the way.”

  25

  The next day I fully understood what Mr. Greene meant when he said things were going to change. He printed an editorial in the paper that stirred everyone up. He asked why all the old ladies were dying so quickly. He wanted to know if there was an investigation. He wanted to know if Miss Volker was up to the job of taking care of them.

  The town is dropping dead at her feet. All the bodies are cremated before being given a proper medical autopsy. We don’t know why they die. Is it just old age? Or is it something else we should be concerned with? It was suggested that it was a Hells Angels curse that was put on this town. But that is just fairy-tale thinking. We need scientific answers, which is why I have called in the county police. We are a town built on justice, so we are compelled to get to the bottom of this situation.

  Miss Volker took it very personally. I was eating breakfast and reading the paper when she began to kick on the back door with her slippered foot. “Jackie,” she growled when I opened the door and found her in her pink chenille bathrobe. “Take a letter. I have to put that ignorant man in his place.”

  I flew down the hall to my room and got a notebook and pencil and returned to the kitchen table. I raised my pencil above the paper and froze into the same position a doctor holds just before he jabs a scalpel into a patient.

  “History,” she started with her voice as strong and confident as ever, “often sheds more light on the present than on the past. Many of us remember being plagued by the Great Influenza of 1918 which killed over five hundred thousand Americans and fifty million people worldwide. Out in the coal-mining towns and steel factories where people worked closely together the virus spread rapidly, and thousands died in days. Small towns lost half of their populations or more. Schools were closed. Movie theaters closed. Churches were shut and locked for fear that worshipping God would lead to the death of the congregation. Football and baseball and hockey games were canceled. Entire teams dropped dead. People were forced to wear cotton masks over their mouths and noses as they walked the streets. The whole country was terrified. Everyone pointed fingers at everyone else. The terror created fear and mistrust and neighbor blamed neighbor for the death of their loved ones. But no person was at fault. It was the influenza, which is as natural as the yeast that makes your bread rise.

  “And here in Norvelt we’ve lost but a few ladies of advanced age by natural causes. They lived useful, long lives, so let us not panic like a bunch of Chicken Littles and feel the sky falling, but instead put our energy into keeping Norvelt alive. People will pass on, but we must preserve our history. Stop shipping out the houses and instead sell them to young families. Let us fill every empty seat at the school. Let us farm each acre of land. Let us be good neighbors and build communities where the pursuit of happiness is the purpose of life, rather than merely staying alive just so we can cower from fear.”

  After I wrote this out I slowly escorted Miss Volker down the grassy back path to her house. “What do you think Mr. Greene will say when he reads this?” I asked her as I click-clacked away on her typewriter.

  “He won’t say anything,” she replied from her position on the couch. “He’s a coward.”

  “What is he afraid of?”

  “What most people are afraid of,” she replied. “The truth. These ladies just died of old-lady age. Nothing more than that.”

  * * *

  But some people thought it was more than that.

  At dinner that night Mom looked at Dad and me as if she were being washed out to sea. “I have a terrible confession to share,” she said, and lowered her fork. Her lips quivered and then she cried out, “I think I may have killed those old ladies!”

  “What!” I shouted, and the food spit out of my mouth.

  “You should spit it out,” Mom agreed, “because that’s how I think they died—from eating my food. You know how thrifty I am. Well, in the evening I’ve been picking mushrooms up by the trash dump and I think I’ve been making a mistake between the Amanitopsis and the Amanita virosa, which is called the Destroying Angel mushroom because it is deadly to eat. One tastes heavenly and the other will send you to heaven. So depending on what I picked, I may have been adding those killer mushrooms to all the casseroles I made for the old folks.”

  “Should we tell someone?” I asked, and patted her hand.

  “Maybe Miss Volker,” Mom guessed. “She’s the nurse.”

  “Then she’d have to report you to the police!” I announced dramatically.

  “And they’d put me in jail for murder,” Mom cried, and the tears ran down her pale cheeks. “And I’d never see you grow up,” she said to me, sobbing. “And I’d even miss your bloody nose, which, by the way, is bleeding all over you again.”

  I grabbed my napkin and held it beneath my nose.

  Then Mom turned toward Dad. He was eyeballing us as if we were insane. “I’ll never grow old with you, honey,” she whimpered, and reached out for his face.

  Dad slowly shook his head back and forth. “Before you two hopeless cases go off the deep end,” he said bluntly, “may I ask a question: Have you been putting these poison mushrooms in our food?”

  “Yes,” she blurted out. “Oh my! I’ve been killing you too.”

  “Well, I have a news flash for you—we aren’t dead,” I said, “so that shoots down your poisoning theory.”

  “Point well taken,” Dad pitched in. “If we eat what they eat, it figures that we’d be dead too.”

  “You think so?” Mom asked, and a note of relief buoyed her voice.

  “I think you need to settle down for now,” Dad advised. “But don’t tell a soul. This is how awful rumors start. If you tell one person about
the mushrooms they will tell others and the others will tell even more, and before long an angry mob will surround our house and burn it to the ground.”

  “Good Norvelt people wouldn’t do that,” Mom replied. “People trust each other around here.”

  “Good Norvelt people wouldn’t be suggesting that the old ladies are being knocked off like this is some kind of cheap murder mystery,” Dad said. “We have to face facts that times are changing around here, and I’m planning on changing with the times.”

  “Times might be changing,” Mom echoed. “But my values won’t.”

  “I’m not asking you to change who you are,” Dad said. “Just where you are. We could sell our house to Mr. Huffer and he’d pay me to move it to Eleanor, and we could keep right on going and leave this town to die behind our backs instead of in front of our eyes.”

  “Let me think about all of this moving business,” Mom said reluctantly. “But for now let’s just keep this murder talk in the family. We can trust each other, but something is wrong and I’m not sure why.”

  * * *

  When I went to bed I began to think that Mom was right about something being wrong in Norvelt. In a lot of the history books I read, I learned about dates and people and events, but I wasn’t always sure why people did what they did. Why wouldn’t the English king and church not share all their land with their own starving countrymen? And why did the conquistadors think it was okay with God to kill the Incas and steal their gold? And why would the rich coal mine owners work the miners so hard they died young with their lungs hardened up with coal dust? How could history be filled with so much horror and so few reasons why?

  And now all those old ladies had died. But why? If they were poisoned, it had to be the 1080. Miss Volker had killed all those rodents with it and I had buried their bodies by the dump. Spizz used it in traps he set at the dump for the rats that bred in the old mine shafts and came out to swarm the town. Plus I had seen Mr. Huffer’s name on the list of people who had bought 1080, and he threw funeral parlor gunk and dead rodents into his trash cans, which were emptied at the dump. And even my name was on the 1080 list. If the police asked me what I did with the poison I bought, I would tell them I gave it to Spizz.