The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

Once the trading was done, they’d usually take in the matinee at the Palace Theater, if they could afford it, or have a piece of Raylene Riggs’ pie at the diner. And then they’d join the slow-moving parade that strolled around the courthouse square, everybody walking in the same direction, taking it slow and peering into the shops’ display windows, dreaming of what they’d buy if they had money, which was a great big if these days, as big and absurdly hopeful as the Empire State Building—the “Empty State Building,” the New York Times called it, because some three-quarters of its offices were vacant.

But empty pockets never stopped a dreamer. Kids dreamed of those bright red O-Boy Yo-Yos—“the toy with a big kick for all ages”—in the window of Mr. Dunlap’s Five and Dime. Stopping in front of Mann’s Mercantile, the ladies dreamed of a Singer treadle sewing machine and a couple of yards of pretty print dress cotton, plus maybe a yard or two of lace. The men stood with their hands in their empty pockets, gazing through the window of Kilgore’s Dodge dealership at the classy maroon 1932 Dodge, with its L-head, eight-cylinder engine and downdraft carburetor, imagining themselves racing that powerful machine down the Jericho Road at seventy miles an hour, the wind in their faces, their cares and despairs left far behind.

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Dreaming was free, so people could dream big.

But the Darling Savings and Trust had closed the day before and the whole town was out of money, so nobody was buying anything they absolutely did not need, which meant that nobody was selling very much of anything, either. Trading seemed to be the only commerce, but even that was going to come to an end pretty quick, since Mrs. Hancock had put a sign in her window saying that she was completely out of flour and the coffee and sugar were just about gone, too. The matinee seats at the Palace Theater were empty, there was a row of empty stools at the diner, and the parade was taking it slow around the square, everybody peering into the display windows, everybody dreaming and no doubt wondering if they’d have any money in their pockets ever again.

Not bothering to turn on the lights, Charlie Dickens walked around the long wooden counter to his desk. He was temperamentally opposed to being on display, Saturday or any day, but especially today. Today, he was afflicted by the mother of all hangovers, since he had observed the closing of the bank by getting tight as a tick the night before, all by his lonesome. What he needed was a goodly dose of the hair of the dog that bit him, and since he had polished off the bottle he kept in the two upstairs rooms he rented from Mrs. Beedle, he had come to the Dispatch to get himself a drink or two or maybe three out of the bottle in his desk, and he intended to do it all by himself and in private, just like last night.

So he went to his desk in the darkened room, sat down in his old tilt-back wooden chair, and took the bottle of Mickey LeDoux’s bootleg white lightning out of his bottom drawer. He pulled out the cork and, with a sigh of pure and affectionate appreciation, took a healthy swig.