“Oh. Yeah.”
I was staring through the window of Dad’s van as we drove to the Food Giant. There were no abandoned shopping carts at the intersections this time. I guess they had gotten too valuable. There were, however, abandoned human bodies.
Zombies. Meth addicts.
Zombies stood on two of the four corners at Sunbury and Lower Falls Road. Each had a small cardboard sign with words scrawled in ink. It didn’t matter what they said; the message was clear enough to me:
Lost people like these haunt the main intersections in Blackwater, the parking lots, and anywhere else where people congregate. It was shocking at first, but now they are just part of the scenery.
When we arrived at the Food Giant, Dad parked the van in his outer space and we started in.
That’s when we saw her. A woman emerged from the shadows near the ATM. She came toward us, almost floating, like a gray ghost.
The woman moved steadily, purposefully, with one hand held out in front of her. I realized with a shock that I knew her. She was the woman I had followed just one week ago, the one who had cried for Lilly and her engagement. She was back here now, and alone.
She didn’t say anything, just extended a red, cracked hand. When she got close to us, Dad took out his wallet, extracted a ten-dollar bill, and placed it in that hand. The woman then turned and, without a word, wandered off across the lot, back toward the shadows.
I watched her go, thinking,
Anyway, I asked Dad, “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
He shook his head. “What can the police do? Arrest her?”
“No! Not at all! They could take her to a hospital.”
“There aren’t enough resources in the county, not for all these people. We’ve run out of hospital beds, and we’ve run out of jail cells.”
I turned sarcastic on him. “How about graves? We haven’t run out of them, have we?”
Dad looked offended. “I don’t make the rules, Tom. You know how it goes by now, or you should: You make your choices, and you deal with the consequences.” He pointed toward the receding woman. “She chose to try meth.”
“I know.” I muttered, mostly to myself, “Not even once.”
A green Mustang pulled into the slot next to Dad’s. Del got out on the driver’s side; Mitchell got out on the passenger side. I watched them as Dad unlocked the front door.
Mitchell has always been a slow, simple guy. He has been at the Food Giant for twenty years, but he has never had an outside life, as far as anyone knew. He has certainly never had a girlfriend. Suddenly here he was carpooling with Del. Lilly thinks it’s a romance, but I’m not so sure. I think it might be more sinister. I think it might be meth. Suddenly Mitchell is working three times faster than he used to. When his last assistant quit, Dad didn’t even hire a replacement. He didn’t need to.
Del has changed, too, but in the opposite direction. She used to be a bundle of energy. She used to talk so much at the register that Dad had to reprimand her. Now she only speaks to Mitchell, and she has no energy, and her hair is falling out. (She stops by the meat department every morning and gets a hairnet to wear up front.)
Dad held the door for me. He whispered, “I have to speak to Mitchell and Del this morning, first thing. So I’ll need you to open up the meat counter. Okay? Just for ten minutes. Then I’ll drive you to school.”
“Why can’t Reg do it?”
“Because he’s not here yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “Will it really be ten minutes?”
“Just help me out here, Tom.”
“Do I have to wear a hairnet?”
“Of course. Anyone touching food has to.”
I sighed mightily, followed Dad inside, pulled on a hairnet, and got to work setting out the trays of meats. I prayed no one would place an order in the next ten minutes.
Some early-morning customers filed in. I watched them as best I could. How many people were in the store to buy, and how many were there to steal? People I had seen for years, normal-looking people, slightly overweight people, now looked like they were wearing somebody else’s clothes. Their jackets hung limply from their shoulders, like they were several sizes too big.
These honest, hardworking people had become thieves, really inept thieves. They stuffed bunches of grapes into pockets with holes in them; the grapes fell out and rolled away as they walked. They stuffed frozen food items into their jeans; the ice melted, and they stood in the checkout lines looking like they had peed themselves.
It was all so pathetic.
Dad was as nice to them as he could be. He just took the items back and told them not to return to the store. He never called the police.
Of course, my prayer did not come true. I looked up and saw the close-cropped hair and round head of Mrs. Smalls, Bobby’s mother. She was wearing a blue raincoat, opened to reveal her white uniform beneath. I said, “Good morning, Mrs. Smalls.”
“Good morning, Tom. They got you in a hairnet today?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can’t really tell. It’s black, like your hair.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me have a pound of Lebanon baloney and a pound of American cheese.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I pulled out the long cylinder of lunch meat and plopped it onto the slicer.
Mrs. Smalls pointed to the zombie couple in the produce section. “Do you see those two people?”
“Of course.”
“They’re shoplifting, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
She shook her head. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t see them. Or who claim they don’t see them. Professional people, with excellent eyesight, who claim they don’t see them anywhere.”
I wrapped up the Lebanon baloney and pulled out the cheese as Mrs. Smalls continued. “Well, I see them every day in the emergency room. That’s where this all ends, Tom. In the morgue. On a slab. They come into the ER, and they die. Or they come in DOA. All from methamphetamine.”
I was surprised to hear her actually say the word—
Her voice rose as I finished up her order. “So the problem will only get worse! Am I right?”
I told her sincerely, “You are right. Everything you’re saying is right.”
“I know I’m right. And if
I gulped.
“Do you think I
“No, ma’am.”
“ ‘No, ma’am’ is right. I faced those problems, and I got him an education, and a job, and now he earns his
