A Plague Year

by Edward Bloor

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  “No, I’m not saying that. Your father is. I’m saying you did a dangerous thing. And an illegal thing. You don’t have a driver’s license.”

  Lilly interrupted her. “What is this? You told me that Tom saved Dad’s life!”

  “Yes, I did say that,” Mom conceded. “But I didn’t know the circumstances.”

  “Circumstances! Who cares? He saved Dad’s life.”

  That silenced Mom for a while, which is no small task. We exited the parking lot and headed west. Soon we were on Sunbury Street and passing our own house—a white, two-story duplex set in a row of houses and businesses. The buildings on Sunbury Street tend to reflect our mining-town roots. We have lots of churches and bars and funeral homes.

  At the end of the street, Mom remarked casually, “Don’t forget that counseling-group meeting after school, Lilly.”

  Mom has always been active in our schools, volunteering for anything and everything. Mom rode with Lilly and me on all of our field trips—east to Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell in fourth grade, west to Pittsburgh and the Fort Pitt Museum in fifth grade, and so on. She keeps in touch with the front office at the high school just in case she can chaperone something, just in case she’s needed. And that’s how she found out about the counseling group.

  Lilly snarled, “I’m not going to that thing!”

  We reverted to silence, but it was a heavier silence. Mom had approached dark territory. She had nearly spoken about the great unspoken event of the summer, which was this:

  About two months ago, on a hot July night, Lilly and a friend from Lewis Street had been sitting on that friend’s porch. A policeman had approached them, claiming that a neighbor had complained about the smell of marijuana.

  Lilly got scared and immediately confessed to the crime. The friend took a different approach. She denied any drug use, and claimed that Lilly was crazy and was always telling lies.

  Then Lilly, offended by those comments, actually reached under her chair and pulled out the remains of a half-smoked joint. She held it up and protested, “I am not lying!” (She chose honor over self-preservation, I guess.)

  The police called Mom to pick Lilly up, and the incident got submitted to the local district attorney’s office. He decided it was a waste of time to prosecute Lilly and her friend for such a small amount of marijuana, and the whole thing, legally, went away.

  But that did not get Lilly off the hook. Not even close. Mom took her to our family physician, Dr. Bielski, who prescribed an antidepressant which I don’t think Lilly actually took. She probably could have used it, though, as Mom kept her a homebound prisoner for the rest of the summer, allowing her out only for work. (I was at home, too, but it was by choice. Dad had finally gotten me a Nintendo 64. I had spent the summer mastering Super Mario Brothers 3, Donkey Kong, and Mario Kart.) Then, just to be sure, Mom signed Lilly up for a substance-abuse counseling group after school.

  Lilly tried, “I’m never going to smoke pot again. There’s no reason for me to go and sit with a bunch of stoners. That might actually be worse, you know? I’ll learn more about being a stoner. I’ll make stoner friends. I’ll learn how to lie about using drugs!”

  Mom was not moved. “You’ll learn no such thing.”

  Lilly tried, “You just don’t trust me!”

  “That’s not it, Lilly,” Mom assured her. “Your father and I have both told you that we trust you—”

  “Right. Then why are you still punishing me?”

  “This counseling group isn’t about punishment. It’s about information. You need to understand about addiction.”

  “Addiction? I took two puffs on a joint, and now I’m some crack whore standing on a street corner?”

  “Don’t overdramatize.”

  “I’m not an addict!”

  “No. But your father was a drinker, until he quit. And your uncle Robby was a drug addict, and it killed him.”

  I said, “I thought Uncle Robby was an alcoholic.”

  “It’s all the same. He was addicted to alcohol and drugs. That’s what gets transmitted in your genes, and in your DNA; that’s part of your family inheritance. You could have the same addictive personality.”

  Lilly suddenly turned to include me. “Okay. So it’s in Tom’s genes, too?”

  I answered, too casually as it turned out, “Yeah. We both have some evil drug zombie inside us, waiting for the chance to bust out.”

  Lilly announced, “Then shouldn’t Tom go to the meeting, too?”

  Before I could even protest, Mom replied, “Yes. I think that’s a good idea.”

  It was my turn to snarl. “I’m not going to that thing!”

  Mom continued: “You should go to the first one, Tom. If you don’t think it’s worthwhile, then you can stop. Lilly, though, will keep going.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “That’s what your father and I decided. You know that.”

  “I have to keep going until when?”

  “Until further notice.”

  “Because of stupid Uncle Robby?”

  Mom warned her, “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” She added, “I bet your cousin Arthur will be there. If he isn’t, he should be.”

  Our cousin Arthur, Arthur Stokes, was Uncle Robby’s son. He’s kind of a thug. Mom was right on that count—he should be there. He could probably use some counseling.

  But I could not.

  I accepted my fate silently, though. I would attend one meeting, and one meeting only. I quickly changed the subject. “Arthur is in my English class.”

  Mom made a face in the rearview mirror. “How can he be in your class? Isn’t he with you, Lilly? Isn’t he a senior?”

  “He said the office screwed up his credits, and he has to take two English classes this year or he can’t graduate. He says it’s because he flunked Shakespeare.”

  Lilly stopped sulking long enough to remark, “So he has to sit there with you ninth graders?”

  “Yeah. Can you imagine the shame?”

  She smiled unpleasantly. “I can’t.”

  Mom asked, “So is Arthur going to graduate or not?”

  “I guess so. If he does everything that Mr. Proctor says.”

  “Well, that’s a shocker. People in that family rarely make it through high school, never mind college.”

  Lilly challenged her. “That family? It’s your family, you know. His father was your brother.”

  Mom backtracked. “I meant that side of the family.”

  Lilly pressed her on it. “Oh? I’m sorry. Did someone on our side of the family, someone like you or Dad, just graduate from college? Did I miss that? If so, congratulations.”

  Mom continued backtracking. “I meant that we both graduated from high school. Your father and me.”

  Lilly corrected her. “It’s ‘Your father and I.’ ”

  I decided to defend Mom. “It can be either one. Like ‘Your father and I want to talk to you, Lilly.’ Or ‘Don’t talk back to your father and me, Lilly.’ ”

  She told me, “Butt out, Tom. Go read your vocabulary book,” and the morning’s conversation ended for good.

  By then we were climbing up into the foothills. As any old person around here would tell you, we were on the road that the coal miners walked on their way to work. Some days, they’d walk up here before the sun rose, work all day in their subterranean world, and walk home after the sun had set.

  Such reminiscences were supposed to inspire the kids around here, I guess. But inspire us to what? To be coal miners? They lived in a world without sun, like mole people; like people on the dark side of the moon. Not all that inspiring.

  Soon the piles of black slag and rusting machinery gave way to a nicer landscape of farms, creeks, and woods. This was my favorite part of Blackwater (the part that wasn’t, technically, Blackwater).

  Mom pulled into the Haven Junior/Senior High campus at 8:45, exactly thirty minutes late. She let us out next to the statue of th
e Battlin’ Coal Miner—our school mascot—a tall, thin guy with a pickax over his shoulder.

  Lilly hurried up the ramp and disappeared under the arch of the entranceway. I took my time, gazing at the distant mountains from the high elevation of our campus.

  It was a beautiful view, on a beautiful day, and I was in no hurry.

  I still had about a half hour remaining with Coach Malloy. Coach Malloy, at least in our family, was known for two things—being the worst teacher at Haven and being the father of Reg “the Veg” Malloy, from the Food Giant. My school day began with ten minutes of Coach Malloy for homeroom, followed by fifty-five more minutes of him for social studies.

  After a final look around, I entered the front office and stood at the junior high counter. None of the student assistants paid the slightest attention to me, like I was some invisible boy.

  Finally, Jenny Weaver came out of the principal’s office. She was always nice to me (to everybody, really). She asked, “What do you need, Tom? A late pass?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She tore one off a pad and handed it to me. “There you go. See you in Mr. Proctor’s class.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Bye!”

  I headed out into JH1, the junior high hallway, and was soon standing outside the door of my first-period class. I slipped in and found a seat in the back row. One glance up front confirmed what I had expected: Coach Malloy wasn’t looking. He never saw me come in. (This early in the year, he probably didn’t even know who I was.)

  Coach Malloy was in the middle of a long, rambling complaint about “the geniuses who purchased whiteboards for Haven Junior/Senior High.” According to him, he was part of a “select group of teachers who had been given one of these boards to test.” But the test, at least for Coach, was not going well.

  The whiteboard is a high-tech classroom aid. It’s about four feet high by six feet wide. It can be rolled on wheels. You write on it with special erasable markers.

  The cool feature is that you can press a button and a vertical bar starts to glide across the surface. As it glides, it copies every word that has been written. Then you press another button, and it prints out a piece of paper showing exactly what was on the board.

  Mr. Proctor writes on his a lot. If you miss a class, he gives you a printout of what the whiteboard said that day. That way, you know what you missed.

  Coach Malloy uses his whiteboard like it’s a cork bulletin board. He attaches papers to it with Scotch tape, papers like the varsity football schedule. (Football’s a big deal in Pennsylvania, but not so much in Blackwater. That’s because we never win.)

  Today’s assignment, attached to the top of Coach’s whiteboard, just said “Pick up homework sheet on way out.”

  The class was devoted to one of Coach Malloy’s favorite lessons—supply and demand. He has been teaching this lesson for thirty years. (Lilly and my cousin Arthur had already told me about it.) He brings in fifty candy bars, which he sells to fifty students for ten cents each. He lets the students eat the candy in class. The next day, he brings in ten candy bars and, because many students now want them, he raises the price to a dollar, explaining, “It’s supply and demand. If demand goes up and supply stays down, the item becomes worth more.”

  He’d started the lesson on Friday, so this was day two, the day when demand for candy bars exceeded supply. Some kids were surprised that the candy bars now cost a dollar.

  And only those with extra money were able to afford them.

  Okay. Got it. Lesson learned: no candy for the poor kids.

  The class ended with Coach Malloy holding up a mason jar, opening it with a pop, and sticking in a spoon. He pulled out a faded-looking, shrunken strawberry and commented, with his mouth partly full, “My son Reg plants a garden every year. We have fresh fruit and vegetables in the summer, and we have canned fruit and vegetables in the winter.”

  He put the jar down, wiped his mouth with a paper towel, and announced, “Come Thanksgiving week, I’ll be selling jars of fruit preserves just like this one. The cost will be five dollars per jar. The sale will begin on Monday, November nineteenth, and it will last through Wednesday, the twenty-first. So be ready with your money. Demand is always high, and supply is limited.”

  The bell rang right after that, and the students started for the door. I walked up front to drop off my late pass and take a homework handout. Just as I got to the door, a big senior, a football player named Rick Dorfman, came in the other way. (Football players stop in to see Coach Malloy a lot.) He plowed right through, making me back up into the classroom.

  Normally, I would let something like that go—him being a senior football player and me being a freshman bagger at the Food Giant. But today I felt like a hero. I had foiled a robbery. I had saved lives. So I heard myself snap at him, “Watch out!”

  I started to go, but I immediately felt a hand grab the back of my shirt collar and snap my head back. The senior kept his grip on my shirt and turned me around so I was facing him, with my twisted-up collar now acting like a tourniquet around my neck. He spoke in a very low, quiet voice. “What was that, you little pissant?”

  I looked toward Coach Malloy. If he knew this was happening, he didn’t let on. He spooned another strawberry into his mouth.

  “I just asked you a question,” Dorfman reminded me.

  I could feel the blood pooling in my head, above the tourniquet. I squirmed to break free, but his grip got even tighter. He opened his mouth to speak again, but then he suddenly stopped.

  His eyes darted to a spot behind me. His grip on my collar loosened, so that I could breathe again.

  I staggered and then turned around.

  Arthur was standing there. My cousin, Arthur Stokes.

  He was a menacing sight, as always, dressed in camo and black boots. His head was shaved as close as his face, which always had razor burns where he had scraped over his acne. His eyes looked like gray steel, and his voice was steely, too, when he said, “Is there a problem here, Dork-man?”

  Dorfman’s mouth twitched upward into something between a smile and a sneer. He muttered, “Keep out of this, Stokes.”

  Arthur pointed at my shirt collar. “Hands off the merchandise. Understand, Dork-man? Or I shall visit the wrath of God on you.”

  Dorfman took a step back, out of Arthur’s reach. He nodded his head up and down, one time. “Forget it. Forget you.”

  Arthur nodded his head the same way. “Forget me? That would be stupid. Real stupid. Of course, nobody ever said you weren’t stupid.”

  Dorfman then turned his back on us and faced Coach Malloy. The coach had put down his fruit jar by now. He had clearly been watching, and listening, but he hadn’t done a thing to help.

  Arthur jerked his head toward the hallway and told me, “Come on.”

  We started down JH1 alongside a slow stream of kids. Most of them were about a foot shorter than Arthur. (I was only about six inches shorter, but with about half his muscle mass.) I kept craning and rubbing my neck, trying to loosen it up, trying to tell if Dorfman had snapped a vertebra.

  Arthur finally asked, “You okay, cuz?”

  I tried to keep my voice calm. “Sure. Yeah.”

  He gave me a quick nod. “I heard what you did at the Food Giant today.”

  “You did? How?”

  “Buddy of mine in first period. He stopped in on his way to school. He talked to Uno.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Uno said you were like an action hero out there.”

  “What?”

  “Like Rambo.”

  “Like Rambo? No.”

  “Like James Bond in a spy-pimped minivan or something.”

  I was surprised that I could laugh. “Yeah. Maybe that.”

  “I didn’t know you could drive.”

  “I can’t. Not for eighteen months.”

  “But who’s counting, right?”

  “Right.”

  We arrived at Mr. Proctor’s door, and I
followed Arthur inside. If Arthur was embarrassed to be there among ninth graders, it didn’t show.

  Mr. Proctor is both a first-year teacher at Haven and a grad student at Blackwater University. He’s working on his master’s degree in English. He told us that he is from Philadelphia but he likes it better out here. (He didn’t say why, and I couldn’t imagine.)

  Anyway, he teaches ninth-grade English. Ninth grade plus Arthur Stokes.

  Last week, the first week of school, he got my attention by covering all of early American lit in just a day. He summed up the Puritans in two sentences: “They suffered, and they died. Let’s move on to something good.”

  That was it. I loved it.

  In Friday’s class, he had had a brief discussion with Arthur about Shakespeare. He asked him, “Mr. Stokes, what did you like or dislike about Shakespeare?”

  “Uh, I disliked that I couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t in English.”

  “Sure it was.”

  “Yeah, but like Old English.”

  “No. Shakespeare is neither Old nor Middle English. It is modern English.” He smiled. “Didn’t you at least like all the sex and violence?”

  “Maybe if I’d understood it.”

  “Because I need to assign some Shakespeare to you this year,” Mr. Proctor explained. “The rest of you will have to wait for it.” Then he pointed to someone in the back. “Yes?”

  A girl’s voice answered, “I really like Shakespeare.”

  “Good. What plays have you read?”

  “All of them.”

  Mr. Proctor sounded impressed. “You have? All thirty-seven?”

  “Yes,” the girl assured him. She sounded very confident.

  As those two continued to talk, Mr. Proctor passed out copies of a paperback book. When I got mine, I read the title, A Journal of the Plague Year.

  “This is a classic novel by Daniel Defoe, who also wrote Robinson Crusoe,” Mr. Proctor explained. “In this novel, people are getting killed by something mysterious.” He switched to a spooky, horror-movie voice. “Is it God? Is it the devil?”

  Then he answered his own question: “No. It is a disease that spreads through London in the year 1665.”

  The confident girl from the back asked, “Did you say this is a novel?”