A Plague Year (2 page)

The bowman changed his aim from Bobby to Dad and then back again. Was he going to shoot one of them? Or shoot one, reload, and get the other? Or was he just trying to scare them?

I couldn’t take the chance. I cranked the car key and hit the gas pedal. The old van roared like an angry lion. I yanked at the gearshift, still revving the engine, and dropped it into drive. The van took off with a squeal of spinning tires and rocketed across the parking lot.

The bow-and-arrow guy turned toward me and froze like a deer caught in the headlights. Then he aimed the bow right at me. I thought,
Can an arrow pierce the windshield?
He must have asked himself that same question and decided it could not. He lowered his weapon, tossed it into the cab, and climbed back into the driver’s seat.

I continued to accelerate toward the truck, closing the gap quickly, like I was going to ram it. (Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do.) By now, the other man had unhooked the cable and had scrambled inside the cab, too.

The truck lurched forward and drove right at me, like in a deadly game of chicken. I hit the brakes and steered to the right, throwing the van into a wild skid, stopping just feet away from the frozen-in-place figure of Bobby Smalls.

The tow truck continued across the parking lot and shot across Route 16, accelerating away into the darkness.

I turned off the van’s engine, threw open the door, and hopped out.

Suddenly everything was quiet.

Dad came running from his spot by the door. He had a frantic look in his eyes. He started waving his hands back and forth to get Bobby’s attention. “Bobby! Bobby, are you okay?”

Bobby didn’t answer. He was fumbling around under the
green plastic slicker. He pulled out a cell phone and held it up. “I got to call my mom.”

Dad nodded. His face was perspiring. “Yes. Yes.” He turned to me. “And you, Tom? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“That was smart thinking—honking the horn like that.”

“Thanks.”

“But driving right at them? Where they could shoot you? Not so smart.”

“I thought they were going to shoot Bobby. And you.”

Dad looked at me curiously, like the second part of that had never occurred to him. “Me?” He shook all over, like he’d had a sudden chill. “Well, thanks, then.”

Bobby was now angry at his phone. His stubby fingers had punched in the wrong number. He was about to dash it to the ground when Dad stepped forward and calmly took it away. “I’ll call your mother, Bobby.”

Dad quickly pressed some phone keys. Bobby seemed confused. “You know her number?”

“Sure. I call her all the time.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“To tell her what a good job you’re doing.”

Bobby’s eyes widened upon hearing the praise. He loved praise. He thrived on it.

Dad spoke into the phone. “Hello, Mrs. Smalls? It’s Gene Coleman at the Food Giant. Yes. Yes, Bobby’s okay. But we’ve had an … an incident here, an attempted robbery. Bobby helped to chase the robbers away.”

Dad listened for a moment. It seemed like he was getting an
earful. “Sure. Sure, I understand. We’ll probably be outside by the front door.” He hung up and told Bobby, “Okay. Your mother’s on her way.”

“What for?”

“To check to see that you’re all right.”

“I’m all right.”

“I know. She just wants to make sure. Can I use your phone to call the police?”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

Dad called 911 and spoke to an operator. I craned my head forward to make eye contact with Bobby. I asked him, “What were you thinking there, dude? You could have gotten killed.”

Bobby answered loudly, impatiently, as if the answer was obvious. “They’re thieves!”

“Yes, they’re thieves. I’ll bet they’re murderers, too. I’ll bet they’d have murdered you if you’d gone a step closer.”

“I’m not afraid of stupid thieves!”

“He had a bow and arrow, Bobby. That’s a deadly weapon. You should be afraid of that. All you had was your cell phone.”

“If they’re so brave, why are they wearing ski masks and covering up with hoods? They’re just thieves, that’s all. Stupid thieves!”

Five minutes later, the police and Mrs. Smalls arrived, at the same moment, from opposite directions.

Two police officers got out of the car and split up. One interviewed Dad, Bobby, and me. The other examined the ATM and walked around the lot, looking for evidence.

I told the police officer what I knew, trying to sound no-nonsense and coplike: “It was a black tow truck. It didn’t say anything on the side. Two men were in it. They had ski masks on. They had a homemade bow. They had at least one arrow. They
took off when I drove at them. They went out the same way they came in.”

Bobby gave a much more spirited account of what had happened, and of how stupid the two thieves were.

Mrs. Smalls took Bobby’s pulse, temperature, and blood pressure right there in the parking lot, much to his annoyance. She seemed satisfied with the results, but she did explain to my dad, “Bobby’s system is delicate, Mr. Coleman. It’s all part of Down’s syndrome. He may appear to be fine, but that can be deceiving. He can’t take too much stress. Down’s patients are very susceptible to heart attacks and strokes.”

My dad nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am. You do what you have to do with Bobby. Take him home for a rest if he needs it.”

Bobby threw up his hands in frustration, so his mother quickly added, “No. That won’t be necessary. But no more excitement today, Bobby. Okay? You take it slow today.”

Bobby grumbled, “Yeah, I’ll take it slow.” He pointed to the store. “I’ll be like Reg the Veg today. I’ll take it slow. Real slow.”

The sun was now rising behind the store. By seven, the back parking spaces started to fill in with employees from the early shift. Gert, the head baker, marched straight to the front door, with barely a sideways glance at us or the cops. So did Walter from customer service. Mitchell, the head of the meat department, veered over our way and slowed down to listen, but he never really stopped.

Uno did, though. He’s the assistant manager, and in charge of opening up. He looked at my dad and held his hands out wide, as if to say,
What gives?

Reg the Veg stopped, too. He’s the produce manager. He pointed at the police car and whispered hoarsely, “WTF, man?”

I replied, “Robbery attempt. On the ATM.”

Reg started hollering, at no one in particular, “WTF, man! WTF!”

Uno, whose name is really John Rollnick, was a little more focused. “Did anybody get hurt, Tom?”

“No.” I added, “But Bobby could have. My dad, too. The robbers were ten yards away from them, and they had a compound bow.”

Uno shook his head. “Wow. A compound bow? I know guys who hunt with those. Do you think they were guys from around here?”

“I have no idea.”

I stood around talking to people for a while longer, telling them what I knew about the incident. Eventually, I heard the sound of a car creeping up behind me.

I turned and saw a green Taurus. My mom was at the wheel, and my sister, Lilly, was sitting next to her.

Plan B was obviously in effect. Dad must have called home.

I walked back to the Dodge van. It was straddling two spaces, like it had been left there in mid-skid. I pointed to the far side of the parking lot, calling to Mom, “Pick me up out by the road.” I climbed in, started the van, and drove it carefully to its original space.

Uno, Reg, and Bobby went inside to do their opening checklist jobs. Dad went in to call the corporate office. Mom got out of her car and hurried into the store behind him, and she didn’t come back out for a long time. (She was freaking out in there, I’m sure.)

I spent the time thinking about this: The day could have begun horribly, with two murders. Or even three if they had shot me through the windshield, or rammed me in that game of
chicken. The Food Giant could have a huge gash in its front wall, where the ATM had been ripped out, and a lot of money stolen.

But none of that had happened.

I took a moment to give myself credit. I had driven the thieves away. It could have been a horrible day, or a much-worse-than-it-turned-out-to-be day. A day that destroyed lives.

Instead, from here on out, it would be a normal day.

Mom finally emerged, climbed into the Taurus, and drove up to get me. As I slid into the backseat, she caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Your father said you did a brave thing, Tom.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“No,
I’m
not saying that. Your father is. I’m saying you did a dangerous thing. And an illegal thing. You don’t have a driver’s license.”

Lilly interrupted her. “What is this? You told me that Tom saved Dad’s life!”

“Yes, I did say that,” Mom conceded. “But I didn’t know the circumstances.”

“Circumstances! Who cares? He saved Dad’s life.”

That silenced Mom for a while, which is no small task. We exited the parking lot and headed west. Soon we were on Sunbury Street and passing our own house—a white, two-story duplex set in a row of houses and businesses. The buildings on Sunbury Street tend to reflect our mining-town roots. We have lots of churches and bars and funeral homes.

At the end of the street, Mom remarked casually, “Don’t forget that counseling-group meeting after school, Lilly.”

Mom has always been active in our schools, volunteering for anything and everything. Mom rode with Lilly and me on all of
our field trips—east to Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell in fourth grade, west to Pittsburgh and the Fort Pitt Museum in fifth grade, and so on. She keeps in touch with the front office at the high school just in case she can chaperone something, just in case she’s needed. And that’s how she found out about the counseling group.

Lilly snarled, “I’m not going to that thing!”

We reverted to silence, but it was a heavier silence. Mom had approached dark territory. She had nearly spoken about the great unspoken event of the summer, which was this:

About two months ago, on a hot July night, Lilly and a friend from Lewis Street had been sitting on that friend’s porch. A policeman had approached them, claiming that a neighbor had complained about the smell of marijuana.

Lilly got scared and immediately confessed to the crime. The friend took a different approach. She denied any drug use, and claimed that Lilly was crazy and was always telling lies.

Then Lilly, offended by those comments, actually reached under her chair and pulled out the remains of a half-smoked joint. She held it up and protested, “I am not lying!” (She chose honor over self-preservation, I guess.)

The police called Mom to pick Lilly up, and the incident got submitted to the local district attorney’s office. He decided it was a waste of time to prosecute Lilly and her friend for such a small amount of marijuana, and the whole thing, legally, went away.

But that did not get Lilly off the hook. Not even close. Mom took her to our family physician, Dr. Bielski, who prescribed an antidepressant which I don’t think Lilly actually took. She probably could have used it, though, as Mom kept her a homebound prisoner for the rest of the summer, allowing her out only for work. (I was at home, too, but it was by choice. Dad had finally
gotten me a Nintendo 64. I had spent the summer mastering Super Mario Brothers 3, Donkey Kong, and Mario Kart.) Then, just to be sure, Mom signed Lilly up for a substance-abuse counseling group after school.

Lilly tried, “I’m never going to smoke pot again. There’s no reason for me to go and sit with a bunch of stoners. That might actually be worse, you know? I’ll learn more about being a stoner. I’ll make stoner friends. I’ll learn how to lie about using drugs!”

Mom was not moved. “You’ll learn no such thing.”

Lilly tried, “You just don’t trust me!”

“That’s not it, Lilly,” Mom assured her. “Your father and I have both told you that we trust you—”

“Right. Then why are you still punishing me?”

“This counseling group isn’t about punishment. It’s about information. You need to understand about addiction.”

“Addiction? I took two puffs on a joint, and now I’m some crack whore standing on a street corner?”

“Don’t overdramatize.”

“I’m not an addict!”

“No. But your father was a drinker, until he quit. And your uncle Robby was a drug addict, and it killed him.”

I said, “I thought Uncle Robby was an alcoholic.”

“It’s all the same. He was addicted to alcohol and drugs. That’s what gets transmitted in your genes, and in your DNA; that’s part of your family inheritance. You could have the same addictive personality.”

Lilly suddenly turned to include me. “Okay. So it’s in Tom’s genes, too?”

I answered, too casually as it turned out, “Yeah. We both have some evil drug zombie inside us, waiting for the chance to bust out.”

Lilly announced, “Then shouldn’t Tom go to the meeting, too?”

Before I could even protest, Mom replied, “Yes. I think that’s a good idea.”

It was my turn to snarl. “I’m not going to that thing!”

Mom continued: “You should go to the first one, Tom. If you don’t think it’s worthwhile, then you can stop. Lilly, though, will keep going.”