“Talk is the best way to go,” Old Bob advised, giving him a look.
“Yeah? Well, it ain’t like it was in your time, Bob Freemark. We ain’t got local owners anymore, people with a stake in the community, people with families that live here like the rest of us. We got a bunch of New York bloodsuckers draining all the money out of Hopewell, and they don’t care about us.” Derry Howe slouched in his chair, eyes downcast. “We got to do something if we expect to survive this. We can’t just sit around hoping for someone to help us. It ain’t going to happen.”
“There was a fellow out East somewhere, one of the major cities, Philadelphia, I think,” said the man sitting next to him, his strange pale eyes quizzical, his mouth quirked slightly, as if his words amused him. “His wife died, leaving him with a five-year-old daughter who was mildly retarded. He kept her in a closet off the living room for almost three years before someone discovered what he was doing and called the police. When they questioned the man, he said he was just trying to protect the girl from a hostile world.” The man cocked his head slightly. “When they asked the girl why she hadn’t tried to escape, she said she was afraid to run, that all she could do was wait for someone to help her.”
“Well, they ain’t shutting me up in no closet!” Derry Howe snapped angrily. “I can help myself just fine!”
“Sometimes,” the man said, looking at no one in particular, his voice low and compelling, “the locks get turned before you even realize that the door’s been closed.”
“I think Bob’s right,” Mike Michaelson said. “I think we have to give the negotiation process a fair chance. These things take time.”
“Time that costs us money and gives them a better chance to break us!” Derry Howe shoved back his chair and came to his feet. “I’m outta here. I got better things to do than sit around here all day. I’m sick of talking and doing nothing. Maybe you don’t care if the company takes away your job, but I ain’t having none of it!”
He stalked away, weaving angrily through the crowded tables, and slammed the door behind him. At the counter, Josie Jackson grimaced. A moment later, Junior Elway left as well. The men still seated at the table shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
“I swear, if that boy wasn’t my sister’s son, I wouldn’t waste another moment on him,” Melvin Riorden muttered.
“He’s right about one thing,” Old Bob sighed. “Things aren’t the way they used to be. The world’s changed from when we were his age, and a lot of it’s gotten pretty ugly. People don’t want to work things out anymore like they used to.”
“People just want a pound of flesh,” A! Garcia agreed. His blocky head pivoted on his bull neck. “It’s all about money and getting your foot on the other guy’s neck. That’s why the company and the union can’t settle anything. Makes you wonder if the government hasn’t put something in the water after all.”
“You see where that man went into a grocery store out on Long Island somewhere and walked up and down the aisles stabbing people?” asked Penny Williamson. “Had two carving knives with him, one in each hand. He never said a word, just walked in and began stabbing people. He stabbed ten of them before someone stopped him. Killed two. The police say he was angry and depressed. Well, hell, who ain’t?”
“The world’s full of angry, depressed people,” said Mike Michaelson, rearranging his coffee cup and silver, staring down at his sun-browned, wrinkled hands fixedly. “Look what people are doing to each other. Parents beating and torturing their children. Young boys and girls killing each other. Teachers and priests taking advantage of their position to do awful things. Serial killers wandering the countryside. Churches and schools being vandalized and burned. It’s a travesty.”
“Some of those people you talk about live right here in Hopewell.” Penny Williamson grunted. “That Topp kid who killed his common-law wife with a butcher knife and cut her up in pieces a few years back? I grew up with that kid. Old man Peters killed ail those horses two weeks back, said they were the spawn of Satan. Tilda Mason, tried to kill herself three rimes over the past six months-twice in the mental hospital. Tried to kill a couple of the people working there as well. That fellow Riley Crisp, the one they call ‘rabbit’ lives down on Wallace? He stood out on the First Avenue Bridge and shot at people until the police came, then shot at them, and then jumped off the bridge and drowned himself. When was that? Last month?” He shook his head. “Where’s it all going to end I wonder?”