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The rotten orange just missed the Mayor’s head and splattered on the far wall, leaving a dark brown stain.

There was a quick shuffle, an aborted shout from the Mayor, and several police officers hurried up onto the stage.

“Who threw that?” One of the officers, Gary, demanded into the mic. Everyone on the stage looked in their direction.

Except suddenly, the crowd around them was pressing in, closing ranks. Will was mushed into Raymond’s side, bracketed by other men.

Something else came flying through the air from the other direction. It looked like a shoe, and clipped one of the suits in the leg.

Smithson wasn’t smiling anymore. His eyes had narrowed, and Will could see the tense of muscle in his jaw. Eyes were searching the crowd, but the crowd had all come together, and it would be impossible to tell who’d thrown what.

“Violent protest will not be tolerated,” Gary said in the mic.

“Fuck you, pig!” Someone shouted. It was joined by expletives from several directions, as the murmuring boiled over.

Gary looked over the crowd, but he suddenly seemed less confident. What was a handful of rural officers in the face of an angry mob?

“While we’re here,” Gary said louder, trying to be heard over the growing ruckus and control the room, “we need to address the vandalism and theft that occurred recently at the XOM construction site. We are currently pursuing several leads, and ask anyone with information on the incident to come forward.”

He could barely be heard.

“Gary, you wouldn’t know horseshit from apple butter, get off the fuckin’ stage.” This came from an old man on the other side of the room.

“I’d like to know who fucked with XOM just to give them a pat on the back,” someone nearby said.

Will whipped his head around to try and identify who it was, but everyone was too close.

“We do not condone criminal behavior–” Gary spoke louder.

“Shut up boy, before I call your mother,” someone cut him off.

“You don’t gotta, I’m right here,” a woman on the other side of the crowd piped up. “Gary sit the fuck down; I know I raised you better than to lick boot leather.”

There was a tittering of laughter and the cop faltered, turning to look where his mother was in the crowd.

At the cracks in their front, everyone started pushing toward the stage. Even Mr. Walter looked uncertain at that. The rest of the officers fumbled then to quickly usher everyone off the stage and out of the room as they were pelted with insults and one bright red tomato, which hit the back of the Mayor’s cheap suit jacket.

The gaggle of suits and the Mayor disappeared, and the crowd deflated slowly. People moved away, allowing Will to take his first full breath since the whole thing had started. He looked around, bewildered at how quick it had all happened.

“Cowards,” Raymond said when the crowd finally started to move toward the door. “Thought we’d sit down and shut up, but this ain’t that kind of place.”

“No, it’s not,” Will said, and for the first time he was proud about being from Five Springs. “I can’t believe you threw an orange at the Mayor.”

“Wish I would’ve brought two,” Raymond said.

“Next time,” a man next to them said, smacking Raymond on the shoulder. He worked at the auto parts store in town. “Whose Smithson think he is in that tacky ass suit?”

Raymond chuckled. “Someone should remind him he ain’t one of them, he’s one of us.”

“Well he sure as hell ain’t winning reelection, I’ll make sure of that,” another woman near them added. “Gotten too big for his britches.”

“Or his britches are too big for him,” someone else added.

The crowd flowed out the doors and into the night like that. Will looked around at the faces and realized he knew all of them. Every face in the crowd was familiar to him in some way–someone he’d gone to high school with, someone who’d come through the grocery line, someone he’d seen in the newspaper, someone who’d passed him walking a dog or taking their kids to the park. Will didn’t know all of their names, hadn’t spoken to most of them, but he knew them.

And when they met his eyes, there wasn’t disgust there after all, but approval. An appreciation that he was here, with them. That they were all in this together, trying to protect their town.

For the first time since he’d met Itori, Will felt the sparks of possibility.