Dead End in Norvelt (20 page)

June 16, 1829:
Geronimo was born. He became a great Apache warrior who fought for Indian freedom.

June 16, 1858:
Abraham Lincoln delivered his “a house divided cannot stand” speech in Springfield, Illinois, which meant the country could not be partly for and partly against slavery.

June 16, 1903:
The Ford Motor Company was started. Henry Ford declared that the perfect assembly line factory worker would be a blind man because he could learn one exact task and repeat it endlessly for the rest of his life.

That was me. I could close my eyes and dig a hole for the rest of my life.

After breakfast I washed out my handkerchief, packed it back into my nose, and went out to the bomb shelter. I loosened up the hard dirt with a pick and then with my shovel I flung the dirt into the wheelbarrow, and when it was full I wheeled it over to where Mom had marked out where she wanted new raised flower beds.

I dug and dug until the whole perimeter of the shelter was about as deep as my knee. By about two o’clock each afternoon I wished the Russians would bomb me out of my misery. As I shoveled I worked on my obituary. “Jack Gantos,” I said a little breathlessly, “was born at the Frick Hospital in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and raised in Norvelt, Pennsylvania, which is a town that is slowly vanishing, and like some Houdini trick it will soon be found in West Virginia. Jack was a good student but learned more from reading books than from staring out the window at school. His parents were total strangers who took him away at birth.”

As I spoke out loud I didn’t hear Bunny sneaking up on me.

“Are you adopted?” she suddenly asked, which startled me, and I jumped into the air like a crazed cat.

“No,” I said after I landed on all fours then sprang back up. “No. I’m
not
adopted.”

“Then why’d you say your parents were strangers?”

“Because they were,” I said right back. “I had never met them before the moment I was born.”

“You are the strange one,” she said, and pointed at my face. “And that bloody thing hanging out of your nose is beyond strange.”

“Sorry,” I said, and turned away as I tugged the blood-crusted handkerchief from my nose then jammed it into the back pocket of my jeans.

“I came here,” she said, “to see if your mom will let you come to my house. My dad needs help cleaning the embalming room after he worked on some of those bus group people who died in that head-on collision at the Unity Bridge. He’ll pay you.”

I swallowed hard. “Will the mess look worse than what was in the Hells Angel’s bucket?” I asked.

She counted up the dead people on her stubby fingers. “Five times worse,” she said. “Not including the pet dog who we didn’t embalm.”

I suddenly felt faint. The air was hissing in my ears and it was snowing just behind my eyes. I took a deep breath as I reached for her shoulder to steady myself.

She stepped away. “Don’t touch me with your bloody hand,” she cried.

I dropped down to my knees and pulled the handkerchief from my pocket. “See this blood,” I said faintly, and waved the handkerchief back and forth. “It’s my own blood and it makes me dizzy. As much as I want to get away from my house and make money, I can’t work for your dad. I’ll bleed to death and your father will toss me onto that Aztec altar and embalm me.”

She shrugged. “Look, I’m here to give you another chance at doing some fun stuff together,” she said. “You are already punished and have to dig this bomb shelter, so how much worse can they make it for you?”

“They could make me dig two bomb shelters,” I said.

“Don’t be so depressing,” she said. “I’ve got a plan. Now that you can drive, let’s borrow Miss Volker’s car and cruise into Pittsburgh and go to a Pirates game. I have money for tickets.”

“Money is not the point,” I said. “If I drive to Pittsburgh I’ll be arrested and put into jail. The cops aren’t stupid. They’ll know I’m a kid. And my parents will kill me.”

“As my dad says, ‘You have to die sometime,’ so why not while you are having fun?”

Suddenly I remembered something we could do at my house without getting into trouble and it would be fun too. “Come in my room,” I said with enthusiasm. “And I’ll show you something cool.”

“Cooler than your bloody nose rag?” she asked, and wrinkled up her face.

“Much cooler,” I said as I slowly got back onto my two feet. “Come on.”

She reluctantly followed me into the house and down the hall and into my bedroom. “Look,” I said proudly, and pointed to the back corner of my room where I had been busy. “I built a little igloo out of my books.”

“That looks more like a doghouse,” she remarked.

“It’s an igloo,” I said. “Made out of blocks of books.”

“When you were born it’s a wonder your parents didn’t reject you,” she said. “I would have.”

“Do you want to read for a while?” I asked. I was eager to keep her in the house after I had spent days digging by myself. Dad had helped haul another empty Norvelt house to West Virginia so he wasn’t around, and I always felt guilty in front of Mom so I avoided conversations with her.

“You know I hate reading,” Bunny said.

“You want to know a secret?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said halfheartedly.

“I love to sniff the insides of books,” I said in a whisper. “Because each book has its own special perfume.”

“Now you are getting even more weird,” she whispered right back, and stepped away from me.

“Let me show you,” I said. I grabbed
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
, flipped it open, shoved my face into the gutter of the book, and inhaled deeply through my stuffed-up nose. When I lifted my face from the book I swooned and said dreamily, “Ahhh, that was a good one. Now you do it.”

She reluctantly grabbed
Custer’s Last Stand
, flipped it open, and stuck her little curled-up cashew-size nose into the gutter. She gave it a good sniff, then dropped the book and staggered against my dresser. “History,” she said, gagging a bit, “has to be the worst smell in the world. Maybe that’s why when you die and people say you are history they mean you smell as bad as a rotten old dead person.”

“History isn’t dead,” I said. “It’s everywhere you look. It’s alive.”

“Well, I’m looking at history,” she said, pointing at me. “You used to be a friend, but now you stink as a friend! I came here to give you a second chance and you make me smell the crotch of an old book.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m just trapped here. As soon as I can prove I didn’t know there was a bullet in that gun I’ll be ungrounded, and then we can do anything normal you want.”

“Okay,” she said. “But how can you prove you didn’t put a bullet in the gun?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “None.”

“Great,” she said in a huff. “Well, Mr. Genius, when you figure it out call me, but I can’t sit in your little doghouse and sniff books all summer long because then I’d know I had gone insane!”

She started to walk out of my room. “Don’t go,” I begged. “Please.”

She lowered her shoulder and stiff-armed me out of the way and stomped down the hall and out the door.

From the other end of the hall my mother called out, “Jackie, who was that?”

“A stranger,” I muttered.

I jammed my handkerchief back up my nose and went outside. Before I started digging I fed the turkeys, made sure War Chief had water, then picked up my shovel.

*   *   *

That evening when Dad returned from West Virginia he came into my room. “Hey, Jackie,” he called out. “Are you in here?”

“I’m in the igloo,” I said.

He walked to the back corner of my room. From where I was curled up in my igloo I could just see his work boots.

“That looks more like an outhouse,” he remarked. “Or a tomb. An igloo is round but your books are square, not curved. Do you need glasses?”

I knew what I was thinking was wrong, even evil, but for the first time in my life I wished that another old lady in Norvelt would drop dead at that moment and get me out of my room.

“I found out something interesting,” he said. “Guess who actually is buying up all the Norvelt houses and moving them to West Virginia?”

That stumped me. I couldn’t think of anyone who would do that but my own father. “Who?” I asked.

“Mr. Huffer,” he said, and hooted out loud. “He’s selling all the houses but keeping the land. Why do you think he’d do that?”

I stood up and my igloo fell apart and settled at my feet. “Maybe he’s planning to turn Norvelt into one big cemetery,” I guessed.

“That’s a possibility,” he said, and winked at me. “But he won’t have to work too hard at it. The place is already half-dead.”

“I’ll ask Bunny,” I suggested.

In a minute I called her on the phone. The moment she heard my voice she hung up.

19

I called her
on July 17th and she hung up.

I called her on the 18th and it sounded like she threw the phone across the room.

I called her on the 19th and she was softening. “You know what I’m doing?” she yelled.

“No,” I replied.

“Dropping the phone in the
human innards bucket
!”

I heard something like a splash and a gurgle. I hung up and went directly to the bathroom. My nose was right on time. I looked in the mirror and the first drop was just sliding down over my upper lip.

I called her on the 20th. I was wearing her down. She held up a pair of dentures and made them chatter while she made spooky ghost sounds in the background. Then she hung up.

I called her on the 21st.

“Okay,” she said, sounding a little exasperated. “Do you know who put the bullet in your rifle?”

“I’m working on it,” I said. “And do you know why your dad is buying and moving all the Norvelt houses to West Virginia?”

There was silence, but I could hear her brain operating. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s the deal. My dad said to keep it a secret, but I’ll tell you. Only you have to sneak out of your house tonight and go on Girl Scout fire patrol with me. It’s my night to keep an eye on the empty houses so the Hells Angels don’t burn them down.”

“Can’t you just tell me over the phone?” I asked.

“Nope! Show some backbone and sneak out,” she said.

Then I made a decision that almost got me killed forever. “I will sneak out,” I quietly replied. “Just tell me where to meet and what time.”

“On the other side of the school,” she said. “We’ll start with section D at ten o’clock.”

“Ten?” I repeated.

“Be there or be-ware!” she said, and slammed the phone down.

I went back into my rebuilt igloo and gave the evening a lot of thought. Then I did a little planning and preparation and when it was nine-thirty I jumped into action. I walked into my mom’s room and kissed her good night.

“Sleep tight,” she said.

“You too,” I replied, hoping she would. Then I walked back down the hall, past my bedroom to the basement door, which I had left partway open because of the noisy latch. I slipped sideways through the doorway and picked up the flashlight I had left on the top step. I turned it on and carefully went down the basement steps. I passed the washing machine and furnace and entered the old coal bin which was no longer used. There was a coal chute, like a sliding board, that went up to a metal hatch like a bigger version of a mail slot where the coal had been delivered. I scampered up the chute. I opened the latch and swung the hatch open. It didn’t creak because I had earlier oiled the hinges. I turned my flashlight off and wiggled my way out and gently lowered the hatch behind me. I jammed the flashlight into my back pocket and walked quietly behind the garage, where I had a bag with my Grim Reaper costume. I put on the black robe and kept the mask pushed back on top of my head for now.

I stepped out from behind the garage and saw my mother’s light was already off. If my dad came home late he would never check on me. I picked up my pace and headed for the school.

Bunny was already there and was smoking a cigarette. “Well, look who decided to be a man for a change,” she remarked when she saw me. She held out the pack of smokes. “Want one?”

“No wonder your growth is stunted,” I said, and pushed her hand away.

“I can still kick your tail so watch your mouth,” she started up.

“Let’s just get going,” I said. “And put out the cigarette. We’re not here to start fires.”

She threw it down and ground it out with her shoe. “Okay,” she said. “Since you showed up, here is the deal with my dad. He buys up all the empty Norvelt houses and is selling them to Eleanor, West Virginia, because that is a bigger town and more people die there and business is better there. He figures he is going to have to shut down here and we’ll move there.”

“Well, that makes sense,” I said. “But moving the houses is driving Miss Volker nuts. She loves this town and can’t stand to see it die off.”

“Believe me,” Bunny said wisely, “I’ve seen a lot of people looking at things that have died off—and they get over it. So she’ll get over it too.”

“What about the land?” I asked. “Are you going to build a huge cemetery?

“No. My dad wants to build a big development called Hufferville,” she said.

“Are you pulling my leg?” I asked.

Just then Bunny grabbed my shoulder and we stopped walking. “Listen,” she said.

“It’s a car,” I said. “Not a motorcycle.”

“They’ve been sneaking up on the town in cars,” she said. “There have been a half-dozen small fires that haven’t been reported because Dad doesn’t want to scare people.”

The car was slowly heading our way. We ducked down behind a hedge until it passed and then the brake lights came on. A Hells Angel got out of the passenger side and popped the trunk open.