A Plague Year (5 page)

She smiled sweetly and reclaimed her seat. Jimmy Giles stood by the door, avoiding eye contact with us. He seemed to be talking to himself for a few seconds. Then he pulled a white note card from his pants pocket and started to read from it.

“I am here to tell you about my experience so that it does not become your experience.” He cleared his throat and continued. “Any dumb animal can learn from a mistake. If a horse walks into an electric fence and gets a shock, it don’t walk into that fence again. It learns from it. But humans can also learn from
others’
mistakes. I hope that’s what will happen today.”

Catherine Lyle encouraged him. “That’s an excellent point.”

Arthur suddenly spoke up, as if he were at an old-time-religion camp-revival meeting. “Amen, Jimmy! Well told.”

Jimmy grinned at Arthur. Then he looked at the rest of us. His nerves seemed to melt away as his glance passed from face to face. When he spoke again, he was relaxed. “I should tell you my name is Jimmy Giles, and I’m from Blackwater. I have worked as a wildcat coal miner, on and off. I have worked as a mover”—he looked back through the door—“with my brother Warren. We move kids in and out of Blackwater University. We also sell Christmas trees.”

He paused to clear his throat. From my side view, I could see his large Adam’s apple bob up and down.

“I got involved with marijuana in junior high school.” He looked around at the walls of the room. “At
this
junior high school, in fact. I started smoking it when I was twelve, and I was still smoking it three months ago when I got arrested for the second time. If I get arrested a third time, I go straight to jail.”

Jimmy hung his head, as if looking back into his days at Haven Junior High. “Here’s what I learned between then and now—what I learned the hard way.” He suddenly pointed at Wendy. “Miss? Name something that you love to do.”

“Me? I read. I read a lot.”

“Okay.” He pointed at me. “What about you, Tom?”

I answered, “Uh, play video games. Nintendo 64.”

“Okay. Got it. Now let me break it down for you.

“You love to read, miss. And then you get high, and you love to read even more when you’re high.

“And you love to play video games, Tom, and then you get high, and you love to play video games even more when you’re high.”

He looked from Wendy to me. “But then something bad happens.” He pointed at Wendy. “You find that you
don’t
love to read anymore when you’re not high. It’s not good enough.” He switched to me. “And video games? You don’t love to play when you’re not high. No way. It’s not good enough.”

Jimmy stopped, then said, “Now, here’s the really awful part.

“Miss, you soon realize that you don’t love reading anymore even when you
are
high. And Tom, you don’t love video games anymore, high or not. You don’t love
anything
anymore. Not books, not games, not even getting high.

“But you keep getting high anyway because … well, that’s what you do.” He glanced at the kids against the wall. “Right, stoners? That’s what you do, so you keep on doing it. Even though you hate it now. You have officially arrived at zombieland. You don’t love anything. You don’t like anything. You don’t care about anything. It has all been taken away from you … by drugs.”

A few of the stoners nodded at him.

Arthur suddenly said in his tent-revival voice, “Preach, Jimmy!”

Jimmy looked at Arthur. His voice started to rise. “I am thirty-eight years old, with a wife and kids, and I have a job that only pays minimum wage. And I have had some jobs that paid
less
than minimum wage. What can I thank for that?”

Arthur answered, “Drugs. You can thank drugs for that.”

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.