Read Online The School on Heart's Content Road by Carolyn Chute - Free Book Online Page A

this media “coverage” bring to his beloved family?
    Mickey at Bean’s Variety.
    He came in for the Eskimo Pie, which is frosty cold in his hand. He is too young by law to buy cigarettes, even though he’s low on them. He gets
them
through Matt Ackers, part of the Mr. Carney fan club he met at school here in Maine. Ha-ha. Like Mickey was Mr. Carney’s total
biggest fan
. Ha-ha. In Mass there’d been
three
friends who kept him in supply. Now there is only Matt, through Matt’s brother, the all-powerful Dom,who is at least thirty. Lots of cracks in the face, like the north side of a house. Fortunately, no chain of people is needed to buy an Eskimo Pie.
    The Eskimo Pie is less frosty now due to Mickey being detoured, waiting for a customer who took a
Record Sun
from the rack. And then the Bean behind the counter says to the customer, “See this big spread on the Settlement? Picture of ol’ Gordo looking like out of that scene in
Murder at Midnight
with all the carnival stuff.” He flaps and crinkles his way through the pages.
    The other guy laughs. “That whole place is a carnival.”
    â€œWell, this is him”—the Bean is pushing his finger over the colorful picture—“by some sort of a merry-go-round.”
    The other guy titters almost girlishly. “Like having your desk at Disneyland . . . Morrisseys send their kids up there.”
    â€œYou ever been up to one of their solstice marches?” Big grin.
    The other guy howls. “At four in the morning!?” Shakes head, eyes wide.
    Bean sighs pleasantly. “Well, you know they set up a windmill with Whitmarsh and . . . uh . . . what’s their names . . . uh. . . .”
    â€œYou mean those on the bog?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Head shaking. “Can’t place their name.”
    More talk while Mickey waits and waits.
    Then, “People been calling Gordo the Prophet.”
    â€œOh, boy. Waco, Texas, in Maine.”
    More talk. Quieter now.
    Of course, Mickey’s eyes were riveted on the rack.
    Now, on the thick see-through ice-cream-cooler top, he goes through the paper, lifting each page in a heavy way, like a rock, like under it anything could squirm or march out.
    Turns out to be the whole first page of a thick inside section. He cannot read very well the words in columns or in lines under the pictures. But he can read the pictures themselves like an old-fashioned Indian on hot deer tracks. He studies the photos. Kids making papier-mâché sculptures, picking cukes.
    Then there’s one of Gordon St. Onge, aka the Prophet. Yeah, Mickey has seen him in the distances around town, big distances, never this close with the pale eyes looking right into Mickey’s own. One of the guy’s eyes glows electric. Like a lightbulb with gas inside it, not an eyeball of solidstuff. Probably due to sun on half his face, which also cuts his beard in half, part dark, part sunshiny.
    Blurring across, some to the left, some to the right, a bunch of heads, long necks, rears, tails. Some heads are eyeless. A very weird merry-go-round, yes, kind of blurry, while the Prophet’s face, shoulders, and one hand are crystal clear.
    For two days,
Record Sun
reporter Ivy Morelli tries to reach Gordon on the phone.
    Instead, she gets dozens of others: children, women, men, once even a baby that made obscene gasping noises and sucking noises and breathing noises and only one word: “Dah!” Then, finally, Gordon calls her.
    She hurriedly tells him that the story went AP. “I’m sorry, Gordon, but they added in
things
. . . like there has been controversy around you . . . which is true. Seems there’s been a lot of calls to their offices, not just ours, and AP’s been interviewing people right and left, including grandparents and ex-teachers of some of the Settlement kids who have come to the Settlement recently, or recent teachers of kids who left the Settlement a few years