A Plague Year

by Edward Bloor

  Jimmy went on. “I am a professional driver, licensed for any vehicle up to fourteen tons. Yet I have to get driven around in my pickup like I’m some two-year-old. What can I thank for that?”

  Arthur’s voice dropped this time. It was barely audible. “Drugs. You can thank drugs for that.”

  “My wife, and my son, and my stepson live on a piece of land that has been condemned by the United States government as unsafe for human habitation. What can I thank for that?”

  This time, Jimmy looked around the room at all of us.

  And we knew what to do. We replied, softly, raggedly, “Drugs. You can thank drugs for that.”

  This call-and-response continued for a few more minutes. Jimmy and Arthur did that old-time-religion thing, and, to my amazement, the whole group responded to it. Warren stood by the door watching us, smiling broadly.

  When Jimmy finally finished, Catherine Lyle stood up. She delivered a very nice, very sincere thank-you to him, and we all applauded. Then she announced, “That’s it for this week—just a short meeting, a getting-to-know-you meeting. I hope to see you all back here next week.”

  I walked outside with Arthur, Jimmy, and Warren. Warren was laughing. “I could hear you two through the door! You were doing that fire-and-brimstone stuff, right?”

  Arthur conceded, “I reckon we were.”

  Warren winked at me. “You keep away from me with that. I don’t want nothing to do with burning. I don’t even want to hear about burning.”

  Arthur grinned. “Yeah, I know. Okay.”

  I glanced at Jimmy. He seemed nervous and withdrawn again. He muttered, “Thank you, Arthur. And you, too, Warren.” He looked at me and explained, “They helped me write that stuff on the cards.”

  “But you delivered it, Jimmy Giles,” Arthur told him. “The spirit was speaking through you.”

  And maybe it had been, but it wasn’t now. Jimmy didn’t say anything else. He climbed up into the passenger’s seat of his Ranger pickup and just stared straight ahead.

  As usual, Mom was waiting for Lilly and me after school in the car riders’ circle. She drove us from Haven to our jobs at the Food Giant. Then she went home to cook dinner. (Mom calls that being “a traditional housewife.”)

  Lilly walked ahead of me into the store. She passed the customer-service desk and ducked into the employees’ lounge, where she’d change into a green-and-white smock, pick up a cash drawer, and open up register three.

  The Food Giant only has three registers (so it isn’t all that giant). Two older ladies named Del and Marsha run registers one and two during the day. They get replaced by high school kids at around 4:00 p.m.

  I walked into the anteroom outside the men’s room, where all the brooms are stashed and the green slickers are hanging. As soon as I did, I heard voices on the other side of the door. I recognized Reg’s wise-guy drawl. I recognized Bobby’s voice, too. Hearing those two together was never good.

  Reg went out of his way to bust Bobby’s balls wherever and whenever he could. As a result, Bobby truly despised Reg.

  I opened the door and stepped into the actual men’s room, with the toilets and all. Bobby and Reg were both standing in front of the sinks, talking to each other’s mirror images.

  Reg immediately included me in whatever he was up to. “Here’s Tom. If you don’t believe me, ask Tom.”

  Bobby, still in his green slicker, shook his head adamantly. “I ain’t asking nobody.”

  The door pushed open behind me, bumping me aside. Uno walked in and continued on to the urinal. He called over his shoulder, “Ask what?”

  Uno always went along with Reg when it came to pranking Bobby. (I didn’t. Well, except when it was something really funny.) Reg replied as if he were Coach Malloy handing out an answer sheet. “I am trying to explain to Bobby that the produce department is having a promotion—Chiquita Banana Week.”

  Uno confirmed that right away. “Oh yeah, Bobby. It’s Chiquita Banana Week.”

  Reg continued: “As part of the promotion, we are asking each bag boy to carry a Chiquita banana in his pocket and to ask each customer if she would like a Chiquita banana.”

  Uno sputtered. He flushed the urinal to cover up the sound of his laughter. I started laughing, too, so I turned away from the mirror.

  When I looked back, Bobby’s round face was scrunched up.

  Uno joined them at the sink. Bobby said warily, “Come on. Is that true?”

  Uno assured him, “That is one hundred percent true, Bobby.”

  “So, is Tom going to do that tonight?”

  Reg answered quickly. “The promotion doesn’t start until tomorrow, Bobby. Tomorrow morning at seven. Tom will have a banana in his pocket tomorrow afternoon. And if I know Tom, it will be a sizable one.”

  Uno laughed so hard that he had to plunge his face into the sink and splash water on it.

  I had to turn away again, too. But I also started to feel uneasy. There were rules about bustin’ them on Bobby. Rule one was that you couldn’t do anything to hurt Bobby. Rule two was that you couldn’t do anything to hurt the store. I was pretty sure this violated rule two.

  I made a mental note to tell Dad about it. He would talk to Bobby in the morning. He’d talk to Uno, too. He probably wouldn’t bother with Reg, though. They didn’t call him “the Veg” for nothing.

  I stepped back into the anteroom and grabbed a broom. My first job was usually to take one lap around the store with a wide push broom.

  At broom level, the Food Giant is one large square divided into seven aisles. The floor is red-and-white linoleum. It is old, and cracked in places, and faded from thousands of moppings (many of those by me).

  The ceiling is actually very high, probably twenty-five feet, but you can only see that if you are back in the storeroom. Out front, it is covered by a white drop ceiling, which, unfortunately, shows water stains from roof leaks.

  Seven lines of fluorescent lights extend from the dairy and meat cases in the back to the registers in the front. The left wall is all frozen foods, so the floor there is the most messed up, again from leaks. The right wall contains the bakery and the produce department, which can also be messy.

  Aside from the registers, the front part of the store has a customer-service desk, a line of soda, candy, and ice machines, and a corral area for the shopping carts.

  When I finished my sweeping pass, I went outside to take Bobby’s place in the parking lot. He was standing next to a white metal cage that holds propane tanks for grills. (His mother always picks him up there.) When Bobby saw me, he pointed out two carts left out near Route 16.

  Reg emerged, fumbling with his truck keys. He called over, “Don’t forget about that promotion tomorrow, Bobby. I’m countin’ on you.”

  By the time I had walked all the way out to the road and back, both Bobby and Reg were gone. I wheeled the carts inside and crammed them into a lineup along the front wall. The Food Giant has fifty carts. But at any time, a dozen or so might be scattered across the parking lot (or stolen, or borrowed and abandoned, like this morning).

  Dad was now running register two, so I went over to bag for him. Uno came up and stood next to me, apparently to bag for Lilly, although there was no one in her line. Uno got his nickname around sixth grade, or whenever puberty was, because only one of his testicles had descended. I’m not sure I would have bragged about that, but he apparently did. He still answers to the nickname, but lately I have heard him introduce himself as John. I guess if you live in Blackwater, anything that makes you stand out in any way is considered good.

  Now, like most guys, I don’t really think of my sister as a girl. I mention this because so far I have described her pretty much as an angry, snarling monster. And she can be that. But other guys, who are not her brother, seem to find her attractive. And she can act attractive around them.

  Uno had asked Lilly to her junior prom last year (or, more likely, Lilly had asked him, but she won’t admit it). He had just turned twenty-one and was
legally an adult. Lilly, at seventeen, was legally a child.

  Mom was horrified.

  Dad said yes at first, but then Mom freaked out, and he had to change his vote to no. So Lilly didn’t go to the prom.

  Mom returned to the store at 6:30 to pick us up. She does that every school day so we can go home, eat dinner, and do homework. Dad used to go home then, too, but lately he misses dinner more often than he makes it.

  Today it would just be Lilly leaving, though. I had to stay and work. The produce truck had arrived late, due to a flat tire. Reg was gone for the day, and Dad couldn’t reach him, so I had to stay and unload it.

  They didn’t call him “the Veg” for nothing.

  I stacked produce crates until closing time, which is 9:00 p.m. Dad took two bakery rolls and filled them with lunch meat for our dinner. We ate them as we worked for another half hour, cleaning up, straightening up, locking up.

  It was nearly ten when we finally got home. Fortunately, there was a big open space on Sunbury Street not far from our door. Dad parallel-parked the van into it.

  The front doors on our street sit almost on the sidewalk, and the houses extend almost to the alleyway behind. This leaves very little room for backyards. Ours is taken up by a carport, a metal shed, and a cement slab that holds a gas grill (a Coleman, like us).

  Since the houses are so close to the sidewalk, lots of people have turned their ground floors into some kind of business. On our block alone, we have a beauty parlor, a pet groomer, and a travel agency.

  So far, our house is still just a house.

  Dad opened the front door, and I followed him into the parlor. It’s basically a living room, with a couch, a TV (which always has my Nintendo 64 plugged into it), and our computer. Mom insists on calling it “the parlor,” though.

  After the parlor comes the dining room, dominated by a large wooden table and four chairs. That’s where I have sat and done my homework since kindergarten (and Lilly has sat and avoided doing her homework since kindergarten). Beyond that are a big kitchen, the back stairs, and the back door.

  Dad and I trudged directly up the front stairs. At the top, he veered off into his room with a low “Good night, Tom.”

  My parents’ bedroom sits directly over the parlor, just feet away from the traffic on the street. After that comes our one, much-fought-over bathroom, and then two more bedrooms—my small one and Lilly’s large one.

  And that is it. Well, we have an unfinished basement with a washer and dryer, and an unfinished attic with boxes of Christmas stuff. But that is it.

  I entered my bedroom wearily, not even bothering to turn on the light. With the skill of a blind man, I pulled off most of my clothes in the dark and dropped them in a hamper inside my closet.

  I crawled into the same bed that I have been crawling into since I was five. My feet now extend several inches beyond the end, uprooting the covers every night.

  If I had turned on the light, I would have seen my Florida college collage on the back wall. It’s a collection I have put together myself: pictures of beautiful green campuses, pictures of smiling young people at FSU, UF, UCF. Beautiful warm places that I would like to live in someday.

  Places that are far from here.

  Tuesday, September 11, 2001

  Today was a full plan B day, with Mom dropping us off in a crowd of kids at 8:10. Lilly and I exited the car quickly, with our heads down, like guilty criminals dodging the media.

  I hurried inside, turned left down the junior high corridor, and went straight to homeroom. I flopped into a seat near the front and stared at the TV set mounted in the corner. Its screen displayed a test pattern of colors in vertical lines—ROY G BIV. Its speakers gave out a low hissing sound.

  The desks around me soon filled up with bleary-eyed ninth graders. Haven Junior/Senior High is filled with working-class white kids. We only have a few Puerto Ricans, and no blacks. Most of us live in Haven County because someone, somewhere on the family tree, was a coal miner. Most of those miners were white Europeans, so most of us are, too.

  At 8:25, the test pattern disappeared and was replaced by the unsmiling face of Mrs. Cantwell, the principal of the junior high side of the campus. Mrs. Cantwell was all business. “Good morning. Let us rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for the playing of our national anthem.”

  We straggled to our feet, covered our hearts, and recited the pledge. Some kids kept their hands on their hearts for the national anthem, but most let them drop and started to fidget, stretch, and yawn.

  Then, when the music stopped and we all sat back down, something wonderful occurred. Wonderful for me, at least.

  Mrs. Cantwell’s glowering face disappeared and was, after a moment of darkness, replaced by the face of a smiling, beautiful girl.

  My heart nearly stopped beating.

  It was her. It was she. Whatever. It was Wendy.

  What was she doing on the TV, smiling that white, white smile? She said something about the upcoming school elections, and about this week’s football game against Mahanoy, and about a fund-raiser. But I couldn’t really take it in. I was too shocked. Too excited.

  I thought about what I could say to her in second period. I even jotted some things down, like Hey, you looked great on TV, and other variations of that.

  Then the TV blinked off, bells rang, and Coach Malloy’s social studies class began. I pulled out the homework sheet that I had finished over breakfast. He went over it slowly, methodically, death-inducingly. He covered the topic “The Three Branches of Government” exactly the same way Mrs. Kerpinski had in fourth grade. The kid behind me, Mikeszabo, had not finished his, so I let him copy mine. Coach didn’t notice.

  Mikeszabo and I go way back. He had been in Mrs. Kerpinski’s class, too. He was one of two Mikes in that class—Miklos Szabo and Michael Murphy. She always called them by their full names—Mikeszabo (the s is silent) and Mikemurphy—so I’ve called them by those names ever since.

  Mikemurphy is a problem kid now. He gets suspended a lot. He gets caught with stuff on campus—cigarettes, a hunting knife, a can of beer. From stray comments I’ve heard from Mom and Dad, I get the idea that Mikemurphy’s parents are heavy drinkers.

  Coach finally finished his lecture. He looked at the wall clock. “Tell you what—you can have free time to work on other assignments from now until the bell rings. Then don’t forget to pick up your worksheets on the way out.”

  A few kids took out pens and loose-leaf binders (I was one of them). But the majority, including Mikeszabo, did what Haven Junior High kids had done in Coach Malloy’s class for a generation. They put their heads down and went to sleep.

  After class, I managed to pick up my worksheet without getting into any confrontations with angry football players. I turned left in the hallway and spotted Arthur’s shaved head in the crowd. Apparently, he was waiting for me, letting the river of freshmen eddy around him on either side.

  When I got right next to him, he leaned forward and whispered in a no-nonsense voice, “Something’s going down, cuz.”

  “What?”

  “We’re under attack.”

  “Who is? Am I? Is it Dorfman?”

  “No. Shut up and listen. The United States of America is under attack. We just heard about it in first period. You didn’t hear?”

  “No.”

  “Two jet planes, big ones, full of fuel, hit the World Trade Center in New York City. One plane hit tower one. Then, fifteen minutes later, another hit tower two. Hijacked planes, man, exploding like bombs. Death and destruction everywhere.”

  “My God!”

  “It could be happening in every city in America. Right now. It could be happening here.”

  I thought about that for a second. “No. Not here.”

  He agreed. “No, probably not. But every major city, every important target. The United States is under freakin’ attack.”

  We turned into Mr. Proctor’s classroom. He had his back to us, and he held a
TV remote control in his hand. Keeping his eyes on the screen, he repeated several times, “Everybody take a seat.”

  Arthur and I sat in two desks up front, right under the TV. The screen showed a jet, moving impossibly fast for its altitude, slamming into one of the twin towers.

  Wendy Lyle took the seat next to me, but I barely noticed. (And I completely forgot about her earlier TV appearance.)

  As we watched and listened, things just kept getting worse. CNN announced that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. I thought Arthur was going to jump out of his chair at that news. He clenched his fists like he wanted to punch somebody.

  The TV announced that all planes flying in United States airspace had to land immediately or they would be shot down, to which Arthur shouted, “Hell, yeah! Payback!”

  Then, right before our eyes, the first tower in New York City crumbled to the ground, just disintegrated into dust. Mr. Proctor whispered, “My God. That building is full of people.”

  It was amazing, and shocking, and News with a capital N. We all stayed glued to the television. Here is a summary of what happened:

  8:46: Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

  9:03: Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

  9:37: Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon.

  9:59: The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

  At 10:15, the scenes of destruction and carnage suddenly faded away and Mrs. Cantwell’s face appeared. She told us, “Due to the national emergency, Haven County has decided to close all schools and to send students home for the day. We ask you to stay where you are, in your second-period classes, until the buses return. We will call for the bus riders first, after which we will call for the car riders. Students with no ride home should report to the auditorium.”

  Mrs. Cantwell’s face faded and CNN returned. At first, I could not believe what I was hearing. The CNN anchors, who should have been talking about New York City and Washington, D.C., were talking about us instead. About Somerset County. About western Pennsylvania.