Elected on Tuesday, you vote on Thursday—on an issue as routine as a business license or important as a man’s career. I spent the first day just hanging around Town Hall, trying to read more than I could digest in a year and convince the secretaries I wasn’t some clock-watching reformer out to make their lives miserable. The last time I was in this building, I’d stood nervously beside the town manager’s desk. Now he ushered me into his office and offered me a padded leather chair. Through the window onto Main Street, I watched the regulars going in and out of the Binnacle, and the Compton kid on his bicycle, a one-armed teenage moron dodging delivery trucks to impress his friends. The town manager was talking policy. “I’m sure you’re concerned about our efforts to keep the tax rate steady.”I nodded, lips tight, the way Georgie had taught me twenty years ago: Don’t let anyone know what you don’t understand. Keep your mouth shut.“But of course, next year we face a property tax reval.”Whatever the fuck that meant.He glanced at the clock over my shoulder.
