A Plague Year by Edward Bloor

Author:Edward Bloor [Bloor, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Ages 12 and up
ISBN: 9780375989377
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Monday, November 19, 2001

I had both Dad and Mom with me at breakfast, so I tried to work in the Christmas-tree idea. I started off conversationally, like I was talking about something else. I told them, “Arthur’s last football game was Friday afternoon.”

Mom replied, “Oh? That’s nice.”

“Yeah, I saw Aunt Robin at the school. She came to watch the game.” I added, “She seems like a nice lady.”

Mom didn’t say anything, but Dad replied, “Sure. She is.”

I heard Lilly coming down the back stairs. I waited until she had entered, selected an apple from a bowl, and started washing it before I continued. “I don’t really remember Uncle Robby. What was he like?”

Dad said, “He was a nice guy.”

Mom added, “He was. But he should never have gotten married so young. And never to Robin.”

Dad turned away, concentrating on his shredded wheat, but he did murmur, “Well, he didn’t have much choice.”

Lilly picked up on that before I did. “What? Aunt Robin was pregnant? With Arthur?”

Mom nodded tightly. “Yes, that’s right. And that was the beginning of the end for Robby. There he was, married to this child bride, who had the same bad habits that he had.”

Mom started to get angry. “Robin didn’t finish high school. She never got her GED. So after Robby died, what did she have? She had no job, no money, and a child to raise.”

Lilly asked, “So how did she do? Was she a good mother?”

Mom backed off. “She tried, I guess. She would take Arthur to football; she would take him to church to hear those Holy Roller preachers.”

“Really? What church was that?”

Mom looked at Dad, so he explained. “Some church in Caldera, in a double-wide. It got condemned along with everything else, so they had to move it. They put the whole thing on a flatbed truck and hauled it away.”

Mom grumbled, “Who would go to church in a place like that? It was unhealthy.”

Lilly winked at me. “Maybe Hungarians,” she suggested. “Or Puerto Ricans. I’ll have to ask John.” She looked at me for a laugh, or at least a smile, but I was way too stressed to react.

Dad said, “It was an evangelical church. It attracted all kinds of people. I think that’s where Robin met Jimmy.”

I responded as evenly as I could, “Jimmy Giles?”

“Right.”

“Do you know him?”

“A little. He’s not a bad guy. He had a drug problem, I guess. And some legal problems.”

“Do you know his brother?”

“Warren? Yeah. Real smart guy. He was a pharmacy tech at Kroger.”

“No!”

“Yeah. During college.”

“He went to college?”

“He did, up at Bloomsburg, but I don’t think he finished. He had some problem at Kroger—stealing pills, or underreporting pills, or misreporting. I’m not sure what.”

Dad finally gave me my opening when he asked, “What are those guys doing now?”

“Oh, different stuff. They move college kids in and out of the Blackwater dorms.”

“Yeah?”

“And they do some government work, hauling pine trees.”

“For turpentine?”

“I guess so, yeah. And they sell Christmas trees down in Florida.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. They’ve been doing it for a few years now.

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