Jeffrey replied, "Pastor Wilkes."
"Really? I thought he'd be retired or dead by now."
"Well," said Jeffrey, "he could be both. He's really old. But he was amenable to this. In fact, I had the impression he didn't particularly care for Chief Baxter."
"Is that so? I wouldn't think he'd know Cliff Baxter personally. The Baxters always went to St. John's in town where the important people go. This is just a farmers' church."
"Well, apparently he knows Baxter by reputation, and apparently he talks to the other clergy in town. I wish we had that kind of intelligence network. Anyway, what you're going to hear tonight is that Chief Baxter is a sinner and an adulterer."
"Doesn't make him a bad guy."
Gail laughed. "You're impossible. Go stand in the corner."
"Yes, ma'am." Keith went into the small church and found standing room behind the last pew. He saw that the church was indeed filled to capacity and also that screens had been set up to block the altar, so that the simple interior, which had no stained-glass windows, now more resembled a Quaker or Amish meeting hall than a Lutheran church.
The people around him and in the pews seemed to represent a cross section of Spencer County. There were men and women who, no matter how they dressed, Keith could identify as farm folk. In fact, he saw Martin and Sue Jenkins. There were also people from town, working people and professional people, and there were all age groups, from high school kids to the very elderly.
Keith remembered a time, before television and other electronic diversions had taken a firm hold, when meetings of one sort or another were deeply ingrained into rural life. His parents were always going to a club meeting, a church meeting, a civic meeting, or something of the sort. And there were sewing bees and quilting groups for the women, and political meetings and grange meetings for the men. Keith even had some early memories of gathering in people's parlors for piano playing, punch, and parlor games. But this way of life had passed, and, in truth, a good movie or football game and a six-pack was preferable to bad piano playing, parlor games, and punch. Yet there had been a time when rural people depended on themselves for entertainment. But more important, many of the great social movements in the nation, such as abolition and populism, had begun in small country churches. As he'd already noted, however, this was no longer an agrarian nation, and there were neither the numbers nor the will to affect national policy. So the hinterland turned in on itself, and feeling perhaps abandoned by and isolated from the urban centers of power, they were beginning to act and think for themselves — maybe with a little help from urban and academic refugees such as himself and the Porters.
He looked at the people still filing in and spotted Jenny, whom he hadn't seen or spoken to since Labor Day. She saw him, smiled, and gave him a big wave, but she was with a man, and they squeezed into a pew together.
Keith watched the crowd settling in. Undoubtedly, there were at least two spies — people who would report to Chief Baxter after the meeting. This was a given, and he was certain that Jeffrey and Gail, old revolutionaries, knew this even if the simple citizens of Spencerville had no inkling of it. Keith hoped that the Porters understood what they were involving these people in. The professional revolutionary, Keith reflected, came in two basic varieties — the romantic and the pragmatic. The romantic got themselves and people around them arrested and killed. The pragmatic, like the early Nazis and Bolsheviks, were total whores who did and said anything to stay alive and win. The Porters, despite their obvious longevity, had a romantic bent and had survived over the years only because American culture was still hospitable to revolutionaries, and because the government knew better than to create martyrs out of people who posed no threat of stirring a nation that was perpetually ready for bed.
Yet, on the local level, people could be awakened and could be called to action. Obviously, the entrenched establishment of the town and county had violated paragraph one of the social contract, which was and would always be, "Keep the citizens happy, or confused, or both."
The meeting began with the pledge of allegiance to the flag, which Keith thought must have given the Porters heartburn. The pledge was followed by a prayer for guidance, given by a young pastor whom Keith didn't know. Keith glanced at the Porters, who were standing at the dais, and saw they were bowing their heads. Maybe, he thought, they'd learned a little pragmatism over the years.
Everyone except the standees sat, and Gail Porter went to the center of the dais and tested the microphone by saying, "Keith Landry — can you hear me back there?"
Nearly everyone turned in his direction, and Keith had the urge to strangle Gail. Instead, he nodded, and Gail smiled, then began. "Welcome to what I hope will be the first of many meetings like this. The purpose and objective of this meeting is simple — to explore ways that will lead to a city and county government that is clean, responsive, and competent." She glanced at Keith, then added, "Just like it was years ago. A government that reflects our values and beliefs."
Keith and Gail made brief eye contact, and she went on, without being specific about values and beliefs.
As Gail spoke, it occurred to Keith that, whether or not Cliff Baxter was in or out of power, Cliff Baxter was still Cliff Baxter. And knowing how small towns worked, Keith was sure that the county sheriff, kin to Cliff Baxter, would just deputize the stupid bastard for a dollar a year, and he'd still have his gun and badge.
Gail continued, "As a member of the city council, and, I think, the only elected official here, I want you to know that I extended invitations to all the other elected officials in the town and county, but their response was to call a joint meeting of the city council and the county commissioners at the courthouse. So I don't think any of them are here." She looked around and said, "If any of you are here, please stand and come up to the dais. We have room."
No one stood, and Keith was impressed with Gail's showmanship.
Gail said, "I've asked the Spencerville Gazette to send a reporter tonight. Is he or she here?" Gail looked around the church. "No? Could that be because the newspaper is owned by the mayor's family, or because Baxter Motors is the biggest advertiser?"
Several people laughed and there was some applause.
Keith saw that Gail was enjoying tweaking some prominent noses, and he was sure she understood she was going to make more enemies than she had friends in her adopted community. Gail might spark the revolution, but neither she nor Jeffrey would lead it or have a place in any new regime. In fact, they'd remain outcasts, poor and friendless, cut off from their original hometown roots, alienated from the larger world they helped bring about, and now strangers in a strange land. They sort of reminded Keith of himself.
Gail went on for a minute, speaking in generalities, then got down to cases, beginning with Chief of Police Cliff Baxter.
She said, "In my dealings with Chief Baxter, I've found him to be, in my opinion, incompetent, ineffective, and dictatorial. But don't take my word for it. We have several people here tonight who have volunteered to come forward with their own stories about Chief Baxter. Some of these stories will shock you, and it takes a lot of courage for these people, your neighbors, to tell you their stories. Most of what you're going to hear brings no credit on the people who will speak, but they have decided to do something positive for themselves and their community. They will tell you about corruption, bribery, bid fixing, voting irregularities, and yes, as you already know, sexual misconduct."
Gail knew when to pause and listen to the murmurs and startled sounds coming from the good citizens of Spencerville. Despite the fact that everything Gail said and was going to say was probably true, and likewise for the people who were about to speak, Keith had the sense that he was attending a seventeenth-century witch trial where witness after witness got up and told stories about one of their neighbors. The only thing missing was the defendant.