Robert Coover - Origin of the Brunists

Miller recognized it. He had written it. He’d forgot it was to be televised tonight. If Happy noticed his sudden distraction, she gave no sign of it. Unless an increased fervency was in fact a sign—

“… Little is known of Giovanni Bruno’s boyhood, but that is not to say that it was uneventful. It was a time of physical and psychological insecurity, a time of anti-union violence and inter-union wars, a time of Ku-Klux Klan persecutions of immigrant Catholics, and particularly of Italians, of whom, by 1920, there were more than twice as many working the American coal beds as any other nationality. It was a time when coalmines were closing and jobs were few. Then came the crash of 1929, and by 1933, West Condon’s largest industry was relief. West Condon then was a town of intense poverty, of hatred and suspicion, of prohibition gangsterism, of corruption and lawlessness. The mines still operating paid fifty cents an hour at the coalface, and life at that face was miserable and precarious. Death came quickly and brutally, and families such as the Brunos lived in its shadow. It came by fire, by falling rock and coal, by powder and methane explosions, by the crushing impact of mine cars and locomotives, by falls down shafts. Knees swelled, spines were broken, arms were crushed, lungs were scarred, eyes lost their vision. Both of Giovanni Bruno’s brothers were killed in the mines, and his father was made a virtual invalid the last ten years of his life …”

Losing it, the ascendant thrust, the flight from the immediate, Miller wondered if he should risk breaking their convulsive circle to go turn the goddamn set off. But, as he pulled his head back, Happy flashed out with her top thigh, rolled him to his back, pinning him, and down fell the mighty hero of the sun, undone by the dragon Ouroboros, primordial and true….

“… Like all his family before him, Giovanni Bruno, too, left school at an early age and entered the mines. Here you see him as he appeared in his high school class photo. He was considered, by the principal, John Bradley, a poor student, withdrawn and friendless.” [ John Bradley: “Yes, I remember the boy well. He was never in any trouble, and he seemed intelligent enough, but he was poorly adjusted. When he left school at the legal age of sixteen, he still had not completed what we consider freshman or ninth grade work. He was — how shall I put it? — he was peculiar.”] “About that same time, Giovanni suffered what was apparently a sudden revolt from orthodox Roman Catholicism. Until then unusually devout, spending most of his free time in the Church, serving first as an altar boy, then as lay assistant to the right Reverend Battista Baglione here in West Condon, he suddenly separated himself from the Church and has not been known to have set foot inside it during these subsequent sixteen or seventeen years.” [ Father Baglione: “Yes, I t’ink, uh, de ’eresy, yes, is cause, uh, by de, uh, de pride.” ]

Those mountains, their valley twice pierced, now pitched, plunged, even as though angry, displaying against the gray-green wall beyond their vibrant silhouette of a rounded M , and in him a dark inscrutable river ran fast and deep …

“… If he entered the mines to seek companionship, however, he did not find it. Deepwater Number Nine Coalmine supervisor Barney Davis recalls that he was a listless worker, did not participate in union activities or attend meetings, was not well liked.” [ Barney Davis: “He didn’t get along with anybody. Nobody wanted to work with him. Even his escape from disaster last January was a sign of this isolation. There were seven guys barricaded in that room. Six of them were together and they died. Bruno lay a ways off from them, and he lived. Maybe he had more oxygen, since he didn’t have to share it with anybody. The only guy in the mine who took pity on him was his working buddy Ely Collins. Reverend Collins.”] “Ely Collins, an evangelist preacher of the Church of the Nazarene, was one of those six men who died, trapped in that same space with Giovanni Bruno … but not before he had managed to write a brief note to his wife, Mrs. Clara Collins.” [ Clara Collins: “‘I disobeyed and I know I must die. Listen always to the Holy Spirit in your Hearts. Abide in grace—’”]

And then the dams began to break, the mountains to crumble, the walls to fall, all the fountains of the great deep to burst forth, and the windows of heaven to open …

“… God in His mercy … a white bird … found him in a … Virgin Mary … message from the tomb … attractive softspoken girl born … unavailable for comment … able to pass on this good news to all the world …”

Has she slept again? Was she awake before? The chill is gone, the tunic lowered. The house is silent. Silent? Marcella rises .

Miller woke, still on his back. The room was dark, but for the image pitched by the television set, enough to enable him to make out the bluish billowing terrain of Happy’s bottom beside him. Something was missing. Announcer: “When it’s time to relax, time for a smoke, enjoy the real American flavor, the natural mildness, the kingsize satisfaction …” He, leaning out: “Aha.” She: “Don’t rock the boat.”

Marcella finds the house empty. Signs throughout of a sudden departure. Even her mother and brother are gone . Gone! A cry leaps to her throat. Can it be? It is coming! They forgot her! They have left her behind! She runs out the door. Gone! They have all gone! She is alone! Alone in the darkness! Wait! Wait!

The television off, bedlamp on, cold drink beside him, enjoying a smoke, belly down and Happy Bottom astride, giving him a really tremendous rubdown, he mused: “You know, the appeal of Noah is not the Ark or the rescue.”

“No?”

She was being sarcastic, but he went on. “They just added that stuff to make the story credible.”

“Aha.”

That was worse than sarcasm, that was outright mockery, but still he went on. “No, it’s the righteous destruction, that’s what it’s all about. We’re all Noahs.”

“Why”—as though astonished—“that’s true! ”

And still he went on. “So, see, the excitement of the disaster is over unless new destruction is possible. If Noah has three sons, one and preferably two have to become corrupt, so that we can—”

Abruptly, she backed off and cracked his ass mightily, a kingsize belt that made him drop his smoke — grabbed it up, but not before he’d put a neat brown hole in the sheet. And then she cracked the other cheek and said, “And this is the sign of my covenant!” At which time, in view of the way things stood, he stubbed out the cigarette.

Running on the mine road, she can see their fire ahead. On the Mount. She hardly feels the ruts stabbing her bare feet, hardly notices the night’s damp chill, ignores the binding cramp in her chest, the lightness in her head. Will she be on time? Oh wait! And then she seems to see light, even to feel —yes! it is coming! Surging up behind. She races desperately against its advance. The light grows, gathers, enlarges. Ahead of her, always just ahead of her, spreading, filling the —the fire on the Mount is out! She cannot make it! Oh please! She sees her shadow as the light sweeps down on her from behind. She tries to enclose herself in its sweep. She spreads wide her arms to hold it back. Suddenly: lights spring up before her! out of nowhere! lights on all sides! flooding the world! she in its center! It comes! she cries . God is here! she laughs. And she spins whirls embraces light leaps heaving her bathing in light her washes and as she flows laughs His Presence light! stars burst sky burns with absolute laugh light! and