Under the Dome

Visitors Day has come to Chester’s Mill, and a mood of eager anticipation fills the people walking out Route 119 toward the Dinsmore farm, where Joe McClatchey’s demonstration went so wrong just five days ago. They are hopeful (if not exactly happy) in spite of that memory—also in spite of the heat and smelly air. The horizon beyond the Dome now appears blurred, and above the trees, the sky has darkened, due to accumulated particulate matter. It’s better when you look straight up, but still not right; the blue has a yellowish cast, like a film of cataract on an old man’s eye.

“It’s how the sky used to look over the paper mills back in the seventies, when they were running full blast,” says Henrietta Clavard—she of the not-quite-broken ass. She offers her bottle of ginger ale to Petra Searles, who’s walking beside her.

“No, thank you,” Petra says, “I have some water.”

“Is it spiked with vodka?” Henrietta inquires. “Because this is. Half and half, sweetheart; I call it a Canada Dry Rocket.”

Petra takes the bottle and downs a healthy slug. “Yow!” she says.

Henrietta nods in businesslike fashion. “Yes, ma’am. It’s not fancy, but it does brighten up a person’s day.”

Many of the pilgrims are carrying signs they plan on flashing to their visitors from the outside world (and to the cameras, of course) like the audience at a live network morning show. But network morning show signs are uniformly cheerful. Most of these are not. Some, left over from the previous Sunday’s demo, read FIGHT THE POWER and LET US OUT, DAMMIT! There are new ones that say GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT: WHY???, END THE COVER-UP, and WE’RE HUMAN BEINGS, NOT GUINEA PIGS. Johnny Carver’s reads STOP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING IN THE NAME OF GOD! BEFORE IT’S 2-LATE!! Frieda Morrison’s asks—ungrammatically but passionately—WHO’S CRIMES ARE WE DYING FOR? Bruce Yardley’s is the only one to strike a completely positive note. Attached to a seven-foot stick and wrapped in blue crepe paper (at the Dome it will tower over all the others), it reads HELLO MOM & DAD IN CLEVELAND! LOVE YOU GUYS!

Nine or ten signs feature scriptural references. Bonnie Morrell, wife of the town’s lumberyard owner, carries one that proclaims DON’T FORGIVE THEM, BECAUSE THEY DO KNOW WHAT THEY DO! Trina Cole’s says THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD below a drawing of what is probably a sheep, although it’s tough to be sure.

Donnie Baribeau’s simply reads PRAY FOR US.

Marta Edmunds, who sometimes babysits for the Everetts, isn’t among the pilgrims. Her ex-husband lives in South Portland, but she doubts if he’ll show up, and what would she say if he did? You’re behind on the alimony, cocksucker? She goes out Little Bitch Road instead of down Route 119. The advantage is that she doesn’t have to walk. She takes her Acura (and runs the air-conditioning full blast). Her destination is the cozy little house where Clayton Brassey has spent his declining years. He is her great-great uncle once removed (or some damn thing), and while she isn’t quite sure of either their kinship or degree of separation, she knows he has a generator. If it’s still working, she can watch on TV. She also wants to assure herself that Uncle Clayt’s still okay—or as okay as it’s possible to be when you’re a hundred and five and your brains have turned to Quaker Oatmeal.

He’s not okay. Clayton Brassey has given up the mantel of oldest living town resident. He’s sitting in the living room in his favorite chair with his chipped enamel urinal in his lap and the Boston Post Cane leaning against the wall nearby, and he’s cold as a cracker. There’s no sign of Nell Toomey, his great-great granddaughter and chief caregiver; she’s gone out to the Dome with her brother and sister-in-law.

Marta says, “Oh, Unc—I’m sorry, but probably it was time.”

She goes into the bedroom, gets a fresh sheet from the closet, and tosses it over the old man. The result makes him look a bit like a covered piece of furniture in an abandoned house. A highboy, perhaps. Marta can hear the gennie putting away out back and thinks what the hell. She turns on the TV, tunes it to CNN, and sits on the couch. What’s unfolding on-screen almost makes her forget she’s keeping company with a corpse.

It’s an aerial shot, taken with a powerful distance lens from a helicopter hovering above the Motton flea market where the visitor buses will park. The early starters inside the Dome have already arrived. Behind them comes the haj : two-lane blacktop filled from side to side and stretching all the way back to Food City. The similarity of the town’s citizens to trekking ants is unmistakable.