Chapter 20

As stated in the local newspapers, the hearing is going to focus on “seismic activity” recorded in Fair Mantle State Park.

Gustie, the first to see the story, holds the paper open. “Seismic activity? Did anybody tell these people this is New Jersey, not New Guinea?”

Effen, Matt and Ben drop what they’re doing and read over her shoulder.

Ben presumes a new fault has been discovered. “The state has plenty of faults. The closest I know of is the Ramapo fault, not far from the border with New York state.” Matt and Effen mutter agreement.”

“How can you guys be so calm about this?” Gustie mews. Everyone knows she’s so afraid of earthquakes, she won’t visit her cousin in California.

Effen doesn’t understand her fear, but he doesn’t want to make her feel ridiculous. “The earth is full of faults. It’s not solid rock; it’s made of layers of different kinds of rock over a molten core. The layers are in sections called plates. The plates aren’t stationery; they move over the core and the semi-molten layer that’s over the core. They move into each other, putting pressure on each other. When the pressure becomes too great, one layer gives, usually slipping beneath the other. Depending on the solidity of the rock and soil sitting on top of the layer, the earth will shake, roll or jolt. It’s no different than what happens when a person comes under pressure. Something’s got to give.”

Gustie rams the paper into Effen’s front. “Take it! I don’t like it. I for one am staying away from that meeting.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t feel better if you learned what’s out there?”

“I don’t want any part of it.”

“That’s all right, we’ll tell you everything,” Ben teases.

“I don’t want to know!”

Ben dodges the pen. Effen calls a halt to the hostilities. He himself wants to go to the hearing, but Bruton has told him to stay away. His eviction from the farm was going to be invoked. Someone was sure to recognize him. He would be besieged by the press.

But that’s the problem, Effen argued. The press would seek him out where they knew they could find him, at the business. He didn’t want The House overrun by journalists. He couldn’t allow his staff or his clients to be subjected to publicity. Better to go and face whatever he had coming to him.

Fair Mantle Borough Hall is a small brick building with room enough for administrative offices and the police department. It has no formal meeting room. Court is held in the gym. Borough Council meets in the gym.

The gym is now the site of the public hearing. As they’ll say in the papers, an overflow crowd turned out to hear what Tom’s superiors from Trenton had to say.
The wooden bleachers on the inner wall groan beneath the weight of those who came too late for a seat on one of the folding metal chairs on the basketball court. Those who don’t sit or stand, sit in the aisles. The police are powerless to clear the aisles. The chief lets everybody stay where they are. With the fire code so soundly violated, the volunteer fire company is put on notice. Some of the volunteers leave the meeting for the firehouse, which is next door. Some stay.

Eight men, most in casual winter wear, occupy folding metal chairs around the rickety folding table on the small stage. One is the mayor; three are the members of the borough’s council. The rest are from Trenton.

The mayor, a balding, retired schoolteacher with a distinctive lisp, whacks the gavel on the table. The crowd settles into silence. The special meeting of Borough Council opens as the regular meetings open, with a reading of the state’s Open Public Meetings Act and the Pledge of Allegiance. The mayor thanks everyone for venturing out on streets still packed with snow. He mentions the purpose of the meeting and introduces the officials at the table. He adds: Before we begin, I want you to remember that not everybody agrees with these findings. We’re going to schedule another hearing for several experts who couldn’t make it tonight.” He uses the measured tone of public officials who know what they’re about to say can create mass panic.

Farrell is at the door, which has been left open to let fresh air circulate through the stuffy gym. She doesn’t like crowds any more, not since she lived in New York. She was at the Metropolitan Opera House when religious activists protested a Russian dance troupe by popping a tear gas canister down the center aisle. She was in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine when a bomb scare interrupted a poetry reading by one of the old Soviet Union’s foremost writers. Both experiences taught her it takes a long, long time for a crowd to move through doorways.

All borough police have been called in for duty. State troopers are there, too. Not all are in uniform. Farrell recognizes the two who took the horselets from the farm. She assumes the National Guard has been alerted. The state wouldn’t take chances. Nobody wants to guess how Fair Mantle’s people will take the news.

So far, so good. The state people show graphs and drawings and aerial photographs, all the while spouting scientific data. The citizens lean forward in their chairs or on the bleachers, fists to chin or stretching to see through heads and shoulders.
It’s the weirdest audience Farrell’s ever seen at a public meeting. It’s too quiet. The faces are expressionless. People don’t whisper or sniggle to each other, or mutter under their breath.

Farrell walks back and forth along the snowy walk, bunching her gloved hands to keep them warm. She doesn’t want to go back in; she doesn’t want to stay out. So she walks and beats one fist against the other, or stamps her feet. Others join her. Most are men intent on smoking. They don’t speak. They have a distant look in their eyes. Are they trying to listen to what’s being said inside, or are they dazed?

The crowd blocking the door agitates as Effen hatches through. His color is higher than usual. He’s reaching into his overcoat. Together, he and Farrell stroll out of earshot of the others. “Do you believe it?” he asks, trying to pluck a cigarette out of the pack with leather-gloved fingers.

“The question is this: Would they go through all this if something weren’t there?”

“Would they put me off the land if there weren’t?”

They look to the sky. It’s a clear night. Stars are in abundance. The moon is nearly full. The moving, rotating light belongs to a light plane going or coming from the county airport.

Farrell catches the nose-cutting scent of charred paper: Effen is lighting the cigarette. His hands shake. From what? The cold? The content of the hearing? The smoke drifts toward her. She steps away. He lowers his hand. “Sorry.” She wants to tell him he really shouldn’t smoke, but the goings-on inside the gym have made his habit seem small and insignificant.

She listens. The news is taking hold inside. Twitters swell into mutters that leap into gasps that erupt into hundreds of voices shouting questions all at once.

For nearly fifteen minutes, the mayor gavels for order. Everybody at the table on the stage is standing, exhorting the crowd for calm and quiet. The police chief stands on the floor in front of the stage. He holds one hand in the air; the other is wrapped around the two-way radio at his mouth. Officers join him, lining up on either side of him, facing the noisy crowd. Farrell can’t tell if they’re there to protect the people on the stage or to protect audience members from each other.

It takes some doing, but order is restored. Everybody sits, on stage and off.

Frowning deeply, the mayor runs his thumb over the ridges in his car keys. “As I said, there are people out there who don’t agree with what the state has presented here tonight. We’re not saying you have to go along with it. I think, if you’re a reasonable person, you’re going to want to look at it, think about it, and either accept it or not. I urge caution. Don’t throw the kids and Aunt Lucy in the car and take off. Wait to see what happens in the next few days. You have nothing to gain in panic. But you do have everything to lose.”

The last sentence ignites another uproar. The mayor and council members push back their chairs. “Let’s go,” they mouth, and gesture to the state scientists.

Their would-be escape is thwarted by sudden silence. The piercing electronic whine suggests somebody’s grabbed the microphone that’s been set on the floor for the public voice part of the meeting. The speaker removes the mic from the stand: the better, Farrell guesses, to challenge the officials on the stage and to appeal to the ordinary people in the gym.

“You bet your backsides there are people here who don’t agree with what you fed us tonight,” he says.

Farrell doesn’t have to wait for the borough clerk to ask the man to reveal his name for the public record. She knows it’s Tom Von Aldo.