South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [48]
Gladys was slamming things around in the kitchen while Arbutus sat at the table worrying at a napkin with her fingers when Madeline got home. Greyson was perched atop a stack of catalogues, coloring. Randi must’ve dropped him off again.
“What’s wrong?” Madeline asked, taking in the glum scene.
“Gladys is mad,” Greyson said.
“I see that. But at what?”
Gladys had been pulling pots and pans out of the low cupboard where they were stored and piling them Up on the counter, smacking each item down with force, but she stopped then. She placed both hands on the countertop and pulled herself Up, and turned to look at Madeline. Madeline saw at once that something really was wrong, this wasn’t just indignation. It was something worse, something deeper.
“What’s happened?”
“It’s Emil.”
“Oh no.” Madeline imagined him dead, cold in his bunk in the trailer.
“They’re after him now, when will it stop?” Gladys slammed a palm on the counter, but she looked defeated.
“Who, the Bensons? After him for what?”
“Not them, but their crowd. The zoning commission and the Village board. They’ve condemned his trailer, they say he has to be out within the month.”
“They can’t do that.”
“Apparently they can.”
Arbutus nodded, looking woebegone. “There’s a letter,” she said. Greyson gave them all a serious, gauging look, then went back to his coloring.
“But that’s his home.”
“Tell them that. They say it doesn’t meet minimum codes, it’s an eyesore, it’s Unsafe, there’s no septic, no approved water, and bingo, it’s condemned, they want it hauled out of there. At his expense, mind you, or they’ll do it themselves and bill him for it. That’s a joke. Emil doesn’t have a pot to pee in and come next month he won’t have a window to throw it out, either. Here, read it yourself. He gave me the letter they sent.”
Arbutus slid an envelope across the table toward Madeline.
“Well, he’s got to protest it, that’s all,” Madeline said, skimming over the letter. “He’s got to stand Up and say no.”
“Lot of good that’ll do, have you ever been to one of their meetings? It’s all mumbo jumbo.” Gladys scraped a chair away from the table and dropped onto it. Greyson slid his picture around in front of her for her to see and she nodded absently. “That’s nice, dear.”
“It’s an intergalactic galaxy monster. Purple Man.”
“Is it?”
“Maybe he could help, he can do anything.”
Gladys traced the arc of Purple Man’s arm Upraised in battle. “Maybe, dear.”
Greyson slid the picture back around to himself and began coloring again.
“There’s got to be something Emil can do. He’ll have to get a lawyer.”
Gladys’s laugh was dismal. “On his income? He doesn’t get Social Security, he never paid in. He lives off those skins he trades, and now and then his sister down in Flint sends him some money. She went down there in sixty-seven and got a job in the Buick plant, she’s got a retirement. But not Emil.”
Madeline rubbed her face, trying to think. “Are they going after Mary Feather’s place, too? Whose idea is this, anyway?”
“That zoning committee that got put together last year, I always thought they were Up to no good. And no, they won’t touch Mary. They wouldn’t dare. She’s off their map, anyway—Emil’s in just close enough to town. And he’s got the view, that’s what they’re really thinking of. Cal Tate’s got a chunk of land Up there on the ridge. If he can get Emil cleared off and make his own piece that much bigger, he can sell to city folks to put Up their big fancy weekend houses. A playground, that’s all this is to them. Doctors and lawyers from the cities, that’s who’ll buy Up there. Cal’s probably got a whole subdivision planned.”
“But that’s not right. He can’t Use his position to line his own pockets.”
Gladys and Arbutus gave Madeline ironic looks.
“Edith Baxter is the head