A Plague Year (32 page)

The officer on my right screamed, “Drop it! Both of you! Drop what you are carrying!”

The robber with the black bag dropped it and raised his hands up in surrender.

The other one, though, made another decision, a fatal one. He let loose a rifle blast that shattered the police car’s searchlight. Then he took off running for the tow truck.

Both officers leveled their weapons, sighted, and opened fire at him. Their first shots missed the robber, but they hit the
propane cage. I could hear their bullets strike the outside wall of the store. Then I heard two loud
booms
, one right after the other, as two tanks of propane exploded and started to burn.

The officers sighted again, aiming lower. This time, they found their mark. Bullets ripped into the body of the rifleman. He fell to the ground, immobile, just beneath that silver hook.

The officer on my right raised his pistol and stood. He approached the remaining robber, shouting, “Get on your knees! Keep your hands where I can see them!”

The robber obeyed.

The other officer stood and approached his man, too, with his pistol still trained on him, but that officer didn’t say anything.

There was nothing to say. Because the other robber was dead. The officer stared down at the body for a long moment. As he did, the outside wall suddenly shook with another loud
boom
, and then another, and then a whole series of explosions. The propane tanks, at least fifty of them, burst open and flamed upward into the sky.

I dared to stand all the way up. To my left, I saw Dad kneeling next to Bobby, putting pressure on his bullet wound. To my right, I saw a Ford Explorer screech to a halt near the entrance. Mrs. Smalls, dressed in her white uniform, jumped out of the car and ran in. She looked at me and shouted, “Bobby! Where’s Bobby?”

I pointed at Dad. “Over there!”

“Is he alive?”

Dad himself answered, “Yes! Yes, he is.” As Mrs. Smalls hurried past me, Dad added, “He’s the one who called nine one one.”

Mrs. Smalls bent over Bobby and set to work checking his vital signs.

I turned back to watch as three more police cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck raced into the parking lot.

The propane tanks were still burning wildly, scorching the outside wall of the store, casting an unholy light on it all—on the police, on the paramedics, and on the two robbers—the one still kneeling near the entranceway, and the one lying dead near the truck.

No one told me to stay where I was, so I walked to the door and stepped outside. I saw two paramedics reach the rifleman’s body, check for a pulse, and find none. I was just a few feet away when one of them grabbed the ski mask and pulled it back, revealing his face.

I knew him.

I think I knew him from the very beginning—when he was sweating and grunting and pushing me around.

It was Rick Dorfman.

He had stuck a rifle bore in my neck. He had shot Bobby for no reason. Now he was dead.

I turned back to the second robber. The police officer had just pulled his ski mask up and off. And I knew him, too. There, kneeling on the asphalt, blinking in the firelight, with a half-amused expression on his face, was Reg the Veg.

Reg Malloy. And I was surprised. Despite everything, I was surprised.

I stood there for a long time, looking between Dorfman and Reg, as the awful, bloody scene ran its course. I watched Bobby and his mom leave in the first ambulance. Then I watched the body of Rick Dorfman leave in the second. Then Reg Malloy left in the back of a police car. He was staring straight ahead.

The firefighters were still training their hoses on the propane cage when Dad walked out. He and I spent about an hour answering questions for the police.

Finally, after all the fires were extinguished and all the police
cars had left, Dad and I were free to go home. Before we did, though, Dad motioned to me to wait. He muttered, “Give me one minute, Tom.” He walked back inside and soon emerged with a small sheet of butcher paper. He had made a sign, by hand, and now he taped it to the front door. It said
CLOSED—DECEMBER 22 AND 23
.

On our weary trek out to the van, all he said was, “I need a weekend off. We all do. Believe me, life will go on.”

Life went on.

I thought Mom would be freaked out by the news of what had happened, but she was not. Neither was Lilly. Even though Dad and I had nearly been killed, and Rick Dorfman
had
been killed, and Bobby had been wounded. I think we’re all just numb to disaster now, in all its forms, in the dark days of a plague year.

The store reopened on Christmas Eve. Things looked pretty normal except for the ugly black burns behind the propane cage. Some employees were angry because they had arrived on Saturday, read the sign, and then had to go home. But they got over that fast when they heard the facts about Bobby, and the break-in, and Reg, and the dead robber. Some customers were angry, too. I guess they had to go across town to Kroger, or to the 7-Eleven. Too bad for them.

Our family had taken a weekend off for the first time in recent memory. Here’s what we did:

On Saturday morning, Dad and I drove out to Good Samaritan Hospital. We met John in the lobby. The first thing he said to Dad was, “We’re
really
closed all weekend? Corporate gave us permission to close?”

“They did,” Dad assured him.

“On the weekend before Christmas? The whole weekend?”

“Yes.” Dad surprised me by explaining further, though I am not sure what he said was true. “We had no choice. Our store is a crime scene now. The police will let us know when we can reopen.”

That sounded good, and John bought it completely. I guess Dad’s bosses at corporate had, too.

We took an elevator up to the fifth floor and walked around
until we found Bobby’s room. His mother was the only other person in there. She was sitting in a chair, doing a crossword puzzle.

Bobby was propped up in bed, staring at a high-mounted TV set. Bobby’s right shoulder was heavily bandaged and bulged out from under his blue gown. When Mrs. Smalls saw us, she closed her book, stood up, and turned off the TV, using a button on the side of the bed. She said, “Mr. Coleman! Thank you so much for coming. Hello, Tom. Hello, Uno.”

Bobby corrected her. “He doesn’t want to be called that anymore, Mom! He wants to be called John.”

“Oh. I am sorry. Hello, John.”

John muttered, “No problem.”

Dad asked, “How are you feeling, Bobby?”

“How am I feeling? I’m feeling hungry.”

“You’re not eating?”

Bobby made a face. “The food here is horrible.”

His mother interrupted. “You’re in a hospital, Bobby. They’re giving you hospital food. Nobody likes hospital food.”

“I sure don’t. It’s horrible.”

Dad tried again. “How is your wound feeling, though? Your shoulder?”

Mrs. Smalls answered for Bobby. “The bullet passed right through, under the shoulder blade. It severed veins and arteries, and it damaged muscle tissue, but it didn’t break any bones.” She shook her head. “Bobby has low muscle tone to begin with; that’s part of Down’s syndrome. He has a very delicate system. It’s not like yours and mine.” She added bitterly, “You can’t go shooting holes in him.”

Dad asked, “Is he going to be okay, though?”

She replied, “Yes, of course,” but she did not sound totally convinced.

Bobby suddenly shouted, “The guy who shot me is dead!”

Dad nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s true.”

“I’m glad he’s dead!” No one replied to that, so Bobby asked, “Who was he?”

Dad raised his shoulders. “I didn’t know him.” He turned and looked at me.

I told Bobby, “His name was Rick Dorfman. He went to Haven High. He played on the football team.” Everybody was looking at me like they wanted more, so I added, “I only saw him in the store once. I know he had some legal problems, and some drug problems.”

Mrs. Smalls expanded on that. “Some meth problems.”

“Yeah, I think so, the way he was behaving.”

Bobby shouted again, “And what about Reg the Veg?”

“Well, he’s in jail, and he’s going to stay in jail.”

“No! I mean what’s his problem?”

“Oh. I don’t know, Bobby. Maybe he has a drug problem, too. I know he has money problems.”

Bobby mulled that over. “Drug problems. They all have drug problems, all the ones who shoplift. They’re all stupid thieves. They steal cold pills and make meth. They cook it up at home; then they smoke it, right?”

I was surprised at how much he knew. “Yeah. That’s right.”

He went on: “It makes them feel good for one week. Then it makes them feel bad for the rest of their lives. They’re stupid.”

“They sure are.”

“I hope they shoot Reg the Veg!”

Mrs. Smalls intervened. “Come on, Bobby. That wouldn’t be right.”

“Yes, it would.”

Mrs. Smalls stared at him until he looked away. Then he clammed up.

Dad, John, and I shuffled in place for a few more minutes after that, looking around uncomfortably. Dad finally turned to Mrs. Smalls and said, “Well, I’m glad to see that Bobby is up and talking and everything. Is there anything we can do for him, Mrs. Smalls?”

She leaned over the bed and stared at Bobby again, forcing him to make eye contact with her. Then she looked back at Dad. “Bobby thinks he is ready for a little more responsibility at work, Mr. Coleman. He thinks he could be the one who unloads the produce trucks, now that … that … Reg person won’t be.”

Dad agreed right away. “Sure. Sure, Bobby. That’s a good idea. The job is yours.”

Bobby managed a shy smile.

“And that new job would come with a raise.”

Bobby’s eyes bulged and his smile widened.

“The job will be waiting for you when you come back,” Dad assured him. “For now, you take your time and get better.”

We then muttered our goodbyes to Bobby and Mrs. Smalls.

John and I were actually out the doorway when Dad turned back to say one more thing. “And, Bobby, thank you. You’re the one who called the police, in spite of your injury. You knew just what to do. That was a smart and a brave thing to do. You’re the reason why those criminals didn’t get away, and why they’re not out shooting someone else right now. You are a hero, Bobby, and I am proud to have you as an employee.”

Bobby stared at Dad curiously, as if none of that had ever occurred to him.

Dad walked past me. He had tears in his eyes. I took a last look back at Mrs. Smalls. Big tears were running down her face, too.

After an early dinner, we drove to Pottsville to see a movie,
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
. It was pretty cool. It was the forces of good against the forces of evil, and we could all relate to that. The evil Orcs really creeped me out. They had rotten teeth, and they wore filthy rags, and they moved like the living dead. After the movie, nobody mentioned them by name, but I bet we were all thinking the same thing: They were the Blackwater zombies, the meth addicts.

When we got back home, we played a short game of Parcheesi and then a long game of Monopoly. It was a busy, unusual, totally enjoyable family day.

And so was Sunday, but that was more of a day of rest. Rest for everyone except Mom, that is. She cooked and served up roast beef, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and apple pie.

I slept in. I awoke at nine, staring directly at my Florida colleges collage. I sat up in bed, slid down to the bottom, and set to work dismantling it. I peeled off all the beautiful pictures of sunny campuses, lush greenery, and tanned, smiling people. For me, that was now Wendy Lyle land, and Christmas tree–drug bust land. I was no longer interested. Like Warren, like Jimmy, like Arthur, I was never going back to Florida.

John knocked at the front door around noon. Lilly let him in and kissed him right in front of Mom. But then Mom walked over and kissed him, too, on the cheek. She led him by the elbow into the dining room. “Welcome, John. You’re just in time.”

Dad sat at the head of the table, with his back toward the kitchen. John and Lilly sat on the window side; Mom and I were on the inside. Once everyone had a full plate, Dad said, “This is our family. There are five of us now, with the addition of a new son. Welcome to you, John.”

John was clearly moved. He muttered, “Thank you, sir.”

Lilly laughed. “ ‘Sir’? You don’t call him that at work. You call him Gene.”

Dad said, “He can still call me that. But I hope, in family matters, you’ll feel comfortable calling me Dad.”

John replied, “Yes, sir. Yes, Dad.”

Lilly and I both looked at Mom. She quickly added, “And Mom.” She told him, “I look forward to meeting your parents, John, and your siblings. Do you have siblings?”

He said, “I do. I have one older sister.”

“Ah! What does she do?”

“She works in a dentist’s office. She’s a hygienist.”

That killed the conversation, but only for a moment.

Dad reached out his hands, one to Mom and one to John. Lilly and I joined in, so that we were all holding hands. Then Dad threw me for a loop by saying, “Okay, Tom? Will you say grace for us?”