The Stand (Original Edition) (4 page)

Norm Bruett woke up at quarter past ten in the morning to the sound of kids fighting outside the bedroom window and country music from the radio in the kitchen.

He went to the back door in his saggy shorts and undershirt, threw it open, and yelled: “You kids shut ya heads!”

A moment’s pause. Luke and Bobby looked around from the old and rusty dump truck they had been arguing over. As always when he saw his kids, Norm felt dragged two ways at once. His heart ached to see them wearing handmedowns and Salvation Army giveouts like the ones you saw the nigger children in east Amette wearing; and at the same time a horrible, shaking anger would sweep through him, making him want to stride out there and beat the living shit out of them.

“Yes, Daddy,” Luke said in a subdued way. He was nine.

“Yes, Daddy,” Bobby echoed. He was seven going on eight.

Norm stood for a moment, glaring at them, and slammed the door shut. He stood for a moment, looking indecisively at the pile of clothes he had worn yesterday. They were lying at the foot of the sagging double bed where he had dropped them.

That slutty bitch, he thought. She didn’t even hang up my duds.

“Lila!” he bawled.

There was no answer. He considered ripping the door open again and asking Luke where the hell she had gone. It wasn’t donated commodities day until next week and if she was down at the employment office in Braintree again, she was an even bigger fool than he thought.

He didn’t bother to ask the kids. He felt tired, and he had a queasy, thumping headache. Felt like a hangover, but he’d only had three beers down at Hap’s the night before. That accident had been a hell of a thing. The woman and the baby dead in the car, the man, Campion, dying on the way to the hospital. By the time Hap had gotten back, the State Patrol had come and gone, and the wrecker, and the Braintree undertaker’s hack. Vic Palfrey had given the State Patrols a statement for all five of them. The undertaker, who was also the county coroner, refused to speculate on what might have hit them.

“But it ain’t cholera. And don’t you go scarin people sayin it is. There’ll be an autopsy and you can read about it in the paper.”

Miserable little pissant, Norm thought, slowly dressing himself in yesterday’s clothes. His headache was turning into a real blinder. Those kids had better be quiet or they were going to have a pair of broken arms to mouth off about. Why the hell couldn’t they have school the whole year round?

He considered tucking his shirt into his pants, decided the president probably wouldn’t    be stopping by that day, and shuffled out into the kitchen in his sock feet. The bright sunlight coming in the east windows made him squint.

The cracked Philco radio over the stove sang:

“But bay-yay-yaby you can tell me if anyone can
,

Baby, can you dig your man?

He’s a righteous man,

Tell me baby, can you dig your man?"

Things had come to a pretty pass when they had to play nigger rock n roll music like that on the local country music station. Norm turned it off before it could split his head. There was a note by the radio and he picked it up, squinting his eyes to read it.

"Dear Norm, Sally Hodges says she needs somebody to sit her kids this morning and says shell give me a dolar. Ill be back for luntch. Theres sassage if you want it. I love you honey. Lila."

Norm put the note back and just stood there for a moment, thinking it over and trying to get the sense of it in his mind. It was goddam hard to think past the headache. Babysitting ... a dollar. For Ralph Hodges’s wife.

The three elements slowly jelled together in his mind. Lila had gone off to sit Sally Hodges’s three kids to earn a lousy dollar and had stuck him with Luke and Bobby. By God it was hard times when a man had to sit home and wipe his kids’ noses so his wife could go and scratch out a lousy buck that would give them back pocket change from a gallon of gas. That was hard fucking times.

Dull anger came to him, making his head ache even worse. He shuffled slowly to the Frigidaire, bought when he had been making good overtime, and opened it. Most of the shelves were empty, except for leftovers Lila had put up in refrigerator dishes. He hated those little plastic Tupperware dishes. Old beans, old corn, a leftover dab of chile . . . nothing a man liked to eat. Nothing in there but little Tupperware dishes and three little old sausages done up in Handy Wrap. He bent, looking in at them, the familiar helpless anger now compounded by the dull throb in his head. He didn’t feel like eating anyway. He felt damn sick, when you got right down to it.

He went over to the stove, scratched a match on the piece of sandpaper nailed to the wall beside it, lit the front gas ring, and put on the coffee. Then he sat down and waited dully for it to boil. Just before it did, he had to scramble his snotrag out of his back pocket to catch a big wet sneeze. Coming down with a cold, he thought. Isn’t that something nice on top of everything else? But it never occurred to him to think of the phlegm that had been running out of that fellow Campion’s nose the night before.

Hap was in the garage bay putting a new tailpipe on Tony Leominster’s Scout and Vic Palfrey was sitting on a folding camp chair, watching him and drinking a Dr Pepper when the bell dinged out front.

Vic squinted. “It’s the State Patrol,” he said. “Looks like your cousin, there. Joe Bob.”

“Okay.”

Hap came out from beneath the Scout, wiping his hands on a ball of waste. On his way through the office he sneezed heavily. He hated summer colds. They were the worst.

Joe Bob, who was almost six and a half feet tall, was standing by the back of his cruiser, filling up. Beyond him, the three pumps Campion had driven over the night before were neatly lined up like dead soldiers.

“Hey Joe Bob!” Hap said, coming out.

"‘Hap, you sumbitch,” Joe Bob said, putting the pump handle on automatic and stepping over the hose. “You’re lucky this place is still standin this mornin.”

“Shit, Stu Redman saw the guy coming and switched off the pumps. There was a load of sparks, though.”

“Still damn lucky. Listen, Hap, I come over for somethin besides a fill-up.”

“Yeah?”

Joe Bob’s eyes went to Vic, who was standing in the station door. “Was that old geezer here last night?”

“Who? Vic? Yeah, he comes over most every night.”

“Can he keep his mouth shut?”

“Sure, I reckon. He’s a good enough old boy.”

The automatic feed kicked off. Hap squeezed off another twenty cents’ worth, then put the nozzle back on the pump and switched it off. He walked back to Joe Bob.

“So? What’s the story?”

“Well, let’s go inside. I guess the old fella ought to hear, too. And if you get a chance, you can phone the rest of them that was here.” They walked across the tarmac and into the office.

“Mornin to you, Officer,” Vic said.

Joe Bob nodded.

“Coffee, Joe Bob?” Hap asked.    .

“I guess not.” He looked at them heavily. “The thing is, I don’t know how my superiors would like me bein here at all. So when those guys come here, you don’t let them know I tipped you, right?” “What guys, Officer?” Vic asked.

“Health Department guys,” Joe Bob said.

Vic said, “Oh Jesus, it was cholera. I knew it was.”

Hap looked from one to the other. “Joe Bob?”

“I don’t know nothing,” Joe Bob said, sitting down in one of the plastic Woolco chairs. His bony knees came nearly up to his neck. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his blouse pocket and lit up. “Finnegan, there, the coroner—”

“That was a smartass,” Hap said fiercely. “You should have seen him struttin in here, Joe Bob, shushin people and all that.”

“He’s a big turd in a little bowl, all right,” Joe Bob agreed. “Well, he got Dr. James to look at this Campion, and the two of them called in another doctor that I don’t know. Then they got on the phone to Houston. And around three this mornin they come into that little airport outside of Braintree.”

“Who did?”

“Pathologists. Three of them. They were in there with the body until about eight o’clock. Then they got on the phone to the Plague Center in Atlanta, and those guys are going to be here this afternoon. But they said in the meantime that the Health Department was to get out here and see all the guys that were in the station last night, and the guys that drove the rescue unit to Braintree. I don’t know, but it sounds to me like they want you quarantined.”

“Jesus,” Hap said, frightened.

“The Atlanta Plague Center’s federal,” Vic said. “Would they send out a planeload of federal men just for cholera?”

“Search me,” Joe Bob said. “But I thought you guys had a right to know. From all I heard, you just tried to lend a hand."

“It’s appreciated, Joe Bob,” Hap said slowly. “What did James and this other doctor say?”

“Not much. But they looked scared. I never seen doctors look scared like that. I didn’t much care for it.”

A heavy silence fell. Joe Bob went to the drink machine and got a bottle of Fresca. The faint hissing sound of carbonation was audible as he popped the cap. As Joe Bob sat down again, Hap took a Kleenex from the box next to the cash register, wiped his runny nose, and folded it into the pocket of his greasy coverall.

“What have you found out about Campion?” Vic asked. “Anything?”

“We’re still checking,” Joe Bob said with a trace of importance. “His ID says he was from San Diego, but a lot of the stuff in his wallet was two and three years out of date. His driver’s license was expired. He had a BankAmericard that was issued in 1976 and that was expired, too. He had an army card so we’re checking with them. The captain has a hunch that Campion hadn’t lived in San Diego for maybe four years.”

“AWOL?” Vic asked. He produced a big red bandanna, hawked, and spat into it.

“Dunno yet,” Joe Bob said. “But his army card said he was in until 1982, and he was in civvies, and he was with his fambly, and he was a fuck of a long way from California, and listen to my mouth run.”

“Well, I’ll get in touch with the others and tell em what you said, anyway,” Hap said. “Much obliged.”

Joe Bob stood up. “Sure. Just keep my name out of it. I sure wouldn’t want to lose my job. Your buddies don’t need to know who tipped you, do they?”

“No,” Hap said, and Vic echoed it.

As Joe Bob went to the door, Hap said a little apologetically: “That’s five even for gas, Joe Bob. I hate to charge you, but with things the way they are—”

“That’s okay.” Joe Bob handed him a credit card. “State’s payin. And I got my credit slip to show why I was here.”

While Hap was filling out the slip he sneezed twice.

“You want to watch that,” Joe Bob said. “Nothin any worse than a summer cold.”

“Don’t I know it,” Hap said.

Suddenly, from behind them, Vic said: “Maybe it ain’t a cold.” They turned to him. Vic looked frightened.

“I woke up this morning sneezing and hacking away like sixty,” Vic said. “Had a mean headache, too. It’s gone back some, but I’m still full of snot. Maybe we’re coming down with it. What that Campion had. What he died of.”

Hap looked at him for a long time, and as he was about to put forward all his reasons why it couldn’t be, he sneezed again.

Joe Bob looked at them both gravely for a moment and then said, “You know, it might not be such a bad idea to close the station, Hap. Just for today.”

Hap looked at him, scared, and tried to remember what all his reasons had been. He couldn’t think of a one. All he could remember was that he had also awakened with a headache and a runny nose. Well, everyone caught a cold once in a while. But before that guy Campion had shown up, he had been fine. Just fine.

The three Hodges kids were six, four, and eighteen months. The two youngest were taking naps, and the oldest was out back digging a hole. Lila Bruett was in the living room, watching “The Doctors.” She hoped Sally wouldn’t return until it was over. Ralph had bought a big color TV when times had been better in Arnette, and Lila loved to watch the afternoon stories in color. Everything was so much prettier.

She drew on her cigarette and then let the smoke out in spasms as a racking cough seized her. She went into the kitchen and spat the mouthful of crap she had brought up down the drain. She had gotten up with the cough, and all day it had felt like someone was tickling the back of her throat with a feather.

She went back to the living room after taking a peek out the pantry window to make sure Bert Hodges was okay. A commercial was on now, two dancing bottles of toilet bowl cleaner. Lila let her eyes drift around the room and wished her own house looked this nice. Sally’s hobby was doing paint-by-the-numbers pictures of Christ, and they were all over the living room in nice frames. She especially liked the big one of the Last Supper mounted in back of the TV; it had come with sixty different oil colors, Sally had told her, and it took almost three months to finish. It was a real work of art.

Just as “The Doctors” came back on, baby Cheryl started to cry, a whooping, ugly yell that was broken by bursts of coughing.

Lila put out her cigarette and hurried into the bedroom. Eva, the four-year-old, was still fast asleep, but Cheryl was lying on her back in her crib, and her face was going an alarming purple color. Her cries began to sound strangled.

Lila, who was not afraid of the croup after seeing both of her own through bouts with it, picked her up by the heels and swatted her firmly on the back. She had no idea if Dr. Spock recommended this sort of treatment or not, because she had never read him. It worked nicely on Baby Cheryl. She emitted a froggy croak and suddenly spat an amazing wad of yellow phlegm out onto the floor.

“Better?” Lila asked.

“Yeth,” said Baby Cheryl. She was almost asleep again.

Lila wiped up the mess with a Kleenex. She couldn’t remember ever having seen a baby cough up so much snot all at once.

She sat down in front of “The Doctors” again, frowning. She lit another cigarette, sneezed over the first puff, and then began to cough.