Virginia cleared her throat. Crosley's eyelids rolled sleepily open.
"What security measures are you taking for Blossomfest, Chief?"
Crosley parted his lips, allowing Virginia a glimpse of saliva-packed bread and raspberry filling. Then he swallowed, his knob of an Adam's apple pogoing dryly.
"Got five men-er, five officers — assigned for weekend duty, meaning two will be drawing overtime."
Virginia pursed her lips. "And you?"
Crosley became intensely interested in a flap of frayed rayon on the arm of his chair. "I'll be there, too."
"And not billing the city for overtime?"
Crosley looked up. Virginia noticed with pleasure that he cringed from the heat of what she thought of as her "withering glare."
"Now, Mayor, that was years ago. You still don't hold that against me, do you?"
"Chief, I'm not surprised when some of the sanitation workers fudge on their time sheets, putting down an extra half hour when they only worked a quarter. But I do expect my more visible officials to follow the letter of the law. Especially those who are commissioned to uphold it."
Crosley slouched even deeper into his seat. "I made good on that."
"I have a budget to maintain, Chief, and in my budget, every dollar has a place and must be answered for. You have a decent salary and your standard of living is above the city average. You get a measure of respect from your peers, and from me. I should think that would be satisfaction enough for anyone."
"Yes, ma'am," said Crosley, duly defeated.
Virginia leaned back in her splintery oak swivel chair, its old springs creaking like a vault door. She had rescued this chair from the dumpster behind city hall and exiled her predecessor's leather chair to storage. This uncomfortable, battered relic was perfect for the image she wanted to cultivate.
She looked out the window at the busy street. Nearly twice as much traffic now as when she had first taken up her post behind this desk twelve years ago. And this little town-no, city, it was a city in her mind, no matter what the charter said-had bloomed under her careful tending. Tax revenue was up, the budget surplus was expanding, and her margin of victory in each successive election had grown accordingly.
She turned back to Crosley. "I want a good time for the whole family this weekend, just like the Chamber of Commerce ads have promised. That means no open consumption of alcohol, no littering, all vendors following the traffic and fire lane restrictions, and-my god, I better check something."
She stabbed her speakerphone. "Martha?"
"Ma'am?" came a tinny voice from the speaker.
"The live music for Blossomfest, do you know what the Chamber has scheduled?"
Virginia heard a shuffling of papers.
"Mayor, it looks like a solo acoustic guitarist at ten, then a student string quartet from Westridge after that. The headline act is that country singer, Sammy Ray Hawkins."
Virginia smiled in relief, her facial muscles twitching from the unaccustomed workout. "Thank you, Martha," she said, cutting the connection before Martha could say "You're welcome."
Virginia said to Crosley, "I was afraid the Chamber might have been dumb enough to line up one of those rock‘n’roll bands. That wouldn't square with the Windshake image, now, would it?"
Crosley grunted, a pastry crumb falling from his lips. "I'll keep things under control, Mayor."
Virginia nodded, only half listening. There would be at least a couple of thousand visitors this weekend, drawn up the mountain by the lure of Appalachian crafts, folk art, old-timey storytelling, and a chance to spend big-city money. They weren't voters, but the income greased the wheels of Windshake commerce and thus the wheels of local politics. What was good for Windshake was good for Virginia.
She planned on being highly visible. She mentally rummaged through her closet, selecting an outfit that would be regal without being ostentatious. She had forgotten Crosley.
"Is that all, Mayor?"
She waved him away and heard him groan in a duet with his chair as he stood, his rump wobbling like a sack of wet pastries as he left. Then she was back in her closet, trying on clothes.
The thing that had been Sylvester Mull shambled through the trees. It still had shards of Sylvester's memories and personality, but added to that, like a cancer that mimicked a healthy cell, was the consciousness of the space spore that had sparked this rebirth. Energy coursed through his flesh, pulsing in rhythm to the distant parent’s metabolism. Sylvester wondered why he didn't care that he had left his beloved gun behind. Perhaps because now he wanted to merge with the wildlife instead of shoot it.
He dimly remembered his encounter with Ralph, only he recalled his conversion with pleasure, not pain. He wished he could have thanked Ralph, because Sylvester saw that his whole life had been spent wandering in the wilderness. Now he had purpose. Now he served.
But Ralph had stumbled away in the opposite direction, on a separate mission and beyond the intimacies of gratitude. He was following the call of his own inner voice.
Sylvester leaned against a wild cherry tree, his hands pressing into the coarse strips of split bark. He felt the tree's cells in their photosynthesis, converting light to energy, and that energy now flowing back through him and feeding the parent-creature. He felt the white roots plumbing the ground, tapping into the water table and drawing nitrates from the dark loam. The tips of the branches were his fingers, ready to explode into glorious bud. He was joined, no more tree or man, only dust and energy bound in bizarre and wondrous form.
Sylvester fell back, his head swirling with the tree's memories, memories of a bursting seed-germ, its agonizing fight through the soil, its climb into the light. He writhed in the damp dead leaves, absorbing the thick rot and bacteria, drunk on the teeming microscopic life, stoned on the richness of cellular activity. He rolled onto his hands and knees, his face erupting into a tortured beatific smile. The joy of realization drummed in his dead heart. His mind was singing green.
Sylvester rose under the crazy tilted sky, the great blue ceiling with its clouds like distant kin, all part of one big, loving biosystem. He walked on the earth that was only a garden, grown to feed the planet-eating parent. Sylvester shared the parent’s hunger, was the hunger; the conversion had not snuffed his hunter's instinct.
Their united drive was to consume and move onward, to reap nature's bounty, to excrete dark matter. He flowed like water, swept along on currents that carried all things toward one destination.
Home.
Paul Crosley looked out the window of his Silverstream. Jimmy Morris’s pickup was in the Mull driveway. That could only mean one thing.
Hell, you could practically see the back end of the trailer bucking up and down like an old seesaw. Jimmy must be doing the boot-scootin’ boogie like there’s no tomorrow.
Not that Paul blamed him. That was some right good stuff, as he remembered it. And he planned on heading over after Jimmy left and refreshing his memory.
Paul adjusted the patch over his right eye. The damned thing was itching like hell today. Maybe he should have gotten a glass eyeball like those VA doctors had recommended. But it was enough trouble just putting in his teeth every morning. He didn't want to mess around with a bucketful of other body parts.
One of the Mull kids walked around the corner of their trailer. It was the oldest one, the one in the army jacket that Paul had seen smoking dope out in the tool shed this morning. Little bastard ought to be in school, doing his book-learning. No wonder society was going to hell the way it was.
Why, back in Paul's day, his daddy would have blistered his ass with a hickory switch if he'd have skipped school. And that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was having to go out and cut your own switch. And you'd better not bring back some slender little twig that was limper than a strip of licorice, either. You'd better get a good healthy sapling, or by God, Daddy would get his own, and then the skin and blood would really fly.