“I read that Jackduke is the second-largest polluter in New York State,” I said.
“It’s worse in China,” Dad countered.
“What does anything I just said have to do with China?”
“India is just as bad. Not a lot of people know that.”
“The maple-sap harvest in the northeastern states has declined an average of eight percent a year since 2000.”
“In Delhi, they throw their trash right in the street.”
“You work for Satan.”
“Wallace, for Christ’s sake. I work for a company that provides a tangible, essential product for people. Light for their homes, heat to cook their meals. I’m not saying Jackduke is perfect. But there’s worse.”
The blur of trees by the road cleared for a moment and opened up into a broad field. It was October, but shirt-sleeve weather, and the fields were still bright green. The trees were, too. Even with the rain, it was warm.
We passed a sign saying we’d reached North Homer’s town line. The speed limit dropped to thirty. Nothing else changed, no houses or stores, just more trees and rain, blurring into a green smudge.
“So, what’s the issue with this plant?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Dad answered.
I took a deep breath. “I heard you talking on the phone in Indiana. Was that Mr. Hoch?”
Dad stiffened like he’d been punched in the ribs. Bit his cigarette so hard it bent and touched the scruff on his chin. My legs started buzzing. I don’t think I’d ever so directly caught him in a lie.
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop on my conversations,” he said.
“We’re in a truck. It’s kind of hard not to.”
“It’s just that the less you know, the better.”
“Then, trust me,” I said, “I’m in great shape.”
Dad unrolled the window, spit out his chewed-up cigarette, lit another. “Okay. Okay. There’s some things I can share. Listen closely.”
“I was going to listen from a medium distance, if that’s all right.”
“Do you want to hear this?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
He exhaled smoke. “Look, North Homer is a nice little town. Has a lake. Woods.”
“A lake and trees? I don’t believe you.”
“Wallace. I need you to keep a low profile. Don’t go around annoying people, getting in fights.”
“Oh, I never do that.”
Dad exhaled again, squeezing his forehead, trying to knead out a pain inside. “There’s a situation here. An outbreak.”
“An outbreak? What? Like measles?”
“Sort of.” His voice was heavy, cornered.
“Sort of measles?”
He mumbled. “Hysterics.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Hysterics. There’s an outbreak of hysterics in North Homer. It’s a very rare mental illness. Basically, people contract it in groups. They catch it from each other, like the flu. It was much more common in the old days. Though I suppose you could make the argument that it’s just as common now, only contained online. Hell, now that I think about it, maybe there’s more of it these days. The whole virtual world is rampant hysteria, you could say.” He took a deep drag off his cigarette. “But the lake is supposed to be really pretty.”
It took me a minute to get my mind around what he was saying. And actually it got only halfway around, and then it stalled out. Stalled out right on the train tracks.
“Wait, what? This town is a Twitter feud?”
“No. Nothing like that. Nothing that bad. It’s hysteria. And it’s not everyone. Just a few people. Actually, it’s, uh, pretty much contained to the high school.”
“But I’m going to the high school!”
“Yes,” Dad said. “Four kids got it last week. It’s not an ideal situation.”
“You took me out of a nice high school with a nice girlfriend who I dearly and truly love to go to a school with hysterical people? Holy shit, that’s not ideal.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Not always. You’ll learn that. And you weren’t in love. There was nothing special about that relationship.”
“Well, that makes me feel better,” I said.
Dad slowed down for a traffic light, flicked his cigarette out the window. It was raining hard, so the view, our first of downtown North Homer, was of a gray smudge, as opposed to the previous green one. “When you get older, Wallace,” he said, “you’ll realize how insignificant all the romance stuff is. The quality of your life doesn’t depend on love. It depends on one thing and one thing only.”
“Emotional support in childhood?”
He turned to me. His eyes were burned out, dark, done talking. “Survival.”
The light changed, and he accelerated through the intersection, cutting off a Prius. I sank down in my seat.
My life: a truck full of secondhand death, a gray smudge, a school full of hysterical people.
Brilliant.
TWO
DAD WAS AWOL that first night in North Homer. He was gone the next two nights also, which happened to be the weekend. He was gone when I woke up each morning and gone all day, reappearing around eight each evening to drop off a pizza before heading back to the plant. In the mornings, some kind of egg sandwich in a box was on the kitchen table. If he slept, I didn’t know when or where. I wasn’t surprised. This was his normal behavior when he was summoned to a new Jackduke plant.
I stayed in the small apartment that had been arranged for us. Mostly I stared at the ceiling. It was tin, covered in flaking yellow paint, water stains, and manic, disoriented ants that argued a lot. It was on the first floor of a duplex; the top floor was empty. The duplex was one in a row of about five; far as I could tell, all the others were empty as well. On the street, heavy old oaks dominated unkempt lawns and weed-filled sidewalks. Not a lot of cars passed, and the ones that did were outnumbered by pickups, three to one. Nobody was out walking.
Which brings me to the most important thing about the view from the apartment—I didn’t see any hysterical people. True, I wasn’t exactly sure what they would look like; I imagined something quick and lethal, like rabid squirrels or movie zombies, and not the staggering, can-barely-walk zombies but the ones who hurdle cars and climb on top of each other to dismember the brave families defending the walls. But nope. Didn’t see any of those.