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 and 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, narrowing 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 came 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 wouldn’t even buy them 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 chili… nothing a man liked to eat. Nothing in there but little Tupperware dishes and three little old sausages done up in Handi-Wrap. He bent, looking at them, the familiar helpless anger now compounded by the dull throb in his head. Those sausages looked like somebody had cut the cocks off’n three of those pygmies they had down in Africa or South America or wherever the fuck it was they had them. 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 pump the night before.
Hap was in the garage bay putting a new tailpipe on Tony Leominster’s Scout and Vic Palfrey was rocking back 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 Brentwood, 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 lucky this place still standin this morning.”
“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.
“A good mornin to you, Officer,” Vic said.
Joe Bob nodded.
“Coffee, Joe Bob?” Hap asked.
“I guess not.” He looked at them heavily. “Thing is, I don’t know how my superiors would like me bein here at all. I don’t think they would. 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
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 around in here, Joe Bob. Just like a pea turkey that got its first hardon. 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 bodies until about eight o’clock. Cuttin on em is my guess, although I dunno for sure. 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 State Health Department was to send some fellas 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 dunno, but it sounds to me like they want you quarantined.”
“Moses in the bulrushes,” 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 overall.
“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 1986 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. But his army card said he was in until 1997, and he was in civvies, and he was with his family, 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.”
