Spencerville

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?” to the center of the dais and tested the microphone by
    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 the urge to strangle Gail. Instead, he nodded, and Gail 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