The Cure (5 page)

Riley had no faith whatsoever in an unseen god of miracles.

Yet the note said he held a cure, and science was a different matter. Science was the sovereign of cause and effect, a provable kind of god that could not be denied. The teacher in him thought, consider what we know . . . a village hacked to pieces, devastation and despair, despair and drink, drink and drunk, drunk and deadbeat, deadbeat and divorce, divorce and devastation and despair and drink and cause and effect and cause and effect and . . . could this powder be a new kind of cause, come to break the pattern?

With that Riley realized there was just a chance that he and Brice had both been preaching lies. What if the history of life was neither circular nor straight? What if it was neither ceaseless cycle nor headlong rush down to a predetermined end? What if he could take control, change his course, turn away, just by making this one choice? Could redemption rest in his own hands?

In his last stand of consciousness Riley cast his hopes upon a different kind of god, licking a filthy finger and dabbing it in the powder to collect just a bit on the surface of his skin. He touched it to his tongue and tasted something sweet, impossibly sweet, yet not in the cloying way of saccharine. It reminded Riley of a little shop somewhere down in Brazil, and his wife beside him buying chocolates. How could he have forgotten that day; how happy they had been, how warm it was back then? Riley smiled a little at that memory as the dimming sun declined beyond the western hills of Maine and the cold began to stalk him with its claws extended, and then he shivered and he settled in to wait for one end or the other, willing to be cured by his own choice but unwilling to survive one moment longer otherwise.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

T
HE CONGREGATION PRESSED AND FLOWED
around the columns of the portico high above the broad church stairs. In the midst of all the movement, Dublin’s mayor paused to look down at her town. She saw the landing at the bottom of the hill to the right, the old gray wharf piled high with traps, the riotous display of multicolored floats on the shingled harbormaster’s shed. She noticed a new
For Sale
sign in the window of the McPherson building, and thought about Simmons Marine Chandlery going out of business after nearly eighty years in that location.

She wondered who was next.

Then she shook her head, denying entry to that train of thought, and she whispered words that had become a kind of mantra to her in the past few awful years, “‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”

Turning away from the empty building by the landing, Hope stood in that high place and stared at the littered lawn in the park across the street. She made a mental note to mention it to the township’s head of maintenance. She saw six or seven dirty strangers sitting by the fountain and a man with shaggy hair and a long beard lying at the base of the old town-meeting oak, sprawled out right there in plain sight, drinking from a bottle in a paper bag. The sight made her think again of Brice, dead on the shelter floor, and the likelihood that Riley Keep was back in town.

The mayor sighed and searched for someplace pleasant to rest her eyes. It wasn’t hard to find. In spite of the homeless people’s litter, downtown Dublin was still very pretty, or “quaint” as the tourists liked to call it. She admired the antique black and gilded signage above Jefferson’s Art Gallery across the way, the golden leaves clinging to the mature birches lining both sides of the street, the lovely verdigris patina on the copper dome of town hall at the top of the hill, and the township’s cheerful Thanksgiving banners hanging from cast-iron antique streetlights up and down Main Street. Then, as she had so many times before, Hope considered all the blank windows above the foursquare red brick businesses and wondered if there was a way to make some use of all those vacant second floors. After all, a good mayor thought in terms of possibilities. The only thing was, these days there were many empty first floors too, with some buildings vacated altogether.

As Hope’s eyes traveled up the street she spied Dylan on the sidewalk talking to another man. He stood beside her car. She forgot her burden for a moment and wondered if the handsome lobsterman was waiting there for her.

“Mother? Will you please come on?”

Summoned from her reverie by the frustration in her daughter’s voice, the mayor looked down at a swarthy, compact girl standing at the bottom of the steps with her arms crossed. Hope had a fleeting impression of her daughter as if seen through a stranger’s eyes: lifeless hair as black as midnight, stainless piercings through her tongue and her right nostril, a dull tattoo along her neck between her left ear and the top of that horrible alpaca sweater. It was like looking down on one of the many homeless people who had begun to fill Dublin’s streets for some mystifying reason, a pierced and tattooed Indian. The mayor forced a smile. “Coming, dear!” she called, with a shrug to Margie Seavey, who stood beside her, and just the tiniest roll of her eyes as if to say, what’s a single working mom to do?

She began making her way down to where Bree waited so impatiently, but someone back behind her called, “Hope?” She put on her brightest smile and turned to see Bill Hightower coming through the crowd toward her, shoving past the people in between like they were weeds out in a field.

The colorless man stood head and shoulders above most everyone. He wore a gray suit and gray military haircut. His skin clung tightly to his bones. Even at six feet four inches, Hightower was probably not much heavier than Hope. She had always been intrigued by the little white ridges of cartilage showing underneath the flesh of his nose and ears, looking for all the world as if they might burst through the surface any minute. A lawyer and a banker both, the son and grandson of lawyers and bankers, Bill Hightower held the paper on Hope’s house and most of the others around Dublin. No doubt this explained his position as a councilman. But Hope knew the power of money was not limited to town hall. Hightower also had a lot of influence in the Congregational church.

“Bill,” she said, extending her hand as he approached her. “How ya doin’?”

“I’ve been better.” Hightower gave her hand an awkward shake, grasping just her fingertips. “What are you doing about all these bums hanging around?”

“Bums?”

“Panhandlers. Whatever.”

She lowered her hand. “Ah. Well, we’re workin’ on that problem, Steve and me. Went over to see Willa about it just this week.”

“She won’t do a thing.”

“I think she does a lot.”

“You know what I mean. If Willa had her way, we’d be building them houses.”

“Well, I guess prob’ly. She does have a soft spot for the homeless.” Hope smiled.

“You need to get them out of town.”

“It’s a free country, Bill.”

Hightower pointed a long and bony finger toward the park across the street. “Not when they infest our parks and interfere with business and interrupt our church services.”

Following his gesture, Hope squinted toward the man on the ground below the meeting oak. His long, unkempt hair draped down, concealing his face like a hood. “Interrupt church services?”

“You didn’t see me kick that fella out just now?”

“No. Why’d you do that?”

“He was chugging the Communion wine like it was shots in a bar!”

She peered closer at the man across the street. “Well now.”

“They’ve got to go, Hope.”

“They have rights, Bill. We can’t just run ‘em out of town for sittin’ in the park.”

“He chugged the wine! Five or six glasses of it, like it didn’t mean a thing!”

“Not sure there’s a law against that.”

“There oughta be!”

“Ayuh, but I still don’t think we have that kinda law.”

“What about God’s law?”

Hope took a step away from Bill Hightower toward her daughter. “God’ll have to handle that himself, Bill. It’s not my area anymore.”

“You’re saying you won’t do anything?”

“Not at all. Like I said, we’re tryin’ to work something out with Willa. Find some way to keep ‘em all fed and get ‘em someplace warm to sleep.”

“You want to
feed
them and keep them
warm
? That’ll just encourage them to stay!”

She spoke slowly and distinctly. “Bill. Again. We can’t make ‘em leave town. And since they’re here, I’m sure you agree we can’t let ‘em starve and freeze.”

“Who’s going to pay for all this food and shelter?”

It was an excellent question, but Hope refused to let him see her worries. “We’ll find the money somewhere.”

Hightower drew himself up to his full height, and Hope thought, oh boy, here it comes. Then, as if thinking better of whatever he was poised to say, the man exhaled slowly and seemed to shrink again. “I’m sorry. Guess I’m still a little upset about what that fella did.”

Hope nodded. “Sorry you had to kick him out, Bill. That must of been hard.”

“Ayuh.” The tall man nodded earnestly. “I hated to do it. And I’d like to help these people too, if we could. But look around, Hope. We’re barely hanging on here. We’ve got to get them
out
of town, not keep them here by making them more comfortable.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

The usher sighed. “I don’t want to go against you. But it seems like you’re leaving me no choice.”

With that, the tall man turned and stalked off.

Hope did her best to hide her emotions beneath a politician’s smile as she walked toward her daughter, yet her annoyance proved too strong to conceal. At the bottom of the stairs she gripped Bree’s upper arm with a bit more forcefully than necessary and, leaning close, whispered, “I told you to stop wearin’ that thing in your nose, young lady.”

Bree’s broad features revealed no emotion. She shook her arm free, spun on her heel and strode away as fast as her odd bowlegged gait would carry her.

With all the people watching, Hope could only follow.

Up ahead, she saw Dylan, still standing by her car. The man watched Bree approach and said hello to her, but the pigheaded girl went straight to the passenger side without a word. As Hope drew near, her daughter got in and slammed the door. Dylan turned and raised his eyebrows. “Somethin’ I said?”

“Naw,” said Hope. “She’s all spleeny-Jeanie ‘cause I won’t let her run around like a heathen with a bone in her nose.” Dylan chuckled, but she said, “It’s not funny. I can’t get her to do anything.”

Dylan’s huge brown eyes softened at the worry in her voice. “She’ll be okay.”

“Did you get a look at her? It’s like she wants to get back to her roots. I wouldn’t be surprised if she came home one of these days with earplugs and a spear.”

“Ayuh. I’m just glad tattoos weren’t cool when we was her age, or we’d be sportin’ a few ourselves.”

“I never was that wild.”

“Oh, I don’t know . . .” He grinned widely, his straight teeth white against his beard. “I’m rememberin’ a graduation party at O’Leary’s and a wicked little dance up on the balcony and—”

“Stop your lies, Dylan Delaney! My girl’s just right there in the car.”

“And she’s gonna be just fine, is all I’m sayin’. You turned out okay.”

“I guess.”

“You’re the mayor for crying out loud.”

Hope thought of all the empty buildings around them. “Big deal.”

“It is to me.”

She looked directly at the handsome man. “Thanks.”

Dylan held her eyes with his until she looked away. He said, “Never guess who’s been pullin’ traps for me, last couple a days.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Jim-Jim.”

“I hope you keep a line on him.”

“That’s the thing. He’s sober.” He pronounced the word the Maine way:
sobah
.

“No.”

“Ayuh. Sober as a judge for at least a month.”

Hope considered his news. James Jameson had been Dublin’s town drunk for nearly thirty years. He had been tolerated, even celebrated because of his sunny personality and his penchant for causing creative trouble with the best of good intentions. Far too gone to get a driver’s license, he used a John Deere riding lawn mower as basic transportation. The Dublin police had long ago removed the blades after he had cut a three-block swath through several flower beds one morning while courteously repositioning people’s copies of the
Bangor Daily News
from their front lawns up onto their porches. Another time he swam out into the harbor and accidentally set a yacht adrift while attempting to tow it to a mooring closer to the landing for its owner’s convenience. Most recently Hope had heard he flooded his apartment while trying to install a second bathroom without his landlord’s permission. After that, Jim-Jim had been forced to move into Willa’s shelter. It had been sad news, but Jim-Jim’s stubborn independence in the face of his addiction had inspired a perverse admiration in Hope, the kind one feels for scrawny boys who won’t lie down when schoolyard bullies beat them. Jim-Jim might be a hopeless drunk, but at least he was still here. It was more than she could say for Riley.

Still, the concept of Jim-Jim sober was akin to learning that a moose had typed a letter or Bill Hightower had voted Democrat. Wondering if Dylan was pulling her leg, Hope asked, “How’d he do it?”

Dylan shrugged. “Says he just woke up at the shelter one day and didn’t want a drink.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Just tellin’ ya what he said.”

“And he’s okay pullin’ traps? He safe?”

“Ayuh.”

“Huh. . . .” She considered this latest bizarre news. It was the fourth or fifth such story she had heard in recent months. Then it occurred to her to ask, “What about Willa? Doesn’t she need the money?”

“She’s the one suggested it. Said she’s too old for buggin’ now, and besides, she’s too busy, what with all these homeless people from away.”

Willa had her hands full at the shelter; that was true enough. With so many homeless coming in, maybe the old woman didn’t have the time for part-time work as Dylan’s deckhand anymore. But all those people left her needing money more than ever. Hope could see it was a real dilemma.

Thinking like a mayor again, she wondered how the township could increase support for Willa’s shelter. With the tax base shrinking every month they’d have to give up something else. There ought to be some kind of a strategy, some way to convince the council. But as Hope’s mind explored the problem it led to thoughts of the shelter and suddenly she remembered Brice, dead on the floor.

She tried to turn to pleasant thoughts. “So Jim-Jim’s really actin’ sober?”

Dylan shook his head. “I don’t think he’s actin’ is the thing. The man’s been cured.”

“There’s no cure. But if he’s really not drinkin’, that’s good.” She nodded, looking down the street. “Good on him.”

“Ayuh.”

They stood together without speaking as only old friends and State of Mainers could, one looking this way, one looking the other.

Down in front of the church the last of the crowd broke up at last, splitting off into families and couples and individuals, walking to their cars and trucks. Soon downtown would be vacant, some of the shops closed just for Sunday, some closed for the season, all too many closed forever. Hope felt a little lonely at the thought of winter coming on. Summer visitors could be annoying, but they brought in most of Dublin’s money and lent a lively air to the streets. Without them everything looked dead.

Shivering, Hope clutched her elbows to herself. Dylan moved imperceptivity closer. She found herself leaning toward him. Suddenly the car horn sounded. Bree, of course, ruining the moment.

“All right, all right,” called Hope. “Keep your teeth in.” Moving away from Dylan she walked around the front of her car. “Gonna be a little brisk tonight, I guess.”

He nodded. “Down ta twenty’s what I heard.”

“You coming over for supper?”