13 LIFE PASSES LIKE A SHADOW

13

LIFE PASSES LIKE A SHADOW

Eleven months earlier, on the Saturday afternoon in late June when José Nochelobo dies, the sky is the gray of saturation and so low that the peaks of the western mountains seem to ascend forever into the clouds, as if they provide a path between this world and the mystery that is the next.

The town of Kettleton rolls across and down the foothills, providing an illusion of slow but perpetual movement, although in fact it is a community of inertia, little changed over the decades. Its buildings are refreshed and repurposed on occasion, but they are rarely torn down and replaced.

At twelve thousand, the population is static. Most promising young people leave after high school and return only to visit their families. An almost equal number of newcomers trickle in, escaping the crime in the mismanaged cities or fleeing high-tax states, at least for a while charmed by the prospect of quiet small-town life and the majesty of the mountains.

North of Kettleton, below the soaring peaks and above the foothills, lies what county maps call the Grand Plateau. There, on more than three thousand acres of level and almost treeless land, a company named New World Technology seeks final approval to build a project that promises to bring desirable jobs to Kettleton.

Throughout the county, the project inspires more detractors than supporters. Mayor Harlan Cotter—in conjunction with county officials, leaders of community organizations, and three pastors—has arranged a public forum for the afternoon to provide a civil atmosphere in which all viewpoints can be aired and misinformation can be dispelled in a respectful yet authoritative manner.

Because the number of residents expected to attend exceeds the capacity of any indoor venue in town, the block in front of the courthouse is closed to traffic for the event. A collapsible platform—erected every Halloween, Independence Day, and Christmas Week to elevate prize judges and local dignitaries above the parades they review—has been removed from storage and assembled.

The crowd is even greater than what was anticipated, filling the street, encircling the elevated dais, and lining up in tiers on the courthouse steps behind the speakers. The day is warm but not sweltering. A storm might break before all interested parties have had their say. Although more than half those present believe their community and their lives will be negatively impacted if the project on the Grand Plateau is approved, and although somewhat fewer than half disagree with that position, their anxiety has not progressed to anger. Kettleton is no Eden; evil has its outposts in this county, but thus far the people haven't deeply divided themselves into angry factions based on such shallow differences as class and race and sex and politics. No one expects—and few would openly condone—an act of violence on this occasion.

The four speakers are scheduled to alternate, pro and con the project, although the event is not structured as a formal debate. When each has had his or her fifteen minutes, the audience will be invited to present questions until all have been satisfied or a sudden rainstorm forecloses further discussion.

José Nochelobo, thirty-four at the time, is the third speaker. He's a former history teacher and now, for two years, the youngest principal in the history of Kettleton High School. Both as a teacher and an administrator, he's also served as the coach of the school's winning football team. Three months previously, although unarmed, he overpowered a school shooter, a drug-addled boy named Tom Kyte; two students were wounded, but because of José's quick, selfless action, none died. He's well liked, almost universally admired, the closest thing Kettleton has—or has ever had—to a local celebrity, though with grace and self-deprecating humor, he turns aside all praise.

He has good looks without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and Vida is in love with him. He wants to marry her, and she wants to be married. However, she has hesitated. After more than two decades during which she has lived largely as a recluse, she doubts that she has the refinement and poise to be the wife of a man who, as principal and coach and mensch to all, is at the center of the town's social life. José assures her that she has the wisdom, grace, and personality to win over everyone, as she has so totally enchanted him. On this day, when she sees him with the others on the stage, waiting his turn at the microphone, he seems like the suitor from a fairy tale, not a prince but princely, and she decides that she's been a fool for not at once accepting his proposal. She wants to marry him as soon as possible.

To avoid being a distraction when José steps forward to accept the mic and make his presentation, Vida hasn't taken a position close to the stage, but stands toward the back of the crowd. José is no rabble-rouser, is not given to the deceptions and distortions of politicians. He walks the edge of the stage, relaxed, never raising his voice. He's been speaking only three minutes when it's evident that the audience finds his case surprising but compelling.

The five teenage boys, students at one of the county's two other high schools, carry two bottles of water each, not to slake their thirst but to incite a moment of turmoil. From one end of the closed block or the other, the loud air horn of a truck blares with such volume that José stops speaking. In the crowd, heads turn in search of the disturbance. Just then, as one, the teenagers pelt José Nochelobo with ten bottles, then bolt through the thousand or more people who are gathered in the street, disappearing before anyone quite realizes what has occurred.

Battered about the chest and head, José is startled. He loses his balance. The speakers' platform is a mere seven feet above the pavement. The portable steps, which have been rolled against the stage and locked in place, feature metal treads and handrails. He stumbles and drops to his knees and pitches off the stage, headfirst down the stairs, unable to arrest his fall.

From her position, Vida isn't able to see what has happened to him. However, judging by the reactions of the other speakers and by the cries from those at the front of the crowd, she's afraid that José might have suffered a serious injury even in that short plunge. As the truck horn falls silent, she tries to press forward. The shock of the incident seems to have congealed the multitudes into one creature with thousands of incoordinate limbs that resist her passage.

As at any large public event, EMTs are present to respond to any emergency. By the time Vida reaches the stage, José has been transferred into an ambulance. A siren shrills.

Kettleton Memorial is eight blocks away. Her pickup is parked behind the library, in the opposite direction from the hospital. The streets will be clogged with traffic if the milling crowd disperses. In the clutches of anguish-anxiety-dread, Vida doesn't fully realize she's set out on foot, running on a sidewalk, until the courthouse is a full block behind her.

Time and distance are distorted as in a nightmare. Eight small-town blocks seem to stretch into eight miles. Although she's young and fit, with the stamina to endure a marathon, she feels as though she's run so far that she'll collapse in breathless exhaustion, for her heartbeat is accelerated by both effort and foreboding.

When she arrives at the hospital and hurries under the roof of the portico at the emergency room entrance, no ambulance is present, and she realizes that she hasn't heard a siren for several blocks.

Pneumatic doors whisk out of her way. An auburn-haired and freckled woman with emerald eyes sits behind the reception desk.

Vida says, "My fiancé," even though she has not accepted José's proposal, says it because it's an incantation to ward off evil, a petition and prayer. "José Nochelobo, my fiancé, something happened at the courthouse."

The receptionist is compassionate and gracious, but kindness can pierce with a unique pain when it conveys news that cannot be endured. "Oh, dear girl," she says as she rises from her chair. "Oh, God, honey, I'm so sorry. Here, come here, sit down." But Vida does not want to sit down, and though she can read the message that those emerald eyes convey as surely as she can read the inclusions in a gemstone, she says, "I need to be with him, he'll be okay if I'm with him, take me to him." But she can't be taken to him because he is not here. The receptionist holds her, and although Vida doesn't want to be held because of what being held in these circumstances must mean, she nevertheless finds herself holding fast to the woman much as a shipwrecked sailor holds fast to whatever debris will keep him afloat. José's neck was broken, and he died either at the site of the incident or in transit. He's been taken to the coroner, who will perform an autopsy, and that is it, that is all, that is the end. That is the official story.