A Plague Year (7 page)

As we wended our way through the lot, I saw Dad and Bobby corralling carts. I hurried over to join them.

As soon as he spotted me, Bobby pointed and cried out, “Tom was there! He told me to do it. Didn’t you, Tom?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. The planes? The World Trade Center?

But then it hit me.

“Oh my God!” I stopped and stood with my mouth hanging open. I had forgotten all about the prank on Bobby. I had forgotten to tell Dad.

Bobby’s stubby finger stayed aimed at me.

Dad maneuvered a train of carts my way. He looked really pissed off. When he got close enough, he said through clenched teeth, “Of all days to pull a stunt like this! With our country under attack!”

“It was yesterday, Dad. We didn’t know—”

Bobby screamed, “You did know!”

“I mean about the attacks.” I half whispered to Dad, “Oh my God. What did Bobby do?”

Dad snarled, “He did what he was told to do.”

I cringed.

“Mrs. Mercer came up to me at eight, before all … this happened. She told me that Bobby had said something inappropriate. Did you put him up to it?”

“No!”

“Did you know anything about it?”

“Yes, I knew,” I admitted. “And I meant to tell you. I just forgot. I’m sorry.”

I told Bobby, very sincerely, “I am really sorry.”

“You’re a liar! You’re like Reg the Veg!”

“No, I’m not. I’m not like Reg. And I’m not lying.”

“Yesterday! You lied yesterday. You told me it was the banana promotion.”

“No, I didn’t. I just … didn’t tell you that it was a lie. I just stood there. I let it happen. I’m sorry.”

Dad looked at me with great disappointment. “Did you really think that was a funny joke, Tom?”

“No. No, sir.”

His eyes swept the parking lot. “Well, we have more serious things to worry about now. Bobby, do you accept Tom’s apology? Can we all get to work?”

Bobby was quick to forgive. (He always is, except when it comes to Reg.) He shrugged. “I accept it.”

“Okay. Please, both of you, get these carts into the store.”

Dad took off, nearly running, and squeezed through the entranceway between clumps of shoppers.

Bobby and I threw ourselves into a frenzy of cart collecting,
and bagging, and wheeling groceries out. All fifty carts were in use, and all were full of groceries, and all three registers were running.

The frenzy did not let up until 6:00 p.m. By then the shelves were about three-quarters bare. Dad and Uno had restocked them steadily throughout the day, but the stockroom, too, was now reduced to just a few cartons and lots of empty wooden pallets.

Mom came back at 6:05 and took Lilly home, but Dad wanted me to stay. (He was still mad about the Bobby prank.) I wound up working until 10:30, over ninety minutes after the store had closed. Uno (who was also in Dad’s doghouse) and I had to sweep the front, the storeroom, and the parking lot.

By the time we were driving home, though, munching on our deli sandwiches, Dad had let the Bobby thing go. He wanted to talk about something else. He said, “I had to fire Vincent this morning.”

“What? Why?”

Dad shook his head in mild disbelief. “He was stealing.”

“Stealing? Stealing what?”

“Cleaning supplies.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And over-the-counter drugs. Boxes of cold medications.” Dad pondered that. “Cleaning supplies and cold medications. Isn’t that a weird combination?”

I told him, “Yeah.” And I thought it was.

But I wouldn’t think so for long.

 
 
October
 

Mr. Proctor said September 11 would change everything, and he was right.

Everyone everywhere was freaked out all the time, waiting for the next terrible thing to happen—for the White House to blow up, or the Empire State Building to topple over, or Walt Disney World to go up in a nuclear mushroom cloud.

None of that happened, but it felt like it
could
happen. All of it. And other things that we had not imagined, like we had not imagined the jetliner attacks in New York, and Washington, and Somerset, PA.

The drama that unfolded over western Pennsylvania had become an instant legend: The passengers on the flight, all strangers to each other, heard on their cell phones what the hijacked planes were doing in New York and Washington. And they decided not to let it happen again. They banded together and stormed the cockpit. They overpowered the hijackers and prevented another devastating attack, and they gave their lives in the process. In tribute to them, thousands of people were now heading out to the remote farmland where the plane went down.

In homeroom, Coach Malloy actually rose to the occasion. He described the shock he’d felt as a child when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He described the shock his parents had felt when Pearl Harbor was destroyed by Japanese bombers.

In English class, Mr. Proctor focused more on the present. He talked about “the zombie-like tone” of the September 11 aftermath:

—New Yorkers wandering around, coated from head to foot with white powder.

—Xeroxed pictures of missing people stuck up on every lamppost.

—A monstrous pile of death—smoking and wheezing—in the heart of America’s greatest city.

We finished reading
A Journal of the Plague Year
. I didn’t like it very much because I couldn’t understand the language. Nobody could. Fortunately, Mr. Proctor explained what was going on.

“People were dropping like flies in London,” he said. “Death walked among them. Death stood on every corner. What was killing people so indiscriminately? They had no idea, no clue that it was fleabites and airborne germs. They would remain clueless about such things for another hundred years.”

I thought,
Okay. They were stupid. But what about us? Are we any smarter? Are we any less clueless about what is killing us? Out of the sky? Out of nowhere? Not really
.

It had been six weeks, and we still had no idea who had attacked us, or why, or when they might attack us next.

The drug-counseling meetings got suspended after September 11. When they started again, though, I was back in my seat in the conference room, staring at Wendy, hoping to talk to her.

Catherine Lyle opened the first meeting in October by saying, “Hello, everybody. Welcome back. We’ve lost a lot of time, so I’d like to jump right to Wendy’s research report. If you recall, I asked her to look into a powerful new drug that has appeared in Blackwater. The drug is called methamphetamine. Wendy?”

Wendy had a pocket notebook, too, just like mine. She opened it, but she never looked down as she launched into her speech. “Methamphetamine, as a street drug, is called ‘meth,’ and sometimes ‘crank.’

“Depending on what sources you consult, methamphetamine was first made in Germany in 1887, or in Japan in 1893. Farmers used it to feed cattle to accelerate their growth. Methamphetamine was first used by
people
during World War Two.

“Japanese kamikaze pilots took methamphetamine to psych up for their suicide attacks. German pilots and tank drivers used it for the same reason, calling it ‘flier’s chocolate’ and ‘tanker’s chocolate.’ Methamphetamine helped soldiers accelerate their fighting skills. It also accelerated their deaths.”

Wendy looked at her mother. “So what is methamphetamine doing here in Blackwater, Pennsylvania, in 2001? No one knows. The answer could be that it’s a very cheap way to get high. With some training, you can make it yourself out of easy-to-find ingredients, but the process for making it is very dangerous. The ingredients are highly combustible.”

Wendy paused, apparently finished, so Arthur interjected, “I hear people are stealing Sudafed and ammonia and other stuff to make it. They can get what they need right at the Food Giant, even the propane to cook it up with.”

“Who told you that?” Lilly asked.

“Uno,” Arthur answered.

She corrected him. “He wants to be called John now.”

Arthur shrugged. “Okay. No problem.”

Lilly shook her head and added, “Wow. Meth. That sounds like the worst drug
ever.
”

Several kids around the room agreed with her comment, including Arthur, who said, “Amen to that.”

In conclusion, Wendy Lyle produced some gruesome photos from her notebook. The photos showed meth users—people who had lost their teeth, and their hair, and were all covered with red
sores. She held up one photo that I couldn’t even look at. It was a man or a woman—I couldn’t tell—who had tried to make meth at home and had gone up in flames. Horrible. Gruesome.

Mercifully, she stashed the photos away. No one spoke for a minute; then Mrs. Lyle changed the topic. “I have been speaking to Mrs. Cantwell about this group and about some things we could be doing. I am pleased to tell you that she has granted permission for us to take our first field trip.”

Arthur muttered, “Must be to that field her husband works in.”

Mrs. Lyle consulted her notebook. But before she could speak again, Ben Gibbons raised his hand. She looked at him and smiled. “Yes?”

Ben
really
changed the topic. He said, “I have pica disorder, Mrs. Lyle. Have you ever heard of that one?”

Catherine Lyle looked puzzled. “I’m not sure. Would you like to tell the group about it?”

Evidently, he would. “As a little kid, I ate a lot of crayons and pencils and chalk. I still do. I eat wood—nontreated wood. I eat coal—anthracite and bituminous. I eat plain old dirt.”

Arthur told him, “That is messed up, dude.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why it’s a disorder.”

Catherine Lyle nodded. “I
have
heard of it. But do you know why it’s called pica?” she asked.

“
Pica
means ‘magpie,’ in Latin. I guess a magpie will eat anything.”

She thought for a moment. “Well, Ben, that is very interesting. But it sounds like an eating disorder, and this group is about substance abuse.”

Ben looked nervous, like he was afraid she was going to kick him out. “It is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this pica thing could lead to substance abuse! Who knows what else I might eat in the future? Maybe pills or something.”

“That may be true,” she assured him. “It could be what we call a ‘gateway’ to other problems.”

Ben looked relieved. “Yeah.”

“Gateways are openings that lead to drug abuse. Think about it. Nobody just wakes up one day and says, ‘I’m going to become a drug addict.’ Do they?”

“No.”

Catherine Lyle continued: “The good news for drug abusers is that, with medication and with counseling, they can quit.

“The real problems occur
after
they quit. That’s when they must face their triggers. Triggers are the temptations that lead drug addicts back to using. A trigger can be as large as the loss of a loved one, or as small as the loss of a football game.

“The big question is, Why do these triggers exert such power over addicts? Why do people go back to drugs when they
know
they are destroying their lives, as well as the lives of those around them? These triggers must be very powerful indeed.”