Under the Dome

"I can't help that." Now Lester began to whack himself on the shoulders with his Bible. Back and forth; first one side and then the other. Big Jim found himself synchronizing his tosses of the golden baseball to the preacher's blows. Whack ... and smack. Whack ... and smack. Whack ... and smack. "It's sad about the Killian children, of course, but ... Exodus twenty, verse five: 'For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.' We have to bow to that. We have to clean out this chancre however much it may hurt; make right what we have made wrong. That means confession and purification. Purification by fire."

  Big Jim raised the hand not currently holding the gold baseball. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Think about what you're saying. This town depends on me--and you, of course--in ordinary times, but in times of crisis, it needs us." He stood up, pushing his chair back. This had been a long and terrible day, he was tired, and now this. It made a man angry.

  "We have sinned." Coggins spoke stubbornly, still whacking himself with his Bible. As if he thought treating God's Holy Book like that was perfectly okay.

  "What we did, Les, was keep thousands of kids from starving in Africa. We even paid to treat their hellish diseases. We also built you a new church and the most powerful Christian radio station in the northeast."

  "And lined our own pockets, don't forget that!" Coggins shrilled. This time he smacked himself full in the face with the Good Book. A thread of blood seeped from one nostril. "Lined em with filthy dope-money!" He smacked himself again. "And Jesus's radio station is being run by a lunatic who cooks the poison that children put into their veins!"

  "Actually, I think most of them smoke it."

  "Is that supposed to be funny ?"

  Big Jim came around the desk. His temples were throbbing and a bricklike flush was rising in his cheeks. Yet he tried once more, speaking softly, as if to a child doing a tantrum. "Lester, the town needs my leadership. If you go opening your gob, I won't be able to provide that leadership. Not that anyone will believe you--"

  "They'll all believe!" Coggins cried. "When they see the devil's workshop I've let you run behind my church, they'll all believe! And Jim--don't you see--once the sin is out ... once the sore's been cleansed ... God will remove His barrier! The crisis will end! They won't need your leadership!"

  That was when James P. Rennie snapped. "They'll always need it!" he roared, and swung the baseball in his closed fist.

  It split the skin of Lester's left temple as Lester was turning to face him. Blood poured down the side of Lester's face. His left eye glared out of the gore. He lurched forward with his hands out. The Bible flapped at Big Jim like a blabbery mouth. Blood pattered down onto the carpet. The left shoulder of Lester's sweater was already soaked. "No, this is not the will of the Lor--"

  "It's my will, you troublesome fly." Big Jim swung again, and this time connected with the Reverend's forehead, dead center. Big Jim felt the shock travel all the way up to his shoulder. Yet Lester staggered forward, wagging his Bible. It seemed to be trying to talk.

  Big Jim dropped the ball to his side. His shoulder was throbbing. Now blood was pouring onto the carpet, and still the son-of-a-buck wouldn't go down; still he came forward, trying to talk and spitting scarlet in a fine spray.

  Coggins bumped into the front of the desk--blood splattered across the previously unmarked blotter--and then began to sidle along it. Big Jim tried to raise the ball again and couldn't.

  I knew all that high school shotputting would catch up with me someday, he thought.

  He switched the ball to his left hand and swung it sideways and upward. It connected with Lester's jaw, knocking his lower face out of true and spraying more blood into the not-quite-steady light of the overhead fixture. A few drops struck the milky glass.

  "Guh!" Lester cried. He was still trying to sidle around the desk. Big Jim retreated into the kneehole.

  "Dad?"

  Junior was standing in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth open.

  "Guh!" Lester said, and began to flounder around toward the new voice. He held out the Bible. "Guh ... Guh ... Guh-uhODD--"

  "Don't just stand there, help me!" Big Jim roared at his son.

  Lester began to stagger toward Junior, flapping the Bible extravagantly up and down. His sweater was sodden; his pants had turned a muddy maroon; his face was gone, buried in blood.

  Junior hurried to meet him. When Lester started to collapse, Junior grabbed him and held him up. "I gotcha, Reverend Coggins--I gotcha, don't worry."

  Then Junior clamped his hands around Lester's blood-sticky throat and began to squeeze.

  14

  Five interminable minutes later.

  Big Jim sat in his office chair--sprawled in his office chair--with his tie, put on special for the meeting, pulled down and his shirt unbuttoned. He was massaging his hefty left breast. Beneath it, his heart was still galloping and throwing off arrhythmias, but showed no signs of actually going into cardiac arrest.

  Junior left. Rennie thought at first he was going to get Randolph, which would have been a mistake, but he was too breathless to call the boy back. Then he came back on his own, carrying the tarp from the back of the camper. He watched Junior shake it out on the floor--oddly businesslike, as if he had done this a thousand times before. It's all those R-rated movies they watch now, Big Jim thought. Rubbing the flabby flesh that had once been so firm and so hard.

  "I'll ... help," he wheezed, knowing he could not.

  "You'll sit right there and get your breath." His son, on his knees, gave him a dark and unreadable look. There might have been love in it--Big Jim certainly hoped there was--but there were other things, too.

  Gotcha now? Was Gotcha now part of that look?

  Junior rolled Lester onto the tarp. The tarp crackled. Junior studied the body, rolled it a little farther, then flipped the end of the tarp over it. The tarp was green. Big Jim had bought it at Burpee's. Bought it on sale. He remembered Toby Manning saying, You're getting a heckuva good deal on that one, Mr. Rennie.

  "Bible," Big Jim said. He was still wheezing, but he felt a little better. Heartbeat slowing, thank God. Who knew the climb would get so steep after fifty? He thought: I have to start working out. Get back in shape. God only gives you one body.

  "Right, yeah, good call," Junior murmured. He grabbed the bloody Bible, wedged it between Coggins's thighs, and began rolling up the body.

  "He broke in, Son. He was crazy."

  "Sure." Junior did not seem interested in that. What he seemed interested in was rolling the body up ... just so.

  "It was him or me. You'll have to--" Another little taradiddle in his chest. Jim gasped, coughed, pounded his breast. His heart settled again. "You'll have to take him out to Holy Redeemer. When he's found, there's a guy ... maybe ..." It was the Chef he was thinking of, but maybe arranging for Chef to carry the can for this was a bad idea. Chef Bushey knew stuff. Of course, he'd probably resist arrest. In which case he might not be taken alive.

  "I've got a better place," Junior said. He sounded serene. "And if you're talking about hanging it on someone, I've got a better idea. "

  "Who?"

  "Dale Fucking Barbara."

  "You know I don't approve of that language--"

  Looking at him over the tarp, eyes glittering, Junior said it again. "Dale ... Fucking ... Barbara."

  "How?"

  "I don't know yet. But you better wash off that damn gold ball if you mean to keep it. And get rid of the blotter."

  Big Jim got to his feet. He was feeling better now. "You're a good boy to help your old dad this way, Junior."

  "If you say so," Junior replied. There was now a big green burrito on the rug. With feet sticking out the end. Junior tucked the tarp over them, but it wouldn't stay. "I'll need some duct tape."

  "If you're not going to take him to the church, then where--"

  "Never mind," Junior said. "It's safe. The Rev'll keep until we figure out how to put Barbara in the frame."
br />   "Got to see what happens tomorrow before we do anything."

  Junior looked at him with an expression of distant contempt Big Jim had never seen before. It came to him that his son now had a great deal of power over him. But surely his own son ...

  "We'll have to bury your rug. Thank God it's not the wall-to-wall carpet you used to have in here. And the upside is it caught most of the mess." Then he lifted the big burrito and bore it down the hall. A few minutes later Rennie heard the camper start up.

  Big Jim considered the golden baseball. I should get rid of that, too, he thought, and knew he wouldn't. It was practically a family heirloom.

  And besides, what harm? What harm, if it was clean?

  When Junior returned an hour later, the golden baseball was once again gleaming in its Lucite cradle.

  MISSILE STRIKE IMMINENT

  1

  "ATTENTION! THIS IS THE CHESTER'S MILL POLICE! THE AREA IS BEING EVACUATED! IF YOU HEAR ME, COME TO THE SOUND OF MY VOICE! THE AREA IS BEING EVACUATED!"

  Thurston Marshall and Carolyn Sturges sat up in bed, listening to this weird blare and looking at each other with wide eyes. They were teachers at Emerson College, in Boston--Thurston a full professor of English (and guest editor for the current issue of Ploughshares ), Carolyn a graduate assistant in the same department. They had been lovers for the last six months, and the bloom was far from off the rose. They were in Thurston's little cabin on Chester Pond, which lay between Little Bitch Road and Prestile Stream. They had come here for a long "fall foliage" weekend, but most of the foliage they had admired since Friday afternoon had been of the pubic variety. There was no TV in the cabin; Thurston Marshall abominated TV. There was a radio, but they hadn't turned it on. It was eight thirty in the morning on Monday, October twenty-third. Neither of them had any idea anything was wrong until that blaring voice startled them awake.

  "ATTENTION! THIS IS THE CHESTER'S MILL POLICE! THE AREA--" Closer. Moving in.

  "Thurston! The dope! Where did you leave the dope?"

  "Don't worry," he said, but the quaver in his voice suggested he was incapable of taking his own advice. He was a tall, reedy man with a lot of graying hair that he usually tied back in a ponytail. Now it lay loose, almost to his shoulders. He was sixty; Carolyn was twenty-three. "All these little camps are deserted at this time of year, they'll just drive past and back to the Little Bitch R--"

  She pounded him on the shoulder--a first. "The car is in the driveway! They'll see the car!"

  An oh shit look dawned on his face.

  "--EVACUATED! IF YOU HEAR ME, COME TO THE SOUND OF MY VOICE! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!" Very close now. Thurston could hear other amplified voices, as well--people using loudhailers, cops using loudhailers--but this one was almost on top of them. "THE AREA IS BEING EVAC--" There was a moment of silence. Then: "HELLO, CABIN! COME OUT HERE! MOVE IT!"

  Oh, this was a nightmare.

  "Where did you leave the dope?" She pounded him again.

  The dope was in the other room. In a Baggie that was now half empty, sitting beside a platter of last night's cheese and crackers. If someone came in, it would be the first goddam thing they saw.

  "THIS IS THE POLICE! WE ARE NOT SCREWING AROUND HERE! THE AREA IS BEING EVACUATED! IF YOU'RE IN THERE, COME OUT BEFORE WE HAVE TO DRAG YOU OUT!"

  Pigs, he thought. Smalltown pigs with smalltown piggy minds. Thurston sprang from the bed and ran across the room, hair flying, skinny buttocks flexing.

  His grandfather had built the cabin after World War II, and it had only two rooms: a big bedroom facing the pond and the living room/kitchen. Power was provided by an old Henske generator, which Thurston had turned off before they had retired; its ragged blat was not exactly romantic. The embers of last night's fire--not really necessary, but tres romantic--still winked sleepily in the fireplace.

  Maybe I was wrong, maybe I put the dope back in my attache--

  Unfortunately, no. The dope was there, right next to the remains of the Brie they had gorged on before commencing last night's fuckathon.

  He ran to it, and there was a knock on the door. No, a hammering on the door.

  "Just a minute!" Thurston cried, madly merry. Carolyn was standing in the bedroom doorway, wrapped in a sheet, but he hardly noticed her. Thurston's mind--still suffering residual paranoia from the previous evening's indulgences--tumbled with unconnected thoughts: revoked tenure, 1984 thought-police, revoked tenure, the disgusted reaction of his three children (by two previous wives), and, of course, revoked tenure. "Just a minute, just a sec, let me get dressed--"

  But the door burst open, and--in direct violation of about nine different Constitutional guarantees--two young men strode in. One held a bullhorn. Both were dressed in jeans and blue shirts. The jeans were almost comforting, but the shirts bore shoulder-patches and badges.

  We don't need no stinkin badges, Thurston thought numbly.

  Carolyn shrieked, "Get out of here!" "Check it out, Junes," Frankie DeLesseps said. "It's When Horny Met Slutty. "

  Thurston snatched up the Baggie, held it behind his back, and dropped it into the sink.

  Junior was eyeing the equipment this move revealed. "That's about the longest and skinniest dorkola I've ever seen," he said. He looked tired, and came by the look honestly--he'd had only two hours' sleep--but he was feeling fine, absolutely ripping, old bean. Not a trace of a headache.

  This work suited him.

  "Get OUT!" Carolyn shouted.

  Frankie said, "You want to shut your mouth, sweetheart, and put on some clothes. Everyone on this side of town's being evacuated."

  "This is our place! GET THE FUCK OUT!"

  Frankie had been smiling. Now he stopped. He strode past the skinny naked man standing by the sink (quailing by the sink might have been more accurate) and grabbed Carolyn by the shoulders. He gave her a brisk shake. "Don't give me lip, sweetheart. I'm trying to keep you from getting your ass fried. You and your boyfr--"

  "Get your hands off me! You'll go to jail for this! My father's a lawyer!" She tried to slap him. Frankie--not a morning person, never had been--seized her hand and bent it back. Not really hard, but Carolyn screamed. The sheet dropped to the floor.

  "Whoa! That's a serious rack," Junior confided to the gaping Thurston Marshall. "Can you keep up with that, old fella?"

  "Get your clothes on, both of you," Frankie said. "I don't know how dumb you are, but pretty dumb would be my guess, since you're still here. Don't you know--" He stopped. Looked from the woman's face to the man's. Both equally terrified. Equally mystified.

  "Junior!" he said.

  "What?"

  "Titsy McGee and wrinkle-boy don't know what's going on."

  "Don't you dare call me any of your sexist--"

  Junior held up his hands. "Ma'am, get dressed. You have to get out of here. The U.S. Air Force is going to fire a Cruise missile at this part of town in"--he looked at his watch--"a little less than five hours."

  "ARE YOU INSANE?" Carolyn screamed.

  Junior heaved a sigh and then pushed ahead. He guessed he understood the whole cop thing a little better now. It was a great job, but people could be so stupid. "If it bounces off, you'd just hear a big bang. Might cause you to shit your pants--if you were wearing any--but it wouldn't hurt you. If it punches through, though, you'd most likely get charbroiled, since it's gonna be really big and you're less than two miles from what they say is gonna be the point of impact."

  "Bounces off what, you dimwit?" Thurston demanded. With the dope in the sink, he now used one hand to cover his privates ... or at least tried to; his love-machine was indeed extremely long and skinny.

  "The Dome," Frankie said. "And I don't appreciate your mouth." He took a long step forward and punched the current guest editor of Ploughshares in the gut. Thurston made a hoarse whoofing sound, doubled over, staggered, almost kept his feet, went to his knees, and vomited up about a teacup's worth of thin white gruel that still smelled of Brie.

  Carolyn held her swelling w
rist. "You'll go to jail for this," she promised Junior in a low, trembling voice. "Bush and Cheney are long gone. This isn't the United States of North Korea anymore."

  "I know that," Junior said, with admirable patience for one who was thinking he wouldn't mind doing a little more choking; there was a small dark Gila monster in his brain that thought a little more choking would be just the way to start the day off right.

  But no. No. He had to do his part in completing the evacuation. He had taken the Oath of Duty, or whatever the fuck it was.

  "I do know it," he repeated. "But what you two Massholes don't get is that you aren't in the United States of America anymore, either. You're in the Kingdom of Chester now, and if you don't behave, you're going to end up in the Dungeons of Chester. I promise. No phone call, no lawyer, no due process. We're trying to save your lives here. Are you too fuck-dumb to understand that?"

  She was staring at him, stunned. Thurston tried to get up, couldn't manage it, and crawled toward her. Frankie helped him along with a boot to the butt. Thurston cried out in shock and pain. "That's for holding us up, Grampa," Frankie said. "I admire your taste in chicks, but we've got a lot to do."

  Junior looked at the young woman. Great mouth. Angelina lips. He bet she could, as the saying went, suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. "If he can't get dressed by himself, you help him. We've got four more cabins to check out, and when we get back here, you want to be in that Volvo of yours and on your way into town."

  "I don't understand any of this!" Carolyn wailed.

  "Not surprised," Frankie said, and plucked the Baggie of dope out of the sink. "Didn't you know this stuff makes you stupid?"

  She began to cry.

  "Don't worry," Frankie said. "I'm confisticating it, and in a couple of days, booya, you'll smarten up all on your own."

  "You didn't read us our rights," she wept.

  Junior looked astonished. Then he laughed. "You have the right to get the fuck out of here and shut the fuck up, okay? In this situation those are the only rights you have. Do you understand that?"

  Frankie was examining the confisticated dope. "Junior," he said, "there's hardly any seeds in this. This is fucking primo. "

  Thurston had reached Carolyn. He got to his feet, farting quite loudly as he did so. Junior and Frankie looked at each other. They tried to hold it in--they were officers of the law, after all--and couldn't. They burst out laughing simultaneously.