A Plague Year

He knew someone had joined him on the dock, because he stopped singing. But his arm crashed down on a few more chords before he turned to see who was there.

“Tom! Hey, I was just doing some Nugent for the fans.”

“The fans?”

“Right. The produce. They love it, especially the potatoes.”

Reg pulled out a Marlboro and lit it. He pointed to my book. “Okay, enough culture. What are the words today?”

I opened the book and read one aloud. “Puerile.”

Reg took a deep drag. “Sounds like pubes. Puberty.”

“Close. It means ‘childish, juvenile.’ ”

“That’s me. What’s next?”

“Pusillanimous.” Before he could put an obscene twist on that, I added the definition. “ ‘Lacking courage, cowardly.’ ”

“Being a pussy, in other words.”

“Right. In other words.”

“That’s a good one. What else you got?”

“Pernicious. It means ‘highly destructive.’ ”

“Ah, no. No way. That’s not me.” Reg took a final, long drag, burning up about an inch of tobacco. “There’s not a pernicious bone in my body.” He pitched what was left of the glowing cigarette into the truck bay, then saluted comically and walked back into the storeroom with all that smoke still inside his lungs.

I did manage to memorize a page of words before it was time to go in. Then I stashed my book on a shelf, pushed open the door, and saw two people standing by the bakery—Reg and Bobby. Never a good combination.

Reg was holding up a plastic bottle of Gold Bond talcum powder. He was pointing to it and talking, like a TV pitchman. “Bobby, you need to try this. You owe it to your customers.” He turned to include me. “Right, Tom?”

“What is this about?” I asked.

“I am trying to get Bobby to sprinkle some of this down his pants to relieve his chafing. I do it all the time, Bobby. I go through three or four bottles of this stuff every week. You owe it to your customers not to be irritable due to chafing in the crotch area. Did you ever hear the word crotchety?”

Bobby squirmed. “Yeah. I’ve heard that word. So what?”

“Well, that’s exactly what it means. Tom knows lots of big words.” He asked me, “Do you know the word crotchety?”

“Leave me out of this.”

“It means some guy has neglected to take proper care of his crotch, and he has become crotchety, irritable, unpleasant to customers. Do you think that’s good for business?”

I continued past them and got to work.

Reg, apparently, did not. Ten minutes later, he was at register two, bothering Lilly. I heard him say, “I can help you get a used car. Then we can go out together, now that you’re legal.”

Lilly, barely acknowledging him, muttered, “How do you know that?”

“What? That you’re legal? Uno told me.”

She didn’t like that. “John said I was legal?”

“In so many words. He said you turned eighteen.”

“That’s not the same. Anyway, I wouldn’t go out with you.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have to go very far. We could just go to the parking lot, to your car, where you could express your gratitude.”

Lilly shook her head. She replied matter-of-factly, “You are such a pig.”

“I am not a pig. I am merely puerile.” He turned to include me. (I wished he would stop doing that.) “Right, Mr. Tom?”

“Leave me out of this.”

“Come on, Lilly,” Reg continued. “Why are you so mean? You don’t talk like this to Uno.”

“He’s going by John now, not Uno.”

“Why?”

“That’s a boy’s nickname. He’s a man now.”

“Yeah? You made him a man?”

Lilly was starting to lose her cool. “Shut up.”

“Or did the other one finally drop?”

“Shut up!”

I looked over toward the customer-service desk and saw a stocky guy standing there. Something about him bothered me; it took me a second to realize why. It was Rick Dorfman. He was pointing at Walter and talking to him in an animated way.

Walter is a mild-mannered older guy. He’s retired, after working thirty-five years at the post office. He smiles at everybody, but he wasn’t smiling now. He looked scared. I thought about calling Dad to intervene, but Dorfman suddenly stopped pointing and talking, and stomped out of the store.

I got well out of his way, thinking, Good riddance.

A few minutes later, when Bobby came through the register line, I was sorry to see that he was carrying a bottle of Gold Bond talcum powder. I probably should have stopped him then and there, but I didn’t. I was afraid that would only make things worse.

Reg called after him, “Now don’t be stingy with that stuff, Bobby. Apply it liberally.”

Bobby replied, “Yeah. Okay.”

Reg waited until Bobby exited the store. Then he picked up the register phone and punched in the public- address number. He intoned, “Cleanup in Bobby’s room!” and hung up. With a final chuckle, he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and walked outside.

Lilly turned to me. “He is a pig. Piglike. Not that other word.”

“Puerile?”

“Yeah.”

Lilly pulled out her cash drawer and waved to Dad. He came over and asked, “Are you ready to close?”

“I am way beyond ready.”

Five minutes later, Lilly and I were standing outside, waiting for Mom. As we watched Reg drive away in his pickup, Lilly asked, “Did he show you that website?”

“Who, Reg?”

“Yeah.”

“No. What website?”

“It was some gross thing, of course, just like Reg. John and him were looking at it on the office computer. John showed it to me, so I figured they showed you.”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

“Some guy at Blackwater University made it. He put pictures of girls on there, and he rated them on what they’d do to guys on dates.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like sex stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s gross. So, I was looking at some of the girls, and… that Wendy girl is on it.”

I tried to remain calm. I just repeated, “Really?”

“Yeah. I saw her picture. She was wearing, like, a purple Halloween costume. I told John, ‘Hey! That girl’s in our counseling group. She’s Mrs. Lyle’s daughter.’ ”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s like fourteen or fifteen years old. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Lilly shook her head. “That’s not right. I bet that’s not even legal. It’s like abusing a minor.”

I chose my words carefully. “What does it say about her?”