I smile and nod and listen to them complain about the weather as we cross the few steps from the abandoned lot we use for parking to the abandoned church we use as our town hall.
The meeting is already underway in the dusty building. The pews are filled with maybe a hundred of the true townies, everyone who’s lived here the longest. People do move here, inspired over the holidays, or trying to get close to Cedar Point schools at a lower price, but they don’t stay here.
I slip into my usual spot at the edge of one of the first few rows. All the local business owners, which includes me now, fill the front seats. And do most of the talking.
“Why didn’t anyone say it was this bad?” Shelly, the normally bubbly owner of Shelly’s Drug & Dime, asks tentatively from the second row. Her sad expression doesn’t match her yellow-blonde hair, bright patterned jogger set, and heavy, also colorful eye shadow.
“I did, honey! I said it was bad!” Steven replies, not at all calm. “The realtors always know what’s up!”
“Tell them, Dad, we’re cooked,” Braxton says to Assistant Mayor Chappell at the podium.
Gary—who probably just reminded the room that he is actually our duly-elected mayor (just forced to play second violin to a mythical local reindeer, of course)—nods at his son once. The two could almost be twins, tall, brown-haired burly guys, only now one’s balding and no longer playing sports. “Brax is right, unfortunately.”
“What does that mean?” I whisper. I’m not the only one.
“Cooked! It means we’re screwed! Done-for, stick a fork in—” Steven starts, but Miles, his longtime boyfriend, and pillar of sanity around here, holds up a hand to stop the dramatics.
“He means outta money, I believe,” Tyrone murmurs next to me in his deep, Jamaican accent.
“No,” I try to square my shoulders and say to him, “We all know what cooked means. I meant what does that mean for the town?”
“Heyo, Gary!” Tyrone pipes up over everyone and asks for me, “Whadathat mean, bankrupt, exactly?”
“Mr. Mayor, please,” Gary corrects Tyrone and adjusts his tie before going on, “Well, we can’t keep the lights on. Literally,” he pales and his brow begins to glisten from nerves. “We can’t keep up the fire station, maintaining the parks, the roads, not even…” he braces for a reaction, “garbage collection.”
The reaction arrives, voices on top of each other, some hysterical.
“Collection...you mean no garbage trucks!”
“My trash?”
“Where will we take it, then? Do we burn it?”
“That’ll smell somethin’ fierce.”
“But there’s that pothole outside my house, you promised it would get fixed!”
“Forget the road, if we don’t have the parks for fall and Christmas, no one will visit.”
“Visit?! Did you miss the part about the garbage!” Steven is up pacing now, “Trash! Just trash bins overflowing in the street? How can I sell that big property up the hill with trash blowing down the road like those…what are they called?”
“Tumblewoods,” I mumble.
“Tumbleweeds,” someone says loudly.
“Wait now,” Mr. Newman stands up with the use of his cane a few pews behind me. He and his wife look like very thin versions of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Everyone bugs him to play Santa each year but he always refuses. He says deliberately, “The fire stations oversee the salttrucks.”
His voice is soft, but his point hits like a sledgehammer. The room goes silent. Without salt on the roads here, people die. We haven’t had any elderly stranded at home in decades, or a fall that resulted in death, but nearby towns have had that and more. And our town sees multiple car accidents every winter, even with our plows and salt trucks.
Gary clears his throat, “Snow removal and management will be our number one priority until the spring, but one last big storm could completely deplete our funds.”
As everyone gulps, sighs, or whispers expletives under their breath, Miles stands. The murmurs grow tenfold.
“Miles? What…what are you doing?” Steven almost whispers, surely the lowest volume his voice reaches, in shock.
Miles never participates in these meeting shenanigans. Never even asks questions or weighs in. He works in real estate to make money, but at heart he’s a musician and a poet. A true artist. He looks it too, tall, thin, dark and disheveled. He usually just quietly observes all of us. The only thing more shocking would be if I was the one standing and talking. So, understandably, we stare and wait.
He holds up a piece of paper and says, “I may have a solution,”
