A Plague Year (15 page)

“Meth? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Mike told me himself. His mom was in the car when it happened, so they both got busted. Taken to the police station, the whole bit. Anyway, they’re gone.”

I was really stunned. “They’re gone? What do you mean? He has no parents, just like that?”

“Yeah. They had no money for bail, so they’re in the county jail, awaiting trial.”

Arthur, always skeptical, demanded to know, “How did you hear this?”

“Like I said, I talked to Mike. And his parents talked to my parents from the jail. They asked if Mike and the twins could stay with us.”

“The twins?”

“He has twin sisters. Two-year-olds.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So they’re all moving in with you?”

Jenny acted like it was no big deal. “They already have. The two little girls—Maggie and Dollie—and Mike.” She looked around furtively. “Anyway, don’t say anything to Mike. We’re doing a presentation today. He’s already nervous enough.”

Mikeszabo walked in shortly after. He had three white posters rolled up under his arm. If he was broken up about losing his parents, it did not show on his face. He joined Jenny at the front of the room, where they huddled with Catherine Lyle.

The rest of us took our seats. (They were the seats we had taken the very first day, back on September 10. No one in the group ever deviated.)

Catherine Lyle began, “We have been talking about drugs and how they can destroy a community. Jenny Weaver suggested to me that we could do more than just talk. We could take action in some way; perhaps sell T-shirts that warn people about getting involved with drugs. I thought that was a great idea. So today Jenny, with Mike’s help, is going to open our meeting. Jenny?”

Jenny and Mikeszabo stood up and unrolled one poster. It had a black-and-white drawing on it. The drawing looked like a robot bug, with round pods sticking out. Jenny said, “This is the molecule for dopamine. That’s the hormone that sends feelings of pleasure to the brain.”

Jenny held on to the poster while Mikeszabo unfurled the second one. The drawing looked like the first one, but with a slight variation. “This is the molecule for methamphetamine,” Jenny explained. “As you can see, it is very similar to the dopamine molecule, similar enough to fool the brain into thinking it
is
the pleasure molecule.

“But it is not. And the brain won’t stay fooled for long. The brain realizes it has been tricked by the meth molecule, and it shuts down. It refuses to send
any
feelings of pleasure to the brain.”

Mikeszabo put down the second poster and unfurled the third. In its center was a drawing of some drug paraphernalia—pipes, cigarette papers, needles. On top of the pile were three giant blue letters:
NEO
. Underneath the pile were the words, also in blue,
Not Even Once
.

Jenny put down her poster and explained. “Your own brain, your own body, will turn against you if you mess with drugs. It will shut down your ability to feel pleasure. It will make your life so much less than it could have been. That’s why we need to send out this message to everyone we can, in every way we can: NEO—Not Even Once.” She bowed slightly. “Thank you.”

The group applauded. Catherine Lyle positively beamed. Spontaneously, she said, “No, thank
you
! I would like to see this drawing, and this slogan, on a T-shirt. If it’s all right with you, I will advance the money to get those shirts made.”

Everyone approved of that.

Catherine Lyle then elaborated on the theme. “All it takes is one time for certain things—drugs, suicide, choking, sexually transmitted diseases. You don’t get a second chance with these things. These are things you cannot do
even once
.”

After thanking Jenny and Mikeszabo again, Mrs. Lyle switched gears. “Okay. Last month was Halloween, and we all
got scared of vampires and zombies and other pretend monsters. Those were irrational fears.” Then, attempting a joke, she added, “Unless you happen to know any real monsters.” No one laughed. She went on. “This month we will face a real fear called claustrophobia. Who can tell me what that is?”

Wendy gave the answer right away: “Fear of confined spaces.”

Catherine frowned at her, I guess for not letting one of us answer. She continued: “Fear can be a major trigger for drug use, or for a drug relapse. So our next field trip will be to a local coal mine in order to face the fear of confined spaces. Anyone who would benefit from that should sign up and come along.”

I resisted the urge to look at Wendy. Was she looking at me? Was she thinking I would go, and sit with her, and be totally fascinated by everything she said and did?

Yeah. She probably was. But that wasn’t going to happen. At least I didn’t think so.

During my break at work, I grabbed my PSAT book and headed out back, hoping to do some vocabulary. But, to my surprise, Reg was there on the loading dock. He was standing with his back to me, posing like he was on a stage. His left arm extended outward, like it was the fret board of a guitar. His right arm was striking that guitar with sweeping blows. His voice, somewhat higher than normal, belted out the chorus of Ted Nugent’s “Wango Tango.”

He knew someone had joined him on the dock, because he stopped singing. But his arm crashed down on a few more chords before he turned to see who was there.

“Tom! Hey, I was just doing some Nugent for the fans.”

“The fans?”

“Right. The produce. They love it, especially the potatoes.”

Reg pulled out a Marlboro and lit it. He pointed to my book. “Okay, enough culture. What are the words today?”

I opened the book and read one aloud.
“Puerile.”

Reg took a deep drag. “Sounds like
pubes
. Puberty.”

“Close. It means ‘childish, juvenile.’ ”

“That’s me. What’s next?”

“Pusillanimous.”
Before he could put an obscene twist on that, I added the definition. “ ‘Lacking courage, cowardly.’ ”

“Being a pussy, in other words.”

“Right. In other words.”

“That’s a good one. What else you got?”

“
Pernicious
. It means ‘highly destructive.’ ”

“Ah, no. No way. That’s not me.” Reg took a final, long drag, burning up about an inch of tobacco. “There’s not a pernicious bone in my body.” He pitched what was left of the glowing cigarette into the truck bay, then saluted comically and walked back into the storeroom with all that smoke still inside his lungs.

I did manage to memorize a page of words before it was time to go in. Then I stashed my book on a shelf, pushed open the door, and saw two people standing by the bakery—Reg and Bobby. Never a good combination.

Reg was holding up a plastic bottle of Gold Bond talcum powder. He was pointing to it and talking, like a TV pitchman. “Bobby, you need to try this. You owe it to your customers.” He turned to include me. “Right, Tom?”

“What is this about?” I asked.

“I am trying to get Bobby to sprinkle some of this down his pants to relieve his chafing. I do it all the time, Bobby. I go through three or four bottles of this stuff every week. You owe it to your customers not to be irritable due to chafing in the crotch area. Did you ever hear the word
crotchety
?”

Bobby squirmed. “Yeah. I’ve heard that word. So what?”

“Well, that’s exactly what it means. Tom knows lots of big words.” He asked me, “Do you know the word
crotchety
?”

“Leave me out of this.”

“It means some guy has neglected to take proper care of his crotch, and he has become crotchety, irritable, unpleasant to customers. Do you think that’s good for business?”

I continued past them and got to work.

Reg, apparently, did not. Ten minutes later, he was at register two, bothering Lilly. I heard him say, “I can help you get a used car. Then we can go out together, now that you’re legal.”

Lilly, barely acknowledging him, muttered, “How do you know that?”

“What? That you’re legal? Uno told me.”

She didn’t like that. “John said I was
legal
?”

“In so many words. He said you turned eighteen.”

“That’s not the same. Anyway, I wouldn’t go out with you.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have to go very far. We could just go to the parking lot, to your car, where you could express your gratitude.”

Lilly shook her head. She replied matter-of-factly, “You are such a pig.”

“I am not a pig. I am merely puerile.” He turned to include me. (I wished he would stop doing that.) “Right, Mr. Tom?”

“Leave me out of this.”

“Come on, Lilly,” Reg continued. “Why are you so mean? You don’t talk like this to Uno.”

“He’s going by John now, not Uno.”

“Why?”

“That’s a boy’s nickname. He’s a man now.”

“Yeah? You made him a man?”

Lilly was starting to lose her cool. “Shut up.”

“Or did the other one finally drop?”

“Shut up!”

I looked over toward the customer-service desk and saw a stocky guy standing there. Something about him bothered me; it took me a second to realize why. It was Rick Dorfman. He was pointing at Walter and talking to him in an animated way.

Walter is a mild-mannered older guy. He’s retired, after working thirty-five years at the post office. He smiles at everybody, but he wasn’t smiling now. He looked scared. I thought about calling Dad to intervene, but Dorfman suddenly stopped pointing and talking, and stomped out of the store.

I got well out of his way, thinking,
Good riddance
.

A few minutes later, when Bobby came through the register line, I was sorry to see that he was carrying a bottle of Gold Bond talcum powder. I probably should have stopped him then and there, but I didn’t. I was afraid that would only make things worse.

Reg called after him, “Now don’t be stingy with that stuff, Bobby. Apply it liberally.”

Bobby replied, “Yeah. Okay.”

Reg waited until Bobby exited the store. Then he picked up the register phone and punched in the public-address number. He intoned, “Cleanup in Bobby’s room!” and hung up. With a final chuckle, he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and walked outside.

Lilly turned to me. “He is a pig. Piglike. Not that other word.”

“Puerile?”

“Yeah.”

Lilly pulled out her cash drawer and waved to Dad. He came over and asked, “Are you ready to close?”

“I am way beyond ready.”

Five minutes later, Lilly and I were standing outside, waiting for Mom. As we watched Reg drive away in his pickup, Lilly asked, “Did he show you that website?”

“Who, Reg?”

“Yeah.”

“No. What website?”

“It was some gross thing, of course, just like Reg. John and him were looking at it on the office computer. John showed it to me, so I figured they showed you.”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

“Some guy at Blackwater University made it. He put pictures of girls on there, and he rated them on what they’d do to guys on dates.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like sex stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s gross. So, I was looking at some of the girls, and … that Wendy girl is on it.”

I tried to remain calm. I just repeated, “Really?”

“Yeah. I saw her picture. She was wearing, like, a purple Halloween costume. I told John, ‘Hey! That girl’s in our counseling group. She’s Mrs. Lyle’s daughter.’ ”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s like fourteen or fifteen years old. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Lilly shook her head. “That’s not right. I bet that’s not even legal. It’s like abusing a minor.”

I chose my words carefully. “What does it say about her?”

“It says the same stuff about every girl on there. It has columns with check marks. She’ll do this—like French kissing—but she won’t do this—like, you know. It’s gross, stupid guy stuff.”

Suddenly I felt like somebody had cut open the back of my head and sucked out my brain. I was totally numb.

Then I got angry.

I got angry at Wendy. For flirting with me. For making me think I had a chance with her. For asking if I had a zero sex drive. (Yeah, maybe I did, after watching her puke up those candy corns. That’ll do it.)

But I got more angry—enraged, violent angry—at that college guy. That scumbag. For calling me a townie. For making out with my girl—even if she was only my girl for ten minutes—and then posting lies about her on a website. A dirty sex site. What kind of scumbag would do that?

And, more important, what was I going to do about it?

I got to class early. I sat in the front row and stared up at the bars of the TV test pattern: ROY G BIV.

Wendy came in at the last second and sat next to me. I couldn’t even look at her.

Mr. Proctor wrote out today’s vocabulary word and sentence without comment:
eschew—avoid. The shrewd shrew eschewed the chute
.

Wendy, apparently, was not impressed. She didn’t say anything about it. We worked in our vocab books for ten minutes. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned my head toward Wendy and kept it there until I knew she was listening. Then I whispered in a quick, flat monotone exactly what Lilly had told me. Every word.