Under the Dome: A Novel (55 page)

“Has anyone or anything landed in a flying saucer and demanded to be taken to our leader?” Julia asked.

“No,” Cox said.

“Would you know if something had?” Barbie asked, and thought:
Are we having this discussion? Or am I dreaming it?

“Not necessarily,” Cox said, after a brief hesitation.

“It could still be meteorological,” Marty said. “Hell, even biological—a living thing. There’s a school of thought that this thing is actually some kind of
E. coli
hybrid.”

“Colonel Cox,” Julia said quietly, “are we something’s experiment? Because that’s what I feel like.”

Lissa Jamieson, meanwhile, was looking back toward the nice houses of the Eastchester burblet. Most of the lights there were out, either because the people who lived there had no generators or were saving them.

“That was a gunshot,” she said. “I’m sure that was a gunshot.”

1

Other than town politics, Big Jim Rennie had only one vice, and that was high school girls’ basketball—Lady Wildcats basketball, to be exact. He’d had season tickets ever since 1998, and attended at least a dozen games a year. In 2004, the year the Lady Wildcats won the State Class D championship, he attended all of them. And although the autographs people noticed when they were invited into his home study were inevitably those of Tiger Woods, Dale Earnhardt, and Bill “Spaceman” Lee, the one of which he was proudest—the one he treasured—was Hanna Compton’s, the little sophomore point guard who had led the Lady Wildcats to that one and only gold ball.

When you’re a season ticket holder, you get to know the other season ticket holders around you, and their reasons for being fans of the game. Many are relatives of the girls who play (and often the spark-plugs of the Booster Club, putting on bake sales and raising money for the increasingly expensive “away” games). Others are basketball purists, who will tell you—with some justification—that the girls’ games are just better. Young female players are invested in a team ethic that the boys (who love to run and gun, dunk, and shoot from way downtown) rarely match. The pace is slower, allowing you to see inside the game and enjoy every pick-and-roll or give-and-go. Fans of the girls’ game relish the very low scores that boys’ basketball fans sneer at, claiming that the girls’ game puts a premium on defense and foul shooting, which are the very definition of old-school hoops.

There are also guys who just like to watch long-legged teenage girls run around in short pants.

Big Jim shared all these reasons for enjoying the sport, but his passion sprang from another source entirely, one he never vocalized when discussing the games with his fellow fans. It would not have been politic to do so.

The girls took the sport personally, and that made them better haters.

The boys wanted to win, yes, and sometimes a game could get hot if it was against a traditional rival (in the case of The Mills Wildcats sports teams, the despised Castle Rock Rockets), but mostly with the boys it was about individual accomplishments. Showing off, in other words. And when it was over, it was over.

The girls, on the other hand, loathed losing. They took loss back to the locker room and brooded over it. More importantly, they loathed and hated it as a
team.
Big Jim often saw that hate rear its head; during a loose ball-brawl deep in the second half with the score tied, he could pick up that
No you don’t, you little bitch, that ball is MINE
vibe. He picked it up and fed on it.

Before 2004, the Lady Wildcats made the state tournament only once in twenty years, that appearance a one-and-done affair against Buckfield. Then had come Hanna Compton. The greatest hater of all time, in Big Jim’s opinion.

As the daughter of Dale Compton, a scrawny pulp-cutter from Tarker’s Mills who was usually drunk and always argumentative, Hanna had come by her out-of-my-face ’tude naturally enough. As a freshman she had played JV for most of the season; Coach swung her up to varsity only for the last two games, where she’d outscored everyone and left her opposite number from the Richmond Bobcats writhing on the hardwood after a hard but clean defensive play.

When that game was over, Big Jim had collared Coach Wood-head. “If that girl doesn’t start next year, you’re crazy,” he said.

“I’m not crazy,” Coach Woodhead had replied.

Hanna had started hot and finished hotter, blazing a trail that Wildcats fans would still be talking about years later (season average:
27.6 points per game). She could spot up and drop a three-pointer any time she wanted, but what Big Jim liked best was to watch her split the defense and drive for the basket, her pug face set in a sneer of concentration, her bright black eyes daring anyone to get in her way, her short ponytail sticking out behind her like a raised middle finger. The Mill’s Second Selectman and premier used car dealer had fallen in love.

In the 2004 championship game, the Lady Wildcats had been leading the Rock Rockets by ten when Hanna fouled out. Luckily for the Cats, there was only a buck-sixteen left to play. They ended up winning by a single point. Of their eighty-six total points, Hanna Compton had scored a brain-freezing
sixty-three.
That spring, her argumentative dad had ended up behind the wheel of a brand-new Cadillac, sold to him at cost-minus-forty-percent by James Rennie, Sr. New cars weren’t Big Jim’s business, but when he wanted one “off the back of the carrier,” he could always get it.

Sitting in Peter Randolph’s office, with the last of the pink meteor shower still fading away outside (and his problem children waiting—anxiously, Big Jim hoped—to be summoned and told their fate), Big Jim recalled that fabulous, that outright
mythic,
basketball game; specifically the first eight minutes of the second half, which had begun with the Lady Wildcats down by nine.

Hanna had taken the game over with the single-minded brutality of Joseph Stalin taking over Russia, her black eyes glittering (and seemingly fixed upon some basketball Nirvana beyond the sight of normal mortals), her face locked in that eternal sneer that said,
I’m better than you, I’m the best, get out of my way or I’ll run you the fuck down.
Everything she threw up during that eight minutes had gone in, including one absurd half-court shot that she launched when her feet tangled together, getting rid of the rock just to keep from being called for traveling.

There were phrases for that sort of run, the most common being
in the zone.
But the one Big Jim liked was
feeling it,
as in “She’s really
feeling it
now.” As though the game had some divine texture beyond the reach of ordinary players (although sometimes even ordinary
players
felt it,
and were transformed for a brief while into gods and goddesses, every bodily defect seeming to disappear during their transitory divinity), a texture that on special nights could be touched: some rich and marvelous drape such as must adorn the hardwood halls of Valhalla.

Hanna Compton had never played her junior year; the championship game had been her valedictory. That summer, while driving drunk, her father had killed himself, his wife, and all three daughters while driving back to Tarker’s Mills from Brownie’s, where they had gone for ice cream frappes. The bonus Cadillac had been their coffin.

The multiple-fatality crash had been front-page news in western Maine—Julia Shumway’s
Democrat
published an issue with a black border that week—but Big Jim had not been grief-stricken. Hanna never would have played college ball, he suspected; there the girls were bigger, and she might have been reduced to role-player status. She never would have stood for that. Her hate had to be fed by constant action on the floor. Big Jim understood completely. He sympathized completely. It was the main reason he had never even considered leaving The Mill. In the wider world he might have made more money, but wealth was the short beer of existence. Power was champagne.

Running The Mill was good on ordinary days, but in times of crisis it was better than good. In times like that you could fly on the pure wings of intuition, knowing that you couldn’t screw up, absolutely
couldn’t.
You could read the defense even before the defense had coalesced, and you scored every time you got the ball. You were
feeling it,
and there was no better time for that to happen than in a championship game.

This was
his
championship game, and everything was breaking his way. He had the sense—the total belief—that nothing could go wrong during this magical passage; even things that seemed wrong would become opportunities rather than stumbling blocks, like Hanna’s desperation half-court shot that had brought the whole Derry Civic Center to its feet, the Mills fans cheering, the Castle Rockers raving in disbelief.

Feeling it.
Which was why he wasn’t tired, even though he should have been exhausted. Which was why he wasn’t worried about Junior, in spite of Junior’s reticence and pale watchfulness. Which was why he wasn’t worried about Dale Barbara and Barbara’s troublesome coterie of friends, most notably the newspaper bitch. Which was why, when Peter Randolph and Andy Sanders looked at him, dumbfounded, Big Jim only smiled. He could afford to smile. He was
feeling it.

“Close the supermarket?” Andy asked. “Won’t that get a lot of people upset, Big Jim?”

“The supermarket and the Gas and Grocery,” Big Jim corrected, still smiling. “Brownie’s we don’t have to worry about, it’s already closed. A good thing, too—it’s a dirty little place.”
Selling dirty little magazines,
he did not add.

“Jim, there’s still plenty of supplies at Food City,” Randolph said. “I spoke to Jack Cale about that just this afternoon. Meat’s thin, but everything else is holding up.”

“I know that,” Big Jim said. “I understand inventory, and Cale does, too. He should; he’s Jewish, after all.”

“Well … I’m just saying everything’s been orderly so far, because people keep their pantries well stocked.” He brightened. “Now, I could see ordering
shorter
hours at Food City. I think Jack could be talked into that. He’s probably already thinking ahead to it.”

Big Jim shook his head, still smiling. Here was another example of how things broke your way when you were
feeling it.
Duke Perkins would have said it was a mistake to put the town under any extra stress, especially after this night’s unsettling celestial event. Duke was dead, however, and that was more than convenient; it was divine.

“Closed up,” he repeated. “Both of them. Tight as ticks. And when they reopen,
we’ll
be the ones handing out supplies. Stuff will last longer, and the distribution will be fairer. I’ll announce a rationing plan at the Thursday meeting.” He paused. “If the Dome isn’t gone by then, of course.”

Andy said hesitantly, “I’m not sure we have the authority to close down businesses, Big Jim.”

“In a crisis like this, we not only have the authority, we have the
responsibility.” He clapped Pete Randolph heartily on the back. The Mill’s new Chief wasn’t expecting it and gave out a startled squeak.

“What if it starts a panic?” Andy was frowning.

“Well, that’s a possibility,” Big Jim said. “When you kick a nest of mice, they’re all apt to come running out. We may have to increase the size of our police force quite a bit if this crisis doesn’t end soon. Yes, quite a bit.”

Randolph looked startled. “We’re going on twenty officers now. Including—” He cocked his head toward the door.

“Yep,” Big Jim said, “and speaking of those fellers, better bring em in, Chief, so we can finish this and send them home to bed. I think they’re going to have a busy day tomorrow.”

And if they get roughed up a little, so much the better. They deserve it for not being able to keep their jackhandles in their pants.

2

Frank, Carter, Mel, and Georgia shuffled in like suspects onto a police lineup stage. Their faces were set and defiant, but the defiance was thin; Hanna Compton would have laughed at it. Their eyes were down, studying their shoes. It was clear to Big Jim that they expected to be fired, or worse, and that was just fine with him. Fright was the easiest of emotions to work with.

“Well,” he said. “Here are the brave officers.”

Georgia Roux muttered something under her breath.

“Speak up, honeybunch.” Big Jim cupped a hand to his ear.

“Said we didn’t do nothing wrong,” she said. Still in that teacher’s-being-mean-to-me mumble.

“Then exactly what
did
you do?” And, when Georgia, Frank, and Carter all started to talk at once, he pointed at Frankie. “You.”
And make it good, for gosh sake.

“We
were
out there,” Frank said, “but she invited us.”

“Right!” Georgia cried, folding her arms below her considerable bosom.
“She—”

“Shut it.” Big Jim pointed a hammy finger at her. “One speaks for all. That’s how it works when you’re a team. Are you a team?”

Carter Thibodeau saw where this was going. “Yes, sir, Mr. Rennie.”

“Glad to hear it.” Big Jim nodded for Frank to go on.

“She said she had some beers,” Frank said. “That’s the only reason we went out. Can’t buy it in town, as you know. Anyway, we were sitting around, drinking beers—just a can each, and we were pretty much off-duty—”

“
Completely
off-duty,” the Chief put in. “Isn’t that what you meant?”

Frank nodded respectfully. “Yes, sir, that’s what I meant to say. We drank our beers and then said we’d better go, but she said she appreciated what we were doing, every one of us, and wanted to say thank you. Then she kind of spread her legs.”

“Showing her woofer, you know,” Mel clarified with a large and vacant smile.

Big Jim winced and gave silent thanks that Andrea Grinnell wasn’t here. Dope addict or not, she could have gone all politically correct in a situation like this.

“She took us in the bedroom one by one,” Frankie said. “I know it was a bad decision, and we’re all sorry, but it was purely voluntary on her part.”