Under the Dome

5

“Oh my God,” Linda said, and swerved the van to the left. It bumped up over the curb not a hundred yards from where Main and Highland intersected. All three girls laughed at the bump, but poor little Aidan only looked scared, and grabbed the longsuffering Audrey’s head once more.

“What?” Thurse snapped. “What?”

She parked on someone’s lawn, behind a tree. It was a good-sized oak, but the van was big, too, and the oak had lost most of its listless leaves. She wanted to believe they were hidden but couldn’t.

“That’s Jim Rennie’s Hummer sitting in the middle of the goddam intersection.”

“You swore big,” Judy said. “Two quarters in the swear-jar.” Thurse craned. “Are you sure?”

“Do you think anybody else in town has a vehicle that humongous?”

“Oh Jesus,” Thurston said.

“Swear-jar!” This time Judy and Jannie said it together.

Linda felt her mouth dry up, and her tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thibodeau was emerging from the Hummer’s passenger side, and if he looked this way…

If he sees us, I’m going to run him down, she thought. The idea brought a certain perverse calm.

Thibodeau opened the back door of the Hummer. Peter Randolph got out.

“That man is picking his seat,” Alice Appleton informed the company at large. “My mother says that means you’re going to the movies.”

Thurston Marshall burst out laughing, and Linda, who would have said she didn’t have a laugh anywhere in her, joined him. Soon they were all laughing, even Aidan, who certainly didn’t know what they were laughing about. Linda wasn’t sure she did, either.

Randolph headed down the hill on foot, still yanking at the seat of his uniform trousers. There was no reason for it to be as funny, and that made it funnier.

Not wanting to be left out, Audrey began to bark.

6

Somewhere a dog was barking.

Big Jim heard it, but didn’t bother turning around. Watching Peter Randolph stride down the hill suffused him with well-being.

“Look at him picking his pants out of his butt,” Carter remarked. “My father used to say that meant you were going to the movies.”

“The only place he’s going is out to WCIK,” Big Jim said, “and if he’s bullheaded about making a frontal assault, it’s likely to be the last place he ever goes. Let’s go down to the Town Hall and watch this carnival on TV for awhile. When that becomes tiresome, I want you to find the hippy doctor and tell him if he tries to scoot off somewhere, we’ll run him down and throw him in jail.”

“Yes, sir.” This was duty he didn’t mind. Maybe he could take another run at ex-officer Everett, this time get her pants off.

Big Jim put the Hummer in gear and rolled slowly down the hill, honking at people who didn’t get out of his way quickly enough.

As soon as he had turned into the Town Hall driveway, the Odyssey van rolled through the intersection and headed out of town. There was no foot traffic on Upper Highland Street, and Linda accelerated rapidly. Thurse Marshall began singing “The Wheels on the Bus,” and soon all the kids were singing with him.

Linda, who felt a little more terror leave her with each tenth of a mile the odometer turned, soon began to sing along.

7

Visitors Day has come to Chester’s Mill, and a mood of eager anticipation fills the people walking out Route 119 toward the Dinsmore farm, where Joe McClatchey’s demonstration went so wrong just five days ago. They are hopeful (if not exactly happy) in spite of that memory—also in spite of the heat and smelly air. The horizon beyond the Dome now appears blurred, and above the trees, the sky has darkened, due to accumulated particulate matter. It’s better when you look straight up, but still not right; the blue has a yellowish cast, like a film of cataract on an old man’s eye.

“It’s how the sky used to look over the paper mills back in the seventies, when they were running full blast,” says Henrietta Clavard—she of the not-quite-broken ass. She offers her bottle of ginger ale to Petra Searles, who’s walking beside her.

“No, thank you,” Petra says, “I have some water.”

“Is it spiked with vodka?” Henrietta inquires. “Because this is. Half and half, sweetheart; I call it a Canada Dry Rocket.”

Petra takes the bottle and downs a healthy slug. “Yow!” she says.

Henrietta nods in businesslike fashion. “Yes, ma’am. It’s not fancy, but it does brighten up a person’s day.”

Many of the pilgrims are carrying signs they plan on flashing to their visitors from the outside world (and to the cameras, of course) like the audience at a live network morning show. But network morning show signs are uniformly cheerful. Most of these are not. Some, left over from the previous Sunday’s demo, read FIGHT THE POWER and LET US OUT, DAMMIT! There are new ones that say GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT: WHY???, END THE COVER-UP, and WE’RE HUMAN BEINGS, NOT GUINEA PIGS. Johnny Carver’s reads STOP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING IN THE NAME OF GOD! BEFORE IT’S 2- LATE!! Frieda Morrison’s asks—ungrammatically but passionately—WHO’S CRIMES ARE WE DYING FOR? Bruce Yardley’s is the only one to strike a completely positive note. Attached to a seven-foot stick and wrapped in blue crepe paper (at the Dome it will tower over all the others), it reads HELLO MOM & DAD IN CLEVELAND! LOVE YOU GUYS!

Nine or ten signs feature scriptural references. Bonnie Morrell, wife of the town’s lumberyard owner, carries one that proclaims DON’T FORGIVE THEM, BECAUSE THEY DO KNOW WHAT THEY DO! Trina Cole’s says THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD below a drawing of what is probably a sheep, although it’s tough to be sure.

Donnie Baribeau’s simply reads PRAY FOR US.

Marta Edmunds, who sometimes babysits for the Everetts, isn’t among the pilgrims. Her ex-husband lives in South Portland, but she doubts if he’ll show up, and what would she say if he did? You’re behind on the alimony, cocksucker? She goes out Little Bitch Road instead of down Route 119. The advantage is that she doesn’t have to walk. She takes her Acura (and runs the air-conditioning full blast). Her destination is the cozy little house where Clayton Brassey has spent his declining years. He is her great-great uncle once removed (or some damn thing), and while she isn’t quite sure of either their kinship or degree of separation, she knows he has a generator. If it’s still working, she can watch on TV. She also wants to assure herself that Uncle Clayt’s still okay— or as okay as it’s possible to be when you’re a hundred and five and your brains have turned to Quaker Oatmeal.

He’s not okay. Clayton Brassey has given up the mantel of oldest living town resident. He’s sitting in the living room in his favorite chair with his chipped enamel urinal in his lap and the Boston Post Cane leaning against the wall nearby, and he’s cold as a cracker. There’s no sign of Nell Toomey, his great-great granddaughter and chief caregiver; she’s gone out to the Dome with her brother and sister-in-